Doom 3: Phobos

kristus said:

It is (not) in the mod.

But goddamn, is it sweet. Wow.

Caffeine Freak said:

Other than the main menu screen theme(which has been replaced) there likely won't be a lot in the way of traditional music in Phobos. As it is right now, we're employing the use of ambient sounds to create 'soundscapes' in the levels, same as was done in Doom 3. The problem with traditional music in a game like Doom 3 is that it has to loop continuously throughout the level, and this doesn't work well when the mood has to change as the player progresses. You COULD have different music pieces stop and play as the player moves around the level, but the problem with that is the player needs to be able to move around back and forth in the level as he chooses, and that tends to make switching between musical tracks awkward. We're thinking of having some musical pieces at certain key moments, but for the most part the game will use ambient sounds. It's just easier to make them blend seamlessly together than it is with traditional music.

You guys should consider utilizing some of Aubrey Hodges ambient soundscapes in your mod, I can see "Sanity's Edge" mixing in nicely.

My god the lighting is outstanding. You rarely see so much color in horror games for some reason.

This looks absolutely amazing, but I will say one thing, I REALLY hope this has a Spider Mastermind in it, that would be fantastic.

Jaxxoon R said:

You rarely see so much color in horror games for some reason.

You rarely see that much color in first-person shooters, either.

This is an excellent mod, and it's sort of what I expect DOOM 4 to be like... well this plus Abandon All Hope In Hell.

In terms of music, I'm not sure what you have planned but a mixture of 80's early 90's thrash metal and ambience soundtrack would be nice (kinda like DOOM 1).


Somehow I have the feeling that after you guys are done with the mod, Bethesda is going to commend you guys for your work. I know this is probably extremely unrealistic, but what about if Bethesda made your mod a DLC for BFG Edition? I would gladly take it over The Lost Mission. :3

You should seriously consider using Wrecking Ball as music for Doom 3: Phobos.

For DOOM 3: Phobos you should consider using a very high-quality MIDI or MP3 soundtrack in the style of DOOM 1 or DOOM 2. A mixture of heavy metal and ambiance would fit nicely in my opinion for the levels if done correctly (like Bobby Prince guys! :D) and uh yeah. This should be released as a DLC for BFG Edition (cause my PC's kind of acting all wonky so it can't play it as a mod :(. )It would be awesome though, but I doubt Bethesda would allow that to happen. :(

Doom 3: Phobos should use classical piano music, like Moonlight Sonanta.

Can the final boss fight use the Yip Man theme?

Piper Maru said:

Doom 3: Phobos should use classical piano music, like Moonlight Sonanta.

"Fun" fact. A special version of the Moonlight Sonata was recorded for RTC-3057.

Would it be accurate to describe Phobos as RTC 3057 on steroids?

I hope not.

Phobos is kind of a predecessor (I won't say the no-no word) to RTC, but without focusing on that aspect at all. If you've played RTC, there will definitely be aspects that you will recognize in Phobos. I wouldn't say it's RTC on steroids though. Overall Phobos is still likely a slower experience even though we've upped the movement speed and agility of the player. One of the main problems with RTC was the never ending cascading puzzles that was really not much more than fetch quests. In Phobos we're trying to shape the puzzles more from physicality and visual logic solving, very much like what you'd encounter in Dark Forces: Jedi Knight or Half-Life (the first, not the cheap physics puzzles of the second). So RTC-3057 on steroids? Not really, the steroids part isn't accurate. A smarter, deeper, matured version of RTC is closer. Either way, anyone intested in the expansion of that universe will find it in Phobos where the origins, motivations and specifics about something like the Federal Commonwealth of Earth is elaborated on.

We're still trying to shape the mod to fit with both Doom 3 and RoE, but artistic freedoms still need to be taken in order to raise the whole thing up above "Betruger" and army buddies.

After so many years in development, do you and your Phobos team ever feel as if you've taken too long? Doom 3 modding and the game itself is far past it's prime. The audience to appreciate such a massive release has vastly shrunken.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see the project continue. However, I can't help but wonder if you feel it's still worth the effort after all this time.

Speaking only for myself, I'll say that I'm 100% content with going way beyond the expiration date of Doom 3. There was a time where the meek prospects of the project's release would worry me, but we are so far past the point where another year +- makes much of a difference in regards to audience. The sad truth about Doom3 is that it became somewhat irrelevant one week after its release. While the game itself was a pretty big success commercially and the actual quality of the game has and will be debated, it's no secret that the game was underminded by Far Cry pre-release and completely overshadowed by Half-Life 2 post-release.

On the public relation side of things, making a mod for Doom3 sucks. Id software ignoring Doom3 mods. Doom3world (when it was) being a completely useless base for a productive community. Gaming sites happily showing any crap as long as it has a Half-Life label on it. Moddb publicly denouncing the base of your mod. The list goes on. If anyone's interested in why and just how much it sucks I'll be happy to elaborate. Don't want to write a 3 pages long bitter post about it though. I can say though that at times it's frustrating to work on something "nobody" will play, but the further we've went into development, the less it bothers me. I'm having fun working on it and results are actually showing. What bothers me is more about the aforementioned lack of support simply because the base is Doom 3.

Piper Maru said:

You guys should consider utilizing some of Aubrey Hodges ambient soundscapes in your mod, I can see "Sanity's Edge" mixing in nicely.

Those are really more musical tracks than anything else, despite them sounding very close in style to some of the ambient soundscapes in Doom 3. Barring any legal complications, I could see us possibly sampling some of the stuff from AH's music to compose soundscapes, but that would only happen if we had the right software and means to re-mix and clean it up (and also if we were sufficiently interested in taking the sound in that direction at some point in the game.)

Rather than ask about the atmosphere, gameplay or level design of Phobos, here's a question that's been bugging me for ages:

Will Doomguy have a helmet? :p

If so, will it be the same as the other Marine models in the game the, or the more classic look?

On a slightly more serious note, will the demons move around the levels more than they did in Doom 3? In the original Doom, whilst their spawn locations were static, they tend to wander around a fair bit, and they can still surprise you on occasion, whereas I didn't really seem much movement from the demons (apart from a few Commandos occasionally walking back and forth) in Doom 3. Another suggestion would be demons spawning in random locations in some parts of the map: this would definitely increase the tension and replayability.

I'll address both of these.

Livo said:

On a slightly more serious note, will the demons move around the levels more than they did in Doom 3? In the original Doom, whilst their spawn locations were static, they tend to wander around a fair bit, and they can still surprise you on occasion, whereas I didn't really seem much movement from the demons (apart from a few Commandos occasionally walking back and forth) in Doom 3.

Yes, this is something that is far more common in our mod. I regularly put enemies on patrol paths, primarily the more humanoid ones---Commandos, Z-secs, Revenants, Arch-Viles, and occasionally Bruisers. I also put regular zombies on patrol paths, but I make them follow illogical, circular patterns that make no tactical sense (to give the impression they're wandering aimlessly.)

Livo said:

Another suggestion would be demons spawning in random locations in some parts of the map: this would definitely increase the tension and replayability.

Not 'random' in the true sense of the word. In a given combat scenario, I will often have 2-3 possible enemy set-ups that will have been pre-determined by often innocuous, simple actions and decisions the player made earlier on in the map. For example, the player may come to a door he needs to pass through, but before he does, he has the option of picking up a box of shotgun shells laying in the corner. What I'll do is set up the triggers and other entities in such a way so that if the player goes through the door first, he might fight two Imps in a particular room later in the map. However, if he grabs the box of shells first, he might fight a Pinky demon in that same room instead of the Imps. It's not truly a random system, but it keeps things fresh and unpredictable enough that it should keep players on their toes. Doom 3 actually did this a few times throughout the game, but not very often, and nowhere near on the same scale or frequency as it happens in Phobos.

Shaviro said:

Speaking only for myself, I'll say that I'm 100% content with going way beyond the expiration date of Doom 3. There was a time where the meek prospects of the project's release would worry me, but we are so far past the point where another year +- makes much of a difference in regards to audience. The sad truth about Doom3 is that it became somewhat irrelevant one week after its release. While the game itself was a pretty big success commercially and the actual quality of the game has and will be debated, it's no secret that the game was underminded by Far Cry pre-release and completely overshadowed by Half-Life 2 post-release.

On the public relation side of things, making a mod for Doom3 sucks. Id software ignoring Doom3 mods. Doom3world (when it was) being a completely useless base for a productive community. Gaming sites happily showing any crap as long as it has a Half-Life label on it. Moddb publicly denouncing the base of your mod. The list goes on. If anyone's interested in why and just how much it sucks I'll be happy to elaborate. Don't want to write a 3 pages long bitter post about it though. I can say though that at times it's frustrating to work on something "nobody" will play, but the further we've went into development, the less it bothers me. I'm having fun working on it and results are actually showing. What bothers me is more about the aforementioned lack of support simply because the base is Doom 3.

I can definitely understand how you feel here. Personally I'm glad you guys have kept going. I loved the original Doom games back in the 90s and still play them to this day. I was playing Kaiser's Doom 64 EX just last night. I also loved Doom 3, and I wish more quality projects had been released for it. I've been following Phobos for several years now. I'm very eager to get my hands on it. As this thread shows, it definitely has the interest of a small corner of the community. And I'm sure there are more, guys who follow along here but haven't signed up to post. If the final product is half as good as it looks, I would expect word to get around about it. Some folks who haven't touched Doom 3 in years may be inspired to re-install it just to try this out.

Doom 3 turns 10 on the 3rd of August, which seems like a great release date. Even if you don't release it on that date you could still ask game sites to mention your game in the inevitable postmortem articles. PC gamer for instance are showcasing a lot of mods and I think are your best bet.

EDIT: Your mod also has more than a few similarities with Black Mesa like: the base games are very similar, production values are similarly high, the very long development etc. Based on these similarities maybe you could convince them to help you spread the word? After all you are are not competitors. Maybe you could even start a thread on their offtopic section.

Yes, we are interested in that twitch feed you mentioned. Do it. NOW.

http://www.twitch.tv/gex88

I will answer any questions you might have in the chat.

buffering is horrible and I can't see the chat

Any better luck now?

Aside from the FPS issues I really liked it. Everything I see is top notch, as if Id made it. I had feared some new models would look out of place but it feels really Doom 3-like. New shotgun is great! Not sure about the new pistol perspective though. Keep up the good work!

Anyway, How far along is the development? Is it coming out this year?

DooM_RO said:

Not sure about the new pistol perspective though.

I hope it's not centered. The original pistol model looks fucky when centered.

Twitch keeps telling me to 'correct my phrase in the captcha' when I attempt to sign up, even though THERE IS NO CAPTCHA TO BE SEEN ANYWHERE. Fuck them. I guess I'll be sitting this one out.

Yeah the stream had some problems there at the end. The level displayed runs completely smooth with no framedrops on our machines though.

We have no date set. Working as fast as we can :)