In doom3, do monsters pop out of stuff.

I was wondering if in Doom3, do monsters pop out of airvents, duct workd, or floors? It would be cool if they did, wouldn't it?

Yes we see that in the trailer(imp coming from an airvent from the floor) and the illegal vid(pinky destroying a pipe wall).

Yeah they will.

They will, but it's probably all scripted.

dsm said:

They will, but it's probably all scripted.

Why? You can make enemies come out of airvents even in Doom, without scripting.

Fredrik said:

Why? You can make enemies come out of airvents even in Doom, without scripting.

You sure? Can you actually make an imp tear apart the grating to the vent and then leap out of the vent in a shocking and cinematic manner?

If so: wow!
If no: I reserve the right to fall back on my above assumption - having scenes in which monsters tear down walls, vent grating etc. (which is what I believe the thread author was referring to even if he perhaps didn't express himself clearly enough) would most likely be scripted.

Of course, it wouldn't be a problem to place them in a narrow tunnel and then have them come out to get you when you fire a gunshot - but if there's an obstacle that you'd want them to remove in a cool looking fashion, I've got the impression from reading "techheads'" posts about Doom 3 that it would require scripting.

In the *cough* there's a *cough* that tears its way through a wall covered with *cough*

It shouldn't be too hard to make a monster activate a door--hell they did it for the original Doom.

Now consider that any level architecture can really be considered a "door".

Fredrik said:

Why? You can make enemies come out of airvents even in Doom, without scripting.

I think it's going to be all scripted. If you watch the quakecon interview with John Carmack, he will say something about the destruction of graphics. He doesn't like things busting out of anywhere unless it's planned.

I have to side with DSM that it's going to be scripted.

Well as ive mentioned on occassion the pinky rips out of the wall when you get near where its hiding. You can use the flashlight and look around the room its hiding in. Kind of interesting to see peices of the wall rip open. Wish it was random but that would require so much processing power i dont think we will honestly see that for many years to come

I doubt it's a matter of processing power as much as it's a matter of effort.

sniperfrommars1 said:

Wish it was random but that would require so much processing power i dont think we will honestly see that for many years to come

You could randomize it by including 3 different locations where the Pinky could possibly break through a pipe wall. Basicly you just need 3 randomized spawnpoints for the monster behind the wall, and a "monster break through wall" trigger (which would induce the nearest monster to "use" the breakable wall part) with each of the 3 breakable wall parts.
I have no deeper knowledge about coding, but I think this wouldn´t be very hard to implement.

Tetzlaff said:

You could randomize it by including 3 different locations where the Pinky could possibly break through a pipe wall. Basicly you just need 3 randomized spawnpoints for the monster behind the wall, and a "monster break through wall" trigger (which would induce the nearest monster to "use" the breakable wall part) with each of the 3 breakable wall parts.
I have no deeper knowledge about coding, but I think this wouldn´t be very hard to implement.

No doubt this will be insanely easy with Doom3's scripting language. Someone even made a level for the alpha with a tictactoe game on a keypad a while ago, I believe.

ToXiCFLUFF said:

No doubt this will be insanely easy with Doom3's scripting language. Someone even made a level for the alpha with a tictactoe game on a keypad a while ago, I believe.

I hope Id already uses randomizations like this in Doom 3 - it'd make the package more complete :-)

Then they can make the levels as linear as humanly possible (well, not quite) for all I care :-P

dsm said:

I hope Id already uses randomizations like this in Doom 3 - it'd make the package more complete :-)

I'd definitely agree. Little alterations like this do a lot for replayability I think. It'd be awesome if routes changed slightly at random as well, or if a door to a small room containing an enemy had a 50/50 chance of opening for example.

Id be happy with more than one route through the levels ie, like a easy, medium or hard route through a three way corridor, and the player will choose and or regret going the way he/her choose's.
I can imagine many dangerous encounters... i'd like that, give me a reason to play the levels again and again.

But yes that random scripting is quite a cool idea also, be amusing watching people, "hmmm... im sure an enemy burst out here??? im scared now!"

ToXiCFLUFF said:
I'd definitely agree. Little alterations like this do a lot for replayability I think. It'd be awesome if routes changed slightly at random as well, or if a door containing an enemy had a 50/50 chance of opening for example.

Agreed. But you have to be careful with random events (such as random drops by monsters), because people will try to "get the right result" by saving/reloading.

You sure? Can you actually make an imp tear apart the grating to the vent and then leap out of the vent in a shocking and cinematic manner?

Definately :) Although to make that imp use something other than its regular attack to tear at the grating will take something of an effort.

Mordeth said:

Agreed. But you have to be careful with random events (such as random drops by monsters), because people will try to "get the right result" by saving/reloading.

I would be inclined to say that people would try to fight the monster rather than immediately reloading. But depending on the player, they may reload if the encounter left them with less health than they hoped, or if it killed them. In either case, this kind of thing will happen during normal gameplay anyway, if the player is of a certain type.

Mordeth said:
Agreed. But you have to be careful with random events (such as random drops by monsters), because people will try to "get the right result" by saving/reloading.

Yeah well, these people will just have to learn to play the game without wanting to "get it right". I mean, I'm currently working my way out of the swamp affectionately called "reality style" of playing a game (trying to beat levels perfectly, i.e. not taking a single hit). Playing the game without saving once every minute is much more fun.

Definately :) Although to make that imp use something other than its regular attack to tear at the grating will take something of an effort.

Well, that was what I was getting at :-)
Like, someone described a scene in the Doom 3 trailer for me in which a piece of floor grating is flung upwards and an imp crawls out of the floor. I doubt you could do that in classic Doom without making it an advanced scripted event with all-new animations (making an imp crawl out of the hole in the floor convincingly).

Fredrik said:

I doubt it's a matter of processing power as much as it's a matter of effort.

true, and at the rate technology is growing i dout it would be years. they are focusing on stright looks, not interactivity of a level (like halo, ever notice how you can swim in halo?)

It seems that id Software's formula is to focus on interaction that is relevant to gameplay, and leave out the gimmicky interaction. This might be one of the things that distinguish great developers from the not so great ones.

Yeap. Now if only id would embrace gameplay a little more complex than "firing progressively larger guns at progressively larger monsters", it'd be great. It'd be nice to see some character development in a first-person shooter without trying to be a first-person RPG. A good example of this would be Metroid Prime (or so I've been told).

Metroid Prime doesn't have character development. It has some story development, but it develops in that it goes from "no story at all" to "story" rather than from "story" to "intriguing story".

Lord FlatHead said:

Yeap. Now if only id would embrace gameplay a little more complex than "firing progressively larger guns at progressively larger monsters", it'd be great. It'd be nice to see some character development in a first-person shooter without trying to be a first-person RPG. A good example of this would be Metroid Prime (or so I've been told).

character development...what characters? O_o

Shaviro said:

character development...what characters? O_o

Perhaps he means the zombies, various demons and the many dead corpses :-P

Corpses, for instance, would go from a freshly killed state and gradually to a more rotted state - man, that's character development :-P

Sorry Flathead, couldn't resist. No offence.

SlowMotionHobo said:

Yeah they will.

Maybe not. They DID say that the walls and such are models instead of just pixelated textures. And with the given AI, maybe they've made it so that monsters react to their environment, like the archvile calling to this and that monster based on where you are and what you're doing.

Mivalekan said:

Maybe not. They DID say that the walls and such are models instead of just pixelated textures. And with the given AI, maybe they've made it so that monsters react to their environment, like the archvile calling to this and that monster based on where you are and what you're doing.

I think perhaps you are confused. The walls are just "pixellated textures" - but they generated from actual models, to provide the bump/normalmapping data. On the other hand breakable scenery, such as the wall and pipes the pinky pushes through in the alpha, is actually modelled and not level geometry.

No, I hate surprises.

Skeletor said:

I think it's going to be all scripted. If you watch the quakecon interview with John Carmack, he will say something about the destruction of graphics. He doesn't like things busting out of anywhere unless it's planned.

I have to side with DSM that it's going to be scripted.

lol, john C is such a controll freak! :)

All scripted.