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Quake First Person Shooters (Games)

John Carmack Interview 145

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-read dept.
Iconoclast writes "There is a very good interview over on FiringSquad with his holiness John Carmack. The article gives you a good look at the geek behind the coding machine, and includes some talk about his love for Linux. "
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John Carmack Interview More

John Carmack Interview

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  • Awww (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This doesn't exactly HELP those of us who are in school and being prejudiced against because of our geeky ways...

    Do you get picked on at school? That's a shame. If you spent 1/25th of the time lifting weights as you did on the computer, you probably wouldn't have to put up with it anymore. That's what I did.

    Revenge is sweet.

  • Re:More Carmack news... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This reminds me of when I met Jerry Garcia...

    MY COUSIN: Jerry you're my hero.
    JERRY: I feel sorry for you. You must be a sick guy.

  • More Carmack news... (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 07, 2000 @03:01PM (#1297341)
    My new hero posted this to the Darwin Development mailing list :)

    Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2000 17:09:58 -0600 From: John Carmack To: darwin-development@public.lists.apple.com Subject: X windows update

    I have a good, functional X windows port running under OS/X right now. I just need to get the keymappings fixed up and test some more, then I will release a patch for public consumption.

    It only works in 15/24 bit true color modes. I am morally opposed to color lookup tables for desktop environments. It uses the resolution and color depth you already are running in OS/X (8 bit will be reset to 16 bit color).

    It only works on a single screen, but you can tell it to start on any screen number. The multi-screen support is pretty nice -- when you move your cursor onto the X screen it just picks up as an X cursor, and when you move it back to a mac screen, it turns back into a mac cursor.

    It probably isn't a real good single screen app for OS/X, because there isn't any way to flip back and forth between X and the mac desktop, but being a mac app was never really the goal.

    It will probably take me another weekend to get everything all cleaned up and ready for more general use. I will try and fix problems with it, but I am learning as I go with X windows right now, so I can't guarantee really great response times.

    After that, I will be on to bare darwin development work. The last time I played with bare darwin, I saw the video driver and mouse driver code, but I never tried to actually hook anything up to it.

    Has anyone read mouse events or reset a video mode from a user space app with darwin? The default video mode is 640x480x8 bit color, which I will be wanting to get out of ASAP.

    If necessary, I can write my own kernel drivers, but that would probably be a waste of time.

    John Carmack

  • I haven't played anything but Daggerfall, but I can comment on that.

    Daggerfall isn't so much free as unfocused. There is a story, but instead of following it, you can wander around all over the world, and do whatever you feel like doing, as long as it's supported by the game (like you can't burn cities :( ). The problem is that, while the game is virtually unlimited in size, it has only a few basic quests to make up the plot outside the main plot. And all the dungeons are extremely similar. So in the end, you have to follow the main plot to get any variety.
    To make the rest of the game really good you would need to make sure the world actually moves on and develops, and you have to make the NPCs a lot more intelligent than they were in Daggerfall. Or you move it online.

  • Re:More Carmack news... Honeymoon? (Score:4)

    by Shaheen ( 313 ) on Monday February 07, 2000 @09:21PM (#1297343) Homepage
    Isn't he on his honeymoon with Anna Kang (Carmack now?) right now? Can nothing keep this man from programming? Not even sex??
  • Oh Lord, is Fractint still using that old palette color-cycling trick? Sure it's really, really fast, but that was a lot more important back when we were running on 486's w/ VGA video cards. Nowadays you can probably animate at 60 fps just by doing blits to the screen.

  • Congrats! (Score:1)

    by pb ( 1020 )
    Good luck with married life, John. There's something to be said for a wife who kicks ass at Quake. :)

    I don't know him, but he fragged a friend of mine once. Wish I could have seen it...

    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
  • Hey, programming is his job and his life.

    I know I wouldn't marry anyone who wanted to get rid of my hobby and my job. That's a little *too* personal, no matter what.


    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].

  • Re:Dude .. (Score:1)

    by pb ( 1020 )

    If I have a claim to fame, that's probably not it.

    However, Mr.Dimmick isn't bad at Quake, and at the time, he was playing it non-stop. In fact, he was at the top of the list for that game...

    ...then Carmack came in, and proceeded to wipe the floor with him. That's why I'm sorry I missed it. :)

    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].
  • Ohh and about the spiritual comment. First off where do you get your knowledge that he has no spiritual side? Maybe he doesn't go to church but this in no way implies he isn't spiritual. Maybe he doesn't want to tell you about his spiritual side.

    Secindly what do you mean by 'spiritual'. Does he need to believe in a higher being to be spiritual? What if he sits around and thinks about the nature of the universe. Is this enough?

    Now if you thought people should be spiritual because it is good to contemplate these sorts of things you might have a point. Clearly, however, this isn't the way you approach it as you claim to know Carmack does not have such a side. So why is it important for him to have a spiritual side. Why do people who are spiritual always feel the need to convince others to follow them? One would think they were ashamed/embarased and needed others to follow.

  • Re:This kind of sad (Score:4)

    by PG13 ( 3024 ) on Monday February 07, 2000 @04:30PM (#1297349)
    I am really sort of curious why you say he wouldn't make a decent father. I mean most people can make decent parents (perhaps not great ones) with no trouble.

    Secondly I don't understand why you, or the other posters, think he is arrogant. I was actually quite impresed by his humbleness. This is a man who is virtually worshiped by a large segment of computer gamers probably the most succesful programer in the world from a pure sales perspective (not IPOs - gates and company coded only small parts of their programs). The potential to let this go to your head must be huge.

    Now Carmack recognizes he is good but that isn't the same thing as being arrogant (he is good after all). If he really was arrogant he would have been going on about how college would have been a waste of time etc.. etc.. like some previous slashdot stories. Stick up his ass? Where? Did you people read the entire interview or all you all just misconstruing that first quote about marriage?

    If there was anything I found kinda strange it was critisizing his mother's raising in print. But to each his own.
  • i agree!

    flamebait even if it was a valid and well formed argument?? good work slashdot !

  • you confuse me.

    My computer is just fine. (p2/450)

  • How's a t3?

    Their web server was down, you idgit.

    I could ping the box, but connections were refused on port 80.

  • I made it to page four, and the site got slashdotted.. :(

  • What I'd like to see (Score:4)

    by jabber ( 13196 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2000 @06:02AM (#1297354) Homepage
    Is interviews with 'those kind' of people, without any introduction. Talk to Carmack, or Ellison, or hell, even Gates, but don't tell anyone who it is.

    Talk about things that won't immediatelly betray identity: "So, unintroduced person, how's it feel to have written Perl?" just ain't gonna do...

    And then leave it to the readership to figure out who it is. Sort of like a secret Santa inteview.

    Hey Rob!! You listening?? Can we have mystery guest Slashdot Interviews?? With beanie-prizes for the first person to correctly identify the interviewee?

    And what a challenge it would be to come up with interview questions... Heh!
  • Warning: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (111) in /home/vhosts/firingsquad/sites/firingsquad.com/htd ocs/includes_v2/fs_helpers.inc on line 72 Warning: MySQL Connection Failed: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (111) in /home/vhosts/firingsquad/sites/firingsquad.com/htd ocs/includes_v2/fs_helpers.inc on line 73
    Warning: MySQL: A link to the server could not be established in /home/vhosts/firingsquad/sites/firingsquad.com/htd ocs/includes_v2/fs_helpers.inc on line 73

    Just me or did anyone else get this? How odd..

  • Yup, Troll Tech.
    Why do you think so many flamewars erupt around KDE?

    --Kevin
    (-1, Offtopic)

    =-=-=-=-=-=
    "...You and me baby ain't nothin' but mammals/
    so let's do it like they do on the Discovery channel..."
  • Why can't get people get real Web Servers or in this case a real SQL server. MySQL is pretty lightweight and fast, but what are they running it on, 486?

    I am really curious, when a server is ./'ed and it can not handle it, what are they running? Anyone know?

  • I don't know the guy personally, but from reading all his .plan files he seems really down-to-earth. He's also pretty slouchy in front of the camera. Is that egotistical to you? He's really frank about stupid mistakes he's made while coding, and that comes off to me as a guy who's not concerned with trying to preserve his reputation as a programmer.
  • I'm doing a 4 year University degree in "Software Engineering".

    Thats the title of the course. It is Engineering. And we do Software.

    Sorry, but your wrong.
  • It only works in 15/24 bit true color modes. I am morally opposed to color lookup tables for desktop environments. It uses the resolution and color depth you already are running in OS/X (8 bit will be reset to 16 bit color).

    I agree, but...

    Someone better alert the XFractint team, or else there will be one broken application on Mac OS/X!

    The same goes for any other apps which will expect the PseudoColor visual (I think). Has anyone alerted Mr. Carmack to this?

  • Does Romero actually code? I thought he did more of the design end of things. Romero thinks he's a rock star. Carmack has the kind of ego that comes with knowing that you do something better than almost anyone else on the planet. Romero left id to start Ion Storm a while ago. So far, Ion Storm has done nothing noteworthy that I know of.

    -B
  • I read another interview (I'm afraid I don't remember where) where he talked about how good stories are worthwhile and satisfying, they're just not what Id does well; he held up (any guesses?) Half-Life as an example of Id makes the engine, someone else produces the compelling plot, everyone's happy. Struck me as a very reasonable position.
  • Yep, I was getting this for a while, until I cleared my browser cache and forced it to reload the page. Worked like a charm after that.

  • Re:hello (Score:1)

    by Wah ( 30840 )
    are you guys at band camp?
  • having children will change you in unknowable ways... you never know just how good of a father someone will be. till they have kids.

    me i think that john needs cthulhu, but then i think everyone <b>NEEDs</b> cthulhu mostly for the aftertast but thats me....

    nmarshall
    #include "standard_disclaimer.h"
    R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
  • Try Daggerfall, and the other games in that series (not Battlespire, that's different). I haven't played them, but I've read a bit about them, and they're supposed to be extremely free in what you can do.
    Info at:
    http://www.bethsoft.com/games/daggerfall.html
    Or just plain www.bethsoft.com
  • From the interview:
    FS: Do you think that being married will detract from your programming?


    John: No, I wouldn't be getting married if I thought that.
    Programming is more important that the wimmin folk? Get your priorities straight buddy.
  • ...a really important lesson that I've learned over the last decade. There's knowledge waiting to be gained all around you in just about everything. There's benefit to putting yourself in an information rich environment like a university IF you've got the right attitude.

    Exactly. Yes. Right ON! I hate arrogant people who feel others have nothing to contribute. (my own horn tooting) I'm a pretty swift fella, but I ALWAYS listen to the other arguments/insights. I've been enlightened many times due to such. I've also learned who doesn't know wtf they're talking about. OPEN MINDS- revel in the life around you.

    It's possible to do a first person shooter like that, where it requires so much knowledge about what's going on, how things are supposed to work, strategies of all of these things, that it's just not fun to sit down and play

    EXACTLY why I didn't get into HalfLife. Neat game, no doubt, cool AI too! But man, too much to learn. I don't want to figure out my R&R, I just want to jump in, frag a few, then quit and get back to work or being a Dad. No time to learn deep things about games! I still need to figure out Linux!
    And games that have like 20 things to bind to keys, forget it. Any more than 6 or 7 binds, and that Mod is never played again. Open Minds? At least I try them ;)

  • (Well, here are my favorite parts of the first half of this interview:)

    FS: So what's a typical date between you and Anna [Kang]?

    John: Lately we've been building some model rockets. I did an interview one time and someone asked me about my teenage years, and I mentioned rockets and bombs and stuff like that. And I was thinking, you know, that was kind of fun, I liked that. Of course nowadays you can just go on the internet and say "I want one of these and one of these and one of these." They now have powerful rockets that we never had back when I was doing it - these high powered rockets with something like 2000 Newton/seconds of thrust!

    FS: Do you and Anna ever 1on1 deathmatch?

    John: Just yesterday we were out at Apple, and Anna was playing one of the Apple guys - she was kicking his ass. I was in a meeting with some other people, so they were playing for a while, and she was just waling on him. But then when I finished that meeting, they snuck me into that guy's room and they sat me down and I came back to a narrow victory. I expected to hear her cursing from the other side of the building. She still thought it was the other guy magically acquiring skills at the end of the game!

    (end of favorite-part highlight.)

    People used to blabber on about how "a rich guy like BillG of Micros~1 can find the right woman, bla, bla, bla, becuz he's rich, etc." when they tell me that I should stop whining about being single. Well, this is one relationship that sounds more interesting than that of BillG. For one thing, he is still improving himself as a programmer (instead of being "Chief whip-cracker/slavedriver") and he has to spend time with the missus. Now I want people to tell me about John Carmack and Anna Kang when they tell me to stop whining about being single.
    --

  • I don't know him, but he fragged a friend of mine once. Wish I could have seen it...

    The digital version of "my friend played golf with Shaquille O'Neall!"

  • John: Yeah in a lot of ways...I looked back and I was an arrogant little jerk when I was a teenager. I matured over the years and when I look back now, I don't think THAT highly of myself as a teenager. I mean, I was really smart, I was already programming computers in a lot of ways. But I was amoral at many times.

    This doesn't exactly HELP those of us who are in school and being prejudiced against because of our geeky ways...

    Apart from the fact I don't think any antigeeks will come across this article, Carmack would to me make good proof that geeks are good people, and grow into interesting and nice adults. Although it depends on which group of antigeeks you're referring to. If you mean high school peers, nothing will change their opinions but time (from experience). If you mean adults, then this is a good article I would think - it shows that geeks, even ones with antisocial tendencies, grow into caring adults, and have relationships, if encouraged and not labelled as dangerous.

  • Feeling you need to do things young (Score:4)

    by Phallus ( 54388 ) on Monday February 07, 2000 @06:13PM (#1297373) Homepage
    I honestly thought I was missing my shot when I was a lot younger, like it was a golden age in the early development on PCs, and I was really frustrated that I wasn't there.

    This struck a chord with me. I remember at eleven to fourteen or so thinking that to be a great hacker I'd have to have produced something by sixteen, and feeling genuinely worried about it. It makes me laugh now, particularly seen I never put in the work to be a junior uberhacker - I was far more interesting in looking than doing at the time, and the hacking I did (C64 display interrupt tricks and the like) was far more investigative than doing. But at the time, it looked like you had to have done something by the time you were sixteen or eighteen to be a great hacker. I hope no one ever felt like I did and got put off hacking because they couldn't measure up to the super high standards. Some people must feel the same way looking at Anna Kournakova (sp?), or worldclass youngsters in their fields of interest. Our Western media cult of celebrity means we often get hellishly high standards shown to us.

  • I'm not disputing the brilliance of John Carmack. He was there when PC first person shooters were born. But it's disturbing that so much of the game world is focused on "Carmack did this" and "Sweeney did that" when there are dozens of unknown game people who are doing absolutely incredible things. For example:

    The programmers that worked on the stunning FreeSpace 2.

    Anyone who was writing fully 3D PC games five years before Quake, like Stunts! and Stunt Driver or numerous other 3D games that were released for the C64, Amiga, and Atari ST.

    Remember Bruce Artwick? The guy who was writing flight simulators for 2MHz home computers back in 1981?

    The programmers behind either of the Gran Turismo games for the PlayStation. Damn! And in only one megabyte of memory and one megabyte of vram!

    All the people who've written engines for great 3D games released in the last few years: Motocross Madness, Crazy Taxi, Hydro Thunder, San Francisco Rush, Zelda 64 (Miyamoto designed it, but who did the coding?), etc., etc.,

  • I'm a little confused by Carmack's statements in this interview.

    On one hand, he talks about how much he loves RPGs, even though he doesn't play them anymore because it takes a lot of time in preparation. He even goes so far as to say that Quake was originally intended to be an RPG.

    On the other hand, he talks about how complex games, while appealing to some people, do not appeal to him because he just likes a game you can sit down and play and get instant gratification.

    Have his tastes changed over the last few years, or is he just talking out of his ass?
  • Having read the book, I can say that if even half of that third chapter is true, thank god he didn't wind up at On-Line Systems. Hey John, how about letting id take over the Mac port of Half-Life from those chintzy fucks at Sierra?

  • I don't still have the press release, but I recall it well..

    You're not a god, but you are the most powerful mortal. You have a hammer, and it's no more of this point and click bullshit - blam! your opponent 90' away falls over dead - killing things with the hammer is hard work, so roll up your sleeves and get started.

    Sounded interesting.
  • Are you sure you aren't thinking about John Romero? Romero is far more proud than John Carmack is. And Carmack is the better coder. I guess that's the difference between loving publicity and loving programming...

    -Ted
  • I don't think John Carmack dislikes story games. Remember that he played Ultima a lot in the past, and all ultimas have pretty detailed plots. He's just saying that if you have a good story but bad gameplay, your game still sucks. And if you have a bad story and good gameplay, you still have a good game. Naturally, you want both a good plot and good gameplay.

    Personally, I think the game that has come closest to this idea is "Thief: The Dark Project". The story is gripping, but never got in the way of the gameplay. Playing that game was quite an experience. (And I can't wait for Thief 2!)

    -Ted

  • What you have to understand is... (Score:3)

    by Ted V ( 67691 ) on Monday February 07, 2000 @04:06PM (#1297380) Homepage
    What you have to understand about John Carmack is that programming is his religion, and he won't let anything else get in the way of it. Programming is the most important priority in his life.

    I think this is the reason I admire him without wanting to _be_ him. There are parts of my life which are more important than programming, and I'd give up programming for them if necessary.

    -Ted
  • It may be an offtopic, but these "Carmacks" created a new 3D engine that leaves Quake far far behind. http://www.insomniasoftware.com/ [insomniasoftware.com] Cant wait to see it in action.

  • Little Rascal... (Score:3)

    by yesthatguy ( 69509 ) on Monday February 07, 2000 @03:08PM (#1297382) Homepage
    FS: I've read some earlier interviews where you said you were into bombs and stuff. You were a miscreant kid, right?

    John: Yeah in a lot of ways...I looked back and I was an arrogant little jerk when I was a teenager. I matured over the years and when I look back now, I don't think THAT highly of myself as a teenager. I mean, I was really smart, I was already programming computers in a lot of ways. But I was amoral at many times.


    This doesn't exactly HELP those of us who are in school and being prejudiced against because of our geeky ways...

    It's also nice to see that the money can come not only to a diabolical, evil, Bill Gates type, but also to the cool, small-team programmer type like Carmack, just so long as you have good ideas and pull them off well.

    In fact, the original story of Quake was supposed to be an RPG, well not an RPG exactly, but a fantasy game.

    Heehee, think about how THAT would've changed the world of first person shooters as we know them today...

    Right now, I'm spending more of my time in this lull or break, working on some things in Linux. One of the things I've done is written two 3D drivers for Linux or done a good chunk of the coding on them.
    ...
    There are a lot of zealots in the Linux space that just don't have rationality in their viewpoints, but there is some truth behind the hype on how good it [Linux] actually is.


    Comments like this, and programmers like Carmack bode well for the future of Linux as a desktop OS.

    All in all, this was a very thorough and interesting article. I suggest anyone who hasn't clicked through the link yet to do it [firingsquad.com]. You'll find it interesting, even if you aren't a hardcore, or even casual gamer.
    ---------------
  • Thank you, Mr. Nietzche. Not that I disagree.
  • university status

    then in most schools, graduating computer scientists are in fact in the engineering department, and hence engineers.

    basically your distinction is a stupid semantic one.

    there are many kinds of engineers that do many kinds of things. The only commonality between them is they *tend* to *make* things and know a good bit of math.

    carmack makes things, and knows a good bit of math.

    woohoo hes an engineer, using a slightly less stupid semantic distinction with some basis in practical reality.

    enjoy
  • told us what an engineer is NOT
    why dont you tell us what one IS? hmm?

    I'm curious as to your clearly firm conviction, and to know why you give a damn.
  • Engineers fix things that whirr and humm? not always

    Engineer use their hands, not always.

    I think that a EE working on a big chunk of a VLSI project, if he died, it would be really hard for someone to step in and pick up where he left off, at least just as hard as someone picking up on Mozilla or other software project.

    discrete vs. continous math? well even yourself says (primarly) because both you and I know very well there are cases where CS peeps deal with continous, and times that 'engineers' deal with discrete.

    From a social point of view, there is no elitist distinction (here anyway) between the science/engineering/computer science students at all. Its us vs. the 'academs'. There are no fraternities AT ALL, but we 'non academs' all sorta lump ourselves in the same category.

    I think what we have to remember here is that ENGINEER is a name, a word. Words evolve, their meanings change to fit the times. At once time, engineers solely built things out of wood, big machines. When people started mixing chemicals and calling themselves chemical engineers, the wood/steel construction boys probably giggled. Then people start engineering things solely out of NAND gates, and call themselves electrical engineers, hahaha, but they dont use their HANDS or do stress tests, haha, they arent engineers. Thent he computer science boys come along and make things COMPLETELY in an abstract sense, with no real existence in the physical world. So we arent engineers.

    whatever, the distinction is silly.

    no more semantics for me. =)
  • I started getting those too, shortly after the story appeared. I would suspect it's probably due to the server getting /.ed.
  • This was the point I was trying to make when /. had the recent article about Marathon being Open Sourced. (Which I got reamed for).

    Another post below somebody said they can recall details of death matches more than one-player "stories". Well, I don't think that holds true over time. I played a LOT of multiplayer marathon, and while I can recall favorite maps we downloaded and played, I can't recall details of the matches (this was four, five years ago), but I can cite parts of the plot story that was spread out over three parts of Marathon. I can also talk about Sim Cities I built for days. That's the kind of game I like (but I also don't have time for these days, which I guess is why I don't play many games these days).

    ---
  • If I did something better than 99.44 of the population, I'd not get married if I thought my marriage would seriously detract from my work.
  • In that interview Carmack plugs a book I've read many times and I still drool when I read it, "Hackers" by Steven Levy. If you haven't read it, not only I recommend it (cause who the hell am I?), but Carmack does! If you're still not convinced, hop on your local Project Guttenberg mirror, its there (I think maybe only the first few chapters, but it might be the fulltext).

    And I felt and still feel the same way John does about that book, i read it and I say I shoulda BEEN there. I sit in college and I say "Dammit, I'm SITTING STILL for 4 years!" but maybe I just have to wait to catch my own wave in a few years like Carmack did... of course, he dropped out of college... hmmm.. ;)

    Esperandi
    Two words for anyone "sitting still" in college: Independent Study. You invent the course. Do something cutting edge, I'm doing Distributed Computing With Java right now and its a blast compared to my other "set" classes that they've offered for years.
  • Recently, gamespy.com did an interview with a total wanker from id software named Mr. Devine and he kinda talked about this... basically his article said "MMORPGs suck ass and the people who play them are pasty, antisocial morons" with a lot more words.

    His primary beef seems to be born from this philosophy of carmacks... he harped on hating sitting around waiting to regen HP (he apparently doesn't know that if he wasn't such a complete tool that he'd have a cleric in his group and it wouldn't be a problem) and things like that - the actions not being fun.

    I don't think I'd be out of bounds in saying that id will probably never produce an immersive online experience of any kind if they follow this philosophy, which is fine, I just think they leave out a lot of good games by trying to make everything from running around to getting stuff absolutely fun.

    Personally, I dig fishing in Everquest, so I don't think they know what some people consider fun... then again, I did buy Q3 and I love kicking ass at it.

    Esperandi
    Another thing that made Mr. Devines article so irritating was that every other article written by programmers at gamespy.com was actually good! Hell Tim Sweeney wrote a bust-ass piece about programming language design issues and actually responded with a content-filled email when I sent him a mesage!
  • For John Carmack, i would venture to say that coding is the most important thing in life.

    If we lived in a utopia, everyones work would be their primary focus in life and they would all enjoy it. Don't begrudge a man, call him immoral, or tell him he might be hurting other peoples feelings when he's found the closest thing to paradise.

    Esperandi
  • You want him to feel bad and/or guilty about being good. You want him to grovel and say that his ability comes not from the power of his own mind, but from somewhere else. You want to be able to walk up to him and say "you're no better than me because your power comes from a higher source and someone got you to believe that."

    I hope to eternity that he never "finds religion" and destroys himself like you yearn for him to do.

    Esperandi
  • That just shows you don't understand egomaniacs... Egomaniacs are down-to-earth. They admit their stupid mistakes because that's how they learn... they admit them, but they don't feel bad about them like you pointed out that he doesn't... the posers who claim to have invented the Internet (just an example, I have no political feelings towards Al Gore) and feel that image is everything are just that, all image with lies as their substrate ;)

    Esperandi
  • No, lack of an ego is a sign of insecurity - maybe if you dont' take credit for your success they'll let you slide when you fuck up.

    Esperandi
  • The man deserves an ego. He has done great things and he should get and claim every single bit of credit for them. Most people read "ego" as "liar" and call liars egomaniacs... real egomaniacs are great people or at least have done great things and they recognize how great those things are... if they overstep how great those things are, then they turn into liars ;)

    Esperandi
    Mine is better then yours because its mine
  • Don't blame Sierra, they were ready to ship the game.

    Valve pulled the plug at the last minute....
  • In fact, the original story of Quake was supposed to be an RPG, well not an RPG exactly, but a fantasy game.

    Heehee, think about how THAT would've changed the world of first person shooters as we know them today...

    I read the story once behind it. CGW went to id to get a Doom II preview and got a few sneak peeks at Quake. Apparently you played a Thor-like being called "Quake" who went running around with a badass hammer. Among the planned features were realistic physics - ie, not only would you fall and take damage, but you'd roll on the ground (or down a hillside) from the momentum.

    Scary, when you think of it. There'd probably be no huge sales, no Thresh, and I wouldn't have my job!


    -*-*-*-
    I'm a little segfault short and stout
    this is my handle, this is my spout!
  • Just so you know, Anna Kang perfectly understands. She had final say on what gets posted. She knows John and what she got into - after all, she let him take a workstation to their honeymoon.

    That's John for you right there - a completely dedicated and driven individual. Anna, on the other hand, is a tough, caring and understanding woman. He might come off as a prick there if you don't know him, but he's just dedicated.


    -*-*-*-
    I'm a little segfault short and stout
    this is my handle, this is my spout!
  • IIRC, they took a workstation along for the honeymoon - at HER suggestion - so he wouldn't get withdrawal.

    <sigh> - true love...

  • No offense, but that's bullshit.

    You're mincing words here - Quake 3 is a fine piece of engineering, as are the GLX drivers Carmack has contributed to Linux as of lately. College does not automatically make an engineer, and engineering is not just limited to physical sciences. "Engineer" is a much broader term than you would believe, and I guarantee you that what Carmack does takes just as much skill as any lab scientist or physicist possesses.

  • I loved the first part of the John Carmack interview and look forward to the second part. The guy is great an inspiration to me, along with James Cameron (I'm also into movies). However, with the coming and huge success of Unreal Tournament, I'd love to see more interviews of the programmers at Epic Games, specifically, Tim Sweeney, who IMO, is very comparable to and as capable as John Carmack but doesn't get as much recognition as he should, or as his fellow rival does. --e!
    -------------------------------------------- ---
  • ...that the difference between an engineer and a non-engineer comes down to a single point.

    Namely, anyone can build a bridge that will stand up.

    But it takes an engineer to build a bridge that will barely stand up.

    If that old cliche has any truth to it, then most programmers I've met deserve the title of "engineer" as much as any bridge-builder who ever walked the hallowed halls of Harvard.

    -- jm
    • There's no sense of hubris about the grand design or anything about it [Quake 3], or trying to impose a story or a tale on top of all this. It's looking at a game in it's fundamental sense of what you're doing has to be fun. It's not a matter of beating the game into submission or accomplishing something, the actions have to be fun.

      There has to be something that you wanna just go out and do. People don't play softball because they want to beat the game of softball; it has to be an action that's fun by itself. I think that we succeeded in a lot of ways there. We expected and did receive a lot of feedback from the incestuous core of our fanbase.

    Now, while I agree with these statements at face value, and also disagree with them, I felt it was a rather interesting way to paint a picture of the difference between what Halo will be, and what Quake (is and) will be.

    Carmack's 100% accurate in the first sentence in that second paragraph. A game *has* to be fun from the get-go. One needs to be able to dive in, be it via a tutorial or a skirmish mode, and be able to get something done in the game. That's what games are for; entertainment. If one has to work too hard at it, it's no longer entertainment.

    He goes on to explain how a certain percentage of folks like complication; that makes sense too. At a few points in my gaming past, I've nudged into that field.

    Therefore, on the surface, Carmack is 100% accurate. Yet, he's also obviously missing something. He claims that putting a story in the game is "imposing" it on the player. He suggests that it's a burden, and you have to beat the game in to submission to get the story out of the way.

    I suppose that's a valid view, but look at it as a question of longevity. Humans are pretty well known for enjoying a good story; we like watching (or reading about) a protagonist battling an antagonist (of whatever form) and solving a problem. Tragedies are popular, too.

    Look at it this way: What sticks in your head longer? A day watching a baseball game, or reading a good book?

    Five years after the fact, I'm still pondering plot elements of Marathon. Doom, in my memories, is just a game with a lot of monsters running around that you get to shoot. Both obviously have managed to stick in my head, but I value Doom far less than Marathon.

    I'm not suggesting Carmack was stating that "dear god games with stories suck and they need to die." He was actually pretty fair in his statements; he's just expressing his feelings. However, I did want to counter that by saying games that "impose" a story on us tend to be held a bit more dearly in a person's thoughts.

    They just have more staying power.

  • I am sorry, but this is a pet peeve:
    People that start out a conversation by saying, "And now, the man that needs no introduction"
    ... and then they introduce him.
    ah well
    ~zero
    Get your copy of DeCSS at my site [198.82.92.175] - just don't tell the government where you got it.
  • I thought that this was a extrememly well done interview. It was extremely enlightening to learn about Carmack's contributions to the open source community (the Torvold's of gaming?). A lot of other game developers are just content with filling the genre void, or building a better 3D engine. Carmack on the other hand, reveals a scope that extends far beyond the realm of computer gaming, to computing as a whole. How many game developers do you know take time to improve the Linux kernel?

    At one point of the interview, Carmack is asked whether has considered using his money as leverage in certain situations. Carmacks couldn't see any point, but I see an area where his leverage would be greatly beneficial. I believe that Carmack's interest in Linux can serve as an inspiration to other developers to make game for the Linux platform, and more openly embrace the open source community.

  • Can't you think of something better for surfers to look at?
  • Yeah, but without a little background, We'd all be a little dull. The thing I liked most through the interview is that from end to end you can allways sence he is thinking outside the box, Always thinking about the future. Pretty cool to be able to keep perspective through all the noise.
  • This has only been up a couple of minutes and now the whole site is down. Did we crash it?


    Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
    NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
    www.npsis.com [npsis.com]
  • I met Carmack once too. He seemed cool, I shook his hand and said that it was an honor to meet him, he seemed a little embarassed. I don't remember his head seeming unusually round or his ego being big or whatever, he seemed pretty friendly especially considering I kinda just wondered into his office (the door was open!). He is short and skinny I guess, this might sound weird but he seemed very snake-like to me. His face made me think of a snake for some reason. If he does have a really big ego, I think he's probably earned it.
  • The part where he talks about making a race car game is kinda interesting.

    I would love to see a really good race car game coming out of ID. Im kinda tired of 1. person shooters and would really like to see a good race car game.

    I remember loving supercars 1 & 2 on the amiga :)
    Anyone else remember that?

    And, Oh.. Take it a little easy with Carmack will ya. How would you like an infinite number of AC's analyzing your every bloody word to bits and pieces on slashdot...
  • It is rare for someone to be so open and honest in an interview about everything including their relationships and upbringing.

    I already thought of him as a master coder, but now I get the impression that if I knew him personally I would genuinely like him.

    His story about open source was right on the mark and now I have a real world example for people along with a name they might recognize.

    His comments on how you can still learn from anyone is a pretty good philosophy. I wish I had understood that when I was younger.
  • Another way to not get picked on is to carry around a female collie

    C.Villopillil
  • With all due respect to him as the creator of a religion pretty much, I was dissapointed by the personality of Carmack that I found out. I mean, the guy is an asshole! FS: Do you think that being married will detract from your programming? John: No, I wouldn't be getting married if I thought that. Great. What's he sayin to his wife here? I used have a LOT more respect to this guy. Yeah he's an uber-coder, but hey, that's not everything.
  • No one asked for my opinion, but I'm going to give it anyway.

    How difficult would it be to program a game (or anything) that was completely unguided? I mean, think of the possibilities people would have with something like that. But without some sort of guideline, it would be difficult to get started.

    I'm curious as to your opinion, which would you remember more? A good book that you read or a story that you wrote or developed with a bunch of good friends? Or even people you didn't know?

    To be fair, there have been some very good books/games out there with extremely good plots/stories. Unfotrunately, people can always find something to pick apart in them. The authors/programmers can't think of everything, after all.

    Maybe the point here was to get a good mix of both. I'd say it was pulled off with a "decent amount of success," wouldn't you?

    I'm not sure what my point was.

    Null_Void
  • I think what you say is true from a single player perspective. But for a game with great multiplayer aspects, players create their own stories and their own memories that persist far beyond the "story" of any single player FPS game.

    Example: I loved System Shock 2, but I don't sit here and think about its plot weeks and months after playing it. I *DO* however love to reminisce and talk trash about the memorable close calls we have in our office Q3 CTF battles. Like the time someone strung together 3 people on one rail. Or the time I got shotgunned with the flag as I was diving into the front hole of my base on Q3CTF2 with 15 seconds left. I would ahve tied that game for sure!

    Those kinds of memories are the ones that persist more for me, not the created ones that *everyone* shares in from a single player game. CB

  • I believe I wrote "almost needs no introduction." When I told two of my friends that I was posting a JC interview and they said "who?" I knew I'd better introduce him.
  • I think you're getting the wrong idea from that comment - Anna is very supportive of John. I think she realizes that his passion for his work is what makes him who he is. I'm happy that he found a companion who didn't see the need to "change him" as many women might want to do.
  • She was sitting right there when he said that, so obviously there's an understanding there.

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