It defines a different experience; one where the player progresses from elaborate set piece to elaborate set piece engaged in brutal up-close combat with small groups of extremely detailed monsters.

sounds good to me. 

I read it this morning before I went to work and found it a very interesting read. What kind of scared me is how he discussed the development times are expanding and expanding. Makes me wonder what the average development time will be a for a single map. I know everyone here already takes about a good month or so for a map to be out the door, or more. This is just for Quake I mind you, it would seem Doom III we might see that stretch into a good 3 months of solid work. Plus I haven't released anything in years, so they frightens me further.

I think it will demand that as mappers we take the attention to detail much further. We will need to more finelly tune our environments to make sure they look realistic with the coenciding (I know I can't spell) art.

Also Carmacks bit on disabling shadows seems a little odd. Sure for performance issues it would be great, but he has always pushed the perforance of hardware. You'd think it would basically kill much of the atmosphere they have worked so hard at. 

Prodigy, a while back I posted a rather long discussion on what I think are the approaching innovations in mapping. If you're brave enough to read it, as I think many people never finished it because of its length, go here: http://www.celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=52&start=22

And... Disabling shadows? I don't see that comment anywhere in the article. 

...underworldfan...

It's amazing how much information you can find if you just open a few books (I get the impression John reads alot).

To use his words, You "learn something new in every page of every book you look at"

Even though I have taken it slightly out of context, it's still true.

Reading Rainbow had it right :) 

Take a look, it's in a book...

John Carmack may be a graphical genius, but he's a moron for ignoring co-op play. 

coop play has never really been a strong selling point. most people will play the game alone. it would delay the game even longer probably to input it...


although I would LOVE to have coop in everygame I play aswell as vs modes... it doesn't make him a moron for not including it 

Think that one through. Doom3 looks to be much more half life and resident evil than quake or halo. Doing coop in that sort of style is much harder, and would certainly require sacrifices on the sp side. I'm guessing they wanted to, but just made the practical choice. 

I never liked coop, has absolutely no interest to me, so I wouldn't miss it. 

This is how I see it.

Games that worked with Co-Op;
Serious Sam
Doom 2
Duke Nuke
Quake
Sonic the Hedgehog

Why? Because it did not matter to the story that much. You could start, stop, leave or join a game at any stage. Someone could find the exit and that was that, everyone jumped through to the next level. These games are just "You and your mates, shoting the monsters and having some fun with a mouse in one hand a beer in another (and maybe some pizza in a box)".

Games that did not (or would not) work as a Co-Op;
Half-Life
Unreal
RtCW
Donkey Kong
Alien Vs Preditor 2
Jeti Knight 2

Why not? Because they are story based and for the game to work the story needs to progress. Sure it could be a lot of fun to have a small team going into battle (co-op) but that is what mulitplayer is for. It also requires a LOT more work on the developers side (unless you are just shooting shit) to make a Co-Op gameplay that flows and keeps the richness of the story. Things like "what happens when a key is required", "what happens when a player exits the map", "what happens in a cut-scene, do we just stop show all the players?", the list goes on and on...

Doom3 is a story rich game (well, so we are told) and Co-Op, as cool as it could be, will not allow for the atmosphere the game has been designed around (I'm guessing based on screenshots and interviews). Removing Co-Op allows for the developers to focus on getting the single player as rich and atmopsheric as possible. Besides that, unless the Co-Op is _amazing_ reviews will focus on how the Co-Op "seems to have been thrown together", which is a negative.

What I would like to see is Co-Op mod made by the community, hell, I may even look into myself once the game code is released :] 

was cool. didnt tails have unltd. lives tho which is cheating? 

not in vs. mode, but in the normal mode, yeah. But in that mode the screen focused on sonic and you had to keep up, and this made it very easy to die anyway 

Once the pros are bogged down in thousand-detail rooms, the world of huge never-ending boxmaps is all ours!! Until they recruit some serious AI to help them out, anyway.

I'm more impressed with the artistic values evident in the screenshots than the tech. 

Most people didn't think DM was going to become big...

I can't speak for the technical end of things, but I think content wise co-op play is due to make a break through. There are several map styles and puzzles that can only be done in co-op, or are better exploited in co-op. You can have modes where people cooperate, and modes where people both complete the same sp level in a competitive fashion. I think it's time someone did co-op right, and left single player play to be the second class citizen for a change.

It's not really something I expect from Carmack anyways. He's too wrapped up in the technology to make a real game. 

He's too wrapped up in the technology to make a real game. 

You won't be getting DooM3, 'cause, surely, you wouldn't waste your money on something that wasn't "a real game" 

I will be getting Doom3. Even if making a real game isn't Carmack's interest, he's not the only man responsible for the game. It won't live up the the hype, but I'm sure there'll be some great stuff in there.

I'm also interested in seeing what the communities will do with Doom3 and HL2. They're both sequels to games that have had great community support, and I'm hoping that kind of support is going to be there right out of the gate and will last a long time. 

New starfox game on gamecube will have coop, also zelda legend of the four swords or whatever it's called for gba and gamecube has some kind of coop but with some elements of competition between players.

Maybe we'll see most coop action on consoles these days. Altho when the pc port of halo finally comes there might be some nice coop on the computer too. 

I think co-op was one of the things that had to be axed from the pc port of Halo. It's unforgivable really. I have two theories on why the port has taken so damn long. Either Microsoft rushed Bungie so much that the code base ended up a friggin mess, or Bungie placed retarded monkies in charge of said port.

If the port takes any damn longer someone will have already written an X-Box emulator and pcs will be fast enough to run it flawlessly. 

I always assumed the PC version of Halo never came because Xbox needed it exclusively to make up for the lack of other good games for the system. 

There was some recent interview with somone responsible for the pc port in wich he said that the network aspects was one of thoughest problems. The reason for that was that in the xbox verision you knew you'd always have people playing on the same box or between xboxes with a fixedspeed of 100mbit so the network code was very simple and far from what you see in a modern FPS.

found it: http://www.gamespy.com/previews/may03/halopc/

it says that coop is indeed in danger of not making it into the pc versoin but that they'll try to get it in there. 

Yeah, I read that article. I understand that the networking would be the most difficult part, but it doesn't justify how long the game is taking. I know that Microsoft wanted an X-Box exclusive, but I can't imagine they intended to have the PC version this far behind. 

Ive never been into Halo, I was waiting for it when I read previews ages ago, but im very disappointed with the game on the Xbox, Coop was the only thing that kept my interest.

If coop doesn't make it in the pc port then i certainly won't be buying it.

And the stupid noises the monsters made... AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH 

Coop on PC just isn't reasonable imo. There aren't enough people who network and play coop like you have with console systems. To release Doom3 for console w/out coop would be foolish. Don't get me wrong, I would love to play coop over a lan etc. like in the good ole' days of Doom/2. But from a development standpoint I can understand why they might not be doing it. I don't know how the cutscenes work in Doom3, and how that would effect coop mode, coding etc. I assume they could be turned off for coop, but perhaps there is something in there that makes the cut sequences more difficult to create for the SP experience if you include coop etc.

In the end we all know that id is a technology shop, Doom3 should be fun, but it will not live up to every expectation. They are not looking to break new ground in terms of gameplay, just to do the absolute least to match existing acceptable gameplay minimums, and blow us away with the visual and aesthetic in order to sell more licenses. This is and has been their business strategy, I don't see them changing it. I am afraid if you want groundbreaking gameplay, you will have to wait for DeusEx2 and Halflife2. 

your argument is somwhat weak.

Both Doom and Quake 1 were huge leaps in terms of gameplay when they were released. There had never been anything like them before. In fact part of ID's genius has been to produce brilliant new engines AND excellent gameplay to complement the engine. You could even argue q3 was a leap for DM-gameplay. Half-life was not a leap for Gameplay, IMO.

its obviously true ID have licensed the engine, but thats becuase they make such damn good engines, that they are constantly in demand from other developers.

I am somewhat surprised to hear you making such a strong argument against the gameplay of ID, as you obviously loved quake 1 and understood it very well, as evidenced by all the great maps you made for it. 

You could even argue q3 was a leap for DM-gameplay

how so?

Half-life was not a leap for Gameplay

Again that is as weak an argument as you say elek puts forward. It was probably the first game to not have just the run, shoot and find the exit gameplay integrated reasoanbly well. Whether or not you consider that a good thing is another issue though.