Saw the latest trailer, I did like the look of it. Not sure about racing but the style looked good.

Doom4, 30 FPS, hmmm. I always thought 30 FPS was the bare minimum for SP playability? 

with all the talk of "this game will run at 30hz".

From what I can gather, 30hz does not mean 30fps, but something to do with the frequency of updates done by the engine.

For example Carmack said that rage would run at 60hz as you need to extra control responsiveness for the car driving, where as a corridor shooter like doom you can get by with 30hz.

Please correctly if my arse has grown a mouth... 

I need less coffee... 

except he goes on to say that "this means we can throw 4 times as much detail at it", which suggests FPS. 

I think my brain kinda figured that with less updates per second you could cram more things into the scene before you start noticing the performance hit.

I dunno... NEED TECHIE HELP PLX! =) 

with consoles it's extremely important to be above either 30hz or 60hz at all times, as the tvs refresh at 60hz and with 59 and sync you're essentially only seeing 30fps?

so, with a game you aim at either 30 or 60 fps. 

fuck the consoles and develop for a proper gaming platform... 

LOL 

Proper gaming platform... Nintendo DS? (which can be chipped with a flash card and... kekekeke)


But I'm assuming Carmack is talking about server refresh/tick rates here (the same way D3 was locked at 60hz server refresh rate regardless of frames per second (to avoid the Q3 72/90/125/etc fps/jump speed glitches)), but if that's the case then the designers can put enough detail in for the game to run at only 30 or so FPS and not cause any control responsiveness lag... 

but I assume he means Doom 4 will average 30fps on a 360/PS3.

Hello modern PC. Meet Doom 4. 

i'm pretty sure i've seen this type of thing before...

was it like project offset or something where they were (are?) planning to make the game run at 10 or 20 fps but use motion blur to hide the jerkiness... the game would only update at that speed too, sort of like how some physics engines run independently of game speed in most modern games.

i'm not sure i really get that, i mean, if you're firing a machine gun, for example, how then do you get the really fast light flicker from your gun if your engine is only refreshing and recalculating 10-20 times in a second. we're basically back at quake, where you fire the nailgun and the light can't flicker on and off because it's firing 10 times a second, and the game defaults to only updating 10 times a second. 

like a really shitty idea.

But muzzleflashes are rendering only, so it's not that difficult to do. 

I have a theory as to why so many people hate the gameplay, apart from some of ID's laziness in implementation (ie monster closets next to items, monsters spawning behind you, monsters behind doors).

You have to take damage in a fight.

That's the way the game is designed, you dont move that fast, some of the monsters move faster than you, where they dont you have restricted movement space.

That aspect seems to be compensated with a generous scattering of health and armour but if you dont like taking damage in a fight, that's hardly a consolation.

Now it could be that the higher difficulty levels have a lot more of the lazy gameplay ideas mentioned above, but ignoring that point, any thoughts? 

I have a theory as to why so many people hate the gameplay, apart from some of ID's laziness in implementation (ie monster closets next to items, monsters spawning behind you, monsters behind doors).

i think the monster closets triggered on item pickups (and more generally, any monster spawn tied to an obvious, but arbitrary trigger) are naff, because it is far too "mechanical" (i don't really know how else to describe it) - what i mean is that it's something that would only happen in a cheesy game, and doesn't exactly contribute to the immersion that id are trying achieve.

The other points - monsters behind doors, and monsters behind the player aren't too bad - they are the sort of things you would expect if you were a space marine fighting the xenomorphs on LV-426 - (the Alien series clearly being the primary influence with Doom). 

You have to take damage in a fight.

You are exactly right, that really seemed to be their one design focus. This goes back to my core complaint, about player ability versus player character ability. The game puts a slow character in fast situations, so the player himself can't ever really become 'good' at the combat, just lucky. So then designers can't challenge the player at all because the only clear strength he has left is that he can pick up items the designer gives him, so the design goal seemed to shift from 'put the player in danger from which he can survive and escape if he is good' to 'how can we fuck the player over?' 

Spawning powerful enemies close to the player is the cheapest trap possible, and it became boring and repetitive after a couple of maps, there wasn't enough variation.

Being immersed in the game, only to have that immersion disrupted by events 100% out of my control sucked too often (agree with Nitin here). Perhaps the resulting lack of satisfaction/accomplishment is a reason why the gameplay annoyed so many.

The game puts a slow character in fast situations, so the player himself can't ever really become 'good' at the combat, just lucky.

You could always accelerate for a limited time (stamina), which was nice for realism, but being 'good' in D3 isn't just about aim and movement like an old-skool fps; I got owned many times by Imps just because I couldn't see properly and I cannot say that it was always fun, it felt often tedious. 

I think you can definitely learn to become better at the game, I certainly did after a few maps, but the improvement plateaus a lot quicker than in other games where you can continuously improve as a player.

That, of course, leaves you with the situation where a bit of luck is definitely needed which does diminish satisfaction/accomplishment but concurrently increases a sense of danger. Perhaps they went too far with this tradeoff?

As for the darkness aspect, I have to say I had no real problems on my screen barring a few instances where it was meant to be pitch black. Most the other times the dark areas were nicely contrasted with well placed lights so you were never 'blind'. 

I never really had trouble seeing, myself. My main gripe was weapons and movement, combined with a lot of similarity in level design and pacing. 

i had several areas where it was too dark to fight and still there were enemies. Mostly weak ones, but still, very annoying. 

... and I think this is how to make a frightening game... who knows what will come next entering a dark area... it generates stress and tense, shall I go there, run, risk to die...hmmm ?... On top of this just add good sounds for the ambience, and you're in: this is how DOOM works >D 

you need to provide the player with options then. 

.. is survive or die :P 

It's a game.

Presenting the player with near certain death just means they'll quickload until they either stop playing or know all the mechanics inside out.

What I mean is that having a demon rip its way out of a cupboard to attack you is scary. Seeing it happen twenty times from the same cupboard isn't.

Ideally I reckon the idea is to present the player with the illusion of nigh-impossible odds.

In the same way a normal sized sword in a game is going to look like a toothpick - although various games take it too far and have the characters waving motorbike sized weapons around. 

i know its about doom4, but i get 404 error when i click "view all threads" to look for the d3 one.

can anyone point me in the right direction for awesome doom3 sp levels and mods? kinda like a lvl for d3 sp maps?

your reward will be a cosmic yay in the form of jesus wishpering to the ears of the universe. 

http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewforum.php?f=55