Exponential Paces

We decided Doom 3's gameplay is not going to be some wild innovation - it's a first-person shooter.

How is it ignorance when (I can only assume) it comes straight from John Carmack? How can you possibly equate a dislike of repetitive gameplay with a lack of knowledge?

It's right there in blue and white. Doom 3's gameplay will not be anything special or innovative. "It's a first-person shooter." How much more screamingly clear could it possibly state "another standard FPS"?

There's nothing wrong with being a dedicated Doom 3 fanboy, but don't criticise other people for being a little bit cautious and reserved about the game.

There's a pretty wide line between "cautious and reserved" and "naysayer". And don't give me that "devil's advocate" crap.

I am not a Doom 3 naysayer. Some may perceive that of me, but my stated position is (and always has been) "IF Doom 3 turns out to be ___________, then ____________." I've never been the kind of person who says "This game is going to ____!"

Also, the fact that we now have some hard info on what Doom 3 will probably be like gives us that much more right to pass some judgment on the game.

for gods sake, if you refuse to curse at least buy a thesaurus and look up some alternatives, that blank line thing is just stupid

Um, I think those are fill-in-the-blanks, not curse words.

Cyb said:

for gods sake, if you refuse to curse at least buy a thesaurus and look up some alternatives, that blank line thing is just stupid

____ you!!!!!!!


...yeah i guess that is lame.

We decided Doom 3's gameplay is not going to be some wild innovation - it's a first-person shooter.

Please tell me what fps had wild innovative gameplay! No...Doom didn't, but it was still fun. Doom 3 certainly doesn't look like "just another FPS" to me!

Shaviro said:

Please tell me what fps had wild innovative gameplay! No...Doom didn't, but it was still fun. Doom 3 certainly doesn't look like "just another FPS" to me!

Well, I love id and the guys working there. However, truth is their games have all been technology demos. Mind you: there is a need for such products and, hence, for a company like id.

Granted, Tetris (for example) is fun, and was more innovative in terms of gameplay than Doom 3 is going to be, but it's an entirely different type of game and one that you play for entirely different reasons. There's namely more to a game than the relation between input and feedback (also known as gameplay). There's also the presentation, which independently of any mind-blowing innovations in gameplay can make a game entertaining. And this is where Doom 3 is going to shine (assuming that the hype is motivated); it's going to be one of the most engrossing and atmospheric (specifically, scariest) games ever. That is a merit alone, and is enabled by the technological advancement that the Doom 3 engine provides. id Software might be innovating gaming by brute force rather than delicacy, but they do it.

By the way (relating to Julian's comment), I think it's extremely unjust to say that Doom was just a technology demo. Doom more or less formed the FPS genre and should as such definitely not be dismissed as not being innovative. (Additionally, its gameplay is damn good.)

Julian said:

Well, I love id and the guys working there. However, truth is their games have all been technology demos. Mind you: there is a need for such products and, hence, for a company like id.

I don't agree. I think all the id games are really fun. A technology demo is not meant to be fun, but just a showcase of technology. FACT: id software makes 70% of their income by selling games, 30% is from licensing engines. Please stop saying they are all technology demo's, that's the most untrue statement ever.

Shaviro said:

I don't agree. I think all the id games are really fun. A technology demo is not meant to be fun, but just a showcase of technology. FACT: id software makes 70% of their income by selling games, 30% is from licensing engines. Please stop saying they are all technology demo's, that's the most untrue statement ever.

I don't think technology is opposed to fun, sometimes technology brings fun. See: Carmack worked on dynamic shadows. He ends up with sharp shadows and here comes the idea: a scary game where you don't know what's coming since it's all into the dark. Point is id's choices are driven by tech constraints (that's one of the reasons why Romero wanted out btw).
Now, again, I have great respect for id. But I don't like them for the wrong reasons. Denying the fact id's games are technological showcase with this 'take-that' attitude is like denying the very essence of the company. This is a small group of passionates led by a programmer, a scientist (see his work on this space rocket), not an artist, nor a gamer. And don't pretend Carmack is not the leader, just remember how he entrapped the company so that they actually work on Doom3. He threatened to leave. And id without Carmack is not id. That tells a lot.

Julian said:

blah blah

The game is built upon tech, yes. That's how all games are made.

Shaviro said:

The game is built upon tech, yes. That's how all games are made.

Not quite. A lot of games are first described by the development team on multiple documents (look at RTC and its ammount of storylines for instance). Technology generally comes right after. For instance, Doom is a game where you shoot demons. It could be programmed as an isometric or platform game (it has already be done, remember?). Doom 3 could be made as an isometric game too. Take the shadowy atmosphere: it would just be a matter of shadowing specific cells for monsters-coming-out-the-shadow effects.
One has to realize there is a difference between a game and its look & feel. Many games are based on stories and basic ideas and then implemented given a specific tech. Not the other way around. Of course, as soon as you have decided of your tech, you got new constraints but one can hope that the tech was chosen against design constraints... that's pretty much how a wad project leader choses the port he's aiming at, isn't it?
For id, it's the complete opposite. Carmack comes with a new engine and, then, id starts thinking about a game to implement given the tech constraints. Even worse, sometimes the engine is not complete and Carmack comes with new ideas and effects that the designers have to take into account right in the middle of the development.
This is a very non-typical way of developping games. Maybe that's why id's games have this spirit of their own... this kind of right-to-the-extreme feel.
Whatever, I like id's games. Actually they must be one of the few I keep playing. So don't think I'm using technological as an insult.

Fredrik said:

By the way (relating to Julian's comment), I think it's extremely unjust to say that Doom was just a technology demo. Doom more or less formed the FPS genre and should as such definitely not be dismissed as not being innovative. (Additionally, its gameplay is damn good.)

I hope my previous post cleared what I meant a little.

Cyb said:

for gods sake, if you refuse to curse at least buy a thesaurus and look up some alternatives, that blank line thing is just stupid

Bite my _____ ass. :P

Julian said:

Not quite. A lot of games are first described by the development team on multiple documents (look at RTC and its ammount of storylines for instance). Technology generally comes right after.

I think this is also a very bad way of designing a game. In this way it's not the tech that's constraining the developers, but it's the documents that constrain them. IMO, design documents should help the consisty of the game, but not describe every detail. Developers must have some creative freedom during development. After all, the best ideas emerge when the developers are actually working with the tech. Changes to the design document should be allowed during development.

As for Id games merely being tech demos? WTF?
Wolfenstein 3D -> the first highly popular first person shooter
Doom -> a landmark in gaming history
Quake -> made online gaming popular (QuakeWorld)
Quake II -> one of the best deathmatch games ever
Only Q3A is debatable. But that's just one game out of a very impressive track record.

Arno said:

Only Q3A is debatable. But that's just one game out of a very impressive track record.

Q3A lookswise was a much bigger jump than Quake1-2. And multiplayer wise, I thought, much better.

Quake SP I really liked for the atmosphere, but the weapons and enemies weren't very satisfying (rocket/grenade launcher and lightning gun exempt) - not the greatest single player gameplay. Q2 SP was awful for me gameplay wise.... just felt dull, lacking in atmosphere and imagination. Q3 didn't have SP. And RTCW was admittedly pretty good SP, but fairly standard for the time.

The general view that I find is that Id's best SP game was a long time ago. And just because D3 is an extension of the original series doesn't guarantee gameplay better than the Quakes or RTCW. So from a purely gameplay (or input-feedback relationship to paraphrase Fredrik) perspective I can see AndrewB and Sargebaldy's qualms. But although the gameplay may be 5 years behind the tech, the atmosphere looks like it will be unprecedented. I'll freely admit to trying out the alpha, and there was quite a few points where I just stood in the same spot for minutes at a time, listening to all the ambient sound and looking at the environment. As well as this, I didn't wanna move purely out of fear of the unknown horrors in the next room... No other game has ever scared me so much, and that was in a vastly early state.

Even the "atmosphere" aspect of Doom 3 is unclear. ID has claimed that Doom 3 will be frightening and will make people jump out of their seat and not want to turn off any lights. A lot of people have accepted this claim on blind faith. Right now, we can't tell exactly what will make it scary. But if they're expecting huge teeth, dark corners, piles of gore, movie-scripted sequences, and monsters flailing their arms to make the game scary, then I shake my head.

The "scariness" or "atmosphere" of a game has a heck of a lot to do with the actual gameplay. For example, how much do you have to lose if your character dies? Is it 3 months worth of work (or playtime), or is it 2 seconds worth? I know that the scariest (and most fun) game experience I've ever had was when 8 months of accumulated character status was at stake. Those are extremely important factors to a game's scare appeal; who knows how heavily they're being researched?

Almost all modern FPS'es allow the player to save their progress at the drop of a hat. It's almost like cheating without cheating. If something like that exists in Doom 3, then the scare-factor will take a huge hit.

Even the "atmosphere" aspect of Doom 3 is unclear. ID has claimed that Doom 3 will be frightening and will make people jump out of their seat and not want to turn off any lights.

All I know is that I found the alpha quite atmospheric, and yet it lacked a lot of the elements that'll appear in the finished game (more ambient sounds, music, *level design*).

For example, how much do you have to lose if your character dies? [...] Almost all modern FPS'es allow the player to save their progress at the drop of a hat. It's almost like cheating without cheating. If something like that exists in Doom 3, then the scare-factor will take a huge hit.

I strongly agree with this. I never use savegames in Doom. And if Doom 3 gets a similar save system, I will most likely choose to ignore it.

And as a general rule, if you have to handicap yourself in order to enjoy a game, then it's just not a good game.

Handicap? Rather a deliberate attempt to challenge yourself, just like picking a harder difficulty setting or choosing a riskier route. Some things are optional. And the save system (in Doom at least) is rather peripheral.

Like I say, if you have to find a way to challenge yourself (instead of the game challenging you), then the game isn't really doing what it's supposed to be doing.

AndrewB said:

if you have to find a way to challenge yourself

You mean like playing hardcore instead of softcore?

AndrewB said:

The "scariness" or "atmosphere" of a game has a heck of a lot to do with the actual gameplay. I know that the scariest (and most fun) game experience I've ever had was when 8 months of accumulated character status was at stake

I separate this into tension and atmosphere - there is certainly an overlap between them, but I wouldn't conflate the two. I have played games where some of the scariest areas have just been set pieces with no immediate monsters, but the knowledge that something may be around. Some of the most tense games I have played are games like lemmings which don't scare me at all but confront me with the knowledge that if I screw this up, even by a pixel, I have to start right from the beginning again.

And the Doom3 alpha had the former effect on me from even the second room.

As for "And as a general rule, if you have to handicap yourself in order to enjoy a game, then it's just not a good game." I find this to be a little dramatic and oversimplified. It's indubitably something you expect to be attended to by the game's design, but it doesn't ruin a game in one fell swoop. I do hope that Doom3 has a non-quicksave system though, because quicksave really was one of the awful innovations gaming has seen in my opinion.

AndrewB/Fredrik said something like:
being able to save anywhere will hurt doom 3.

Well, id did announce that you wouldn’t be able to save whenever you please... but weather that means check points or between missions saves is unclear.

Arioch said:

You mean like playing hardcore instead of softcore?

Hardcore is a distinct mode of play that has status, recognition, and meaning. "Choosing not to save each level" is not a mode of play. It is an attempt to make up for something that a game lacks.

Ct_red_pants said:

Well, id did announce that you wouldn’t be able to save whenever you please... but weather that means check points or between missions saves is unclear.

That may be good news. I very much like the checkpoint method of play ala Duke Nukem 2.

Checkpoints-only is the single most loathsome gameplay misfeature ever. If I want to save my progress in a game and pick it up later then I goddamn well want to save it right the fuck now instead of 2 hours ago.

Arioch said:

Checkpoints-only is the single most loathsome gameplay misfeature ever. If I want to save my progress in a game and pick it up later then I goddamn well want to save it right the fuck now instead of 2 hours ago.

I agree. A checkpoints-only save system is not scary, it's highly annoying and thus absolutely not fun to play. Removing the quicksave feature would truly be a step backwards in gameplay.
And in practice, you can't save "every second" with the quicksave feature. When I'm in the middle of a big fight, I know it's not wise to save my game. I wait till all the monsters are dead and I have a reasonable amount of health.

I remember playing Rayman2. It could take hours to reach a save checkpoint. Often I had to do annoying jumping sequences ten times over. OMG, that sucked. If Id Software does not put in a quicksave feature in Doom3, I would be immensly disappointed and I guarantee you that Id Software would be flamed to death for this.

Shaviro said:

Please tell me what fps had wild innovative gameplay! No...Doom didn't, but it was still fun. Doom 3 certainly doesn't look like "just another FPS" to me!

Innovative gameplay? Try DeusEx, try SystemShock 1 and 2, try Shadowcaster (Yeah, the RPG with the Wolfenstein engine *g*).

DeusEx, for example, is a 3D-"Shooter" where you can solve most of it without extencive Rambo_a_like voilence.
All 3 have extensive story and steal a good side from rpg´s.

BTW: I would like to play a rpg mod of doom *g* (2 Imps left and i raise my marine to level 5, give 2 points on medicine and all stimpacks will give +60 health ^.^)

So Long, The Werelion!

AndrewB said:

It is an attempt to make up for something that a game lacks.

You mean make of for the lack of a lack of quicksaves? I could be wrong, but I believe "make up for" is only valid for odd-numbered negations.