It defines a different experience; one where the player progresses from elaborate set piece to elaborate set piece engaged in brutal up-close combat with small groups of extremely detailed monsters.

sounds good to me. 

I read it this morning before I went to work and found it a very interesting read. What kind of scared me is how he discussed the development times are expanding and expanding. Makes me wonder what the average development time will be a for a single map. I know everyone here already takes about a good month or so for a map to be out the door, or more. This is just for Quake I mind you, it would seem Doom III we might see that stretch into a good 3 months of solid work. Plus I haven't released anything in years, so they frightens me further.

I think it will demand that as mappers we take the attention to detail much further. We will need to more finelly tune our environments to make sure they look realistic with the coenciding (I know I can't spell) art.

Also Carmacks bit on disabling shadows seems a little odd. Sure for performance issues it would be great, but he has always pushed the perforance of hardware. You'd think it would basically kill much of the atmosphere they have worked so hard at. 

Prodigy, a while back I posted a rather long discussion on what I think are the approaching innovations in mapping. If you're brave enough to read it, as I think many people never finished it because of its length, go here: http://www.celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=52&start=22

And... Disabling shadows? I don't see that comment anywhere in the article. 

...underworldfan...

It's amazing how much information you can find if you just open a few books (I get the impression John reads alot).

To use his words, You "learn something new in every page of every book you look at"

Even though I have taken it slightly out of context, it's still true.

Reading Rainbow had it right :) 

Take a look, it's in a book...

John Carmack may be a graphical genius, but he's a moron for ignoring co-op play. 

coop play has never really been a strong selling point. most people will play the game alone. it would delay the game even longer probably to input it...


although I would LOVE to have coop in everygame I play aswell as vs modes... it doesn't make him a moron for not including it 

Think that one through. Doom3 looks to be much more half life and resident evil than quake or halo. Doing coop in that sort of style is much harder, and would certainly require sacrifices on the sp side. I'm guessing they wanted to, but just made the practical choice. 

I never liked coop, has absolutely no interest to me, so I wouldn't miss it. 

This is how I see it.

Games that worked with Co-Op;
Serious Sam
Doom 2
Duke Nuke
Quake
Sonic the Hedgehog

Why? Because it did not matter to the story that much. You could start, stop, leave or join a game at any stage. Someone could find the exit and that was that, everyone jumped through to the next level. These games are just "You and your mates, shoting the monsters and having some fun with a mouse in one hand a beer in another (and maybe some pizza in a box)".

Games that did not (or would not) work as a Co-Op;
Half-Life
Unreal
RtCW
Donkey Kong
Alien Vs Preditor 2
Jeti Knight 2

Why not? Because they are story based and for the game to work the story needs to progress. Sure it could be a lot of fun to have a small team going into battle (co-op) but that is what mulitplayer is for. It also requires a LOT more work on the developers side (unless you are just shooting shit) to make a Co-Op gameplay that flows and keeps the richness of the story. Things like "what happens when a key is required", "what happens when a player exits the map", "what happens in a cut-scene, do we just stop show all the players?", the list goes on and on...

Doom3 is a story rich game (well, so we are told) and Co-Op, as cool as it could be, will not allow for the atmosphere the game has been designed around (I'm guessing based on screenshots and interviews). Removing Co-Op allows for the developers to focus on getting the single player as rich and atmopsheric as possible. Besides that, unless the Co-Op is _amazing_ reviews will focus on how the Co-Op "seems to have been thrown together", which is a negative.

What I would like to see is Co-Op mod made by the community, hell, I may even look into myself once the game code is released :] 

was cool. didnt tails have unltd. lives tho which is cheating? 

not in vs. mode, but in the normal mode, yeah. But in that mode the screen focused on sonic and you had to keep up, and this made it very easy to die anyway