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PikaCommando

Is Doom 3 rushed?

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With a cliffhanger ending like that, you'd think they'd save it for a sequel, but then it turns out the entire plot is resolved in an expansion pack, leaving no room for a sequel in the Doom 3 storyline. Could it be that Doom 3 was rushed and that RoE was the planned final quarter of the game (since it began in the excavation area, where Doom 3 ended) that was finished later and released as an expansion pack?

After all, Maledict's model was already shown in the ending cutscene and combined with the fact that RoE enemies are all cut from Doom 3, could this mean that he was planned to be Doom 3's final boss but couldn't because his AI wasn't finished yet or something else?

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I think in game development there is never enough time. However with the expansion I'm more inclined to believe it was either planned long before or perhaps a sequel but was scrapped for an expansion due to the financial performance.

Doom 3 didn't feel particularly rushed to me but I'm ignorant on its development.

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When I first saw Doom 3's ending, I interpreted it as Betruger getting punishment in hell by becoming some demon's tongue. But it works just as well for a sequel, knowing that Doom's demons have the habit of returning.

Doom 3 didn't feel rushed to me. A lot of the time seems to have been spent to fix bugs or imperfections.

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As Doom 3 being a reboot of the first game, I thought they just wanted to keep the key elements: no SSG, cyberdemon as last boss, etc. and it was pretty solid on its release date. My guess is, they had the plans for RoE at the very beginning of development, but they wanted Doom 3 to hold to its ancestor.

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MrCyber8 said:

As Doom 3 being a reboot of the first game, I thought they just wanted to keep the key elements: no SSG, cyberdemon as last boss, etc. and it was pretty solid on its release date. My guess is, they had the plans for RoE at the very beginning of development, but they wanted Doom 3 to hold to its ancestor.


But Doom 1 had Spider Mastermind as the last boss, and Cyberdemon as the second boss. There's also how Spider Mastermind seemed to be in the plans for Doom 3 at one point too.

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I remember messing with the leaked alpha and attempting to summon all the monsters. The Cyberdemon crashed it. I also recall the Spider Mastermind being recognized but nothing would appear. Was it actually in the files?

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PikaCommando said:

But Doom 1 had Spider Mastermind as the last boss, and Cyberdemon as the second boss.

Yeah, unfortunately. I really wished Doom 3 ended with a spiderdemon. It would have been the perfect opportunity to restore this monster to the power it was intended to have. But what we got was what everyone else knew about Doom, the cyberdemon, in a super mediocre circular arena, where you must use a weapon similarly powerful as the BFG (it's like a homage!!! E3M8, E4M6 and E4M8 were solved with the BFG…) to defeat him.

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Might've been rushed, however a lot of people seem to assume that all "cut content" is synonymous with "content cut for time constraints". Something might have been cut for other reasons, such as it being silly to begin with or not fitting in with the game. Dark Souls fans are notorious for this, they tend to think that everything removed from the game was supposed to be in the game but got removed for time or something.

Just because there wasn't a Spider Mastermind doesn't mean that role wasn't filled by other monsters, such as the Vagary or Sabaoth. They probably thought, "Man we have 3 spider-like enemies in this game, as well as Sabaoth who kind of fills the same role the Spider Mastermind would in a Doom WAD. Let's just not include it.". I doubt we'll ever know.

As for Betruger, I as well interpreted that as him being punished in hell, or just kind of fucked over in general. I never thought the Maledict would be an enemy, and I feel like that was thought up after Doom 3 was finished. ROE did use a lot of cut content, but to me the quality of ROE and LM were less than that of Doom 3. All-in-all, I see ROE to Doom 3 as I see Doom II to Doom. It's not exactly a full sequel (same base weapons, same engine, same base enemies but with some new stuff and new maps), but it's not exactly DLC or something.

Doom 4's ending is a cliffhanger, and they did that (likely) so they wouldn't have to do retconning like they did for Episode 4 and Doom II back in the day. If they don't ever do a sequel, they're fine, they had a satisfying ending. If they do, they've already got a complete setup ready to roll. I feel like that's what they did with Maledect at the end of Doom 3.

/rant

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Sick Bow said:

Might've been rushed, however a lot of people seem to assume that all "cut content" is synonymous with "content cut for time constraints". Something might have been cut for other reasons, such as it being silly to begin with or not fitting in with the game. Dark Souls fans are notorious for this, they tend to think that everything removed from the game was supposed to be in the game but got removed for time or something.

Just because there wasn't a Spider Mastermind doesn't mean that role wasn't filled by other monsters, such as the Vagary or Sabaoth. They probably thought, "Man we have 3 spider-like enemies in this game, as well as Sabaoth who kind of fills the same role the Spider Mastermind would in a Doom WAD. Let's just not include it.". I doubt we'll ever know.

As for Betruger, I as well interpreted that as him being punished in hell, or just kind of fucked over in general. I never thought the Maledict would be an enemy, and I feel like that was thought up after Doom 3 was finished. ROE did use a lot of cut content, but to me the quality of ROE and LM were less than that of Doom 3. All-in-all, I see ROE to Doom 3 as I see Doom II to Doom. It's not exactly a full sequel (same base weapons, same engine, same base enemies but with some new stuff and new maps), but it's not exactly DLC or something.

Doom 4's ending is a cliffhanger, and they did that (likely) so they wouldn't have to do retconning like they did for Episode 4 and Doom II back in the day. If they don't ever do a sequel, they're fine, they had a satisfying ending. If they do, they've already got a complete setup ready to roll. I feel like that's what they did with Maledect at the end of Doom 3.

/rant


Interesting. However, the Spider Mastermind (Arachnotron's, actually) role isn't really filled by any other demon in Doom 3/RoE because no enemy uses a Plasma Rifle against the player or have an attack pattern like that.

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PikaCommando said:

Interesting. However, the Spider Mastermind (Arachnotron's, actually) role isn't really filled by any other demon in Doom 3/RoE because no enemy uses a Plasma Rifle against the player or have an attack pattern like that.


Well, we're forgetting that Doom 3 isn't a game like Doom 1/2/4. It's a horror-themed corridor shooter. You can't run fast, circle-strafing isn't a very viable strategy, you rarely dodge any attacks other than fireballs, and there's more of an emphasis on atmosphere, story, and theming than the other games. I stick with my guns on this one, I'll say that an Arachnotron or Spider Mastermind type enemy wouldn't work in Doom 3, and again those shoes are already filled where they need to be.

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I wouldn't go as far as to say that. Chances are they planned for a sequel to Doom 3 to begin with, but then, that's just speculating. And as far as I know, there's no official statement as to it from id either.

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Doom 3 didn't feel a rush game to me, it had a good emphasis on the story, levels, sequences, setting and even its gameplay. Some people have said Doom 3 was when Doom meets Resident Evil(I haven't played any of the Resident Evil games in my life, so I don't know how it feels) but Doom 3 was a great Doom experience on its own. The ending was absolutely good to me because it shows you were the only survivor and the forces of Hell even Dr. Betruger couldn't contain you and now he is roaming in Hell waiting for his escape, implying you will face it in a sequel or like others think here, he's being punished because he wasn't able to met the Demon's mission of conquering Earth.

I think ROE was the rushed one, it felt very interesting at first but when you progress through the levels you will notice they are just a copy-paste from Doom 3's levels and it also contained a poor story, considering it was developed by Nerve software.

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Do me a favor and play Resident Evil 4 sometime. It goes on sale a lot, and IMO it's the most accessible and fun title. The classics are awesome, but haven't aged well. Most people I know don't like 5 or 6 outside of coop. The movies exist in their own little world, much like the Doom movie.

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Sick Bow said:

Do me a favor and play Resident Evil 4 sometime. It goes on sale a lot, and IMO it's the most accessible and fun title. The classics are awesome, but haven't aged well. Most people I know don't like 5 or 6 outside of coop. The movies exist in their own little world, much like the Doom movie.

Seconded, RE4 is the best modern RE game, among the first modern Third Person Shooters.

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Sick Bow said:

Do me a favor and play Resident Evil 4 sometime. It goes on sale a lot, and IMO it's the most accessible and fun title. The classics are awesome, but haven't aged well. Most people I know don't like 5 or 6 outside of coop. The movies exist in their own little world, much like the Doom movie.



Ok ok, I will do your favour. Hmm, is Resident Evil 4 for PS2 or PS3? Because I only own PS1/2/4.

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YukiHerz said:

I'd recommend either the PS2 version or the Ultimate HD version on PC.


This. They're the only versions with all the features, that I know of, like extra missions and unlockables. The PC version is easily the definitive one, and there's even a mod out there that replaces all the textures with original high res ones, up to 4k. The Wii version is too easy haha.

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Ok, I will try to get the PS2 version first. I need to find out the requirement for the pc version, is it available on Steam? Because it sounds interesting.

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Sick Bow said:

It's not exactly a full sequel (same base weapons, same engine, same base enemies but with some new stuff and new maps), but it's not exactly DLC or something.

RoE was an expansion pack which had just as much content as you'd expect in one around the time with a decent length which was more than any of the earlier DLC for games a few years later, but of course it's not a complete sequel.

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Avoozl said:

RoE was an expansion pack which had just as much content as you'd expect in one around the time with a decent length which was more than any of the earlier DLC for games a few years later, but of course it's not a complete sequel.


Agreed, but like Doom II, it was sold as a standalone package, at least on some platforms, while being what I'd personally call an "expansion". I don't have any issue with this, I was just pointing out that ROE felt more "rushed" than Doom 3 did, at least to me.

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No, I don't feel that way at all, I think Doom 3 was really well planned and designed for it's time, stopping with the Betruger cutscene in the ending was the perfect timing for me, if they kept going, the game would probably be too long.

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Did somebody say rush? Zoinks!

Oh yeah, Doom 3 rules. It's easily in my top ten favorite games of all time. Doom 3 somehow manages to capture everything that made Alien and The Thing cool, and then adds demons on top of that. AND it's interactive. Holy moley, what more could you want? Seriously.

Never understood the hate it gets. Everyone who used to play Doom 3 with me back in the day loved the shit out of it. In fact, I've never met anyone in real life who disliked Doom 3. And yet, of all the places you would expect hardcore Doom fans to conjugate... Doomworld often gives Doom 3 the hardest time of all. Blah!

It definitely wasn't rushed either. What was the development time again? Like 4-5 years?

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I heard the opposite, that they obsessed over the technology and wanted everything to be as visually polished as possible, which is apparently where all of their focus went into. According to the NoClip interview, they would actually obsess about making sure that individually pipes in the base connected up to each other, something most players wouldn't even notice.

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^ Good point Coopersville. The time spent on minuscule details could have gone into designing a more fleshed out ending. It still worked well though. The ending is satisfying enough.

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Doesn't help that the engine's density also impacted the gameplay because they were forced into using relatively tight corridors. You certainly couldn't have expected anything on the level of Doom 2's levels with these kind of restrictions.

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MetroidJunkie said:

I heard the opposite, that they obsessed over the technology and wanted everything to be as visually polished as possible, which is apparently where all of their focus went into.


They used a 256x256 skybox when it was sufficient, instead of using a 1024x1024 skybox just because, like other games of the time.

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