Carmack on DOOM 3

John Carmack Speaks on Doom 3 on GameSpot has a couple of tidbits gleaned from a talk given by id's lead programmer, saying the ability to save the game anywhere on a level is being reexamined, that human characters in the game will be animated with the assistance of motion capture (while most of the monsters will still be hand-animated), and he is struggling with the decision over whether to allow shadows to be turned off in the game, since they are so important to the drama, but they also represent half the engine's rendering efforts. There is also another article on Carmack's talk on GameSpy.
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121.
 
Gabe Newell
May 22, 2003, 12:23
Gabe Newell May 22, 2003, 12:23
May 22, 2003, 12:23
 
Gabe Newell is not God.

If every developer watched his stupid video and designed games the way he does we'd have a bunch of Half-Life clones. Dumb.

120.
 
No subject
May 22, 2003, 12:20
No subject May 22, 2003, 12:20
May 22, 2003, 12:20
 
If a game needs to rely on File Management to keep a players interest/suspense level, then that game has a serious problem.

119.
 
Re: Newell
May 22, 2003, 06:59
Re: Newell May 22, 2003, 06:59
May 22, 2003, 06:59
 
I beleive he mentioned (or implied) that the quicksave would still be there.

That video should be required viewing for everyone including (especially) other developers.

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118.
 
Newell
May 21, 2003, 23:25
Newell May 21, 2003, 23:25
May 21, 2003, 23:25
 
In the Gamespot interview, Gabe Newell has some interesting thoughts on the whole SG problem. In his opinion, the real problem is that players don't trust the game designers: they want to make it through every situation with as much health and armor as they cn for the NEXT situation, and so on. Players have come to expect that designers are just out to kill them in as many ways as they can as many times as possible, and so players have to fight back with constant quicksaves. He points out that the ultimate goal is not to kill the plyer, but to excite the player and have them enjoy the game: the real potential for death is only an incidental mechanism for creating excitement: it shouldn't be seen as a substitute for egaging the player in the game, and making death more likely is not the same thing as making the game more challenging in an _interesting_ way. I'm not sure however, that his solution "make the players trust us more" will really work, especially if most gamers never hear this intention, and most games don't follow through anyway.

117.
 
Re: Well....
May 20, 2003, 20:27
Re: Well.... May 20, 2003, 20:27
May 20, 2003, 20:27
 
the stupid knocked out, then teleported to trash compactor.

It wasn't so bad for me. On many situations the super-accurate Glock pistol was all I ever needed.

There was but one problem with HL's AI you see: If you weren't in their Line of Sight when you shot them, they wouldn't take any action. A spent a good chunk of the game peeking around corners and shooting at visible limbs.
"Nothing livens up a robotic hymn of doom more than an amazing pair of jugs." - Brak
116.
 
Re: Well....
May 20, 2003, 17:57
Re: Well.... May 20, 2003, 17:57
May 20, 2003, 17:57
 
the stupid knocked out, then teleported to trash compactor.
that pissed me off.

115.
 
Re: Well....
May 20, 2003, 11:58
Re: Well.... May 20, 2003, 11:58
May 20, 2003, 11:58
 
The other thing about Marathon which I haven't seen repeated is that it was seamless. No jumping forward a few weeks to the next setting, no hopping into a vehicle and switching to a cutscene as it takes you somewhere. The teleporter meant that every moment of action led straight into the next. Finished clearing out an area? Durandel says 'fine, now we need you over here'

ummm Half Life, or am i missing something,..

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114.
 
Re: Well....
May 20, 2003, 05:26
Re: Well.... May 20, 2003, 05:26
May 20, 2003, 05:26
 
I take it you know about Marathon Resurrection (http://resurrection.bungie.org/)?

Another thing that Marathon added lest we forget was independent non-player characters. Admittedly, BOB's sole purpose was to either get slaughtered by yourself or the Pfhor, but hey, it's the thought that counts.....

And "Frog Blast the Vent Core!" is possibly one of the funniest lines from any computer game ever.....

113.
 
Re: Well....
May 20, 2003, 01:37
Re: Well.... May 20, 2003, 01:37
May 20, 2003, 01:37
 
"One system that works incredibly well and has not been duplicated since is the Marathon series of games' "Pattern Buffers"."

Nice to find another Marathon fan in the wilderness

I prefer the pattern buffer idea to the auto-save checkpoint system that you find in games like Halo. You still have control over when you choose to save and you can do it as many times as you want, but you have to earn the right to save the game by fighting your way through to the next buffer.

Actually Planetside has something kind fo similar where you can access a matrix panel at any base and that will record your DNA so you can respawn at that location if you die - however since the game lets you respawn at any nearby base anyway it hardly seems worth the effort.

Interesting that Half Life had health temrinals like the ones in Marathon. Marathon had lots of firsts I think. The first FPS to have secondary triggers for some of its guns (like the assault rifle with the built-in grenade launcher). The first to allow full mouse-look for aiming etc. And it had such a great story too... sigh...

The other thing about Marathon which I haven't seen repeated is that it was seamless. No jumping forward a few weeks to the next setting, no hopping into a vehicle and switching to a cutscene as it takes you somewhere. The teleporter meant that every moment of action led straight into the next. Finished clearing out an area? Durandel says 'fine, now we need you over here'

Well, I'm sure there will be a Marathon mod for HL2.

112.
 
Re: Save games
May 18, 2003, 19:03
Re: Save games May 18, 2003, 19:03
May 18, 2003, 19:03
 
Please Smell. Way less than half.

Keep in mind, they showed one little glimpse of hell. That is the first glimpse anyone has ever seen of it. They haven't showed us half the game, or half of its contents.

111.
 
Re: Save games
May 18, 2003, 05:52
Re: Save games May 18, 2003, 05:52
May 18, 2003, 05:52
 
Bryant Gumpbell.

This comment was edited on Oct 17, 01:33.
110.
 
Re: Save games
May 17, 2003, 15:38
Re: Save games May 17, 2003, 15:38
May 17, 2003, 15:38
 
Von Helmut, thanks for saving me the need to point that out. It does make you wonder sometimes...

109.
 
Re: Save games
May 17, 2003, 10:35
Re: Save games May 17, 2003, 10:35
May 17, 2003, 10:35
 
You know what else would help?

Not playing the alpha and expecting it to play exactly like the fucking game.

For fuck's sake, I'm sick of people thinking the alpha is how the full game will play. It's an alpha from over a year ago! Get a fucking grip people! It's meant to showcase a few bits of the game, not represent the finished game as a whole.

If the alpha was representative of the finished game, that would mean they'd finished the game a year ago. As it is we still have 4 months to wait. So how about you all shut up and realise the alpha is nowhere close to how the final game will work.

Morons.

Edit follows:

Also, Deus Ex saved everything you left in the levels exactly as they were. It also saved your entire inventory and all your intelligence. By the end of the game the save games were close to 30MB. Did they take forever to load? No, not all that long.

This comment was edited on May 17, 10:39.
108.
 
Re: Save games
May 17, 2003, 07:55
Re: Save games May 17, 2003, 07:55
May 17, 2003, 07:55
 
vajbern,
A raid array might help on the load times.

107.
 
Well....
May 17, 2003, 07:54
Well.... May 17, 2003, 07:54
May 17, 2003, 07:54
 
I for one think that stepping away from quicksaves is a good thing.
One system that works incredibly well and has not been duplicated since is the Marathon series of games' "Pattern Buffers".
At key points on levels you'll find a computer terminal that allows you to save your progress at that point; to save again, you have to find another pattern buffer or go back to one you found earlier. Monsters aren't restocked , but you have to seacrh around or backtrack to save.

Actually, The Thing does something similar, but didn;t quite promote exploration as much as Marathon.

106.
 
Re: #95: Hrm...
May 17, 2003, 06:11
Re: #95: Hrm... May 17, 2003, 06:11
May 17, 2003, 06:11
 
You know what would be an INTERESTING way to get around the 'saving every 5 steps' problem, while not taking away the option of saving altogether? Having a timer of... say... 3 minutes, so that if you do a quicksave, a timer comes up and starts counting down from 3 minutes, but you cant do another quicksave until the 3 minutes are up.

It would work well in a sci-fi environment aswell, as you could have a 'device' that saves the state of the world, but it needs to charge before it can do it.

I think it'd be nerve-wracking to watch the timer for when you could save next, and it would cure the problem without removing the limb.


What's to stop someone from standing still or running in circles for 3 minutes and then saving the game again??



105.
 
Re: Save games
May 17, 2003, 05:52
Re: Save games May 17, 2003, 05:52
May 17, 2003, 05:52
 

I have a little secret for you:

I have played the alpha and it takes so long for the game to load, even with a half-gig of DDR RAM that I can only imagine how long it will take to load saved games. Remember everything you alter in the level remains the way you leave it, so the saved game files will be huge and take probably minutes to load.

I think Carmack wants to disguise this fact by placing these savegame limitations upon us. That way when the level loads from it's beginning we just assume that the engine is clearing the level-information that you have changed up to the point you get killed, and you don't get a true feeling of the enormity of the savegame files. Has Carmack ever stated the size of the savegame files??

BTW, on top of the many other criticisms I have read everywhere about UNREAL 2 I would add that loading any saved-games is a nightmare in itself, taking a couple of minutes on my computer. Does anyone know anything I can do to get around this if I decide to dust off the cobwebs one day?? VALID ANSWERS ONLY, PLEASE

vajbern

104.
 
Re: Ok.
May 17, 2003, 03:11
Re: Ok. May 17, 2003, 03:11
May 17, 2003, 03:11
 
Whoa LLuvitar,
I havn't read every post on this thread but dam. If you let some opinionated multi post moron (as you call him)affect you that badly... What does that say about you? Are you much better?.
On the save game topic. I think Carmack floated that idea for a reason. I think he knew that would get a reaction. People are letting him know what they think. So flamers take a break. MUHAHA

103.
 
Re: No subject
May 16, 2003, 19:06
Re: No subject May 16, 2003, 19:06
May 16, 2003, 19:06
 
Limited mission saves suck just as bad a la Splinter Cell which I got in January, and have to this day not completed due to only be able to save at check points which generally come after a difficult part has been finished.

I'd rather have a properly placed checkpoint system (Which saves before and after the good parts) than the unlimited saving system they had on the PC. My stealth experience was sort of degraded by being able to quickly right mistakes.
"Nothing livens up a robotic hymn of doom more than an amazing pair of jugs." - Brak
102.
 
Re: Ok.
May 16, 2003, 18:35
Re: Ok. May 16, 2003, 18:35
May 16, 2003, 18:35
 
Iluvitar, you are a boob. If you don't like what we talk about, maybe YOU should go somewhere else. Moderate your own little message board and invite all your little friends to go post little happy thoughts about all the little things you like.

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