Doom 3 Info From Quakecon

HomeLan Fed has the first major report I've seen from today's QuakeCon proceedings where Doom III footage was shown and Doom III questions were answered. There's quite a ton of new information available, much of which I will now steal for great justice:

Carmack talked quite a bit about his views about games moving up to 64-bit colors in the future and that will open up how lighting can be improved in future games. Even thought Doom III won't support 64-bit color when it is released, he sees it as a natural progression from 32-bit color even though he knows some game programmers have said they see no real need to do so for gaming. Carmack said those kinds of comments reminded him on what some programmers said a few years ago about moving up from 16 to 32 bit color.

Carmack said that the biggest part of the development of Doom III's engine is basciallt done, although a few more features and graphics optimization are still to be handled. In fact, he said he is already thinking about what he would like to look at for the next engine after Doom and may start some solid research on the next generation graphics engine in the near future and some bits from that research might possibly make it into Doom III.

While Carmack admitted that the current id development team that's developing Doom III is larger than any id game in the past, he doesn't see id becoming a huge game development company with a ton of artists, programmers and the like, although he said it would be interesting to see a team create a game which has a ton of art assets.

While Doom III will support 5.1 surround sound, Carmack indicated that the PC version of the game will not have sound hardware acceleration. However, if and when an Xbox version of Doom III is created (the only game console id currently has planned for a Doom III port) that console might have sound hardware acceleration.

When asked by an audience member if by shooting out lights in the levels will the monsters' sight be affected, Carmack said no. "We assume they are demons from hell and they can see as well as you can," he said which got a laugh from the audience.

Most of the basic id-style weapons (shotgun, railgun, rocket launcher and so on) will be available in Doom III, according to Carmack.

While the single player portion of Doom III will not be as short as some recent first person shooters, Carmack indicated that the gameplay length of Doom III will not take up a lot of time, saying that most dedicated players could pick it up and play the game over a weekend or so. Carmack said that they would rather create a game that's richer in content with smaller levels.

Of course, the big question from one audience member was, "When will we get to play Doom III?" After looking at Willits for an answer, Carmack said simply that they don't want to have a game that's seen at multiple E3s.

Railgun? That's, uh, bound to cause some debate.

Also at the bottom of the report is something else which I find extremely interesting:

I had to leave a bit early before the end of the Q&A but reliable sources have informed me that Carmack mentioned that there will be support for only four people for the multiplayer modes in Doom III. Since id has always said the game will concentrate on single player this should come as no big surprise.

Now honestly I dunno if I can believe this. id taking such a big leap backwards in terms of multiplayer support? Seems a little odd.

Teh Carmack was reported to have said:

railgun

NO

Ill unban myself for a second and say: this is a whole HEAP of dissapointment

oh xian, stop being gay and come back.

Obviously they're going for nostalgia with only four people in DM. Probably won't even have respawning items.

-Dan

I too, am saddened by most of this news.Finish the game over a weekend? god..................fucking.............dammit.

they took my favorite game of all time and made Star Wars episode 1 out of it.

railgun... fuck me!

isn't this why Romero left id? technology over gameplay. it's wrong wrong wrong :(

Does anyone here understands how hard is to make content for this game? I'm actually surprised they said it will be longer than most FPSs of today.

And btw, some people can beat Doom and Doom 2 in just a couple of minutes. I can beat in less than a weekend. You're all hoping for some game that takes months to complete just because that's what it took us to learn how to play "modern" FPSs.

I thought I'd bring my question from the newstuff #93 thread over here since that one is almost gone from the main page, but whoever has the doom64 weapons please email them to me, I would be very grateful. drwdevore@aol.com

DSV4 would look even better than it already does with them. :)

About doom3, all I really could have asked iD was to leave out the cheapass railgun, but I'm out of luck there, I guess. Argh!

http://www.planetquake3.net/

"Carmack said it will only be suitable for up to 4 people in a level."

Suitable. Suitable. No one said "limited".

maybe next year at quakecon there will be a doom3 tournament? that would be awesome. i'd definately make the trip for doom.

NOT THE RAILGUN OH GOD PLEASE NOOOO!!!!!!!!

lament said:

NOT THE RAILGUN OH GOD PLEASE NOOOO!!!!!!!!

Heh, that reminds of me of something.

Ok, a bunch of negative stuff about doom3, meh, he didn't bother to say anything positive? All those mediocre screenshots that have been available? What's going on here, and why do I smell smoke comming out of the pc?

DOOM IS BEING DUMB

gatewatcher said:

maybe next year at quakecon there will be a doom3 tournament? that would be awesome. i'd definately make the trip for doom.

Doomcon

Zaldron said:

"Carmack said it will only be suitable for up to 4 people in a level."

4 spots supported in Multi = Classic Doom

Linguica said:

Railgun? That's, uh, bound to cause some debate.

Railgun sucks applying in Doom.

John Carmack said:

Longer than most FPSs of today

Well, the previous id's sp game, Quake 2, I think its game length was pretty quite long enough, as long as Doom and Doom 2. So actually, this wouldn't be a problem at all.

Pardon my illiteracy, but what would it be like if it will really be without a sound hardware acceleration in pc version?

999cop said:

Pardon my illiteracy, but what would it be like if it will really be without a sound hardware acceleration in pc version?

Just uses more CPU power. Devine could code several hardware accelerated modes (EAX, EAX2, A3D, etc...) but that's pretty useless for a multi-platform game that's supposed to be released for PC, Mac and Linux simultaneously.

But it will come in handy if it will be included in later press release patches in the future.

Well they would certainly improve speed a bit but today sound cards have such a shitty support. They haven't got their shit together yet, unlike the graphics front where we have stuff like OpenGL and DirectX.

Hiya.

I dont' get it. Why is everyone so upset over the game possibly having a Railgun? (note I said *possibly*; the game isnt' done yet, so it may or may not be in there). *shrug* I thought Railguns were kinda cool in Quake2.

4-person Multiplayer. I'm *glad* to see this. DOOM isn't about a hoard of PLAYERS wandering around armed to the tits, laying waste to the piddly opposition. DOOM is about *atmos-FEAR*. DOOM is "Ohmygod!!!!...ohmygod!!!...omygod!!!...AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!"...not about "Heh, a pair of Cyberdemons...you 4 take the left, you 4 take the right, and the rest of us will hit them up the middle".

I am, however, disappointed at the lack of Sound 'focus'. Even though I run an old sound card (AWE64 Gold), my new DOOM III system will most definitly have a kick-ass sound card. Ah well, if it plays and sounds awesome, I guess that's the main thing, huh?

Take a weekend to finish? *shrug* I'd like to see that doubled, but as long as creating levels for it isn't as nigh-impossible as it is for Dungeonsiege (I know, different genre, but still...), I'm sure we'll see a LOT of levels come out for it. I can see a bunch of current DOOM/DOOM2 mega-wads being redone (Memento Mori, Plutonia, Hellstorm [ ;) ], etc.). :)

I STILL think D3 is going to kick some serious ass!

Someone show me a somewhat modern FPS that can't be finished in a weekend. Not even Deus Ex lasted that much for me. SS2 lasted a continous segment of twenty-something hours, in which I did not sleep. I beated Hexen for the first time in 27 hours.

The only one that springs to my mind is Thief II in Expert mode, but then again that's not really a FPS.


Nonetheless, I was planning to play Doom III with nothing but an autosave...

SS2 was quite the experience, especially near the end. I can't wait to see the Third Encounter. :)

And about the railgun, the general idea of that weapon coming back is giving me mixed feelings. I personally hate the weapon and hoped iD would leave it out in favor of another original weapon. I'd rather see new weapons giving the players a fresh experience rather than a continuous rehashing of the standard "lineup" like mg/sh/rl/gl (Quake 3 was entirely rehashed weapons, talk about original). The BFG is probably a given for this game, and that doesn't leave much room for new stuff (and less for the players to anticipate).

About the "mixed feelings" part of the above post, I don't like the railgun coming back, but I'm not entirely against the rocket launcher coming back, even though the weapon has been used to death. I guess it's just personal preference. :)

The railgun is for quake. Doom should stay far far far far far far far far far far away from it.

kristus said:

The railgun is for quake. Doom should stay far far far far far far far far far far away from it.

exactly my point, i was gonna say the same thing. it might be fun for quake, but not doom

That makes sense, the railgun fit well into Quake 2's weapon lineup, and Quake 3 more or less pulled together all of the popular weapons from past games (but again, overused :). Putting it in Doom 3 is kinda silly, but hey, if enough people complain about it then maybe it won't get added. Fan outcry changed some things in Quake 3, such as air control, which wasn't present in early versions. The physics could have gone entirely without air control, then being similar to Q2.

Other than that, all I could really ask for is a final boss that moves (no shub-niggurath please, hehe.)

Railgun in Doom 3?
I have to admit that I too am disappointed.
I mean, there's nothing wrong with the railgun (lots of people actually like the railgun), but I was hoping that it would be reserved for Quake 4 and add the possibility of Doom 3 adding an entirely new weapon in its stead.

I mean, if Quake 4 has a railgun too (which it's undoubtedly going to have - Quake 2 was the first id game with a railgun), D3 and Q4 are going to be a little too similar for my taste in terms of weaponry, unless Raven throws the Q2 weaponry away and goes for an entirely new set of weapons (but that's illogical imo).

For all the people disappointed by the news concerning the railgun, some good news.
"Doom III should have the full complement of classic Doom weapons. In the demos, we've seen a basic pistol, shotgun, and chain gun, as well as an assault rifle. Id also confirmed that there will be a rocket launcher and BFG. The railgun and chainsaw are also in the spec, but are not final."
Sorry in case someone already posted this.

I don't like the idea of a railgun either, but maybe id can make something good out of it anyway?

Zaldron said:

Someone show me a somewhat modern FPS that can't be finished in a weekend.

How about Medal of Honour: Allied Assault or Jedi Knight 2? They're the longest FPS's I can remember playing in quite some time.

Anyway, as long (heh) as Doom 3 has more/larger levels than Startrek Voyager: Elite Force and Return to Castle Wolfenstein, I'll be happy :)