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]

Right now you can get Morrowind and its two expansion packs, Bloodmoon and Tribunal, for $30 at Best Buy.

It's a hard-to-describe gaming experience. You create a character with tons of variables, so truly no two characters COULD be alike. You specialize in combat, magic, or stealth. There are 30 skills you can choose from - some major, some minor. Besides just using a skill over and over to improve yourself, there are trainers all around Morrowind who can help you raise those skills, and the more you improve (say) your ranged skill, the better shot you'll be with a bow.

Although it sounds insanely complicated, you never feel like you're over your head. The only times I was lost were when I consciously ventured off the path into dangerous territory.

Just damn addictive. Bacon, who loves sleep like winos love Thunderbird, was getting up an hour early in the mornings to play for awhile before work.

[Smogger]

And what's wrong with having $$$ and too much time on our hands?

It's as American as mom and apple pie. I plan on being the first person on my block to pick up the new Doom III, and Half-Life 2. Just like I ran and got a copy of Return to Castle Wolfenstein or pre-ordered Condition Zero online. AND IF I HAVE TO GO BUILD ANOTHER COMPUTER (I have 5 already), BECAUSE MY 2.4 Gig P4/RADEON 9600 WON'T RUN IT THEN SO BE IT!!!

[Xenalyte]

I've beat the Dog with a spearazon, a claw assassin, and an axe barbarian. I'm chicken to try spell characters, 'cause those things DIE lots in early levels.

[BrooklynGOP]

What's the dot pitch on that? .39? .41?

[Foxfire4]

I adore Morrowind. And the expansions (Tribunal was fun - talk about problems with your ex! :-) But my all-time favorite has to be the Thief series - I'm currently on the new one and loving it, in that utterly frustrated, break the mouse after you've been ripped apart by zombies for the seventeenth time kind of way.

[Xenalyte]

Do you have a high-speed connection, or are you dialing up?

[Xenalyte]

Why is it that some games provide us frustration that we enjoy working through, and others we toss aside after a couple hours and never pick up again?

For instance, I slighted "No One Lives Forever," because I'm not that adept at shooters and it's discouraging to get capped every 20 seconds. But there's absolutely nothing wrong with the game. It's loads of fun.

[Space Wrangler]

I use my computer for work related things now and just play games on PS2.

You, me, and quite a few others it would seem. Trying to debug games on PC to the point you could play them just got old. You can blame a good portion on DirectX and it's buggy tendancies.

[BigBlueJon]

I still can't even look at the box. I am a Morrowind-aholic. Wife and kids are good. Morrowind bad. Mustn't play the preciousss..........

[antiRepublicrat]

First used (IIRC, a PDP-11, I was a little kid then and my mom worked in a datacenter, the programmers were friendly and let me mess with it)

First owned (Atari 400)

First PC used (IIRC Zenith 8086):

After that, bought a 486/66. Doom rocked on that machine.

[No.6]

Don't get picky unless you're right ...

WB was originally the work of Dale "Hitech" Addink (who later headed AH), John "Killer" McQueen (later WW2O), and Robert "Gunjam" Salinas (who later founded Jackedin.com).

I don't think anyone disputes the fiasco that was WW2O's launch. I myself never got the thing to do anything other than crash during beta days; but that was then and this is now. WW2O is not the flight sim that WarBirds or Aces High is but I highly recommend it to fans of 'shooters' like Call of Duty et al.

[RandallFlagg]

Uh-oh!

[Xenalyte]

It's calling you . . . you know you miss the Guild in Balmora!

What do you play as?

[Xenalyte]

You in too?

There's someone here and/or at LP with whom I used to multi d2 . . . need to remember.

[dts32041]

My gosh I performed tech support for that machine.

[BigBlueJon]

Fighter/Imperial/Knight......no I can't talk about it.....Oh, alright.......I have a hard time being a thief or an assassin. Being a big strong fighter with a little magic up your sleeve is the way to go.

[ThinkDifferent]

My Barbarian did give me finger stress, though. Spellcasters are more fun to play.

Sorceress all the way, Glacial Spike is perfect for crowd control. The only problem was when I did multiplayer with a Necromancer, who got annoyed that I kept shattering the monsters so he couldn't reanimate them.

[antiRepublicrat]

My gosh I performed tech support for that machine.

Remember a kid running around in the datacenter of City of Hope in the late 70s? The bored programmers even wrote a Pac-Man game on the mainframe, but it had a glitch that let me win every time, so that was no fun. Much more fun to play on the terminals.

[12.7mm]

excellent. I can wait. - The original years ago was great and the screens shots of this one look fantastic!. Lucky I just grabbed the latest vid card and built a gaming machine.

http://www.doom3.com/

for screens - cool stuff

[Mr. Jeeves]

I've beat the Dog with a spearazon, a claw assassin, and an axe barbarian. I'm chicken to try spell characters, 'cause those things DIE lots in early levels.

My cold sorceress took a while to get going, but once she got Blizzard she just ripped through everything in Normal and Nightmare. I've done twenty or thirty Nightmare Baal runs and she's never come close to dying. One cast of Blizzard will do about 7,000 points of damage over four seconds, which even the Nightmare Bosses can't deal with.

But...

Hell is a different story, since about half of the monsters are cold immunes. She has a level ten Fire Wall as a backup, but it kills too slowly. I struggled up to level 2 of the Claw Viper Temple, and every single monster there was cold immune - I couldn't even step down the stairs without getting surrounded and instantly killed by those slimy blue bastards. So now I'm stuck - I need to level her up some more (she's at 77) to work out a way deal with those Claw Vipers.