i was in eb today and salesperson tried to presell me doom3 for pc. he said release is july 21st in their computers. will id finish the game by then?

I'd be skeptical until you see an official date announced. I think EB just makes up dates until then. Also sounds like he was just trying to sell you on the preorder by telling you a somewhat close date for the release.

Definitely sounds like the guy just wanted a preorder. With a game as big as this you know that the release date would come at least 3 or 4 months beforehand. I myself don't expect Doom 3 until late fall/early winter.

It looks like August will be Doom 3 and September should be Half Life 2.

I personally have no problem believing the game could be out next month; they're obviously in the home stretch (the PC version wasn't shown at E3 because id was too busy with the final crunch). A game like Doom III doesn't need three or four months of pre-release marketing to be a huge hit. I'm sure the July 21st date was just a wild guess though, if an official date had been announced it'd be all over the place by now.

I may stand corrected as the new Game Informer magazine lists Doom 3 as having a July 21'st release date for the pc. Guess we'll find out soon enough whether it's true or not.

i heard its coming out 3 weeks after Duke4Ever....

j

what's the staff of duke nukem doing anyways. . .no offense, but how can you be 3+ years off with a release date?

Has this game even entered Beta testing?

Heavy testing with their latest peripheral:

A lot of is has to do with the fact they keep switching engines. As far as I know, they're using the Half Life 2 engine now.


Regarding Doom, I keep hearing July, but I'll believe it when I see it.

I think they've switched engines four times -- first Quake I (while they were waiting for the Quake II engine to be finished), then Quake II, then Unreal, then the upgraded Unreal Tournament engine. They haven't switched engines since (if Broussard is to be believed), they've just been adding on and modifying it as the years drag on. It probably bears no resemblance to the original UT engine by this point.

My understanding is the main reason for the constant delays is incredibly high turnover -- people apparently keep coming on the project after being promised huge royalties and all these other perks, believing they'll just have to put in a few months work to finish the game, only to discover the game is nowhere near finished and bolt without really getting anything done, thus prompting the cycle to begin anew. Meanwhile 3D Realms pocketed $20 million from the sale of the Max Payne IP so they don't have any compelling reason to finish it.

Someone mentioned in another thread, that for about a year now they have been working on their own engine instead of using a 3rd party one.

If they have 3D Realms haven't mentioned it yet.

Back on the subject of Doom 3, though, here's a Slashdot post from Carmack himself with this little tidbit:

"BTW, Doom beta testing is going very well."

If they're in beta testing that means the game could go gold anytime between the next two or three days and the next two or three months. I'm expecting it'll be closer to the former than the latter but this definitely confirms they're in the final lap.