[MusicallyInspired]

This doesn't worry me. After all, Doom 2016 was in development for a while. I know there was a complete redesign, but still.

[Radar]

Who is still dumb enough to preorder games?

[NightFright]

Let's be honest: We saw this delay coming. They needed more time to implement more microtransactions.
Almost hoping rather for Romero doing that Doom 2 PWAD by now.

[Tea Monster]

Spitfire, on 08 October 2019 - 07:28 AM, said:

Who is still dumb enough to preorder games?

If a company has proven that they are not full of bullshit, I'm happy to preorder. I wouldn't have pre-ordered Doom 2016 due to all the bad publicity and ex-employee horror stories floating around. But after they proved themselves with the publication of the game, I'd be happy to pre-order Eternity.

Same thing with any Machinegames title.

Anything else.... not so much.

[Radar]

Why? If you're just buying a digital copy then what's the advantage over waiting until launch?

[HulkNukem]

So Bethesda/Zenimax has nothing coming out this holiday season. Interesting.

[MusicallyInspired]

Spitfire, on 08 October 2019 - 10:25 AM, said:

Why? If you're just buying a digital copy then what's the advantage over waiting until launch?

You can budget ahead of time and still be able to play on day one if you'd have finances tied up once the time comes.

[PikaCommando]

Spitfire, on 08 October 2019 - 07:28 AM, said:

Who is still dumb enough to preorder games?

People aren't pre-ordering the game, they're pre-ordering that cool helmet that just happened to have the game as a pre-order bonus.

"Why not buy the helmet off eBay after the game is out?" Because then scalpers will jack up the price.

[Radar]

That answers my second question. Assuming there is no exclusive content when preordering, then it doesn't make sense to preorder, yet people will still do it.

[Sledgehammer]

Many people simply see no difference between digital and physical goods, I guess. Hell, some even trying to use bullshit "back then games were also expensive" argument to justify modern digital video games having high prices despite the fact that those games are in digital format. Digital distribution is a fucking mess, by the way, in the end, the only people that truly benefit from it are companies themselves since they have full control over their products (R* games are the best example when it comes to that problem), aside from convenience (copies are unlimited, don't have to wait for a game to be delivered or to go outside to buy, etc) nothing has really changed for consumers. At the beginning it was quite funny to read stuff like "just you wait, when digital become a norm games will be much cheaper", when later nothing has really changed due to retailers (digital would kill them). Ironically, retailers are slowly dying in the West.

But everything definitely comes down to one thing: marketing or hype. The main purpose of pre-orders nowadays is to lure hyped people into buying games, to keep the momentum. I can't wait for games to become a service in the West, by the way, publishers will gain the ultimate control over their products services, to the point that people won't be able to do shit no matter what companies decide to do, although right now some morons sincerely believe that you don't own shit, that you're "buying" a "license" to play games. lol

PikaCommando, on 08 October 2019 - 05:37 PM, said:

People aren't pre-ordering the game, they're pre-ordering that cool helmet that just happened to have the game as a pre-order bonus.

"Why not buy the helmet off eBay after the game is out?" Because then scalpers will jack up the price.

Cool helmet is a physical bonus which is in a limited quantity, so you didn't really answer his question. Buying it off eBay is not a good thing, unless it's the best option.

Now, there are digital pre-order bonuses that technically are limitless like digital games, but some publishers are using that as a bait to force people into pre-ordering their games by making this shit "exclusive" and never selling it afterwards. This is absolutely the worst thing about pre-ordering, though on Steam you can dodge the buggy/broken bullet thanks to refund policy, assuming you're buying your games not somewhere else which is why this is not the most perfect solution to this problem, there was something wrong with refunding DLCs too.

[xMobilemux]

Unbefuckinglievable, I just applied yesterday to take the release day in November off work, just to be slapped in the face with this news.

[Danukem]

xMobilemux, on 08 October 2019 - 07:45 PM, said:

Unbefuckinglievable, I just applied yesterday to take the release day in November off work, just to be slapped in the face with this news.

First world problems, amirite?

[The Battlelord]

Sledgehammer, on 08 October 2019 - 07:15 PM, said:

Many people simply see no difference between digital and physical goods, I guess. Hell, some even trying to use bullshit "back then games were also expensive" argument to justify modern digital video games having high prices despite the fact that those games are in digital format. Digital distribution is a fucking mess, by the way, in the end, the only people that truly benefit from it are companies themselves since they have full control over their products (R* games are the best example when it comes to that problem), aside from convenience (copies are unlimited, don't have to wait for a game to be delivered or to go outside to buy, etc) nothing has really changed for consumers. At the beginning it was quite funny to read stuff like "just you wait, when digital become a norm games will be much cheaper", when later nothing has really changed due to retailers (digital would kill them). Ironically, retailers are slowly dying in the West.

I've always asked myself what will happens if platforms like Steam (or whatever) for whatever reason, could be shut down one day.

Will the users lose everything? Will some modder come out with a plan to make it work anyway? Someone may say "it works even if you are not connected to the internet", well, this is true, still the fact that i need that software just to make the games run, becoming just an heavy launcher.
Advantages/Pay to win - As we are in the "Doom corner" i'll take mainly Doom (2016) as example: I've bought the physical copy (1 DVD, and the rest of the content was downloaded, waiting for almost 1 day lol) , when i've tried the multiplayer i seen that some people were able to use some other stuff, like more demons, unlike me and some other players, then, i did a search and realized that they had DLCs (which required some more money)...
Why the hell on earth a multiplayer have to be made with these differences? Yeah, i know now everything is unlocked with a free season pass (at the same time i thought "now those advantaged players what they paid the DLCs for? lol"), i like the single player, but the multiplayer is a mess (imho), plus there isn't an anticheat system, i played some survival matches and when i was a spectator (after that i got killed) sometimes i seen some guy on my team that was aiming other players behind the walls so far away from the other side of the map lol.
One theo ther hand, someone was so proud of Denuvo, but no one cared to put anticheat system in this game, nice... I've bought the game right because when i play multiplayer i like to get killed by a son of..software lol...

On some other games is not even needed, the basic player can start with stones to throw, the premium one who paid for guns and stuff has: a golden sniper rifle, golden rpg, golden jetpack, golden bulletproof vest etc...... ahahaha

[NightFright]

God knows what kind of "DLCs" they have planned for Eternal. I doubt they will only have microtransactions for multiplayer, it's too tempting. Also quite risky, though. Doom isn't Wolfenstein.

Other than Doom 2016, I won't pre-order Eternal. Bethesda's agenda has become even more profit-oriented lately, and my big concern is they will dare to mess with the Doom franchise in a way nobody would even dare to expect. I'll gladly accept to be proven wrong, but I have a baaaaaad feeling about this release for whatever reason.

[MrFlibble]

I think I don't agree with what Gggmanlives suggested in the review that a direct film adaptation of Doom gameplay would be boring. I quite liked the live action trailer for Doom 2016, and they could've gone for something like Hardcore Henry too I suppose, which BTW didn't have a large budget.

[Sledgehammer]

Realistically, Doom has much better potential to be good as a CGI movie, especially because it would be much simpler to implement demons and other stuff in CGI movie overall. Animation in general provides freedom of creativity better than anything, you don't need voice acting, there is no reason to show the face of Doom guy either because in CGI there are usually no real actors who must show their faces unlike in Hollywood movies, there is a lot of room for experiments too, and most of all CGI animation is not too expensive.

If they really wanted to make something good they would try doing something what Capcom did with their animated Resident Evil movies that were pretty nice (though the quality dropped with the latest movies, but still they were pretty decent and entertaining), much better than Hollywood movies. Though they'd probably had to outsource it to Japanese studio because I don't know if there are a lot of good studios in US (aside from Disney's Pixar and Dreamworks studios) that are making good CGI animated movies.

[Never Forgotten]

Sledgehammer, on 12 October 2019 - 09:07 AM, said:

Realistically, Doom has much better potential to be good as a CGI movie, especially because it would be much simpler to implement demons and other stuff in CGI movie overall. Animation in general provides freedom of creativity better than anything, you don't need voice acting, there is no reason to show the face of Doom guy either because in CGI there are usually no real actors who must show their faces in Hollywood movies

What's wrong with having Doomguy talk, or show his face? Having the main character not interactwith other characters can get boring. When it comes to showing his face, in the original game you're literally always looking at his face.

[Sledgehammer]

He really has no real personality nor he ever had a voice (what obviously makes things quite complicated). As for the face, that was rather a suggestion, it's not necessary for Doomguy to have a face, people remember him for his suit after all, not face. Besides, sometimes it's nice when a character has some mystery.

Never Forgotten, on 12 October 2019 - 11:05 AM, said:

Having the main character not interactwith other characters can get boring.

A character don't have to interact with something/someone using words. Making that work (not boring) requires some good efforts though.

[MrFlibble]

Sledgehammer, on 12 October 2019 - 11:50 AM, said:

A character don't have to interact with something/someone using words. Making that work (not boring) requires some good efforts though.

I loved Samurai Jack, and the hero is really not very talkative. Some episodes are either entirely without dialogue (not getting any less awesome for that), while others have him say one or two lines. The story is told primarily via visuals and in some cases, through the sounds of the environment. Combat scenes are almost always without dialogue, a good close-up on the protagonist's facial expression is more than enough to convey the story and emotion.

I know not everyone shares this opinion but I think it could work rather well with source material like Doom or Duke3D. Doesn't even have to be CGI.

[DisgustedGrunt]

[Sledgehammer]

MrFlibble, on 14 October 2019 - 08:39 AM, said:

I loved Samurai Jack, and the hero is really not very talkative. Some episodes are either entirely without dialogue (not getting any less awesome for that), while others have him say one or two lines. The story is told primarily via visuals and in some cases, through the sounds of the environment. Combat scenes are almost always without dialogue, a good close-up on the protagonist's facial expression is more than enough to convey the story and emotion.

I know not everyone shares this opinion but I think it could work rather well with source material like Doom or Duke3D. Doesn't even have to be CGI.

That's exactly what I had in mind when I said that. Genndy would make a great Doom movie or short series. The reason I mentioned CGI specifically though was mainly because it's cheaper than 2D animation. Genndy can work even with CGI as his Hotel Transylvania shoved, or even his short Popeye movie which was even better:

[NightFright]

The guy should have handed over a fake retail box of Blackroom for Romero to sign. He would have ended up with that silver pen in his rectum.

[Cherno]

Sledgehammer, on 14 October 2019 - 11:40 AM, said:

That's exactly what I had in mind when I said that. Genndy would make a great Doom movie or short series. The reason I mentioned CGI specifically though was mainly because it's cheaper than 2D animation. Genndy can work even with CGI as his Hotel Transylvania shoved, or even his short Popeye movie which was even better:

I wonder, is 3d really cheaper than 2d per-se? I could imagine that the switch to 3d has more to do with customer expectation and visual possibilities as well as the number of professionals that work in the medium than cost.

[MusicallyInspired]

I imagine there would likely be a library of animations that you could paste into any 3D asset and still more of a library of textures and materials you can use. Leaving only the more unique sets of each to be developed by the art and animation team. I'd say that alone would make things cheaper than drawing EVERYTHING from scratch.

Though, Disney xeroxed their own animations for later movies (Snow White dancing was used for Maid Marion dancing, the dogs in 101 Dalmations and the cats in Aristocats, for example).

[Sledgehammer]

Cherno, on 14 October 2019 - 02:51 PM, said:

I wonder, is 3d really cheaper than 2d per-se? I could imagine that the switch to 3d has more to do with customer expectation and visual possibilities as well as the number of professionals that work in the medium than cost.

With actual hand drawn 2D you have to draw every single frame for animation, be it a movie or a game, doesn't matter, something which is very time consuming, especially if you aim to make smooth animation (more than 24 FPS) which means producing more frames, though unlike games (with some exceptions) you have to draw frames more detailed too and the quantity of frames is pretty big which translates even into more frames. Making animations using 3D is much easier in general, including what MI said, however, even learning the basics of 3D is not as difficult as drawing stuff. The factor you mentioned though played its role as well, personally I think the reason why Disney projects like Atlantis or Treasure Planet (that used 3D quite a lot) failed was because everyone considered 2D cartoons for kids and those two were mostly aimed at more mature audiences, back when I wasn't familiar with the West I never thought that Atlantis and Treasure Planet underperformed at box office, actually. CGI was something else though.

2D became extremely expensive and niche. Though there is also such thing as digital/vector-based animation (Flash, After Effects, etc) which is actively being used as an alternative to traditional 2D animation in the West these days since it's more flexible and cheaper to work with, although it has its downsides, usually animation itself tend to look off or drawing with animations are way too simplistic, static. Hard to explain by words, by just look at this:

Spoiler

And of course just look at how many frames were used for each too:

Did you know that the latest Samurai Jack season was made in Flash, by the way?

Mind you, it's possible to make great 2D animation using digital format or even pseudo-2D style using 3D (both are time consuming and require good efforts to make), Genndy even translated that typical style of 2D (don't know how this thing is called, I hope you get the point) into his Popeye short and Hotel Transylvania movies too. Then there is also this:

Spoiler

But usually it's noticeable when something was drawn in digital format or by hand.

What's also worth mentioning is that at some point many American companies started outsourcing animated movies/series to Japan (starting from 80s) and South Korea (work was outsourced there actively in 2000s) because it was cheaper. The cost played pretty big role, always. Oh, and I almost forgot about Canada, that country was really interesting when it comes to 2D animation in general, they produced shitton of series in quite short period of time.

[MusicallyInspired]

Atlantis was fantastic. It was like a kid's Stargate movie...without the Stargate. The story is basically the same otherwise. And they both have Atlantis in them...eventually lol.

[Sledgehammer]

It's one of my favorite Disney movie to date, to be honest, along with The Incredibles which is my all time favorite ever. Treasure Planet was great too.

[Radar]

Sledgehammer, on 14 October 2019 - 10:32 PM, said:

With actual hand drawn 2D you have to draw every single frame for animation, be it a movie or a game, doesn't matter, something which is very time consuming, especially if you aim to make smooth animation (more than 24 FPS) which means producing more frames, though unlike games (with some exceptions) you have to draw frames more detailed too and the quantity of frames is pretty big which translates even into more frames. Making animations using 3D is much easier in general, including what MI said, however, even learning the basics of 3D is not as difficult as drawing stuff. The factor you mentioned though played its role as well, personally I think the reason why Disney projects like Atlantis or Treasure Planet (that used 3D quite a lot) failed was because everyone considered 2D cartoons for kids and those two were mostly aimed at more mature audiences, back when I wasn't familiar with the West I never thought that Atlantis and Treasure Planet underperformed at box office, actually. CGI was something else though.

It's not just a foreign thing. I watched both Atlantis and Treasure Planet dozens of times as a kid. My guess is they flopped because the design of the characters are very ugly, which I didn't notice as a kid.

Sledgehammer, on 14 October 2019 - 10:32 PM, said:

2D became extremely expensive and niche. Though there is also such thing as digital/vector-based animation (Flash, After Effects, etc) which is actively being used as an alternative to traditional 2D animation in the West these days since it's more flexible and cheaper to work with, although it has its downsides, usually animation itself tend to look off or drawing with animations are way too simplistic, static. Hard to explain by words, by just look at this:

Spoiler

And of course just look at how many frames were used for each too:

Keep in mind that what many folks consider to be "less detail" is really just greater efficiency. IMO the bottom one looks much better. The way their hair moves in the top one doesn't even make sense.

Here's an example. Every frame in this zoom is animated. This is very inefficient and makes the art look inconsistent. The shoulder-plates are especially ruined.

[Sledgehammer]

Spitfire, on 16 October 2019 - 06:07 PM, said:

My guess is they flopped because the design of the characters are very ugly, which I didn't notice as a kid.

Have you heard of Rugarts, my man? That show was the most popular Nickelodeon cartoon before Sponge Bob (which when when it was hand drawn had a lot of attention to small details, there were even bubbles physics under water, until they moved to digital format and tried to save more cost). That show was insanely popular, despite its "weird" or "ugly" style, wasn't really the first or the last 2D cartoon though. Wouldn't call Atlantis "ugly", the style is not too "crazy" or "unnatural" and there were worse Disney movies after that that were "weird", including Pixar. Treasure Planet was even more "realistic" or rather "traditional" for Disney except 3D was even more noticeable there.

Spitfire, on 16 October 2019 - 06:07 PM, said:

Keep in mind that what many folks consider to be "less detail" is really just greater efficiency. IMO the bottom one looks much better. The way their hair moves in the top one doesn't even make sense.

Right, it is, this efficiency is related to saving costs. They spent less frames on doing that particular scene (and the same is true for the whole show), while the old Simpsons had more frames that make those things look too more "alive" sometimes, non-static.

But I would argue that Marge's hair in particular makes no sense, it does. First of all it is hair and second it is tall, that makes such physics quite believable, hair is soft and flexible. I mean, her hair even shakes and moves like it should be even when she moves forward, this is great attention to detail. What really does not make sense is how she can keep the form of her hair which is probably quite heavy, it wasn't that bad when the show was dawn by hand, because sometimes they tried to implement physics to show that this is indeed a hair, but nowadays they're just trying to save money and be efficient, so it feels like her hair is, I don't know, plastic? Or as if she uses some metal stick to hold it.

Spitfire, on 16 October 2019 - 06:07 PM, said:

Here's an example. Every frame in this zoom is animated. This is very inefficient and makes the art look inconsistent. The shoulder-plates are especially ruined.

Well yeah, because it is hand drawn, every frame (though to be fair, Hokuto no Ken didn't have huge budget, that scene feels quite rushed, look at his left hand, the glow). Of course they could simply zoom out one or two frames to be efficient, but it would look very fake, not detailed at all (and there is wind in that scene too), it would look lazy. That shot is not perfect, but I think it still works, at least if you don't see it in the loop, it's pretty cool shit. Detailed stuff like that is the beauty of hand drawn animation (when it doesn't look extremely cheap and lazy), that it's not too constant sometimes, even if it tend to be overdone. I think that's why Disney and his 2D animation was loved so much by the people, following by companies trying to copy his style, sometimes it was quite weird and way too detailed. It is what sets movies and cartoons apart too, which of course "scares away" some people for being way too unnatural sometimes, depends from the case, people loved to experiment with it quite a lot in 90s.

But on the other hand, I'm amazed that errors like these don't happen too often considering how hard it is to draw animation properly. There are many memes based on those errors. The real downside of hand drawn animation though is that it can be low-res.

Also, I think Coraline-like cartoons that use dolls or other physical stuff is the most hardcore animation. This shit is just insane, I can only imagine how those people are making movies in such style so good. Just look at this

Spoiler

The twist is that the water is not a real water, yet her hair also becomes wet.

[Putrid Pete]

New LGR video about Doom II