Doom III Officially Announced

Jacek Fedorynski writes "The end is near. First, id Software's site is updated for the first time since the Quake II times and now they officially announce Doom III!" If you recall, there were some screenshots released last year, but I don't think there's been much since then - these are probably out of date.

great!

Now i will have a replacement for solitare at work.

hope they include a "Boss Key" ;O)

Karma Whoring: Better than Solitaire and Doom

There's a much more popular game than Doom, solitaire, or anything else for that matter out on the market.

It's called Karma Whoring.

The goal of the game is to come up with the most inventive, interesting, and funniest comments you can think of just in order to eventually make it to 50 karma points. When you do, this Magical Taco comes out of the sky and gives you the Sword of Moderation.

With this sword, you can strike down and flame other would-be people who are trying to attain karma. Your high karma score is devalued if lots of other people have Karma as high as you.

The goal is total domination and popularity among your peers. Imagine the results:

Friend: Thresh is such a great quake player.
Me: So what!?! I have 45 karma on Slashdot!
Friend: Really?!?!
Girls: Oooh, can I have your autograph?

Technologically the engine behind Karma Whoring is pretty weak. Whilst Doom 3 amazes people with its pretty OpenGL graphics and Violence, Karma Whoring is only built using PERL of all things. It's text based, much like some of the older games of the 80's. But didn't we all like Zork anyway? :)

Where Karma Whoring is better with is multiplayer. Whereas Doom will only have one character class, Karma Whoring has many. And you can choose your role. Karma Whore, Spammer, Nerd, Geek, Troll, Flamer, or even Anonymous Coward.

Karma Whoring is more addictive than Doom. In fact, many of the people who score high Karma also experiment with other addictions. Especially with the line, "Those moderators are all on crack". This is a literal expression.

The best thing is that Karma Whoring doesn't just have a boss key, it IS the boss key! You can always tell your boss that you're "researching important information on how to configure and optimize your apache server for optimal traffic", even when what you're really doing is browsing at -1 and blackholing the WIPO Troll.

Best of all, it's free! The only thing you have to pay with is reading a Katz article and an anime story now and then. Compare that to $49.95 and tell me which one you prefer :)

Now I'll have to....

Overclock my geforce2 above boiling point, like that guy who opened a dimensional rift with his CPU.

I guess I'm in the minority

but I'd rather see something new than yet another Doom game. Yeah the graphics will probably be impressive and all; but I just can't see the attraction to rehashing the same concepts over and over. I suppose I'm no better as I have Civilization 1, 2, & now 3; but even though I've enjoyed each game in the series none was as good as the first there is just too much repetition in the series (and in any series really).

Seems like the resources that'll get dumped into Doom 3 could be put towards something new and exciting; although I guess in the economic climate the easy decision is to revisit what's been successful...

Re:I guess I'm in the minority

Think of the resources as being put towards a big part of many new and exciting (and many more boring and repetitive) games - the engine will mostly likely be licensed by many companies over the next few years and will contribute to the development of interesting games... hopefully.

DOOM 3 poised to ruin old games?

The mere thought of a new DOOM game is certainly exciting, but... RtCW ruined any joy I could possibly have replaying the old Wolf3D games - there's such a massive gap between high tech 1992 and high tech 2002.

I have many fond memories of playing DOOM late at night with the volume cranked way up, and it was the game that gave me my love for horror games (Silent Hill, etc) - but could DOOM 3 destroy the replay value of the original DOOM games?

I think the only saving grace is DOOM's atmosphere - I remember getting jumpy a few levels into episode 2. The graphics in Wolf3D couldn't really present an atmosphere like that.

What do you think?

Re:DOOM 3 poised to ruin old games?

Anyone younger care to say what they feel on DOOM vs a more recent FPS?

I was a couple years out of college when Doom came out. I remember distinctly two events:

1. Playing Doom enough that when I came to a window in the game, looking down on the courtyard (which I always thought of as Jeremy, possibly because that Pearl Jam album had just come out then) -- and I sat up straighter and craned my neck to see what was out the window.
2. Walking down the halls of my workplace -- looking for guns and ammo.

The first is cool because the game had no z-level -- there could be raised floors, but there could never be anything under them. For a game with no z-level to make me believe it enough to crane my neck is impressive.

The second is just freaky, and I think I may have scared some people discussing it at lunch. ;-)

To answer your question, I enjoy Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament, but they don't "grip" me like DOOM did.

One of my favorite games lately has been Sacrifice, which has a somewhat-first-person-view (camera is behind the wizard). The best part is to have an easily-mapped "pause" key (I use "x" since movement is with the WASD method). Then you can really direct your creatures to their fullest extent -- many of them have powers that, during the heat of battle would be difficult to activate. Pausing makes a huge difference in the outcome. ;-)

I tried Return to Castle Wolfenstein, but it was very dark and jerky. Perhaps that was just the beta version; I deleted it.

I think it's like heroin or cocaine or any number of drugs for which the body develops a tolerance: it will never be as good as the first time. It cannot be, because of the chemistry involved. Similarly, I've already been surprised by a videogame. I'm not sure it'll happen again, at least not to the same extent. And I miss that. Guess I'm just getting old.

Re:DOOM 3 poised to ruin old games?

When I caught myself sidestepping around corners, I decided it was time to start sleeping at night instead of playing Doom.

Re:What, another *space marine* game?

Think the storyline might be different this time?

If you recall, the first DOOM was space marines vs Hell. In the grand tradition of Dante's divine comedy, DOOM 3's space marine protagonist will take on the mildly rude legions of Purgatory.

On the distant moon of Pluto, a top secret government project goes horribly wrong, opening a portal into Purgatory itself! Heathens, unbaptised babies and who knows what else have been set loose, and only you can save humanity.
And they killed your rabbit.

Yay for tech demos

Each id game is pretty much a tech demo for what we should expect to see in the intervening years between games- I don't expect much out of Doom III- but it's a harbinger of the next Half-Life.

Re:Yay for tech demos

Each id game is pretty much a tech demo for what we should expect to see in the intervening years between games- I don't expect much out of Doom III- but it's a harbinger of the next Half-Life.

Speak for yourself. For many people that enjoy deathmatch over single player, the id Software games are king. I still prefer Quake 3 Arena over any other for deathmatch.

Doom Gameplay in a fully 3D engine

It will be interesting to see if they can retain the original Doom gameplay in a fully 3D engine. I recall in the original the gameplay was very arcade like with with lots of enemies to fight at once, and that was possible because sprites use up far less resources than high polycount models. However looking at the screenshots it appears the emphasis is less on large confrontations and more about creating a sense of supsense through lighting.

Why link to Yahoo!?

...when the press release is also on the ID web site [idsoftware.com]???

.02

cLive ;-)

Re:Why link to Yahoo!?

Why link to Yahoo? Because we like ID and don't want to /. them ;-)

may 22nd

For the record, the electronic arts expo is may 22nd to 24th, which is when they'll show off Doom3.

It's been announced before

Aside from the original .plan update [webdog.org] from Carmack, there's been at least one official press release [shugashack.com] announcing Doom III before. This is just one of those "it's getting closer to release date so let's announce it again to make sure people haven't forgotten about us" press releases.

The key to restarting the tech economy

Yes, Doom 3 could do it. Betcha it comes out right about the time people are looking for a way to justify buying nVidia's latest & greatest and AMD's shiny new ClawHammer. Surely they'll do a x86-64 compile? Millions will buy new gear to play the game in all its glory. Hooray, we are saved!...

...but then tech worker productivity will plummet for the next month, the Internet will crash from millions playing Deathmatch, the federal deficit will skyrocket, and the whole economy goes into the crapper. Damn, I knew there had to be a catch.

Screw it. Pass the railgun, lock & load.

Officially announced means

It means that they found a publisher, which is Activision. Having a publisher means they can put on a better show at E3. id definitely did not want to go to E3 without a publisher. Activision does what it is good at: marketing. id does what it is good at: making cool shit. The Activision deal should not be a surprise since they also published RtCW.

DOOM is what turned me into a geek...

If it weren't for DOOM 1 and 2, I probably wouldn't be the CS major and full-time geek I am now.

All those days of editing config files and especially creating my own levels that many of my friends have played -- that's what made me love the command-line, what later led me to love *nix, what made me realize the true power of computers.

John Carmack, thank you for paving the way to my future.

Re:DOOM and DOOM II were all about atmosphere

Hmm... I'm not even sure it's so much "atmosphere" as it is originality. When games like Doom (or even Duke Nukem 3D) came out, they were so much fun because you never knew what was going to happen next. The weapons were mostly "never seen/done before", and the enemies would truly scare you as you kept running into more and more powerful ones with new tricks up their sleeves.

This whole 3D shooter genre has been done and re-done so many times now, I think we've gotten to the point where we've seen everything. Tricks like grenades you could toss and detonate with a second click of the mouse aren't "awesome" anymore. It's not exciting anymore when you push on a secret wall or walk over a sequence of buttons on the floor that open up a new room. All that's left is to keep incrementally improving the graphics resolution, and make good use of surround sound.

When they attempt to improve things by adding more storyline (movie sequences/intermissions), that's not even so great anymore. It is, after all, still supposed to be an action game. Those cut scenes just make for more B.S. to click past and slow down the loading of the next level. There was a time when people watched those in awe, just to see the "real-life" graphics quality of them. Nowdays, everyone's seen full-screen multimedia - and we just don't care anymore.

Play jDoom just for kicks...

If you can't stand the original DOOM graphics, then try JDoom [newdoom.com] with pretty graphics and effects. I had a blast replaying episode 1, 2, and DOOM II. It uses the original WAD files so you still need the original DOOM games!

Sorry, no Linux port (only Windows) :(. Bug the author for one though ;).

What makes Doom

The big question on my mind is whether this will really be a Doom game with modern technology, or whether it will really be another Quake with some scary trappings.

To me, the defining features that make Doom are:

Dozens of monsters swarming you all at once

Monsters that can be tricked into killing each other

Light and music providing atmosphere

All this talk of how pretty Doom III will be, and how you will need a GeForce 4 or Radeon 8500 to play it, are making me worry that maybe you will only see a small handful of monsters at a time (like Quake). I'm not too worried about the other points.

By the way, the screenshots reminded me a lot of the movie Aliens (the James Cameron sequel to Alien). I hope someone does a total conversion, or maybe they use the Doom III engine for an Aliens Vs. Predator game.

steveha

Re:What makes Doom

I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I read somewhere (I think it was an interview with Carmack) that Doom 3 will be so polygon-heavy that even the basic gamespeed will be slower (and more realistic, no more running at 30 mph) -- not to mention that there will be few monsters at once. Last year they mentionned a GeForce 3 as a minimum for the game.

However, you'll probably be delighted by the lighting and overall atmosphere, judging by last year's screenshots. Also, if I remember, dynamic lighting computations will allow tricks like a character half hidden in the shadows, slowly revealing himself as he moves; or incredible lights-behind-fans effects including shadows.

I think Carmack and the rest of id Software know very well that yet another no-plot, dumb-action Wolf/Doom/Quake-like game will be badly perceived by the public; for my part, I wouldn't be surprised if Doom 3 is a story-driven game much closer to an interactive movie.

Doom3 spurs on the next Tech economy!

I know this is going to sound rediculas but it is true, I have been planning my next computer purchase around the release of Doom3 for almost two years now. Hopefully that new Nvidia GPU is out before the game, I would also like a Hammer (or whatever they are calling it today) to go with it. I think Doom3 will be a big boost to computer sales. I remember going out and buying the first pentium computer just to play Doom 2 with my friends. Is Doom 3 going to increase anyone elses computer spending?

x86-64 and OpenGL 2 versions?

John Carmack is realistically the only reason we have any OpenGL support from companies like ATI.

Will he release an OpenGL 2.0 targetted version of the game with more features for next generation cards like the one announced by 3DLabs or just release one version with half a dozen different rendering paths for all the different chips that can run the game to avoid favouring any company? Probably not because Windows will only be at version 1.1 of OpenGL, but maybe if he wants to see OpenGL 2.0 be viable instead of just DX9...

Is there a company more likely than id to release a downloadable x86-64 version of their game? I'll be interesting to see if x86-64 with all those other SSE registers can offer extra performance in a game... We've heard 5% more performance on average, will FPU intensive games be at the 0% range or really high?

Perspective

Wolf was great because it brought FPS's on to the scene...but IMO it was not very immersive.

DooM I and II were visually impressive for their day, but the Immersion Factor is what made the games kick ass. Fun with chainsaws too.

Ultimate Doom. Summation: AAAAaaahhhrrruuughhh!
Get the most sadistic SOB's to make levels that challenge you to no end. Even if you tired of DooM...those levels just plain ROCKED!

Heretic (doom engine)..I can look up! and down! and I can FLY, I can FLY!! yeeehaaa.
Not terribly immersive, just fun to play.

Quake. Hummm... just WOW ain't quite good enuf.
Fun, Fast paced, decent AI, Swim, dammit, swim!
And a rocking soundtrack to boot.

Quake II. Good deathmatching, so so Single Play.

Kingpin. Solid game play and death match. Fast, furious, neat weapons (HMG's rule..they RULE!)
(loved getting quake players in game and using the grenade launcher...doesn't explode on contact..hehe...freak out time)

Quake III. Awesome Grfx, well done AI, and Single Player Deathmatch...interesting and fun in an eveloutionary way.

(I leave out Descent 1,2 and 3. One came out after doom2 and had a section called "Doom recovery 101. True 3d environment and wicked AI.
Bots would *HUNT* you, tag team you, rush you or lure you while others smacked you around... just brilliant...and kept getting better).

DooM3...We'll see. The only saving grace for Q3 was: I could play it on my Mac, and now on my dual box with SMP enabled and a TNT2 (was a gimme, and PCI only system..meh).
I hope id makes some concessions for "us" of the not-quite-state-of-the-art-fronkenstheen-boxen-own ers.

.

idtla

Open letter to John Carmack:

The masses demand their 'iddqd' and 'idkfa'. We wimps wanna Doom too. And three even.

This has all been hashed out many times

Go read some of the FAQs on the C++ newsgroups and sites.

C++, when programmed well, is about the same speed as C when programmed well. However, it offers various ways of improving programming when properly handled.

Look at the Boost++ library as an example of using C++ to get levels of numerical performance near to Fortran--which was almost impossible with plain C.