posted 08-15-2004 12:20 AM
     
Well, just got back from Quakecon and I thought I'd let you girls know what you missed this year. First off, the new hotel was amazing. It was a MASSIVE hotel complex made just to house conventions. For the first time in years we had a Quakecon with too MUCH room. I hope and pray that they have it there again next year. As in the past few years they had Macs as the registration computers. This year it was eMacs. As far as the keynote went; John Carmack was of course, absent. As many of you already heard he and his wife just had their first child. To make up for it they aired a video he recorded for the event in which he droned on for an hour about technical aspects of gaming that no one besides himself could possibly understand. As usual. Key highlights: id is already working on the successor to the Doom III engine. It's biggest change will be that its specular shadows will be soft-edged shadows (made using shadow buffers) instead of the hard-edged shadows of Doom III (that used stencil shadows.) The idea of those amazing shadows looking more realistic is quite exciting. To showcase this new engine, id is building a new single player-focused game that will be an all-new franchise. They refused to say anything further. They said that Quake IV was coming along, but didn't show any footage. They didn't even bring up the recent RtCW II rumors. Before the Keynote they passed out cue cards so that anyone with a question could ask the group. I was one of the lucky ones who's question got asked.
My question: Who took over the Mac programming when Graeme left?
The answer: Tim Willits, lead designer. He's also the one handling the Linux port. He said the Mac port was playable, but was still in need of optimizations, especially for the lower-end systems. He said he was working directly with Apple to address the issue.
What was most intriguing of all was that they stated that the Mac version would NOT be published by Activision as previously assumed. Instead id would have to shop around for a new publisher. The bright side of this is that they MUST be putting out a retail version, otherwise they wouldn't be needing a publisher at all. For anyone who cares, here's my "Best of QCon" list:
Favorite hardware: 1-Ergodex's DX1. Go check out their page to see what I'm talking about. Basically, imagine a game controller where you can place the buttons anywhere on the controller you like. It sounds crazy, but when you try it in person, it just works. The rep told me that they plan to have a Mac driver out soon after release. Only downside; a $120 pricetag. 2-Nvidia's SLI systems. They actually had cases with dual GeForce 6800 Ultras running games like Doom3 and Far Cry at 1600x1200 with all the settings cranked up. Looked amazing. If Apple ever gets around to adding PCI-Express to the PowerMacs, then maybe (but I doubt it) we'll see this land on the Mac side. Favorite software:
1-Call of Duty: United Offensive. A Call of Duty expansion pack that adds multiplayer support for tanks and other vehicles. The single-player battles where also intense. If Call of Duty was about small special forces operations, then this one's about large-scale, full on battles.
Since this is just an expansion pack for the original Call of Duty then I suppose a Mac port is likely. If so, then I can't recommend it enough. 2-Flat Out. It's demolition style racer with a complete dynamic physics engine. You can drive over pretty much lying alongside the track and send it tumbling, and when you crash, your driver gets tossed through the windshield and goes tumbling around with ragdoll physics. Running maxed-out on a GeForce 6800 it looked amazing. All in all, this was a much better QCon than last year. The location was nice, and the convention itself just keeps growing and growing. If the Bring Your Own Computer area gets any bigger it could be declared a sovereign state. Anyway, I have a bunch of pics and I'll try to post them sometime tomorrow. [This message has been edited by gotterdamm : 08-15-2004.]
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