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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

#71

Post by pornel »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #5

I 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…

I was interested in Quake only because of the breakthrough 3D graphics, architecturally stunning levels, and later QuakeC.

I don't care for the story, and I wouldn't play Doom++. Electric polar bears and some Shrub lava mule, whatever. But swimming in deep underwater ruins with full 3-axis freedom was awesome.

I couldn't play multiplayer back then. Dialup sucked and was more expensive than AI tokens. Ethernet was still rare. Lugging a CRT monitor to friend's house was a chore reserved for a once-a-year LAN party.

Re: There are a few things that I look back on as my mistakes in the early days

#73

Post by georgeburdell »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #5

I 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…

Exactly. This sort of retrospective is a soft pulling up of the ladder, a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-did mea culpa where the conscience is assuaged but the spoils remain where they always were. We should accept that there is a season to burn the candle at both ends, to exploit youthful energy and to do great things.

Current Carmack would not have been capable of making Quake.

Re: There are a few things that I look back on as my mistakes in the early days

#74

Post by FartyMcFarter »

Quake 1 was worth it even if just for the multiplayer. It was so good that people were having fun online even on just the "start" map with the shareware version. Quakeworld was especially great and very playable even with a modem. Then you add the moddability (including QuakeC) and the groundbreaking renderer, it's one of the biggest technical achievements in gaming history.

The single player was weaker than the multiplayer, but still enjoyable with its strange variety of map atmospheres.

I'm glad Quake happened even if it made id Software a worse company thereafter. I would understand if the people involved feel differently though.

Re: There are a few things that I look back on as my mistakes in the early days

#75

Post by somecontext »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #46
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #3

> 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...

In my experience what I see happen is that executives look at comments like this as proof that grinding people into the ground actually work They don’t care about whether or not a company lasts for 30 years or whatever they care that stuff gets shipped and point to this as: “the best programmer in the world was only successful because he pushed his people super hard” So I wouldn’t be hopeful that this is an effective…

In the linked thread that John Carmack is responding to, Sandy Petersen agrees:

> So if my theorem is correct, and Quake gutted id Software, was it worth it? Well I'd say yes absolutely.

https://x.com/SandyofCthulhu/status/2069592330152362034

Re: There are a few things that I look back on as my mistakes in the early days

#76

Post by kllrnohj »

kridsdale1 wrote: post #29
tejohnso wrote: post #4

Quake 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 think you might be misremembering Doom 3 a bit. Both it and Half Life 2 came out in the same year, and, well... just compare:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTJ1weGimZQ

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_3vMUOayyc

Doom 3's fully real time lighting and bump mapping was technically impressive, and the live interacting UI was very trick, but the character acting and animation was definitely not SOTA. That was Half Life 2. And if we consider impact on the gaming landscape, Doom 3 was if anything a dud. Elements from that game were not taken along, including not even in subsequent Doom games. Meanwhile Half Life 2's approach to storytelling & world building, animations, physics system - those practically defined the next generation.

Re: There are a few things that I look back on as my mistakes in the early days

#77

Post by groundzeros2015 »

krautburglar wrote: post #38

Id 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.

Doom 3 doesn’t look like artistic blindness.

Re: There are a few things that I look back on as my mistakes in the early days

#78

Post by nakedneuron »

tejohnso wrote: post #4

Quake 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.

Same feeling.

Quake and Quake III Arena was were the magic happened.

Re: There are a few things that I look back on as my mistakes in the early days

#80

Post by somenameforme »

CamouflagedKiwi wrote: post #32
tejohnso wrote: post #4

Quake 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.

Rocket. Jump.
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