Doomed: A True Story...

[bored]

Here is a nice little read concerning the various failings of id`s Doom III which at one time was heralded as one of the biggest PC game releases of the last 10 years, so why did it come and go like a train in the night?...

Veteran animator Steve Bowler (pictured) got pretty angry when he bought Doom 3. And he’s still a mite agitated…

What was it, 12 years ago, that we first laid eyes on the original, the dark new 3D world that was Doom? Even before that, a select few of us recall with wonder the revival of one of our favorite gaming franchises, in a bold new direction, when Wolfenstein 3D hit the shelves.

For a dozen years Id has been the top dog, the guy to beat, the pater familia to the first-person shooter. It can look back on a legacy of six games, each one an unstoppable sales juggernaut, a technological milestone. You didn’t need to know what the review score was for an Id title. You only knew that you needed to buy it.

But one day, the industry changed. The consumer changed. It’s hard to put one’s finger on it. Maybe it was Counter-Strike. Maybe Unreal Tournament. Something happened to the genre between Quake III and Doom 3, and Id somehow didn’t take it into account. Call it braggadocio, or hubris, but Doom 3 is no longer the top dog in the FPS market.

Yes, it’s upsetting. I tried not to admit it either. But it’s undeniably true.

Full article:

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=337&Itemid=2

It's no suprise the doom fanboys are getting angry about it

http://www.forumplanet.com/planetdoom/topic.asp?fid=2308&tid=1695274

 

[Sober]

Some points are valid, other things are cut-and-paste from what many others have said about other games, even HL2.

AI has not changed much in general terms. Sure, enemy units flank, but sometimes they do kamakazie charge you.

I played DOOM3 for about 40 minutse of my life (friend's house) and I thought it wasn't that scary. It was just stupid how they made monsters pop out for you to kill. I prefered DOOM to D3, actually. The setting was not that scary because 1) no matter how realistic it looks, it's just a game and 2) I thought it was too dark to appreciate some of the scary parts like corpses missing their waist, etc.

I've personally prefered enemy floods to one-at-a-time attacks from the enemy I saw in DOOM3.

 

[StardogChampion]

This guy works for Midway... Area 51 anyone? :/

Anyway, I think Carmack always said the engine was made from the ground up for D3 only. I doubt he was expecting to have it licensed out as much as the Q3 engine.

People expected too much with Doom 3. They got a revamped Doom 1/2, but they were expecting something 10x more.

 

[DeusExMachina]

This guy works for Midway... Area 51 anyone? :/

Anyway, I think Carmack always said the engine was made from the ground up for D3 only. I doubt he was expecting to have it licensed out as much as the Q3 engine.

People expected too much with Doom 3. They got a revamped Doom 1/2, but they were expecting something 10x more.

You have to remember, this was like the big showdown between the FPSs, Doom 3, Half Life 2, Far Cry, and Halo 2 (did I miss any...)

Of course people were expecting 10x more. And what ended up happening? Well in my opinion HL2 won by a centimeter. While both games were repetive, HL2 had some change of pace every so often and it wasn't so retardedly dark. And hell, it was fun the first few times around. Doom 3 was fun the first 30 minutes to an hour perhaps but that's all really. Quake IV looks A LOT more promising and interesting. I think its pretty safe to say id has dug themselves a hole with this. Then again, its a great graphics engine so that'll probably keep them afloat.

 

[StardogChampion]

I don't know if Q4 will keep them afloat either. It will probably be Enemy Territory:QW that will have to sell, since it has vehicles and everything. But UT2004 and BF2 have already done the vehicles thing, so it'll have to be insanely good.

Are ID still quite a small company? How big are they compared to Valve and Epic?

 

[Lucid]

id makes kick ass game engines.
That's what they do basically...game. engines.

 

[Prince of China]

Quake II was awesome! Long live id Software!

 

[Ames]

/me replies with a generic whine that includes fanboyish opinions which are ambiguous and both could or could not support iD software and Doom 3.

 

[ríomhaire]

I heard that Doom was a remake of the original but the only similarities I see are the letters UAC, fire throwing demons and zombie soldiers.

 

[Prince of China]

I heard that Doom was a remake of the original but the only similarities I see are the letters UAC, fire throwing demons and zombie soldiers.

Doom III was a "re-imaging" of the first Doom. It was kind of like Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

 

[Gray Fox]

You have to remember, this was like the big showdown between the FPSs, Doom 3, Half Life 2, Far Cry, and Halo 2 (did I miss any...)

Of course people were expecting 10x more. And what ended up happening? Well in my opinion HL2 won by a centimeter. While both games were repetive, HL2 had some change of pace every so often and it wasn't so retardedly dark. And hell, it was fun the first few times around. Doom 3 was fun the first 30 minutes to an hour perhaps but that's all really. Quake IV looks A LOT more promising and interesting. I think its pretty safe to say id has dug themselves a hole with this. Then again, its a great graphics engine so that'll probably keep them afloat.

Well can you say what game isn't repetitive in your opinion.

 

[satch919]

Well, he's sure entitled to his opinion but I don't happen to agree with it. The multiplayer assessment is correct. However, id's focus was on the single player campaign and not on the multiplayer. That was stated from the beginning. I thought the single player game was awesome because it reminded me so much of the original DOOM but it also added different aspects too.

Sure, it doesn't have the locale diversity of HL2 or sprawling landscapes of Far Cry but, in the end, it was never meant to. It was about a claustrophobic space station and I think id Software pulled it off brilliantly. Its pure fun at its core. It gets a 5 out of 5 from me and its one of my favorite games to come out recently.

 

[Tamer17]

Easy. Id are bad at making games.

More than a decade , and they didn't make a significant gameplay change.

 

[Asuka]

Doom 3 was good so was the expansion. It did its job.

 

[DeusExMachina]

Well can you say what game isn't repetitive in your opinion.

Yeah, but in Doom 3 the whole point was to shoot stuff. It was 1994 all over again. FPSs make repetion more interesting now with new weapons, awesome action scenes, immersion, etc. Doom 3 got some immersion down...but that's all it really got.

 

[KagePrototype]

Well can you say what game isn't repetitive in your opinion.

If a game is to repeat the same core gameplay over and over again, it needs to be dynamic enough to avoid boredom, something Doom 3 failed to do. Now it's obvious that they tried and threw some interesting scenes in here and there, but this still didn't overcome the huge stretches of game where you simply ran through dark corrdiors shooting ridiculously predictable enemies coming out of holes in the walls (which eventually became pretty easy to predict, nullifying the whole point of something jumping out of the shadows and scaring the crap out of you). There are some great bits in the game, but they're too few and far between for Doom 3 to really be something special.

Other games avoid this sort of thing by either having a fairly dynamic gameplay system (e.g. Far Cry) that can offer a sense of unpredictability, or just giving the players a large variety of things to do (e.g. HL2). Doom 3 was, by gameplay standards at the time, very basic and dated. Doom 3's saving grace is it's atmosphere, but even then the game is so overly-linear that you know what to expect when playing it again.

 

[DeusExMachina]

Yeah, Kage's got it down.

And BTW Stardog, do you have a myspace with the name Stardog Champion? Or that's not you...

 

[Gray Fox]

The reaspn I asked is because deusexmachina said that hl2 was fairly repetitive, now I thought hl2 was just the opttosite, it offerd every minut something new, be it in a weapon, or puzzel. I mean if there is one person that hates reptitivnes it's me, WoW is even to repetetive for me, and don't get me even started on diablo.

 

[Cole]

Yeah, but in Doom 3 the whole point was to shoot stuff. It was 1994 all over again. FPSs make repetion more interesting now with new weapons, awesome action scenes, immersion, etc. Doom 3 got some immersion down...but that's all it really got.

Not it wasn't 1994 all over again because in 1994 at times we had tons and tons and tons of guys at one time on screen..but toher than that..you got it down.

Are ID still quite a small company? How big are they compared to Valve and Epic?

Im not sure how big they are, but they should be about as big as Valve. Though they have lots and lots of experince..I mean...how long have they been in the FPS market..infact they were one of the first in it.

 

[Gabrobot]

Im not sure how big they are, but they should be about as big as Valve. Though they have lots and lots of experince..I mean...how long have they been in the FPS market..infact they were one of the first in it.

Employee count wise, id Software is tiny...they've got 26 people in total:

http://www.idsoftware.com/business/team/

Oh, and they made the FPS genre, so yeah they were the first in the FPS market.

 

[Raziaar]

Quake 1 was far better than doom 3. I have so many fond memories of Quake 1. GOD, that game was amazing! Especially in its mods!

Team fortress original, suckers!

 

[Pesmerga]

People expected too much with Doom 3. They got a revamped Doom 1/2, but they were expecting something 10x more.

Not really, we were expecting to see some run and gun shoot em up that made the first two great.

Doom III is fundamentally flawed from the very core. Try and make it too much like the originals and you'll get complaints from both Doom fans and casual gamers that it's not in-depth enough, or simply not up to par with other games.

Try and make it too "new" and sophisticated (which is what Doom III did) and you'll get complaints from Doom 1+2 fans that it strayed too far from what made the originals great.

Doom III was too slow and too scary, and honestly, looked too curvy. Doom 1+2 was great because it was the first real FPS game for many gamers and was simply about running around and ****ing some serious shit up. Fear is cool and all, but not at a constant pace that Doom III presented.

Doom III was doomed from the start.

 

[Hazar]

making a sequel of anything is really difficult.

 

[Dr. Freeman]

making a sequel of anything is really difficult.

that is so true.
just take a look at movies and sequels... its just very hard to come up with a sequel which is as equally impressive as the original and games are no exception to that rule.

i agree that expectations for Doom3 were way too high because of many factors.. but the two factors which come to mind right away are.. a) the original Doom and b) the Half Life series.

both of these raised the bar so that ID Software probably weren't gonna reach it and generally people don't understand that.

 

[Insano]

I just can't understand why people say Doom³ deserves a 10 out of ten. Well, I guess there's a whole world between me and them

 

[Pesmerga]

I think developers are just too damn worried about what their fans expect in sequels.

Id did a great job with Doom 3. It was too damn scary for me, personally, but the graphics were superb and the overall game was great.

To me, a sequel shouldn't be an addition to the original. A sequel is a continuation of the universe that the first was set in, a continuation of the story, environment, characters. Personally, Half-Life 2 is the best sequel I've ever played. The universe is identical but the enemy, environment, and most gameplay things have been crafted to the developer's idea of fun, not replicating something Half-Life may have done.

Variation is the spice of life, that's why most porn addicts get into those weird fetishes.

 

[Razor]

Doom3 was a great game, fine it wasn't scary but it certainly tensed me up quite a bit during gameplay and it was a lot of fun.

There are too many "expert" critics out there for my liking, i enjoyed the game more then i enjoyed Farcry and that is all that matters to me.