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Tag: Rage

  • John Carmack Stepping Down As Oculus CTO To Focus On AI Research

    John Carmack Stepping Down As Oculus CTO To Focus On AI Research

    John Carmack is a legend in the video game community, having co-founded id Software and taken the lead on ground-breaking games such as Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein 3D, Rage and others. More recently, he has held the role of CTO at Oculus VR.

    Now, in a Facebook post, Carmack has announced he is resigning his position to pursue AI research. He plans on being a “consulting CTO” for Oculus, but only in a modest role.

    “Starting this week, I’m moving to a ‘Consulting CTO’ position with Oculus.

    “I will still have a voice in the development work, but it will only be consuming a modest slice of my time.

    “As for what I am going to be doing with the rest of my time: When I think back over everything I have done across games, aerospace, and VR, I have always felt that I had at least a vague ‘line of sight’ to the solutions, even if they were unconventional or unproven. I have sometimes wondered how I would fare with a problem where the solution really isn’t in sight. I decided that I should give it a try before I get too old.

    “I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence (AGI).

    “I think it is possible, enormously valuable, and that I have a non-negligible chance of making a difference there, so by a Pascal’s Mugging sort of logic, I should be working on it.

    “For the time being at least, I am going to be going about it ‘Victorian Gentleman Scientist’ style, pursuing my inquiries from home, and drafting my son into the work.

    Runner up for next project was cost effective nuclear fission reactors, which wouldn’t have been as suitable for that style of work. 😊”

    If Carmack’s new focus has even a fraction of the success he’s enjoyed in the gaming industry, the AI field will likely reap significant benefits from his participation.

  • JPMorgan Scraps Twitter Q&A Over Fiscal Furor

    JPMorgan Scraps Twitter Q&A Over Fiscal Furor

    It was a brief idea that lasted all of nine glorious hours: the vice-chairman of US corporate banking giant JPMorgan, Jimmy Lee, announced he would be taking over the @jpmorgan Twitter feed at 1pm today. By last night, however, major news outlets around the world were reporting the idea as completely scrapped because of the thousands of angry, abusive tweets the company received at the hashtag #AskJPM.

    It all began with this tweet:

    It didn’t take long for the tweets to pile in, and a vast majority were far from friendly:

    By the time the company had had enough…

    … it was far too late. Not even Jamie Dimon could undo what had been done:

    Even Hacktivist group Anonymous weighed in on one of their many Twitter outlets:

    The wisest tweet, ironically, came from a fellow banker, who said:

    [Image via Twitter]

  • Rage DLC “The Scorchers” Released

    Bethesda and id Software today released the new downloadable content (DLC) add-on package for Rage. Titled “The Scorchers,” the content will take players to new areas and includes features fans have been eagerly waiting for.

    The content is now available through Xbox LIVE or Steam for 400 Microsoft Points or $5. PlayStation 3 gamers will have to wait until later this afternoon in North America or tomorrow in Europe to download the add-on via the PlayStation Network.

    “The Scorchers” includes a new story, new enemies, six new areas for players to explore, and new characters to help “defend the Hager Settlement from a maniacal bandit clan known as The Scorchers.” In addition, players will get a new season of Mutant Bash TV, new mini-games, and new weapons, including the “overpowering and brutal” weapon called the Nailgun.

    New features with the download include a new hardest difficulty mode for the game: “Ultra-Nightmare.” Also, the much-anticipated “Extended Play” feature will allow players to continue playing past the game’s original ending. Players will now be able to continue collecting items and achievements without avoiding the ending. “Extended Play” is similar to a feature Bethesda included in a Fallout 3 DLC pack that also allowed players to continue playing past the ending.

  • Doom 3 BFG Edition Announced, Contains New Levels

    Doom 3 still remains one of my favorite shooters of all time. It created a perfect atmosphere that was true to the original games while bringing some new ideas to the table that made the game far scarier than it ever should have been. A lot of id fans have been waiting for Doom 4 since then, but today’s announcement will have to do.

    Bethesda announced on their blog today the existence of Doom 3 BFG Edition. As you can probably guess, it’s going to be one of those HD remakes that are all the rage these days. Of course, most HD remakes consist of just making the game look crisper on HD resolutions. id promises to make Doom 3 actually look and play better by adding a number of improvements to the game.

    The changes coming to the actual gameplay are welcomed after the initial game did have some disappointing low points. The annoyance of having to either wield a flashlight or a gun is now gone with an armor-mounted flashlight that allows for the player to illuminate the admittedly too dark hallways of the game while shooting every thing that moves. The game will also introduce a checkpoint save system so that players won’t get frustrated by having to start entire levels all over again.

    “DOOM 3 was enthusiastically embraced by gamers worldwide at its release,” said John Carmack, Technical Director at id Software. “Today, the full experience has been enhanced and extended to be better than ever, and is delivered across all the platforms with a silky smooth frame rate and highly responsive controls. New support for 3D TVs, monitors, and head mounted displays also allows players to experience the game with more depth than ever before. We think shooter fans everywhere will love it.”

    You heard that right, folks. Doom 3 BFG Edition will support head-mounted displays. If you have the cash and the wherewithal, you can truly play Doom 3 in first-person. The support for 3D TVs is a nice touch as well for those with even more cash.

    On top of all of the aforementioned features, Doom 3 BFG Edition will contain seven new levels in the form of a new expansion called “The Lost Mission.” It will be joined by the previous expansion “Resurrection of Evil.” Rounding out the set are copies of the original Doom and Doom 2.

    While I think that id could better spend their time making an expansion to Rage or Doom 4, making a new version of Doom 3 is a nice consolation prize. I’ll definitely buy it all over again just to experience Doom with modern gameplay conventions like an armor-mounted flashlight.

    Check out the first trailer that shows off the new visuals and expansion in action:

  • Google Talks Texture Compression For Games At GDC

    Gamers might not really appreciate the texture work that goes into video games, but they will instantly notice texture pop-in or low resolution textures. This can be caused by bad texture compression, which can be a difficult task for developers. Google is here to help with this particular problem.

    Colt McAnlis from Google gave a GDC talk last week that spoke on the problem of texture compression and how to compress even more. This would allow games to use more memory for other features with textures taking up less memory.

    The talk, which lasts a little over 30 minutes, gives tips on how to compress textures up to 50 percent. This technology was used in id Software’s release of Rage last year. While some people complained about low res textures, it’s important to realize that Rage was streaming a lot of textures at once which kept the instance of texture pop-in at a lower rate than on other engines like Unreal Engine 3.

    You can check out the entire talk below. If you are a developer, you will want to pay attention. It’s pretty exciting to see Google talking at length about game development. It will also be interesting to see if this is indicative of Google getting serious into game development.

  • Netflix Backlash Explodes On Facebook

    The upcoming Netflix price increases has the Internet in an absolute tizzy. Their blog post announcing the upcoming price hikes quickly filled up with the 5000 comment limit, and although every comment wasn’t sifted through, the word “backlash” is absolutely fitting. In fact, for those who don’t want to see a price increase for the combination of streaming and DVD rentals, jumping ship to other services is a definite possibility.

    While the management of Netflix has remained largely silent in regards to the discontent, the fires of rebellion are being stoked left and right across social networks; however, the epicenter for the anti-price hike rage is Facebook. Granted, some consider the complaints to be a classic example of First World Problems, but that hasn’t stopped many Netflix users from running to Facebook to air their grievances.

    For example, on Netflix’s Facebook page, the post that mentions the upcoming price hikes was greeted with over 36,000 responses, and again, although this is a complete guess, I’d wager over 95% of the responses were filled with disgust.

    Netflix Facebook

    Not only do the comments question Netflix’s motivations, they also indicate a move away from Netflix maybe upcoming. Some examples of Facebook’s rage against Netflix’s machine, with all the [sic]s left intact:

    Jonas Valdez
    Netflix – I am officially flixing my middle finger at you. You can shove it where sun doesn’t shine. You make people get DVD’s because YOU don’t offer all of it via streaming. A 60% price increase? YOU ARE INSANE AND STUPID. Greediness… is going to be your downfall. I will be cancelling immediately and moving on to the multitude of other choices that I have. Asking millions of customers to bend over is pure stupidity. We are the ones that PAY YOU IDIOTS!!!!

    Jonathan Sheetz
    I wouldn’t have minded paying a bit more for both if a bundle was offered, but charging the default price for both services is a bit ridiculous. Looks like I’ll be hitting up redbox and the library for dvd’s from now on.

    Johnny Christensen
    Netflixs took alot of jobs away. (blockbuster,Hollywood video) Thank god Blockbuster made it. Cuz we are going back.

    Patrick Sugarman
    Cancelling August 31st.

    Ralph Hassel
    Greedy cash grab. Goodbye netflix.

    Jeffrey Scott
    The biggest danger to Netflix? Their own greed. I thought they had the market, but they just kicked themselves out!

    Franklin Buskirk
    I think my real problem with what they’re doing here is that they’ve got two lopsided services. On one hand, you’ve got the physical discs which you have to wait 30 days for most new releases, don’t always get the movie you want, and you c…an only get up to 10 movies a month with the single-disc-out plan assuming you have time to watch it when you get it and mail it the next day. Then you have the instant which has pretty much no new releases and is nowhere near as expansive as the disc collection. So you either pay for one crippled service or another. When it was streaming as a perk, that was amazing, when streaming cost a couple dollars extra, that was still great, when I have to choose one or the other or pay way too much for both, that is not great. That comes out to about $190 a year. Amazon Prime only costs $80 a year and is free for students and mothers.

    Ad infinitum.

    Wall complaints on Netflix’s page weren’t the only actions taken by the Facebook crowd. Some Facebook users who were apparently heartbroken by the price hike news created pages, asking other Facebook users to abandon Netflix. One of them is called “1,000,000 people who will not stand for Netflix’s new prices,” while the another one is a little more too the point, saying, “Fuck you, Netflix.”

    Unfortunately for these pages, the viral effect seems to have passed them by. The 1 million people page has under 2000 members, while the more direct page has only 60 members.

    The question is, with so much negativity surrounding the Netflix price hikes, is there another service ready to step and claim the disgruntled Netflix members? Considering their entire business strategy is based entirely on e-commerce, is there another company with the infrastructure in place to serve the needs of potential Netflix refugees? Will Hulu want to offer more than streaming content? Will the husk of Blockbuster — now owned by Dish Network — make another run at Internet rentals, or is streaming movies the wave of their future?

    Or, like someone suggested on Netflix’s wall, is the time ripe for a brick-and-mortar rental service to step into the widening hole that was created by Netflix’s desire to make more money? Are we now entering the era of Redbox?