Absolutely Nothing To Do With Doom 3

Well, it seems that everyone here likes making posts that have little to nothing to do with Doom 3 or this forum, me included. It's been a while so I figured I'd just lay down some of my ideas again for the sake of all the new wankers stopping by.

South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut just started on Showtime so I'll have some background to listen to.

First of all let's discuss basic gameplay elements. As stated before I don't want Doom 3 to be as linear as the original Doom. I would prefer if that every level had two exits, like the shooter game Darius, so that every time you play through you can take a different path.

The use button should come back. I can understand doors opening automatically, but would a lever automatically pull itself down?

Some people want interaction with other survivors in the story. I don't want squad commmands, or even strewn survivors for that matter that you can interact with. I would like airial gunfights and maybe teams of marines getting killed by a larger group of demons and such, but none that you can really interact with. Maybe saving a group and having them open up a different path or something would be fine, but I would want to preserve the alone in the dark feel of Doom.

Now to talk about weaponry. Since Blood I have been in love with the alt-fire button, and it defintely belongs in Doom 3. It adds an incredible amount of gameplay and strategy.

Just a little bit ago I posted a rather large argument in my favor of multiple ammunition, so there's no need to post that again, only reiterate certian ammo selections.

=====1: Melee level weaponry
• Hand-To-Hand combat
F1: Hold to engage enemies, will automatically block and counter
F2: Throw out a kick. Have to stop moving, but sends target flyin'.
• Knife
F1: Slice
F2: Stab
• Rusty Pipe
F1: Swing
F2: Block (Think of a pipe-only deathmatch)
• Chainsaw
F1: Slice
F2: Stab

=====2: 10mm Pistols
• Standard Sidearm (Size of a Desert Eagle, looks like a Glock)
F1: Fire
F2: Set fire mode, semi-auto, 3 shot burst, full-automatic.
• Akimbo Pistols
F1: Fire on one target
F2: Fire and attempt to target two enemies
• Submachinegun (Like a tactical MP5)
F1: Fire vertical, cuts upwards
F2: Fire angled, cuts sideways (not gangsta, hold to mow down groups)
• Akimbo Submachineguns
F1: Fire on one target
F2: Fire and attempt to target two enemies (bad aim)
-----Alternate 10mm Ammunition
Standard hollow point rounds
Armor piercing rounds
Incindiary explosive rounds (exist, but unstable in storage)

=====3: 12 Gauge Shotguns
• Standard Issue Shotgun
F1: Fire normal speed
F2: Lower and fire as fast as possible, not quite as accurate
• Recovered Double Barrelled Hunting Shotgun
F1: Both barrels
F2: Single barrel, for sparse-ammo times
• Combat Shotgun, auto-loading double barrelled compensated
F1: Fire
F2: Fire faster, cuts upward hard
-----Alternate 12 Gauge Ammunition
Standard 000 Buckshot Magnum
Rifled Slugs
High Trauma Flechette Rounds (Like shooting nails)
Explosive Rounds (10 foot blast radius)

=====4: 7.62 Assault Rifles
• Standard Issue Rifle
F1: Fire
F2: Select 3 shot burst or full auto (about as fast as chaingun)
• Full Assault Rifle
F1: Fire 7.62 ammo full auto
F2: Fire 12 gauge ammo from built in shotgun
• Heavy Machine Gun (Probably a minigun, knowing iD)
F1: Fire all 6 barrels at full speed
F2: Fire only top barrel at full speed
------Alternate 7.62 Ammunition
Standard
High Velocity for piercing armor/walls
High Trauma splitting rounds, like SWAT ammo, won't pierce armor

=====5: 40mm Grenades
• Clip Fed Launcher, holds 5 before reload
F1: Fire on-contact grenades
F2: Fire 3 second delay grenades (plant one in an imp and run)
• Drum Fed Launcher, holds 20 before reload
F1: Fire on-contact grenades
F2: Fire 3 second delay grenades
-----Alternate 40mm Ammunition
Standard High-Explosive Rounds
Incindiary Rounds (Bigger blast, less damage, starts fires)

=====ɨ: 35mm Missle Launcher
• Missle Launcher (Holds 5 missles per clip, will home in if crosshair kept on target long enough)
F1: Fire
F2: Fire straight regardless of aiming
-----Alternate 35mm Missle Ammunition
Standard High Explosive Missles
Armor Piercing Rounds



Whew. It seems I suddenly stopped giving a shit. Forty minutes long and I'm just too damn apathetic at this point to continue. So, I wonder what kind of responses I'll get now? Anyone want me to finish sometime later?



Yes, I do realize that all of these points are probably futile at best considering how far into development Doom 3 is.

Well, there ins´t that much to talk about DooM3. I mean, we covered all, gameplay, engine, music, sound, multi, modding, enemies, weapons, levels, story. Each one of these aspects have passed by several threads, until they get fairly boring.
Im telling you, we need facts from iD pronto. Otherwise, we´ll see much more bizarre posts in the future.

But, as you pointed, newbies need a reason to stay, so let´s go over this again.

1. Level flowing : Right. Each level needs at least 2 exits. I remember that a great part of the fun in Hexen was the hability to select the level you wanted to play. Altough you needed to solve all of them because of the puzzles, choosing your path brings a lot more of realism. If iD´s pursuing this mode, they can take two paths :

a) You can´t go back on previous levels. It would add replayability, because at least 40-50% of the levels won´t be seen.

b) You can´t move freely between levels. This should be more realistic. You can´t make this work always (example, you came by a bridge wich is destroyed later, or you are teleported, etc). If DooM 3 happens in the Earth like in DooM II, this is a great way to enhance gameplay. You could walk the entire ruined city anyway you want. You can gather weaponry and some sort of aid by taking the slow paced way, or you can walk straight to Hell. Much like an expanded Deus Ex hub system.

2. Use button. Absolutely. Certain parts of the game could force you to drive/operate machines with several controls (like the laser gun in Elite Force). This guy is a Space Marine, ok, but at least his IQ is high enough to NOT push every button his hand can reach. Automatic doors are something of today, so, why shouldn´t be on the future. Blasted or powerless one should be opened/destroyed mannually.

3. Teammates. Not at all. DooM was about a loneless warrior who beat the forces of Hell. A story of fear. If you add teammates, squad members, or whatever you want to call them, the fear would be diminished. If Thief had sidekicks (that would be stupid), you wouldn´t get that adrenaline rush everytime a guard passed nearby without getting aware of your presence.
But the scripted sequences must have civilians and/or marines. DooM looked like if the only survivor were you.

4. Weaponry. deadnail just mentioned the weapon set of my dreams. Of course, weapon models & names should change to more "modern" looking ones. But they have to feel like real weapons. It feels a lot more convincent to fire the machine gun of Half-Life, than the Gluon Cannon (the pseudo-railgun).
The only thing i see that lacks in the weaponry are the energy ones. These are hard to design, so let´s hope iD make a good job with them. The plasma rifle must come back, altough that weapon should be a lot more powerfull. I mean, blobs of plasma!! That thing is overheated matter that reaches another state of the matter. Some millions of degrees. That should rip through flesh like if it were air. Of course, a rapid fire gun with that power would be unfair, so iD´s need to find a way to explain this gun.
The BFG must come back. Before DooM, FPSs (the very few) never saw the last weapon as the fuc**n die-you-bitches artifact. And the BFG is still one of the most powerful weapons seen in a game.

Ok, that´s enough, im tired of typing.

Yep, this post sure made me want to say that we really dont have anything else to say about D3.

For energy weapons, I think we should have something that is a kind of cross between a railgun and the plasma gun.

It fires on shot at a time (faster than the railgun though), but the projectilte travels at the same kind of speed as the plasma gun rather than instantly like the railgun.

It should also pass straight through the weaker enemies and hit whatever's behind it. Of course the tougher enemies will just soak it up.

-Two exits on every level is still a good idea. Maybe the only problem will be the story, which mainly is developped by the levels itself. I think most people, me included, want to see scripted scenes in the game instead of interupting movie cutscenes. Apart from scripted scenes, the story is told just by your environment. But what happens, when you use exit B instead of exit A? The story continues a different way. But this could be very interesting of course, you just need a good game "regisseur" who is able to develop a multiple trace story. Try to figure it out as an example!

-Use button: right, it´s just a must. But some automatic doors also...and some of the doors just should have this typical heavy Doom doorsound!

-The alone in the dark feel must be the main goal.

-Your arsenal...just try to make it typical for Doom. I know you love our days guns, and a lot of them, but I dont want Doom to be like Halflife. Basta. And why do you need rifles AND pistols? This is just to similar, and I hate to have similar weapons.
The different ammuniations could work, at least it makes the single weapon more interesting and preserves a senseless shitload of similar weapons.

deadnail said:

...for the sake of all the new wankers stopping by.

With comments like that, it's hard to tell whether it's us newbies who are the wankers...

Moving swiftly on, you have some good points regarding Doom3, especially the 2 exits one. I find that many people I know that still play Doom are seperated into two main groups, namely;

1; The kill-everything-and-get-all-secrets group
2; The play mega-fast as if you're in 'time attack' group

Myself, I play like the latter, but resort to playing like the former once a game is complete, because mainly I like to 'COMPLETE' a game, rather than just finishing it.

The way a player plays a level could therefore change the level 'path' (I don't like to choose a la Darius).

This would be a great thing for me, as I have found every secret on many, many games and never gotten anything for it.

Your comments on weaponry were, well, excessive, but I'm presuming you're not expecting ALL those weapons to appear in Doom3? Maybe pick out the best ones. And I'd have to say that I don't know whether or not I'd go for alt-fire... It's neat, but games like UT just have it included as a sorry replacement for strategic, skilled play - I find that limits with the weapons forces creative play. IMO this is fun.

IMHO id should make sure Doom3 has NOT got any one-hit-kill weapons for DM, unless it's really hard to get the hang of (Like, REALLY). I've hard so many complaints about BFG use in Doom, and LPBs with Railguns in Q2&3, that I'm just getting bored of it. Also, I feel that at one point, Doom2 deathmatch was becoming a one weapon game, with either the BFG or SSG as people's ONLY choice. Damn.

And the USE button. Yes, I'd love it back. Playing silly games in DM, shutting a door an opponent just opened, mid-'open', has been sorely missed ;)

Anyway, thanks for re-iterating for the sake of us llamas, but not all of us have a problem... I for one, can string together a sentence!

A short comment in favor of seeing other humans in the game...
You guys mention the desire to feel alone in the middle of the chaos; well, System Shock 2 had a small number of other people, but it is the lonliest game I have ever played. As long as you newfound 'hope' is torn away as soon as you find it, I don't see how it could hurt.

Jayextee said:

Hard to tell who's the wankers? Howabout when some illiterate fuck rolls in here and starts flaming us for no reason? Or just makes a shallow and emtpy post about texture detail or something without reading what we've already mentioned?

What, the original textures back in Doom 3?
Great idea.
A shame we already talked about it three months ago.

Zaldron said:

If I had to put myself in a group, I would ahve to say group 1 (the fast guys). I get tired of killing everything.

And personally I liek deadnail's list, except for one really big problem - no rayguns or other "energy" weapons in it (plasma, pulse, sonic, laser, whatever).

I opt for at least half of the weapons in the game to shoot out some sort of plasma blast, ray, or pulse. They need more eye-candy this way. This is cheifly the reason why I hate SoF so much (only one techy gun?). I am tired as HELL of using bullets most of the time.

Personally, I'm group 2. I like to get in my element... lead... then I just dance through all the corpses and finish the puzzles (ie, find the damn blue key).

My list wasn't complete... I just got sick of typing! :P

Anyhoo~
Considering Doom 3 will take place *at least* two hundred years into the future it's almost idiotic that any full metal jacket black powder cartridges would be utilized as a soldier's arms. Hell, it's almost crazy to think that we'd still have an infantry!

Point being, I can see Linear Acellerators and Ray Guns and such right out of the ass, each with it's own unique purpose. In the very end though... it'd be one weapon that could hold the 'programming' and have the ability to do all of it from the same battery pack.

Heavy weapon approaching?
Beep... EMP. Shut that sucker down.

Close range combat?
Beep... Plasma Rifle style.

Long range sniper ops?
Beep... Railgun style (admit it, iD makes it look like a laser).

You suddenly see a 20 foot tall Cyberdemon?
Squish... change pants
Beep... BFG style.


And in defense of SoF, that game is set in today's time era and how many laser guns and photon particle acellerators do you see nowadays huh?

My only gripe is that the 5.56 SMG does so little damage per hit compared to the Sniper Rifle or Heavy Machine Gun, it's the same damn bullet.

The graphic violence is quite nice, yet I still want to be able to blow a hole in something the size of a trashcan lid with my 12 gauge one of these days, not just pop off a limb (Pbsst!).