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Doom 3 vs Return to Castle Wolfenstein

Arbiter

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For a long time it was also my go-to example for weapons with punchy sound design and snappy reloads. Gun porn is everywhere now but back in 2004 only a few AA+ games had the budget to deliver.

I recall many complaints about gun sounds on release, especially the shotgun sounds. The shotgun was also criticized for its ridiculous spread.


Doom 3 was a criminally underused shooter engine.

Doom 3 was released 5 years after Quake 3. During that gap id lost the engine market share to Epic and never recovered. The engine was ready years before the Doom 3 release, but id would not license it to anyone before releasing their own game based on that technology.
 

toughasnails

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They are opposites in the sense that the people overemphasize Doom 3's shortcomings while underemphasizing those of RtCW perhaps to the same extent.
I'll give RtCW that is has extremely memorable start. It's atmospheric, great looking, has its wow moments like riding the cable tram across misty mountainside. there is a reason why that opening part is what so many people instantly have in mind when they think of Wolfenstein. Problem is that most of them will have time remembering anything after it, save maybe being annoyed by the stealth section.
 

Bad Sector

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Eh...I liked Doom 3 quite a bit, but I wouldn't call it a great "shooter". It's more like action-horror in the guise of a shooter.

I don't agree with that, it does have a horror theme, but the game is non-stop action. You can't go five steps without some demon (usually more than one) spawning or crawling around you, zombies coming out of closets or possessed soldiers running to your location. The game even has scripted spawns in case you backtrack.

Of course it also has sections where you need to explore the maps for keys, items, etc but that is just having Doom-style level design (and at a time that most shooters were abandoning this sort of level design approach).

During that gap id lost the engine market share to Epic and never recovered. The engine was ready years before the Doom 3 release, but id would not license it to anyone before releasing their own game based on that technology.

Also FWIW Carmack himself never really wanted to bother with engine licensing, it was the other owners that pushed with that. With UE you got full documentation, a continuous stream of new builds and developer support whereas with id Tech all you got was a day with Carmack to ask him questions about the source dump you just bought. In addition id made engines for the games they were working on alone, if it happened to work with other games it was a bonus, whereas UE was being made as a modular reusable tech. id Tech 4 was basically made for Doom 3's dark tech interiors and wouldn't work for outdoors, id Tech 5 was basically made to get a 60fps outdoor title with high graphical fidelity on XBox 360. Their engines thrived on the perceived popularity of their games and while Doom 3 was id's most commercially successful game up to that point, it never got Quake 3's popularity. With Rage they didn't even bother.
 

JDR13

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Eh...I liked Doom 3 quite a bit, but I wouldn't call it a great "shooter". It's more like action-horror in the guise of a shooter.

I don't agree with that, it does have a horror theme, but the game is non-stop action. You can't go five steps without some demon (usually more than one) spawning or crawling around you, zombies coming out of closets or possessed soldiers running to your location. The game even has scripted spawns in case you backtrack.

Of course it also has sections where you need to explore the maps for keys, items, etc but that is just having Doom-style level design (and at a time that most shooters were abandoning this sort of level design approach).

That's an exaggeration, but even if it did have that much action it doesn't make it a great shooter. Mechanically, it's downright clunky compared to a lot of other shooters that came both before and after. The difference is especially jarring when you compare it to Doom 2016 or Doom Eternal.

That doesn't mean it's a bad game. It can be mediocre as a shooter and still be a great experience. I'm not saying it's mediocre, but I definitely wouldn't call it great. Not as a shooter anyways.
 

Darth Roxor

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They are opposites in the sense that the people overemphasize Doom 3's shortcomings while underemphasizing those of RtCW perhaps to the same extent.
I'll give RtCW that is has extremely memorable start. It's atmospheric, great looking, has its wow moments like riding the cable tram across misty mountainside. there is a reason why that opening part is what so many people instantly have in mind when they think of Wolfenstein. Problem is that most of them will have time remembering anything after it, save maybe being annoyed by the stealth section.

Strongly disagreed. There were plenty of good levels past the beginning, and in fact the first thing that comes to my mind when I think RTCW is the secret base in Norway. Then there's the final level, the chateau, the cathedral full of elite guard, the dam, the rocket base. The only ones that I didn't care much for were probably the bombed city before the secret weapons facility, and the facility itself.
 

axx

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That's what I loved about RtCW. Each level was in a different setting.
 

Morenatsu.

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They are opposites in the sense that the people overemphasize Doom 3's shortcomings while underemphasizing those of RtCW perhaps to the same extent.
I'll give RtCW that is has extremely memorable start. It's atmospheric, great looking, has its wow moments like riding the cable tram across misty mountainside. there is a reason why that opening part is what so many people instantly have in mind when they think of Wolfenstein. Problem is that most of them will have time remembering anything after it, save maybe being annoyed by the stealth section.

Strongly disagreed. There were plenty of good levels past the beginning, and in fact the first thing that comes to my mind when I think RTCW is the secret base in Norway. Then there's the final level, the chateau, the cathedral full of elite guard, the dam, the rocket base. The only ones that I didn't care much for were probably the bombed city before the secret weapons facility, and the facility itself.
The first thing that comes to my mind is Bloodrayne. And also that final level in Soldier of Fortune. And probably some other games that are anything except RTCW itself.
 

Bad Sector

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That's an exaggeration, but even if it did have that much action it doesn't make it a great shooter. Mechanically, it's downright clunky compared to a lot of other shooters that came both before and after. The difference is especially jarring when you compare it to Doom 2016 or Doom Eternal.

That doesn't mean it's a bad game. It can be mediocre as a shooter and still be a great experience. I'm not saying it's mediocre, but I definitely wouldn't call it great. Not as a shooter anyways.

I haven't played Doom Eternal but for me Doom 2016 is worse than Doom 3 for the simple reason where i actually have to look for resources in Doom 3 and the level design is much closer to what i find enjoyable - and closer to 90s FPS games - instead of Doom 2016's arenas (which remind me more of Serious Sam and Painkiller style games than Doom or Quake). Also it doesn't have any sort of XP or weapon upgrades or whatever, it is a pure shooter where you pick up weapons and ammo and kill stuff while you go through levels.

Also I don't understand what exactly do you feel is "clunky"?
 

JDR13

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That's an exaggeration, but even if it did have that much action it doesn't make it a great shooter. Mechanically, it's downright clunky compared to a lot of other shooters that came both before and after. The difference is especially jarring when you compare it to Doom 2016 or Doom Eternal.

That doesn't mean it's a bad game. It can be mediocre as a shooter and still be a great experience. I'm not saying it's mediocre, but I definitely wouldn't call it great. Not as a shooter anyways.

I haven't played Doom Eternal but for me Doom 2016 is worse than Doom 3 for the simple reason where i actually have to look for resources in Doom 3 and the level design is much closer to what i find enjoyable - and closer to 90s FPS games - instead of Doom 2016's arenas (which remind me more of Serious Sam and Painkiller style games than Doom or Quake). Also it doesn't have any sort of XP or weapon upgrades or whatever, it is a pure shooter where you pick up weapons and ammo and kill stuff while you go through levels.

Also I don't understand what exactly do you feel is "clunky"?

That's fine. No one said you couldn't like Doom 3 more. I understand what you mean about the level design even though that has nothing to do with shooter mechanics.

Mechanically, there's no comparison. If I have to actually explain to you why Doom 3 feels clunky compared those games then I can already see this is a hopeless endeavor.

Also, you don't have to look for resources in Doom 3. What are you even talking about? The only resources are ammo and armor, and the game is saturated with them. I've played through Doom 3 multiple times, and I never once had to go out of my way to look for more ammo.
 

Bad Sector

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That's fine. No one said you couldn't like Doom 3 more. I understand what you mean about the level design even though that has nothing to do with shooter mechanics.

The game mechanics are used inside the level design, you can't separate the two.

Mechanically, there's no comparison. If I have to actually explain to you why Doom 3 feels clunky compared those games then I can already see this is a hopeless endeavor.

Well if you can't explain fine, i was just curious - it isn't like it'd change my opinion on the games anyway since i've played both and made my own conclusions on which i prefer more.

Also, you don't have to look for resources in Doom 3. What are you even talking about? The only resources are ammo and armor, and the game is saturated with them. I've played through Doom 3 multiple times, and I never once had to go out of my way to look for more ammo.

Ammo, armor, powerups and health, like the original games. And sure there is a lot of that, which is why i found weird that id felt the need to double the resources in the BFG edition, but you still have to go looking for them and there are secret areas that give you stronger powerups, better weapons, etc like the original games. In the new games (or at least in Doom 2016, as i wrote previously i haven't played Eternal) you get ammo "automatically" just by killing monsters (so no need to explore the maps to find more) and powerups that would be in secret areas in id's previous games (that would also require exploration) are placed right in the middle of arenas in Doom 2016.
 

JDR13

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I honestly can't tell if you're being intentionally obtuse at this point. I think it was pretty obvious from the beginning that I wasn't talking about level design, and yes, you absolutely can separate that from what I'm talking about.

I'm not trying to change your opinion about anything though. Doom 3 was a better experience for you, and that's totally cool.
 

Bad Sector

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I honestly can't tell if you're being intentionally obtuse at this point. I think it was pretty obvious from the beginning that I wasn't talking about level design, and yes, you absolutely can separate that from what I'm talking about.

You yourself wrote that you don't want to explain what you are even talking about... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And no, you can't separate level design from the game mechanics, the greatest FPS mechanics (whatever those might be) inside single empty 4 wall room are worthless and level design is built around the game mechanics, you can't have good level design without good game mechanics.
 

JDR13

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I honestly can't tell if you're being intentionally obtuse at this point. I think it was pretty obvious from the beginning that I wasn't talking about level design, and yes, you absolutely can separate that from what I'm talking about.

You yourself wrote that you don't want to explain what you are even talking about... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And no, you can't separate level design from the game mechanics, the greatest FPS mechanics (whatever those might be) inside single empty 4 wall room are worthless and level design is built around the game mechanics, you can't have good level design without good game mechanics.

A game can have great level design and still have poor mechanics in other areas or vice versa. Not that Doom 3 has great level design. I'd say it's pretty good though.

To pretend that great level design automatically means that it's good in all other areas mechanically is just silly, and I highly doubt you're actually dumb enough to believe that.
 

Bad Sector

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A game can have great level design and still have poor mechanics in other areas or vice versa.

No it cannot, for an FPS (which is what we're discussing here, though this applies to any game whose mechanics have to do with their levels), level design is built on top of game mechanics - you can't have good level design without good game mechanics for the levels to rely on. Level design isn't just the shape of the levels or where to put enemies but also - and way more importantly - how these shapes affect what the player can do, how the player and the AI will react to the level shapes, other objects in the levels and how these will interact will each other. You can have better levels than others in a game with bad game mechanics but ultimately the bad game mechanics will drag everything else down and put a limit in what a level design can be about and be done in it.

As an extreme example that should hopefully make it clear, you can load any Quake map on Godot using Qodot but without the game mechanics to go along with it, the maps will be useless for anything beyond just looking at them. If you add a mechanic to collect skulls or whatever wherever monsters would be and go to the next map when you collect them all, you'd even have a working -if primitive- game but a game that wouldn't take advantage of the maps at all and the maps wouldn't be designed with that hypothetical game in mind either.

I hope this makes clear that you can't separate game mechanics from level design.

To pretend that great level design automatically means that it's good in all other areas mechanically is just silly, and I highly doubt you're actually dumb enough to believe that.

If anything, i am actually dumbfounded that you don't see the connection between level design and game mechanics :-P
 

JDR13

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A game can have great level design and still have poor mechanics in other areas or vice versa.

No it cannot, for an FPS (which is what we're discussing here, though this applies to any game whose mechanics have to do with their levels), level design is built on top of game mechanics - you can't have good level design without good game mechanics for the levels to rely on. Level design isn't just the shape of the levels or where to put enemies but also - and way more importantly - how these shapes affect what the player can do, how the player and the AI will react to the level shapes, other objects in the levels and how these will interact will each other. You can have better levels than others in a game with bad game mechanics but ultimately the bad game mechanics will drag everything else down and put a limit in what a level design can be about and be done in it.

As an extreme example that should hopefully make it clear, you can load any Quake map on Godot using Qodot but without the game mechanics to go along with it, the maps will be useless for anything beyond just looking at them. If you add a mechanic to collect skulls or whatever wherever monsters would be and go to the next map when you collect them all, you'd even have a working -if primitive- game but a game that wouldn't take advantage of the maps at all and the maps wouldn't be designed with that hypothetical game in mind either.

I hope this makes clear that you can't separate game mechanics from level design.

I'm talking about the shooting mechanics here. That has NOTHING to do with level design. I'm referring to things like movement, control, speed, aiming, fluidity, etc. There's no comparison.

If you play Doom 2016 or Doom Eternal, and then go back to Doom 3 immediately afterwards, it's blatantly obvious what I'm talking about. Doom 3 feels like you're controlling a crippled snail after playing those games. On its own it isn't bad, but it's slow and clunky compared to the later titles. It's really not even debateable.

It's pretty amazing that you can't admit this despite how obvious it is. It makes me question if you've ever actually played the other Doom games.
 
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schru

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I wouldn't call it clunky as it's obvious that Id intended to make it that way and everything about the player's movement, animations, and how everything connects in terms of combat is very polished. It just seems like the designers wanted to make the player feel more vulnerable, exposed, and somewhat awkward, to make the combat feel more harrowing. It works to an extent, but often it just feels incongruous with the way the action gets ramped up as the game goes on.
 

JDR13

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I wouldn't call it clunky as it's obvious that Id intended to make it that way and everything about the player's movement, animations, and how everything connects in terms of combat is very polished. It just seems like the designers wanted to make the player feel more vulnerable, exposed, and somewhat awkward, to make the combat feel more harrowing. It works to an extent, but often it just feels incongruous with the way the action gets ramped up as the game goes on.

Yeah. Lke I said, it's not bad on its own. It's when you compare it to games that have much tighter & faster movement and shooting as well as better enemy AI.

Kind of like the early Resident Evil titles where the awkwardness was intended to add to the tension the player felt. Although that's a more extreme example.
 

Rean

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Both are good games. Doom 3 SP is better than RtCW SP, while RtCW MP to this day remains the best MP FPS to ever have been made.
Not allowed to disagree: Unreal, IDtenT, Andhaira.
 

Bad Sector

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I'm talking about the shooting mechanics here. That has NOTHING to do with level design. I'm referring to things like movement, control, speed, aiming, fluidity, etc. There's no comparison.

What you seem to describe isn't mechanics but feedback and -unless done horribly wrong- feedback is largely subjective. Also aiming and fluidity are among the best in Doom 3, the camera has instant feedback with mouse motion which is something that doesn't exist in pretty much any modern title (i don't remember how it was in Doom 2016 though). But again that is subjective, some people like their mouse aiming to be smoothed out.

Regardless...

It's pretty amazing that you can't admit this despite how obvious it is.

...it'd be much easier if you were explicit in what you were talking about from the beginning since, no, i didn't see anything obvious in what you were referring to.

It makes me question if you've ever actually played the other Doom games.

I have played hundreds of hours of all first three main Doom games. I only have a single Doom 2016 playthrough since it didn't click with me. I did try starting it again but i end up getting bored. As i already wrote I haven't played Doom Eternal yet.

I've also played (but not finished) the unofficial Doom 64 PC conversion, finished Doom RPG and played but not finished Doom RPG 2, if those count for anything :-P.

Anyway...

Doom 3 feels like you're controlling a crippled snail after playing those games. On its own it isn't bad, but it's slow and clunky compared to the later titles. It's really not even debateable.

Yeah. Lke I said, it's not bad on its own. It's when you compare it to games that have much tighter & faster movement and shooting

...i never argued about Doom 3's speed, the game is indeed slower paced than the Doom 1, 2 and 2016 (and probably Eternal) though that slower pace is fits the claustrophobic horror theme and the levels are designed with Doom 3's speed in mind. But i never compared it with the other Doom games anyway, i only wrote that for me Doom 3 is better than Doom 2016 due to having to explore the maps more and not liking Doom 2016's arena-based encounters.
 

Bigg Boss

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This thread is reminding me that Quake has coop now if any of you gents wanna play. Doom 3 looks better but Return damn sure is a better shooter.
 

JDR13

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I'm talking about the shooting mechanics here. That has NOTHING to do with level design. I'm referring to things like movement, control, speed, aiming, fluidity, etc. There's no comparison.

What you seem to describe isn't mechanics but feedback and -unless done horribly wrong- feedback is largely subjective. Also aiming and fluidity are among the best in Doom 3, the camera has instant feedback with mouse motion which is something that doesn't exist in pretty much any modern title (i don't remember how it was in Doom 2016 though). But again that is subjective, some people like their mouse aiming to be smoothed out.

Regardless...

It's both mechanics and feedback, and no, it's not subjective. Those aspects are much faster and tighter in Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal, and that's something that's widely acknowledged among FPS fans. The fact that you're even still arguing about it shows that either you still don't understand what I'm talking about (not likely), or you just refuse to acknowledge it for whatever reason.

...it'd be much easier if you were explicit in what you were talking about from the beginning since, no, i didn't see anything obvious in what you were referring to.

Right, of course you didn't.

...i never argued about Doom 3's speed, the game is indeed slower paced than the Doom 1, 2 and 2016 (and probably Eternal) though that slower pace is fits the claustrophobic horror theme and the levels are designed with Doom 3's speed in mind. But i never compared it with the other Doom games anyway, i only wrote that for me Doom 3 is better than Doom 2016 due to having to explore the maps more and not liking Doom 2016's arena-based encounters.

Yes, and I already told you it's fine that you like Doom 3 more. Which is why there was no reason to make yourself look foolish by stupidly trying to argue against something that's plainly obvious.
 

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