Let's talk about the official demo

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/06/15/e3-2015-first-doom-gameplay-shown

This is pretty much exactly what they showed us last year. I have to say I enjoyed everything I saw. A few things in particular:

- It looks like the maps are non-linear, as there were multiple paths for the player to traverse.
- Movement is extremely fast and acrobatic.
- Lighting is great and the general aesthetic is very true to Doom.
- Fatalities are very, very short.
- The spill out of ammo and armor is acceptable. Doom has always been arcadey, so this sort of thing makes sense.
- No fucking around with cheesy cinematics.
- Enemy feedback isn't completely dynamic, but there is clearly a variety of possible deaths.

Monster design seems bit off to me. Also wished for more procedural damage system, ie. blowing a nice hole on flesh with point blank shotgun shot. But I have to say, finally seeing the new DOOM got me so pumped, that even though woke up at 5am to see the stream I didnt even feel tired at work.

I'm surprised by melee myself, it's quick and not faggy. Like an MK-type quickness.

I thought the chainsaw melee was still too long. I'd like to use the weapon against whole crowds of enemies without delays.

i want to know more about the map, it is one of the most important thing for me

how non-linear are they? just something like from a to be you can choose 2-3 ways or more complex? how about secrets?

I think this thread needs the video links for convenience.

That mancubus looks nasty, those gibs when he explodes look very nasty.
As for the chainsaw, id say it sounds less lound than the previous one in doom 3 and looks very good.

Now that I've watched the higher-res videos, some thoughts:

- If there's one thing they nailed, it's player mobility. You see the player moving at high speeds, vaulting over stuff, and even double-jumping. Awesome.
- Surprised they kept the hell knight design from Doom 3 when they've gone back to classic designs on almost everything else. Even more surprised that the new imp seems to also be based on the D3 hell knight.
- Absolutely love how much focus the revenant is getting. If Doom is going to have a mascot, I'm totally cool with it being the revenant.
- The arena-based stuff in the second demo is worrying, since it looks an awful lot like Painkiller gameplay. Hopefully there's not too much arena stuff, and more exploration.
- Fatalities look like they're going to get old real quick. I probably won't use them much, and it would be great if there's an option to turn off the glow that seems to signal when enemies are ready to be fatalitied.
- Hell looks great.

Maybe they showcased the arena-style hell map just because they wanted to distinguish its gameplay from the semilinear-corridor-style techbase map, to proof variety in the game as a whole.

Overall I liked it.
On pros especially:
-it's fast
-chainsaw finishers - You could really feel the power and destruction.
-overall gore level :)
-I liked the Manc design (the glowing green parts)

On the downside is the overall palette of game. Hell looked like muddy cave or some levels from Warcraft 2/3.
I would love to see more out-of-this-world/spacey/zaney parts just like old Dooms levels.
I hope there are some places with vivid blue just like

Blue-red Cacodemon entrails from old Dooms is absolutely memorable view.

-Normal shotgun doesn't feel powerfull. They could add some particle effects maybe. Or change the sound - I loved shotgun sound in Rage.

I liked it generally. I'm optimistic :)

The first person self-fatality at the end of the first demo was amazing. I've always wanted to experience a "Dead Space" death from the first person perspective.

One more thing missing for me: not enough satanic stuff and goat heads. Where are you Adrian Carmack?!

I liked it. The quick preview of the 4 player deathmatch also looked very cool. The editor, for a current gen game, also looks very usable and intuitive. I'm excited for that feature alone. The name, SnapDoom I think, could use some work. The Doom 3 Hellknight is an odd choice, but I wonder if we're gonna see like a classic version too, maybe a new Baron. It's odd, because some of the other monsters harken back and look reasonably strange, and even the new Cacodemon harkens back a lot to the original. I saw the Lost Soul in the MP trailer, but couldn't see it enough to have a good opinion of it.

Otherwise, I think this has a lot of potential. There was the arena bit, but there were also the corridor fights, so really, as long stay varied, it'll be good.

The use of chainsaw looked like the player selecting a random monster to finish them which gets old. There should be multiple attack methods like swiping and skewering.
Varieties of each monster would be nice (basic, hell, cyborg, cursed, infection, digital).

Yah, hopefully the chainsaw will have some more variety later on. However, going on what the Doom 3 E3 demo was like, I'd say it's safe to say a number of things we saw in the demo won't actually happen, like the visceral death from the Revenant, probably most of the weapon pickup animations, some of the scripted events (Like the end of the second demo), and the Holo thing probably won't be as prevalent, though it is a neat feature.

One other thing I forgot to mention that sort of blew my mind for some reason: NuDoomguy didn't take any damage from those big drops. The Power Suit said something about gravity compensation, but whatever. THe fact he didn't get a scratch on him from those jumps, I thought, was a showcase.

Clonehunter said:

One other thing I forgot to mention that sort of blew my mind for some reason: NuDoomguy didn't take any damage from those big drops. The Power Suit said something about gravity compensation, but whatever. THe fact he didn't get a scratch on him from those jumps, I thought, was a showcase.

I think they were just trying to replicate how Doomguy in original Doom didn't take any damage when he fell.

LANEGRACABRA said:

Monster design seems bit off to me. Also wished for more procedural damage system, ie. blowing a nice hole on flesh with point blank shotgun shot. But I have to say, finally seeing the new DOOM got me so pumped, that even though woke up at 5am to see the stream I didnt even feel tired at work.

I think I actually saw one character get a hole blasted through their chest with the shotgun.

Seemed like they were all destructible pretty nicely and procedurally. You can only do so much without it being pre canned.
Data for how a monster's insides has to come from somewhere, and 3D models are flat paper thin planes of triangles, not volumes, because that's how our graphics cards are built to render 3D graphics at real time frame rates.

Seemed like I may have seen the same chainsaw animation over and over though.

I do hope they bring back some goat creatures with reverse legs. It just makes for some unique looking otherworldly hellish stuff instead of random generic demons.

I don't really care about fatalities myself and the random glow was kinda off-putting. Like what is that?! It makes sense for a chainsaw, but I want to shoot stuff with a shotgun not melee it.

potnop said:

I think I actually saw one character get a whole blasted through their chest with the shotgun.

Seemed like they were all destructible pretty nicely and procedurally. You can only do so much without it being pre canned.
Data for how a monster's insides has to come from somewhere, and 3D models are flat paper thin planes of triangles, not volumes, because that's how our graphics cards are built to render 3D graphics at real time frame rates.

Seemed like I may have seen the same chainsaw animation over and over though.

Is it possible to "spawn" these giblets on the monster models upon being shot at? I really hope future technology can do it.

doom_is_great said:

I think they were just trying to replicate how Doomguy in original Doom didn't take any damage when he fell.

Well, obviously. I'm just surprised they did that. Fall damage has been a staple in many games, and I've always liked how Doom handled it.

You can model a skeleton and some guts.

And then you should be able to procedurally split the individual models in half along a plane and render some kind of red gory flat geometry to cover the hole.

That would make for a good look if you want the character to be sliced by a katana or something.

For something rough like a chainsaw or shotgun blast you then have to add some effects of bloodiness and other roughnesses.

That SnapMap. They got it right. Imagine being able to make your own SP maps on a console. That's like manna from above.

Overall the game looks incredible. I hope they allow more than 4 people to deathmatch at the same time tho.

scifista42 said:

I thought the chainsaw melee was still too long. I'd like to use the weapon against whole crowds of enemies without delays.

Awesome as that would be, I can't even do that in regular Doom(2) unless they're all lined up in a corridor, or there's only 2 or 3 low-rank foes. Not with that whole pull into the victim thing going on.

Or I'm just a Doom noob. Maybe both. Either way I'll probably be using it the same why I did before, so I won't mind.

They mentioned in the post-conference interview that the monster death animations are based on the original game's.

I found the player mistakes weird. The demo is very polished and they must have bumped the stick movement smoothing to 400%. On the other hand, the player almost kills himself with some poorly placed rockets. He screwed up some fatalities, most notably in Hell where he accidentally boxed a demon for the second time because he triggered the blue fatality instead of the red one (the animations are triggered based on the body part in focus).

I'm curious to hear what was updated from the QuakeCon demo.

Overall, I was quite impressed by the demo. I don't think there anything that I didn't like, seemed pretty solid to me. I'm looking forward to spring 2016 to experience this for myself. Hopefully the game will be a success and the franchise continues onwards. I've been a fan of Doom since 1993, I like all the games so I see myself being a big fan of this new Doom.

macsmol said:

One more thing missing for me: not enough satanic stuff and goat heads. Where are you Adrian Carmack?!

Agreed. Even DOom 3 was littered with Satanic alters, symbols and mutilated corpses. I'm not getting that here.

So that's why the cyberdemon looks like a generic rock monster instead of a fucking badass goat demon.

I want to see this return.

TheCupboard said:

Overall the game looks incredible. I hope they allow more than 4 people to deathmatch at the same time tho.

I think 4 player DM is just a Retro Option. The main MP mode looked like it had more than four players. Also note that in the 4 player preview the players are moving really fast compared to the other players.

Oh thank god! He's wearing a helmet!

Personally I loved every second of it,seems like they are taking a good direction for a modern Doom, I love the speed and style of the gun play, was a little jarring to see a double jump, but after watching the videos a couple times, found that it adds some nice mobility. Love the brutality and how stupid and insane the setting is.

However I have some thoughts about the Baron/Hell knight we saw in the video... I have a theory that this Hell knight is actually a replacement for the Pinky Demon. Through out the video I noticed they never used projectiles, but instead relied upon a charge and what I could only describe as Hulk SMASH! Then there is the lack in size and bulk we would normally associate with being an upper tier bullet sponge, which these Hell knights are certainly not. With what we've seen, it looks like they fill the Pinky's role to a T.

Plus we also saw the Specter towards the end of the video, which with what little we saw looked like a cross between the Soul cube guardian and Doom 3's Pinky.
I'll be a little honest, if my suspicions prove correct and we don't get a standard Pinky, I'd be rather disappointed... But on the plus side this could mean we'd get a proper Demonic Baron of Hell of intimidating size accompanied by a mean left hook and some hell fire projectiles. If you go back and watch the Hell video again and skip to about the 50 second mark, you'll see a rather Baron of hell looking statue over looking the arena.

Other wise I feel the Hell knights design is too close to Doom 3's which feels terribly out of place, especially when standing next to the Revenant and Mancubus redesigns. He's far too clean and fresh looking, I'd imagine a big demon like that, who rushes in and tussle with his hands to be strutting around with some big ol scars from claws and teeth...

Otherwise, I've grown rather fond of the Imp's design, I'd maybe consider more spikes but as of right now, pretty legit modern version.

Revenant is awesome looking, I've not a single complaint there.

As for the Mancubus... I'll wait a bit and see how I feel about it in a couple days... Something is a little off in my mind, maybe he's too tall? I also get a Diablo 3 Azmodan vibe off of him, which can be good and bad.

Cacodemons looks pretty damn legit, they looks different but have many of the old Cacodemons aesthetics that you can easily see the inspiration.

I'll come back later with more opinions and nit picks about the Demon's and weapons soon.

One thing I hope that is in the game is permanent corpses. I didn't notice any corpses dissolving, however, I think that some of the corpses in the hell level disappeared. Hopefully someone will be able to mod that out. I like to look at the destruction that I have wrecked on the bodies of my enemies.