What I fear in Doom 4.

[Touchdown]

Megamur said:

Of course not, but a lot of people who don't know Doom all that well think it's supposed to, so maybe it would be best for them to pander to that audience.

No.

[DooM_RO]

Megamur said:

Let's face it: Brutal Doom is quite possibly the most famous Doom mod of all time. Even young kids who know nothing about Doom suddenly thought Doom was cool after seeing BD. And really, BD is how a lot of people view Doom. Just look at that old Doom comic: DoomGuy as a screaming idiot, blasting things into chunks in stupidly over-the-top ways. It pretty much goes hand-in-hand with Brutal Doom, and that was made years ago, verifying that viewing the series as a dumb, goofy, hyper-violent action game is not solely a modern opinion.

So if they really want sales, that's probably what they'll have to do. Just embrace the blood-spraying, heavy metal idiocy that everyone assumes Doom is and win over a new audience. Probably would've worked for the new Splatterhouse if the game didn't have such terrible load times and less-than-stellar production values.

Absolutely NOT! This is EXACTLY why I am against in the "List of COD clones" thread. By making such a game Id would take out all the other interesting things about the game.

[OpenMaw]

I agree with that sentiment. Though I think some people are pushing back way too hard on BD. Some of it's features would actually be a great extension of Doom's classic gameplay. Not all, but some.

[Touchdown]

The problem I see right now is that people give BD way too much credit. It's like everything that is gory is 'like Brutal DOOM'. People are citing BD like it invented everything. It has tons of features. Most if not all of those features are not exclusive to BD, yet people tend to act like it's a leading example for everything else. So if you want a feature, name a feature, not "some stuff from BD".

Another problem is that people seem to see everything in a completely black and white way. There's more than 'D3 gore' and 'BD gore', you know? Just because gore in D3 was poor, it doesn't mean the only way to fix it is going extreme into an opposite direction. I'd love to see more gore in D4 but a kind of gore that is disturbing, more serious, sci-fi violence, not something that makes people go "ahahaa! rip and tear! woohoo!".

[Shaviro]

@Touchdown

Yes, there is a window for the gore in between comical and making a statement. Doom/2 hit this window very well.

[DooM_RO]

A very advanced version of the Soldier of Fortune gore system would be bitchin'

[Doominator2]

Touchdown said:

Another problem is that people seem to see everything in a completely black and white way. There's more than 'D3 gore' and 'BD gore', you know? Just because gore in D3 was poor, it doesn't mean the only way to fix it is going extreme into an opposite direction. I'd love to see more gore in D4 but a kind of gore that is disturbing, more serious, sci-fi violence, not something that makes people go "ahahaa! rip and tear! woohoo!".

Exactly, Doom isn't supposed to be full of Duke Nukem Style comical violence, Doom is supposed to be serious and adding disturbing violence would certainly add a darker atmosphere to doom.

[Clonehunter]

Doominator2 said:

Exactly, Doom isn't supposed to be full of Duke Nukem Style comical violence, Doom is supposed to be serious and adding disturbing violence would certainly add a darker atmosphere to doom.

I don't think (Classic) Doom was ever that serious. The Doom Comic truly is the gameplay translated into ink, near verbatim. Some of the weapon mechanics are wrong, is all. Doom 3 did have a more serious tone, and did some of the scenery gorn rather well. Monster deaths weren't real bloody.

[doomgargoyle]

Clonehunter said:

I don't think (Classic) Doom was ever that serious. The Doom Comic truly is the gameplay translated into ink, near verbatim. Some of the weapon mechanics are wrong, is all. Doom 3 did have a more serious tone, and did some of the scenery gorn rather well. Monster deaths weren't real bloody.

Doom 3 monster deaths werent bloody at all. They just fell back and dissapeared. Old Doom deaths were bloody as fuck in comparison.

[Da Werecat]

It's not very fair to compare gore between a sprite game and a fully 3D game.

[RUSH]

I think the original Doom games were almost comparable to a very dark comedy. The plot wasn't serious, but the atmosphere and gore certainly were. I think Doom 4 needs to have some scary moments combined with tense, fast moving action - all while not taking itself quite as seriously as Doom 3 did (if that makes any sense.) Doom 1 does this perfectly.

Also, intricate and abstract architecture has always been a unique aspect of early Doom. Hopefully id can incorporate some interesting themes into the game - instead of generically fulfilling the "Hell on Earth" idea by running around ruined city streets/buildings.

[Koko Ricky]

Doom was released at a time when most games weren't serious, not only because it wasn't a trend at the time but also because hardware limitations made it difficult to convey a serious tone. Doom definitely had touches of brutal humor, not only in the text intermissions and the decapitated bunny, but also the slaughtering of Commander Keen and cruel maps like Barrels O' Fun. With modern, realistic graphics, how do you convey humor? Doom 3's team might have been weary of this, fearing it would be a turnoff. I'd definitely like to see humor in Doom 4, but I don't want to be rolling my eyes, thinking, "Is THIS their idea of funny?"

As far abstract/surreal map design, it definitely needs to return. Problem is, abstraction was easy to convey in the old games because of the crudeness of slapping repeating textures onto simple geometry, which was embedded in an experimental 2.5D engine. Try to be that non-representational with modern graphics and you run into problems, unless the artists/mappers are very clever and imaginative. I think a good exercise would be to take some of the highly memorable architectural moments from the series and reinterpret it with idtech5. Remember the weird "painful" red inverted cross in E2M1? Or the building in Suburbs with the fake walls made of human skulls? Those were both really chilling moments. I can see such moments being reinterpreted into something elaborate and frightening, that sill looks otherworldly.

[RUSH]

GoatLord said:

Doom was released at a time when most games weren't serious, not only because it wasn't a trend at the time but also because hardware limitations made it difficult to convey a serious tone. Doom definitely had touches of brutal humor, not only in the text intermissions and the decapitated bunny, but also the slaughtering of Commander Keen and cruel maps like Barrels O' Fun. With modern, realistic graphics, how do you convey humor? Doom 3's team might have been weary of this, fearing it would be a turnoff. I'd definitely like to see humor in Doom 4, but I don't want to be rolling my eyes, thinking, "Is THIS their idea of funny?"

As far abstract/surreal map design, it definitely needs to return. Problem is, abstraction was easy to convey in the old games because of the crudeness of slapping repeating textures onto simple geometry, which was embedded in an experimental 2.5D engine. Try to be that non-representational with modern graphics and you run into problems, unless the artists/mappers are very clever and imaginative. I think a good exercise would be to take some of the highly memorable architectural moments from the series and reinterpret it with idtech5. Remember the weird "painful" red inverted cross in E2M1? Or the building in Suburbs with the fake walls made of human skulls? Those were both really chilling moments. I can see such moments being reinterpreted into something elaborate and frightening, that sill looks otherworldly.

I agree with this.

[mrthejoshmon]

I still don't get why there is a huge hard on for gore, what does it actually achieve other than leaving a messy pile?

[Deleted_Account]

Gameplay is the most important thing they should focus on. I could care less about the gore.

[BlastRadius]

For me, some gore is required, otherwise I feel the immersion is lacking in a game such as this. Metro 2033/LL did really well with the kind of atmosphere where death hangs in the air, in my opinion. The DOOM devs could do a lot worse if they tried to emulate that.

[geo]

What I fear with Doom 4 is people trying to snipe with the shotgun like they did in Doom 3 and not understanding its a close range weapon.

What I fear is a game instantly failing because it shares a name with a game that really only comes out every 10 years, because we'll all remember the 20 year old game instead of having gentle changes every so often.

What I fear is how FPS peaked 20 years ago with one of the first FPS. Or even peaked a decade ago with Halo or Half Life 2.

What I fear is no new ideas, just old games made new again, because people keep hugging the past. Remakes of old levels with new technology. Nostalgia being so popular.

[Touchdown]

I don't really have any fears about DOOM 4. Let's be honest, there's a million of things that can be done right or that can be screwed up. There are countless variations of what this game might be. Most of these discussions will not even be relevant once we get to see the project and what it actually is. It's better to just wait until then and discuss 'fears' and 'hopes' once there's an actual basis for them other than 'id is dead', 'people are leaving', blah blah.