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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Saturday, July 17, 2004

And the DOOM 3 details just keep on coming...

Time: "From the title you'd think Doom 3 was a sequel to the earlier Doom games, but you'd be wrong: It's actually a wholesale reimagining and retelling of the original Doom scenario. You're a Marine posted to a fancy-pants research facility on Mars. You show up, something goes really, phenomenally wrong, and suddenly you're squaring off against a crapload of demons. The similarities to the original Doom end there. Doom 3 runs on all-new technology, and let's not mince words: there has never been a game that looks this good. I'm not sure what does it — the highly detailed textures, the fancy colored light and shadow-play, the all-new physics models, the "normal mapping" (whatever that is) — but id has created a virtual environment that's more compelling and immersive and realistic than really seems possible. Get up close to one of the demons and look at his skin: it gleams with a dull, matte, scaly sheen that's disturbingly lifelike. Warning: staring at demon skin up close may result in you being gutted like a fish."

GameSpy: "Shortly after DOOM 3 was unveiled two years ago, John Carmack disclosed that the game's multiplayer component would support a peer-to-peer networking model and was being geared towards a max of four players per game. This created a bit of a buzz in the gaming community, since id has basically made a living over the past few years with multiplayer giants like Quake III, supporting far more players and allowing gamers to jump on and off servers at will -- all of which appeared would no longer be possible in DOOM 3. Over the past two years, however, we'd heard rumors that the specifics of the game's networking could change, which were seemingly confirmed this week by id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead in a brief online exchange with UKGamer. Looking for more clarity, we turned to id Software programmer Robert Duffy, who was kind enough to provide us with a few quick answers, confirming that DOOM 3's multiplayer is no longer based on a peer-to-peer model, and while it's still designed around 4 players, that's by no means the limit to what mod developers can do with it."

[ Posted at 6:51 PM | Permalink ]