No Doom 3 This Year? 434
Ant writes "According to an article at Blue's News: 'Though id Software basically invented the idea of using "when it's done" as a release date, and thus did not specify a release date when DOOM 3 was announced, many have been assuming that the game would be available for this year's holiday season. Now a report on HomeLAN Fed cites Activision's 2003 release calendar and quarterly financial conference call... [saying that] Activision admits that this matter is entirely in id's hands, but that they are not expecting the game this year, and have it "penciled" on their calendars for fiscal Q4 (Jan-March) 2004.' Additionally, Quake IV is now due in Fiscal 2005 (which begins April 2004)."
Michelangelo (Score:4, Interesting)
Pretty eye-candy, but not much else... (Score:2, Interesting)
It seems that everything imitates one of a few different styles. I'm saddened to see that an intelligent and creative man like John Carmack is just repeating himself.
Who this REALLY hurts (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd also bet that AMD and Intel see a nice little spike when a new generation hallmark game comes out. Thats the kind of thing that everyone is waiting for to upgrade...
Re:Pretty eye-candy, but not much else... (Score:5, Interesting)
Consider that he's mostly "only" doing the 3D graphics engine, and that a couple mod groups have started to modify Quake into something quite different from a FPS (I remember a racing game). Once the engine is up and running, you can code the actual "game implementation" anyway you like, ie any game style. I'm pretty sure somebody could evolve Doom3 into a RTS, given enough time and incentive.
Its going to get very interesting... (Score:2, Interesting)
We have Half Life 2 coming out, its engine alone will be used in numerous games and for numerous mods, then Doom 3 and its engine will produce yet more games and all before Quake 4, whose engine is likely to be used in as many games as Half life 2s engine. Thats not even inculding those three games themselves which will all be first rate.
And of course following the release of HL2, the DNF team will switch to the HL2 engine and start again... then to the Doom engine etc etc you know the drill by now
Re:This is a good thing (Score:1, Interesting)
As expected... I hope. (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe this is a sign that there are good things to come. I just hope that there is some true innovation involved.
It's not surpsing Carmack wants to get it right. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:HL 2 Mighted have changed things (Score:5, Interesting)
I feel the same way- and I'm usually patient/apathetic enough to wait for the bargain bin for pretty much everything. It's been a long time since I've ever felt really inspired by a game, but the movies of HL2 are incredible (also, despite the wierd proprietary bink video format, I really liked not having some murky mpeg and actually seeing the game like it will be in play).
There's also DX2 down the road, though I haven't seen more than a few screenshots. And hell, when Halo 2 comes out there will be two reasons to buy an Xbox and the price will have come down more by then.
Of course, what I really want is the facial animation of HL2 with the shadows and detail of Doom 3 with Halo's battle sequences but put in the setting of Deus Ex...
Quality over Quantity (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm glad id is waiting to release Doom III when it's done instead of releasing it on a schedule for holiday sales. The sound engine they've described, the lighting and camera abilities they've described, and just the basic plot make me really want this game, and I'd rather have it finished than nearly-there first.
March 2004 (Score:5, Interesting)
It wouldn't surprise me if HL2 has been a factor here. Everyone was shocked at the E3 debut of Half Life 2, and full, full credit to Valve. Over the past 2 years especially, Valve have taken all the criticism of "you're just happy to sit on the laurels of Half Life you lazy b's", and sat back and blown everyone away when it mattered.
Certainly some aspects of the Doom 3 engine seem from reports awful in comparison to HL2's engine - poorer scaling in terms of system spec, Environment manipulation (which HL2 blew everyone away with at E3 but is apparently very poor in the current Doom 3 engine) and a plethora more effect/shader programs than Doom 3.
The competition is good, because its a chance to force id's hand to play catch up. For too long, id and Carmack have sat in almost demi-God mode over the PC games market with the Doom 3 hype and you have to wonder if maybe they have got a little complacent.
Oh, and a final issue, purely to play Devil's Advocate, I understand Half Life 2 uses DirectX and some might suggest that it is the reason why HL2 apparently is more scalable and achieves more effects more easily across many performance levels. Could HL2's apparent conquering of Doom 3 at the moment be the defining moment of DirectX's conquering of OpenGL?
More of a temporary thing (Score:5, Interesting)
I believe OpenGL can do those things to an extent but at least until OpenGL 2.0 comes out, DirectX will be the top graphics API.
What really blew me away though about HL2 was the physics and wickedly creative game play like shoot the rope and the huge thingie swings down and kills everything in it's path. And those rediculously tall creatures. Things which really have nothing to do with the graphics themselves. It's phsyics and creative character design.
DooM3 relied on more corridors and darkness. HL2 brought the monsters out into the light which is so much less cliche it's actually "scarier." Plus you actually get to see the full magnitude of what it is you're shooting at.
Walking down a brightly lit street and a huge monster jumping out at you will make me jump higher than one jumping out of the shadows where they have been hiding for years.
HL2 is definitly getting my money as will ATI or nVIDIA. DooM3 I'm skeptical about.
Ben
Re:HL 2 Mighted have changed things (Score:2, Interesting)
automatic physical interactions/collisions between hard surfaced objects
more deformable surfaces
more idle objects being first class entities
deformable entities
facial animations
The D3 clip had better rendering (pixel shading if you will) and better detailed animation, but that may simply not be enough.
All these features seem come from the Havok [havok.com] engine, which I've seen in a number of preview clips now, and its awesome. I would not be surprised if the Doom3 publishers saw it and its mid-sept release date and started passing large building blocks.
I also wonder about the xbox-delayed release. Its known Microsoft has offered big money to have an xbox version ready at release, which entails more waiting. John C said they did not want to show the same game at multiple E3's - and they have and then some. Could D3 have been an xmas 2002 game? is it stagnating in the can like Halo in 99, now being tarted up?
Re:"Done when it's finished" (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:It's not surpsing Carmack wants to get it right (Score:5, Interesting)
Quake3 lacks scalability to large numbers of people. The main problem is that the server sends the same info about each client to every other client. So if 64 people join a server, there are 64 different clients that you have to know about, even if you shouldn't (like, they aren't close to being on your screen). This effectively limits Quake3 based games to a MAX of 32 players per server (due to outgoing bandwidth limitations of the server, CPU time is also a concern, but not as great).
I do not know what DOOM III is going to do to solve these types of problem, but I have heard rumors that it will support the ability to tell clients about only the relevant players on his screen. This would increase security (prevent cheaters from using "radar" cheats via packetsniffing) and dramatically increase the number of players capable of being on a single server.
Also, larger terrains will be supported. In quake3, you make terrains with a 3D mesh, and the computer must render every polygon in the terrain no matter your distance from it. In many newer games, the level of detail of the polygons are reduced when viewing terrains from large distances, thus improving performance dramatically without costing any visual degredation. DOOMIII will likely support these enhancements.
Vehicle support is another big thing for DOOMIII. One of Quake3's biggest drawbacks is that it does not have cars or planes to drive. Battle Field 1942's popularity has proven this fact online, where the Q3 equivilent game (wolfenstein, and wolf ET) are in competition, but most everyone who plays BF1942 stick with its engine dispite it being buggy,slow, and crappy physics simply because of its vehicle support.
The list can go on and on, but those are the 3 biggest points that are preventing Quake3 from selling to developers. With DOOMIII's upgrades, id will have the upper hand on the game engine market and many game developers are itching for it is release.
Doom 3 verus Half Life 2 (Score:5, Interesting)
Looking at the HL2 and D3 trailers, it is pretty clear that the lighting effects in Doom are far superior. Watch the HL2 guys pass through a shadow and their entire body changes shade all at once (kinda like in the original Doom :P). In D3 the shadows pass over the creatures in a far more realistic fasion, including shadows cast by dynamic lights (remember the bathroom scene?).
The HL2 physics appear to be a lot better though. Not a big suprise there, Id has never really shown much interest in good physics (strafejumping anyone?). I'd also bet HL2 will have the better AI. And the HL2 engine will probably be more versatile: larger areas, more enemies on the screen, stuff like that.
I expect HL2 will be the choice for "kill your friends online", and D3 for "at home with the lights off getting the shit scared out of you". Personally I'm getting kinda tired of the former, so I'm really looking forward to D3.
Re:Doom 3 verus Half Life 2 (Score:4, Interesting)
id hasn't made a decent single-player game since Doom II. They make game engines, and deathmatch games. That bores me. Just my opinion, of course, but I thought Half Life was the game the Quake engine was born for.
And HL2 is going to be even better. Can't wait!
Re:I can wait for a decent game (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Doom 3 verus Half Life 2 (Score:3, Interesting)
Does anybody else remember... (Score:3, Interesting)
Daikatana? How everyone who was granted a preview said it looked to be amazing (gee whizz, I wonder if there's a connection) and it was only when it was released and the advertising money was already in the magazine's pockets that they declared that it sucked more than anything had ever sucked before?
I'm not saying that Doom 3 sucks. I'm just asking if you remember how much you believed that Daikatana didn't suck either.
In brief: let's wait for the reviews, rather than wetting our pants every time we get a sneak peek preview.