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Lila Feuer

How do you REALLY feel about Doom 3?

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cbronson said:
Thanks Satyr I'm gonna check them out. I've been playing with that Sikkmod (http://www.moddb.com/mods/sikkmod) but although the graphics look nicer I do not like some of the gameplay changes.


God Dammit! They where so close with this one, but they took the retarded approach to difficulty by just bumping up the enemy health to a retarded degree. Make the combat deadly for both the player and the monsters, otherwise you slow the game to a tedious crawl.

It's shit like this that makes me wish I knew how to edit doom 3. With a few tweaks this would be a good mod :(

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re: someone's post talking about being in awe of the Hell levels

I totally agree. For me though, the most stunning environments were in the various base locations -- some because of the combination of the base's aesthetic mixed with the growth coming out of the ceiling or walls, and other times based purely on the look of the base itself.
Incredible art direction; perhaps the best I've seen in any game ever, and certainly the best in the sci-fi genre. The atmosphere is unbelievably well-executed in this game.

It seems to me there are two main criticisms about the game. One is the abundance of very dark environments (and all the issues that creates -- constantly switching to an inadequate flashlight, etc) and the other is the vanilla gameplay style.

I don't necessarily agree with the first criticism. The second one, in retrospect, does seem unfortunately true. That said, I think that issue was remedied quite a lot in the expansion. It had a gravity gun, of sorts (not as good as HL2's, but hey, it worked) as well as the supernatural powers... I forget what that device was called. But that helped vary the gameplay a bit more. Unfortunately what RoE made up for in terms in gameplay, it lost in style or art direction.

I felt like the mappers and artists in RoE were considerably less talented than the team at id. The lighting, in general, is less tasteful, the textures are worse, and there are way fewer of those moments where you walk into a room and there's this elaborate machine at work, looking incredible (and sounding incredible, for that matter) while doing so. RoE lacks the amazement factor, but as I said, the gameplay is better, you might say. I also really like the bruiser design.

One thing that players don't talk about as much as reviewers, but it deserves to be commended, is the sound design in DOOM 3. It's been covered in far greater detail than I'm able, from a technical standpoint, and you ought to read up on it if you haven't. But I will say this about its "music" -- it could have benefited in small places here or there with some slightly more traditional music (even if we're just talking PSX DOOM or Doom64 style), but some of the music that's in the game is pretty cool on its own. Seems like the area where you get the plasma rifle is what I'm thinking of... you have these lights on the trim of the wall that flash and beep rhythmically. It makes sort of a beat and gives off a certain kind of musical energy that livens that combat sequence a bit. Little stuff like that is what makes me appreciate the musical side of the base's sound design.

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Yep the Hell levels are awesome and intense. Fantastic.

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I really like the sound design in Doom 3. Compared to the robust originals some stuff does sound a little weak but it didn't stop me from loading a Doom 3 sound replacement for classic Doom (plus some relevant mod additions) more than a few times.

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Doom 3 for me wasn't about gameplay, and I think a lot of people make the mistake of thinking that's what Id Software set out to do was create some revolutionary gameplay and I don't think that was ever the intention of Doom 3. If you walk into it convinced you're going to be bored, then you're going to be bored. If you walk into it ready to experience a game based around atmosphere, ready to listen to the PDAs to hear the story prior to your arrival unfold and without whining that you aren't being spoonfed through intense situations with a flashlight attached to everything like you're playing Halo... then you probably got the most out of the game.

I will agree it lacks replay value, but that's mainly because there's not really any room for exploration in the game and I think Id was probably expecting better from the community-driven content with how mod and custom map devleopment has flourished for their previous games. Unless you've really tried making a Doom 3 map, you can't honestly claim that there are no maps being developed out of laziness. The Phobos team could probably tell you all about what goes into making a production-quality map with how long they've been developing the project, even having to cut it down to one episode. I'm sure most people that've been around Doomworld long have seen how nitpicky people can be with little things like misalignments in classic Doom maps, or lack of detail. Well, those things don't come easy in Doom 3, especially custom model and textures.

Anyway, Doom 3 was an awesome experience for me, and even though I can never make myself sit through it to replay it through again out of interest of appreciating little details I might've missed, I think it was worth the wait and lived up to the hype.

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Funny enough, I've actually replayed DOOM³ multiple times, and is one of the only new games I've bothered to do so with. Believe it or not, a Nightmare run is totally worth it, although you'll be quicksaving a lot.

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Yep I replay Doom3 one or two times a year. I don't even think I do that for Doom 1 or 2... but maybe that's because there are so many megawads out there.

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DoomUK said:

To be honest little anal details like this don't do a game that already lacks so many qualities that the old games had any favours. Sure it's a piece of piss to modify stuff like that, but this is neither here nor there. With the exception of the chainsaw and perhaps the bfg, id did a crappy job of the weapons.

I've stated how I felt/feel about Doom 3 in more detail elsewhere, and have no desire to post it all over again :p. In summary, I think Doom 3 is a solid game if judged on it's own terms. But when you consider the heritage that preceded it, it looks a little awkward.


Sadly there's a lot of truth to this statement. Hop over to Doom3World and you'll see that the majority of interest over the years has, for some reason, circled around trying to make Doom 3 do things it obviously isn't suitable for instead of exploiting it's strengths. Compared to the myriad of quality Doom 1/2 maps and mods (and the success of the Source and UE3 modding community), it's actually a pretty sad state of affairs.


I strongly disagree with either the sentiment that Doom 3 modders are "lazy" or that they are "wasting time trying to make Doom things it isn't suited to do".

The problems with the Doom 3 modding scene come down to the content creation toolset and the native assets.

Let's be frank.

How many times can a level artist get excited about using the nearly monochromatic, Sci-fi themed, low poly, low resolution art assets in Doom 3?

Yes the dynamic lighting is great but it only can only capture the imagination for so long while looking at HIGHLY SPECIFIC re-used normal maps and geometry.

I'm no knocking the limitations here. I think id Software did a great job of balancing the needed asset qualities with the hardware capabilities of the time. What they did not do, was include enough general assets or decent toolsets for creating them. That's half the reason why Carmack went so crazy on the toolchain for Id Tech 5.

So any levels or mods coming from the Doom 3 camp either look like hacked together crap made of Doom 3 specific assets... OR take AGES to make the requisite custom 3D models, patch shaping, Normal Maps (which often require their own 3d model to look any good), removing shading from texture assets, learning md5 animation and AI rigging (RARE skills). That's not even taking into account the learning curve of Visportals and making sure that light counts are not too high (brush carving).

Basically, good maps or mods for Doom 3 require nearly professional level skillsets to make. HL2, in comparison, has enough GOOD generic assets that you don't need make tons of stuff from scratch just to design a nice map or mod. UE3, again, has a large base of assets and easy to use content pipeline.

The Dark Mod (which I help promote) spent years building up a ton of art assets and built their own version of the GTK Radiant editor (call Dark Radiant) because Doom 3's editor was not up to par.

Incidentally, I dare anyone to suggest that a mod that has:

Over 2GB of unique art assets
SDK customized AI that think in a similar fashion the the game Thief
SDK customized water physics
SDK customized rope arrows
SDK customized mantling
SDK hacked Light Gem light detection
SDK LOD system and Procedural content
Mount and Blade style melee
Custom Ambient Light control methods
A mission deployment system
A mission downloader system

... is a "lazy" mod???

Doom 3 total conversion mods are really in a league beyond any HL2 or UE3 tinkerings.

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Sodaholic said:

Why the spam/ads? All of your posts contain those same links, are you a bot, or are you being paid to post those links?

Maybe he's infected?

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I've played through most of Doom 3 and have finished Resurrection of Evil. My pros and cons are as follows:

Pros:
• Great art direction. Lots of micro details, especially with the computer screen animations. The maps really situate you in a claustrophobic Martian hell, and the texture quality is superb. Lighting is quite stark and still looks very good today. Enemy designs are mature and well executed.
• Unexpected features, like the "mini game" involving disposing waste canisters, the gravity gun and heart "weapon" in ROE, or the sentry bots that help mow down enemies.
• Deeply atmospheric, with cinematic ambient music, careful use of environmental sounds, eerie and disturbing lighting, and enemies ambushing the player.
• A number of classic idioms were included, such as the demonic iconography, a depiction of Hell, moody lighting, and the overwhelming sense of helplessness.
• Gameplay isn't weighed down by lengthy cutscenes, unnecessary puzzles, heavy NPC interaction, or micro-managing.

Cons:
• Most of the weapons sucked. Many of them seem oddly un-futuristic, while the ones that do weren't particularly impressive. This takes place in the year 2145; we shouldn't expect weapons based so closely on today's to be the norm in the 22nd century.
• A lot of other aesthetics seem rather outdated, too, such as: bulky PDA's and video discs taking the place of implants or electronic telepathy, which we have been working on for years; large, bulky armor when we have been working on thin, light-weight armor for years; silly looking computers with large keyboards, when holographic touch screen interaction would make more sense; very little indication of a world filled with nanotechnology; sentry bots too stupid to not fire at you on occasion; and of course, the flashlight problem that was quickly solved with the Duct Tape mod.
• Depictions of Phobos and Deimos would have been nice, and it wouldn't have hurt to feature more of Hell.
• Level design was painfully linear.
• Firefights are often underwhelming.

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GoatLord said:

• Gameplay isn't weighed down by lengthy cutscenes, unnecessary puzzles, heavy NPC interaction, or micro-managing.


The best part.

Cons:
• Most of the weapons sucked. Many of them seem oddly un-futuristic, while the ones that do weren't particularly impressive. This takes place in the year 2145; we shouldn't expect weapons based so closely on today's to be the norm in the 22nd century.
• A lot of other aesthetics seem rather outdated, too, such as: bulky PDA's and video discs taking the place of implants or electronic telepathy, which we have been working on for years; large, bulky armor when we have been working on thin, light-weight armor for years; silly looking computers with large keyboards, when holographic touch screen interaction would make more sense


But this is how DOOM has always been. The original DOOM shotgun looked like it was made partly out of wood, for God's sake.

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GoatLord said:

[...]
Cons:
• Most of the weapons sucked. Many of them seem oddly un-futuristic, while the ones that do weren't particularly impressive. This takes place in the year 2145; we shouldn't expect weapons based so closely on today's to be the norm in the 22nd century.
• A lot of other aesthetics seem rather outdated, too, such as: bulky PDA's and video discs taking the place of implants or electronic telepathy, which we have been working on for years; large, bulky armor when we have been working on thin, light-weight armor for years; silly looking computers with large keyboards, when holographic touch screen interaction would make more sense; very little indication of a world filled with nanotechnology; sentry bots too stupid to not fire at you on occasion; and of course, the flashlight problem that was quickly solved with the Duct Tape mod.
• Depictions of Phobos and Deimos would have been nice,
[...]


While I share most of your opinions, I'm not sure how you can go on for 140 words about how you didn't like the unrealistically 'un-futuristic' weapons and design aesthetics, and then immediately say that you also wanted Phobos and Deimos in the game. A realistic depiction of either moon would suck as a gameplay environment, not least due to the fact that both of them have only tiny fractions of Earth's surface gravity.

Unless you mean you just wanted to see them in the sky or something.

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I think tiny non-spherical moons, crater-filled and desolate, with low gravity and no atmosphere, would be fun. I don't think that would "suck as a gameplay environment."

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Megamur said:

So...dying out in a vacuum is a fun gameplay environment?

Obviously you'd have to be in a vehicle (ship or mecha) if you wanted to visit Phobos or Deimos. Not alone as a poorly equipped astronaut.

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I've started a new game on veteran again. Just offed the Vagary and for the first time I didn't die. Survived with 87 health left. This I think is my 3rd playthrough on veteran. I also played a few times on the first skill level. The gameplay may be linear, but there are quite a few secrets to find.

I think the game is great, I love all the weapons. They all seem to have a purpose, even if it's just the pistol on trites/zombies for the sake of saving ammo (not that you really need to). People say the shotgun isn't accurate, but I find it very satisfying to get close to a demon and blast it in the face. In fact, the shotgun is the ONLY weapon that isn't accurate (the "bounce of the wall and right back at you" grenades don't count).

The darkness and having to choose between the flashlight or a proper weapon never bothered me. It gave the game a tactical sense. Even the original doom had very dark areas.

Overall, it was worth the money I paid when I bought it new.

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printz said:

Obviously you'd have to be in a vehicle (ship or mecha) if you wanted to visit Phobos or Deimos. Not alone as a poorly equipped astronaut.


Why bring back Phobos and Deimos at all if you're just going to destroy the DOOM vibe by introducing vehicles?


chopkinsca said:

The gameplay may be linear, but there are quite a few secrets to find.


Which surprised me on subsequent playthroughs. There's not much in the realm of hidden rooms like in the old games, but you'll find items tucked into all sorts of peculiar spaces if you really look. There's some armor shards up on a ledge directly to your left when you step out of the elevator at the start of Mars City Underground (the first level where you actually get a gun) that I still don't know how to get.

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Megamur said:

There's some armor shards up on a ledge directly to your left when you step out of the elevator at the start of Mars City Underground (the first level where you actually get a gun) that I still don't know how to get.


If you keep trying to jump up there, you'll eventually make it up there.

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Megamur said:

Why bring back Phobos and Deimos at all if you're just going to destroy the DOOM vibe by introducing vehicles?

When I say "vehicles" I'm used to the space flight simulators, particularly from LucasArts, which are great. I don't mind if a game offers several genres in one (here, FPS and flight sim) if they're done well. Of course, succeeding that ought to be more time consuming from a productivity view, so yeah, there may result bad games.

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Megamur said:

Why bring back Phobos and Deimos at all if you're just going to destroy the DOOM vibe by introducing vehicles?





Which surprised me on subsequent playthroughs. There's not much in the realm of hidden rooms like in the old games, but you'll find items tucked into all sorts of peculiar spaces if you really look. There's some armor shards up on a ledge directly to your left when you step out of the elevator at the start of Mars City Underground (the first level where you actually get a gun) that I still don't know how to get.


Funny that you mentioned that, I actually managed to get it ONCE, but never again. Don't recall how.

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For me, I liked how the game actually looked like a base and not just a bunch of random shapes. I also liked how dark, empty, and lonely it felt. I know there's a bit of a lack of enemies, but every Imp or Zombie you encounter is intense.

I personally disliked how the player character screamed in pain from losing 1% health, I didn't really like areas that were so dark it was either flash light or firing at random. On that note, I also didn't like it was either flashlight or gun. Can't the player just duck-tape a flashlight to his gun? I mean, wouldn't that be the smart thing to do?

I know Doom 3 is one of the most hated games in society because it's not a blatant copy of Doom 2 but there's got to be some things people like about it.

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Why am I the only person who rarely used the flashlight regardless? I never found it annoying to switch between the two, if anything it adds more to the tenseness of DOOM3.

But it was never dark enough to the point where I needed my flashlight for lengthy periods of time.

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Megamur said:

Why bring back Phobos and Deimos at all if you're just going to destroy the DOOM vibe by introducing vehicles?

If those vehicles are actually ships that let you fly in mines (and over Deimos) like in Descent, that would be cool.

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yellowmadness54 said:

But it was never dark enough to the point where I needed my flashlight for lengthy periods of time.

You could always adjust brightness settings. If a game as dark as Doom 3 isn't dark enough to necessitate a flashlight, you've got that setting way too high.

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Megamur said:

Why bring back Phobos and Deimos at all if you're just going to destroy the DOOM vibe by introducing vehicles?


Why would it be so devistatingly tragic if vehicles were in Doom? Oh wait, I get it. Becuase they weren't in Doom 2.

People, I know Doom 3 wasn't the best game in the world, but you really can't expect id to make a blatant copy of the same game. But then again it's impossible for video game companies to please any one. If they make a game thats in any way AT ALL different to the original every one will complain, if they make a game thats a blatant copy (Which from what I've read is all people want) then every one will complain any way.

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Personally, I think that DOOM 3 might have been better without an HUD or with retail version's weapon designs. The early screenshots and the promotional video for DOOM 3 are my favorite renditions of the game. What I would have liked were:
-Unpredictable, celver, and intelligent A.I.
-Enemies wandering around the maps, searcihng the corridors (a la SYSTEM SHOCK 2)
-Non-linear, larger, and more atmospheric level design.
-The ability to avoid and hide from enemies.
-None of the retail DOOM 3's story. No cutscenes, either.
-Restoring enemies and concepts orignally planned for DOOM 3.
-No PDF. Or if there was one, the logs could be better written.
-No Dr. Betruger!
-Different, larger, more varied bosses.
-A longer and larger Hell section.
-A single expansive Mars outdoor level.
-Very few NPCs, or none at all.
-If the Cyberdemon is to be a boss fight, it should be a long, worthy, and epic fight. Similar, perhaps, to "Gonarch's Lair."

If any of us wanted a different DOOM 3, we would have to resort to developing one ourselves. Either as a mod, or by taking advantage of the full features of an open source idTech4 engine. Would any of us be that daring?

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DeimosKnight said:

-No Dr. Betruger!


I found Betruger very befitting to the game. He's this corny mad doctor type that really fit into the already corny B-Movie setting that was presented in the original Doom games. He was wonderfully cheesy and was a rather good addition to the Doom games. I've always been surprised at hate towards him.

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I actually liked Dr. Betruger, especially his evil laugh. I wasn't aware he got a lot of hate.

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I wanted Dr Betruger to be more sophisticated. When I first saw him, I expected him not to be the villain, because I thought that was too obvious based on his ugly looks and menacing voice. I expected him more to be some kind of tragic character, just like the whole UAC.

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