And that's why it's almost always better to launch a new IP

From our purely artistic viewpoint yes, but try telling that to a businessman. 

It SHOULD be clear to a smart businessman as well but ... well, there's that word "smart" mucking up the works. 

TIME TO PRE-PURCHASE 

So, they're going to try and sell it as an ID game, "the studio that pioneered the first-person shooter genre. Sorry, I'm not buying. ID has left the building, a long time ago. 

As long as the game's not moddable there's no chance I'm gonna buy it 

eh... the amount of work required to make anything good in d4........... only the truly dedicated would have a chance. 

It has Doom Snapmap, that's about as much as the layman is going to get anyway. If they released the proper tools I highly doubt people would mod the game.

Also...

http://i.imgur.com/R3uSzTX.jpg 

depending on how good that ends up being, that really seems like the solution to getting user content for longevity vs technical skill and time sink of making said content. 

$60 for Doom 4? No. 

As for SnapMap, I'm hugely skeptical that snapping together prefabbed chunks is going to result in anything worthwhile but I guess we'll see. 

seems like something to allow console gamers to feel like they can be modders too, but anybody who's ever done any proper modding or developing will find it ridiculously limited. 

Games are long past the point where one person could create a worthwhile mod. If a SDK was released there still wouldn't be a Plutonia for Doom 4.

SnapMap is like Super Doom Maker, and assuming there will be enough variety in the prefabs and the environments available, that's fine.

Only idiots preorder games though. 

Pre-ordering on Steam allows me to preload the game so ... why am I an idiot? If it's something I KNOW I want, like Fallout 4, I don't see the problem. 

Pre-orders have been given a bad name by things like DeusEx-Gate and other instances of publishers deliberately holding content back to incentivize early/extra spend, but the basic concept of ordering something before it's released is fine if it would have been a day-one purchase anyway.

Bloody politics. 

Open world games get tons of incredibly complex mods. I'd say the problem is more with zero incentive to replay many games which is different for fucking around in an open world setting. 

I Preordered Binding of Isaac because it was reduced in price - that's a good incentive.

Preordering to get more content is retarded, even if you really want the product, because even if for you everything goes well and you eventually get the product you want, other publishers are going to think that that particular format for pre ordering is valid.

Voting with your wallet.

Moving on..


Snap map is not a new idea. Timesplitters did it back in 2002 with their map builder - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TimeSplitters:_Future_Perfect

It's the exact same concept as far as I can tell, although SnapMap allow you to place your greebles just how you want them rather than on hotspots.

I made a couple of levels in it and got bored. Maybe social gaming will solve that - which is what Bethesda is pinning their hopes on most likely.

I suspect the outcome will be pretty much what you get in Mario Maker though - the most popular levels will be 50% gimmick and 50% hardest level everz. 

...if Snapmap is Zenidthesda trying to avoid criticisms from the hardcore Doom crowd. "Oh you guysh don't like our slow-paced fancy gfx ledge-mantling takedown-move-sim?? Well just stick a bunch of corridors and arenas together and put 18,000 monsters in and hey presto Doom4 slaughtermap" 

They want to get back to the ideals of what Doom originally stood for - massive player community who continues making content to empower their IP and.

But, actions speak louder than words. And the reactions here at least (from people who should be interested in such a long term goal for a beloved franchise) have been lukewarm at best.

Because Doom had other things going for it that made players want to mod it - shareware sales format and an open code base that was built to be picked apart and re imagined by players. 

and throws a stupid amount of money at them. 

They want the fan devotion, but don't want to risk paying the price for it.

So they make something which looks similar - Snapmap. 

Dooms code base wasn't open at all. The file formats were designed to be easy to relatively create and edit, but Carmack didn't release the code until just a few years back. 

And I know you know that, but the way you worded it sounded like the code was open from launch. 

i haven't tried snap map so this is just conjecture... but i am picturing something like level editing in morrowind (and all those games that came after). you've got your prefab corridor bits and atrium wall bits. your floor and ceiling bits. you paste them together on a grid and bam, a dungeon.

but you can also place your bits off-grid and rotate them and whatnot. basically build completely custom stuff out of the stock assets. this is what i meant by 'depends on how good snap map is'.

you could make some really cool custom dungeons in morrowind and oblivion and such (oblivion had some truly epic dungeons with all stock assets).

but if it's kind of node based or something and you can't have any freedom at all in how you place it... then it's going to be limited and it's going to die out fast. 

Initially i assumed snapmap would have the ability to import custom assets, but someone shot that down (can't remember who).

Shame because if you could make your own meshes and import them then suddenly it's a proper mapping tool again. 

There was once a race game called Stunts, designed for you to build your own tracks. You played a campaign, but the biggest fun was the track editor and the races you come up with:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CITIXlw_T4

If Doom4 was designed around a snapmap of sorts, it could be a breakthrough. It could be done.