On a related topic, the author's game LOVE is worth checking out -- a very evolutionary and programmer oriented (no surprise here) approach to game development. Check out this demo a few years ago of the tools he created and of the game. I haven't followed the game in over a year and when I played it was a bit broken and made me lose my vision for a few days but still worth checking out. Reminiscent of Minecraft actually and released around the same time.
Dear John Carmack.
71–80 of 98 posts
Re: Dear John Carmack.
#72The author says we've been robbed of 3 John Carmack games, but he must have forgot about id Software's iPhone games. He's been playing with the platform for a while now, and has been shipping smaller games with a fast turn around for a few years now.
http://www.idsoftware.com/iphone-games/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orcs_%26_Elves
Here's an interview with him talking about iPhone developmenet:
http://mobilegames.about.com/od/gamecompanies/a/intcarmack.h...
Re: Dear John Carmack.
#73Games should be about story the same way a painting should be about story. Gameplay mechanics are the paints, and should be applied with intent for best results.
Sure, some abstract painting is great. Tetris is as well. But that's not the norm.
As for Carmack, we all know he's the tech guy and great at it. What's important is how the tools he creates are used. I've not played Rage yet, but I hear it's mediocre. I'm not brokenhearted over that.
What does hit me though, is QuakeLive.com's irrelevance in id's/Bethesda's planning. I'd love to see them first add a second game with worthwhile teamplay to compete with Team Fortress 2 (which is something id/B should've been ahead of.)
Secondly they need to provide a strong modding API and let players rent servers to host their mods on, and even let players run ads or charge for access if they want. Become the platform.
Finally, since I now realize I'm just writing a long id wishlist, I want the original team back for one more romp... I want them to be leads for Bethesda in relaunching Quake. Only this time, do it as an open world FPSRPG a la Fallout/Morrowind. Base it off of the old pen and paper rpg sessions that they all used to play that Carmack DMed, and Romero destroyed when he took the Diakatana from a demon. (All wonderfully discussed in the Masters of Doom book.)
... God this post got a little crazy.
Re: Dear John Carmack.
#74On a related topic, the author's game LOVE is worth checking out -- a very evolutionary and programmer oriented (no surprise here) approach to game development. Check out this demo a few years ago of the tools he created and of the game. I haven't followed the game in over a year and when I played it was a bit broken and made me lose my vision for a few days but still worth checking out. Reminiscent of Minecraft actu…
I hoped LOVE would get traction, but felt it didn't work for me because it was too unconstrained (no clear objectives). I don't know how Minecraft has solved this.
Re: Dear John Carmack.
#75On a related topic, the author's game LOVE is worth checking out -- a very evolutionary and programmer oriented (no surprise here) approach to game development. Check out this demo a few years ago of the tools he created and of the game. I haven't followed the game in over a year and when I played it was a bit broken and made me lose my vision for a few days but still worth checking out. Reminiscent of Minecraft actu…
> made me lose my vision for a few days
What?
Re: Dear John Carmack.
#76On a related topic, the author's game LOVE is worth checking out -- a very evolutionary and programmer oriented (no surprise here) approach to game development. Check out this demo a few years ago of the tools he created and of the game. I haven't followed the game in over a year and when I played it was a bit broken and made me lose my vision for a few days but still worth checking out. Reminiscent of Minecraft actu…
> made me lose my vision for a few days What?
The visual style is such that it looks like a painting viewed through a sand storm through a camera with a lens smeared with vaseline. It looks amazing initially but literally is painful to look at for any significant amount of time. I think the developer essentially takes very basic geometry at low resolution then layers on graphical affects.
You may think that looking at the gameplay demo that the game was simply recorded at low resolution but that is not the case. Bump the video to 720p and full screen then that is actually what it looked like at the time. Not sure if it has changed since the last time I played.
Re: Dear John Carmack.
#771. 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…
Sadly and relatedly, the Descent series (6 degree of freedom FPS) was an intense test of skill unmatched anywhere else, and the last release in that series was ~13 years ago. I don't know of any other newer games in the genre.
Competitive FPS gaming reached a peak around 1998. Since then, the only games I've heard of with similar high-level competition have been in the RTS genre. "Watered down" seems to be the name of the game nowadays.
Re: Dear John Carmack.
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
> made me lose my vision for a few days What?
The visual style is such that it looks like a painting viewed through a sand storm through a camera with a lens smeared with vaseline. It looks amazing initially but literally is painful to look at for any significant amount of time. I think the developer essentially takes very basic geometry at low resolution then layers on graphical affects. You may think that looking at the gameplay demo that the game was simply r…
Love is beautiful in still shots but the actual game gives me motion-sickness. Even Mirrors Edge, which is renowned for being vomit-inducing, didn't have that effect on me. I think it's because the background just won't stay still.
Re: Dear John Carmack.
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Carmack definitely mentioned that they were not going to license id Tech 5 to companies that aren't being published by Bethesda.
All existing licenses they probably have to continue supporting because of the contracts that were signed before they were bought by Bethesda.
Re: Dear John Carmack.
#80Earlier 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.
id Tech 4 is a weird beast. Carmack has said on multiple occasions that this engine is not made to generate a world like Elder Scrolls or Fallout. It will be interesting to see if they attempt to improve id Tech 5 and make all companies inside Bethesda use it or just give them the option if it fits their game.