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Dear John Carmack.

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Re: Dear John Carmack.

#31

Post by yannickt »

ary wrote: post #23
5hoom wrote: post #12

I will agree with one thing from the article, he's John freakin' Carmack . This is a man who has been pushing the boundaries of realtime graphics since Wolfenstein3D. We owe him a lot, and I think he has earned the right to work on whatever project he damn well chooses. People seem to imagine all the amazing things he could have done with his time while glossing over the amazing things he has done right here, right n…

> He has a team of artists who help realise the (visual) potential of the awesome new tech he has developed. The gameplay itself comes second. Heresy, I know, but this has been the pattern for a number of releases and if the id team are happy with that then more power to them. What it really comes down to is that id games are basically showcases for their latest engine tech. The licensing income from the engines (whi…

I don't think they license engines anymore. I just hope their tech makes it into Fallout 4 or whatever Bethesda (which is now under the same corporate umbrella as id) ends up calling it.

Re: Dear John Carmack.

#32

Post by yannickt »

cavalcade wrote: post #7

Carmack needs to be paired up with a real gameplay/product/market counterpart. His Steve Jobs so to speak. But if he is happy doing it his way then he should continue. I just hope Bethesda won't punish him for Rage's commercial disappointment.

He needs Romero back. I think if these two were still working together, we would see some amazing games being made.

Re: Dear John Carmack.

#33

Post by staunch »

1. Carmack stopped making games for us PC gamers and started making games for the true mass market: casual console gamers. Rage is a great competitor to Halo or Call of Duty or whatever.

2. He left a huge void in the world of FPS gaming. The "best" FPS games today (Battlefield 3, Call of Duty) are graphically beautiful, watered down, crap for console gamers. Their actual game play sucks.

Quake1 Netquake Deathmatch/CTF/Clan Arena/Rocket Arena is still more intense and more a test of skill than any other game to follow in the ~13 years since it was created.

Creating a modern replacement (for no other reason really than fixing a few minor issues and bringing in new players) is on my list of Things To Do.

Re: Dear John Carmack.

#34

Post by 5hoom »

z92 wrote: post #30

Since 90s John Carmack wrote games for hardware planning two years in the future. During his planning and development stage, those games were barely playable on standard gaming machines of the time. But he correctly knew that by the time these games will be released, hardware will get two to four times faster. Thus for long he was the fist to come up with games that demonstrated the full capabilities of new hardwares…

While I would agree that Doom3 was a casualty of the effect you outline, most of the stuff Carmack is working on now is very much within the realm of current & future hardware.

The megatexture tech is a clever use of 'clipmaps' or virtual mipmaps and runs on current-gen hardware. They are currently looking at a sparse voxel octree technique to create a megatexture-like (theoretically)infinite LOD system for geometry. This is also intended to be used on current (or near future) hardware.

A lot of the graphics techniques used by id aren't invented by Carmack, his genius is making them run in realtime on consumer computers. And yes it can be a guessing game :)

Re: Dear John Carmack.

#35

Post by wtallis »

yannickt wrote: post #31
ary wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He has a team of artists who help realise the (visual) potential of the awesome new tech he has developed. The gameplay itself comes second. Heresy, I know, but this has been the pattern for a number of releases and if the id team are happy with that then more power to them. What it really comes down to is that id games are basically showcases for their latest engine tech. The licensing income from the engines (whi…

I don't think they license engines anymore. I just hope their tech makes it into Fallout 4 or whatever Bethesda (which is now under the same corporate umbrella as id) ends up calling it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Tech

Still being licensed, just with less demand, and with the new restriction that games developed with id Tech have to be published through Bethesda Softworks. id Tech 4 is due for a GPL source code release sometime in the next few months.

Re: Dear John Carmack.

#36

Post by palish »

staunch wrote: post #33

1. Carmack stopped making games for us PC gamers and started making games for the true mass market: casual console gamers. Rage is a great competitor to Halo or Call of Duty or whatever. 2. He left a huge void in the world of FPS gaming. The "best" FPS games today (Battlefield 3, Call of Duty) are graphically beautiful, watered down, crap for console gamers. Their actual game play sucks. Quake1 Netquake Deathmatch/CT…

> It's one of my fantasies to work on this.

Then why don't you?

No, really, why don't you? Right now.

http://nehe.gamedev.net

http://beej.us/guide/bgnet/output/html/singlepage/bgnet.html

http://developer.nvidia.com/physx

These are the (free) tools that I used to build something very close to Quake. If a dummy like me can, then so can you.

And if it's your fantasy, then you owe it to yourself to make it your reality. Go achieve what I didn't.

Re: Dear John Carmack.

#37

Post by palish »

yannickt wrote: post #32
cavalcade wrote: post #7

Carmack needs to be paired up with a real gameplay/product/market counterpart. His Steve Jobs so to speak. But if he is happy doing it his way then he should continue. I just hope Bethesda won't punish him for Rage's commercial disappointment.

He needs Romero back. I think if these two were still working together, we would see some amazing games being made.

I'd say Carmack cares more about rockets than about games, at this point. Who wouldn't?

Re: Dear John Carmack.

#38

Post by staunch »

palish wrote: post #36
staunch wrote: post #33

1. Carmack stopped making games for us PC gamers and started making games for the true mass market: casual console gamers. Rage is a great competitor to Halo or Call of Duty or whatever. 2. He left a huge void in the world of FPS gaming. The "best" FPS games today (Battlefield 3, Call of Duty) are graphically beautiful, watered down, crap for console gamers. Their actual game play sucks. Quake1 Netquake Deathmatch/CT…

> It's one of my fantasies to work on this. Then why don't you? No, really, why don't you? Right now. http://nehe.gamedev.net http://beej.us/guide/bgnet/output/html/singlepage/bgnet.html http://developer.nvidia.com/physx These are the (free) tools that I used to build something very close to Quake. If a dummy like me can, then so can you. And if it's your fantasy, then you owe it to yourself to make it your reality.…

I'm living out my top-choice fantasy already: working on my web startup. Gaming is a secondary love, but if no one else gets around to it I definitely will.

Re: Dear John Carmack.

#39

Post by palish »

staunch wrote: post #38
palish wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's one of my fantasies to work on this. Then why don't you? No, really, why don't you? Right now. http://nehe.gamedev.net http://beej.us/guide/bgnet/output/html/singlepage/bgnet.html http://developer.nvidia.com/physx These are the (free) tools that I used to build something very close to Quake. If a dummy like me can, then so can you. And if it's your fantasy, then you owe it to yourself to make it your reality.…

I'm living out my top-choice fantasy already: working on my web startup. Gaming is a secondary love, but if no one else gets around to it I definitely will.

DaVinci tackled a dozen fantasies pretty much simultaneously.

I think you're more capable than you give yourself credit for.

Re: Dear John Carmack.

#40

Post by yannickt »

palish wrote: post #37
yannickt wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He needs Romero back. I think if these two were still working together, we would see some amazing games being made.

I'd say Carmack cares more about rockets than about games, at this point. Who wouldn't?

His interviews after he received the gdc lifetime achievement award suggest otherwise.
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