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Kinsie

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

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Kotaku have posted an in-depth, fascinating investigation of Doom 4's... shall we say... troubled development cycle. Project reboots, power struggles, serious morale issues, thinly-veiled threats... it's basically Heaven's Gate with Cacodemons. Bethesda's Pete Hines confirmed to Eurogamer that Doom 4 has been restarted in the past. The game is now targeting next-gen console hardware.

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Restart confirmed by Bethesda. Suffice to say, we won't see the game this year. Probably not even next year.

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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.

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I can't say I'm especially surprised by the news of the game getting a reboot. A game being in development longer than three years generally means some kind of starting over. Anyway, I still have faith enough in id's talent that they can produce something great, provided they can get their management skills together.

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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.

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Seems like ZeniMax are giving id a well-needed kick up the ass. Hopefully Doom 4 shouldn't take much longer.

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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.

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udderdude said:

Doom 4's development hell.

Well, I think that's for the best, since Doom is all about hell.

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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.

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LANEGRACABRA said:

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


Personally I wouldn't mind a shooting-from-vehicle-sequence in D4. Even better if it was on rails so that you only have to focus about aiming.
On the other hand when I think about driving in Rage now all I can say that 'it was nice but not super-cool.
And I also have a sneaking suspicion that if they have saved the memory spent on wasteland textures they could have 2x better resolution of textures on the interior levels.

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I really won't care about Doom 4 until I see what it looks like and player reviews, otherwise like Xtife has mentioned ID is also dead to me. I only really care about their classic Doom and Quake games.

Knowing Bethesda, their products are usually a buggy mess that normally force the community to fix most of the time (lol Oblivion, lol Skyrim).

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Why bother?


id hasn't done anything good since Quake 2. Their engines were great, their games sucked, though.

Why expect something different next time?

This isn't the same company anymore that once made Doom - a long time ago...

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Xtife said:

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

Whatever "like Skyrim" means, if Doom 4 turns out to be as good as Skyrim, I'll be happy - nay, overjoyed.

Asking for anything more than that is fatuous.

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Graf Zahl said:

id hasn't done anything good since Quake 2. Their engines were great, their games sucked, though.

i smell a noob who gets his shit kicked out of him at multiplayer...

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macsmol said:

Even better if it was on rails so that you only have to focus about aiming.

I think you can easily do that in Boom with conveyors.

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Xtife said:

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.


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)...

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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.

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It certainly wasn't a disappointment to Id with it being their greatest selling game ever.

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Just reading the description of the scrapped version of the game (lots of cutscenes/cinematic events, a turret shooter sequence), and seeing those scrapped screenshots (very linear looking, and I imagine full of invisible walls), I'm beyond glad they got rid of it. But honestly, I'm still left with doubt that Doom 4 will even be worth it in the end.

It would be a miracle if we got a back to basics game that was like Carmack seemed to be describing "Demons and a shotgun", with the non-linear secret filled designs brought to higher CPU and system standards. With that being said, I just have this feeling that game will end up level design-wise like the linear modern warfare/call of duty clone that was Duke Nukem Forever's levels

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printz said:

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

So the "true Doom community" likes anything with the Doom brand, regardless of its failings? Well, I guess id could just publish that unfinished version of Doom 4 described in the article right now and know that they pleased their true fanbase.

---

Doom 3 was a huge disappointment to me. It kept very little of what I liked about the game and brought in elements from a genre I hate. Commercially it might've been a success, but it certainly wasn't to me.

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printz said:

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

It can only be a disappointment if you expected it to be good. It was mediocre at best.


To me this news is interesting because I think it exposes what many of us have suspected about present-day id.

I think Gez put it pretty well:

"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."


To me they seem like a group of people who have their strengths (Carmack, their name/legacy) but who are uncoordinated, leaderless and without any real vision or discipline.

I also agree with Graf that the last decent game they made was QuakeII. QuakeIII wasn't really much of a game. It was a good engine and Q3Arena got much of its success on the back of the id and Quake names but, as a game on its own, it was actually nothing special. I always much preferred UT anyway. I still play that. I can't remember the last time I played Q3.

As a personal comment about the art direction of Q3, by the time it came out, I felt that much of the look of Q3 was quite passée and almost a self ridiculing caricature of what an id game is "supposed" to look like.

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Dragonsbrethren said:

So the "true Doom community" likes anything with the Doom brand, regardless of its failings?

Of course. If you like Doom (with demons and hell) enough, you're going to like anything branded Doom (also with demons and hell), by focusing on remembering their good parts and trying to minimize the experience of the ugly parts.

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kristus said:

It certainly wasn't a disappointment to Id with it being their greatest selling game ever.


In absolute numbers, maybe; but in proportion to the market size? I doubt it approached the phenomenon that was its predecessors in the franchise. I also doubt anyone at Id bought themselves a Testarossa with the money from Doom 3's sales.

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printz said:
I think you can easily do that in Boom with conveyors.


The problem is projectile attacks. They're not affected, and thus break the immersion. So there should be some kind of 'wind' push effect as well, but I think that does not work on projectiles anyway.

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Mordeth said:

The problem is projectile attacks. They're not affected, and thus break the immersion. So there should be some kind of 'wind' push effect as well, but I think that does not work on projectiles anyway.

It works on some Heretic projectiles!

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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. ALSO, Doom is not only about shotguns and demons, these are only the most superficial traits of doom.What it also needs is atmosphere and at least some degree of exploration. I think we should mass tweet them with what gamers truly want. SERIOUSLY, W.T.F were they even thinking?! Call of Doom?! (as the article states). WTF is going on?! Looks like I was right about them copying modern games in a servile manner. I don't mind if there are a few or more inspirations from modern games, but THIS?!After four years?! Wtf are they doing?They are not some new company? They're ID!! I'm seriously thinking about posting the "Should Id fire Tim Willits" thread on their Twitter until they get a fucking clue. If there is anyone who can do anything to change their minds then it's Doomworld.

If you are reading this Id, then look at Deus Ex: Human Revolution, THAT'S how you make a sequel to a classic game, not by making a fucking Call of Duty clone. People don't care if you are Id, if you screw this up, gamers will not forgive you for it.

EDIT: They are apparently recruiting talent for the reboot...maybe some of you could join as level designers?That would be awesome! http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/doom-4-goes-back-to-the-drawing-board-as-id-software-seeks-new-staff/

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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. ALSO, Doom is not only about shotguns and demons, these are only the most superficial traits of doom.What it also needs is atmosphere and at least some degree of exploration. I think we should mass tweet them with what gamers truly want. SERIOUSLY, W.T.F were they even thinking?! Call of Doom?! (as the article states). WTF is going on?! Looks like I was right about them copying modern games in a servile manner. I don't mind if there are a few or more inspirations from modern games, but THIS?!After four years?! Wtf are they doing?They are not some new company? They're ID!! I'm seriously thinking about posting the "Should Id fire Tim Willits" thread on their Twitter until they get a fucking clue. If there is anyone who can do anything to change their minds then it's Doomworld.

If you are reading this Id, then look at Deus Ex: Human Revolution, THAT'S how you make a sequel to a classic game, not by making a fucking Call of Duty clone. People don't care if you are Id, if you screw this up, gamers will not forgive you for it.


Calm down, you can't assume you know everything about what they were developing from what this article states.

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Honestly, I am glad their first version was scrapped. The last thing that I would have wanted is a Call of Doom. I hope that they can come up with something really good. I don't care about "revolutionary." Just give me something solid and fun. Also a little more open world and not so linear. I mean, it would be awesome to be in a run down city with lots of places to explore and lots of demons and zombies everywhere crawling around looking for humans to kill. Whatever they do, do NOT give us a Call of Doom.

Plus, I know Brutal Doom is not very popular with some people around here but I hope id has taken notice of Brutal Doom and its popularity in the Doom community. Brutal Doom should be a preview of what Doom fans want from the next Doom. In my opinion Brutal Doom catches what made Doom so awesome. Blowing the shit out of demons. Killing them with lots of guns and watching them die in the most gruesome and gory ways imaginable. I mean, I have been playing CC4 with Brutal Doom and when you are up against a horde of monsters, it is just so awesome to just unload on them with the rocket launcher or BFG and blow them to itty bitty pieces.

It's not just the gore that makes Brutal Doom so awesome, it is the intensity. The intensity of Doom is ratcheted upward since the demons are now faster, the guns and explosions are extremely loud and destructive, and Doomguy is now like the biggest badass to have ever lived with his ability to rip apart demons and jump kick them and make them explode into a cloud of gore and blood. He is just the ultimate ass kicker.

Another awesome aspect of Brutal Doom is that it makes the static levels of Doom more interactive since you can now pick up barrels and throw them at the demons. It is a small example of using the game world to your advantage to fight the demons.

Anyway, I don't think id needs to carbon copy Brutal Doom, however, I think they should take a look at it and consider some of the cool aspects of the mod which they could emulate in Doom 4.

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