Return of "Find-the-Key"

[dsm]

I don't know about you, but I'd be happy to see the good ol' "find-the-key" puzzle return in the new Doom game. Yeah, yeah, it's been done countless times before, but I've just recently realized that this kind of puzzle was a very good and solid element in Id's first person shooters - and I figured that this puzzle *could* still be improved.

Imagine that keycards in Doom 3 could be used for much more than just opening doors (Q2 had keycards, which did more than open doors), like inserting the card into a computer, which'll give you access to classified information, helping to tell the story (and we know that "Doom 3" will be more story-driven).

Of course, I don't want the "find-key" puzzles to dominate the game like it did in the old games, but a keycard required in some special situations would be nice.

[Lord FlatHead]

Well, in a way all puzzles are find-the-key puzzles. Wether you call it a key, a password or a General's Hand, it's just a way to make you explore one part of a map before you can make your way to another. This is primarily because game developers spend loads of time on their games and they don't want people to rush trough them without seeing all the cool stuff they've been working on.

I'd certainly like to see more variety in puzzles. Naturally some will probably involve finding security keycards and door codes. But big color-coded keycards don't seem to quite fit in this dark photorealistic setting.

By the way, I dreamed of Doom III last night. I saw some people sitting at 19 inch screens playing the game, and it looked great. I don't remember seeing a weapon model or a HUD, just a creature stalking trough a dirty-looking light-brownish hall with tiled walls. I gotta stop staring at that bathroom scene pic.

[Zaldron]

I have no problems with keycards, however they should be tools and not objectives. It doesn't make any sense that you make an extensive search over the entire infested base just to find that goddamn key so you can exit the installation. It would be wiser to just blow up the fucking door, or break a window and hang out outside.

Keycards should be found on corpses, and be restricted to nothing more than opening private desks, security-labeled sectors and personal crates/lockers/vaults. If there was some kind of way to see the level's objective, none of them should say "find the **** key".

[Fredrik]

WHAT!!! NO RED/YELLOW/BLUE KEY??!!! ARE YOU NUTS!"!!!! AND BTW, THE MAIN REASON WHY I WANT DOOM3 IS I HOPE FOR THEM TO INTRODUCE THE GREEN KEY!

[Zaldron]

NONSENSE, GIMME THE ORANGE CARD!!11

[Lüt]

AND BTW, THE MAIN REASON WHY I WANT DOOM3 IS I HOPE FOR THEM TO INTRODUCE THE GREEN KEY!

IT'S IN HERETIC YOU FOLDER-HANDED PIANO DIGIT!@!3

[Sharessa]

I'm still waiting for a purple card. That would be l33t.

[Prime]

Multi-colored neon key-cards? Great idea! Id can just call it "DooM III - Hell Over the Rainbow" !!!

Seriously, though, I agree with Zaldron concerning the keycards functioning merely as tools of the game, NOT the goals of the game. Personally, it got quite cumbersome having to find EACH and EVERY card in EACH and EVERY level of the classic DooM. Ridiculous, just plain ri-goddamn-diculous...

[dsm]

I have no problems with keycards, however they should be tools and not objectives. It doesn't make any sense that you make an extensive search over the entire infested base just to find that goddamn key so you can exit the installation. It would be wiser to just blow up the fucking door, or break a window and hang out outside.

Agreed, that's what I meant by saying that "they shouldn't dominate the game" (although I didn't make it that clear).

Keycards should be found on corpses, and be restricted to nothing more than opening private desks, security-labeled sectors and personal crates/lockers/vaults. If there was some kind of way to see the level's objective, none of them should say "find the **** key".

Hmm, you must have the ability to read my thoughts :-)
The ability to search corpses for items is something I would definitely want to see in "Doom 3", but it shouldn't just be limited to keycards - should be everything from ammo and stimpacks (these should be quite small boxes) to notes and other "story enhancing" stuff.

Anyway, back to the topic: Naturally, I want to see the keycards as small, realistic looking keycards. I don't mind differently coloured keys, but the colour of the card should *mean* something specific (like red keycard gains access to red security levels - which could be the 'high-security' level, meaning that only personnel with a very high security clearance are meant to get access to this level).
And Flathead: I meant that I want keycards specifically to return - I'm not happy with just "throw-a-certain-switch" or something like that. Having played RtCW a lot recently, I realized that I pretty much missed the good old "find-the-gold/silver-key".
You may think that there is no difference between finding a key or triggering a mechanism somewhere, but I think that picking up a key feels different than throwing a switch.

[Fredrik]

You all forgot about the pink key!

[LorD BaZTArD]

But whut abut da Malt coloured keycard?

I agree tho, about the keycards for maybe specific things, maybe some guy has a safe with shitloads of stuff in it, but you can't get in, find the keycard and get treated to a new "Research" weapon or maybe a story bit or something, or some ammo. You still will need some areas that require a keycard tho, say a High Level Facility or something, but not that often

[Sharessa]

Heh...I just realized that Half-Life had a find-the-key quest. But it was more like a find-a-way-to-bring-firey-burning-death-to-the-interdimensional-alien-horror-so-you-can-proceed quest.

[Zaldron]

There are many things that don't make any sense in Half-Life. I don't know why you're supposed to kill the Tentacle and progress on your quest by entering the hole he leaves after the rocket test. I don't know you but I'd rather try to open one of those friggin jammed doors that keep leading you to dangerous stuff.

[DooMBoy]

Heh, I hope that there will be DooM/Heretic "run around, find the key" AND the Quake2-style missions of "shut down reactor in Z Building; Find key in Y Building." Both in the same game would be awesome.

[wasted]

My wasted point with all those quests is: ID can use Find-a-Key method (its close to reallife-its a 20mm titanium hydravlic door with a fingerprins-scanning lock; just bring an engeneer or find some hands >:) by it is not nessesery to script everything. Let it be much more wicked hidden places and levels - its like to have more then 2 or 5 secret levels-they could be everywere

1. that will be original
2. there will be more then one way to complite the mission

[Zaldron]

Yeah, non-linears would be great, but I don't know if they'll be able to pull that one out. Not because I doubt about their skills but because this engine needs an enormous amount of detail per scene, and the whole idea of wasting your time in world pieces that the player won't see it's pretty grim.

On the other hand, this really adds to inmersiveness and replayability.

[DiSTuRBeD]

That simply comes down to level design tho.. and as a level-designer, it's really not that tempting to make a shitload of ways to do things only to have people use one of them.

But i think a more big-ass DM level kind of structure with some objectives would be very good for sp. It's just that you have to do more work for less playing than with the normal trend :(

[dsm]

Yeah, non-linears would be great, but I don't know if they'll be able to pull that one out. Not because I doubt about their skills but because this engine needs an enormous amount of detail per scene, and the whole idea of wasting your time in world pieces that the player won't see it's pretty grim.

On the other hand, this really adds to inmersiveness and replayability.

It would be nice if there were some sort of objectives to complete, but that this time they don't necessarily have to be completed in a specific order, meaning that the player can take route x to complete objective x first then afterwards take route y to complete obj. y. Next time the player plays through the game he/she can do it the other way round (Y first, then X).
Whew, this was rather difficult to explain, I hope you understood my intention.

[Prime]

Yeah, I got ya. Being able to run around the entire base causing havok or just rying to stay alive while completing various objectives would be nice. Sort of like Q2, only with more freedom of exploration. Here's hoping...

[Zaldron]

One thing is for sure, item-hunting is painfully boring. No games should ever attempt to do that again. Of course that's not entirely possible, but at least they could disguise some of these "objectives" with some storytelling.

[Prime]

One thing is for sure, item-hunting is painfully boring. No games should ever attempt to do that again. Of course that's not entirely possible, but at least they could disguise some of these "objectives" with some storytelling.

True. We don't want DooM III to end up being an FPS "Resident Evil."