Doom 4 should have...

Touchdown said:

Actually I always thought that BioShock level structure is pretty oldschool, reminiscent of DOOM / Duke3d / Quake / etc levels. The mandatory progression is linear but the interconectivity creates a more player-driven experience.

I would be most grateful if DOOM 4 had similiar level structures.

BioShock is pretty straight-forward indeed, with some small backtracking and objectives involved here and there. Which is fine, because it all serves the tone and story of the game. There's no point in the game where you were had to do an objective just for the sake of doing an objective. Everything was connected, and that's what made it so good and engaging.

If anything, BioShock learned us that you CAN tell an engaging story in what would otherwise be just another shooter. And thats without touching on the other parts of the gameplay, or the settings, etc.

The original team that developed BioShock 1 is also doing BioShock Infinite now, so I'm equally looking forward to that!

Shaviro said:

I agree 100%
Half-Life 1 basically grabbed what Doom did and took it one step further. Back in 1993, Doom looked and felt real compared to everything else. All other games in the nearby genres looked arcade after Doom. Serious Sam went the other way and aimed for a more arcade feel than the other games of its time.

I like both Doom and Serious Sam, but they are very different games. Both in a relative and absolute scope.
On that note, I actually hope Doom 4 will be a spiritual successor to Half-Life 1. The genre has, in my opinion, not moved forward since then.

I'd say it has gone back in the arcade direction ever since. Modern shooters basically feel like virtual cop. Point and shoot. The game will do the rest.

Yeah... now that I think about it Half-Life 1 felt A lot like DOOM. I'm a huge VALVE fan and a huge id Software fan... come to think of it... Half-Life 1 felt a lot like Resident Evil on some parts and a lot like DOOM on some parts. I for one want to see DOOM 4 be like a spiritual successor to Half-Life 1. DOOM 3 tried to be like HL1 but failed. I want DOOM 4 to make me feel like I'm in another world... LIKE I AM in that place. I loved Half-Life so much because it made me feel like I was a scientist who was trying to escape from Area 51/Black Mesa Research Facility.

idSoftware981 said:

Half-Life 1 felt a lot like Resident Evil on some parts and a lot like DOOM on some parts.

I think you played a different Half-Life than me.

Half-Life had some [very light] survival horror aspects, but I'd say -- gameplay-wise -- it shared a lot more with classic shooters (like Doom).

Re: Doom 4, there's a lot I'd like to see, but really, I'd settle for a challenging, engaging shooter, that offers something other shooters don't (hopefully it's that classic Doom aesthetic).

Doom 4 should come with a modding kit.

idSoftware981 said:

come to think of it... Half-Life 1 felt a lot like Resident Evil on some parts and a lot like DOOM on some parts.

I struggle to think of the similarities between RE and HL. Assuming we're talking about the old school RE games and not those 3rd person action games that the franchise has morphed into now. But even then there's not much in common between HL and RE4/5.

Btw, I kind of get the impression that you're a Resident Evil fan. Always nice to meet one around these parts. Did you play the Gamecube remake of the original? It's honestly the definitive Resident Evil game. Bigger and prettier than the original and with everything that the original had.

DoomUK said:

I struggle to think of the similarities between RE and HL. Assuming we're talking about the old school RE games and not those 3rd person action games that the franchise has morphed into now. But even then there's not much in common between HL and RE4/5.

Btw, I kind of get the impression that you're a Resident Evil fan. Always nice to meet one around these parts. Did you play the Gamecube remake of the original? It's honestly the definitive Resident Evil game. Bigger and prettier than the original and with everything that the original had.

I played the Gamecube remake one. I LOVED IT! (now if they ported it to 360... :D) I loved RE1, RE2, and RE3. RE4 killed the franchise for me. Unless RE makes a comeback either as a first-person survival horror or fixed camera angles. I am a Resident Evil fan. I love Resident Evil up to 4. The problem I had with 4 was... that it wasn't the Resident Evil I KNOW and LOVE! I would really love it if they remade RE1, RE2, and RE3 on Cryengine 3 and then released it for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC on a disk with a long-ass instruction manual and title the game "Resident Evil: The Classics."


Half-Life 1 had a lot in common with Resident Evil 1 and DOOM. It felt a lot like they combined or something and Half-Life 1 was the result... also, I've been dying to find a Resident Evil camera angles for Half-Life 1.

Also, I'm a huge Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Black Sabbath! LONG LIVE OLD-SCHOOL HEAVY METAL!!! :D





By the way, if they are going to make DOOM 4... I want it to be like Resident Evil 1 + Half-Life 1 + DOOM 1 + DOOM 2 + Timesplitters + Goldeneye + Perfect Dark + Quake 1 + Unreal 1 + Halo 1 + Wolfenstein 3D.... all of the games I mentioned have SERIOUS immersion and can immerse you in the game.


Btw, right now I'm listening to "One Shot at Glory" by Judas Priest! :D

It's all about Electric Eye for me. :D

schwerpunk said:

It's all about Electric Eye for me. :D

:D Right now I'm listening to All Guns Blazing! Anyways, I love DOOM... and I just want it to represent what DOOM has been. Tons of gore, shotguns, pistols, blowing up demons, and heavy metal music. (Yes, I was one of those people who blasted Judas Priest albums and Black Sabbath albums while playing DOOM 64 and DOOM PSX and turned off the music! Really helped and was badass! :D)

Wolfenstein 3D immersive? While it was a novelty back in the day, as a game Wolfenstein 3D is actually very boring and monotonous. Its basically a first person maze-game, with a gun. Nothing immersive about that. If you don't believe me, play Wolf 3D now and see how many levels you can complete before getting bored and quitting the game.

I also played the first RE games, plus the first Half-Life and I still have no clue what kind of similarities you see in both games except for the fact that Half-Life also has very slight horror elements here and there. They are completely different games, and Half-Life 1 has more in common with the original idea for Doom (which Valve confirmed in interviews).

Wolf 3D was the most immersive game OF IT'S TIME. You can't go back to it now and point and laugh at how silly it is, and say it wasn't immersive. Remember, when it came out, Wolf3D was the single most realistic 3D world game people had seen.

My ex actually prefers Wolf3D over Doom, specifically because the graphics are less gritty; the colours are so much more inviting. Which really got me thinking, and to that end, I admit that it's still fun to play every now and then (though much more difficult than your typical Doom IWAD). So it's not like it's been completely surpassed - imo, it still stands well enough alongside Doom.

Looking at them both nowadays, I find them at least equally 'immersive.' Obviously I prefer Doom for a variety of reasons, but I think that Wolf3D actually immerses me more in its world, perhaps because of the limitations in player movements speed / turning. You really get the feeling that you're stalking the halls, hunting Nazis.

But I grew up with games like Zork, so graphical resolution was never a requirement for immersion to me.

Krispy said:

Doom 4 should come with a modding kit.

This.

The thing is, we can only argue and stuff over what the game might have. We will only find out when the game comes out.

AirRaid said:

Wolf 3D was the most immersive game OF IT'S TIME. You can't go back to it now and point and laugh at how silly it is, and say it wasn't immersive. Remember, when it came out, Wolf3D was the single most realistic 3D world game people had seen.

Nah, you're being too nostalgic now. I played the game when it came out, and even though we admired the graphics the game itself was just dull. Face it.

I'm not trying to bash Wolf 3D, I actually played it alot (all episodes). I just think its silly when people try to argue that Wolf 3D's gameplay holds up.

Krispy said:

Doom 4 should come with a modding kit.

Like Doom 3, I presume? It did come with its built-in editor and help from id Software (http://www.iddevnet.com/doom3/ and even within the PK4 files).

printz said:

Like Doom 3, I presume? It did come with its built-in editor and help from id Software (http://www.iddevnet.com/doom3/ and even within the PK4 files).

Hehe. Modding games is alot harder these days, perhaps thats why alot of people missed out on the editors for modern games.

You might just be better off using a seperate game engine all together though, if you have the knowledge of C++.

printz said:

It did come with its built-in editor and help from id Software

Radiant is one of the most poorly-documented pieces of software out there. Beyond the rudimentary "how to make a boxmap" phase, for which there's some good tutorial videos, most of what I learned was from pure trial and error and asking people on Doom3World questions. id's official page is a load of crap, frankly.

DoomUK said:

Radiant is one of the most poorly-documented pieces of software out there. Beyond the rudimentary "how to make a boxmap" phase, for which there's some good tutorial videos, most of what I learned was from pure trial and error and asking people on Doom3World questions. id's official page is a load of crap, frankly.

I learnt most of Doom 3 level editing from 3dbuzz.com

printz said:

I learnt most of Doom 3 level editing from 3dbuzz.com

Ok I searched that site for Doom 3 videos and the list of tutorials if fairly comprehensive. Not sure who made them or whether they're re-uploads of ones that were first posted many years ago and I somehow overlooked them when I started to make Doom 3 maps.

I'll bet what none of them tell you about though is how many egregious bugs exist in the editor and how careful you have to be when making certain changes to your map. Like that one bug which basically deletes all of your brushes. Nothing worse than losing several hours of work because of a technical failure you had no part of.

DoomUK said:

Ok I searched that site for Doom 3 videos and the list of tutorials if fairly comprehensive. Not sure who made them or whether they're re-uploads of ones that were first posted many years ago and I somehow overlooked them when I started to make Doom 3 maps.

I'll bet what none of them tell you about though is how many egregious bugs exist in the editor and how careful you have to be when making certain changes to your map. Like that one bug which basically deletes all of your brushes. Nothing worse than losing several hours of work because of a technical failure you had no part of.

Radiant has gone through a lot of versions since D3. The version I played around with for COD4 has a... shall we say, 'cleaner, more stable' feel to it. Though I don't know if it'd be compatible with vanilla D3.

OK... why are we talking about DOOM 3 all the sudden?! On topic: I've seen gameplay footage of DOOM on the PS1/N64... I really want DOOM 4 to be action-horror. If anyone gets what I'm saying. Ambient music would be nice. But I'd personally like the music to fit the feel of the game. Like if there's a whole swarm of 30 enemies on screen I want heavy metal to play. 2 enemies then Ambient music. Maybe some music sounding Resident-Evil 1ish would be nice?! :3

We're talking about Doom 3 because that's where the course of conversation has taken us.

In any case, I've never been a fan of music that changes dynamically according to what's happening combat-wise.

Caffeine Freak said:

We're talking about Doom 3 because that's where the course of conversation has taken us.

In any case, I've never been a fan of music that changes dynamically according to what's happening combat-wise.

Same. Its best to go with one vibe for the whole game. Otherwise, the game would feel too schizophrenic and you would get annoyed by the constant music changes. In the games that had these switches between 'combat' music and 'regular' music, the game would sometimes get stuck on the battle music whenever you missed one enemy in the area. Things like that just don't feel right for a polished game if you ask me.

I also like the gun-sounds better in PSX Doom, but thats besides the point. :)

Also, heavy metal was never really an integral part of Doom. With the exception of Doom 3's theme, and a FEW of the tracks from the original games, metal was never much a part of Doom's make-up. The original .MUS tracks were largely inspired by 70's and 80's metal songs, but even so, they didn't have much of a metal feel to them, for the most part.

I'd actually be fine with id taking the approach they did with Doom 3, and composing the atmosphere of the game entirely with ambient sound. You can do just as good of a job conveying the appropriate mood in all the right places, and they did a damn good job of it in Doom 3.

I don't even think that an ambient score has to equate to the game being survival horror-ish. If anything, the PSX version proved that the action oriented gameplay worked fine with that type of music.

I said it before and I'll say it again: Doom with a complete heavy metal score would sound obnoxious, and I don't want Doom 4 to be loud and obnoxious.

That doesn't mean I'm not for old school gameplay. Like I mentioned before, I was there when Wolf 3D and Doom were released (and played Doom again when it was released a year later on this new medium called CD-ROM). Even though all the Midi tracks worked fine for the first games, even back then I thought that the best tracks were the ones that didn't rely on fast bombastic elements. This one comes to mind: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HZEF6Ujsl0

idSoftware981 said:

But I'd personally like the music to fit the feel of the game. Like if there's a whole swarm of 30 enemies on screen I want heavy metal to play. 2 enemies then Ambient music.

So, just like the cheesy mechanic in Painkiller? That's something I emphatically don't want to see (or should I say, hear) in Doom 4.

Caffeine Freak said:

I'd actually be fine with id taking the approach they did with Doom 3, and composing the atmosphere of the game entirely with ambient sound. You can do just as good of a job conveying the appropriate mood in all the right places, and they did a damn good job of it in Doom 3.

Agreed. Though I have my (unconfirmed) suspicions id want to distance Doom 4 from Doom 3 in every way, so if I'm right we probably won't get a moody ambient soundtrack. My worst fears are something orchestral like the bulk of Quake 4's music. *shudder*

DoomUK said:

So, just like the cheesy mechanic in Painkiller? That's something I emphatically don't want to see (or should I say, hear) in Doom 4.

Yeah, music would be very hard to fit in. System Shock 2 had music and I thought it was very out of place. I immediately turned down the volume once I heard it. It felt a lot like Doom 3 btw.

DooM_RO said:

Yeah, music would be very hard to fit in. System Shock 2 had music and I thought it was very out of place. I immediately turned down the volume once I heard it. It felt a lot like Doom 3 btw.

In a way, Doom 3 was like a very shitty System Shock 2.

Agentbromsnor said:

In a way, Doom 3 was like a very shitty System Shock 2.

It was not shitty, just not good enough.

Doom 4 should have demonic-looking monsters. No aliens. Period.