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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.'"
But that may be because I refuse to get rid of my rocking Voodoo3 3500!!! I install new game, it crashes... I swear a bit, then go back to coding. These new games are really improving my coding skills.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
For me, the main question isn't whether the game is "simple", or "deep", it's how the learning curve is implemented in the game.
Going back to the original Doom, it was almost perfect in this regard. It hooked me with the first impression ("How are they *doing* this 3D perspective...?"--having messed with graphics routines in assembly *way* back, it was striking how impressive this was for the time) and kept me going with it's playability and pretty seamless introduction of the more complex aspects of the game (hidden areas, etc.). The game was fun regardless of how far you were into discovering all there was to it.
I can't really get into most games in this way. It's not that I can't learn what other games require up-front, it's that there's no real motivation for doing so when there are games like Unreal Tournament I can enjoy immediately. And games like Ultima, well... yes, you can advance your character by numerous non-adventuring methods, but it ends up being rather mundane IMHO. I may as well go to work at that point.
Personally, I think Heretic had a good feel for the right approach... there was a fair amount of depth there, but it was introduced as a natural extension of playing the game, rather than a required up-front learning curve. As an example from another game genre, Total Annihilation worked really, really well in this way too.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
I don't see how this is surprising. Simplicity has always been key in the id games. When everyone else was doing "action" buttons, id still had you bumping into buttons to open doors.
This simplicity and accessibility has earned them fans who don't like complicated games - they just want to play.
Pc games are better for things like complex role playing games, internet cames, and even action because the keyboard and mouse is alot more flexible then a controller pad. I can move staffe left and right quicker and create my own macro's. Try staffing left, firing a weapon, and then change to the next weapon on a controll pad at the same time? You can do it but it will take longer and your aim will not be as good when doing it.
Quake3 is pretty easy but it would suck on any other platform. For example even if it was an xbox lan enabled release, I could not download mods or new maps. Are there any and I mean any internet games for consoles?
I am sick of the arguement that pc's are for work only and a console is for real games. I consider the pc a rolls royce of gaming and I am fustrated that most game developers now only concentrate on consoles. This is why dukeNukem continues on the ps/2 and why it was killed on the pc. I think executives who only look at installed units per platform and tell the developers to use only x instead of seeing that a particular game is more suited for the pc platform.
http://saveie6.com/
Hmm I dunno if complicated is the word I'd use. I do feel, though, that not enough attention is paid to the UI in many cases. I remember when Zelda 64 came out, I was shocked that Link would jump automatically just by walking to the edge. No more jump button. *Whew* I was happy about that. No more worrying about hitting the button at the right time.
I think Nintendo is one of the few companies who watches somebody play and says "What are the common mistakes they are making? What can we do to alleviate them?"
"Derp de derp."
To continue the RPG complexity discussion: Final Fantasy I, on NES, was a blast: you chose characters, picked from a small selection of spells, and in general wandered wherever you wanted.
The SNES FF's were less fun: they had static plots that had to be followed, and some battles that always went the same way. Yawn.
I stopped playing them at FF7: you had a bazillion choices on how to equip your character with crystals and things, but no choice on what to do next.
Fallout was fun, Fallout 2 had some corollary problems: So many choices that the character development was tedious.
Design for Use, not Construction!
I agree. I play a MMORPG called "Legend of Mir". MIR2 was coded in delphi and operates at 800x600@8bit. Ironically, even after Mir3, which uses 3d acceleration and 16bit graphics, mir2 still holds as the top game in china. The reason really is because of the complexity. They added a large number of additions to mir3 take made the game much more difficult to play, much more to do simple tasks.. Its why only about 300,000 players in china play mir3 over the 700,000 on mir2.
:) Personally I rather MIR2, but mostly because i'm lazy ;) (MIR2: http://www.mir2.co.kr (korean) - http://www.legendofmir.net (english) MIR3: http://www.mir3.co.kr (korean) http://www.legendofmir3.co.kr (no (official) english sites (though the server software has been leaked for months now)))
Then again, mir2 totally flopped in English countries, but mir3 seems to hold promise. Maybe us americans and (the) brits rather complicated games?
I've left to find myself. If you happen to see me, please, keep me there until I return.
You know, when I look back at the thousands of games I've played, two distinct groups stand out.
There are the wildly ambitious ones (Star Control II, Zelda, Ultima Underworld, Alternate Reality, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night... even Dungeons of Daggorath - yeah, I'm 0ld-sk00l!), which are fun to play and revisit... but you wouldn't, y'know, sit down and play them for 20 minutes.
And then there are those simple but ridiculously fun games. Tetris, Bust-a-Move, Dance Dance Revolution, Scorched Earth, Discs of Tron, Minesweeper, Archon... really simple concepts, but you can lose frightening swaths of your life mastering your skills. It's not that they're oversimplified. They've just got a really rewarding learning curve.
One of the modern champions of the latter is PopCap, of course. I've spent ridiculous amounts of time playing Insaniquarium, to name but one.
- David Stein
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
Why the need for all the pseudo-intellectual debates on "whither gaming?" If Carmack and whoever else think that there's a demand for simple games, then they should build them. If there really is a strong demand for such games, he/they will make a lot of money (or even more money, in the case of Mr. Carmack). Meanwhile, other developers will make more complex games that appeal to other segments of the market, and make money that way. It's really quite simple.
Role playing games didn't "get to where you needed a book to play them." The ones he probably had in mind (I'm guessing the Baldur's Gate games) are based on a famous old pen and paper game that required MANY books to play, as far back as back in the day. There are a lot of people who like these sort of games (D&D has been around since the 70s) and sales certainly support their further development. The market for games is hardly monolithic and there is plenty of room for both simple and complex games.
I know this because Tyler knows this.
but i always liked games where you were actually led through the game. obviously, there are games that offer virtually unlimited complexity like chess and go, but computer games are quite different. obviously, it is harder to guide a player instead of just creating a bunch of levels he has to get through (which isn't easy either), and arguing about controls is not the right way to go, here.
although a lot of games *do* include tuturials and training missions, etc, it can be difficult to pick up a game because of it. arguably, what a game needs is that each mission/level require a limited subset of skills, and as the game progresses, combine those learned skills, instead of just throwing more monsters at you.
probably my favorite computer game of all time was freespace 2. sure, i like simulations better than FPS and many other genres, but at the same time, it really gave you the feeling of being a part of a "war", mission by mission. the only thing it lacked was cooperative campaigns.
anywho, a lot of modern games lack fantasy: innovation in game play. RPGs have lots of spells, FPSs get you to shoot lots of people, etc. if someone has been playing FPSs or RPGs for a long time, they can get into a new game of the same genre easily. however, when i see a new FPS, i think of it as just that: a new FPS. i want something original!
look at it another way: you are marketting to tech geeks a lot of the time. tech geeks like to build things (like carmack and his rockets) why not translate this kind of interest into a game? mindrover was great for this reason. you actually had to think a little to be good at this new type of game.
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
Point and kill is much better for teaching zombies to disassemble widgets...
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.
Well AFAIK , Carmack just makes first person shooters .
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So he has been thinking mostly in one box
RPG's are following a layout similar to paper
ADnD that was laid out close to 30 years ago
RPG's are suppose to be somewhat thought prevoking
instead of a simple trigger happy gore fests
Trigger happy gore fests have their place, but the
other genre by no means should be displaced, or
disrespected because it takes grey matter to play it
The eccentricity of alternate worlds, and solving
the social and spatial puzzle is part of the endearing
quality of RPGers
since when were books or PDF's/readme's a bad thing ???
Have we gotten too lazy to read to have fun ???
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Your comment is so painfully wrong that I cannot post my initial thoughts if I dont want to be labeled flamebait.
Todays current crop of gamers is largly composed of yester days crop of gamers. People like you, and myself, dont need to be sold on gaming as a viable hobby. The problem is that the games you and I like are not attracting any new gamers. Let me put this more plainly.
Everyone who wants to play complicated games is already doing so.
Further more, your understanding of the idea of simple games is way off. Carmack and Nintendo are not saying that we need to make games for the mentally deficient. They are saying that there is a shortage of games that you can just pick up and play for 5 or 15 minutes at a time.
As an example, take a serious look at Chu-Chu-Rocket (Dreamcast), or Super Monkey Ball (1 or 2, both on Game Cube). You dont need to play a 15 tutorial to figure out everything that you can do in the game. If your not brain damaged, you figure it out in about 3 minutes. Super Monkey Ball is especially good for this. You can literally hand it to any random person on the street and they will know basically what they are doing in 30 seconds. Can you say the same for Quake? Starcraft? Warcraft?
The Old School games that fit this are Donkey Kong, Pac Man, Asteroids, Space Invaders, and the like.
No one is going to pick up a game for the joy of feeling like an idiot.
END COMMUNICATION
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?!
Trent Polack
www.polycat.net
Now here we have a classic examples of a "the common people are so stupid" post. Its a variation of the often seen bandwagon post. In this instance, a reader sees a condescending remark about the intelligence of the average person and thinks, "You know, he's right, the common people are so stupid. Sigh". The sense of belonging and increased self-esteem are defense mechanisms. The poster posting the message and the reader agreeing with it are exhibiting subconscious methods of bravery in an uncertain world. By creating an artificial bond of perceived intellectual superiority, all involved gain a temporary confidence.
All true, but that does not negate the truthfulness of the parent poster's statement. The population is dumbed down. How it happened is more complex than just video games - the educational system played its part as well, but people are less well educated today than 25 years ago and it shows in their amusements.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Oh, the irony of your post
Very hard to say. 25 years ago the personal computer didn't exist. The game console was in its infancy. It's practically impossible to compare entertainment of 25 years ago to today, and come out with a rational conclusion on the intelligence of the people.
There is a much longer and more in-depth interview with the Carmack over at Gamespy. Basically the source for the CNN article.
There's simplicity and there's simplicity. A Gradius type game can have only one button for shoot and the navigation keys and still be more complicated than a game that has one button for picking up stuff, another button for opening treasure chests and another button for opening doors. There's interface complexity and then there's gameplay complexity. Both can make a game too difficult for the player.
3D engines aside, Carmack's real genius might be for interface design. His comments about about the game interface perfectly mirror those of people like usability guru Jakob Nielsen, the developers of the classic Mac OS, and even industrial designer Jonathan Ives: good design is made by simplifying and removing elements; less is more!
Carmack has replaced the "use" key in Doom 3 by making the targetting reticle "context-sensitive"; when the character is within arm's reach of a switch or door and the reticle is over it, the gun drops and an open hand hovers over the object. The "fire button" does exactly what you would expect.
This is the reason for Linux's failure to reach mainstream desktops, despite a GUI and window manager that is easily as good as Windows (and even in some ways superior to any version of the Mac OS). Rather than striving for intuitive design that doesn't need excess buttons and options, the designers of desktop software throw as much crap into the forms and menus as they can fit. LESS IS MORE
(note that I understand that advanced users should have the options they want access to; bury stuff that doesn't need to be used constantly and by most users in an advanced options dialog somewhere!)
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
But he's no rocket scienti--
Oh, wait.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Something that is easy to pick up is not inherently shallow. Play a game like Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, Super Smash Bros Melee, hell even Tetris. Controls are simple to pick up, fun to play, easy to learn, but it is tough to master such games, and there is an extreme amount of depth hidden to be found by the not-so-remedial game players.
Easy to pick up, tough to master - a simple game that's fun to play. That's why today's "current crop" games seem to suck more ass than before.
The difference between a good player and a "remedial" one is not the ability to read a fucking manual to learn all 400 ways to buy an item - it is being able to pick up on all the rules one can "bend" or take advantage of very quickly while playing the game. Parent is stupid, next post please.
>All true, but that does not negate the truthfulness of the parent poster's statement. The population is dumbed down. How it happened is more complex than just video games - the educational system played its part as well, but people are less well educated today than 25 years ago and it shows in their amusements.
I don't think so. I think that's an apparent effect. We are all just becoming more in contact with the uneducated and ignorance of others, the uneducated have more voice in the media, the ignorant have more ways to discuss their ignorance [/me looks around quick].
-MY- dad an uncle used to have fun by throwing knives at each other.
Now, Video Games... THOSE have been dumbed down.
-pyrrho
Typical for Carmack to agree; it's not as if depth of experience is something in which id has ever excelled. Just point and shoot, people.
System Shock 2, Thief, Deus Ex-- these are the games that are consistently lauded as the masterpieces of the genre, and are as consistently re-played as id's mindless mousekillers. Yes, they were complex. Heretic? Please-- when did you last launch that dog?
And yes, I do *still* play System Shock 2 and Thief.
Game complexity, when done right, enriches and intensifies the experience without making you feel guilty for playing. id never really figured that out, even when handed to them (witness their internal schism over Doom 3 -vs- their first complex RPG). They'd rather someone else do it with their tools. id isn't gunning for the literate gamer. They're looking for the quick buck: they're the Spielberg of game design.
Whatever makes you money, John.
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.'"
He's right in a sense, I don't think that PC games are too hard for players to play I think they are too had for players to *WANT* to play.
It's not that people are stupid, it's that they don't want to be frustrated by something that should be fun. Games for the most part should follow the golden rule of "Easy to learn, difficult to master". The mastery should come from learning the game too, not just the UI. Nobody says "Hey, I finally didn't have to look at my cheat sheet/instruction book to remember the 25 key mappings for UT2020." No, they will usually say, "Hey I had my first perfect deathmatch, I won and didn't get killed once." (UT's user interface is fine BTW, I just used them as an example)
Modern games have more documents included? Riiight...
Although not the first (video game) RPG, Final Fantasy for NES is definately among the early home video game RPG games. For those that didn't have that game or don't remember, it came with a rather thick manual, a couple of large poster charts with all of the weapons/armor/etc. listed on them, and IIRC a map.
Move on to the SNES era and you have game manuals which may have a short reference in the back, occasionally a short walk through of the first little adventure, and if you are lucky a map is included.
Now we are in the era of PS2 and XBOX.. All the RPGs I've played come with a small manual which explains the basic controls in a few pages (ten at most). The only exceptions are when they decide to pack the stradegy guide with the game (usually a while after the release as a marketing ploy..)
If you ask me it looks like RPG's are getting simpler and coming with less documents.
The problem is how RPGs used to be played by "RPG nerds" but are now being played by the "mainstream idiot" who can't figure out how to play a game without a stradegy guide which gives him step by step instructions for beating the game.
Shoot Pixels, Not People!
If the game *rules* are complex, there's nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all. That makes the game better. I'll take a good strategy game like Civilization any day over some console button-masher. And I don't just mean strategy either. I'll take a good game of Thief 1 or 2 or Deus Ex any day over a speedy button mashing fest like most other 3d shooters are, because for them (Theif/Deus Ex) the complexity was inside the gameworld, not out on your keyboard. What makes games suck are on consoles when you have to know that A+B+down will let you win, but A+B+diagonally down/left will kill you. That's not fun. I don't want a dexterity challenge. I want a tactical challenge.
Am I the only one who thinks the console-game controllers feel like they're designed for left-handed people? It takes much more manual dexterity to correctly move the stick or arrow keys the direction you want than it does to press one of four distinct buttons, so why does it put the task requiring better dexterity on the left-hand side? Why do *ALL* games do this? It makes me suck at them. On a stand-up arcade game, I do much better when I cross my arms and use the buttons with the wrong hands, since I don't need good dexterity to whap buttons but I do to move the stick. But that's not an option on console games.
The left-handedness of console controllers make me hate any console game which contains a dexterity-related challenge.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
The best games have a small set of simple rules from which complex behavior emerges. I think the most classic example of this is Boulder Dash which in it's original form features only a handful different blocks yet the variation between the levels was astounding. I've always thought that the best way to create a game is to start with the basic laws of physics which may or may not be modelled after our universe, then add a few different entities with some clearly defined rules of behavior including the interaction with other entities.
The beauty of this is that the game becomes predictable of the player. He/she will not be frustrated by seemingly arbitrary rules, like in the old Sierra On-Line adventure games where standing on the wrong pixel would get you killed, but instead will understand the action and reaction that lead to the players demise and will learn to avoid it. You want the gamer to go "aah, of course!" instead of "what the fsck?!".
Also, since the game's complexity springs forth from the interactions between the rules rather than the rules themselves, you get what's called "emergent gaming", where the game mechanics appear between the lines through the complex interactions of those rules. This means that although the rules are simple and predictable, you have created a breeding ground for complex behavior goes beyond what the game designer himself may have envisioned.
It's a sad fact that games were more like this before the 3D-card revolution.
I understand why the industry want simpler games as they are trying to expand their customer base which today consist of mostly hard core gamers. Especially on the PC. There are plenty of examples of mainstream hits, but a hardcore gamer will often spend 10 times or more on games than a "causal gamer".
Since games are usually created by gamers who invariably create games that they would like to play themselves I remain confident that there will still be games I'll want to play in 10 years from now.
Simple, instantly playable games is the domain of handheld devices. Complex games fit better on the PC-platform. Consoles are somewhere in the middle. This is linked not only to how we use handhelds/consoles/PCs differently, but also to the technical limitations of the device.
A witty
There's a huge difference in making a complex game and making a game that makes you think; i really enjoy games that make me thing and promotes some sort puzzles and brain activity -- but I really don't want to spend 8 hours reading the manual before playing (even NWN seemed a bit excessive for me
IE; there is no need for a complex game to make you think.
mats
One man's ceiling is another man's floor.
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.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
Yes, but simple games can make you think too. Take Tetris as an example, it's a game that's simple to learn, but difficult to master, and quick thinking, reflexes, and strategy are all rewarded. Because it's simple, it has a lot of fans.
While I own an Xbox, not a Gamecube, I think Nintendo is right here. Some of my favorite games of all time came out of Nintendo, and many of them are "simple". For instance, Mario Kart 64 is a masterpiece of gaming, and it is pretty easy to pick up, but hard to master, which is the hallmark of a good game.
That said, I'm playing Star Wars Galaxies right now, which is supremely complex, and I don't even understand a lot of it, though I've been playing for nearly two months. It's still fun, but I can't hand it over to my wife or my dad for 10 minutes, and expect them to appreciate it at all.
By comparison, my wife was hooked on Bust-A-Move in about 5 minutes, because the controls and rules are simple. My dad loves to play video games, if I play a game that has only a few buttons, he doesn't want to have to remember 40 combinations of buttons to play the game, so this is why he mostly likes racing games. Gas, Brake, Steer, Shift, okay, pretty simple, but the games certainly aren't easy.
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein