Volitions Advocate on 14/10/2011 at 06:23
I didn't say Carmack did things on his lonesome. He's the lead programmer, the engine itself was his brain child. They've been touting idtech5 as this grand masterpiece of technology for these past 6 years and we've seen a ton of interviews and keynote speeches by carmack himself. He probably did do the majority of the work on the engine himself. There are always more than 1 programmer on a AAA title like this, but i'll bet they were working on tools and game logic, The engine is pretty cool, lots of neat features. But at the end of it all it makes me wonder what the level designers and writers and the rest of the design team did for 6 years, in regards to DESIGN, while Carmack and his team of programmers were working on TECH. It looks like they put together the first half o fthe game, and instead of finishing it, they just spend 4 of the 6 years going over every pixel of their beloved megatextures. Rather than adding more content to the game.
ugh, now I sound like I hate the game. I don't. I'm just ... perplexed.
Sulphur on 14/10/2011 at 06:31
Heh. You do realise this was their first multiplatform game, right? A lot of the groundwork for megatextures was put in with ET: Quake Wars. Much of their time was spent optimising for the consoles, that involves fitting geometry poly counts and textures as well.
Also, you do understand that not everything created during those six years would have wound up in the game, right? Apart from the fact that the content team created terabytes of data that was compressed and packed in for the final release, the fact is creating shit with the amount of detail you can see in the game takes time. Lots of it. Every environment was meticulously created by hand in complete detail, because megatextures means you don't need to repeat textures across the entire map. This, of course, means that you spend way more time actually creating textures and stamping/creating unique things to see because you're not tiling the same texture ad infinitum across map geometry.
Add in the fact that there were probably iterations to the engine and changing specs and design all over the last six years. We'll probably know more in a post-mortem if id decide to do one, but I'm guessing there's a lot of content around Rage that never made the cut while they were iterating the engine across the consoles.
Briareos H on 14/10/2011 at 06:56
Either that or the rest of the game is waiting to be released as DLC
Volitions Advocate on 14/10/2011 at 07:01
I know all of these things. Like I said, I'm not hating on the game. Reading through my posts it probably sounds like I'm doing a complete 180. You have to play the game through though. It just starts to get going when it abruptly ends. It's as if Shakespeare ended Hamlet after he got back from his little military campaign.
Koki on 14/10/2011 at 07:02
Quote Posted by dethtoll
You know, sometimes I wonder why I'm so hostile to people who complain endlessly about PC gaming not being what it once was.
Because you're in denial?
june gloom on 14/10/2011 at 07:22
Not in denial. I just don't give a fuck because I didn't dig my enjoyment gland out with a spoon like some people.
Sulphur on 14/10/2011 at 07:26
Quote Posted by Volitions Advocate
I know all of these things. Like I said, I'm not hating on the game. Reading through my posts it probably sounds like I'm doing a complete 180. You have to play the game through though. It just starts to get going when it abruptly ends. It's as if Shakespeare ended Hamlet after he got back from his little military campaign.
It's an id game. You don't think they actually thought their narrative through, do you? It's post-apocalyptic because it's a good flavour to work with for megatextures. They gave you 10-15 hours of gameplay, and probably worked their story in backwards from that. Have you read the (
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6500/the_creative_intent_of_rage.php) Gamasutra interview? They don't sound like they worried about what they were doing with the story at all.
So, the fact that it ends abruptly isn't surprising: they probably ran out of time, or just didn't give a toss. It's not like id's ever cared much about having a story in their games; and even if they did, like this time around, it's not like they can even
write a good one. 10-15 hours of tight driving and shooting? Sounds okay to me.
nicked on 14/10/2011 at 07:35
Background: You get the phone call at 4 a.m. By 5:30 you're in the secret installation. The
commander explains tersely, "It's about the Slipgate device. Once we perfect these, we'll be able
to use them to transport people and cargo from one place to another instantly.
"An enemy codenamed Quake, is using his own slipgates to insert death squads inside our bases
to kill, steal, and kidnap.
"The hell of it is we have no idea where he's from. Our top scientists think Quake's not from
Earth, but another dimension. They say Quake's preparing to unleash his real army, whatever
that is.
"You're our best man. This is Operation Counterstrike and you're in charge. Find Quake, and
stop him ... or it ... You have full authority to requisition anything you need. If the eggheads are
right, all our lives are expendable."
Prelude to Destruction: While scouting the neighborhood, you hear shots back at the base.
Damn, that Quake bastard works fast! He heard about Operation Counterstrike, and hit first.
Racing back, you see the place is overrun. You are almost certainly the only survivor. Operation
Counterstrike is over. Except for you.
You know that the heart of the installation holds a slipgate. Since Quake's killers came through, it
is still set to his dimension. You can use it to get loose in his hometown. Maybe you can get to
the asshole personally. You pump a round into your shotgun, and get moving.
Briareos H on 14/10/2011 at 08:01
Quote Posted by Sulphur
[...]
That's not my experience with RAGE at all. Have you played it?
The driving is most certainly not "tight" and is filler at best. The levels themselves are great and although the storyline is standard mad max fare, a lot of attention was given to craft the narrative buildup within hubs. The levels were probably designed around a vague narrative at first, only detailing the type of location and enemies, then strewn together through hubs. It is quite obvious that many designers spent a lot of time detailing those areas and their characters so that everything would fit together nicely, and this really is a first for id. A far cry from "not giving a toss".
Still the result is there: Two large wasteland areas, around 10 levels (regular doom level sized) and a dozen very small indoor locations (incl. sewers, small bandit outposts and fetch quests). If you don't give a damn about the filler, which is not very interesting anyway, what you get is a 4-hour long, very enjoyable FPS ending far sooner than it should in the worst way possible, so I get where VA's coming from.
Ulukai on 14/10/2011 at 08:42
Quote Posted by Briareos H
The driving is most certainly not "tight" and is filler at best.
I don't agree with that, for me it feels like an integral part of the game.
I'm enjoying the driving parts and races make a welcome diversion from - go here, find this, shoot that. The vehicles feel like they're actually driving over terrain, they have different handling characteristics and you can upgrade them. I find myself wanting to seek out and make all the "super-jumps" too. Just because I can and it's fun.
My critiscism of it would be that if anything, the vehicle combat seems a little too easy and I'd prefer more of a challenge. Maybe they didn't want to alienate the people who are all about the FPS elements.
