Doom 3

Have you played it, Nick?

I thought pretty much the same way as you when I was just looking at screen shots. everything actualy looks much more real in-game. I'd also comment that I think it definatly is up there with AVP2 in terms of scaryness.

It took me half an hour of playing it on a friends computer to get over
the wow factor and get bored of the game. That was playing 20 minutes
straight from the start, then skipping around a couple of bits which he
picked out as "AWESOME!!1111!!!". All seemed the same to me.

And D3 carries fear CONSTANTLY. Personally I like fear being built up,
not KNOWING that the next room is definately gonna have something in
it. AVP2 had you constantly wondering when the aliens were actually
gonna bloody show up. It kept you on your toes, rather than going
"Ooooh scary noise, MONSTER. scary noise, MONSTER. scary noise,
MONSTER". AVP was more like "scary noise, creepy environement, glimpse
of alien, predator sounds, scary noise, scary noise, something moved,
beep on the motion scanner, HOLY CRAP THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!!!".

Okay first you need to play more than 20 min. I mean the game is 23 hours long!!!! There is much more to what the game has to offer, and Ive played AVP2 and although the game play is a little better (not as confined as D³ is) D³ ofers a greater terror for the senario you are presented with. And truthfully the attacks are almost similar, once you hear that sound behind you 25% of the time it is a monster.... Kinda like AVP2....

You mean the guy who ripped off Pantera, Alice In Chains and Metallica songs? :biggrin:

Every time I hear "Master of Puppets", I realize how much this is so.

[edit] It's too bad Reznor didn't get to "make his mark"; I'd take him over Twaeker any day. :sad: [/edit]

here's a link that has all the original DooM music and some of them even have his own comments>>>http://www.doomworld.com/classicdoom/info/music.php?wad=doom2.wad

I found John Ramero's site once but I cant find it now.

I must say, I've been playing AVP2 again recently, and it is as KingNic said, creepy, even with the cheats on. I havn't played D3 yet, but when I do I'll definately make a note of seeing which is "freakier"

I'm not crazy about the style of music they went for in Doom 3, but Tweaker (Chris Vrenna) did an amazing job with the music for American McGee's Alice.

Still finding Doom 3 to be a letdown. I'm surprised there aren't more mediocre reviews. It's not bad, it just doesn't live up to the hype and it's nothing revolutionary, even in terms of the graphics.

Okay, Valve, get off your fat asses and give us HL2 already!

Still finding Doom 3 to be a letdown. I'm surprised there aren't more mediocre reviews. It's not bad, it just doesn't live up to the hype and it's nothing revolutionary, even in terms of the graphics.

I'm pretty sure the whole unified lighting system is pretty revolutionary. All the shadows are done in real-time, instead of having to rely on pre-compiled shadow maps. I'm not aware of any other game that has managed to do this and still look and play well on a machine with a geforce 3.

As for the whole revolutionary gameplay comment...you're missing the point. If you've hyped yourself up for this to be next holy grail in original gameplay, well you obviously didn't get the memo. Id always said they were only trying to make an intense, scary action game, and if you're expecting to get apples instead of oranges, you're gonna be dissapointed.

As for me, I've been playing more and more of this game, and the pace seems to be getting a bit uneven closer to the middle of the game. The opening levels were perfect, but now it's getting a bit too repetitive, and in some cases, annoying (especially when a cacodemon and two marines with machine guns come out of no where in a virtually pitch black room, and your viewpoint keeps spinning because you're constantly getting hit, and you die because you can't see a damned thing). Id don't seem to know any other way to deliver enemies other than monster closets and monsters teleporting behind you. Everhthing's beginning to look all the same as well, which is slightly dull. I seem to be getting to an important plot point, so maybe something interesting will happen. It's still pretty fun...just not as fun as it was at the beginning.

So I have to play the game for 23 hours in order to enjoy it...
Right... I remember these games, they had this thing called gameplay.
Apparently I have to play doom3 for 23 hours in order to find this
thing called gameplay. It amazes me that people are still won over by
graphics.

KingNic! why do you have to go to such a crazy extreme on every issue!? Everything is either totally superior, or completely awful

So I have to play the game for 23 hours in order to enjoy it...
Right... I remember these games, they had this thing called gameplay.
Apparently I have to play doom3 for 23 hours in order to find this
thing called gameplay. It amazes me that people are still won over by
graphics.

You've really got to play it in the right attitude and envrionment. It's designed to scare you and create a tense envrionment; if you don't let it immerse you, all you've got is a run and gun shooter. You can't enjoy it if you have the window open, music blaring and soeone watchign tv in the same room. You have to be alone, at night, with the sound right up. Of course, there are some people who just refuse to be scared entierly for some reason.

Jeff, My opinions on everything directly relate to how much it was advertised/pimped/hyped.

IMO Doom3, without it's flashy engine is a dreadful game. There's no
gameplay value, and even the scare factor has been outdone by AVP2 and
similar.

Don't Thief 3 and Deus Ex 2 have similar "unified lighting" engines to Doom 3? Of course,
it's not anywhere near as scaleable, versatile, stable, or looking as
good as Doom 3. (Well, Thief 3 is actually pretty good. Just Deus Ex 2
sucks.) But hey, the point remains that it's not that "revolutionary".
Not that I don't like Doom 3 - I desperately want to play it. :smile:

I think DOOM3 could be better if the combat system was more developed. Now, bare in mind that this might be because of my difficulty (hard), but I find myself fighting to many monsters in to small rooms. They're also not plotted well --- you walk through a hallway, and a monster spawn in front of you, and behind you, leaving no chance of escape or let alone some combat. The added fact that the screen shakes around more than L.A. doesn't help either.

It's probably not a good thing when I'd rather play Duke Nukem3d over DOOM3.

The one thing I think Id should have spent more time on was the AI. Granted, there isn't much you can do with a demon hell-bent on ripping you in two, but they could have spice it up a bit. For example, the imp. In cutscenes and scripted sequences etc. you see them climbing around walls and ceilings. Why don't they do that anyway? The most they do is pounce at you, and that in itself is rare. otherwise they just lumber towards you. Also, the marine zombies could have worked better in groups. The most they do is stick to behind a crate and fire at you from over it. if they supported each other, it would have been interesting.

That's all I would really change though. Apart from the darkness perhaps being too dark sometimes, it's my only problem with the game so far. It's been a joy to play.

KingNic said:
IMO Doom3, without it's flashy engine is a dreadful game.

At lowest settings it is still at very least an okay game. The environments and sounds that draw you in and make you scared (well, me at least) are what makes it a great game.

The gameplay, I'll admit, is rather recycled at times: whenever things get too quiet, cue fire-throwing beast. Hell, maybe I just like this because it's so scary to me.

I haven't played all of it either.

My opinions on everything directly relate to how much it was advertised/pimped/hyped.

Ah, explains a lot.

Some images in this post have been automatically down-sized, click on them to view the full sized versions:

OK Heres my first impressions of D3. Bare with me here.

Pros.

Beautiful graphics(duh). Art direction is superb. I've never seen so many cool widgets and spinky move'em thingies. Very cool ambience. Lots of darkness nookies to find the bad guys hiding in.

Cons.

Um.. where do I begin. This game is so intensely linear I can't believe it. You have ZERO options as to how to achieve a checkpoint,other than the prescribed path.

Weaponry:. No alt fire??????????????????????????????????. Or scoped items?????.

Also, there are exploding items within the levels(drums of caustic what have yous, etc.) and you can shoot them in times of trouble for a strategic blow up-age, however, you can punch them with your bare hands as well and they still explode!!!!

Silliness!

The flashlight dilemma.

You cannot wield a gun and a light at the same time. Whats a top notch scientific facility doing in the future with what amounts to eveready flashlights?????

very repetetive. Aside from the occasional upgrade in baddies, their modus operandi seems to be the same in every level. (You know....crash!....Boo!....repeat!)

MP: very quake-ish, plus the 4 player limit is most annoying, and only 5 maps???????

(albeit cool ones though)

still though, it is what it is. I would sub-categorize this as a "First person shooter of the linear onslaught" variety. Very Id-ish. I DO think that the good folks at ID could have done better with the little things such as those mentioned above, but on the other hand, I am still a satisfied customer. The game being what it is, it could have been worse. Here are a few screenies taken in 1600 x 1200 resolution with AA turned off for performance reasons, at the Ultra setting.

IMHO, they could of made that monster look a hell of a lot better, his face is soo......square!

The whole bloody thing looks blocky. Look at the arms and legs, they're almost as low poly in basic shape as Quake3.

Kage_Prototype said:
I'm pretty sure the whole unified lighting system is pretty revolutionary. All the shadows are done in real-time, instead of having to rely on pre-compiled shadow maps. I'm not aware of any other game that has managed to do this and still look and play well on a machine with a geforce 3.

Cough Thief: Deadly Shadows cough

I doubt you'll notice it's blocky when it's charging towards you and
you have 2 rounds left in your gun. Or when it's actually in motion
with the dynamic lighting on it. Which is what matters and how the
model was designed. Keep in mind that the specular/normal/diffuse maps
all take up texture memory, and the fact that this all runs on a
GeForce4 MX (which is pretty amazing in itself).

But anyway - anyone try the map editor yet? I hear the 3D viewport is
rather crappy and difficult to adjust to. Take some screenshots so I
can see what it looks like! (open console and type 'editor' or
something, it's built into the game) :smile:

What are those artifacts on the left of the last screenshot? On the shiny bit of the pillar...

If you mean just to the right of the monster, they're not artifacts, they are monitors and guages type screens mounted up by the pipes.

OH, and another peeve, when these guys come at you, it's always like a little cut scene which must play before you can start shooting at them. wierd.

The monsters always look blocky in screenshots. You just have to see it in motion to really appreciate what id have done. It looks blocky because of the high-contrasting shadows. When you see it moving, it's incredible.

Artifacts.

having not played the game yet, and being unable to until i get a new
system, (soon, i hope!) the only thing i have noticed from the
screenshots is this -

considering the flashlight is allegedly an integral part of the game,
why the feck does it look so incredibly blocky and generally "tacked on
at the last minute" ?

..

odd. i doubt i'll enjoy Doom 3 as a long lifespan blaster, as IDs
level/game design style has never really grabbed me, and if D3 is
linear like all their other games, thats thumbs down already.

on the plus side, i also hear that it borrows a lot of concepts from SS2 - which cant be a bad thing?

Those screns make it look like Unreal 2.

I always thought it looked awfully Unreal 2 in terms of gameplay judging from the trailers...which wouldn't be a particularly great thing. Looks a load more atmospheric however, not that U2 didn't have nice enough settings.

Correction: All items are scoped, at least a little. For me, I use right click to zoom in, though I forget the default. In any case, what the hell would you use a scope for in this game?

I thought the monsters were blocky until I saw them ingame. The animation is superb, and more than makes up for it.

Thief lighting may have been around the same, but certainly didn't run better on a range of cards, and certainly didn't come to as good use (tech facility has more lighting options than a castle).

I always thought it looked awfully Unreal 2 in terms of gameplay judging from the trailers...which wouldn't be a particularly great thing. Looks a load more atmospheric however, not that U2 didn't have nice enough settings.

The difference between Unreal 2 and Doom 3 is that Doom 3 is a lot more slower paced, and focuses more on building tension, rather than just throwing everything at once at you. Because of this, I didn't find Unreal 2 very immersive or enjoyable, and it quickly became more apparent how repetitive the gameplay was. But Doom 3 really pulls you into the game world, and you just forget that all you're doing is more or less running around and shooting things.

And Jeff, do you really think you're going to notice something like that in-game? :razz:

Yeah, bits of Unreal 2 just felt very B-rate Sci-fi. The hell level was excellent (the one with the spiders) but the rest just didn't make up for it. The ending was predictable, but hey... they don't all have to change the genre. Anyway,... back to D3.

Kage_Prototype said:

I always thought it looked awfully Unreal 2 in terms of gameplay judging from the trailers...which wouldn't be a particularly great thing. Looks a load more atmospheric however, not that U2 didn't have nice enough settings.

The difference between Unreal 2 and Doom 3 is that Doom 3 is a lot more slower paced, and focuses more on building tension, rather than just throwing everything at once at you. Because of this, I didn't find Unreal 2 very immersive or enjoyable, and it quickly became more apparent how repetitive the gameplay was. But Doom 3 really pulls you into the game world, and you just forget that all you're doing is more or less running around and shooting things.

And Jeff, do you really think you're going to notice something like that in-game? :razz:

id probably should have made it like Quake.... or Quake2.... Or DOOM.... or DOOM2.... all of which have the same type of gameplaye :biggrin: DOOM3 is to hard and to slow.

And you people tried shunning me when I said Doom 3 would be amazing and probably better than HL2 in terms of atmosphere... SHAME ON YOU ALL!

And how the hell can you still qualify it being better than HL2? :razz: It's awesome, yes, but HL2 still must release, you know. :smile:

I'm so tired of the "HL2 will be better because..." and "Doom3 is better because..." debates. There's no comparison until HL2 comes out, and even then they're two entirely different games that will be completely enjoyable in their own right! :smile:

Besides... Hmm. nevermind.

Ok, now the biggest complaint I've seen of Doom3 is the 'blockiness' on models, when the model polycounts are at least matching those of most UT2K4 characters, which are quite nice looking. As much as I anticipate HL2, I think a point needs to be made, so it's time to start shredding HL2 on the same terms that Doom3 is...

Sure, Doom3 characters are maybe 3000-3500 polys. Of course we all know that HL2 pushes up to 7-10k polys on the important characters. That's the key. important characters. Most characters won't be far beyond the Doom3 poly limits. So let's see what they're doing with their polys.

http://www.planethalflife.com/half-life2/screenshots/01n.jpg

The soldiers depicted in these shots (and also in videos) just look terrible.

While we're talking blocky, how about Dr. Vance's head and neck? http://www.planethalflife.com/screenshot.asp?src=/half-life2/screenshots/02.jpg And I'm talking the version on the right, an important character likely in the 7-10k range, still with plenty of visible edges.

Alyx's hair is an even better example, as these edges are even visible on the lady who will likely (best I can tell) be the second most important character in the game. http://www.planethalflife.com/screenshot.asp?src=/half-life2/screenshots/04.jpg

And remember, those are important characters with higher detail. What do the less important people look like? Ah yes... http://www.planethalflife.com/screenshot.asp?src=/half-life2/screenshots/hl2_093.jpg

The point is, without hi poly modeling, you -will- see edges like this on any model in any game, and complaining about it is ridiculously pedantic. The polycounts are right on par with any other modern game, but wait... on top of that, you get lighting detail on the models equivalent to 10-20 or more times the detail of the most detailed HL2 models.

I've got love for both Doom3 and HL2. But if you're going to put that big a magnifying glass over one, you'd better damn well hold the others to the same standard. :smile:

...And after 7 years of Worldcraft experience and a month and a half of this tech, unless you can show me a version of Hammer that can do anything near what even the Quake 3 version of the editor can do (patch meshes and native model file support = god), I'll never touch the damned thing again. In looking back on Hammer, I've never seen something so hideous. :smile:

KungFuSquirrel said:
In looking back on Hammer, I've never seen something so hideous. :smile:

argh, herecy. someone get the fire started.

:rolleyes:

And here I thought the biggest complaint about D3 would be the derivative gameplay and repetitiveness of the whole thing. I still don't know why everyone's getting bent out of shape over graphics comparisons, given that this is merely Doom1 given a new candy coating. That's gotta be its biggest weakness.... /hearsay

See, Yak, that I consider a legitimate complaint :smile: I personally like what they've done, as do many others, but there are also plenty of people who want more out of their games these days. Nothing wrong with that.... within reason. :smile:

Seriously, though, I think I see more 'blocky model' complaints than anything else. :-\ go figure.

Kage, depending on how often artifacts like that occur, it can be very
noticeable. I start to get artifacts like that in certain DX9 shaders
when I OC my 9800 pro core to above 440. It becomes very noticeable.

I noticed the artifacts, but couldn't see any evidence of further artifacts in the other screens so I assumed it was an anomaly.

Yak, it's not even Doom1. Doom1 was far less repetetive.

fishy said:

KungFuSquirrel said:
In looking back on Hammer, I've never seen something so hideous. :smile:

argh, herecy. someone get the fire started.

:rolleyes:

-.-

takes out a baseball bat

I was wondering, In the original DooM it never actually took place on Mars it took place on the two moons Phobos and Diemos and Hell. But everyone is saying that the player is back on Mars, so whats the deal with that?

Phobos and Deimos have average diameters of 22 km and 14km. Deimos is shaped like a potato - and probably has the gravitational pull to match. :smile: Good luck putting much of anything there. :biggrin:

My guess is Carmack's space work gave him better perspective on things. :wink:

...And after 7 years of Worldcraft experience and a month and a half of this tech, unless you can show me a version of Hammer that an do anything near what even the Quake 3 version of the editor can o (patch meshes and native model file support = god), I'll never touch the damned thing again. In looking back on Hammer, I've never seen something so hideous. :smile:

I'm curious. I beleive you've had experience with UnrealEd, so how does the Doom 3 tech compare to Unreal? Don't get the idea that I'm trying to find out which is easier to learn, I plan to get familiar with both Unreal and Doom/Quake toolsets. I'm just curious as to how they compare.

I can't imagine there would be much point in having a scientific facility sitting on one of those tiny moons (if there was something potentially rather explosive inside, probably be better off taking a chunk out of the planet than tear up a whole moon!) they'd be better for space 'ports'...

my friend and I played through the first opening scenes, amazing. Alas I save my commeunts until I get my uber fast computer in a couple of weeks and can play it in such a res that warrants my opinion.

it crashed.......alot.

haha.

dont know what i did but i cant upgrade my comp.

though it looks kinda fun for a minute or two.