Carmack Loves You

Check out this interview with Carmack on Gamespy which covers stuff like Doom 3, Quake 4, id's next project, rockets and space travel. Here's a snip:

DOOM is going to be in use for a long time, but just this year, hardware has surpassed a really significant point with the floating point pixel formats and generalized dependent texture reads. These are things that demand that a new engine is written.

fp! props to logged in trolls!

Sweet stuff.

I really like his last idea. It could work well so long as id's main effort is not distracted.

So they are going to do something new next....uh oh.

Shaviro said:

So they are going to do something new next....uh oh.

"Uh oh"? "UH OH"???
Whaddya mean "uh oh"? It's only good that they start on a new franchise after years of using the same franchise names over and over again. (Don't get me wrong though, making a new Wolfenstein game was great although they didn't get the atmosphere right and making a retelling of Doom 3 is gonna rock I'm sure)

heh, i hate remakes made by a completely new design staff as the original game. maybe i'll stop my grudge of id if they actually *gasp* come up with a new title.

dsm said:

"Uh oh"? "UH OH"???
Whaddya mean "uh oh"? It's only good that they start on a new franchise after years of using the same franchise names over and over again. (Don't get me wrong though, making a new Wolfenstein game was great although they didn't get the atmosphere right and making a retelling of Doom 3 is gonna rock I'm sure)

i agree with your sentiment, the last new franchise id created was Quake back in 1996, they need to do something new after doom

Reply to "angry" posts.

Not "Uh oh" as in "I want id to to wolf/doom/quake stuff for all eternity"...just "uh oh"

id hasn't made a wolfenstein game in over a decade... they're just subcontracting out all their brand names now (keen to some GBA game developer, quake to Raven, wolfenstein to Gray Matter, Splash Damage, and someone else, and Splash Damage is even doing the multiplayer for Doom III). don't be surprised if someone else compelely makes Doom IV, V, VI, and VII.

Quake 2 remix, eh? Be cool if some third party company (or someone like Team TNT.. but not TNT) remade Ultimate Doom on the d3 engine. In all actuality, we all know that's going to get done anyway.. seeing as ep1 has been remade for damn near every 3d engine following Doom.

Hmmm... While playing old favourites in newer engines sounds like a nice idea, it also wreaks too much of a cash cow. Relatively quick, easy and above all cheap to do once the new doom engine is stable.

Of course, id software knows that there is a market for this thing - just look at how many fan made mods there are based on classic doom. I guess if id made their own 'remixes' it gives them a more 'legitimate' financially-orientated reason to shut fan-made mods down - they can say that they are adversely affecting their own sales.

The only other problem of course being the fact that the whole idea is totally flawed to begin with. Carmack says just update graphics and such with the new engine - but keep the gameplay as it was. Erm, if you change the engine you're pretty much automatically gonna completely change the gameplay. If it's just a case of changing the graphics in the new engine, why is Doom3 going to be a slower paced game than the original?

Heh, 'cause it's a different type of game.

I want them to do new things, their tradition was that their new titles were revolutionary, beyond the past era.

I already know they call it Trinity ;)

Sphagne said:

I want them to do new things, their tradition was that their new titles were revolutionary, beyond the past era.

yeah but now that carmack keeps gags on his designers don't expect anything too new.

sargebaldy said:

yeah but now that carmack keeps gags on his designers don't expect anything too new.

Yes because a Use Key is "new". On the other hand, the current Doom 3 scheme for manipulation IS new.

Not to mention a whole lot more immersive than "Go turn up the power level oscilation to create a feedback loop through the secondary power coupling and destroy the nuetronic flim-flammer" Then all you find is a giant switch on one wall. I love the idea of actually having to use computers to a degree in the game instead of just flipping big wall switches like we've been doing for the last decade.

hmmmm I'm not so sure about this new 'use key'. If it leads to real interaction with computers that's a good thing. But if it's just a case of - go up close to switch, gun lowers, press switch, raise gun, carry on, it's a bit lame. And I can't help but thinking there's going to be quite a few times whilst playing the game where you're in the middle of a fight and... ooops you've gone and stepped too close to that switch and your gun has lowered.

The Flange Peddler said:

And I can't help but thinking there's going to be quite a few times whilst playing the game where you're in the middle of a fight and... ooops you've gone and stepped too close to that switch and your gun has lowered.

Not unless you somehow like facing the wall and shooting at something at your 6 o'clock position.

The point ultimately being that if you're facing a panel and are close enough to trigger the manipulation mode, you're not going to be shooting at anything but that panel anyway.

As I said in a different thread, I find the idea of just updating the graphics in previous games without updating the gameplay lame - especially for Quake 2, since Quake IV, being developed by Raven software and using the Doom 3 engine already, takes place in the Strogg universe. Even if enemies and weapons are changed drastically in Quake IV, we'll still get to experience the Q2 universe in the Doom 3 engine, thus a graphical update of Quake 2 is pointless.

As for Quake 1, the idea of experiencing the Quake 1 monsters, weapons and environments in the Doom 3 renderer does actually appeal to me, but the idea to just make a graphically updated 'remake' is still pretty lame. I'd much rather have them license the name and the engine to a different developer and let them develop Quake V (somehow, this doesn't seem too lame to me, but I guess I'm just weird) as a continuation of the Quake 1 story (nope, Shub-Niggurath was NOT Quake, because Quake was still alive in the two mission packs that came after it and I don't think you ever killed him in any of those either).

Q3A does not need a graphical update - the good graphics of Q3A were already pointless in Q3A since it's such a fast-paced game, which leaves you with zero time to sit and enjoy the impressive looks. An MP-only game only needs a solid netcode and passable graphics to be good (that was a joke - MP only games are never good :-P).

Quake has a plot???!!!!

Arioch said:

Yes because a Use Key is "new". On the other hand, the current Doom 3 scheme for manipulation IS new.

uh, no. i mean how his game designers have absolutely no say in what games id makes anymore. in fact, id doesn't even have a game designer now, not like graeme devine probably had any control over anything anyway.

DOOM3 was made very much against the wishes of John Carmack. The rest of the staff got together and basically said "we make a doom sequel or we walk" and so D3 was born. He wanted to take the company in a different direction and go with a brand new story. In fact, this new game was initially just called "DOOM" because it's not a sequel but a retelling. They didn't want to call it "DOOM 3" at all. It seems this game has given id all kinds of trouble. :p I'm just glad they talked John into supporting rag-doll physics cuz it looks fantastic.

Rellik said:

DOOM3 was made very much against the wishes of John Carmack.

Err, I was under the impression that JC was the one who actually came up with the idea, and it was Kevin Cloud and Adrian Carmack who were against it. This is certainly what all the old news articles I could find say.

Why does Carmack look like Dennis Leary without the godawful dentures?

Rellik said:

DOOM3 was made very much against the wishes of John Carmack. The rest of the staff got together and basically said "we make a doom sequel or we walk" and so D3 was born

no, you have that the other way around. carmack (and i think some other people) said they would leave if the two artists that control 2/3 of the company didn't make doom3. graeme devine wanted to make an rpg type game, but sadly 'game designer' is a useless title at id nowadays. several people also left due to id's decision to make doom3.

Heh, I think id is really starting to lose its soul. If it had one to begin with.

Nah, they sold their souls to make Doom. Didn't you know that?

They're a great bunch of guys who just successed themselves into a corner. Like they were saying in an interview, it's not like they have any choice but to keep going bigger and bigger. They said it's really up to the smaller production houses to make the cool expiremental stuff now.

Grimm said:

Heh, I think id is really starting to lose its soul. If it had one to begin with.

heh, id used to be on the leading edge of design. then they realized they could make plenty of money just remaking the same game over and over with better graphics. now id drops designers left and right and no one even cares. such a pitiful story really. and that reminds me of something romero told me in an email a while back (about doom3):

John Romero said
It will turn out to be an amazing and cool game,
but I don't think it'll have the heart that it should.

Rellik said:

They said it's really up to the smaller production houses to make the cool expiremental stuff now.

true, but not because they have to. id has HAD designers who have gone one to do cool experimental games like anachronox and alice, but carmack has refused to take the risk required to make a good innovative new game, preferring to play it safe and either irritate designers into leaving or just plain firing them.