Will Doom 4 be as editable as Classic Doom?

What do you think to this idea? Doom being the amazingly editable game there ever was, what if id actually make Doom 4 similar to edit? Or would the mapping on id tech 5 be a tad too difficult. What do you think?

Hopefully. It would surely need a new Hell Revealed.

Chances are it'll be editable like Doom 3 is.

If you mean "Will I be able to use Doom Builder?" then no. :P

Good luck mapping for any modern engine if you want a map that looks half decent.

Alphawolf said:

Or would the mapping on id tech 5 be a tad too difficult.

Won't know until we get a chance to play with the SDK.

From what I can recall reading, someone (Carmack?) said that a big focus of id Tech 5 was going to be on making it easier on the developers side than was the case with id Tech 4, but that probably won't translate into anything like classic Doom's modularity.

If for nothing else, it won't be as easy as Doom/Doom2 currently are because you'll likely require decent experience with 3D modelling and texture design to build any new stuff that approaches the quality of the base game.

Marnetmar said:

Good luck mapping for any modern engine if you want a map that looks half decent.

With my talent, anything after quake would be impossible. Trying to create maps as detailed as Doom 3 would take me years, even using pre-fabs.

That's why I think nothing will ever be as moddable as classic DOOM. Not only are their great editors and new engine features being added on a semi-regular basis, it's relatively easy to build levels, so even people who aren't aspiring to become professional game designers can create perfectly playable maps.

short answer no. long answer hell no.

I hope for another thing: that the texture choices will be more numerous than in Doom 3 and decent like in Doom 1. I think part of lesser appeal of editing Doom 3 is the low variation of textures (dark metal techbase, cave, dark brown bricks, some flesh). Doom 1 has many techbase colors, has wood, green marble, symbolism and so on.

There's a reason to want anything in games other than dark-metal techbases? ;)

Not a chance.

Let's rephrase the question: mention at least 3 other games that are as editable as Classic Doom (while having at least as complex layouts).

Plus, to my understanding, id made Doom so modular first and foremost for their own convenience, rather than to allow a modding scene to flourish -don't forget the specs for the first editors came from third-party research.

There should be a level generator or editor as easy as MOD Nation racers. Sure a racetrack is far easier than a level to generate, but if you were to use a program to draw out the pathways and then the generator fleshes them out, makes keys and doors, it could be good and easy.

Doom3 was/is a lot more modifiable than Doom.

Of course it will. But expect to see an overwhelming abundance of "My First Map"-type efforts for a while until someone produces something of any reasonable quality that didn't look like it took 30 minutes or less to construct.

Whispers of Satan: Doom 4 Edition

Is your computer ready?

I want a Doom 4 edition of Speed of Doom instead.

kristus said:

Doom3 was/is a lot more modifiable than Doom.

But is it fun and easy?

Nope.

I don't know how edible doom 4 will be, but I can say that box doom3 came in tasted quite good.

Oh, editable, not edible.

They could make editing easier in doom 4, but it still won't be easy as classic doom to make mods for. Unless you want boring blocky rooms, it will take a lot of effort to get something looking good. There's about as much detail in a small room in doom 3 as a whole map in doom1/2.

40oz said:

But is it fun and easy?

It can be pretty rewarding when you manage to do things impossible in Doom 1 (such as 3d world objects swinging around and hanging one from another). But the learning curve is harder, considering the multitude of map models and special effects available, many of them made only for the Id maps that showcased them.

I wish 3d map editors were more advanced than crappy brush-level drawing. I wish for a CAD environment where you draw the maps like you would in Doom Builder 2, and the processor transforms them to true-3d game geometry. Define classes of walls, floors and so on, so the processor knows how to transform the drawn lines into 3d objects. Use several layers of mapping and join them either off-page or hierarchically. Be able to use description code instead of drawing when the resulting terrain makes it more feasible.

Yes, there will be a lot more you can change right out of the box for Doom 4 than you will be able to for Classic Doom.

No, it won't be as easy to work with. You'll probably find yourself working in an environment very similar to any decent modelling software, but more complicated. You may also need to actually learn modelling if you want to use anything that isn't what they've included with the game.

And good luck making anything that looks better than any part of the original game in less than a couple of months.

As others have said, editing will be MUCH more flexible than in DOOM³, but with added options comes much more difficulty. Heck, I don't even know how to work ACS scripting, let alone whatever godforsaken tricks DOOM 4 will use.

40oz said:

But is it fun and easy?

I'm not really sure how you define fun, but would you honestly expect it to be easy considering how complicated Doom 4's engine will be compared to the originals?

Realistically, classic Doom wasn't quite so modifiable out of the box either, not without executable hacks years before source ports appeared.

Quake and later engines have massively repaired this by separating the engine from the game. Doom 3 is much more "editable" than the original one, and undoubtedly Doom 4 will be too.

I tried to map HL2. The thing that got me more than anything was the whole "Optimization" thing. You had to place some sort of invisible objects in and around things in order for players to keep a decent framerate and make the maps run well. I never really could figure that part out, plus keeping up with the hardware to edit stuff in a timely manner was just too expensive and build times took way way too long. Very frustrating.

Build times are awful in Source mostly because you have to precompile all (or most of) all the lighting data which takes aaaaages. Doom3 at least has the edge there, since there's no radiostity calculations at compile, so at the very most it takes like 10 mins for a full compile of a map. And I believe there are several "shortcut" options for just testing your map out.

40oz said:

But is it fun and easy?

Easy? Hell no. No modern 3D game is easy to modify. And Doom 3's editor has it's own list of intricacies and bugs and problems. Personally I hate the thing, but I'm not a mapper. :D

Fun? Sure. Creating your own content, and seeing it work it always fun, if that's what you're into. The turnaround time for a mod is longer, MUCH longer, but the same is true with any modern game engine nowadays.

julz_d said:

I tried to map HL2. The thing that got me more than anything was the whole "Optimization" thing. You had to place some sort of invisible objects in and around things in order for players to keep a decent framerate and make the maps run well.

Hopefully computer hardware will progress much enough that optimization in these games will become unimportant.

For what you can theoretically do? Doom 4 will be immensely more editable than classic Doom.

For what you can realistically do with a level of quality at least half that of the unmodified game? A lot less than classic Doom.