Should I Get Doom 3?

[Foebane72]

3 hours ago, printz said:

I'm tired of seeing mentions of Half-Life 2 and Far Cry as comparisons on why Doom 3 is the loser, when I never cared for those games.

 

I think Half-Life 2 is certainly overrated.

 

[Tetzlaff]

Agree, the whole Half-Life series is overrated. Valve always was quite smart in creating an image of being a very creative and inventive gaming studio, but mostly they took existing ideas and evolved them a little bit. Silent protagonist and storytelling through the environment? Has been a mainstay of FPS games before HL came out. Team Fortress was a Quake mod. The core gameplay of Portal was from another mod (forgot the name).

 

Edit: Narbacular Drop, a free game from 2005.

[Foebane72]

17 minutes ago, Tetzlaff said:

Agree, the whole Half-Life series is overrated. Valve always was quite smart in creating an image of being a very creative and inventive gaming studio, but mostly they took existing ideas and evolved them a little bit. Silent protagonist and storytelling through the environment? Has been a mainstay of FPS games before HL came out. Team Fortress was a Quake mod. The core gameplay of Portal was from another mod (forgot the name).

 

Edit: Narbacular Drop, a free game from 2005.

 

I said Half-Life 2 was overrated, not the original, which I highly regard, along with Team Fortress Classic and Counter-Strike.

 

[Tetzlaff]

Well, I think original Half-Life was overrated as well. I am not saying it is a bad game, just highly overrated.

[seed]

I don't think HL is overrated at all, nor do I use it as a comparison for everything Doom 3 related (minus the obvious similarities - BTW thanks for that bit of trivia, didn't know id had their own idea of a GG too, but it only resurfaced in RoE. That makes it more like a coincidence rather than a shameless rip-off, which is great).

 

Both series have their own merits and flaws at the end of the day.

[hybridial]

It's perhaps well known by this point I think the Half Life series is terrible, and most of the things you'd argue in favour of them like say, their influence on the genre, I consider to be almost entirely a negative thing which contributed to making games more uninteresting and lazy from 1997 through to the present day. And I do think with Doom 3 id felt they had to pursue a style that definitely was following that influence. And its a shame that System Shock 2 which I think did so many things so vastly better than Half Life is more of a foot note and the later "shock games" i.e. the Bioshock games were much closer to Half Life in design than System Shock 2.

 

 

[ReaperAA]

I too think that Half Life franchise is slightly overrated at this point (only very slightly tho) and that's only because of the clunky combat and the fact that many of the things they did have been done better by modern games. 

 

However, I personally find Half Life 2 to be an overall superior game to Doom 3. Just introducing a unique physics-based weapon to use in combat or overcome obstacles is far more innovative than anything Doom 3 did.

 

2 hours ago, Tetzlaff said:

The core gameplay of Portal was from another mod (forgot the name).

 

Edit: Narbacular Drop, a free game from 2005.

 

Narbacular Drop was made by the same devs who went on to create Portal. Valve just hired the devs and provided better tools to them to fulfill their dream.

Edited May 3, 2020 by ReaperAA

[Azuris]

On 5/2/2020 at 2:48 PM, Edward850 said:

This is generally referred to as Stockholm Syndrome. 

 

Well, the Shotgun was designed in that Way, because they wanted you to overcome your Fear.

I remember that in the beginning i wanted to back up and shoot them from a save place in distance.

But they let creatures spawn in a manor, that this is often just not possible.

Runnung around, trying to escape, will hurt you.

So i've learned the best way is to overcome that scare and run forward.

It's not a bad design, it is ingenious, how they knew People will react, facing such Situations ;)

Also the Shotgun is the Weapon with mist Ammonition, so they force you to use a "flawed" Weapon, what makes the Tention higher.

 

In the BFG Edition all that is gone, you can just run around shooting everything with the Plasma Gun, there is enough Ammo

 

 

By the way, i have an old Installation with hd textures and the sikkmod (i think), Game looks pretty good, even nowadays.

 

Can recommend this Game to everyone.

[jazzmaster9]

2 hours ago, Azuris said:

so they force you to use a "flawed" Weapon, what makes the Tention higher.

Bad design =/= Difficulty

 

of course there's going to be "tention" when you give the player a sausage as a weapon...

[Boaby Kenobi]

Avoid the Steam version of Doom 3 if you can as you can't even change the resolution on that version without additional faffing around changing configuration files.

[MadGuy]

8 minutes ago, Boaby Kenobi said:

Avoid the Steam version of Doom 3 if you can as you can't even change the resolution on that version without additional faffing around changing configuration files.

That is the Original version (2004). Any other version is based on the BFG Edition.

[Edward850]

1 hour ago, Boaby Kenobi said:

Avoid the Steam version of Doom 3 if you can as you can't even change the resolution on that version without additional faffing around changing configuration files.

You are either talking about vanilla Doom3, where this is technically false, or Doom3BFG, where this is actually completely false (BFG has a dynamic list of resolution options and automatically accounts for aspect ratio). There is nothing special about vanilla Doom3 on Steam (other than it being Steam aware), it's just Doom3 1.3.1, and thus acts the same as retail.

For Doom3 1.3.1, you have a selection of predefined resolutions or you can change it from the dev console using r_aspectRatio, r_customWidth, r_customHeight and r_mode set to -1. Then run vid_restart for instant results. Why does it need this? The game was made in 2004, that's just how things were sometimes back then.

Edited May 4, 2020 by Edward850

[Redneckerz]

On 5/3/2020 at 7:17 AM, printz said:

I'm tired of seeing mentions of Half-Life 2 and Far Cry as comparisons on why Doom 3 is the loser, when I never cared for those games.

This is mostly due to the games releasing roughly in the same timeframe - Many publications at the time compared the games directly to one another.

 

On 5/3/2020 at 10:53 AM, Foebane72 said:

I think Half-Life 2 is certainly overrated.

I dunno - It was the first high-profile title that pulled off physics convincingly and used it as an interesting mechanic.

• Trespasser did it first ofcourse, but that game essentially tried to be Far Cry in 1998, and used an unconvential physics system that was prone to bugs (As was most of the game).
• Severance: Blade of Darkness actually precedes HL2 on physics interaction, being released in 2001, and featuring realistic movement physics and interaction (Swinging a sword will stop moving when it hits a wall, heads roll realistically when cut, for instance) - But Severance was not made by a high-profile studio, so it slipped under the radar. Severance had a lot of firsts, actually - Together with the aforementioned Trespasser and Outcast, i'd consider those the trifecta of titles that pushed technology in their times.

21 hours ago, Tetzlaff said:

Well, I think original Half-Life was overrated as well. I am not saying it is a bad game, just highly overrated.

If we are taking that route, then Halo, Goldeneye and Wolfenstein3D are also highly overrated. Why is Wolf3D considered the father of shooters when we had 3D Monster Maze years prior? <- This is hyperbole.

 

The point is that although you are obviously entitled to stating this, the original HL did bring something new to the table relative to its timeframe - an emphasis on narrative storytelling rather than as a backdrop to explain current events (Like Quake 2 did, for instance.) Or believable characters that attempted to address the player in more personal ways.

Edited May 4, 2020 by Redneckerz

[Tetzlaff]

1 hour ago, Redneckerz said:

If we are taking that route, then Halo, Goldeneye and Wolfenstein3D are also highly overrated. Why is Wolf3D considered the father of shooters when we had 3D Monster Maze years prior?

 

Wolfenstein 3D is not overrated. Everyone recognizes the influence Wolf3D had, but it's limitations were always obvious and nobody claimed it was better than Doom or Duke 3D for example. It gave you a raw idea what FPS games could become.

 

Half-Life was also influential - unfortunately, in my opinion. Since HL many FPS games tried to be interactive movies, which led to extremely linear level design and cutscene after cutscene story telling of the Call of Duty era.

HL wasn't all that great. Believable characters? The silly representations of scientists weren't believable at all.

[Foebane72]

2 hours ago, Boaby Kenobi said:

Avoid the Steam version of Doom 3 if you can as you can't even change the resolution on that version without additional faffing around changing configuration files.

 

There's the console. It saves changes to variables typed into it into the configuration, but I had to copy and paste a large number of variables from someone's post into the config file directly.

 

1 hour ago, Edward850 said:

You are either talking about vanilla Doom3, where this is technically false, or Doom3BFG, where this is actually completely false (BFG has a dynamic list of resolution options and automatically accounts for aspect ratio). There is nothing special about vanilla Doom3 on Steam (other than it being Steam aware), it's just Doom3 1.3.1, and thus acts the same as retail.

For Doom3 1.3.1, you have a selection of predefined resolutions or you can change it from the dev console using r_aspectRatio, r_customWidth, r_customHeight and r_mode set to -1. Then run vid_restart for instant results. Why does it need this? The game was made in 2004, that's just how things were sometimes back then.

 

Yes, I run old games in 1080p widescreen whenever I can, the results look great! Even old games like Quake 3 Arena look great! The id variables make it easy, just a case of knowing the right values to put in.

 

[jazzmaster9]

1 hour ago, Tetzlaff said:

Wolfenstein 3D is not overrated. Everyone recognizes the influence Wolf3D had...

 

Half-Life was also influential - unfortunately, in my opinion. ince HL many FPS games tried to be interactive movies, which led to extremely linear level design and cutscene after cutscene story telling of the Call of Duty era.

So a game is overrated because you don't like it ? Okay

 

Nothing wrong with Interactive games, i know its cool to be 2Retro4you nowadays due to the way the Triple A scene is right now, but games like CoD 4 and Medal of Honor are still highly praised even today.

[Redneckerz]

1 hour ago, Tetzlaff said:

 

Wolfenstein 3D is not overrated.

I should have made it more apparent (As always) but i was pushing an hyperbolic argument to demonstrate that the person i responded to made a similar hyperbolic point.

 

I don't think Wolfenstein 3D is overrated. Edited to reflect better.

1 hour ago, Tetzlaff said:

Half-Life was also influential - unfortunately, in my opinion. Since HL many FPS games tried to be interactive movies, which led to extremely linear level design and cutscene after cutscene story telling of the Call of Duty era.

That's not HL's fault perse. It was COD that took that idea to extremes - Where entire scenes are mostly scripted events.

One could also argue that it led to Quantic Dream's pseudo-game movies and The Walking Dead. Games that are less of a game where you interact in, and more an amalgation between movie and video game.

1 hour ago, Tetzlaff said:

HL wasn't all that great. Believable characters? The silly representations of scientists weren't believable at all.

The scientists do try to communicate with the player, this is what i mean with believable. They aren't just mindless grunts like you had in Quake 2.

 

Back then having NPC's in a first person shooter that tried to interact with you, the player (As if you were existing in that universe) was a novelty. You obviously had System Shock prior, but that's more RPG minded.

[seed]

1 hour ago, Tetzlaff said:

Half-Life was also influential - unfortunately, in my opinion. Since HL many FPS games tried to be interactive movies, which led to extremely linear level design and cutscene after cutscene story telling of the Call of Duty era.

 

I can only agree about linear design here since indeed, after HL games did try to be more linear - something I actually like. It isn't a secret at this point that I hate nonlinear design, I've stated this numerous times and yes, I understand and admit that I am biased against this kind of game design for personal, entirely subjective reasons.

 

But popularizing cutscenes is just plain incorrect since the HL games don't even have such a thing, at most they only have scripted sequences where the player wanders around while the NPCs do their own thing. This happened only well after HL was conceived, and other games had cutscene styled moments before them, not to mention pure cutscenes and pre-rendered movies.

 

I'm honestly just feeling bias against HL here, especially after the Wolf3D comparison, a game as influential as those simply cannot be horribly overrated, that's just selling the games short massively. Which seems to be a somewhat common sentiment on retro communities anyway, looks like it's cool to hate on HL and point fingers at it as the great originator of evil in the industry nowadays, DW is neither the first nor last place where I've seen this, and will continue to see.

Edited May 4, 2020 by seed

[damned]

Maybe stupid question, but what is that bad on BFG Edition?

[seed]

Just now, damned said:

Maybe stupid question, but what is that bad on BFG Edition?

 

Mostly the fact that some levels got altered heavily, it removed the flashlight gimmick, and it has an overabundance of ammo - there was far more than enough ammo in the OG Doom 3, it really didn't need EVEN MORE supplies.

 

It also has better lit maps than the original, which is another divisive aspect among fans. I personally like this since the original was likely so damn dark to avoid tanking framerate on the hardware of the time - and the E3 maps are also noticeably brighter too.

[Vic Vos]

I heard claims that BFG's textures are worse - did anyone compare?

[printz]

I would say that linear level design is a symptom of having no automap. Doom 4 added the automap back and its maps are no longer linear. And yes, I spend a significant time looking in the map to find any unexplored areas. Besides, even in REAL LIFE you have an automap now.

[Foebane72]

1 hour ago, Redneckerz said:

The scientists do try to communicate with the player, this is what i mean with believable. They aren't just mindless grunts like you had in Quake 2.

 

Um, your fellow soldiers found wandering and crawling all over the place in Quake 2 had been tortured into insanity by the Strogg. They even babble to reinforce that idea.

 

1 hour ago, seed said:

It also has better lit maps than the original, which is another divisive aspect among fans. I personally like this since the original was likely so damn dark to avoid tanking framerate on the hardware of the time - and the E3 maps are also noticeably brighter too.

 

I don't really believe this with id Tech 4, that brighter lit maps will dip the framerate on lesser systems, but I had no problems wandering around the UAC base with just a flashlight and switching quickly. And of course the base is dark in places, the whole facility has just suffered catastrophic damage to its power systems as a result of the demonic invasion. Noticed the flickering lights everywhere? That's a sure sign of damage. I'm sure they weren't meant to be that way normally.

 

41 minutes ago, Vic Vos said:

I heard claims that BFG's textures are worse - did anyone compare?

 

I heard they'd had image processing applied to them, both textures and normal maps. That's always bad news, it introduces compression and lossy artifacts. Best stick with the vanilla version, and the textures there are originals, as intended.

 

[hybridial]

 

1 hour ago, seed said:

I'm honestly just feeling bias against HL here, especially after the Wolf3D comparison, a game as influential as those simply cannot be horribly overrated, that's just selling the games short massively. Which seems to be a somewhat common sentiment on retro communities anyway, looks like it's cool to hate on HL and point fingers at it as the great originator of evil in the industry nowadays, DW is neither the first nor last place where I've seen this, and will continue to see.

 

Yeah and my response to that is coolness has nothing to do with it, and fuck Half Life, aside from influencing other things to be boring trash, it itself is boring trash. 

 

I understand thinking me too zealous, but don't doubt the sincerity of it. :P

[seed]

8 minutes ago, hybridial said:

Yeah and my response to that is coolness has nothing to do with it, and fuck Half Life, aside from influencing other things to be boring trash, it itself is boring trash. 

 

I understand thinking me too zealous, but don't doubt the sincerity of it. :P

 

Oh come now, you know what I meant ;p .

 

Praise Half-Life.

[Redneckerz]

1 hour ago, seed said:

I'm honestly just feeling bias against HL here, especially after the Wolf3D comparison, a game as influential as those simply cannot be horribly overrated, that's just selling the games short massively.

Again i was purposefully being hyperbolic. :)

1 hour ago, seed said:

Which seems to be a somewhat common sentiment on retro communities anyway, looks like it's cool to hate on HL and point fingers at it as the great originator of evil in the industry nowadays, DW is neither the first nor last place where I've seen this, and will continue to see.

I feel people who contest HL's overrated may undervalue what HL introduced back in 1998. Because it has been so omnipresent since in more extreme forms (See COD), the impression thus is that HL is overrated.

5 minutes ago, Foebane72 said:

Um, your fellow soldiers found wandering and crawling all over the place in Quake 2 had been tortured into insanity by the Strogg. They even babble to reinforce that idea.

But that was not what i mean't. ;)

 

4 minutes ago, hybridial said:

Yeah and my response to that is coolness has nothing to do with it, and fuck Half Life, aside from influencing other things to be boring trash, it itself is boring trash. 

 

I understand thinking me too zealous, but don't doubt the sincerity of it. :P

How would platformers be seen? Platforming does follow a very similar formula for a long time now. (This isn't hyperbole, for the record.)

[hybridial]

Just now, Redneckerz said:

How would platformers be seen? Platforming does follow a very similar formula for a long time now. (This isn't hyperbole, for the record.)

 

Oh I have nothing against the concept of a tried and true formula being used over a long period of time, but the fact is I'm going to put the onus on you, My beef with Half Life is a very specific (but very popular) framework of design. But it is not the FPS genre, so give me something more distinct to work with than that, because that is dishonestly generalising what I am saying. 

[Redneckerz]

48 minutes ago, hybridial said:

 

Oh I have nothing against the concept of a tried and true formula being used over a long period of time, but the fact is I'm going to put the onus on you, My beef with Half Life is a very specific (but very popular) framework of design.

Should HL be the game that is subject to that criticism? If anything else, i would say its the first COD that took this design to a Hollywood styled design. Hollywood, as in very bombastic, but also very hollow.

 

Quote

But it is not the FPS genre, so give me something more distinct to work with than that, because that is dishonestly generalising what I am saying. 

Super Mario? Bomberman? What title do you want?

 

I am just not a fan of the whole Fuck Half-Life theory, as if it does nothing well, because who is ever going to generally agree on that? By saying that you are obviously undervaluing what HL has done for the industry in a general sense of the word.

Edited May 4, 2020 by Redneckerz

[hybridial]

33 minutes ago, Redneckerz said:

Should HL be the game that is subject to that criticism? If anything else, i would say its the first COD that took this design to a Hollywood styled design. Hollywood, as in very bombastic, but also very hollow.

 

I see we agree very much on the nature of Hollywood, and yeah I don't care at all for the CoD series, however, in that sense, you're kind of saying that if CoD in the metaphor "went Hollywood" that suggests Half Life isn't bombastic and hollow and I think in 1997 it does represent that. The popular thought process here is Half Life brought more immersive narrative into the FPS genre and I'm not arguing that it didn't do that, but I am arguing that its methods were still hollow, and the material of the story was poor. There was very little substance to it, its a generic alien invasion sci fi story, and it had very little personality. System Shock 2 being released only a few months later is a game I would point to where the world building and storytelling was immensely superior, even without the use of NPCs to "interact" with, not that what Half Life did was in any way interactive. But what I would call of its methods is its easy. Easier to create a game where the player's involvement is stifled because most of the game content is linear and following pre-designed steps. Now don't mistake that as me being against the idea that a game's encounters and content being pre-designed, no that's how it should be. But Half Life represents a very basic, very straightforward model which I think is lacking in most areas of quality. The game that I think best shows a better path? Deus Ex, a game where player interaction, choice and approach are all meaningful in gameplay and in story. I'm not a fan of what is pretty much the linear roller coaster ride kind of game where the gameplay is made less interesting because making it more interesting would impinge on the all important story the designers (who really clearly want to be making movies) have to tell you. And you can trace that in everything from Half Life to COD to Uncharted to The Last of Us and I don't like any of those games, with the reason being consistent, I did not find them fun to play at all, before considering anything to do with their stories. 

 

*edit*

 

Whilst I'm not going to delete the content of my posts or anything, I realise there are times where I'm in a very unproductive mindset. I feel this is where I am now, whereas the prior arguments we had on Doom 3's quality, whatever thoughts one might have about my verbiage, I felt my head was clear and I felt the points I was making were at least expressing clearly what I thought and I was happy with that, but then more often than not when it comes to these arguments I start in a bad mood and continuing with them does not improve it, so I just want to end my involvement here, and yes, will try my best not to start on these topics when I know my mood is more the cause for it. 

 

   

Edited May 4, 2020 by hybridial

[Redneckerz]

22 minutes ago, hybridial said:

 

I see we agree very much on the nature of Hollywood, and yeah I don't care at all for the CoD series, however, in that sense, you're kind of saying that if CoD in the metaphor "went Hollywood" that suggests Half Life isn't bombastic and hollow and I think in 1997 it does represent that.

Its a different kind of bombast, more relying on suspense rather than full on Action where COD took it to.

Quote

 

The popular thought process here is Half Life brought more immersive narrative into the FPS genre and I'm not arguing that it didn't do that, but I am arguing that its methods were still hollow, and the material of the story was poor. There was very little substance to it, its a generic alien invasion sci fi story, and it had very little personality. System Shock 2 being released only a few months later is a game I would point to where the world building and storytelling was immensely superior, even without the use of NPCs to "interact" with, not that what Half Life did was in any way interactive.

System Shock 2 is an FP-RPG, not an FPS with narrative elements.
 

Quote

But what I would call of its methods is its easy. Easier to create a game where the player's involvement is stifled because most of the game content is linear and following pre-designed steps. Now don't mistake that as me being against the idea that a game's encounters and content being pre-designed, no that's how it should be.

Just because a game is relying heavily on scripted events does not mean it makes the game easier to create.

Quote

The game that I think best shows a better path? Deus Ex, a game where player interaction, choice and approach are all meaningful in gameplay and in story.

Like System Shock 2, Deus EX is an FP-RPG. Shooting is not the primary mechanic, but one of the mechanics. Whereas in HL1 the focus is more on shooting (Well, slapping monsters with a crowbar).

Later edit:

22 minutes ago, hybridial said:

Whilst I'm not going to delete the content of my posts or anything, I realise there are times where I'm in a very unproductive mindset. I feel this is where I am now, whereas the prior arguments we had on Doom 3's quality, whatever thoughts one might have about my verbiage, I felt my head was clear and I felt the points I was making were at least expressing clearly what I thought and I was happy with that, but then more often than not when it comes to these arguments I start in a bad mood and continuing with them does not improve it, so I just want to end my involvement here, and yes, will try my best not to start on these topics when I know my mood is more the cause for it.

Alright then.