Slashdot Mirror
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.
I kept wondering why, why why why, that marines in the year 2195 didn't have flashlights standard on their helmets.... or why for that matter our hero in this game didn't have a helmet. =/
"In anticipation of a slashdotting due in 10 minutes (god bless being a /. subscriber), the images have been removed from the front page. You may still view them here, if you're interested: screenshot 1, screenshot 2 (image quality has also been reduced)."
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.
There is another mod that gives just your pistol a flashlight.
6 8. html
http://dlx.gamespot.com/pc/doom3/moreinfo_61041
$ whatis themeaningoflife
themeaningoflife: not found
" I kept wondering why, why why why, that marines in the year 2195 didn't have flashlights standard on their helmets.... or why for that matter our hero in this game didn't have a helmet. =/"
Flashlight on helmet==target.
Helmet==messes up hero's hair.
Now how about:
1. Modding all the weapons to have this feature, and...
2. Modding all the models so they look like they have the flashlight strapped on 'em with duct tape.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
I've found that by playing only at night, in pitch black, so that my eyes start to adjust to the dark, the extreme darkness of this game isn't that annoying.
:)
If I play in the morning before work, when the sun has risen, my eyes can't dynamically adjust from the light room to the dark screen, and I can't see anything. Maybe I need to eat more carrots or something.
In any case, the bonus about doing it this way is that the game is way scarier at night.
I was anticipating this game since it was first announced, and now that I've seen the trailer and all the IGS vids, I don't want it.
I bought RTCW, and I hated walking through a morg with monsters coming after me. It wouldn't been way cooler if Carmak and his crew designed something more realistic (but not 100%) like the Bourne identity. It freeks me out walking around in dark corridors not knowing what the heck is beside me.
Good job ID, you made it so scary I don't want it!
There was nothing scary about the firt Doom, the graphics were so bad that it didn't matter. Boy how that's changed.
Apparently the only fair reviews are those that are proportionally positive in respect to the square or the hype+publisher's net-rep. Oh wait, it's an IGN review (rolls eyes).
I have to honestly disagree that Doom 3 is a "good game" in any respects other than graphics technology. I can check out how well my current video card will run with entertaining benchmarks for free kthx.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
I disagree.
Doom 1 was seminal because it popularized FPSes. Doom 3 isn't innovative. Yes it uses some technology, but who remembers technical achievements? They're the minor awards at the academy awards.
People remember Mario 64 for having to chase baby penguins, because it was the first game to popularize the 3D platformer.
Doom 3 doesn't change the formula. Maybe, as a console gamer I'm biased, but Doom 3 is certainly the belle of the ball now, unless the mod community really takes off I don't seeing it being a watermark for gaming.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
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.
where said marines are not likly to be properly equiped ... to fight wars at night. We in the Space Marines expect all our wars to be fought in well-lit conditions!
deus does not exist but if he does
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...?
Look at the flashlight from the viewpoint that it is a weapon. It shines light and lets you see shit. That's its purpose. This marine travelled to Mars, not expecting a hell intrusion. Instead he gets one, has few weapons, picks up a flashlight and some other weapons and starts kicking ass. Awesome.
Okay, it's the future. Dudes in the future should have high tech badass gear. I mean, nightvision, we have, but in the future, shit, man, there should be some crazy shit that looks through walls and sees DEMONS. And, it sees them in the dark! Damn, in the future, they might even have dogs that wear electric turbons that allow them to focus energy that allows them to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. WOW.
This is a game. He went in without a weapon. Apparently, which is plainly obvious, there are idiots that work on Mars and do stupid shit. They're conjuring Hell and demons and crazy ass spiders. It's clear they care little for their own safety; and, therefore, they have not duct taped flashlights on their machineguns.
I'll continue playing without a pussy flashlight taped on. I'm in hell, and I'm kicking demon ass. F a flashlight, and F this mod.
Down with the DEMONS.
porp
"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."
Well first the room lights dim to red, and a warning klaxon goes off. Then there can be heard the increasing sound of steam escaping, with the gagues on front registering overload. Then the server case starts bulging, rivets popping and flying across the room. There's a call for evacuation over the intercom, while solid steel pressure doors drop down. Standing outside five minutes latter, a muffled boom can be heard. A moment of silence, then a call is placed to Dell.
Maybe now I'll stop shitting my pants every time I play DOOM 3.
John Carmack should have thought to include toilet paper with the game.
/dev/random
First off I've beaten Doom3 with no mods or outside info of any sort, it was awsome. Now about the flashlight....
Needing a seperate flashlight ADDS a LOT to the feeling of vulnerability, that something could jump out and attack you when you are most vulnerable!
Lets put it this way, How do you feel when you have your gun out with light, versus having no light? You can't see well, you're not sure about your surroundings...something may be over there...but it still provides a sence of security.
Taking away the gun takes away that sence of security. You can see better, but now you're vulneable, you'd feel better if you had that gun out wouldn't you?
So basically I think it's great game design. It greatly enhances the feeling of insecurity and vulnerability. I think even having this mod is great proof that id made a design that makes some people feel a little too insecure :)
There were a million ways that id could have handled the light issue, but they chose to pick the one game mechanic that slaps the player in the face with the fact it's just a game. It's a game, it has rules, and I am ripped out of the immersion.
This really upsets me with Doom 3, for those moments when I can stop playing it. It's not quite the letdown that Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Crushing Disappointment turned out to be, but it's got the same sense of wasted potential.
I can see why gun-mounted lights got left out. It would take away a lot of the stress & fear that comes from playing the game. But here's just a few ways they could have accomplished the "Player's vision is severely restricted in the midst of a firefight" effect, without ripping the player out of the game:
1) Only the pistol can have the flashlight out. Think about it, modern-day cops have a flashlight and a pistol out simultaneously all the damn time (flashlight held high with the non-weapon hand, pistol in weapon hand). It wouldn't have been that hard, and then they could have stuck with the massive heavy mag-lite they modelled.
2) Helmet light. Make the flashlight bob a bit with the player movement, lead the camera on quick turns (Marine turns his head), jiggle with recoil, etc. Lots of opportunity to immerse.
3) Right-angle flashlight in a breast pocket, a la Silent Hill 3. This is my favorite of the ideas. Put the light a little bit lower, and then if the player moves to fire a two-handed weapon, the arms begin to obscure vision, casting massive shadows everywhere and bright light back from the Marine's pale white arm into the player's face. I mean, it's not like the marine gets much sun, he's pretty reflective.
I hope someone takes that last idea & runs with it, but I'm not optimistic.
On the other hand, for a game as deeply flawed as Doom 3 is turning out to be, it is undeniably stressful, entertaining, and has that "just one more corridor" hook to it. Much like a Renny Harlin film, I enjoy it in the moment, but take even greater pleasure in deriding it afterward to my friends.
Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
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!
Actually, according to the page, it now puts the light on both the machine gun and the shotgun.
The whole point of the flashlight is having to choose between seeing where you want to shoot, and being able to shoot there. This mod simply eliminates one of the aspect of the game.
How about an aimbot mod for singleplayer, would that be "brilliant"?
Wow... I can't beleive I just spent $1,700 on a new machine just to display all this damn darkness. My old video card displayed a screenful of black just fine.
Most were licensed by id. There were problems because their servers were supposedly hacked before they could license the game engine out to other developers. No matter, id licensed the Quake engine out to many companies. Many games were fighting against Quake yet they were using Quake's engine. Next everyone else got into the market - making their own engines.
This is what I hope happens with Doom III. In 6 months I want to see screen shots of other games using this engine. I love the game, it is pretty awesome, but wait till other artists get their hands on it. Competition always keeps things spicy.
Doom mods will be nice, but new games will rock.
Get your Unix fortune now!
Pull up the console (Ctrl + Alt + ~)
type "r_gamma 2" (max is 3, default 1)
Adjust brightness downward a notch or two; especially if you cranked it up while looking for the fucking gamma control like I did.
And here's a bonus hacking tip, the developer's own config files (keybindings, video settings, etc) are stored in one of the *.pk? files (in D3's case pak000.pk4). Usually you can pull out some interesting command usage, especially when one developer has binds to useful commands and functions as in-game editing menus. From the johnc.cfg file, a few lines out of many such as rebinding console to a normal "~" and Flashlight Batteries (MP option?), plus the fact that he doesn't mind his game dark. Jonah Hex (aka [TFO]DogMeat to my MOHAA old mod friends
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
I really doubt that in 2145 when some architect is designing a mars base that he will read this but...
CHOOSE YOUR GODDAM LIGHTING SUBCONTRACTERS CAREFULLY.
The GTA series is far more significant because it brought the roaming/point mission concept to gaming. Everything from The Simpsons Hit and Run to freakin' Jak II has knocked off of it in some manner. Doom 3 has great graphics and that's about it. If it wasn't called "Doom" it'd just be a great looking incredibly simple-structured shooter. Any game where you go from room to room shooting things and finding key cards isn't ground-breaking as a whole. It's essentially the same concept from 1993 with a few extra tidbits like PDAs and cool crap like skin falling off of skeletons and stuff. On a similar subject Duke Nukem Forever is the seminal vaporware of our generation, bar none.
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.
Doom 3 is not any kind of Quake.
Doom 3 is not any kind of Half-Life.
Doom 3 is certainly not any kind of Tom Clancy game.
Doom 3 is the state of the art in interactive terror. If you want a simple FPS, don't buy it. If you want a shoot-through RPG, don't buy it. If you want something that accurately represents military weaponry, don't buy it.
If you like having to sleep with the light on after a gaming binge, by all means, buy Doom 3!
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
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
The flashlight intensity and pattern of this mod is controlled by a .tga file that acts as an alpha channel. I opened it in photoshop and used the circle gradient to make the spot larger with a softer edge (the one in the mod is way too small and hard edged). Add it back to the pk4 and make sure it retains the /lights path.
On a sidenote, this mod seems to screw up screenshots. I took 4 to show people and they were solid blue.
You can also have some fun with the .tga and have like 2 flashlights or give it a wide/narrow shape, etc.
One of the things any real soldier knows is that once you give your position away you MOVE. So a sniper never stays in one place after a shot (make note snipers who are suprised that after they shoot me I kill them in computer games). With night fighting the flash of your weapon means that after you fire a round you move since the enemy now knows exactly were you are.
Same deal really with search lights. Sure they make it easier to see but the poor guy operating it will probably be the first to die as he is the easiest to target.
Putting lights on your body or weapon is a big NO-NO. Why not just paint your self a big fluorescent target on your chest and be done with it?
The only ones who use lights on their guns are special forces like swat teams. They operate at such speed and with such overwhelming force that the enemy doesn't have time to respond. A swat team could go in with sirens on their head since they are not supposed to stay still and engage a heavily armed enemy.
Watch the movie ET and the opening scene where all the cops are walking with their flashlights shining. Now imagine they are soldiers and you are the enemy waiting in ambush. Who do you think is going to win?
There is also an other reason why not to use a flashlight at night. Your eyes can adjust to the dark and make use of what little light there is available. Start shining a flashlight around however and your eyes won't adjust. You will see very good in the small cone of the flashlight and be blind outside. Not good.
So lights on weapons or worse the body are a clear sign you are watching a movie. They can only really be used when you are reasonably certain that you are operating at such speed against a less prepared enemy that the giving away your position and presenting a brightly lit target makes up for you being able to see.
How does this relate to doom3? Well what happened is pretty realistic. The marine realises he is not in a normal combat scenario so he uses duct tape to adjust to the situation. So the question is not why the marins do not have lights on their weapons or body pre-fitted. The question is why ID did not give their soldier some duct-tape after he learned of the changed situation. Then again how many FPS have you seen where the hero tapes clips together for faster reload, tapes two guns together for extra fire power? We seen it in the movies, gotta be sound tactics or they wouldn't use it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Or I could just play Doom III on XP TODAY! BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Have fun waiting.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
He did have a flashlight on his helmet. His real goal throughout the whole game has been to find his helmet!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
http://www.afrotechmods.com/groovy/review/d3rev
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal