Just one thing 2 clarify, on the first page some guy said its id.com, its IDSOFTWARE.com, also, that guy who told about carmaks custom car, DID u see that in NEXTGEN?

Anyone who takes their damned laptop on their honeymoon so they can code isn''t a genius... I''d say he''s more of an idiot, I would have chosen my wife

Arrighty. Basically this is how I see it. Carmack may have a reputation, and he may be a good programmer, but I don''t really see the reason that many consider him a god. First off, he is surrounded by other talents - many have already mentioned Abrash (though I must admit that he did Q3A without the help of our esteemed Abrash). As for Romero, he can go rot in hell with Daikatana. Anyway, back to the point. I think the reason that Carmack has been getting the hype for so long is that he has been around for a long time, and his name is on some of the better games out there that demonstrate his field. Granted, much of his new stuff is spectacular technically, it really does nothing more to quench my thirst for a good game that Doom did way back when. People want an idol, and John did get a good spot there on the top ten list. I''m sure, though, if many of you got to the real world of game development you would see that there is talent left and right that could possibly rival Carmack, though it may not be willing/able to do it as recklessly as John does. In case you were wondering what happened to that Abrash guy, Michael has been living in Bellevue, WA working on speech recognition software for a while, until he finally dumped that and got a job at Microsoft once again making games. What would make a guy go from Quake to speech recognition? If you ask me, it was something in the water. It''s hard to say. The point is, you may have your eyes open to those who make it clear that they are good, like Carmack and Romero (Romero''s being a lie, just like every release date on Daikatana), but there are those who don''t like the spotlight, are held back by a publisher or producer, or just don''t have the time or money to do something spectacular.

Pythius

What makes Carmack so incredible to me is his ability to think something up, and just do it. I recently read an interview in which he stated that he wrote something like 5 separate 3D engines while researching for Q3. *5*. And they weren''t all derivitives of each other, either. IIRC, 2 were voxel-based, and one of the others was based on something I hadn''t even heard of before. I get the impression that he made them all work, but liked some features better than others and so he wrote the Q3 engine as a conglomeration of the various research projects he did. When I read postmortoms and interviews regarding other projects, I hear about them planning things out, writing the engine, adding things here and cutting things out there, but I haven''t heard many stories of multiple functional engines being writtin just to see which one looks better, or is cleaner to implement, let alone five. Carmack is what I''d call increible when it comes to coding.

But I really wish Id would bring on some really good design people. Quake was ground-breaking, sure. Defining, even. But in terms of gameplay, I found it pretty much boring. Then I played Half-Life and had a *blast*. What a great game! I don''t mean to say that it had anything to do with graphics - I know it was built on top of the Quake engine - that had nothing to do with how much fun it was. It was the immersion that made it so much fun to play. Carmack is an amazing programmer, but his games lack that artistic quality that games such as Half-Life and System Shock display. If he teamed up with some top-notch game designers, I think they could produce something that would blow everyone''s mind.

-Lutrosis

I''ve got keendreams on some old 360k floppies, even tried to run it on my newest computer, just a bit too fast =)

Actually I think one of Carmack''s greatest problems is that he''s a loner. I''ve heard his comments about the AI in Q3, and how it was delayed.
He basically said something like: "I should have never given that to anyone else, but just done it myself."

Maybe he could have done a better job... but I can''t help but feel that he thinks he''s the best of everything. And it just might bite him in the ass eventually.

quote: Original post by SonicSilcion

I haven''t heard the names Robert Prince or Tom Hall for such a long time now.

Not sure about Robert Prince, but Tom Hall is at ION Storm heading up an RPG based on the Quake II engine (Anachronox).

Anyway, to comment on a couple of things in this thread...

Once, I asked Chris Hargrove (Duke Nukem Forever programmer) who he thought the best coder in the industry is. He said that it''s somebody no one has ever heard of, but will blow everyone else away eventually. The point is that even if Carmack (or Abrash, or Sweeney) IS the best right now, there is someone better out there. But the bottom line is it doesn''t matter. There is really no way to say who the best really is. Those people are all good enough to get the job done, and to push technology to new levels. If people choose to idolize them for it, then let them. I know that none of the people I mentioned WANTS to be looked at as a god. Certainly, they want to be respected for their abilities, but what''s wrong with that? That''s true of almost everyone.

People who want to be the "next John Carmack" probably never will be. Why limit yourself to be like someone else? Be the best you can, be willing to try new things, think outside the box, and you''re bound to receive the respect you deserve. Trying to be like someone else will just make you look like a wannabe.

BTW, I want to point out that, having seen Peter Molyneux preview it at the GDC, Black and White really DOES have the potential to be the best game yet, and it''s because of the game''s design and AI, not because of it''s graphics. Refreshing, eh?

Very refreshing. I don''t get worked up at all about graphics. Gameplay is key. I don''t really like the Quakes, or even Half Life that much (the Marines ruled, besides that I got bored). But technically, the Quakes have ruled, and I respect the heck out of the technical side of them.

I hope we didn''t give the impression that Carmack is the only great programmer though. The last few posts have gone into that, and there are certainly many who can keep up with Carmack, but he''s become the high profile one, starting a whole new genre, and taking on MS with OpenGL.

Rock