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You might have noticed that I've been writing mostly about games stuff lately. What can I say? I love games. But anyway the reason is partly because things have been going slow lately in regards to the other things I have been doing. I'm trying to get a hold of some people who might be able to help me find a job and I've been struggling with the testing I have been having to do for the new horizons computer learning center so much I feel like I might not be able to complete it. I'm probably going to want to call the people at new horizons on monday and talk to them about it.
I just wanted to slip in a little bit of gaming stuff since I love it so much: John Carmack's Quake World 2006 keynote
I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the bullet that said, "While they will be developing their next game simultaneously on the XBOX 360, their primary development platform is still the PC." Because I simply prefer computer gaming especially for the type of games id software makes. I always figured them for the company that I can trust to release games for the PC that raise the bar for the rest of the industry when it comes to graphics and I can count on them to always have the PC as their primary platform even when other companies might not. Kind of like I would also like to be able to trust epic to have the PC as their primary platform for a new Unreal Tournament game. Which reminds me of a comment they made in their panel discussion and that is they would love for their licensees who use their technologies to make their own games to target multiple platforms including Linux and Mac but in the end they can't force other companies to make games for all platforms if they feel it doesn't make sense for them which is something I totally understand but I would like to see all id software tech licensed games come out for all platforms that the tech supports.
Comments about their next internal project are interesting. Gathering my info from various sources it sounds to me like they are working on an first person action game with possible rpg elements with massive outdoor areas that is going to be massively multiplayer. They said it's not going to be just running around and shooting they are trying to branch out a bit while still doing things they are adept to and have practice in. Sounds like they want to make their own answer or take on WoW. It seems to me that massive multiplayer games are the big in thing right now especially on the computer and it's actually not surprising that they are heading in that direction.
Lately it has seemed like rocket building and competition in that arena has been dominating John Carmack's time and attention so I'm also glad to see that he hasn't given up his game coding career as of yet.
Speaking of iD software games and ones with large outdoor areas Enemy Territories: Quake Wars looks like a pretty good game from the videos and presentations I have watched about it. The way the terrain is rendered is very nice because it allows for some more realistic things to go on with the vehicles and things like that. They call the technology "megatexture" which allows them to create a map that is actually one gigantic texture but only takes 8MB of video ram when you are running it. It allows you to give the illusion of detail so well that they use less polygons in the terrain so they can set the drawing distance to be farther than you normally see in a game of that type also the fact that all the terrain is one surface allows them to set more properties to the ground that would affect for example your vehicle making it easier to drive on roads than offroad just like you would expect. One other interesting thing about how they draw the terrain is if you have a pond and a hill for example the engine automatically draws the grass, rocks, moss and things realisticly depending on elevation and closeness to the water. Which makes things more realistic and also easier for a person who makes Maps for the game.
The gameplay also seems tight and I like all the realistic little touches it has although it doesn't seem so realistic that it takes the fun out of it like some other games that focus on realism have tended to be for me. An example of a nice touch is when you are running and you are holding a big rifle your player pulls it down close to their body like how a real person might also if you are holding a pistol instead of a big weapon like a rocket launcher or large rifle you can run faster because your arms are more free.
I was a little concerned about it's multiplayer-centricness but one of the comments one of the developers made in the id panel Q&A put that to rest because he said they hired someone out of the modification community to write bots for the game. So I imagine you could fill some spots on either side with bots or they will have a single player campaign that places you on either side in a well.. campaign. For multiplayer if you don't have 24 people to play with and or you don't want to go online and play with random strangers you can get your best friends together for a LAN party and set bots to fill in the spots that actual players don't.
One other thing that is interesting about ETQW is the real time strategy elements it has. There are times w hen a certain class of player has to build a unit\building for a certain purpose and the way they picked a spot for the structure and everything made me think of command & conquer so much that I could almost hear the soundtrack of C&C in my head when seeing those parts in the videos.
I just wanted to slip in a little bit of gaming stuff since I love it so much: John Carmack's Quake World 2006 keynote
I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the bullet that said, "While they will be developing their next game simultaneously on the XBOX 360, their primary development platform is still the PC." Because I simply prefer computer gaming especially for the type of games id software makes. I always figured them for the company that I can trust to release games for the PC that raise the bar for the rest of the industry when it comes to graphics and I can count on them to always have the PC as their primary platform even when other companies might not. Kind of like I would also like to be able to trust epic to have the PC as their primary platform for a new Unreal Tournament game. Which reminds me of a comment they made in their panel discussion and that is they would love for their licensees who use their technologies to make their own games to target multiple platforms including Linux and Mac but in the end they can't force other companies to make games for all platforms if they feel it doesn't make sense for them which is something I totally understand but I would like to see all id software tech licensed games come out for all platforms that the tech supports.
Comments about their next internal project are interesting. Gathering my info from various sources it sounds to me like they are working on an first person action game with possible rpg elements with massive outdoor areas that is going to be massively multiplayer. They said it's not going to be just running around and shooting they are trying to branch out a bit while still doing things they are adept to and have practice in. Sounds like they want to make their own answer or take on WoW. It seems to me that massive multiplayer games are the big in thing right now especially on the computer and it's actually not surprising that they are heading in that direction.
Lately it has seemed like rocket building and competition in that arena has been dominating John Carmack's time and attention so I'm also glad to see that he hasn't given up his game coding career as of yet.
Speaking of iD software games and ones with large outdoor areas Enemy Territories: Quake Wars looks like a pretty good game from the videos and presentations I have watched about it. The way the terrain is rendered is very nice because it allows for some more realistic things to go on with the vehicles and things like that. They call the technology "megatexture" which allows them to create a map that is actually one gigantic texture but only takes 8MB of video ram when you are running it. It allows you to give the illusion of detail so well that they use less polygons in the terrain so they can set the drawing distance to be farther than you normally see in a game of that type also the fact that all the terrain is one surface allows them to set more properties to the ground that would affect for example your vehicle making it easier to drive on roads than offroad just like you would expect. One other interesting thing about how they draw the terrain is if you have a pond and a hill for example the engine automatically draws the grass, rocks, moss and things realisticly depending on elevation and closeness to the water. Which makes things more realistic and also easier for a person who makes Maps for the game.
The gameplay also seems tight and I like all the realistic little touches it has although it doesn't seem so realistic that it takes the fun out of it like some other games that focus on realism have tended to be for me. An example of a nice touch is when you are running and you are holding a big rifle your player pulls it down close to their body like how a real person might also if you are holding a pistol instead of a big weapon like a rocket launcher or large rifle you can run faster because your arms are more free.
I was a little concerned about it's multiplayer-centricness but one of the comments one of the developers made in the id panel Q&A put that to rest because he said they hired someone out of the modification community to write bots for the game. So I imagine you could fill some spots on either side with bots or they will have a single player campaign that places you on either side in a well.. campaign. For multiplayer if you don't have 24 people to play with and or you don't want to go online and play with random strangers you can get your best friends together for a LAN party and set bots to fill in the spots that actual players don't.
One other thing that is interesting about ETQW is the real time strategy elements it has. There are times w hen a certain class of player has to build a unit\building for a certain purpose and the way they picked a spot for the structure and everything made me think of command & conquer so much that I could almost hear the soundtrack of C&C in my head when seeing those parts in the videos.
