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Oh yeah? Maybe both are right. ^_^

One of the great things about Q3A weapons is that they're tweaked so that every weapon could still be useful in a variety of situations, no matter how many weapons are on the map. The exception is the BFG, of course, which dominates every map you find it on. This just shows that "more weapons" does not mean "more variety".

To me, this is the fatal flaw of Unreal Tournament. There are something like 18 different fire modes total in the game, but only 5 are really playable in a combat situation: Plasma Fire mode 2, Flack 1, Flack 2 (occasionally), Shock Rifle combo (1 and 2), and Rockets. So you end up with at most 35% of your weapon fire modes being used.

In contrast, on Quake Maps I find that over 80% of the weapons are useful when playing. So Unreal Tournament encourages people to find one of the 5 good weapons are fire away while Quake 3 encourages people to find the best weapon in a combat situation.

The conclusion is that adding more weapon fire modes increases the glitz factor of the game like Unreal Tournament, but you lose long term game replayability. So don't expect ST:EF to last long as a deathmatch game.

Incidently, this explains why Unreal Tournament was prefered over Q3A when UT was first release, by about 60% to 40%. But as people play the games more, Q3A has the lead by roughly 55% to 45%. Q3A just has more replayability. You can grab these statistics from the gamespy stats page. Of course, Halflife's user base trumps all of the other games combined. That's because Halflife has counterstrike, which appeals to people who don't like traditional first person shooters (ie. need "realistic weapons" that are almost completely identical because they're all instant hit weapons. ;)

-Ted

Right, and that would be why Half-Life, which was released in the fall of 1998, is still the most popular online FPS game, beating out Quake III 22,000 to 4000.

It's not all about tech. Gameplay is important. And that's why Counter-Strike is the best FPS game ever made, and why Halo can still succeed *shudder* if MS decides to maximize their profit by hoarding it on the X-Box for a few months.

> While creating a demo of the humanly fastest
> possible game of Quake compiled from the best
> run-throughs is impressive in its own right,
> I'd be far, far more impressed by a single
> person (or even a team) that produced a
> similiar time in one sitting.

The reason for running the levels individually in the dQ runs is basically because the final result is more entertaining and interesting. You can attempt more impressive tricks, and can go a lot deeper into the strategic planning.

However, if you want to see the sort of one-sitting run (speed-runners call them "marathons") that you mention, though, you can. Speed Demos Archive carries a huge number of single level demos, and also some marathons. The current record for a Nightmare marathon run is 26:25; on Easy skill the time is 15:48.

And for a true marathon, check Marlo Galinski's run through Quake1 on Nightmare skill where he kills every monster and triggers every secret, in a single sitting lasting 86:48.

--Anthony.

id Development and Consoles:

It was a natural progression at this point for Carmack to let the audience in on what direction id Software would be taking in the console market. "Our primary platform is still Windows 2000 right now, with simultaneous support for Mac and Linux," he began. "But with consoles, we are spending quite a bit of time looking at what we want to do there." Because the Xbox uses nVidia technology, he did say that it's likely to be a development direction id will take--the Xbox's technology specs are almost "spot on," he said, with what he's designing the new technology around, and so it's a natural direction for them to take.

He also discussed the consequences of developers working their titles around Xbox technology, and thus potentially favoring one hardware developer (nVidia) over another, therefore putting twice the amount of development time towards one manufacturer, possibly shortchanging those users without the same hardware. It's a tough issue, Carmack says.

While simultaneous development for the Xbox will be a trivial issue with id, the other console systems will be a different matter, simply because out of all the upcoming consoles, the Xbox happens to have system specs so close to what Carmack is currently developing for in the PC arena. The bottom line, Carmack explained, was that id remains a PC-focused developer--cutting back on the technology simply because one of the platforms they might be interested doesn't have the right feature set is not something that id is willing to do at the moment.

Windows, Macs, Linux, and id:

Porting games to different platforms has always been a contentious issue in game development, with some developers deciding not to support Mac or Linux ports of their games for varying reasons. Carmack diverted the discussion for a bit into the subject of id's support in making games for Windows, Mac, and Linux, saying that id is indeed happy to support the Mac OS/X, but that Linux is a bit more complicated.

"Quake III sales on Linux were disappointing, below what we were hoping to see on that," he said. "A lot of it probably has to do with the fact that the infrastructure is set up so that to play a 3D game is just really tough on Linux." At the game's release, it could only be played with one of two drivers: the 3dfx Voodoo drivers or the Matrox drivers. It's Carmack's hope that by the time id's next game is released, most Linux users will be running distributions of Linux that have proper 3D support.

The fourth page seems to work.

---

id Development and Consoles:

It was a natural progression at this point for Carmack to let the audience in on what direction id Software would be taking in the console market. "Our primary platform is still Windows 2000 right now, with simultaneous support for Mac and Linux," he began. "But with consoles, we are spending quite a bit of time looking at what we want to do there." Because the Xbox uses nVidia technology, he did say that it's likely to be a development direction id will take--the Xbox's technology specs are almost "spot on," he said, with what he's designing the new technology around, and so it's a natural direction for them to take.

He also discussed the consequences of developers working their titles around Xbox technology, and thus potentially favoring one hardware developer (nVidia) over another, therefore putting twice the amount of development time towards one manufacturer, possibly shortchanging those users without the same hardware. It's a tough issue, Carmack says.

While simultaneous development for the Xbox will be a trivial issue with id, the other console systems will be a different matter, simply because out of all the upcoming consoles, the Xbox happens to have system specs so close to what Carmack is currently developing for in the PC arena. The bottom line, Carmack explained, was that id remains a PC-focused developer--cutting back on the technology simply because one of the platforms they might be interested doesn't have the right feature set is not something that id is willing to do at the moment.

Windows, Macs, Linux, and id:

Porting games to different platforms has always been a contentious issue in game development, with some developers deciding not to support Mac or Linux ports of their games for varying reasons. Carmack diverted the discussion for a bit into the subject of id's support in making games for Windows, Mac, and Linux, saying that id is indeed happy to support the Mac OS/X, but that Linux is a bit more complicated.

"Quake III sales on Linux were disappointing, below what we were hoping to see on that," he said. "A lot of it probably has to do with the fact that the infrastructure is set up so that to play a 3D game is just really tough on Linux." At the game's release, it could only be played with one of two drivers: the 3dfx Voodoo drivers or the Matrox drivers. It's Carmack's hope that by the time id's next game is released, most Linux users will be running distributions of Linux that have proper 3D support.

The fourth page seems to work.

---

Rather than evaluate how C# might help them most /.ers only want to start comparing it to what is already out there ("so what if it can do blah, I can already do blah by blah blah blah in the blah language.")

The fact is, when it comes down to it, every high level language concept can be done in assembly or machine code. Big deal. The important part is how does the high-level language make the programmers life easier (and thus improve their productivity).

Stop your bitching, start thinking how C# might make you a better programmer. Tim Sweeney has written an article that you need to read. Although (from what I can tell) C# doesn't meet all his ideas of a "next generation" programming language, it is closer than C++ or Java. A quote for the whiners:

Assembly programmers didn't realize they needed processor-independence; it doesn't seem like a practical concept when your life's work is focused on micro-optimizing individual CPU instructions and register usage. C programmers didn't realize they needed objects because, after all, the world is made of functions and data structures! This seems silly nowadays, but at the time, C programmers had become so accustomed to the strengths and limitations of their language that they thought: since it's so difficult to express object-orientation in C, object-orientation must be a flawed concept. It wasn't then clear that C was simple a poor language for object orientation.

Similarly, most programmers don't see the fatal flaws in C++ and Java. People tend to look at the failings of C++ frameworks, component-based software, and binary platform independence, and deduce that those concepts are flawed. It isn't clear to most people that C++ and Java are simply poor languages for frameworks, and parametric polymorphism, and binary portability. Most programmers never switch languages. Either they don't want to, or the circumstances of their job don't allow them the luxury.

Boxing and unboxing are simple features and could speed up programming a bit. But that's hardly earth-shattering.

Their IL is nothing new as you could actually compile any language to Java byte-codes if someone took the time to write the compiler.

Compiling to native code isn't new either -- in fact, wasn't Microsoft the first with the JIT stuff for Java?

What I'm waiting for is something truly revolutionary. Something that would make it worth my while to change the syntax I know and the way I think. I've already seen an inkling of such ideas in Tim Sweeny's A Critical Look at Programming Languages.

I actually sent a few e-mails back and forth with Tim Sweeny before I truly understood what Parametric Polymorphism is and the power it could provide. I even went as far as to emulate some of the parametric polymorphism behavior in Java. I can see how it will simplify compilers, empower programmers, greatly improve code re-use and better organize software architecture.

That's the kind of Giant Leaps for man kind I'm looking for, not these one-man Small Steps.

The Feldhausen story is amusing, but it has got to be a joke. My favourite quote is:

The virgin detector was also my idea. Also, games with vegetables.

Very funny, /.

I share your view about the lamentable passing of Looking Glass. However, the situation with Looking Glass is a bit more complicated than that; Eidos wasn't the only contributor to the disaster, and even if it were, Eidos has problems bigger than Ion Storm and Daikatana. Here's an explanation from an ex-Looking Glass employee.

(Still, I have to wonder: why is it so hard to get good games published? And why don't gaming companies make more innovative games like Thief? Then again, the same mediocrity exists in Hollywood, the music industry, TV, and American pop culture generally...)

Here is the internal email that went out from Jack Heistand, CEO of Origin, to the troops about what was going on. It was on the X-Origin mailing list in about 2.5 seconds.

Here it is on Gamespy

Donut, Ex-Origin, who never thought this day would come.

Sure, a special collector's edition would be nice, but it would also be great to acctually see a release date on the game. Does anybody know when the most anticipated title of '98, '99 and '00 is expected to actually hit the shelves?
If you haven't read it yet, read the Top Ten Features That Have Delayed Diablo II.

Axiom

I'd like to know what Bjarne Stroustrup has to say about Tim Sweeney's article that was posted on /. a while back and in particular what he thinks about what Tim Sweeney refers to as 'frameworks', where a group of classes can have some extra properties added by someone without access to the original source.

I think most people recognize you as the man that ushered Object Orientation into the mainstream.

Java came along, and tried to simplify tasks that caused program errors (especially memory deallocation and memory overwrites). Some people complain about the loss of control and flexibility, but I have twice seen a group of average programmers produce software much more quickly than I've seen similarly-abled programmers produce C and C++ software; I believe most of it's due to lack of program errors caused by memory overwrites.

Since there are many tasks that Java does not accel at (Systems-level programming, high performance, etc.), C++ is still compelling for many many tasks.

However, given the 10-year cycle of in vogue languages, we're going to need another one in another 5 years or so. Will you be the guy to create it? What will be the important features? What are the good features of C++ and Java (or other languages) that would be retained? What lessons learned in other areas will be important? What about articles like this one by Tim Sweeny of Epic Games on the Next Generation?

I'd also love to see a decent pool simulator, such as Interplay's "Virtual Pool 2" ported to Linux... I used to love VP2, and try as I might, I just can't quite get it running right under WINE... (It comes CLOSE, which just frustrates me all the more... ;-)) I've checked out some of the open source pool games, like GTKPool, which is a nice attempt, but it's just nowhere near as polished or playable yet (understandably so)... I've yet to see any that were... I'd kill for one as good as VP2, though... I used to play that thing all the time, whenever I just needed a quick relaxing gaming session (as opposed to an intense and usually long-lasting gaming session, like a game of Quake3Arena, which I also love)... One of the very few Windoze programs I really miss... That and GameSpy... If those two existed on Linux, I'd be a VERY happy puppy... ;-)

The part that is not generally available are the maps from the game itself. The engine is available, but you have to download and put together your own information. With the proliferation of doom and quake sites this is not a problem.

John's original intent was to release the source code for each game engine a year after the game was released or when the next game engine was released. Doom and DoomII use the same engine, more or less and when quake was released John released the Doom code, actually a bit later since they had to have someone go in and clean out the third party software and clean up part of the code.

And now for some URL's

PlanetQuake probably the formost user site online for quake and doom related material. Any player of these games should not miss this site.

Quake 2 coding list.

id Softare id software's main website

id's source code archive

planetquake's finger information Latest .plan files from the gaming industries top game designers.

Where to find the Doom source

Cdrom and more files, look for various id titles

Lando

1. Linux was insecure and unmanaged.

2. Linux only supported 256 FD's, and later 1024 FD's.

The insecurity of linux in the begining was well known, it was a hackers OS. Plus, you'd have a lot of unknowns. No REAL packaging system besides tar files, it was a hit or miss proposition based on your admin.

However, File Descriptors (FD) is one of the major reasons. For all of the 1.x kernels, you only had 256 file descriptors. and it was a pain to hack in more. when 2.0 came out, I believe you were still limited to 256, but it was a bit easier to put more in. Some of the later 2.1.x kernels allowed 1024 by default, which 2.2.x does as well. Anyway, other OS's, like Solaris, default to unlimited soft FD's. (hard FD's are still at 256 though). For every IRC connection, you need a FD. So... by using linux, you're automatically limited to 256 or 1024 people. Even if you hack in more, you still have a hardcoded limit. Once again, it's the admin that makes the difference. and as the major irc nets take off, they want something more substantial than 'I heard this admin is good.'

Anyway, I base this on the fact that I used to run irc.ilstu.edu (EFnet) on an AIX machine. We could have ran it on a linux box, but it was just easier with the constant kernel thrash happening on linux to keep it on the AIX box. I now run chat.gamespy.com (and used to run 3dnet.net before it died) and that is on a linux box. and it was a pain to hack in the 4096 FD's we currently have. hence, I would have prefered Solaris at some points. However, Apache was much easier to setup on there, even though that required a lot more FD's as well. You have IRC nets all over the place that use Linux, it's just the history that stop it on the huge networks.

As far as the total article, I see things opposite, of less linux desktops and more linux servers. If you've seen the things that Cobalt is doing, you'd see what a server can do with a microkernel. But the business side of linux just isn't up to speed yet, so it will stay in the hands of geeks and out of the hands of biz guys. which is fine by me.

Gonzo "GoNINzo" Granzeau
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Gonzo Granzeau