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E3 Doom III Preview 415

Warped-Reality writes "GameSpy has a new Doom III Preview covering aspects of the storyline and how Doom III will be different from the rest of the FPS genre. It includes some pictures of the E3 Doom III demo booth. As the article says, "This is DOOM III, and it's going to scare you to hell."" Looking at these images, I can only say two things: Wow and Cool Toilets. Update: 05/22 19:55 GMT by M : There's also an interview with Carmack giving a few more details about the game.
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E3 Doom III Preview

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  • by popoutman ( 189497 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @09:24PM (#3569814) Journal
    All those that spend lots of $$ on the latest/greatest vid cards are now allowed to salivate at the prospect of getting visuals like these, that move as well..
  • Co-Op (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ecliptik ( 160746 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @09:25PM (#3569818) Homepage
    I know it's geared towards single player, but is there going to be any co-oping ability to go through the game?

    This is one feature I really liked about the Doom and Doom II and I've been missing in current FPS titles.
    • Re:Co-Op (Score:5, Funny)

      by ObviousGuy ( 578567 ) <ObviousGuy@hotmail.com> on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @09:29PM (#3569846) Homepage Journal
      Yep. I heard that you'll be able to sell your own organic fruits and vegetables to unsuspecting yuppie zombies on level 6.

      Co-ops are great for fresh food, but are you going to be able to keep up with the demand for fresh brains?
    • Co-Op vs Scripts (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Co-op and the kind of heavy scripting you see in single-player games these days don't really coexist well most of the time. If you have some complicated scripted event that's supposed to trigger under certain circumstances and that impacts gameplay way down the line, you can't very well have two or three or four independant players running around in different parts of a map.

      When the game consists of "get key, push button, open door" style of primitive entity interaction, co-op is a no-brainer, but for anything more complex you run into some serious logistical problems.

      Doom is confirmed to have some kind of scripting engine; id also has Jim Dosé, Ritual's Script-Fu King, on the payroll. So I think we can assume that co-op isn't likely, though I'd really like to be wrong.



    • Re:Co-Op (Score:2, Informative)

      by Trracer ( 210292 )
      You should look into the two "Serious Sam" titles.
      Those are as intense as Doom/2, complete with multiplayer co-op.
  • by donnacha ( 161610 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @09:26PM (#3569826) Homepage


    Wow and Cool toilets [gamespy.com]

    Now, this is why I always wipe the seat before sitting down.

    • by Macrobat ( 318224 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @09:40PM (#3569882)
      Now, this is why I always wipe the seat before sitting down.
      Ummm....those toilets aren't the kind you're ever supposed to sit down on. And if you do, I don't want to know about it.
      • by donnacha ( 161610 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @09:57PM (#3569966) Homepage


        Ummm....those toilets aren't the kind you're ever supposed to sit down on.

        Ah, but pay attention, grasshopper:

        Back there in the murk and gloom, you'll notice a cubicle, a cubicle whose porcelian throne lies prone and unconscious upon it's side, obviously the innocent viction of the HEMORRHOID BEAST'S explosive emergence from the lower depths of HELL!!!

        Now, I'm no expert but it seems to me that taking the simple precaution of wiping the seat, while possibly not preventing the H.B.'s emergence into our dimension, certainly wouldn't have hurt.

        So, now you know the difference between a urinal and your standard, seated john.

        Just don't piss in the sinks, OK?

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • New Doom III Movie (Score:3, Informative)

    by Bytenik ( 313942 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @09:31PM (#3569853)

    It's not the 11 minute E3 movie, but it's not the one from a couple of months ago either.

    Doom III Movie [3dgamers.com]

  • But it's in some open source unfriendly format. Does anyone have it in mpeg?

    • I find it hilarious that the movie runs at 5 fps even though it's 100MB. If they had used mpeg or something similar, I bet they could've had it at 20 fps for the sams size. I call that movie a slideshow, not a movie.

  • More Doom 3... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Drakker ( 89038 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @09:31PM (#3569855) Homepage Journal
    You can also check:

    gamespot [gamespot.com]
    more from gamespot [gamespot.com]

    And get the Doom 3 legacy movie from here:

    3d gamers [3dgamers.com]

    It doesnt have much footage from Doom 3, but it got interviews with some people from Id Software.

    All links graciously ripped off: Voodoo Extreme [voodooextreme.com].

    • Avoid the wait... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Nailer ( 69468 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @10:02PM (#3569987)
      Fetch the screenshots then view them when you're done...

      for i in $(seq 1 20); do wget http://www.gamespy.com/e32002/pc/doom3b/"$i".jpg; done
      • Well, I'll be damned! I never new about seq. A long time ago I wrote a perl script to do what seq does. :P

        • Same here... mine is called "countup". I wonder if "seq" supports adding a '0' in front of numbers that are less than 10, though... This is useful when dealing with CDDA tracks (track01.cdda.wav, etc.). Just in case anybody wants/needs this functionality, here it is:

          #!/usr/bin/perl
          #
          # countup.pl - syntax: ./countup.pl start end [-cd]
          #

          $start = $ARGV[0];
          $end = $ARGV[1];

          until ($start == $end+1)
          {
          print ("0") if ((join(',',@ARGV) =~ m|cd|) && ($start < 10));
          print ("$start ");
          $start++;
          }
        • I seem to have the RTFM disease this morning... "seq" does indeed support equal width formatting with the '-w' switch. So, to get a count like 01, 02, ..., 20, do the following:

          seq -w 1 20

          Many more "seq" variations are possible... One consultation of "seq --help" reveals all.
  • the fact there is some creature that can injure these zombies in EXACTLY the same way every time! I don't know about you, but I have a really hard time killing my zombies the same way every time.
  • originality (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Spy Hunter ( 317220 )
    Man, couldn't they have thought up something a little more original? I mean, mysterious otherworldly monsters coming through portals into a large installation is pure Half-Life! The whole "aliens take over people's bodies and mutate them into gruesome monsters" thing is totally unoriginal as well. No shock value at all left in that anymore. Are there going to be cowering white-lab-coated scientists too? How about small crawling creatures that jump up and try to eat you when you get close?
    • by Drakker ( 89038 )
      The game is more of a remake of the original doom, and guess what? Thats the exact Doom story. Doom is the classic, and over time, people begin to think that the classics are unoriginal... Half-life was the one that ripped the doom and quake background story and tried to make a game with an actual story out of this... while in doom and quake, you had to read the readme.txt file to know the story. =)
    • Re:originality (Score:3, Insightful)

      by teamhasnoi ( 554944 )
      Hey, those head crabs in Half-Life gave me a freakin' heart attack.

      Seriously, Evil needs to hire some creative consultants. I think I've witnessed every gruesome death, and most every toothy monster. Movies and TV too often blow their wad right off. Time to watch Aliens, or some choice X-Files (Home). Suspense and keeping it going...some movie (called/about a) Blackout did a great job with this. Kept you going, piling stuff on till you're going crazy trying to figure out what the hell is going on. I don't think anyone died in it, IIRC.

      You know what was scary? The part in Monsters, Inc. where the closet in the kid's bedroom is just a little open. That was just fucked up unsettling.

    • by bafu ( 580052 )

      Man, couldn't they have thought up something a little more original? I mean, mysterious otherworldly monsters coming through portals into a large installation is pure Half-Life!

      Tell it to Valve. They've been rereleasing that over and over again for years now. What's left?

      What we're really wating for here at the Gamerz Dung3on is the release of
      Half-Life: Yellow and Black Stripes where you get to play a janitor who was trapped in the Black Mesa facility when an experiment goes terribly awry! Not only do you have to contend with messy extradimensional creatures that bring a whole new meaning to the term "Slippery when Wet", you're going to have to do some house-cleaning in their own slimy world... Black Mesa style!

      I'm impressed with how long they've been able to squeeze some life out of that tired engine... much in the same way that I am impressed with how time Dragon Ball Z episodes can be much longer than real time (just how many episodes did it take for the last four minutes of Nemec's existence to pass ;-) )

    • Actually, the emphasis on story and scariness made me instantly think of *Clive Barker's Undying*. It was far from a perfect game, but it did put an emphasis on story and visuals and fright that wasn't typically seen in FPS games.

      So when I hear that *Doom III* will have a focus on scaring the Hell out of people, I can't say it's a new idea in the FPS world. But I'm sure id Software is going to take it to a new level...
  • video clips (Score:2, Informative)

    by mwhahaha ( 172475 )
    here's the movie on a .ch server which actually is very fast (i got ~260k/s) click here [bluewin.ch]
    • Thanks for the link, but ugh...the Quicktime video is 5fps, which is horrible. I'm downloading the AVI version now. I hope it's better.
  • Not Popular (Score:4, Insightful)

    by pyrrho ( 167252 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @09:37PM (#3569872) Journal
    Ok, I hate this! I'm sick of blood fantasy. Who cares if it causes real tragedies or not... I'm just bored of it and see photo-realistic blood smears as, well, not that great a use of my fantasy time. Yeah, you can do whatever you want, yada yada yada, I'm not telling you not to play this game, I don't care. It's an opinion, mine, about it's pointlessness.

    That people see that stuff and can only think how "nice" it looks... um, something way pent up in there boys! But you should Really Enjoy the war they are about to send you to! "Wow, look how realistic my dead buddy looks! It almost looks real... what? it is real?!"
    • Re:Not Popular (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ryepup ( 522994 )
      I guess for a lot of us, the blood and gore provides release from a ever more politically correct society. It is a harmless way of rebelling against meaningless politeness and conservative extremists. Also, half of life is the dark, the unhappy, the evil. By making music or a game out of some of those, it gives us some release. People listen to Smashing Pumpkins romantic ballads about sadness and misery because they make it sound so beautiful, and that somehow lessens the listener's pain. Granted there's a big difference between music and shooting zombies, but I think the concept is the same.

      On second thought, its more like a haunted house. There's blood and gore everywhere in those things, yet people keep going in again and again. We do that for the adrenalin (sp?), for the thrill. Same with roller coasters. They are all means of evoking rarely felt emotions.

      I don't know if that made any sense, so I'm going to bed.
    • Warning: The following IS contentious, unlike the original poster who got slammed for sharing his thoughts anyway. . .

      --If you'll notice, a couple of the posters replying to your comment were very brief & very rude. I don't think this is coincidence. I believe that one can equate point and shoot, 'blood fantasy,' as you aptly describe it, with a self-willed decline in brain power, awareness and life energy in general.

      Obsessing over death, fear and sadness in games, music, literature and film lowers people and makes them less. It sucks away something vital. Watch for it. It's there to be seen by those who are not scared to notice the patterns.

      I don't advocate censorship of any kind. Everybody must be free to explore art and life to the fullest extent. Only in this way do people learn.

      I will, however, offer the following. . .

      My advice to people who seek symapthy in dark arts is to, rather than seeking temporary solice from angry music and simulated blood sport, endeavor instead to change yourself, your life, your job, etc., so that you are no longer trapped in systems designed to keep you in misery and frustration. All one needs to achieve this is to learn. Achieve a calm state of being, and you will find that sympathetic vibration, (for lack of a better term), will no longer be found in loathsome art, but instead in lighter thoughts. Life power, awareness and happiness will similarly increase as you focus away from sad things.


      -Fantastic Lad

      • [...] endeavor instead to change yourself, your life, your job, etc., so that you are no longer trapped in systems designed to keep you in misery and frustration. All one needs to achieve this is to learn. Achieve a calm state of being, and you will find that sympathetic vibration, (for lack of a better term), will no longer be found in loathsome art, but instead in lighter thoughts. Life power, awareness and happiness will similarly increase as you focus away from sad things.

        I cannot find one of my chakras. Do you think you could help?
      • Oh please. What is this, Hallmark?

        First of all, I can appreciate the realism in a game without being "obsessed" by anything. I can also enjoy the heck out of blowing up fake people while still being in real life a totally peaceful person (not a pacifist, but it would take a lot to make me use violence).

        Also, "focusing on sad things" is actually a very good thing sometimes. In "The Art of Happiness", the Dalai Lama actually advocates several meditations on suffering as a mechanism for achieving greater compassion and happiness! Denying what is *bad* in life is silly, and doesn't achieve anything but fostering an attitude of denial. Engaging the "dark side" occasionally can be very helpful for encouraging the good things in life.
  • But... but... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by bafu ( 580052 )
    id Software's games have always been known for great multiplayer action, but for now, DOOM III is all about the single-player experience. One thing we were able to confirm, however, is that a deathmatch mode is expected at the very least, and that other decisions will be made as development t continues.

    This makes me sad. I was kind of looking forward to this one since I kept hearing about the multiplayer cooperative aspects of the older Dooms. Visions of scary multiplayer co-op firefights (punctuated, perhaps, with moments of one or more teammates running away from something particularly surprising, screaming like little girls) danced in my head. Now I find out that maybe, if I'm a vewy, vewy good boy, there might just be a little deathmatch slapped on the side for me. Ya-a-aa-wn

    It's pretty, I'll give it that. It just may not be my type, though. We'll see.

    • Re:But... but... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Glytch ( 4881 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @10:16PM (#3570034)
      Oh, cry me a fucking river. There's a lot of us who want an enjoyable single-player game for once, and not have to have our skill determined by our ISP's ping time. You've got Counterstrike, Q3, UT, ad nauseum. Let the rest of us enjoy a new game, and not a rehashing of the Q2 engine, for once.
  • Nice, but... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JavaJones ( 512344 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @09:44PM (#3569903)
    While there's no denying this looks stunning, particularly the environments, I can't help but notice the characters are all pretty low poly. They're hardly better than Quake 3 level it seems. At first, sure, they look pre-rendered almost, but you can see poly edges around the sihlouettes first, and then on closer inspection you can start to see sharp angles elsewhere within the models.

    Carmack's trick of using high poly models for lighting and shading calculations and then projecting that onto lower poly models may make for some amazing visuals, great damage effects, and much better facial animation, but IMO the low poly in game models need to have maybe 2x the detail just to make a good base for the higher poly lighting/shading calculations. That or hope that all the next gen cards have N-patch support or some other form of HOS support *and* that it can be used with Doom 3. Otherwise it looks like it's going to be an incredible engine that will be let down a bit by low poly characters. No doubt the in game assets and performance are still being tweaked of course.

    - JavaJones
    • Re:Nice, but... (Score:4, Informative)

      Dude, I think you need to look a little closer [gamespy.com]. Those facial features aren't textures, they are polygons. Note the shadows from the facial features on the face itself. Look at the detail of the hands. In the words of Carmack at his Japan presentation, "in previous engines, we were lucky to have 3 polygons for a nose". :)

      • Re:Nice, but... (Score:5, Informative)

        by JavaJones ( 512344 ) on Thursday May 23, 2002 @12:27AM (#3570506)
        Sounds like Carmack's approach paid off for you. I suggest it is you that needs to look closer however and find out a bit more about what you're talking about in regards to Doom 3 and its approach to character rendering. Section 4.7 (subsection 7 of section 4) of the unnofical Doom 3 FAQ has some speculation and third hand info on the subject that might be of interest to you. Doom 3 FAQ: What sort of engine will Doom 3 use? [doomworld.com] I'll try to dig up Carmack's quotes on the subject as well. Suffice to say he has been careful to point out that Doom 3 makes heavy use of bump maps.

        Take a look at the areas of the high rez screens I've conveniently circled for you here [earthlink.net]. Note the rather obvious poly edges. Note that the apparent frontal detail of characters does not generally show up on edges, indicating the geometry is not actually present on the in game model. You see what appears to be unbelievable detail on any camera facing surface, but on the edges of the model it is quite obvious it does not have that level of detail. If you don't see it now, you're beyond help.

        Granted, much of the detail is actual in game geometry, but what's really selling the effect is the texture maps, bump maps, and lighting. I'd be willing to bet the models aren't any more high poly than Soldier of Fortune II, but they sure look better, eh? There's no denying there's a poly increase from previous iD games, but it takes a back seat to the lighting and shading technology. And while i don't expect a 10x increase in poly count, 2x would be nice given how good the rest of everything looks.

        - JavaJones
        • Re:Nice, but... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by stevarooski ( 121971 ) on Thursday May 23, 2002 @01:41AM (#3570712) Homepage
          Mod the parent up! He's right--just adding more polygons is really a no-brainer brute force solution. Its the increasing number of effects supported in hardware that is REALLY coming into play with new games coming out today.

          There are lots of neat things one can do that look great and cost less to render than extra geometry. I obviously don't know the details of the engine, but as a lowly undergrad interested in graphics I know that just adding bump mapping alone can make tremendous difference in how 'real' a scene looks--and all it does is mess with how surface normals are used in shading. Very low cost! And thats just one effect alone--add surface geometry manipulations based on height maps and you get low-cost facial features. Gauraud (and hopefully soon, Phong) interpretation gets rid of polygon edges in hardware quickly. Finally, add lightmaps and (limited) dynamic shadows and all of a sudden you have an engine that can really express atmosphere.

          Yeah, being able to render more polys is great, but when you finally get to boot up Doom 3 you'll really get to see some of the payoff you were promised when you bought that geForce 3. :o)
  • by donnacha ( 161610 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @09:46PM (#3569910) Homepage


    From the Carmack interview [gamers.com]:

    Doom III is pushing the fear factor over the raw action.

    My main fear is how raw my wallet will feel after I pay for a graphics card that can handle this "complete unification of lighting, shadowing, and bump mapping across all visual elements".

  • by galaga79 ( 307346 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @09:46PM (#3569912) Homepage
    According to this quote from John Carmack it looks like we are going to be getting a Doom game quite different its successors. Hell it looks more like Resident Evil or Half Life than the original Doom games.

    John Carmack: Doom III is pushing the fear factor over the raw action. As you make the worlds more and more believable, you are forced to tone down the "superhero" aspects of the game. I still think that a good game can be built around "toon time" action, but that isn't what Doom III is going to be about. The monsters are going to be much more independently fearsome, rather than just acting as moving gun turrets.

    I don't know about the rest of you but for me Doom was the action orientated gameplay, where for example often you had to take on over a dozen imps with a mere shotgun. It would be great to relive that experience all over again in a 3D fully environment powered by a cutting engine.

    However perhaps this shift isn't all bad because part of the reason Doom was all action orientated in that it lacked a substantial story. Yet for the first time it looks Doom will have a proper story with science fiction writer Matthew Costello doing the story and dialog. Also the shift way from action can be attributed to the fact that 3D models aren't as efficent as Doom's 2D sprites when you want to put lots of enemies on screen.

    Despite the gameplay differences hopefully there will be some camoes of the original Doom enemies or weapons in the game.
    • I don't know about the rest of you but for me Doom was the action orientated gameplay, where for example often you had to take on over a dozen imps with a mere shotgun. It would be great to relive that experience all over again in a 3D fully environment powered by a cutting engine.

      Have you tried Serious Sam [serioussam.com]? It sounds like just what you're looking for; arcade style action galore.
    • Serious Sam (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Drakker ( 89038 )
      If you want action packed gameplay with tons and tons of monsters, I suggest you check Serious Sam from croteam (www.croteam.com). It plays almost exactly like doom, with a recent graphical engine (serious engine ;)... it even has Coop play!

      About the shift to an horror style game, I trust Id software on this. I know they will make a great game, and it should be released for linux at the same time as the Mac/Windows versions. =)
    • I don't know about the rest of you but for me Doom was the action orientated gameplay, where for example often you had to take on over a dozen imps with a mere shotgun. It would be great to relive that experience all over again in a 3D fully environment powered by a cutting engine.

      I relived this same experience playing Max Payne.

    • i don't no about you but to me Half-life never even got close toe Doom 2 fear (never played doom1). Half-life was about action, sure there is a lot of suspence, expeciall as ammo is getting low, but i was never out and out scared. Doom 2 on the other hand scared the bejebus out of me. I remember Having a really bad nightmare and having to stop playing for a while. (also note that i was pretty young). I still remember the moment where you find a dead comrade on the ground (same level as when you first meet the really big rocket launching guy).
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @09:47PM (#3569914)
    Anyway, I saw DOOM 3. It's very cool and all, but when you really see the action, and when you see the monsters, um.. it kinda makes you feel DOOM 3 is attack of the clones. There are about 4 different monsters that I saw, and all other monsters were clones of these monsters. I mean, the big fat belled one, it's very cool and all, but does ID need to have 100's of the same monster running around? What's the logic here? It's the same friggging model and all. I know it worked OK for other monsters in older quakes -- dooms, but when the detail is so high and when every mosther looks like the other, it's kinda silly.

    I've been wondering (if John reads this too), if the individual monsters could be changed a bit, just slightly, so they wont look so repetitive and clone like, that would be just great for the single player experience.. Not just the body color, you could slighty alter the model as well, maybe define a model constrain and randomly generate models on the fly? I seriously didnt feel at ease looking at the multiples of the same model.

    Hans B. Ammafui.
    • by ToLu the Happy Furby ( 63586 ) on Thursday May 23, 2002 @12:01AM (#3570421)
      There are about 4 different monsters that I saw, and all other monsters were clones of these monsters. I mean, the big fat belled one, it's very cool and all, but does ID need to have 100's of the same monster running around? What's the logic here?

      Doom3 is nowhere near done; the only release date they're specifying at E3 is "2003", and most likely it won't be January either. In other words, they have around a year's work left on this game, maybe more. Presumably they will spend that time adding many many more character models, or even (hopefully) coming up with a way to generate different bump/displacement maps for the same character and thus avoid the "two of the exact same zombie" syndrome that affects the current screenshots.

      In any case, it's pretty obvious the issue will be solved in the final game.
  • Sounds good to me! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ceswiedler ( 165311 ) <chris@swiedler.org> on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @09:53PM (#3569942)
    I imagine that I'm not the only one tired of Q3-style shoot-em-ups. It's great to see a return to atmosphere and cinematic feeling in a game. I hope, though, that the game doesn't rely on cut scenes, which for me are absolutely worthless. I haven't watched a single moment of the cinematics CD with Diablo 2, and I can't stand games like Final Fantasy which aren't much more than crappy RPGs built around good CG cut scenes.

    The most fun single player game I ever played was the Alien mod for Doom. I remember inching my way through the tunnels, and then jumping in my seat when an alien burst out of the wall at me. The designer of that mod had an excellent sense of mood and atmosphere. The entire first level didn't have a single monster on it. But the second...
  • by NetJunkie ( 56134 ) <`jason.nash' `at' `gmail.com'> on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @09:56PM (#3569957)
    I'd really like to see this have a ton of monsters like the original Doom games did. That's a big reason I enjoyed Halo so much. You'd walk in to a big area and there would be 20 or 30 enemies to take down. Not many games do that these days....

    That was the best part of Doom. Open a big door and find 30 guys in there. Your friends playing co-op would see you running back by them and ask "What is it?". Heh...then they'd get swarmed. Good times...good times....

    Oh yeah, I also want an Aliens TC mod.
    • by rodolfo.borges ( 415394 ) <barrett AT 9hells DOT org> on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @10:37PM (#3570118) Homepage
      Yeah, and the fact that the monsters shot each other too..
      Open the door, 30 guys in there. They see you and start shooting. But one hit another, and the chaos begin. The door closes, and you wait outside, just hearing the shooting and screeming inside. When everything is calmed down a bit, you open the door again and find lot's of corpses, and just one or two monsters alive..
      That was fun.
      Or just type iddqd and run through the level "collecting" monsters, bring them to a big room and watch them fight. :)
    • Yep, the "Oh fuck" factor, when you open a door and see... omighod there's a lot of 'em in there!!

      Personally I prefer being swarmed by dozens (or even hundreds) of smallfry -- it allows a lot more variety of fights than when you have to take on one or two big dudes. After a while "trading rockets" with cyberdemons gets old. Give me my double-barrel shotgun and a horde of imps any day.

    • Have you tried Serious Sam?
      If not, you should. It's all about walking from area to area, getting swarmed by monsters. Hundreds and hundreds of monsters.
      • Have you tried Serious Sam? If not, you should.

        I can't agree with this enough. Serious Sam (and now, Serious Sam: The Second Encounter) is the only reason I still have a windows partition. It's the only game I've found since Doom that has the same heartpounding "oh shit, there's too many monsters" feeling. Lots and lots and *lots* of monsters. Some levels have over 1000...

  • Backtracking? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by red5 ( 51324 ) <(moc.liamg) (ta) (5derig)> on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @09:56PM (#3569958) Homepage Journal
    This has been one of the areas where I know we are going to get some negative feedback. Doom III will only have minimal multiplayer facilities when released, because we are concentrating all of our efforts on making it an outstanding single-player experience.

    Remmber when ID announced that Quake 3 would be only multiplayer.
    Sinlgle player is dead etc.

    The only problem with that was the over sateration that happened just after. Single player is back. I can't wait.
    The problem with multi player is that most of us are tired of compeeting all the time.
    It's also worth noting that the biggest selling (IIRC) game on the PS2 (GTA3) has no multiplayer mode.
    • A while back Doomworld did a survey on that. Turns out people still playing DOOM are doing single player over deathmatch by something like 6 to 1.

      So it's a reasonable decision on id's part.

      • The problem is that it's relatively difficult to Doom online. Since it predates the Quake(world) era, there have been no dedicated servers until recently and even with them, there's several different incompatible versions and a shortage of servers with low pings and people on them. That means you have to know someone who wants to play, deal with all the launchers and stuff involved in setting up a game and so forth. Back in the day, it may have been easier to find a friend and play with them via modem, but most fps gamers don't even have modems anymore.

        Additionally, Doom multiplayer is dated. Quakeworld is dominated by split-second reflexes, Doom is even quicker. It's not particularly fun to spawn and be shot instantly with the super shotgun by some guy that's been honing his skills for the last 8 years.

        The fact that QW still survives many revisions of Quake later indicates to me that people still like good multiplayer. Had Doom been released with TCP/IP years ago, I think you'd see more continuing interest in it. As it is, the single player is easy to play and has an intensity which few fps have matched. Meanwhile the Quake games, Counter-Strike, etc. have made Doom's multiplayer kinda boring.

        I think that you'll see a lot of people playing Doom 3 online if it has even decent multiplayer support (e.g. better maps than Q2 shipped with). Everybody got sick of Q3/UT and will be looking for some good old-fashioned multiplayer when they don't want to play CS and its clones.
        • What you say is true, but think on this: Doom, primarily a solo game that predated the "PC in every household and internet on every phone line" era, sold (per id's own figures, last I saw them) over 6 times more copies than Quake, primarily a multiplayer game AND came along after the home PC and Internet eras were well-entrenched.

          IOW, yeah, there are a lot of multiplayer folk out there, but there are a whole lot MORE solo types. Largely ignoring solo play, as was the case with Quake, cuts out much too large of a market segment.

    • I don't believe they ever said single player was dead. I believe the more accurate statement was "hey, we do great mutliplayer, and kinda half-assed single player in our last two games. This game will focus only on multiplayer so we can make it even more kickass". And if I'm not mistaken, one of the interviews said that they indeed would do single player again, except they would focus almost exclusively on the single player when they did. So here you are.

      As far as multiplayers' problems are: most people don't want to deal with fuckholes.
  • by Sludge ( 1234 ) <slashdot@@@tossed...org> on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @10:02PM (#3569989) Homepage
    Here is what I'd ask. (Yes, I know he will probably read this, and yes, this is pre-meditated in the chance of an opportunity arising.)

    You've expressed your opinions on using Java as the language to replace DLLs in the past. Two of the reasons you gave for not using Java were the bleeding edge nature of the APIs which added more chaos to the already chaotic Quake stew than you were willing to give, and the speed of execution. Although it isn't as efficient as straight C code, what are your impressions with Perl since you learnt it a while back? Would you consider writing the client and server game logic modules in a multiplayer oriented game in a different language from each other?

    Early during the development of Quake 2, Brian Hook said in an interview once saying that you said that you would most likely be a leader in the real time gaming graphics field until around 2004. If this is an accurate recollection of something you said at that time, what did you foresee happening that might raise the question of your respectable dominance in the realtime gaming graphics field?

    Doom is going to be using hardcoded DLLs again, since the move to C++ negated your ability to use LCC retargeted to bytecode. This has, most likely caused you to see the significance of standardizing the bytecode instead of the language. Are there any plans in the future for retargeting compilers of other languages for the purpose of security and cross platformism wins with using virtual machines? If so, will they use the same bytecode as Quake 3 did?

    You have expressed enthusiasm many times for the NeXT STeP environment and how you might still be developing under it if there was support for target hardware. Have you looked at the functionality of GNUStep, which is a project attempting to close the functionality of NeXTSTeP?

    In every Id product, the bugs that have crept up are rarely related to the renderer and therefore rarely likely to be code you wrote. Do you feel that you produce few uncaught or unreproducible bugs in general compared to most developers, or is it because the renderer is so throughly tested in the development of idgames due to it's fundamental placement in the games architectures?

    • by grammar fascist ( 239789 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @10:31PM (#3570094) Homepage
      I'll answer this one for him, though he'll probably log on, slap me one, and answer it himself:

      Would you consider writing the client and server game logic modules in a multiplayer oriented game in a different language from each other?

      One of the ways to make an online game consistent despite latency is client-side prediction. For simplicity in prediction, a lot of the code is shared between the client and server games. (Check out the BG_ functions in the bg_*.c/h files in the Quake III game source for an example.) Having those written in separate languages would preclude code sharing, creating a big maintenance headache.

      Besides, why would you ever want to do that? I can't think of one good reason for it.
      • Besides, why would you ever want to do that? I can't think of one good reason for it.

        Here's a reason, if a bit personal: I know Perl, but I don't know much C/C++ (yet). If the client logic was written in Perl, I could have tons of fun creating client-side mods.

        Probably not good enough reason for id Software though :)
      • It does add a considerable amount of complexity to have to describe certain things in two languages.

        It makes more sense to do the majority of the server side-only (non bg_* code) in an inline scripting language.

        Quake 3 almost used compiled dlls on the client side before Carmack wrote the qvm code, for efficiency. While it's the same language, the interpreted (bit versus byte) code would have been different.

        Note that there are approx 6000 lines of code in the bg_* files, and approx 32,000 lines of g_* (server specific stuff)... at least in the Threewave source tree. Hardly worth weighting your development decisions on the 6000 lines.

  • Conspiracy? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Glytch ( 4881 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @10:06PM (#3570003)
    Question: Do id software members get kickbacks from the video card industry? :)
  • Even if it wasn't the intent of Doom I/II they were both somewhat scary. I still remember playing Doom late at night - with all the lights off and the sound WAY up - and just beings scared shitless when an Imp or some other god aweful creature makes a sound just as you round the corner run smack into their ugly face.

    Boy those were the days =)

    I can't wait for doom III, it sounds and looks great.
  • by jcsehak ( 559709 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @10:15PM (#3570029) Homepage
    Note to women of Slashdot: This is why you should never use the men's bathroom.

    And what are those things sticking out over the urinals? Even without the monster there, I'd be scared to take a piss. Flushers? Infared sensors? None like I've seen. I don't know about you guys, but I generally don't like anything that close to my dick unless it can make babies or tell me it needs more space.
    • And what are those things sticking out over the urinals?

      Frontal bidets. (You've never been to France? They've got centuries to make up for.)

    • by 7-Vodka ( 195504 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @11:34PM (#3570307) Journal
      they obviously shake it for you.
    • And what are those things sticking out over the urinals?

      Gravity generators. The game takes place on Mars, and since your peeing reflexes were honed through years of practice in 1G gravity, if you'll try using the urinals on Mars, you'll most likely overshoot, hit the wall, and make quite a mess. The gravity generators compensate for the difference, and keep everything nice and clean.

      Except for the blood, of course.
  • Wow! (Score:5, Funny)

    by sharkey ( 16670 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @10:17PM (#3570040)
    I can't wait to see the Barney mod for this!
  • I like it. (Score:2, Funny)

    by nice ( 144965 )
    Urinals contoured for your rump. If that isn't an invitation for disaster...
  • by wrinkledshirt ( 228541 ) on Wednesday May 22, 2002 @10:36PM (#3570112) Homepage
    Sheesh, Carmack sure is slipping. Things are looking a little foggy here. [gamespy.com] And these monsters aren't looking very frightening. [gamespy.com] Okay, well, maybe if I was a girl...
  • If there is ever a reason to link the games to warping children's minds it's going to be doom 3. I'm wetting my bed and I only seen screen shots.
  • Not to nitpick, but the plot description sounds exactly like half life's plot. An isolate research facility is experimenting with teleportation qhen things go bad and people start turning into zombies. Some members of the upper management have questionable motives...

    I am sure they will go in a bit of a different direction than half life, but hte starting point seems the same.
    • Not to nitpick, but the plot of this Half Life thingy sounds a lot like those old Doom 1 & 2 games..

      Isolated research facility.. teleporting experiments.. people turn into zombies.. the whole nine yards
    • by Nailer ( 69468 ) on Thursday May 23, 2002 @02:24AM (#3570813)
      An isolate research facility is experimenting with teleportation qhen things go bad and people start turning into zombies.

      This is the same plot the first Doom had. From the DOOM FAQ:

      In DOOM, you're a space marine, one of Earth's toughest, hardened in combat and trained for action. Three years ago you assaulted a superior officer for ordering his soldiers to fire upon civilians. He and his body cast were shipped to Pearl Harbor, while you were transferred to Mars, home of the Union Aerospace Corporation.

      The UAC is a multi-planetary conglomerate with radioactive waste facilities on Mars and its two moons, Phobos and Deimos. With no action for fifty million miles, your day consisted of suckin' dust and watchin' restricted flicks in the rec room.

      For the last four years the military, UAC's biggest supplier, has used the remote facilities on Phobos and Deimos to conduct various secret projects, including research on inter-dimensional space travel. So far they have been able to open gateways between Phobos and Deimos, throwing a few gadgets into one and watching them come out the other. Recently however, the gateways have grown dangerously unstable. Military "volunteers" entering them have either disappeared or been stricken with a strange form of insanity--babbling vulgarities, bludgeoning anything that breathes, and finally suffering an untimely death of full-body explosion. Matching heads with torsos to send home to the folks became a full-time job. Latest military reports state that the research is suffering a small setback, but everything is under control.

      A few hours ago, Mars received a garbled message from Phobos. "We require immediate military support. Something fraggin' evil is coming out of the gateways! Computer systems have gone berserk!" The rest was incoherent. Soon afterwards, Deimos simply vanished from the sky. Since then, attempts to establish contact with either moon have been unsuccessful.

      You and your buddies, the only combat troop for fifty million miles were sent up pronto to Phobos. You were ordered to secure the perimeter of the base while the rest of the team went inside. For several hours, your radio picked up the sounds of combat: guns firing, men yelling orders, screams, bones cracking, then finally silence. Seems your buddies are dead.

      Things aren't looking too good. You'll never navigate off the planet on your own. Plus, all the heavy weapons have been taken by the assault team leaving you only with a pistol. If only you could get your hands around a plasma rifle or even a shotgun you could take a few down on your way out. Whatever killed your buddies deserves a couple of pellets in the forehead. Securing your helmet, you exit the landing pod. Hopefully you can find more substantial firepower somewhere within the station. As you walk through the main entrance of the base, you hear animal-like growls echoing throughout the distant corridors. They know you're here. There's no turning back now.
  • Did you guys notice the No Smoking sign behind the "toilets". I don't think I wanna know what the daemons have been eating.
  • Hrm (Score:2, Funny)

    by kraf ( 450958 )
    What's the deal with the legacy movie ?
    They show FEAR in big letters then they show some gummi bear looking monster.
    Who are these people ?
  • What I would like to see is a remake of System Shock 2 with that engine.

  • Another hot rumor we were able to clear up was the question of an Xbox port. Some magazines had reported DOOM III could possibly be Xbox first ... or Xbox only. In actuality, DOOM III is currently being developed for the PC and PC only - there could well be an Xbox version at some point (John Carmack is a member of the Xbox advisory committee), but that decision hasn't been made yet, and probably won't be for some time.

    I wonder if the magazines "reporting" the rumour about the console version first had a big green X on the front?

    It wouldn't have surprised me if the XBox version hit the shops first - I would have thought Microsoft would offer id absolutely anything to get this on their hardware -can you imagine the sales it would generate?! THIS is the killer app for a console. Then again, as technology moves on, maybe the XBox won't have the horsepower to run it with all the effects turned up to 11...
  • I bought a brand new '486 when Doom II came out, just so I could play it. Now I'll need another new one...
  • So, when do we get immersive porno..uh..games that use the doomIII engine? :)

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