Rage Dev Diary Discusses id's Legacy

John Funk

U.N. Owen Was Him?
Dec 20, 2005
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Rage Dev Diary Discusses id's Legacy

id Software defined the first-person shooter, and it's hoping to hit another breakthrough with this year's Rage.

id Software hasn't been doing much lately, but it has a major game right around the corner: Rage, a post-apocalyptic FPS that one imagines looked way more original when proposed in a world before Fallout 3 and Borderlands.

[video=3636]

For all its lack of recent releases, however, id has a very storied history when it comes to the shooter genre. It was the company that practically created the FPS with Wolfenstein 3D, and no-one can say that it didn't singlehandedly popularize it with Doom - to the point where FPS titles were called "Doom clones" for years.

This dev diary discusses the history and legacy of id Software, and it's a fun four-minutes-and-change to watch, particularly if you're looking forward to Rage and John Carmack's idTech 5 engine. Man, even just watching a video with John Carmack in it makes me feel dumber by comparison. The dude is just that damn smart.

He's not a genuine rocket scientist for nothing [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/94724-John-Carmack-Builds-Lunar-Lander-to-Win-A-Prize], after all.

(Via VG247 [http://www.vg247.com/2011/06/30/first-rage-dev-diary-introduces-ids-legacy/])

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Omechron

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Apr 15, 2009
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New awesome graphics engine. Same old boring grey and brown wasteland setting. Absolutely no game features worth mentioning outside of the graphics engine.

I hope somebody takes their cool new idtech system and does something worthwhile with it.
 

teebeeohh

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Jun 17, 2009
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John Carmack does look like a respectable business person these days.

and again id proves that they are the absolute masters of creating grayish brown environments.
 

Grell Sutcliff

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May 25, 2011
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put in a level up system and everyone will call it a fallout clone but at least it'll be a genetically enhanced clone. hopefully.
 

JediMB

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Oct 25, 2008
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Y'all can say what you want, but I think the wastelands of Rage have a lot more character than most FPS environments do these days.

teebeeohh said:
John Carmack does look like a respectable business person these days.
Here I was thinking that he looks (and sounds) like a stereotypical high school nerd.

Carmack <3
 

Speakercone

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May 21, 2010
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Could someone tell me exactly why 60fps is supposed to make my gameplay experience better? I could have sworn that better design and interesting aesthetic decisions do that.
 

teebeeohh

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Captain Placeholder said:
teebeeohh said:
John Carmack does look like a respectable business person these days.

and again id proves that they are the absolute masters of creating grayish brown environments.
What would you expect from a Post Apocalpytic Wasteland? Green with flowers that are bright and vibrant? Don't even mention Borderlands - that was set on an entirely different planet, this is earth. Common theme when things get blown up and burnt: Brown/Black/Gray.

Unless their is another colour I am missing?

Anyways - their will be some more colour. Blues, Blacks, Reds. Not completely Brown/Grayish.

Also - when will this be released? It said next month on the message - however everywhere I am reading it says it will be released fall?
it will be released on October 4th in the us properly October 7th for the rest of the world.
and where did i say that it looked bad or unrealistic or that i in any way dislike the aesthetics? I dislike grayish brown shooters but id has been making the pinnacle of grayish brown for 20 years.
And the only reason i don't have this preordered is because it will be censored in Germany and preordering imports is a *****.
 

Korten12

Now I want ma...!
Aug 26, 2009
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Speakercone said:
Could someone tell me exactly why 60fps is supposed to make my gameplay experience better? I could have sworn that better design and interesting aesthetic decisions do that.
Higher FPS makes it easier to play that gameplay.
 

teh_Canape

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May 18, 2010
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"the best thing ID has ever created"

until I am proven wrong, Quake 3 Arena is still the best thing they have ever made
 

RhombusHatesYou

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Mar 21, 2010
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Between There and There.
Country
The Wide, Brown One.
Speakercone said:
Could someone tell me exactly why 60fps is supposed to make my gameplay experience better?
Makes gameplay smoother and more responsive. Things can only start happening on screen when a new frame is rendered so instructions and interrupts can only occur then... with 60 possible discrete execution points instead of 30 things flow better and react more immediately.
 

Tiamat666

Level 80 Legendary Postlord
Dec 4, 2007
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teh_Canape said:
"the best thing ID has ever created"

until I am proven wrong, Quake 3 Arena is still the best thing they have ever made
IMHO Quake 3 is the worst game id Software ever made. Wolfenstein 3D was awesome at the time, Doom was uber-awesome at the time, Quake, Quake 2, Quake 4 were awesome at the time, Quake 3 was embarrassingly stale in comparison with Unreal Tournament, which was awesome at the time.
 

tomvw

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Feb 5, 2009
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Captain Placeholder said:
teebeeohh said:
John Carmack does look like a respectable business person these days.

and again id proves that they are the absolute masters of creating grayish brown environments.
What would you expect from a Post Apocalpytic Wasteland? Green with flowers that are bright and vibrant? Don't even mention Borderlands - that was set on an entirely different planet, this is earth. Common theme when things get blown up and burnt: Brown/Black/Gray.

Unless their is another colour I am missing?

Anyways - their will be some more colour. Blues, Blacks, Reds. Not completely Brown/Grayish.

Also - when will this be released? It said next month on the message - however everywhere I am reading it says it will be released fall?
Take a look at Darksiders, that game was post-apocalyptic and still had a vibrant pallet despite all the destruction.
 

Speakercone

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May 21, 2010
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RhombusHatesYou said:
Speakercone said:
Could someone tell me exactly why 60fps is supposed to make my gameplay experience better?
Makes gameplay smoother and more responsive. Things can only start happening on screen when a new frame is rendered so instructions and interrupts can only occur then... with 60 possible discrete execution points instead of 30 things flow better and react more immediately.
Ah ok. That does sound like it could be pretty awesome then. I thought it was one of those cases where a studio concentrates too much on how shiny they can make things and not enough on how to make a great game. Then again it's id, not sure what I'm worried about :p

Thanks for clearing that up for me :)
 

Zer_

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Feb 7, 2008
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tomvw said:
Captain Placeholder said:
teebeeohh said:
John Carmack does look like a respectable business person these days.

and again id proves that they are the absolute masters of creating grayish brown environments.
What would you expect from a Post Apocalpytic Wasteland? Green with flowers that are bright and vibrant? Don't even mention Borderlands - that was set on an entirely different planet, this is earth. Common theme when things get blown up and burnt: Brown/Black/Gray.

Unless their is another colour I am missing?

Anyways - their will be some more colour. Blues, Blacks, Reds. Not completely Brown/Grayish.

Also - when will this be released? It said next month on the message - however everywhere I am reading it says it will be released fall?
Take a look at Darksiders, that game was post-apocalyptic and still had a vibrant pallet despite all the destruction.
Rage:


Darksiders:


Let's analyze these for a bit. Especially when taking into consideration the setting. Before I move on, I will point out that both games do have their fair share of grey environments. In fact I see some Darksiders screenshot where the color palette is almost entirely grey. Same goes for RAGE, though.

Darksiders is set in a fantasy world that is also post apocalyptic. It's not going for a realistic look at all. It looks like they took a standard environment and added colorful highlights here and there. Also note that I actually took some time to look for a screenshot that gave us at least some color in Darksiders.

RAGE is set in a real world Earth setting where Apophis collided with Earth and caused a global disaster. When looking at the game (of course it isn't released yet) you can find your fair share of sandy brown areas. Don't fret, though. You need only look up to see a vibrant blue sky, or find a body of water if you must. Settlements offer another good contrast from the mangled landscape. There are more industrial areas where the sky is greyed out due to fog, and of course the environment is also affected. In these [http://rage.com/images/site/gallery/screenshots/vsig_images/rage-18_837_510_90.jpg] areas you can most definitely say "grey shooter."

Why do we complain about the grey shooter color palette? Well, it's generally been used in places where devs have become lazy with coloring and give us things that don't please the eyes. For me, Gears of Wars came to mind. I do find that now it is being thrown around far too much. Where a shooter otherwise looks fantastic, people just say "it's grey" to almost anything these days. I could say Fallout 3 is "grey", New Vegas is "grey". Does that really mean anything other than the game looks poor in a graphical sense? Why not elaborate on it some more and explain exactly what you mean as opposed to using some tired old argument.

When it comes to RAGE, it's a game that's been in development for almost 4 years now. You can't really say they're being lazy when it comes to visuals.