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[Raide]

LOL
Wow PC gamers are really grasping at straws here.
Rage bombed because of a open world that was not on par with current open world games & the interior levels were a lot of linear cramp one way paths.

That just don't fly today's gaming.

id should have made RAGE the rebirth of the Doom style game, instead of trying to do open world with go-karts. As soon as they said about not making a traditional MP in RAGE I lost interest. Shooting is solid, the rest of it is pretty average and done better in other games.

Maybe for Doom 4 eh!

 

[TedNindo]

LOL
Wow PC gamers are really grasping at straws here.
Rage bombed because of a open world that was not on par with current open world games & the interior levels were a lot of linear cramp one way paths.

That just don't fly today's gaming.

If ID went all out on current PC hardware the graphics would have been far better then anything out there. It would've possibly been the first next gen game. The amounts of hype it would have gotten on PC wouldn't have been comparable. PC gamers are starving for hardware pushing exclusives.

 

[NBtoaster]

If ID went all out on current PC hardware the graphics would have been far better then anything out there. It would've possibly been the first next gen game. The amounts of hype it would have gotten on PC wouldn't have been comparable. PC gamers are starving for hardware pushing exclusives.

They focused on something that was still technologically innovative. Something that will probably be used extensively next gen.

 

[ban25]

They were willing to risk everything...
even their jobs... on the...

STREETS OF RAGE

 

[Gattsu25]

LOL
Wow PC gamers are really grasping at straws here.
Rage bombed because of a open world that was not on par with current open world games & the interior levels were a lot of linear cramp one way paths.

That just don't fly today's gaming.

How many times are you forced to turn back and revisit areas in Call of Duty games?

Hell, these are the games that punish you for not moving through their linear one-way levels quick enough by endlessly spawning enemies until you pass the trigger point which ceases the reinforcements.

 

[specialguy]

It's weird how gaming seems to have passed Carmack by...I noticed a sense of resignation or lack of zest in his interviews for some time. Almost an old man, seen it all and tired of it.

He was king of twitch shooters, but he doesnt fit in todays high production value, story-laced games, IE your Uncharted, Gears, Creeds, etc.

Rage was sort of Id's attempt to go that rout, but it seems to have not worked out.

Also, this part is personal and many will disagree, but I feel like graphics are the biggest driver of game demand among the hardcore, and Carmack even doesn't seem to realize that much. He's made some odd, to me, statements in interviews, stuff like that, they draw so many pixels in 720P games that gamers dont even see most of them, or something. As if there was no point to it.

It's almost as if he thinks graphics are done for, or he's tired of pushing them, or he thinks diminishing returns is in full force, and I couldn't disagree more, I've always loved Mark Rein's take on it, because it mimics my own. I remember early in this gen somebody said "well isn't 360 just the same games with prettied up graphics" And Rein said something like "wait wait, go back to that graphics part. Because have you SEEN Gears? That's a really big deal".

 

[Broder Salsa]

Sad to hear people losing their jobs, hopefully they can get something new. Not surprised though, thought Rage was average at best.

 

[subversus]

It's weird how gaming seems to have passed Carmack by...I noticed a sense of resignation or lack of zest in his interviews for some time. Almost an old man, seen it all and tired of it.

He was king of twitch shooters, but he doesnt fit in todays high production value, story-laced games, IE your Uncharted, Gears, Creeds, etc.

Rage was sort of Id's attempt to go that rout, but it seems to have not worked out.

Also, this part is personal and many will disagree, but I feel like graphics are the biggest driver of game demand among the hardcore, and Carmack even doesn't seem to realize that much. He's made some odd, to me, statements in interviews, stuff like that, they draw so many pixels in 720P games that gamers dont even see most of them, or something. As if there was no point to it.

It's almost as if he thinks graphics are done for, or he's tired of pushing them, or he thinks diminishing returns is in full force, and I couldn't disagree more, I've always loved Mark Rein's take on it, because it mimics my own. I remember early in this gen somebody said "well isn't 360 just the same games with prettied up graphics" And Rein said something like "wait wait, go back to that graphics part. Because have you SEEN Gears? That's a really big deal".

I sort of agree with you. I think Carmack is more interested in other industries like space, nuclear technologies and only coding side of gaming. He really likes doing small stuff on iPhone and seems to play Nintendo games only. He wasn't invested in gameplay since Quake 3 and although he did some tweaks on Rage (according to Willits) they were about how the game feels, not how it plays. And Rage feels good.

Again I think id is Guns'n'Roses case.

 

[Hedja]

Set Carmack free and let Valve or some other decent company take him. Seems as though Bethesda's broken-game-publishing scheme isn't letting him work at his full potential.

 

[Truespeed]

I think the failure was megatextures. They thought it would save them time when the artists dont have to think about the texture memory budget that they could use. But instead of saving them time they needed 7 years to make it work right. If they had used traditional texturing they would have ended with like 4 years i guess.

Yeah, I was just going to post something similar. The development of id Tech 5 dragged on for years and the mega-texture technology severely limited the scope of the engine and it's overall usefulness to the other ZeniMax companies. I wouldn't be surprised if id Tech 6 scrapped mega-textures altogether for the more traditional and versatile approach. ZeniMax has given Carmack a long leash so far, but given how things have turned out they're going to start shortening that leash.

One positive note about id Tech 5 is that they've laid a lot of the groundwork for multiplatform development so id Tech 6 should greatly benefit and extend upon it.

 

[Raide]

It's weird how gaming seems to have passed Carmack by...I noticed a sense of resignation or lack of zest in his interviews for some time. Almost an old man, seen it all and tired of it.

He was king of twitch shooters, but he doesnt fit in todays high production value, story-laced games, IE your Uncharted, Gears, Creeds, etc.

Rage was sort of Id's attempt to go that rout, but it seems to have not worked out.

Also, this part is personal and many will disagree, but I feel like graphics are the biggest driver of game demand among the hardcore, and Carmack even doesn't seem to realize that much. He's made some odd, to me, statements in interviews, stuff like that, they draw so many pixels in 720P games that gamers dont even see most of them, or something. As if there was no point to it.

It's almost as if he thinks graphics are done for, or he's tired of pushing them, or he thinks diminishing returns is in full force, and I couldn't disagree more, I've always loved Mark Rein's take on it, because it mimics my own. I remember early in this gen somebody said "well isn't 360 just the same games with prettied up graphics" And Rein said something like "wait wait, go back to that graphics part. Because have you SEEN Gears? That's a really big deal".

Hes an awesome tech guy who knows how to program the shit out of stuff but he is not a games designer. Back in the day he needed Romero in the background driving his awesome vision.

Even though graphics are a big draw now, there still has to be a compelling game there too. Their lack of solid MP was also a major mistake, since people might actually keep playing it beyond the first week or two.

 

[FoolsRun]

Yeah, I was just going to post something similar. The development of id Tech 5 dragged on for years and the mega-texture technology severely limited the scope of the engine and it's overall usefulness to the other ZeniMax companies. I wouldn't be surprised if id Tech 6 scrapped mega-textures altogether for the more traditional and versatile approach. ZeniMax has given Carmack a long leash so far, but given how things have turned out they're going to start shortening that leash.

I've been wondering for a while whether Carmack has become more of a liability than an asset. He's always pushed the envelope and tried to do things that other developers avoid, and in id's early days that worked--because in the end, the things he tried actually worked well. His last two engines had too many limitations. Doom 3 had a unified lighting model, but because the hardware wasn't up to the task, the model was very limited. Lighting was very harsh with sharp edges, and while it had shadows out the wazoo, it was very unrealistic and didn't look particularly good. IdTech 5's bullet-point was megatextures, but while they're good in theory, I feel like they fell flat on their face in practice. You now have lots of unique textures, but most of them are low resolution, the game installs take up a huge amounts of space, and unless you have a 2GB graphics card, you're going to have some texture pop-in. Remember how people flipped out at some of the early Unreal Engine 3 games that had texture pop-in when you started a level? That's nothing compared to the nonsense some people experience with Rage. I originally tried playing Rage with an Ati 512MB video card. Even after the drivers were "fixed" and id released a patch, it took a few seconds to redraw the screen every time I looked around. It took an upgrade to a 1.2GB NVidia card to make the game playable for me.

I appreciate Carmack trying to push things forward, but you have to make sure that the hardware can actually support what you're trying to do. I think he's overreached for the past decade.

 

[ElRenoRaven]

I've been wondering for a while whether Carmack has become more of a liability than an asset. He's always pushed the envelope and tried to do things that other developers avoid, and in id's early days that worked--because in the end, the things he tried actually worked well. His last two engines had too many limitations. Doom 3 had a unified lighting model, but because the hardware wasn't up to the task, the model was very limited. Lighting was very harsh with sharp edges, and while it had shadows out the wazoo, it was very unrealistic and didn't look particularly good. IdTech 5's bullet-point was megatextures, but while they're good in theory, I feel like they fell flat on their face in practice. You now have lots of unique textures, but most of them are low resolution, the game installs take up a huge amounts of space, and unless you have a 2GB graphics card, you're going to have some texture pop-in. Remember how people flipped out at some of the early Unreal Engine 3 games that had texture pop-in when you started a level? That's nothing compared to the nonsense some people experience with Rage. I originally tried playing Rage with an Ati 512MB video card. Even after the drivers were "fixed" and id released a patch, it took a few seconds to redraw the screen every time I looked around. It took an upgrade to a 1.2GB NVidia card to make the game playable for me.

I appreciate Carmack trying to push things forward, but you have to make sure that the hardware can actually support what you're trying to do. I think he's overreached for the past decade.

I have to agree 100 percent. It's sad really. I'd say it's probably one reason ID's been on a decline. That and farming out your franchises to other companies that may not be the best choice hasn't helped either.

 

[LuchaShaq]

How many times are you forced to turn back and revisit areas in Call of Duty games?

Hell, these are the games that punish you for not moving through their linear one-way levels quick enough by endlessly spawning enemies until you pass the trigger point which ceases the reinforcements.

You're missing his point entirely.

You can have

Amazing open worlds - Skyrim - Red Dead etc

Polished linearity - Call of Duty - Gears - Uncharted etc


What Rage had was half assed both

 

[msv]

Remember how people flipped out at some of the early Unreal Engine 3 games that had texture pop-in when you started a level? That's nothing compared to the nonsense some people experience with Rage. I originally tried playing Rage with an Ati 512MB video card. Even after the drivers were "fixed" and id released a patch, it took a few seconds to redraw the screen every time I looked around. It took an upgrade to a 1.2GB NVidia card to make the game playable for me.

That is the wrong conclusion. I played Rage on a Radeon HD4770 w/ 512MB RAM, and the only place i noticed texture pop-in was the very beginning, after that no problems what so ever the rest of the game. So the amount of VRAM was not the issue. The newer drivers from ATI were the issue I think, since I updated mine first before playing - then it didn't work properly. After that I tried reverting to my standard/a bit older drivers, et voila, no more problems the entire game.

I'm not sure who it is at ID, (I presume Willits), but they're driving in the wrong direction, going with the flow of other current mainstream FPS, when instead they should go back to their roots. A Doom I/II map-layout, enemy abundance and minimalism, style game combined with Quake 1/3's physics and using idTech 5's graphic potential to the max would be an instant market killer. I have no doubt that it would create a huge fanbase and sell like crazy. If only one studio would forego these shitty 'advancements' or 'evolutions' (ugh whenever someone utters that crap, all I hear is L'Oreal, dermatological innovation juvinator bladibla) in game mechanics and realise that these 'innovations' have created a different type of game, not an evolution and not a 'better' game.

 

[JaseC]

Rage needing a 2GB card to quell texture pop-in is far from the truth. Post-patch, and with the then-latest nvidia drivers (the betas intended for Battlefield 3), I was experiencing absolutely no pop-in at all with my GTX 570 system. Even with the texture resolution set to 8k, the fact of the matter is that the game uses a little less than a gig of VRAM at most.

Suffice to say, if you have an nvidia card with at least a gig of RAM, you should be fine. If you've got an AMD card, however, well...

Edit: Rage would've been better off on the next generation of consoles. Limiting the SP component of the game - virtualised textures and all - to the size of two X360 DVDs proved to be a disaster from a texture quality standpoint.

 

[Tain]

You're missing his point entirely.

You can have

Amazing open worlds - Skyrim - Red Dead etc

Polished linearity - Call of Duty - Gears - Uncharted etc


What Rage had was half assed both

like arkham asylum and zelda basically

 

[msv]

Suffice to say, if you have an nvidia card with at least a gig of RAM, you should be fine. If you've got an AMD card, however, well...

Look at my post - you're wrong about needing 1GB of VRAM. It works perfectly fine on an AMD card with 512MB.

 

[JaseC]

Look at my post - you're wrong about needing 1GB of VRAM. It works perfectly fine on an AMD card with 512MB.

I'm not wrong per se, rather I'm not talking about playing the game with the default texture resolution setting of 4k.

Even with the texture resolution set to 8k, the fact of the matter is that the game uses a little less than a gig of VRAM at most.

 

[Victrix]

Rage was as bad a misstep on the PC as UT3 was for Epic

The difference being of course that Epic has another massively popular series that successfully made the jump to console dominance, and a 'controlling interest' in engine licensing.

Both are still depressing

 

[TyrantGuardian]

I really, REALLY hope that id just goes balls out with Doom 4 and doesn't try to do anything "modern" or "innovative" and just gives us a Serious Sam-style game with great tech and PC support. I for one believe there's a lot of people out there who would be interested in it. They just have to stop compromising their designs. It's clearly not working out.

 

[FoolsRun]

Rage needing a 2GB card to quell texture pop-in is far from the truth. Post-patch, and with the then-latest nvidia drivers (the betas intended for Battlefield 3), I was experiencing absolutely no pop-in at all with my GTX 570 system.

While pop-in more or less disappeared once I upgraded to a 570, there were a few outdoor areas where it still occurred. I think the main offender was Dead City. If I plowed forward in one direction I was okay, but I was looking around checking things out and textures were being swapped out and loaded back in as I turned 360 degrees. It was quick, but still noticeable.

In any case, the PC launch was pretty much an abortion.

 

[subversus]

You're missing his point entirely.

You can have

Amazing open worlds - Skyrim - Red Dead etc

Polished linearity - Call of Duty - Gears - Uncharted etc


What Rage had was half assed both

or you can have Just Cause 2

 

[JaseC]

While pop-in more or less disappeared once I upgraded to a 570, there were a few outdoor areas where it still occurred. I think the main offender was Dead City. If I plowed forward in one direction I was okay, but I was looking around checking things out and textures were being swapped out and loaded back in as I turned 360 degrees. It was quick, but still noticeable.

I had the same issue initially, but when the patch released and I set the texture cache option to 8k, pop-in disappeared entirely. I even made a point to return to known trouble spots, but nope - nothing of the sort. I should also mention that, by default, the game doesn't utilise all available CUDA cores for texture transcoding and so I'd changed that particular setting. Perhaps that is why I was issue-free after the update.

In any case, the PC launch was pretty much an abortion.

Oh, absolutely.

 

[MightyHedgehog]

Rage definitely could've been better, but still was a really fun SP and co-op game compared to the rest of the 2011 FPS lineup. I hope id can turn things around with Doom 4, which had better be focused on telling no fucking stories and must be all about Doom 1 & 2-inspired action shooting with a massive focus on co-op, custom levels & easy editing.

 

[Sciz]

I really, REALLY hope that id just goes balls out with Doom 4 and doesn't try to do anything "modern" or "innovative" and just gives us a Serious Sam-style game with great tech and PC support. I for one believe there's a lot of people out there who would be interested in it. They just have to stop compromising their designs. It's clearly not working out.

An interview with a mo-cap actor for the game leaked a couple years ago. Make of it what you will.

 

[EternalGamer]

Er... they should have removed this before laying people off..

Just change the "H" to an "F" and you're good to go.

 

[Respawn]

More work less talk Mr. Carmack [As informative as they are]. Most folks playing your games don't care how you render each pixel. It's what on the screen and how it performs is all they care about.
I have Rage on PC and enjoyed it [but the ending] because I had the specs for it.
Good luck and best wishes to all who got laid off and to ID software future endeavors.

 

[Slappers Only]

Er... they should have removed this before laying people off..

Well, they are still hiring.

 

[AgentP]

Suffice to say, if you have an nvidia card with at least a gig of RAM, you should be fine. If you've got an AMD card, however, well...

It had nothing to do with vram or chipset, it was opengl driver. ATI fixed them in the weeks following release. I never had the game then, but now my 6850 has no pop-in that I can see.

 

[zlatko]

Not too shocking honestly. Rage just didn't cut it.

 

[msv]

I'm not wrong per se, rather I'm not talking about playing the game with the default texture resolution setting of 4k.

It has nothing to do with 4k or 8k - again, both worked fine on my hd4770. 16k didn't but that's another story. There wasn't much of a difference between 4k and 8k btw.

 

[Philthy]

Just going to echo what others are getting at.

ID software needs Romero back. He brought the "soul" to their games.

The Guns and Roses comments make a lot of sense. Some people together just create magic.

Alone they sort of fail. Often.

What I wouldn't give for a total reimaging of Doom 1 and 2 with the highest amount of graphics possible right now. Playing GL Doom is amazing at is it. Imagine it 50 times better.

 

[Poimandres]

Are there any details on this? How many people were let go, what they were working on etc?

I really hope this was just a minor restructuring, and not something major. Rage was one of my favourite games of last year because the shooting just feels so good. A gaming world without id would be depressing indeed...