Doom 3 may be the best, or worst, game ever

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Everyone seems to have their own idea as to what Doom 3 should be, and that's why most people are going to be somewhat disappointed. Very few people knew what to expect when they played Doom for the first time. It also seems that a lot of people on this message board are asking for a complete rehash of the same; same enemies plus a few, same weapons plus a few, same music style, everything.

You can't ask for that same feeling back that Doom gave you, you must ask for a new one. I, for one, want to see if ID can do a sequel that will really do the series justice.

Of course certian things will be included. Most everything available in a FPS today will be in Doom 3. Body dismemberment, pockmarks, blood stains, scorched scenery, destructible scenery, everything you've already seen. I want some truly original ideas as well, not just a 'best of' game of the current market.

How about shells and casings ejected from your weapon that come out where they should? What the hell was with Quake 3, every damn casing flew right out of the barrel after the bullet? Half-Life, dare I mention that game without getting flamed, was accurate with the machine guns but the shotgun shells flipped out right with the blast, before the pump.

What about directional scenery damage? Not the same round scorched area with every rocket blast, but a thin and drawn out one from a severe angle. How about crushed bullets hitting the floor after they cave into a wall and rolling around?

One thing I've been waiting for for YEARS and has never appeared would be that the player model is your actual weapon model as well. Let me explain. Look at a Quake game. You look straight down... you have no feet. You flip a switch, it just magically flips... your weapon stays in your hand. Now look at the Playstation game Duke Nukem: Time To Kill. When you flipped a switch, Duke put away his weapon, did the chore, then drew it again. Why do we have to have seperate models for the weapons in today's day and age of computers? It should be the same damn model, fully animated. Even in Soldier of Fortune deathmatches, they just lean back when they shoot the shotgun... they don't actually pump it or reload it. If it was all the same models of animation, people viewing it from the 3rd person would also catch all of the details. This could also add for some new gameplay mechanics, such as trying to lift a heavy door.. but you have to sheath your weapon first so you're vulnerable to attack. Simple switches, of course, should have multiple animations. Like with the one handed pistol, your free hand could come up and tag it, but with a two handed weapon your guy/gal would just bump the barrel(s) into the button.

Also, one thing I loved and still love about a Doom deathmatch is that there are no real instant kills (except the B.laring F.aggot G.un). You could take a rocket in the face and keep running with enough life to survive a few bullets too. Unreal Tournament pisses me off because any damn weapon in the game will kill you with three or fewer shots. It's pathetic. Frags should be earned by skills, not by weapons. Firing the rocket launcher around like you've lost your mind should not net you a dozen kills.

Naturally, then, I'm against the idea of a sniper rifle in a game that was originally a shootathon. Locational damage is of course in, because a bullet in the ear should just simply be more effective than a bullet in the chest plate.

If my single model idea is implemented, there may not be the need for a sniper rifle. To fire the pistol, your character should raise it right up to the crosshair line, so you're aiming down the back of the sights like in, dear God, REAL LIFE.

Secondary weapon effects should also be implemented, and not gay ones that make little sense either. The grenade launcher and rocket launcher should be DIFFERENT weapons. As for the grenades... hell, it's a few hundred years off in the future, right? So what about a small switch in the grenades... fire mode one makes them on contact, so as soon as they touch ANYTHING they go off. Fire mode two gives them a three second delay, so they can bounce or knock someone right on their ass before they go off. I just hope ID comes up with something original as a secondary fire mode for the new machine gun, because a built in grenade launcher M-203 or an incrediously fake 'super fast' firing mode would just piss me off 'cuz I've seen it countless times before.

Another thing I've been waiting for is collapsing meshes that respond to gravity. In any of today's games if you kill someone on a staircase, they just kinda float there. Gravity should effect their limbs. Imagine a killed zombie collapsing on the stairs, his head cracking on the edge of a step, and his rifle rolling down end over end. This would also be really cool in a scenario in which you clean out a room, then kill the power generator to the ship and thus remove the gravity simulator, the bodies begin to float. Shell casings should float too. Another addition to this ship scene would be having to drag yourself across a cord on the wall to make it to the exit, thus limiting yourself to a one handed weapon.

As for Trent Reznor doing the music, I would really enjoy that. I've heard a lot of arguing points on this message board about this. Some people even think that Trent Reznor is a pop culture MTV band. Holy fuck, what gave you that idea? Jesus, NIN is only on MTV during the awards, as part of the five minutes of white people allowed on MTV a day. Eminem gets a thousand times the coverage on MTV than Reznor. Also, who the hell says that Quake's soundtrack sucked? Have you ever heard any other Goth Ambient? There's no argument that Trent's was the best! ID got what they asked for, and that's NOT what Trent usually plays. His music is half alternative and half industrial, with metal influences. If you want a real metal soundtrack, get Devin Townsend or Fear Factory on the job, not some hip band like Korn or Metallica. Doom 64's soundtrack was quite adequate.

The music should be interactive, and should flow very well between goth ambient, extreme heavy metal, and perhaps industrial. That's just me. If the soundtrack came out as hip hop I'd have to buy a new computer desk because I'd never be able to clean all the vomit off of this one.

The people at ID are going far out of their way to impress us, I'm sure. They lost a huge amount of their fanbase with Quake 3 and they need to reclaim it. It's impossible to think that Doom 3 would be a boring game that only meets market standards. It will either be the best or the worst. It's also important to note that Doom was not everything that it was originally hyped to be. What with the ability to blow holes through walls and a full storyline, the actual game released was much thinner than what was planned.

No details will be disclosed until they are certianly included, I'm sure. ID learned this lesson the hard way.

[Guest Adasciti]

WOW u fucking rock man. I've never agreed with so much points with anyone else. Especially the feet. I always wondered when a game actually would not lead u into thinking u were floating torso.(OMG I have no feet I must be mad).
The thing I always wanted in a game was more realistic actions. U'r points on having hands holding gun and stuff while performing a action.
I myself am still anticipating a real phyics engine in a fps. Such as badies rolling or falling off stairs when they die or a impliment of a weightless environment. For once I wanna see a dramatic death that isn't fucked up as quake2's(guy on all fours takes a shot in the totally wrong direction before dying, or the repeatative death's of the grunt with the chain gun on his hand).

What I say, is realism and the more innovative features in a FPS will give more outcomes and will be more enjoyable playing a game that has differnet events everytime u kill a room of enemies.

Oh yeah and your support for NIN totally sold me. Don't know a bout u but after playing "crazy taxi" for two hours I was fucking sick of that repeatative cycle of music, No offense to offspring I think they rock, but can u listen to them every time u play that game?

NIN Rocks!!!!!

[Guest Arch`Vile]

I agree soo much!!! If id ever saw that message, you could be like their saviour because you will be the one that shows that assholes who think this new doom should be the same as the other ones that true originality will set a new standard of gaming.

[Guest BEnT2440]

Finally, someone with REALLY good ideas! I agree with all of 'em!! Also, Nine Inch Nails is a great choice for music. Quake's music was very fitting for that game (say what you may, I still think it was awesome) because it was another dimension, with medieval-like enemies and levels. Trent Reznor can obviously do metal music also, and if you don't believe that, listen to Broken... it's most likely NIN's hardest CD. And it's not all distortion or techno-pop like other people have said.

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Adasciti said:

Thank you for the kind words.

You're right, broken is the 'heaviest' album.

Pretty Hate Machine has an eighties sounds, because that's when it came out. Downward Spiral was an industrial concept album. The Fragile was a combination of everything he's every done; in some spots it's extremely heavy while in other's it's very quiet.

Another good question is, who the hell said NIN is doing the music? Unless I see a quote from Carmack or Reznor it doesn't really count.

The main thing to remember is that Doom was the largest step forward in graphics. After seeing my cousin play Quake 3 at 1600 by 1200 on his HDTV, the lucky bastard, graphics really aren't a concern for me now I'd sooner have more depth of gameplay and realism.

There's a fine line between deep war realism and suvival horror. I can only hope that it doesn't turn out to be a first person Resident Evil.

[Guest doomgod12345]

yea a real physics engin, maybey as soon as i learn programing i will make one for my game, but it will not be first person. any way i dont want to know most of what is in the game so it will be a surprise. also NIN is kick ass and did a very good job with quake. they are one of my favorite bands and there concert was kick ass the best i had ever seen. it was the new concert me and a friend went on like the second tour date in the us. Also i hope doom3 kicks ass just like the first 2 did

[Virgil]

The upcoming game "HALO" already has extremely good physics, and they're so impressive they probably "set a new standard", so gravitation effects might be built directly into the DOOM 3 engine (I believe most of the gravity now (now = QIII) is simple and handled through the game DLL, not the actual engine, but I might be wrong). It is likely that this will now be possible, because of the new GeForce chip technology which everyone will be copying soon. These cards handle (almost?) the ENTIRE geometry pipeline and processing, leaving the CPU free to do whatever task it wishes...Such complicated AI and physical effects. And these seem to be the most logical thing to use it for, since it no longer has to be used intensivly for the graphics processing. I find there to be one huge problem with realistic physics:
1) They're realistic, whereas DOOM inherently is not
The author said he would like to take lots of hits in deathmatch so it would judge skill not weapon strength. I AGREE COMPLETELY!!! But with real physics at the same time? That might end up having odd effects. For the physics to be as realistic as everyone seems to want, the mathmatical rules would have to be applied to the 3d world and all it's objects EXCEPT the player to preserve the fun of DOOM (lest it just become "Rainbow Six")...But then how would the player interact with the world the same way the mosters would? (who are relatively the same height, mass?) Well they couldn't! If the properties of the player were changed (a cheap hack, to avoid more half-asses Quake physics) it wouldn't seem quite right in the world...It would seem too strange I think...You would behave like a thing that COULD take 2 rockets and live :)
So implementing "real but not real physics" is probably EXTREMELY hard (not hard for id, but probably very time consuming) to do because I'd guess it would have to be done on a per effect basis, so I'd just like to add:
As much "real-looking" as possible, while keeping the fun! :)

Oh and *great* ideas by the way!! (I never fully realized how rediculous looking down and seeing nothing was until I read your post (the first time I played Quake, I thought it was odd, but then I got used to it...A bad thing!))

[Guest orion]

doomgod12345 said:

yea a real physics engin, maybey as soon as i learn programing i will make one for my game, but it will not be first person. any way i dont want to know most of what is in the game so it will be a surprise. also NIN is kick ass and did a very good job with quake. they are one of my favorite bands and there concert was kick ass the best i had ever seen. it was the new concert me and a friend went on like the second tour date in the us. Also i hope doom3 kicks ass just like the first 2 did

I hate NIN, especially after I saw the new vid (hot chick sitting in a car and at the end takes the make up off and its marlyn manson!!!! ~VOMIT~). Oh and guess where i saw it on? MTV. Actually I dont care cuz I was watching MTV so that evens it out (but still shame on me). The music will prolly be ok since e1m5, e1m7, and e1m8 have pretty good slow music that relaxes the u up while seeing tons of blood. I still think PanterA would be better tho =]. BTW doom does not need industrial metal, personally i like it, but its just not for doom. speed/thrash/heavy metal are good and an occasional slow song here and there. all of the other ideas kick ass =]!!!

[sirgalahadwizar]

I'm going to say in the fewest possible words wht I think. Right On!!!!! The gravity thing should always have been there. Tell me if you fell into a deep pit like in map09 you'd die or break your legs right (at least they got it right in hexen anyway). One thing that I've always wanted to see is a demon with his face caved in from a double load shotgun (I think it'd look kinda funny). And that brings another point - the projetile physics aren't real, I always did enjoy killing a pile of zombies with one shot from my double shotgun but the fact is it does'nt work like that. Ok maybe it would go through 3-4 people if they were in a line and at point blank but if you shoot a double shotgun in real life from 20 feet away it will pelt and will NOT go through multiple guys. Just like a proposed minigun WOULD go through multiple entities due to the such high velocity of the bullets themselfs (ever seen "saving private ryan", the beachhead scene shows german bullets going through 4 people as they dropped the doors).
Also another cheer to the gravity physics, maybe the explanation for the imp's and baron's fireballs not dropping over distance is that they're magic, but they Still did NOT drop and they went too slow.
The locational damage is a good idea as long as it is'nt taken to extremes. A shot to the head should only be instant fatal if you have no armor there (like zombie), but of course you do have armor (the helmet). It should only do 3x normal damage or something. A rocket to the head I can understand though!

There is some things I disagree with you on:
*I think that it should still have at least one or two "lamers" weapons (one shot, one kill), particularly the energy weaps. BUT by god's green earth they should use one HELLISH amount of ammo to shoot them and I think that in Deathmatch mode anyone who kills someone with it should only get 1/4 frag for it. Another fag gun you forgot to mention is the plasma rifle, it does so much damage + high fire rate that up close could be considered an instant kill weapon (unfortunatly it still is my most favorite weapon though because it looks neat). Either that or make it's ammo extremely rare, how likely are you to find 50 caliber sniper rifle ammo in a ravaged research base - the key word is 'research', they dont need sniper rifle ammo on base - even in security.
*Energy weapons dont exactly expel bullet casings and if they did they'd be weak as hell.

[Guest zwei]

Hi,

While I agree with the majority of your points (Great point on the collapsing meshes that respond to gravity) I feel that what you're asking might be extremely taxing on the CPU. Remember, the game needs to reach mass market appeal and not everyone can afford or own a kickass computer that can handle that level of complexity.
DOOM/DOOM 2 was never realistic to begin with, so why should DOOM 3 be any different?