Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Games Entertainment

Carmack: Lord of the Games 427

seer writes: "This article on Red Herring is a nice look at the interworkings of id software, most specifically their famous employee John Carmack. It delves deeply into the fact that id has stayed a very small company and dabbles with other topics such as Carmack's tendency to stay away from Microsoft 'standards' and the whole DooM ]I[ debacle. An interesting read."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Carmack: Lord of the Games

Comments Filter:
  • Mr. Gates sent a video with congratulations that teased, "I just want you to know that I can write slicker and tighter code than John."

    This is the funniest thing Bill Gates has EVER said.
    • ...since the eighties? I seem to recall that he has not, but I could be mistaken.
    • by Skirwan ( 244615 ) <skerwinNO@SPAMmac.com> on Sunday February 03, 2002 @10:49PM (#2948707) Homepage
      "I just want you to know that I can write slicker and tighter code than John."


      This is the funniest thing Bill Gates has EVER said.
      Your listening license agreement specifically forbids quoting, citing, referring to, or referencing Mr. Gates in any context that has not been Microsoft approved and certified. As Slashdot falls under neither category, quoting Mr. Gates on this site is a license violation that may result in responses such as but not limited to prosecution, abortion of listening rights, or death by electrocution. Please cease all unauthorized quotational operations immediately, or we will be forced to take remonstrative actions.

      Thank you, have a nice day.

      --
      Damn the Emperor!
    • by jallen02 ( 124384 ) on Sunday February 03, 2002 @11:38PM (#2948851) Homepage Journal
      Its obviously a tease, sheesh. Gates probably does not code much, John does every day. If you ask me (not that you did) it shows that Mr. Gates has a pretty good sense of humor. Yeah he may have billions in the bank but its an obvious jest. Heh, I would feel pretty good if the leader of the commercialized software world complimented me so.

      Jeremy
    • Actually. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/18949 .html
      Reuben Harris has been disassembling a binary with some help from Monte Davidoff, the third author of Altair BASIC (along with Gates and Paul Allen) and who we interviewed here last week. He has the same question in mind:- "'Could Bill Gates Write Code?' Or was he merely the luckiest man alive," before concluding... "Yes He Bloody Could!" Although Reuben's analysis is not quite complete, he tells us that Gates, Allen and Davidoff threw every trick at the book to squeeze the interpreter into 4 kilobytes. They succeeded and left some headroom for the programs themselves - without which it would have been pretty useless, of course.
      ;P
    • Anyone want to make guesses at how many hours Bill Gates has spent playing Carmack's games?
  • "He told a faithful crowd that the new Doom will have images comprised of 250,000 polygons, compared with only 10,000 or so in Quake III. That's not far away from the 1.5 million- polygon characters in the animated film Shrek, which set a new standard for realism for computer-animated cartoon characters."

    So basically they only need a six-fold increase in polygons to reach what Shrek had- not to mention that the environment is constantly changing as characters interact with it, whereas Shrek was always the same. Oops.
  • by roystgnr ( 4015 ) <.roy. .at. .stogners.org.> on Sunday February 03, 2002 @10:41PM (#2948671) Homepage
    To this reporter, Carmack isn't using OpenGL, an existing 3D graphics standard which Microsoft refused to adopt in favor of their (for years inferior) attempt to lock programmers in to DirectX, he's using "his own graphics technology" which is "almost like a religious thing for him".
    • This was an article written for Red Herring magazine. While we all know that the author is referring to OpenGL, I thought it was an appropriate editing choice to keep the number of technical terms down to a minimum. The focus of the story is not the technology, but the man himself.

      Also, you have to think about the readers of Red Herring. An article written for that magazine would be best targeted toward the average business professional that likes learning about different businesses, industries, and methods - to be somewhat familiar with them. OpenGL is something that would be fairly obscure for them to learn about while reading on a couch in the reception area.

      All in all, it would have been nice to see them give direct publicity to OpenGL, but I thought the article was very readable without its mention. Hence, it's a well written article partly for that fact.
      • by _Sprocket_ ( 42527 ) on Monday February 04, 2002 @05:49AM (#2949554)


        While we all know that the author is referring to OpenGL, I thought it was an appropriate editing choice to keep the number of technical terms down to a minimum. The focus of the story is not the technology, but the man himself.


        I can agree that a business publication would want to avoid technical discussion, I think you're missing the tone that the article presented. Read it again:

        Eight years later, Mr. Carmack is still steering clear of Microsoft's standard as he cranks out the next version of Id Software's Doom.

        ...

        "It's almost like a religious thing for him," grumbles Otto Berkes, a Microsoft program manager who until recently oversaw the company's DirectX graphics technology division. Unlike Mr. Carmack, many other game developers have adopted the technology.

        ...

        Mr. Carmack, cofounder and lead programmer at Id Software, is sticking to his own graphics technology.

        The message is plain. Carmack avoids an industry standard developed by Microsoft called DirectX. Everybody else uses it. Instead, Carmack is some kind of technological religious zealot who uses his own system.


        Granted... the article does go on to point out that his decission allows his software to run on many platforms. Something Microsoft's technology does not allow. But its possible that someone unfamiliar with the industry might miss this message and attribute Carmack's refusal of microsoft as another aspect of his ecentric personality.


        It would be different if the writer had reported Carmack has adopted an open graphics standard over a more restrictive standard provided by Microsoft... despite Microsoft's professed incredulity over the choice.

    • "OpenGL, an existing 3D graphics standard which Microsoft refused to adopt"

      I wonder about that comment. Microsoft certainly didn't refuse to adopt OpenGL initially as it was included in the first versions of Windows NT and promoted as a big feature. They saw this as an important aspect of future computing, and they wanted to support it.

      Microsoft is not a company to just go off and create new software from scratch if they can obtain it elsewhere for cheap. So, something happened to encourage Microsoft to go off and work on Direct3D. A license dispute or something.
      • Actually if I remember correctly it came from a sort of fight between the Win9x and WinNT teams. You're right that OpenGL was touted as a feature of NT. As a result Microsoft originally decided not to put it in 9x, as they believed at the time that by the time opengl was needed NT would be the standard. So the 9x team started making direct3d, targeting it at games, and because no game developer expected to be run on NT it started catching on. By the time NT had d3d and 9x had opengl (which wasn't too long afterwards) ms decided to use d3d as a tactical technology and proceeded to ram it down our throats.
      • Microsoft is not a company to just go off and create new software from scratch if they can obtain it elsewhere for cheap.

        i couldn't have said this better myself, except you should have left off the 'elsewhere for cheap' part.

        here's microsoft's own homemade company plan:

        1. obtain technology, using whatever means necessary (if it's an illegal way, request to speak with Bill in a private meeting, he might be interested).

        2. once new technology is obtained, close it up and cloud it up with a bunch of bloaty code.

        3. give millions to other companies to 'influence' them to adopt this technology for their products, further locking the technology into some sort of twisted 'standard'.

        but wait, let me ask you a few questions:

        does all this mean that the obtained technology is the the best solution to any problem?
        NO

        does this mean that if a better technology becomes available, then it has a chance to become the standard?
        heheh, NO (isn't it beautiful?)

        does this benefit the customer in any way, shape or form?
        NO

        i refuse to support corporations who practice bad business ethics.

        where would science be today if Isaac Newton or Einstein failed to share their discoveries to other scientists?

        open source mimics evolution in computing science. it's just a matter of time before Gates and his anti-customer business practices cease to exist.
        • i refuse to support corporations who practice bad business ethics.

          where would science be today if Isaac Newton or Einstein failed to share their discoveries to other scientists?

          As much as these (and many others non cited in your post) are giants of science, they discovered fundamental principles. Most fundamental science today is still shared in much the same way.

          Would Newton and Einstein have been so generous to the world if their discoveries had been readily exploitable for commercial use and financial gain? I'm not so sure. Look at another giant - Edison. On the one hand, he did a tremendous amount of research, but on the other hand he tried to aggressively market his work and was a heavy user of the patent system.

          Imagine if Einstein's discoveries led him directly to the design of the first atomic powerplant. I suspect he would have patented the sucker as fast as he could have.

          The real issue is that fundamental discoveries (like gravity and E=MC squared) typically aren't the same as applied ones (like OpenGL, Java, and almost anything in computing since the early days). The fundamental discoveries lay the groundwork for the applied discoveries - but the applied discoveries are where the money is.
  • OMG Thats great (Score:4, Insightful)

    by vulgarDPS ( 525551 ) on Sunday February 03, 2002 @10:50PM (#2948712)
    This article is the most motivating article I have ever read. He not only tries to write code that will port well in order to insure his product gets to as many people as possible, but unlike other stupid software companies he refuses to overextend his company to more the 17 people.

    I've worked at alot of companies and one thing is for sure. Everything starts to go to shit when you can't walk over and talk to all the other developers.

    This would be the ideal company to work for and they make the ideal product. Then they let the community do the beta testing. I love this man. His ideas are harsh on the MS way to do things which is probably why they work so well. Instead of employing rediculous amounts of people inefficently turn a mediocre product and then either market it to hell and back to make everyone think they need it, or force all of their existing customers onto it.

    They keep a small number of really smart people in one room and turn one of the best products out, and let the product practically sell itself. This is how things would be in an ideal world, but the idea of making the best product so that people will pick it over others is wearing thin, esspecially now that Microsoft has bought most of the GL patents from SGI.
  • I want bells and whistels to go off on my computer whenever Mr Carmack posts a message to /. :)

    Seriously, this would be cool. Shoot, granted already his postings make front page news on many gaming news sites (yes the front page news thing is a joke, of course it is on the front page. ^_^ ) but I want to know RIGHT AWAY!

    *IDEA!!!*
    Hey, how about we all get some funds together and pay Mr. Carmack to develop the next version of Nethack? :) :) :) :) :)
    • develop the next version of Nethack? :)

      With significant respect to mr. carmack... no. He's welcome to design supsersexy fps or whatever interface, but I (and I think a lot of nh players share the sentiment) like nethack just the way it is. The current interface really can't be beat for straightforwardness. Besides, we all know that it's not appearances that matter.

      And the devteam does a damn fine job on their own.

      :) Excuse me. I'm... easily excitable... about these things.
  • by Y-Crate ( 540566 ) on Sunday February 03, 2002 @11:05PM (#2948752)
    But Mr. Carmack and his company have their critics. Their games are bloody and repetitive. Many former Id employees moved on because they tired of making the same game where players shoot anything that moves
    Which is why I'm glad that the've decided to keep all the engine work in-house, while farming out a lot of the actual game development to more qualified parties.

    By the time Quake 3 Arena came out, I think a lot of people realized that id had basically become a brilliant game engine company that should just cast off the illusions that they were experts in creating innovative gameplay. Because I think, while you can debate the merits of the technology behind id's products until the end of time, it became clear to many that the innovative gameplay was happening somewhere else. While the engine was brillaint, Quake 3 the game was the same old, same old. Deathmatch in a brown castle.

    While many people had not-so-kind things to say about the multiplayer aspects of the origional Unreal, when Unreal Tournamnet came out, Epic was pushing the bounderies of online gameplay, while id was left in the dust, cranking out the same thing yet again.

    Not to say Quake 3 was a crap game, a hell of a lot of people enjoyed it then and enjoy it to this day. I'm just saying that it was part of a downward trend at id, one that they seem to have addressed, and I commend John Carmack for that.
    • Ummmm, I really don't see how you can call UT something new and great in game play and Quake 3 the same old. I own both and really, find them to be the same thing. Ya, the maps are different, weapons are different, etc but the core of the game is the same. I don't ever play either of them in their default mode, as you said, it's old. It's the mods I like.

      But seriously, what does UT (in an unmodded state) offer that Quake 3 doesn't? I'm talking signficant gameplay things here that are NEW. I am well aware of the differences, I just don't think UT is new and revolutionary.
      • But seriously, what does UT (in an unmodded state) offer that Quake 3 doesn't? I'm talking signficant gameplay things here that are NEW. I am well aware of the differences, I just don't think UT is new and revolutionary.

        Domination and Assault. Okay, so the game types were not terribly new (the Domination game type was first seen in the old Team Fortress mod for Quake 1, with the excellent map canalzon; Assault was again seen first in a primitive form in Team Fortress, with the map hunted), but they were types that had not been previously available out of the box in a commercial game, and they were definitely not types available in Quake 3 (q3 had only deathmatch, team deathmatch, and CTF). As far as anybody playing the games in the default state, I wouldn't expect that. These games are pushing three years old. There have been many and more mods for them that extend the gameplay quite farther than the original default modes. It may very well be that Q3A has surpassed UT when you count the quality mods (I don't know, I haven't stayed on top of the communities for either).


        However, both id and Epic are better engine developers than game designers. Witness the sheer number of games that have been based on their technology -- for Epic, there's DS9: The Fallen, Deus Ex, Wheel of Time, Rune, the never-to-be-released Duke Nukem Forever, and probably a few more I'm missing; for id, there have been games ranging from the early Wolf3D days (IIRC, Blake Stone was based on the Wolf3D engine), to Doom/Doom2 (Hexen and Heretic), to Quake (Hexen 2, Half-Life, DNF was going to use this originally), to Quake 2 (Daikatana, Anachronox), all the way up to Quake 3 (Elite Force, FAKK2, Alice, RTCW, MOH:AA, and more). id knows this, which is why they worked with Grey Matter and Nerve to make the recent Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Epic also knows this, which is why they're working with Legend (the guys who did Wheel of Time) to make the next Unreal (unimaginatively named Unreal 2). Expect to see more of this happening in the future -- as games keep getting bigger and more expensive to produce, companies will begin specializing. I don't think it'll be uncommon to see collaborations of three or more companies on a single game (like RTCW), where each company does what they're good at (single-player gameplay, multi-player gameplay, engine, art, design, marketing, etc).

        • >the never-to-be-released Duke Nukem Forever

          I keep forgetting about this until someone mentions it again. 3D Realms has had a press-blackout for what, over a year now? Seems like it was 2-3 years ago that DNF development was switched from the Quake 2 engine to the Unreal engine. Now Q3A and UT have come and gone, Unreal 2 and a new Doom are on the horizon and still DNF is MIA.

          Either that is going to be one hell of a game or they've had to start over a couple of times? How can you ever hope to sell enough copies of a game to make back what has been spent in development this many years?
  • ID engines (Score:4, Insightful)

    by BrookHarty ( 9119 ) on Sunday February 03, 2002 @11:09PM (#2948769) Journal
    Even thou FPS games dont make the level of sales of everquest or pokemon, ID game engines are the best for FPS shooters.

    The norm at Lan parties are mostly ID engines based games. RTCW, MOHAA Demo, Q3A, Q3A Urban Terror, Action Quake2, the only 2 games that wasnt, where Counter Strike and Ghost Recon. The main game for money was CS, but we had so much fun playing Q3A UT, we had to push back the CS tourney.

    -
    Amiga OS [amithlon.com] is out for your x86
    • Counter Strike and halflife are Quake engined
    • Re:ID engines (Score:3, Insightful)

      by krogoth ( 134320 )
      Actually, Counter-Strike is a mod for Half-Life, which is based on the Quake2 engine (either that or Quake - I'm a bit confused from conflicting reports I heard in the early days of Half-Life, but I believe it's Quake2). That means Ghost Recon is the only game on your list not based on an id engine.
  • by Bluecoat93 ( 140994 ) on Sunday February 03, 2002 @11:22PM (#2948804) Homepage
    One thing I personally like about John Carmack and id software is that they have a long history of (eventually) releasing their games as open source.

    Take a look at the FTP site [idsoftware.com]: Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, and Quake 2 are all available. You still have to have the map files and other game data from a "real" copy of the game in order to play it, but all of Carmack and Co's magic is up there for study.

    In short, they have quite a history of "giving back to the community." Even for games (such as Q3) where the full source isn't released, id always releases SDK's (for lack of a better term) to allow anyone that wants to the chance to create add-ons, extensions, and "total conversions" -- new games based on the existing code.

    Very, very, cool.

    • Haven't many mentioned that an OSS game engine with copyrighted artwork is a way to make Linux games fly?

      Sounds good to me. I need to go to the bargain racks and get some of the data files for these src packages.
    • Of course, it also has the great side effect of making those old games fully hackable and getting more people to upgrade to their latest game.

      But that's the cynical side of me, I love the fact they release the source code too.
      • The above post, not the parent, should be "+5, Insightful". Every game which carmack releases source for become unplayable in a week. Which means I am forced to upgrade to the newest game, in a manner much more convincing than any microsoft release-- because I am one of the best quake players, and I get accused of cheating and banned from servers when I don't. Meanwhile the opponents whom I dominated a week before somehow stop missing rail shots, start shooting through walls, and move too fast for even me to hit. I still usually win, because no cheat can give you the strategic insight needed to be really good, but much of the fun is taken away.

        I've given Carmack more money than I've given Gates, for this very reason. Q3A isn't more fun than Q1, or at least it wasn't before the speedhack killed it. Neither is RTCW really more fun than Q3A- although I guess I'll buy it soon, right about the time people start flying in Q3A.

        Open Source works great for projects which began as open source and had meaningful feedback from the beginning. For games or other applications which have finished their development cycle it is a nightmare; it combines the worst features of security through obscurity with the worst features of open source software.

        IMUHO if Carmack was really a supporter of open source, Doom III/RTCW would be open NOW so that when they came out they would be unhackable. I think his rationale for releasing his source is simply that he wants to sell more cd's, while masturbating to the egoboo he gets from being worshipped on slashdot.

        If I'm wrong about this, and he is really just a brilliant but naive programmer, I apologize; the reason I keep buying Quake instead of half-life or one of the other clones is because I believe the innovators like carmack should be rewarded. He gave us the fps genre, and I always get my money's worth from a game he makes within a few days of buying it, so in my mind the upgradaing is worth it. However, the open sourcing is not something I think is good for either the quake community or the open source community, and is not something I think he deserves kudos for. The day the source for a game is released while still in beta I will join y'all in celebrating his altruism.
    • One thing I personally like about John Carmack and id software is that they have a long history of (eventually) releasing their games as open source.

      So many software companies (and not just MS, mind you) are content to sell code at full price that they've written years ago and just require periodic maintenance now.

      It seems to me that one way to prove beyond a doubt that you have skills it to write a program, make your money off of it over the course of a few years, and then give it away because the stuff you've written since then is actually worth more to people.

  • by NotAnotherReboot ( 262125 ) on Sunday February 03, 2002 @11:41PM (#2948859)
    I quote, "Thanks to profit sharing, some employees make $450,000 to $600,000 in a good year. With such pay, the company expects employees to put in long, hard hours, says Todd Hollenshead." That's why no one ever wonders why John Romero no longer works at id.
    • by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Monday February 04, 2002 @01:07AM (#2949076) Journal
      Romero did not quit. He was fired.

      I no longer have the url but John Carmack said Romeo would blow off the day by playing and not coding and would not listen to other employees about idea's for the games. He basically wanted a game with a story and intereactive plot while John Carmack did not. The split grew worse and worse and he eventually refused to work on the same assignments as Carmack and he would do his own thing anyway. Carmack got so pissed that he went to the CEO and made a case to fire him. The CEO who was behind John Carmack all long fired Romeo and another co-worker to set an example. John Carmack is a perfectionists and doesn't like other people getting in his way. But what made it worse was that the whole team went one way while Romeo refused to go with the flow. THis and not the hours is why is he left.
      • What's with the personal inferences?

        You can tell the story without explicitly demonizing anyone:

        Romero did not quit, he was fired.

        I no longer have the url but John Carmack said Romero would blow off the day by playing and not coding and would not listen to the other employess about ideas for the games. [fine, since this is hearsay] He and John Carmack held two different visions for the games they worked on. This got to the point where he [Romero] would not work on the same assignments as Carmack and would do his own thing. Carmack and the CEO fired Romero and another coworker [since it's very clearly lack of team effort, inability to perform adequatley, refusal to work, etc, no need to mention getting pised, or seting an example. Nor is it necessary to mention JC's perfectionism, which has no bearing on the story.] The whole team would go one way, and Romero refused to go with the flow. This, and not the long hours, is why he [Romero] left.
  • offspring (Score:3, Funny)

    by mojo-raisin ( 223411 ) on Sunday February 03, 2002 @11:46PM (#2948877)
    Carmack and Torvalds should have a child...
  • eh? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by _ganja_ ( 179968 ) on Sunday February 03, 2002 @11:47PM (#2948880) Homepage
    Would you trust a tech writter that made statements like this: "The new Doom likely will require a no less powerful chip than the soon-to-be-released Nvidia GeForce3. Soon to be replaced more like.


    I actually thought Adrian Carmack was Johns brother as I remember reading it somewhere, one of the articles was obviously wrong. I'm sure someone will give an autoritive answer on that one.

    • Re:eh? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by coupland ( 160334 )
      Here's your authoritative answer: Adrian and John are not related. Many notable (and misinformed) publications have made the mistake of assuming they're brothers, hence the reason you read many articles that say otherwise.
  • Poor Article (Score:2, Insightful)

    by idealego ( 32141 )
    "Microsoft tried to launch a graphics standard for PC hardware in the early '90s" We'd be talking 96 here, not early 90's.

    "is sticking to his own graphics technology" It's called opengl.

    I didn't bother to read further, obviously the article is written by someone who is clueless.
  • by Phleg ( 523632 ) <stephen&touset,org> on Monday February 04, 2002 @01:21AM (#2949106)
    ...if I can find multiple things they got wrong on things I know about, then I seriously doubt they're getting the stuff right that I don't know about.

    Mr. Carmack, cofounder and lead programmer at Id Software, is sticking to his own graphics technology. He is an absolute techno-purist who seeks to produce a common code that can run on Windows, Linux, and Macintosh operating systems--something he can't do with Microsoft's technology.

    It's not his own graphics technology, it's OpenGL, which is used by many programmers around the globe. And he doesn't do it because he wants to have portable code. That's a part of it, sure, but he uses OpenGL mainly because it's easier to code, which means less development time and less debugging time. Also, it allows for greater flexibility. Not to mention, with Direct3D, can we say, "namespace pollution"? I thought so.

    And by being such a purist, he delights hard-core gamers and graphics experts.

    Oh yes, I get every id game simply because he "sticks to his own graphics technology". Did the author actually consider that he delights hard-core gamers simply because he creates realistic games that have fun gameplay and stunning visuals?

    The new Doom likely will require a no less powerful chip than the soon-to-be-released Nvidia GeForce3.

    Newly released about a year ago...

    He told a faithful crowd that the new Doom will have images comprised of 250,000 polygons, compared with only 10,000 or so in Quake III. That's not far away from the 1.5 million- polygon characters in the animated film Shrek, which set a new standard for realism for computer-animated cartoon characters.

    Notice he said "images comprised of 250,000 polygons", and "That's not far from the 1.5 million- polygon characters in...Shrek". This isn't like comparing apples to oranges, it's comparing apples to Mack trucks.

  • The new Doom likely will require a no less powerful chip than the soon-to-be-released Nvidia GeForce3.

    Did they mean GeForce4 or are all the GeForce3 cards on the market right now fakes?
  • by Kasmiur ( 464127 ) on Monday February 04, 2002 @02:30AM (#2949275)
    "It legitimized the shareware movement, starting in 1993 with progressive releases of the Doom franchise, which generated more than $100 million in revenue (even though roughly 15 million copies of the original were downloaded for free). "

    Now if only the RIAA and other places would read that and understand that sometimes when done properly that such things do work in a internet world.
  • this article does have a bit of a point. If GLQuake never came out we'd have seen an onslaught of Software REndered crap. GLQuake made the relatively big push to hardware rendered3D which gave us 3D chips in even the cheapest piece of junk today.

    Although I think that's more of Romero's fault IIRC.
  • Ironic (Score:4, Funny)

    by Judecca ( 34485 ) on Monday February 04, 2002 @04:09AM (#2949428) Homepage
    And so the poor man who just wants to be left alone, and not a cult icon...

    ... is written about, and posted on slashdot.
  • Coding is NOT art? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by inkswamp ( 233692 )
    From the article: "That's not what we're doing," Mr. Carmack says. "We're doing entertainment. Saying it's art is a kind of sophistry from people who want to aggrandize our industry."

    I totally disagree with this statement. I view coding (particularly coding for games) as something that straddles the gulf between work and art. It may not be 100% pure art, but it's certainly not aggrandizing to say that there is a fair amount of artistry in well conceived and written code. The first 25 years of my life was spent pursuing a variety of artistic endeavors (writing, music, visual arts) and I get nearly the exact same feeling in me when I'm writing code as when I'm composing music or drawing. There is definitely some link between those activities. I feel the same creative impulses firing when I'm programming as when I'm doing any other art form and I feel that same sense of artistic fulfillment or satisfaction when I'm finished with a project. It probably sounds a little fruit-loopy, but it's the truth. There is an element of artistry in writing code. I have no doubt about that.

    --Rick
  • In 1996, Id created the first true 3D game, Quake

    Not quite. Descent was out before that, and it is even more 3-D than Quake.

  • A few corrections (Score:5, Interesting)

    by John Carmack ( 101025 ) on Monday February 04, 2002 @02:46PM (#2951313)
    A few corrections to the article:

    "My own graphics technology"
    is OpenGL.

    "Mr. Carmack also plays computer games in the office with his coworkers"
    I played Q3 quite a bit, but not much since then. The team focus of TeamArena and Wolfenstein just isn't my favorite type of game.

    "Polygon counts"
    The Doom engine is not an ultra-high poly count engine, because it is built around dynamic lighting and shadowing, but it is still a large step up from our previous games. Typical scenes will have around 150,000 polygons, versus 10,000 for Q3. There will certainly be other games with higher raw polygon counts, but that is really focusing on the trees, not the forest (image quality). The large numbers that have occasionally been tossed around are the polygon counts for the high detail characters that are used in the generation of normal maps for the real time rendering. Some characters are over 500,000 polygons in their original form.

    "It looks like the type of game that is so thrilling to play that gamers will do so over and over again, even though it lacks a narrative plot."

    Unlike everything we have done before, the new Doom actually DOES have a real plot, and I think it is going to be presented well. I don't really expect most people to believe us at this point, but wait and see...

    "The new Doom likely will require a no less powerful chip than the soon-to-be-released Nvidia GeForce3"

    It is designed for full impact on a GeForce-3, but it still runs on a GeForce-1 or Radeon.

    They didn't reproduce the graph of our revenues from the print version, but that was also way off base. I guess they estimated them based on our title sales, but while Doom II remains our best selling title, we have much better royalty arrangements now than we did back then, so we make more money today.

    John Carmack
    • by Anonymous Coward
      George B here from 3DRealms. John listen, were having a hell of a time with Duke using the Unreal engine and see no end in sight. Is there any way I can convince you to let us use the Doom3 technology with DukeForever? Im willing to was and wax your car for the next year if that helps sweeten the pot. Let me know
      Your porkrib eating buddy,
      George

"Been through Hell? Whaddya bring back for me?" -- A. Brilliant

Working...