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Marine Finds Duct Tape on Mars
mhore writes "It seems that one of the biggest complaints about Doom 3 has been resolved. Thanks to Glen Murphy, you may now use your flashlight and weapon at the same time, thanks to the ingenious 'Duct Tape' mod! While some may think this ruins the game play, I disagree and think it is worth noting." There's plenty of other Doom 3-related coverage over at PlanetDoom, including a pointer to a new IGN review, which PlanetDoom considers "a lot more fair and balanced than some of the reviews we've seen so far", with an overall 8.9/10 score.
So has anyone benchmarked this against the linux version? Infact have the linux binary's been released?
This is the first time I have ever heard of a small site that was able to sucessfully defend itself from a slashdotting, due to an early warning.
Actually, the server is so far holding up fine. I don't think quite so many Slashdot people click on gaming-related links as other stories.
I'm more worried what will happen if visitors go elsewhere on my server, as there are some quite large files there. Oh well :D
If the access logs prove to be interesting, I'll summarise and post them, as I was always curious what it was like to be slashdotted.
While this mod is not for everyone, I've tried to maintain a certain level of paranoia by making the flashlight only attach to your smaller guns (but not the pistol - that would spoil the early early game), and making the cone of projection much smaller than the hand-held flashlight. This leads to situations where you're in a pitch black room, but can only see a very small area, which for some is much more claustrophobic than holding the default wide-angle flashlight. This especially applies when swinging your view around, and catching a glimpse of an enemy, who you are then unable to find as they've run off into the abundant darkness.
Granted, as you can still use the current flashlight it does make things slightly less scary, but Doom3 has plentiful amounts of scariness to spare. Like playing the marine in Alien vs. Predator, I know of several people who still can't play it even using this mod, due to fear.
There's plenty of other Doom 3-related coverage over at PlanetDoom, including a pointer to a new IGN review, which PlanetDoom considers "a lot more fair and balanced than some of the reviews we've seen so far", with an overall 8.9/10 score. And yet PlanetDoom is a member of "the GameSpy network." Didn't GameSpy and IGN have a merger? Isn't this basically GameSpy/IGN praising its own review...?
http://www.ati.com/support/infobase/4547.html
I tried them out of curiosity, and I am indeed seeing improvement in framerates in Doom 3. I wonder though, if these tweaks are designed for OpenGL, will they translate over to other OpenGL games like Call of Duty?
This game has been getting quite a few negative reviews, so I figured I'd add my mostly positive review. Yes, the game is dark. Yes, using the flashlight and a gun at the same time is not playing the game the way it was meant to be played (if it was they would have added it). Personally I have had NO PROBLEM finding the enemies and taking them out. When I do use the flashlight it's almost always to see if there are any goodies hidden in the dark corners. Yes, my lighting settings are unchanged from the defaults. This is Doom. It's supposed to be scary, so quit whining, bitches!
Secondly, this game delivers exactly what it promises to deliver: an old-school fps which is designed to be terrifying. It isn't a mistake that the maps are linear! I used to hate running around across a level trying to figure out what to do next in Quake 2. If you save partway through a level, you don't have to worry about being lost when you come back two months later to play again. You can't say the same for many games. When I pick up an FPS I'm not doing it to solve puzzles; I want to splatter some blood across the walls, and I don't want a learning curve.
As an adult, the more complex a game is, the more unlikely I am to play it. I've been waiting for a game to beat Half Life in its first person experience, and I can safely say that Doom 3 beats it hands down. If it makes you bored, stop complaining and find another game. No one is forcing you to play it, and it's a lot of fun for myself and many others.
Only complaint so far: memory requirements. When they said 384 megs min, they were being honest. I'm hitting the VM a lot with only 256 megs and it causes slowdown at inopportune times!
> Or Gen 6 night vision.
Do you really want to be blinded everytime a light flickers, and see the stunning reflections and shadows in a dull, fuzzy green? IMHO the id developers did well not to give the player night vision. It would have ruined the atmosphere created by the masterful creation of photons that bounce.
MOUNT TAPE U1439 ON B3, NO RING
I've got a great idea. Allow the flashlight with the gun, but make it realistic, and make it so battery life is short... Heh, nothing like adding to the feeling when your batteries run out in the dark to the "Oh crap im screwed" feeling.
How about no Flashlight?
If they hadn't given us a flashlight at all would someone have complained about it just because other games have had one?
Also, you can adjust the brightness of the game. It's SUPPOSED to be dark, that's kind of the point. That is the entire point, even. SOME games put you in a room that is supposed to be dark, but you can still see everything just fine, which isn't like being in the dark for me. I know when I'm in the dark in the real world, I can't see the demons and stuff running around trying to eat me. I don't see why a good game should be any different.
I for one have been enjoying the hell out of Doom 3, and I'm pretty jaded about games in general because on the whole, most of them suck.
Is DOOM 3 perfect? Well, no, but then I'm kind of bias against first person shooters. BUT I still enjoy it, so that should say something alone.
Also, I don't use the flashlight ALL That often, unless I find myself in an unussually dark spot and want to take a better look around, but the areas that are so dark they require that are actually fairly few. Most of the rooms are are lit just well enough that you can make out everything, even if only vaguely.
In my opinion the whole flashlight thing was so unimportant it simply never even occured to me that some children might cry about it.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
While I completely understand the logic behind having a torch attached to the gun, or being able to hold the gun in one hand and the pistol in the other , I'd have to say that I think this is a dumb mod - at least for single player.
The whole apeal of the game is ruined if you're able to have the flashlight on all the time. Less things 'jump out' at you. The game would be much less suspenseful, and, IMO, less entertaining as a result of such a mod. Doom 3 doesn't offer much gameplay value (not to be confused with graphic quality or the engine, oh ye pedantics) without the creepyness/darkness, IMO, as FPS games are truly pretty run-of-the-mill now, and Doom 3 doesn't bring anything to that table in terms of gameplay. Removing the suspense that arrives from having to switch back and forth from a gun and the flashlight in a dark room in order to see what you're shooting at is foolish - even though it would be realistic in real life to be able to shoot and hold a light, it is not practical for the game. Suspension of disbelief is key in this game, just as it would be in film.
Hell, if anyone complains about the 'default' game state with the claim of "reality", step back from your monitor and brain yourself with your keyboard. You're on Mars killing demons in a scientific lab which has, essentially, created an entropy engine/infinite supply of energy, FFS. Oh, and of course, there's the whole "portal to hell" bit.
Multiplayer is another story entirely. Doom 3 has introduced an entirely new form of camping - the "stand in the dark spot in the middle of the hall and just shoot" camp. It necessitates that a person turn on the barrel flare and projectile light features in DoomConfig.cfg - without doing so, you can't even see the person shooting you.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I've always felt that the eye's light adaptation should be simulated by the game. If you play in a well lit room, your eyes won't adapt to changing light levels in a computer game, so I wonder, why doesn't the game increase the lighting when the majority of the scene is dark? It would even be possible to create "blinding" effects when entering daylight from a dark room. It would also create the impression of an even higher dynamic range of light than what is actually possible on a monitor.
-larsch
I sent an earlier version of this to Glen but he hasn't replied. This is my initial attempt to add more flashlights. The Pistol (heh) Chaingun, Plasma Rifle, and BFG 9000 now come with the flashlight attachment. The Rocket Launcher has it, but for some reason it shoots out sideways. (You can only see it when you reload)
.pk4 file he provided and using a diff program to compare his files to the original files, and then simply made similar changes to the other weapons. Then I included the changed files in with his files, zipped them back up, and named the zip file pak005.pk4. It works like a charm.
http://www.acspedia.com/files/pak005.zip
I want to be clear about this - this is derived directly and immediately from Glenn's work, all credit to him, though mistakes (like the rocket launcher) are purely my own. Hopefully he'll further modify his version.
Incidentally, I did this by unzipping the
...this was called a cheat :P
press f1 for unlimited amo, f2 for flashlight always on, f3 for unlimited health, right mouse button to continue...
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Carmack and his crew are kids. In fact, they're a certain type of kid. --Still locked in that Tod McFarlane brand of, "Like, there's this Fuckin' Demon, and he's like, Really Tuff!", state. I played D&D with guys like that in highschool. Friendly enough, but. . . Hooo boy. Hang out with guys like that for long enough, and your brain will either start shutting down core functions in order to prevent itself from going insane with boredom, or you'll become fed up and start getting snide and bitter with people who are simply not in the same place as you and neither can nor need to comprehend the shit you're trying to come to terms with.
Ah. Highschool. Where everybody is immature and overbearing in their own special ways.
The best option, of course, is to just find the people you ARE supposed to fit with. Water finds its own level, as they say, and everybody needs to explore the things they need to explore. Including the John Carmacks of the world.
Halflife was a bit more mature. They hired an actual writer. When you realized those marines were not there to rescue you, but were actually on a 'clean up' mission. . , THAT was an exciting bit of interactive game-play! --At least for where my head was at the time. "Now THIS is what the X-Files is trying to be!" I thought.
Bloody monsters on Mars and stuff that jumps out of the shadows? id games are for kids who still have boogey-man issues.
To be fair, though. . . We can all appreciate the cool-value of id. It took a long time and a lot of work to train my subconscious to allow me access to a light-saber on demand in my dreams.
Shotguns provided through a good user interface are a nice way to reclaim power over the Dark!
-FL
I do think it's a bit silly though, all this technology used to colonise mars and the best solution they can come up with is a old style flashlight (what about infra red nightvision ?)
Well, infra red also needs an active light source - which is just invisible for normal eyes. But you can't expect your enemies not also to be able to see that infrared light - especiall if they come from hell.
I do agree with your commentary and logic on lights, but as far as Doom3 is concerned, it doesn't apply. Things simply know where you are, once they are alert to your presence (Froms ound, etc) There is no place to hide, they seek you out. We have tactical rails on everythying from pistols to rifles these days, it doesn't make a lick of sense to me that we'd go over 100 years in the future only to downgrade our tactical weaponry. If the guy wasn't meant to shine a flashlight around in the first place, they wouldn't have given him one at all. It should have been on his rifle and or handgun to start with. Maybe an optional item to pick up, but still.
And were this a better simulation of reality, eyes adjusting to the darkness would be a useful thing, but since the game doesn't program such things into it, and thus it's not possible to see into that dark corner now matter how long you stare at it, using that kind of logic for doom3 is simply flawed.
More duct tape, less stupid story driven programming.
I do think it's a bit silly though, all this technology used to colonise mars and the best solution they can come up with is a old style flashlight (what about infra red nightvision ?). Of course it is you basic weapon, you can club people with it.
Apollo 13 wouldn't return home without duct tape solutions. In space exploration it can - and it does! - happen that all the modern technology becomes useless due to some sad coincidence and suddenly duct tape or old-fashioned flashlight is your only hope. After all, in Doom 3 we don't have a perfectly functioning Mars colony, t's a place where lots of sh* has hit lots of fans. Let's assume for sake of the story that passive nightvision is unavailable because opening the portal to hell has created strong residual infrared emission, blinding the marine's nightvision googles.
Safely? yeah, if you consider massive capillary breakage, and hence bruising and (in space in the vicinity of a star) hellacious sunburn to be safe. You're not going to explode in a vacuum, but it's not exactly Jim Dandy either