well you might wanna add sources, or an official statement.

http://idsoftware.com

done.

This was a unique opportunity to team with a smart, sophisticated publisher like Bethesda Softworks where the interests of the studio and the publisher will be fully aligned in the development and marketing of our titles. In addition, we will now have financial and business resources to support the future growth of id Software, a huge advantage which will result in more and even better games for our fans.

awesome, finally better games for us fans!!!

Dunno why you deleted your news, this was the first one posted and I removed all the others (no need for 3 news about the same thing).

thought mine was... after i saw it i checked esr to see more info and it wasnt on here

i thought that kind of news deserved a little more editing than ripping off a draft from shacknews which is why i removed it.

Everybody did the same thing everywhere, so meh

i did now some tweaking too :x

Hollenshead said ZeniMax's acquisition will allow id to grow its internal teams, staffing up the groups working on the next Doom — which will now be a ZeniMax game — and the Quake Live team, for starters.

Yay, more people working on QL.

More Quake Live resources is just rumor though?

It's from the interview.

why'd my name disappear as the one who posted this?

Cause it wasn't you who posted it.

Your post is dated "Posted by Venim @ 19:18 CEST" and was subsequently deleted, as this post is dated "Posted by eksy @ 18:06 CEST".

"ZeniMax Media" sounds like a name taken from a 80's sci fi movie, related to the bad guys

good step? :/

Quake = ruined
TES = ruined
Fallout = ruined
Wolfenstein=??? (something tells me it will be ruined)

Yay, sequels.

Wolfenstein=Raven using idtech4, I let you guess

I didn't know. Now i don't need to guess :-(

Don't know what to think about this.

Is this a surprise? Honestly, is it? Were id software doing badly? Just doesn't make sense after big blockbuster titles like doom 3, costing over 4 million US, which was easily financed in house. No?

sometimes companies buy other companies that actually do well, you know? No?
Well, they do.

ID software remained small and independent in a market where indenpency wasn't rewarded for a very, very, very long time. Something is surely changing. End of an era. Carcmack was already stepping back with rage letting the main design to others, and I suppose this is more of them getting freed of major responsabilities. I guess this is the end of open sourcing their engines too.

I agree things are changing, I just don't think the reason for being bought was that they performed badly.

He stepped back from major design on Doom3 mate.

Gameplay design. For Rage he said he would only focus on rendering. One more step to the side.

Well, that's as opposed to coding the entire thing which I imagine is a massive task for one person with the engines/games that need to be made now.

He stepped back from the game design on Doom3 and his role hasn't really changed since then (engine coder).

end of an independant era, you are right.

but all what carmack wanted in the past and future is to do engines. so for him nothing changes.

id can concentrate on develope games, with bethesda doing the background publishing / financials. thats a plus.

Q3 gameplay is Carmack's gameplay. He's proud of it and says it frequently. Only at ESR credit is denied where it's due.

ok let me look and read :(

Not entirely, Carmack would not have included strafe jumping at all if he'd had it his way and Quake 3 wouldn't have lasted for very long. But yes, you're right that the elegance of design is significantly due to him.

He had the last word and strafe jumping is in, so even if he wasn't inclined for adding it, it's also due to him that it's in.

Actually, his second opinion after removing it was to limit acceleration to 2 jumps. I think that the only reason it's in is because they just stopped caring.

As I said: at ESR credit is denied where it's due.

so we should give him credit for not caring?

Could give him credit for making a game that people in this site have played for almost 10 years, instead of spending all the time crying out for every minor thing. That'd be a good start.

Most of the people on this site played OSP - not Quake 3. If it weren't for a community fixing all their mistakes and adding in necessary features, none of us would be here.

oh I give him lots of credit for that. (Opposed to the other guy who's replying to you)

But if some decisions were not really his I don't see why he should be credited for them.

ZeniMax Media, never heard of that name ...
id sucked anyway lately ... their last really good game was quake 1,
quake 2 still set some standards but was already a decline,

well quake 3 a game for the masses, it was fortunate to have the title quake, at that time this still meant something, so it could gather a big community, quake 3 was only a small decline in gameplay (machinegun noob weapon, no complex movement) and really a big decline in maps, tbh. tourney 4 being one of the main maps used in tourneys says it all. The problem is the community tends to stay with the original maps, and does not accept custom maps, even if they are better. But still the game was good enough for competitive play.

and after quake3 ... there was the total decline ...
they ruined doom, what was doom3? a bad half-life rip off?
let's not talk about quake 4 ... quake is ruined and doom probably will be soon ruined too after the release of doom 4 ...

you know why id fails? because they want to create a 'product',
they want to entertain people, "let's give them this and they will be happy" ... they do not want to create something themselves,
a game is a piece of art, and not a product, that is why they fail.

In a way it is a good decision to sell id now,
because it's quite probably id won't mean much anymore 5 years from now.

EDIT:
I want to add, Quake 3 "became" a good game, not because of id, but because of the community. That's all.

FAIL

quake 3 was only a small decline in gameplay (machinegun noob weapon, no complex movement) and really a big decline in maps, tbh

You think Q1 has superior duel maps compared to Q3?

Q1 had multiplayer only as a bonus, Q1 was the first real 3D Game you could play multiplayer deathmatch in, and it had only 6 maps.
and still it had maps llike dm2, dm4 and dm6, true classics still today.
Tbh. in Q3A there was only one good map, q3dm6.
you can't really call tourney2, tourney4 good mapdesign, it was more or less desperation to chose them ...

Even though I played and enjoyed RQ and QW quite a bit, I do not think maps like DM4 are any good. 90% of the time during a game there, one guy is standing, spamming grenades and rockets into either the small entrance to mega or the teleporter exit from RA.

Having dead ends like that on a map just makes for extremely lackluster play in my opinion.

but you can make a comeback in dm4 :-),
well at least it's fun.

Still it's much better than the symmetrical design tourney2 and ultra simplistic tourney4 (looking at this map, I think they could also have taken the endlevel map where you play against xaero in q3 single player, wouldn't make much of a difference).

And still in q1 there is dm2 and dm6, these maps are not so double edged, and they easily beat the q3duel maps by id.

dm2 would most likely be extremely boring in ql/q3, anyways, dm6 i can agree with to some extent, would need some tweaking to work well in quake 3 as well, but you're right. Dm6 in QW is good. But tourney 2 and 4 in quake 3 is way better maps than dm4 which again is extremely poorly designed and you only really think its fun because you were playing it when you started with quakeworld, which in turn makes you just as conservative and subjective about it as everyone else. Its a shit map, eod.

Stock, yes.

It's not the maps, it's the QW 1on1 gameplay overall that's "wrong".

Buuut, what's lacking in 1on1 is totally owning in 4on4, so i'm happy.

And yes, QW has a hundred times better duel maps than Q3. In that game they didn't even have enough imagination to make the maps assymetrical.

Let me ask you this then, do you think DM4 is a good map for duels?

In terms of fun value, I think assymetrical maps are far superior. Even playing CTF on the standard E*M* maps was extremely fun, unfortunately, CTF maps are always symmetrical nowadays.

I think it's no worse than the other maps, so to speak. :)

Well, a map that turns the games into 90% of the time spamming nades and rockets into either mega or RA teleporter is, in my opinion, completely flawed. It does not promote gameplay like a good map should, if anything, it promotes the opposite.

If anyone things that kind of gameplay is good, there is nothing I can do.

Well the rest of the maps are pretty much just LG whoring and then it's GG. DM4 doesn't promote good movement very much (something which i'm very sorry for as i consider that one of my strengths) but after a long time i still think the map puts up and interesting challenge for the player that's below so to speak.

Edit: Comparing the gameplay on a map like DM4 to a map which rewards movement and quick reflexes a bit more, like Aerowalk, is a bit like comparing watching Italy play football vs watching Brazil. :) It's not as fun to watch Italy, but the games can be just as exciting anyway.

yes, ztn and aero and a gazillion other maps :P

stock maps are meh, except dm6

How did you manage to completely avoid Fallout 3?

by not playing it?
tbh. I still know when the first part was released, I think the release was by interplay, it seems Zeno Media bought the game, like they did buy id software ... other than that ...
i looked at the "game of the year" fallout 3 ... some trailers and gameplay on youtube ... looks like resident evil :-)
you know I lately played "zelda ocarina of time", the so called best game of all time, I played the first part (50 % of the game) or I also played GTA 4 (28 %), the most expenisve game, and on it's release people said it was the best game of the year, tbh. they were not bad, but not really good either, but they were wellmade.
They still had something though.
You know in a previous time, there was a company called bullfrog,
their titles were all well made, and different, but they didn't touch you. Same here.
And tbh. what is probably the most sold game? THE SIMS?
The demo of that game was already enough for me :-)

I don't care for magazines, I consider myself to be an expert too,
and these guys over at magazines, they have to play games all day, how can they really evaluate a game, it's like eating chocolate everyday, you just can't taste it anymore. And that is why so many soulless games get good grades, because the playtesters can't sent any soul anymore, they can only evaluate the quality of the enginnering of a game, but they can't measure the fun factor ...

Wanna play a new good game? MARIO GALAXY!

Fallout 3 is nothing like Resident Evil. OoT is still one of the best games ever made.

I'll agree on Bullfrog and Galaxy though :P

wales anyone?

I would of plussed you, but I thought Doom 3, and Quake 4 were good games. Many people that have played past Doom, and Quake titles say they suck but people rarely ever give legitimate reasons why.

Q3 is the most noob friendly Quake in the series, which is why it's not my favorite. With Q4 they basically took Q3 gameplay and added some advanced gameplay mechanics (crouch sliding, and ramp jumping, shooting through portals, etc), which added to the learning curve, and made the game more strategic and fast paced.

I don't feel like talking much about Doom 3, but I thought it had a fun single player. :/

Doom 3 had amazing singleplayer if you have a monster-in-a-closet fetish.

Otherwise, it was shit.

more specifically, monsters hiding in secret compartments that look like normal walls

i found that half of the Doom3 sp experience was the atmosphere of the game, and in that respect, it was awesome. in terms of gameplay mechanics, it was a bit lacklustre, still a very worthy game though.

doom3 single player was average tbh..
the beginning is copied from half-life, in the beginning you run around in the base and you are surrounded by scientists ...
and the rest is just average ... I played like 9 levels and abandonend the game ... tbh. I rather play doom 1.

Quake 4 multiplayer may be not bad *now*,
but when Quake 4 was released the game was full of bugs,
the game even *crashed*, and it took id a very long time to patch the game. And the single player was really bad.

Quake 4 multiplayer may be not bad *now*,
but when Quake 4 was released the game was full of bugs,
the game even *crashed*, and it took id a very long time to patch the game.

It's not fair for you to talk about how bad the original version of Q4 was, because the original version of Q1 sucked to.

In NetQuake you could not download any files at all from servers, and the movement was even slower than Q3.

In NetQuake you could not download any files at all from servers, and the movement was even slower than Q3.

Which is only bad by today's standards. Quake 4 is recent, and fails to deliver.

That's not the point dude.

If Q1 still played the same way NetQuake did, then cyronix probably would not have said that Q1 is the last good game that id made.

Likewise, if Q4 was still slow and buggy like in the original version, I would not of said that I like the game.

So what I'm saying is, when your comparing how good one game is with another game it's not right for example to compare a modern version of Quake World, with the original version of Q4, regardless of what year these two games came out.

Edit: Q4 does not fail to deliver, Q4 1.0 fails to deliver.

Uhh? He didn't compare them, you did.

In his original post he was talking about Quake history, and about why he does not like any of the Quake sequels.

I wish you wouldn't talk to me.

He didn't compare them in his original post. He gave his opinions on each, and pointed out the flaws. You're the one trying to defend Q4's failure by saying that a game 10+ years older had a few issues, which weren't even issues at the time.

Can't expect much from a Q4 fanboy, I guess..

First of all, I'm not a Q4 fan boy. And believe it or not, Q4 is not even my favorite Quake. Just because I defended it, doesn't make me a fan boy of it. I just get tired of how much shit the Q3 community gives Q4, and I personally prefer Q4 over Q3.

The only reason I brought up the NetQuake thing was because cyronix later specified to me that he was talking about the original version of Q4 in his first post. Which is why he said in replay "Quake 4 multiplayer may be not bad *now*"

The original version of Q4 and the original version of Quake have nothing to do with each other, until you tried to use it as a defense. The issues with Quake were of no consequence when it was released - but Q4 didn't even fill the demand that Q3 did.

To say you aren't a fanboy in the same thread where you say Q3 is more newbie friendly than Q4 is laughable.

1996 motherfucker. There weren't even serverbrowsers invented back then.

not even netscape?

there was qspy ("q" as quake), the predecessor of gamespy.

actually one of the mainreasons I stopped playing q4 because it regularly crashed on my machine, and at that time my computer was pretty middle-to-highend ... quake 1 did never crash!
quake 1 was pretty revolutionary multiplayerwise at its time,
it set new standards, you can't really say that about q4.
And the original q4 maps weren't that good either.
and I did not only talk about the multiplayer part of the game ...
the single player in q4 really sucked.
The bad coding (and the long time it took to correct this), the lack of multiplayer abilitys in contrast to other competitiors and the bad single player made the recruitment of new players very hard and so the playerbase remained small.

I think that's a bit harsh on the Q4 maps, if you ask me the one thing I like about all the Raven games I've played (JK2/JKJA/Q4) is the maps always have highly interesting architecture.

They aren't perfect for competitive play but if you ask me, that's the first step to making good maps for competitive play.

Check out q4dm1/2/4/11, they aren't flawless but they all have something interesting about them.

How can you write "would not of said" and "would not have said" in the same post?

It's not fair to ask for airbags in a new car either. I mean, cars back in 1996 did not all have them.

Oh, my! Somebody said something good about Quake4 here!!!

Have a [+] :)

i liked doom3 singleplayer, until the monsters just started spawning behind you, and apparently that's brilliant gameplay.

Doom 3 completely forgot what made classic Doom a good game in the first place Doom Classic was scary for probably 2-3 times you played it, then it became a balls to the wall arcade shooter, you vs. hordes of demons. Doom 3 was totally not that at all, especially considering how few enemies you fought at a time. Only potentially cool thing to ever come out of Doom 3 is The Dark Mod, and only when Doom 3's source is released so they can do a standalone release.

Granted my perception is mainly colored by the fact that so much of what made Doom great were the external PWAD's that were and are still being released for it. If you thought Doom 2 was badass, load up Alien Vendetta, Memento Mori 2, Hell Revealed or one of the other classics.

It lacked all, it lacked the diabolic feel, I didn't really feal like combatting the monsters of hell, I felt more like some agent from "Men in Black".

Doom 3 completely forgot what made classic Doom a good game in the first place Doom Classic was scary for probably 2-3 times you played it, then it became a balls to the wall arcade shooter, you vs. hordes of demons. Doom 3 was totally not that at all, especially considering how few enemies you fought at a time.

I fully agree, also in the map design there many narrow corridors instead of open space areas ...

But they had to take this step because you don't fight sprites anymore, instead enemys are now models made out of 1000s of polygons that need to be calculated. In a way technology restricts the gamedesign, also in doom4 you will probably fight only very few enemys, but then again, it shouldn't be called doom anymore in my opinion. But it is not only because of this doom 3 sucked,
you can still make a great game with only few enemys, but the mainproblem is id just does not have the strength anymore to pull off something great.

Doom 2 on nightmare is still scary as hell.

I say what what ?

in the butt

Amazing things will happen here soon...

This might give me a reason to attend Quakecon this year, if Bethesda will be showing off the next elder scrolls game.

Doom 4 being outside EA or Activision is a good thing, at least. If they go back to the oldschool Doom 2-style movement/weapons/monsters/battles/music, the game could be a huge hit in both singleplayer and multiplayer. Bobby Prince for great justice.

Yeah, I see this picture in my mind - photorealistic environment consisting of burning skyscrapers, threating life like monsters and our hero moving through the cityscape with the speed of 60 mph on bare foot...

Looks like completely new genre, mix of FPS and racing. Dunno how to call it though.

That actually sounds incredible!

Wouldn't you run as fast as you could in Dooms situation?

"Looks like completely new genre, mix of FPS and racing."

that "new genre" is more than ten years old. gg

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/driving/redline/index.html

I thought Oblivion was terrible, if it's anything like that then I'm not interested.

Morrowind, despite being somewhat stale and lifeless managed to suck so many hours out of me in comparison.

And yes, Bobby Prince and his rip-off Thrash Metal Doom music for life!

I enjoyed everything but the main quest line in Oblivion. If you get a ton of mods and just enjoy the world, Oblivion was extremely fun.

I did complete the Thief and Assassin(? black hooded people) guild quest/storys but overall I felt the game lacked something and that was besides being retardedly easy/scaling to your level (And dropping glass/daedric armour by simple bandits).

There's an oblivion overhaul mod that rebalances everything so it doesn't feel so easy. Vanilla oblivion isn't too great, but it's the modding community that makes it fun.

http://www.tesnexus.com/index.php

u know what they say, one dissenting voice in a million & all that. It's one of the best sandbox style environments. Bit too open for some though. I suppose nothing can be all things to all ppl

I found Morrowind a better world really, but perhaps it really was the fact the game posed no challenge at all and was just running about feeling like I was couldn't die!

Then maybe played it a bit to safe?

Cause I died quite a few times, because I entered areas I really shouldn't have gone :D

Not really, obviously I did a bit on occassion but not especially.

I mean, the guards in Morrowind at the start of the game were powerful whereas within about an hour the guards in Oblivion were quite pathetic and could be escaped easily.

well yeah, the guards really sucked :(
But maybe having quite a lot of experience in other (similar) rpgs just helped a little too much.


I mean I don't think it was really too easy as such.
But always having to fear to run into some big fat creep that could kill you with one blow would probably have added to the ambience.

Maybe I should give it another chance.

if you do go with a mod! ;)

I for one just found this list: http://www.gametunnel.com/2008-rpg-of-the-year-article.php
and am quite intrigued to try the top 2.

Has anyone played either of them?

Well, what would be the point of giving Oblivion another chance if I just modify it? :D

You can just turn up the difficulty setting if you want to have a bit more of a challenge, but Oblivion is a lot like Quake in that the modding community has made the game far better.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=15256
This one is the most popular, which rebalances a lot of the game.

well, eh ...

I pretty much thought when said you didn't like Oblivion as much you wouldn't give the mods a chance either. And know if you do try it again now, you might as well go for the most fun experience.

christ that was quick! Your enemies actually lvl up with you so it would have been a fair number of hours invested before you could feel like that

Yeah, I know but it was peanuts in comparison to my time spent with Morrowind and in those hours I wasn't amazed by it.

For me it just wasn't a good game or a bad game it was just a graphical upgrade and console orientated version of Morrowind.

there is quite a difference between the "pro" ratings and the users ones ; unsurpising to me since I find this game so much overrated

the user ratings are all good. Lowest I can see is 7.5 (from the PC crowd)

ID software may now learn how not to fail @ game support.

Elder Scrolls 5: Ranger chronicles!!

Typisk crap press release without all the porn.

I want to know if a 100% stake has been sold and for how much.

Guessing they will quit releasing the source code of their games as well?

I'm pretty sure id isn't a publicly traded company, so this was just a regular buyout.

Huh? A privately owned company can have different stake-/shareholders too. Guessing it was not 100% owned by Carmack before either. Sounds like a majority or 100% deal anyways.

Would have been interesting for how much they got sold.

Yeah, but what major company would bother with stake in a private purchase?

Why not? Exchange-listing or not doesn't matter in that regard.

weird

This is the beginning of the end for id fans. Selling out like this only means that id will now produce games that are approved upon by zenimax, meaning they will follow specific formats.

No more outside the box (original) ideas, and no more amazingly unique games can be expected from id. The last of the independent developers has now fallen.

When was the last time id delivered an amazingly unique game with original ideas?

Back in 2001 with RtCW, and it wasn't even developed by id, they just supervised it.

Doom3's was unique at least in the lighting department when they released the game. Searching innovation in the gameplay of a Doom game? Thanks, but no thanks.

god damn this means fallout 4 with more zombies.


this is the beginning of the end.

can we know the price quote of id tho.....

I think its a good thing.

is the ea thing over? Never understood that, ea and id are polar opposites to me

hopefully this enables some bigger teams, fresh ideas, new art, new blood

still huge fan of id regardless

GG QUAKELIVE

Wonder if id has lost value from the billion and two times they've been valued at $100mn.

Hope this works out for them, but it's still a shock to see id lose their status as an independent.

This is big news. I wonder what the aftermath will be.

Awesome. Now the people responsible for fucking up fallout can fuck these franchises. IM THRILLED PEOPLE

so, what legal rights do ZeniMax Media own on id ?

If they own ID they own all ID's properties.

generally yes.

But of course there are several ways to exclude properties from such a deal.

licenses, foundations, etc.

Or they could have simply chosen not to sell all assets ;).

well, I would think that all assets belonged to id directly.

In that case, they would have to transfer them a private party or something first. Which is what I meant.

That's assuming they went with a share and not an asset deal, but that's idle speculation anway. However, seeing as intellectual property is what really makes up the worth of a software company (besides its employees) I think it's fair to assume that most if not all rights were sold as well.

agreed.

Bethesda gets id, whilst working with splash damage on Brink. Should totally be some in-house cross overs from some splash damage guys for the new wolf :D

No surprise. There's no denying that ID lost a lot of steam over the last decade, and not just creativity wise. Look at the two major titles they published since Q3 - i.e. D3 and Q4 - and how little those succeeded in what should be considered ID core competence, multiplayer.

As for the reasons, a major one I believe is that they more or less wrote each game from scratch and failed to write reusable, well tested code components they could carry over from earlier games. Meaning that with each release we got the same stupid bugs to cope with, where the general feeling was that it even got worse each time around. Visuals set aside, they utterly failed to convey a feeling of general progress we, the gamers, could participate in.

This, the increasing development and publishing costs together with those guys likely getting worried about their retirement pensions I guess easily explains why they would prefer selling their shop while it's still worth a buck or two.

Mail that to Carmack, im sure he would appreciate your professional feedback on how to write reusable, well tested code components.

Your lame attempt at puerile irony set aside for the moment, I believe you're wrong but for reasons different than you think.

Carmack apparently is busy showing off his 3D wizardry each time around they spew another "engine", which I guess makes him *want* to reinvent the wheel instead of taking evolutionary road. Unfortunately this approach makes them particularly vulnerable because the costs and development times become increasingly prohibitive with each cycle while risks abound at the same time.

Now, I give them that D3 was a major leap SP wise and delivered exactly what they promised it would. But it didn't pick up on what made their most successful series of previous years, Quake, a major hit: multiplayer. And fans were accordingly disappointed. The SP focus was just a strategic error which made that costly engine substantially less marketable.

And while MP didn't improve much with the initial Q4 release, SP got substantially worse. Regarding the "artistry", Q4 SP looks like it's been sponsored by the Pentagon as a potential recruitment game. It's just appalling. Add to this their recent and apparently failed attempt to again make some money off their last successful installment, Quake 3, via QL and you should realize how desperate those guys really were by now.

Of course these developments make me less than happy, because ID games were almost exclusively what I've been playing for about 15 years, also due to being a Linuxer were you have to rely on OpenGL games. Still, for a long time I've been a fan, and their cool habit of open sourcing their engines eventually just added to that.

But again, this development was foreseeable. Stakes just too high bet on a single card which turned out to fail. So RIP ID and, on the bright side, there could be a good chance that we're spared Hollensheads annoyingly brain dead marketing blabber in the future. A toast to that.

Doom -> D2
Q1 -> Q2 -> Q3
D3 -> ET:QW -> Rage (As far as I know Rage isn't a complete re-write)

ET's not particularly on my radar given there's no Linux release. But I do acknowledge it's been one other modest success that's based on the D3 engine (and developed by Splash Damage, so you might take that out of your picture just the same as as you omitted Q4, given that you wanted to depict a time line of original ID releases).

I included ET:QW because it had the engine upgrade in it whereas Q4 didn't.

And it's a "timeline" of the different engines, Doom3 was a complete re-write of the engine (more or less) but Q1/2/3 were not and as far as I'm aware Rage isn't a re-write.

Not entirely so I believe. But anyway, for details
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Tech
and in terms of "success" a kind of suggestive graphic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Quake_-_family_tree.svg
where you maybe want to pay some attention to the D3-Q4-ET path and what branches (or not) from it.

Ah, rewrites and different engines...
I'd go with :
Doom>d2
Q1>->->Q2
|->Q3
D3>Q4>ET:QW
Rage

It's not right to try to judge the jumps from engine to engine just by looking at how things look in the screen. The jump from Q1 to Q2 is actually bigger than the jump from Q2 to Q3. Q2 and Q3 are very, very, very similar codebases. They basically "work" the same way and Q3 just adds a lot of refinements. Q1 is more different. In reality, inbetween Q1 and Q2 there's a step which is QW, which supposes a jump similar to the one from Q2 to Q3.

Doom 3 was a huge commercial success.

"Bethesda plans to drop QuakeLive since it's a non-moneymaking venture with recurring costs (bandwidth, hosting)"

really?

lol

Yea, looks like it's over for Quake Live:

Carmack explained that the Quake Live team, "which had less than a dozen people," will work with id's other two major teams on multiplayer for Rage and Doom 4 as an "intermediate step" to "get familiar with our technology there."

If the development team is being moved to another project then clearly it doesn't have much of a future. Thank Christ that whole fiasco is finally over.

I don't feel like reading this article.

So someone tell me, who do I start blaming for making shitty games now?!

It would still be id.

Basically the deal is ZeniMax own Bethesda and id software:
- Bethesda make RPGs
- id software make FPSs

They both carry on running as normal.

And the FPSRPGs?

id software business and management has always been a disaster, about time they are put out of their misery. Zenimax is the same age as Quake 3 and I prefer id software games, but hey, that's life, can't keep floating in the fail boat forever.

Excellent news id software and its fans, should have happened a long time ago.

pretty good news tbh !

hopefully no "soon-to-be" westwood/electronic arts clone...

"ZeniMax Media Acquires id Software
Brings together two of world’s best game studios
Library of powerhouse franchises will include DOOM, Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, QUAKE, Wolfenstein and RAGE"

from http://www.zenimax.com/id.htm

So it seems they already own all the IPs.

George Broussard thinks there's no better company that could have bought id. Now thats a credible source!

haha xD

Shit, it's true. The new world order is coming. Pretty soon, you won't have to eat food or breathe oxygen.

but the question remains. Can entropy be reversed?

The iD software that was good was the partnership of Romero's design with Carmack's technical skills. Since that dissolved the company has been increasingly less interesting and relevant for me.

>The iD software that was good was the partnership of Romero's design with Carmack's technical skills.

of course the two johns kicked ass togehter, but hey, time goes by.

DAIKATANA, man!

together :) not seperated!

Which sucked largely due to Romero's design tendancies not being limited by the technological aspect. The first Quake game was going to be an FPS/RPG hybrid but a lot of that was abandoned and instead we were left with a badass FPS with a really cool aesthetic which was unique, unsettling and interesting.

Had Diakatana's development been informed and bolstered by the technical wizardry of Carmack I've no doubt it could have been a classic. Some of the ideas and concepts thrown around were excellent, it just had one of the all time consistently terrible development setups for a game which actually ended up being released.

Romero's output since Quake has been pretty meagre but then imo so have Carmack's, he's just had the better end to work with (making really technologically advanced games which then get average designers' ideas sprinkled on them is much more viable than the reverse)

Q2 was basically only a good game imo thanks to The Edge, weapon stay off and Makaveli/Thresh/immortal/Shub's participation.

Q3 was only good thanks to abuse, osp, arqon and the players basically.

Together: the greatest FPS team known to man. Apart: mostly above average at their respective disciplines but never approaching the zeniths of their shared accomplishments in terms of fun yet hardcore games imo.

Romero has also pretty much lived Murphy's law for the last 15 years as far as I can tell too.

Edit: I drank a Monster energy drink about 50 minutes ago, can you tell? :P

Had Diakatana's development been informed and bolstered by the technical wizardry of Carmack I've no doubt it could have been a classic. Some of the ideas and concepts thrown around were excellent, it just had one of the all time consistently terrible development setups for a game which actually ended up being released.

Daikatana was originally developed on the Quake engine, which Romero had rights to while leaving the company. Once he had left, id had the Q2 engine up and running, and through some law, Romero got access to it as well. He had all the technical wizardry that id had, he just failed to use it.

I think you're missing my point which is that the great iD games worked like this: Romero thinks up great design ideas, Carmack puts in place the best technology available and the design ideas which can be implemented along with that framework get used.

Diakatana was just Romero going completely overboard with a concept packed game which would essentially have had to be the best game of all time to deliver on all its features and ideas. Using an old engine years old (in both cases by the time the game got released) never stood a chance of really delivering on that approach.

Romero also basically threw money at every problem which is not the way great things get made. When he has fixed parameters I think Romero is one of the all time greats though. I mean his Quake maps still stand the test of time as great maps after 10+ years of play on them despite the fact they were made before we even really knew what deathmatch and competitive play was in the modern post-Doom sense.

Even the best Q3 maps can't really boast longevity like that.

DM3 might be the best TDM map ever within the context of QW 4on4.

Every post-Quake game Carmack has been involved in has increasingly lacked any soul imo. Q2 was fun in a limited way and largely thanks to the novelty of the very powerful railgun and the way it completely changed competitive play.

You can have the best design in the world and average technological solutions and you end up with a bad or average game. Then again if you can get slightly above average tech to go with great design you can still get a really good flawed gem/interesting experiment type game.

On the other hand if you have the best tech in the world and average or mildly above average design I don't think you can ever have a great game. Even the good designers of the modern era, as in employed designers not community wizards like ztn, seem to be so self-referential it doesn't work. You don't get a fan of a band to be the next guitar player. Plus so much of what makes good DM games good was fluke/unintended that you can't really design it.

This piece kind of sums up my current sentiments. Note the date as well when you see mention of games which have actually been released since.

Dystopia and Utopia
Posted @ 2001-08-20 03:22:08 Onslaught
The future is looking dark. An eternal winter awaits us. I can already feel its chill. Soon we will all be frostclad. The sun has set for the last time. There will never be another great game in which to compete.

The game makers upon whom we have relied for so long have nothing more to offer us. The recipe for great gameplay is way beyond their reach. The few good things they have made for us in the past have been forged by chance and that will not happen again. After all, we are much harder to satisfy now than back in the days. Now we are hardcore.

All that the game makers can and will bring forth are features which will slow down our computers more than ever before. Doom3 will be nothing but trash, Quake4 will be even worse and Duke Nukem Forever will put us all to sleep. The same goes for all other games that are subject to hype on the news sites throughout the web. Do not expect anything from these games and above all; do not buy them. We must give the industry the right signals. We must stand up for ourselves and prove them wrong. In doing so, we will force them to listen. Listen to the truth that lies herein.

They must stop making games for the computers of the future. They must start making them for the current ones. Tweakability must be emphasized more than ever before. A high and consistent framerate is a premise for gameplay as a concept. Speaking of gameplay; they must have mods in mind when they construct the games. Our only salvation lies within our creativity. We must design the gameplay recipe on our own and the game makers must give us this freedom. Whether this will happen or not is completely up to ourselves. We must start using our purchasing power. Furthermore, we must engage in mod making. The ultimate game will grow in the soil of our endeavours.

It's not like he meant for longevity or for the game to even be played as 4v4 when he made a map. TDM built around Quake, not the other way around. How many companies has he quit/been fired from now? Last I heard, he was working on an MMO version of the TV show '24'.

What has he done with intent that has ever gone well?

That's kind of my point re: Romero, he is good on a purely instinctual level. You let him think up a bunch of ideas. Then you take them and you say ok we can use this and this fits and that might work if I do X and Y. Modern design works the opposite way, you say ok I want a proposal of an overall and it's got to fit with this and this which I am going to put in place. Ok and I want something kind of like this and with this feel and they need to be able to do this on the map and not do this cos that weapon's too powerful etc etc etc.

All the best DM shit has been fluke or they've done it thinking they were doing A when B was the real outcome for competitive players.

You're right none of it was done with intent. I think the only things done with any intent have been the community modding aspects which have slightly 'fixed' some games. Even then you often get a lot of people deciding things by commitee which amongst the masses on forums might sound good but to purists ends up being a bit naff in practice really. If you let a group decide they will often nerf a bunch of shit like ok you don't think this so I'll nerf this and in exchange I'll nerf this which I like but you don't. That just reduces everyone's fun instead of making either party adapt and allowing for more fun potentially.

Anyway long story short I'm not disagreeing within anything you've posted in any of your replies. I'm not even expressing some kind of whistful or naive view that we should 'go back' to some golden era style of production. I don't think that will ever exist again and it probably only did through no self-awareness of what was happening which can't be repeated. Wile Coyote now knows he's run off the edge of the cliff and gravity will take effect. Just saying I think these reasons are why we'll never have another great iD game. Hence I don't think they're relevant to anyone who is a purist/hardcore (lol term but w/e)

P.S. I also drank some energy drinks to stay up and finish some work so I've typed like 4x as much as was necessary for every reply. C'est la vie.

P.P.S. I also think Romero has been a borderline retard career-wise post-Quake. He basically fucked up his own money printing job at iD through spending too much time playing quake/ircing. He was retardedly irresponsible with money at ion which fucked any future chances of him making FPS games and adding someone who is fucking you to a development team along with fanboys/ppl who have made 1 map you liked for a different game... all the while throwing stupid amounts of money at them so they can DM in your office at night = LOL wtf are doing type failure.

I still love the guy for the things has done tho (Doom/Doom II/Quake/Commander Keen) which are some of my fav all time games. Plus Romero basically taught Carmack how to program a lot of the early iD shit IIRC.

rtcw was awesome.

I thought it was ok but no Doom/Doom II/Quake caliber game. ET was a lot better imo and I have to give props to them for releasing it for free. The fact it was free and such a good team game yet didn't get anywhere close to the kind of competitive exposure CS has gotten is kind of a sad indictment of modern gaming.

ET is too slow for my liking.

In any case the mp, was something really new and innovative.
While many, many people enjoyed the sp a lot.

I know it's a little off-topic, but what exactly is the point of being 'at the studio'? Can't most if not all game development work be done basically anywhere? About all you need is a computer and an internet connection.

Before, there was no option. Now, workers will begin demanding compensation for the time and money lost traveling to and from work. The practice is so stupid today. It is as slow as the old-people responsible. It is a total waste of time, money, space and precious resources.

"They are triple A, top-of-the-line in what they do in the RPGs." - Hollenshead obviously knows NOTHING about RPGs.

yeh, only a few idiots liked Fallout 3 enough to vote it "game of the year" for rpgs.

It truly must suck.

Heh, your attempt at sarcasm is actually no sarcasm at all. It's 100% truth. Today's gamers (not to mention journalists) really know nothing about RPGs. They haven't played RPGs like Ultima VII, Planescape Torment, Fallout 1&2, Arcanum etc. Since those times RPGs steadily degenerated into action games with only elements of RPG. And today these action games are voted "RPG of the year". It's really sad. It's like you voted Half-Life "adventure game of the year" because it has a story.

Still your comment is pretty stupid, TES/Fallout3 (Well, I've no actually played Fallout3 but I got the impression it was just Oblivion in a new setting) are pretty good RPGs and are far superior to the majority of RPGs that come out (Especially anything from Japan). They really do let you play a role and affect the world and story (some-what).

Most reviewers aren't even gamers, they are journalists who use games as a stepping stone to more "high brow" journalism like books/film/music or more conventional reporting.

This is what fans of true RPGs think of Oblivion: http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=129 .

And you should try this game http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=159 - Mask of the Betrayer (expansion for NWN2) - one of the very very very few true RPGs made in recent years.

Oh man, posting some random fag's opinion on a website totally supports your statement.

This is a website known amongst oldschool RPG players and developers (people from CD Projekt and Obsidian (like J.E.Sawyer main project manager of Fallout New Vegas (currently in the making) post there). But for you it may be some random website with radom fags. I don't care.

Grats, you put names to random opinions - this does not change the fact that they are OPINIONS.

RPGs being less and less RPG and more and more action is a FACT, not OPINION.
Here http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=19 (this time it is a short text) you can read what today's RPG developer must do, to convince publisher to sell his game (written by Leon Boyarsky, who worked on Fallout and Arcanum).

No, it's your opinion. Actually, it's their opinion, and you just save links to it. Fallout 3 is an RPG, no matter how much you don't like it. Go back to your D&D online or NWN and cry with your 17 friends about how nobody understands you.

Heh. NWN was average at best.
I almost don't play RPGs nowadays (almost only classics, from time to time), because there's not much to play.
And I hope that you don't consider yourself RPG fan, because it would be like calling yourself sci-fi fan, and saying that "Plan 9 from Outer Space" is a great sci-fi movie.

I consider myself a fan of GAMES. To limit yourself to a genre is moronic, at best.

By your logic, we can now argue that Fallout 3 could have been a wonderful shooter if they didn't put shitty RPG elements in. RPGs are SO 15 years ago, and the elements are only tainting the game, and making it so it isn't truly a shooter.

Put the controller down, and go back to school.

I don't limit myself to one genre, but if you are a fan of some genre, and it turns out that there is no proper game of that genre, only some hybrids (and while they might be fun games in itself, core elements of that genre are done poorly), then you are not happy with that situation.
Imagine yourself: You are a fan of FPP, and nowadays every FPP is some FPP-RPG-Adventure-something, were FPP element is only a little, mediocre part of the game. They might be fun games, but if you want to play some FPP, then you don't have anything to play.
You are a fan of adventure games, and every game sold as an "adventure game" is really a hack&slash with little dialog, generic plot and very little puzzle solving. They might be fun hack&slash, but they are very poor adventure games.
Or you are a fan of horror movies, and every horror recently made is a comedy horror, because producers figured out, that they will sell better than proper horrors. They might be fun movies, but still, if you want to see some proper horror, then you don't have anything to watch.

Understand my point? It just can't be more obvious than this.

So basically you just don't like the First Person Perspective that many RPGs now take?

What's your opinion on Deus Ex?
How about JRPGs?

FPP isn't the problem. There are much more aspects that make a good RPG (briefly, because one can write a loong article about how good RPG should look like):

- interesting story - Like in P:T, were you are not saving the world for the n'th time, but trying to find out who the hell are you, and trying to... DIE. Like in Mask of the Betrayer, were story is also personal, and involves solving YOUR problems (finding out what is this something that is within you (is this a curse, or a gift, or maybe you can choose what it is), and were it came from) not problems of the entire world. Like Betrayal at Krondor, were story is about twisted political intrigue. "You are a chosen one that have to save the world from The Great Evil which wants to conquer the world, only because The Great Evil is Evil" has been DONE TO DEATH in RPGs.

- choices & consequences and nonlinearity - Dialogue options that lead to actually different outcomes (no fake choices that look different in dialogue, but lead to exactly the same outcome). Your choices cause the story (mostly subplots, but also the main plot) to branch out in different ways, and every branch splits further with your following choices (and thanks to that, every playthrough is different)(MotB is very good example of nonlinearity). Lack of black-or-white "if you choose this - you are GOOD, if you choose that - you are BAD" choices (in The Witcher, for example, there aren't any good or bad choices; every choice has some good and bad consequences, and you really aren't sure what your choice will cause (and you can't save and reload to try different choice, because consequences appear only after many hours of playing)).

- quests - Quests that give you only one option - "kill this dudes" or "bring me something and kill everyone that stands in your way, because there is no other way to bring me this than killing everyone" - are examples repetitive quests that are TOO prevalent in RPGs. Interesting quests give you several options to solve them. Fallout had many of such quests. P:T could be played through with very little killing. Oblivion and Fallout 3 are full of such choiceless quests (but to be fair, there were some great quests in F3 (with other options besides killing), but too little of them) (even heavily action-oriented RPG as Gothic 3 allowed the player to choose whom to kill, whom to help, whom to side with, and affect main story by his choices). RP stands for "role-playing". If you want to play a role, then you have to at least have a CHOICE of what to do.

- setting - Generic high fantasy settings are DONE TO DEATH in RPGs. There is nothing new and curious about them. Compare: Arcanum - steampunk world mixing fantasy with XIXth century Europe; Fallout - i don't have to say :) ; P:T - weird, twisted, hard to describe Planescape universe; The Witcher - at first sight it looks as a generic fantasy world, but political, moral and social characteristics of this world make it more of a fantasy mirror of our real world; this is the world were greatest evil comes not from monsters or some Evil Sorcerers, but from ordinary men (and it is partially based on slavic mythology - something new in RPGs); Mask of the Betrayer - dark world full of interesting settings; or even Lionheart (average game) set in XVIth century Europe.

- NPCs - BAD: NPCs being only "quest giving robots", not caring about what is happenning in their world (like in Oblivion, were everyone seems oblivious :) to the impending demonic invasion) and not having life of their own. GOOD: Ultima VII - every NPC has his own life; if you talk to some NPC, he will talk to you about what is important to him (his job, family, problems), like any normal person, instead of just waiting to give you informations connected to the game; you have a conversation with a normal man, not with some robot waiting for you to help you with your quests.

- party members - To see some really interesting party members, you have to play P:T or MotB.

- dialogue - Well, good dialogue can't be described. It has to be seen (best in P:T, MotB or BaK).


Have you noticed that I haven't mentioned stats, skills, equipment or exploration? Unfortunately those are THE ONLY aspects that most people equate with RPG - if the game has stats, skills, equipment and exploration, then it is considered RPG, the rest is completely ignored.

RPG is a complex genre and making a good RPG isn't easy. There was not one RPG that made EVERYTING perfect (and even the best RPGs have some aspects that could have been done much better), but years ago developers actually CARED, and TRIED to do good RPGs, and even if they weren't very good at everything, they were very good at at least some aspects. Today's RPGs mostly are between very poor and average at most of these aspects (besides stats, skills, equipment and exploration - they are between very poor and very good), rest of the game is filled with shooting or hacking&slashing, and it is proclaimed "RPG of the year". And it is being done on purpose, because this pseudoRPGs sell better than pure RPGs. Sad fact is, that there is less and less RP in RPG.

As for the DeusEx - it is, for me, the greatest FPP-with-RPG-elements ever made. Funny thing is, that in some aspects it is better RPG than most of the current RPGs (story, setting and several ways of completing missions - shoot, sneak, hack, talk).

I cannot speak of jRPGs. I haven't played any.

I agree with all of that :)

Playing Oblivion again the past two days it's even less of an RPG than I had remembered, there's almost no choice at all. Especially compared to Deus Ex where pretty much every single thing in the world has a choice attached to it which triggers changes in the plot/events that happen.

Deus Ex best game for me :(
I Love RPGs, please tell me the best ones, i will definately play them if havent already!

How is being a fan of a genre any different than limiting yourself to a genre? So long as any game is done well, it doesn't matter what genre it is, or if it's a hybrid. You only solidify my point.

Being a fan means only that it is your FAVOURITE genre, and you care for the quality of this genre more than others. I think that it should be obvious to any human. Everyone has some favourite genre in movies, music, books or games.

Unrelated. Your issue is that this doesn't fit in your little ideal RPG world.

Not MY ideal RPG world, but world created by creators of past RPG games.

Which has nothing to do with current games. If you like those games so much, go play them.

Unfortunately, you are right...

Lets end this discussion with this gem from Fallout 3:

- I fight the good fight with my voice!
- [intelligence] Ah, so you fight the good fight with your voice, eh?
- I can see that you are very smart.

“Dialogue wasn't a battle we wanted to pick. There were other things that were more important for us to spend time and energy on… we just don't have unlimited monkeys and typewriters.”
Pete Hines

But, of course, today's "RPG fans" don't care about dialogue, because it's "sooo last gen".

Oh my god, there's a small flaw in the game! Somebody call the RPG police!

Did you get it on camera? They might not believe that such a horrible atrocity has been committed without proof. I'm getting dizzy - hold me!

so, if I understand you correctly the target of a game should be to make hardcore fans of a certain genre happy. While providing a game that many more people enjoy and buy, means it must be bad.

You know, in my opinion they only thing that should count for evaluating a game is to bring a maximum of additional enjoyment to a maximum of people.

And from what I hear tons of people enjoyed playing Fallout 3. And while I myself never even touched it, I would call it a good and successful game.


If it really was about doing some perfect, and worthwile we should all be going to museums and reading books on philosophy instead of wasting our time playing games.


Finally, as a ground we could meet on. Do you at least agree that Fallout 3 can be seen as a Benchmark that other rpgs can be compared with?

I think his reasoning is that by RPG standards it wasn't a good RPG. That's not to say it wasn't a good game just that for an RPG it wasn't good.

I know, and I disagree because of the points I mentioned.

Well I'd say your two views don't counter each other.

He likes "proper" RPGs and he felt it failed here (I wonder in which aspect he believes it failed though).

But for you, since it was popular it was a good game. Since most people will just play any game regardless of the type it didn't need to be a good RPG just a good game in general.

Imagine it had no RPG elements at all and was just a strict linear shooter but called itself an RPG anyway (Because Fallout 1/2 were) does the fact it is popular make it a good RPG or just a good shooter/game?

of course it would make it a good shooter.

I said some time ago that people always are what others see, not want they want to be themselves.
The same goes for things.


But are you really saying Fallout 3 is not a role-playing game? As I said id never played it, but from what I've read it seems somewhat different but in the end it's a rpg. And a successful one.

I've not played it either. It all depends on what the Pole thinks an RPG is I guess.

It's very RPGish in that the VATS system end up being a billion times more useful than manually trying to fire at opponents. Playing it like a shooter doesn't really work well, and I think that was one of the things that made it less fun. It didn't feel as interactive as Oblivion as all combat was basically turn-based with dice rolls.

turn based with dice rolls you say?

I loved the "das sschwarze Auge" games, also known as "Blades of Arcadia" in English.

The ussed the dice rolls based on the Pen&Paper :)

Well, most monsters move too fast, guns have spread issues, and unless you're hitting a headshot, your shots don't do much. When fighting one enemy, it's okay to try to just shoot, so long as he isn't more than medium range away. With multiple opponents, even close range, there's just no way to justify manual aiming.

At that point, it's basically:

See enemies
Activate VATS
Target all heads
Resolve shots
if all hit, you pretty much win
if any miss, wait for VATS to charge a little while you get hit, then repeat

hmm, that sounds less fun again :(

Oh well, not planning on playing it anyway :D

It's worth a play, at least. Wait for it to get cheaper, and pick it up at a discount.

don't have too much time to play at home, and I won't to try those low tech games I mentioned above first.

maybe later.

You can make any game you like, but don't call it RPG if it isn't one. And no. I don't agree that Fallout 3 can be seen as a benchmark that other RPGs can be compared with. Fallout 1&2 and Planescape Torment - crowning achievements of the genre - are benchmarks that other RPGs should be compared with. The only game in recent years that was very close to these games in terms of RPG quality is Mask of the Betrayer (expansion for NWN2) (and The Witcher was close in some aspects). The truth is that RPG fans are starved these days.

so, of the popular game genres which would you think fits Fallout 3 the most?

I mean apparantly everyone but you calls it a rpg...
And it does have all the basic characteristics of a rpg...

So, you didn't like it and like other games more. That is very fine, just don't expect me or anyone else to agree with it.
The problem which I can't really consider your position is that you haven't written anything that is an objective argument, so far.

Just things like "it isn't like this, it isn't like that, I don't like it and I like this better". No reasons whatsoever.

Well, i don't have time to write any long rants. Others did it before me, so i will give you some keywords: STORY, NONLINEARITY, CHOICES & CONSEQUENCES, DIALOGS, QUESTS, CHARACTERS, SETTINGS, and i will direct you to this links:
http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=159
http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=129
http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=178

READ it, and you will know.

And if you REALLY REALLY interested in the subject of mediocrity of today's RPGs, you can read this:
http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t...p;start=25 (this "Rosh" is a developer who have been working in developing of various RPGs).

And if you REALLY REALLY interested how proper RPG should look like, you should at least play Fallout & Planescape Torment.

Oh look you found a site were people just rant and claim that everything was better in the past.
If I want that I'll go to a retirement home.

I mean putting a comment like "Welcome to Disneyland!" under a screenshot of Oblivion is nowhere near objective, it's only embarrasing to the self-proclaimed "critic".

If the opinions in those links really are like yours then you aren't objective at all. You just want every game dev to cater to your opinion, which you think is the only one that counts. And you will consider everything you don't like to be shit.

-> elitist

And that in turn makes your opinion worthless to me.


Oh and before you repeat the "but I played Fallout 1/2" argument.

The first rpgs I played, loved and spent countless hours in wereRealms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny and Burntime (with a setting very similar to Fallout)
Do you even know those?

Anyway, loving those and enjoying Planescape: Torment hasn't kept me from enjoying Oblivion and Gothic for example.

And from what I hear I still do consider Fallout 3 a good game. It's just not made for your group of ranting basement dweller, deal with it.

I don't consider everything I don't like to be shit. I just don't like the fact that most of today's "RPGs" are sold as a "the best RPG ever made" while years ago there were games that were 100x better RPGs. Developers speak some bullshit about innovation, while this "innovation" only means making game less and less RPG, and more and more action. Would call "adventure game" a game in which most problems are solved by shooting, game that has a generic predictable story and very little puzzle soving? Because this is what happened with RPGs. RPGs DEGENERATED. It is a FACT, regardless of what you or I like.

Fallout 3 is a good game.

It's just a bad Fallout game.

fair enough.

ranting vault dweller

fix'd

thx :)

Not only is this Rosh a former developer he is also a very bitter man, hilarious

Rosh is a hero, man. Don't fuck with the Roshambo.

after some time semi random browsing links to links about oblivion I hit this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ATh4y4XRjA&feature=related
I had to share

btw nice read about the oblivion's critic on rpgcodex

I can only imagine that you didn't play the game. What is it that you feel isn't RPG-like in Fallout 3?

Any news about the future of source code releases? I guess doom 3 will be the last or what???(

SyncError or someone go bug carmack.

I expect it will carry on as usual. I get the very distinct impression that id software have "unlimited" freedom in this deal.

multiply Carmack's PR babble with -1 and you get: "we just want to sell out and make tons of money"

More like now they don't have to worry about publishing shit when they're under a company that doesn't really have an FPS developer. Best of both worlds for zenimax. They have 2 good teams working on different type of projects and shit.

here's to hoping the teams will inspire each other into making something different and awesome :)

My only big annoyance is that the CEO of Zenimax is an absolute cunt to be honest...

John Romero wrote:

ZENIMAX??????? Disgusting.

about 14 hours ago from web


John Romero wrote:

Fallout 3 bought DOOM. Wow.

about 14 hours ago from web


John Romero wrote:

i just did an interview for Avault Podcast coming out friday. i am positive about the Zenimax deal. my initial reaction was harsh. sorry.

about 5 hours ago from web


John Romero wrote:

i guess i was shocked and sad to see the id Software of old changed forever today. it's a new day and a new id.

about 5 hours ago from web

Board of Directors:

...

Jerry Bruckheimer
Jerry Bruckheimer Films

...

zomg

ID hugest mistake was letting Raven handle their work.

Or maybe it was overseeing all of Raven's work, and approving all of it.

I agree, letting raven do a Quake game was epic fail.

john romero podcast is availble. its really interesting.

he guess that john carmack will leave id, because thats what a sell is for, to leave.

http://podcast.avault.com
from minute 12:30.

btw the producer of avault is angel munoz, if you follow the link to his profile it says he developed severity and the cpl was sold.
but...there is something missing, severity was never released and the cpl was bankrupt. phunny.

spin meister !

I doubt he'll leave id but I suppose he will work less on games and focus more on his space rocket engineering as he seems to enjoy that more. Apart from being a coding genius he's also a rocket scientist.

romero's guess sounds right, carmack is making the first move to step out of his video gaming job in order to put more time into armadillo aerospace

edit : should've read Paladia's comment first

Sounds reasonable to me. Ppl seem to overlook that this is not a partnership or something. The shop has been *sold*, so zenimax has ultimate say what goes and don't go at all times. I just can't see Carmack wanting to sustain such a regime for an extended period of time.

Of course, marketing now says little will change cause they want little disruption resp. disturbance regarding ongoing deals etcetera. But this is obviously the end of ID as we know it.

Just as planned... (c)

GG id

GG quake

GG fps

GG as in Got to Go ?

did he say gtg?

ha idd
I'll try Gone Garbage then (although I just realised "gg quake" makes some sense)

'Good god', maybe?

He means they are all good games :]

I dunno, man, my sarcasm detector went off the charts on that one.

Quake died allready hard to believe well see a Q5

Doom has a chance with D4 time will tell

But time will tell how this works out

as long as pc's piracy rate makes consoles market the main one we'll have gameplays aimed to the joypad device, and thus have broken games when it comes to play them with mouse/keyboard

either piracy get real repressed or consoles makes standard the use of mouses, or this will not change ; I don't see one or the other happen anytime soon, so I guess D4 and the fps part of Rage will be as dull as the previous id's titles (but rage could have a cool driving part, although from what I've seen in the teasers it looked slow and... dull)

this said, one fix could be that devs take the habit to modify the pc version to fit its devices ; but imo it's a pipe dream in this trashy hollywooded industry. and for which audience anyway ? kids can be tricked by marketing, it's more easier ; and the remaining people just pirate games

Quake 5 is gonna be Oblivion with guns.

Will probably sell better than q4 :(

that allready exist, its called fallout 3.

ID are completely out of touch, they haven't made a decent game since Q3 and Raven ruined quake 4 and will no doubt made a complete fuck up of wolf.

talk about "out of touch"
first of all, it's id, not ID
second, Q3 sucked commercially which is how those who are NOT out of touch with reality measure 'decent', and by which standard all their recent games have done well.

hey i hear the sims is a good game

http://venturebeat.com/2009/06/25/the-big-gam...o-zenimax/

ok i have another one, this time its the ultimate interview with john carmack, todd hollenshead and the masterchief of zenimax, everybody is copying it for a news artikel.

It's been too much to take even for late Michael. RIP.

The sooner id gets away from Activision, the better

Holy Shit id don't even own their IPs anymore...

Didn't realise until now =/

Should make QCon an interesting event, or at least next year's.

I wonder if this will have any effect on id releasing the source code of their games.

I sure hope not!

Yeah, tens of programmers waiting for idTech4 being released as Open Source in order to make it the way it should be made from the day one. :)