New Doom (2016) Thread

[motorsep]

I know you don't know any better, otherwise you wouldn't say the stupid shit you say. I'm not even a developer, never made anything in my life, but it seems pretty obvious.

Gotta do less to know it all. I didn't know that until today. Probably should try being what you are and achieve all that knowledge 

[oneofthe8devilz]

No SDK support for the new Doom confirmed: http://www.dsogaming.com/news/doom-wont-come-with-additional-modding-tools-beyond-snapmap-limitations-unveiled/

[motorsep]

Between indie game dev and playing several awesome games that will be out next year and the following year, VR from Oculus and Valve, 99% of potential modders won't mod new Doom even with SDK available. So I understand why Beth won't release SDK. It also most likely a monolith build as with Rage/BFG, so it's impossible to mod the game without having full source.

[oneofthe8devilz]

To me this just seems like the logical continuation of an indie and opensource hostile policy that Bethesda is rigorously pursuing...

I still remember how they were treating smaller contracted devs like inXile.

And I hope we all remember how they first kept Carmack from working on VR technology while still being employed at id and then later (AFTER the multi billion dollar deal with facebook) starting a lawsuit against him, accusing him of stealing the very same VR tech that they kept him from working on.

So instead of blowing sugar up Bethesda's ass I would expect to take a stand against such vicious behavior, especially since most, if not ALL of our projects that we are working on here, are only possible because of Carmack's "hardcore" opensource and sharing ideology...

Bethesda ended id software's decades long tradition/legacy of releasing their game's source code.

[motorsep]

I am sorry, but I disagree with you on the subject.

We spent whole year polishing in-game mission editor (with ability to work on the same mission cooperatively in real-time) for Steel Storm, only to find out that people aren't interesting modding nowadays (many reasons why in general people don't mod nowadays). Unless there is a tech that is designed for modding in mind (read PC-oriented, or PC-only) and  very large user base with creative cravings, there is no reason to provide modding tools.

id Tech 6 is console oriented (regardless of how good it will run/look on PC - once consoles are in the picture, you can forget deploying on all platforms; PC would have to be a separate branch/release and no one will go for it). It, most likely, has monolith build. So SDK is out of question, even if Doom would have been PC-exclusive.

Doom will sell less than Skyrim and other games. Not because it's going to be bad - simply because FPS userbase is much smaller than for RPG/RTS genre. A lot of those folks have real-life to deal with, so I am almost positive even if SDK was released, there would have been only a handful of mods. From business perspective it's a bad result.

So, why waste time, energy and money for something only a handful of people will play with, and even less will succeed in making a complete mod that would appeal to masses ?

The world has moved on. There is Unity 5 for free, UE4 for free with source accessible without a need of signing NDA, there is free Source2 with Dota 2 (there is a lot of content to mod), there is Cryengine SDK for Crysis 2 (free), there are a few indie games with modding SDKs. And there is still id tech 4 / BFG. So given so many choices, I don't see how it's fair or productive to blame Beth / iD for wise business choices?

[oneofthe8devilz]

Just because you don't see economical use in a source code release does not relativize what Bethesda is doing.

In the past Id/Carmack did not release the source code of previous games for economical but for educational reasons.

Again, just because you personally are incapable of making good use of released code does not change the facts about what Bethesda is doing...

[motorsep]

Just because you don't see economical use in a source code release does not relativize what Bethesda is doing.

Id/Carmack did not release the source code of previous games for economical but for educational reasons.

When did you last time been away from computer? Look around you at the world.. When it comes to business and capitalism, you get what you have right now in the game development industry.

Btw, speaking of Carmack.. He regrets using GPL license. Which means if the source was released under MIT, there would be no reason to release any improvement to id Tech 4 / BFG code. And JC is basically ok with that. Not to mention that his education spirit disappeared since GearVR is only designed to work with Samsung selected phones. Following analogy with iD releasing open source engines, GearVR should have been forced to be for all phones (of the same screen size), not just for Samsung.

New consumer version of OR is not going to be open source either.

Lol, you sound like one of those FOSS fanatics with this rant.

If someone whats to learn, they better learn from UE4, not from id Tech 4+

Again, just because you personally are incapable of making good use of released code does not change the facts about what Bethesda is doing...

On the contrary, I excel in utilizing open source engines.

[oneofthe8devilz]

Well... since we now know your point of view, it would be interesting to read other member's opinions on the topic...

[argoon]

Well... since we now know your point of view, it would be interesting to read other member's opinions on the topic...

I'm more or less with you, but i also think, the game engine landscape has changed so much that releasing a SDK is not a no brainer anymore, on the old days people would mod games (for the most part) to gain experience gain access to very expensive engines and enter in the gaming industry, now you just need to download the myriad of free game engines out there and make a game.  Bethesda has two of the most modded games in existence Skyrim and Fallout so they are in no hurry to support another.

But modding is important no doubt about it especially for indies, Frictional games became so impressed with its modding community and even said it made them gain money, that for their new horror game SOMA, they made the engine and tools even more modding friendly. 

[BielBdeLuna]

the new doom is a copy of a mod of the old doom, that's the importance of mods.

[trebor]

The good old modding days with complete C++ SDKs are simply over. id Software, Ritual Games, Raven Software and many other studios who supported modding are not in the position to make a decision wether to release source or not.
It was quite amazing how Raven Software rushed out the JK2 and JKA sources before the game was over.
An old friend moved to id Software and he told me that Doom SnapMap is the attempt to revive modding because it is sad that gamers are not longer interested in a new game for more than 1 month.

[oneofthe8devilz]

It's crazy how short the half-life of games has become... people get hyped about a game for months/years during development and then a few weeks after the game's release the majority of the playerbase already moves on...

Also I refuse to chime in on the "the modding times are over" tunes that are being spread here...

When I look at the Steam Charts in regard with most concurrent players in games being played at this very moment, most if not ALL top rows are dominated by titles that have their origin as mod projects:

Dota
Counter Strike
Team Fortress
Gary's Mod
DayZ

Just to name a few...

This is the first time for myself in 2 decades where I really think about not buying an id software game at full price. And this is not so much an ideology motivated boycott as it is a personal cost-benefit equation. I am not much of a gamer nowadays and recently I paid fullprice copies on release of games only in case they would offer me something beyond the casual gameplay (i.e. modtools, editors, sdks).

I just don't see the additional value in the new Doom worth supporting this time and so I personally think it would be plausible for me to simply wait for a Steam Sale or a reduced price offer.

[motorsep]

Dota
Counter Strike
Team Fortress
Gary's Mod
DayZ

4 out of those 5 are Valve's games. Valve is still an indie and always had different mindset than iD Software. Valve not only released SDKs with deeper access to the engine, but they documented stuff and provided tools to get mods done. On top of that, they created a way to easily distribute those mods and allowed modders to sell the mods (and hats).

Let's look at ID. ID never officially supported modding. It was always a hacky thing. The only game that came with some kind of tools and docs was Doom 3 and Rage. All other games either had no tools, or had crappy docs. All ID games had strict EULA attached to them, and to SDKs. There was no official support from ID ever, for any game. Some individuals from ID would go extra mile to privately explain things, but as a company ID did a crappy job supporting and nourishing modding.

As a result, Valve's games have always had larger, more active community. And that's why Valve's games top the charts on Steam.

ID / Beth don't understand or want to understand the value behind modding. If they would hire trebor to get BFG engine to where it's PC friendly, extremely moddable;  added coop support; fixed tools; added exporters for Blender/MAX/Maya; allowed commercial exploitation of most of their IPs, created Steam Workshop for Doom 3 BFG and hired someone to make solid documentation and tech support / community management for Doom 3 BFG, then they would see (although not guaranteed) some love again.

[The Happy Friar]

I guess I've got the combo view of both of you (motorsep & devils).

I *LOVE* modding.  I played mods, ran servers, made new content & the like for every id game since Doom.  I only mod id games & id games are the only ones I still play on a regular basis (just ran a LAN of ETQW last night with my machine & the kids new "school use" computer). 

I never cared that id didn't support the modding community with all the freebees.  I love to LEARN and figure out how things work.  There's others out there too that just love to figure out how this stuff works (it was just figured out how to add new custom models to Quake 2 maps w/o touching any code in 2015, 15 YEARS after it's original release!).

I completely agree with motosep that at this point in gaming history, it's pointless for every game to have a SDK or even release their code.   D3 & Prey had almost everything open upon release via scripting and relatively little was done because there was no "SDK".  ETQW had a SDK and very little was done.  Rage had a SDK + the new editor & nothing was done, period.  id modders showed they just don't care to put the work in.  id games had their day in the sun: Wolf3D, Doom1/2, Quake 1/2/3.  Almost every popular mod concept out there originated a mod from one of those games.  Those games were not easy to mod in the least (Wolf3D, Doom 1/2 & Quake 1/2 had no tools upon release except map compilers, everything else fan made).

I completely agree with devils that Beth did end id's "tradition" of handing out the source code.  That tradition isn't that old though, and id make a boat load of cash off that code before it was handed out.  Would be like me buying a mustang and giving it away after it was outdated and no longer relatively useful.  But there has been 1 game with Beth as the publisher, and they did GPL that game (D3BFG), so at this point they're 100% GPL and a lot sooner then before the owned id.  I wouldn't blame Beth either.  They didn't steal id, they bought it from the owners (Carmak was one), and the owners had no issue selling.

The gaming landscape changed quite a bit between Doom 3 and now:   No more used PC games.  Modders expect to be paid for their work.  Indies except to be pre-paid for their games.  Gamers expect every release to blow them out of the water and don't have an attention span of more then a couple months.   Everybody pays Valve.  Modding went from hobby to resume building. 

[VGames]

Still I want to know why Fallout 4 gets full on mod support and not Doom.