What makes Doom 3 so different from the rest?

[GarrettChan]

Doom 3's Armor Absorption Rate is so weird. I don't think you can deplete your armor before you die unless you intentionally don't collect armor.

[Gez]

Doom 3 is basically the game Tom Hall wanted Doom 1 to be.

[BBQgiraffe]

1 hour ago, Gez said:

Doom 3 is basically the game Tom Hall wanted Doom 1 to be.

huh, I never thought of it like that

[Noiser]

10 hours ago, Matthias said:

Well, old games like Doom 1 and 2 were more abstract due to lack of technology

Nope. It was a design choice. They felt that realistic settings were boring and then scrapped the idea - not only the architecture but you can also see a lot of figurativism being cut from the game: Chairs, showers, lampshades, even a cute microwave texture with a coffee inside. 

 

Edited October 8, 2019 by Noiser

[Doomkid]

Doom1 alpha maps have a somewhat “Doom3 before the invasion” feel to me, further pushing the idea that D3 is more like what Tom Hall had in mind with D1. Still a bunch of realistic objects lying around, everyone standing in place not doing much. It doesn’t take that much imagination to picture the Doom3 startup bit in Doom1 graphics with text boxes rather than spoken dialogue.

 

The one and only thing that really bothers me in D3 is how damn slow the player moves. I could take literally everything else, good with the bad, if you moved like 50% faster. I’m always getting hit with garbage and forced to scavenge for health, not because I didn’t react in time, but because the marine has cinder blocks tied to his shoes.

 

Still, the game WOW’d me when I first saw it and I think it’s more worthy of your time than most FPS games tbh, but the old Dooms are better in every way aside from graphics, and Doom4 has more thrilling gameplay than Doom3 in general.

[Jason]

Wanna know what's different between the old dooms and doom3?

I hate Doom3 and love the other games.

There's a difference.

[Jason]

On 10/7/2019 at 2:32 PM, Cynical said:

Doom 3 is better than Doom 4 if we're not talking about BFG edition.  Fite me IRL if you disagree.

Where you live at? I'll bring my machete

[Cynical]

2 minutes ago, Jason said:

Where you live at? I'll bring my machete

Ur mom's bedroom.

[𝕲𝖗𝖊𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖎𝖌𝖊𝖗1]

16 hours ago, Doomkid said:

The one and only thing that really bothers me in D3 is how damn slow the player moves. I could take literally everything else, good with the bad, if you moved like 50% faster. I’m always getting hit with garbage and forced to scavenge for health, not because I didn’t react in time, but because the marine has cinder blocks tied to his shoes.

 

IIRC they slowed the player down in Quake et al down because the map sizes each had to be under 1.4 MB. I think that carried over to all of the 3D games (Quake series, Doom3, etc) primarily because performance limitations. But for me, it had the effect of being "more realistic". I mean, I love Doom/Doom2, but the player moves like at Flash speeds when compared the world's scale. I don't particularly like realism in FPS because I'm all about having an arcade-like good time (no reloading, no pain effects, instant healing, etc), but to me, it "fit" with Doom3's atmosphere: darker, more realistic environments, pain effects, weapon bounce, reloading, slower speeds, etc.

 

[spineapple tea]

Well that was that weird time after the success of Doom I, Doom II, and Quake, and before DOOM 2016 where most of the original members were gone. Plus now they were making a Doom game that didn't need tricks in the engine to look 3D. As result, it was just a different game style.

[Maximum Matt]

On 10/9/2019 at 12:24 PM, Cynical said:

Ur mom's bedroom.

[amackert]

On 10/8/2019 at 11:32 AM, Nine Inch Heels said:

Doom 3 tried way too hard to bring something new to what was already a winning formula. It tried so hard, in fact, that it literally got in the way of itself on the gameplay side of things. Visually, Doom 3 does the spooky shit well. It's competent at being uncanny, but that's all the praise I'm willing to give, and that alone doesn't make it a good game for me personally.

 

That's a great way of putting it. I agree about the spooky shit as well, that aspect of it still holds up very well.

 

To add my two-cents to this thread, I used to love this game back when it was current, but having played through it last week for the first time in about a decade, it's definitely lost its luster for me. The big issue is that it just became tedious after a point, and that's one of the greatest gaming sins I can think of. The buildup in the early game is fine, but why am I still having to whip out my flashlight every five seconds, ten hours into the game? The initial Hell portion was a nice reprieve from this, but that made up a whopping five percent of the game if I'm being nice about it. There was also nothing quite like finding myself cornered and taking serious damage because I had to reload mid-battle (not to mention it felt like an eternity every time it happened). Hell, the game probably would have taken half the time to complete if my stamina bar let me actually play at my own pace and wasn't arbitrarily holding me back for much of the playthrough.

 

I played some mods after that playthrough that change a few things (for instance, ditching the stamina bar completely, adjusting how some of the weapons work and getting rid of reloading). Gameplay in these custom mods and maps resulted in a much more enjoyable experience and I wonder what the base game would have been like had they dialed back the "realism" just a tad. Perhaps it would have held up better over time and more classic Doom fans might have appreciated it more when it was current.

 

This is just a personal thing, but I think another reason I have a harder time appreciating it is that Doom (2016) exists now, whereas it didn't the last time I played through Doom 3. Faster movement not hindered by a stamina bar, enemies that are more numerous and more aggressive, a greater variety of weapons that feel better to use, larger arenas, respectable boss fights, the list goes on.

[amackert]

On 10/9/2019 at 2:34 PM, 𝕲𝖗𝖊𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖎𝖌𝖊𝖗1 said:

 

IIRC they slowed the player down in Quake et al down because the map sizes each had to be under 1.4 MB. I think that carried over to all of the 3D games (Quake series, Doom3, etc) primarily because performance limitations. But for me, it had the effect of being "more realistic". I mean, I love Doom/Doom2, but the player moves like at Flash speeds when compared the world's scale. I don't particularly like realism in FPS because I'm all about having an arcade-like good time (no reloading, no pain effects, instant healing, etc), but to me, it "fit" with Doom3's atmosphere: darker, more realistic environments, pain effects, weapon bounce, reloading, slower speeds, etc.

 

 

Running movement in the original Quake is very fast, with some of the only 3D FPS games matching or exceeding it being titles like Dusk or Amid Evil. I do get that some of the series went in a slower direction (Quake 2 and 4), but the original Quake in particular is quite the brisk game, possibly even more so than classic Doom when you add in more advanced forms of movement (like its weird bunny hopping or rocket jumping in various directions).

 

On 10/8/2019 at 1:21 PM, GarrettChan said:

Doom 3's Armor Absorption Rate is so weird. I don't think you can deplete your armor before you die unless you intentionally don't collect armor.

 

This was another issue I had on my recent run of the game--armor was pretty much useless, yet there was still so much of it all over the place. There were times where I had 125 armor and 100 health, only to be one-shot by a Baron's projectile. It was pretty ridiculous.

[RonnieJamesDiner]

On 10/8/2019 at 11:12 AM, Nine Inch Heels said:

Dude, let's be real here for a second, you disagree with me primarily out of principle. It's either that, or you play like a 90+ year old if you find any of the bosses in Doom 3 "excellent". Maledict, if anything, was one of the bosses that didn't totally suck, and the bosses in the base game were simply bad. Unique strafing patterns... Yeah, right... LMAO

 

I don't think that's very fair to say. Just because you personally didn't find the boss fights to be particularly difficult or engaging, doesn't make them bad. I, too, actually enjoyed the boss fights in Doom 3, they felt generally unique for a Doom game, they fit the game well, and the first time I played through the campaign, they gave me serious trouble. I don't think defending them has anything to do with principle, nor playing like a "90+ year old" -- it's completely subjective. 

[CrbnBased]

I own, but haven't played all the way through, Doom 3, since day one.  That said, I did read a ton about all the Doom games before they came out, I was 14 when the original Doom released.  I remember them being marketed, not as an action game but as a horror game that's action packed.  There was always a dominant horror aspect to the original game, the lighting, the random sound effects from skulking monsters, the limited visibility in dark cramped corridors.  It was a new concept for the time, you could now cross the threshold of hell, in first person!  Most people I know started on HMP with keyboard only controls, and HMP was much too difficult.  So far fps was dominated by Wolfenstein 3d and clones, Doom was a huge leap forward.  With the commercial success of Doom and the general adoption of it's macabre setting, players could now focus on the frenetic action.  Now players felt comfortable using mouse/keyboard controls, keeping autorun on, playing multiplayer against faster and smarter human opponents.  The fearful setting of Doom disappeared by the time Doom 2 was released.  Now the main focus was on challenging level design, something that would appeal to all the people who now breeze through the original Doom.

 

Leading up to the Doom 3 release it was touted as a return to the original horror aspect of Doom.  The unfortunate thing is that behind all the great graphics and atmosphere and jumpscares, there wasn't much left.  Modding added a little life to the game, but I remember my closest friends that played it say it was great for a playthrough, but not much else.  The story aspect led some Doom die hards at the time to compare the game to Half Life, saying that the only downtime in Doom should be a secret/key/switch hunt.  It was an impressive game, an evolution, but it alienated a portion of the audience.

 

Time has been kind to Doom 3, as it still holds up as a great shooter to this day.  It just never evolved like Doom had, once you weren't scared, the game had nothing left to offer.

 

On a personal note I loved Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and truly wished they had used the idtech 3 engine to make Doom 3.  I'd love to see what they could have done with less focus on all that per pixel lighting, and give us a more action packed and larger set pieces.  I won't even get into 3rd party idtech 3 licenseing, which spawned so many other great games, Call of Duty being one of them.

[𝕲𝖗𝖊𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖎𝖌𝖊𝖗1]

On 10/14/2019 at 9:55 PM, amackert said:

 

Running movement in the original Quake is very fast, with some of the only 3D FPS games matching or exceeding it being titles like Dusk or Amid Evil. I do get that some of the series went in a slower direction (Quake 2 and 4), but the original Quake in particular is quite the brisk game, possibly even more so than classic Doom when you add in more advanced forms of movement (like its weird bunny hopping or rocket jumping in various directions).

 

 

I am not sure that's correct: https://www.pcgamer.com/quakes-player-speed-was-slower-than-dooms-and-heres-why/

 

[BBQgiraffe]

On 10/7/2019 at 12:16 PM, ReeseJamPiece said:

Personally I think that if Doom 3 was a person he would be Trevor Philips.

would that make the rest of the Doom games Micheal De Santa?

[MaxRideWizardLord]

7 hours ago, BBQgiraffe said:

would that make the rest of the Doom games Micheal De Santa?

 

Then the Doom: Annihilation movie is obviously a Franklin Clinton.

[amackert]

9 hours ago, 𝕲𝖗𝖊𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖎𝖌𝖊𝖗1 said:

 

I am not sure that's correct: https://www.pcgamer.com/quakes-player-speed-was-slower-than-dooms-and-heres-why/

 

 

If you want to compare running in a straight line, sure, Doom might have it beat, but that's only one facet to character movement. When you start factoring in Quake's snappier controls (less time to accelerate and decelerate, allowing the player to turn on a dime and dodge back and forth much more rapidly) and some of its more advance movement options (bunny hopping and rocket propelling/jumping), the game becomes ridiculously fast.

[seed]

12 hours ago, amackert said:

bunny hopping

 

Here's a random thing about bunny-hopping (also called simply bhop) though:

 

It had come to be seen as a feature, and even as a staple of Quake, Quake-engine based games, and GoldSource-based titles, but originally it was caused by a bug in the physics system. It was never intended to be a feature in the true sense of the word, but it was turned into one.

 

This is why engines such as GoldSrc's successor, Source, completely killed it initially, but I think it was added back in some form later in games such as CS:GO.

Edited October 23, 2019 by seed

[snapshot]

bhopping is fixed in current hl build, this is one of the reasons why speedrunners use bunnymod xt.

[ReaperAA]

37 minutes ago, seed said:

It had become to be seen as a feature, and even a staple of Quake, Quake-engine based games, and GoldSource-based titles, but originally it was caused by a bug in the physics which allowed performing it. It was never intended to be a feature in the true sense of the word, it was turned into one.

 

Yes. And there is another fact that Carmack didn't like it back in the day and had planned to fix/remove it in Quake 3. This is why in some "Beta/Test" versions of Quake 3, u cannot bunnyhop/Strafejump. However after the popular demand, it was added back before release.

[amackert]

17 hours ago, seed said:

 

Here's a random thing about bunny-hopping (also called simply bhop) though:

  

It had come to be seen as a feature, and even as a staple of Quake, Quake-engine based games, and GoldSource-based titles, but originally it was caused by a bug in the physics system. It was never intended to be a feature in the true sense of the word, but it was turned into one.

  

This is why engines such as GoldSrc's successor, Source, completely killed it initially, but I think it was added back in some form later in games such as CS:GO.

 

Bugs treated as "features" by the player community is one of the many factors that makes Doom and Quake so endearing.

[Dark Pulse]

One was a game that Romero was proud to make.

 

One was a game that Romero looked like he wanted to kill it with his mind when signing its box.

[MaxRideWizardLord]

13 minutes ago, Dark Pulse said:

One was a game that Romero was proud to make.

 

One was a game that Romero looked like he wanted to kill it with his mind when signing its box.

 

He was just jealous.

[Dark Pulse]

2 minutes ago, MaxRideWizardLord said:

He was just jealous.

No, to be jealous he'd need a game more broken than Daikatana.

 

Like, I dunno, Rock'n Shaolin.

 

 

[bfredric]

On 10/8/2019 at 9:32 AM, Avoozl said:

Honestly I don't like how they handled 2016 despite bringing back some parts of Doom, it felt too much like Serious Sam or Shadow Warrior 2013, it was too arena like for my tastes, I also didn't like some of the new mechanics and the far too limited map editor, not to mention no mod support.

Ahem I uh ... noticed similarities I MEAN tributes to shadow warrior as well but hey it’s a good game.