[OT] Re: Tango collections

[Bruno Medeiros]

Pragma wrote:
> Bruno Medeiros wrote:
>> Pragma wrote:
>>> Walter Bright wrote:
>>>> Sean Kelly wrote:
>>>>> I'll admit that I wouldn't mind taking a crack at this myself, but 
>>>>> from experience I think it's unlikely I'll have much time for 
>>>>> user-level code before Tango reaches 1.0.  Something always seems 
>>>>> to come up that pulls me back into working on low-level features.
>>>>
>>>> Funny that you say that, it reminds me of my work on Empire years 
>>>> ago. I'd never play a game all the way through because I'd go back 
>>>> to working on the guts of it.
>>>
>>> Although you were past the post Walter, I like to call this condition 
>>> "Carmack's Syndrome".
> 
> Oops, that should be "first past the post", sorry. :)
> 
>>>
>> Hum, if I can ask, why do you call it "Carmack's Syndrome"? (I assume 
>> you are refering to John Carmack)
>>
> 
> Yes, the very same.  The comment is obviously tongue-in-cheek, but I 
> still think he's a prime example of this tendency in highly capable 
> (software) engineers.  If anything, he has the portfolio to prove it.
> 
> Overall, he's made a career out of making games out of freestanding 
> tech-demos, with razor-thin plots holding them together.  It springs 
> from this tendency to return to the core, tweak the hell out of it, and 
> turn it into the next big thing - ID software has typically raked in the 
> dough on engine licensing, not just game sales.  IIRC, he doesn't spend 
> that much time playing the games he's made so he tends to get his ass 
> handed to him at the few public quake matches he's had with fans.  So 
> obviously, he's busy improving and streamlining things instead.
> 
> Besides, play-balancing and storyline is what we have content and 
> testing people for. ;)
> 
> But what I attribute to this "syndrome" is really more about innovation, 
> vision and merit applied to the core product than cashing out in a big 
> way.  I for one think the software renderer in Quake I is a work of art, 
> considering what it did for the time.  Also, he came up with a 
> shadow-volume technique that made Doom 3 what it was.  He has also 
> brushed up against the limitations of consumer 3D hardware enough times 
> as to help steer the future of that technology along for quite a while now.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_caching
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmack%27s_Reverse
> 
> And that's just software.  Following his adventures in aerospace, again, 
> this tendency comes back in full force.  He's been tweaking rocket 
> engine designs for years now, despite his wanting to "get away from the 
> core" and actually design a ship around them.
> 
> http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/Armadillo/Home/News
> 

Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking that you were thinking. Because 
then I wanted to chime in say that I think Carmack doesn't care *at all* 
about the "high-level" (game design/gameplay in this case). He does game 
engines and he's brilliant at it, but it doesn't go any further. I'm not 
belligerent or anything, he has the right to do what he wants (and 
perhaps part of his genius is due to his sole interest on the technical 
aspects), but I personally, although a programmer, have much more 
admiration for the art aspect of a game than the technical aspects. In 
iD's case there are many games I remember fondly (namely the Commander 
Keen series and Quake I) which are all before the Romero split and iD 
turned into a "bare" game-engine making company. And I remember them 
fondly because of the game design aspect like the story, setting, 
characters, etc. . Yes, unlike Keen, Quake I had a super thin plot, but 
it still had excellent game design elements: level design, monsters, 
secrets, the gothic environment and feel, and the music (the NiN music 
was awesome). Nowadays iD games fly me by without sparking much 
interest. I played Doom III but not Quake IV (not much time available 
anyways). Not even in the multiplayer/competitive gaming area have iD 
game's maintained their once strong presence.
The Dopefish lives, but not in iD anymore. :o

This opinion of Carmack is based on loose observation of id's history, 
and Carmack's general posture. Someone who has more indepth information 
(like having read the book "Masters of Doom") is likely to know for sure 
if what I mention here is fully correct.

-- 
Bruno Medeiros - MSc in CS/E student
http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?BrunoMedeiros#D