Pickle, you were almost able to post a sort of complete thought this time! That's a good retard!

Ray Marden wrote on Mar 3, 2012, 00:37:
But, as others have noted, the game failed at reaching greatness for so many reasons other than the graphics. The bugs? The AI? The confined gameplay? The pointless world hubs? The good, but completely underutilized vehicle component? The weak gun play? The terrible story? The weak UI? Broken economy? Boring gameplay?
The game was weak, and graphically, the highs did not surpass the lows.
Thinking Quake is the last id game I really enjoyed playing,
Ray

Ah ok what recent game did you enjoy as having better gunplay?

* REMOVED *
This comment was deleted on Mar 4, 2012, 09:19.

Sepharo wrote on Mar 3, 2012, 14:10:

Prez wrote on Mar 3, 2012, 10:18:

Quake Wars is a fucking awesome multiplayer game, and it's a pity that it's been dying off. It's just so freaking deep and atmospheric and generally amazing.

I'm glad to find I'm not the only one who thought Quake Wars was great. It was one of the few MP games I played in multiplayer (not exclusively against bots as is usually the case for me) because it gave objectives for each class that had nothing to do with killing foul-mouthed, bunny-hopping 13 year-olds who could kill me without even trying.

I really liked Quake Wars as well but didn't end up getting it because I had my fill during the open beta (even though it was only one map). One of the few times I can ever remember that a beta influenced me not to buy a game not because it was bad but because I had had enough fun and moved on.

I just love how Splash Damage took everything they did in Wolf:ET, added just the right ingredients, and made it awesome.

I had my fill of straight DM in Quakeworld. QW:ET was just what the doc ordered.

Too bad Brink kinda blew; I had high expectations.

^D^

Mordecai Walfish wrote on Mar 3, 2012, 00:30:
So RAGE flops... iD lays off a bunch of people, likely some of the people who have been working on Doom 4..

Then, pictures leak a couple weeks after, supposedly showing the current state of Doom 4.

iD doesn't deny anything because the pictures are, in fact, from the early stages of development of the game.

I wonder if they know which one of their ex-employees did it? Sad that after so many years fucking up the development of a game that the people who really get hurt are the employees who worked for this defective design team. The shit only rolls downhill I guess..

I read that the pictures were found in someone's online portfolio/CV.

-scheherazade

Prez wrote on Mar 3, 2012, 10:18:

Quake Wars is a fucking awesome multiplayer game, and it's a pity that it's been dying off. It's just so freaking deep and atmospheric and generally amazing.

I'm glad to find I'm not the only one who thought Quake Wars was great. It was one of the few MP games I played in multiplayer (not exclusively against bots as is usually the case for me) because it gave objectives for each class that had nothing to do with killing foul-mouthed, bunny-hopping 13 year-olds who could kill me without even trying.

I really liked Quake Wars as well but didn't end up getting it because I had my fill during the open beta (even though it was only one map). One of the few times I can ever remember that a beta influenced me not to buy a game not because it was bad but because I had had enough fun and moved on.

^Drag0n^ wrote on Mar 3, 2012, 09:50:
That and the abrupt ending. It felt like the game ended at chapter 3 of a 14 chapter book.

Yeah, that's the only part that really got to me... Not just that it felt too early and abrubt, but the fact that the damn game was preparing you for this big, bad-ass boss fight which just never comes! You hear NPCs discussing this giant monster of some sort, then you get handed a BFG finally and sent on your way... It seemed a no-brainer that you were going to be needing that BFG to fight some big bad-ass... But, nope... All you encounter is a bunch of normal monsters and bad guys you can easily handle with your regular weapons... I never even once test-fired the damn BFG!! Because, I was so concerned with saving my ammo for that upcoming boss fight which never arrived! To this day, I have no idea what Rage BFG fire even looks like, because I was so depressed by that ending and the fact that you weren't allow to re-enter the damn wasteland after finishing, that I just no longer even cared... Ugh...

And, really, it's made all the worse by the fact that I so loved the actual gameplay throughout the game... Sure, there were minor quibbles here and there, but nothing that bothered me too much... I was having a damn blast with all of the game features all throughout the entire game... But, that ending... Oh, god, that ending just kind of spoils the whole damn thing... *sigh*

Quake Wars is a fucking awesome multiplayer game, and it's a pity that it's been dying off. It's just so freaking deep and atmospheric and generally amazing.

I'm glad to find I'm not the only one who thought Quake Wars was great. It was one of the few MP games I played in multiplayer (not exclusively against bots as is usually the case for me) because it gave objectives for each class that had nothing to do with killing foul-mouthed, bunny-hopping 13 year-olds who could kill me without even trying.

shihonage wrote on Mar 3, 2012, 05:46:
Quake 4 was a good single-player game. Much better than Doom3.

Raven. Now that they are Activision, and id is Bethesda, I wonder what is going to happen to their games on a technical level. Many of their (successful) games were based on idTech. I did notice that they were one of the plythora of hands on the patient for CoD:MW3. Makes sense, as that engine roots back to idtech3 or something (but is so derivative that, like valve, it is no longer considered an id engine).

shihonage wrote on Mar 3, 2012, 05:46:
Quake Wars is a fucking awesome multiplayer game, and it's a pity that it's been dying off. It's just so freaking deep and atmospheric and generally amazing.

Agreed. Splash Damage nailed objective-based multiplayer. This was the commercialized version of game play from the free Wolfenstein: Enemy Terretory MP game, and pretty much everyone loved that one too. I think they are in the Bethesda fold (they made Brink), so we may well see them using idTech5 in the future.

shihonage wrote on Mar 3, 2012, 05:46:
Prey was a pretty ok game too.

I thought the idea was great, but it later seemed like the aborted child of Duke Nukem and Doom in terms of atmosphere after the abduction. That and the plot was a little too predictable.

Prey 2 Looks awesome, though. Looks very Blade Runner with some cool parkour running thrown in (I enjoyed Mirror's Edge). It uses an updated IdTech4 engine, and again, the dev is under Bethesda now, so they'll have access to idTech5, assuming that's what id & Bethesda want to do.

shihonage wrote on Mar 3, 2012, 05:46:
None of those _games_ were actually made by id software.

Q3TA was the last id game I really loved. Doom3 needed a Tac-Lite, as switching between the gun and a lightsource just sucked. Cops hold a handheld light under their pistols in similar situations; it was annoying that you could not.

My biggest disappointment with Rage has nothing to do with graphics or the engine, but everything to do with the game mechanic and map design: I HATE invisible walls. HATE them. Nothing takes immersion away faster. If i wander off, kill me, make me fall to my death, let me get overwhelmed by a pack of wild animals, but don't get so lazy in your map design that you put invisible ropes everywhere to keep me on track. That made it feel VERY Call of Duty, and not "open end world" as was advertised.

That and the abrupt ending. It felt like the game ended at chapter 3 of a 14 chapter book.

^D^

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Mar 3, 2012, 05:04:
Modern games do a very good job masking the use of tiled textures and I rarely ever notice it.

Yeah, modern console ports are masking it well because they simply dont have a high viewing distance. Thats normally where you will notice these tiles. If you only see a few hundred meters, you wont be able to tell easily.

"When we officially show things you'll see awesome."

Yeah, gotta let them run through Photoshop first!

Quake 4 was a good single-player game. Much better than Doom3.

Quake Wars is a fucking awesome multiplayer game, and it's a pity that it's been dying off. It's just so freaking deep and atmospheric and generally amazing.

Prey was a pretty ok game too.

None of those _games_ were actually made by id software.

Ray Marden wrote on Mar 3, 2012, 00:37:
Even looking directly at the "unique texture" argument, a number of textures are repeated, a number of zones are repeated, a number of NPCs are repeated, etc. Further, the unique textures are greatly absent from the actual play zones. You get some nice vistas or sky boxes, but you cannot actually go and look at any of those things - you're character is stuck on the narrow, linear path.

What annoys me is that people defend RAGE's approach to MegaTextures, claiming that unique textures are more important than texture quality. And while I would certainly agree that unique textures are preferable to tiled textures that assumes a minimum texture quality, which RAGE did not meet (your examples perfectly highlight that).

Modern games do a very good job masking the use of tiled textures and I rarely ever notice it. Yet I DID notice when RAGE used poorly textured low-polygon objects that would have looked out of place a decade ago. RAGE sold itself on its textures - virtually every interview mentioned it, telling us how it was better than the existing approach. For me - like a lot of others - they failed to deliver.

Troll much?

Graphically, id gave up on any real type of consistency outside of framerate. I don't care if image A looks great if image B looks like total crap. I would far prefer a game that looks consistently good with a good framerate. Toss in real time degradation of graphics, in-screen texture updating, and numerous drivers bugs, it really feels like a graphics failure.

Can you say fugly?

Even looking directly at the "unique texture" argument, a number of textures are repeated, a number of zones are repeated, a number of NPCs are repeated, etc. Further, the unique textures are greatly absent from the actual play zones. You get some nice vistas or sky boxes, but you cannot actually go and look at any of those things - your character is stuck on the narrow, linear path.

But, as others have noted, the game failed at reaching greatness for so many reasons other than the graphics. The bugs? The AI? The confined gameplay? The pointless world hubs? The good, but completely underutilized vehicle component? The weak gun play? The terrible story? The weak UI? Broken economy? Boring gameplay?
The game was weak, and graphically, the highs did not surpass the lows.
Thinking Quake is the last id game I really enjoyed playing,
Ray

This comment was edited on Mar 3, 2012, 05:37.

So RAGE flops... iD lays off a bunch of people, likely some of the people who have been working on Doom 4..

Then, pictures leak a couple weeks after, supposedly showing the current state of Doom 4.

iD doesn't deny anything because the pictures are, in fact, from the early stages of development of the game.

I wonder if they know which one of their ex-employees did it? Sad that after so many years fucking up the development of a game that the people who really get hurt are the employees who worked for this defective design team. The shit only rolls downhill I guess..

Prez wrote on Mar 2, 2012, 21:15:
You kind of remind of me of how musicians critique music - while the average listener simply enjoy the music by listening to it, leave it to a musician to dissect it nine ways til Sunday, nitpicking every little missed note or timing change. These are the kind of things almost no one else pays any attention to.

Amusingly I am actually a musician. I always find I'm balancing the art of something with it's technical merit, so perhaps that's why I'm so fussy when it comes to gaming.

They were "bad" because of low polygon objects, static skies (the same type as RAGE), the blurry textures with very low resolution, the flat lighting, the uninspired locales, the poor post-processing (especially the McDonald one) and more. Just look how blurry shots like this and this are. It's not just subjectively bad for an upcoming game; it's objectively bad on a technical level. And to top it off it has been stated by id Software that it will run at 30fps. I just fail to see what we're supposed to be excited about.

On a technical level, I can't even comment - I'll defer to you. On an aesthetic level, however, I honestly see absolutely nothing wrong with those screens. Consider it an unsophisticated opinion if you must, but most people lack the technical sophistication to view "art" (be it digital or otherwise) from any angle other than aesthetically. I would suspect the vast majority of a medium's audience fall's into the same category.

You kind of remind of me of how musicians critique music - while the average listener simply enjoy the music by listening to it, leave it to a musician to dissect it nine ways til Sunday, nitpicking every little missed note or timing change. These are the kind of things almost no one else pays any attention to.

Not saying you're wrong; just viewing the subject from a different angle altogether.

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Mar 2, 2012, 20:28:
Because they don't compare well to modern games and Doom 4 won't be released for at least another couple of years, perhaps longer. If they look bad now then they're not going to cut mustard in 2014-15.

Are we even looking at the same screenshots?

The ones I'm looking at look pretty decent, IMO.

^D^

Prez wrote on Mar 2, 2012, 15:10:
Despite that his retort was a tad melodramatic in a videogames graphics discussion, I am at a loss as to why 1) I need to be of the mindset that those screens - of whatever the hell they were- were "bad", and 2) why I should be embarrassed over thinking that they look pretty nice all things considered.

Because they don't compare well to modern games and Doom 4 won't be released for at least another couple of years, perhaps longer. If they look bad now then they're not going to cut mustard in 2014-15.

They were "bad" because of low polygon objects, static skies (the same type as RAGE), the blurry textures with very low resolution, the flat lighting, the uninspired locales, the poor post-processing (especially the McDonald one) and more. Just look how blurry shots like this and this are. It's not just subjectively bad for an upcoming game; it's objectively bad on a technical level. And to top it off it has been stated by id Software that it will run at 30fps. I just fail to see what we're supposed to be excited about.