John Carmack Joins Oculus as CTO

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eloj

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http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-step-into-the-game/posts/562211

“I have fond memories of the development work that led to a lot of great things in modern gaming – the intensity of the first person experience, LAN and internet play, game mods, and so on. Duct taping a strap and hot gluing sensors onto Palmer’s early prototype Rift and writing the code to drive it ranks right up there. Now is a special time. I believe that VR will have a huge impact in the coming years, but everyone working today is a pioneer. The paradigms that everyone will take for granted in the future are being figured out today; probably by people reading this message. It’s certainly not there yet. There is a lot more work to do, and there are problems we don’t even know about that will need to be solved, but I am eager to work on them. It’s going to be awesome!”
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EDIT: It's unclear if he's left ID or not, but a 'Bethesda Community Lead' says that "The technical leadership he provides for games in development at id Software is unaffected". If correct, I think this just says that he's been very lightly involved with the day to day at ID for a while now. CTO at a startup isn't some part time job.

EDIT 2: "My time division is now Oculus over Id over Armadillo. Busy busy busy!" -- https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/365126783290445824
 
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Oh that's great the dumb ass behind rage is involved with the OR. its like letting George Lucas dirrect the new star wars.
 
shifty68 said:
Oh that's great the dumb ass behind rage is involved with the OR. its like letting George Lucas dirrect the new star wars.
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I'm no programmer or have an ounce of programming knowledge but I am pretty certain Carmack didn't MAKE Rage, just the foundation for it to be made. I could be wrong though.
 
armandh01 said:
I'm no programmer or have an ounce of programming knowledge but I am pretty certain Carmack didn't MAKE Rage, just the foundation for it to be made. I could be wrong though.
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Tim Willits is behind RAGE. Carmack is behind the id Tech 5 engine.
 
armandh01 said:
I'm no programmer or have an ounce of programming knowledge but I am pretty certain Carmack didn't MAKE Rage, just the foundation for it to be made. I could be wrong though.
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You're quite correct. He just developed the underyling technology that the game was built upon. Blame Tim Willits for the game itself.
 
Carmack is still one of the better programmers in the world. I'm not seeing the problem.
 
shifty68 said:
Oh that's great the dumb ass behind rage is involved with the OR. its like letting George Lucas dirrect the new star wars.
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LOL...your saying John Carmack is a dumb ass? That's like a child pointing out how stupid Albert Einstein was...
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Carmack is still one of the better programmers in the world. I'm not seeing the problem.
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He needs someone with authority (that isn't evil) to direct his abilities. Be it a superior or a peer, he needs someone with a vision to say "This technique is cool, but to make it work in a game, I need it to do X, Y, and Z; under A, B, and C conditions."

To me, Doom 3 looked like Quake 3 with better textures. To me, Rage looked like Doom 3 outdoors with (occasionally) amazing textures.
 
pcjunkie said:
LOL...your saying John Carmack is a dumb ass? That's like a child pointing out how stupid Albert Einstein was...
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ya Einstein was brilliant and made some truly amazing advances in his field early in his career. But later on he couldn't accept that quantum physics was legitimate. and he spent quite allot of time trying to disprove it. and never fully accepted it.

Carmack did some amazing stuff in the past but he hasn't done much of any thing, that's decent, in the last 10 or so years. so comparing him to Einstein is fairly accurate.
 
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Carmack's strength is as a technologist so I think the CTO role for him is both a good fit as well as good marketing for an emerging technology ... Carmack recognized the potential impact of smartphones early and pushed for programs to be ported to that platform ... he had some interesting ideas with the racing airplanes (but I think that technology was too niche and too early for mass appeal) ... Oculus Rift should be a great place for him and I think he should help bring some great features to the device, decent SDKs for the developers, and some eye popping games to highlight the technology and platform ... whole lotta win here :)
 
shifty68 said:
Oh that's great the dumb ass behind rage is involved with the OR. its like letting George Lucas dirrect the new star wars.
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Wow, you know nothing about John Carmack :rolleyes:

This is right up his alley, and good for him :) He's done with PC game engines for now, he's a godfather to the PC Shooter first person game, I think he's done everything he possibly could and is a legend in the field, Carmack is a hall of famer type of guy. He's the Stanley Kubrick of his genre.

Now what he's moving onto, is the next generation and future for Gaming, it's still early years, but John is perfect top help get this going
 
shifty68 said:
why ask
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It just sounded like you played Rage, saw Carmack's name attached to it, assumed he was solely responsible for it, and attempted to rip on him. Which I don't really blame you for, because a lot of people did that when Rage was released.

However, you should probably save some face and fess up to it :p
 
shifty68 said:
Oh that's great the dumb ass behind rage is involved with the OR. its like letting George Lucas dirrect the new star wars.
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Jesus Christ. He wrote the engine that powers the game, he didn't develop the actual game or game content himself. Carmack isn't a content guy, he's a tech guy, and he's one of the greatest around.
 
Its partially that. but i don't think he has done any thing innovative in over 10 years so what is the benefit of having a idolised has been work on the OR, besides the press which i don't think the OR really needs.
 
shifty68 said:
Its partially that. but i don't think he has done any thing innovative in over 10 years so what is the benefit of having a idolised has been work on the OR, besides the press which i don't think the OR really needs.
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Seems like you are just trolling now ;) ... with his previous engines powering many of the AAA titles like Halo, CoD, and MoH and with his porting of the Doom/Quake engines into iOS and his activities in Armadillo Aerospace I think he has been slightly innovative ... he doesn't need to write code anymore (although he is still excellent at it) ... he now gets to guide technologies to enhance the PC and graphics experience ... he is no John Romero :D
 
This thread went pretty much exactly in the direction I expected it to.

If a guy slips on a fuckin' banana peel, someone's going to blame John for it.
 
not trying to troll ( but that's what a troll would said lol)

i just don't think he has done much in the way of enhancing the pc gaming experience since about 2003. id soft could be holding him back. seems like most of the innovation comes from indy devs nowadays. So Carmack working for a startup company could bring back some of his magic. we can only hope.

what exactly would he be doing as a CTO on a vr headset project.
 
shifty68 said:
not trying to troll ( but that's what a troll would said lol)

i just don't think he has done much in the way of enhancing the pc gaming experience since about 2003. id soft could be holding him back. seems like most of the innovation comes from indy devs nowadays. So Carmack working for a startup company could bring back some of his magic. we can only hope.

what exactly would he be doing as a CTO on a vr headset project.
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He is an A+ grade porgrammer and engine dev.
 
shifty68 said:
what exactly would he be doing as a CTO on a vr headset project.
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First, stop talking.

Secondly, he'll presumably be overseeing all of the engineering (that's what a CTO do) and working on the software stack. He's been involved with this specific tech for years now, maybe this video will be of assistance to you.
 
Q1 Bacon Mod: Bacon cooks as you hit enemies with the lightning gun, giving you the immersive smell of sizzling flesh!
 
shifty68 said:
Oh that's great the dumb ass behind rage is involved with the OR. its like letting George Lucas dirrect the new star wars.
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5269558397_64406aeb94_z.jpg
 
Well I think it's a great idea for him to join forces with the Oculus team. He's really passionate about the project and he's also a genius. Sure he helped develop Rage to a degree, but everyone is allowed to mess up from time to time. You and I mess up and we don't get thrown under the proverbial bus. Why should we toss our mental athletes under there then?

I'd think that gamers would eventually grow a bit more cultured over time and realize that not everyone is going to be perfect all the time. Seems like gamers are treating the man like NFL fans do. Throw 50 touchdowns and one interception and you're the worst heel of all time that can never be forgiven for tossing that one interception that lost the game. Same thing applies here. Give the man a chance as he's clearly capable of leading the tech team at Oculus.

Not justifying Rage. I still don't like it. Just saying that the guy deserves more gratitude than dwelling on his lowest points as a developer and game engine programmer. Worst case scenario the next Elder Scrolls game has better Oculus Rift support.

:)
 
TwistedAegis said:
Q1 Bacon Mod: Bacon cooks as you hit enemies with the lightning gun, giving you the immersive smell of sizzling flesh!
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Yea, but there would need to be smell mods to simulate the difference between shambler meat and strogg balls.
 
MavericK96 said:
Yeah, all that massive texture pop in id Tech 5 was some A+ grade programming... :p
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I'm sure there's a lot of innovative cool tech in idT5. The problem was that it didn't enhance the gaming experience. idT4 had a similar problem... which is why the Unreal Engine won the day.
 
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