Did Carmack lose his way after Quake 2?

[Danny_G13]

There is absolutely no doubt Quake, Doom then Quake 2 were titans and game-changers for their day - they made a legend out of John Carmack, and he was viewed as having the Midas touch. But Quake 3, while technically still stunning, wasn't noted for having the charm of the earlier three and Doom 3 was basically dull. Again, stunning to look at if not absolutely incredible, but the gameplay wasn't what many Doom fans had hoped for - many argued Quake 3 was like a gigantic Tech 3 demo, and it wasn't hard to feel the same in a way about Doom 3 & Tech 4. Then Rage came along and frankly underwhelmed everyone, even on a technical level and it looked, to me and many others, like Carmack and id had lost their way.

Two years later Carmack was gone, and three years later, after a troubled development, Doom finally gets released - the first major id title without any work from John Carmack.

And, while it's no masterpiece, it looks like a game which is trying to be more like what the point of id and Doom was in the first place - it's more like a proper John Carmack game, from the old days. Without John Carmack!

Which leads me to the question; is this game evidence of id getting back on track and did Carmack's own ambition lead to him peaking at Doom/Quake/Quake 2?

Or do some think this game would have been better/worse with Carmack on board?

[RAVE]

Originally posted by Danny_G13:

And, while it's no masterpiece

Says who?

[cash4shoes]

Originally posted by Danny_G13:

Originally posted by Per128:

OP, I haven't read all the replies, but it seems you do not understand Carmack's role in development. The "charm" of a game does in no way whatsoever reflect upon the success of his responsibilities.

Who said 'charm'

You did. That's a direct quote from your OP.

Originally posted by Danny_G13:

- I'm talking about the whole product, from technical prowess (his responsibility)

Technical prowess... you do realize doom was the first title ever unveiled to feature normal mapping, which is now featured in literally all AAA games without expection? Doom 3 was 100% dynamically lit and had extremely powerful modding capabilities. This was unheard of at the time. I don't think you understand that doom3 from a TECHNICAL perspective literally changed the face of gaming. Every single AAA game we play today owes a great deal to its legacy. Criticising doom3 for lack of technical quality is absurd, to say the least.

Originally posted by Danny_G13:

to visual quality (arguably his too)

No. A game engine programmer only provides a potential. Ultimately the visual quality is up to the art team. Doom3 featured Kenneth Scott as art lead, a legend in computer graphics. Later in charge of Halo 4. All of us in the business were inspired by the visuals of Doom 3. You might not have subjectively appreciated the graphics, but objectively they were of the highest quality at the time.

Originally posted by Danny_G13:

to design. I concede he didn't design the games but he certainly played a massive role in Doom 3 being a corridor shooter to Doom's original style.

You're reaching now.

Originally posted by Danny_G13:

And he got Rage badly wrong. Tech 5 was just not good.

Suffice to say that you'll find no one with technical qualifications to agree with you. Once more Carmack broke new ground. Unlimited textures. It was the last major innovation in 3D gaming. It didn't catch on due to its static nature, but it certainly was groundbreaking. "Not good" is an ignorant summary of the achievement.

Originally posted by Danny_G13:

But I think he peaked a long time ago

John Carmack may be the only name engineer who is to this day innovating. There's no objective foundation for the idea that he has peaked in any way whatsoever. Look, I have a programming background, so my perspective is different than yours. You should look into why he left id and check out his Bafta acceptance speech. You couldn't be more wrong in your assessments, and you will find that the dev community are not aligned with you on this matter.

[Sephiroth]

im glad hes working on VR, if i was him id be doing whatevers in the future.

i think carmack is just getting started.

[blue corpse]

This is such a nice read. It makes me feel human again on a forum. People discussing games without being nasty. Bloody love all of it :)

[Entropie]

Super Bunnyhop did shed some light on these things in his Critical Closeup od Doom and RAGE (back when Rage came out)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVFrAsxjxLs

[tazamiga]

Originally posted by dunadan:

So what? It's a Quake game powered by id Tech 4 used in Doom3. But it wasn't made by ID and was forgotten nearly as soon as it was out. To think these guys made JK and SoF, wtf.

I liked Quake 4 was one of the first games i played on the 360 lol. Pc version is a whole lot better though . It can take a while to get it to run properly though.

[Killerspinach]

Rage did kinda suck. It had serious pacing issues and it was not optimized for pc at all however Carmack had very little to do with the design choices, he was on the engine which was an amazing little kit that used his "megatexture" system to really maximize visual fidelity on meager last gen consoles. Sure he was in the meetings, sure his presence and ideas commanded attention BUT he was not the game's director AND it's kinda weird that they tried to use the Bethesda fetch quest formula. Was that pushed by the publisher? Maybe. Did id try to infuse some new blood to keep up with the times and gave them too much leash and not enough time? Probably.

As far as Doom 3 it was revolutionary no matter how anyone feels about it. I personally don't like it much either but it was still a game changer that introduced many new elements to the FPS genre that at time was truly in a state of arena overdose as that's the only kind of shooters there were.

As far as the older games Quake 3 etc you have to keep in mind Quake is essentially Doom. After Doom 2 Quake came and it was full 3d and it had the NIN soundtrack and industrial feel to it but practically all of the gameplay of Doom carried over. What started missing from that formula though was balls. That's what id lost and you actually have this decline pinpointed at a point on the id timeline that is one title after the departure of some key people at id mainly being Romero who was more than likely the main source of the 80s thrash metal/kick-a$$ attitude that was Doom.

So basically no I don't think Carmack lost his way because his way was never to be a sequel machine that reshashes his earlier successes in order to make safe money. His way was to innovate and he continued to do that at id even if some of the later titles didn't live up to the earlier ones and he continues to innovate today in his position at Occulus where he is one of the world's leading developers driving the emergence of VR, just like he drove the emergence of 3d gaming.

So no he didn't lose his way at all really, id lost Romero and had trouble replacing him. However I don't think if he stayed it would have been a different story as times change and in the late 90s and on into the early 2000s the world had moved on from what drove DOOM, it's source inspiration being macho fueled action movies and 80s thrash metal. There was a new generation of adolescents and they had much different tastes. Bands like Slayer and Megadeth were out in favor of Korn or limp Bizcuit and the achetype for anti-hero badass had shifted from the macho Arnold Shwarzenagger mold into a much more brooding emotional character or a character that leveraged their wits and intellect more than brute strength.

Sorry for the long answer but ti was a good topic and figured i'd drop my opinion :)