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Quake First Person Shooters (Games) Entertainment Games

QuakeCon id Software Keynote Coverage 254

Posted by michael from the quad-damage dept.
ruiner5000 writes "If you are not at lucky enough to be at this year's QuakeCon, then you might be wondering what John Carmack and crew are up to. Well, John is a father of a baby boy as of yesterday, so he was not here for his traditional talk on what id is up to. Instead, he appeared on pre-recorded video, followed by normal Q and A session with other id personnel. AMDZone has full coverage of the id keynote, including some pics for your enjoyment. If you want to know about the next engine, the Xbox, OS X, and Linux ports, id's standing on piracy, or Carmack's vision of game engines for movie rendering, then give it a read." S!: There's also continuing QuakeCon coverage over at GameSpy, including a long interview with Todd Hollenshead.
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QuakeCon id Software Keynote Coverage More

QuakeCon id Software Keynote Coverage

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  • Great (Score:2, Informative)

    by dhoonlee ( 758528 )
    That AMDZone server took about a milisecond of slashingdoting to go down.

    • Re:Great (Score:3, Informative)

      by ruiner5000 ( 241452 )
      Nice that while I'm eating this happens. Anyway, made some changes to apache. I can get it on and off. Postnuke can't quite handle the load, and we are just getting ready to deploy a 2P and a 4P opteron box. Oh well, I wish we had already done it. For the record the bandwidth is not an issue, it appears postnuke has become the bottleneck on this one. Apache and MySQL are doing their jobs. We will continue to work on it. In the meantime I'm going to go root for Daler. He won our Doom 3 tourney last

  • Huh? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 14, 2004 @08:11PM (#9970889)
    A baby eh.. that implies he has a girlfriend.. ueber-geek has girlfriend. Oh my god, there's something wrong. Did someone open a portal to hell or something??

    Where's my duct-tape?
  • I think I'll just guess that they don't like piracy... at all.

    • Re:Piracy... I'm thinking no (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yeah exactly. Doom3 refuses to install if you have software it dosn't like. Cd copying stuff like deamon tools. Ironic considering the only way to bypass this if you have a legit copy is to download a cracked version.
      • Wow...news to me (about Doom 3 refusing to install if it finds other software). You have a link to verify this?

        • Re:Piracy... I'm thinking no (Score:5, Informative)

          by steve_ellis ( 586756 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @09:20PM (#9971265) Homepage
          Its true.

          I had used clonecd in the past, had uninstalled it 2 years ago, and Doom 3 refused to install, claiming that it couldn't read the cd until after I regedited away the lingering registry entries from clonecd.

          Completely bogus, especially because clonecd was not installed anymore, and I've never used it to make an unauthorized copy of anything (I use it so I don't have to expose irreplaceable game cds to my 4 and 1 year olds. They're bad enough on my disks, you wouldn't believe how many children's game cds and DVDs they've nearly destroyed (most can be fixed with a DVD doctor).

          I had long ago switched to using Alcohol (even kids game cds now feature the most sophisticated protection methods)--and I promptly unloaded it and disabled the virtual drive it offered, but Doom III still insisted it couldn't read the CD until after I scanned my registry for clonecd-related entries.

          I briefly considered returning Doom III, but my desire for virtual blood and gore exceeded my indignation at being labeled a pirate by id.

        • I can confirm this happens on a friend's machine (bought first day it was available (which was actually the 4th... thanks gamestop, best buy, etc for ignoring the midwest).) and directly after the install of clonecd. Activision [custhelp.com] (May not work, if not, search doom3 and clone cd in support:

          Copy/Pasted:

          Question

          When I launch the game I get the error "CD/DVD Emulation Software has been detected."

          Answer

          If you have the CD burning software Alcohol 120% installed you need to turn off all of the emulation opti

      • That's funny.. My Doom3 installed and runs just fine and I run Daemon Tools. Only problem was Doom3 only took about a week to finish. A little short for a $55 program I think.
        • "A week" doesn't mean anything. It only took me about 3 days to finish Doom 3, but I was playing 6-10 hours a day (I took a few days off work).

          It's supposed to take about 20 hours, which is not bad for a FPS. I wouldn't call it a short game by any means. Then again, I played pretty slowly, since I was afraid of what might jump out at me.
      • It not Daemon Tools Doom doesn't dislike as much as Clone CD. I had a problem after installing Daemon Tools and Clone CD. Searching Activision's support articles reveals the way to fix the problem. Simply open the Clone CD tray icon and uncheck that "hide drive" option (or whatever its called) and Doom works fine. Still an incredibly annoying and useless "protection" scheme.
        • CD protection schemes are useless against anyone who really wants to copy the game. My guess as to why there used, to stop amateur copies being portrayed as the real thing and to detur 12 yearolds trying to copy the game.

          Professionals will have the equipment to make a virtually perfect clone of the CD which will get around any CD Protection. The ameturs which are over 12 years of age will work out how to get around the CD protection.

          Personally once the first patch is out, I'm seriously tempted to install
      • Yeah exactly. Doom3 refuses to install if you have software it dosn't like.

        And, on top of that, requires admin rights to run. Not cool.
    • Wouldn't it piss you off if you spent four long years on a project only to find out that someone has their hands on your work before you actually release it? I sure as hell would be furious. Especially since the little bastards tend to rub it in your face how "bad" the game is.. when they are too fucking stupid to know that what they played was a nonear complete version. It makes me extremely angry when my friends want me to make a copy of Doom 3 for them. Or when I find out that someone has a pirated copy

  • Next Week (Score:4, Funny)

    by TheAdventurer ( 779556 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @08:12PM (#9970894)
    Cool, this will give me something interesting to read next week when their servers cool down. ;)

  • They have it running on a mac (Score:5, Interesting)

    by foidulus ( 743482 ) * on Saturday August 14, 2004 @08:16PM (#9970927)
    but id hinted not so subtly that the mac video cards royaly blow(cept for the ultra-expensive high end) by saying that the mac isn't as good as platform as the PC....
    Hopefully since Apple finally dropped ADC, more manufacturers will be willing to make mac cards(basically pc cards with modified firmware). I am willing to pay a $25-50 premium, but the $100+ premium for current vid cards is just rediculous, a 9800 should not be over $300....

    • It's not that Mac vid sucks... (Score:5, Informative)

      by solios ( 53048 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @08:35PM (#9971037) Homepage
      It's that only one-fifth of their product line has upgradeable video hardware. You want to buy a Mac right now? With an upgradeable video card? You get a G5. You get a "choice" of how fast you want it, but the iMac, iBook, eMac, etc. barely come with enough VRAM to run Quartz Extreme.

      Oh, and PCI Radeon 7000s with Mac roms still go for around 80$ on ebay (the last time I looked). Nevermind something like, say.... AGP. The pricing on Mac graphics boards is absoluttely disgusting .

      So as a mac user, your options are video that can't even run current games (my Pismo horked on UT when UT and my Pismo were new.... modern iBooks and Powerbooks fare no better), or paying out the smegging nose for something that'll do the job.

      Of course, once you have a decent video board, your game options consist of Blizzard, iD, Epic, and whichever of the various companies have ported the DnD games.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • I didn't realize the Powerbook was that much better than the (12")iBook. UT2004 is unplayable on mine, and even Warcraft 3 barely runs -- and these are at native LCD resolution (1024x678) with all settings turned all the way down.
          • even Warcraft 3
            barely runs


            Why does it run just fine on my iBook? Don't tell me you got yours with the default 256 meg RAM!?
            • No, my iBook has 640MB of ram (I ordered it with 256 and immediately got 512 from Crucial -- RAM from Apple is a rip-off). However, it is the older 800MHz G4, not the newer one. I just fired up the game (it's been a while) and I discovered that I've got it set at 640x480 instead of 1024x768 as I thought. It is playable but stutters every once in a while with a normal amount of action going on. I don't know if there's an FPS meter I can enable, but it seems like it averages somewhere between 20 and 30 FPS
      • That's funny, the new Nethack [nethack.org] binaries released a couple days ago run just fine on my powerbook.

      • Re:It's not that Mac vid sucks... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @10:19PM (#9971582) Journal
        Yeah, you're pretty much correct here - but frankly, I don't know why people keep blowing their money on systems like iMacs or eMacs and expecting to then play the latest 3D games on them?

        The G5 is the obvious choice if you want to be a Mac user and still have it double as a "gaming computer". The Radeon 9800 cards in a G5 play everything I've ever seen ported to Mac just fine. Sure, you may not achieve "insane frame rates" like some PCs get - but that's more a wet-dream for benchmarking weenies than what you realistically need to enjoy a game.

        In fact, my G5 only has the Radeon 9600 Pro in it, and I have no complaints about video speed with it either. I've played everything from Halo to UT2004 to Medal of Honor to Spiderman on it, and it all works fine for me.

        I think the bottom line is this, though. Mac users aren't purchasing their Macs specifically to be a *game system*. They have other reasons they want a Mac, but they just feel it should be able to run some good games too. Everyone likes to have fun once in a while, but not everyone thinks gaming is so critical that it justifies building a second machine just for it.
        • err. For the same "price" and nto the same "hardware" you can get a PC that does more then just a "few" frames more. For the price of a g5 and a radeon 9600 xt in it you can get 3 P4 3.0 gzh HT with a radeon 9600 xt. or a system with a dual p4 design and a 9800 pro and have some spare change.
          • Yeah, but I still won't be able to run ProTools (without crashing), Final Cut, or any of the other apps that actually let me get some work done.

            Macs are for people who work and might occasionally play a game. PCs are for gamers. No one is gonna argue that point. But there really aren't that many hard-core gamers, and there are a hell of a lot of people who need to get work done.
            • Macs are for people who work and might occasionally play a game. PCs are for gamers. No one is gonna argue that point. But there really aren't that many hard-core gamers, and there are a hell of a lot of people who need to get work done.

              Err. PC's represent 99% of most offices. I work as a web dev on a PC. I garentee at least 95% of all web devs use a PC. Pc's include linux boxes so most of the net, most programmers, and most people who work with a Comp. use a PC. Mac is used for some very specific very ni
              • Please, misunderstand my point a little bit more. Although I phrased it badly, I admit.

                In relation to *games*, the subject at hand, if you buy a Mac, you've *at the start* said "This machine is not solely for gaming." By choosing a Mac, you've decided that there are other things that are more important than the ability to play every game on the market. If you want a machine solely for gaming, you buy a PC. If you want a machine for both work and gaming, you can choose either, but if you choose a Mac yo
                • Consider my post in the context of discussing gaming machines. No one buys a Mac as a gaming machine.

                  very true. and only a small portion of the computer using populace buy a PC as a gaming platform. Most people buy it for other reasons. The fact that Dell sells most of it's PC's Without a decent card tells that PC's generally aren't gaming machines.
                1. (You) Macs aren't for work;
                2. (You) Unix is for work;
                3. (Apple) Mac OSX is Unix;
                4. (Implied from 2 and 3) Mac OSX is for work.

                From this we can see that point 1 is a fallacy, or at best, a generalisation since I suppose Mac OS9 might be "not for work" whereas Mac OSX is.

                • 1. Mac aren't for most work.
                  2. Unix is for some other work
                  3. Mac != OSX all the time. although thats a technicality.
                  3. 2 and 1 is not mutually exclusive.

                  How many programers do you know. how many use OSX. I know 20 odd programmers. 0 of them use OSX. I'm sure it's non zero percentage of the over all pop. but I doubt it's significant. His point was Macs are for work PC's are not. Well, no PC's are for most work. Mac is for some specific work. And often, it's used for other thigns too because there is a popul

  • Doom3 related (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 14, 2004 @08:17PM (#9970935)
    The doom3 SDK is gonna be a godsend to us modders allowing much more extensive changes to the game. I've completed doom3 and the lackluster multiplayer won't hold me. I'm allready building my own map based on the movie aliens. With the sdk major changes can be made such as implimenting pixel shaded water into doom3 as well as completly changing the gameplay. OH and theres a vehicle test map! AWESOME

    • Re:Doom3 related (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I've already begun building extensive maps based upon Doom 2. I hope to release them =)
    • I've already got the layout done for the smurfs village for a D3 tourney or dm map :) maybe ctf will be thrown in there, but you know? I've always wanted to fire a rocket launcher at papa smurf and his harlot.

      take that you smurfing smurfed up smurfers!
    • I hope the SDK comes out soon, I'd love to try my hand at creating a flashlight tag mod :p

  • Congratulations, John, and... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Raindance ( 680694 ) * <johnsonmx@@@gmail...com> on Saturday August 14, 2004 @08:19PM (#9970952) Homepage Journal
    As someone who thinks you come across as a good human being in spite of being in the public eye, congratulations on your kid, John. I know you read slashdot on occasion- hopefully this will get to you.

    Secondly... most really creative, innovative, and grand things are done by folks who don't have kids- not something that's talked about a lot, but this is a *general* fact certainly supported by history. I (selfishly) hope this happy event doesn't foreshadow a slowdown of Carmack's cutting-edge technology work.

    He deserves spending time with his kids rather than coding if he wants, though. Meh. Who knows. :)

    RD

    • Secondly... most really creative, innovative, and grand things are done by folks who don't have kids- not something that's talked about a lot, but this is a *general* fact certainly supported by history.

      I'm highly skeptical of this actually being some kind of rule. The only people I can think of who were real technological movers and shakers who didn't have kids were "mad-scientists"...And even some of those people seem to have at least had illegitimate children, even if they were never formally marrie

      • Actually this is statistically proven. All scientists, engineers, even poets produced their best work before raising families.

        Of course it could be a youth thing or even a male thing, as statistically histories "greatest achievements" have been done by men. Please don't label me as sexist, I assure you I am not.

        In fact it makes more sense if it is only men who are affected by this as it is young men who are trying to appear impressive in order to get a mate. Hmm, it makes you reconsider your timeplan for
        • As much as things can indeed be statistically proven, they are only a guide to understand the past, not the present or the future. Moreover there may be correlation between levels of achievement and lack of offsprings but correlation is not causation.

          Fathers do tend to spend more time with their kids now than in the even recent past. This is a good thing. Let's not worry about whether J.C's next engine will be as good as the previous ones. I hope he enjoys his son and don't fret about such stats, which onl
      • "If families are a hindrance to the system, perhaps it's the system that needs to go...not the other way around."

        Your last sentence is one of the very few things that actually need to become sound bites, and get heard by a lot bigger group than slashdot.
  • I'm sure the owner of amdzone thanks you for linking to a page with high resolution screen shots and slashdotting the server back to the stone age.

  • RTFA'd (Score:5, Informative)

    by wfberg ( 24378 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @08:20PM (#9970956)
    the next engine,
    working on it, won't be done before next year.

    the Xbox,
    Same demo shown as on E3, "The game, to put it simply, looks great, and it reminded me a lot of the recently released Chronicles of Riddick", dolby 5.1 sound, not as good as PC.

    OS X,
    Port runs, no plans for release, platform (I'm guessing they mean videocards) sucks too much.

    Linux ports,
    Linux server done, client will be out when Duke Nukem Forever comes out.

    id's standing on piracy
    It sucks. Next game's international launch won't lag behind US launch.

    Carmack's vision of game engines for movie rendering
    next engine will be Good Enough.

    • Re:RTFA'd (Score:3, Interesting)

      by brokencomputer ( 695672 )
      OS X, Port runs, no plans for release, platform (I'm guessing they mean videocards) sucks too much.
      So the port works, but they aren't going to release it? Sorry the article is slashdotted, so I haven't been able to read this.

    • Re:RTFA'd (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Nogami_Saeko ( 466595 )

      id's standing on piracy
      It sucks. Next game's international launch won't lag behind US launch.

      Not good enough. Electronic distribution is the only way to fix the problem. Even if it means they have to write their own "steam-type" distribution system.

      (and before the anti-steam crowd gets their back up, I only mean that they should explore using a downloader client to download an encrypted version of the game to the local system, then allow people to purchase the keys that unlock the game on release day

      • ...they should explore using a downloader client to download an encrypted version of the game to the local system, then allow people to purchase the keys that unlock the game on release day...

        Unfortunately, a number of shortsighted politicians [rechten.uvt.nl] are preventing that from being deployed commercially on a worldwide scale.

    • Re:RTFA'd (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Pentagram ( 40862 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @09:21PM (#9971276) Homepage
      id's standing on piracy
      It sucks. Next game's international launch won't lag behind US launch.

      If id/Activision want to discourage copying, they're going the wrong way about it:

      * The aforementioned staggered release dates (it doesn't matter if it takes longer to ship/manufacture in various countries; delay all copies till it's ready!)

      * Making the official version less useable than cracked versions, by:
      - Requiring a registration key (and telling you to look in the wrong place for it)
      - Requiring the CD to be in the drive before playing
      - Refusing to install if a copy of cloneCD etc. is present (and giving an error message about "DVD emulation"??) - this really pissed me off; it's not id's business what else I have on my machine

      * Etc.

      And another thing that annoyed me was the installer trying to access the internet (blocked by my firewall) without asking (auto-registration? how rude...)

    • Re:RTFA'd (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Mr. Sketch ( 111112 )
      Linux ports,
      Linux server done, client will be out when Duke Nukem Forever comes out.

      I sure hope not. I wasn't planning on buying until the Linux version came out just on principle. I do have a windows machine that will play it, but I'm still waiting for the Linux port since Linux is my primary OS.
      • Well according to 9971010 [slashdot.org](a presumably accurate mirror of the article):

        Linux was the next subject, and the Linux server is done. They are using it at Quakecon, but it is a couple of weeks of testing away from being released. The Linux client is a bit further away.

        So I'd guess it's alive but in need of finalising. Given the track record of id, I would be stunned if a Linux client does not appear. I will not however be buying until I can play it on Linux, I would still buy it though even if it would onl

  • In other news... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 14, 2004 @08:23PM (#9970975)
    Gabe Newell of Valce software recently gave birth to quadruplets.

  • Text (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 14, 2004 @08:31PM (#9971010)
    Site slow. Here's the text:

    Quakecon 2004 is in full swing. id's baby Doom 3 has just been delivered, and yesterday id genius John Carmack became a proud father as his wife gave birth to their first child. This meant for the first time John was unable to give his traditional state of the id talk. Luckily a DVD was cut of his talk which was played for Quakecon attendees looking for their Carmack fix. This was followed by a question and answer session with questions taken on cards from attendees. What follows if our summary of Carmacks talk with a look at thoughtful questions from the Q and A. Expect hints and the new engine and game, Quake 4, and the dedicated Linux server, and Linux client port as well as id's view on piracy, and the further blurring of movies and gaming, and the tools that make them.

    Carmack talked a great deal about the technical features of the Doom 3 engine to explain new features he is working on for the next gen engine. He explained features like floating point blending, and how he enjoyed the unlimited instruction count of modern video cards. He also touched on polygon count which used to be a limiter, but he says now and going forward that is no longer the case.

    He also talked about the art and craft of game engine design. The complexity has changed tremendously and an important feature of modern engines he believes must be giving the designers the tools they desire.

    He gave us a look back at the beginnings of the Doom 3 engine. He took the Quake 3 engine, and took out the renderer for the first steps of the new engine. While Quake 3 was written in C the core of Doom 3 is C++.

    He began research on the new engine two months ago. He is pondering rendering image design issues. He stated that in theory all game engines should draw media from other engines. He believes that by years end they will be rendering scenes with the new engine, but the renderer will not be ready for a year.

    Carmack believes that rendering has gotten to the point that it is approaching offline rendering that movie studios use. The new engine will be at that point. While is it has been revealed that Doom 3 can be used for machinima, it is not quite to the level that movie studios will have real interest. Perhaps this is the engine Red vs Blue may could move to?
    Carmack pointed out that a single system could be built with multiple PCI Express cards that could rival some rendering farms thanks to much lower latency and could cost in the $10,000 range. Nvidia indeed revealed in their presentation Friday that they are working on solutions for more than 2 video cards in SLI.

    When this hardware is available Carmack expects tv shows to implement it, and lower budget movies. He believes it will take more time to get the blockbuster big effect movies on board, but it is only a matter of time.

    Much has been made of the new graphics engine for Doom 3, but Carmack expressed surprise on the interest in the new sound system. Carmack took over coding duties for the sound engine with a goal to make it as simple as possible.

    When John took the reigns he cut the code to half of what it has previously been. He made a point of saying that the code was very simple, and it did what the designers wanted it to do. In fact the sound editing is fully integrated to in game. You can manipulate if fully and see the effects immediately.

    This real time rendering is a goal for the new engine not only for sound but also for graphics rendering engine. Carmack wants the designers to have as close to real time manipulation of the engine as is possible. An example he cited was vis times for Quake 3 would be around 30 minutes, but in the Doom 3 engine it is real time.

    Carmack next hinted at a timetable for the next game. He does not want it to take as long as Doom 3. For Doom 3 the designers had broken tools for a year, and that will not be the case with the next game.

    The next game will have a single player focus with simple multiplayer added on with the mod and othe
    • The next question centered on pirating, and of course much was made of copies downloaded a couple of days before the release. In fact id staff was in Hong Kong a few days before the US release and they found pirated copies being sold with full packaging.

      CEO Todd Hollenshead particularly hit away at this issue. It is his belief that pirating only hurts the industry particularly as game production becomes more expensive. He feels studios like Looking Glass may be around if it wasn't for pirating. He worries

  • *brain explodes* (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @08:40PM (#9971068) Journal
    John Carmack, great 3D engine designer, source of quotes like:

    "I don't like team activities. Neither in real life, nor in computer games."
    "I led a normal geek childhood... "

    ... father of a baby?!

    What's next, CowboyNeal on a date? :-S

    • Re:*brain explodes* (Score:5, Funny)

      by PetoskeyGuy ( 648788 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @11:48PM (#9972022)
      "I don't like team activities. Neither in real life, nor in computer games."
      "I led a normal geek childhood... "

      ... father of a baby?!
      Sounds right to me.

      Fathering a Baby shouldn't be a Team Activity. More of a 1 on 1 match. :o)

    • Not to mention his infamous "gameplay innovation is overrated" quote. Pretty much sums up the approach behind id Software's tech demos, er, games, doesn't it?

      From a disappointed Doom fan who thought the third one would finally break the trend...

  • fatherhood (Score:2, Insightful)

    by godEcho ( 115505 )
    Congrats on fatherhood John. Hope things are going well w/the family.

  • Audio? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Is there an audio record of what he said? It would be great to actually hear him instead of read someone's summary.

  • DOOM 3 (Score:2, Insightful)

    by sinner0423 ( 687266 )
    Personally, I think it was a great game, with technology that will be in most if not all the games in the future.

    Remember how many games have used the quake engine, too. At least a dozen come to mind. Even Half Life, as I understand it, uses a modified quake engine as it's base. I hope iD continues to make games, and set trends in the gaming industry. It's unfortunate that all of their titles have been first person shooters.. I think a genre change would definately garner success for them.

    These ga

  • It's Nice How Respectful They Are (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jameth ( 664111 ) on Saturday August 14, 2004 @09:54PM (#9971438)

    A Mac "gamer" asked about the port to OS X

    Yes, that's right. It's not a Mac gamer, it's a Mac "gamer".

    Thanks for the laugh, AMDZone.

    • Just because you are a gamer does not mean you are a computer gamer. Some ppl like to point out that are not a gamer when it comes to their computer (like an AIX or Mac, although I'm positive many more people are Mac gamers than AIX gamers). If you've been to a gaming convention, you've probably experienced the argument over gamer semantics. There is no standard that is agreed upon AFAIK. Last convention (Strategicon) I attended was 2 years ago.
    • Why do you even care?

      I mean, what they say has zero impact on your life. If they want to go on and on about how AMD stomps Intel or Microsoft is better than Apple on their own website ... does it matter? You *know* that someone is doing so somewhere on the Internet, anyway.

  • proof (Score:2, Funny)

    by DarthTaco ( 687646 )
    this is proof that carmack doesn't exist anymore. he uploaded himself to his computer to make the doom engine. my friends, this is how the matrix gets started.

  • Armadillo Aerospace Not Mentioned? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Buran ( 150348 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @12:35AM (#9972217)
    There doesn't seem to be a mention of Armadillo Aerospace here, and since Carmack runs the company, I think it should be mentioned in a "what we're up to" story, even if the story is basically about id Software. So, here it is:

    Armadillo Aerospace is based in Mesquite, Texas, and is a rocketry research firm that is one of those trying to win the X-Prize. The Armadillo prototype crashed during its last flight test and it doesn't look like they'll be able to compete for the prize because of what it will take to get their vehicle rebuilt and flying again (in terms of money and time), but they'll keep going and see what they can do to reach the point where they're ready to launch manned flights.

    Armadillo Aerospace's X Prize Prototype Crashes [space.com]

    And there's a video available of the crash [armadilloaerospace.com] in MPEG format.

    I'm still expecting the Scaled Composites team (led by Burt Rutan) to win, but I'm still intrigued by AA and the Canadian Arrow team; I'm still dubious about the DaVinci Project, which has yet to actually fly anything.

    This is exactly what the X-Prize is meant to do, though: spur the development of a new industry by providing an incentive for privately held teams and individuals to step in and make space accessible to the public.

    I applaud Carmack for not being afraid to try. It's amazing what ingenuity can do even when you don't have the deep pockets of government-funded space efforts. Or maybe especially when; necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention.

    And yes, I bought the game; I'm proud to say that I, no matter if it was not done directly, helped to support an effort to put civilians into space with civilian launch systems.

  • Video of the id Q&A Session (Score:3, Informative)

    by Rogerpq3 ( 602113 ) on Sunday August 15, 2004 @12:52AM (#9972284) Homepage
    Here's a link to download video I took of the id Software Q&A session which was right after Carmack's taped address. http://planetquake3.net/download.php?op=viewdownlo addetails&lid=2104 [planetquake3.net]

  • Development Costs (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bulln-Bulln ( 659072 ) <bulln-bulln@netscape.net> on Sunday August 15, 2004 @04:36AM (#9972840)
    Quote from the GameSpy interview:
    "videogames are costing more and more money to develop, taking longer and longer"

    Did Todd Hollenshead breath martian air?
    Earth to Hollenshead (and other developers): You don't need to spend millions to develop a graphics engine. You donn't need to spend millions to create super-duper render videos.
    Just create good games.

    Dispite the technological achievment of Doom 3, it's just a OK game. I don't say that Doom3 is bad. It's just not that great.

    High costs don't mean good games. Enter the Matrix is another example.
    OTOH there are games like Pikmin. I don't think that the development of Pikmin was just as expensive as Doom 3.
    Heck, Solitaire is probably the most played computer game in the world.

    I don't say that developers have to make cheap games. No. It's OK when a game has high development costs, but nobody is forcing you that *all* games cost a lot of money.
  • Does anyone know what kind of system Carmack is developing on? Is it and AMD or Intel based system? Does he use a 512 MB graphics card? It would be nice to get some information on this.
  • Companies like ID (i.e. those that actually care about linux) already use cross-platform C/C++ and cross-platform libraries for their games.

    e.g. OpenGL for graphics.
    OpenAL for audio
    SDL for inputs and stuff
    some kind of cross-platform networking API (I would guess there is one)
    etc

    Why then cant they build the whole thing to be cross-platform from the get go and keep it cross platform all the way through.
    As long as they dont use any windows specific items (e.g. windows API calls) or impelement a linux "port"

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