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Kinsie

Five Years And Nothing To Show: How Doom 4 Got Off Track

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StevieCybernetik said:

Jesus. That article made me lose even more faith in ID. Ever since Q3A they've been in serious decline when it comes to gaming originality. Doom3, Rage, and the newer Wolfenstein were "alright", but not anything timeless and unforgettable. They were unbelievably generic and very uninspired. I think that ID is slowing tiring from making games as opposed to standalone Tech and that is becoming more and more apparent.

If Doom4 tanks, like I've speculated it will for some time now, even before reading this article, it will effectively be the death of the company to gamers. I mean for fuck's sake, a reboot? Really? So the BFG edition and the millions of re-releases of DooM (including its laundry list of ports over the years) wasn't enough? They keep wanting to do something original and yet settle for the lowest common denominator.

It also did not make me very pleased to hear how dysfunctional they've become as a team. A production crew of any sort has to have some cohesiveness and ability to work together to work at all, and this honestly sounds like 3DRealms before they eventually shitcanned themselves.

Personally, Doom4 needs to stick to the basics to work at all. Minimal narrative, nonstop action, and no more of this "passe brutality". Doom3 really pissed me off when the bodies of fallen enemies crumpled away into dust. Games are getting so soft and weak now because overly sensitive bastards that its making them all suffer as a whole. Doom4 needs to be as bloody, as fucked up, and as gory as you can possibly make it. doom_is_great said it best. Take the best elements of what is making Brutal Doom so popular, but don't lift them cold, EXPAND on them. Doomguy is a pissed off space marine that just got down executing a whole planet from a demonic invasion, and gets back to earth just to have to do it all over again. So make it fucking rock, not this ridiculous "cawadooty" bullshit.

Get it together ID.



I disagree about Doom 3 and RAGE. As you said, they were good, but good is not good enough. Both games had flashes of brilliance and when they got something right, they really got it right, it's just that the worse features of both games dragged them down. Doom 3 had amazing graphics and atmosphere while RAGE had some of the best guns in recent years. The combat in RAGE is very similar to BioShock but it's BioShock as it should have been (from a gunplay POV). The world also had quite a bit of character. Did you notice how EVERY character looked different and unique and how they had entirely different animations? Not a lot of games do that.

Also, I've been researching through some Id interviews from 2008-2011 and the more I read, the more I start thinking about the "Call of Doom" fiasco, especially considering that the article was written by Kotaku.

Here are 2 examples where Tim Willits talks about the state of modern shooters.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-the-return-of-id-software?page=2

"Digital Foundry: It's not just technology though, it's gameplay and concepts too. If you look at multiplayer over the last few years, it's become persistent, almost RPG-like. Did this have any effect on you from a concept point of view?"

"Tim Willits: Well, XP-driven multiplayer we have with the vehicle component we have in Rage, but honestly? Some of the trends aren't good trends. Like the whole "pick up a weapon, drop a weapon"... whoever thought of that? That's horrible. Just because it's a trend, it doesn't mean it's a good trend. In a game, when I find a weapon I want to keep it. So again we've always done our own thing there."

"Digital Foundry: In an id game, each weapon is a tool, it's designed for a certain job. In many games these days you have hundreds of weapons and you never really develop any kind of relationship with them."

"Tim Willits: That's definitely one of those trends, I didn't want to jump on that bandwagon. Things like XP-based multiplayer is a great trend. We definitely added that in. But we don't pay that much attention to other games."

"id Software’s creative director says gamers are suffering from “modern combat fatigue”

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/08/02/id-softwares-creative-director-says-gamers-are-suffering-from-modern-combat-fatigue/


Something smells very fishy here. I don't know who to trust anymore.

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Tim Willts wasn't involved in Doom 4 project until Rage shipped. Whenever he was asked about Doom 4, he responded like "I can't comment on that. It's Kevin's project."

And Rage has some re-used characters. I don't remember the exact number but there are about 110 characters (with different name) and 60 unique models. And there are even fewer unique animations.

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Doom 4 must have what Doom 1 and 2 had:

- Great soundtrack for each level. Everyone knows the Doom music. Keep it simple and memorable like a movie score. No heavy metal or songs.
- Classic monsters. Pinky, Cacodemon, Imps, Cyberdemon, etc. They all had a great look with their own sound effects and quirks. ;)
-Deathmatch. It has to have fast action paced deathmatch.
-Fun levels. Keep them simple yet fun and a little challenging but don't go overboard.
-Doom 3 failed because it lacked these things. They tried to do way too much with it and forgot their Doom roots.
-All of the weapons from Doom 1 and 2. We must have that classic BFG again!

In other words, just give us more levels and make the graphics a little better but keep everything else the same. :)

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Doom is like an aging action movie star who had his heyday decades ago and is now scratching his head, wondering what happened to the genre he helped pioneer. In other words, a first person shooter that revolved around rapidly avoiding slow-moving projectiles, navigating abstract mazes, showering the screen with gratuitous violence and combining unlikely elements (demonic, militant, archaic) is very out of place now. How do you make that work in an era of serious, photorealistic, story-driven, movie-like gaming? Can it even be done?

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GoatLord said:

Doom is like an aging action movie star who had his heyday decades ago and is now scratching his head, wondering what happened to the genre he helped pioneer. In other words, a first person shooter that revolved around rapidly avoiding slow-moving projectiles, navigating abstract mazes, showering the screen with gratuitous violence and combining unlikely elements (demonic, militant, archaic) is very out of place now. How do you make that work in an era of serious, photorealistic, story-driven, movie-like gaming? Can it even be done?


Great comment!I agree. It's not just Id who doesn't know what to do with it, it's also the fans. Some only action action action, some want it to be like Painkiller (which is fucktarded, cut it out) while others (like me) want a combination of atmosphere and action. I think this is why there is a lot of internal strife within Id. They don't know what to do with it and I don't really blame them.

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Why do I get this bad feeling that Doom 4 will impliment kill cams?

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GoatLord said:

How do you make that work in an era of serious, photorealistic, story-driven, movie-like gaming?

By not making it a serious, photorealistic, story-driven, movie-like game, I guess. Or at the very least, being bold enough to not use contemporary shooters as a template and doing something different.

I'm not saying Id have an easy job. And I'm definitely not saying a cell-shaded* 1:1 remake of Doom, with highly abstract environments, zero characterisation, zero cinematic sequences and virtually no story would appeal to the general gaming crowd, or even certain members of the Doom community who want something meatier. But Doom 3 showed us what Id are capable of when tasked with making a new Doom game (with all the things a 'modern' FPS should encompass), even if that was 10 years ago and it's not the exact same team working on Doom 4. We all have our separate thoughts about Doom 3, but can we all agree that it was... a mixed bag? It's what happens when you try to make 1993 game work with the more demanding ideals of 21st Century gaming.**


*Probably the best way to capture the semi-cartoony aesthetic of the original games, short of using the Doom engine all over again.

**Or LESS demanding, depending on how you look at it. But this post has been ramble-y enough already.

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Regarding Kotaku, you don't have to believe them. But the restart is a confirmed thing and that's the biggest thing.

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Yea, if Doom 4 sucks then think I will have lost all faith in ID :(

Doom 3 was a good game, but it did need alot of MODS to get it just right, dissolving monsters for instance ...why!

Rage I think tried to be much bigger, groundbreaking and technologically superior then it actually was. The gameplay was good, story was...dull. John's engines are usually pretty cool, but not convinced with this Mega-texture technology. I think 'repeating textures' used to be pretty bad, but in most games these days I hardly notice it. The pure size needed to make it look good just does not compensate for the visual look. Its funny actually as I would have thought Mega-texture technology would have been best suited on a PC which has the hardware to do it properly. Instead John decided to use it mainly for console hardware that had no chance in pulling it off.

Be interesting to see how this technology improves for Doom 4.

Maybe the current gen was just a miss and his next engine will be better....if ID last thats long.

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bcwood16 said:

Yea, if Doom 4 sucks then think I will have lost all faith in ID :(


I agree. Even though I have a lot of respect for Id and like their recent games, if they fuck up Doom 4 I will never forgive them for it. Their company might also be reduced to an engine company with someone more competent making the game. This is really their last chance.

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bcwood16 said:

Maybe the current gen was just a miss and his next engine will be better....if ID last thats long.


There are no current plans for the next engine. They are expanding id Tech 5.

RAGE took a lot of beating for technology. It'll be interesting though. Right now we've got two more games that'll use id Tech 5 (The Evil Within and Wolfenstein: The New Order). DOOM 4 will most likely be the fourth game to use it. It'll be interesting to see how that unfolds, not only what will they achieve with it but also how a next-gen-ready Tech 5 will be and what will be the reception of Tech 5 based games.

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Touchdown said:

There are no current plans for the next engine. They are expanding id Tech 5.

RAGE took a lot of beating for technology. It'll be interesting though. Right now we've got two more games that'll use id Tech 5 (The Evil Within and Wolfenstein: The New Order). DOOM 4 will most likely be the fourth game to use it. It'll be interesting to see how that unfolds, not only what will they achieve with it but also how a next-gen-ready Tech 5 will be and what will be the reception of Tech 5 based games.


If they had released RAGE in 2008-2009 (especially before Fallout), it would have been a different story. The sad part is that they COULD have.

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bcwood16 said:

Yea, if Doom 4 sucks then think I will have lost all faith in ID :(

I think they already died since the buy out so I'm not holding my hopes up for Doom 4 at all.

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Avoozl said:

I think they already died since the buy out so I'm not holding my hopes up for Doom 4 at all.


Wrong, very wrong. If it weren't for Bethesda, we would get the Call of Doom version. It was them who gave Id a well deserved spanking. Your flagship game is in development hell and you are developing a sequel to a game that sold modestly. Yeah, not smart. At all.

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LANEGRACABRA said:

I bet the "earlier version" stated in the article was the version the DOOM fans would have loved. The history of involuntarily prolonged game development will repeat itself.

EDIT: Oh wait. There was supposed to be gunning demons from a vehicle-sequence. Burn in hell, early version of DOOM 4 !

Seriously, are they really that hellbent (pun intended) on creating something original? this is DOOM, for fuck's sake. Why won't they focus on how different ways a demon can turn into pieces/goo/mulch and weapons that obliterate, destroy and rape creatures inside-out. Recreate the disturbing brain matter/intestine environments with goat heads and pentagrams and stop fucking making up cool scripted sequences or innovative storylines. There are totally different game genres that should concentrate on those things.


i agree!!

david_a said:

If Doom 4 tanks (or maybe even if it keeps being delayed) it will be the end of id. The name might stick around for Carmack's inevitable engines-r-us tech shop, but as a game developer it would be done.


you know when they said they might close down Id and turn it into a straightly tech house, developing only the technology and all, did they actually mean a one man cubical?? you know what i am saying??

david_a said:

If Doom 4 tanks (or maybe even if it keeps being delayed) it will be the end of id. The name might stick around for Carmack's inevitable engines-r-us tech shop, but as a game developer it would be done.


i can't say i am surprise... when a smaller company like Id got purchased by a much larger studio like ZeniMax, also similar corporate butts like EA, Activision, Ubisoft, bureaucracy start happening, mismanagement and all, not surprise at all...

Dragonsbrethren said:

I know it'll be heresy, but maybe Zenimax really does need to bring in some guys who know what they're doing to clean house. Sucks for the guys working there, but a smaller, more focused team working on one project at a time without power struggles is probably exactly what id needs to make a decent game. Rage was fine, outside of the driver issues on the PC side of things, sucks that the reviews didn't really do it justice.

It's a shame that they completely ignored Doom 4's mediocrity until after Rage shipped. It's too late to be a launch title for the new consoles now, which probably could've gotten the game an instant boost in sales even if it was fairly generic like Rage.


yea, what used to make Id great was that they were small firm that handle one game at a time, though there were some other games that were out sourced to other firm as well like Raven software. Personally, I think John Carmack would leave Id in the foreseeable future... just a thought...

Rage, there some good and original concept there, graphically, i like the wasteland with the reddish brown rock and a bright sunny sky that never set!! but yea, why didn't the sun ever set...

Xtife said:

What a joke,

“An earlier version of Doom 4 did not exhibit the quality and excitement that Id and Bethesda intend to deliver and that Doom fans worldwide expect,”

By Beth's standards that would mean buggy and console focused. Maybe ID was dragging their feet and fighting tooth and nail for it to be a good game after Beth got their hands on RAGE and steered it off the rails.

And now that Beth has put its foot down and said "Make it like Skyrim" We may end up with a shitty game again.

Either way, I don't care about Doom 4, ID is dead to me. They are no longer relevant anymore and need to get a clue and die already.


Like I said, Carmack might leave Id for good in time... you can see the same patterns from other examples when a nice firm got swallowed up by a much bigger fish.

Gez said:

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

I know easy scapegoats are cool and all, but Rage was 100% entirely Id's doing. Beth didn't touch it. They're just the publisher.

Id was granted a lot of independence when they were bought. Now ZeniMax is reining it in because they've seen that their trust in Id was misplaced.

Id has kept a lot of prestige from their pioneering glory days, but they have rested on their laurels. While Doom 3 and Rage are alright games, they aren't great or influential. Id Software hasn't released any truly strong title in the 21st century. The last time they were truly relevant was with Quake III Arena (1999). Everything they've published in the current millennium has been either a disappointment (Doom 3, Rage), a "Greatest Hit rerelease" (iPhone ports of Wolf3D and Doom, Quake Live, Doom 3 BFG, PS3 and XBLA rerelease of Doom/Doom II), or something actually developed by some other studio (RTCW, W:ET, Quake IV, ET:QW, Wolfenstein 2009)...


I am afraid i disagree with you. I like Doom 3, though they ain't exactly Doom, I haven't play Rage, but I like what i see from youtube. Bethesia may not have "touched" it, as a publisher, they would give pressure on Id for whatever reason they deem necessary. While I partially agree with you that the good old "Doom Glory" of Id is no more, lets face it, a man normally has one true shot in live, agree? and their recent games ain't bad at all, I wouldn't argue that they are still the best as they were, but like i say, the time has come and gone... and besides, current standard of the industry has change too!! now big studios are all got up to make AAA game, that not just put a lot of pressure to the developer, it also forces them to over stuff their game and eventually becomes generic! back them, it was much simpler, Doom and Doom 2 were about an idea, and the gameplay expressed that idea, it could survive with no major storyline, with no scripted sequence, with no mediocre function like slow motion and sniper scope, to me Doom 4 simply has to upgrade their graphic, their sound and music, may be make the old AI less dumb, then I would be more than satisfy, but Id and Bethesia cannot do that as a big studio with the self impose big studio standard, you know what I am saying??

printz said:

Either way, it's awesome news. It might mean that the latest, most modern version of Doom will remain Doom 3.

I'd expect the true Doom community to give more credit to Doom 3 as well, not call it a disappointment.


I agree!!!

DooM_RO said:

Words cannot describe how disappointed I am...they REALLY need a serious kick in the butt, haven't you learned anything from Doom 3 or RAGE? People don't want mindless linear shooters.[/url]


some people do man! ok, you see, there are some game that offer strategy, some games focus stealth,some games gives you way to modify your weapons, and there are some games that give you back the feel of older times.

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StevieCybernetik said:

Doom3 really pissed me off when the bodies of fallen enemies crumpled away into dust. Games are getting so soft and weak now because overly sensitive bastards that its making them all suffer as a whole. Doom4 needs to be as bloody, as fucked up, and as gory as you can possibly make it.


well, the true reason for the disappearing of body is to keep the polygon count to the minimal.

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DooM_RO said:

Wrong, very wrong. If it weren't for Bethesda, we would get the Call of Doom version. It was them who gave Id a well deserved spanking. Your flagship game is in development hell and you are developing a sequel to a game that sold modestly. Yeah, not smart. At all.


but are your intel accurate?? i don't know, you might be in relation with the team and all.

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keithktam said:

well, the true reason for the disappearing of body is to keep the polygon count to the minimal.


They could have let the bodies linger for a FEW seconds. Let you get a good look. Doom 3 feels so sanitized. It feels like it hardly has any violence in it at all.

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keithktam said:

but are your intel accurate?? i don't know, you might be in relation with the team and all.


Read the article again. Also, I am on the other side of the world, which means I can't be on their team. Bethesda also publishes pretty good games and compared to other publishers, they're not so bad.

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GoatLord said:

They could have let the bodies linger for a FEW seconds. Let you get a good look. Doom 3 feels so sanitized. It feels like it hardly has any violence in it at all.


i think this is a good thing for the modder to mod!!

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I read this the other day. Id can have all the time to work this shit out. I've got some other games I haven't gotten around to.

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keithktam said:
i think this is a good thing for the modder to mod!!


You're assuming the ragdoll physics are in place :)

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I'd like to know how id expects to take a cartoonish, unrealistically fast, labyrinthine, somewhat surreal, non-representational 2.5d shooter and expect to translate it to today's market.

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GoatLord said:

I'd like to know how id expects to take a cartoonish, unrealistically fast, labyrinthine, somewhat surreal, non-representational 2.5d shooter and expect to translate it to today's market.


DOOM 3

It's also funny that everything you mention is a result of the limited tech at the time. Just because to some that's become a set of fundamental characteristics of DOOM doesn't mean, it's how id imagined a perfect DOOM game.

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Two things:

1) Doom 3 was already behind the times when it came out. It was seen as old hat in comparison to deeper shooters like Half-Life 2. And on top of that, I don't think it was a particularly good translation. Too many things made it feel like a completely different game than what Doom in 3D should have been.

2) I'm not saying that the final product that is Doom was how id imagined it. I'm saying that the gameplay elements have a certain idiosyncratic nature to them that would be awkward on a modern engine.

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GoatLord said:

1) Doom 3 was already behind the times when it came out. It was seen as old hat in comparison to deeper shooters like Half-Life 2. And on top of that, I don't think it was a particularly good translation. Too many things made it feel like a completely different game than what Doom in 3D should have been.

One of the things from the reviewers that annoyed the shit out of me when Doom 3 came out was comparing it with other games I don't care about, such as Far Cry or Half-Life 2.

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GoatLord said:

Two things:

1) Doom 3 was already behind the times when it came out. It was seen as old hat in comparison to deeper shooters like Half-Life 2. And on top of that, I don't think it was a particularly good translation. Too many things made it feel like a completely different game than what Doom in 3D should have been.

2) I'm not saying that the final product that is Doom was how id imagined it. I'm saying that the gameplay elements have a certain idiosyncratic nature to them that would be awkward on a modern engine.


DOOM 3 wasn't any kind of revolution, that's for sure. But with that said, I still think it was one of the better games in 2004. HL2 was a deeper game, what a joke. I'm a huge fan of HL series but having recently played them all again after a long break, HL2 is such an average game. I was always baffled by the insanely positive reception it got (yay Gravity Gun!!) but years later, it's even worse.
Plus, you asked how id expects to do this and that, and DOOM 3 is the best answer you have. You may not agree with what they did, but it's pretty much the answer.

But then what was your point? It's pretty much guaranteed that DOOM 4 will not try to imitate those elements anyway.

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