Doom III will depart from standard <a href="http://www.idsoftware.com/">id</a> games in another important way. There are plans for a plot. The game engine's amazing sound and video capabilities (see <a href="http://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=504">Doom Technology</a>) allows the artists and designers to create a terrifying atmosphere and focus on the environment's role in the game, rather than using many monsters (Doom) or other players (Quake III) to create fear. <a href="http://gamespy.com/">GameSpy</a> has a full article, <a href="http://gamespy.com/e32002/pc/doom3b/">DOOM III: The Very First Look</a>, with more details. <a href="{data}/news/old_attachments/images/quake_fiend.jpg"><img class="frame" align="right" src="{data}/news/old_attachments/images/quake_fiend_tn.jpg"></a>Watching the video (see <a href="http://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=498">Doom III E3 videos</a>), id looks like they're returning to monsters in the style of the fiend (see right) from Quake I, with <iq>... many seemingly non-human creatures present --- many of whom attacked with quick, lunging attacks, and were all modeled and animated exquisitely.</iq> Further good news is that the <iq>The game has already been storyboarded from start to finish</iq> and <iq>id has enlisted the services of science fiction writer Matthew Costello to pen the game story and dialogue. Costello is no rookie to this sort of thing --- you may recognize him as the writer of the 7th Guest and The 11th Hour games.</iq> Graeme Devine, now a programmer and project manager at id (he wrote the new sound engine) was a founder of Trilobyte, who made the 7th Guest and 11th Hour. Furthermore: <bq>You can expect the plot to be furthered along through a combination of in-game scripted scenes and in-engine cinematics, but nothing rendered --- everything will happen inside the new engine.</bq> The dynamic lighting enhances the storytelling significantly, helping set the mood: <bq>... there's a scene where a scientist sits in front of a computer, which casts a glow upon his face in addition to the other light already present in the room. As the computer display changes, so does the overall lighting, similar to how a television will light up a dark room. Shadows also play a big role --- at a number of points in the demo, you'd see a shadow approach before the actual enemy, giving you a chance to react before being attacked.</bq> The new animation system is skeletal with blended animations, with <iq>lots of animations for eyes and mouths, as well as syncing, and they've also developed an entirely new scripting system as well as a "fairly robust" camera system.</iq> The new physics engine is also extremely robust. In the demo, <iq>one scene shows a character falling down a flight of steps, reacting to each step along the way</iq>, so maybe the days of watching bodies float off the edge of a set of stairs are gone. <iq>another [scene] shows boxes getting knocked off a shelf and bouncing to the floor in an entirely realistic manner.</iq> The interactivity with the environment doesn't just stop at larger objects, like stairs, boxes, tables, etc.: <bq>One of the more interesting technical innovations we saw is a new GUI system that allows for Flash-like animation on any surface, and can be completely interactive. Unlike most current games, where a keypad or switch might be portrayed with a few simple textures, these items can now be presented with much more detail.</bq>