Doom 4: Five Years And Nothing To Show

Doom 4 as a concept is hard to sustain in a post-COD4 world, where every big FPS is a military-style fest with RPG progression.

It can't be easy to re-enter this market successfully - look at Rage, which on the surface as a new IP, seemed to have all the right ingredients.

Combine the 2 problems of a mass-market consisting of mindless FPS "bro"-sims, and a deeply entrenched view of Doom-style games as "old fashioned", and it is no surprise about what happened to Doom 4.
 
Random Guy said:
Doom 4 as a concept is hard to sustain in a post-COD4 world, where every big FPS is a military-style fest with RPG progression.

It can't be easy to re-enter this market successfully - look at Rage, which on the surface as a new IP, seemed to have all the right ingredients.

Combine the 2 problems of a mass-market consisting of mindless FPS "bro"-sims, and a deeply entrenched view of Doom-style games as "old fashioned", and it is no surprise about what happened to Doom 4.
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I dunno, it depends how you market the game i think, dead space was doing pretty well before EA tried to turn it into a generic FPS and then it failed, so there is clearly an appetite out there for survival horror type games, which Doom 4 should be able to slot into.

If you push it as an FPS then it's unlikely to do particularly well, but market it at the right people and it will do well. But it does have to be done right as with the survival/horror genre the single player has to be brilliant as you realistically only get one play through on release, such is the way with these games as so much has to be scripted set pieces to build the atmosphere.

Also you have to aim the games at an advanced ish audience, i enjoyed Doom 3 a lot, i only played it through once, but it scared the crap out of me, i then bought the bfg edition not long ago for a bit of nostalgic gaming and the whole thing was ruined by the introduction of the weapon mounted flashlight :( as the tension just wasn't there with being able to see all the time.

I think the market is there but the game has to be very well done, judging by how it's going that doesn't look likely :(
 
The way I see it, the game that sort of carried on the Doom lineage at least partially is something like Dead Space.

Dark environment, hellish creatures. Nail biting tension. Creatures sneaking up on you left right and centre.

Doom must have influenced the devs in some way.

Also I think Rage was such a shambols, they might have rethought Doom altogether.
 
scrlk said:
id has lost its way a long time ago. I like to think of them as primarily a tech company that makes games on the sideline (e.g. Epic). :p
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The thing is, they have always been a tech company that makes games on the sideline, its when they forget that and try to put the game before the engine that things go bad.

I love Doom and always will, it was my favorite game for over a decade and I was webmaster on the old Doom Netcenter site, but its not like it had any serious competition, it was a great game, a landmark, and because it stood unopposed it looked even better. Quake was a very good game but not quite as good a Duke Nukem 3D (despite Quakes engine advantages) however Quakes legendary modification potential was where its strength lay, Half-Life uses a modified Quake engine.

Quake 2 again was a very good game, on par with Doom imo, and had excellent modification potential that kept it alive long after its life expectancy had lapsed, in addition, the engine was everywhere. However Quake 3 dropped the ball, it went for the multiplier only (with/players or bots) route which would have worked expect Epic took their Unreal franchise the same route and UT was better than Q3 in every way imaginable, except of course for 3rd party games using the engine, Q3 shined there.

Then it wen't bad, Doom 3 was a good game, with a great engine (much better than HL2's, but sadly this couldn't be showcased as the whole game was indoors with the occasional about to the martian surface) but aside from Quake 4 and Prey the were no notable D3 engine games, unlike the masses of Q2/3 games. Even worse, imo Return to Castle Wolfenstein which used the Q3 engine was a more engaging/enjoyable game than Doom 3 imo. UT continued to lack single player but the UT2003/2004 engine was use din many games.

The final issue: RAGE, what a mess, the game was good, but not great, a day or maybe two to complete and no replay value, no mods due to the engine, no third party games. Compare that to the way up until a few years ago EVERYTHING was using the UT3 engine.

Please iD, you have only ever made two very good games, just concentrate on the engine and stop believing your own hype.
 
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I'd be satisfied with just more of the same - like from the early games that made ID so successful, eg lots of levels, monsters and traps. Having said that, also very welcome would be an amalgamation of that and some rpg elements (plenty of loot) / strong story development a la System Shock 2.

Cut scenes can be great, and I could see them really adding to the experience, though that could result in a similar path taken as they did with Doom 3. I guess it's hard to achieve an effective balance; 'are we going to deliver an old school shooter, or use cutting edge tech to present something quite different, yet more cinematic?' Either imo can and do work, but when thrown together, too many ingredients can result in a mishmash that doesn't quite work as expected.
 
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id are so overrated - not made a decent game in many many years and their graphics engines are also crap - i'm amazed they are still in business, i don't know how they make money.
 
d_brennen said:
Assume you mean 5, you'd be forgiven because 4 was pretty forgettable
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Quake 4 was developed by Raven, not iD. I think Quake 4 suffered from "RAGE syndrome", particularly online. I played multiplayer obsessively and really enjoyed it but the problem for many people was that they already had Q3 so why bother?

Rumours are circulating about internal interest in dusting off the Q1 style again for a reboot, nothing concrete though.
 
Problem with RAGE was upclose the entire thing looked so ugly with this new mega texture tech they used..

It was a good looking game provided you didn't get too close, as for the game RAGE was an enjoyable shooter, same as any other ID shooter really. Doom 1 and 2 are still to this day where they made the biggest impact, then Quake I and II after this nothing much they did impressed, but were not dire either..
 
Q1 would only work these days if you could not get lost (stupid arrows on HUD), had an emo story mode, stupidly easy difficulty levels, QTEs for all major boss fights and a dubstep soundtrack. Oh and set in modern times in the Middle East with Arab demons
 
i think doom needs to take more of a skyrim approach, also similar to far cry 3. this means they could implement different landscapes of torchered world, so some could be rocky volcanic enviroments with ash clouded sky's which falls on the player. This would lead into tombs/ hell holes with various monsters - this could be inline with the doom 1 - 2 approach whereby you press buttons to open doors find secrets ect... then other landscapes could be ghost towns of ruins with the occasional flashes that light up the sky from wars and attacks, but some amy/troops are running away on fire from somethink like the incubus.

problem with most recent games you feel claustraphobic and being only put in 1 direction, ala COD series. if they go down this line it will be a complete flop.
 
iv-tecman said:
Problem with RAGE was upclose the entire thing looked so ugly with this new mega texture tech they used..

It was a good looking game provided you didn't get too close, as for the game RAGE was an enjoyable shooter, same as any other ID shooter really. Doom 1 and 2 are still to this day where they made the biggest impact, then Quake I and II after this nothing much they did impressed, but were not dire either..
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Hey, don't sell Commander Keen short, the first side scroll-er on the PC and paved the way for the likes of Duke Nukem (the 2d ones).
 
when you want something to be perfect you'll fail, pressure and expectation leads to failure, simplicity is perfection, perfection is a burst of inspiration.......... they're trying too hard, scrabbling around to find out what makes a decent horror shooter.

Rage failed... yea and now they're scared of DOOM 4.....but the basic story is wrong anyway.

because real terror is ``Amnesia, penumbra`` it's being on your own/terrified/ claustrophobia, then add to that demons, plus fighting for your survival.

it is not walking around in a massive openworld shooter where every city is devastated, Demons/zombies all around you, because that isn't scary, its arcade .

Doom 4 only has to be a very highly advanced version of DOOM 3, because that shooter is basically right, but dont make a horror version of Fallout 3 or Borderlands/ FAR CRY 3, because this type of shooter you just cant make scary...you have too much room to run, too easy to escape and too easy to see the demons at range.

combine DOOM 3 with Penumbra, the first FEAR and a touch of Bioshock and you've got it..... but steer well clear of openworld, silly weapon vending machines, crappy side missions and lame arse skill/ bonus points.... and get rid of that silly HUD stuff that we have nowadays...up the horror make the game truly terrifing, add real evil to it.

how do we do this ? well it'll take about a month to come up with something, 10 blokes around a table working on it, but deffo not 4 years...yup we all knew DOOM 4 was in trouble last year

graphics? dead easy, you dont need anything better than the Rage engine or Crytec, stop farting around trying to make a masterpiece, concentrate on atmosphere and true evil and everything else will work out ok....

e.g A Hell Knight at close range suddenly attacking you in the dark is very scary.... but at 1/4 a mile in a burning city with a sniper rifle and it's fail fail fail!

i havent mentioned Dead Space? no that's not scary or smart enough, Doom 4 has to downright nasty !!! more like `Exorcist meets Evil Dead meets Hostel`.... or something ha ha
 
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Seems like it could be heading in the footsteps of Duke Nukem :(. I hope not as Doom 3 was one of the best FPS games I have played and I had high hopes for Doom 4.
 
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