Carmack Addresses "Creativity" Issue of FPS Market

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alidan

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[citation][nom]n3ard3ath[/nom]@alidanKudos for reading and answering so many posts man, lol. While I don't particularly like the U3 engine, especially for it's lack of full AA support for a long time, there MUST be a reason why it dominated. If I'm not mistaking, the engine allowed more polygons, so that's a plus. I think it was less stable though (than Tech 4). But surely there's another reason why it was licensed more. Me think it's the actual tools given to developers working with this engine that were more convivial. Also, Tech 4 had plastic look to it. Which isn't THAT bad in Brink, but pretty obvious in other games. Anyway, all I was saying is that guy seems to think he is some kind of genius or something, when in fact he is just one good coder among others. It's just that he can do more on it's own than some. Like a damn robot. But robot doesn't mean fun, just means tech. Now that tech is so advanced and so widespread, what can this guy really bring, other than boring opinions, that are often far from the truth, or just plain stupid? I must say though, technically, Rage looks hot. And it also looks cool gameplay-wise. When it'll finally be out, maybe then will he be able to remake his name, for now, what he is saying means shit. I mean, if what he actually said was interesting, that would be another story, but it's NOT, so why is he even speaking?@walter87Well, publisher and developers are actually starting to realize that's the real problem. And while I don't like it, Steam really helped boost and revive PC game sales, while eliminating this problem. personally, I hate paying full price for digital downloads. I like to actually hold a product. Even if it's not the box I play with, I like to have it when I put money out of my pockets.[/citation]

he is more or less a coding savant. basically everything he does pushes computers and engines forward. its already well established the advances he made, and with out him, we may be theologically more than a few years less far than we are now.

unreal dominates because of what you get for the license. if i remember right, id creates engines for their games, and than sells it. unreal creates an engine and uses it in their game, but they have 2 different teams, and two different objectives. and honestly, both engines such right out of the gate, with id looking as you said, plastic, and unreal looking like stone statues. it takes allot of engine modding and art direction to get those two looks out of the engines.

now if i am understanding everything right, all the major things in id engines are carmacks ideas, but what i want to know is if rage is really focusing as much on ai as i am reading. because if it is, level design wont matter at all.

also, try finding some of the id tech tech demos that they put out, some of them show things like a single enemy with 5 million pollies (crysis at best had 4.5 at any given time) and its running at high frames on low hardware. if im right with what megatextures are going to do, they may eliminate the s***y texture details you get on consoles, and in turn, pushing higher texture detail on the pc as well because its not hampered by consoles.

sorry if i am coming off as an ass, and also not everything mentioned was directed at you exactly.
 

giovanni86

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I don't like this guy at all. But besides him, personally i been a fan of CoD since the first one and honestly I've been following the game series quite heavily and the story time and time again nails it. I don't see why a lot of you are criticizing MW2 as being dumbed down, it was an exact copy of MW just improved graphics with the continuing story that didn't end in the first one plus some added things to Multiplayer. Which in MW3 I am hoping is the end to it really because all hell broke loose at the end of MW2. I don't compare BF with CoD they both almost came out at the same time with BF coming out about 12-13 months before the first CoD. They both offer a different type of FPS experience and i enjoy them both very much. Saying that though i do like the direction the BF series is taking and i hope within the years to come it only gets better and better, and if i was CoD i would catch on to the theater like experience that BF offers in terms of a more sense of realism. Your weapons actually have a meaningful impact on the level. And i believe its starting to feel like a real war zone, and i hope that in the future the entire level actually becomes alive, each shell, each bomb hit on ground, each bullet, real effects on bullet travel, bullets on walls, shells on the floor, I'm sure one day we will be able to have that much detail in a game, who ever thought 10 yrs ago we'd be destroying buildings that fall and that almost a whole level can be demolished to bits.. Anyways though, i feel the BF series is doing a great job to change the FPS genre in a more realistic way, and i only hope that CoD catches on to that. Although Treyarch remains the same, this next installment of MW3 is a bit shaky ground considering its like 3 different development studios working on it, i look forward to seeing the reviews before i buy it, BF3 is a must buy and i can only hope that it is as great or better then BF2. Which i find will be hard to top if they don't add mod support for the modding community which has done some amazing projects out there and i really enjoyed and would love to see them do things with this engine.
 

FullBurstMode

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[citation][nom]fenix1186[/nom]Same shit different year. People just love buying the same thing every year with the tiniest changes from the last iteration: COD, Madden, anything Apple, etc[/citation]As far as businesses go, I don't imagine they'd have much motivation to change anything if it's still working and bringing in the bucks. I don't imagine most developers sit down and think "Okay, how can I make this even better for the millions of people who buy this?". Honestly, if there are people willing to buy it then I don't see anything wrong with it. The demand is there so they're making up the supply.

It might not be "right" but such is the world.
 

shin0bi272

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[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]he is more or less a coding savant.[/citation]

Not really... look at what you get in doom3 or quake 4... its your basic low poly count dx9 game and to hide its lack of imagination there's no lights in the entire game so if you cant see the lack of polys you cant complain about them. Look at a still or if you can find it a wireframe of the IMP from doom3... you will be amazed at how few polys are in it. Its 90% texture that you are seeing there.

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]basically everything he does pushes computers and engines forward. its already well established the advances he made, and with out him, we may be theologically more than a few years less far than we are now. [/citation] I think you meant to say theoretically not theologically... theologically would mean he is to be worshiped like a god and theoretically means a situation where he didnt exist at all might be different.

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]unreal dominates because of what you get for the license. if i remember right, id creates engines for their games, and than sells it. unreal creates an engine and uses it in their game, but they have 2 different teams, and two different objectives.[/citation] Technically Id has created an engine and used it in a game each time as well but both companies license their engine and unlike iD the Unreal engine is free making it not only gorgeous but popular.

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]try finding some of the id tech tech demos that they put out, some of them show things like a single enemy with 5 million pollies (crysis at best had 4.5 at any given time) and its running at high frames on low hardware.[/citation]
Tried to ... even tried to google for id tech 5 poly count and got no where fast... so till you have numbers I call bs

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom] if im right with what megatextures are going to do, they may eliminate the s***y texture details you get on consoles, and in turn, pushing higher texture detail on the pc as well because its not hampered by consoles. sorry if i am coming off as an ass, and also not everything mentioned was directed at you exactly.[/citation]
The only thing that will honestly make console graphics any better is an upgraded video card. DX11 is a far cry from dx9 and no amount of texturing in dx9 can match hardware accelerated tessellation.

to the other people talking about CoD: You know they havent updated their engine since 2005 right? You are getting literally the same game with different models and levels. Why do you keep buying it?
 

doorspawn

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As I see it, the problems are:
1: Adapting games to fit consoles' lack of decent controls and resolution.
2: DLC.
3: RPG-style persistence. (Ie, things you keep between games).
4: Focus on increasing graphical complexity instead of game scale.

And I'll add a new one:
With every release, all content is usually made from scratch. At the rate of new releases, quality content is quickly discarded. It would be great to have porting tools between every release, so Quake 1 maps can be played on Quake 103, etc.
 

billcat479

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It sounds like he is trying to keep some kind of illusion going that these games are good. How can you tell by reviews or posts if it's good or not,. You can't.
I've seen good games bashed for not enough real, not enough new and very little on the fun factor and worth spending too much money on. Mostly they rant about how much DX11 is in there and now neat is the water. This is the most talked about aspects in reviews. You may get a good post if you dig enough to get a real picture of the worth of the game.
This guy in this article is the last person I would take any advice from because he is biased and so can't be trusted for a valid opinion.
Yeah most FPS are too short, have crappy online games because most are hacked by the time you get around to playing them and so on. And was it designed to be a online game or a single player game? They try to make it work with both and so they both come up short.. COD really screwed up in this area by the effects the weapons had and the hacks that were out as fast as the game was. Also access speeds screwed up it's playability.
It is like one said, it's Rambo over and over again. Nothing being put out that is different from the bulk of whats selling.
Haven't seen any good space sim's like EOC or Freespace. Neat games and different that adds some variation to the games. That is really what is gone and it makes them so darn boring.
They are just like Hollywood in this area. If blow em up sells that is all that you get that year. They don't take chances.
And what went wrong with Lucasarts is anyone's guess.
I know they went cheap and farmed out their games that used to be stable and fun. Now they are just as bad as the rest.
It's money first, how long it can be rehashed second and how fun it is comes dead last.
They love to stress the junk effects and wow factor but this is just window dressing. Good games like good books or movies takes a lot of thought and imagination. This is one thing games do not have much of is imagination. And that is a drag.
The only real good game to come out in the last 3 or so years is the Bioshock game though the second was a bit off. Wasn't user friendly and it didn't have any spice to it that made the first one so good.
The first one really had a feel to it that let you get lost in the game.
I gave up COD for a couple of reasons, the main one is it's just a money maker. You can run though them in a day and for their cost it is just a rip off. The other reason is they are tied to the internet, if you don't have access you don't play the game and you have to deal with Steam and other buggy sign on progs and who knows what it wants to let you get into the game.
This is a trend that no one should support and boycott the games that require this crap.
Because they will not be there forever and the way things change I have no trust in their staying on line very long..
So you play at their convenience and throw it away because even if you have it a year from now and want to play it they may not let you install it again. Or someone hacks a game and uses your key code and you are SOL. I had this happen and it took a act of congress to get them to let me use it. Or buy online only to find they ship you one that was supposed to go to Spain and again your out of luck. This happened to a friend and he had to buy a new one. The maker wouldn't exchange it and the seller refused to do it also.
 

AMD_pitbull

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You know what I think the problem is here? some of you people have no creativity with regards to posts. It's the same old run-on sentences, and I don't like reading. Damn you all for making me use my head when I wanna laugh at stupid posts. In an opinion based post like this, you will all differ and argue over what's "good" and what's "crap". So, lets get back to some name-calling and/or making some terribad points. And......go!
 

n3ard3ath

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[citation][nom]Zingam[/nom]You're a funny guy! Carmack was the God once upon a time! For words like your's you'd be dead 10 years ago. I find it amusing that today there are so many people who think like me that Carmack has 0 imagination.Probably you are younger generation. I guess the only reason why Doom was considered great game was because it was the only game of this kind back then. Now we have thousands of games that imitate Doom and some are actually good.Long time ago there were really creative games: the original Diablo, Dune II, even Warcraft, Duke 3D, Shadow Warrior and my most favorite fps Blood!There is not a single FPS game to this date that nears the greatness of Blood.[/citation]

Yeah, but you seem to forget a key point that made Doom really great, it's music, which is epic. Bobby Prince and John Romero are behind it. Art and level design were also pretty cool for the time. So even if the gameplay is pretty basic, Doom 1/2 ARE masterpieces, not because it was the only games in the genre, but because of the points I just stated. Carmack, ell, he coded the engine. He just makes things work. But nowadays there's plenty of talented coders to make things work, on the other hand, creativity is a rare gift.
 

n3ard3ath

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[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]he is more or less a coding savant. basically everything he does pushes computers and engines forward. its already well established the advances he made, and with out him, we may be theologically more than a few years less far than we are now. unreal dominates because of what you get for the license. if i remember right, id creates engines for their games, and than sells it. unreal creates an engine and uses it in their game, but they have 2 different teams, and two different objectives. and honestly, both engines such right out of the gate, with id looking as you said, plastic, and unreal looking like stone statues. it takes allot of engine modding and art direction to get those two looks out of the engines. now if i am understanding everything right, all the major things in id engines are carmacks ideas, but what i want to know is if rage is really focusing as much on ai as i am reading. because if it is, level design wont matter at all.also, try finding some of the id tech tech demos that they put out, some of them show things like a single enemy with 5 million pollies (crysis at best had 4.5 at any given time) and its running at high frames on low hardware. if im right with what megatextures are going to do, they may eliminate the s***y texture details you get on consoles, and in turn, pushing higher texture detail on the pc as well because its not hampered by consoles. sorry if i am coming off as an ass, and also not everything mentioned was directed at you exactly.[/citation]

You didn't come out as an ass at all. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, and responding shows you actually gave attention, which is great. I don't agree with the statement about Carmack pushing technology froward though. He's just one player among others. there's plenty of mathematicians, coders, schools and teachers around the world to make things advance in a whole. Carmack his just doing his own things like others, and made his mark, that, you can give him. But that's about it.

What you said about id Software and Epic about their work and their goals is right though. And powerful software technology running on low hardware sure sounds cool. Is it might or reality, we'll have to see. What I can tell you is I saw a couple of Rage videos, and while 3d modeling, and terrain texture mapping looks great, I saw plenty of shitty looking object textures. And when I say shitty I mean REALLY shitty. May be what's giving it a frame rate boost, or may only be temporary textures which will not show in the final product, or maybe only on consoles or low PC configuration settings. We'll have to see.

Thanks for replying.
 

demonhorde665

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[citation][nom]Zingam[/nom]Hahaha... Carmack's games are the best in creativity - Doom, Quake, Doom 2, Quake 2, Doom 3, Quake 3... very creative, very intelligent games, great stories, great looking levels...I bet Rage will be just another Doom upgrade.Well, Wolf3D was actually pretty creative but none of all other games by ID that followed. Everything after Wolf3D was simply a graphics update to the original Wolf3D game.
Dude, the games of the past had little to no story at all. What was the story of Doom??? Do you remember? With most games in previous times you had to read the manual to actually understand what was going on in the game.I've always wanted to be a game developer but these games have killed my enthusiasm. I won't be able to bear yet another game full of orcs and zombies. A friend of mine worked on an original game. When the developer showed it to a publisher, the publisher changed all characters to just orcs, trolls, etc. - the original creatures and creativity were gone. Orcs forever![/citation]

that depends on how far in teh apst youa re talking about real;ly dude , are you talking games circa -1990-94 or games circa- 1995-2002

yeah games 20+ years old didnt have story , but games at 15-10 yeras old were the first tiems tories were really itnergrated into games , well and ask me 1995-2002 games wehre looking better story wise than they are now.

also cant completely discredit games of 1990-1994 either those years did see a large number of really well done rpg's such as the oriignal Final fantasy games all games with great stories. and if you take it further back to the late 80's even , some games really tossed stories outh there well then too such as NES's Faxanadu ( one of my all time favorite games , i still got this game on old nes , great mix of RPG and side scroller action)
Don't forget games like guardian legend either, where you actually recieved the story as you played , instead of being fed the story via in game cut scenes.

sure most games had little to no story back in the old days , but the games that did , tended to do it alot better than the games of today IMO

here is a list i'm presented of games from 1885-2002 that include good story content , if you missed these games perhaps you should look them up on emulation or actual carts if you stil got an old working system.


Guardian Legend (NES)
Final Fantasy (NES)
Final fantasy 2 (SNES)
Final Fantasy 3(US)/5(JA) (SNES)
Faxanadu (NES)
Zelda (NES)
Zelda 2 (NES)
Zelda 3 (SNES)
Mechwarrior (SNES &PC)
Dragon's Lair (PC)
Half Life (PC)
Mechwarrior 2 (PC)
Myst (PC)
Baldur's Gate (PC)
Halo (Xbox)
Fallout (PC)
Fallout 2 (PC)


you get the point ???
 

fishrule

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This is the guy that only makes sci fi FPS games based around brown and gray textures and he's talking about creativity?
 

elexor

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Atleast he acknowledges the importance of 60fps i refuse to play any game at 30fps ever. That is why i will never be a console gamer the devs sacrifice everything for socalled better graphics.. fuck gameplay a game that is responsive? fuck that! Lets just add a shit ton of motion blur and bloom and call it a day.
 
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