Content creation means money. Mappers, designers, texture artists, sound designers, actors, modelers, writers, testers; all these people need to come together for high-quality content and they all need to be paid. And the longer a game takes the more you need managers and secretaries and support etc etc. Unless you can guarantee the kind of sales that even EA has never seen: no. No you don't pay enough for 40 hours of good action game content. You do however pay enough for 40 hours of find: 500 gold stars, 200 blue pendants, 130 lost elves, 20 magic wands, 7 special coins, and 1 donkey with diarrhea. 

so jack up the price then. i'd pay 15 or 20cdn more for something of "long" gameplay length.

games are getting cheaper now, i'm guessing from the decreased length of games.

back in 1995, it was about 70 or 80$ cdn for a brand new game.
Now, i pick up games for around 60. D3 was 65$ when i got it about two weeks after it was released.

heck, Myst4 was 50$ CDN and that had a hell of a lot more content (2 dvds worth) if you think of general design time. (including engine dev, because it's so different from typical slideshow games).

i'd pay 80$ again for a 40-50 hour long game of the same quality as d3 was. 

I would too. But then parents go into a game store and look at game A which costs 40 and game B which costs 80. Also, game A says "realistic 3d" on the box and has brighter colours. Which does that parent pick? For that matter, which does the moron EB clerk recommend? People who know their shit are a minority market. 

I'm not sure about Canada, but D3 was pretty pricey in the states. From what I see, most games here are around $40 - $50. Doom3 was about $65, Dawn Of War around $35-40 I believe. 

that's actually quite a bit. is it possible the price dropped that much in two weeks? O_O 

Not worth it. $45 perhaps.. most games are $50, maybe $55. 

necros: just a possibiliy: in '95 the cnd$ was what? .60-.70$ compared to the US$. Right now it's at around .80$

as well, if you've checked the news in the last while, games prices are on their way up
http://money.cnn.com/2004/09/29/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/index.htm 

beated d3. end boss sucked 

d3 was rather long. Mind u, thats from a point of a man who can only spare few hours in the evening on games.
But overall, I dont like long games, I lose interest quickly. D3 is first shooter I bothered to finish since rtcw.

agree, popa: the ending was almost a surprise to me as I didn't expect it quite yet. 

I bought it on release day for this much:
http://wwww.lunaran.com/pics/doom3box.jpg

Whoever said games are getting cheaper ... is this in Canada? Games are doing nothing but getting more expensive here. When I showed my dad Doom3 when he came home the day I bought it, he looked at the pricetag with a scowl and "The hell ever happened to $39.95?" 

-_-

apparently it's just Canada...
i forgot to take into account the falling USD. sorry dudes.

if that's taken into account, +20$ = 100$ which isn't really justifiable. :P 

Read a bit of rants here and there (d3w)
so my thoughts (on the game and the issues)...

First of all (Frib and alike) do yourself a favour and DONT RELOAD each time u get hit!
I took it as a rule to try to survive even with 10% health, cause you know there is always health pack ahead. Improves game experience A LOT. Save often, reload when you are dead.

Played hard skill (veteran) - seemed normal/easy.
Abundance of ammo/health. I had to leave clips and medikits. Unneeded armor (FFS!)
Thus broken reward/challenge pair - you just do NOT need those goods. No satisfaction in finding more cells/bullets when you carry maximum already. Picking up a jacket, just to have some imps spawned... bleh
And once u get cube, healthpacks are obsolete

Spawns behind didnt annoy me but yes, they got boring. I noticed/heard spawning in most cases.
(stereo speakers/cans).

Yes, there is almost always a chance to avoid attacks (hi Lun). Ofcourse I strafe and hold 'run' button in combat. And when you cant avoid (imp jumping from opened door or a whip guy) - its not much damage, just dont let him do it again. The only real pisser is ofcourse Chaingun-guy (I dont like hit-scan grunts overall, but the weaker ones go down easily). And baby-moaths just suck.

D3 Ravenant is easier than original Doom`s and Q`s Vore; Hellknight is much easier than Sahmb (both to dodge and to kill).

I recall, in q1sp feedback most people hated when they couldnt beat a map w/o dying.
Now some cant stand taking any damage at all... WTF?

I agree that 'owl neck syndrome' and ugly 'red celophane' in your face are bad.
But I didnt let that happen very often so Im not annoyed like some ppl are.

Bosses, exept the Hell`s one, were too easy and fast to kill. Hell`s took some effort and I liked it.

What else? Too dark, rather predictable... I hoped it would be more scary and would have more things to interract with.
Too much detailing leads to sensory overload ;|

Overall its good game, will replay it prolly. ;) 

Now some cant stand taking any damage at all... WTF?

Boy, there's no fooling you, is there? 

was a piece of piss. I thought sarge was the hardest since it was such a cheap set up. really pissed me off. 

First of all (Frib and alike) do yourself a favour and DONT RELOAD each time u get hit!
I took it as a rule to try to survive even with 10% health, cause you know there is always health pack ahead. Improves game experience A LOT. Save often, reload when you are dead.

I learned that after the first few hours of fighting. You will take damage and unless you step on your own shoes, you will reach some more health before the next big set up.

My biggest gripe was the predictabilaty of some monster set ups; I'm curious to see how Lunaran improves upon this in his upcoming maps which half the reason the game is still on my laptop, even though my system is a real slog. 

something is not right there:
imps dont die from point-blank shotgun shot while in pre-scripted sequence mode. try it

and another problem: fireball smoke obscures the view. add it to the overall darkness - and u cant see AT ALL

than: sarge goes down from cube + less than one cg belt (~8 seconds of a battle). I was like "and thats all?"
I even reloaded to try killing him w/o cube - still easy, he only had the time to fire his bfg twice.
Hell boss was easy to dodge but it took time to shoot down the 'seekers'. Liked it more 

The reason I hated sarge was that the pillars which you needed to take cover behind were a trap. I had the soul cube ready and used it on him, but I still didn't find it that easy. I'm shit I guess.

I played on veteran... dunno if there is any difference. 

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that a game touted for its awesome lighting effects is so darkly lit? 

on your wedding day... 

rofl 

I recently got a new computer, so I was finally able to play Doom 3 properly.

I just finished it today, so I figured I may as well post my impressions (if anyone still cares).

I much prefered the later half of the game, once you started seeing some variation in the environments. The quality of artistry seen in the level design seemed to be kicked up a notch here too. To be honest, I was kinda getting a bit bored of the same base style, level after level. Once I got to Hell, the game really picked up and started getting interesting for me. The caverns/temple stuff rocked too.

I liked the weapons. Despite the ridiculous spread, I think I used the shotgun 70% of the time. In the later levels I started experimenting with some of the other guns more :P Most of the bigger fights in the caverns stages were done with a plasma gun/Soul Cube combo.

Strangely enough I hardly used the chaingun, except in Hell, when dealing with the Hellknights.

Yeah, the Soul Cube was an odd one. It made the game pretty bloody easy in places. Whenever an Archvile teleported in, I Soul Cubed it. Whenever a Hellknight strode into the melee, I Soul Cubed it. Maybe I should have played on a higher difficulty level. After getting the Soul Cube, it was a rare occurence that I didn't have it charged when the next big monster stomped into the fray.

Monsters pretty much all rocked. The only ones that annoyed me really were the lost souls, cherubs, and the chaingun/tentacle commandos. Actually, the tentacle guys weren't too bad, I just accepted that I was gonna take a little damage from them, and just charged straight at them with the shotgun. The chaingun guys generally ended up eating rocket.

None of the bosses gave me any trouble. Sarge went down like a sack of poo after getting Soul Cubed. In fact, I had the most trouble with the HellKnight's introduction. Squaring off against two of them in a fairly small area the first time you meet them was a bit of a WTF moment for me o_O

Meeting the Vagary(s) again was a pleasant surprise. They ended up tasting BFG though.

The Guardian was probably my favourite boss. He had something very Balrog-esque about him :)

The Cyberdemon (and the build-up to him) was truly spectacular. Went down pretty bloody easy with the Soul Cube though (and yes, I know that's the only way to kill him :P)

So essentially, I loved the monsters and the weapons; and my biggest gripe is that Hell was such a tiny section of the game. There would be some great mapping potential there if the Hell texture set wasn't so limited. Let's hope some talented texture artists take up the mantle and give us "Doom3 Gothic" ^_~ 

I agree with most of that.

Too much base, too easy in many places. 

Let's hope some talented texture artists take up the mantle and give us "Doom3 Gothic" ^_~

With a hint of the Dark Moor from Enclave. 

I bought the "Making of Doom3" by Stephen Kent (I think is his name) and id software from amazon.com recently.

All I can say is: Fantastic book. Awesomely put together, lots of huge, high-res pictures, storyboards, concept art, trivia, history and commentary from the id guys all over the place, on each and every page.

If you have the slightest interest in game design/level design focusing on Doom3 (or generally for that matter) I will recommend this book, although it's of course more leaned towards pure entertainment than education. A piece of artwork all on its own. 

Actually, the tentacle guys weren't too bad, I just accepted that I was gonna take a little damage from them, and just charged straight at them with the shotgun.

YOU HAVE A DUCK KEY, USE IT MOTHERFUCKER.

:)