The new DOOM and the effect it will have on the community

So I've been thinking about the potential for this new Doom installment to be a big success (not only in terms of sales) but also in rejuvenating the entire name for the (now ancient) Doom franchise. When a lot of people in the mainstream hear Doom they think "that old classic game with the pixel graphics and demons" or they're reminded of "that scary slow closet shooter that looks like Dead Space AKA Doom 3."

Obviously this new game is neither of those things and so I'm reminded a little of brutal doom. Now I don't mean for this thread to derail into a rant about brutal doom as I personally see nothing wrong with a gameplay enhancing mod. However, it does make me question the effect "Doom 4" will have on the Doom community (Doomworld included.)

Let me preface this by saying I have nothing against the new style of play id are aiming for. However, it does make me wonder: Will we see new users register and become involved with the mapping community? Will they associate themselves with the classic style of gameplay or is this new momentum driven "don't stop or else you're dead" full guns blazing with fatalities etc. genuinely going to change the identity of the Doom franchise as we know it forever? Will SnapMap promote a different style of level design that becomes the new Doom standard? Doom already means very different things to various people and I feel this newest title will stretch those boundaries to another level entirely - for better or worse.

Come 2016 the DOOM series will finally see this influx of attention and pull itself out of a 10 year lull period. The effects of this are going to be very interesting and exciting. What are your guys thoughts?

I've been a lifelong gamer, and out of all the games I like, Doom is the one that I have consistently stuck with since 1993. Back to back, I frequently play PC Doom, PSX/N64 Doom and Doom 3, in addition to the countless WADS. It seems tacky, but Doom and id Software has been a big part of my life. So with regards to the new Doom game, I think it will bring in a new audience, and maybe even rejuvenate others. I genuinely hope this new incarnation of Doom is a success, I would love to see more new Doom games come out.

Effect must be only positive. Thanks for Wolfenstein: TNO and Brutal Doom.

Wolfenstein: TNO - litmus paper for id Software, for this time Brutal Doom shows how bad ass and more old school Doom can be. New FPS games are too sterilized, slow and limited. Health regeneration isn't good idea anymore, especially for game called Doom.

NoisM said:

Wolfenstein: TNO - litmus paper for id Software

Except TNO was made by Machine Games, not by Id. Doom 4 will be the litmus test for Id Software.

Regardless of play, I think it will bring a wave of new people to the various Doom forums, including people who may get into editing classic Doom, as well as mapping for Doom 4. However, I think we will see a wave of activity which will eventually fall by the wayside. Once the wave is gone, I will guess that ~20 or so of these new wave users will remain here, and maybe ~50 in the overall community. I would also expect the possibility of a Doom 4 Community Website that may get really into SnapMap, depending on how good that feature is. They may last as long as the Doom 3 mod community did, unless SnapMap is really good and methods of sharing the mods are really good, in which it may last even longer before merging with a bigger Doom website. So, I'd say in five years, a stable Doom 4 mapping community may still exist, and several longtime community members will crawl through the ranks and may even become big names. Depending on their work, whether they work on Doom or NuDoom, they could even reach Doom Wiki article status depending on their output.

Overall I think there will actually be a very good effect on the community, regardless of how the game goes. With NuDoom as a gateway to the rest of the community, some new members became rather invested in the franchise as a whole. Hell, we might even see a resurgence in Doom 3 (Despite the BFG Edition's failure to do this). Obviously, we'll have to wait and see, but I think the ultimate turnout will be a positive one, if only because I can't foresee how we could even achieve a negative outlook (Unless all the jaded old timers here and elsewhere forcibly remove the NuDoomers out of the equation).

Halo Forge had somewhat of a following. And Portal 2 has that basic editor. I can see it being a bit like that.

There will be many gameplay mods that try to bring Doom 4's gameplay into classic Doom after it's release.
Some will just be reskins the classic Doom assets to look vaguely like Doom 4. Others will emulate Doom 4 almost flawlessly, with 1000+ pages of ACS scripts, DECORATE code and HD sprites made from Doom 4's models that will look hilariously out of place in classic Doom's abstract maps.

I can see double jumping working really well in Classic Doom.

I can see Doom 4 having more of a following/modding community than Doom 3 did, as Snapmap certainly looks more intuitive and akin to say, UnrealEdit than D3Radiant is. So it should certainly have more success in that area. I just hope Doom 4 is as moddable as all the previous Dooms have been. Snapmap looks cool and quick, but I don't want to be limited to using prefabs---I want to be able to modify the existing ones and create entirely new ones, as well as new content in all the other areas of the game.

Except TNO was made by Machine Games, not by Id. Doom 4 will be the litmus test for Id Software.

For me it was a simple test how popular old school shooter can be. Wolfenstein: TNO was successful and almost old school. Anyway, new Doom going to be FPS without regeneration.

Well...it certainly will make me play Doom 3 again, thinking it is Doom 4 ;-) For that matter, one of the reasons I got back into Doom big time in 2004, was because Doom 3 was announced, and a computer magazine bundled Absolution, so I played that (with the keyboard!) wishfully thinking it was Doom 3.

NoisM said:

For me it was a simple test how popular old school shooter can be. Wolfenstein: TNO was successful and almost old school. Anyway, new Doom going to be FPS without regeneration.

No regeneration, no reloading, no weapon limit, fast speed. It has it all.

Already there seems to be an influx of new people here, unless I'm just disillusion. I think NuDoom can only add to the community. For allot of people Doom's a way of life, and it'll spread like a disease.

Which brings me to something else I've been thinking about. Here we are, and all of us will eventually have kids, and our kids will be subjected to new games and DOOM and classics older than DOOM, all at the same time. Whereas we were subjected to games before DOOM and what came after. Graphics only improved with us, but today's kids have sooooooo many more gaming choices than we had, on so many different levels. So I wonder how that'll change tastes of the gaming community as a whole. I wonder if the generation born today (this minute) will totally disregard GFX all together and focus on the fun-level of games.

Heh.

When Doom 3 was about to arrive back in the early 2000s, people made threads exactly like this one.

Classic Doom seems to have survived Doom 3 nicely. Doom 3 brought new people aboard it seems.

I don't imagine Doom 4 doing anything all that different to the community. It'll bring in new people, sure, but the old games will still be modded and played.

Bring new people? Yeah, for sure! More brutal and more old school like an MKX - people like it. It's renessance of all these old school things mixed with good modern gameplay and high end graphics.

Vertical gameplay was sweet in Crysis 2, one of few good things in gameplay of Crysis series was feel of freedom. I hope we will see same level in Doom... or better, yeah!

dsm said:

Heh.

When Doom 3 was about to arrive back in the early 2000s, people made threads exactly like this one.

Classic Doom seems to have survived Doom 3 nicely. Doom 3 brought new people aboard it seems.

I don't imagine Doom 4 doing anything all that different to the community. It'll bring in new people, sure, but the old games will still be modded and played.

Agreed. I don't think anything will change in terms of interest in the originals but hopefully foster new members and fans of the series!