Mythbusters tackles DOOM!

DooM_RO said:

They have a lot of pressure on their shoulders, if this game is a bust they're history.

'nuff said.

Touchdown said:

...I believe the reason for the reveal was not to actually 'reveal' the game but to boost the morale at the team...

This is the explanation makes the most sense to me.

Apparently this doesn't air in my country for some reason. Is there a way to watch this online?

MFG38 said:

Hopefully the episode will be available to watch online at a later date.

What you did there. I see it.

Also on topic, it seems they said it was plausible that Doomguy can carry all the stuff he does

IMX said:

Also on topic, it seems they said it was plausible that Doomguy can carry all the stuff he does

Lol, really? Seriously? Then they haven't tried his full inventory he can carry in the game. (1 small + 7 big weapons, 100 rockets etc.) Even if they were trying Doom3guy's full inventory, it wouldn't go.

That was lame.

Member of special forces such as the SEAL-BUD/S are expected to run around and fight with 30-odd kg of weapons, supplies and equipment on their shoulders, and be able to pack up to 50-60 kg if required.

I still think 100 rockets alone exceeds this quota, not to mention all the other stuff.

Anyway, is there a link to the episode anywhere?

Haven't seen it, neither do I know of a link, but I could try and make some educated guesses, just for the shits and giggles.

So, 100 12-gauge shells should be about 4 kg, if you factor in 40 grams per shell (a standard 36g load + casing etc.). 400 pistol-class rounds...let's say 10 grams each, so again 4 kg for the lot. The rockets are indeed the hard part. In -game, they look enormous: like artillery shells, and not just the pickups: even when emerging from the barrel. In RL, a RPG-class round weighs at least 2 kg, so carrying 100 of them is really out of the question.

However, if instead of RPG rounds we concede that they are actually launchable 40mm grenades (perhaps with an auxiliary rocket propulsion), then at least the weight of the launcher gets down to a manageable 3kg, while the "rockets" themselves go down to 1/4th of a kg each. That's still 25 kg for carrying 100 of them.

A good military-grade pistol should weigh about 1 kg, a mil-spec pump-action shotgun about 3.5 kg, and a "minigun" which works with pistol-grade ammo, if it existed, would be around 5-6 kg.

So far, without the energy weapons counted, we have 34 kg ammo weight, plus about 15 kg for the weapons themselves, so that's a whoopping 49 kg. It's not little, but a member of an elite unit is supposed to be able to carry that weight around. If you halve the ammo, then we have a quite realistic 32 kg. At this level, no excuses: a special op soldier is expected to be fully combat-capable with just 30-something kg on him.


Now, ofc I have no idea how much a "plasma rifle" of a "BFG" would weigh, but let's say that the weapons themselves are no heavier than 7-8 kg each (which is really the practical limit for anything handheld).

Estimating power cells is even harder, but we know that one plasma rifle shot does up to 4 times the damage of a bullet, so each ball has at least four times as much energy as an average bullet, which is about 500J. So each shot "burns" 2000J assuming 100% efficiency. Let's say it's 50% for various reasons...so 4000J per shot.

This is surprisingly not unmanageable even by modern batteries: a small 7Ah, 12V UPS lead-acid battery would give about 75 shots, for a weight of 2.1 kg, and about a fourth of that for LiPo. So 0.5kg of batteries for 75 shots. Not bad, actually.

Surely in Doomguy's time they use at least LiPo tech, so he'd need just 4 kg of batteries for 600 shots. Even if we assume just 25% efficiency, 8 kg shouldn't be unmanageable.

So the total of energy weapons + their ammo should be between 20-25 kg. So we go to a total of 75 kg. This is quite a bit, but again, a member of an elite unit is supposed to be able to carry the weight of a man (e.g. a wounded comrade) for at least mile on his shoulders.

The TL; DR version: with normal ammo carrying capacity (no backpack) and no energy weapons, it is plausible that a RL soldier could carry the same weaponry and ammo supply as Doomguy (totaling 30-35 kg), but only members of elite units are known to perform well in combat with that much burden on them. With double the ammo, the weight skyrockets to 50 kg. At this level, even special ops are simply expected to be able to "pack" it, e.g. just carry it around, even for long marches, but not fight with it. With a conservative estimate about energy weapons weight, the total would go to an unrealistic 75 kg. A special ops soldier is expected to be able to shoulder this weight for a relatively short distance (1 mile, maybe 2) but not do long marches, let alone fight with it.

i didnt find the full episode on official sites.

google: MythBusters.S15E04.Video.Games.Special stream
and you can find it.

in general it is entertainment trash. willits is seeable 1 minute. dont try to analyse it, its not worth. the show was confusing.


trailers & 7 minute aftershow
http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/video-games-special/

pictures
http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/photos/video-games-gallery/

Then there's how you carry it, picking up multiple items of any weight can be annoying at times...when you just don't have enough hands. Doom Guy could get training for that....but I still can't imagine it's possible to swap out a rocket launcher on your back to your little pistol instantly while picking up plasma charges and applying a medkit all whilst keeping everything else balanced on your back perfectly.

People one day could maybe pull off a Doom Guy like existence, but the game still takes a crap load of artistic licences and fictional physics to make our Doom Guy carry all of that. He may very well find picking up a stack of health packs is within his range in terms of weight, but where he holds it is another thing....he can't hold them like a bunch of pizza boxes while the other hand is shooting.

Xegethra said:

He may very well find picking up a stack of health packs is within his range in terms of weight, but where he holds it is another thing....he can't hold them like a bunch of pizza boxes while the other hand is shooting.

What about pulling a supermarket cart behind him all the time? Or having an ammo & weapon carrying assistant (a "Patsy"). Or, better yet, ride a vehicle, which also explains his movement speed, patterns and limitations?

We all know that Doomguy was a paraplegic in a rocket-powered wheelchair and carried it in a fanny pack.

Now with animated gifs, videos and articlised on Kotaku

Patrol1985 said:

Willits is the most experienced team member and designer

*cough* *cough* HE likes DRM *cough* *cough*

Heh a guy carrying 9 guns certainly looks funnier than I initially thought.

Doesn't really matter anymore that he like DRM, DRM/Steam has already taken over gaming anyway.

I liked it.

Avoozl said:

Doesn't really matter anymore that he like DRM, DRM/Steam has already taken over gaming anyway.

So he should make a poster saying "DRM has already made you its bitch - suck it down"?

I used to like Mythbusters a few years ago but not anymore, as said it's as much entertainment trash as anything these days. (Or maybe it always was.)

About Willits, I never met the guy but I was quite disappointed in the way he told off stream viewers before the Doom 4 preview at QuakeCon. We knew it was exclusive to attendees but he was slighly arrogant about it, at least that's how it came off to me.

Not being a big fan of either Brutal Doom or Rage I don't have high hopes for Doom 4, seeing as it's seemingly focusing on things like finishing moves and Brutal Doom being generally liked by the team working on it. Although perhaps I will, I didn't see the preview, so I'd really like to be proven wrong.

Why'd they even bother talking about Willits? He barely appeared at all in the episode.

My main complaints about Willits are as follows:

1. Got into id with someone else's map designs (according to Doom Wiki)

2. Supports always-on DRM. I defend protecting your own product but I oppose controlling the user and especially doing so in a way that makes it harder to preserve history.

3. Shat on PSX Doom. I get it, you wanted to promote BFG Edition and it's a better deal for the PC purists that hate what the PSX version did, but he seems dispassionate enough to not even know what the PSX version was. "It was like Doom 1, but crappy" shows that he had enough awareness to know the engine and first 24 maps came from Jaguar Doom, but either willfully ignores or is actually ignorant of what it was beyond that, and it was so much more than a straight port of Jag (which on its own I consider superior to PC in several ways anyway, despite some simplifications).

That being said, I actually really liked Doom 3 and Rage even though I think their designs were slightly misguided in their own ways, generally and otherwise, Willits seems like a laid-back and cool guy. I just wish he didn't have questionable positions about industry practices and talk shit about well-regarded spinoff products.

Sodaholic said:

1. Got into id with someone else's map designs (according to Doom Wiki)

I see no such text on the Doom wiki.

Superluigieth1 said:

*cough* *cough* HE likes DRM *cough* *cough*

And how does that oppose my claim? You CAN be "an experienced designer" and support DRM at the same time. Those aren't mutually exclusive.

Edward850 said:

I see no such text on the Doom wiki.

doomwiki.org said:

Many of his levels were designed along with his sister, Theresa Chasar.

I fail to see how that says he got into iD from someone else's work. Your witch hunt has blinded you.

Edward850 said:

Your witch hunt has blinded you.

Witch hunt? I don't hate the guy, I just heavily disagree with some parts of his attitude and views.

And yet you keep trying to find tiny details about his life to mark him as the new true Satan.
No, that's not a witch hunt at all.

Edward850 said:

And yet you keep trying to find tiny details about his life to mark him as the new true Satan.
No, that's not a witch hunt at all.

And that's just your interpretation. Highly critical =/= hatred. As I said, I think he's a good designer. I enjoyed Strife, Doom 3 and even Rage.

And no, I don't spend time to go around "trying to find tiny details", those criticisms are simply notes I've picked up gradually over time. I don't have any other criticisms of him than the ones I've already listed and don't intend to go "scavenging" for anything else.

I only managed to catch bits a pieces. It was ok. But, I'm not a big fan of the show in general so I really can't judge what little I did manage to see.

As for Tim Willits. Anyone who thinks that always on and other invasive forms of DRM are a good thing, clearly thinks more about making money and less about doing right by their customers. Perfect example is Diablo 3. I have no interest in multiplayer and would only buy the game for the single player experience. Yet, I should be perfectly fine with being chained to an internet connection to play a offline mode? Sure if my internet connection was up 100% of the time and I could take it anywhere, it wouldn't be an issue. But, I have spent nearly 7 hours on the phone with Comcast over the past couple of weeks because it is constantly dropping to dial up speeds or going offline and many people can say the same .

Fulgrim said:

Anyone who thinks that always on and other invasive forms of DRM are a good thing, clearly thinks more about making money and less about doing right by their customers.

I know it's harsh, but game companies ACTUALLY think more about making money. It's their job after all. Let's face it, Carmack spoiled us with his attitude, releasing source code etc. and we took this kind of attitude for granted. Truth be told, Carmack is an exception in the industry, not the rule. The majority thinks about making money and there's nothing wrong about it.