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Blog: Software id Software Announces Doom 4
Marcus Yam (Blog) - May 7, 2008 3:37 PM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 70 comment(s) - last by Reclaimer77.. on May 15 at 6:20 PM
id Software going back to its roots with new Doom game

The Doom series is undeniably id Software’s most famous franchise. While Wolfenstein and Quake have their place in the history of first-person shooters, it’s Doom that set the shareware scene ablaze.

When I first saw Doom 3 behind closed doors years ago at its first unveiling at E3, I was stunned at much of a step forward the engine was beyond everything else at the time. (Starbreeze’s The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay was also very impressive.)

It should be no surprise, then id Software would want to do Doom 4. After the somewhat underperforming two recent entries of the Quake franchise, the developer may be looking to go back to their roots.

“Doom is part of the id Software DNA and demands the greatest talent and brightest minds in the industry to bring the next installment of our flagship franchise to Earth,” said Todd Hollenshead, CEO, id Software. “It's critical for id Software to have the best creative minds in-house to develop games that meet the standards synonymous with our titles.”

id Software didn’t have much else to say on its front page other than it’s now hiring more talent to work on its games.

The developer’s other publically known project is Rage, which is being made alongside a brand new engine which shares the name. The Rage engine is being made to be completely flexible cross platform over PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Given the recent comments regarding PC game industry losses to piracy, it would be logical to expect that Doom 4 is being developed on the Rage engine for consoles as well as PC.

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Oops
By HighWing on 5/8/2008 4:43:54 AM , Rating: 3
Personally I always thought one of the major problems of Doom 3 was the limit of 4 players in Multiplayer mode. In an age where all FPS games are played online against more then 4 players, that limit was a reason why my friends and I never played it at lan parties.




RE: Oops
By MrBlastman on 5/8/2008 9:57:23 AM , Rating: 2
Did you play much Doom 3 multiplayer? The maps that came with the game are _very_ small. They are good maps - quite fun to play, but they are not large in the sense of some of the non-dm levels in Quake 2 or even Doom 1/2.

The limit for 4 players was resolved quite a while ago, you can now have up to 8 players. Not many people play it online anymore, heck, 9 months ago not many people did but there was a rather dedicated small crowd of guys who would regularly play - none of them being utter noobs either. It was sorta similar to the group of Rocket Arena 3 players. The quality of gameplay was there.

But back to my original point, due to the size of the maps, it really is not conductive to more than 8 players per level. I wouldn't scoff on it because of that, there is still lots of fun to be had.


RE: Oops
By HighWing on 5/8/2008 4:45:59 PM , Rating: 2
Well map size or not, I still didn't like playing with only 3 people. With only 4 people it's easy for one to dominate if they are a much better player. At least when you have multiple players attacking the same player, you have a better chance of taking them down.


RE: Oops
By kenji4life on 5/9/2008 11:35:36 AM , Rating: 2
The original Doom was a blast to play with 4 players.
I agree that with most FPS games, it's more fun to play with more than that, however that doesn't mean that it's not possible to make a game that plays well with less. If they really did "revisit the roots" in the sense of a remake, they would be wise to have the ability to play small team vs the computer (with some really good AI) in addition to standard DM/RA/TDM/CTF/TF. If they did it properly and made the game difficult to conquer, I would love one that pits 4 players vs 4 players or 2 players vs thousands of monsters.

The thing that made the original doom great was that it was fun to play on single player. You could put it on Nightmare and try and beat the game without using automatic aim, IDDQD or IDKFA etc, and it wasn't exactly "easy". Of course with todays game engines (and years of practice) I still haven't found AI that rivals human intelligence. Even the most skilled players with "hacks" like the speed hack + AA on CS are beatable, if you figure out how.

Of course the day they build AA in a FPS that can beat humans to no fail, they'll nuke us and attempt to take over the world anyways (Terminator), so we won't have much time to play video games anymore.

Personally I think the most revolutionary gameplay I've seen since Wolfenstein->DOOM->Quake, has been TF2.


RE: Oops
By MrBlastman on 5/9/2008 4:49:33 PM , Rating: 2
You're on the target with TF 2. TF 2 is amazing and full of fun. Best FPS to come out in years easy.


RE: Oops
By Strunf on 5/10/2008 6:25:40 PM , Rating: 2
No way COD 4 is ten times better than TF2 !!


RE: Oops
By afkrotch on 5/12/2008 12:05:47 PM , Rating: 5
You're crazy. Barbie Bikini Hunt Dreamhouse was so much better than either.


RE: Oops
By djc208 on 5/12/2008 2:11:12 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Personally I think the most revolutionary gameplay I've seen since Wolfenstein->DOOM->Quake, has been TF2.


I'll second that vote.

I'm not a big FPS player, I only started playing HL2 because it came free with my Radeon years ago. Liked the story so I got EP1 and the Orange box. Portal was fun but I've been hooked on TF2 for months now. I totally suck at the game but that doesn't keep me from playing daily.


No duct tape on mars!
By the goat on 5/8/2008 7:37:01 AM , Rating: 5
If doom 4 takes place on Earth the player should be able to find a role of duct tape this time.




RE: No duct tape on mars!
By Akazar on 5/9/2008 12:52:05 PM , Rating: 5
And beable to use that duct tape to attach a flash light to weapon..or atleast have some flashlight mounted helmets that don't have a battery life of 20secs.


RE: No duct tape on mars!
By Aquila76 on 5/10/2008 9:13:41 AM , Rating: 5
Yeah, I always wondered how they forgot LED and lithium-ion technology on Mars. My $10 strap-on 'head'light lasted about a month on regular batteries.


RE: No duct tape on mars!
By Belard on 5/11/2008 12:51:09 AM , Rating: 3
Its details like that, which hurt DOOM3.... its was the "cheap" way I guess to get that "SCARE" factor, but it was stupid. Wait... in the future, mankind forgets how to attach a flashlight to their weapon, helment or body armor? I liked someone's game play statement of Doom3.

Hear monster, pull out flash light - see monster. Switch to a weapon, shoot in general direction of the monster. Then switch to flash light, is monster dead? No - then switch back to gun and shoot again. Repeat until monster is dead.

At least a few programmers made flash-light mods that allowed it to work while shooting.

Otherwise, Doom3 wasn't a bad game... not perfect. A BAD game was Daikatana... ;) Quake4 was pretty good improvement.

The 4player multiplayer is weak, considering that UT99 had 16player support, UT2004 and UT3 has 32player support.


Doom the movie
By pxavierperez on 5/8/2008 10:57:48 AM , Rating: 2
I am probably in the minority but i actually enjoyed Doom the movie immensely. Even better than any of the Spiderman movies which the first and the last were horrible in my opinion. And the Rock willing to lower himself to play the psychotic villain rather than the hero gained some respect point from me. His acting could be improved but still. Wish they did a sequel.




RE: Doom the movie
By StevoLincolnite on 5/8/2008 11:55:09 AM , Rating: 3
Is this the same Doom movie as I watched?


RE: Doom the movie
By pxavierperez on 5/8/2008 5:52:41 PM , Rating: 2
like i said. i'm probably in the minority.


RE: Doom the movie
By Visual on 5/10/2008 9:21:13 AM , Rating: 2
i liked it too, nice movie.
except for the part where they claimed it was based on the computer game "doom".
hell, they could've called it "resident evil" and scored a closer hit...


RE: Doom the movie
By B3an on 5/11/2008 8:15:38 AM , Rating: 1
People actually exist that think that film was good? ... thats... beyond crazy.

It's not even Doom. I heard they got rid of all the demon/satanic stuff because of religious freaks. Theres too many of them in the US.


RE: Doom the movie
By mapesdhs on 5/14/2008 3:22:12 PM , Rating: 2
If id Software try to make Doom4 more like the
original in style, I wouldn't be surprised if
they come up against the religious/PC pressures
that are so prevalent today.

I was initially disappointed when I first saw
the movie precisely because I had been expecting
something closely based on the game and was thus
looking out for familiar things, especially
anything that echoed my playing experiences
(like the first time I saw a Cacodemon, ie. run
like hell! :D)

By contrast, knowing nothing about the game
legacy (never played them), I enjoyed the
Resident Evil movie much more, though perhaps
an avid fan of the R.Evil game(s) would have
similar moans about the movie vs. the game. We
all have our own unique mental baggage when
watching a spin-off movie.

However, over time (my gf likes the Doom movie,
so I did buy it), I've come to appreciate the
film just for what it is, ie. pretty decent scifi
monster romp, with some nice touches like the
molecular doors, and the 1st person nod-to-
the-game-fans sequence.

I agree with ToeCutter, the atmosphere and
nerve-rattling style of the original Doom is
what appealed to me. As such, after seeing Doom3
on other peoples' systems, I never bought it and
have never played it, which is ironic given how
much Doom dominated my entire life after it came
out re my Doom Help Service (http://www.gamers.org/dhs/),
creating alt.games.doom.newplayers, getting 400+
emails a day about the game, doing my final
year dissertation partly on Doom side effects,
sending out thousands of copies of my cheats
file (you'd be amazed who some of the people
were that asked for a copy, I mean like military
types, a member of the Israeli govt cabinet
who wanted it for his son (Doom on his laptop),
70yr old grannie, etc.), even for a while being
responsible for 50% of the web accesses to the
University I was attending at the time (the DHS
info was on my Uni account until I left in '95;
caused one hell of a stink, hehe!), and
eventually being lucky enough to visit id on
my 1st ever trip outside the UK (and also
NOA/Paradigm) just before my proverbial post-Uni
career got going (less time for gaming fun after
that). Alas, in later years I never had the time
to stay up to date with things Doom-related, or
add any Doom3 info to the DHS (atm my site
access is messed up anyway, so the page hasn't
been changed for ages - major sincere apologies
if it ever inconvenienced anyone that my DHS
site never had any Doom3 info).

It was a special time back then; would be great
if id could make Doom4 more like the original in
style. Change anything? Yeah, scenery damage! I
would love to see the original Doom kind of
gameplay/style/atmosphere combined with the way
the environment could be mangled up in Red
Faction - Imp coming through a door? Nah, it
just breaks through the wall instead! 8) Or
the floor collapses after a throwing a grenade
and ya land in a room full of the suckers...

I bought Doom2 of course, and Ultimate Doom (er,
plus an extra never-opened Replay-branded edition
since the PR quote on the back of the box is
mine), but Doom3 just didn't appeal. Maybe some day.

I did buy Quake & Quake2 (played on SGIs), but
they were very different games compared to Doom.
Never bothered with Quake3. After that I left
such games somewhat alone for a while as wrt
multiplayer I always had more fun from the co-op
experience in games like Doom, whereas the
mainstream multiplayer world was all about
deathmatch.

Went through an N64 and numerous shooter games,
including Doom64 of course, then bought a PS2
and more 1st person games such as CoD, Killzone,
etc., but these days (with a PC setup) the only
game that gives me anything like the same kind
of feeling as I used to get when playing Doom,
is Stalker, which I enjoy a lot (not the same
manic monster splatting, but definitely some
serious paranoia, etc.), though oddly enough one
other game that really is downright creepy to
play in the same way (lights out, etc.) is,
"The Suffering" on PS2. :}

I hope id are able to make something that does
hark back to what made the original so popular,
without modern political correctness and
religious nonsense messing it up; always amazed
me that such people didn't support the game
given the whole point was to get rid of the
nasties from hell. :D

And you never know, even if Doom4 isn't quite
what the original was in style, perhaps the mod
scene can allow people to customise it to match
their desires?

Here's hoping!

Ian.

mapesdhs@yahoo.com / ian@sgidepot.co.uk
SGI/Future Technology/N64: http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/


RE: Doom the movie
By BadAcid on 5/15/2008 12:27:20 PM , Rating: 2
It's a fun movie if you have friends with you to watch it and make fun of it. It keeps your attention all the way through, while still poking fun at itself, something I wish other movies nowadays were capable of.

"I'm not supposed to die!"


RE: Doom the movie
By emboss on 5/15/2008 11:13:06 AM , Rating: 2
"There's something behind me, isn't there?" - that's the only thing I can remember from the movie.