Getting rid of levels, what do you think?

I notice quite a few people have been posting messages like, "what are the levels going to be like" or "How many levels".

Consider this: what if iD makes the game as one huge level?

You could go outside between buildings, and develop different entry approaches to each building. This would not only make it more realistic, you'd have more of an immersion factor as you control where you want to go, and you can leave items in a building to pick up later. I think it would give more of a sense of being there. I mean, you could set up on the roof of a building for a good sniper vantage point, or something like that. You wouldn't have to enter through the front door, you could surprise some demons by blowing through a wall (assuming the environmental damage is even going to be this advanced). This way the game could have endless possibilities! Sure, you'd have more enemies to contend with at one time, but it would be a greater challenge. And if you want to go on a cheat-code-laden killing spree, you could go outside a building and start blowing up the walls to let all the demons know where you are, or even level the buildings! That would be too much fun!

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Thats a preatty good idea,they should do that.
And yes it would be mroe realistic!but if they dident,i wouldent mind,either way is fine by me.

One word, Halo...

Would be cool, but certainly won't happen in Doom 3. The Carmack has mentioned several times that the game will be made up of seperate maps.

He has?

That would be cool though, but it would probably light most people's CPU's and GPU's on fire. You'd probably need a well over a GB of RAM. Imagine if you will..all the Q2 Levels in one huge chunk.

It would be fucking amazing to have a game that is one big level.

The only problem is, even using my gaming machine (800 AMD, 300+ MB RAM, GF2 GTS) the framerates would range from .000001 FPS to .000002 FPS. You have to account for not only a huge level but the entities as well.

I'd like to see it, but it probably won't be practical until the new generation processors come out. They have an architecture that is very different than today's processors and they are IMMENSELY faster than even a 1.1 GHz CPU.

That would be nice if it could be pulled off. Maybe it will be. I mean I figure the game is a year or so away at the very least. Who knows what might develop.

That would be pretty cool, but I can think of two problems right away:
1) You could only run the game on a 1500 mhz computer or faster, and it could only be lag-free if it was at least 3 or 4 ghz. You would have to wait about 2 or 3 years to release it.
2) Some players would just either:
a) Blow holes through all the buildings until they got to the end, or
b) Sneak around all the buildings, and through all the airducts, finding the fastest possible route and quite possibly missing some of the most fun gameplay and coolest architecture ever.
But most of us old Doomers are too much into the thrill of the game to do anything like that. Only dishonerable people <such as those damn hacking PKs on Diablo!> would be so stupid as to take the fun out of the game.

Imagine what it would take to build a level like this. I have not seen a map yet that could compare to what you are asking. Not that I don't think it would be nice, but I just want you guys to know what you are asking and what effects it may have.
-- As of yet, switches and keys have prevented you from getting into areas that are too close to the exit, thus forcing you to play though a level before you can exit it. Is this what you plan to use in order to prevent people from jumping to the end of the game too soon.
-- Keep in mind also that levels became progressively harder as more difficult enemies were thrust at you. Having a single level makes it possible for you to be facing extreme numbers of more powerful enemies right in the beginning just because they 'heard' you killing some weaker ones. Then again, you could just play RPG with the game and force monsters to spawn and stay within certain boundries.
-- Going off of yesterdays poll, I am willing to say that the majority of us would like to see more story elements in Doom 3 than sticking with the mindless carnage. How are you going to cause the story to progress if the player can go anywhere at any time. You could always go with SS2's log system, but even then they wouldn't make as much sense if read in reverse order. It would take a great deal of skill to pull an ongoing story off if the possibilities of where you could go were limitless.
-- Ok, so you think you've fixed all of these by placing some sort of order as to where you can go and when? Well, if that is the case, then why not have large numbers of open possibility levels like in Deus Ex? It would drain your system less anyway.

I personally think that if done with a great deal of planning, something like this could be pulled off, but I don't see it happening in the near future. If you can show me a level maker capable of this, I will be impressed. Personally I favor the hub system. Now, if you could make one level possibly lead to two others giving you a choice on your progression, then you've got something a slight bit more reasonable.

Even the G3 vid card would piss itself, over a million poly on your monitor, it would literally overheat and melt.. the frame rate would be awful, thats why levels are cut up..

Not to mention the fact that the game would take two days to load. A real bitch if you only have 20 minutes to play.

Linguica said:

He has?

Well, I do take pride in being a huge Carmack nut, and I remember he's said something along the lines of "we've quit using BSP and VIS calculations, so _MAPS_ will not need very long compile times any more".

ummm... doesn't that just mean that.... nevermind

It is definately a cool idea but to be pulled off by next year they would have to divide the 1 huge level into different sections or it would never be able to load in a resonable amount of time (assuming it would load at all) on todays computers. So each time u entered a different part or wanted to go back it would have to load again and that would be extremely annoying.