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Id Software

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Re: Id Software

#41

Post by kar1181 »

We owe a lot to John Carmack in many ways - but I hope one of his enduring legacies will be the amount of programmers he inspired with both the games he helped make, and the code he made available. It helped many of us to get started somewhere.

I never ended up going into games myself, but in no small part I owe my career to him.

As well as the Doom book, his plan files are a fascinating time capsule to go back over, particularly if you 'came of age' during that golden age of PC games development.

https://github.com/ESWAT/john-carmack-plan-archive

Re: Id Software

#43

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

westoncb wrote: post #32

If you'd like to try out Doom now, there is an OpenGL port called Doomsday[0] which is very complete and loyal to the original, while smoothing out/modernizing things enough to make it genuinely fun for modern players. For instance, you can look in all directions with 'mouse look' and jump and run faster while pressing shift, and there are dynamic spot lights attached to certain things (e.g. fireballs), even though t…

As someone who grew up playing Doom I have to admit that video makes me uneasy - almost like an "uncanny valley" effect. Although I can see why it might be easier on the eyes for modern gamers and if it introduces more people to the game then that can only be a good thing.

For those looking for a more period correct experience there's Chocolate Doom: https://www.chocolate-doom.org/wiki/index.php/Chocolate_Doom

Though I have to admit I generally just fire up my 486 to play. I've already had one complete playthrough of Ultimate Doom and Doom 2 this year and I'm sure it won't be the last. :)

Re: Id Software

#44

Post by DEADBEEFC0FFEE »

kar1181 wrote: post #41

We owe a lot to John Carmack in many ways - but I hope one of his enduring legacies will be the amount of programmers he inspired with both the games he helped make, and the code he made available. It helped many of us to get started somewhere. I never ended up going into games myself, but in no small part I owe my career to him. As well as the Doom book, his plan files are a fascinating time capsule to go back over,…

Curious that you think it was a golden age.

Re: Id Software

#45

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

vertexFarm wrote: post #2

Id's move back in the day to open their software enough to allow a modding community was an early stroke of genius. I still play quake mods from time to time. It's amazing how much longevity they got out of those games, let alone the engines. Modding quake was one of my first great bursts of curiosity and creativity. I really remember those days fondly.

As an example, Half-Life and Counterstrike started life as Quake mods!

Re: Id Software

#46

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

DEADBEEFC0FFEE wrote: post #44
kar1181 wrote: post #41

We owe a lot to John Carmack in many ways - but I hope one of his enduring legacies will be the amount of programmers he inspired with both the games he helped make, and the code he made available. It helped many of us to get started somewhere. I never ended up going into games myself, but in no small part I owe my career to him. As well as the Doom book, his plan files are a fascinating time capsule to go back over,…

Curious that you think it was a golden age.

Not GP, but I agree. The world of PC gaming was moving so fast in the 90s - sound cards, CD-ROM, "multimedia", the internet, 3D accelerators etc. (I appreciate that most of these technologies were invented earlier, but the 90s was when they really came of age and hit mass adoption).

I grew up in that era and agree that it was a golden age, but of course I'm aware that nostalgia plays a big part in that. If you look at, say, 2000-2010 or even 2010 to now it seems things have slowed down - which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Re: Id Software

#47

Post by westoncb »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #43
westoncb wrote: post #32

If you'd like to try out Doom now, there is an OpenGL port called Doomsday[0] which is very complete and loyal to the original, while smoothing out/modernizing things enough to make it genuinely fun for modern players. For instance, you can look in all directions with 'mouse look' and jump and run faster while pressing shift, and there are dynamic spot lights attached to certain things (e.g. fireballs), even though t…

As someone who grew up playing Doom I have to admit that video makes me uneasy - almost like an "uncanny valley" effect. Although I can see why it might be easier on the eyes for modern gamers and if it introduces more people to the game then that can only be a good thing. For those looking for a more period correct experience there's Chocolate Doom: https://www.chocolate-doom.org/wiki/index.php/Chocolate_Doom Though…

Actually I get that now too when I skip through quickly. For me it's because he mostly uses 3d character models during the video—although that's not the default setup. I mostly just watched the beginning earlier and didn't realize how much was using the 3d character set.

Re: Id Software

#48

Post by ehnto »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #46
DEADBEEFC0FFEE wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious that you think it was a golden age.

Not GP, but I agree. The world of PC gaming was moving so fast in the 90s - sound cards, CD-ROM, "multimedia", the internet, 3D accelerators etc. (I appreciate that most of these technologies were invented earlier, but the 90s was when they really came of age and hit mass adoption). I grew up in that era and agree that it was a golden age, but of course I'm aware that nostalgia plays a big part in that. If you look a…

I would agree to the 90s having huge fundamental leaps. For more recently, on the innovative technology side you do have VR, SSDs, steady performance increases across the board. But I would say the biggest leaps have come with better code and asset generation rather than brute hardware improvements. PBR was a massive change in the way assets are generated and how real they can look and feel. Likewise games are reaching really impressive levels of mechanical fidelity and visual depth. GTAV still looks amazing today, and that's down to the sheer amount of unique assets and texture variance in the game. Games now tend to flourish due to gameplay depth, scale and freedom over every impressive visuals. Which is great.

Re: Id Software

#49

Post by nailer »

Have id officially stopped their policy of releasing 'current - 2' game source as Open Source?

Shouldn't Doom 3, Quake 4 and maybe Rage 1 be up here?

Re: Id Software

#50

Post by kar1181 »

DEADBEEFC0FFEE wrote: post #44
kar1181 wrote: post #41

We owe a lot to John Carmack in many ways - but I hope one of his enduring legacies will be the amount of programmers he inspired with both the games he helped make, and the code he made available. It helped many of us to get started somewhere. I never ended up going into games myself, but in no small part I owe my career to him. As well as the Doom book, his plan files are a fascinating time capsule to go back over,…

Curious that you think it was a golden age.

As the comments below observe, I think the types and number of experiences built on the back of new (to mainstream audiences anyway) technology were transformative.

In 92 the Amiga 1200 came out, a wonderful computer with great hardware but unfortunately it never made it big. Four years later in 1996 mass market PCs were coming out with Pentium processors, 3dfx accelerators, high resolution bitmap displays, internet connections and powerful general purpose sound adapters.

Today we have orders of magnitude more computing power, but essentially they are powering the same experiences, albeit far more polished.

If we look back four years, 2014, not much has really changed. The big game releases indeed are the same games (in the 90s they'd have been called mission packs).

The magic of experiencing something completely brand new, completely alien and magical, has gone away. Though, I am hopeful VR/AR is going to deliver that again. I don't know how far off it is, but it would be fitting if it's Carmack and Abrash behind it. Again.

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