D4 is what it is because big games are designed by committee. This isn't so bad for a brand new IP because whatever comes out will seem more like a coherent vision, but as soon as you try to do it with a decades old IP you get a whole bunch of designers with alternative "interpretations" and memories attached to the IP, all throwing their two pence in. On top of that, Bethesda have been very vocal about what they think it should be, so there are money men to appease as well as die hard original fans and the potential new fans that they will be hoping to attract. 

Games are best designed when a few, ideally one, people have the vision in their heads and everyone else implements that vision. Otherwise what you get is design by committee and watered down games with glowing trails so players don't get lost or waste time exploring.

A team full of Doom enthusiasts actually has less chance of producing a good Doom game as everyone has their own opinion of what makes Doom what it is.

Mix all those together and it's a bland dish. 

A team full of Doom enthusiasts actually has less chance of producing a good Doom game as everyone has their own opinion of what makes Doom what it is.

Well put. I hope there will be little gold nuggets in D4 that I can at least appreciate.

Also, doing simple text markup from my phone isn't workin out so well. 

That people are saying 'what do you expect'. I expect it to be good. Wolf TNO was excellent! So why not Doom? 

because wolf TNO was made by a talented studio at the top of their game 

I suspect we've stumbled upon two very slightly different meanings of the word "expect". On a simple level, as a consumer you're entitled to expect (or demand, require, desire etc.) a quality product in return for your money. As a critic, you expect with somewhat more nuance, so expecting becomes predicting, or foreseeing in a way.

The long and short of it is, there's no excuse for a company like ID to create a bad product, but there are many reasons that they might. 

"because wolf TNO was made by a talented studio at the top of their game "

^^ Exactly this. Whatever make id work, is gone. 

"When and where did it go?" is, of course, the perennial question. 

It's obviously not anyone currently there so we can start narrowing it down. ;) 

End topic. 

Anyone who hasn't, probably best to lower expectations for this game if this is still possible for you.

It's just SO bland. Holy fucking balls. It's every generic sci-fi online shooter you've ever had nightmares about. Those shiny panels and orange neon light strips will haunt my dreams.

Weapons are particularly shit. The plasma gun half-heartedly farts out little globules of WKD Blue, with the stopping power of your morning piss stream.

Gameplay is just your standard bouncy, flimsy, kinda quake 3, kinda halo bollocks.

Visibility is so bad. Can't stress enough how orange everything is, and how difficult it is to identify teammates.

I know this is "just the multiplayer" but it's not a good sign. 

Cos if it's released and it is shit, we'll know who failed with the alpha testing >:( 

its a stress test 

They might be saying otherwise but the truth is, they're not looking for feedback on the content. This is a global hardware test and nothing else. 

It's a network stress test... let me say I tested this on the net' and I got stressed. So I guess it was successful? 

I really don't understand what artists wanted to provide to players with it. 

I know you're under NDA. Just curious about the performance? I imagine it will be around W:TNO, maybe even less. I seriously doubt this game will be pushing current hardware anywhere near the degree Doom3 did back in the day...

Also, was there an FOV slider tucked away in the MP launcher somewhere? 

It wasn't super stable for me, I had to hard reset my computer a couple of times and I had the occasional problem with the startup videos... but it performed pretty well in game. Steady frame-rate, graphically it didn't look bad either.

I'd say performance was similar to Wolf, but if I'm being honest I haven't played anything on my PC that makes it drop frames yet.

PC Specs -

intel i7 4790k
nvidia gtx 970
16gb ram
500gb samsung SSDs

This is pretty much on par with the recommended specs so I guess if you're running the same as me then you'll be golden. 

I guess the instability with the hard crashes etc will be ironed out, it IS alpha. 

Also I didn't fuck around with any sliders, I dont intend on re-installing to find out either. 

intel i7 4790k
nvidia gtx 970
16gb ram
500gb samsung SSDs

Those are exactly my specs, couldn't have asked for a better reference.

I do hope the lighting gets a little improvement, though. The shadow banding on the viewmodel from the E3 footage was pretty distracting... 

I'm trying not to laugh... They were a big chunk of the Halo Master Chief Collection. With its stellar multiplayer experience.

Just, of all the companies to do your mp, CA? Oy. Why not Nerve? They're local, good blend of old school and contemporary FPS work in their background. Oh well. So far this is all matching up with my fears that spawned with the initial 18 minute reveal. 

Willem gets it right - the bigger the design committee, the worse the game is. 

Well, at least the game got out of development hell.

Maybe if I keep my expectations at the same level of Duke Nukem Forever, the game will be fine. 

I didn't get the same feedback as provided in previous posts of this thread... Anyway, a colleague in my company has been "luckily selected" for the Doom Close Alpha testing last week (he got email through steam... and tested the game), and he told me he has been somewhat impressed by the overall quality of the game. Obviously not everything is perfect, he was not as deceived as some of you are.

I guess you'll have as many testers as opinion on the game, and hence quite different opinions...

Anyway, I have been a fan of ID FPS (Wolfenstein/Doom/Quake/etc..) since 90's, so I guess I'll buy the game... and I'll love it as usual :)