Why DooM³ ALPHA was better *SCREENSHOT COMPARISONS*

[yhelothar]

I just played the alpha again, after beating the final. Here are some screenshots showing how much better it is..

First thing that bugged me is that the flashlight is a circle no matter what the angle of the surface it is projected at, so it just looks like an illuminated circle, instead of looking like the light is actually reflected off the surface. The alpha had no such problems..
doom17.jpg
doom16.jpg


Secondly, the plasma gun effects sucks in the retail, the plasma doesn't light up the surroundings at all, BORING! The plasma gun effects are sooo awesome in the alpha..
doom19.jpg

Next, the guns has MUCH more kick to the sound. When you fire the pistol, you can hear the cracking of the bullets. When you shoot a shotgun, you can hear the shells ricochet off the metal walls, the sound effects in the alpha is ORGASMIC... while the final is a HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT!
Also I love the smoke effects that come out of the gun after you fire, in the retail, the smoke is cut down so you can barely see it.
doom18.jpg
also as you can see in the pic, I'm using the gun and the flashlight at the same time, so no need for the duct tape mod.

Lastly the models are FAR more detailed...
doom3.jpg
here you can see the guy's hair, with specular highlights, and each individual teeth in his mouth is rendered.
doom192.jpg
Look at the details in the hand, each knucle, joint, vein is rendered, along with the arm hair. Even the nails are rendered. Th detail doesn't come close in the retail

doom231.jpg
doom28.jpg
Monsters look meaner, and you can see the blood squirt out as you shoot them, which they don't blow up like they do in the retail. You can see that they have all five fingers, with joints, knuckles, etc.

doom23.jpg
Check out the detail in this monster, you have all the muscles and veins. It doesn't get anymore detailed than this.

look how pathetic this monster looks in the retail

The alpha WAS FAR BETTER in both graphics AND sound, which led the retail to be a huge disappointment for me.

 

Originally posted by: virtualgames0
look how pathetic this monster looks in the retail

You steal my screen shot bad man!

Anyway, they have to cater to the LCD with retail so that's why it's a little watered down. Most of that stuff can be fixed with mods anyway so no biggie.

 

[Looney]

I'm seeing your pics, and i think the release is far better. For the plasma lights, i believe that's a config setting, and is off as default.

They may have had to tone it down a bit since they wanted the game out this year... enough people are complaining that the requirements are too high as it is, and you want them to be higher?

 

[yhelothar]

The alpha runs far better than the retail. In the alpha, I ran it at 1600x1200 and it was completely playable. In the retail, I could only run it at 1152x864 for the same speed.

 

[skace]

Is this alpha the one that was like 2 maps? Or is this some sort of alpha that contained the entire game?

 

[yhelothar]

3 maps, short ones, basically equivalent to one regular level.
Later this guy repacked it with a few maps that he made himself, along with the map editor, all into a nice neat little installation file and called it beta 2.
The flashlight only works in the beta 2 I believe.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

What are your system specs?

 

[Schadenfroh]

were the alpha maps differant from the retail maps? IE tottally differant levels?

 

[yhelothar]

not really.. you can find bits and pieces of the alpha in the final.. like the same machines... but they were all spread out in the final.

 

[oLLie]

Originally posted by: virtualgames0
The alpha runs far better than the retail. In the alpha, I ran it at 1600x1200 and it was completely playable. In the retail, I could only run it at 1152x864 for the same speed.

Interesting if true.

 

[gururu]

that's the way you sell a game. you show awesome looking pics of what it may be, and then you 'sell out' so you can sell out.

 

[yhelothar]

It was more buggy though, if you popped a zombie full of bullets, the fps would go from 30 to 5...
But I'm sure fixing that doesn't require dumbing down everything to such a degree.

 

[warcrow]

Informative post, thanks.

 

[wfbberzerker]

were you running the final version at full detail settings?

 

[Drayvn]

Originally posted by: gururu
that's the way you sell a game. you show awesome looking pics of what it may be, and then you 'sell out' so you can sell out.

Ur EXACTLY right, and everyone tells the guys who thought that Doom 3 wasnt good, that they expected to much.

But in fact, they gave us all these images with amazing detail and then give us a watered down version, it is a shame really, ive seen it on various games and movies. For movies they sometimes use deleted scene, and so u expect this amazing thing to happen and it never does, its a real shame.

 

[Andvari]

Either I'm blind, unobservant, or my computer kicks ass. I think the retail version is more visually impressive.

 

[warcrow]

Originally posted by: Andvari
Either I'm blind, unobservant, or my computer kicks ass. I think the retail version is more visually impressive.

Over all, the retail (of course) is.

 

[yhelothar]

I'm guessing you have played the alpha?
I do agree that the environments look much better, but all other aspects are WATERED DOWN, as drayvn said it.

 

[Sunner]

The alpha played like $hit on my computer.
The retail doesn't exactly scream, but it's ok.
Playing at 640x480 on a Radeon9800/AXP 2.0 GHz with 512 MB of RAM feels a little strange at first though

 

[Smilin]

Dude, you're a tard. The retail looks, sounds and runs much better than the leaked E3 demo.

I declare shenanigans on your thread.

 

[ivan2]

the beta may have better character models and textures ill give you that, but for the gun models, maps and the lightning the retail is far better. Notice the walls in retail it definately have more texture than the beta.

 

[Sunner]

Supposedly the hack to make the plasma create realistic lightning renders the game virtually unplayable on even the best systems.
Anyone tried?

 

[Andvari]

Originally posted by: Sunner
Supposedly the hack to make the plasma create realistic lightning renders the game virtually unplayable on even the best systems.
Anyone tried?

I've tried, and the game is very playable. It drops about 10 fps more than usual when firing the plasma gun, which puts me in the 20's I think. Either way, I preferred to NOT have the fps loss, so I re-disabled it.

So if it runs fine on my system, people with top of the line systems can run plasma gun lighting no problem.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: gururu
that's the way you sell a game. you show awesome looking pics of what it may be, and then you 'sell out' so you can sell out.

You act like id software leaked the E3 demo on purpose or something.

 

[drag]

One of the most irritating things that I 've seen in these threads is the bitching about the flashlight.

Go into a dark room. Hold a flashlight in front of you, straight in front of you. Pointed in your line of sight, it won't work if you hold the flashlight down to far. Hold it close to your head, like your aiming a gun close to your face.

Now twirl around slowly. Does the light change into a oval shape when it's on a wall angle?

OF COURSE NOT. It will look circle to you no matter what because your projecting a 2 demensional shape in a 3d world. This is because the light will be following your line of sight.

Now there will be a little distortion because the light dissapates a little bit as a it goes out farther.

If it's hard for you, hold your thumb up so it looks like your covering the brightest part of the light, then move around. You have to aim the flashlight like a gun. See? Very little distortion. A narrow beam works better.

Hold it way off to the side, lots of distortion, moving it closer and closer to along your line of sight, much less distortion. That's all Id did was move the light much closer to along your line of sight.

So chill out. In the demo it looks like the light is aimed towards the center from way off from the lower right. It looks cheesy.