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.

[jamz]

I believe they are about to start a free trial up...just post something in the support forums...sgtspoon can point you in the right direction.

btw...I happen to be G5Jamz...one of the most hated germans in the game.

hehe...

;)

[jamz]

TGIF was the allied answer to SG...where SG would use numbers to crush and demoralize during the old simulcap days capturing 3-4 towns using opel rushes...TGIF would answer with that in addition to other questionable behaviours.

Windhund...116th here.

[COEXERJ145]

I'm not sure if there is one available for download or not. I know they usually are running a 7 or 14-day free demo that lets one download the game and play for a few days.

I'd just roam through the site and you'll probably find the info on it. Like I said earlier, it was (and probably still is) a great game but the attitude of some of the developers leaves a lot to be desired.

[COEXERJ145]

The main problem with TGIF was from almost Day-1, they were well known for exploiting every bug and glitch in the game. They're the ones who gave us the term "Beddy-rush" and capping towns deep behind the lines and then spawning an instant army. They were one the main reason why CRS had to make it where only front line towns could be capped. Then they turned to various other exploits such as placing a guy in every bunker 5, 6, 10 towns deep and "chain capping". That is why CRS had to make the bunker uncapable for I think 10 minutes after the town went contested. TGIF just left a bad taste in the mouth of a lot of Axis players to see all of our hard work ruined by a bunch of kiddies that had to exploit bugs in the game.

On the forums, they were arrogant, bragged about griefing the game, and were some of the biggest flamers. Especially doc9. He would regularly send me BS over the in game chat just to try and tick me off. Even with dozens of screen shots, CRS wouldn't do anything to him. Oh well.

[COEXERJ145]

Talk about a small world. I wonder how many other current and former WWIIOLers are here?

Actually I'm not really surprised. A good number of players seemed to be fairly conservative except for a few college students. There was one flaming liberal on the forums (Steve something I think) who we always had fun chewing apart whenever he posted his Michael Mooron type dribble.

[Moose4]

Heya jamz. I always did like fighting against WH...well, except on Sunday afternoons EST when it was Windhund, Nordland, AND Wiking, and you guys outnumbered us about four to one, and we got pwned. Very hard. Hehe. I remember a "Triad" attack on Mons one Sunday where y'all had about 100-120 people online...nothing you can do against that many numbers, good planning, AND good execution. No lame tactics, no precamps, none of that, just a good straight-up old-fashioned ass-kicking.

Someday I'll probably start playing WWIIOL again, but I'm too busy right now and I can't afford to keep handing CRS $13 a month when I'm not using the product.

}:-)4

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

Left WWIIOL last month after playing it since the first week it came out (3 guesses as to my handle there... it's relatively obvious). The game was good, but unfortunately under-planned. I don't think the real problem was the rushed launch (though that certainly was a bear!); I think that they really didn't know where they wanted to take the game. The Rats had an idea of how they wanted the game to "play," but not really of the mechanics to get it there. I think that's why you see the newest plans for deployment and such, because they are still trying to change the game experience to play the way they've imagined.

Unfortunately for me, the game had become a much higher work-to-reward ratio than I could justify. Too much time-to-battle, tactics had given way to "strategy" (camp an AB, camp a depot, rush a depot, rush an AB, rinse and repeat), and other things just made the game less fun. I bought City of Heroes right after it came out, and dropped WWIIOL the next week...

[ex 98C MI Dude]

You will have to dial back the detail levels, but a Radeon 9500 will just barely handle FarCry. I have a 3.2C overclocked to 3.84 that doesn't have a problem with most of the game's video, but when you get into a place with lots of reflective water, I start to lose some frame rate.

Yeah, the X800 is pricey, but so is the 9800XT. And worth it if you are a hardcore gamer. I have built a water cooled system in a Lian-Li pc-75B case that leaves me tons of room to expand. Its an ATX case, but I don't think the BTX standard is going to catch on anytime soon.

[Patriot Hooligan]

Hey Arch,

Just FYI: For the past three years the Video game business has made more money than Hollyweird.(Boxoffice+DVD sales) MS will spend 20 to 25 million marketing Halo 2 this year... and that's only one game. I have alot of peers without a job right now. This sure breath a little life back into the PC market and the industry as a whole.

Take Care

[antiRepublicrat]

BTW, somewhere around I have an article of exactly how John Carmack managed to cram all those worlds into slow processors with no video acceleration. The man's a programming genius.

I'll dig it up if anyone wants it.

[ex 98C MI Dude]

Be aware that video card has a huge power requirement. You need at least a 480 watt power supply with two free power connectors.

I like the Shader 3.0 feature, though. I was disappointed when ATI didn't include it on their latest offering.

[antiRepublicrat]

Far Cry is a good first person shooter, but it takes a massive gaming system to properly play it. My 3.2C with 1 gig of PC-4000 RAM and a 9800XT barely handles it at 1280x1040. I am going to assume Doom III will be the same way

Funny no one's mentioned AMD systems. An AthlonFX-53 is pretty fast and not that expensive, plus you can bump the clock speed a touch with no problems. But then if you have 3K in you pocket, you could buy a decent dual Opteron system that shouldn't have any problems doing Doom3 with all the goodies turned on.

[antiRepublicrat]

Doom 3 and Half Life 2 will both be released on the XBox platform.

It might look good on XBox 2, but I don't think an XBox has the power to make Doom 3 look very good, expecially if you want to go HDTV. IIRC, the nVidia graphics in an XBox are akin to an old GeForce 4600, or something in that area.

[wolficatZ]

I noticed the same problems with Jaleco's Figher Ace. I used to play it frequently several years ago; the developers were very unconducive to constructive criticism; never once soliciting feedback from subscribers and did very little to correct major flaws in the game.

It was a fun game, a very inexpensive monthly sub (9.95 US), and a lot of exciting gameplay as far as WW2 flight sims go; support for 100+ players, and very good main servers setup with little lag or connectivity problems. But the sound and terrain graphics were abysmal, the flight and weapons models very iffy and biased; and the arenas so bland and uninspired. They also had a very poor marketing and publicity strategy, and one would rarely even hear about the game in publications and online gaming sites.
Anyways I decided to give it another look a couple of months ago; downloading the 500mb software and signing up for one month:
Nothing had changed except a 50% increase in the subscription cost! The same old tired arenas, lousy sound, the vast, empty terrain, and even fewer players ( when they were hosted by the M$ Zone they had quite a few ;the Territorial Combat arenas would be packed).
They had some new maps, but with only a few players in a huge area, a real waste of time. The only one with anything close to 100 aircraft was the old TC arena,renamed "classic"; so unimaginative.
I flew it infrequently for about 2 weeks and then let it slide, it seemed so old hat, it just wasn't fun anymore.

I'm still hoping for the ultimate air/sea/land MMOG soon, with the advances in computer power and graphics; I'm always checking out the latest demos and trailers as they are released, and have recently seen in some a lot of potential..Far Cry, Joint OPs, flight sims like Pacific Fighters and naval sims like PT-Boats; it will be great to see concepts like WW2O; that bring air/sea/land together realistically, brought up to the next level.
Being able, with a limited time schedule,and on a whim, to jump into a "never ending battle" in just a few seconds and do whatever one wants for an hour or so in a human opponent rich environment is one of the most rewarding expressions of "fun" one can experience on a home computer.

[Archangelsk]

Although I appreciate the employment opportunities that this entertainment provides, nobody will ever be able to convince me that 'gaming' is nothing more than a complete waste of time. (Our legacy for landing on the moon is to turn our youth into drooling zombies?).

[Skooz]

Thanks. Back in the day, I put way too many hours into gaming. I put the keyboard down and slowly stepped away from the computer games a couple of years ago. But Doom 3 will be a mighty big temptation to overcome. The more you post, the stronger I am to resist the temptation.

[COEXERJ145]

If the developers ever get it finished, there is a MMOG called Enigma Rising Tide that is suppose to come out sometime this year. It is an alternative history naval combat simulation.

The game takes place in 1937. Germany won WWI and conquered Britain. They captured three of the four Admiral (Hood) class battle cruisers while the rest of the Royal Navy, along with Churchill, fled to Canada and the rest of the empire. The Royal Navy in Exile (RNE) is allied with Japan as the "League of Free Nations". The RNE is also ticked at the U.S. because we didn't help them in WWI. Japan has not become the militarist country it was following WWI. The Germans are threatening to invade Ireland which the U.S. has a defense treaty with.

The single player missions takes one through the quasi-naval war that is occurring between the various sides. You can play as a surface warship, Corvette, DE, and DD, or a submarine. (The update that is available lets one play a mission as either the Hood or its German counterpart.)

I won't spoil the ending but lets just say the world erupts into another global war. That is where the multiplayer is suppose to begin.

[RogueIsland]

(and you're right about the Light Side options...howtheheck am I supposed to play a convincing scoundrel when all the options are sweetness-n-light or "Bad Jedi! Bad!" :-)

You can game the thing so that you can still get light side mastery without being a complete liberal. You can even do all of the assassination quests for the Rodian on Manaan if you want. The trick is to front load your bad actions in the game and then redeem yourself later. It seems that you get penalized for darkside actions more if you have a high lightside score at the time. There are enough lightside points on Korriban alone that you should more than be able to make up for some darkside moments (there are more opportunities for lightside points in the game than you need for mastery). And interestingly, you can do some pretty morally ambiguous things and not get penalized for it (especially on Korriban), but I won't spoil it.

Also, realize that you can easily finish the game without mastering either light or dark, so you can play neutral if you want without making anything hard on yourself. The ending isn't even determined by your lightside/darkside score anyway, but is determined solely by your Big Decision on the Unkown World.

[Patriot Hooligan]

It's out, but it's not MMOG. It's fun but it could have been better.

[Foxfire4]

You can game the thing so that you can still get light side mastery without being a complete liberal.

Cool, I'll keep it in mind the next time I replay. Though I didn't mind giving the credits to the bounty-hunted dude on Taris, raising a mental middle finger in the direction of Ayn Rand the whole time. ;-)

Meanwhile, I'm thoroughly engrossed in Thief: Deadly Shadows...I've only been waiting for that game for three years, after all. So my Bioware stuff has fallen by the wayside for a bit.