RAGE is apparently a very solid game!

[DoomUK]

Scuba Steve said:

Anyways, playing RAGE on my 360

If you bought it for the PC the first three paragraphs of that post might have more merit.

[Csonicgo]

Scuba Steve said:

I just have to ask; what the FUCK is with PC gamers? I don't remember them being this goddamn jaded, angry, cynical and, quite frankly, the largest collection of douchebags around?

Look, I've been PC gaming for DECADES, installing Secret Agent on my 486 in 1994. Doom modding for almost 20 years, living through the great PC gaming era of the mid nineties to early 2000s, buying my first graphics card (Canopus Pure3D), the years of upgrading, tweaking... but I have to say there is this asshole sense of entitlement to modern PC Gamers that I just don't get.

It's anger about video settings, "why can't I set 80 different video qualities", "I'm entitled to modify every existing thing in the game". I don't have anything to add... I just didn't know PC Gaming had become the domain of snobbish, entitled assholes.

Anyways, playing RAGE on my 360, and it's pretty fun. Best shooting mechanics in any game I've played in a long time. And I don't have to worry about ATI writing shit ass drivers for opengl or some garbage that causes the game to break.

One of the comments on a recent article about the RAGE PC driver fiasco on Kotaku:

“It’s funny how we (PC gamers), the people who established the video game industry, are treated like complete garbage by developers today. Thanks for the loyalty. "

I don't think I need to elaborate on that nonsense any further. I've been popping popcorn and watching [H]ardForum whining about this since the story broke.

The sad reality is that the state of graphics drivers on the PC platform is a clusterfuck. The API call latency is too high, and the drivers are too inconsistent. If you want something to rage at, look to AMD and NVIDIA for failing at their own products.

[Scuba Steve]

I mean, it's ridiculous to even consider the notion that id didn't spend months testing drivers to ensure it works. Everything is riding on it working and this isn't some backwater, low budget company and project.... not to mention one of the most technically minded individuals in the industry. It's impossible for this problem to be id's fault. What's more likely... that a major gaming studio didn't test recent drivers before releasing a blockbuster title... or ATI and AMD released poor drivers before?

DoomUK said:

If you bought it for the PC the first three paragraphs of that post might have more merit.

I just want to play games, I don't care about PC Gaming/Console feuds. CSonic is right, PC Gaming is a nightmare to play theses days. I dabble when I can, but I don't even mess with big releases... because I'm sure some driver or hardware component will be incompatible.

[Craigs]

Sodaholic said:

I'm sorry, but when shelling out 60 dollars to play a game, I expect that the main quest should've lasted longer than the pathetically short time than it did. The story wasn't even complete, it ended on a cliffhanger without much even being explained.

If you rush through a game, you're not going to get much time out of it. It's not rocket science. Right now I'm doing any side quests I can and I've gotten about 6 hours out of it so far. I'm not even sure if I'm even that far into the main quest either.
So far the dead city has to be my favorite part of the game. The fight with the giant mutant brought back memories of Fallout 3 and struck me as how the fight with the behemoth in FO3 should have been. It also does a great job of showcasing the AI for the mutants as well.

The shotgun is very nice.

If there's ever anything you can always expect from an id game, it's an awesome shotgun.

[Whoo]

This game looks purty.

Hoping the new AMD drivers from the 7th work so I can actually start the game.

[DeumReaper]

I couldn't play it on my main comp (Intel C2D E6550, ATI 6870) until today; everytime I looked around, the texture loading would cause ~10sec of freezing. Rolling back to catalyst 11.8 drivers fixed this, but overall ran slower (~15fps). This is the fix that helped after I got the newest drivers:

RAGE Patch Release Notes - October 8th 2011 said:


- If you have an AMD graphics card with a dual core CPU system you may
experience severe hitching and low frame rates. This has been
identified as a driver problem. We are actively working with AMD on
a solution to this problem. As a temporary workaround you may add the
following to the RAGE launch options in Steam:

+jobs_numThreads 0

Also disabling Steam overlay raised the performance as well. If you have a dual-core CPU make sure you try this.

[Use]

I'm much farther in the game on PS3, everything still going well. I'm not sure where I'm at in the main story, but I've logged on 13 hours so far. I spent the other night just driving around looking at shit and finding sewers. No technical problems to speak of. I want to fight more of those authority dudes! If I could ask for anything it would be repeatable instanced missions featuring more of the enemy cast.

The Dead City has been my favorite part so far too.

[Craigs]

The only problem I've got with the game is that I have yet to see a reason to replay the game so far. Everything, and I mean everything is accessable in a single playthrough. There's no limit to which upgrades you can install on your weapons, no restrictions to which side quests you're allowed to do based on how you're playing, and so far, no branches in the main quest that may lead to a different experience if I chose another branch on another playthrough. Also, since I got the anarchy edition, there's no reason to play through again with any of the other suits since the armor it includes gives you access to all of the different armors' bonuses.

[Use]

Craigs said:

The only problem I've got with the game is that I have yet to see a reason to replay the game so far.

Aside from beating it on Nightmare, yeah. Go-go gadget downloadable content.. :P

[Scuba Steve]

Jesus Christ, I just realized with Use3d's comment... this game's DLC would be like 5 gigs.

[Use]

Hah no shit, when the game itself was installing I was like O_o;

[Megamur]

I think it's funny how people are getting so upset over how regen health wasn't optional. No such thing was ever promised by Id. To quote my own post from five months ago:

I think people are misinterpreting the whole "regen health is optional" thing. There's apparently going to be an actual storyline explanation for your health regenerating (nanobots or whatever), so that makes me think it's there to stay. I'm thinking that it's going to work sort of like Mass Effect 2, where your health regenerates no matter what, but you can pop a health pack for when you need your energy restored immediately. I wouldn't get too excited just yet, everybody.

And I was exactly right. So don't get all upset at Id for not including a feature that you just assumed was being included.

As for PC gamers being snobbish and entitled...that's how gaming as a whole is these days. It's not exclusive to PC gamers. I think this game looks absolutely gorgeous and you have people complaining about "baked-on shadows" and "low-res textures." Well, boo-hoo. Sorry the game doesn't look exactly like real life (not that gamers would be satisfied with that anyway. "It's a game. It should look better than real life" they'd cry. I can hear it now).

[Use]

Oh yeah, the music sucks.

[Vesperas_]

Scuba Steve said:

I mean, it's ridiculous to even consider the notion that id didn't spend months testing drivers to ensure it works. Everything is riding on it working and this isn't some backwater, low budget company and project.... not to mention one of the most technically minded individuals in the industry. It's impossible for this problem to be id's fault. What's more likely... that a major gaming studio didn't test recent drivers before releasing a blockbuster title... or ATI and AMD released poor drivers before?

Yeah... I'm sure AMD/ATI and Nvidia conspired with one another to ensure the Rage launch went as poorly as possible and despite being rival companies they collectively decided to sit on the drivers and not release them (still).

Not to mention, many people were able to fix Rage by editing their configuration files or with the patch released yesterday, which essentially proves that at least a portion of the blame falls directly on id Software.

I don't think it is too much to ask that a game works when it released. Of course, it doesn't help that Bethesda published it and every game they've released is a buggy POS at launch (Oblivion, FO3, Fallout: NV, Brink and now, Rage). After the first one or two problematic launches, you'd think they would be big supporters of spending a little more time on quality control...

I beat the game a little earlier and clocked 16 hours (according to Steam). That probably includes about an hour of fucking with settings and whatever else to make it work properly and an hour of MP (Road Rage is semi-fun but becomes old extremely fast). I feel like I pretty much beat it 100% (I have most of the achievements, I'm just missing the mini-game ones and co-op stuff).

All in all, fun but admittedly average. There were quite a few points where it felt like a mass-produced, generic, console FPS. While old, I recently picked up Fear 2 on a Steam sale and liked that game significantly more than Rage. Hard Reset is also pretty damn close in terms of enjoyment and launched with no problems and at half of the price. I certainly wouldn't say I liked Rage as much as Singularity either.

I would not be honest if I didn't admit that for an id Software game, I'm actually pretty disappointed. Every id Software game prior provided well worth their asking price in entertainment but Rage really breaks that tradition. My arbitrary score for Rage: 6/10.

[Mr. T]

Megamur said:

I think it's funny how people are getting so upset over how regen health wasn't optional. No such thing was ever promised by Id. To quote my own post from five months ago:



And I was exactly right. So don't get all upset at Id for not including a feature that you just assumed was being included.

As for PC gamers being snobbish and entitled...that's how gaming as a whole is these days. It's not exclusive to PC gamers. I think this game looks absolutely gorgeous and you have people complaining about "baked-on shadows" and "low-res textures." Well, boo-hoo. Sorry the game doesn't look exactly like real life (not that gamers would be satisfied with that anyway. "It's a game. It should look better than real life" they'd cry. I can hear it now).

I don't recall anyone whinging about Crysis (which is easily the most "real" game ever released)

And it's not like there is a huge range of drivers that iD would have had to test. It's just plain lazy / their publisher not caring enough. If they want to charge us $60 then I believe we are entitled to get a working game. So fuck you to everyone whining about PC gamers.

[Xeros612]

Scuba Steve said:

PC Gaming is a nightmare to play theses days.

How? I've yet to run into a singe actual problem that didn't amount to either "my hardware isn't strong enough to run at X settings, so I'll turn it down to Y" or "this game was poorly fucking made" while running any PC game made today, and I'm on fairly outdated hardware. The only "nightmare" there seems to be is either not knowing what the fuck your system can actually do(in which case this fucking "don't worry little Johnny McIdiotGamer, we'll set the settings for you! And to make sure you don't mess anything up, we just won't let you ever set settings yourself!" must be a godsend) or if you have an ATI card(since whenever I hear about a particular game running horribly on PC for no discernible reason, it's always ATI), or if the game is a poorly done bloody console port.

And save your whiny "entitlement" bullshit for the people who think they're entitled to play games without having to pay for them. God forbid someone expects a modern PC game to fully work as a modern PC game and not have the same amount of graphical options as a rushed console port from 2005.

[hardcore_gamer]

Megamur said:

And I was exactly right. So don't get all upset at Id for not including a feature that you just assumed was being included.

Of course. Why should people assume that something will be present when the devs give you every reason to do so?

During some video interview on gamespot one of the devs/developers/some Id guy/whatever said something about how fans of older Id games would be able to choose between the 2 systems. Either that or he was being extremely misleading on purpose.

I don't remember which dev/person said it, but I clearly remember him saying it. This means that even assuming that Id never directly promised an old school health system in the game they are still guilty of misleading their fan base.

This whole thing reminds me of how Firaxis kept feeding nonsense into their own fanbase about how Civ 5 was merely being "streamlined" and that they would not sacrifice depth and complexity for the sake of appealing to more people, and then later after the game was released they admitted that they had actually done just that.

I don't actually hate regenerating health in games, but what I do hate is when companies/publishers/whatever feel the need to mislead their own fan bases in the fear that they might react poorly to their new ideas and or design decisions. I would not have been as annoyed by the lack of a normal health system had they simply said it from the get go that there would not be any instead of teasing people with the idea that there would be one.

[Scuba Steve]

Sig-ma said:

Yeah... I'm sure AMD/ATI and Nvidia were communicating back and forth about how they could ensure the Rage launch went as poorly as possible and despite both being different rival companies decided to sit on the drivers and not release them.

They admitted themselves that they gave id the wrong drivers. And it has been known for YEARS that, ATI especially, is notorious for poor driver support. What do they say, never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity? What do ATI and AMD care if a game release fails? Not their shit on the line.

[Craigs]

Xeros612 said:

And save your whiny "entitlement" bullshit for the people who think they're entitled to play games without having to pay for them.

Ladies and gentlemen we have just witnessed an amazing play where Xeros attempts to take an argument about platform elistists and redirect it towards piracy or something, jesus christ who can even understand where he's going with that one.

[Vesperas_]

Scuba Steve said:

They admitted themselves that they gave id the wrong drivers. And it has been known for YEARS that, ATI especially, is notorious for poor driver support. What do they say, never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity? What do ATI and AMD care if a game release fails? Not their shit on the line.

I don't see how that explains what is happening. ATI admitted they released drivers with old OpenGL code, which was resolved within a day. Even with the correct drivers, people are still having issues. Furthermore, what does that have to do with Nvidia and why did so many people realize huge performance gains by editing the Rage configuration files or with the patch?

I have an Nvidia card and Rage is extremely buggy. The game has crashed on me several times and whenever I enter new areas (mainly races or the wasteland) the textures don't show up-- instead the screen is primarily black. To me, this proclaims id Software released Rage prematurely and/or with minimal testing. The auto-detect system is obviously not working properly and their communication with both of their major video card vendors has been barely existent or at the very least, sub-par. Personally, I'd have a very hard-time not directing at least some of the blame at id Software even if 90% of the issues are due to drivers, merely because of the fact that the issues are extremely noticeable on both ATI and Nvidia cards. There is absolutely no way they could proclaim it worked fine had they actually tested on a handful of different machines.

There are even problems that have nothing to do with video card drivers, such as the messed up mouse scroll speed or the lack of editing tools despite being promised they'd be available out of the box.

Bottom-line, id Software spent millions of dollars and seven years of their time learning how to develop for consoles (the longest production time for an id Software game)... and made Rage: a console FPS that takes up 22 GB for reasons no-one really appreciates, with low replay value, no worth-while MP, no story, linear level design and whatever else, in addition to proving themselves hypocrites and almost completely forsaking the PC platform to top it off.

I mean, it isn't like they even had to have one original idea in their heads to create Rage. It doesn't add up.

[Redstar]

No one needs to buy a game on release. Waiting a week or even a month for such issues as these to be resolved won't make the game any worse. The game has been getting rave reviews regardless of such absurd comments of it being a "console port" and "linear."

[Edward850]

Sig-ma said:

I have an Nvidia card and Rage is extremely buggy. The game has crashed on me several times and whenever I enter new areas (mainly races or the wasteland) the textures don't show up-- instead the screen is primarily black. To me, this proclaims id Software released Rage prematurely and/or with minimal testing.

Or maybe you have done something wrong? Here is a neat pattern to note: Nobody else in this thread (who has a Nvidia card) has this issue. You are the only one who seems to have this issue.

Sig-ma said:

The auto-detect system is obviously not working properly and their communication with both of their major video card vendors has been barely existent or at the very least, sub-par.

Can you prove to us exactly how much communication there acturally was? Or are you just making baseless assumptions?

Sig-ma said:

Personally, I'd have a very hard-time not directing at least some of the blame at id Software even if 90% of the issues are due to drivers, merely because of the fact that the issues are extremely noticeable on both ATI and Nvidia cards.

So John Carmack makes drivers now? If the vendors screw up on release, what can id software do about it?

Sig-ma said:

There is absolutely no way they could proclaim it worked fine had they actually tested on a handful of different machines.

Yes they can actually. It's called development drivers. That, and if your game is finished, what choice do you have? Tell vendors to upload their latest drivers (which they would have planned months in advance) and hope said vendors don't fuck it up. Guess what ATI did?

Sig-ma said:

There are even problems that have nothing to do with video card drivers, such as the messed up mouse scroll speed or the lack of editing tools despite being promised they'd be available out of the box.

No, the editing tools were promised for the 64bit version, which isn't released yet.

Sig-ma said:

Bottom-line, id Software spent millions of dollars and seven years of their time learning how to develop for consoles (the longest production time for an id Software game)... and made Rage: a console FPS...

... Your opinion...

Sig-ma said:

that takes up 22 GB for reasons no-one really appreciates...

... Apart from the awesome mega-texturing technology? Did you actually play RAGE?

Sig-ma said:

..., with low replay value, no worth-while MP...

... Still your opinion...

Sig-ma said:

..., no story...

... No story? In an id game? But everybody knows that all id games have the best story-lines ever. The original doom was like, all story, all the time...

Sig-ma said:

..., linear level design and whatever else, in addition to proving themselves hypocrites and almost completely forsaking the PC platform to top it off.

You actually sound more like you're a console gamer who thinks they are a PC gamer after getting sick of Halo sequels.

[Mr. T]

Megatexture = BFD when lighting is baked into textures. In 2011! LOL

[DoomUK]

Scuba Steve said:

I just want to play games, I don't care about PC Gaming/Console feuds. CSonic is right, PC Gaming is a nightmare to play theses days. I dabble when I can, but I don't even mess with big releases... because I'm sure some driver or hardware component will be incompatible.

What I meant was, in one breath you're saying "stop complaining just because it's broken and there's nothing you can do about it", in another you're saying that PC gaming in general isn't what it ought to be which is why you're playing on a console. I don't really care what platform you bought the game for and I'm glad you have no technical problems and you're enjoying it, but you seem to be suggesting we should all STFU and play it on the Xbox instead where there are no problems. I want my mouse and keyboard, plz. It was released on the PC and I bought it for the PC, and yes, I expect what I pay for to work properly (provided my hardware config meets the published minimum requirements, which it does).

Anyway, I thought the game itself was great. Not without it's issues: inconsistent visuals* (and that's disregarding the texture popping business), stupidly linear level design with nonsensical clip boxes on random objects in the world preventing you from jumping over certain knee-height objects and taking certain paths, contrived and shoehorned boss fights, some retarded missions, non-existent plot... but despite all this I had a blast with it. The combat is exceptionally well polished and the areas of the game that look good look REALLY good, even on my modest system.

*EDIT: Let me elaborate on that a little. It goes from looking like this to looking like this. Some levels obviously received more artistic polish than others and it's unacceptable in a 2011 AAA title from a well-established developer.

Edward850 said:

Or maybe you have done something wrong? Here is a neat pattern to note: Nobody else in this thread (who has a Nvidia card) has this issue. You are the only one who seems to have this issue.

Actually, I also have an nvidia card and I'm still getting the texture popping issue even after the patch has been released which supposedly fixes it for most people. Adjusting the in-game settings and/or twiddling around with the .cfg doesn't seem to do shit.

[Vordakk]

killer2 said:

Actually,not really.Tom Hall didn't do much besides Commander Keen. In my opinion Romero should do games with id, with John Carmack, because while id still makes solid games from time to time, it's obvious the level design is not on par with DOOM, Quake or Quake 2. It's really a shame Carmack kicked Romero out of id...id hasn't been the same ever since. Also,does anyone know what happened to Adrian Carmack? I don't seem to remember.

Your response shows that you haven't done your research. Tom Hall worked on Rise of the Triad, Terminal Velocity, Duke Nukem II and Duke Nukem 3D, Anachronox, and Deus Ex.

As for Romero, him leaving ID was as much his decision as Carmack's. It has been proven that they no longer work together because both men have a different vision of how games should be made. Hence why RAGE is the way it is. And hence my post about wanting Romero to make games again with Tom Hall(design over technology).

[Optimus]

Worst Rage video ever :)

I don't know why fraps didn't capture sound. Also, it's fraps running in parallel that makes this sooooooooo much more bad than it really is in my system (It's really more similar to the Come On video). Though, even without fraps the texture pop ups and stalls on my system are still annoying. It's time to get a new computer or try the patches I guess :P

As for the game. Nice environments (if you keep still and wait for the textures to sharpen), good shooting, great character animations, good driving mechanics with the vehicles, although extremely linear gameplay, no interactivity (Where are the physics that were introduced in Doom 3? Everything is so fucking static!). I'd say it should be experienced as a FPS rollercoaster rather than an open world. Maybe when my system can get hold of this one day I will give it a second try. Till then, Borderlands and Fallout 3 have the same settings with much better gameplay.

[Szymanski]

Oh man that ending, maybe I've been spoiled by the Doom community but that ending was so weak. Such a wasted opportunity.

[Scuba Steve]

DoomUK said:

...but you seem to be suggesting we should all STFU and play it on the Xbox instead where there are no problems.

Nothing of the sort. You should be angry that it doesn't work, I just can't stand the whining and misdirected anger of the PC Community. Example, sig-ma. You have a right to be angry, but it's not like id just said "Awwwww fuck it... let's no test the PC version!!" a major development studio would never do that. To say otherwise is baseless conjecture ala sig-ma. Direct your anger to the horrendous state of graphics drivers and PC components.

[Vesperas_]

I don't care enough to snatch at flamebait. Many of the issues may be driver-related, I simply lack reason to direct my frustration at Nvidia when, despite having the newest drivers, Rage was still messed up until I mucked around with the configuration files, bypassing the auto-detect system.

One of my issues was resolved by creating a folder in C:\Users\Username\AppData-- because Rage wasn't creating that folder properly and caching texture data. I don't see how that is a driver issue. I don't see why I would blame Nvidia for the messed up mouse speed or lack of editing tools. I don't see why I should blame Nvidia when nothing changed but a mandatory patch that broke the game for people. It isn't hard to substantiate the claims. They've been reported by various websites and you can easily look through the Steam and Bethesda forums. Many of the issues have nothing to do with drivers or their resolution leads to placing blame on id Software.

Rage Issues Thread

A good number of the complaints I made are opinions, I admit as much. However, if people are not readily able to understand why I would make such complaints I really wonder if we played the same game. Rage is a console FPS-- there is a "press enter" to start screen, the manual features an Xbox 360 controller, sections of the keyboard are not mappable (you can't map a function to the enter button for example), there were no video options until the patch and even ignoring all of the console gimmicks like regenerating health and a weapon selection menu obviously designed with a D-Pad in mind, the FOV is a dead give-away. I don't understand how anyone can deny it.

[kristus]

Sig-ma said:

Rage is a console FPS-- there is a "press enter" to start screen, the manual features an Xbox 360 controller, sections of the keyboard are not mappable (you can't map a function to the enter button for example), there were no video options until the patch and even ignoring all of the console gimmicks like regenerating health and a weapon selection menu obviously designed with a D-Pad in mind, the FOV is a dead give-away. I don't understand how anyone can deny it.

While I agree that Rage got a lot of issues that can be directly refered back to the console focus of this release. (Like Tim Willits saying stupid shit like they forcing people at Id to play the game using controllers even on PC)
There are obvious problems with the game that has stemmed from this. In particular the menus mouse support and how for instance you assign and unassign items to your quickbox (which only exist in the first place because of consoles), making that something you do as rarely as possible. But the weapons selection menu that I've seen people criticize is actually the one thing in the game that is completely free from valid blame from a PC player perspective. Because it is entirely optional (unlike the quickbox). I've not used the weapons menu a single time. All the weapon and ammo changing controls are binadble by default. And the Fov is adjustable with a CFG command.

Anyone can read my first impressions of the game and to be honest they have turned since I wrote that. There are still issues of course. The games menus being one of the major annoyances. Honestly I am surprised that the regenerating health and resurrection thing you are forced to use and even upgrade isn't bothering me more than they are. To be quite frank, they don't bother me all that much at all. Maybe I am disillusioned and just have fallen into some sort of acceptance phase. Or id actually made it work. Fuck if I know. But for me, it works right now.

I've actually played the game for 19 hours so far according to Steam and still not made it through (though I've only logged 12 hours on the campaign). Probably because I am taking my time and wait with main quest items until I feel good and ready, and also because I never save myself and only use the checkpoint system. Occasionally I die and has to start the map over. And in some cases (many times) I managed to hit the F9 bind while grasping for my hotkeys to Teamspeak. Making the game load a quicksave I made at the start of the campaign.

I would have liked more open maps, with less linearity. But it seems like that is something you only get in MP games and possibly RPGs these days. Game play always seem to end up suffering in SP games these days one way or another. This is the way Rage suffers most of all in the game play department. Other than that weapons are very nice and I really like how the enemies move and how there are different clans with distinctly different styles of movement and agression and weapons.

Another thing I've been thinking about is that there's a straight line to improving your car. The so called Avatar you were going to work to make yourself special. There's only one way to go with each vehicle. Up. You can't customize your caprino or buggy to be something specialized for your preferences. You instead get these two cars that got different specialities. But they are exactly the same as any other player would have them as there's only upgrades, no customizations. But then again, if Bio shock didn't do it, then why should Rage?