DOOM III This Summer

Crusader writes "Activision and id Software have issued a press release announcing that DOOM III will be released this summer. A Linux client has also been in development alongside the requisite Win32 version."

Comments

Really Good News

[Rikerag515]

This is really great to hear, a major software publisher is actually going to have a Linux Client available, possibly in around the same time the Windows client is released, bravo ID.

Mac Version

[somethinghollow]

I guess a Mac version won't be too far behind if there will be a Linux version. Now... all I need is one of those new fangled G5s to play it on...

Does anyone know where system requierments might be found / when they will be announced?

Nice graphics..

[DR SoB]

Too bad I'll need a new computer that comes with the kitchen sink to run it..

The screen shots look suspiciously similiar to Half-Life 2 though, what's up with that? Even some of the monsters look HL1 like. I have a feeling this isn't going to have nearly the popularity as Doom1 did (well it might but that'll just be riding there fame). It's kinda like movie sequels, you're so excited about a new edition, but then it always ends in disappointment..

If HL2 and Doom3 battled I wonder who would win? I wonder if the fundamentals of the game will be the same between the two, and if Worldcraft (or hammer) is going to work on both as well?

Re:Nice graphics..

[Anonymous Coward]

If HL2 and Doom3 battled I wonder who would win? I wonder if the fundamentals of the game will be the same between the two, and if Worldcraft (or hammer) is going to work on both as well?

In many ways, they're two very different approaches to an FPS engine - from a point of view of the lighting systems, what they can render (indoors vs outdoors) and what they can do.

In particular, the lighting models are completely different. Half-Life 2 uses pre-calculated radiosity lightmaps which, while awesomely realistic, are somewhat static. It does preserve some directional information in the lightmaps for model lighting, normal maps etc, but I gather it's limited to simple non-shadowed dynamic point sources like the original Half-Life.

Doom 3, however, looks like it does everything real-time. I don't think there's any precalculated radiosity light maps (but I could be wrong), and all lighting is done on the fly with what are effectively point sources. Things can be hugely dynamic, with lights casting shadows from world geometry, models, etc, but it's not particularly realistic due to the absence of radiosity 'bouncing' and the ultra-sharp shadows. It can also project textures as lights, giving the atmospheric 'light through a grille' effect and so on.

The scenes they can render look very different, too - Half-Life 2's got a terrain engine thing which can render some pretty huge outdoors maps, along with parallax-enabled, brush-based 'skyboxes' which can be rendered behind everything for giant-looking city scenes. Doom 3 seems to specialise in highly detailed indoors scenes, with a couple of outdoors scenes being effectively just large rooms.

The engines are very different, but they seem well-suited for the games they've been written for. The slightly plastic-looking, ultra-atmospheric-lighting indoors engine of Doom 3 would be rubbish for Half-Life 2, while the naturalistic, realistically-lit indoors-outdoors engine of Half-Life 2 would look terrible used for Doom 3.

In terms of editors, I do know that an enhanced Hammer is being used for Half-Life 2, but I've heard very little about Doom 3's editor (and that's with friends working for Raven!) I understand it's somehow integrated with the engine, and it definitely sounds like another home-grown thing, but other than that I don't know. I'd be surprised if Hammer (or another brush-based editor) would work with Doom 3, but of course I could be completely wrong. :-)

Re:Nice graphics..

[RatBastard]

Considering that Half-Life ripped off the basic backstory for DOOM, yeah, I'd say they were pretty similar. If you read Tom Hall's Doom Bible, you'll see that Tom Hall planned to have a monorail in the original game.

From looking at the Doom Bible, it looks like DOOM 3 is going to be a hell of a lot closer to Tom's original vision than DOOM1/DOOM2 ever was. I wonder what the hell the Hand of Lothar will be used for?

Knoppix

[IceFox]

I wonder how long after it is released a Script/app comes out that when given disk 1 (DoomIII) and disk 2 (Knoppix) it will give you an iso that you can burn and then boot straight into DoomIII under Linux without anything else running for maximum performance without the hassle of installing Linux.

-Benjamin Meyer

S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl

[Zx-man]

Ok, DooM III is just fine, but, since I'm form Ukraine, 'tis more exciting for me && I'm more waiting for the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

Here are the movies from the game: Video

P.S. I'd really like to view them, but, ahh, my 14400Bps modem just rules the world! P.P.S. Unfortunately, it uses Micro$oft DirectX, so do not expect a version for GNU/Linux or MacOS X...

No Linux Client

[Bruha]

There has been no announcement on a Linux client. Someone misquoted Linuxnews's article.

Far Cry beat them to it

[bonch]

I was blown away by Far Cry. It matched the Doom 3 screenshots I saw, but running NOW. In addition, they had the nerve to set the game in an outdoor tropical environment with no visibility limit.

That game seamlessly goes from hunting mercenaries on an island camp in the jungle to entering a cave and suddenly being in a Doom 3-esque claustrophobic environment shooting at genetic mutations.

As far as all the reports and screenshots have shown, Doom 3 is almost entirely shadowy, indoor environments. Blech. Far Cry was a breath of fresh air.

You know...

[Short Circuit]

I wonder if NiN was the reason for the "nailgun" in Quake. People who knew of the band could hardly miss their logo on the ammo boxes.

And many of us who'd only heard of them because of the game saw it, too.

Just one of those things I wonder about.