Doomed: How id Lost Its Crown

bonch writes "Steve Bowler, lead animator for Midway Games, has written an article for Next Generation called Doomed: How id Lost Its Crown. He talks about id no longer being the king of the hill in the FPS genre, losing the multiplayer gaming wars to Counter-strike and the engine licensing wars to competitors like Unreal 3.0, and focusing too much on rendering realistic environments at the expense of modern gameplay features. From the article: 'It's hard to stomach having to shoot a zombie in the head the same number of times as in the body (six rounds from a pistol, thanks for asking) to dispatch it, when you can shoot a light fixture and watch how realistically light dances around the room.'"

Dupes: How Slashdot Lost Its Crown

[TripMaster Monkey]

Dupe...original article can be found here. [slashdot.org]

Almost the same title, too.

Of course you have to keep shooting

[Approaching.sanity]

Zombies can remain animated independant of if their head is intact or not.

Who writes these things anyway? Honestly folks.

Light?

[DeathFlame]

Light dancing around the room?

We're talking about doom 3 right?

Light?

Umm.. maybe how nice it looks when you shine your flashlight around the room... unless you have your gun out...

really?

[intmainvoid]

It's hard to stomach having to shoot a zombie in the head the same number of times as in the body (six rounds from a pistol, thanks for asking) to dispatch it

And this is based on your real world experience with Zombie's I presume?

Re:Dupes: How Slashdot Lost Its Crown

[HTH NE1]

Just goes to demonstrate that the Taco hand doesn't know what the Zonk hand is doing.

Headshot!

[October_30th]

'It's hard to stomach having to shoot a zombie in the head the same number of times as in the body (six rounds from a pistol, thanks for asking) to dispatch it

Now that's something I've never understood in the movies or in the games. I mean, if you're a zombie, you don't have a brain. Period. It's all mush and all you want to do is to eat the brain of someone else for some obscure reason (protein content, perhaps?). So, why would a headshot be more effective against a zombie than a bodyshot? It just doesn't make any sense. If I were facing a zombie and I had a shotgun, I'd just shoot his bloody legs off and run away bravely.

Silly

[RickPartin]

It's hard to stomach having to shoot a zombie in the head the same number of times as in the body (six rounds from a pistol, thanks for asking) to dispatch it, when you can shoot a light fixture and watch how realistically light dances around the room.

You are forgetting about the BLOOD SUCKING LIGHTBULB MONSTERS!

Re:Dupes: How Slashdot Lost Its Crown

[Evro]

You'd think this would be so difficult:

http://www.google.com/search?q=id+Lost+Its+Crown+s ite%3Aslashdot.org [google.com]

How Slashdot Lost Its Crown

[TopShelf]

In a startling development, /. has run today's story just last week [slashdot.org].

Almost the same title, too.

Am I qualified to be a /. editor now?

Re:Dupes: How Slashdot Lost Its Crown

[ArsonSmith]

I don't consider it a dupe. More like a rerun. Slashdot news at noon, 5pm and 10pm. Maybe again tomorrow and next week too.

Re:Of course you have to keep shooting

[CDLewis]

> Zombies can remain animated independant of if their head is intact or not.

Indeed, they'll keep coming back almost as often as this story.

Re:Seriously-

[TripMaster Monkey]

Even minors in the days pre-electricity could do this.

Yeah...amazing what they let children do back in the pre-electricity days, isn't it?

Spellcheck will not save you. At some point you need to know what the hell you're talking about.

Re:Headshot!

[zenneth]

If I were facing a zombie and I had a shotgun, I'd just shoot his bloody legs off and run away bravely.

Sir Robin?

Re:Dupes: How Slashdot Lost Its Crown

[sgant]

Haven't you also noticed that it's mainly Taco that does the dupes? Sure, there are others but Taco makes most of them.

It's like he wanders into the computer room in his bathrobe and slippers...shuffling in. Then when no one is looking he'll sit down and look at the story submissions...post the ones he likes...then shuffles out. Not knowing that the ones he's posting are all dupes.

Then Zonk or whoever walks in and slaps his hand and leads him back to his room and ups his medications.

Re:Of course you have to keep shooting

[killtherat]

Obviously somebody needs to bone up on their
Zombie Survival Strategy [amazon.com].

Top 10 Lessons for Surviving a Zombie Attack

1. Organize before they rise!
2. They feel no fear, why should you?
3. Use your head: cut off theirs.
4. Blades don't need reloading.
5. Ideal protection = tight clothes, short hair.
6. Get up the staircase, then destroy it.
7. Get out of the car, get onto the bike.
8. Keep moving, keep low, keep quiet, keep alert!
9. No place is safe, only safer.
10. The zombie may be gone, but the threat lives on.

How they lost their crown

[AtariAmarok]

"And while id was looking down.
Unreal stole its gaming crown..."

As if the first slashdotting wasn't bad enough...

[artemis67]

now they get slashdotted on the dupe, too.

Holy cow, that's gotta suck.

Saying that Carmack doesn't...

[Foolomon]

Saying that Carmack doesn't know how to build a truly engaging game is like saying that Lucas doesn't know how to write a truly engaging script. [Rolls eyes]

Re:Headshot!

[servognome]

Great. A debate on zombies, with logical explainations and references to source material.

I can't imagine why more women don't participate in these kinds of discussions. :)

Re:Dupes: How Slashdot Lost Its Crown

[diggem]

... and this is why I don't read Slashdot every day anymore. Don't worry, if you miss one, it'll show up again in a week or two.

Re:doop

[Anonymous Coward]

One of these days, someone's going to discover the secret area in Doom 3... and there, they will find a roll of duct tape, which our young hero will use to duct tape his flashlight to his gun. Or better yet ... his forehead ... would suck to pull out your shotgun and be in the dark again because the flashlight was duct taped to the pistol.

I disagree with that...

[Demon-Xanth]

#7 says get out of the car and onto a bike. Bikes can be tipped over easily and offer no offensive value. Now a truck with a suitably large bumper offers both offensive and defensive value. What better way to take out a dozen zombies in the road way than just making sure you got both hands on the wheel and preparing for a slight, momentary, loss of traction as you travel over crushed re-dead bodies?

As Interstate '76 said:
"Don't get out of the car, never get out of the car."
(tactic worked well in many places of GTA3)

Re:Of course you have to keep shooting

[Anonymous Coward]

From Return of the Living Dead [imdb.com]:

Burt Wilson: I thought you said that if we destroyed the brain, it would die.

Frank: It worked in the movie!

Burt Wilson: Well it ain't working now Frank.

Freddy: You mean the movie lied?

Re:The problem I have with Doom 3

[snorklewacker]

Quake 2 had radiosity. People pissed and moaned about "fuzzy shadows", so it was taken out for Quake 3. Then they got rid of that pesky "ambient light" stuff for Doom 3.

I look forward to their next game, which can be enjoyed by the blind equally as well as the sighted. Talk about an untapped market, and Id is really cracking into it.

Re:Of course you have to keep shooting

[Thud457]

Just cut off their thumbs with bolt cutters. They can't do much to you after that! Stuipd zombies.

Don't hate the playa, hate the game!

[Anonymous Coward]

In terms of gameplay Serious Sam was a better sequel to DooM than Doom 3.

I didn't want it to be like that but I didn't want it to be a supremely boring "Flashlight, open door, get damage in the back, deal damage, flashlight" game either.
The atmosphere was ok for about 1 hour but it got terribly boring for the remaining 7 hours (and that was on 'advanced' difficulty or whatever it was called).

And without any mod projects taking off I couldn't justify buying the expansion at all.

Sorry ID, you lost one of your most loyal fans with this horrible f'ing trainwreck of a game (which was fun to play for an hour mind you).
A game THAT shallow just isn't acceptable anymore.
One guy at work thought it was awesome. Incidentally, he's the least intelligent person I have met in my life.

There are either the FPSs that are heavily scripted (HL2 is the gloriously shining grail of those right now) or the unrestrictive ones like Boiling Point.
Doom 3 tried to go the former path but didn't manage to make the environment alive at all. Playing a couple of scary sounds now and then and having some scripted scenes of monsters tearing doors or people apart is laughable at best.

I don't even want to imagine what they were doing during the "design" stage... brainstorming: "OH MAN! And then...! And then there are those 50 rooms and they are so dark that you have to use the FLASHLIGHT, and when you get to a certain spot... BOOM a horrible screeching MONSTER comes out and jumps you from behind! Oh yeah... you have to find red keycards for some of the rooms too! That's my game idea! AWESOME, INNIT?"

WTF!

Oh, believe you me...

[James A. D. Joyce]

...both Taco's hand and Zonk's hand are doing the same things.

Re:Headshot!

[Anonymous Coward]

When danger reared it's ugly head
he bravely shot it's legs and fled
brave brave brave brave Sir Robin...

Re:Light?

[tgibbs]

What annoyed me most was the "No Duct Tape on Mars?" concept.

Actually, it would be amusing if there was a roll of duct tape hidden somewhere in the game. "Forget the BFG, where do I find the tape??!!"

Re:Dupes: How Slashdot Lost Its Crown

[Sfing_ter]

We shall dub him, Taco Taco!

Re:I disagree with that...

[cgenman]

If you read the book, the author's primary point is that a bike is fast enough to outrun zombies while still being quiet so as not to attract attention. A truck or other motor vehicle will attract the zombie hordes from miles around, which can swarm over the vehicle in sufficient numbers to stop it.

If you've ever attempted to drive through an Arbor day parade, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Slashdot Singalong...

[Bad to the Ben]

with apologies to Mr Don McLean;

A long, long time ago...
I can still remember
How those zombies used to make me smile.
And I knew if they had a chance
That they would make me crap my pants,
And, maybe, I'd be happy for a while.

But february made me shiver
With every copy Id delivered.
Bad news on the Usenets;
What happened to my killfests?

I can't remember if I cried
When a zombie took me from behind,
I checked that fucking room ten times,
The day that Id died.

So bye-bye, Mr Developer guy,
My new system isn't ready,
So the frame rates are dry.
Those good old boys were enjoying Far Cry,
Singing "in this game, give a headshot, they die",
In this game give a headshot, they die.

Did you get the flashlight mod,
Cause your character's a dumbass sod,
Has to always let one go?
Do you believe these zombies spawn,
Repetition, boy it makes you yawn,
And can you teach me how to save and load?

Well, I know I put a bullet in him,
It went in right above his chin,
But you need five more to use,
And that means that you lose,

I was a lonely teenage fraggin' fuck
With a with a pr0n collection of Kirsten Kreuk,
But I knew I was out of luck
The day that Id died.

I started singin',
"bye-bye, Mr Developer guy."
My new system isn't ready,
So the frame rates are dry.
Those good old boys were enjoying Far Cry,
Singing "in this game, give a headshot, they die",
In this game give a headshot, they die.