zwiffle, at what point did I say you were claiming that that Q2 was more DM focused than SP focused

I was merely responding to;

Q2 was intended for Single Player, but not nearly as much as Doom3 was.

In Q2, I'd guesstimate about 65-70% was made for SP, possibly less.


Which is blatandly wrong since D3 ships with DM maps, Q2 didn't. 

Why the hell only the XBox version of Doom 3 will have coop, I don't know

It's because the XBox port is being done by a different company, who decided they wanted to add co-op.


And on a slightly related note, I've only ever played Halo SP in co-op, it's not that great on your own, but as with any game, it's so much more fun playing with a friend. And the joy of console co-op is that all you need is another controller, not another PC. 

Which is blatandly wrong since D3 ships with DM maps, Q2 didn't.

Q2 shipped with the capability to run >4 player servers over the internet (and all the SP maps had DM layouts, a few of which were actually playable). If id had any interest in D3 having serious multiplayer, they'd have rewritten the netcode.

I'll second that Halo co-op motion. Especially on Legendary; the AI makes for some damn good fights (there was an article about it on Gamasutra awhile back, iirc). 

You know, I hear lots of people complaining about 'the netcode' but never mention any specifics on how they'd improve it, or any such reasons why it's the netcode itself is why the game can be laggy. Knowing Carmack, he optimizes code like a fiend, and IMO, I'd just say he's created an engine that was a bit too far ahead of it's time to handle good DM. All that 'stuff' that makes D3 is also what slows it. Dynamic lights, per pixel hit detection, ragdolls, weapon fire traced individually. The game was designed for singleplayer in mind, despite the fact there is deathmatch and people just want to beat it to death without any thought to the reason why or how. Now fuck off and go map everyone. 

#52 posted by nonentity [80.177.201.18] on 2004/09/14 10:05:37
I'm not sure you can claim a game that didn't even ship with DM maps was more DM focussed than D3.

#54 posted by Zwiffle [69.210.84.168] on 2004/09/14 16:08:41
I never claimed that Q2 was more DM focused than SP focused.

#62 posted by nonentity [217.41.19.241] on 2004/09/21 07:01:09
zwiffle, at what point did I say you were claiming that that Q2 was more DM focused than SP focused 

Yeah, that's me saying that D3 was more DM focused than Q2. Not that Q2 was more DM focused than SP focused. 

Ahh, I see your point. My mistake. But, regardless, I still think Q2 was more DM focused than D3 ever was, and ultimately I still think that Doom3 maps should be focused for SP. 

I miss actually having a message and a triumphant little sound play when you find a secret.

There was a really cool one in the comm facility, right after Mars City.

SPOILER

In the dark there's a cable to cross a pit (the one with the crane the guy doesn't want you to touch), and at the end a door with a touchscreen that says "storage unlocked via marine security station." When you get into that station later, sort of tucked away at the bottom of the guy's screen (away from the bigger and more obvious buttons) is a little extra window for unlocking other doors, including this room and the other equipment case. Rock.

/SPOILER

Makes me wonder what other kinds of cool secretness can be had by us designers. They took away our cool bleeding secret doors/shootable light fixtures it seems though. :( 

It's all spoiler.

Consider yourself warned.

Under one of the desks around delta-something-ish there's a security button. Hitting it opens a secret panel behind you full of goodies. I thought it was a nice touch because it meshed in well with the theme. All too often secrets don't make sense in their environment. 

There's only about 85,000 "secrets" like that in the game... 

I miss actually having a message and a triumphant little sound play when you find a secret.

yeah Lun 

I unpacked the demo's .PK4 and modified the weapon HUD's and flashlight beams to red, and put it all back in (all using WinZip which I've read is legit to do).. the 461 MB original pak now became 520 MB and upon launch it says corrupt pak. 

don't do that.

Just put the modified files in the right folders in /base/ and they'll override stuff in the pak. 

Was it a light snack or an all-you-can-eat? Did it feel like value for the money or are you hoping for enough user maps to fill those hungry spaces? The original DooM felt substantial back when I played. 

Felt long, almost too long. If it were even just another 2 or so levels longer it would of been way too much for. 

It was surprisingly long for a modern FPS. If the gameplay, story etc was interesting and varied enough, that may have been a good thing.

However, it wasn't, so towards the end I was just charging through without really enjoying it too much, and just trying to finish it. D3 felt overly long given the repetive nature of the environments and gameplay. 

this topic has been covered somewhat, so I'll restate what I said: Beat it in a weekend. Too short.

Shambler, flame me all you want. 

You at the very least get an 'A' for consistency. 

You also get an "F-" for making sense.

The thing is, that Zwiff found it short is neither here nor there. You can't look at the length in isolation, only in comparison to other games.

And, compared to other recent FPS/3PS games, Doom3 was long. Possibly compared to a lot of older ones too.

For me, it was both long enough but I'd have happily had it longer because, well, bloody hell I was enjoying it =).

I would, however, liked a bit more variety (more Hell / Caverns or other stuff, and Pinkies and Mancubi), and a bit less random labs full of Imps. I.e. I wouldn't have wanted it to be longer by containing more of the latter.

Definitely a full meal though. 

Doom3 didn't even approach Deus Ex for length. Deus Ex I'd argue is a 'full meal.' Doom 3 was like a ham sandwich or something.

Deus Ex 2? I'd use the word 'snifter.' 

what is it with this bs with people wanting shorter and shorter games... wtf is wrong with all of you?
O_O

developers consider 20hours of gameplay acceptable? pish posh! 

Dont let them get away with giving you an Expansion Pack worth of play at full price. 

developers consider 20hours of gameplay acceptable? pish posh!

The point, of course, is not game length. (I believe we've discussed this before.) Rather, the point is that a game might be short from the start sequence until the end sequence, but the gameplay is rich enough that you can easily replay it many, many times. Thus, when a game is 8-10 hours from start to finish, the game actually would have 32-40 hours of gameplay.

Unfortunately, SP FPS games usually do not have gameplay rich enough to support playing the entire game four times. Some of this is due to plain, redundant gameplay; and some of it is due to boring, linear level design. 

I think an exception would be RPGs and adventure games. Part of the point of RPGs is to explore the world and build a character, and thus an 8-10 hour RPG would not have much exploration or character building; unless it was hugely non-linear and you were able to restart the game on a harder skill setting while keeping your existing character, but that's a different matter altogether.

And for adventure games, well, those are based a lot on solving puzzles, which is not conducive to replayability. Thus, adventure games need to be longer to facilitate a rewarding experience. 

I agree with you somewhat, RPG. The point isn't whether it was long enough, but whether we were satisfied at the end of the game.

My answer is that I was not satisfied at the end of the game. The levels were fairly linear, many standard "monster pop up ambush" tricks tended to get old but kept me on my toes, and the story was somewhat involving.

Don't get me wrong, I think the game is high quality and entertaining. It's nothing truly unique or special, but the gameplay itself was fun. And I understand that they can't make the game incredibly long for a number of reasons, some being the amount of detail and effort required in each map, size of the disk space, etc.

I just think that if there was more game, if there were additional levels for maybe another 5 or 6 hours the game would have given me a satisfied feeling, because, although I thought the game was fun, there just wasn't enough to really dig into overall.

But perhaps if they didn't over use imps, the variety of combat would have given me a satisfied feeling too.