I think it's more because nowadays the higher "realism" makes asset and level creation much harder. I remember seeing a presentation about "The Order: 1886" where they described how they created the visuals for a simple fire hydrant. With amount of work that went into it you could have created a Doom level.
I would argue that the resources spent on (visual) effects is dumb money trying to improve a game where the creators fail to build a better, more engaging, highly replayable game.
To this day, I haven't encountered a better FPS than Quake3. Quake3 isn't the fastest (Painkiller was IIRC), but it hit the sweet spot and today's contenders (including the new Quake) fail to deliver. The new Unreal Tournament looks promising and likely to be a replacement for Unreal Tournament 1.
I've tried and failed to play an FPS with a controller on a console and PC. The games are adapted to the imprecise input devices but it's still nothing like the Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament 1 keyboard+mouse experience. I couldn't get a positive experience out of it, and I hope kids getting started will have a chance to play those games as intended in order to have the full picture.
> I would argue that the resources spent on (visual) effects is dumb money trying to improve a game where the creators fail to build a better, more engaging, highly replayable game.
Graphics make you buy the game, mechanics make you keep playing, and story gives you happy memories afterward. That explains why AAA games have good graphics, average mechanics, and bad stories :-)
The games with the highest replay value to me have been GTA 3, GTA Vice City and GTA San Andreas. Haven't played GTA 4 or 5, so don't know if the high replayability factor was kept.
I don't recall any freeware to make and animate models for Quake1. Maps, sure; models not so much. Everybody I knew in the mod scene was using 3D Studio. I don't recall what id Software used, but it was something other than 3D Studio.
I suppose something came along later on in the lifespan leading up to Quake2?
