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[tedtropy]

Is it weird that Carmack's quote is the exact reason why I AM excited about next gen? The dude's a genius, but his advancements are made in more niche areas now and he hasn't made a relevant licensed engine since Quake 3 (idTech whatever).

This gen's Carmack + Balmer : MEGATEXTURES MEGATEXTUES MEGATEXTURES
Next gen's Carmack + Balmer : GOGGLES GOGGLES GOGGLES

 

[Commanche Raisin Toast]

carmack seems like the kind of guy that won't get excited about anything other than whatever it is he's currently tinkering with or focused on. tech5 is already done, so now his hobby is the VR headsets. if we aren't talking about those then he's going to be unexcited about anything else.

i will say though, that before PS3/360 were released i thought it was just going to be PS2/XBOX all over again with the knobs turned up, and this time with integrated internet services. we've got all kinds of crazy shit now. i can't imagine what software/OS/services/etc. advances we'll see between now and midway into nextgen.

 

[Man]

The jump from PS1 to PS2 was huge (PS1 didn't even have Z-buffer capabilities lol! Neither a GPU).
The jump from PS2 to PS3 was again huge (Unified shaders, physics, online services, HDD storage...etc).

There is nothing super-exotic being introduced with next-gen from a developers point of view. It's a leap equal to going from DX10 to 11 and a 10x power output upgrade. This generation has been a growing up experience where the consoles have taken the step into most future tech paths (sometimes painfully, see: Cell architecture, PS3 split memory banks, X360 DVD-only, RROD, waggle, 3D etc).

The next generation Xbox and PlayStation will actually offer more comfortable development environments than the current one, they will handle 1080p better than the current gen does 720p. All the tech paths 'started' with this gen have now reached a mature state and a couple of more will be added for good measure (Geometry shader capabilities, tessellation).
It's all about efficient production.

 

[rohlfinator]

no shit. he is not a gameplay programmer or designer.

True, but even with his engine programming it seems like he's more motivated by the tech itself than what can be done with the tech. id seems to make their games around their engines, rather than coming up with a game idea and then making an engine for it. I'm sure that's somewhat of an oversimplification, but their approach is pretty different from a lot of developers.

 

[1-D_FTW]

As usual, I find myself nodding with everything Carmack is saying.

 

[M-PG71C]

And I'm not excited for anything he creates. WOO HOO.

 

[Elios83]

Whatever he likes.
Unfortunately Id is irrelevant at this point. They haven't been able to make good games for years, they tried to develop an engine for consoles but in that field other developers have proved to be much better than them.

 

[Thoraxes]

I believe him. I honestly think outside of the initial failed attempts at new IPs, nothing is going to change.

 

[nyong]

Rage wasn't that exciting either.

The one thing that impressed the hell out of me with Rage is the performance they managed to squeeze out of their engine. Probably the most technically impressive game I've ever run across.

And the shooting bits were great fun.

 

[Xplatformer]

Maybe if they (developers) spent more just as much developing story, AI and physics as they do visual fidelity...

Sure, multiplayer is the present and future, but how do you differentiate? How about a fully persistent world with humans AND smart AI characters? Hmmm...

 

[demosthenes]

Like every other generation?

Yea, these graphics know are definitely NES graphics just turned up.

 

[Xdrive05]

He's a pioneer. Sometimes you always need to listen to those that push the boundaries despite whether you agree or disagree with them. It's why people make such a big deal whenever Miyamoto opens his mouth because, despite his lack of recent output, his opinions about the industry are important enough to throw in to the stew.

Sure, I get that that's why you and me pay attention to him. But I don't think MS and Sony are hiring Carmark these days to consult on future hardware architecture. Whereas they almost certainly would care about what an Epic engineer thinks, for a better comparison.

It's about the money, Lebowski. And by this point, Carmack's no longer the console cash cow. I personally care more about his opinion than anyone at Epic, but I can recognize his irrelevance in the modern context at the same time. Sad, really. His VR thing really could, and may, make a difference.

 

[Levyne]

11 is the new 10

 

[Raptomex]

I've been waiting for some VR shit. I think it really is the future.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Carmack has lost zest for gaming for years now. It's really apparent in interviews probably stretching back a decade now.

He's lost the plot, I've been saying it for a little bit now.

I'm sure he's much more interested in tinkering with tech (head mounted displays currently) and rocketry.

Id has little relevance any more, while their cohorts Epic and Valve have skyrocketed to prominence.

To be fair he is a smart guy and gaming now isn't anywhere near as exciting now as it was back then.

 

[BruiserBear]

He believes in VR headsets being the future.

Then again, he also believed Rage was a good game.

 

[GreggTheGrimReaper]

I just want his HMD and finally live my 1990s V.R. dreams.

 

[Mastperf]

To be fair he is a smart guy and gaming now isn't anywhere near as exciting now as it was back then.

We need people like Carmack to change that.

 

[SMT]

No, it's better if we get excited for his VR technology (with the resolution at crossroads for the moment), it's pretty cool I admit, but just don't be busting down doors yet John.

 

[Poimandres]

Whatever he likes.
Unfortunately Id is irrelevant at this point. They haven't been able to make good games for years, they tried to develop an engine for consoles but in that field other developers have proved to be much better than them.

What other engine offers 720P 60fps performance on consoles this gen? It's pretty impressive. The main issue is Rage took so long to come out, and Zenimax decided not to license the engine to external developers.

Also, id have never made a bad game!

 

[FateBreaker]

So? Carmack is a tech guy, not a gameplay guy. I'll take anything he says about upcoming tech seriously, even if I don't necessarily agree. Irregardless of whatever ID as a whole spits out.

Yeah, this. Rage is undeniably beautiful.

 

[TTP]

I agree with him completely. Which is why I'm more excited about next gen controllers rather than next gen graphics.

As for VR, damn I wish this gen could hold on enough for the next one to start off with a VR set. I'm afraid the time is not right yet for a VR console for cost reasons but man I'd love to be wrong.

The fact that Sony seems interested is not surprising considering the HMZ-T1 and the Datura VR stuff, but I don't think they have what it takes to come out with a VR system so soon. Perhaps as a peripheral down the line, hopefully.

 

[-PXG-]

Rage wasn't that exciting either.

God damnit. You stole my post.

 

[Man]

What other engine offers 720P 60fps performance on consoles this gen? It's pretty impressive.

It also has physics impulses ala Killzone 2 (animations blend with surroundings / bullet-impact) which makes it behave awesome.
COD only managed 60fps @ 5XXp without any form of advanced physics.

The Jobs model of IDTech5 (various tasks distributed as self-contained 'jobs' being super scalable in regards to amount of CPU cores) is also pretty impressive. Apparently 2K are implementing that into Bioshock Infinity as well.

 

[lowrider007]

What other engine offers 720P 60fps performance on consoles this gen? It's pretty impressive. The main issue is Rage took so long to come out, and Zenimax decided not to license the engine to external developers.!

Agreed, I don't think the Rage engine gets enough credit, what it achieves is stunning considering the hardware, in fact I'd argue that Rage is the most technically impressive game I've ever seen on current gen consoles, nobody has been able to archive what he did with this hardware, he did the impossible.

 

[scitek]

Carmack: "not all that excited [on there]" about next-gen hardware.

Fixed.

 

[x3sphere]

I hope Carmack didn't have anything to do with with the Doom 3 BDG edition. If so then he got shown up big time by the guy behind Sikkmod. I would be sorry to see Carmack fall so far so fast.

Even if he did, he's limited to what Bethesda/Zenimax want. Consoles wouldn't be able to handle Sikkmod with all the bells and whistles at 60fps. Id isn't a PC focused studio anymore

 

[Hazanko]

Agreed, I don't think the Rage engine gets enough credit, what it achieves is stunning considering the hardware, in fact I'd argue that Rage is the most technically impressive game I've ever seen on current gen consoles, nobody has been able to archive what he did with this hardware, he did the impossible.

Agreed, I was shocked when people were nit-picking at the graphics. I played on X360 and was literally blown away at how amazing it looked and it was 60fps!! It's one of the best looking games I've played. Plus I loved the game too, despite being bored of shooter games this gen.

 

[BruceLeeRoy]

Being that Carmack hasn't made a good game in almost a decade(IMO) I am going to say...Meh

 

[Atomski]

Come back to PC Carmack. Make us a fun fast shooter instead of another slow ass controller friendly shooter >_<.

 

[El Sloth]

John Carmack sitting down with Gabe Newell... Oh I wish they would film that conversation.

Fucking this. Let's throw Will Wright in there for the hell of it while we're at it.

 

[onQ123]

I agree with him completely. Which is why I'm more excited about next gen controllers rather than next gen graphics.

As for VR, damn I wish this gen could hold on enough for the next one to start off with a VR set. I'm afraid the time is not right yet for a VR console for cost reasons but man I'd love to be wrong.

The fact that Sony seems interested is not surprising considering the HMZ-T1 and the Datura VR stuff, but I don't think they have what it takes to come out with a VR system so soon. Perhaps as a peripheral down the line, hopefully.

you're like the skinny Italian version of me.

 

[Yopis]

Time to dust off the powerglove.

 

[rohlfinator]

The main issue is Rage took so long to come out, and Zenimax decided not to license the engine to external developers.

What was the reason for that anyway? Seems like a real missed opportunity, but I guess at that point everyone was already using UE3 so maybe it wouldn't have made much of an impact.

 

[Man]

Rage has one big graphical blunder though with the textures visibly caching in view. It's an ugly effect despite all the other great aspects of the engine. It might be that the technology has come out to soon in regards to today's hardware.

 

[Stumpokapow]

I played Quake 1 in a VR helmet circa 1996. It was awful, heavy, and made me nauseous.

 

[Clear]

Carmack has a brilliant mind and is one of the finest engineers ever to grace the industry, but the truth is that he, and his company, are creatively extremely conservative.

You don't look to Id for cutting-edge game design ideas, you look at them for their technology. And as the current gen is powerful enough to represent most anything anyway, all the next power-step facilitates is prettier, more finessed versions of what we have now.

 

[Grayman]

I played Wolfenstein 3d in a helmet in the early 90s but don't remember much of it. 500-600 for something that may or may not be good is a big investment so it will probably take off really slowly. Maybe end up just being gaming on google glasses.

 

[TAJ]

Whatever he likes.
Unfortunately Id is irrelevant at this point. They haven't been able to make good games for years, they tried to develop an engine for consoles but in that field other developers have proved to be much better than them.

And this is why 60fps will never be standard on consoles.
This right here.

 

[Poimandres]

What was the reason for that anyway? Seems like a real missed opportunity, but I guess at that point everyone was already using UE3 so maybe it wouldn't have made much of an impact.

They wanted to keep it in house to give their own studios "the edge". I know that Machinegames (ex Starbreeze dev's) were working on a game using id tech 5, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what they cook up!

 

[squidyj]

Wii & Angry Birds paint a pretty big picture. you all should welcome your new gaming overlords

The fuck is this?

 

[Lonely1]

I played Quake 1 in a VR helmet circa 1996. It was awful, heavy, and made me nauseous.

I always wanted Doom for the Virtual Boy.

 

[Globox_82]

guy that made one game 50 years ago and still gets attention to this day. David Jaffe 1.0. The real jaffe is David Jaffe 2.0

 

[TAJ]

guy that made one game 50 yearbook ago and still gets attention to this day. David Jaffe 1.0. The real jaffe is David Jaffe 2.0

The guy made several extremely relevant engines and a couple accomplished but underutilized ones, and now he's just a figurehead? Lol

 

[onQ123]

The fuck is this?

Can't believe it took this long for someone to respond lol.

 

[~Kinggi~]

RAGE was actually pretty cool.

The fact that you can regularly pick up Rage, for less than 10$ brand new on Amazon, is a sick crime. I mean, the game was actually good outside its launch problems. The pretty graphics are worth the 10$ just to look at it. You getting 3 dvds on 360 for less than 10$.

waaaattt

 

[i-Lo]

Carmack is a legend for two things:

1. Vision backed by programming skill.

2. Articulated honesty (non abrasive). This quality is shared by very few in the gaming community today (fuck the red tape and towing the company line).

That said, I wonder what is his vision of a console? Like others, I am not going to knock the guy but the reality is that innovation such as VR glasses if made a part of next gen would drive up the cost and I don't know how much loss any of the big two are willing to take per console. Or they'd have to sacrifice on the core hardware for adding in VR goggles, similar to Wii U.

 

[Poimandres]

guy that made one game 50 years ago and still gets attention to this day. David Jaffe 1.0. The real jaffe is David Jaffe 2.0

Why do people say stuff like this?

Carmack doesn't big note himself. He doesn't smack talk other developers. He's a tech guy who talks about whatever he's excited about at the time. He doesn't talk out of his ass either... he actually comes across as pretty grounded. Things like his VR headset don't have a big corporate backer, he's just doing it out of interest.

If you don't care for what he has to say, don't listen. It's not like he goes out of his way to get attention.

 

[Mr_Appleby]

Technology progresses.

It does indeed.. but the core concept of strapping the TV to my face just doesn't excite me anymore. Chilling out on the sofa is pretty much all the immersion I'm after, especially for longer gaming sessions. I can imagine myself taking the thing off and on all the time to make coffee, roll cigarettes, find the corn chips, see what the hell it is my cats want etc.

 

[TAJ]

That said, I wonder what is his vision of a console? Like others, I am not going to knock the guy but the reality is that innovation such as VR glasses if made a part of next gen would drive up the cost and I don't know how much loss any of the big two are willing to take per console. Or they'd have to sacrifice on the core hardware for adding in VR goggles, similar to Wii U.

If it's easy (and cheap) to add support for it, then it could be viable as an option. If they don't need to sell it to everyone, then it could be sold at good margins. (Like Kinect, except without splintering the base as much... at all, really)