PixlBit

I smell a rat. Many rats. Lots and lots of wonderful smelling rats.

The most sought after demo at this year’s QuakeCon that didn’t require a virtual reality headset was Bethesda’s upcoming stealthy first person shooter:  Dishonored.  Really, sticking the game in the FPS pigeon hole is a bit constricting since during the short demo, I possessed several people, summoned swarms of rats, and slowed time to a crawl.  The single level I got to play showed a ton of promise for a game set in a refreshingly unsettling world with a myriad of different methods available to reach your objectives.

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The Virtual Insanity panel at QuakeCon goes nuts for advances in VR, but Valve still hasn't committed to supporting the newest gear.

It’s hard not to get swept up by the excitement exuding from the four people on stage for a panel about virtual reality at QuakeCon.  It’s the Oculus Rift VR headset (with a kickstarter that recently broke the million dollar funding level) that has gotten panel members thinking that virtual reality gaming is feasible.  John Carmack and Todd Hollenshead of id, Michael Abrash of Valve, and Palmer Luckey from Oculus talked about the problems with virtual reality headsets through history, where things are now, and where they are headed.  Id has solidified their interest in the Oculus Rift headset by agreeing to provide a copy of Doom 3 BFG Edition with every headset sold in the future.  For now, that’s the only software confirmed to be playable with the product intended primarily for developers.  When Abrash was asked if Valve had plans to make their products playable with Rift, he could only confirm his desire to do so but not any concrete plans.

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Todd Howard and crew reveal the fun and difficult times to be had in game development.

Today’s slate of panels kicked off with “The Game of Making Games,” hosted by G4’s Blair Herter.  Ted Price of Insomniac, Jens Matthies of Machine Games, Todd Howard of Bethesda, and Raphael Colantonio of Arkane Studios made up the panel of noteworthy developers in what was primarily a Q & A session with the audience.  Herter started off by asking about each developer’s general game-making philosophy, which soon led to questions about axing faltering game elements during development no matter how much time was spent on creating them.  Herter threw out the term “killing your babies” about this design necessity and it became a recurring in-panel meme.

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John Carmack pontificates on the future of virtual reality, the viability of Ouya, a completed id iOS game, and tons of other topics.

John Carmack gave his QuakeCon keynote this year which focused on his efforts and thoughts about virtual reality.  Following the release of Rage, Carmack allowed himself to let loose, buy some VR headsets and get his engineering mind locked in on a new technology.  Carmack spoke for over three hours, wandering away and then back time after time to the virtual reality theme.  His sleuthing and coding has led to the creation of a playable VR demo of Doom 3 (which he tried to temper expectations for).  Virtual reality has been portrayed by the media to be a realistic life simulator, but Carmack assures us that there is still plenty of work to be done.  These warnings led into musings on the state of display technology, cloud gaming, Ouya, and many other topics during a three hour one-man show that most audience members couldn’t endure ‘til the end.

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A healthy line up of guests, events, and demos should draw in the crowds.

The date and location of this year’s QuakeCon have been known for some time, but Zenimax has just provided the first details of what will be on the show floor.  The event will kick off with John Carmack’s keynote address at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas on August 2.  A host of other panels will follow through the duration of the conference that wraps on August 5.  Panels like “The Game of Making Games” and an Idle Thumbs Podcast will provide a steady flow of things to do while giving your rig a break from the “world’s largest LAN party.”

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