John Carmack on id Tech 6, Ray Tracing, Consoles, Physics and more

[Jakko]

Because he is a smartass that has his own (dumb) opinion about some subjects that degrade the quality of games in the entire games industry because so many see him as a guru and take his opinions into consideration when doing their own job.

He doesn't have it all right, yet some act as if he is some all-knowing guru.

[THE JEW (RaVeN)]

Game quality degradation? If this about you having bought a Physx card and the fact he doesn't like it........

Video game quality methods he's helped to improve:

-smoothing sidescrollers on the PC (Commander Keen)
-mass release of the early first person shooters providing the 3D perspective (Catacombs 3D, Hovertank)
-VGA graphics in video games (Wolfenstein 3D)
-multileveled 3D fps levels (Doom)
-modem play (Doom)
-texture mapping and wall height difference (Doom)
-semi outdoor environments (Doom)
-standardizing 3D acceleration for games (VQuake and GLQuake)
-client-side prediction in network code (Quakeworld)
-multitexture (Quake)
-moddability (Doom, Quake and its SDK's leading to a host of other games that people love and providing the tools to teach people how to make games)
-in-game command consoles (Quake)
-aiding programmers of tomorrow (open sourcing the Quake series)
-helping develop standards for video game cards with Nvidia and Ati to make development easier
-helping provide cross-portability to games (there's a reason everybody compiles Quake on everything to test its 3D capabilities)
-forcing the gaming industry to drop software rendering (Quake 3)
-organizing LAN parties for fans (Quakecon)
-directly listening to what his fans want (Quakecon)
-taking studios under its wing to help them make games (Splash Damage)
-currently branching out into all platforms (his technology runs on everything and he's still developing across a bunch of different ones. See Orcs and Elves for his handheld work)
-compression of large landscapes to run efficiently and design easily (megatexture for Quake Wars)
-forging the way on free fps games (ET and Quake Zero)


H3ll, even notables such as Bill Roper recognize his abilities:

"Carmack is synonymous with technology, and his continued work at id has kept him at the top of this field. While we pay a great deal of respect to those who actually craft the worlds and hone the mechanics of the games we play, John Carmack has carved himself a place in gaming history for creating equally compelling technology with which the ideas of designers can be realized."

http://archive.gamespy.com/articles/...61/index2.shtm

You'll also note Gamespy (which, coincidentally, wouldn't have even been founded without Quake) lists him as #3 on their top 30 influential people of the gaming industry.


If you want to knock his games, his style, or the fact that he's a "has been" go ahead. One could make a case for it. Though, nobody has to "have it all right" to be a genius. Many of the fathers of science got things wrong (ie. Dalton and the atom composition), but nobody derides their work because we can still use it even today. To deny Carmack his technical intelligence and what he has done for the gaming industry borders on ignorance.