I've received a good deal of reaction from readers terribly excited by the announcement of the addition of Graeme Devine to id Software. Since this seems to be a bit of a change in direction for id, I asked Graeme if he could clarify his role on the team, his designation as Designer, and what this means to Quake III Arena. Here was his reply:

My role here is to be sort of the team coach; it's hard to put a label on this sort of thing so I guess we settled on "designer". By coach I mean, this is id, everyone here is talented, works their asses off, and gives more than just a damn about what they are working on, so it's my job to get us playing a team plan as a team, for the team and by the team.

Currently this focus is purely on Q3A, there is nothing else, but my other long-term role here is to push id out past the current first person shooter design and redefine this genre, not just a little bit, not an incremental design, but big time new ballgame. A lot of people only remember me for the FMV titles and wonder what the heck kind of thinking id had to bring me on. The truth is I've been around in this business since the early days, working in almost every genre that exists on platforms galore, and by working with the talent here we can really strike out and do some very exciting things.