id Software Demos Rage On iPhone, Releases Source Code For Two Games 266
glenkim writes "Kotaku has posted their liveblog of the QuakeCon 2010 keynote, with some big announcements by game developer and Slashdot regular John Carmack. Highlights include a video of the id Tech 5 engine (aka Rage) running on the iPhone 4G at 60fps, with claims that it also runs on the iPhone 3GS. Carmack noted that performance on the iPhone was able to 'kill anything done on the Xbox or PlayStation 2.' He also announced the source code release of two games, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. Also, Carmack finally admitted that Doom 3 was too dark!"
Poll; what was the best game created on Doom 3? (Score:3, Insightful)
I kept waiting for some killer game but didn't notice it ever. Any ideas?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
No it was just too dark (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem was that the shadows were hard. The the real world, light bounces. This is why if you turn on a flashlight, you can see things in the room not in the beam. Light bounces off one surface, then off another and so on. You can simulate this via radiosity on computers. Problem is that is real expensive computationally. You don't do it in realtime. So generally what most games do is a cheap global illumination. There is an all pervasive amount of light applied to everything, and then specific dynamic lighting.
Well in Doom 3, there was no GI, and all light bounced only once. So anything directly illuminated, you saw. However anything else, was completely dark. Shadows were complete, there was no shadowed corner where things were visible, but barely.
Re:Poll; what was the best game created on Doom 3? (Score:2, Insightful)
I was hoping they'd port full doom1 and doom2 to the doom3 engine as an expansion pack. There'd be little programming effort there, mostly art and modelling. If they went for a more modernized game, with a similar feel and speed of the old one people would line up for it for sure. Well ... I'd buy it.
Re:Wow, man. (Score:2, Insightful)
It's progress if the device fits in your pocket and runs on batteries. I wonder if this thing will run on Android when it comes out?
Source release. . . (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, about 5 years ago, I bet a lot of people would have been very excited about GPL release of ET. I suppose someone will probably do something with it, but this seems ridiculously long after the game's publication.
ET wasn't even a revenue generating game for them - they gave it away for free (well, I do remember seeing some copies for sale at computer stores - I guess you can get some people to pay for something they could just download for free, legally).
I know that iD makes some (maybe a considerable portion) of their revenue licensing out their engines to other commercial game developers (maybe even developers of non-game simulators, not sure), but even so - did anyone license the ET engine? I mean, I know it was basically the Q3A engine with some modifications - did anyone care about those specific modifications? Anyhow, releasing the game engine as GPL source release doesn't stop them from generating revenue from licensing it for commercial (non-GPL) use. Why wait so long?
Re:Doom3 to dark? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now he should apologize for the hilariously outdated use of monster closets, terrible storyline, idiotic directorial decisions (no flashlight on guns, only 60 seconds of air!!) and extreme "meh"-ness of the entire Doom 3 experience.
Normally, you're happy when a game experience lasts 20+ hours. With Doom 3 it was more like, "there's more? Fuck me!" Especially after you beat the boss from hell, and have to go *back* to Mars for another few hours of tedium.
Re:and why no guns with a flash light on them or d (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.duckbrand.com/Products/duck-tape.aspx [duckbrand.com]
Re:iPhone? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Poll; what was the best game created on Doom 3? (Score:1, Insightful)
There'd be little programming effort there, mostly art and modelling
Because that's cheap or something?
Re:That's because there wasn't (Score:5, Insightful)
Bethesda doesn't have a partner publishing program like EA and THQ do. That implies it will be a more traditional, "We own the IP" publisher/developer relationship. That's especially worrisome for smaller independent studios. Larger studios can possibly have the clout to maintain their IP. But, most large studios are not independent, they're owned by publishers that compete with Bethesda.. There's no way an EA, Activision, THQ, TakeTwo, or Ubisoft studio will use idtech5. Along with that liability on the engine there are no shipped games to prove the engine is viable, it's not known what the dev support will be like, and there is no one outside of Id that has experience with it.
Unreal rules the roost right now. There's no publisher lock-in, there are hundreds of games to prove it's viability, the dev support is all online, easily referenced, and complete, and the widespread use of it means that it is easy to find programmers, designers, and artists that have experience on the toolset. idtech5 has to not only be as good as unreal in all of those areas, it arguably has to be better. A studio that knows how to make games with Unreal would have to dump all of their institutional knowledge if they went with idtech5. That's a huge loss of competitive advantage.
Idtech5 might do amazingly well. Given the long timespan since choosing an id engine to make a game was commonplace, the explosion of Unreal as the defacto engine middleware, a decent number of other competing engine middleware packages (Gamebryo, Crytek, Unity, etc...), and the Bethesda lockin I am not expecting idtech5 to be a disrupting force in the game development industry.
Re:Doom3 to dark? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Commander Keen (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:iPhone? (Score:5, Insightful)
A) Android has a lot of really good free apps and it has lite apps that don't suck.
B) Most people who use Android aren't the type of people who spend lots and lots of money on needless things.
C) With no restrictions on app development, the person who makes a $.99 fart application loses business to the teenager with an hour of free time and an SDK who makes his own one and releases it for free for his own amusement. With the iPhone that app might cost $50 or more to develop.
Re:No it was just too dark (Score:3, Insightful)
Walk into your living room, look at the halogen torchlamp aimed at the ceiling.
Good modern lighting is frequently indirect.
Re:Poll; what was the best game created on Doom 3? (Score:1, Insightful)
Actually a straight port using available high res texture and 3D models assets for Doomsday would only require a rebuild of the levels. Since Doom levels are extremely simplistic, it wouldn't be that much work at all.
Re:iPhone? (Score:3, Insightful)
> ..And a lot of the reason that Android users don't spend a ton of money on apps are threefold.
Your 3 reasons are ridiculous.
> A) Android has a lot of really good free apps and it has lite apps that don't suck.
Although a higher percentage of Android apps are free than iOS apps, there are twice as many free apps on iOS, because there are so many more apps. And there are many, many great free apps.
> B) Most people who use Android aren't the type of people who spend lots and lots of money on needless things.
If you don't need apps, why did you buy a smartphone? Why not just buy a free feature phone or use 2 tin cans and string? That's just pure rationalization.
> C) With no restrictions on app development, the person who makes a $.99 fart application loses business
> to the teenager with an hour of free time and an SDK who makes his own one and releases it for free for
> his own amusement. With the iPhone that app might cost $50 or more to develop.
Again with the fart apps! The reality is, iOS apps are native C apps, not baby Java apps, so they are much, much more sophisticated and powerful than Android apps. iOS has multitrack audio recorders, video editors, sophisticated art tools, thousands of photography tools, and tens of thousands of full-size apps, including many world class productivity apps that were ported from the Mac like Keynote and OmniFocus and iMovie. iOS apps are desktop class apps. Android copied the iPhone user interface, but they left in the 2005-style Java phone apps. Deriding iOS apps as being all fart apps just makes you look ignorant and biased to people who have actually used App Store. I've written hundreds of songs on iOS, any time, day or night, instant-on, 32-64 GB of storage, 10 hour batteries, using a $10 iPhone app and more recently a $40 iPad app that I would gladly pay again for but don't have to. They replaced a $400 multitracker I used to carry with me that was the size of 3-4 iPhones.
iOS apps are *cheaper* to develop than Android apps, because the tools are built for rapid app development, there is a very high-level framework that does a ton of work for you. That is why there are apps on Mac OS and iOS done by 1-person teams that would be a 10-person or more team on other platforms. These are the same developer tools that (non-programmer) Tim Berners-Lee used to write WorldWideWeb in 1990. Cheap, easy development is a hallmark of iOS apps. And there is an iPhone and iPad simulator in the free developer tools, you can get an iPod touch for $199 no contract required, and if you want to do broad hardware testing there are only 3 different displays and 3 different SoC's.
The one and only reason there is no money in Android app development is that there is RAMPANT BOOTLEGGING. You don't have to pay for an Android app, you can easily get it for free.
Here is the key point to understand:
- the easiest way to get a paid iOS app is to click "INSTALL" in App Store
- the easiest way to get a paid Android app is to bootleg it
People do what is easiest.
Re:iPhone? (Score:2, Insightful)
I love my iPhone, but you're insane. iMovie on iOS is barely even related to its namesake.