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i define my reality through misery
Posts: 2144
Registered: 06-00 |
Why do you think Doom was made? I think it was to have fun.
No I certainly don't, Godammit. That was only a partial purpose to the creation of Doom... barely a guideline if not a goal that would be eventually reached from patch to patch.
Was Doom invented to be a big seller? No. If it was they would have made it have more mainstream content. If you read the Doom Bible they fill it with ideas and concepts that they wanted to put in the game. The very first title of Doom was, "Its Green and Pissed" and was supposed to be about aliens. The game was not planned as a big seller because it followed very few traditions to games that have already sold big. What they tried was just too different from the norm. They would have rather made a game they liked than a game you liked.
Was Doom invented to be technological showcase? Absolutely. If you follow the track record of Carmack this is all he does with his time on Earth. He'd rather code than breathe. He just continuously proves time and time again that he is the best programmer in the world when it comes to building game engines and he loves to show it off. That is what he does, he makes engines. If they didn't have any talented artists in the company than all of their games would've looked like shit but still have had great engines.
They still need to get a dedicated musician instead of hiring people on a per-game basis (Bobby Prince, Reznor, SM), though.
Was Doom invented to be a fun game? Without a doubt I can say the answer to that one is no. Don't get me wrong, it is a fun game, but in the way that they intended. They thought the multiplayer would've taken a major backseat to single player... and they were exceptionally wrong. Even in the last official release of Doom it is still pretty unfriendly to multiplaying... no kill messages, no on screen timer, and not every powerup respawns. Looking back at Catacombs 3D and Wolfenstein... I can say that the fun factor was an accident. I never had fun playing those games, and I never had fun playing Quake either. They're just too slow, too monotonous and too damned boring.
Doom is action packed, fast as hell and can have sprawling maps with many clever routes or requirements to finish. Neither of those other three games can due to engine limitations.
The accidental fun of Doom is that it is pure hardcore speed and action. Many have tried to clone the idea, clone the graphics and clone the art but they've all failed.
They brought some of it back with Quake II. The level design got a helluva lot better and the action was more intense.
Don't even get me started on Q3A, the game that should've been a downloadable patch addon to the DM of Quake 2 since that's all it is... with a new graphics engine.
When Nintendo made Metroid they didn't invent the side scrolling adventure genre, they reinvented it.
When Konami made Silent Hill they didn't invent the survival horror genre, they reinvented it.
When id Software made Doom they didn't invent the fps genre, they reinvented it in a way that hadn't been done before. It was faster, longer, harder and Godammit it was more fun because of it.
Nobody's perfect, though. Ever played Silent Hill 2? Eigh! Same goes for Q3A. =)
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10-22-01 03:44 
