How id Lost its Crown

[Evil Avatar]

Next Generation's Steve Bowler has posted an editorial, Doomed: How id Lost its Crown (http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=337&Itemid=2), talking about how id Software's DOOM 3 failed to live up to consumer expectations.

It seems that for every iteration of the Doom/Quake series, Carmack and company have managed to set the bar for the industry, both graphically and in Netplay. Yet, after being out now for half a year, it is being surpassed in both. Its online game didn’t make even the tiniest ripple in the Internet pond. Ironically, these two items have always set precedent for id, and Carmack has even been on record in the past as stating, “Who cares about single-player, it’s all about the multiplayer.” It used to be all about selling the engine, and now even that seems fated to despair as the Unreal 3 engine is winning awards and accolades for its ease of use, and is dominating the press as far as who’s using it for their next-gen titles. No one talks about id’s Doom 3 engine, and in years past, it’s been the engine to have.id Software company name spelling corrected by EvAv.com. No applause, please, just throw money.

[Beelzebud]

Well I remember reading an interview with Carmack, early on in Doom3's development. He basically said, point blank, that he was tired of game design, and designing game engines.

I think most of his energy is spent on Armadillo Aerospace these days. Although with the "success" they've had, I'd suggest getting back into game development. :P

[WangoTango]

I know that Doom3 was not made for large multiplayer and all but it is still a bit sad to not see it listed at all on the Gamespy stat list, especially in light of many of the games that ARE on the list.

http://archive.gamespy.com/stats/

[kokyunage]

I have to say I somewhat agree with the article. Doom3, while still entertaining, just doesn’t compare to any recent FPS games. Some people can argue that the dark style of game play was supposed to be there the entire time. That could be true, and it’s effective in scaring the shit out of you. However, it’s still a very simplistic game.

What most people forget is that id Software is a very small company. It dwarfs Epic or any other development house. Last time I checked it had about 25 employees. And a lot of those employees were added in the middle of the development of Doom3 when they realized these high end engines require multiple animators and artists. Gone are the days where 4 people can design and level build an entire game.

I have high hopes for Quake4 and Quake Wars. Both trailers looked impressive and I think id Software excels when they are in the role of “engine creators” and “producers”. With the combined forces of id Software, Raven (Quake4), and Splash Damage (Quake Wars) I can’t see them releasing another sub par product. It’s hard now a day to compete with development houses that outsize you 4 to 1. No matter how skilled your employees are, they are only human and can do only so much in a day.

Anyway, that’s my 2 cents…

[MrPoo]

I have to agree with a lot of his points.
Especially:

You didn’t need to know what the review score was for an Id title. You only knew that you needed to buy it.

Ultimately, though, I was equally disappointed by both Doom3 and HL2.
HL2 had much better AI, and enemies in greater numbers. Often I felt overwhelmed with everything that was going on... that's wrong--that's the Doom trademark: lotsa guys, crazy action and confusion.
Doom3 did have one thing that, for me, made it a lot more playable, though... more of a story. I really enjoyed picking up the PDA's and piecing together the events of the last hours (a la System Shock 2) rather than just plodding onward in HL2 and never really know what the crap was happening.

Still, I wasn't really happy with either game. Perhaps there is something to be learned by the developers from their original releases?

[Evil Avatar]

Perhaps there is something to be learned by the developers from their original releases?

Learn from Rockstar. Make the exact same game - only better - over and over.

While the GTA series has added new features all along, the essential gameplay is about the same. DOOM 3 didn't follow that formula, they improved only the rendering engine, while cutting back on features like AI, number of enemies and multiplayer.

[fix]

Surprise, surprise, you can make a better looking game if you release it more than one and a half year later.

The lack of common sense in the press/internet lately is really getting on my nerves. I miss the days when it took some brains to hook up your pc to the internet, at least then you could expect some basic level of intelligence from the online users..

[Beelzebud]

Learn from Rockstar. Make the exact same game - only better - over and over.

While the GTA series has added new features all along, the essential gameplay is about the same. DOOM 3 didn't follow that formula, they improved only the rendering engine, while cutting back on features like AI, number of enemies and multiplayer.

Thats a good point. I really thought San Andreas was going to be "mission pack material", but I was suprised at how much they added to the game, while at the same time making it "feel" exactly like the other games. I think Epic can be commended for this as well. UT2k4 still "felt" like an Unreal game, even though they added the vehicles and Onslaught.

I really wanted, and tried to like Doom 3, but by the time I was done with the single player campaign, I was done with Doom3.. I didn't even want to play it online, and from judging by the numbers, I'm not alone.

[AspectVoid]

I really enjoyed picking up the PDA's and piecing together the events of the last hours (a la System Shock 2) rather than just plodding onward in HL2 and never really know what the crap was happening.


There's actually a lot of story in HL2, you just have to stop to listen to it. Almost every NPC you come across will tell more of the story that's going on. These are the people who were standing off to the side while someone else was giving you directions. If you stopped and spent time listening to them, you'd get the story behind HL2.

[Talanvor]

I'm forced to agree. I really liked Doom 3, but after beating it once, there was absolutely zero incentive for me to play through it again, or even try it online. Wow, death match with 4 people. Yeah... I think I'll go play Onslaught on that 32 person server over there.

I hope Raven does something special for Quake 4. I never got into Q3A.

[Adam Blue]

Man, I liked Doom 3. Running areound in coridorrs fighting a bunch of effin monsters. It totally took me back to when I first played Doom 1. I don't understand peoples problem....it's like they wanted Doom 3 to NOT be Doom. If it played any other way, I'd hope they wouldn't call it Doom 3.

[Last of the Red Hot Mamas]

I don't understand peoples problem....it's like they wanted Doom 3 to NOT be Doom.

You have this backwards.

[Deadend]

Doom 3 was nothing like Doom.

Doom was fast and frantic forcing you against overwhelming odds.
Doom 3 was a monster appearing out of nowhere with .01 seconds warning to slap your lifebar away. That is scary and exciting, for 20 minutes, not 20 hours.

Doom 3 was simply too shallow and too long.

[Taco]

Only reason I didn't like Doom 3 was because nearly the whole game took place in one setting. I got sick of the space station real quick and kept hoping it would change, it took forever. Then Hell, which was alright, but nothing special. I really loved the catacombs look towards the end, but that was so brief.

[Karmakaze]

Wow, death match with 4 people.

Personally, I was really, really stoked about 4 person DM, when I thought it was going to be more than Q3 on the D3 engine (it even had a ton of sounds for Q3A).

It was hoping for a stealthy, slow-paced, almost tactical DM (what, with awesome lighting and per-pixel hit detection). If they had made the game work for 4 ppl it would have been great. instead they just shipped with a crippled q3a. 4 ppl with rocket luanchers, quad damage, and BFGs is just silly. 4 ppl with pistols, flashlights, and headshots (and the occasional power-up) would have been a blast.

if i wasn't so completely underwhelmed by d3 i might try out that tactical mod, but i don't think i want to waste the time reinstalling...

[Deadend]

Personally, I was really, really stoked about 4 person DM, when I thought it was going to be more than Q3 on the D3 engine (it even had a ton of sounds for Q3A).

It was hoping for a stealthy, slow-paced, almost tactical DM (what, with awesome lighting and per-pixel hit detection). If they had made the game work for 4 ppl it would have been great. instead they just shipped with a crippled q3a. 4 ppl with rocket luanchers, quad damage, and BFGs is just silly. 4 ppl with pistols, flashlights, and headshots (and the occasional power-up) would have been a blast....

Same here, I was thinking it would be like Splinter Cell or similar to the single player game where sneaking around is good, but... iD seems only capable of making it faster and with more explosions.

[XenonCJ]

Id should try a different genre.... RTS or maybe even MMORPG...

[mister_slim]

Id should try a different genre.... RTS or maybe even MMORPG...
Cellphone RPG?

[Kyle Jones]

I was really sad when I played Doom 3. It just doesn't live up to the greatness we all expect from a company like id Software. However, I'm hopeful for the future as Doom 3 was far from anything terrible. They've just fallen a bit behind the competition these last few years and now they can play catch up, which it seems like they'll do well with Quake 4 and the dreamy Quake Wars.

Is anyone more excited for Quake Wars than Quake 4? I honestly am...

[EGO]

Doom3 is some dark murky unitelligent trigger-the-enemy-to-go-boo fest. It's cool, but it's not "Doom" in the purest sense. Serious Sam is Doom.

[Kelegacy]

Doom3 is some dark murky unitelligent trigger-the-enemy-to-go-boo fest. It's cool, but it's not "Doom" in the purest sense. Serious Sam is Doom.

Wow, good point. In fact, Painkiller was more Doom than Doom 3 was. I dont mind mindless shooters when they capture the essense of their predecessors. Doom 3 just ...i dont know. It didnt do it for me. It just didnt feel like Doom.

[Draft]

The Suffering was the best DOOM game I ever played.

[emjoi]

Oh Bashing Doom 3 is so old.

[F3nyx]

I'm playing Doom 3 right now, and liking it a lot. The monster closets seem like cheap tricks sometimes, and it's nowhere near as varied as HL2, but it's a good game. People mainly seem to be disappointed with the fact that it's not a remake of the original. Since I never thought Doom I & II were THAT fun, I don't really mind Doom 3 being different...

I don't understand how "number of enemies" is that crucial of a "feature." Doom 3 is supposed to feel cramp, tense, and atmospheric, a game with a more refined sense of pacing. Serious Sam may keep your trigger finger busy, but it NEVER approaches the immersive quality of Doom 3.

I'm also not seeing a reduction of AI. Sure, the demons aren't smart -- they're SUPPOSED to charge you blindly. But the zombie marines take advantage of the environment as intelligently as any HL2 enemy. And, I may be wrong, but I think Doom 3 does have headshots -- they don't do dramatically more damage, but it seems to take several fewer bullets to kill a zombie if you hit the head.

I admit I don't understand the 4 player limit, but people have already circumvented that so it's not so much of an issue anymore.

[Mason]

Oh Bashing Doom 3 is so old.

No kidding, I've been doing it forever. I made these exact same criticisms back at its release, and everyone was all, "It's awesome! The same thing happens over and over yet it gets more fun every time! And 4-man deathmatch is the best multiplayer game ever!"

So, I'd feel vindicated if I still cared.

[Wombat]

I really think that the zombie marines don't have any AI for taking cover. Every incident where they take cover seems completely scripted to me.

[ElectricMonk]

about the only thing in the article i agree with is that doom 3's gameplay is too simple for it's graphics. which is true. it just makes the gameplayisms stand out a hundred times more than they would if this was made with the doom 1 engine.

other than that i enjoyed the art direction of the game, the brom-like world that id makes might be the same thing for them every time but only id games look and feel like that and even then they only come out every 5 years.

i don't see why id can't just learn that overly-simplified gameplay is bad and move on to make something awesome again. doom 3 was the first thing they've ever done that could be considered a miss-step by more than 10% of the gamer population and suddenly everybody is calling for their heads.

[51|RandoM]

I think Doom 3 is a great SINGLE-player FPS. I don't know about the rest of you, but single-player isn't what put id at the top of my list for so long.

Building competent multiplayer FPS games, ones that were relatively easily modded/extended, that generated huge fanbases, engines that other studios could build a compelling game experience with, that is what I remember about id.

When it comes to computer gaming, I've probably spent more time playing quake/quake2, their mods, and their licensees than anything else.

Q3A ruined it for me. It was quake for the masses, instead of for the diehard FPS players. My old-man reflexes fueled a general animosity towards the fact that they totally ruined my grenade launcher and shotgun while doing nothing to alleviate the over the top cheeseblasting railgun. See how I said "my grenade launcher"? That is the devotion engendered by real id games.

[51|RandoM]

On the side topic of painkiller, I'd like it much more if I didn't have to install a "special" cd-rom drive each time. Three different optical drives and the copy protection for painkiller only lets me install and run it with one of them, lol, which is the oldest and slowest cdrom burner I have---which means I only hook up that drive for painkiller.

[AversionFX]

I think people are justified in not liking Doom 3. I mean, Doom 3 is absolutely nothing like the originals. When you create a franchise, the fans want the original. When you go and take everything that made the originals great and scrap them for something completely different, it's not the same series you're playing.

Oh boy, a dark and scary environment. It's tired after about an hour of play. It was a botched mixture of Event Horizon meets Doom 1. They got too much Event Horizon and not enough Doom.

[XxSATANxX]

Just looking at the larger picture as to where id is at the moment.

D3 sold well. The add-on sold well. The Xbox title sold well.
The game got great reviews. Gamers gave it a realistic "We expected more" review.

Engine sales have gone in the toilet. Almost everyone is looking elsewhere for a game engine. Quake 4 (Q2 Redux) Had better be "the shit" or id will have lost it's crown.

At the moment sure feels like id has lost touch with those who made them.

[Ravana]

I don't know what pissed me off more about Doom 3. The cheap "monsters spawn behind you" shenanigans, the revolting multiplayer, or the fact I waited so long for it, picked it up an hour after it came in, then stopped playing it for good three hours later.

ID, what the hell happened to you guys.

[Liquidize105]

All I'm gonna say is that ROE is a lot better than vanilla doom3.

But it's still doom3, so...

[Groo]

I thought Doom 3 was really good. A lot better than Serious Sam and Painkiller (which get boring after about 5 minutes).

I guess some people expected more from Doom 3 than any game could possibly provide.

[steve]

Just like Liquidize105 said: I enjoyed playing the Doom 3 addon ROE far more than playing the original game. I think there are 2 reasons for that: first because while playing the addon I knew what to expect (a simple shooter in a dark setting), and second because the level design of ROE does not feature monster closets opening in your back 95% of play time like the original Doom 3 does.

I was even able to appreciate the graphics more. I think we might be a bit spoiled by today's gfx standards already. "Oh I've seen stuff like THAT already... yawn". But if you take a moment to think about it, the Doom3 real time shadows make the gfx top notch. It's a different style than the polygon craze other engines do, but I'm happy id created this unique engine so we can have some games in the future that look different from all the others.

[Kelegacy]

Just like Liquidize105 said: I enjoyed playing the Doom 3 addon ROE far more than playing the original game. I think there are 2 reasons for that: first because while playing the addon I knew what to expect (a simple shooter in a dark setting), and second because the level design of ROE does not feature monster closets opening in your back 95% of play time like the original Doom 3 does.

I was even able to appreciate the graphics more. I think we might be a bit spoiled by today's gfx standards already. "Oh I've seen stuff like THAT already... yawn". But if you take a moment to think about it, the Doom3 real time shadows make the gfx top notch. It's a different style than the polygon craze other engines do, but I'm happy id created this unique engine so we can have some games in the future that look different from all the others.

Maybe because ROE wasnt developed by id?? Wasnt it created by another developer? Perhaps THAT explains why it was a better game. I'm not insinuating anything, just observing.

[steve]

Maybe because ROE wasnt developed by id?? Wasnt it created by another developer? Perhaps THAT explains why it was a better game. I'm not insinuating anything, just observing.

Hehe - sure - ROE was developed by Nerve Software. Using Doom3 feedback they probably had the benefit of seeing what people liked & hated and make appropriate decisions for the addon. (Though honestly you don't have to be that smart to foresee that 9000 monster closets doesn't equal fun).