Stomped managed to get ahold of Paul Steed, who, as you all know, was fired when DOOM3 development started at id. Here's a big chunk of what he has to say on the subject

<snip> My time at id was priceless and no doubt ranks among the most memorable of my life. However, everyone involved in this fiasco knows it's complete and utter Bullshit. I hope the ones responsible for this wasteful and pointless act enjoy what they see in that mirror every day. My committment and dedication to id was unquestioning - people are just blind to their insipid loyalties and petty insecurities.

Bah. Whatever. At least John set the record straight. Time and PR crap may try to change that, but he was man enough to speak up. For that he will always have my admiration, respect and assurance that when he's sick of all that mess...he knows where to find me.

So I've finally had time to digest the whole DOOM 3 thing and figured I would share my thoughts over the weekend. As a victim of the original DOOM (I failed a semester of college due to it) I certainly have those fond memories of playing my first DM games with DOOM and would love to relive those days. However I realize that will not happen. As much as I may want to think otherwise, I am a jaded old gamer. My largest fear for DOOM 3 is that it may suffer from 'StarWars syndrome'. Basically all the old fans go to see the new product and it is entirely not what they expected.

Well here is the deal, I dont expect DOOM 3 to be much like the older games. The gaming market has changed, the average gamer has changed, and id Software has changed. I have hopes for some of my favorite parts of DOOM to resurface in DOOM 3 (SSG!) but thats about it. No matter what id Software does with DOOM 3 I am certain the older gamers will bitch and moan about how the game is not a 'fitting tribute' to the originals. It will happen, and its going to be nasty.

Would I have liked to see something new? Sure.Am I dissapointed? Absolutely not. This is the most anticipated game for me since the original Quake. The excitement of DOOM brought back to life in true 3D with a completely next-gen engine is just impossible to explain. I wont be able to sleep for the next couple of years waiting for this. Bake Me A DOOM 3!

Oh lastly, is it really DOOM 3? What about Final DOOM?

id co-owner/artist Kevin Cloud updated his .plan with his side of the story on DOOM3 and the firing of Paul Steed, hopefully also changing the mind of people who think id is gonna close soon because of how development on DOOM3 got started.

John and I have strongly disagreed in the past. We have worked out our disagreements and we will do so again. In the end we are all excited about working on DOOM and committed to making a great game.

Although Adrian and I alone made the decision to fire Paul, it is the general opinion among the rest of id that we made the right decision. Paul was not fired as a result of his support for DOOM. Other people at id supported DOOM in the exact same manner. For several reasons it was time for id software and Paul Steed to part company.

<snip>

Well we did this for Daikatana and it went over well so I figure we'll do it again for the DOOM 3 announcement. I went through the 1,000+ comments and tried to dig up some of the more interesting responses to the announcement. I've broken it up into 3 categories since those were the 3 major issues at hand. Here you guys go:

- On DOOM 3: BountyKiller , dra. , Lex Lethal , Eurhetemec , Gareth Bryne , mC , Nadiar , phinn , el-kaboom , Skid , yes4me
- Suggestions: |hawKeye| , Anon@xtalwind , dshowcase , dra. , Anon@lvcm Boogieman , Dopeman , madgrad , skitzo
- On Steed: Nadiar , Lex Lethal , Goatse.cx , Anon@compaq , RA]Mission , r0xNadZ

Oh yeah, and you guys might be interested in former id Software developer Dave Taylor's take on things.

Doomworld has news of a Bobby Prince page on MP3.com. As you should know, Bobby Prince wrote the music for Doom 1 & 2. You can download normal and live versions of his work in MP3 format, or order a CD with the Doom tunes on them.

A couple of things for you guys. Firstly Stomped has collected those promised reactions from developers. Also, since everyone cant seem to get enough of it here are a couple of more scraps on the whole DOOM 3 thing. Paul Jaquays made a couple of posts (also here) to Quake3World of interest: (Thanks David Levesque)

post#1 A new DOOM game IS our next game project. Steed WAS fired. It was and IS NOT a Kevin C. & Adrian C. vs. the rest of id issue.

post#2 What John has said about the game is all that we are going to say or show until we're ready. When we are ready to show, we think you will be amazed, astounded and excited by what you see and learn. And by waiting a bit, we can ensure that what you see in the early releases will be what makes it into the game. We won't need to hype it (which I guess I'm doing here already ... so sorry). Of course, the other project we were working on would have been no slacker either ...

I really dont expect to see much about DOOM 3 after this for a while. This project was just decided on. They dont even have a design document done much less details or screenshots of the game they could talk about. This all just makes the wait even more painful now that we know what they are working on though. BAH.

Damn, I still havent totally soaked in this whole Doom3 thing. There is a bit of reaction going on around the web though of course. You can have a look at the lengthy reaction from Zoid (Formerly of id Software). Steve Fukuda of 2015 (who recently announced they have licensed the Quake3 engine) has an ominous "All dynasties eventually fall" update. also Hypothermia has 'bring back Steed' poll going. Mike Wilson of Gathering has a cute "is it done yet?" .plan update. Stomped is planning a bit more reactions collection too. Here is a bit from Zoid:

...But there are some issues--when DOOM came out, people were new to the first person shooter genre and one of the reasons DOOM was such a fun game was as you learned how to play you started being able to kill monsters better. These days I (and most experienced players) can run rings around a Cyberdemon and toy with him. DOOM taught me how to strafe, dammit. :)

Which brings up an excellent point. The same formula that made DooM such a hit will just not work again, the market has changed dramatically. I do however feel that the 'technology shock' that went along with DooM may resurface with Carmack's next-generation engine. Oh yeah, and there is a new poll on the right side over there.

Oh damn dudes, JohnC just dropped the bomb in his .plan about id's next project, a new Doom game (which apparently wasn't something everyone at id was in favor of)

Design work on an alternate game has been going on in parallel with the mission pack development and my research work.

Several factors, including a general lack of enthusiasm for the proposed plan, the warmth that Wolfenstein was met with at E3, and excitement about what we can do with the latest rendering technology were making it seem more and more like we weren't going down the right path.

I discussed it with some of the other guys, and we decided that it was important enough to drag the company through an unpleasant fight over it.

An ultimatum was issued to Kevin and Adrian(who control >50% of the company):
We are working on DOOM for the next project unless you fire us.
<snip>

It wasn't planned to announce this soon, but here it is: We are working on a new DOOM game, focusing on the single player game experience, and using brand new technology in almost every aspect of it. That is all we are prepared to say about the game for quite some time, so don't push for interviews. We will talk about it when things are actually built, to avoid giving misleading comments.
<snip>

Further along, he mentions that Paul Steed has been fired (John says he did a damn fine job as modeler, but was fired because of the whole event, kinda nasty). Be sure and read the entire update, pretty damn interesting. In addition to that, you can read what former id Software employee Zoid has to say about it here.