John Carmack on modding

[scar3crow]

A quote from this interview with John Carmack brought up a point Ive gradually noticed over time, and one that has been illuminated by SantaClaws before.

Q14: Do you think that the MegaTexture technology will be accessible to mod teams? I’m making the connection there in terms of thinking of some of the smaller teams out there.

Answer: It doesn’t help them. In general, all the technology progress has been essentially reducing the ability of a mod team to do something significant and competitive. We’ve certainly seen this over the last 10 years, where, in the early days of somebody messing with DOOM or QUAKE, you could take essentially a pure concept idea, put it in, and see how the game play evolved there. But doing a mod now, if you’re making new models, new animation, you essentially need to be a game studio doing something for free to do something that’s going to be the significant equivalent. And almost nobody even considers doing a total conversion anymore. Anything like this that allows more media effort to be spent, probably does not help the mods.

So what do you guys think about this?

[Entar]

We’ve certainly seen this over the last 10 years, where, in the early days of somebody messing with DOOM or QUAKE, you could take essentially a pure concept idea, put it in, and see how the game play evolved there. But doing a mod now, if you’re making new models, new animation, you essentially need to be a game studio doing something for free to do something that’s going to be the significant equivalent. And almost nobody even considers doing a total conversion anymore.

That's why Quake 1 is so great. QuakeC is simple to learn and simple to use. The engine is open source, so you can do total conversions and package them standalone. Because of such, there's a great big Quake community, which makes it all the better. These things are what makes Quake modding so superior to making mods for Doom3, Half-Life(2) or UT2004.

JC's got it perfectly, only "in the early days" isn't the correct wording at all. People still mod Quake, and bully for us. There's a reason for that too

[LordHavoc]

JC's got it perfectly, only "in the early days" isn't the correct wording at all. People still mod Quake, and bully for us. There's a reason for that too

Now if we'd all get together and make one uber quake mod and completely amaze id...

[Megazoid]

John Romero on modding.

http://rome.ro/2006/05/oblivion-re-rated-bad-news.html

[scar3crow]

LordHavoc pontificated:

Now if we'd all get together and make one uber quake mod and completely amaze id...

Hey, Ive been saying that for a while =)

[FrikaC]

John Romero on modding.

http://rome.ro/2006/05/oblivion-re-rated-bad-news.html

Holy crap. That is absolutely absurd.

[CocoT]

http://rome.ro/2006/05/whose-side-am-i-on-anyway.html

I guess this post makes a little bit more sense

[Entar]

John Romero on modding.

http://rome.ro/2006/05/oblivion-re-rated-bad-news.html

Holy crap. That is absolutely absurd.

Agreed. I think what he "meant" to say is that retards who make stupid mods like that screw the games community they're supposed to be trying to help.

[LordHavoc]

Agreed. I think what he "meant" to say is that retards who make stupid mods like that screw the games community they're supposed to be trying to help.

That they *want* to help, remove the supposed to, the "supposed to" has been the whole point of confusion that caused so much flaming about John Romero's first comments.

[FrikaC]

John Romero on modding.

http://rome.ro/2006/05/oblivion-re-rated-bad-news.html

Holy crap. That is absolutely absurd.

Agreed. I think what he "meant" to say is that retards who make stupid mods like that screw the games community they're supposed to be trying to help.

I meant the ESRB is retarded.

[Entar]

I meant the ESRB is retarded.

Oh, I meant the stupid modder(s) who did that(those) mods.

I also hate what he said here:

What's the point of this all this? That modders are now screwing up the industry they're supposed to be helping."

The heck? This is a gross generalization which is almost as bad as the one made by the ESRB saying that the game is worse just because someone modded it that way.

[FrikaC]

I meant the ESRB is retarded.

Oh, I meant the stupid modder(s) who did that(those) mods.

I also hate what he said here:

What's the point of this all this? That modders are now screwing up the industry they're supposed to be helping."

The heck? This is a gross generalization which is almost as bad as the one made by the ESRB saying that the game is worse just because someone modded it that way.

There's been nude patches for nearly every game that has been released in the past decade. I don't personally agree with it, but it's happened repeatedly for years. I don't think the modders are to blame for this, stupid or not their works stands by themselves.

Any kind of self censorship from the modding community is unfeasible (which is basically what you're saying the modders should have practised). If a certain mod CAN be done and there are any people out there that want it done, it will be done. Like Romero said this will probably force the game companies to move toward closing their content and actively trying to stop mods so they can maintain their ESRB rating.

Romero's comment is obviously emphasizing the ridiculousness of it, not placing blame.

The reason for this is obviously Hot Coffee and the political attention that got. The ESRB have gotten chicken and are worried about government interference. Congress is having trouble adapting to idea of content modification, so (for now, we hope) the ESRB are playing it safe.

In the end, we all lose. Mods will cease to be, future game makers will have no means to hoist themselves up by their bootstraps, etc. All, ultimately at the whim of some ignorant U.S. senators. If you live in any of their districts, don't vote for Evan Byah, Hillary Clinton or Joe Lieberman and tell your friends and family not to do the same. They're opressing free speech and killing the entire mod scene with this bull.

[Dr. Shadowborg]

I'd have to agree with Carmack's assesment. The problem is, is that there seems to be little interest on the part of commercial developers to actually help streamline, simplify, and ease creation of said media content. (See my previous post regarding my ideal of the ultimate FPS)

LordHavoc: Probably because deep down, we all know iD will never pay attention anyway... :/


ERSB and Legislative antics: Bush as usual got it all wrong. They hate us because of our politicians, our politicians hate us because of our freedoms. Ten years or so years ago, superbowl boobies probably wouldn't have raised much of a political stink. Nowadays though, with the multitude of high-horse hypocritical (often evangelical) busybodies who feel everyone should conform to their standards, coupled with soulless wealth and power obsessed political figures who are only too happy to oblige them as an excuse to gain even more wealth and power...

Well, with the road things seem to be going down, Civilization as we know it probably doesn't have much time left.

[FrikaC]

On the subject of John Carmack's comments I'd like to say that to me, it doesn't really matter. The code aspect of making mods hasn't really gotten that much more complex (if you know the languages it is coded in). I could basically do what I do in modding for any game, if I really wanted to.

But yes, due to the scale and work required, making a total conversion is likely no longer feasible. And I agree with Shadowborg that they haven't made it exactly easy for modders.

I for one share Darryl Atchison's hope that Quake would usher in an era of 'toolkit' games, and though some titles have gone that way (Unreal and NWN spring to mind, both come with comprehensive editing utilities), far too many, especially from id's side of things have gone the route of less editability.

[LordHavoc]

But yes, due to the scale and work required, making a total conversion is likely no longer feasible. And I agree with Shadowborg that they haven't made it exactly easy for modders.

This requires a long hard look at what makes developing TCs hard in old and modern games, I don't think it's as simple as "We have to make so many more pixels and polygons now!"

Come on, Quake modding was hell to begin with, just look at the sorry state of mdl making tools and quirky bsp map editors right now, Quake modding has never been easy, high poly or low poly doesn't matter, it's the tools that matter.