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Doom 3 Gets Reviews, Piracy Questions, Exultation
Yeti Von Baseball writes "Now that Doom 3 has officially shipped to stores, Computer Gaming World just posted its Doom 3 review - they also posted about 100 or so new screens." Elsewhere, GameSpy has an in-progress weblog and first-look impressions on the "claustrophobic corridors" of the game, Telefragged posted one of the first reviews, praising "a grand slam of action, story, atmosphere, and pure terror", the BBC reports on how "potential sales could be hit by the extent of online piracy of the game", and Time Magazine has a feature on Doom 3 and id.
Multiplayer sucks. bad.
downloaded it a couple days ago cause i just couldn't wait, then bought it today as it hit the shelves. do youreself a favor - upgrade your pc then BUY THIS GAME!
I'm curious to see what it gets. I noticed on Gamerankings.com that all the earliest magazine reviews gave it a 9.4 -- the site members were giving it about an 8.6. It did strike me as odd that the first 3 reviews were exactly the same rating...but I guess that's not impossible.
Moo.
And it's good :) doesn't run so hot on my setup though..
:-/ great for the story.. bad for my trigger finger
amd athlon xp 2400+
512mb ddr 400
7200rpm hard drive
nvidia geforce 4 ti 4400 (128mb)
it doesn't detect my surround sound setup (sb live! with klipsch pro media 4.1's)
it runs at medium detail @ 640x480 and gets pretty choppy in places...
my only complaint so far is that it's so dark that even the flashlight doesn't even really let you see much (i'm trying not to turn my brightness up but it seems i may have to so i don't keep running into guard rails and such)...
overall though.. i think the intro was a bit long.. i wanna kill stuff.. and kill it i shall... after the 15-20 minute introduction
Kyle
http://www.unlogikal.net/
they said they're doing something totally new... quake 4 is being done by someone else, and the wolfenstein series is being done by someone else.. so they're doing something totally new this time around and they should be starting on it soon.
Kyle
http://www.unlogikal.net/
I've got 4 computers at my disposal of various capabilities, and this is how Doom3 has run on them:
XP 2600
Ati Rad 9800 Pro
2 x WD Raptor striped raid
1GB PC3200 Corsair
Can run smooth on High settings at 800x600, AA disabled. Game looks fantastic
------
XP 2000
Geforce FX 5200
80GB 2mb buffer maxtor
512MB PC2700 Generic
Barely runs at 640x480. Framerates are in the 10-20 range. Would not recommend purchasing if you have similar specs. Upgrading the CPU or video card would have the largest impact.
------------
P4 2.4Ghz B
ATI Radeon 9500
512MB PC2100
2 x 80GB Maxtor Striped RAID
Runs smooth on Medium settings at 640x480, or Low at 800x600. Definitely playable.
-----------
Haven't tried the 4th yet, but I don't hold much hope. It's an XP 1600 w/ GF4 Ti4200.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
my only complaint so far is that it's so dark that even the flashlight doesn't even really let you see much (i'm trying not to turn my brightness up but it seems i may have to so i don't keep running into guard rails and such)...
People used to say the same thing about Quake 1. However, if you got rid of all ambient light and played, you could see everything you were supposed to and without the washed out-ness that comes from upping your gamma too far.
For those of you finding the game too dark try these settings:
1)In game bring down the console (ctrl alt ~)
2)r_gamma 1.3 - The default is 1, try a range from 1.2-1.4, some have said to go as high as 1.8 but that is way too bright and takes away from the atmosphere imho.
3)r_brightness 1.5 - Again the default is 1, try a range up 1.8 to what looks best for you.
4) Turn off AA, turn on vsync on.
To boost performance try this!
In your DOOM 3 directory, find "DoomConfig.cfg" (x:\Program Files\Doom 3\base). Open DoomConfig.cfg in Notepad.
Find the line:
seta image_cacheMegs "XX"
Where XX is try increasing this value in according to how much ram you have. I have 1 GB of ram, and set it to 256, HUGE boost in framerate, game runs a lot smoother now. Try these values: 32, 96, 128, 256.
Waited, shuffled my feet today morning, hoping my wife wouldnt notice, waiting till 9:30 to leave home so that I could pick up the game at 10:00 from the nearest store.
Store opened at 10:00, saw a bunch of people waiting for it to open, thought they all would be in line for the game. Felt like an old geek after realizing I was the only one to pick the game up. Felt real old waiting at the counter to pay for it.
Read reviews/previews/salivate over old screenshots all day. Didnt feel a bit guilty at getting paid for nothing.
Reached home, ignored wife completely, popped CD's in, installed, breathless now.
Fired it up on my not so humble box, encountering game freezes during cut screens/ loading textures etc.
Trying to pick up my jaw from the floor ever since.
Game rocks..its dark, deliciously creepy, I have a weak heart and I dont think I will play at night (also slightly considerate towards neighbours).
After two hours of getting creeped out, eaten alive, ass kicked, munched on. pulled down the ever so trusty in-game commandline, typed in the words:
spawn monster_boss_cyberdemon
Holy mother of God! Is that...omg!!...
Rapid Nirvana
I have it - and I'll say that it will run fine at 800x600 at medium.
Don't go with Low setting though - the textures look washed out... if you can't run at 800x600 I would go for 640x480 at medium - it looks better than any res with low textures.
It runs pretty well on my laptop (17 fps average in using "timedemo demo1") at 1024x768 at High quality....
My laptop's specs:
Pentium M 355 (with 2 Megs of cache)
1GB DDR
Nvidia Quadro Go 1000 (this is my mobile workstation)
Friedmud
Actually in DOOM the grunts (pistol, shotgun and machine gun dudes) and lost souls would fight their own kind (actually lost souls would only get one hit on the other lost soul before returning to you,) though the imps, cacodemons, pinkies, Mancubuses, etc wouldn't hurt their own kind.
:)
The only exception was Barron of hell v.s. Hell Knight.
DOOM 2 had levels where you basicly had to get the monsters to fight eachother... Like the one level where there's a Cyber Demon and a Spider mastermind in the same room, or the level with a Cyber Demon that was behind 20 or so Barrons of Hell that weren't facing you.
Fun times
-Derick
Species that shoot bullets can injure, and get into fighst with, any monster in the game.
Species that use missile attacks can only injure, and therefore get in fights with, members of other species.
That is to say that a Grunt can get into a fight with any other monster, including another grunt. While an Imp can only get into fights with any monster that is NOT an Imp.
There are four exceptions to this:
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Copying bits that are arranged in a deliberate order against the stated wishes of the material's creator is theft. So is "borrowing" it.
Incorrect. Those actions are copyright infringement, not theft. Theft involves taking something from its owner, with the intent to deprive them of it. When you make infringing copies you are taking something, but not depriving anyone else of it.
If it's worth owning, wait for it and pay for it.
Agreed. Just don't apply labels that don't fit. "Theft" has legal and moral meanings that don't apply to copyright infringement. Copyright infringement is a crime, and although it doesn't deprive anyone of anything, it does violate an important social contract, so what it is is enough, without calling it something else.
If you don't "wanna pay for it", and the creator hasn't told you it's free for the taking, you have no right to possess a copy of it.
More precisely, we as a society have decided that to give up that right, mostly, for a time, in order to promote the publication of more works. We as individuals should understand and honor this choice, because it's a good one. Again, though, don't make the mistake of assuming that the author of a work has some natural right to control the work. The only natural right the author has is to decide whether or not to create it, and whether or not to publish it. Everything after that is a legal fiction (for a good reason).
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. We have the two different words because they are two different things, and one does not equal the other.
Copyright Infringement does not equal Theft, and there is nothing that you can say or do to change that.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
my only complaint so far is that it's so dark that even the flashlight doesn't even really let you see much
I had the same problem, tried setting brightness to max in options, but the game was still much too dark to enjoy. Here is the real solution:
The game has 0-2 gamma levels, level 1 is standard. Open the Console (CTRL+ALT+~) and type in r_gamma 1.5. Now the game is bright enough to play!
"You should never doubt what nobody is sure about." -- Willy Wonka
I've clocked in about 10 h of play so far, all on single player, so that's what I'll focus on.
The game has a half-life story: Bunch of monsters spawning because of wacko-scientific experiments. Whatever. The guns are all standard, pistol, shotgun, machine gun, grenade, rocket launcher, and of course BFG and plasma rifle; also nothing new.
Gameplay largely involves walking around identical looking factory/metal corridors. The lighting is always always dark. This is particularly frustrating since our hero is incapable of wielding both a flashlight and a weapon. Yes, that's right. The flashlight is technically a weapon, and you can't hold 2 weapons at the same time. That means you often find yourself shooting in the dark hoping you hit stuff. Highly annoying.
There is very little to figure out, all the maps are linear with no more than one-way to go. The 'secrets' in the game usually involve either looking behind a shelf for some ammo, or entering a code you found for some safe.
Because the engine is so taxing, there are very few monsters at any given time. Usually 2, at most 5. There are few open areas.
If you haven't gotten the idea, it's basically a very pretty, but utterly dull shoot 'em up. There is no secondary fire, and the weapons are unimaginative. The storyline is virtually nonexistant. After 10 levels, I still know next to nothing, except ****SPOILER*** there is some 'evil' scientist running around, and there's my marine captain trying to help us contact Earth. *** END SPOILER***.
Finding new monsters is undoubtable the 'coolest' thing, since they are so well made. But that is about the only thing that makes me come crawling back. I'd wait a bit before you consider picking this up.
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
If a monster damages another monster with a barrel explosion, the injured monster will become hostile - even if they are of the same species (e.g. Baron of Hell vs. Baron of Hell.) This gets exploited in some Tyson runs of Doom.
When this happens, the monster will try to attack with the missile attack. Since this doesn't work, the monster will eventually close inand use the melee scratches - this will cause the two-way combat to occurr.
I live in a small town so my sole local means was sold out as of today when I got my damn check, so I ordered it online for a good price considering my local game shop wanted nearly 60 dollars plus tax. Ouch.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
The cheats and consoelc commands have changed some since the alpha version. One of our users posted a pretty good list here:
:)
Doom 3 Console Commands and cheats
If you figure out any more, please let me know.
I didn't really get that old doom feeling until I turned on noclip and walked through a few walls anyway.
Future Shop has a good deal going on Doom 3...
Buy Doom 3 and get Knights of the Republic free, along with a poster (oooooohhhhh) and a figurine (aaaahhhh).
Not a bad deal.
According to this it will be available for $45 at Circuit City this Friday. I would think that other retailers might follow suit. However, I think you're on to something since UT 2004 went for $35 initially and sold very well. On the other hand, every retailer is selling out so it's not like people aren't buying it. Personally, I couldn't wait. I got it last night and it's worth every penny so far.
The gaming industry moves at a fairly rapid pace. Part of the reason for this is that the average lifespan of some of these games is short. Gamers (usually 15-24 year olds), typically have short attention spans. They will focus on this game for the next week or two, blow through all of the levels of the game and get to the end, learning all the cheat codes to get them through it if they have to. Once they're done, they'll play multiplayer for awhile (perhaps a few months). By January 2005, they'll definitely move on to something else, if they haven't done so by then. So that's why the price will drop dramatically by X-mas, so as to attract the next **batch** of gamers - those that want to try the game but aren't die-harders and maybe more on a budget.
Oh yeah, you go to hell alright. Also, parts of the base are being taken over by hell.
But don't let me throw you, you spend a LOT of time running through similar looking futuristic tunnels with crappy light fixtures that go out if you look at them crosseyed.
Wow, you clearly have NO idea what you are talking about. I'm guessing that Doom 3 took 20-30 million dollars to develop, and I'm just being conservative. I wish I could find the article, but PC Gamer gave a breakdown of what your typical games development costs were. For a 50 dollar game, they were lucky to make 2-3 dollars a copy. Is that greed? Besides, don't blame the developers, blame the publishers that bleed them dry. Next time before you post, think, and say "Do I really know what I'm talking about?"
Yes indeed. Which is all fine until you pull out the flashlight only to spot something that needs the shotgun to kill...except that the last weapon you had was the hand-gun. By the time you have sorted it out, you've been hit a couple of times.
It's not 'terrible', but would have been a whole lot easier if you could say, strap the light onto your gun or similar and shoot at the same time.
Whilst I'm typing too, I'll say the other big problem is how all the guns really suck compared to the shotgun. Every creature in the game can be killed by shooting with the shot-gun, running back behind the last corner, and then waiting for it to wander around and shooting it again.
Since 99% of the game is wondering around tight corridors, the shotgun is all you really need.
1) Create a destination folder (for example, c:\program files\doom 3)
2) Insert CD 1.
3) Copy Doom3.exe from CD 1 (Setup\Data\Doom3.exe) to your destination folder.
4) Create a "base" directory in your destination folder (for example, c:\program files\doom 3\base).
5) Copy pak002.pk4 from CD 1 (SetupData\base\pak002.pk4) to the "base" folder.
6) Copy game00.pk4 from CD 1 (SetupData\base\game00.pk4) to the "base" folder.
7) Insert CD 2.
8) Copy pak000.pk4 from CD 2 (SetupData\base\pak000.pk4) to the "base" folder.
9) Copy pak001.pk4 from CD 2 (SetupData\base\pak001.pk4) to the "base" folder.
10) Insert CD 3.
11) Copy pak003.pk4 from CD 2 (SetupData\base\pak003.pk4) to the "base" folder.
12) Copy pak004.pk4 from CD 2 (SetupData\base\pak004.pk4) to the "base" folder.
13) Go to the base folder and create a text file called "doomkey". NOTE: This file should not have any file extension.
14) Open the doomkey file in notepad.
15) Enter your CD Key exactly as it appears on the CD Key sticker. Use all capital letters and do not include any dashes.
16) Save that file.
17) Doom 3 should now be installed on your computer.
The final layout on the CD drive should look like this:
[destination folder]\Doom3.exe
[destination folder]\base\doomkey
[destination folder]\base\game00.pk4
[destination folder]\base\pak000.pk4
[destination folder]\base\pak001.pk4
[destination folder]\base\pak002.pk4
[destination folder]\base\pak003.pk4
[destination folder]\base\pak004.pk4
I haven't seen much complaints in here so far, but it seems like a lot of people with Radeons (me included) complain about intermittent graphic lockups and freezes...
I started having those problems after the first few objectives, starting in Alpha Labs.
After trying all the obvious solutions (updating drivers for various hardware, trying the different sound settings in dxdiag, etc.), I found that turning AGP completely off makes the game stop freezing.
Hope this helps any of you, because I was just about to throw the Doom3 CDs out the window when I found the solution.
Gamespot and the BBC are reporting that several thousands of illegal copies of Doom 3 were pirated over the weekend, shaping up to be one of the most pirated pieces of software of all time. One technology correspondent estimates that Activision and id Software lost up to "$2,749,500 worth of software at Doom 3's $54.99 sticker price." Activision has no comment, but Matt Pierce of PC Gamer has some harsh words. John Carmack is reportedly very unhappy. The game was legally scheduled for release today.
By the end of the year. There are still a lot of higher priority things, but it is coming soon.
Hopefully punkbuster will keep the source release from having any negative impact on the player community.
John Carmack
If you can't get a NoCD crack, Nero + Daemon Tools do the job nicely. That's how I got mine to work without having the CD in there all the time.
Duct tape, XML, democracy: Not doing the job? Use more.
According to Todd whatever-his-name-is (someone from id), linux binaries will be available for download "shortly after retail release".
There's no linux installer on the CD, and will not be a boxed linux version of the game.
I know some people that are buying this and constantly looking at the doom3 site for any sign of linux binaries. Personally, I'm not buying the game until I have the linux binaries in my possession.
The RRP in the UK is £44.99. After discounts UK stores will probably be selling it at about the same price as most other PC games start at.
Online prices are cheaper but not to the same extent as other games. I payed £17.99 for UT2004 and I have a pre-order in for Stalker at £17.99
No, the first _9_ levels, out of 27. There would eventually be a new episode added with another 9 levels, as well. Know your roots.
To those whining that $55USD is too much... try doing a little leg work before bitching.
Microcenter has a coupon to purchase it until 8/8/04 for $46.87.
Circuit City has it online for $44.99 with free shipping.
Best Buy will price match (in store purchase only) for the difference plus 10%.
What does this mean? You can easily pick up Doom 3 for less than $46USD. Quit your whining and start playing!
Thanks,
--
Matt
No. For one, the software released by id for which there is source code available is not an example of good programming, either in the small or the large.
If you have ever looked at the code that is released by id, which I am certain that you have not, you would immediately recognize a lot of deficiencies: a lot of things will be hard-coded, there is no coherent polymorphism and dynamic dispatch will be spread out over several source files, error conditions are not properly handled (many of which can result in crashes), no effort is made for permitting localization, suboptimal and sometimes downright horribly inefficient algorithms and datastructures are used for anything not directly related to rendering, the potential efficiency of the network is poorly utilized, there is no or poor effort to make effective use of system resources for caching, the quality of code documentation is inconsistent, the code itself makes much use of variable name abuse from the very link you provide, and then there are other design deficiencies present in their engines that are unrelated to the quality of the code itself.
These engines are small, and id really isn't a company in the business of writing software; it is in the business of writing game engines for a relatively small industry of developers in the business of writing FPS titles. The code they have released thus far has nothing in common with "software engineering" and no one should point to it as an example of how to write software. However, that is orthogonal to whether or not John Carmack has provided useful contributions to his industry, which he has, though you've exaggerated them slightly.
I didn't know that slashbot mods would see a statement like this and think it was anything other than humor. Not that there's anything wrong with humor, but "informative?" The only way this is informative is if your life and wealth of knowledge is somehow important to the masses. Still, it is humorous.
I'm always right and I can prove it, because to the best of my knowledge, I've never been wrong.