John Carmack reflects on Quake's technical overambition and management mistakes
By
John Carmack
Summary
John Carmack reflects on early mistakes during the development of Quake, acknowledging that the project was overly ambitious technically and that pushing the team too hard at startup intensity was unsustainable. He suggests that the multiplayer and modding innovations could have been achieved with a more stable Doom++ engine, saving the full 6DOF environments for a follow-up game.
Source
Hacker NewsJohn Carmack reflects on Quake's technical overambition and management mistakestwitter.comKey quotes
· 3 pulledQuake was overly ambitious technically.
We could have done all the great multiplayer and modding work inside a Doom++ engine, allowing the designers to work with a more stable base instead of rug-pulling everything out from underneath them a couple times.
I pushed everyone too hard. I didn't appreciate how maturing companies need more slack, and that running people at startup intensity constantly will wear them out.
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