With the release of Wolfenstein: The New Order coming up, one can't help but be curious when it comes to the preorder bonus that is the Doom beta. For those that don't know, 'Doom 4' had been in development hell for years, scrapped by order of Bethesda, and now redone from the ground up.

I'll get right to it: If Doom's beta is for a competitive multiplayer component, it's a terrible sign. If it's for a cooperative/single player component, it's a good sign- a proper modern Doom would take full advantage of today's networks/infrastructure to do some interesting things with these modes. I could go into extreme detail as to what exactly my perfect Doom reboot entails, but what I will say is that some shoddy doomguy vs. doomguy action like in Doom 3 is not included at all in it. No, I won't even accept some sort of twist where it's marines vs demons.

Doom multiplayer is great, I still play that Megaman DM wad sometimes.

As long as there's a rocket launcher it doesn't matter to me what the beta is.

I'm secretly hoping for competitive multiplayer.

@corruptedevil said:

If this new one would be so liberal with modding and even custom maps for competitive multiplayer mode, I would be pleasantly shocked. But I really can not see that happening.

I'd be interested in hearing what would make a multiplayer beta such as terrible sign? I mean, sure, today that term usually means "limited access demo", but I'm not sure what about it would make it a terrible sign for the game, rather than a sign of the times we live in today?

There was this going around of a Glassdoor review from a former employee at ID -

“There is a lot that needs fixing at id Software.”

Developer (Former Employee)

Richardson, TX

I worked at id Software full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein. I got into the game industry because of these games, and the amazing talent that created them. I came to id software because I wanted to learn from these developers. The pay is pretty decent, and they used to give bonuses before the current management issues.

Cons – None of the amazing talent that created id's iconic games are left - they've all fled the current management team. There are a few issues id software needs to work on to turn things around:

The lack of professionalism: Expect lots of inappropriate jokes, comments and a generally unprofessional work environment. Our HR director quit recently over the many internal issues.

The lack of opportunities: The Management has openly stated in team meetings that when they are looking to give raises and promotions, they care more about how they get along with the prospect, rather than skill, experience, or previous work done.

The hiring practices: They've turned away good candidates in all departments because the leads have expressed a desire to hire only students or people they've worked with before.

The broken technology: The entire tech team at id software has quit and moved to Occulus - they all left this past February all together on the same day to protest the managements treatment of people.

The non-stop attrition: When all of the teams merged together to create the "new" Doom team 2 years ago, there was around 140+ developers to make the game. Now, there is only around 50. The non-stop attrition has gotten so bad, that they had to contract outside the company for the multiplayer portion of the game, and we have contractors doing a bulk of our art work.

The non-stop reboots and changes of direction: Every 4 months or so, they tell us that the current direction is all wrong for doom, and will re-boot most, if not all, of the game. This means that for over 2 years of work, there is no game to show, beyond 1 or 2 blockout levels and numerous prototypes.

The non-stop spin doctoring: Instead of meeting the issues head on and working for positive change, the people at id are awash in spin doctoring by the management.

Advice to Senior Management – This company is at a crossroads. The last two years have been generally bad for this company, and has cost id software much in the eyes of the industry. If you want to turn this around, you need to make a positive change. Encourage the bright, capable developers who actually produce, and stop playing politics. It shouldn't be about who is your friend and who isn't, id software needs everyone to work together as a team! These sort of games might have worked at the old id software, but this is not how you run a successful AAA studio today. Zenimax needs to step in and take over the management to ensure these changes are met.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Concerning the MP apparently it's being contracted out so say what you will about its future prospects on it being good or not...Whatever the state the whole dev of Doom is really starting to sound like some de ja vu of Duke Nukem Forever.

@fisk0 said:

I am specifically talking about competitive multiplayer. If id/bethesda insists on having people's first look/taste of a new Doom game be some sort of doomguy v. doomguy shit, it's a terrible sign.

The scrapped Doom 4 was a "sign of the times we lived in today". It was Call of Doom: complete fucking garbage. The original Doom was a phenomenon partly because it did not just go along with the times.. it was a masterstroke of iterative (NOT innovative) game design.