Carmack on New id Game, Game Theory

An anonymous reader writes "CNN/Money interviewed id Software wizard John Carmack at the recently completed QuakeCon. Among the topics discussed is Nintendo's recent announcement that today's games are too complicated and hard for players. Carmack, surprisingly, agrees, saying 'I agree strongly with that point of view, but I'm in the minority in the PC space. I want a game you can sit down with, pick up and play. [Role playing games], for example, got to where they had to have a book ship with the game.'"

Comments

This is Carmack we're talking about here.

[Plix]

Carmack has traditionally taken the stance of environment and fast-paced action over character development and gameplay. This is nothing new.

id has long followed the idea that a game should be build around the technology and not the other way around which is simply not the way to create a game, it's the way you create a technology demo or benchmarking software. At one point in time games had plots, scripts, characters, and progression laid out before the engine was written (or incorporated in the case of licensed code). At that point in time it was simply unrealistic to try and write a game completely for the "wow" factor because graphics technology was simply to primitive to impress anyone enough in that regard to buy the game.

The Rare Gem

[Trent Polack]

I totally agree with John in some of what he says. Games these days are too complex at times. The average MMORPG takes a few weeks, at the least, to really get the hang of. Some RPGs are even rather complex in terms of play mechanics, character advancement, UI manipulation, etc. However, while games may have a steep learning curve, they REALLY are lacking in the depth and difficulty of the games of yester-year.

I remember playing a game called Star Tropics back on my NES when I was 5-6. That game made me absolutely stretch the limits of my fresh-out-of-the-oven mind. Some of the puzzles in the game were so difficult that, at times, the game became a family affair, with both of my parents trying to help me figure out the puzzles necessary to advance in the game. Speed ahead a couple years to Land Stalker on the Genesis. A game in a very similar vein to the previously mentioned Star Tropics. Only 3 buttons were required to play, the menus were, at most, 1 level deep, and the gameplay was fueled by a sword, a jump button, and a special item. There were some puzzles in that game that, literally, took me WEEKS to figure out.

These games weren't difficult in the "cheap" sense that a lot of today's games are. Land Stalker and Star Tropics both presented the answer to a puzzle, but it really took some brainpower. Recent RPGs (final fantasy, Baldur's Gate, NWN, etc.) just don't give that complexity. THey give you hard enemies that take a high level to beat. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo. I don't want to spend hours leveling up in mind-numbingly simple battles! I WANT TO USE MY BRAIN!

Every now and then (maybe twice a year, if we're lucky), a game is released that really dwells in the roots of gaming. My recent favorite games that are hard in the sense that they require brainpower are Big Huge Games' Rise of Nations (which is complex in that it has a HELL of a lot of stuff to do) and the recently released Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Bioware), both of which greatly surprised me with their depth and challenge. KOTOR really surprised me, in that it was an RPG... And it was based on the D&D ruleset... But the game was totally open-ended (left things up to the player), had some tough little puzzles, was action-packed while still staying true to RPG roots, didn't take weeks to get over the learning curve (it didn't even take a day, just a mere hour or two until you really knew what was going on) and didn't try to take up 100+ hours of the player's life.

Games designers really need to quit trying to make "sure bets", and try to innovate genres (like KOTOR and Rise of Nations)! I've had my fill of games like Unreal 2k3, Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy, and other cookie-cutter games. Let's see some INNOVATION AND CHALLENGE! Challenge and depth can, very easily in fact, be presented in a simple and easy-to-pick up manner. If an 8-bit NES game, that had a two-button controller, can make a game that stretches the minds of its players, then why can't a PC or an XBox game?!

Why use CTRL for shooting

[solprovider]

Keyboards were designed many many years ago as very low bandwidth devices. To save bandwith, many keys reuse the same codes, so that only one key signal can be sent to the computer at one time. The special keys (CTRL, ALT, SHIFT) are given special codes so they can be used in combination with the regular keys.

You can think of it as having 7 bits (allowing 128 keys) plus 3 bits for the special keys. So each time a key is pressed or released, a 10 bit signal is sent to the computer. The computer remembers the last signal, and assumes that if no signal is received, then the keys from the last signal are being held down.

This was important to game writers, because some combinations would not work. If "P" is "move left", and "O" is "shoot", then moving left and shooting would not be possible.
1. Hold "O". Computer sees that "O" was pressed.
2. Hit "P". Computer sees "P" was pressed. It assumes that the "O" must be released.

The special keys did not have this "feature", so they were used for actions, such as shooting, that might be done simultaneously with another action. Moving "shoot" to "CTRL":
1. Hold "O". Computer sees that "O" was pressed.
2. Hit "CTRL". Computer sees "CTRL+O" was pressed.

Keyboard technology may have advanced since the 80s, so these issues may have been solved.