260°

Carmack confesses favourite id game, slams modern design

VG247: John Carmack's admitted that his favourite id Software game is Quake III Arena. You know what, John? Same with us.

The code legend gave up his personal shooter preference in a PCGamer interview about the upcoming free-to-play Quake Live, and also took the opportunity to stick a knife into completist "movie" gaming.
patlike - contributor
Published: 566 days 13 hours ago | News | Gaming | PC | Dev News
 
 

Showing: 1 - 21 of 21 Comments
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LinuxGuru - 566 days 13 hours ago
1 -
Maybe it's his favorite because, unlike recent id releases, QIII Arena is the only id game that has been worth a damn.
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Fanboi - 566 days 12 hours ago
1.1 -
I dunno about that. Doom 3 was pretty good too. But Quake Arena was retro gaming back when such a thing doesn't exist, when it was released the critics slamed it for being too simplistic and lacking in features never realizing thats the entire point. This is largely because of Counterstrike craze that was going around back then, Quake Arena deathmatch gameplay just seems old and tired.

Fortunately Quake 3 found new life in the East. The Koreans and Chinese are totally nuts about this game and still play it today. Soon they'll have Quake Live and you'll be able to play it for free in your browser, should be interesting.
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LinuxGuru - 566 days 12 hours ago
1.2 -
Doom 3 was a shinier version of the older Doom.

It wasn't scary after playing it for 10 minutes. It became more predictable than the changing of the seasons.
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LJWooly - 566 days 11 hours ago
1.3 -
Yeah, I have to say, Doom 3 was incredibly non-scary, which came as a wee bit of a disappointment to me :(
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kwicksandz - 566 days 5 hours ago
1.4 - Your high
Doom 3 was nothing like old doom. the fun of old doom came from fighting hordes of monsters and doom 3 was just a fps survival horror with a bad flashlight mechanic and alot of monster closets.

serious sam /painkiller = shiny doom
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whatis - 566 days 11 hours ago
2 -
Few gamers will ever realise the depth that competitive Quake 3 has to it.

When someone says that Quake 3 is their favourite fps, they aren't talking about the vanilla version with ffa on q3dm17. The game that everyone else is picturing is a very different one than what people like Carmac are talking about when they mention Quake 3.

They are talking about proper competition level Quake 3, with the latest version of cpma vq3 (formally osp) in 1vs1, tdm + ctf.

If you don't know who Cooller, Z4muz, Zero4, Fox, Cha0ticz, czm, jibo,
uNkind, leXer, keep3r, evil, Toxic or Fazz are, or if you haven't seen them play, then I recommend you look into it if you want to see what all the fuss is about.

If anyone is interested here are a few links to some memorable match demos (1v1):

http://www.cyberfight.org/s...
http://www.cyberfight.org/s...
http://www.cyberfight.org/s...
http://www.cyberfight.org/s...
http://www.cyberfight.org/s...
http://www.cyberfight.org/s...
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Xakep - 566 days 5 hours ago
2.1 -
I still hate the hell out of DM17.
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MK_Red - 566 days 11 hours ago
3 -
Quake 3 and 4 are my least fave id games.
Doom 2 and Quake 2 FTW!
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LJWooly - 566 days 11 hours ago
3.1 -
I actually agree with you, although I felt Doom 1 was better than 2 (at the time, not now of course). Quake 2 was just excellent, I just finsished playing through it again :)
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MK_Red - 566 days 10 hours ago
3.2 -
Agree my friend.
Doom 1 felt more special and better but Doom 2's crazy level design has kept me replaying more and more til this day.

And Quake 2 was indeed excellent. :)
Doom 1-2 + Quake 2 = id's best :D
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LJWooly - 566 days 10 hours ago
3.3 -
I just think ID were at their best in the past, and unfortunately they're always going to be. I honestly can't see them matching up to their past endeavours now, gaming seems to have gotten to far ahead of them, and in their efforts to keep up, they're losing the plot, as it were.

I'm not saying they should stop making games, of course, that would be silly. I'm just saying they'll never be as good as they were. Unless, they end up surprising us.
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kingme71 - 566 days 7 hours ago
3.4 -
Yup, I totally agree LJW. Id was at their best when they were a small shop where Carmack could code up something new overnight and elevate the title that much more. Those days are gone now with 80+ man teams now the norm.

Carmack is still one of the most brilliant 3d developers out there, but Id hasn't really embraced all these changes to the industry to remain on top.
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LJWooly - 566 days 5 hours ago
3.5 -
Thanks, kingme, I completely agree, and bubbles to you.
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MK_Red - 566 days 5 hours ago
3.6 -
Agreed with both of you. id was indeed at it best back then. Now both id and Blizzard have lost it. id's Doom 3 was disappointing and they didn't even make Quake 4 themselves. And Blizzard has become uber lazy and has released nothing but WOW for ages.
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LJWooly - 566 days 5 hours ago
3.7 -
Yup, same deal with Blizzard, just to a far greater extent. I never really thought WoW was even a good game in the first place, it's just easy for some people to get addicted to. But, they're making a killing from it, so, from a business perspective, there really is no reason for them to put in any effort or resources to actually bother to make anything outside of WoW, their lactating cash-cow. It's a shame, but that's how it is.

Wait, how the hell did I just make 2 bubbles in about an hour? :o
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kingme71 - 566 days 2 hours ago
3.8 -
thanks LJW!
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LJWooly - 566 days 1 hour ago
3.9 -
No problem :)
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whatis - 566 days 11 hours ago
4 - Oh and by the way..
If anyone is wondering why Fatal1ty isn't on that list, it is because he wasn't actually one of the top Quake 3 players, at least by todays standards.

The game hadn't been out for very long when Fatality was considered a top level player. I would say that Quake 3 reached it's peak competitively around 2003 - 2007. This was a while after Fat had moved on from the game and the newer standard of dual maps were introduced.

I wanted to point this out because many people automatically think of Fatal1ty as being one of the Quake greats, but he probably shouldn't be considered a top tier player when it comes to Quake 3.
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whatis - 566 days 10 hours ago
5 - and if you don't have a copy of Quake 3 and
can't watch the demos, then check out one of my all time favourite Quake 3 videos.

The file is a bit big but it should definately help to make a believer out of you, or at the very least give you some insight as to why some people (like myself) still talk so highly of the game.

http://www.own-age.com/vids...
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whatis - 566 days 10 hours ago
6 - oh my pants!!
Check out the lineup for the Q3 dual comp at ESWC 2008 (July 4-6) !!!

(Tournament gathering 24 players: 4 French players + 20 International Players)

* av3k (Poland)
* Brescia (Denmark)
* Chance (U.S.A.)
* Cooller (Russia)
* Cypher (Belarus)
* czm (U.S.A.)
* Fazz (Sweden)
* Fookie (Sweden)
* Fox (Sweden)
* Hell (United Kingdom)
* If-22 (Netherlands)
* K1ller (Germany)
* Maxtr0x (Poland)
* Prozac (Sweden)
* Rapha (U.S.A.)
* Jibo (China)
* Rocketboy (China)
* Shiva (South Korea)
* Sombra (Spain)
* Zero4 (U.S.A.)

Gotta break out the gtv for this one!

Incidentily, one of the most exiting live gtv matches that I can remember watching recently was Fox vs. K1ller on ztn3tourney1 in the CPL 2006 Sweden qualifier, and they're both on the bill!

Hopefully we'll see a rematch. I think that K1ller is probably the only German player that I've seen play and his style is something to behold I tell you. The question is whether or not he can outsmart Fox this time though.
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scissor_runner - 566 days 1 hour ago
7 - I'll see you online.
Was a very hardcore player on the consoles but Doom and later quake 3 got me completely hooked. I remember playing the demo maps for like 3 months before it cam out and I still play it today. It really is sport. They guys that are good stay good yet if you don't practice you will pay. There is some thing to be said about the speed the ruthlessness the level design of this whole game. Going from quake 3 to UT what ever version automatically meant you where going to kill way more people.

I'll see you online John you just know he uses a bot too! Quake 2 is good yet the graphics of quake 3 made every thing more respectable. On an upto date box you can run it at over 400 FPS during a normal match. This is why I understand all the halo love it made for a certain type of gamer.

killing story based completist gaming is interesting, big talk there!
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