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DooM_RO

Doom 3: Phobos

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Doom 3: Phobos is a mod for Doom 3 that has been in development for almost 8 years. Ever since I first saw their ModDB page, everything they have shown has been nothing short of excellent.



At the moment, the mod is in the last stages of Phase 1, with 7 out of 8 maps being ready for Phase 2 (you can read more about the development phases here http://www.moddb.com/mods/phobos/news/devblog-12-the-greater-good) which means that a very large part of the mod is done. Basically all there is left after this is to implement story elements and finally some extra polish. Regarding the release date, the developers are basically maintaining a "When it's done" policy but since the hardest part of their work is basically almost finished, there is a chance it might come out this year. However, this is of course my opinion so take it with a grain of salt.



So why should you be excited of this, especially since most of you are not that fond of Doom 3?

The devs promised to deliver more varied and therefore a much improved Doom 3 experience. No longer will the entirety of the game consist only of the same gray metal halls, monster closets, dark rooms, uninspired monster placement and spawning. Instead, some areas will be well lit, while others not so much. The mod will have custom AI to enhance the gameplay, more colors (which are not just variations of gray) refreshing maps with different themes: For instance the first map is the residential and recreational area of mars city, while the second is more like the original Doom 3 to maintain consistency and the third will have yet another theme.It will have a level of detail that would not have been possible on 2004 hardware, it pushes the engine to its limits. And finally (and probably most importantly), the levels will be non-linear. Did I also mention the new shotgun?



This however will NOT be a glorified vanilla Doom which means that it will likely combine traits from the original Doom which we are well accustomed to with the qualities of Doom 3. Holy shit, Doom 3 has qualities?!one!! The answer is a defiant YES! While its worst flaws were centered around bland gameplay, semi-linear level design and general repetitiveness, it was one of the most atmospheric games of its time (and even ours), had outstanding graphics, amazing art direction (although not varied enough) and a shadow system that is great even today. If Doom 3 had been a downright terrible game, I highly doubt the devs would ever have bothered to improve it.





I have started this thread for two reasons. First, to have a place where to discuss this mod and ask the devs questions (if they want to) and secondly to raise awareness, because although the mod is likely to be one of the best user-created content of the Doom community, like all Doom 3 mods, it is sadly rather obscure, so if you like what they are doing for the Doom community, please help them by spreading the word! And finally, if Id Software finds out about this mod, maybe the Phobos team can indirectly pressure them to deliver not just a good game, but a truly worthy successor to Doom.

Finally, here is a teaser trailer. (hint hint, there is a surprise at the end!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUIbbVeLl2g

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As much as I have heard about this mod, this is the first time I've ever actually seen any, well, anything from it. So I'm just gonna sit here and say those screens look fucking amazing.

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DooM_RO said:

Finally, here is a teaser trailer. (hint hint, there is a surprise at the end!)


You could have embedded it:

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The mod is visually speaking looking a lot better since I left it. Had I known they would do that well without me on the team I would've left earlier tbh.

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I have a question for the devs. Will there be extra AA options? The jaggies in Doom 3 are very noticeable. How about a few extra triangles on some models?

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DooM_RO said:

I have a question for the devs. Will there be extra AA options? The jaggies in Doom 3 are very noticeable. How about a few extra triangles on some models?

The two are not the same thing.

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kristus said:

The two are not the same thing.


Oooh, I know, I didn't express my thoughts properly, sorry. They were actually different questions.

CorSair said:

Is this the sole reason I should buy Doom 3? :P


No. While the vanilla game has a lot of flaws, it also has a lot of qualities.

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Well, there are already AA in Doom 3. And IMO it isn't really a big deal in that game as long as you got a decently hight resolution set.

As for the low poly quality of the models. There has been people who subdivided the monsters models and released them. You can go look for those.

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Whenever I see that mall I think of 'Courage the Cowardly Dog' big city elevator music. *pshh… you don't wanna know who made those bones!

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kristus said:

The mod is visually speaking looking a lot better since I left it. Had I known they would do that well without me on the team I would've left earlier tbh.

Oh pish posh, your never-to-see-release hell stuff was pretty awesome.

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Perhaps. But in hindsight I think it was probably the best for everyone that I left. I get a feeling the team work has worked better in my absense.

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DooM_RO:
Thank you for making this thread. Much appreciated, and thank you for the kind words. We'll try and answer any questions we can without giving too much away from the mod and later news.

AA options: Right now we are running the mod on a vanilla install, which means we won't have any more options than what is already in the mod. We don't know right now if we will "port" it to some other form as of yet, but you will all know what will happen at some point closer to release or when we have decided what to do. We are interested at looking at what options we have with the renderer.

extra triangles on some models: We use vanilla content, so you will probably not see an increase in triangles in this mod.

Kristus:
Don't be so hard on yourself, you do stuff none of us on the current team can. We would have made it this far with you as well I'm sure.

On another note, we really need all the help we can get when it comes to PR. Being a Doom 3 mod is not easy, so please tell your friends to join us on twitter and/or facebook. And maybe even submit any news to the news sites you are familiar with. We don't know all the news sites in the world and we can only do so much.

Thank you!

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geX said:

DooM_RO:
Thank you for making this thread. Much appreciated, and thank you for the kind words. We'll try and answer any questions we can without giving too much away from the mod and later news.

AA options: Right now we are running the mod on a vanilla install, which means we won't have any more options than what is already in the mod. We don't know right now if we will "port" it to some other form as of yet, but you will all know what will happen at some point closer to release or when we have decided what to do. We are interested at looking at what options we have with the renderer.

extra triangles on some models: We use vanilla content, so you will probably not see an increase in triangles in this mod.

Kristus:
Don't be so hard on yourself, you do stuff none of us on the current team can. We would have made it this far with you as well I'm sure.

On another note, we really need all the help we can get when it comes to PR. Being a Doom 3 mod is not easy, so please tell your friends to join us on twitter and/or facebook. And maybe even submit any news to the news sites you are familiar with. We don't know all the news sites in the world and we can only do so much.

Thank you!


You're welcome! I have a few ideas about gaining awareness.

First, you can also sent tweets to Carmack, Matt Hooper (current Id Software creative director and Brutal Doom fan) and John Romero, not just Id Software. Modding exists largely because of Carmack and not really because of Id.

Secondly, making the mod more present on Doomworld would be a good idea, you might even win a Cacoward!

Some interviews with some major gaming news sites would be very beneficial to your mod. Rock Paper Shotgun, PCGamer or Eurogamer come to mind, but really, any news site would be good. What do you think?

And finally, if you could somehow get this featured at Quakecon, it would be amazing.

Regarding AA: I tried to enable better AA through the Catalyst but to no avail. Perhaps you could do a simple trick to make this possible?

Also, a screenshot is fine and dandy but is something more substantial like a new trailer or devlog planned?

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DooM_RO said:

You're welcome! I have a few ideas about gaining awareness.

First, you can also sent tweets to Carmack, Matt Hooper (current Id Software creative director and Brutal Doom fan) and John Romero, not just Id Software. Modding exists largely because of Carmack and not really because of Id.

Secondly, making the mod more present on Doomworld would be a good idea, you might even win a Cacoward!

Some interviews with some major gaming news sites would be very beneficial to your mod. Rock Paper Shotgun, PCGamer or Eurogamer come to mind, but really, any news site would be good. What do you think?

And finally, if you could somehow get this featured at Quakecon, it would be amazing.


EDIT: Speaking of AA options, I tried to enable better AA option through the Catalyst but to no avail. Maybe you could do a simple trick to make this work?

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geX said:

Kristus:
Don't be so hard on yourself, you do stuff none of us on the current team can. We would have made it this far with you as well I'm sure.

I'm not feeling upset or depressed or anything. I'm just glad that the decision was the right decision for both me and the team. We were going in different directions and I don't think me sticking around would have been good for either of us.

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DooM_RO said:

And finally, if you could somehow get this featured at Quakecon, it would be amazing.

Yeah, it would. I'm not sure id even knows Phobos exists, however.

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Mancubus II said:

Oh pish posh, your never-to-see-release hell stuff was pretty awesome.


I demand screenshots. :)

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Touchdown said:

I demand screenshots. :)

Head over to the Mod DB page, browse through the screenshots. There's a few towards the end of the list, even if that's only a small sample of everything kristus made for this mod.

I'd give you links to all the work-in-progress shots he posted on our private forum, but they've expired.

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Good to hear. And since it's the only D3 mod I'm actually looking forward to, anytime you want to share some updates, don't hesitate. :)

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Shaviro said:

Phobos won't be completely devoid of hell stuff :)


So you won't finish the story-line??Ahhh, that's such a shame! What about making only 2 episodes? You could combine the second and the third. Would that work?

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DooM_RO said:

So you won't finish the story-line??Ahhh, that's such a shame! What about making only 2 episodes? You could combine the second and the third. Would that work?


We've - ever since deciding only to make the first - never completely dismissed the idea of making the last two episodes, but we're in 2013 now. We're going on the 9th year of production. The mod was supposed to be a 1, absolute max 2 year effort that would serve more as a process than a product - meaning the whole idea was to smooth over the transition from Doom (RTC-3057, Nimrod) to 3D games. After that we would work on serious projects. It didn't take long for Phobos to become overly ambitious and a *real* project though.

We do like to think that we restarted development in 2009 and we did do that in most senses of the word, but let's not kid ourselves; 9 years on the same thing is just way too much. Ideally you could throw max 3 years at a project and move on. If we continue on with the second and third episode, you can throw on another 6 years of development - and that's being optimistic.

So yeah, if we get spammed with requests for the second episode and applications for help then maybe it'll happen, but the most likely course of action will be to leave it after the first episode and move on to new projects. We already have something on the drawing board that may be the next thing for (some of) us, but it's in a completely different direction than Phobos.

As for mashing the two last episodes into one, that could definitely be done, but it's kinda going against the idea we have behind the storytelling of the mod. Even though we're only making the first episode and have at least some sort of closure, we are going to treat it as a single part of the 3 act story. The alternative is to bend and twist the arc of the story to fit one episode and we feel that it's better to show 1 episode of goodness and then the potential of 2 more episodes rather than force an arc made for 3 episodes into 1 (or two).

It's always an option though.

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optimusjamie said:

Well, that's disappointing. I would like to see a remake of classic Doom with the atmosphere of 3.


You should try Classic Doom 3 but it's not that good imo because the devs tried too hard to preserve the original levels as much as possible (while still making it modern) so the blocky and abstract level design of classic Doom often clashes with Doom 3 but it's still pretty good. This is a common problem among Doom 3 maps.

Anyway, have you guys reached a new milestone yet?

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DooM_RO said:

Anyway, have you guys reached a new milestone yet?

Exciting things are underway.

The team are as anxious to see this thing finished as anyone else is. We all have to be patient.

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Looks gorgeous. Neon is beautiful especially when Doom3 is just so dark and one dimensional. While not everything has to be bright and beautiful lights everywhere it does help break up the norm.

Seeing all of this just gives me ideas. Having a pure white bathroom as a secret area.... smeared with blood. While enemies might not be as frightening in a bright white area it would be a nice find.

Even dynamic lighting in an empty hallway or underneath of a catwalk would be nice. Having advertisements on flat screens or billboards could be good with imp shadows that crawl over them. I think Dead Space did this plenty of times.

Spotlights on an empty fountain with a dead body on it could be a good visual.

Anyway, I'm just throwing out ideas.

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DoomUK said:

New screenshot released:-

Mars City Reception


Not quite as wholesome as the last but still very good. How is work on it going? Do you think it might come out this year? How much of Phase 1 is done and are we going to get another devblog? Finally, do you think this can compete for a Cacoward?

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