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Dear John Carmack.

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Re: Dear John Carmack.

#51

Post by bnegreve »

> Build an engine based on Raytracing, Voxels, particles, Signed Distance fields, vorenoi patterns, or something else we haven't seen.

Yes, back then graphics and gameplays were carefully designed in consideration of the 3D engine limits (eg. doom and its raycaster, or outcast[1] and its voxel-like engine). Today the polygon-based rendering seems to be the only viable technology (and it is hardware accelerated). I believe it's taking away all games' originality.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcast_%28video_game%29#Gamepl...

Re: Dear John Carmack.

#52

Post by vitalysh »

jc-denton wrote: post #45

Wtf Rage is amazing and I've never seen a game that looks better. I would say that getting Rage done is quite an achievement. If hoped that JC would do a different game then you can doit yourself.

Probably he is talking about Rage on PC. Rage on PC looks alright, but not the best looks ever. Quite often it looks like it is 2000 outside (the textures are meh, they are not crisp at all).

Re: Dear John Carmack.

#53

Post by grannyg00se »

Excuse me but how is this person the authority on what games are and are not.

"Many games designers think its their job to tell stories, but games isn't a story medium, they should go write books or make films."

Have you heard of Sierra? King's Quest? Or maybe Legend of Kyrandia? Or in the FPS genre, Half Life? Or the Deus Ex trilogy?

These are all games in which the story has stayed with me much longer than the game mechanics.

Re: Dear John Carmack.

#54

Post by grannyg00se »

stephth wrote: post #24
kennymeyers wrote: post #10

This article is so full of incendiary bullshit, I'm surprised it even got on the front page. Some of the most critically acclaimed games, as well as highest selling games, have stories. For example: Grand Theft Auto 3. Final Fantasy VII. Ico. Metal Gear Solid. Arkham Asylum. Mass Effect. Dragon Age. Dark Souls. Demon Souls. Starcraft. Starcraft II. Modern Warfare. World of Warcraft. Do you know what else made these g…

Some of the most critically acclaimed games, as well as highest selling games, have stories. He's not saying games don't have stories, of course they do, he's saying that some game designers get distracted from making good mechanics, which I agree, is a huge mistake. Mechanics is the core of the medium, and shouldn't be put second on the list. Valve gets that. Their attention and talent put into storytelling and art…

Mechanics are not the core of the medium. It can be for some games but the medium is much wider than that. How do you explain games that have basically no mechanics at all? I'm talking about simple point and click games like Myst. There are no significant mechanics there, but there can be a great story, and great visuals to keep you interested.

Re: Dear John Carmack.

#56

Post by trin_ »

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…

Quake Live [1] is actually pretty good and idtech3 based! its not cod big but big enough for a lot of competition on almost all skillevels.

but as you said it's sad that theres no true "hardcore" fps on the horizon :-/

[1] http://www.quakelive.com/

Re: Dear John Carmack.

#57

Post by tripzilch »

xenophanes wrote: post #20
brianobush wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, these games made it big and were good, but did they really push boundaries and invent new styles of play? No, they are just a story with an engine - the OP is talking about JC going off and doing something "different."

you don't think starcraft, the best and hardest strategy game in esports, pushed any boundaries or brought new styles of play?

Yes, but because of the non-story PvP gameplay.

Yes there is a story in it, but that's not the part where it pushes boundaries.

Re: Dear John Carmack.

#58

Post by jonromero »

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.

Yeap, I think that the two of them were the "dream team".

Re: Dear John Carmack.

#59

Post by bazoom »

Carmack Didn't design the game. He built the engine.

He also didn't design the id games of the first half of the 90s. John Romero was the driving force behind those game-mechanics. Romero was the one who decided that Doom and Wolfenstein had to be all about speed, and everything that slowed the games down had to be cut out.

Romero left id after Quake, because of conflicting design visions for the game.

The magic happened when Romero and Carmack were building games together.

Re: Dear John Carmack.

#60

Post by DanBC »

dbbo wrote: post #19
kennymeyers wrote: post #10

This article is so full of incendiary bullshit, I'm surprised it even got on the front page. Some of the most critically acclaimed games, as well as highest selling games, have stories. For example: Grand Theft Auto 3. Final Fantasy VII. Ico. Metal Gear Solid. Arkham Asylum. Mass Effect. Dragon Age. Dark Souls. Demon Souls. Starcraft. Starcraft II. Modern Warfare. World of Warcraft. Do you know what else made these g…

It's also full of spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors. I had to reread every other sentence to get the gist of it. If the content was gold I could probably overlook that, but it's not. It's basically a carelessly scrawled rant.

Even taking into account that the writer's first language wasn't English the article is pretty poor. Maybe a lot was lost in translation.

>There is a Swedish saying that goes something like "Give the bear honey, and it will take you entire arm off".

I love this idiom. It feels much nicer than "Give them an inch and they'll take a yard / mile"

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