"**if I have to do any sort of math involoving a distance from the viewpoint calculation or a projection, its realtime 3d.**"
By that standard SuperMarioWorld for the SNES was was realtime 3D, as was FZero for the SNES(along with a slew of other games). I'm also looking at this from a graphics engine standpoint, but pretty much any definition based on your stance(any 3rd dimension factor) will include dozens if not hundreds of games prior to DooM(ignoring actual 3D titles like the original StarFox).
IIRC Carmack himself calls DooM's engine 2.5D, a real 3D engine has objects that take up space, DooM does not have this.
#34 - Coming on strong as in the Ziplock distribution method was common in about 1980-1982. By 1984 there were plenty of places that sold boxed, retail games with nice graphics, etc. By the time the Nintendo console debuted, you would have been hard pressed to find anything other than Shareware shipping in plastic bags.
Back in the 80s, *everything* was advancing quickly. I mean, what was the first arcade game? Gun Fight? Amazing Maze? Something like that, I'm sure. Released in the late 70s, I believe. The quality of those titles really wasn't any better than the plastic bag games like Akalabeth, and arguably worse.
Anyway, I stand by my statements as well. Computers would have come to be with or without games, and once they came to exist in the home, it was inevitable that someone would make games for them. The stuff done by early hackers on main frames is testament to that fact. Without Miyamoto, about the only thing I am willing to guarantee is that Nintendo wouldn't be around today. Someone else would have filled the gap in hardware and software, though, as the existence of electronic toys was just a magnet drawing all geeks to it.
In 1984, Origin and Electronic Arts were already producing games and making money, and other companies were entering the computer gaming market. Miyamoto and Nintendo had nothing at all to do with PC gaming surviving. You can stand by your statements all you like, but I'm stepping aside, Mr. Zax, and going happily on my way.
first off, I'm gonna appologize if I came off insulting when i said that the games mentioned weren't 3d. bad day plus passion (and different perspective) about subject equals bad combination :-) sorry.
#33 - KF -- I'm not sure where john came up with the factor of 100 number, but I do know that he was including the added processing power of the GPU in his factor of a million statement. I know he wasn't talking about pure MIPS or FLOPS performance, so its going to be a question of percieved usable power available to a game engine ... it might be a bit subjective, but we'll give John the benefit of the doubt.
Back to the 2d vs 3d question ... last visit for me :-)
I think we've got a definition issue. I'm coming at this from a graphics engine standpoint (and what I used to do in my spare time). From a graphics engine standpoint, whether i'm working with geometry, sprites or an array that holds wall data, this is what it comes down to:
**if I have to do any sort of math involoving a distance from the viewpoint calculation or a projection, its realtime 3d.**
even raycasting (orig wolf3d engine) involves taking some data and creating a 2d projection based on tracing rays from the viewer to an object (causeing depth to affect the final rendering). there's that 3rd dimension :-)
just because the guys at id represented their 3d world with two dimensions of data doesn't mean that their graphics engine was 2d. it just means they didn't store data they didn't need.
from an interface perspective, you only had 2 degrees of freedom in early games, but this still doesn't say anything about the graphics engine.
What I meant by the "environment [those games] are in" was that what we end up seeing is a 2d projection of a 3d rendering (as is true with all current 3d computer graphics from wolf3d to Doom 3).
If you want to restrict labeling 3d games to games with: true 3d physical interation with the world, true 3d levels characters and objects, and a true 3d "environment", then I don't think we can call any games 3d games until we have display technology that doesn't require a 2d projection. Unless you wanna look at the possibility of stereoscopic 3d with 2 2d projections for each frame (one for each eye) and some nice goggles...
But as long as we can recognize that those games had all had 3d engines, it can be acceptible for the first few games on the list to not be called 3d games, but rather games rendered in 3d.
But ... duke3d and the build engine? 6 degrees of freedom for motion, almost free looking (the viewer couldn't tilt his/her head sideways, but could look left right up and down at any angle). So levels are built with a bunch of "2.5d" shapes ... I don't think I could stop calling duke3d a 3d game :-)
again, I'm sorry if I got lines crossed and reacted less than optimally. I hope I've clarified where I was coming from though :-)
[q]Those games are 3d games because the environment they are in are 3d.[/q]
The environment they are in is not 3D however, try looking up. He pulled off some extremely impressive tricks with those engines, but they are 2D based.
[q]However, C64 and Amiga were coming on strong, and the PC was just starting out.[/q]
Strong? Games distributed in zip lock bags is strong? The comments thread isn't a good place to have a discussion as lengthy as this one would require, but I was there for the early computer gaming days too. I'm not speaking as someone who is new to either end of the spectrum, and I stand by my statements.
>the computing power we have now is about one >million times that of his first Apple machine. Did John Carmack explain "a million." Apple II's original 6502 processor was pobably 1 MHz, although it might have been more. The Apple IIc, with the "c" was later I think, and so a higher clock. 4G/1M=4000. Getting that up to 1 million is tricky. We need another factor of 250 Let see, 32 vs 8 bits is a factor of 4. I'd guess instructions per cycle was 1/4 for a 6502, and maybe 2 for a P4, for another factor of 8. We are up to a factor of 32. It's only short by a factor 8, but maybe John Carmack has one of those 8 processor computers.
>...with about 100 times more power, Carmack thinks we will be able > to do in real time what it currently takes four and a half hours to render...
4.5 x 60 minutes x 60 seconds x 60 frames comes close to a factor of 1 million. So, did John Carmack explain why a factor of 100 going to be enough?
#27, I think you're entirely wrong. I remember the early 80s quite well. Consoles were dying in the wake of Atari problems, true. However, C64 and Amiga were coming on strong, and the PC was just starting out.
My point isn't that Shigeru isn't influential, it's that he wasn't exactly innovative. He has had zero impact on the world of PC gaming, and in fact you could argue that if anything he has *hurt* the world of PC gaming. In the land of the consoles, however, it's a completely different story. He created/saved Nintendo, which then allowed Sega and later Sony to enter into the competition. With or without him, though, PC gaming would have continued.
The problem with console games is that they discourage innovation, because there is a much larger barrier to entry. PC games have shareware (although not as much these days), demos, betas, etc. You can also create mods, map packs, etc. There is no real way to enter into the console game creation world without a significant investment of capitol, and that means that crazy and innovative ideas are less likely to come from that realm of gaming. Yes, some titles are still innovative, but overall, consoles steal ideas that were successful elsewhere more than they create them.
"umm...wolfestein 3d, doom, heretic, hexen, duke Nukem 3d umm....AREN'T 3d"
Woah! do0d. That's the most wrong thing I've seen in a while.
In the grand scheme of things, we have as much left to render "correctly" now as we did then. Its all about approximations, optical illusions and doing whatever is good enough and fast at the same time.
billboarding sprites is a valid way to represent 3d objects in 3d virtual environment without sacrificing polygons. Its still done today in some cases.
Those games are 3d games because the environment they are in are 3d.
IMO Carmack is a nigh deity in his field. His engines have always been beyond reproach and the level of polish they ship with in Alpha build state still exceeds most EA titles after a year of patches. His impact on the PC gaming industry is undeniable, his concepts for general 3D rendering are still what drives almost all real time 3D today- PC or otherwise. As an engine coder, Carmack is very easily in a class he shares with noone and I don't see that changing any time close to soon.
That said, his influence in the gaming market is a pittance at best compared to Miyamoto. Anyone here old enough to remember 1984 and the post Bushnell Atari along with the resulting fallout will recall that video games were about to be placed in history alongside the likes of Rubik's Cube, Pogo Balls and the like. They were a quick fad that was now over with. Miyamoto rescued the entire industry from ruin- and in the process he created, revolutionized and refined a good deal of the genres that are still around today. Without Carmack we would very likely be without FPSs, without Miyamoto Carmack very likely wouldn't have gotten the chance to be "John Carmack". That says nothing about the man's enormous talents, but without gaming he may have ended up some boring NASA stiff ;)
umm...wolfestein 3d, doom, heretic, hexen, duke Nukem 3d umm....AREN'T 3d.
I get what you are trying to say tho. And i also get what #21 is trying to say. Wouldn't it just be easier to say that both JC and SM make influential products?
Personally, i think that Id makes more tech demo's than games, but maybe thats just me.
#21... Come on, you can't be serious. Super Mario 64 as the chief influence for all 3D and FPS game interfaces? Not hardly.
Super Mario 64 - released 1996 Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - released 1998
See any problem with that? No? Okay, let's just list a *few* of the PC games with 3D interfaces that came first.
Wolfenstein 3D - released 1992 Doom - released 1993 Heretic - 1994 Hexen - 1995 Descent - 1995 Duke Nukem 3D - 1996 Quake - 1996
That's only a small portion of the 3D games that came out on the PC *before* Mario 64 and Zelda: OOT were released. In fact, you could make the argument that the only reason consoles started to pursue 3D graphics with Nintendo 64, Sega Saturn, and Sony Playstation was due to the incredible success of the early 3D PC gaming market.
Let's not even mention persistent worlds that have been in PC games long before consoles even had the capability of storing that much "state". Here are a few examples, though: Bard's Tale, Wasteland, Ultima III-VIII, Might and Magic I-VI, etc.
It's not a question of buttons. Doom could be played with six or seven buttons if you wanted, and Quake requires six buttons and a mouse. Mario 64 and Zelda require at least as many buttons, and because they lack a mouse, inventory management is much more of a pain in the ass then on a PC. They did the best they could with the console gamepad controllers, but that doesn't make it a model of perfection.
Anyway, you're right that story telling isn't necessarily innovative in and of itself. The thing is, if the story isn't innovative, the graphics aren't innovative, and the user interface isn't innovative, there's not much left. Which is why I said that Mario and Zelda are not innovative games. At least Carmack has the 3D Engine to be innovative with.
One good thing I can take away from that article is that he thinks graphics-technology will be able to render photo-realisitic scenes in real-time in ten years or so. That has to be excellent news.
The reason that cheers me up so much isn't the prospect of how pretteh games could look then as I'm fairly happy the quality we have now -- its because making even better quality graphics will no longer be worthwhile and developers will be forced to concentrate instead on *gameplay* which has been sadly neglected by many for several years!
It never ceases to amaze me how little respect PC gamers have for the console scene. If only because it was Nintendo who single-handedly made the modern gaming industry a reality, you should treat Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo with a little bit more respect. I?m not going to say Carmack and Monoleuyx aren?t great developers because they are. But there were no games like those that existed at the beginning of NES-era. Every played a 3D Shooter of any kind? Control mechanics borrow heavily from Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Ever played a 3rd person game? Same answer. Ever played a game with a persistent world? The Zelda series birthed that idea as well. There is not a game today that is not subject to Miyamoto-san?s all-pervasive influence. Even games that are called truly innovative like GTA and MGS are, in fact, evolutionary products of the games that were designed by Miyamoto and Co. What bothers me the most about your comments, however, is that you seem to adhere to the FPS-er stereotype that ?more buttons is better.? The mechanics of a Zelda, Mario, Pikmin etc. aren?t as complicated as your CS?s, HL?s, et al and so you dismiss them. But true innovation is not restricted by the use of a controller with a whopping total of 11 buttons. And true innovation isn?t found in great stories either (which is why the modern Final Fantasy series is such a joke).
Programming isn't for everyone. I started with Qbasic in high school. I taught myself web design, asp etc. to get me through college where I learned VB, C++, and my arch nemesis Cobol. I'm trying to train myself for a career in the game industry at the moment. I would recommend checking out a few websites for information about the industry, job profiles and answers to questions you might have:
Try writing press releases for games you like or even games that you think suck so that you have something to show a potential recruiter what you can do.
Unfortuantly, I just didn't get into programming. Visual Basic made me wanna cry and C++ about made me wanna commit suicided. Which is sad, cause I had the heart to develop games but just not the know how of programming.
Been wondering how I can get into the gaming market as a PR representative or something, cause I love telling people about games, technology and upcoming tech.
The Doom 3 engine *is* up and running now, and has been for some time. The content is not there, however, because it takes far longer to create than previous games' content.
I was one of the lucky people to buy Doom from the Software Creation BBS, the same BBS that was the shareware capital of the modem world. In fact I was sold the 31st copy produced, I still have the 3 1/2 disks :) It started the 3d experience for me and also my building PC's to keep up with Carmacks games! LOL In a way Carmack changed my life. :D
However I got a different perspective from this article than most of you seemed to.
After reading where it's being considered possible to revamp the Q3 engine with better graphics, internal alarms started going off. I may be a pessimist, but that sounds as if the ID camp may be getting Doom 3 out of the door much later than anticipated.
The Unreal Team seems to have a much better graphics engine available now. I hope that JC can get the Doom 3 engine up and running sooner.
Good informative easy to read article, whats how I like em.
When I talk about upcomming games to others I am often surprised at how little they look forward to upcomming work by john carmacks like Doom3, its proof that they just haven't been around long enough and don't know who their god is!
just start something on the side Turnip ;-) That's how many of the people break into the industry ... create a rockin mod or find some other people out there (like me) who are interested in a little on the side game development... that way, if id Software or Epic offers you a job, you can feel good about leaving your favorite "boring" company for something just a little bit more exciting ;-)
<sigh> Sometimes I almost wish I didn't love the "boring" software applications company I work for, so that I could get out there and do something about the game I dream of.
I don't think there is a tech journalist out there who wouldn't want to get some one on one time with Carmack... but the supply falls way short of the demand on that one ;-)
There was a short group QA sessoin in which John decried the value of game design oriented schooling (saying the value is in what people can do in the real world, not how well they've mastered stale curriculums), mentioned that he thinks the direction the PS3 is taking with its parallel architecture is of little value, and talked about X-Prize.
He also mentioned that Doom III would be ready when its ready ;-)
And I can tell you right now with a fair ammount of confidence that PCI Express won't make a real difference in playing current games (read any game that will come out this year). I can stream multiple HD quality videos to my GPU in real time though :-)
Maybe it's just me, but I found this article not to be very informative. It just spews about the greatness of John Carmack and his past accomplishments. It would have been a much better read if the author had received some Q&A time with Carmack and asked him questions such as "When is Doom III due on the street" or "Do PCI Express cards make a difference in game speed". Now that would have been informative.
Okay, so you've got Zelda and Mario and what not. They didn't really *push* the envelope, though. Nintendo games always seem to trail behind on the technology and innovation curve. Maybe the original Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros. were "innovators", but back then everything was new and different. Hell, Asteroids was "state of the art" at one point in time. All Shigeru has done was to hone the art of the platform game, and every iteration of the Zelda and Mario franchises just gets less and less impressive.
About the only thing Carmack and Shigeru have in common is that neither one can tell a really, truly great story. Shigeru does great with kid stories, and Carmack makes wicked 3D engines. Neither one could compete with the stories of any decent author, though. Or maybe it's just that I'm not Japanese... do adults in Japan actually think the stories in the Mario games are interesting? I hope not....
#6: "real talk, and in all seriousness: shigeru miyamoto > john carmack
as far as influence in video games is concerned. "
I'll bite.
That is arguable if you are talking about video games in a general sense, but I don't think you can call it. Sure, mario and zelda have defined and influenced hords of other games (including Carmack's own Commander Keen), but then Wolfenstein defined and influenced the entire first person genre of games while quake sparked the push to full 3d games and shifed gaming performance into a position of major influence in the PC space.
But regardless of who has had more impact on video games in general, PC games and hardware follow where Carmack leads.
#4, yes, carmack has just about given up his hopes for a hell on earth, that is why he is putting all this effort into finding a portal to hell in space
Last I heard, Carmack was leaving the game industry and pursing high end space travel company.
Playing Far Cry last night, I really began to realize what direction we are headed in the next generation of graphics. Alot has happend in 10 years since DOOM first changed many of our lives the moment we sat down with our playware versions on 3 floppy disks, did a C:memchecker command on DOS 4.0 and loaded it up to see what computer were REALLY capable of doing.
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BenSkywalker - Wednesday, April 7, 2004 - link
"**if I have to do any sort of math involoving a distance from the viewpoint calculation or a projection, its realtime 3d.**"By that standard SuperMarioWorld for the SNES was was realtime 3D, as was FZero for the SNES(along with a slew of other games). I'm also looking at this from a graphics engine standpoint, but pretty much any definition based on your stance(any 3rd dimension factor) will include dozens if not hundreds of games prior to DooM(ignoring actual 3D titles like the original StarFox).
IIRC Carmack himself calls DooM's engine 2.5D, a real 3D engine has objects that take up space, DooM does not have this.
TrogdorJW - Monday, April 5, 2004 - link
#34 - Coming on strong as in the Ziplock distribution method was common in about 1980-1982. By 1984 there were plenty of places that sold boxed, retail games with nice graphics, etc. By the time the Nintendo console debuted, you would have been hard pressed to find anything other than Shareware shipping in plastic bags.Back in the 80s, *everything* was advancing quickly. I mean, what was the first arcade game? Gun Fight? Amazing Maze? Something like that, I'm sure. Released in the late 70s, I believe. The quality of those titles really wasn't any better than the plastic bag games like Akalabeth, and arguably worse.
Anyway, I stand by my statements as well. Computers would have come to be with or without games, and once they came to exist in the home, it was inevitable that someone would make games for them. The stuff done by early hackers on main frames is testament to that fact. Without Miyamoto, about the only thing I am willing to guarantee is that Nintendo wouldn't be around today. Someone else would have filled the gap in hardware and software, though, as the existence of electronic toys was just a magnet drawing all geeks to it.
In 1984, Origin and Electronic Arts were already producing games and making money, and other companies were entering the computer gaming market. Miyamoto and Nintendo had nothing at all to do with PC gaming surviving. You can stand by your statements all you like, but I'm stepping aside, Mr. Zax, and going happily on my way.
DerekWilson - Sunday, April 4, 2004 - link
first off, I'm gonna appologize if I came off insulting when i said that the games mentioned weren't 3d. bad day plus passion (and different perspective) about subject equals bad combination :-) sorry.#33 - KF -- I'm not sure where john came up with the factor of 100 number, but I do know that he was including the added processing power of the GPU in his factor of a million statement. I know he wasn't talking about pure MIPS or FLOPS performance, so its going to be a question of percieved usable power available to a game engine ... it might be a bit subjective, but we'll give John the benefit of the doubt.
Back to the 2d vs 3d question ... last visit for me :-)
I think we've got a definition issue. I'm coming at this from a graphics engine standpoint (and what I used to do in my spare time). From a graphics engine standpoint, whether i'm working with geometry, sprites or an array that holds wall data, this is what it comes down to:
**if I have to do any sort of math involoving a distance from the viewpoint calculation or a projection, its realtime 3d.**
even raycasting (orig wolf3d engine) involves taking some data and creating a 2d projection based on tracing rays from the viewer to an object (causeing depth to affect the final rendering). there's that 3rd dimension :-)
just because the guys at id represented their 3d world with two dimensions of data doesn't mean that their graphics engine was 2d. it just means they didn't store data they didn't need.
from an interface perspective, you only had 2 degrees of freedom in early games, but this still doesn't say anything about the graphics engine.
What I meant by the "environment [those games] are in" was that what we end up seeing is a 2d projection of a 3d rendering (as is true with all current 3d computer graphics from wolf3d to Doom 3).
If you want to restrict labeling 3d games to games with: true 3d physical interation with the world, true 3d levels characters and objects, and a true 3d "environment", then I don't think we can call any games 3d games until we have display technology that doesn't require a 2d projection. Unless you wanna look at the possibility of stereoscopic 3d with 2 2d projections for each frame (one for each eye) and some nice goggles...
But as long as we can recognize that those games had all had 3d engines, it can be acceptible for the first few games on the list to not be called 3d games, but rather games rendered in 3d.
But ... duke3d and the build engine? 6 degrees of freedom for motion, almost free looking (the viewer couldn't tilt his/her head sideways, but could look left right up and down at any angle). So levels are built with a bunch of "2.5d" shapes ... I don't think I could stop calling duke3d a 3d game :-)
again, I'm sorry if I got lines crossed and reacted less than optimally. I hope I've clarified where I was coming from though :-)
BenSkywalker - Sunday, April 4, 2004 - link
[q]Those games are 3d games because the environment they are in are 3d.[/q]The environment they are in is not 3D however, try looking up. He pulled off some extremely impressive tricks with those engines, but they are 2D based.
[q]However, C64 and Amiga were coming on strong, and the PC was just starting out.[/q]
Strong? Games distributed in zip lock bags is strong? The comments thread isn't a good place to have a discussion as lengthy as this one would require, but I was there for the early computer gaming days too. I'm not speaking as someone who is new to either end of the spectrum, and I stand by my statements.
KF - Saturday, April 3, 2004 - link
>the computing power we have now is about one>million times that of his first Apple machine.
Did John Carmack explain "a million."
Apple II's original 6502 processor was pobably 1 MHz, although it might have been more. The Apple IIc, with the "c" was later I think, and so a higher clock. 4G/1M=4000. Getting that up to 1 million is tricky. We need another factor of 250 Let see, 32 vs 8 bits is a factor of 4. I'd guess instructions per cycle was 1/4 for a 6502, and maybe 2 for a P4, for another factor of 8. We are up to a factor of 32. It's only short by a factor 8, but maybe John Carmack has one of those 8 processor computers.
>...with about 100 times more power, Carmack thinks we will be able
> to do in real time what it currently takes four and a half hours to render...
4.5 x 60 minutes x 60 seconds x 60 frames comes close to a factor of 1 million. So, did John Carmack explain why a factor of 100 going to be enough?
TrogdorJW - Thursday, April 1, 2004 - link
#27, I think you're entirely wrong. I remember the early 80s quite well. Consoles were dying in the wake of Atari problems, true. However, C64 and Amiga were coming on strong, and the PC was just starting out.My point isn't that Shigeru isn't influential, it's that he wasn't exactly innovative. He has had zero impact on the world of PC gaming, and in fact you could argue that if anything he has *hurt* the world of PC gaming. In the land of the consoles, however, it's a completely different story. He created/saved Nintendo, which then allowed Sega and later Sony to enter into the competition. With or without him, though, PC gaming would have continued.
The problem with console games is that they discourage innovation, because there is a much larger barrier to entry. PC games have shareware (although not as much these days), demos, betas, etc. You can also create mods, map packs, etc. There is no real way to enter into the console game creation world without a significant investment of capitol, and that means that crazy and innovative ideas are less likely to come from that realm of gaming. Yes, some titles are still innovative, but overall, consoles steal ideas that were successful elsewhere more than they create them.
DaveNCheez - Thursday, April 1, 2004 - link
I would love Quake2 Remix. Quake 2 is probably my favorite ID game... And I have been playing since the Commander Keen Days hehe...Just hard to get a game going.. Most friends don't want to play it or don't know about it. And there is no in game server browser...
Quake2 Remix would be a blast.
mvt3 - Thursday, April 1, 2004 - link
just cause it's personally interesting to me...define influence in the game industry...i think carmack has a hell of a lot, as did shigeryu
hmm ed logg though...no one mentioned him. also perhaps find this of interest:
http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?lette...
there are many people that had incredible influence just a little more subtle than the overly publicized ones.
carmack's engines rule though. must say it.
CrystalBay - Thursday, April 1, 2004 - link
Q2 remix does sound interesting...DerekWilson - Thursday, April 1, 2004 - link
#26:"umm...wolfestein 3d, doom, heretic, hexen, duke Nukem 3d umm....AREN'T 3d"
Woah! do0d. That's the most wrong thing I've seen in a while.
In the grand scheme of things, we have as much left to render "correctly" now as we did then. Its all about approximations, optical illusions and doing whatever is good enough and fast at the same time.
billboarding sprites is a valid way to represent 3d objects in 3d virtual environment without sacrificing polygons. Its still done today in some cases.
Those games are 3d games because the environment they are in are 3d.
BenSkywalker - Thursday, April 1, 2004 - link
IMO Carmack is a nigh deity in his field. His engines have always been beyond reproach and the level of polish they ship with in Alpha build state still exceeds most EA titles after a year of patches. His impact on the PC gaming industry is undeniable, his concepts for general 3D rendering are still what drives almost all real time 3D today- PC or otherwise. As an engine coder, Carmack is very easily in a class he shares with noone and I don't see that changing any time close to soon.That said, his influence in the gaming market is a pittance at best compared to Miyamoto. Anyone here old enough to remember 1984 and the post Bushnell Atari along with the resulting fallout will recall that video games were about to be placed in history alongside the likes of Rubik's Cube, Pogo Balls and the like. They were a quick fad that was now over with. Miyamoto rescued the entire industry from ruin- and in the process he created, revolutionized and refined a good deal of the genres that are still around today. Without Carmack we would very likely be without FPSs, without Miyamoto Carmack very likely wouldn't have gotten the chance to be "John Carmack". That says nothing about the man's enormous talents, but without gaming he may have ended up some boring NASA stiff ;)
iwantedT - Thursday, April 1, 2004 - link
#24umm...wolfestein 3d, doom, heretic, hexen, duke Nukem 3d umm....AREN'T 3d.
I get what you are trying to say tho. And i also get what #21 is trying to say. Wouldn't it just be easier to say that both JC and SM make influential products?
Personally, i think that Id makes more tech demo's than games, but maybe thats just me.
Kazlehoff - Thursday, April 1, 2004 - link
screw doom3, Quake 2 remix! WOO!TrogdorJW - Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - link
#21... Come on, you can't be serious. Super Mario 64 as the chief influence for all 3D and FPS game interfaces? Not hardly.Super Mario 64 - released 1996
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - released 1998
See any problem with that? No? Okay, let's just list a *few* of the PC games with 3D interfaces that came first.
Wolfenstein 3D - released 1992
Doom - released 1993
Heretic - 1994
Hexen - 1995
Descent - 1995
Duke Nukem 3D - 1996
Quake - 1996
That's only a small portion of the 3D games that came out on the PC *before* Mario 64 and Zelda: OOT were released. In fact, you could make the argument that the only reason consoles started to pursue 3D graphics with Nintendo 64, Sega Saturn, and Sony Playstation was due to the incredible success of the early 3D PC gaming market.
Let's not even mention persistent worlds that have been in PC games long before consoles even had the capability of storing that much "state". Here are a few examples, though: Bard's Tale, Wasteland, Ultima III-VIII, Might and Magic I-VI, etc.
It's not a question of buttons. Doom could be played with six or seven buttons if you wanted, and Quake requires six buttons and a mouse. Mario 64 and Zelda require at least as many buttons, and because they lack a mouse, inventory management is much more of a pain in the ass then on a PC. They did the best they could with the console gamepad controllers, but that doesn't make it a model of perfection.
Anyway, you're right that story telling isn't necessarily innovative in and of itself. The thing is, if the story isn't innovative, the graphics aren't innovative, and the user interface isn't innovative, there's not much left. Which is why I said that Mario and Zelda are not innovative games. At least Carmack has the 3D Engine to be innovative with.
PrinceGaz - Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - link
One good thing I can take away from that article is that he thinks graphics-technology will be able to render photo-realisitic scenes in real-time in ten years or so. That has to be excellent news.The reason that cheers me up so much isn't the prospect of how pretteh games could look then as I'm fairly happy the quality we have now -- its because making even better quality graphics will no longer be worthwhile and developers will be forced to concentrate instead on *gameplay* which has been sadly neglected by many for several years!
Brickster - Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - link
TOO funny!Sahrin - Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - link
#9, #10It never ceases to amaze me how little respect PC gamers have for the console scene. If only because it was Nintendo who single-handedly made the modern gaming industry a reality, you should treat Shigeru Miyamoto and Nintendo with a little bit more respect. I?m not going to say Carmack and Monoleuyx aren?t great developers because they are. But there were no games like those that existed at the beginning of NES-era. Every played a 3D Shooter of any kind? Control mechanics borrow heavily from Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Ever played a 3rd person game? Same answer. Ever played a game with a persistent world? The Zelda series birthed that idea as well. There is not a game today that is not subject to Miyamoto-san?s all-pervasive influence. Even games that are called truly innovative like GTA and MGS are, in fact, evolutionary products of the games that were designed by Miyamoto and Co. What bothers me the most about your comments, however, is that you seem to adhere to the FPS-er stereotype that ?more buttons is better.? The mechanics of a Zelda, Mario, Pikmin etc. aren?t as complicated as your CS?s, HL?s, et al and so you dismiss them. But true innovation is not restricted by the use of a controller with a whopping total of 11 buttons. And true innovation isn?t found in great stories either (which is why the modern Final Fantasy series is such a joke).
asapin - Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - link
Icewind:Programming isn't for everyone. I started with Qbasic in high school. I taught myself web design, asp etc. to get me through college where I learned VB, C++, and my arch nemesis Cobol. I'm trying to train myself for a career in the game industry at the moment. I would recommend checking out a few websites for information about the industry, job profiles and answers to questions you might have:
http://www.gamasutra.com/
http://www.mary-margaret.com/Resources/articles.as...
http://www.igda.org/Forums/
Try writing press releases for games you like or even games that you think suck so that you have something to show a potential recruiter what you can do.
Icewind - Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - link
Unfortuantly, I just didn't get into programming. Visual Basic made me wanna cry and C++ about made me wanna commit suicided. Which is sad, cause I had the heart to develop games but just not the know how of programming.Been wondering how I can get into the gaming market as a PR representative or something, cause I love telling people about games, technology and upcoming tech.
Cat - Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - link
The Doom 3 engine *is* up and running now, and has been for some time. The content is not there, however, because it takes far longer to create than previous games' content.SilverBack - Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - link
I was one of the lucky people to buy Doom from the Software Creation BBS, the same BBS that was the shareware capital of the modem world. In fact I was sold the 31st copy produced, I still have the 3 1/2 disks :)It started the 3d experience for me and also my building PC's to keep up with Carmacks games! LOL
In a way Carmack changed my life. :D
However I got a different perspective from this article than most of you seemed to.
After reading where it's being considered possible to revamp the Q3 engine with better graphics, internal alarms started going off.
I may be a pessimist, but that sounds as if the ID camp may be getting Doom 3 out of the door much later than anticipated.
The Unreal Team seems to have a much better graphics engine available now. I hope that JC can get the Doom 3 engine up and running sooner.
mikeymasta - Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - link
Good informative easy to read article, whats how I like em.When I talk about upcomming games to others I am often surprised at how little they look forward to upcomming work by john carmacks like Doom3, its proof that they just haven't been around long enough and don't know who their god is!
DerekWilson - Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - link
#14:just start something on the side Turnip ;-) That's how many of the people break into the industry ... create a rockin mod or find some other people out there (like me) who are interested in a little on the side game development... that way, if id Software or Epic offers you a job, you can feel good about leaving your favorite "boring" company for something just a little bit more exciting ;-)
Turnip - Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - link
<sigh> Sometimes I almost wish I didn't love the "boring" software applications company I work for, so that I could get out there and do something about the game I dream of.Oh, the difficulties in being a developer. :)
Chucko - Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - link
So when is Doom 3 coming out?DerekWilson - Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - link
I don't think there is a tech journalist out there who wouldn't want to get some one on one time with Carmack... but the supply falls way short of the demand on that one ;-)There was a short group QA sessoin in which John decried the value of game design oriented schooling (saying the value is in what people can do in the real world, not how well they've mastered stale curriculums), mentioned that he thinks the direction the PS3 is taking with its parallel architecture is of little value, and talked about X-Prize.
He also mentioned that Doom III would be ready when its ready ;-)
And I can tell you right now with a fair ammount of confidence that PCI Express won't make a real difference in playing current games (read any game that will come out this year). I can stream multiple HD quality videos to my GPU in real time though :-)
yumarc - Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - link
Maybe it's just me, but I found this article not to be very informative. It just spews about the greatness of John Carmack and his past accomplishments. It would have been a much better read if the author had received some Q&A time with Carmack and asked him questions such as "When is Doom III due on the street" or "Do PCI Express cards make a difference in game speed". Now that would have been informative.TrogdorJW - Wednesday, March 31, 2004 - link
#6 (and #9):Okay, so you've got Zelda and Mario and what not. They didn't really *push* the envelope, though. Nintendo games always seem to trail behind on the technology and innovation curve. Maybe the original Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros. were "innovators", but back then everything was new and different. Hell, Asteroids was "state of the art" at one point in time. All Shigeru has done was to hone the art of the platform game, and every iteration of the Zelda and Mario franchises just gets less and less impressive.
About the only thing Carmack and Shigeru have in common is that neither one can tell a really, truly great story. Shigeru does great with kid stories, and Carmack makes wicked 3D engines. Neither one could compete with the stories of any decent author, though. Or maybe it's just that I'm not Japanese... do adults in Japan actually think the stories in the Mario games are interesting? I hope not....
DerekWilson - Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - link
#6:"real talk, and in all seriousness:
shigeru miyamoto > john carmack
as far as influence in video games is concerned. "
I'll bite.
That is arguable if you are talking about video games in a general sense, but I don't think you can call it. Sure, mario and zelda have defined and influenced hords of other games (including Carmack's own Commander Keen), but then Wolfenstein defined and influenced the entire first person genre of games while quake sparked the push to full 3d games and shifed gaming performance into a position of major influence in the PC space.
But regardless of who has had more impact on video games in general, PC games and hardware follow where Carmack leads.
replicator - Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - link
John Carmack is a cool cat..Imagine if he and Tim Sweeny (Unreal) put their efforts together.
amdfanboy - Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - link
OMG...That pic defines geekwicktron - Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - link
real talk, and in all seriousness:shigeru miyamoto > john carmack
as far as influence in video games is concerned.
Schadenfroh - Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - link
#4, yes, carmack has just about given up his hopes for a hell on earth, that is why he is putting all this effort into finding a portal to hell in spaceIcewind - Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - link
Last I heard, Carmack was leaving the game industry and pursing high end space travel company.Playing Far Cry last night, I really began to realize what direction we are headed in the next generation of graphics. Alot has happend in 10 years since DOOM first changed many of our lives the moment we sat down with our playware versions on 3 floppy disks, did a C:memchecker command on DOS 4.0 and loaded it up to see what computer were REALLY capable of doing.
KristopherKubicki - Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - link
John is so my hero it isnt even funny!Kristopher
MemberSince97 - Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - link
Nice article Derek!Da3dalus - Tuesday, March 30, 2004 - link
Carmack is basically the God of Graphics :)