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Kinsie

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

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* After 3DR ran out of money and fired the development team, a bunch of DNF devs didn't want the dream to die so they kept working on it on their own, without any financial support. Gearbox bought the franchise to help Duke survive but they only did MP and console ports. They didn't want to interfere with SP that the original devs were making. However the next Duke installment will be made fully under the direction of Gearbox.

* According to the Kotaku article, id did not get too far with DOOM 4. They were never close to a product they could ship. It's inexcusable that they've let it drag for 3 years but it was a gutsy move to restart it at that point.

* From a fresh interview with Beth's Pete Hines:

Eurogamer: Can you say what Id is working on these days?

Pete Hines: They are hard at work on their next project. We're not ready to talk about or show it yet, but I'm pretty pleased with how it's come along. I actually played a decent bit of it recently and thought it looked really good and it's definitely headed in the right direction.

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Just because PH thought it was good doesn't necessarily mean it will be good though.

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Just posting new stuff. Then again, my opinion remains that regardless of what DOOM 4 turns out to be, 95%+ folks here will be disappointed.

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Touchdown said:

95%+ folks here will be disappointed.


Totally agree, that's why I say name it something else. It'll be a shock since there are always so many years between major, unique Doom releases.

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Why name it something else? So that some irrational perfect version of DOOM isn't stained in the eyes of biased stuck-in-the-past individuals? 'The new entry sucks, the DOOM name is ruined forever, nooo!' Yeah. Never cater to the close-minded.

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Yeah you're right. A new name wouldn't make much sense. It wouldn't sell as many copies either without the Doom name. Doom should grow and evolve. People will still love and play the originals, but evolving and expanding gets their foot in the door for a new generation and put them back on the map for positive reasons.

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Avoozl said:

Just because PH thought it was good doesn't necessarily mean it will be good though.


The games Bethesda are making are anything but generic so I trust him...but not fully.

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I really hope that the newer version of Doom 4 at least looks more like Doom. Those leaked screens of the previous version didn't look like Doom at all. More like Half-Life. One thing is an absolute must: space marines must have green armor!

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I'm all for Doom 4 being a very different experience than we're expecting. Doom 3, flaws aside, can be a lot of fun to play, despite how different it is from the classics. This is largely due to a significant redeeming factor: despite slower sections and cramped monster fights, the core gameplay was never interrupted by the story; instead, the player got to decide how involved they wanted to be in the plot. Games are for gaming and that's what id should keep that in mind, certainly moreso than "be sure to include soul spheres" or "give the hell knight horns this time."

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doom_is_great said:

I really hope that the newer version of Doom 4 at least looks more like Doom. Those leaked screens of the previous version didn't look like Doom at all. More like Half-Life. One thing is an absolute must: space marines must have green armor!


The question is, how should a modern Doom game look like?

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EA didn't go with iD instead they made and published Dead Space. Its fun when people complain DS3 was too action and not enough horror. They're just making it Doom.

I trust Zenimax more to put out a product I want to play than I would EA. They still make really popular games, but I'd fear what they'd churn out.

Speaking of EA, I've been playing Battlefield 3, since its free on Playstation Plus and the single player is shit. They brag about animations so realistic, yet a NPC can't look at me. Why is it when I do friendly fire I get a mission over, but they can't do the same if I shoot civilians? Instead the civilians do nothing. Makes me fear what CoDoom and EA would be like if they had control of Doom. *micro transactions*

I'd rather DOOM be more like Half Life. Doom 3 caught up to HL1, but with better graphics and Rage caught up with Half Life 2.

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I've noticed lately that bethesda are now catering for the casual crowd to make more money, I honestly don't think they're as good as they used to be.

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geo said:

EA didn't go with iD instead they made and published Dead Space. Its fun when people complain DS3 was too action and not enough horror. They're just making it Doom.

I trust Zenimax more to put out a product I want to play than I would EA. They still make really popular games, but I'd fear what they'd churn out.

Speaking of EA, I've been playing Battlefield 3, since its free on Playstation Plus and the single player is shit. They brag about animations so realistic, yet a NPC can't look at me. Why is it when I do friendly fire I get a mission over, but they can't do the same if I shoot civilians? Instead the civilians do nothing. Makes me fear what CoDoom and EA would be like if they had control of Doom. *micro transactions*

I'd rather DOOM be more like Half Life. Doom 3 caught up to HL1, but with better graphics and Rage caught up with Half Life 2.


Nope, Dead Space was originally supposed to be System Shock 3

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DooM_RO said:

Nope, Dead Space was originally supposed to be System Shock 3

That has actually never been confirmed. All we know for sure is that at one point EA held the rights to System Shock and also published Dead Space. I guess it's not a ridiculous assumption, but I don't see why someone official wouldn't have confirmed it by now if it was true.

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Captain Red said:

That has actually never been confirmed. All we know for sure is that at one point EA held the rights to System Shock and also published Dead Space. I guess it's not a ridiculous assumption, but I don't see why someone official wouldn't have confirmed it by now if it was true.


I think they actually still do. A System Shock remake/sequel for Doom 3 was threatened with legal action by EA a while back... I'd kill for a SS sequel/remake. No, Bioshock does not count.

Either way, the deal between Id and EA was being considered sometime in 2008, when the first Dead Space came out.

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Since I've never played System Shock 1 or 2 I'm ignorant about the subject.... but by the logic some are presenting here I'd have to say >> Assassin's Creed has jumping, swinging, climbing, combat and put out by UBIsoft. Therefore it must be the next incarnation of Prince of Persia, which has all of those things.

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Him saying that "Hard Reset" was *almost* right kinda invalidates it for me. That was so awful. Also, he doesn't really more than scratch the surface. I'll agree that the level design was more clever back then alongside with better game mechanics and so forth - but how is it inherently a good thing to get attacked within 3 seconds? No exposition or introductory scene? Getting awfully close to casual gaming there.

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They should stop treating shooters as movies, that's the solution in a nutshell. But that doesn't mean old shooters only lack in graphics. Bringing back the exploration based levels* (to give players a gameplay space rather than a completely scripted experience) would be a step in a right direction. But it's not an endgame solution. Abandoning the set up, presentation, story and such would be a massive downgrade.

* some modern examples of that include Deus Ex, BioShock, Dishonored

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Deus Ex at least gives you a fair bit of control during the interactive exposition, rather than just locking you in a room with a .wav file playing until you can leave. In that way, it's much more fun to replay than, say, HL2, which is a total snorefest around the second or third time. Can't remember if you can skip DX's tutorials (like with the LAMs), but that would be the most boring part to play through again.

One of the reasons I sometimes prefer pre-rendered cutscene (i.e. The Last of Us) over in-engine cutscenes (i.e. Kingpin), or player-character kidnapping exposition (i.e. Half-Life 2), is that the former is usually skippable, allowing you to get into the 'meat' of the action, if you so desire.

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DooM_RO said:

The question is, how should a modern Doom game look like?


In my opinion, Doom 3 did a pretty good job at bringing Doom to life in high definition graphics. It could have been brighter. Doom 3 modded with the Sikk mod looks really good and not so dark thanks to all the graphical additions incorporated by SikkPin.

Basically, I think that Doom 4 needs to looks dark but not pitch black. It can have some bright areas to break up the monotony of darkness, but it should mostly be dark. Just not pitch black like Doom 3. The marines should also have green armor. That is the trade mark of the Doomguy. Buildings and infrastructure should look futuristic and metallic. They should not look near future. It's the year 2145 for cryin' out loud.

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Shaviro said:

Him saying that "Hard Reset" was *almost* right kinda invalidates it for me. That was so awful. Also, he doesn't really more than scratch the surface. I'll agree that the level design was more clever back then alongside with better game mechanics and so forth - but how is it inherently a good thing to get attacked within 3 seconds? No exposition or introductory scene? Getting awfully close to casual gaming there.


Well he DID have to explain why non-linear level design is superior to linear cutscene-fests to a large amount of people who have no idea what secrets are. In that regard, I think he nailed it but I agree, not all of it was good. He said that secrets make the levels like a maze. I think only the bad non-linear levels are like mazes because you get lost easily. I also don't see how a lack of story could make the game better, a story in a shooter (especially in Doom) should be bite-sized and not pretend to be something it's not, I think that's the REAL problem with modern shooters, they try too hard. The MK9 story for instance is no less no more than it's supposed to be and that's just fine. The worst part is easily saying that Painkiller and Serious Sam are good classic shooters, fuck that.

doom_is_great said:

In my opinion, Doom 3 did a pretty good job at bringing Doom to life in high definition graphics. It could have been brighter. Doom 3 modded with the Sikk mod looks really good and not so dark thanks to all the graphical additions incorporated by SikkPin.

Basically, I think that Doom 4 needs to looks dark but not pitch black. It can have some bright areas to break up the monotony of darkness, but it should mostly be dark. Just not pitch black like Doom 3. The marines should also have green armor. That is the trade mark of the Doomguy. Buildings and infrastructure should look futuristic and metallic. They should not look near future. It's the year 2145 for cryin' out loud.


They should not be afraid to use colors this time. Doom 3 was either gray, brown with very little pure colors. They were all variations of gray or brown.

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DooM_RO said:

They were all variations of gray or brown.

Yeah but in a Doom-like environment, most of it would be grey or brown. You can't have green plant life because the imps would burn them to crisps, resulting in more grey and brown.

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printz said:

Yeah but in a Doom-like environment, most of it would be grey or brown. You can't have green plant life because the imps would burn them to crisps, resulting in more grey and brown.


It was not the case in the original. Doom had tons of colors in every room, to the point where it was almost cartoonish. This is probably a contributing factor why people thought Doom 3 was bland: too much gray. I would have loved to see pure blue (for textures and lighting) for instance. I am not talking about "ok let's have a blue level", no I am talking about using lots of colors in every level...and smarter use of lighting.

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For a recent example, the Last of Us looks realistic without being dull and it uses plenty of vibrant colors without looking cartoonish.

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I would just like to point out that Doom 3 was not that dark. This myth has been perpetuated by the denial factor, where most computer gamers are so defensive of their rig that they can't admit their monitor just sucked. Everyone who had a decent monitor didn't have a problem with the darkness. It also helps if you didn't have all your lights on like a scaredy cat. Ambient light washes out your monitor and makes it harder to see things. With all your lights out and a good monitor you can see just fine. I almost never use the flashlight in my playthroughs. The game wasn't that dark. id should be careful not to make Doom 4 super bright to compensate for the "too dark" whining. I fear they will make this mistake though. They already catered to the "too difficult" whining by softening all the challenging fights in Doom 3 when they released the BFG edition. I am still hopeful, but my gut feeling is that Doom 4 will be terrible. id listens to the whiners too much.

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Yeah, DOOM 3 was dark where it was supposed to be, but I imagine it was a problem if you were trying to run&gun through it at insane speed. Then again, I thought BFG Edition did a good job with the light, never felt it was too bright, hell I didn't even mind the mounted flashlight in the end. D3 wasn't pitch black like some claim but it's still a valid complaint. I've talked about it in another thread, how old limitations became features in the eyes of people. D3 is a similiar thing, it was dark for performance reasons and making it a bit brighter made sense.

I won't mind DOOM 4 being bright. But I wouldn't expect challange in terms of difficulty. I wouldn't even say that difficulty change in BFG Edition was because of the whiners, I don't recall anyone complaining that much about ammo. It's just id's current mindset not to make things difficult.

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DooM_RO said:

It was not the case in the original. Doom had tons of colors in every room, to the point where it was almost cartoonish. This is probably a contributing factor why people thought Doom 3 was bland: too much gray. I would have loved to see pure blue (for textures and lighting) for instance. I am not talking about "ok let's have a blue level", no I am talking about using lots of colors in every level...and smarter use of lighting.

Yeah but let's compare Doom 1 and Doom 2, and see why Doom 4 may still be mostly brown. Doom 1 consists mostly of space stations, like in Star Wars and other sci-fi genres. Those are bound to look futuristic, with lots of steel, aluminium and colourful lights and paints. Meanwhile, Doom 2 wants to look like modern day Earth, especially the outside world, which really is of concrete, asphalt and dirt. Doom 4 is going to be like Doom 2.

Fire and brimstone hell is of course red, and even Doom 3 has it that way.

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