"The Character Issue"

I just wanted people's opinion on "You", that is, the "Player Character" of Doom 3.

A few questions:

1) Should the character be a *character* (with a personality, sayings, a specific appearance, and so on), or should they be a "cipher" (which means they have no personality other than yours, and would presumably be covered head-to-toe in armour, or the like)?

Some example: All the PCs in AvP or Unreal are ciphers, no have personalities, and don't say anything except when you make them. The original "Doomguy" was basically a cipher, having nothing but a few grunts to say, no history, no personality, and so on. B.J. Blakowitz from Wolfenstien 3D had slightly more personality, perhaps just enough to stop him being a cipher, but I think not.

Gordon Freeman was somewhere in-between, you knew a vague history, knew what he looked like, but he never said anything, nor acted without your control.

Duke Nukem is towards the other end of the scale, very much a "character", with sayings, a very 80s appearance (to match his macho attitudes), and a very definate and prominent personality.

All the way along is Cloud from Final Fantasy VII. You have NO control whatsoever in what he does (really), what he says, and so on, and you may become upset at his actions in cutscenes, or the situations he forces you into, or you may empathise with him greatly, and feel strongly attached. I can't think of similar character in an FPS, but there probably has been one (in SIN, perhaps?).

So, what end of the scale do you prefer?

Personally, I loathed Duke, not because he was sexist or a total "Yank" (no insult to Southerners! I know many of you deeply resent the term!), not to mention loud, brash, and let's face facts: dumb, but because he wasn't *me*, like, *at all*, and everytime he said something, I felt outside, like I was playing a game, and that I had a lack of control.

FF VII was even worse, because Cloud, was, in my opinion, a whiny little moron, who sulked at innapropriate times and generally needed a good slap. Eventually it drove me to give up (give me Cid any day of the week. I wished I could just throw Cloud out of the party).

So I'm pro-cipher, initially, but I do have another option:

2) Should a player character/cipher (hereafter known as the PC) be chosen from a number of models or characters, or should they be only allowed one specific one?

With ciphers this is *almost*, but not quite, a non-issue. In Quake 2, or Unreal, all you were was "Bitterman" or "Escaped Convict", no age or sex, so you could pick any model you liked and go. I say almost, because if you are to have a rendered outro (more than intro, which rarely features the PC) must avoid showing the PC at all (this can be solved by having a "cut-scene"-type outro followed by a more flash, but non-PC involving rendred outro).

Which characters, it's more of an issue, and leads to another question: "different stats, yea or nay?", which I will get to in a moment. If different characters, with personalties/sayings and so on are allowed, should one adjust the game's in-game cut-scenes for them? Or make the game for one character, and allow all the others to play through without the cut-scenes (as in Blood 2)? Should there be seperate intro and outros (rendered) for each character? How many characters? 3, 4, 6, 8? More?

3)Different Stats for different PCs - A few FPSes have allowed different PCs to have different stats, or the same PC to develop different, either by the player choosing and building them up (Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight, to some extent), or them being set differently (as in Blood 2, or, arguably AvP, which was really three games in one, sharing little more than an engine). This is common in multiplayer games, but do we think it a good idea for single player games?

An extension of this, suggested by Deadnail, was that you could totally customize PC appearance, within the game, choosing gender, hairstyle, build, complexion, facial appearance, and so on, and so forth. I like this idea alot.

This might lead on to the idea of even greater customization, RPG-style, ala Deus Ex, or System Shock 2 (perhaps even as much as Fallout). Like that?

Curses, I had a couple of other questions, but I have forgotten them, so perhaps I will post them later.

Edited in later:

Ah, I remember one!

5) If you want a single, definate character, who do you think they should be? What should their characteristics be?

It's very difficult to avoid alienating a part of the audience, especially if the character is very definate, but you are likely to get more "fans" with a definate character than a vague or wishy-washy one.

With Duke, this was a problem. Whilst massively popular with 13-year olds of the period, he was a bit annoying to more mature players (I thought), and alot of Doom players loathed him (at the time), and his loathed his game more because of him.

Duke 4 is going to sell alot of copies to loyal Duke fans, but it's also going to totally fail to sell any copies to Duke-haters (unless you can play someone else, someone non-annoying, from the get go), and given that the gaming market is older, and it's nearly 2001, I wonder if an 80s throwback like him will do well... That's another debate though.

My point is that, unless you you find someone acceptable to the vast majority of gamers (who may be "designed by commitee" to the point of boringness) you're going to have annoyed people, especially with Doom, which used to have cipher-type character.

(My tip: avoid "Yahoos" or morons, they annoy way too many people. Duke attempted to emulate the guy from the Evil Dead movies, and failed miserably (because I worship Bruce Campbell and loathe Duke). Perhaps the inevitable "Tall Black Guy" from the "Night of the Living Dead" movies would be a better model for the Doom guy, if he needed a personality (see "Dawn of the Dead" especially)).

Either that, or you have a "Sexy Lady" (and use the term advisedly) as the main character, which is SUCH a cheap cop-out move, but really does sell units, as Tomb Raider series shows (the first Tomb Raider was so shit, particularly in the crappy controls, that, by rights, it should never have made to even a single sequel, but it did improve, and sad Lara-fans were already obsessed). Many other games have used this ploy, to varying degrees of success. It ain't feminism, it's a shrewd marketing ploy, and NOLF and Perfect Dark have used it recently (Perfect Dark was helped by being a damned good game, too).

Basically, though, do you want a Character or Cipher is my main question, and what level of customization, if any, do you want?

Later edit in (after first edit, and three posts):

One thing I should add. *VERY* important! I've been thinking (yes, haha, a new experience and so on) You MUST have more than one PC. Why? Co-op! Everyone loves co-op, despite the fact that it got you called gay when Doom came out (by the same sort of people who wanted to play it like that six months later!), and Doom 3 WILL have co-op, so you MUST have more than one PC, even if there is one PC who "always there", who is the "leader", and has to trigger the cut-scenes and so on (Ala Cloud in FF VII).

Co-op is essential, so multiple PCs seem essential, even if they have a leader.

It would seem to be a losing arguement. If you want DoomGuy- yet you want a personality- then any personality added to DoomGuy would be met with much protest, because everyone has their opinions on what DoomGuy should be like, and you could satisfy no one. "THAT'S NOT DOOMGUY! ID FUCKED UP DOOM! ARRRGGGHHH"- you see that all over this message board two years from now. Even in the Doom novels he can sometimes have PMS moodswings. So it really can't be determined there.

Present the new Doom, with DoomGuy, and no personality, and again he will be met with much protest. People will expect more, you would feel detached from the game.. blah blah blah

Present the new Doom, with a new character, and with a personality- people will be slow to accept this, but it may go through eventually. Someone who admires DoomGuy, and through a sequence of events, witnesses the legendary warrior get snatched away from combat to fight in the Arena Eternal, and chooses to follow in his footsteps. I think this new upstart might be better suited with Fly Taggart's personality in Doom: Hell on Earth- the second of the four Doom novels. (Creepy idea- id Soft accepts the "Fly" name as the new character, personality and all- yet decrees that it's not DoomGuy!)

I believe that a cipher is definetly the way to go here, but that would require a greater variety of ways to express how "You" are feeling- hand motions (anything but the bird, I can just see that from 15 DM'ers in a crowded match at the same time), body language, waving of the gun ("move!"), head jerks ("yes"; "no"; "this way"); and greater emersion would also come from enemy / (NPC's?) reactions to your motions and battle-cries.

--
ZombiZ

A lot of talk has come up about Doom being, in large part, about the fear. I, personally, tend to agree with this. In asking what kind of character to I want to play as, I would reply that I would like to choose a character that puts 'me' into the game as much as possible. The game should draw you in and make you feel like the demons are hunting you down, not some 'foreign' character.
As for customization. A good question. I don't personally see the depth that is added. It's not like you will be seeing your character that much anyway, and until somebody adds mutiplayer, the character model means very little to me. Besides, it's incorporation takes time and space. Am I against it then? No, I'm not. It just isn't necessary for me, but other people may get something from it. If that is the case, then, by all means, incorporate it.

ZombiZ said:

I think you've misread (or I have!). I don't want Doomguy! I merely offer some options!

(Personally, I'd like a choice of characters, or perhaps full customization with a set name)

I've read your piece at Lord Flathead's page, and I've never read the Doom novels, I'm afraid, as I've been told they're really bad, and maybe that's true, maybe it isn't, but I'm a literary snob ;), and you say you want a cipher, but you describe a personality.

So, presumably you want a balance, ala Gordon Freeman? Would Fly be the leader, or would you allow variation in who was the leader?

EllipsusD said:

A lot of talk has come up about Doom being, in large part, about the fear. I, personally, tend to agree with this. In asking what kind of character to I want to play as, I would reply that I would like to choose a character that puts 'me' into the game as much as possible. The game should draw you in and make you feel like the demons are hunting you down, not some 'foreign' character.
As for customization. A good question. I don't personally see the depth that is added. It's not like you will be seeing your character that much anyway, and until somebody adds mutiplayer, the character model means very little to me. Besides, it's incorporation takes time and space. Am I against it then? No, I'm not. It just isn't necessary for me, but other people may get something from it. If that is the case, then, by all means, incorporate it.

Cipher, cool...

On customization - Ah, but we WILL see it. Not when we play Deathmatch, which will likely be after playing for a while, but when we play co-op! Which for me will likely be ASAP, as I love co-op and have a LAN and friends who like co-op games too.

Co-op broadband over the internet is a viable option too, so long as you use some kind of voice hook-up (not necessarily built into the game, of course).

I'd love to see slightly different hands too.

Still, your point is well taken, I agree that Doom is about Fear, and whatever draws you in is good. That would imply a largely silent character, I should note, as the human voice, especially warcries etc. tend to counteract fear. That's what warcries are for, historically, to embolden the warrior as much as scare his enemies.

Of course, jumping at shadows, and hearing your warcry echo off the walls of seemingly empty rooms would be cool too, and might cause some fear (and EAX should be able to handle that without any difficulty).

OK, things are patching up really nice in here.
Let me add my toughts about the sbuject :

DooM 1&2, by time & technollogy reasons, had a cipher as it´s main character. If you check the betas & alphas of DooM, you´ll see they were aiming at something much more story-driven.
Obviously, they couldn´t make a game with more plot if you don´t de-cipher a little the character.
But that´s old stuff. The real question is : is iD planning to keep using as main character Flynn Taggard?

I hope not. DooM & New DooM are light years apart. Many persons would feel betrayed if they corrupt that cipher idol that is the Marine. iD must bring a new character into life. That would add a whole new dimension to the plot.
Now, should iD make another cipher or a something different.

With ciphers you can make everyone happy, and still make fairly good story driven games. Look at Gordon Freeman, he never speaks in the whole game, and still, HL has some great plot elements. Ragnar in Rune never speaks, and still, the game has a plot to support all the hacking & slashing.

First than all, cipher or not, the new Doomguy MUST have an history, a past.

Customization is a great thing. I spent minutes & minutes just arranging my RPG character looks (and hours for the habilities sheet). Models, skins and subskins are easy methods to :

1. Approach the character with your preffered alter ego

2. For decoration purpose, have a lot more of looks in the dead/alive marines/civilians.

Multiple characters? Severance fixed this in a great way. Each character has it´s own First Level, that introduces each one to the quest by modifying the primary motivations of the character.
It would be great so choose between a Squad Leader, a crashed Pilot, a frightened Civilian, a Marine Survivor, a Renegade, things like that. While they aren´t as different as Hexen characters, you could choose the past that agree with you most.

The game should have an intro equal for everybody, and before the main menu. It should show the Great War, the conflict between Man & Daemon in some nice way. Nothing related to the guy you´re gonna use. For example, StarCraft : Brood War had an spectacular intro, starring some guys that died there, and others that you never used in the game.

After you choose character looks & past, the proper Map01 loads and play a little cinematic showing your appearance on scene, and some little preliminary objective (like : find some shelter).

Outros don´t have to be different for each guy. If it´s done properly, it can work great (Diablo II).

RPG Stats : Of course. But let me add some Warren Spector words "RPGs should not be based on numbers". OK, even if the calculations are done by numbers, these should never be shown. You´ll understand after some tries that x guy is faster than y guy, but that´s all, just like in real life. There´s no UI that says "Running : 56%" or "Agility : 15". The characters should advance in strenght, agility, resistance, accuracy and speed, but those results should be hidden too.

Remember that this is a FPS, not a RPG. Fallout had too many customization (wich was great) but it should be useless in a FPS.


Personality question. This question remains with no really good answer. Let´s see what iD does.
I want a little of character in my (doh!) character. I want him to yell some "Shit!" "NOO!" "TAKE COVER, RUN!!", but no "You should vote for Al Gore Jr Jr" or "I think current problem with Internet is the lack of control among the users".

Personality should not grow too much more than that in a game were you never meet people (at least no time enough to talk). NPCs are probably something that will not be implemented on this game.


I want Character, not Cipher, but just because there will be no real issues in a FPS. Specially if cutscenes don´t exist.

But that´s material of previous posts.

Interesting stuff. I particularly like your ideas for other characters. That would work very well in the co-op mode, I feel, if people were better at different things, though they could all be equal if id wanted to make their lives simple.

You like some characterisation, I see, but I'd tend to suggest some of Duke's comments were more on the "Vote for X"-style side of extreme characterisation (that and I just hated the guy). Serious Sam's characters are a little lower-toned, less "in-your-face" (anyone remember "Poochy", the new Itchy and Scratchy character in the Simpsons? He always reminded me of Duke totally), but still have decent comments, like "I smell an ambush", and so on, though the "Yaaaaahoooo" on picking up the RL is a bit much, but, hey, whatever.

This potential problem is largely negated by having a few different characters though, as it's really unlikely they'll ALL be annoying (possible, but unlikely) to any given person (and it's pretty certain everyone will be irritated by at least one of them).

The first level thing is a very cool idea. For co-op you could all do your levels seperately and then meet up, or just all skip the first level and meet up at the first "all players" level point. Cool.

I'd agree with you and Warren Spector on stats. You don't need precise numbers (generally), just areas of strength and weakness, and comparisons. There are very few games without this sort of thing now, and even Q3A nearly had it, so I'd be suprised to see it entirely absent from Doom 3.

Yeah, i remember about the Q3A stats. They wanted to separate armor classes into light, mid and heavy. iD software pulled off from Q3A a lot of things because each minor add could ruin the precise Quake massacre feel.
I hope iD understands that they can make experiments with DooM. Their tried formula (quake) is getting really old, and new flavor is a must.
DooM´s too old to use it as New DooM formula. They have to make a lot of improvements and new features. I sincerely hope that they don´t get scared from the community.

Checking some other places I found that DooMworld is the only one where´s rational people who seeks changes in the New DooM...

Doomguy doesn't need to talk. Everyone around hims is either a demon or they are dead. No corny sayings! If voice was to be added to the doomguy, then he would need sayings like out of that game "Flesh Feast" (the one that is basically a game of Dawn of the Dead)like "Back to Hell!" or "Eat this!" when you pump a shotgun shell into that pink demon's forehead.

I don't think there should be OTHER characters, but I definately think that the doomguy should finally be given more of a personality - we should finally get to find out who the hell he is and where he came from. The idea of Doom is that everyone else sent in is dead and that you are the earth's last hope, having a entire squad of marines to choose from would ruin that feeling of being alone with nothing but your shotgun and not enough ammo to clear the next room.

In case of customization, I think that you should be able to customize every aspect of your character's look (helmet on or helmet off?) except for the face - it's not doom without that face!

Eurhetemec said:

I think you've misread (or I have!). I don't want Doomguy! I merely offer some options!

(Personally, I'd like a choice of characters, or perhaps full customization with a set name)

I've read your piece at Lord Flathead's page, and I've never read the Doom novels, I'm afraid, as I've been told they're really bad, and maybe that's true, maybe it isn't, but I'm a literary snob ;), and you say you want a cipher, but you describe a personality.

So, presumably you want a balance, ala Gordon Freeman? Would Fly be the leader, or would you allow variation in who was the leader?

id like a balance ala gordon freeman myself
maybe talking a lil bit but not much such as in the first level or so you enter a room where you see a marines body strung out across the entire room as the intestines are spread thin and the doomguy might remark "my god....." and maybe a "damn" if he falls a small distance....but not that often and then not whining
just gives him a slight bit of character
i do like the idea of head motions such as yes or no and come here and what not....that could be excellent in co-op and maybe make npcs or intelligent monsters understand it ? such as using the come here command may lure a baron forward....or make him more cautious because of your sudden "arrogance"
also id like to see myself to an extent...to look down and see my hands holding the gun...my waist...and my legs half submerged in this blood flooded corridor. or walk into a room with a torch on the wall behind me to see my shadow stretched out across the floor...this could also do wonders for fear in the game as you see ahead of you these HUGE shadows of some creature creeping down the hallway...what do you all think of this ?
i myself find lil touches like that can really make a game great

Yes! Something even Tresspasser didn't have! I too, would like to look down, and see- omigosh! Legs!

Duke was annoying, even thought I love the games I still liked to get him killed! The best character I have ever played in a FPS was Caleb from Blood (1 more so than 2). It was just fun shooting and singing "Stangers in the Night"

But allas, it would not fit into DooM. Maybe customized look but no personality. He is a mindless marine here not a f*cking movie star.