Doom 3 shareware

[DooMBoy]

Forget about full Doom 3, when's the shareware gonna come out? Or is it too early?
DooM2 didn't have any shareware, why not? Why didn't they let play to level ten or so?

[Guest PFCRon]

Since when was the last time id came out with a shareware version of a game? Oh wait, there was Quake and Hexen 2. Where have I been? But even then, DOOM 3 (if that's what it's gonna be called) seems like too badass of a game to be put onto shareware! It must either be a full version or no version at all!! It'll make more than enough money if it's commercially sold.

[Lüt]

I'm sure they'll have at least a 2-level demo for it. You can't not shareware something like that.

[EsH]

[EsH]

Hi. I think Carmack stated somewhere in an interview or .plan that they weren't going to be doing shareware anymore, but just releasing demos for full version games you can by in retail outlets, and that sort of thing. The basic difference, I guess, is that the idea of "shareware" is that it's an actual complete, fully functioning game that you play, pass on, and then register, often for the bonus of additoinal levels, a manual, etc. A demo is pretty much what game companies are using now-- a stripped down, 1 level gameplay and graphics test-drive that gets the player interested in forking over the 50 bucks for the store version.

As far as Doom3 goes, your best bet is to wait for the debugging test version, the beta, to come out, which comes before the demo. Even in this case though, Carmack said that they were going to run the beta program much much closer to the actual release date than the QIII beta. So basically, the end result is we'll have to wait until the game is actually done, 1-2 years from now. So, just like he said, "don't hold your breath."

[Davidoom]

Mmmmm....

[AIRmichael]

PFCRon said:

Since when was the last time id came out with a shareware version of a game? Oh wait, there was Quake and Hexen 2. Where have I been? But even then, DOOM 3 (if that's what it's gonna be called) seems like too badass of a game to be put onto shareware! It must either be a full version or no version at all!! It'll make more than enough money if it's commercially sold.

They arent releasing the test just to let us know there will be a new doom game. But its mainly for testing ( finding the bugs, updating, adjusting the gameplay if needed)

[bigd]

Esh said:

Yup Esh,

There was also a bit of speculation that the D3 test _might_ be sooner than we think, although I doubt this: It was said by some CPL officials that Carmack told them that Doom would definitely be a part of the CPL, and possibly for the CPL tournaments in 2001 (this December), and many gathered that id may put out a test-version by then, but... that's pretty early, so I doubt it. Here's the scoop:

Angel Munoz, the president of the CPL stated that after conversing directly with John Carmack (at FRAG4), there is "no question" that the next DOOM game will be a part of the CPL feature games. What is more interesting though, is that the next DOOM may possibly enter that line up as early as the December 2001 tournament, which would place the release of the game probably just under a year from now.

as reported here at Shacknews:
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/11289/

[danarchist]

Dude, I haven't seen any shareware since Quake! All you can get nowadays are demos and spawned copies (damn you Blizzard and your anti-lanness).