trancekr in the wonderland

http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=8826499&publicUserId=4551247

Quake Con Keynote -- Live Blog

Hasty-style blogging begins now.

6:20: Id's Todd Hollenshead works the show with "Anybody love 'em some beer? Some free beer? Anybody love 'em some Quake Live?" The crowd approves.

6:22: Ventrilo's giving away a new Corvette. One fool in the audience shouts, "I don't care if it's 12 miles per gallon. I'll drive it!"

6:25: Id's Marty Stratton takes the stage to talk Quake Live. Quake Live is available to all attendees while they're at the show, beta invite or no.

6:26: Spike TV trailer for Quake Live.

6:27: The video feed shits out to applause. Someone screams, "John Carmack!"

6:28: Stratton continues to describe Quake Live's features as though his audience isn't paying to attend something called Quake Con and knows nothing of the browser-based game.

6:32: Katherine Anna Kang introduces Wolfenstein RPG for cellphones, shows a quick clip, and then cues up a teaser for DOOM II RPG, also for cellphones.

6:35: Hollenshead is about to show us new footage of Wolfenstein for 360, PS3, and PC. "You get to explore other dimensions! How kick ass is that?" Three people hoot and two more holler.

6:36: Wolfenstein trailer (impressions will have to wait).

6:40: Hollenshead is about show us either DOOM 4 or Rage. He teases the audience until someone shouts, "Duke Nukem Forever!"

6:41: Id officially announces "the next DOOM game" but offers no details other than that "there will be guns, blood, demons, and gibs." Yet another heckler shouts "flashlight tape!" Hollenshead tells Stratton to ban his Quake Live account. When's it out? "When it's done!" everyone cheers.

6:43: John Carmack introduces all-new Rage video. Other than one ridiculous explosion, it looks phenomenal. We'll add video to the 1UP Quake Con hub ASAP. "Rage will run at 60 frames per second," Carmack explains. "The next DOOM game will look like it's built on another engine, as it uses three times the horsepower." It'll operate at 30 frames per second.

6:47: Carmack explains that as development becomes more costly, id is changing its old approach of producing only one title at a time.

6:49: Wolfenstein RPG uses a new 3D renderer.

6:52: Advances in mobile technology enable Carmack to create increasingly sophisticated engines. Argues that brand recognition is everything in the mobile market, as all the info that is available to buyers is a line of text. With iPhone, however, id can have webpages with screens and video. "[iPhone] is a great software application development environment. Pure graphics-wise, it's equivalent to a Dreamcast, but almost closer to a last gen console. RAM is the only impediment."

6:57: "iPhone is more powerful than the DS and PSP put together. Power isn't everything, as Nintendo dominates the handheld market with a device that is in many ways inferior to Sony's PSP." As Carmack continues to talk up mobile gaming, someone's cell starts up with a 50 Cent ringtone. Welp.

7:00: Carmack says he often ends up on Apple's "shit list" for speaking his mind. At the moment, the California company has no reason not to like what's coming fun the id cofounder's mouth. He then notes that the Wolf RPG trailer shows no nazis because the mobile market is more or less where Nintendo was at ten years ago in so far as its wholesome public image goes.

7:04: He's hoping to have Wolfenstein RPG out this year. Carmack thinks that, compared to the first DOOM RPG, id has "cranked up the quality" on its forthcoming mobile role-playing games.

7:06: Carmack sees Quake Live as an experiment and is not sure whether or not the game is a good idea. "What if nobody shows up? What if we wind up with 50,000 users." His early estimations were "anywhere from 5,000 to five million users." Quake Live is special for the programmer because Quake III has always been his favorite id project.

7:12: Carmack won id's original in-house Quake tournament. Since then, other staffers have surpassed his skill level.

7:14: If Quake Live is successful, he wants to follow up with Enemy Territory: Wolfenstein, however, he's concerned "how Intel ads will look in Nazi Germany."

7:18: 'Gamers who pay $60 for a boxed game expect to be coddled.' Carmack notes that mass market games must cater to their least talented player. Since Quake Live is free, it can be cutthroat.

7:21: Quake Live's success will determine whether or not there's ever another big budget, graphics intensive Quake Arena. "Right now, publishers aren't interested in multiplayer-only games of this variety." Quake Live could create an audience that cannot go ignored.

7:24: Sponsors are already interested in making custom maps.

7:25: Quake Live will not become a portal (like InstantAction). Browser-based DOOM and Wolfenstein games will exist on their own hubs if they happen at all. "Quake Live plays to PCs strengths. The platform is at a disadvantage compared to consoles." By the the time that DOOM 4 ships to consoles, PC will be light years ahead of current consoles. In this case, the PC version will support significant visual improvements over 360 or PS3 versions. Rage, on the other hand, will more or less look the same across all platforms it's available on."

7:26: "Mouse and keyboard are still the best input for first-person shooters."

7:36: On the next DOOM: "We're hiring new talent, but are not so interested in 'systems people' who want to create new code." The technology is in place, now id wants to focus on design and novel features.

7:41: "We don't want to be the kind of project that throws hundreds of people at something to get it done." Id is interested in retaining talent.

7:43: "Finding level designers is difficult. It used to be that everyone made DOOM levels. Nowadays it's really hard for people to produce commercial quality levels."

7:44: Carmack's talking code analysis and error states -- I'm lost. A large percentage of the audience is hanging on every one of their hero's words, and laughs along.

7:55: "Sony's position has been that development effort does not matter. They think, 'They'll suck it up because we're Sony.' They're beginning to feel the pinch there. Peak performance will be incredibly important in the future."

7:56: "There's the possibility that one tech vendor will win big next gen. If we end up with a monoculture, there could be downsides."

8:01: "The work going on with Cuda gives Nvidia a huge lead [in the next-gen arms race]." At the moment, developers such as id have no true applications running on next-gen architecture.

8:03: Programming for potentially hundreds of processing cores is problematic.

8:06: Carmack finally opens the floor for questions. First question: Why no mods for Quake Live when mods made Quake what it is? Carmack responds that there will be some moddable aspects to the game. Otherwise, no major plans at the moment.

8:08: Question: Why is EA publishing Rage? Carmack says that id had no falling out with Activision. Id shopped the title three times. As an aside, he explains that Rage is a first-person shooter in which driving plays a part. It is not a purely driving game. Id talked to Sega and THQ, too. In the end it was between Activision and EA. The idea of taking a fesh start with EA's Partners program was attractive. Valve Software advised id on the matter and expressed its satisfaction with EA. EA's CEO John Ricatello understood Rage on a design level and was able to offer valuable input. Also, id has not decided whether or not its longtime partner Activision will publish the next DOOM.

8:15: Question: How does id decide which games to greenlight? Answer: Id's developers were indeed once prima donnas and the loudest mouth would often prevail. "That's not a culture that you can invest millions of dollars in and not a expect a smoking crater at the end of the day. Don't promote yourself or your ideas beyond your point of confidence." Carmack says he cares about handling and particulars but the bigger picture design is beyond his scope. He's not part of the design project and tries not to impose.

8:28: My net connection crapped out and I lost three paragraphs. Sorry. The QA session continues. Carmack is complaining about DVDs. He says that from id's point of view, 360's hardware is superior to PS3's but that BluRay's capacity gives Sony's system an important edge, especially for large game worlds like Rage's.

8:31: Carmack says that the notion that 3D graphics are not about simulation is his chief accomplishment. "Other individuals would have independantly arrived at every other technology I developed."

8:36: Question: Do cognitive computing interfaces function as advertised? Carmack thinks that biometric feedback is a "cool approach. The more data we can obtain the better, but we're not close to being able to offer precision control based on this sort of input. Maybe in the generation after the next."

8:38: A hearing impaired gamer asks if Rage will support closed captioning. Carmack can't answer.

8:41: Someone asks about sequelitis. "Publishers say that they cannot produce enough sequels for series such as Call of Duty to please consumers. People want what they know, but better. I don't see that as a bad thing. I would not be unhappy to follow up the next DOOM with yet another DOOM on the next generation of consoles."

8:48: Rage could have cooperative play. The next DOOM's multiplayer content is more extensive than DOOM III's.

8:50: "World of WarCraft is awesome. There was a period where id considered persistent multiplayer gaming. We're still interested in it on the mobile space."

8:53: Carmack is involved in a rocket racing league.

8:54: "Mac is the next platform for Quake Live."

8:55: My laptop battery is about to die.

8:57: We'll make multiple videos available tonight (provided another 1UPer is around to upload them). I pulled some pranks. : )

9:04: Carmack -- still going -- says that rocket science isn't as complex as programming id's next-gen software.

9:11: Thanks for reading. I'll blog an update if we manage to upload the video impressions tonight.