Beta access for the new Doom

[fraggle]

There's an interesting offer appearing on the website for Wolfenstein: The New Order: pre-order now and you'll get access to the beta for the next Doom game. The catch? Pre-ordering is $60 and "the DOOM beta won’t begin until a later, yet-to-be announced date".

[DooM_RO]

Ok, now that my excitement has burned out, one has to ask the question. Why would Doom need a beta?

[kmxexii]

DooM_RO said:

Ok, now that my excitement has burned out, one has to ask the question. Why would Doom need a beta?

The cynic in me says that id is adding a reason for people to preorder the new Wolfenstein.

Beta testers might be able to swing Doom's currently anomalous gameplay toward something they better appreciate. I find that doubtful, though.

[Touchdown]

For hype, I guess. Pre-orders. It'll most likely be MP, anyway.

[DooM_RO]

It'll probably be the Deathmatch mode.

[Da Werecat]

It's for the developers to know how everything is wrong and this pixel desperately needs to be 3% more saturated.

[Ralphis]

Will I be able to port dwango5 map01 though?

[fraggle]

DooM_RO said:

Ok, now that my excitement has burned out, one has to ask the question. Why would Doom need a beta?

For beta testing? The original has them too.

[Sicamore]

Considering the fact that they scrapped the first vision of Doom 4 to make room for something better , this should be good when it does come around!

[DooM_RO]

fraggle said:

For beta testing? The original has them too.

`

Which was totally not for the general public.

[Hirogen2]

Reminds me of "Should you preorder videogames?" video on youtube, going against preorderin.

What a pre-order essentially is[...] you throwing down money, sight unseen, and getting very little benefit for it. [...] if it turns out the game is a complete stinker.

[reality 2.0]

damn, ID appears to be really desperate to let people know that doom 4 still exists. This game does not feel worth shelling out 60 bucks just so you can beta test doom 4 a few years later.

[DaniJ]

I concur, this seems like nothing more than desperate marketing. Quite frankly, until id Software releases a screenshot of Doom4 I refuse to believe its even happening at this point.

[Gez]

Sicamore said:

Considering the fact that they scrapped the first vision of Doom 4 to make room for something better , this should be good when it does come around!

We're supposed to be jaded and cynical around here, and say that the reboot was to make room for something even shittier.

reality 2.0 said:

damn, ID appears to be really desperate to let people know that doom 4 still exists.

I think they're really desperate to let ZeniMax believe they're actually working on something (and not just a terrible investment that'll sink the entire media empire).

[GreyGhost]

kmxexii said:

The cynic in me says that id is adding a reason for people to preorder the new Wolfenstein.

Ditto. Looks like a marketing gimmick to me.

[darknation]

Gez said:

I think they're really desperate to let ZeniMax believe they're actually working on something (and not just a terrible investment that'll sink the entire media empire).

nah.

Remember that Carmack is gone, and Carmack was the reason why id software retained its independence / immunity from corporate overseers. Any big publishing company would be completely insane not to have someone in place to insure things are getting done.*

Also, Carmack was probably the reason why development cycles at id were so fucking slow. id software was tiny because Carmack believed in small dev teams. That is utterly unrealistic in this day and age; id will be either farming shit out or bringing the farmers in. Doom 4 will not take anything like as long to release as Rage because of the manpower multiplier.

Remember that zenimax have produced some of the most complex games (morrowind etc.) in gaming history. They really have their shit together. Fallout three was amazing. I, for one, have faith.





*apart from Sega, apparently. Fuck knows why.

[Avoozl]

darknation said:

Remember that zenimax have produced some of the most complex games (morrowind etc.) in gaming history.

Except only the newer TES games have had much less in the area of content and complexity, they were even reduced to mere action-adventure games rather than the true rpg games they used to be.

[Doomkid]

Ralphis said:

Will I be able to port dwango5 map01 though?

If its going to be anything like Doom 3, you might as well disable running, set every other sector to light level 0 and replace all ssg's with single barrels. And any other necessary changes to make it less fun, of course.

I'm not excited about this, and the 10 year old inside my mind hates me for that. I just can't see them making a game that actually... You know, feels like Doom.

I really, really hope it will surprise me with awesomeness, I just don't expect it. At least the graphics will probably look good, for what its worth.

[Da Werecat]

Doomkid92 said:

If its going to be anything like Doom 3, you might as well disable running, set every other sector to light level 0 and replace all ssg's with single barrels. And any other necessary changes to make it less fun, of course.

10 years.

10 years of the same.

[mrthejoshmon]

"Doom Beta"

I kind of want ID to give people the Beta versions of Doom (as in Doom: Evil Unleashed) out to people just to be complete and utter cocks.

But jokes aside, I might just Pre-order the next Wolf game if it has an Xbox 360 port (Because I am a console peasant) in the works for it, but I highly doubt they are still going to develop a recent game for a 7+ year old piece of hardware, never mind a completely new game ("Doom Beta") for it either so that leaves me out this one.

EDIT: There is a 360 port of the next Wolf game, tempting.

[Guest]

Doom 4 aside, the Wolfenstein reboot looks tacky, generic and without a single original idea. Yet another game design driven by corporate need rather than creativity.

Can't wait not to play it.

[fraggle]

Unrelated: Here's an article about the new Doom and its development troubles. This might be a very different game to the Doom games we've seen in the past.

DooM_RO said:

Which was totally not for the general public.

Neither is this - it's a closed beta. But if we're going down this path, arguably the first shareware releases were betas - it took several versions of public testing before they shook out all the bugs.

I guess I just don't understand what your point is. All software has bugs and needs beta testing. There's nothing unusual or shameful about it.

[Avoozl]

fraggle said:

This might be a very different game to the Doom games we've seen in the past.

I've been thinking that it will probably turn out that way for a while now.

[DooM_RO]

Doomkid92 said:

If its going to be anything like Doom 3, you might as well disable running, set every other sector to light level 0 and replace all ssg's with single barrels. And any other necessary changes to make it less fun, of course.

I'm not excited about this, and the 10 year old inside my mind hates me for that. I just can't see them making a game that actually... You know, feels like Doom.

I really, really hope it will surprise me with awesomeness, I just don't expect it. At least the graphics will probably look good, for what its worth.

Yay, more copy paste comments...

As for the new Wolfenstein, it definitely LOOKS interesting but I really hate this new trend of making cinematic trailers instead of actual, honest gameplay...

[CorSair]

I would, just for curiosity, preorder Wolfenstein and the beta access to Doom 4. That is, if I would cough my bucks.

[DooM_RO]

I'll preorder it either way. I am anxious for anything Id-related. Besides, I think it will be a great game.

[Avoozl]

Heh, ID related despite the fact everything which ID was once is gone now.

[DooM_RO]

We'll see!

[machoman127]

Ordered it -- hope I don't regret it.

[Zeroth]

darknation said:

nah.

Remember that Carmack is gone, and Carmack was the reason why id software retained its independence / immunity from corporate overseers. Any big publishing company would be completely insane not to have someone in place to insure things are getting done.*

Also, Carmack was probably the reason why development cycles at id were so fucking slow. id software was tiny because Carmack believed in small dev teams. That is utterly unrealistic in this day and age; id will be either farming shit out or bringing the farmers in. Doom 4 will not take anything like as long to release as Rage because of the manpower multiplier.

Remember that zenimax have produced some of the most complex games (morrowind etc.) in gaming history. They really have their shit together. Fallout three was amazing. I, for one, have faith.


*apart from Sega, apparently. Fuck knows why.

You've apparently never heard of "the mythical man-month."