Great read. Further proof that we are all victims of each others learning experiences.
There are a few things that I look back on as my mistakes in the early days
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Re: There are a few things that I look back on as my mistakes in the early days
#32Quake III Arena was pretty entertaining. Doesn't seem like it came from a company that had been ruined for years. I definitely noticed something around the Doom 3 release many years after Quake III Arena. The new game just didn't seem to have the same industry pushing, genre changing energy. Or maybe I was just older and had moved on, and didn't care as much.
In the original thread Carmack was replying to, Sandy Petersen said Q3 was the only other great game they produced after that: https://xcancel.com/SandyofCthulhu/status/206959226489744192...
Honestly I think Doom is where it came together the best, Quake was technically better (of course) but it was not a better game.
Re: There are a few things that I look back on as my mistakes in the early days
#33It's a little silly to revisit your mistakes like this, as if you could have done anything better. Most companies are poorly managed and produce nothing of value. The team at id Software changed the world and produced an absolute masterpiece. Quake 1 was, in many ways, where id Software peaked. But the time Carmack spent optimizing Quake Live, based on Quake 3, ultimately made it his twitch FPS magnum opus. Even 20 y…
>It's silly to revisit your mistakes like this
revisiting mistakes (in a healthy, non-obsessive way) is not silly at all. it is great for self growth, and in this case, is a great way to pass on wisdom.
Re: There are a few things that I look back on as my mistakes in the early days
#34[dead]
Re: There are a few things that I look back on as my mistakes in the early days
#35Quake III Arena was pretty entertaining. Doesn't seem like it came from a company that had been ruined for years. I definitely noticed something around the Doom 3 release many years after Quake III Arena. The new game just didn't seem to have the same industry pushing, genre changing energy. Or maybe I was just older and had moved on, and didn't care as much.
Doom 3 was pretty huge of a step forward in many ways and had no competition for being SOTA except for Far Cry (1). I remember that summer as it was when I had my first job and I saved up to buy a GPU. Not just graphics but character acting and animation, interactive world elements, deliberately dramatic scenarios in the levels (Half Life pioneered this, but Doom3 had a lot of really good ones). It was years ahead of…
I feel like the Source engine for Half-Life 2 had some industry shaking physics due to their Havok implementation, which released in the same year. Doom 3 had cool gritty horror looks, but HL2 blew it out of the water SOTA wise, in my opinion.
Re: There are a few things that I look back on as my mistakes in the early days
#36"Sorry, Sandy"
Sandy Petersen's side of it comes out in a few interviews, like https://medium.com/@unkndoomer/back-to-the-past-e3c421fb2e70 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUeu96TKQwU (especially 14:17 onward)
Re: There are a few things that I look back on as my mistakes in the early days
#37I agree with one of the comments: "'Coulda been Doom++' hides how everyone wanted the leap back then." Doom++ was already well under way in the form of Ken Silverman's Build engine. Duke Nukem 3D beat Quake to market by ~6 months as I recall. A shorter timeline on the latter would have put them in direct competition with each other, damaging both. It was Carmack's job to assert technological dominance and give the in…
It’s always interesting when people who excel at an activity express regrets about certain decisions. I find it reassuring that being great at something doesn’t mean flawless.
Re: There are a few things that I look back on as my mistakes in the early days
#38Id was technical excellence paired with artistic blindness. As the machines progressed, the value of the technical excellence faded. What was left? A test case for OS & compiler development.
Re: There are a few things that I look back on as my mistakes in the early days
#39> I pushed everyone too hard. I didn’t appreciate how maturing companies need more slack, and that running people at startup intensity constantly will wear them out. Sounds like wisdom many companies might consider...
Pretty sure Carmack's idea of slack is what many companies would call "working as hard as possible"
Re: There are a few things that I look back on as my mistakes in the early days
#40> I pushed everyone too hard. I didn’t appreciate how maturing companies need more slack, and that running people at startup intensity constantly will wear them out. Sounds like wisdom many companies might consider...
Part of it is the upside / skin in the game aspect changing from small startup days to big company with 100s or 1000s of employees.
You hire differently as well when you are hiring 100s of people instead of a cracked team of 5.
There is a world of difference between "work nights & weekends maybe we become millionaire/billionaires together!" and "work nights & weekends so that you get an exceeds expectations and eligible for a 5% increase on the annual review cycle".
As a leader, it is unreasonable to have the same expectations before & after that transition.