DOOM 3 BFG Edition... save your money!

Technology and Gaming
#1

I’m a big fan of id Studios and have almost all of their published titles. I’ve been playing the original Doom 3, heavily modded (SikkMod & Wulfen Textures) and it looks and sounds fantastic, even for an 8-year old game.

Just got DOOM 3 BFG Edition (BFGE) for PC and what a huge disappointment!!! I never thought or expected that this new release would be so consolized. The video options consist of Resolution, FPS (60 or 120), Vsync, Anti-aliasing Level (off, x2, x4) and Blur Level… that’s it! There are NO audio settings available at all. According to info stated by Tim Willits, id Studios Creative Director, in numerous interviews since the title was announced last May, BFGE was to get the following:

“HD” treatment - NOT! Same blurry environment textures.
Rework of NPC models - NOT! Same multi-pointed heads.
Improved sounds - NOT! Muffled and crackly audio.
Game Engine Optimizations - NOT! Stuttering and choppiness (I’m playing it on a very hi-end SLI-enabled computer).

Seems all the HD treatments have been applied to the console versions of BFGE, in particular for Playstation hardware that’s never had the Doom series available to it.

Add to all this that no existing DOOM 3 community mods can be used with BFGE, because it incorporates certain technology from their newer id Tech 5 engine, that was used for Rage. John Carmack from id is still trying to figure out a way to resolve this issue, hopefully soon.

It’s a shame that id has sold-out and royally screwed their long standing PC supporters, as has been the case with some other PC-only studios that have migrated their titles to consoles. id did it with Rage and now they’ve done it with DOOM 3. Let’s hope DOOM 4 is not in jeopardy, as well.

Guess the only real bright spot with BFGE is the “Lost Mission” pack, which I haven’t started yet. There’s now little motivation to do so, knowing that it will consist of blurry textures, multi-pointed heads, muffled-crackly audio and frame stuttering… geez, I can hardly wait?

Save your money… don’t support a crap release like this!!!

#2

id can’t even make a properly functioning PC game any more. idtech 5 was laughable garbage that was full of terrible design decisions. Apparently this is some kind of bastardized idtech 4/5 hybrid, so it doesn’t surprise me that has similar issues.

#3

Yeah, I was a bit disappointed too. The flashlight doesn’t cast shadows anymore either. The only thing I noticed is that the game seems a tad brighter and the flashlight can be used anytime.

The inclusions of the two first games was a nice touch tho.

#4

I heard the “new and improved lighting” is pretty much just a config variable changed from 1 to 2 and you can do it with vanilla Doom 3. So yeah, at least for PC this is a waste of money.

#5

look at the bullshit they did to the Wolf tribute maps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1snCRIl16ks&feature=player_embedded

#6

Throwing this out there, it’s just my two cents, but while the games themselves (RAGE and Doom 3: BFG) may not be a great example of it, the id Tech 5 engine is a damn fine engine from a technical standpoint. I’m waiting for a PC centric developer to crank something out with it, provided id offers the license up to the highest bidders.

#7

This is why you have sikkmod

#8

Maybe they saw the error of their ways and that game will be Doom 4.

#9

I hope so but I doubt it. Unless Doom 4 show us something that blows UE4 or CE3 out of the water, I think we can definitely say that Carmack has lost his touch.

Maybe he should just focus on his rockets from now on.

#10

I was actually looking forward to that… perhaps save my cash and not bother

#11

idtech 5 is NOT a technical marvel by any stretch of the imagination. It’s a misconceived console engine that is essentially useless on the PC. Carmack bet the ranch on low memory usage and non-repeating textures, and he ended up creating an engine with awful pop-in and hideous compression artifacts that looks half as good as some other games at three times the size.

It was a mistake, and they’ve limped along with it for too long. id needs to abandon ship and create an engine that actually works. There’s a reason no one is using idtech 5, and it ain’t 'cause it costs too much to license.

#12

I’m not sure if id Tech 5 is the only engine that can utilize ‘megatexture’ technology, but if it is then I disagree. Because It’s a rather winded blow-hardy conversation to have, I’ll let this guy do the explaining for me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiQCz2NjPR8

#13

I miss when ID was a good developer and they actually mattered.

#14

There are tons of new and interesting ideas in idtech 5. It’s a very complex and original engine. It just isn’t a good one. Carmack thought he had some good ideas, but he was apparently surrounded by yes men and never surrendered when it became clear that the engine actually kind of looks like crap and doesn’t function properly on one of its release platforms.

#15

Idk about that, because his touch has always been to touch everything. I think for R&D he’s still too damn valuable to the industry to write off. He’s constantly looking into stuff that no one else is. Not because it’s not practical stuff, but because it’s not practical stuff NOW. I think he should develop a team of experimental interactive tech engineers actually. A company/club of programmers testing alternate methodology for shit that’s bog standard now. Alternative ways to achieve things that can have drastically different evolutionary paths.

I mean Megatextures failed (for now) because of average HDD size and the popping from constant streaming. In the future, possibly within the next decade, this may cease to be an issue. What then? Will everyone suddenly start doing it? It’s not that far fetched, I mean it does allow for a greater amount of control in terms of environmental aesthetic. Before they locked the console in Rage, It was looking fucking sextastic on my rig. I could get the resolutions to be not quite so abhorrent, and the art stood up because the guys that put it together were 100% in control. The absence of tiles definitely does something for the overall image. I can see this being used a hell of a lot in the future. Now is not the time though.

#16

Give 'em a chance. They fucked up 1 engine and had 1 game that wasn’t bad but wasn’t amazing.

#17

I will if they ever give us a decent PC version of one of their games again.

#18

Hmm better textures was all they had to do, everything else in Doom 3 is still fantastic.

#19

lol I love how the way they made the “new” flashlight literally makes it look like they took the viewmodel and moved it off screen.

Still though, I think it’s time to download sikkmod and play Doom 3 again.

You know, I feel having a limited flare supply that you can restock like AvP 2 for light could have possibly benefited Doom 3 just a bit.

#20

Oh yes because making good games and being a good developer depends solely on the PC specific aspects of your game, not the important things like gameplay, art design and story.

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.