It's a shame that Tim Willits became lead designer of id Software by virtue of the fact that he was the last one standing. Talk about being in the right place at the right time.

id has nothing to offer anymore. They were able to fall back on Carmack's technology until Doom 3, but the industry caught up and used similar tech to create better games.

Best case scenario, id implodes after squeezing out Doom 4 and Carmack and Romero start an indie devoted entirely to old-school FPS design.

Spektr wrote on Jun 27, 2013, 05:27:
People are trying the tech. Making maps with a big nontiling texture is no easy task. Some experimentation and maybe innovation may come out of it. But gone are the days when the player model was made of cubes on which a 64 x64 stormtrooper skin could be added in a matter of days. So much innovation in matters of gameplay and technology took place in those days that there is not that much incentive for teams to play on that field now.
To ID's defense not much came out of Doom3 as far as mods are concerned whereas source had become the modding engine of choice and Unreal engine 3 the licensing engine of choice so there wasnt much incentive for Doom to bother about the modability. Maybe it's true for shooters but modders are still active at modding the elder scrolls. It seems it's much more satisfying ( and maybe easier ) to mod an open world environment as it doesnt require for modders to create whole new environment to add their assets.
When you see the efforts by Crytek to put modability at the center of their tech and you see the result, I feel I can't blame Id if they dont give a damn about modding any more.Maybe if Farcry3 had the modability of the cryengine or if Cryted made an open world crysis game a lot of modding would be going on there.

It's definitely somewhat true. I made a ton of Doom and DN3D maps. I made a ton of Quake skins.

I can't do any of that anymore. The days of any jackass being able to do something reasonably usable are long since gone. In that type of game, at least. Which may be yet another reason why Minecraft is so damn popular.

The only way id Software will ever get its mojo back is to re-hire John Romero, American McGee, and Brandon James, but that will never happen, so forget it.

Epic paradigm shift about to happen: http://tinyurl.com/oopevo2

InBlack wrote on Jun 27, 2013, 05:50:
There is.

At id? No. There is no decent game design talent at id since (including) Doom 3. Tim Willits may be nice guy, but he is not a very good game designer. Or he is, but his work is constantly mutilated by Carmack and others with "suggestions" he had to implement.

Doom 3 suffered heavily from bad game design (it took Willits nearly ten years to admit, that there was "something" wrong with it) and Rage was one hell of example for destroying a perfectly good setting with inconsistent level and game play design.

I spoke with him very briefly at Quakecon once. Seemed all right.

I also recall getting on id's dedicated RtCW servers when they had those and seeing him login only to get completely destroyed and make a hasty exit several times.

Good times.

Edit: I'm old

Kajetan wrote on Jun 27, 2013, 04:10:

InBlack wrote on Jun 27, 2013, 03:58:
Im still holding out hope that they will make a triumphant return to that style and form...

Why? With whom? There is no talent left at id.

There is. We want FUN games, that push the boundaries but retain the old-school gunplay. The last time I played a straight up shooter that was as much fun as Doom2, or Dark Forces, or Duke3d was with Blood Dragon. And it was most fun in its linear, story scripted missions. The open world stuff was an afterthought and got boring after about 30 minutes.

People are trying the tech. Making maps with a big nontiling texture is no easy task. Some experimentation and maybe innovation may come out of it. But gone are the days when the player model was made of cubes on which a 64 x64 stormtrooper skin could be added in a matter of days. So much innovation in matters of gameplay and technology took place in those days that there is not that much incentive for teams to play on that field now.
To ID's defense not much came out of Doom3 as far as mods are concerned whereas source had become the modding engine of choice and Unreal engine 3 the licensing engine of choice so there wasnt much incentive for Doom to bother about the modability. Maybe it's true for shooters but modders are still active at modding the elder scrolls. It seems it's much more satisfying ( and maybe easier ) to mod an open world environment as it doesnt require for modders to create whole new environment to add their assets.
When you see the efforts by Crytek to put modability at the center of their tech and you see the result, I feel I can't blame Id if they dont give a damn about modding any more.Maybe if Farcry3 had the modability of the cryengine or if Cryted made an open world crysis game a lot of modding would be going on there.

This comment was edited on Jun 27, 2013, 05:33.

Capitan wrote on Jun 27, 2013, 02:55:
Now maybe they can take out a new course and make sure to give us joy of gaming back?

Give power back to the community!
Let us be able to map, mod and host our own servers. In the old days we had the power to set our own rules and if there appeared someone shady character, who cheated, he/she was instant banned.

It used to be laugh and jokes on the servers. Now it's just a damn chaos and kids screaming "noob" to the right and left.

Please id Software, give us the joy of gaming back!

didn't Bethesda (ID Software) release the Rage SDK Tool Kit, along with idStudio world builder near the beginning of the year? what has come out of that so far?

InBlack wrote on Jun 27, 2013, 03:58:
Im still holding out hope that they will make a triumphant return to that style and form...

Why? With whom? There is no talent left at id.

shihonage wrote on Jun 27, 2013, 03:41:
The most ironic and hilarious part is, if the company kept producing Doom-spirited games instead of Doom3 and Rage, they would've carved a loyal if niche following in the world of modern dumb FPS.

Im still holding out hope that they will make a triumphant return to that style and form...

The most ironic and hilarious part is, if the company kept producing Doom-spirited games instead of Doom3 and Rage, they would've carved a loyal if niche following in the world of modern dumb FPS.

Its a shame that id sold out to Zenimax when it did. To simply dismiss them as irrelevant is way too premature though, Im betting Carmack has at least one good engine left in him and Doom4 although vapourware still hasnt been cancelled. Still, I will admit that these are longshots...

Now maybe they can take out a new course and make sure to give us joy of gaming back?

Give power back to the community!
Let us be able to map, mod and host our own servers. In the old days we had the power to set our own rules and if there appeared someone shady character, who cheated, he/she was instant banned.

It used to be laugh and jokes on the servers. Now it's just a damn chaos and kids screaming "noob" to the right and left.

Please id Software, give us the joy of gaming back!

MWWWWWAAAAAHHHHAAHAHAHAHAHA... you fucker are fired Sir.... mwwwahahahahahhahahahaha...

Jim wrote on Jun 26, 2013, 21:40:
Many good memories of playing id games so many years ago. I remember coming to Blue's News when it was essentially a Quake-only news site.

Now that Todd is out of the company is there anyone original left? Their website doesn't seem to contain a lot of info, and in fact doesn't even mention Rage (which I never played).

Oh yeah, and for those who remembered me as long-haired Jim back in the day, I actually cut it all off about a month ago--a first in over 2 decades.

congrats on the cutting of your hair, Jim!

Mad Max RW wrote on Jun 26, 2013, 21:46:
Counting the days until there's a similar announcement regarding Willits and Carmack. id software is basically a shell company for Bethesda and Zenimax these days. How the mighty have fallen, indeed.

Carmack is basically what they paid for, so I doubt he's going anywhere soon. Most likely the buyout had a clause to that effect.

Hollenshead, as people are saying, is no surprise. He was, what, a tax consultant. From the outside it's hard to say he did a good job with id (but reeally not easy to say without having been there), but there was little for him to do once they were acquired, other than oversee the transition.

Mad Max RW wrote on Jun 26, 2013, 23:53:
Additionally, John Carmack was never interested in making technology others can license...

Abrash talked about how that all started here

I hope Todd does well moving forward.

This comment was edited on Jun 27, 2013, 00:09.

MonkeySpank wrote on Jun 26, 2013, 23:41:
id should stick to making game engines for others to use; they are not a gaming company more than they are a 3D technology firm. I still have a high amount of respect for both John C and Tim - they changed gaming forever.

It's not legally possible anymore unless a studio is published by Bethesda/Zenimax. Additionally, John Carmack was never interested in making technology others can license and jump right into. He deliberately priced their tech so high to avoid headaches from other studios.

Whatever. I look forward to him becoming the next cuntyb, and bleating about how awesome Microsoft's DRM would've been for customers. (since he tried to do that bogus "Always-on has so many advantages for players! Like, your game would always be patched, man!" bullshit a little before Diablo 3 came out.)

Creston