What was the community like around Doom 3's release?

[Monosabi]

I didn't really know about Doom in 2004, and I wasn't really on the internet much either. Now, I haven't played Doom 3, but from what I can tell they really upped the whole "horror" aspect. Were people generally excited that there was another doom game, or was it more like "what the fuck is this?" Maybe somewhere in the middle?

 

I'm probably going to give it a spin at some point because it does kind of look like fun.

 

 

[Biodegradable]

There's nearly 200 pages worth of threads archived in the Doom 3 subforum for you to explore to get an idea on how the community reacted to it at the time and their feeling to it now. If you go all the way to the last page and work your way backwards, you can enjoy three years worth of people speculating and theorizing about a 3rd Doom game all the way to its eventual release. Happy reading!

[Murdoch]

4 hours ago, Monosabi said:

I didn't really know about Doom in 2004, and I wasn't really on the internet much either. Now, I haven't played Doom 3, but from what I can tell they really upped the whole "horror" aspect. Were people generally excited that there was another doom game, or was it more like "what the fuck is this?" Maybe somewhere in the middle?

 

I'm probably going to give it a spin at some point because it does kind of look like fun.

 

Somewhere in the middle. Some enjoyed it, some disliked it for how different it was. It was not the fast paced action fest of old, but more slower paced and scary. I suspect many who liked it initial felt the novelty wear off as it's flaws became more apparent. I like it, but it definitely has it's issues.

[CoolerDoomeR]

I've played Doom 3 too many times and i  really enjoyed it and i think it was awesome!

It has a "Horror" theme and cool weapons, but it has a problem that its not a fast paced action.

The Doomworld forums created in 1999 and in 2004 i think it has some users but not like now.(Total members at now is 32381)

 

[Monosabi]

49 minutes ago, Biodegradable said:

There's nearly 200 pages worth of threads archived in the Doom 3 subforum for you to explore to get an idea on how the community reacted to it at the time and their feeling to it now. If you go all the way to the last page and work your way backwards, you can enjoy three years worth of people speculating and theorizing about a 3rd Doom game all the way to its eventual release. Happy reading!

Woah. Time to get to reading, then!

[Bri]

It was massively exciting at the time. Reactions probably were somewhere in the middle, though. I remember hating the weak-ass shotgun! And the way your screen violently jerks around when you get hit was annoying...

 

But really, it was a good game, just divisive is all. Its sci-fi visuals and atmosphere were great; and the slowed down gameplay suited it well. It tries to be scary, although it was always a bit too cheesy to pull it off properly, but it was thoroughly entertaining.

[Dodgy Dave]

I have no idea what the community was like but I took he day off and got into some serious day drinking. 

[BGreener]

Hard for me to say since at the time, I wasn’t involved with Doomworld forums and I was halfway into high school. All I know is that there were mod sites for Half Life 2 and Doom 3 that I frequented but forgot what they were called, and it was also where I found out how easy I could configure Doom 3: I’d download a gameplay mod, look over it with notepad, and figure out I had control over things like weapon spread and enemy corpse despawn time. 

[Somniac]

I was beyond excited for Doom 3 and when it dropped it was about the most intense thing I'd ever experienced. It does have its flaws but overall I still really like it.

[HavoX]

The Doom community was far different from what we have today.

• Julian was put in charge after Ling "stepped down"
• EDGE was the superior source port over ZDoom, which (IIRC) didn't have DECORATE back then
• Skulltag was a thing
• Phoebus's meltdown at NewDoom
• And then there's darknation. Strange fellow.

As times changed, so did the community. Believe me, I've got a good memory!

 

Now, regarding Doom 3, I was looking forward to it like everybody else. And it was worth the wait.

Edited March 16, 2022 by HavoX

[Doomkid]

Everyone I knew among the Dooming public were excited. Upon release reactions were positive if a little mixed, but as Murdoch implied, a lot of people came down from “the high” a month or two later and realised that, while still certainly a quality game, it lacked the action and fun factor old Doom was known for.

 

There was definitely an upward tick in general Doom community activity for a while surrounding D3’s release. I’m referring more to the multiplayer side of the community as that’s where I was most often in 2004/2005, though I imagine it was much the same here.

[Koko Ricky]

I remember speculating Doom 3 would have ray tracing, and was delighted to see it at least had stencil shadows, which were cutting edge for the mid 00s. The community generally agreed that it felt fundamentally different, mechanically. There was a bit of disappointment in the smaller scale combat, and especially the short spread of the shotgun. You could tell that it was going to have a small audience, modding-wise.

[Endless]

Also fun fact: This was around the time when Doom 3 wasn't the official title (not revealed at least) and the most used speculative name for the next sequel was Doom 2000. Makes you think about Doom 2000 the Way id Did ;) This was also a relatively calm year for the community in general. From what I gather, there wasn't much movement and there still were some WADs being produced but nothing extraordinaire that would rock your socks off.

 

I think it's generally agreed upon that the years after Doom 3 were among the most quiet, with a sudden wake-up once Doom 2016 dropped. I'd say the NuDoom games actually managed to attract more people towards classic Doom thanks to their tributes, fast old-school gameplay and easter eggs. I think it's safe to say that, since then, the community has been growing like crazy considering how fucking old the game is.

 

I'm a broken record repeating this, but is something that still amazes me. While there's other fan communities of classic old games still alive, I can only think of Doom for a community that's near 3-decades old and yet it still is growing.

[Monosabi]

1 minute ago, Endless said:

I'm a broken record repeating this, but is something that still amazes me. While there's other fan communities of classic old games still alive, I can only think of Doom for a community that's near 3-decades old and yet it still is growing.

Allow me to be a broken record with you as well, for a moment. It blows my fucking mind. I am one of the folks who came here after playing the newer Doom games, and I wasn't too sure how active of a community this place would be considering the age of the games. Not only did I find that this place is active, it's actually growing like you said. 

 

Although I wish I could have found out about this place sooner, I'm glad that I'm here now.

[Astronomical]

17 hours ago, Endless said:

Doom 2016 dropped. I'd say the NuDoom games actually managed to attract more people towards classic Doom thanks to their tributes, fast old-school gameplay and easter eggs. I think it's safe to say that, since then, the community has been growing like crazy considering how fucking old the game is.

That's why I am here,

On 3/17/2022 at 5:28 AM, Doomkid said:

a lot of people came down from “the high” a month or two later and realised that, while still certainly a quality game, it lacked the action and fun factor old Doom was known for.

Despite that I would say that NuDoom is less classic doom than doom 3 is in different ways.  They almost feel like specialized branches splitting off from doom rather than one being more faithful than the other.  The games lighting system is still very impressive even now, and It's interesting that Scythe 2 also had a strong focus on lighting.  Despite most likely being a coincidence, it makes sense that Doom 3 would focus on lighting not only because of what idtech4 could do, but because Doom always had a strong focus on lighting. 

[Tetzlaff]

I registered here when the first info and rumours about "Doom 2000" emerged. It was fun discussing the upcoming Doom 3 game in the subforum, we had many ideas how a modernised version of Doom could work. First footage about the real-time lighting was impressive. Some dumb fake screenshots appeared that didn't have those lighting so they were obviously fake (and also stylistically questionable). Games like Unreal 2 and Kreed (Russian FPS released in 2003) were supposed to compete with the upcoming Doom 3 graphics-wise but failed... The anticipation for Doom 3 was very high. I was also active in the Quake 3 Arena community in that time, where whole maps like Phobos Base 1 or Deimos 2 were inspired by pre-release screenhots of Doom 3.

 

The classic Doom community also had some interesting wads and mods going on during that time, but I remember it being much smaller than today, and all the incredibly diverse and high-quality stuff was yet to come.

Edited March 22, 2022 by Tetzlaff

[Old-Doomguy]

I myself wasn't active here on this forum, but on the swedish Sweclockers is where I discussed Doom. I've always been discussion classic doom since 1994 but it didnät occur to me that I should join this forum until just recently. I've read this forum for years without registering though, even so back in the Doom3-era. I was very hyped for Doom 3, I even "played" that leaked alpha or whatever it was, lol, just go get a taste of it. The alpha fried my PSU at the time, because it wasn't really enough to fuel my Radeon 9800pro which I had then.

 

When the game was released I did play it but I actually got bored by it. Because it was all fun and good looking for the first few hours, with cooler monster closets and tight spaces rather than less linear and more open maps. But since the entire game was pretty much more of the same rather than rich and varied, I grew tired. Eventually my computer got totally fried in which I had to resort to a pc with nvidia FX5200, which wasn't good for anything at all, I just stopped playing doom for a long time, but in 2008 I actually played it through on the original Xbox :D