The Doom 3 Audience

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There was an interesting issue raised a few threads back about what audience D3 is going to target. All of us here have either got the demo or read all the reviews on the Quake games before we purchased them. We'll do the same with Doom 3. Doom 3 will reach the whole crowd, and from it the new group of Doomers will emerge.

The way I figure it, Doom 3 is going to be a polygonic first person shooter using preestablished and new characters. The action will be hard and heavy... iD has never used a "Reload" button and I doubt they'll start now. I also doubt the weapons will be based on real-life weapons but I hope they at least appear realistic (completely unlike Q3A). The most important thing to remember is that there will be large firefights with the emphasis completely on action.

We can't go wrong with that.

iD probably has all the ideas, enemies, weapons, level flow and engine ideas all laid down. They're not etched in stone, however. A point that was also raised is that iD changed some things within Q3A near it's release, such as omitting the flamethrower. They also decided against skeletal animation rather late into the game development.

Carmack is obviously a smart man, and he's assembled the team he sees fit to launch Doom into 2K. Now the question remains... can we come up with ideas good enough so that they have to be included in Doom 3?

To be honest, here are the main features I'm looking for:
1) Heavy use of T&L
2) LARGE groups of enemies (25+)
3) Large levels with fewer load times
4) Quick and hectic gameplay
5) For once, a DIFFICULT final boss!

If it's got that, I'll be happy.

We can't really demand that the game has fifty enemies or fifty levels.

But if we come up with a brilliant idea, maybe it'll make it's way in. :)

What the hell? Can't hurt to dream.

[Psyonisis]

Question: What's T&L?

I agree with you there about everything. Especially the large groups of enemies and the quick/hectic gameplay. That's why I loved Hell Revealed. It was so fun with friends in coop to just see plasma flying everywhere at a room full of so many imps the engine couldn't even display them all. heh
That's all I got...

[Zaldron]

It stands for Transform & lightning. It´s most likely that we will see a lot of eye candy (i still look at the Q3A graphics like something that came out from a 3D design editor).

It´s obvious that iD will never forget the "high action" feeling of DooM. The main problem is that DooM was a "lot o´ enemies" game, and not a "hard AI experience".

Placing a biq quantity of enemies in certain room is easier than creating a good AI, but DooM 3 will be a complete 3D engine. While you can optimize the code of VIS for the level, there is nothing you can do about the amount of triangles in a model.
Knowing iD, they will not make low-poly enemies, and probably don´t include any LOD in the engine (Level Of Detail).

I would asume that DooM 3 will have 2/3 enemies at once than DooM 2, but they will posess an "adapted for their design" version of the Bot AI, making them REALLY hard because they will respond as a team (no more days of circular strafing to use them as a shield).

About the load times, well, if Carmacks makes DooM 3 engine capable of real-time world lightning, the BSP will be much more simplier to load (and to compile), but a lot more processor-consuming for rendering.

A difficult final monster, that would be great. I remember that "The Great Cyberdemon" in DooM 1 was very easy, just press all four switches in E2M8, fire a shot to alert him, wait until he appears in one of the rooms, go to the opposite one (but don´t enter, just stay in the entrance), and start shooting at him with the pistol, his rockets will impact in the switches column.

[Guest Sabreclaw]

There's a difference between the high action of Doom, and the total frag-fest of Doom2. I would love to see the high action and total frag-fest in the game....but at the second half of the game. It would be nicer to build it up to the high action, and keep the beginning difficult with lighting effects and well placed enemies. Something that could end AI problems is omitting skill level. I know that there will be unskilled people getting the game. Which is why having a less action-packed beginning will help.

And as for a decent boss... Make that a bit more realistic. Why have the lone boss. It's more outdated than being the lone soldier. There should still be enemies lurking out there to make the boss more difficult.

But those are just my opinions