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BuzWeaver

Continuity Issues, seems to be a lot more lately

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I went through a few recent threads and I’m seeing more continuity issues that have come up.

The trite blood, flashlight batteries, oxygen in the landing bay, no infrared goggles, no gun mount for a flashlight, weak gun sounds, no sleeping quarters, there are any number of continuity issues. I don’t think it’s unrealistic for the programmers to make subtle changes to compensate.

I’m not a nitpicker, but when you start to factor in all the observations you can’t help but wonder what was going on when the game was created. It’s just my opinion that the game seemed hastily put together.

Notice how when you have decals on and you hit a trite, it leaves red blood splattered on the floor. But when you kill it, it explodes in a bunch of green juice. Isn't that a bit strange? o_O

You relize that would of probably taken someone at id all of ten minutes to fix this problem?

Step 1:Apply hue map to normal blood splat
Step 2:Assign that splat to Trite.

Well I don´t find the burn animation this bad. But I would have liked if just one or two monsters had died that way. In the original Doom, every monster dies a unique way. I miss this a bit in Doom3, as all the demons die the same way.

Why is it that like at the beginning when you get off the ship your outside (atleast I think.) and you don't need oxygen cells or like run out of oxygen but later in the game you run out of oxygen when your running across the surface.

Not compareing the games but when it came to flash lights the way Unreal 1 did was awesome. I find it funny how they have endless batteries for the flash light, but the oxy tanks are only good for about thirty seconds. I wonder how they built the base in the first place if the workers had to stop every thirty seconds to replace thier tanks

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The game isn't perfect, no game can ever be. However, Doom 3 is far from perfect, it has quite a few minor and major problems, both with its multi-player and single-player. Now, to prevent getting flamed by some of the newbs on this forums that just go around to every thread going "OMG U SUXX0RZ DOOM3 R0XX0RZ UR B0xx0RZ!!!" let me say this. Doom 3 is a great game, and I'm sure they put a lot of work into it. The problem is, that they realised it way too early, I believe. I think they were in huge competition with Half-Life 2, and wanted to grow a large fanbase and profit before ValVe released Half-Life 2, or at least that's what I would have done.

I say a moderator closes this thread, before it becomes a flame war, because soon the newbs will be here saying crap like "You're so fucking picky" and "OMG it's a game!!" which is besides the thread creator's point.

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Verdale said:

The game isn't perfect, no game can ever be. However, Doom 3 is far from perfect, it has many problems, both MP and SP. Now, to prevent getting flamed by some of the newbs on this forums that just go around to every thread going "OMG U SUXX0RZ DOOM3 R0XX0RZ UR B0xx0RZ!!!" let me say this. Doom 3 is a great game, and I'm sure they put a lot of work into it. The problem is, that they realised it way too early, I believe. I think they were in huge competition with Half-Life 2, and wanted to grow a large fanbase and profit before ValVe released Half-Life 2, or at least that's what I would have done.

I say a moderator closes this thread, before it becomes a flame war.

Yeah, and you mentioning HL2 and Valve is a dubious choice, given what you're saying.

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Don't encourage a flame war by pointing out potential flaming reasons in my posts. I was just answering perhaps why Doom 3 doesn't have a good flow of gameplay. If this thread doesn't follow the issue of Doom 3's flow or continuity, I vote that the moderators close it as soon as they see fit. This will just turn into the HL2 vs. D3 graphics thread, and I don't want to see another one of those.

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First of all, as I said, you are the first person to even mention HL2 in this thread. Secondly, you are recommending a mod close this thread when it's hardly had any replies - most threads deserve a chance, even if they are of a sentiment quite likely to attract conflict.

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As with most comparisons you’re going to get people that are biased and will defend the game regardless of how objective you try to be about it. We can cling to the idea that’s its just a game so as to trivialize the critics.

I’m just finding a lot more interesting observations that people are making about the continuity of the game. I bring this up because I’m a long time EQ player just like any other game there are always going to be nitpickers, whiners, fanboys and tweak monkeys. I know that in EQII they are being quite exhaustive about just those little nick picky things.

I personally think the game reviews on Doom3 were accurate and objective. Could the game have been better, sure?

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i dont think the game was released eary, if anything a bit late. i think they where originaly shooting for 2003, 10 years of doom.

ever play doom1? well what about the green skies of phobos? just enjoy it for what it is... a fucking game!

you guys are starting to sound like those starwars uber geeks who have to nitpick about every little detail. trust me, i hate those loosers. its a game, not every damn detail has to be perfect. its ment to be enjoyed, not disected for faults. granted i do agree with you guys on some issues.

lack of MP, the put most of the work into single player. deal with it!!
doom III was not made for online play, single player was the objective. for online play stick with UT2004 or quake3. granted it is fun on doom III but you will not see many players in a match, maybe 16 at most.

darkness, doom is a dark game. the flashlight things is ment to make you feel a bit stressed. there are mods that do fix this. remember the inspiration for doom was aliens and other dark movies.

The story. its a shooter. Id never really put much into the story of a game. They put more into this one than past titles, but still, Story is not the first thing Id thought about. think about doom I and II, it made hardly any sence if you thought about it. old style weapons, atmosphere, demons on a moon, the green sky. it was a shooter, made to be fun. screw the story. i think STTP3 was also a stab at that too, a game really doesnt need a story. do you bitch about tetris lacking a story? no! granted FPS need some story, but i dont concern my self with it too much

its a good game. yes it has some issues and bugs, but so did HL when it came out.

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Sephiroth said:

Spelling errors, typos, blah blah. do you bitch about tetris lacking a story? no! granted FPS need some story, but i dont concern my self with it too much. More spelling errors, typos, blah blah.


I do bitch about Tetris not having a story.

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Sephiroth, it is a game and I think most people view it as such, however we as game players have seen games with a little more continuity even in basic games. It’s not impossible to tweak out a few inconsistencies regardless of game genre.

I don’t think the Doom Community is nearly as critical as I’ve seen in other games, in particular I mentioned EQ and how Sony is making EQII with the idea of getting as much continuity and satisfying a very sophisticated group of game players.

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BuzWeaver said:

I don’t think the Doom Community is nearly as critical as I’ve seen in other games

There's a reason for this, and that's because it's a game. Most of these continuity issues are such non points that it's really ridiculous to talk about them.

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The oxygen tanks werent a continuity error or oversight. They were a game element similar to damage sectors in doom. I dont think it's fair to say that id somehow screwed up on that one. If youreally want to fit it into the story, you could say that marines dont carry the gear necessary to for a continuous oxygen supply due to weight (no one mention rebreathers.)

As far as the opening. If you noclip and fly up you'll see the structure is quite large and enclosed. It's not impossible to imagine that there's a safety hatch or two up there.

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I'm really tired of the constant flashlight nitpicking so here I'm gonna counter the complaints once and for all:

Complaint: "Boo-hoo, the Marine is too dumb to tape the flashlight to his gun"
My answer: He's carrying a fairly large flashlight - taping a flashlight of that size to a gun is not recommendable, because its weight will force your aim down, impacting your aiming abilities. I'm pretty damn sure that even über-tough marines would want to avoid that to conserve their strenght and keep their aim good.
Also, some of those weapons aren't exactly "flashlight-friendly". An example would be the shotgun where the pump-action slide would make it really damn stupid to tape it underneath and taping it on above would interfere with your line of sight (obscuring iron sights and generally make it harder to aim).

Complaint: "It's the future!!! Marines would have lights built into their combat armour!!!"
My answer: They're posted on Mars as a fucking security force - they aren't exactly equipped for a large-scale war on the base, because they aren't really inteded to encounter any other problems than minor security problems. It's easy to imagine that the UAC wanted to save money by not sending expensive light mounting modifications to the armour. Or, it could be another shipment failure like those chainsaws - do you guys really need to have everything explained in detail!?

Complaint: "The marine is too dumb to use a flashlight together with his pistol!!!"
My answer: I can't really argue with that effectively, but it's such a minor issue that I don't think it's even worth commenting on.

Honestly, I wish people would pull their heads out of their shit-filled asses and use some common sense: It's a game! Live with it!

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To tell the truth I hardly ever used the flashlight unless I was admiring the architecture. When it came to hunting enemies I preffered having my guns drawn and letting the enemy light up the area for me.

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I would like to add that whoever complains about the flashlight and/or the oxygen tanks, should be FORCED to play the game with only 2 weapons because it is totally unrealistic to run around with 10 big guns (and still be able to hide them in the mirror).

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It is quite amazing how people's OPINION can really tweak other people. It's a game, I think _both_ sides need to remeber that.

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I am really very, very, very happy with the flashlight batteries in Doom3. I don't know about you, but in my own, real life flashlights the batteries last for days, weeks even months of rare use and certainly for hours at a time in continuous use. I thought it was absolute crap that, in half life (for example) the batteries only lasted a few seconds. Imagine working in the Black Mesa complex inside an inspection hatch and having to pop out overy few seconds to change your flashlight batteries. Silly!

Doom3 is set something like 140 years in the future. Are you telling me that by then people won't have invented a little fuel cell or something that will probably give a flashlight effectively life-long energy? They've nearly got them now!

As for the apparent Oxygen inconsistency. Well, why not? People do use up oxygen. I'll agree, the tanks run out way too fast to be realistic (SCUBA tanks last for much, much longer - but are big and bulky) and that perhaps a 140 year development time should allow for a better system but we need to remember - its a game, and these are game devices so...

The flashlight is needed throughout the game. The game is so dark that you need the light to inspect every little corner. Id obviously decided not to give the player the hassle of having to budget for battery use and let us use the flashlight as and when we want. They take it off us when they feel it is necessary to do so. I'd rather have that than reluctantly use my flashlight whenever I need to, and always have one eye on the battery level, concerned that it would run out somewhere inconvenient. I'd quite happily cheat to get more batteries back.

The oxygen thing is a device. It's a way of putting a time limit on how long you spend outside. It's meant to make you run around like an idiot trying to get to where you need to be. They could easily have had any other device - eg planetary radiation exposure times or some such - but they went for oxygen. The oxygen is actually irrelevant, it's merely a device. The breathing sound is a nice addition and pumps up the tension which may be why they went for oxygen as the particular device to be used.


If you want to see a game with huge inconsistencies and technical problems that really do typify a game that was rushed out the door, try Thief 3. A great game (IMO) but with many, many annoying flaws.


As for the marine taping the flashlight to his gun. I can accept that id wanted you to switch between light and weapons for game reasons. I can also accept that if the light is taped to one weapon, it can't be taped to another (although you could find another light). However, it is worth pointing out (as anyone in the military will tell you) even in the present day, soldiers are trained to hold their pistol in one hand and brace it with a flashlight held in the other hand when entering dark areas. Perhaps future space marines will not consider this training necessary.

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I wouldn't really mind if the flash light had a battery that recharges itself slowly.

It sure would make for a few intresting in-the-dark-fire-fights.

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dsm said:

Honestly, I wish people would pull their heads out of their shit-filled asses and use some common sense: It's a game! Live with it!


We know it's a game, and game's are supposed to be fun. Some of you say the story doesn't matter and such, then taping a flashlight on the gun wouldn't matter, so why are you backing it up?

You guys take both sides on and off. On one side, you say it's a game, who cares, blah blah blah. On the other side, you say "Yeah but in real-life you can't do that blah blah blah". Stop trying to defend Doom's name and face the fucking facts. I'm a hardcore Doom fan, but I know when to admit when id software may have made a mistake.

I don't care about the flashlights or oxygen tanks or other shit. I want the MP game browser and netcode fixed, that's all I want.

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The half life flashlight lasted a fairly long time if I recall.

As for the flashlight on gun thing, I wouldn't even bother trying to rationalise it. It seems silly to pick on one unrealistic element when there's a million more. After all, it's a game and fun is arguably the most important virtue for a game to have, and so should come above realism.

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I wouldn't have noticed some of those continuity errors if no one told me, the Trite blood for example.

A bulk of complaints I've read are due to the players' shitty gaming abilities; such as the light being too small, the demons moving too quickly, or that the screen reels too much when an enemy melee-attacks you.

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dsm said:

Complaint: "The marine is too dumb to use a flashlight together with his pistol!!!"
My answer: I can't really argue with that effectively, but it's such a minor issue that I don't think it's even worth commenting on.[/b]


I have an answer. Try holding a flashlight and pistol steady at the same time, out in front of you for a long period of time.

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insertwackynamehere said:

I have an answer. Try holding a flashlight and pistol steady at the same time, out in front of you for a long period of time.

Yeah, I could've used that argument, but I was considering that perhaps there are people who can train themselves to use both and keep both steady.

We know it's a game, and game's are supposed to be fun. Some of you say the story doesn't matter and such, then taping a flashlight on the gun wouldn't matter, so why are you backing it up?

I'm smacking people across their faces with their own kind of arguments. People argue realism in Doom 3 (or the supposed lack of), I argue back with realism statements, just to nitpick back at them and to hopefully convince them that perhaps they should think a bit longer if they really need to nitpick realism.

I back up on those things only because people argue so aggressively ("OMG ID ARE IDIOTS FOR DOING IT LIKE THIS!!!!") and so constantly about those specific things and it really pisses me off, especially because people argue like they know what they're talking about when they overlook things themselves.

My overall opinion is that those insignificant realism things really don't matter that much, considering that I've seen many other games with flaws that sting your eyes that much more (in the old Dooms I instantly noticed that bodies could "float" in the air just because a single pixel was lying on a surface - did I whine? No, but I might comment on it if somebody asked me about "flaws" in the game), but since people fucking continue to whine about it, it makes me take drastic measures into use, such as arguing back with realism-based arguments because obviously that's the only language those losers understand.

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Don't forget that the chainsaw doesn't need gas to run! LOL. What a stupid game. I never saw any z-sec zombies running out of ammo either. And don't you all think it was stupid how the door mechanisms never gets worn out?

This is the end of Civilization as we know it!

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Well, true the quibbling has gotten a little out of hand. Id did consider putting lights on some of the guns. (Don't remember the source of this info so it may be a lie.) But they removed them for "game play" concerns. So it was not an oversight but a decision. I don't think they considered that this particular issue would have annoyed some people to such an extreme. The problem, if you wish to call it that, can be fixed via a mod. So it's really a non-issue. It should have been an option in my opinion. But I still think they did a hella good game.

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There's a reason for this, and that's because it's a game. Most of these continuity issues are such non points that it's really ridiculous to talk about them.


Again I think we can all agree it’s a game and doesn’t have to be based on any real life scenarios. I’m sure the people at id when working on the game knew what they were doing to create a fun experience versus a realistic encounter.

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The oxygen tanks werent a continuity error or oversight. They were a game element similar to damage sectors in doom. I dont think it's fair to say that id somehow screwed up on that one.



I’m sure you understood I was making an observation based on what some people were saying.

One could also make the point that there wasn’t a process of the Marine putting on or taking off his oxygen mask/helmet while playing, it was automatic or assumed when he went out on the Mars surface then returning to an oxygen environment.

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Don't forget that the chainsaw doesn't need gas to run! LOL. What a stupid game. I never saw any z-sec zombies running out of ammo either. And don't you all think it was stupid how the door mechanisms never gets worn out?

This is the end of Civilization as we know it!



I didn’t leave the Z-Sec Zombies alive long enough to notice whether they would run out of ammo or not. There was one Z-Sec Zombie that I could see on a particular level and regardless of the amount of grenades I threw in his direction he wouldn’t die.

In other words, I was able to see him in his spawn point. I tossed a few grenades his way but he was completely unaffected. There were doors, elevators and such that were inoperative, I suppose they had good engineers on the base that kept everything running well.

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