Doom3world

for those that played both, what are the pros and cons of each game? which one is better and why?

its interesting to hear eneryone's opinion because they are so different. some say hl2 is very detailed but yet others say its rather bland. some say d3 at least had a story where has hl2 doesn't (or at least one you can follow). i even heard someone say that if you took the pretty water and gravity gun out of hl2 you'd be left with just an average game.

i often go back to d3 and boot up a random map to just gawk at the details and level design. it can't get any better. i find it hard to believe that hl2's graphics could be better.

anyway, i'll be buying hl2 soon but until then i'd like to hear what you all have to say about it...

It rocks.

Ack... not the dreaded d3 vs hl2 thread

You know that I could go on forever about this topic but I love both of them, they both have pro's and cons but my main ones are

d3edit to hammer is a porshe to a pinto.
SOftimage as a modeler is, well... holy christ what can you say

d3 added way to much overhead to shove through a pipe making a 32 player game a little hard to conceive.

Mod wise I actaully think that Hl2 is more portable, but there we are talking disadvantages for making doom3 so god damn pretty. In a world of direct x you can only do so much in the end. So HL2 may not be as detailed but you can't have it both ways right now, the best of both worlds is a sacrafice. The technology in GPU's suggest you have to trim something in order to make it multiplayer friendly. Far Cry kind of messed up there too. Some may disagree but I have yet to play Far Cry Multi and feel like all was okay, something is always a ton of frames behind lagging the rest.

Most fan boys will assert ah this sucks and that sucks, It drives me crazy. D3, Hl2 are tools for the making of what a mod team desires. There will always be a "Wow, that sucks that doesn't", reaction but an uneducated kid once threw up a post stating how much better the PC version of Splinter cell was compared to the xbox version as the models contained more poly's. I had to take a red line in photshop and trace the poly edges to show they were the same. Then he tried to argue those were only the outer edges and there we more in the middle, thick huh?

I guess my point is that niether is truely better than the other... well okay except the editor tools lol

Fact is D3 is not geared towards mutilplayer, just as Tribes is not geared towards a single player aspect, vengeance... sheesh...what were they thinking. So D3 can budget in overhead that other games can't. Not that it is a mistake it is preference, I personally believe the longevity of a game survives off of on-line interaction, how many doom3 clans are there? It's almost absurd thinking about it right?

I guess target is the key. Target audience is really nothing to argue over and developers can't worry about those demands... playing catch with doggy was pretty forking cool though

As far as the singleplayer experience goes, HL2 makes Doom3 seem like wolf3d (gameplay wise). I actually liked HL2's graphics better too, though Doom3 does use more advanced technology. It's just the way they use the source engine in HL2 that makes it look so amazing. Especialy the last chapter, which IMO is better looking than anything ID has ever done.

whats wrong with hammer?

Hammer is okay, just kind of hard to compare with d3ed... or cryogened.. or radiant.. or ... lol

im worried. I hate the doom 3 editor. I can make like 2 or 3 complete UT 2k4 maps in the time it takes me to make and detail a small doom 3 level, nevermind scripting, enemies, tweaking and all that. I was thinking I would have to be some sort of accended being to create an entire level that lasts more then 3 minutes. I was hoping I could make something cool with half life 2 in a slightly smaller time period. but...?

I prefer DoomEdit myself but Hammer (which is nothing more than an improved version of Worldcraft really) does have a few advantages over it:

1. It's more stable as an application. Better written, cleaner code underneath it with a better GUI.

I hate to say it but I have a hunch the code is most likely very sloppy in DoomEdit and it's riddled with memory leaks which makes it very crash-prone as your map gets bigger and bigger.

2. Hammer is a separate application from the Source engine and thus can be maintained separately from the engine.

The fact that DoomEdit is an undissociable part of the Doom3 engine is both a curse and a blessing. It's a blessing because it allows real-time render and lighting. It's a curse because Id can't release the source code of the editor since it's part of the engine. So, that eliminates any possibility of ever seeing gifted amateurs make a "GTK Radiant" flavor of DoomEdit. We are totally at Id's mercy in that regard.... and whether the stability bugs in DoomEdit will ever be fixed is anybody's guess.

Ideally, DoomEdit should have been written as a plug-in to the Doom3 engine so that the Editor code could be maintained separately from the engine code... but unfortunately, as the song goes: run.. rabbit run....


DoomEdit also has several problems:

1. DoomEdit doesn't "see" OGG sound files in the pak files (and the vast majority of them are OGG rather than WAV). It can play them fine, it just cannot recognize files with the .ogg file extension.

2. DoomEdit's model and skin selection dialogs cannot render MD5 models in the model view. The model view itself only has limited usefulness because it has no zoom feature. Using real-time lighting with only one light source doesn't help either.

3. The entity selection dialog's "editor_var ..." fields are very finicky. If you put too much text in the definitions of those in the .def files, the field is cut off abruptly

4. The texture window sometimes gets corrupted if you have too many texture shaders loaded. Probably related to memory leaks.

5. It doesn't manage system resources very well. If you have a custom gamma setting (like I do) and DoomEdit crashes, you can't restore your desktop's default gamma with your graphic card's desktop properties window. The only way to reset gamma is by rebooting.

6. It's a huge memory hog.

7. For some reason, it hates my Athlon64 FX-51 processor based machine on which it never runs for more than 5 minutes without crashing (the game by itself runs fine BTW).

8. DoomEdit sometimes corrupts your maps. This forces the designer to make daily back-ups of his maps for the whole duration of the design cycle (and keep ALL of those as separate files) otherwise he is at constant risk of losing months' worth of work.

So DoomEdit is far from perfect. But in terms of controls, productivity, texturing, etc... I agree that it's second to none once you're familiar with the numerous key/mouse button combinations. However, it's badly in need of stabillity. For all intents and purposes, it's a beta level software.

Fix those problems and THEN... you got the best damm editor in the world

Tip: When this happens, run D3 or an old version of Q3 (1.11) or the Q3 demo, set the in-game gamma to 1 and use the CRASH console command. You're back to normal and I haven't noticed any system anomalities after using this method

Thanks for the workaround. It will come in handy when DoomEdit crashes and I don't care to reboot right away because I'm in the middle of something else like working in my text editor or browsing these forums

I think the Doom 3 expansion pack is a particularly important consideration for a Doom 3 vs HL2 thread. This being because, IMO, while the original Doom 3 levels were very immersive, to me they smacked a little of "id seemed to have a lack of ideas", particularly in the base sections where it seemed to be a case of "shoot that Imp, watch another Imp jump out at you, shoot this Imp". I don't see that as a big deal, but the repetitive nature of the gameplay means that I tend to play Doom 3 in short bursts, rather than being engrossed for hours like in some other shooters.

I don't believe that the problem was anything to do with the engine, or even the AI- having played various custom levels, and got into level designing myself, it would appear that the SDK and editor provide the capability to produce environments and gameplay as varied as those of, say, Far Cry or HL2.

The expansion pack, IMO, is what is needed to give Doom 3 the gameplay "facelift" to give it the amount of variety and completeness of HL2. The fact that another company is producing the levels under the supervision of the guys at id Software means that there is promise for a more varied experience- they can take the ideas of id and bring a lot of their own ideas into the mix.

Unfortunately it seems that many people, upon preferring HL2 to Doom 3, don't want anything to do with the expansion pack because "it will just be more of the same".

As far as I'm concerned, although I wasn't really disappointed by id's levels, what really makes Doom 3 a classic is the new engine and the capacity for some excellent mods and custom levels. When I get HL2 for Christmas, I won't be surprised if I find 'bare bones' HL2 superior, gameplay wise, to 'bare bones' Doom 3. Whether I will find HL2's mods and custom levels better than Doom 3's is much harder to predict.

We now know what Valve we're doing for so many years.

Making some of the most stunning Single Player levels that cram in so much detail, you just get immersed.

I'm enjoying HL2 far more than Doom3, the amount of work that has gone into the game is so apparent, it's actually quite incredible.

I'm literally gobsmacked at the game - the interactivity and fun is ingenious.

*spoiler alert" - having recently got through the sand traps section, I'd have to say that so far, that's the most fun I've had with an FPS since Far Cry.
The whole concept of not walking on the sand, the thumping machines was a bit Dune sci-fi. The ant-lions are very "starship troopers", then there's the flotsam and jetsam all over the place - bust up boats, crates, tyres, corrigated iron, all this stuff you can mess around with - it's a very rich environment. I spent 20 minutes building a continuous pathway across the sand just for the heck of it - I think I managed about 100 metres

The people that say there's no story in Half-Life2 must have a very short attention span. The whole thing is layered with stories. It may not all link up, but that's a good thing - Half-Life 3 !

Doom3 was fun, but not as fun as this which at the end of the day, is what counts for playing games.

For editing it's an entirely different matter.

The doom3 engine is capable of everything quake3 was and more.

Take a dev team as talented as Valves and let them loose on the Doom3 engine for the next 5 years ... - oooh baby, now we're talkin' !

id are the kings of the FPS engine, valve are the visionaries and story tellers

... that's so corny ...

Heres my comparison:
Advanteges of Doom 3:
- Scripting Engine (.script, .gui, etc)
- Dynamic Lighting
- Scary
- Believable weapons and storyline
- Special FX
- Realistic Glass Fracturing

Advanteges of Half Life 2:
- Not a system hog (Doom 3 runs at around 10 fps on all low, but in half life 2 on my 5200fx with everything on medium/high i get around 60fps)
- Physics Puzzles
- Gravity gun (=D) j/k
- Already coded Vehicles, already present in the game
- Havok Physics Engine enables almost anything to be interacted with
- Immersive Gameplay
- Believable characters and storyline
- Suspense
- Varied environments, never really repetitive
- Squad based combat
- Ability to control some NPCs
- Uses the STEAM platform *
- Water Refraction
- Outside Environments

Disadvateges of Doom 3:
- Repetitive gameplay
- System hog
- No water refractions, let alone water

Disadvanteges of Half-Life 2:
- Low res Textures in some places
- No scripting system (as far as i know of, but could probably be coded in)
- Small arsenal, albeit interesting
- The world isnt dynamically lit, but all entities are
- Unrealistic Glass Fracturing

Hope this helps a lot of you compare the two games. If you think im missing something or if im wrong tell me.

Also be aware that i did not talk about mods, and that is for a reason, and that is because how good mods are and how flexible they are depends on the skill level of the team.

* - Some people may say that steam is bad, but in reality, its a good thing. While i could write a whole other comparison saying if it's good or bad, its easy to see that it is good because if someone developes a new cheat or hack, valve can easily counter it and release it, and everyone on the steam network has it.

Pro to HL2.

You can go outside.

i have played about a 3rd of the game and so far i have the opposite opinion. its fun to play, but to me there is nothing revolutionary or even new (except for the character animations- those are very well done).

where's the immersive detail? the out door maps of city 17 are so barren, empty and fake. contrast that with the cities in knights of the old republic which where filled with lots of characters and activity.

i'm even a little bored in some parts. i don't understand how people can elevate this game to such a lofty status. yes, its a good game but its not all that great- certainly not the greates fps ever. no way. take away the gravity gun and character animations and you are left with a pretty average game, imo.

In it's defense I don't think a city that is under attack from a aggressive faction wouldn't have a lot of "characters and activity" going on. This is a war torn city you are running through, and I saw exatly what I expected to see. A lot of soldiers and striders, and then small pockets of rebels fighting them off. Did you want to local grocery store to open up it's doors and sell you some +5 stamina drink (yeah, yeah bad reference to KOTOR )?

Also, I don't know why a lot of people (not just you pbmax) have the idea in their head that a game has to revolutionize a genre in order to be good. The way I see it, Half Life 2 took the FPS genre added in characters that we actually care about, and put it into a world that is as realistic I have ever played in. Now, I am not saying the graphics are the most realistic, but the way the world feels is. In my opinion HL2 is a damn good game, and a fun one at that!

And your comment about taking away the gravity gun and character animations is completely irrelevent. If we take away Doom 3's graphics there is absolutely nothing there. Boring gameply with no story, and very little interaction with the world.

Now, don't get me wrong - I enjoyed both games, but I had a lot more fun with Half Life 2. Hell, I couldn't even bring myself to finish Doom 3 because I just didn't care after a while. I just think some people are being much too critical of Half Life 2 just because a lot of reviewers are saying things like "...the best game ever made."

Didn't exactly the same sort of thing happen with Doom 3? The early reviews rated it disproportionately high, and many people were disappointed.

i agree if you mean take away the lighting from d3. thats whats makes the game unique. take that away and you are left with an average game as well.

I'll throw a spanner in the works here and say that Half-Life 2 started off like a ground breaking game, but ended like a same old, same old FPS.

A lot of people will agree with this analogy.

The entry point and subsequent gaming experience was so awesome as to take the breath away - but - excuse the tongue-in-cheek pun, the game ran out of steam past the half-way-mark.

If we take away the physics from HL2.