Tim Willits Interview: Lead Doom3 Designer

Joe writes: "PlanetQuake3.net has a interview with id Software's Tim Willits who is the lead designer and project manager of Doom 3. Tim talks about the new generation of level editing in Doom3, his favorite maps of all time, how designers and coders work together, and many other subjects. One of the most interesting parts of the interview was this question: 'PlanetQuake3: Will it be possible to adjust the speed of the game for between single player and multiplayer play?' 'Tim Willits: Yes, most of the game logic is outside the main executable, this gives us great flexibility in changing basic game parameters between single and multiplayer.'"

Comments

Hmmm

[friday2k]

I don't know what the others think but for me a game is not only about gfx. I still play Half-Life (OZ mod that is) and yes, the gfx and levels are not that great but the multiplayer experience is still the best (for me). Why do we have to go further and further with gfx, new levels, etc when the old games still have their challenge? So it will be more realistic to shoot up monsters, more realistic sound, creepier levels, etc., but does that really make for a better game? Just wondering ...

Re:Hmmm

[ApoxyButt]

I tend to agree with the guys at Penny Arcade that Doom3 is great for a proof-of-concept, so to speak, but it's still just Doom. You can put all the detailing in the world on a '90 Civic, but that doesn't mean that driving it is going to be any more fun.

If you believe Gabe and Tycho from PA, and I do, the exciting thing about Doom3 is the possibilities its engine opens up for games that really push the envelope.

Re:I don't get it

[DG]

Thanks to Loki (RIP) I've had a chance to do both on my Linux box:

Quake
Quake2
Soldier of Fortune
Quake 3
Descent 3

And to be honest, I found the "Quake-alikes" to be a lot more fun; a lot more immersive, than Descent.

I've run for my life from a Shambler, gotten totally creeped out when I found a lab full of my fellow space marines begging for death, and laid patiently behind cover while scouting an area with the scope on my sniper rifle - great fun, all. I could suspend disbelief enough to make me care about what was going on in the game.

Descent... left me cold. Robots drifting around endless corridors? Why? Where's the motivation?

Story can really change a FPS into something much more than "run amok shooting baddies" - Bungie's Marathon is a prime example. Done well, it can really hold your imagination. And isn't that what fun is all about? Not every game needs an original play mechanism, if the story is gripping enough.

That's why Q3 didn't do much for me either - pretty engine, awesome control, gameplay that left me flat after a little while (no story) But hey, lots of other people love the game, so I don't have any problem with it. To each his own.

DG

Re:I don't get it

[NeMon'ess]

You probably don't understand what makes pong or even computer tennis great, either. Or tetris, bust a move, sonic the hedgehog...Simple can still be fun. Sure simple games could get boring as the repetition grows, but for some people they don't get bored easily.

Re:The sheer size is supposed to be staggering...

[Viking Coder]

"80 MB for ONE texture!"

In a word : no.

Enough with the trolling!!! ARGH!

[Rahga]

We get it. Doom 3 is same old same old, a lot of you are bored with the FPS genre, blah blah blah.

Doom 3 is a single player (our 4 player co-op) FPS game that is doing something most of you dorks haven't figured out yet. It's time for PC games to move beyond the Charlie Chaplin -> Talkies phase and into the Studio Picture phase. Doom 3 doesn't seem to aim for the blockbuster game of the year. Essentially, it's time for games to seperate the technology from the story and art. Every once and a while, a new game will be the first to showcase new technology, in the same way Star Wars recently started hitting up digital theaters. But, by and large, this is just a project to showcase some new technology which will not only try to tell a good story and make a nice profit off of it, but also to pimp the technology that powers it.

What makes this different from the projects like it in the past is that they are making no bones about what Doom 3 is... Doom 3 is to the game industry what "Harvey" was to the film industry. I guess. :)

Anyway.

Tim Willits says: "a great time to be in games"

[wackybrit]

it is a great time to be in games!!

I'm not so sure that I agree with this.

Is it really a great time to be 'in games'?

As a lone programmer, I say not. How many even slightly successful games these days are produced by single programmers or even small teams? Sure, there are a few very successful examples but they're all lo-fi or Shockwave games.. and not the typical 'computer games' we're used to.

It might be a great time to be in games for the coders like John Carmack who have about 20 art guys behind them, or for individual members of their teams who get control over a tiny aspect of the game (like Tim Willits), but on a personal level, it kinda sucks right now.

Games have taken the same track as movies. In the early days of movies, a small team would make a simple enjoyable film of 10 minutes or so.. but then as time went by, the land of Hollywood came in and hundreds of people were required to make a single movie. In the 90s, we had indie efforts like the Blair Witch Project that took movies back to small teams again.. could we experience the same with computer games one day?

I know I just sound cynical, and I am ready for the 'Troll' and 'Flamebait' moderation points, but I just don't feel it's such a great time to be in the gaming industry right now.

Even as a -consumer- many of the games now are unoriginal and not as good (relatively) as they were in the 80s. Why is now such a good time?