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CelT

Carmack CNN talk

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Key quote, heh:

(He lost the debate over "crouch" – which now appears – but convinced the team there was no need for a "use" key.)

I'd have to say that I quite agree with his philosophy.

Generally speaking, unless the game is extremely compelling and fun to me, I will not touch any game that requires an unreasonable number of keys on the keyboard to play. This is one of the reasons I did not get into Tribes, or played any of the Mechwarrior games. Deus Ex is one of the rare and few exceptions to my rule, because you can mostly play it like a standard FPS, with only infrequent adjustments to other things like inventory and augs.

To that end, the simpler the controls, the better. I've never for any reason whatsoever used the lean left/right keys in any game but AA:O, and similarly options like prone or roll or whatever in other recent FPSes.

Jedi Knight 2 had a great balance of control. You didn't have to learn new keys or combinations for specific, weird, and esoteric moves (this is another reason I don't like fighting games much ... it's all about arbitrary combinations), Jedi Knight 2 has fairly logical motions with the movement/direction keys to direct the lightsaber.

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For the same reasons I find Half Life extremely frustrating. I can't just 'jump' onto things... I have to 'crouch jump' onto them. Well... that and weapons that are innefective against monsters.

But yes, Arioch for President. The fewer controls the better. Probably anything more than Jedi Knight 2 is unecessary.

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I don't see what's complicated about a use key or crouch or jump key. Hell, it only took me a few minutes to get used to SS2 or Deus Ex's interface and a bit of mucking around.

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I agree with Arioch. Fewer dumb keys is perfect.
My biggest beef with RtCW (which is a game I otherwise love to bits), is that it has too many keys that you need to press (not using the lean keys here means that you're seriously handicapped in the sp) - many of which could've been left out entirely.

And in Half Life it's actually much, much worse than RtCW - one of the things I tend to pound Half Life for the most.

No, some of the best games out there are those without unnecessary features that require extra keys. Though I do think that crouch is a thing that often proves necessary, especially in modern games with all their ducts and other low openings (leaving those out would be a step back in terms of gameplay).

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Its just a use key!!!!

I mean having a use key creates allot fo new things that can be done.
Like opening a door when you want to, or messing arround with the enviroment.

If its such a controversy (not in this forum it seems) y not just havit as a "USE - ON/OFF" gameplay option?

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There IS a use key, and it's the same as the fire key.

If you think about it, it's just more realistic this way. In real life, you don't walk up to an object and do the "use" magic to activate it. If a door requires a switch to open, then you aim for that very switch and push it. Exactly how it'll work in Doom 3 for all objects that aren't automatic.

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D-clone said:

Its just a use key!!!!

I mean having a use key creates allot fo new things that can be done.
Like opening a door when you want to, or messing arround with the enviroment.

If its such a controversy (not in this forum it seems) y not just havit as a "USE - ON/OFF" gameplay option?

Because afaik, the way it functions in Doom 3 is just fine. You'll have to walk up really close to doors before they open, you have to be really close to usable items before you can use them and besides, as Fredrik already said, it's much, much more realistic.

On top of that, it seems to me that it adds plain gameplay value.

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dsm said:

And in Half Life it's actually much, much worse than RtCW - one of the things I tend to pound Half Life for the most.


/me jumps to Half-Lifes defense

Seriousy what? HL has like, what, 2 buttons other than movement/weapon related. Flashlight and Spraypaint. The Spray you can just ignore. Other than that, there are two button combos which perform special movement functions, crouch-jump and long jump, both of which IMO are fine. If you didn't have to crouch jump, they'd have to either make you jump really high, or make a lot of the jumps smaller, which would suck, specially in the areas where you're climbing over crates.

So can someone explain to me where all the extra unnecessary keys are in Half-Life?

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Scuba Steve said:

But yes, Arioch for President. The fewer controls the better.

which concludes why id's been producing simple controlling FPS

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AirRaid said:

/me jumps to Half-Lifes defense

Seriousy what? HL has like, what, 2 buttons other than movement/weapon related. Flashlight and Spraypaint. The Spray you can just ignore. Other than that, there are two button combos which perform special movement functions, crouch-jump and long jump, both of which IMO are fine. If you didn't have to crouch jump, they'd have to either make you jump really high, or make a lot of the jumps smaller, which would suck, specially in the areas where you're climbing over crates.

So can someone explain to me where all the extra unnecessary keys are in Half-Life?

It's not as much the amount of keys at it is the retarded way it's set up.
To move silently in HL, you'll have to.
1. Crouch
2. Hold crouch and press the walk/run key
3. Move (forwards or backwards)

That basically means that you have to keep TWO keys pressed WHILE moving - that is something I find unacceptable, even in RtCW you could just press the walk/run key to sneak and you'd be silent enough to sneak by guards unnoticed.
I do, however, admit that I went a bit ahead of myself here and confused "amount of different keys for gameplay features" with "amount of keys you need to press and hold to perform rather simple tasks (such as moving silently)" and for that I apologize.

It still doesn't change the core of my criticism which is: moving about in HL is FAR more cumbersome than even the worst situations in RtCW. (Sorry for changing the subject slightly). And yes, that's just imo.

I mean seriously, by the time I got to the places where there are all those damn assassins hiding around in a crate filled area, I ever so often ended up mere steps from putting my fist through the keyboard (yes you read correctly, THROUGH the keyboard), because I accidentally ended up crawling a bit too far out into the enemies' view - that sure as Hell wouldn't have happened in RtCW.

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dsm said:

It's not as much the amount of keys at it is the retarded way it's set up.
To move silently in HL, you'll have to.
1. Crouch
2. Hold crouch and press the walk/run key
3. Move (forwards or backwards)

That basically means that you have to keep TWO keys pressed WHILE moving - that is something I find unacceptable, even in RtCW you could just press the walk/run key to sneak and you'd be silent enough to sneak by guards unnoticed.

What?
All you need to do is hold down shift and the move keys. very easy to do with the standard WASD setup...

Or maybe I'm so used to the complex buggry SS2 and Thief controls to the point that everything looks simple.

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Ct_red_pants said:

What?
All you need to do is hold down shift and the move keys. very easy to do with the standard WASD setup...

Or maybe I'm so used to the complex buggry SS2 and Thief controls to the point that everything looks simple.

No offence, but it must've been a long time since you last played Half Life. Allow me to go over some of the movement functions in HL, but promise me that you'll read it all so there'll be no misunderstandings (I'd hate to continue this argument into infinity):

Run/walk - pretty standard, I usually have (or rather, had since I don't play HL anymore) always run on by default, so pressing shift means that I walk. Trouble is that in Half Life, you don't become totally silent just because you walk, because your footsteps are still audible enough for certain enemies (like assassins) to hear you, hence you'll need something a little more stealthily which I'll talk about a little further down.

Crouch and move - pretty standard, you press crouch ('c' for me) and hold and press any movement or strafe key to move. You move slowly, but still decently fast (considering that you're supposed to be crawling), however, you still make enough noise for enemies with a very sensitive hearing to detect you, hence you'll need the following movement function:

Stealth movement - This is Half Life's curse! In order to be guaranteed silent movement in this game, you'll need to a) crouch and hold, b) press and hold the shift key and c) press any movement or strafe key.
One thing is that it requires you to put your fingers on several keys at once, another thing is that you move at a painfully slow pace (which is pretty damn necessary in areas with those damn assassins - I swear, those asssassins are one of the major problems with HL imo).

Now compare this to RtCW, where all you need is to press and hold the walk/run key combined with a movement key to move completely silent.

But in order not to make this seem like a plain HL bashing, I'd like to point out that at least HL doesn't have lean keys, binoculars, several ways to open doors or any retarded kick key.

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This is why I OPTIMIZE my control systems!

I always play games with mouse and keyboard, using the WSAD keys for movement. Z and C are usually my Lean keys, E for use, Q for last used weapon or whatever I need it for (Next Force in JK2). Everything else is bound as needed.

For example, my RtCW config.

B for binoculars - no need to hold down much else aside from Crouch (CTRL).
N for Notebook. It's out of the way, and I don't need it for easy access. (I also use N for my player settings/limbo menu in MP games)
SHIFT to sprint. I play Doom all the time like that, so why not RtCW?
ALT to sneak. Makes sense, right? No need to hold down anything else.

For Half-Life, I have SHIFT to sneak. I only need to use my left pinky when sneaking.

For Deus Ex and the NoLF series, I have Crouch and Sneak on toggles. Just TAP them and they work!

You don't need to have illogical control schemes or useless binds if you OPTIMIZE YOUR BINDS.

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Get a 4 button intellimouse or something, that way you get the use and reload key, or whatever suits you that doesnt envolve movoment, out of the way.

Then, most games let you bind 2 keys to one witha simple command, simply make crouch be ctrl, walk caps lock, and bind them both to shift. Make sure you turn off toggle keys or whatever that shit option in windows is for retards.

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I agree with arioch here, He's spot on.

However, lean keys are actually a good idea, except most games take away the ability to shoot while leaning, so it's just a simple looking feature. I think some you should be able to shoot while leaning with some weapons...like the pistol or the assault rifle.

Anyone here played the GBA game Ecks Vs Sever II: Ballistic? Had a brilliant little implementation of leaning, it didn't actually have any lean buttons, but when you got close to a corner and pressed the look button, it would lock you against the wall and you could aim freely. Was exellent for sniping enemy's or clearing out big rooms without being seen. The GBA needed/needs an analogue stick though, it'd help for aiming BIGTIME.

A game with that feature, or a variation of it, used well would help alot. Although, you wouldn't be able to do it with the big weapons. Just the small ones.

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That's why I've pretty much only used it in AA:O. You could shoot while leaning, which made it perfect for corner ambushes.

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LorD BaZTArD said:

However, lean keys are actually a good idea, except most games take away the ability to shoot while leaning, so it's just a simple looking feature. I think some you should be able to shoot while leaning with some weapons...like the pistol or the assault rifle.

A good idea indeed, but overrated. We won't see 'em in Doom 3 because they're not overly necessary for the gameplay and Carmack wants the game as simple as he can get it. I bet he wasn't happy about having reloading in the game.

A game like RtCW could easily be as cool and fun as it is even without those lean keys. Thing is that this lean option gives that game a very fitting "spy" feel to it.

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Heh, lean keys have no use if you can't shoot while leaning. [sarcasm]Oooo, there's a monster around the corner, and I saw it without it spotting me. Unfortunately, I still have to run out and shoot it the old-fashioned way. Wow, I never would have guess that there was a Demon around that next corner. That information was so useful.[/sarcasm]

Well, at least that's MY take on the whole lean key issue. As for the use key, yeah, that's one of the reasons I hated Quake so much when I first played. You never interact with the environment, unlike Doom (well, I [i]guess[/i[ running around and hitting switches counts as interacting). I mean, it's like you run around and every door magically opens by itself. I think the new system is really cool, BTW. It reminds me of in the Elite Force 2 (I'm a Star Trek geek, so what?) they had this segment where you had to repair a circuit to open a door. I mean, you actually had to repair the circuit. It was like a little mini-game. The goal was to try to make the correct connections on the circuit board, like that old NES game Pipe Dream (I don't know if anyone has ever played that, but you build a pipe system to prevent this green goo from spilling out). Anyways, it was so cool, because I actually felt like I was doing something, not just hitting a switch.

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why in the holy hell do you need to make yourself silent in half-life single player, it's not thief or deus ex where you NEED to sneak around and make youself unseen. you're fast and have lots of weapons in halflife, and the only thing you need to worry about is falling off high ledges. I haven't had problems with the assassins since the first time I played the game

heh and the only game I ever used lean keys in was thief1 and 2, they were never very useful to me in other games

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geekmarine said:

Heh, lean keys have no use if you can't shoot while leaning. [sarcasm]Oooo, there's a monster around the corner, and I saw it without it spotting me. Unfortunately, I still have to run out and shoot it the old-fashioned way. Wow, I never would have guess that there was a Demon around that next corner. That information was so useful.[/sarcasm]

That's right! They've no use in Doom 3, but they're a very useful tool in RtCW to spot snipers without getting your head blown off.

You walk up to a corner, lean around and survey the surroundings and then you see him! A little fucktard campin' sniper hidden in some window. Now you know that there's a guy ready to blow your head off the moment you walk out into the open, so you pull out your own sniper rifle, carefully prepare your shot, and then you leap out of hiding and snipe the sucker.

That's why the lean keys were a good feature in RtCW.

why in the holy hell do you need to make yourself silent in half-life single player, it's not thief or deus ex where you NEED to sneak around and make youself unseen. you're fast and have lots of weapons in halflife, and the only thing you need to worry about is falling off high ledges. I haven't had problems with the assassins since the first time I played the game

Um, let's seeeee now. You've got a shitload of wimpy ass bullets that do 000.1% damage to most human enemies and only five or six rockets or the like - the enemy is damn good at hitting yoy, so you'd rather want to surprise them.
Especially the assassins are dangerous because those bitches can turn invisible on ya. Now for me to properly immerse myself in the game, I want to avoid taking hits - running in guns a'blazin' usually means that you take a lot of lead to the head, so naturally, the best way to take down assasins or any other human soldier in that game, you'll have to use the silent, sneaky crossbow.
But since it's a lousy weapon with slow projectiles, you'll have to fire it at your enemy without your enemy noticing you, otherwise the enemy will move and you won't hit him/her.

Naturally, that means I need to be silent so I'm not heard. Naturally, that means playing an sp game the way it's supposed to be played (why else would they put the stealth option in?) - not my fault that multiplayer death matches have made you into a near-suicidal geek.

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Oh hell, the only time I can think of where you really NEED stealth in Half-life is that damned 3-tentacled thing in the blast pit. God, I hate that thing. It's just such a lucky coincidence that it appears below that test rocket engine, huh? For the record, yes, I am a suicidal geek, created by years of DM playing (I'm not so suicidal in SP, though). Yep, in most games, I'll have one of the highest scores, but also the most deaths.

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geekmarine said:

For the record, yes, I am a suicidal geek, created by years of DM playing (I'm not so suicidal in SP, though). Yep, in most games, I'll have one of the highest scores, but also the most deaths.

Heh, that's the reason I rarely ever play multiplayer games (deathmatch type mp games that is - I still play coop whenever I get the chance).

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