Will Doom 3 revive the struggling PC Gaming Industry?

CNN:Money ^ | July 14, 2004 | Chris Morris

[Paradox]

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Since 2000, developer id Software has told the world the next installment of "Doom," the game that kicked off the action genre, would ship "when it's done."

Good news, gamers: It's done. In the lexicon of the industry, "Doom 3" has gone gold.That means with id Software's work done, publisher Activision is duplicating copies to ship to retail. What it all boils down to is you'll be able to pick up a copy at retail on Aug. 5, though some stores could start selling the game as early as Aug. 3.

[Xenalyte]

Okay, crew, who's up for some D2 after hours? We should agree on a realm, and a game name/password that we could always have running when one or any of us are online.

Sloth, is your assassin a solo or a multiplayer character? My claw assassin Ralla had lots of trouble with Duriel - claws were not the way to go for him.

Here's what I did.

Ralla still had her rogue archer mercenary from Act I. She also had a couple points in Burst of Speed. We Bursted, then entered Duriel's lair and immediately set up a Town Portal (I have it hot-keyed to F1). Ralla had a few points in the first fire trap - can't remember the name - and she lobbed them at Duriel until the rogue got slaughtered. Then she'd TP back to town, resurrect the rogue, and repeat.

It took probably eight town-to-Duriel-to-town exchanges to do it. The secret is not to stay in town too long - Duriel (and all the bosses, I think) regenerate health when you're not pounding on them.

[BrooklynGOP]

My nick is BrooklynGI, some problem with my settings though (it stopped connecting to call of duty servers all of a sudden), hence I started playing single player.. I'll fix it though. We need to start a FR clan :>

[Ignatz]

Lol! My first was a Headstart Explorer. 8088, 512K RAM, CGA monitor, and the "optional" 20 MB HD:

The obsolete Computer Museum

[Xenalyte]

You two had best get over here now! Very excellent thread with ASTOUNDING screen shots!

[hchutch]

COOL!!!!

:)

[BrooklynGOP]

I have several drives, but the game resides on the same drive as windows. Actually I might have a gig of ram. I forget already :>

[Eepsy]

So, then, am I the only person still playing Kings Quest?

[antiRepublicrat]

Check the system requirements. From what I hear Doom III requires a serious gaming system.

I tried running the Alpha on a pretty new laptop with ATI video, and after going 640x480 and turning all the bells and whistles off I only got a couple frames per second.

[Incorrigible]

Whoa! Now those are some scary graphics!

[Xenalyte]

I should also ask if y'all have played two of my other favorites: Dungeon Siege, a great D2-type hack 'n' slash dungeon romp, and the absolutely stellar Morrowind.

If you have never played Morrowind, go out NOW and get it. It is sheer amazement. Totally immersive first-person RPG, with a huge detailed consistent world.

[Xenalyte]

Unplug your UPS during the next thunderstorm, and voila - instant justification!

[killjoy]

We even had some of the Doom mods on some of the machines (Simpsons Doom anyone?)

The best mod ever for Doom was the one that turned it into "Aliens" complete with Alien monsters, textures, and sounds.

[Choose Ye This Day]

I liked Castle Wolfenstein (2D). Used to play it on my Dad's old Apple IIe.

"Sweinholt!"

[Shryke]

Ok. Normally a game like Far Cry smoothes out at a gig of RAM (that's if you like to push the graphics). Additionally, when I built my latest box, I put two drives into a RAID config (cheap), set them to stripe, and zoom. Much better load times. Alot of motherboards that take SATA drives have RAID-0 support built in as well. Basically, those are the two "bottlenecks" I find most people come across when they like to game (as they usually have a good vid card and processor).

[Poohbah]

I'm still trying to get Flight Simulator 2004 up to 20 frames per second on my machine.

[Xenalyte]

Half-Life 2 . . . we need only wait 18 more agonizing, gut-wrenching days. August 2 is THE date!

[antiRepublicrat]

LOL! You too?

Me too. In the early 90s we'd stay after work and load Doom II on the machines to do network deathmatch past midnight with custom-made maps. Our sadist in-house author put the BFG on a tower in a courtyard so you'd have to run through a shooting gallery to get to it. But there's still nothing like sneaking up behind someone with the DB, shooting him point-blank, and hearing "DAMNIT, YOU SUCK!" from down the hall. :)

[BrooklynGOP]

Yea, I was to lazy to bother with RAID. Invested more time and $ into audio/video (audigy 2zs with gigaworks 750 and a 1024 x 768 projector)..

[Smogger]

Good point. Now that PS2s and XBoxes can be networked, there's much less of a need to have a PC for multiplayer games.

Don't kid yourself. Nothing comes close to the intensity of a well crafted multiplayer first-person-shooter on consoles.

Console games are for kids. Counter-Strike/Condition Zero/Doom III are for men with $$$ and too much time on their hands.

[Incorrigible]

I've been known to kill a few hours on multiuser PC Halo.  Halo 2 is coming in November.