The Merits of Doom 3

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Enjay
 
 
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Re: The Merits of Doom 3

Post by Enjay »

Reactor wrote:I think that question was left open by purpose...
Fair enough. But what I mean is that, purely from a gameplay perspective, within the confines of that particular chapter (rather than what might happen in a future game) becoming Stroggified didn't actually make much difference to how the game progressed and played (i.e. not much more than picking up a powerup, new armour or a novel weapon in any other game would). Perhaps it was a fault of my own expectations, but I really hoped that the last part of the game, post-Stroggification, would be a newly invigorated change of pace with all sorts of nice stuff unlocked and new cool stuff becoming possible but it just wasn't really. It was merely "OK, so I'm (mostly) a Strogg now, I've had my cool cutscene, I guess I just carry on as normal, but with me being a little bit bit tougher and faster".
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Re: The Merits of Doom 3

Post by Reactor »

'Tis true, lol. I was looking forward Stroggification, not because of how grisly this fate is, but I was very curious what Matthew Kane will become after. New abilities and shit, especially since Kane was turned into a supposedly more advanced Tactical Strogg, but well...it was a slight disappointment, like you noted, it gave a slight boost to health and speed, but that's all. The most notable feature was that you could use those nasty-looking Stroyent Health stations and decipher Strogg language (this was actually pretty neat), though you still couldn't understand the enemy Stroggs. I missed something special, something like uh, Robocop or a T-800 Terminator had. Who knows...maybe Kane did gain some superpower after all. Like, he doesn't need to go to the toilet anymore, because the nanites eat up his excrement, or stuff like that :P
What would you have in mind, if you are to re-create Matthew Kane after being Stroggified? I always admired your clever ideas, and besides, it's been a long time we had a talk :)
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Re: The Merits of Doom 3

Post by Viscra Maelstrom »

i just remember failing numerously at the Makron battle before this scene takes place without progressing the story, and you're SUPPOSED to lose to him. i don't know what the hell i did wrong, but it really turned me off from the experience.

the highlight for me personally was definitely Peter Stormare as Johann Strauss. he was the only character i found to be memorable, whereas everyone else was just kind of there. i might replay the game to see what i missed, but personally, i didn't think it and Doom 3 was that far apart in terms of mediocrity.
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Enjay
 
 
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Re: The Merits of Doom 3

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Reactor wrote:What would you have in mind, if you are to re-create Matthew Kane after being Stroggified?
At the time, I had lots of ideas (I even wrote them down somewhere), but most have faded over the years. I think things like, perhaps...

you being able to upgrade yourself somehow would have been cool (either from scavenging from dead Strogg, or accessing their technology elsewhere). And your upgrades could have continued throught the remainder of the game, allowing you to get stronger, faster, better armoured, better armed and (perhaps) allowing an element of customisation about it so that you could upgrade yourself differently each time you played or in comparison to the choices made by other players.

I think the ability to get past their security systems in a more convincing manner would have been better. Although functionally it would be much the same as finding a keycard, you could perhaps get through a door (or whatever) after downloading something into your head (or wherever) and then accessing a security port on a door (yeah, why not like Robocop's spike).

I know that they did give you an area or two that you couldn't get into when you were human but could when you were Strogg, but it could have been done more convincingly - there could have been more tantalisingly inaccessible areas earlier in the game that you got to revisit and get into. There could have been scenes of you passing through security lasers with impunity while witnessing humans being vaporised by the same lasers. The areas beyond could have also been much more Stroggy (whatever that would be). They could have appeared thematically quite different to the general-access areas of the rest of the game (who knows? more fleshy? More techy? Whatever).

Being able to understand the Strogg spoken language really should have happened - especially as you could now read it.

Messages flashed directly into your head by Strogg central would have been cool.

Although the game is mostly run and gun, and I wouldn't really want to change that, some sort of infiltration could have been cool - where you shouldn't draw too much attention to yourself (at least for a while) so you'd get a bit of stealth-like gameplay. Imagine wandering through rows and rows of dormant Strogg where the slightest mistake could activate them (think Star Trek TNG when they infiltrated a Borg cube).

What about a real moral quandary - like you are doing an undercover mission but in order to not blow your cover, you have to side with your Strogg apparent buddies and take out a human squad (perhaps trying to minimise damage to them, or assisting as many as possible but without getting rumbled), or rescuing human prisoners because of your improved access to detention/experimentation areas?

Basically, being able to do lots of things that are impossible as a human but which are reasonably believable as a Strogg, and which consequently allow the human side to gain an advantage that they might not otherwise have had; thereby actually fulfilling the promise of "the only way to defeat them is to become one of them".

It needn't all be benefits though - some human items and tech might now be counter-productive to you, a group of marines who don't know you could actively hunt you etc etc


Some of the above might work, some might not but even a little of something like it would have been better than a mild character buff followed by business as usual.
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Re: The Merits of Doom 3

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Well put, Enjay, your ideas are truly enthralling. They remind me a little bit on Tyrian :) which of course, isn't a bad thing. Also, the double nature of Kane's could have result in...well...interesting scenarios as well. The only instance it is vaguely practiced is when Lt. Voss complaints Kane, and the Tactical behind him starts to wriggle and come to life, yet, Kane doesn't do anything to save Voss. I always felt this signifies that part of his loyalty have been deviated during Stroggification.
Stealth levels can also be excellent, if performed well. The "Forest Compound" in Return to castle Wolfenstein was a bit too hard because of the big open areas, but it could have work in Quake 4. I also remember that Ground Zero had one such instance you described: dressed as a Strogg, they ignore you until you attack. On the level "The Munitions Plant", you can actually obtain a Strogg uniform, and pass thru them unharmed if you hold your fire. Kane could definitively use such advantage here and there.
I missed the human prisoners rescue indeed. In Quake 2, you could actually save some (even though the game wants you to kill them), it could have worked well in Quake 4. I also kinda miss the enemies drop stuff other than their weapon, and special inventory items, which Quake 2 had - you know, Enviro-suit, Rebreather, Silencer, and such.
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Re: The Merits of Doom 3

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I liked both Doom 3 and Quake 4. Both are fairly well-made linear story-driven FPS's. Perhaps there is less story than in a Half-Life game, for example, but I can definitely say I did feel some immersion. I think it's not correct to directly compare Doom 3 with old Dooms - they are just too different. And this kind of difference could well be the reason why not everyone who liked classic Doom felt the same about Doom 3.

I also liked how the Strogg and their planet were depicted in Quake 4 and I really wish id/Raven made a sequel. (I also wish Epic released a new single-player Unreal game, but that's probably not going to happen anytime soon :( )
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Re: The Merits of Doom 3

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Player701 wrote:I liked both Doom 3 and Quake 4. Both are fairly well-made linear story-driven FPS's. Perhaps there is less story than in a Half-Life game, for example, but I can definitely say I did feel some immersion. I think it's not correct to directly compare Doom 3 with old Dooms - they are just too different. And this kind of difference could well be the reason why not everyone who liked classic Doom felt the same about Doom 3.

I also liked how the Strogg and their planet were depicted in Quake 4 and I really wish id/Raven made a sequel. (I also wish Epic released a new single-player Unreal game, but that's probably not going to happen anytime soon :( )
I love the Strogg stuff, but I wish they would make a modern QUAKE ONE Lovecraftian game. lol
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Re: The Merits of Doom 3

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Doom 3 could also use some more powerups. Soul spheres were completely missing, I only found one at a fan-made level. The Berserker was also very scarce.
What really made me angry is how slow-ass your marine is. Even with sprinting, it's so damn slow, avoiding projectiles is a chore, and leaping Imps are plain impossible to avoid. It's like the marine is some overweight sumo wrestler with a pickup-truck tied to his back, and cannot move any faster.
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Re: The Merits of Doom 3

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Reactor wrote:Doom 3 could also use some more powerups. Soul spheres were completely missing, I only found one at a fan-made level. The Berserker was also very scarce.
What really made me angry is how slow-ass your marine is. Even with sprinting, it's so damn slow, avoiding projectiles is a chore, and leaping Imps are plain impossible to avoid. It's like the marine is some overweight sumo wrestler with a pickup-truck tied to his back, and cannot move any faster.
I don't know if you've ever tried to run around while carrying full body armor and grenades and magazines and 4 long guns, but Doom 3 is definitely realistic in that sense of speed. Classic Doom is very fantasy in that speed. lol
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Re: The Merits of Doom 3

Post by Graf Zahl »

Realism kills all fun in games, though.
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Re: The Merits of Doom 3

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Graf Zahl wrote:Realism kills all fun in games, though.
Not necessarily. I think it depends on your goal (as a developer), your goal (as a player) for fun, and so forth. I love Quake III: Arena, and Quake Champions (until this recent garbage ass update), and arena shooters like that and Unreal, but I also like realistic depictions of war and such, like in Medal of Honor for example. I'm the kind of guy that spends 3 hours in the garage in Gran Turismo and 20 minutes racing, and 3 hours in the garage again, with a $400+ racing wheel (with 3 pedals and 6-speed H gate) and a shit ton of time in flight simulator games like Flight Simulator X and X-Plane.

Maybe that's where we differ, my friend. I approached Doom 3 as a child like "What if Doom happened in real life? What if something so awful as Hell existed and mere mortals couldn't even physically comprehend it with their brain and this teleportation technology UAC was messing around with made a rift in time/space and Satan took advantage of that to finally get his revenge..." and I was high as hell and it just scared the ever living shit out of me. Especially the way the closer you got to "ground zero" (Delta Labs) got more and more sick and torturous and violent...

I don't know. I loved it.
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Re: The Merits of Doom 3

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RexS wrote:"What if Doom happened in real life?"
Nearly eveyone (if not everyone) would die, people would not shake off wounds and carry on until they were 99% dead, getting shot would require proper medical attention, maybe surgery, months of recuperation and physiotherapy, we wouldn't be able to carry a shotgun, machinegun, chaingun... all at the same time (plus the ammo for them), we wouldn't be able to keep moving at full pace with no rest, no sleep...

;)


Doom 3 was no more realistic in those kind of terms than Doom. However, I do get that games have to pick which aspects of "realism" they want to accentuate and, more importantly, which aspects they want to be logical and consitent within the rules for their world to maintain the player's suspension of disbelief.

However, as a general rule, I find what Graf said tends to hold pretty true and so many of the modern gaming "realistic" conventions actually sap the fun out of things for me, often feel hugely contrived to feel realistic (and often fail IMO) or simply aren't anything like as realistic as they pretend to be.
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Re: The Merits of Doom 3

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Yes, the slow speed is somewhat excusable, if you carry so many stuff around, though it's just as slow if you have only your sidearm and flashlight. I know they were aimin' for realism with this, but they kinda messed it up. A better solution would have been your stamina running out quicker if you have many weapons and ammo. MicroProse's Airborne Ranger worked just like that - the more stuff you carry, the less you can run! Try it sometime, it's an ancient, but awesome game, and compared to its age, it is damn realistic.

You know what's very interesting? In the Doom 3 storyline that the ancient Mars people created stone tablets to tell what happened to their society, but they also included how to build the teleporters (it is actually explained in one of the ingame videos that scientists utilized the stone carvings and directives written on the tablets to create teleportation technology), and on the other tablets, they warned about not to fuck around with teleporting, or else evil demons will come out and annihilate you. And they purposefully left the Soul Cube behind to be found, and the glyphs on it told the UAC linguistic professors how to actually use it.
So to simplify things, it sounds like this: "Here is how you can teleport, but don't you dare, or else all demons from Hell will be on you. But if you do anyways, here's the Soul Cube for you, sacrifice your society to defeat the demons, it's your loss."

Is it me, or this doesn't make any sense? :? It's like those Mars people wanted the same thing to happen to anyone who finds their civilization, what happened to them. Man, what assholes! :D
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Re: The Merits of Doom 3

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Reactor wrote:So to simplify things, it sounds like this: "Here is how you can teleport, but don't you dare, or else all demons from Hell will be on you. But if you do anyways, here's the Soul Cube for you, sacrifice your society to defeat the demons, it's your loss."

Is it me, or this doesn't make any sense? :? It's like those Mars people wanted the same thing to happen to anyone who finds their civilization, what happened to them. Man, what assholes! :D
:lol: You're not wrong.
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Re: The Merits of Doom 3

Post by SouthernLion »

Yes... Doom 3 was not a Farm Simulator. But it is more immersive via realism than running 800MPH diagonally like in Classic Doom or strafe jumping and bunny hopping in the Quake games. (Although, I do love strafe jumping.)
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