id founders

[dougp]

Wow, just wow.

You do know it was romero that pushed for deathmatch in doom, and multiplayer in quake?

Quake 2 was good until half-life came out. When half-life came out, people realized how bad Quake 2 really was.

When romero left id, no other id game has captured the atmosphere of doom or quake.

Romero and carmack are both talented, but each in their own separate way.

lolwut

Seriously, you think Q2 was bad? It's multiplayer is still active and I'm pretty sure I'll be playing it a bit this weekend at QuakeCon.

 

[exar333]

lolwut

Seriously, you think Q2 was bad? It's multiplayer is still active and I'm pretty sure I'll be playing it a bit this weekend at QuakeCon.

I liked Q2 much more than Half-life. TF was a blast, but a totally different game than Q2.

 

[wuliheron]

I don't deny their past accomplishments, but Unreal Engine has been used in a ton of recent games. Frostbite 2 is being used in the next MOH game. Unreal Engine 4 will be licensed out just like UE3, and CryEngine is pushing the limits a bit as well. These are the future as far as we know for now. It's my firm opinion that ID Tech 5 used in Rage is not on the same level of quality. Player models and gunplay only takes you so far. When you walk up to a desk and it doesn't look like a desk anymore the immersion is broken for me. The game play of Rage was fine that's not my gripe.

I also did say Carmack is a super smart guy and as far as programming is concerned is a genious. That doesn't mean I have to like what he has done recently. Recently, (Doom3 and Rage) I was severely disappointed. Yet almost everything done with UE3 turned to gold, CryTek was super impressive, and to this day people hold Crysis on a pedistal, and FrostBite 2 used in BF3 is near photorealistic at times where as Rage doesn't seem the same. You can see where I'm coming from with this no? I am not wowed by his games/engines lately.

Short sighted vision of the future if you ask me. Id has been working towards ray cast geometry for over twenty years and their slump with Doom 3 and Rage were merely necessary stepping stones toward achieving that goal. Making the latest and greatest variations on rasterization, which id first perfected, has never been their goal. These guys are shooting for the moon and either you can appreciate the fact they've survived this long and managed to make steady progress towards that goal or you are just another Walmart shopper hanging out in the video game department.

 

[Shmee]

Hmm, I loved doom 3. Really looking forward to BFG edition. Quake 2 was also quite awesome.

 

[wuliheron]

Hmm, I loved doom 3. Really looking forward to BFG edition. Quake 2 was also quite awesome.

Yeah, BFG edition looks interesting, but what I'd really like to see is how it looks on the new VR gear. Carmack gave the headsets a much wider field of view and higher frame rate so it looks more like you are actually in the game. So much so he's talking about future commercial versions enabling players to run around with paintball guns.

 

[coloumb]

I'd put Carmack in the same techno genius wiz kid as Woz. They were the technical wiz kids behind the scenes who are just fine not being the face of their companies.

Romero was id software's "jobs" - he had a lot of creative input into the games, wasn't as technically gifted as Carmack, and was the "face" [and quite often the mouth] of id software.

The book is a must read if you grew up in that era or want to know a lot more about how id was formed. What Carmack accomplished was absolutely amazing in those days and I think he personally helped advance the game engines to the level of technology we see today.

 

[WiseUp216]

Thanks for the book recommendation. I started it last night.

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Rage was John Carmack's. Honestly I'll tell you what I feel. He failed with ID Tech 5. Utterly failed. What it does is kind of neat but in practice it makes a game look 15 years too old.

It's a failure in terms of innovating on the PC but that's basically not what they were doing with idTech5, really what was happening is they were developing engine features such as texture streaming to overcome the extreme memory limitations of the consoles. Mostly useless for the PC quite honestly.

They should have worked on similar tech which can stream textures from the system RAM, we can already get affordable 8Gb sticks, I know my 16Gb (4x4) system was dirt cheap. You could fit the entire RAGE install directory into system memory then and have ultra smooth texture streaming, this sort of shit isn't being done because developers are focusing on tech to improve the lowest common denominator (consoles) and not take advantage of the extreme hardware advances in PCs.

Honestly I'm tempted to dump my 16Gb kit and get a 32Gb kit, create a 28Gb RAM drive and install RAGE there and see what happens to texture pop in.

I've messed with RAM drives recently since 16Gb system RAM is massive overkill. I've just created a 10Gb RAM drive and written a script to copy my BFBC2 install dir there (about 8Gb total) which takes about ~20 seconds from my SSD, going to see what level load times are like running it from the RAM drive when I get home tonight

 

[Texashiker]

lolwut

Seriously, you think Q2 was bad? It's multiplayer is still active and I'm pretty sure I'll be playing it a bit this weekend at QuakeCon.

I went to the 2nd and 3rd quakecon back in the late 1990s. Met John Romero, talked with him for like 15 minutes, even got his autograph.

I think quake 2 was "ok" at best, given the time period.

Quake 2 brought nothing new to the table, absolutely nothing.

I liked Q2 much more than Half-life. TF was a blast, but a totally different game than Q2.

There was no team fortress for quake 2. Valve bought the rights to team fortress and released TFC.

 

[wuliheron]

It's a failure in terms of innovating on the PC but that's basically not what they were doing with idTech5, really what was happening is they were developing engine features such as texture streaming to overcome the extreme memory limitations of the consoles. Mostly useless for the PC quite honestly.

This is patently false. The id tech 5 is a first step towards providing truly cinematic graphics for video games including on high end PC hardware. The texture streaming it uses is based on the same kind of system used by feature film animators for years and if you play Rage you'll notice many of the animations resemble those used by companies like Pixar. With cheap ultra high resolution monitors, AMD's new hardware acceleration for the technology, and Intel's upcoming 1Tb/s hybrid memory cubes being able to stream all those additional textures is becoming a major issue for desktop as well as console gaming.

 

[Selenium_Glow]

Well, Carmack himself said -> "Romero wanted to make the best selling game, I just wanted to make a good game engine".

Well, Carmack and Romero together made a "First Person Shooter" game and made it a phenomena whose legacy we see even today.

However, id definitely didn't think about the whole game making process with idTech as EPIC did with Unreal Engine. With unreal engine, they planned to work hard once on the engine and make a easy to use interface for designers and coders. Frankly, it was the easy to use interface for creating and testing games that made Unreal engine very very popular amongst game makers and studios.

I still wish Romero and Carmack tried making some game together. I wouldn't be surprised if they came up with a completely new genre of a game...

 

[Texashiker]

I still wish Romero and Carmack tried making some game together. I wouldn't be surprised if they came up with a completely new genre of a game...

That is where companies like valve and turtle rock are stepping up. Turtle rock is working on a game that is supposed to revolutionize gaming as we know it. We need more games like the left 4 dead series and borderlands, games that bring something new to the table.

While romero and carmack were together, they made some great games. After they split up, its been crap ever since.

 

[diesbudt]

That is where companies like valve and turtle rock are stepping up. Turtle rock is working on a game that is supposed to revolutionize gaming as we know it. We need more games like the left 4 dead series and borderlands, games that bring something new to the table.

While romero and carmack were together, they made some great games. After they split up, its been crap ever since.

Question is, what can be done to actually revolutionize gaming? I dont see too many changes left that haven't been done at least once.

 

[Texashiker]

Question is, what can be done to actually revolutionize gaming? I dont see too many changes left that haven't been done at least once.

Game companies do not want to tap new ideas. They want to stay with the tried and true, which also means people are getting tired of the same ole thing over and over.

What I would like to see is a blend of doom, counter-strike and left 4 dead.

A scientist opens a portal to hell, a team is sent in to close the portal. It would be a team based versus game where people can play the demons and the military.

But I seriously doubt we will ever see such a game.

 

[diesbudt]

Game companies do not want to tap new ideas. They want to stay with the tried and true, which also means people are getting tired of the same ole thing over and over.

What I would like to see is a blend of doom, counter-strike and left 4 dead.

A scientist opens a portal to hell, a team is sent in to close the portal. It would be a team based versus game where people can play the demons and the military.

But I seriously doubt we will ever see such a game.

But that isn't new... sure the setting / story is different. But that is true for every new game series. But the actual game/gameplay is no different then other fps versus/multiplayer games.

For revolutionizing the video game industry they would have to come up wit ha few brand new never before thought up or truely tried ideas that work. And again, I don't see or can imagine many areas in a games that have not already been tried.

And game companies are trying to tap into new ideas, but sometimes the barrel is so empty that it takes a unique individual or group to pull one of the last few out. GW2 is attempting to redefine the MMORPG genre. Sure most those ideas are not even brand new, just some recent ideas from other MMOs, but morphing them to attempt to change how MMOs play. (via no generic/kill X quests, huge events anyone can do and automatically join if in the area when it happens.)

 

[Texashiker]

And game companies are trying to tap into new ideas, but sometimes the barrel is so empty that it takes a unique individual or group to pull one of the last few out.

I disagree. There are plenty of fresh and untried ideas out there.

Why are there so many call of duty games? Because people keep buying them.

Until the customers stop buying crap, the game companies are going to keep cranking it out.

Its like quake, quake 2 and quake 3. Basically the same idea, same game, just different graphics.

Then look at valve, wide range of games that appeal to a wide range of players.

Then look at the call of duty,,, same thing over and over and over and over.

id dropped the ball by not staying with the times and not diversifying their game portfolio like what valve did.

Where is ids response to counter-strike, were is ids response to the left 4 dead series, where is ids response to borderlands?

In todays modern gaming world, id is no longer relevant.

 

[wuliheron]

Well, Carmack himself said -> "Romero wanted to make the best selling game, I just wanted to make a good game engine".

And Romero hasn't made a best selling game since leaving id, while Carmack is already talking about retiring in a few years possibly after developing the id tech 6 engine. Those days of id being a small company dependent on a few people for creative ideas are long gone. With the id tech 5 they're moving into becoming a mass production company where everything is as automated as possible so they can hire and fire creative talent at will Hollywood style. As much as I miss the old days there's no denying 200 million dollar budgets for video games demand a completely different approach that begins with solving the worst of the technical problems first so people can focus more on other things.

 

[Saint Nick]

A few years ago I was writing a paper on the history of id. I found Romero's e-mail and he even answered a few questions for me... I think he's been more into other hobbies than gaming lately.

 

[diesbudt]

I disagree. There are plenty of fresh and untried ideas out there.

Why are there so many call of duty games? Because people keep buying them.

Until the customers stop buying crap, the game companies are going to keep cranking it out.

Its like quake, quake 2 and quake 3. Basically the same idea, same game, just different graphics.

Then look at valve, wide range of games that appeal to a wide range of players.

Then look at the call of duty,,, same thing over and over and over and over.

id dropped the ball by not staying with the times and not diversifying their game portfolio like what valve did.

Where is ids response to counter-strike, were is ids response to the left 4 dead series, where is ids response to borderlands?

In todays modern gaming world, id is no longer relevant.

Yet CoD isn't the only game series out there... Including all consoles in the current Gen and PC. I probably can estimate near close to 1000+ different game SERIES. (However only about half in english as Japan has many more than america).

 

[12andy]

What we need is a properly (read: non-buggy) done Quake 5, and a gaming community with enough balls to remember what it feels like picking up health bubbles, armour shards, and swapping between 8-9 weapons on the fly (literally).

Quake multiplayer at its core has so much depth on is own, that it needs no re-doing whatsoever.

 

[Texashiker]

Yet CoD isn't the only game series out there... Including all consoles in the current Gen and PC. I probably can estimate near close to 1000+ different game SERIES. (However only about half in english as Japan has many more than america).

But yet id has not made a game in almost a decade? I am referring to the time between rage and doom 3.

While companies like ea, Bethesda, valve,,, release some kind of game every few years, id sits on its butt.

Look at how Bethesda has diversified their game portfolio with Fallout 3, Fallout new vegas, Oblivion and Skyrim.

Valve has team fortress 2, counter-strike, left 4 dead, half-life,,.

Even little companies are cranking out great games such as borderlands, serious sam 3, and metro2033.

What has id done that is relevant in the gaming community over the past decade?

 

[12andy]

Surprised nobody has mentioned Quake Live yet...

 

[Texashiker]

Surprised nobody has mentioned Quake Live yet...

Quake live is nothing more then quake 3.

The only thing quake live introduced was a browser based install. No way to setup your own servers, no modifications,,,,.

 

[12andy]

IIRC, their later updates allows Premium users to "launch" their own servers and tweak basic gameplay variables.

No mods though, yes, but that is the crux of the centralized browser-based system. The iD Tech 3 source code has been out for awhile anyway; see World of Padman.

While QL hasn't been too successful, we must applaud iD for their efforts in this area to try and further push the arena-competition-shooter genre towards the mainstream.

From an e-sport perspective, there is none other like QL, really... unless I'm missing something?

 

[wuliheron]

But yet id has not made a game in almost a decade? I am referring to the time between rage and doom 3.

While companies like ea, Bethesda, valve,,, release some kind of game every few years, id sits on its butt.

Id didn't sit on their butt, their company basically doubled in size and had to completely restructure thanks to the id tech 5 engine. Essentially it's supposed to automate everything as much as possible so the artists and others require as little training as possible. Now that they've done all that their goal is to produce a new game every few years at roughly half the cost of other games. Something you might not care about, but investors do.