id’s Rage To Enrage Modders?


id’s long tradition of keeping games mod-friendly and mod-supportive appears to have broken with their revolutionary new game: Rage. Tim Willits from id says that it is impossible to mod Rage even on the PC, but the matter is still under consideration.

While id is as always, supportive of mods, Rage is simply too complex a product to mess around with. The biggest hindrance will be the much-talked-about MegaTexture system. For those not in the know, id’s new idea is to create something of a “super-texture” that the game streams seamlessly, rather than rendering hundreds of different textures on different objects.

The system itself is said to consume heaploads of processing power at id. A large number of computers are working hard to process them in a similar not unlike a CG render farm. And if id is taking that long, it will probably take years on an average computer, I imagine. I don’t even want to know the size of that thing.

Still, Willits doesn’t rule out modding entirely. He does say that it may just be possible for users to create mini-mods that will add to the gameplay, in small chunks of stuff. So full mods and conversions may be out of the question, but we’ll still be able to make smaller mods. Sounds fine by me, I guess. Then again, I’m not a modder.

Avary working on Wolfenstein movie script

Wolfenstein

I pondered months ago as to what basis Hollywood takes when adapting games into movies. I am still wondering the same. News has it that Roger Avary, scriptwriter who has worked on the likes of Pulp Fiction and Silent Hill is working on a script for a movie on Return to Castle Wolfenstein, due for release in 2010.

Yes, that game about an American prisoner in a German prison castle and involving undead Nazi zombies and what-not. Seriously, that’s the game Hollywood wants. After games with exceptional storylines like Doom, Far Cry, Dungeon Siege and Mortal Kombat, we have this. Wonderful.

Still, with Avary on the project, perhaps the movie can be heavily twisted to make it actually good. Also, Uwe Boll is not attached to the project in any way, which can only mean good. Avary hasn’t disclosed anything about the project yet, so anything can happen.

Todd Hollenshead, CEO of id, says:

“There’s some contract provisions and if they don’t have certain things done within a certain period of time they can’t just sit on the rights forever and not use them.

But apart from that me kind of nagging on him ‘hey is it done yet, hey is it done yet?’ will probably just be annoying and then Rog won’t answer my emails any more. I would probably get the one-sentence email that says, ‘Do you realise I have an Academy Award?’

Heh.