John Romero: DOOM3 in late 2003

[uniQ]

Romero said in an german interview that we have to wait a few more month for DOOM3 being finished. It seems getting late 2003 before we can kick some demon's butt. :(

read here:
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,239600,00.html

[Arioch]

And John Romero would know this ... because?

[Job]

He's just trying to fool us so that our attention is diverted while he secretly works on the creation of the long-anticipated Daikatana II.

[Rotting Corpse]

Vulg@r said:

long-anticipated Daikatana II.

Dude did you like the fist one? As for Romero,dont listion to him.
hes just being pissy cuz hes not working for id any more.

[uniQ]

Arioch said:

And John Romero would know this ... because?

in the interview he wrote that he was able to test doom3 at id's lair. he added that "doom3 is emnormous dark and it's going to be very cool but it will take some more month till it's done.

The interesting point would be: when was he able to test d3? if it was back in december then d3 might be done in summer :)...who knows.
e3 hopefully will clear some things up.

BTW: JohnC and JohnR are still "friends". I don't think he's trying to fool us.

[Shaviro]

and what would id be doing in the months between late 2003 and mid 2003? :P

[Job]

I was being sarcastic. I think it'd take the marketing genius of a parapalegic, mentally handicapped chimpanzee with an inflamed ass who's been subjected to a 12 day marathon of listening to "The Osmond Twin's Kwanzaa Bazaar" cd to actually endorse Daikatana II.

[Disorder]

Aber es braucht noch einige Monate, bis es veröffentlicht wird.

"But, it'll take a couple of months, before it is released."
My German isn't that good, but that's what I make of it. This doesn't really mean it's going to be released at the end of the year. Just a couple of months more. I think they'll release it somewhere in the middle of the year.

[myk]

Who doesn't know that Romero keeps in touch with the id guys? But anyway, and more importantly, I didn't know Romero was fluent in german (in other words... why didn't they post a link to the original inteview text somewhere? Or did they?)

[Tyockell]

Shaviro said:

and what would id be doing in the months between late 2003 and mid 2003? :P

lol that better be a joke cuz it dosent make sense :-P

[dsm]

Shaviro said:

and what would id be doing in the months between late 2003 and mid 2003? :P

Adding additional gameplay goodies perhaps? Fine-tuning some maps perhaps? Adding further graphical details to maps/characters (in Q3A, there were many graphical improvements over the Q3A demo/test and we've only seen an illegal Alpha of Doom 3 - lots can still be changed)? Fixing scripts that still aren't "perfect"?

Thing is we don't know the exact status of Doom 3 yet and it is no secret that it's an immensely complex game. The best we've seen from this game is a meagre three maps in an illegal alpha that could easily turn out to be much more advanced and detailed in the final game.

And someone hinted that Carmack may still be tweaking the engine, trying to find ways to provide soft shadows in the game - dunno if it's bullshit or not, but it's worth considering.

[Shaviro]

look, they could keep tweaking the game for ages, but that would be a complete waste of time and money. They have to release it soon, or other games will catch up to the tech. I still say late Spring, early Summer!

[NiGHTMARE]

I'm saying early 2004, that way I won't be disappointed.

[dsm]

Shaviro said:

look, they could keep tweaking the game for ages, but that would be a complete waste of time and money. They have to release it soon, or other games will catch up to the tech. I still say late Spring, early Summer!

You have to take into consideration that the game has to work as a whole.
Carmack is not a scripter (not as far as I can understand), so if there's a scripting problem on later maps in the game, the other programmer(s) have to deal with that - in the meantime, there's no stopping him from trying to improve the engine a bit.

And again, when you're saying (in various other posts and in other threads) that the game works all right, take into consideration that you've only tried an alpha - you have no idea how many problems there could still be in the rest of the game.

And I don't think that other companies will catch up with id's tech - no other company works as fast as id (according to how it's been previously and I have my doubt as long as J. Carmack works for id).

And the competing companies have only just started to release details on their engines. The competing games will likely be released sometime after Doom 3 - by then, Doom 3's tech has already sunked into the consciousness of the crowd.

[Shaviro]

You were talking about tweaking, not problem solving! There shouldn't be any big problems, nothing they haven't dealt with before. And about other games catching up to Doom3: Far cry will be released at the end of this year!

[dsm]

Shaviro said:]You were talking about tweaking, not problem solving! There shouldn't be any big problems, nothing they haven't dealt with before.

I was indicating problem solving - tweaking and solving problems mean the same to me. And who are you to hold information that there shouldn't be any problems? Have you personally been inspecting Doom 3 on id's own computers?

And about other games catching up to Doom3: Far cry will be released at the end of this year!

No. 1 and do you think you can count on that? No 2. Doom 3 will be released by then and Far Cry is not as good as Doom 3, technically, so nobody has catched up with Doom 3's tech by then.

The only rival that I know of that showed off something that could be technically more advanced would be the new Unreal Warfare engine and it's only in early stages of development compared to Doom 3.

[Shaviro]

dsm said:

I was indicating problem solving - tweaking and solving problems mean the same to me. And who are you to hold information that there shouldn't be any problems? Have you personally been inspecting Doom 3 on id's own computers?

I think it's pretty safe to assume that they don't have any big problems.

No. 1 and do you think you can count on that? No 2. Doom 3 will be released by then and Far Cry is not as good as Doom 3, technically, so nobody has catched up with Doom 3's tech by then.

It's the same tech, so...

[Fredrik]

I think id has a lot of work to do yet, even if all levels are done or whatever. The final phase of development always requires a lot of time, for debugging and enhancing. And about soft shadows, with today's cutting edge graphics card handling Doom 3 well over 50 fps in high resolutions, it would be stupid of Carmack not to spend a month on them if that long time was necessary.

[AirRaid]

I seem to remember Carmack saying he was aiming to have a top of the range (at time of release) system able to play Doom3 at 60fps... So I doubt he's gonna want to half that or whatever by adding even more complex stuff like soft shadows. Unless He does something really amzing and adds Soft shadows with little peformance drop. ...Which I can't see happening.

[Fredrik]

Half performance? Hardly. 20% if he did a lazy job.

[Dark-tenshi]

It`s hard to say that which Tech would be the best.DOOM3 Tech?,Crytek (Farcry)?Unreal?or X-ray (Stalker)?Each tech has its own strong point.I`m pretty sure that DOOM3 tech is the best for DOOM game.Carmack always make engine to work best with their games,not for engine licensing.

[NiGHTMARE]

One game engine that may be better than Doom 3's is Breed's. Many of the screenshots for it look photo realistic, especially the outdoors ones.

[spiggy]

to be quite honest - screenshots say nothing about a game.

[sargebaldy]

heh, here's the interview (sort of) in english: http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/urltrurl?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fspiegel%2F0%2C1518%2C239600%2C00.html&lp=de_en&tt=url

i love the title: "rape does not sell itself"

Sounds like he might have played the alpha:

MIRROR: Their fans wait strained for "Doom III", which your Exkollegen produces. Would you gladly participate in the play?

Romero: No, I am glad to make now something new. I could test "Doom III" already once. It is enormously dark and becomes genuine cool. But it needs still some months, until it is published.

[sargebaldy]

spiggy said:

to be quite honest - screenshots say nothing about a game.

i agree, visual beauty in a game doesn't mean much to me.. in fact i often consider it a bad thing, because it's often used to just cover up that a game really doesn't have much else going for it.

[Disorder]

sargebaldy said:

heh, here's the interview (sort of) in english: http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/urltrurl?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fspiegel%2F0%2C1518%2C239600%2C00.html&lp=de_en&tt=url

Ballerspiel: "Nazis do not shoot fall heavily"

That's funny.

[LorD BaZTArD]

Actually, Far cry does look pretty good. The draw distances are amazing, it has polybump tech, and the water looks really pretty.

Far cry, actually has also been around for a while too, actually, I beleive it was shown at macworld at the same time as D3, or atleast the E3 from that year. At the time however it was called X-Isle. Was going to be a dinosaur game, now it's a modern day combat game.

Breed looks really pretty too, but it's not as amazing as Doom3/Far Cry in graphics, Breeds concept is what sells it for me, I hope the dev team will make this an awesome game.

[dsm]

Shaviro said:
I think it's pretty safe to assume that they don't have any big problems.

God dammit Shav, you're not proving your point - just being stubborn. If you want me to take your arguments serious, you gotta prove to me that there's a damn good reason to assume that Doom 3 is already pretty "problem-free". I repeat: You have only tried an Alpha and seen a bunch of screenies - you haven't seen what the entire game looks like and how it plays in all its entirety.

All you've been indicating for the last three posts of yours is "It's problem free, because I haven't found any problems with the Alpha and id haven't mentioned any problems".

Wake up dammit and welcome to the real world. Developers down like to wave about facts about problems they have with the game - they try to make it seem like everything is going all right as to not worry the fans who are anticipating the game. [b]And an Alpha is never the complete game and therefore does not give a good view of the status of the game, neither gameplay wise or problem wise

It's the same tech, so...

You mean to tell me that the guys working on Far Cry licensed or stole the Doom 3 engine from id? It's not the same engine, it's only a little similar - and again, we only have the screenies and they never tell the truth.

Unless you present me with a really good explanation really soon, I'll still believe that Doom 3 requires some serious work before id can legitimatically release it.

Funny, a little less than three years ago (little more than two I think), almost everyone here wanted id to take their time with this game and ensure that they got as many bugs eliminated as possible and fixed up the gameplay so that it could become a good experience. Now everyone wants them to release the damn thing regardless of what its status is it seems. Funny how people's sentiments change over time...

[boris]

Well, BBG asked my to translate it, so here we go. Might not be perfect (it's so early in the morning ;) but I hope it will be better than babelfish :)

-----

SPIEGEL: Mr. Romero, as co-creator of controversial ego-shooter
like "Doom" and "Quake" you have revolutionized the branch
of violent computer games. Are you now, 35 years old, fed
up with shooting?

Romero: Not at all. I still like to shooting a lot - especially at
nazis. But "Doom", "Wolfenstein 3D" and all that is 10 years
ago. I learned a lot because of the huge failure of my game
"Daikatana" in 2000: no big teams anymore. With a hand full
of people I'm now developing games for cell phones. That will
be a very big market.

SPIEGEL: With tiny screens and keyboards?

Romero: In two years you will get a phone with a sharp LCD color screen
and a processor with a couple hundred MHz from your provider
for free. Whether you like it or not - future cell phones will
be the perfect game stations. Hundrets of million cell phone
user will soon be able to play. We exactly serve those people.

SPIEGEL: Who will want to play with his cell phone?

Romero: More people than you think. Computer games aren't a niche for
teenagers anymore

SPIEGEL: But a lot of people are not even capable of programming their
Video recorder. What makes you confident that people will
install games on their cell phones?

Romero: It will be so easy and cheap that masses of people will do it.
When you chose a game it will be directly loaded over the
wireless network on your phone. Because millions will buy those
games they will be cheap - 50 cent per game, that's possible.

SPIEGEL: You are even working on a shooter for cell phones. Can "Doom"
be fun on a tiny screen at all?

Romero: It's a real challenge to design. Who plays on his cell phone
ins't as concentrated as someone who sits at his computer. Nor
does he have that much time. The game world must be much smaller
and the player must have faster success. Only that way a cell
phone game can unfold it's addicting potential.

SPIEGEL: critics think your games are homicide simulators. Does that
touch you?

Romero: That's ridiculous. Everybody knows that homicides in real life
are terrible. That you can kill in games does not mean you
want to do it in reality. When somebody is killed in reality
it just makes "click" and somebody falls down. There are no
spectacular explosions and such. Reality isn't as exciting.

SPIEGEL: Why did you introduce humans as victims at all?

Romero: Shooting at trees is boring, and in the '80 everybody shot at
zombies or aliens. So I looked for something else for
"Wolfenstein 3D". So I came to Nazis - they are not reall that
kind of people you'd mind to shoot.

SPIEGEL: Shooting games were found at serial killers at schools like
Erfurt or Littleton. Doesn't that show that such games have
a devastating influence?

Romero: These boys had mental problems before they got those games. If
it hadn't been those games they would take movies like "Terminator"
for responsibility. But that's an discussion that repeats for
decades. Whatever the young culutre brings up is seen as a thread
by the older generation. Comics and rock music were too claimed
to imperiling for the youth at some point.

SPIEGEL: Are there limits?

Romero: I'd not make a raping game. When you rape someone you're a bad
guy. A game can't be fun for bad guys. I'd also not sell something
like that.

SPIEGEL: Yours fans are waiting for "Doom III" which is produced by your
old colleagues. Would you like to work on that game?

Romero: No, I'm happy that I'm now making something new. I had thechace
to play "Doom III" once. It's very dark and will be really cool
But it will take some more months until it will be released.

[Shaviro]

I did not mention the alpha in this thread, dsm.