Ladies and Gentlemen,

I wish you happy holidays!

It's been a tough year, but so have been the years before.
Since the release of Doom3 I have gone through many changes, some good, some bad, but all worthwhile experiences.

I slowly feel the Doom3 engine coming to an undeserved decline in the community. A large part can get attributed to the infamous leak of the alpha version which did simply spoil everyone around and has led to unrealistic expectations in general.

The momentum of the game was pushed forward too much at a time where it was simply illegal to push the engine, but man - it was so much fun to work with! Without the leak there wouldn't be a D3W since the large sites would have taken over long time before anyone could have typed the D3W domain into their browsers.

But what's good for us isn't necessarily good for a technology. What an impact would the game have made without the whole world having already ripped apart every bit and byte of the leaked version! By the time D3 got finally released many community members have already been through with it and moved on to greener pastures.

The creation of Mods and custom user content has changed radically with Doom3 and for many the leap forward was too much. For those who are really dedicated to mapping, modding, modelling... as an art form the engine is still gold. Games like RoE (gravity gun), Prey (wickedly twisted level design), Quake4 (which is still good, but don't expect the second coming to arrive every 3 months in your mailbox) and ET:QW have shown there is more life in it that most can or want to see.

To me personally Doom3 still is one of the most polished and coherent designed games I've ever played. Still I hold my grievance over Imps spawning behind me, having to switch back and forth between the flashlight, the too many PDAs I had to read and last but not least - the fact that it felt like a stealth shooter but played like an action game. Indecisive so to say, but that's my personal problem and if that's the only thing I have to deal with in life then I consider myself happy beyond belief.

Ten years ago a large FPS didn't have any real competition. Those who belonged to the chosen ones of having a speedy dial up or DSL connection enjoyed a limited array of abilities. Q1, Q2, Q3, U(T) and subsequently HalfLife. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there hasn't been much else around.
So people did deal more or less with two platforms Quake.x and Unreal.x. The two technology trees grew with released mods, some of them more popular than the original game, but still - only two major technology trees.

Every other competitor coming to the market was hyped as the next Quake killer which tells the whole story about the variety in gaming at that time. So it's only naturally that communities were larger and more focused around one technology or another.

Now look at the current environment. Good shooters are ubiquitous and the technologies one can choose from are not countless, but have increased significantly. A mod team today has to undergo an almost professional evaluation process before they decide on which technology they want to built something for free and dedicate years to this process rather than the ~6 months ten years ago.

There is this popular topic on D3W which says "Is the Doom3 editing craze almost gone". I say yes, but attribute this neither to an idtech4 specific problem nor to a dislike anyone may have about the released games designed on that platform.

Doom3 was a technology break due to the unified lighting system. All of a sudden a mapmodel could look as cool as the environment and the enemy models could fit right in with the same visual quality. Nothing stood eyepokingly out as breakable, moveable or whatever entity like behaviour got attributed to it.

This technology break with all it's related issues turned out harder to master than the simple increases on polycount and texture resolution limitations we've been accustomed with. The causal gamer who accidentally stumbled upon Radiant couldn't produce amazing results in short time. We call this learning curve and many, if you are like me, imply something good when they hear "steep learning curve". It means more features, less limitations - simply "more cool stuff" you can do.

It's no wonder people who made the transition from Q1 - Q2 - Q3 - D3 didn't have much problems to adapt. All of the old school guys have been happy when id software provided us with an interface that was at least rudimentary enough not to type down brush coordinates in notepad.
With idtech4 things changed radically in this department. Workflow and pipeline integration all of a sudden became buzzwords for community users too. Map this, make a material for that, animate this... These are all good things, but the hurdles for new people have been too hard to master - IMHO.

Those of you still reading to this post will say: "so, what?" - and that's true. This here is the place which attracts a very limited amount of people who push through the game as fast as possible to finally unveil the editing possibilities. This is nice for each on a personal level, but it doesn't help building a large and strong community base where also the "noob" get's in fast enough not to become frustrated before he creates something worth showing off.

My hope is, that Rage will come with a set of tools that allows new users to crate something fast and easy. Out of those many will become infected by the virus of creating 3d worlds beyond what we get presented with in everyday sci-fi movies or whatever ambient setting you prefer.

Gaming in general is moving ever stronger towards consoles. Some say it's a sell off to make a console game, but in fact it isn't. If a growing customer base demands a game on a specific platform, then the developers will follow. As easy as is. Is PC gaming dead? No - why would anyone think so? When I go to the store and look around I see more PC games sitting on shelves fighting for attention than ever. If it'd be dead things would be different. Are they too expensive? Probably so! With new digital distribution channels there should be a way to offer different pricing models for boxed and download versions, right? Even more so when developer, publisher and distributor seemingly become one (Valve).

So, what lays ahead of us in 2008? First of all - D3W will stay with you. I wanted to expand the site and still want to, but time is short. However I don't register http://www.rageworld.org/ just because I have money to burn on domain names. The future is 3D and as long as there is a future there will be a site for those who think the same. As far as I'm concerned I hope you enjoy meeting like minded people here and will continue to do so when we start to introduce our children to the board. I'm silently working on some improvements to make the site better, but I wont spoil anyone nor will I make false promises. When it's done also applies here

. Eventually when Duke Nukem comes out I'll finally go online with a few good ideas...

This said - thanks to everyone who comes here, posts and contributes, may it be on D3W or Modwiki!

Cheers
BNA!

Oh, before I forget - this years wishlist:
http://www.amazon.de/gp/registry/regist ... UGARA1QXRF

Very eloquently put. Happy holidays to all, and I anticipate more great ideas and experiences here in 2008!

A very interesting read and sums up my, and many other d3 modders experiences over the years since launch. All points made are very valid and have made me think a lot about what has been acomplished with the d3 engine and what the future holds with Rage.

There are a few points I disagree with, but they are a matter of opinion. I believe that the decline in modding with Doom 3 is not just related to the popularity of the engine, but also to the general interest in mods in general. It is a lot harder to create custom content with today’s engines as it was in the Quake 2/ Half-life era, simply due to all the extra tools and knowledge required. Due to this, there is now a lack of quality mods being released, and an even smaller amount that have become popular on the scale of the mods of old.

A large proportion of gamers today strive for realism, and this can be shown in the small number of popular mods that are based on real life confrontations. This of course is just from my own perception of the modding community in general and not related to Doom 3. I think that the Doom 3 community has never been as large as it could have, or should have been due to many factors related to how the game was constructed. The graphical look is a very perspective thing, I think the graphical effects in Doom 3 are dated, even when released in 2005. The lighting system made the game something new, and revolutionised the way that people look at lighting in a game, but at the cost of being graphically attractive.

Looking back, I find that Doom 3 was a huge step technically at its time compared to other games, but just after its release Half-Life 2 came onto the market and took over in popularity due to its brighter, more attractive (personal opinion granted) environments. The technology used in HL2 was not as ground breaking from a technical aspect as the unified lighting system, however when playing through the base games that showed their engines, Half-life 2 was a more enjoyable experience.

If the base Doom 3 game was more fun to play when compared to Half-Life 2, I doubt there would be any question about the waning of Doom 3 modding popularity as most of the new wave of modders would have cut their teeth on Doom 3 instead of HL2.

As a diehard id software fan, I chose to learn how to mod with the Doom 3 engine over source because it was fundamentally different of game creation philosophies used during the creation of user content. I think this change has inspired all of the people who currently post on this forum to continue to use idtech4 for future projects, however the general majority of old school modders would have stayed with source due to it simply extending its functionality over the old quake-style development pipeline.

Even now, with the knowledge that Source is a more popular platform for mods and custom maps, I am choosing to work with the Enemy Territory Quake Wars take on idtech4 because when attempting to return to source, and its older style of development, it feels like a heavy step backwards. I spent several months trying to start working on a project with Source, but was unable to get to grips with the development tools due to the feeling of working with old technology, a feeling of taking a huge step backwards. This led to me delaying working on a new project for almost a year while wating for ETQW to be released.

I hope that this community remains and continues to grow with each new generation of id technology as everyone here is genuinely helpful and I hope this good, friendly, user base continues to support modders of all experience levels. I have read posts before about how some people perceive this forum as being elitist, I just find that with great knowledge of a topic, comes confidence, and it is that confidence that is expressed in posts across the forum which can sometimes be misinterpreted. However, it is this air of confidence that the longer standing members give that makes me proud to be a member of this community and take faith in the advice that they give.

Happy Christmas.

I hope Rage will bring the mod community back to id Software tech, but a few things will need to happen...

1. Rage (the game) will have to be a revolutionary "best game ever" experience and sell at least 4 million combined units.
2. A mod friendly engine with complete development tools.
3. Continuing support from id Software (downloadable content, modding contests, etc...)

It appears that they are working hard at the second point. Time will tell on the others...

pbmax wrote:

2. A mod friendly engine with complete development tools.

I find this to be the most important part. People really should not have such a difficult time getting assets to work in the game. The tools is definitely the area they need to work on.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I wish you happy holidays!

It's been a tough year, but so have been the years before.
Since the release of Doom3 I have gone through many changes, some good, some bad, but all worthwhile experiences.

I slowly feel the Doom3 engine coming to an undeserved decline in the community. A large part can get attributed to the infamous leak of the alpha version which did simply spoil everyone around and has led to unrealistic expectations in general.

The momentum of the game was pushed forward too much at a time where it was simply illegal to push the engine, but man - it was so much fun to work with! Without the leak there wouldn't be a D3W since the large sites would have taken over long time before anyone could have typed the D3W domain into their browsers.

But what's good for us isn't necessarily good for a technology. What an impact would the game have made without the whole world having already ripped apart every bit and byte of the leaked version! By the time D3 got finally released many community members have already been through with it and moved on to greener pastures.

The creation of Mods and custom user content has changed radically with Doom3 and for many the leap forward was too much. For those who are really dedicated to mapping, modding, modelling... as an art form the engine is still gold. Games like RoE (gravity gun), Prey (wickedly twisted level design), Quake4 (which is still good, but don't expect the second coming to arrive every 3 months in your mailbox) and ET:QW have shown there is more life in it that most can or want to see.

To me personally Doom3 still is one of the most polished and coherent designed games I've ever played. Still I hold my grievance over Imps spawning behind me, having to switch back and forth between the flashlight, the too many PDAs I had to read and last but not least - the fact that it felt like a stealth shooter but played like an action game. Indecisive so to say, but that's my personal problem and if that's the only thing I have to deal with in life then I consider myself happy beyond belief.

Ten years ago a large FPS didn't have any real competition. Those who belonged to the chosen ones of having a speedy dial up or DSL connection enjoyed a limited array of abilities. Q1, Q2, Q3, U(T) and subsequently HalfLife. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there hasn't been much else around.
So people did deal more or less with two platforms Quake.x and Unreal.x. The two technology trees grew with released mods, some of them more popular than the original game, but still - only two major technology trees.

Every other competitor coming to the market was hyped as the next Quake killer which tells the whole story about the variety in gaming at that time. So it's only naturally that communities were larger and more focused around one technology or another.

Now look at the current environment. Good shooters are ubiquitous and the technologies one can choose from are not countless, but have increased significantly. A mod team today has to undergo an almost professional evaluation process before they decide on which technology they want to built something for free and dedicate years to this process rather than the ~6 months ten years ago.

There is this popular topic on D3W which says "Is the Doom3 editing craze almost gone". I say yes, but attribute this neither to an idtech4 specific problem nor to a dislike anyone may have about the released games designed on that platform.

Doom3 was a technology break due to the unified lighting system. All of a sudden a mapmodel could look as cool as the environment and the enemy models could fit right in with the same visual quality. Nothing stood eyepokingly out as breakable, moveable or whatever entity like behaviour got attributed to it.

This technology break with all it's related issues turned out harder to master than the simple increases on polycount and texture resolution limitations we've been accustomed with. The causal gamer who accidentally stumbled upon Radiant couldn't produce amazing results in short time. We call this learning curve and many, if you are like me, imply something good when they hear "steep learning curve". It means more features, less limitations - simply "more cool stuff" you can do.

It's no wonder people who made the transition from Q1 - Q2 - Q3 - D3 didn't have much problems to adapt. All of the old school guys have been happy when id software provided us with an interface that was at least rudimentary enough not to type down brush coordinates in notepad.
With idtech4 things changed radically in this department. Workflow and pipeline integration all of a sudden became buzzwords for community users too. Map this, make a material for that, animate this... These are all good things, but the hurdles for new people have been too hard to master - IMHO.

Those of you still reading to this post will say: "so, what?" - and that's true. This here is the place which attracts a very limited amount of people who push through the game as fast as possible to finally unveil the editing possibilities. This is nice for each on a personal level, but it doesn't help building a large and strong community base where also the "noob" get's in fast enough not to become frustrated before he creates something worth showing off.

My hope is, that Rage will come with a set of tools that allows new users to crate something fast and easy. Out of those many will become infected by the virus of creating 3d worlds beyond what we get presented with in everyday sci-fi movies or whatever ambient setting you prefer.

Gaming in general is moving ever stronger towards consoles. Some say it's a sell off to make a console game, but in fact it isn't. If a growing customer base demands a game on a specific platform, then the developers will follow. As easy as is. Is PC gaming dead? No - why would anyone think so? When I go to the store and look around I see more PC games sitting on shelves fighting for attention than ever. If it'd be dead things would be different. Are they too expensive? Probably so! With new digital distribution channels there should be a way to offer different pricing models for boxed and download versions, right? Even more so when developer, publisher and distributor seemingly become one (Valve).

So, what lays ahead of us in 2008? First of all - D3W will stay with you. I wanted to expand the site and still want to, but time is short. However I don't register http://www.rageworld.org/ just because I have money to burn on domain names. The future is 3D and as long as there is a future there will be a site for those who think the same. As far as I'm concerned I hope you enjoy meeting like minded people here and will continue to do so when we start to introduce our children to the board. I'm silently working on some improvements to make the site better, but I wont spoil anyone nor will I make false promises. When it's done also applies here

. Eventually when Duke Nukem comes out I'll finally go online with a few good ideas...

This said - thanks to everyone who comes here, posts and contributes, may it be on D3W or Modwiki!

Cheers
BNA!

Oh, before I forget - this years wishlist:
http://www.amazon.de/gp/registry/regist ... UGARA1QXRF

Very eloquently put. Happy holidays to all, and I anticipate more great ideas and experiences here in 2008!

A very interesting read and sums up my, and many other d3 modders experiences over the years since launch. All points made are very valid and have made me think a lot about what has been acomplished with the d3 engine and what the future holds with Rage.

There are a few points I disagree with, but they are a matter of opinion. I believe that the decline in modding with Doom 3 is not just related to the popularity of the engine, but also to the general interest in mods in general. It is a lot harder to create custom content with today’s engines as it was in the Quake 2/ Half-life era, simply due to all the extra tools and knowledge required. Due to this, there is now a lack of quality mods being released, and an even smaller amount that have become popular on the scale of the mods of old.

A large proportion of gamers today strive for realism, and this can be shown in the small number of popular mods that are based on real life confrontations. This of course is just from my own perception of the modding community in general and not related to Doom 3. I think that the Doom 3 community has never been as large as it could have, or should have been due to many factors related to how the game was constructed. The graphical look is a very perspective thing, I think the graphical effects in Doom 3 are dated, even when released in 2005. The lighting system made the game something new, and revolutionised the way that people look at lighting in a game, but at the cost of being graphically attractive.

Looking back, I find that Doom 3 was a huge step technically at its time compared to other games, but just after its release Half-Life 2 came onto the market and took over in popularity due to its brighter, more attractive (personal opinion granted) environments. The technology used in HL2 was not as ground breaking from a technical aspect as the unified lighting system, however when playing through the base games that showed their engines, Half-life 2 was a more enjoyable experience.

If the base Doom 3 game was more fun to play when compared to Half-Life 2, I doubt there would be any question about the waning of Doom 3 modding popularity as most of the new wave of modders would have cut their teeth on Doom 3 instead of HL2.

As a diehard id software fan, I chose to learn how to mod with the Doom 3 engine over source because it was fundamentally different of game creation philosophies used during the creation of user content. I think this change has inspired all of the people who currently post on this forum to continue to use idtech4 for future projects, however the general majority of old school modders would have stayed with source due to it simply extending its functionality over the old quake-style development pipeline.

Even now, with the knowledge that Source is a more popular platform for mods and custom maps, I am choosing to work with the Enemy Territory Quake Wars take on idtech4 because when attempting to return to source, and its older style of development, it feels like a heavy step backwards. I spent several months trying to start working on a project with Source, but was unable to get to grips with the development tools due to the feeling of working with old technology, a feeling of taking a huge step backwards. This led to me delaying working on a new project for almost a year while wating for ETQW to be released.

I hope that this community remains and continues to grow with each new generation of id technology as everyone here is genuinely helpful and I hope this good, friendly, user base continues to support modders of all experience levels. I have read posts before about how some people perceive this forum as being elitist, I just find that with great knowledge of a topic, comes confidence, and it is that confidence that is expressed in posts across the forum which can sometimes be misinterpreted. However, it is this air of confidence that the longer standing members give that makes me proud to be a member of this community and take faith in the advice that they give.

Happy Christmas.

I hope Rage will bring the mod community back to id Software tech, but a few things will need to happen...

1. Rage (the game) will have to be a revolutionary "best game ever" experience and sell at least 4 million combined units.
2. A mod friendly engine with complete development tools.
3. Continuing support from id Software (downloadable content, modding contests, etc...)

It appears that they are working hard at the second point. Time will tell on the others...

pbmax wrote:

2. A mod friendly engine with complete development tools.

I find this to be the most important part. People really should not have such a difficult time getting assets to work in the game. The tools is definitely the area they need to work on.

It shouldn't be a big issue whether the Doom 3 modder community dissipates. There are the old-school Doom games, with their own sizable communities, mostly at doomworld.com. While many of those people think Doom 3 is mediocre, I think there should be a reason to switch to this game once in awhile, as it's called "Doom" while also boasting superior technology base. I only hope.

I haven't started modding Doom 3 (only now I discovered I have the CD key, I haven't lost it), but from what scripts look like, it's very versatile. I hope I'm not wrong and that by the time I start working and releasing, people won't leave doom3world.

For the disappointed Doom 1, 2 players: this is still Doom and belongs to the same space as Doom 1 and 2, while being creepier (lack of music, many more disgusting sounds, tougher and more aggressive monsters, darker).

Off-topic question regarding map filesize (I haven't started mapping yet): does each and every Doom 3 map have its own independent texture set (as with Quake), or does it load textures from a main pack (as with Doom 1, 2)? The Quake map format is really bad, because many maps will use copies of original id textures and take up useless space, when they could just reference original data, saving both space and copyright problems (distribution of free copies of original data, in this case textures).

I know it has been a while since this thread has been created but I would just like to say I enjoyed reading through it. It's funny about the whole modding universe

I believe that modding is a bit like a trend, and there is one thing that we all know about trends is that they always run in a cycle. Fashion for instance, begins by something that is unfashionable to a recognised fashion that evolves into the nessessity to be fashionable. Think of it this way. Humans are governed by the planets on what they should wear at a particular time of the year and that is something we cannot change. A dream world however is something we can change. In our case, the Doom 3 world. Creativity is, in a sense, predicting the future and thinking outside the box provided. All the mods that I have seen for doom 3 have all been recycled and repeated in one form of another at some point. For example: Duct Tape mod. This mod in my opinion is the very best Doom 3 mod that has ever been created. After this there have been tons of mods with similar concepts but they are just copies of this simple yet brilliant idea. This brings me to the point of editing and tools. I personally think that ID created Doom 3 as part of a learning curve themselves. Quake 1, 2, 3 are, in my opinion, a part of their own modding era and I think that Doom 3, Quake 4, ETQW are getting modders ready for an explosive modding community in years to come for Rage, Doom 4 and RTCW. In other words, I think that IDTech 4 is the foundation era. Cycles woh?!

Duct tape mod... brilliant? We're worlds apart Doug. :lol:

rich_is_bored wrote:

Duct tape mod... brilliant? We're worlds apart Doug. :lol:

hehe I know it sounds a little silly but within the doom 3 game I would rather be able to see what I'm shooting at than to see what bloom has done to the walls. But I suppose each to his own

Douglas Quaid wrote:

rich_is_bored wrote:

Duct tape mod... brilliant? We're worlds apart Doug. :lol:

hehe I know it sounds a little silly but within the doom 3 game I would rather be able to see what I'm shooting at than to see what bloom has done to the walls. But I suppose each to his own

Actually id software has admitted (indirectly) the duct tape mod highlights their greatest design failure in Doom3. So it's the small leaks which can sink a large ship.

They're just backpedaling in response to the negative backlash. Everyone knows the intention behind the limited use of the flashlight was to heighten the suspense. For that purpose the design is solid. It's the way they chose to implement it that wasn't well received.

Case in point, HL2 where the flashlight has a limited battery life. Same design principle. Different execution. No complaints.

The only reason Doom 3's approach was not successful is because it doesn't cater to run and gun game play which is what their core audience expected since it was after all a sequel to Doom and Doom 2. Hense the reason why the duct tape mod is so well recieved. It takes a game that was supposed to be played at a slow pace and allows you to play it as if it were the original Doom.

I look forward to the release of the source code. I'd love to see a mod where the enemy AI is revamped to the point where it's impossible to survive unless you play the game at a slow pace. Then the flashlight implemented as it is now would make sense. When you play the game at a fast pace, the toggle is just a nuisance.

Just in short: Happy Holidays, and thanks you so much to been here, DooM3WorlD!

rich_is_bored wrote:

I look forward to the release of the source code. I'd love to see a mod where the enemy AI is revamped to the point where it's impossible to survive unless you play the game at a slow pace. Then the flashlight implemented as it is now would make sense. When you play the game at a fast pace, the toggle is just a nuisance.

Which source code don't you have that would assist in this? Pretty sure all of that is in the SDK.

In short, I have dabbled with programming before but I'm not terribly familiar with C. I've glanced over the SDK and I was able to make sense of what I had read. However, I'm not comfortable enough to attempt anything yet. I never gave the SDK a thorough examination so I'm not entirely familiar with what aspects of the game are exposed and can be changed.

Coincidentally, I'm also reading a book on the language so maybe at some point in the future I'll be able to tinker with the SDK but at the moment the ideas I have are just that, ideas.

rich_is_bored wrote:

In short, I have dabbled with programming before but I'm not terribly familiar with C.

Ahh, see there's your problem right there! D3 is C++! You're looking for the wrong stuff! :lol:

j/k, i know what you mean.

c, c++ in the end you end up learning it all. I attempted to read a c++ book once, it was for begginers and terrribly boring so I downloaded the Quake 4 source code and dived straight into object oriented c++ programming!

I didn't learn c++ from start to end I just learned the parts that were interesting to me and any parts that I don't understand I'll just learn in due time.

Speaking of which, im curious to know. id software started using c++ in d3. Previously they had used plain C. Sorta late move, wasnt it? When did game companies started using C++ to make their games? Nowadays im seeing that all game devs use c++ instead of c. which takes me to another question. C dates to the 70s, but where does c++ date from?

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I wish you happy holidays!

It's been a tough year, but so have been the years before.
Since the release of Doom3 I have gone through many changes, some good, some bad, but all worthwhile experiences.

I slowly feel the Doom3 engine coming to an undeserved decline in the community. A large part can get attributed to the infamous leak of the alpha version which did simply spoil everyone around and has led to unrealistic expectations in general.

The momentum of the game was pushed forward too much at a time where it was simply illegal to push the engine, but man - it was so much fun to work with! Without the leak there wouldn't be a D3W since the large sites would have taken over long time before anyone could have typed the D3W domain into their browsers.

But what's good for us isn't necessarily good for a technology. What an impact would the game have made without the whole world having already ripped apart every bit and byte of the leaked version! By the time D3 got finally released many community members have already been through with it and moved on to greener pastures.

The creation of Mods and custom user content has changed radically with Doom3 and for many the leap forward was too much. For those who are really dedicated to mapping, modding, modelling... as an art form the engine is still gold. Games like RoE (gravity gun), Prey (wickedly twisted level design), Quake4 (which is still good, but don't expect the second coming to arrive every 3 months in your mailbox) and ET:QW have shown there is more life in it that most can or want to see.

To me personally Doom3 still is one of the most polished and coherent designed games I've ever played. Still I hold my grievance over Imps spawning behind me, having to switch back and forth between the flashlight, the too many PDAs I had to read and last but not least - the fact that it felt like a stealth shooter but played like an action game. Indecisive so to say, but that's my personal problem and if that's the only thing I have to deal with in life then I consider myself happy beyond belief.

Ten years ago a large FPS didn't have any real competition. Those who belonged to the chosen ones of having a speedy dial up or DSL connection enjoyed a limited array of abilities. Q1, Q2, Q3, U(T) and subsequently HalfLife. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there hasn't been much else around.
So people did deal more or less with two platforms Quake.x and Unreal.x. The two technology trees grew with released mods, some of them more popular than the original game, but still - only two major technology trees.

Every other competitor coming to the market was hyped as the next Quake killer which tells the whole story about the variety in gaming at that time. So it's only naturally that communities were larger and more focused around one technology or another.

Now look at the current environment. Good shooters are ubiquitous and the technologies one can choose from are not countless, but have increased significantly. A mod team today has to undergo an almost professional evaluation process before they decide on which technology they want to built something for free and dedicate years to this process rather than the ~6 months ten years ago.

There is this popular topic on D3W which says "Is the Doom3 editing craze almost gone". I say yes, but attribute this neither to an idtech4 specific problem nor to a dislike anyone may have about the released games designed on that platform.

Doom3 was a technology break due to the unified lighting system. All of a sudden a mapmodel could look as cool as the environment and the enemy models could fit right in with the same visual quality. Nothing stood eyepokingly out as breakable, moveable or whatever entity like behaviour got attributed to it.

This technology break with all it's related issues turned out harder to master than the simple increases on polycount and texture resolution limitations we've been accustomed with. The causal gamer who accidentally stumbled upon Radiant couldn't produce amazing results in short time. We call this learning curve and many, if you are like me, imply something good when they hear "steep learning curve". It means more features, less limitations - simply "more cool stuff" you can do.

It's no wonder people who made the transition from Q1 - Q2 - Q3 - D3 didn't have much problems to adapt. All of the old school guys have been happy when id software provided us with an interface that was at least rudimentary enough not to type down brush coordinates in notepad.
With idtech4 things changed radically in this department. Workflow and pipeline integration all of a sudden became buzzwords for community users too. Map this, make a material for that, animate this... These are all good things, but the hurdles for new people have been too hard to master - IMHO.

Those of you still reading to this post will say: "so, what?" - and that's true. This here is the place which attracts a very limited amount of people who push through the game as fast as possible to finally unveil the editing possibilities. This is nice for each on a personal level, but it doesn't help building a large and strong community base where also the "noob" get's in fast enough not to become frustrated before he creates something worth showing off.

My hope is, that Rage will come with a set of tools that allows new users to crate something fast and easy. Out of those many will become infected by the virus of creating 3d worlds beyond what we get presented with in everyday sci-fi movies or whatever ambient setting you prefer.

Gaming in general is moving ever stronger towards consoles. Some say it's a sell off to make a console game, but in fact it isn't. If a growing customer base demands a game on a specific platform, then the developers will follow. As easy as is. Is PC gaming dead? No - why would anyone think so? When I go to the store and look around I see more PC games sitting on shelves fighting for attention than ever. If it'd be dead things would be different. Are they too expensive? Probably so! With new digital distribution channels there should be a way to offer different pricing models for boxed and download versions, right? Even more so when developer, publisher and distributor seemingly become one (Valve).

So, what lays ahead of us in 2008? First of all - D3W will stay with you. I wanted to expand the site and still want to, but time is short. However I don't register http://www.rageworld.org/ just because I have money to burn on domain names. The future is 3D and as long as there is a future there will be a site for those who think the same. As far as I'm concerned I hope you enjoy meeting like minded people here and will continue to do so when we start to introduce our children to the board. I'm silently working on some improvements to make the site better, but I wont spoil anyone nor will I make false promises. When it's done also applies here

. Eventually when Duke Nukem comes out I'll finally go online with a few good ideas...

This said - thanks to everyone who comes here, posts and contributes, may it be on D3W or Modwiki!

Cheers
BNA!

Oh, before I forget - this years wishlist:
http://www.amazon.de/gp/registry/regist ... UGARA1QXRF

Very eloquently put. Happy holidays to all, and I anticipate more great ideas and experiences here in 2008!

A very interesting read and sums up my, and many other d3 modders experiences over the years since launch. All points made are very valid and have made me think a lot about what has been acomplished with the d3 engine and what the future holds with Rage.

There are a few points I disagree with, but they are a matter of opinion. I believe that the decline in modding with Doom 3 is not just related to the popularity of the engine, but also to the general interest in mods in general. It is a lot harder to create custom content with today’s engines as it was in the Quake 2/ Half-life era, simply due to all the extra tools and knowledge required. Due to this, there is now a lack of quality mods being released, and an even smaller amount that have become popular on the scale of the mods of old.

A large proportion of gamers today strive for realism, and this can be shown in the small number of popular mods that are based on real life confrontations. This of course is just from my own perception of the modding community in general and not related to Doom 3. I think that the Doom 3 community has never been as large as it could have, or should have been due to many factors related to how the game was constructed. The graphical look is a very perspective thing, I think the graphical effects in Doom 3 are dated, even when released in 2005. The lighting system made the game something new, and revolutionised the way that people look at lighting in a game, but at the cost of being graphically attractive.

Looking back, I find that Doom 3 was a huge step technically at its time compared to other games, but just after its release Half-Life 2 came onto the market and took over in popularity due to its brighter, more attractive (personal opinion granted) environments. The technology used in HL2 was not as ground breaking from a technical aspect as the unified lighting system, however when playing through the base games that showed their engines, Half-life 2 was a more enjoyable experience.

If the base Doom 3 game was more fun to play when compared to Half-Life 2, I doubt there would be any question about the waning of Doom 3 modding popularity as most of the new wave of modders would have cut their teeth on Doom 3 instead of HL2.

As a diehard id software fan, I chose to learn how to mod with the Doom 3 engine over source because it was fundamentally different of game creation philosophies used during the creation of user content. I think this change has inspired all of the people who currently post on this forum to continue to use idtech4 for future projects, however the general majority of old school modders would have stayed with source due to it simply extending its functionality over the old quake-style development pipeline.

Even now, with the knowledge that Source is a more popular platform for mods and custom maps, I am choosing to work with the Enemy Territory Quake Wars take on idtech4 because when attempting to return to source, and its older style of development, it feels like a heavy step backwards. I spent several months trying to start working on a project with Source, but was unable to get to grips with the development tools due to the feeling of working with old technology, a feeling of taking a huge step backwards. This led to me delaying working on a new project for almost a year while wating for ETQW to be released.

I hope that this community remains and continues to grow with each new generation of id technology as everyone here is genuinely helpful and I hope this good, friendly, user base continues to support modders of all experience levels. I have read posts before about how some people perceive this forum as being elitist, I just find that with great knowledge of a topic, comes confidence, and it is that confidence that is expressed in posts across the forum which can sometimes be misinterpreted. However, it is this air of confidence that the longer standing members give that makes me proud to be a member of this community and take faith in the advice that they give.

Happy Christmas.

I hope Rage will bring the mod community back to id Software tech, but a few things will need to happen...

1. Rage (the game) will have to be a revolutionary "best game ever" experience and sell at least 4 million combined units.
2. A mod friendly engine with complete development tools.
3. Continuing support from id Software (downloadable content, modding contests, etc...)

It appears that they are working hard at the second point. Time will tell on the others...

pbmax wrote:

2. A mod friendly engine with complete development tools.

I find this to be the most important part. People really should not have such a difficult time getting assets to work in the game. The tools is definitely the area they need to work on.

It shouldn't be a big issue whether the Doom 3 modder community dissipates. There are the old-school Doom games, with their own sizable communities, mostly at doomworld.com. While many of those people think Doom 3 is mediocre, I think there should be a reason to switch to this game once in awhile, as it's called "Doom" while also boasting superior technology base. I only hope.

I haven't started modding Doom 3 (only now I discovered I have the CD key, I haven't lost it), but from what scripts look like, it's very versatile. I hope I'm not wrong and that by the time I start working and releasing, people won't leave doom3world.

For the disappointed Doom 1, 2 players: this is still Doom and belongs to the same space as Doom 1 and 2, while being creepier (lack of music, many more disgusting sounds, tougher and more aggressive monsters, darker).

Off-topic question regarding map filesize (I haven't started mapping yet): does each and every Doom 3 map have its own independent texture set (as with Quake), or does it load textures from a main pack (as with Doom 1, 2)? The Quake map format is really bad, because many maps will use copies of original id textures and take up useless space, when they could just reference original data, saving both space and copyright problems (distribution of free copies of original data, in this case textures).

I know it has been a while since this thread has been created but I would just like to say I enjoyed reading through it. It's funny about the whole modding universe

I believe that modding is a bit like a trend, and there is one thing that we all know about trends is that they always run in a cycle. Fashion for instance, begins by something that is unfashionable to a recognised fashion that evolves into the nessessity to be fashionable. Think of it this way. Humans are governed by the planets on what they should wear at a particular time of the year and that is something we cannot change. A dream world however is something we can change. In our case, the Doom 3 world. Creativity is, in a sense, predicting the future and thinking outside the box provided. All the mods that I have seen for doom 3 have all been recycled and repeated in one form of another at some point. For example: Duct Tape mod. This mod in my opinion is the very best Doom 3 mod that has ever been created. After this there have been tons of mods with similar concepts but they are just copies of this simple yet brilliant idea. This brings me to the point of editing and tools. I personally think that ID created Doom 3 as part of a learning curve themselves. Quake 1, 2, 3 are, in my opinion, a part of their own modding era and I think that Doom 3, Quake 4, ETQW are getting modders ready for an explosive modding community in years to come for Rage, Doom 4 and RTCW. In other words, I think that IDTech 4 is the foundation era. Cycles woh?!

Duct tape mod... brilliant? We're worlds apart Doug. :lol:

rich_is_bored wrote:

Duct tape mod... brilliant? We're worlds apart Doug. :lol:

hehe I know it sounds a little silly but within the doom 3 game I would rather be able to see what I'm shooting at than to see what bloom has done to the walls. But I suppose each to his own

Douglas Quaid wrote:

rich_is_bored wrote:

Duct tape mod... brilliant? We're worlds apart Doug. :lol:

hehe I know it sounds a little silly but within the doom 3 game I would rather be able to see what I'm shooting at than to see what bloom has done to the walls. But I suppose each to his own

Actually id software has admitted (indirectly) the duct tape mod highlights their greatest design failure in Doom3. So it's the small leaks which can sink a large ship.

They're just backpedaling in response to the negative backlash. Everyone knows the intention behind the limited use of the flashlight was to heighten the suspense. For that purpose the design is solid. It's the way they chose to implement it that wasn't well received.

Case in point, HL2 where the flashlight has a limited battery life. Same design principle. Different execution. No complaints.

The only reason Doom 3's approach was not successful is because it doesn't cater to run and gun game play which is what their core audience expected since it was after all a sequel to Doom and Doom 2. Hense the reason why the duct tape mod is so well recieved. It takes a game that was supposed to be played at a slow pace and allows you to play it as if it were the original Doom.

I look forward to the release of the source code. I'd love to see a mod where the enemy AI is revamped to the point where it's impossible to survive unless you play the game at a slow pace. Then the flashlight implemented as it is now would make sense. When you play the game at a fast pace, the toggle is just a nuisance.

Just in short: Happy Holidays, and thanks you so much to been here, DooM3WorlD!

rich_is_bored wrote:

I look forward to the release of the source code. I'd love to see a mod where the enemy AI is revamped to the point where it's impossible to survive unless you play the game at a slow pace. Then the flashlight implemented as it is now would make sense. When you play the game at a fast pace, the toggle is just a nuisance.

Which source code don't you have that would assist in this? Pretty sure all of that is in the SDK.

In short, I have dabbled with programming before but I'm not terribly familiar with C. I've glanced over the SDK and I was able to make sense of what I had read. However, I'm not comfortable enough to attempt anything yet. I never gave the SDK a thorough examination so I'm not entirely familiar with what aspects of the game are exposed and can be changed.

Coincidentally, I'm also reading a book on the language so maybe at some point in the future I'll be able to tinker with the SDK but at the moment the ideas I have are just that, ideas.

rich_is_bored wrote:

In short, I have dabbled with programming before but I'm not terribly familiar with C.

Ahh, see there's your problem right there! D3 is C++! You're looking for the wrong stuff! :lol: