John Carmack Says No Dedicated Servers for Rage

[Captain Pancake]

I have a feeling of foreboding about my platform...

I feel like the corporal shepherd of the gaming world, and my superior officers of interactive media are withdrawing my evac and fire support...

 

[Vault boy Eddie]

John Carmack Says No Dedicated Servers for Rage

More bad news, PC gamers: John Carmack, the Big Brain at Rage [http://www.idsoftware.com] probably won't offer support for dedicated servers.

[http://www.infinityward.com/] Despite the best efforts of Infinity Ward, it was widely seen as yet another example of the "dumbing down" of videogaming in favor of people who get confused when they're confronted with more buttons than they have fingers on one hand.


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I love that quote.

 

[cleverlymadeup]

he did say he will see how this will pan out, The Carmack is a smart guy and i'm sure if it's a big failure for MW2 then they'll make a dedicated server

 

[oppp7]

I would like to thank game pirates for this. Everyone here who has ever pirated a game, this is because of you.

 

[shadow skill]

How the heck is this game supposed to even work if you don't have dedicated servers to manage everything? Aren't the environments supposed to be incredibly large etc?

I would like to thank game pirates for this. Everyone here who has ever pirated a game, this is because of you.

So the piracy has nothing to do with the fact that there is no such thing as rental for PC games? It has nothing to do with what amounts to rebellion against games that end up sucking and cannot be resold? The piracy has a great deal to do with the all or nothing nature of the market, and stuff like this which alienates the base is not going to encourage people to buy the games at all.

 

[fix-the-spade]

I would like to thank game pirates for this. Everyone here who has ever pirated a game, this is because of you.

And it's the pirates that will save you from it...

 

[Pingieking]

I'm actually relatively ok with the lack of a server. AS LONG AS: they come up with a solution that offers the same features that servers did, especially the kicking ability and the low ping rates.

I ***** about MW2 for everything else they removed, not so much for the server thing.

 

[KSarty]

I would like to thank game pirates for this. Everyone here who has ever pirated a game, this is because of you.

Pull your head out of your ass, piracy has nothing to do with dedicated servers. Eliminating dedicated servers does absolutely nothing to prevent piracy.

I play a very small handful of mods, and usually they are SP, but I can certainly understand why the mod community in particular would be upset about this. I always enjoyed creating my own server while playing some of the classics. Anybody ever play the dueling servers in Jedi Academy?

 

[Chipperz]

John Carmack is one of the people who made PC gaming what it is today. Few people know the platform better, I'd wager.

So it's really interesting to see him saying this.

Could it be a sign to PC gamers to accept change for the good and bad?

No. I don't even know who he is.

Ever heard of Doom, Quake or Wolfenstein (they're little indie projects, so I wouldn't be surprised if you hadn't...)? All him. There's practically noone that knows the PC FPS market better. If he was planning to get rid of dedicated servers, there's a very good chance that he genuinely believes it'll be better for PC gaming. You can say what you like about that, but this man is an expert in PC gaming in a way none of us will ever be.

In other news... Damn Rage looks good. It's definitely on my "Buy Firsthand" list right now. I wanna get a Jonny Rotten style anarchist going!

 

[Fasckira]

Carmack admits hes glad someone else is attempting it first, meaning hes aware its a rubbish move and not exactly popular ... so whys he evening considering it? I really would love to be a fly on the wall in the board room meetings where they keep deciding that dropping dedicated servers would be a great idea, just to understand their logic-train.

 

[Abedeus]

What did Carmack do that was really, and I mean REALLY good in the past 7 years or so? And I mean, really, worthy of mentioning.

Wolfenstein from 2009 was at best a decent game. Quake Wars was good, but I doubt he had much to do with it.

 

[Doktor Merkwurdigliebe]

I almost RAGEd, but luckily I wouldn't buy this game anyway.

I can already see console peasants yelling "Where is your Gabe now?". Ultimately we will prevail in this crusade, as Gabe is with us.

 

[Simalacrum]

As a console only player, I don't get what all the fuss is about. Whats so special about the dedicated servers anyway? what do they do differently to console online? why are companies dropping it in favour of other methods, and how are those other methods meant to be better?

So many questions!

 

[Andy Chalk]

I'm actually relatively ok with the lack of a server. AS LONG AS: they come up with a solution that offers the same features that servers did, especially the kicking ability and the low ping rates.

So you're okay with the removal of dedicated server support, as long as all the functionality of dedicated server support remains?

I suppose I can't disagree with that, but it's a bit of a reinvention of the wheel, is it not?

 

[Canadamus Prime]

This is not the way to stimulate PC game sales you morons!

 

[destroyer2k]

Carmack admits hes glad someone else is attempting it first, meaning hes aware its a rubbish move and not exactly popular ... so whys he evening considering it? I really would love to be a fly on the wall in the board room meetings where they keep deciding that dropping dedicated servers would be a great idea, just to understand their logic-train.

Well if IWnet will FAIL (like in operation flashpoint 2) thrn he will be forced to admit that dedicated server are better. I make a promise that if IWnet will be rubish than even Carmack won't get away that easy just because he said early.

As the truth is p2p isn't ready and no one in earth can say it is as the ISP infrastructure is rubish for this task and will be for the next 5-10 years. And please don't anyone say that it works on console as it doesn't I worked in ISP and know what connection do you need for this kind of things (and 1Mb/256kb isn't godd enought).

Here is the explenation what speed do you actually have at home. If you have 1Mb connection it is not 1megabyte it is 1 MEGABIT or for those that doesn't know what bit that translate in 0.125 megabyte connection (a few byte up or down). And 10 Mb connection is really 1,25 megabyte. And I didn't take in account latency as this is very variable so I won't go in details.

Anyone that want to know what connection do they have in MB type in wolframalpha.com and you must write a small b.

 

[Nugma]

If the gameplay and stuff work sort of like Borderlands, then I can understand, because then dedicated servers wouldn't make sense. But let's all relax a little and see how it goes with Modern Warfare before we start raging on.

 

[Dudeakoff]

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Rage's multiplayer just some 4 player max co-op stuff? Dedicated servers aren't always necessary in such games, I'd still prefer them, but it's not as bigger deal as games that have 16-player matches in it. I think he's just riding the coattails of the recent IW controversy to get his game back into people's minds. All publicity is good publicity.

 

[Virgil]

This is not the way to stimulate PC game sales you morons!

Nobody cares about stimulating PC game sales except people who sell PC gaming equipment.

Game developers care about selling games. If they sell a copy of a game on PC, Xbox 360, or PS3 it's all the same to them - just one copy sold. The only reason why a platform is added to the list is because they think they can sell enough copies of the game on that platform to make a profit over the cost of the development for that platform.

Dedicated servers are a PC-only thing. PCs are the smallest market for mainstream games these days, and the effort probably isn't paying off anymore.