John Carmack
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Doom 3 source code going free after Rage launch
You've been waiting to get your mitts on the source code to Doom 3 (how do you type with those mitts on?), and your time is almost here. First announced at QuakeCon 2009, John Carmack confirmed plans today, during QuakeCon 2011, to release the source to the 2004 FPS following the launch of id's new hotness, Rage. The code will be released this year. According to VG247's liveblog, Carmack said in his keynote that these releases of Id code are a "challenge to other developers," and are beneficial to both Id and "the community." They're also a QuakeCon tradition -- last year, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and Return to Castle Wolfenstein were opened up. In related news, the Doom & Quake Complete Pack is on sale on Steam right now for $30.
The violence-in-games debate 'didn't matter,' says Carmack
People have been arguing about violence in video games for as long as video games have had violence for people to argue about, and few titles have come under as much sustained fire as Id Software's Doom. It would stand to reason then, that John Carmack, a man who was instrumental in the game's development and the FPS revolution that followed, would be chief among those most affected by the debate's wide-reaching ramifications. Not so much, it turns out. "I never took seriously the violence in video games debate. It was basically talking points for people to get on CNN and espouse their stuff on there," he said, speaking with IndustryGamers. "In the end it didn't matter, it didn't make any impact on things. I never felt threatened by it and it turned out not to matter." Carmack also believes that violent games help calm agressive players and are, in-fact, good for us: "If you go to QuakeCon and you walk by and you see the people there [and compare that to] a random cross section of a college campus, you're probably going to find a more peaceful crowd of people at the gaming convention."
Id co-founder: mobile devices will be as powerful as today's consoles within two years
Id Software has taken that whole "can it play Doom" challenge to heart in recent years, embracing the mobile space in a big way. Given the explosion of phone-based gaming, it's not hard to see why -- in fact, the speed with which devices have advanced has apparently left co-founder John Carmack's mind reeling. In a recent interview, the Wolfenstein / Doom / Quake developer noted how iOS has gone from non-existent to a major gaming player in the time that it has taken the company to develop the still forthcoming Rage. And while the iPad 2 isn't quite as advanced as some might suggest, Carmack predicts that in two years, mobile devices will "almost certainly" be as powerful as the current crop of high-end consoles. Don't say we didn't warn you.
id's Carmack comments on NGP's theoretical performance
John Carmack, id Software's technical director, reminds us of our technical incompetence daily on Twitter. Yet, one tweet managed to catch our attention and make some semblance of sense to our puny brains. Carmack expects "the Sony NGP to perform about a generation beyond smart phones with comparable specs." That should theoretically give Sony's handheld a competitive edge over the next slate of Android and iOS devices. "Low level APIs" may enable developers to get the most out of the NGP. Essentially, low-level APIs give the developer more direct control. However, it's unclear if Carmack is speaking out of first-hand experience -- we don't see id Software/Bethesda on this list of NGP developers.
id's Carmack talks Rage HD, iPad's power, and future iOS games
Rage HD for iOS is a seriously gorgeous game -- well worth the $2, if you ask us. Now that he can look up from his monitor, id Software's technical wizard John Carmack is making the interview rounds -- let's see what we can glean, shall we? On the subject of Rage itself, expect the first patch to add Game Center support as well as some bug fixes / minor tweaks to prettify the game further. And if you picked up the SD version, consider yourself among a more exclusive crowd: sales have been majorly lop-sided in favor of HD. "If it's that big of a difference," he told TUAW, "we probably won't offer the low-end, standard def version [in future games]." We already know Carmack's thoughts on the iPhone vs. Nintendo DS / PSP, as they've been echoed before once or twice, but here's one new to us: "You should be able to do something that's better on an iPad than anything that's done on the Wii," according to the John that spoke with Kotaku. That's all purely theoretical, as it's really up to the developer as to how much power it takes advantage of, and even with the tablet in question, "we're nowhere close to maxing out what could be done on an iPad." Oh, and Android? There's work being done for the Little Green Platform as well, but via TUAW John, "there's a lot of things with how the distribution platform works and the diversity of the platforms that you have to target, where things are still much, much nicer on the iOS world." As for id's next foray in the "iOS world," Joystiq learned that a driving game based in the Rage universe is in the cards, and perhaps something inspired by Quake Arena: "maybe focusing on the lightning gun, and call it 'Lightning Arena' or something, that would be a full roam-around FPS game." When asked about his resemblance to one Kevin Bacon, all reports indicate Carmack vanished behind a green-tinted smoke cloud of 1s and 0s, leaving in his wake a three-foot tall statue of Commander Keen made from old shareware discs.
App review: Rage HD (iPhone)
The iOS App Store might already have its fair share of addictive and compelling games on offer, but when John Carmack comes calling with his latest megatextured shoot-em-up, you've got to sit up and pay attention. Rage HD: Mutant Bash TV isn't so much a full-fledged game in its own right as it is a teaser for the forthcoming Rage FPS for the PC, and yet even in its pretty limited running time, it managed to woo and thrill us with its visceral gameplay and arresting visuals. It's easily the best-looking game we've yet seen on a mobile device and provides a fine demonstration of just how far Apple's hardware -- on the iPhone 4, iPad, and fourth-gen iPod touch -- can be pushed when some appropriately adroit hands are at the graphical controls. But, of course, games are supposed to be fun to play, not just to look at, so why not join us after the break to see how well Rage HD handles its mutant-bashing duties?%Gallery-107875%
John Carmack talks about Rage SD and HD, iOS, and what's next for iOS gaming
We've all seen the potential of what a demo like Epic Citadel can do, but while work continues on Infinity Blade, John Carmack's id Software has released Rage, an iOS-exclusive tie-in to the big FPS console and PC title scheduled to come out next year. The game is a pretty incredible feat in and of itself, with realistic graphics set in Rage's post-apocalyptic world and an on-rails shooting experience that feels extremely dynamic. It also has a fun reloading mechanic, a dodge button, a constant flow of mutants to shoot, and power-ups and bonuses to grab. At just one or two dollars for the SD or HD versions, Rage is a steal, and if you can play the game in full HD on the iPhone or the iPad, there's no question you should. I got the chance to chat with Carmack himself earlier today about this game and what he thinks of the iOS platform, and you can read the results of our interview after the break below. The good news: he says he's more focused on this kind of mobile development than ever before, and as a result, he's hoping we'll see at least two more mobile games from id before the full version of Rage comes out next year.
Next Rage game for iOS to focus on vehicles, Carmack talks mobile Quake Arena spin-off
Now that Rage: Mutant Bash TV has landed on the App Store, id Software's John Carmack is already talking about what's next for the developer on Apple's iOS platform: more Rage. Specifically, a game focusing on the driving aspect of Rage on consoles and PC (shown in the above screenshot). "I think we have a really good idea of what we can do in this format, and I'm really excited about getting onto the next game, getting onto what we can do with another slice of Rage," Carmack told Joystiq today, going on to say: "Taking some of the wasteland material and having riding along in the dune buggies, jumping over ravines, that kind of stuff. There's more graphics stuff that we can bring in and add yet another level of improvement and polish to the visuals." If all goes as planned, the game will hit iOS before Rage arrives in stores. "I would like to do a Quake Live derivative for iOS, maybe focusing on the lightning gun, and call it 'Lightning Arena' or something, that would be a full roam-around FPS game," he also said, talking about ideas for future iOS titles from id. "I may yet push for that, because I've got things I want to try there, both from a networking technology standpoint and what we could pull out of that, but I just don't know when the hell I'm going to find time for all of this."
id's Carmack wants to make a Kinect game for XBLA
"I have an itch to make a Kinect title for Xbox Live." That's what id Software's resident technology guru, John Carmack, told Joystiq during an interview conducted today, though he admits, "I don't even know what I'd want to do yet." "I can't use Kinect for our real games; there just isn't a place for our current FPSes on there," Carmack said. "But it's an interesting technology, and an Xbox Live game would be the perfect platform to do something like that on, at about the same scale of [a game for] an iOS device." Given that Carmack spends so much time working on Rage for consoles -- and has "spent his budget" of time outside that, working on Rage for iOS -- it'll probably be some time before Carmack even has a chance to think a what he'd do for Kinect. Actually making the game is another matter altogether. Still, it's nice to know there's an actual rocket scientist thinking about the possibilities for Microsoft's motion-control tech. Take that, mere robot makers!
Rage for iOS supports video out, available now in SD and HD
id games has released the iPhone version of Rage in two different versions, both SD and HD, available right now universally for the iPhone and the iPad. TUAW spoke with John Carmack this afternoon, and he said that the HD version is about twice as nice as the SD version: "All of the user interface is at twice the resolution, the animated characters are at twice the precision, and the world textures are at twice the feedback bias, which doesn't quite equate to twice the pixel density, but it's almost twice the data that goes in there." The SD version will run well on both, but the HD version will stutter a bit on pre-version 4 iPhones and iPods, so anyone with a 3G or even a 3GS is advised against it. The game is US$0.99 for SD and $1.99 for HD, and as we said before, is a great-looking on-rails shooter designed to promote the full game next year. Carmack also gave us a little hint at an as-yet undocumented feature -- he said that with the video-out adapter, gamers can play the game on a TV using the iPhone or iPad as a controller. "You can actually play the game blown up on a big screen TV," said Carmack. "It's a little bit of a mind-bender." He said that they didn't draw the controls up on the screen for the TV-out function, but it should work with the current version of the game, and may even get upgraded in the future. That's just a little tidbit for you from the full interview -- stay tuned for a longer writeup of the game and more information about this game and other iOS thoughts from John Carmack himself on TUAW later today.
Rage: Mutant Bash TV 'should' hit App Store tomorrow
id Software head John Carmack has at least one very important trait in common with gangsta rap star (and gaming magnate) Ice-T: he's really fun to follow on Twitter. When he's not dropping enigmatic missives like, "Closed myself in a 1600 gallon tank for an hour. CO2 rose to 3430 ppm, humidity rose to 71%. No discomfort," he's giving his followers a taste of news before it hits anywhere else. "Rage mobile has been approved," he let his followers know this morning. "It should be on the App Store tomorrow morning!" Rather than directly port the forthcoming FPS, Rage: Mutant Bash TV is an on-rails shooter set in the world of Rage. No price has been set for the game, but id's most expensive iPhone game to date has been the $7 Doom: Resurrection -- another on-rails shooter.
id loves the iPhone, but won't bring Orcs & Elves to App Store
Touch Arcade got to speak with none other than John Carmack himself at QuakeCon last weekend, and he had some disappointing news about getting old school id games on the iPhone. While Carmack said that he's excited about releasing Rage on the iPhone, he admits that id's past titles haven't sold up to snuff on the iPhone. That means that Orcs & Elves, originally created for mobile phones and then later released on the DS, won't be coming to Apple's App Store. That's too bad -- you'd think that since Orcs & Elves was actually designed for mobile platforms, it would be one of the easier titles to bring over. But it sounds like Carmack is more interested in bringing new games to Apple's platform. id Software still has a mobile game division going, but it's just not worth porting the old games over when there's so much work to be done on the new ones. I guess we can live with that.
id's Carmack wants to support current franchises, new IPs unlikely
Rage represents a rather large milestone for Carmack's id team. Not only is it the first game to use id Tech 4, it's the first id game to be published by new owner Bethesda. It's also the first new IP from the team in over a decade, since 1996's release of Quake. If a recent interview in the Official PlayStation Magazine (via CVG) is to be believed, it's likely that the new new IP from id will be just as far away. "I doubt we're going to do another IP," Carmack told OPM. "We want to support Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake -- and hopefully we can add Rage onto that. ... Obviously, if Rage is a success then we'll want to do a Rage 2." Considering the lengthy development cycles at id (evidenced by the currently-MIA Doom 4) who knows when the next new IP will bubble out of the company? Especially with that Commander Keen reboot getting in the way, right?
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and Return to Castle Wolfenstein source code available
As part of the QuakeCon festivities, id's John Carmack revealed something that should excite the modding community: source code. Authors can now access source code for both Splash Damage's multiplayer-focused Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and 2001's series reboot, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, through id's FTP, which we've linked below. Both games' sources are made available through the GNU General Public License agreement, which states that the code is available for both free and commercial use, so long as the individual using the code credits id Software and doesn't try to claim it as their own. If you want to tinker with either game, check out the convenient Big Download link below. Happy modding!
Carmack blows minds with id Software's Rage, running on iPhone at 60fps with 'megatextured' graphics (video)
We're sorry, but the Palm Pixi's rendition of Need for Speed no longer impresses us -- we've just seen John Carmack show off Rage for iPhone. While of course it looks nothing like the PC graphical monstrosity that swept the E3 Games Critics Awards, it's safe to say the 60 frame-per-second tech demo at QuakeCon 2010 shoves the cell phone gaming envelope through a Juggernaut-class brick wall. Where Carmack originally called the iPhone "more powerful than a Nintendo DS and PSP combined," the id Software co-founder is now aiming squarely at the likes of PS2 and Xbox with iPhone 4 hardware. Not impressive enough? He says it still "runs great on an original 2G iPhone" as well. VG247, who liveblogged the event, reports the title will be available in the App Store later this year for a relatively inexpensive price, with a second game available in time for the PC game's 2011 launch. Sadly, there's as of yet no plans for Android owners to get the same megatexturing goodness. Don't miss the video after the break, because this screenshot doesn't do it justice. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Rage demo'd at 60 fps on iPhone, id games on sale
QuakeCon is going down this weekend in AustinDallas, Texas -- the annual celebration of everything id Software (makers of Quake and Doom, among a few other classic PC titles) features tournaments and panels on some of the hottest PC games around. But there's already been one big Apple announcement: John Carmack has demonstrated id's newest game, Rage, running at a full 60 frames per second on the iPhone. We first heard of this game at QuakeCon a couple of years ago, and Carmack has always said that making sure it ran on the Mac would be a priority, but it looks like he's delivered the goods. The demo was run on an iPhone 4, but Carmack said it worked great on the iPad as well. Carmack said the iPhone version would be out sometime this year, before the full version of Rage arrives on consoles and PC. Oh, and icing on the cake? All of id's iPhone titles are on sale during the show this weekend -- Doom II RPG is down to just 99 cents, along with Wolfenstein 3D. Doom Classic and Doom Resurrection are US $1.99, down from the usual price of $6.99. If you're in AustinDallas, don't forget that QuakeCon is free and open to the public as well. All hail the great id!
QuakeCon: Rage coming to iPhone, running at 60fps [Update: now with video!]
Never one to back down from a challenge, id's technical wunderkind John Carmack has somehow – we imagine with the aid of The Dark Arts – managed to condense its latest game onto the iPhone. Speaking during a live keynote at the annual QuakeCon in Dallas Texas, Carmack announced that id's delivering a version of Rage (replete with MegaTextures and a 60 frames-per-second framerate!) onto the iPhone. While the demo was given on the iPhone 4, he said it could run on 3GS and looked best on iPad. The game came about from an experiment with something on the Wii and, in keeping with that experimental model, Rage for iPhone won't have a four-year dev cycle: It will be out this year, before Rage, and it will be cheap, in keeping with the iPhone App Store's model. A second Rage iPhone game will be released alongside the release of the PC/console release next year, and Carmack is still "spot-surveying" the Android market to determine if it's worth supporting. He said it won't happen "this cycle" but he'll reevaluate in about six months. More news from QuakeCon as we hear it. [Update: Now with video, found after the break! Update 2: John Carmack clarified on Twitter: "The iPhone demo was not "idtech5" on ios, it was from scratch new code. A tool in rage exported custom data for it."]
Respawn duo, Richard Garriott speaking at QuakeCon 2010
The official schedule has been announced for this year's QuakeCon, which is taking place August 12-15 in Dallas, Texas. In addition to the usual id gallery, none other than Jason West and Vince Zampella of the newly formed Respawn Entertainment will be in attendance. The ousted Infinity Ward heads will sit on a panel the Friday morning of the conference called "Building Blockbusters," talking with Tim Willits and Tom Howard of id and Bethesda about how to make big games (like the "huge summer blockbuster" they're supposedly working on). Todd Alderman, also of Respawn, will sit on a panel the previous day speaking about "The World of Design" with a few other developers. Elsewhere in the schedule, John Carmack and Richard Garriott will hold court on Thursday evening discussing rockets and space travel, and Friday and Saturday afternoons will bring preview panels for RAGE and Brink. Sounds like an excellent weekend of FPS gaming -- so if you're in Dallas (or plan to be there), the event is free and open to the public.
Bungie registers Marathon and 'Bungie Aerospace' trademarks
Between the recent filing to trademark ... something regarding Bungie's first FPS Marathon, and a filing for the name "Bungie Aerospace," we're not exactly sure what to make of whatever it is that's going on over at the house that birthed Master Chief. Both filings, spotted by Superannuation, represent still unknown plans for the studio. And aside from the logo you see above, we know very, very little about either. As for the Marathon trademark, it could very well just be an update to an existing filing. The inclusion of references to several past Bungie logos in the Bungie Aerospace filing, however, suggests a possible rebranding of the studio -- something we wouldn't be particularly surprised with considering the break with Microsoft way back in 2007, not to mention the fact that this fall's Halo: Reach marks the last Halo game from the studio before Microsoft's 343 Studios fully absorbs the IP. Oh, and no, Bungie won't be joining the Richard Garriotts and John Carmacks of the world in heading into outer space, as both trademark filings fall under the usual USPTO video game classification. A Bungie representative told Joystiq "No comment" when asked about the listings, but for now you're free to speculate along with us to your heart's content. Source 1 - USPTO Source 2 - USPTO [Via Superannuation]
QuakeCon 2010 announced for August
Ahh yes, another year, another QuakeCon. The annual mecca for all things id Software (and now all things Bethesda Softworks, as well) will be returning to Texas this year on August 12-15, presumably with the usual three-plus hours of John Carmack keynote in tow (he goes on and on because he loves!). As usual, the goings-on will be free, with the 72 hours of pure, unfiltered nerddom sponsored by parent company Zenimax Media (alright, alright -- it's very likely that the Bawls energy drink company is putting up some money as well). Little is known about the actual events of the show this year outside of the aforementioned cursory details, though, yes, the traditional event-wide network will again be available for attendees who bring PC rigs. That means order the purple neon light for your PC today, friends, not tomorrow.
