Wolfer Profiles: A Trip Down Memory Lane
A look back at the community members who made the Wolfenstein 3D Dome special in the early 2000s.
Back when the Wolfenstein 3D Dome was the beating heart of the Wolf community, the site ran a section called "Wolfer Profiles." The idea was simple: community members answered four questions and got a little spotlight. No fancy bios, no press releases. Just honest answers from real fans of a game that, by then, was already a decade old and still refusing to die.
The four questions were always the same:
- When did you first get in touch with Wolfenstein?
- How did you come to be a member of the Wolf Community?
- What in the community are you most proud of, and least proud of?
- Any words of wisdom for the readers?
Reading through the answers today feels like opening a time capsule. The community was young, international, enthusiastic, and wonderfully weird. Here is a look at who showed up.
The Questions and What People Said
When did you first play Wolf?
Almost everyone's story starts the same way: a dad's computer, a cousin's house, a shared floppy disk, a Christmas present. Wolfenstein 3D was released in 1992, and a huge number of these profiles describe playing it for the first time around 1993 or 1994, often as a very young child.
Zach Higgins from Missouri was at his grandpa's house in 1992. Martin from Poland watched his dad play and asked "Can I play, Daddy?" Barbara from New Mexico played it on a military base Mac in 1994. Arturo from the Philippines got it in a pile of Christmas presents. Ryan King from Dallas was four years old when his dad downloaded the demo.
The youngest to first play? Eduardo from Brazil, who says he first played around 1996 at nine years old. The oldest first contact might belong to Kurt from Winnipeg, who walked into a college stats lab in the early 1990s and heard "Nazi death screams" coming from a computer surrounded by students. He notes, with some honesty, that most of them failed stats that semester.
How did you find the community?
Nearly everyone's path runs through the same few landmarks: Brian Lowe's Wolfenstein 3D page, AReyeP's Spear Resurrection site, and eventually the Dome itself. Google searches for "Wolfenstein 3D" kept leading people to the same places.
Zach Higgins found the community after reading about Return to Castle Wolfenstein in GamePro magazine, which made him nostalgic for the original. He searched the web, found the community, played Totengraeber and The Final Solution, and thought: "Man, I gotta do that."
Alexandre from Brazil downloaded MapEdit 4.2, tried to make his own add-on, and then found the Dome while looking for a compatible version of Wolf3D. He ended up making his first add-on with 59 levels.
Many people, when asked how they found the community, describe finding Spear Resurrection first and being shocked to discover that a whole world of fan-made content existed for this old game.
What are you most and least proud of?
The "most proud of" answers range from personal add-ons to admiration for the coding work others had done. Several people name Spear Resurrection specifically as something impressive. A few mention the simple fact of the community existing at all.
The "least proud of" answers are remarkably consistent: forum spammers, people who steal graphics or maps without permission, and badly made add-ons. Elric from New Orleans put it more colorfully than most.
Words of wisdom?
This is where things get memorable. More on that below.
The Memorable Profiles
Here is a quick who's who of the most interesting voices in the collection.
Norberto Ariel Castañares, "Arielus" | 21 | Buenos Aires, Argentina First played around 1993. Found the community through a Google search for "Spear Resurrection." His wisdom: "I'm nobody to give any piece of advice." Refreshingly honest.
Jack Ryerson, "Adhesive_Boy" | 15 | Central Ohio Had Wolf on his first family computer around 1993. He and his brother would play episodes 1, 3, and 5 specifically because the levels were "shorter and less freaky." He got banned from the Wolf3D Fanclub, which he considers both his most and least proud moment. Released an add-on called Chemical Warfare after a year of work and felt the response didn't match the effort. His wisdom: "When in doubt, ask Chris Chokan. It worked for me."
The Master of Wolfenstein 3-D (name withheld) | Age: 666 | Location: Here | Occupation: Professional Lamer When asked how he became a community member: "I have a membership? Where's my card? Do I get any benefits? Wait... are there dues?!" His words of wisdom: "Wise man say, man who smoke pot might choke on handle." A legend.
Matt, "Majik Monkee" | Age: "Old enough to know better" | Missouri First encountered Wolf in a friend's college dorm room in 1994. His friend described it as a game where "you control a gun barrel and go around shooting guys." Matt thought that sounded stupid, imagining a side-scrolling floating pistol. Thankfully he tried it anyway. His wisdom for the young: don't sacrifice your grades for women in college. "Women come and go, but the student loans for those extra years of school you wind up putting yourself through will last forever."
Barbara, "wolfie3dfan" | Age: "3+8=11 in cat years" | New Mexico | Occupation: House/staff supervisor First played Wolf on a Quadra 700 Mac at March Air Force Base in 1994. Still has a copy on an Iomega 90MB Bernoulli disk. Found the community in 2002 after her brother gave her the full version of Wolf3D and Spear of Destiny for her birthday. Her contribution to the profile section is a full George Carlin quote about laughing often and surrounding yourself with what you love. One of the older members in the collection and one of the most thoughtful.
David Wettlaufer, "Deus Ex Machina" | 16 | Canada | Occupation: Artist When asked what in the community he was most proud of, he answered: "Fish." When asked for words of wisdom, he answered: "Fish. P.S.: Fish." His friend Wes helped him make his add-ons. That is all we know.
Kurt, "ack" | Born 1966 | Winnipeg, Canada | Occupation: Writer One of the older voices in the collection. He was at the Wolf community back before the internet, trading levels via BBS phone lines and spending his weekends with his phone line tied up downloading maps. His profile has genuine depth: "When I was young, I learned everything I know about Wolf3D from people who were older than me. Now that I am older, I find that I am learning not from my elders, but from the kids who have taken up this classic game."
Ryan Stroup, "StroupDog" | 18 | Missouri Got the full version of Wolf3D as a child, lost it when the hard drive crashed, ordered what turned out to be the shareware version by mistake ("No wonder those letters were green"), got another copy a year later, and eventually just bought it again in 2003. His wisdom: "It's pretty darn easy if you know what you're doing."
Elric Sullivan, "Darkhaven3" | 13 | New Orleans, Louisiana First played Wolf around 1994 when he was three years old. His profile notes that at three, he didn't care what looked better in a game, just whether it played well, "and it kind of stuck with me up until now." Made a series of add-ons starting young. His words of wisdom about map design are blunt and completely right, even if the phrasing required some editing on the way to this article: take your time on each map, and think about whether your texture choices actually make sense together.
Thomas, "Possum Trot" | 14 | Jutland, Denmark First found the shareware in 1999 on a family Windows 95 computer on a "cold, boring October Sunday." Later found the full version in 2002. His profile is one of the longest and most personal, describing in detail the journey from school computer clubs to finding the community, and then the frustration of his new Windows XP computer not being able to run DOS programs. "Don't buy an XP when you love DOS," he concludes, then immediately adds: "Naah, my computer isn't bad. It's just not DOS-made."
Fun fact: This little dude would go on to Wolf and mod away for decades to come. Our own Thomas Weiling, host of our Wolf3D news today!
Joshua Aaron Waight, "Thunderlord Jemanie Davidsson" | 15 | Sonora, California First played at age four. Found the community through Spear Resurrection. His wisdom: "Chase your dreams until you achieve them and keep on Wolfing."
Jonathon Boutilier, "Secret Agent Jonathon" | 13 | Nova Scotia, Canada Found Wolf after searching "Doom" online, because Doom was his favorite FPS. Wolf came up in the results. He stuck with it. His wisdom is straightforward and solid: don't cheat, stay in school, use FloEdit.
Jason, "Fetish" | 13 | Canada Brother of Justin (Juiceman), also in the profiles. His words of wisdom are an extended story about a goldfish named Bob that he eventually fed to his dog. The moral of the story: don't get fish. "If you don't have a dog, you will probably feed it to one of your siblings."
Reinder S de Vries, "lwmxynedtodth" | 17 | Netherlands | Studying Game Design His closing wisdom: "Don't try to pronounce my nickname. You just can't."
What the Profiles Tell Us
A few things stand out when you read all of these together.
The community was genuinely international. Members filed in from Argentina, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Poland, Germany, Russia, Canada, the Netherlands, and across the United States. The game was old, but people were finding it everywhere.
The ages skewed very young. Many of these contributors were between 12 and 16 years old, making add-ons, arguing on forums, teaching themselves to code, and generally treating a ten-year-old DOS game with the seriousness of a professional project. Several of the younger profiles mention parents erasing files or computers crashing, which is its own kind of historical document.
Almost everyone found the community the same way: a search engine, a link, and then the Dome. A few mention getting banned from something. Several mention hating spammers. Almost everyone has a warm word for whoever helped them first.
And nearly everyone, when asked for words of wisdom, either told the reader not to cheat or told them to stay in school. Sometimes both.
The Wolfer Profiles were never a major feature. They were just a corner of the site where people could introduce themselves. But reading them now, they paint a clear picture of what the community actually was: a lot of young people from all over the world who loved an old game, figured out how to make something with it, and found each other online.
That's worth remembering.