Doom 3 Video

[AndrewB]

The deep rough-voiced guy says that gamers will no longer play a game, they will be immersed in it. I think that this is quite frankly a crock, as they have said the same thing about new game developments ever since the dawn of video games. They said the same thing when the NES came out, they said the same thing when Wolf3D game out, and then Doom, and then QUAKE, and then Half-Life... There have been countless "leaps" in game technology for decades, and Doom 3's "leaps" are no different.

The fact of the matter is, they're wrong. Gamers will not be any more immersed in Doom 3 next year than they were in Pac-Man and Duck Hunt eons ago. As much as iD would never admit it, there have been next to zero innovations in game immersiveness (I just made up a word) in the past twenty years.

Carmack & company claim that gamers will be thrown into a moody, uncomfortable, unpleasant environment. That may very well be possible, but they're insinuating that they can do it purely through graphics and technology enhancements, pixel shading and collision physics. They can't. For example, in order to get the gamer to experience extreme fear, you have to give him/hear a reason to fear having their game character die. If there are no consequences to being eaten by a demon, where you can simply relaod on the fly, 90% of gamers will never break a cold sweat no matter how much blood they see on a nearby column. It's like a high-budget horror film. It doesn't matter how much money they spend hyping it, how many people die in the movie and how many special effects there are, if the movie sucks it sucks.

I can see it now. Some gamers will be wet-dreaming about Doom 3 for three years, spend $5000 upgrading their system three times in anticipation for it, buy the game, experience a three-minute euphorea staring at the pretty shadows, and then continue on playing or get bored with it, depending on what the gameplay is like.

How good the gameplay will be remains to be seen, but the game is like what the 11-minute video makes it look like, then it will be but a fashion show in disguise.

[Fredrik]

You're of course right. I don't have much to add except that I agree.

[dsm]

Like with all games with new leaps in technology, we'll be immersed the very first time we play the game I'm sure.
But you're right, after a while, we'll get used to the cinematic looks of the game (and the game itself) and we'll go back to "just playing" the game.
I remember that I was immersed in Quake 2 the first time I played through it - can't say the same about Q3A :-)

[Lord FlatHead]

Gameplay is a word that gets tossed around far too much. Define gameplay.

The thing is, games like Half-Life and Doom III are not as much "games" as they are interactive stories. Any game, be it a card game, boardgame or computer game, is defined by a set of rules, interactions between players, punishment and reward. In this sense, Quake 3 is much more of a game than Half-Life is. In Q3, there's competition, there are set rules, there are goals and there is a clear point at which you've won the game.

In most single-player-centered games like Max Payne and the upcoming Doom III, it's not about scoring points or picking up power-ups or getting trough the level as fast as possible. It is about immersing you, giving you cool things to look at, surprising you and making you wonder what's around the next corner. The only goal it really sets is to get trough to the end - but the interesting thing is the journey, not the destination.

Of course, calling these 'interactive movie experiences' instead of games would be too dorky for words, but basically the line between game and experience is getting very thin in single-player FPS's. [/rant]

[dsm]

Imho Doom 3 is more a "game" than Half life - just look at all the non-stop action!
Half life doesn't feel so action packed imo, because the emphasis lies more with solving "puzzles" than gunning down enemies - Doom 3 has scripted sequences too, but the similarity ends here, because Doom 3 is all about killing stuff (and of course getting frightened) - just like the good ol' Doom.

[Fredrik]

the emphasis lies more with solving "puzzles" than gunning down enemies

I would consider "puzzles" to be more "gameish" than gunning down enemies.

[dsm]

Fredrik said:

I would consider "puzzles" to be more "gameish" than gunning down enemies.

Hm yeah, I guess you're right about that - didn't consider it very deeply.
What I meant to say would probably be that Doom 3 still has very arcadeish gameplay (what I consider arcadeish gameplay).

[Fredrik]

I believe the best games are those that have the perfect mix of arcadeish action, puzzles and interesting storyline. DOOM is one of the few games that manage all of them. Yes, I think DOOM's story is awesome - just because it's extremely simple and still really sets the mood.

[dsm]

Fredrik said:

I believe the best games are those that have the perfect mix of arcadeish action, puzzles and interesting storyline. DOOM is one of the few games that manage all of them. Yes, I think DOOM's story is awesome - just because it's extremely simple and still really sets the mood.

Damn straight - HL is good, but it has too much emphasis on puzzles (or whatever you'd call them) and the battles somehow don't feel too satisfying imho.
Hell, when Doom was new, it seemed like a game with a lot of puzzles (find a switch to make something happen) plus a lot more action - in comparison, Wolf3d barely had anything that you'd call "puzzles", just "find-the-key, find-the-door-which-matches-key, find-exit".

I know that the stuff about pressing buttons was just an extension of "find-the-key" but it FELT much more advanced back then.

[Fredrik]

Thinking about DOOM and puzzles, the switch game in House of Pain comes to mind... :P

One game that had awesome puzzles, in the literal sense of the word, was Dark Forces. I love that hexagonal maze where you had to find the right route of switches.

[Zaldron]

The only way to really inmerse the player is to first fool all his senses. While Doom's graphics and sound system are quite primitive compared to Reality, it's light years beyond anything else out there.

I remember the switch from Wolf3D to Doom, and from Doom to Quake. Each one felt incredibly realistic. I was absorbed. I'm expecting the same to happen now.

Fooling the senses comes from the perfect mix of cutting-edge technology and state-of-the-art media assets, but the real inmersion will come when we can have NPCs that react like real persons.

[Fredrik]

The only way to really inmerse the player is to first fool all his senses.

Feeling the smell of rotten cadavres wouldn't immerse me at all. It would make me throw up.

[Zaldron]

But seriously, it would inmerse you in. I don't want to sound like if I was quoting The Matrix, but reality is indeed nothing but what our senses tell us. Doom3 already looked like some Blizzard cinematics of several years ago, next-next-gen technology will look like cinematics of today, the thing after that like stuff we can't even picture now. Whatever comes after that's gonna be so similar to real life that is quite frightening and a bit depressing. I don't think I'll be alive to see it.

[Fredrik]

VR.

[Zaldron]

VR devices suck hard. Sweeney said it, Carmack said it. We need something like Matrox's 3-screen view, that automatically expands your fov to 180° across 3 linked monitors in all Quake3 engined games without any tinkering.

Supporting VR devices is a lost cause. We need a unified API.

[Fredrik]

No, I'm thinking 22nd century-style VR with cybernetic implants.

[AndrewB]

I don't know, some people seem to think that somehow a higher level of polygons and special shadowcasting will open up a new world of immersiveness (there's that word again) where the graphics alone will magically make the gameplay several times more fun. This is incredibly naive, baseless, and foolish.

I mean, think about it. Any live-action film is the equivilant of 100% realistic graphics, if you look at it from that perspective. The image of a real person is infinitely more realistic than a modeled character. Look at one of the best-selling games of all time. Riven. It had live-action film, filming real people. Those real people cast soft shadows, the water cast a reflection of the sky and horizon. But was it an incredibly immersive game that made the gameplay more fun simply because of how realistic the images were? No.

I'm saying that soft shadows and high-polygon counts won't make the game immersive on its own. If it did, then any live action TV would be equally or more immersive. There are so many factors that make a good, fun, and immersive game. Graphics, no matter how good those graphics are, will always play a very small role on how enjoyable a game is. It'll always be around the 5% to 10% level.

[Zaldron]

I would say 15%. But anyway whatever "score" a game gets in graphics, it will undoubtedly decay with time. Would Doom be as fun as it is with Wolf3D's engine AND art?

Oh, and I'm not sure if the comparison with movies work. Afterall games are about interaction, not a linear show displayed in your computer. I was absolutely sucked in in several games like Doom, Quake 1, Thief 2, Deus Ex, SS2. Some had storylines and character developments worth your time. Others, on the contrary, relied in a somewhat simplistic gameplay, but the both the rendering/sound technology impressed me.

Even if Doom does not turns out to be the king of inmersion, the engine will surely support a game that gets this award. For the first time we have graphics that look like our reality and a killer sound system. Those are two great tools to make you forget real life, hence, being inmersed into the game.

[Fredrik]

You can't really say Riven has realistic graphics as the camera is static.

[AndrewB]

Fredrik said:

You can't really say Riven has realistic graphics as the camera is static.

That's right. And you can't really say that Doom 3 has realistic graphics/environment BECAUSE ....... of different reasons. I will give you some reasons.

1) The impossible camera angles. The videos show cameras moving through the air like a supernatural force was carrying them. It shows cameras moving infinitely smoothly, and stopping infinitely fast. This will effectively halt any illusion a player has of actually being in the game.
2) The monsters look like they're showing off. Flexing their muscles, growling and drooling like a WWF superwrestlermegastar. These kinds of creatures are familiar to us in the real world as unthreatening figments of our imagination.
3) Lack of left/right stereo vision. This method of gaming has been tried, tested, and failed as early as the release of the original DOOM. It strains your eyes, gives you headaches, and is generally not worth the side-effects. However, when a game supports it, it does trick your brain into feeling like you're really in the environment, and that an object is flying toward you. even if the game engine is as primitive as Wolf3D's. It's a conservative guess that 95% of Doom 3 players will never use that technology for Doom 3. As long as you're playing a game on a normal screen, you'll probably never feel like you're actually inside the game.
4 Generally unrealistic environment. It's a dark, futuristic space base. Demons with metal legs and gears in their body. Lava pits, cyborgs and other wacky ideas. More reasons why your brain will tell you that it isn't real. They're all unfamiliar to us, and we are all familiar with unfamiliar things as being things that aren't real.

Maybe someday we will see an exceptionally immersive game that fills us with terror and makes us jump out of our seats, and of course, fool our brain into thinking we're actually there. Doom 3 will not be that game.

[Zoost]

"The only way to really inmerse the player is to first fool all his senses."

I do not agree with most of you. If it is possible to make a movie really scary, then it must be possible to make a game really scary. In a film you have 3 things, the same 3 things you have in video games (from a sense perspective)

1) vision
2) sound
3) a story

Done together, you can do something really good with it. (even when vision is not there - e.g. radio - you still are able to do it right)

To say it even better without vision and sound, but only story - e.g. book - the most frightning stories have been told.

For example, lets take the blair witch project. What made it scary was the suggestion that there was something scary. That is story telling.

So all DOOM3 needs is a good story, and while there at it, the best engine ever build for a PC game.

[Linguica]

I've been scared by games before and I don't think they're "real." When you're being hunted by those freaky zombies or matrons in System Shock 2 and you're low on ammo and health, it's scary for sure, but never for a moment do you actually believe you're there. At least I don't.

[Shaviro]

Zaldron said:

VR devices suck hard. Sweeney said it, Carmack said it. We need something like Matrox's 3-screen view, that automatically expands your fov to 180° across 3 linked monitors in all Quake3 engined games without any tinkering.

Supporting VR devices is a lost cause. We need a unified API.

YAY. I'd like that.

[dsm]

Linguica said:

I've been scared by games before and I don't think they're "real." When you're being hunted by those freaky zombies or matrons in System Shock 2 and you're low on ammo and health, it's scary for sure, but never for a moment do you actually believe you're there. At least I don't.

That would be an unpleasant experience - to think that you're really being chased by living dead monstrosities?
Hell, that would be worse than your typical nightmare.

[Fredrik]

AndrewB, I don't think you got my point. I mean that a photograph is less live than a motion picture. Pardon my usage of the word "realism".

[zzz]

Well, imho Doom3 is not going to follow movie quality, its going to folow real world quality. If you are,andrew disapointed with doom's camera, as you said

"It shows cameras moving infinitely smoothly, and stopping infinitely fast"

dammit, thats gr8 , it means this camera is much more better than real moviemakers cam

[Fredrik]

That is also one of the reasons why you can tell CG from "real" footage in movies. The CG doesn't suffer from blur, distortions and bad focus over distances caused by a camera.

[AndrewB]

Fredrik said:

That is also one of the reasons why you can tell CG from "real" footage in movies. The CG doesn't suffer from blur, distortions and bad focus over distances caused by a camera.

And that's exactly why Doom 3 will be nothing special, just another video game that's more interested in showing-off than being fun.

[Fredrik]

AndrewB said:

And that's exactly why Doom 3 will be nothing special, just another video game that's more interested in showing-off than being fun.

That's your assumption. We don't know yet what it'll play like.

[dsm]

AndrewB said:

And that's exactly why Doom 3 will be nothing special, just another video game that's more interested in showing-off than being fun.

Well, in this case I think the game's physics and shadow effects will actually add to the gameplay. When I watched that movie, I got really eager to try the game (of course I can't until it's done), because of a lot of things including the physics and the shadows.

The immersion factor in this game seems to be really great and that means a lot to some gamers. Doom 3's engine is more than just fancy graphics - it seemingly allows for totally new gameplay mechanics.