I <3 id Software

Recently I played the OG Quake. Yes I know that I'm YEARS late but I never figured out how to properly use DOS Box. And since I do now, I played the shareware version(because I couldn't find the full). My experience with it was like ANY ID game I've played, amazing. Then when I quit of course it gave me the DOS end screen. I love these, how ID makes these jokes in them like how I could steal the full version from a friend and how God wouldn't like that and so on. I love ID's humor. I mean, you don't see video game company's like this anymore. ID Software is like Arnold Schwarzenegger, there will NEVER be a 2nd..

I don't think id has made a decent game since Quake 2.

I still still prefer Quake 3 to Unreal, but Doom 3 and Rage don't have the spark. Besides, pretty much everyone that made id id has long since canned left.

If you end up liking Quake, consider using a source-port next time you play it for a different experience. I prefer Darkplaces myself. You won't need to use DosBox, and the source-port cleans up a lot of the graphics by using 3D acceleration to smooth the polygons and better lighting effects. Although playing through the game as it was in 1996 is great too.

Technician said:

I don't think id has made a decent game since Quake 2.

I still still prefer Quake 3 to Unreal, but Doom 3 and Rage don't have the spark. Besides, pretty much everyone that made id id has long since canned left.

Doom 3 and Rage weren't bad games. They were just nowhere near as great as they should have been considering who made them and the length of time they took.

I don't know I think the reason that id Software has changed a bit in their direction is largely due to changing gamer markets. I didn't mind Doom 3's retelling of the Doom story and Rage I found quite unique although the themes were very familiar. In the end the main aim of id Software is to make money if they're not making any money and if they kept releasing games with their previous formula of "run'n'gun" they'd be well out of business which means no more Doom, Quake or Wolfenstein as we know it. Long story short there's only a certain amount of time before a company that is essentially a one trick pony collapses in on itself, a modern example would be all the creators of the CoD series (CoD is shit). If id didn't change to appeal to a broader market they'd be where 3D Realms and any number of great 90's studios are now; defunct with their talent only remembered by the fan boys. Also I don't get how people can slam such a great company. The reason they take so long in overall game development time is because they make stuff up that becomes standard. There isn't many game companies that do that anymore. Not even Epic do that with their Unreal Engines. I think the closest modern company to id would be CryTek.

Stroggos said:

I don't know I think the reason that id Software has changed a bit in their direction is largely due to changing gamer markets.

The problem is that they have NOT changed their direction. It is forever 1997 to them...and apparently their fans as well.

The reason they take so long in overall game development time is because they make stuff up that becomes standard. There isn't many game companies that do that anymore. Not even Epic do that with their Unreal Engines. I think the closest modern company to id would be CryTek.

What in the world are you talking about? Epic has taken id's licensing model and become far more successful than id ever was at it. Hell, even Valve has to some extent. And modern unreal tech and source engine games are far more accessible and familiar to players. That means a hell of a lot more than super-mega-mega compressed textures and per-pixel whatevers that I probably turn off anyway so the game doesn't run like shit.

ID certainly commands a bit of respect and veneration for their past accomplishments, and the status they and their products once had. I agree. But in terms of making cool video games? They haven't been relevant since I graduated high school, and that was over 10 years ago.

Ever since zenimax bought id software they've become dead to me, I still play and enjoy their older games though.

Doom 3 and its expansion I believe were the last products I truly enjoyed from them. I had slowly replayed doom 3, doom 3 roe, and quake 4 over the last several months, but while doom 3 was surprisingly fun during replay on veteran mode (and using only autosaves), I just couldn't get back into quake 4 when trying the same thing.

Love the old id and always will.
After Quake 1 they've started to decompose... nothing left of them, just another shit company.

Only "modern" game that I will check out is Diablo 3.

Quast said:
What in the world are you talking about? Epic has taken id's licensing model and become far more successful than id ever was at it. Hell, even Valve has to some extent. And modern unreal tech and source engine games are far more accessible and familiar to players. That means a hell of a lot more than super-mega-mega compressed textures and per-pixel whatevers that I probably turn off anyway so the game doesn't run like shit.

I'm talking about the shadowing and virtual texturing. I think that the company is still initiative in that they create this shit from scratch. Fair enough the theory is there, but it's a big leap from theory to execution. You have to remember that from the earliest Commander Keen days id have always been a technology oriented company, so like CryTek they create things that push limits... id Tech 5 has to be one of the better looking engines of this generation, probably no where near the functionality of Source or Unreal but it's being worked on by about half the man power.

Stroggos said:

You have to remember that from the earliest Commander Keen days id have always been a technology oriented company, so like CryTek they create things that push limits.

That's fine, but it doesn't mean they make good games anymore. Doom and quake can get a pass on being "simple shooters" because it was a different time in the mid 90s and games like that simply weren't expected to have complex stories or character interaction or believable environments.

Games like half-life and deus ex immediately took that torch and ran like hell with it. And we're better off for it.

Truthfully, had id not released team arena and ROE, I probably wouldn't even be posting. Those 2 things alone show how out of touch they are with everything they do.

Id almost reminds me of Rare, except Id still makes somewhat decent games (And was never sold to Microsoft).

Edit: I was feeling off about this post until I realized the Rare made shooters too ... lol. I mostly remember them for Banjo Kazooie. Awesome game.

All the cool people from Rare went on to form Free Radical. They made a pretty cool series of shooters called Timesplitters. It's unfortunate that they've decided to sit holding their dicks for the entire current gen of consoles, instead of working on TS4. Oh well.

Free Radical died when they released Haze. Now they're part of CryTek, if I remember correctly.

Haze wasn't a bad game, really. It just wasn't in any way memorable.

There is a house. In this house some guy is king and all is good. He knows all about the house and everybody follows his lead on a daily basis. Hell, he even built the house!

Then one day someone decides to go on a picnic. The others see this and are coming along. The "king", however, doesn't want to. It's not his style and he doesn't want to leave the cosy domain he has created for himself.

Some time passes and it gets lonely. The "king" decides to go anyway, but he'll do so under protest with his arms crossed and trailing 50ft behind everybody else. Then someone in the group decides to start singing and the others quickly sing along. The "king" doesn't want to. It's not his style. A bit further down the road someone starts to clap their hands and the group follows. This isn't the "king"'s style either. He then starts singing. He does so at a low volume and it doesn't sound good, but he sings. Then someone starts dancing.

Guess who id software is.

Alright, how would id release games that are "in touch" with gamers and NOT make the next shitty medal of doody: modern whorecraft auto ops 4?

If you ask me, the only company that seems to listen is Valve.

And if gamers WANT medal of doody: modern whorecraft auto ops 4, then they deserve the crap they get.

Bucket said:

All the cool people from Rare went on to form Free Radical. They made a pretty cool series of shooters called Timesplitters. It's unfortunate that they've decided to sit holding their dicks for the entire current gen of consoles, instead of working on TS4. Oh well.

I think Crytek UK are working on a new Timesplitters for the nextgen Xbox

Csonicgo said:

Alright, how would id release games that are "in touch" with gamers and NOT make the next shitty medal of doody: modern whorecraft auto ops 4?

If you ask me, the only company that seems to listen is Valve.

And if gamers WANT medal of doody: modern whorecraft auto ops 4, then they deserve the crap they get.

The problem is that id apparently aren't going their own way. They're following behind other companies, but they're dragging their feet and constantly fighting against the direction they are taking, yet still going along.

If they are going the same place as everybody else, what's the point of getting there slower? I'm not arguing that they should be going the same direction as everybody else and they definitely shouldn't stay locked in a 1994 mindset. In my opinion they should throw their history, false sense of security and the current fps direction (or lack of) out the window and start fresh. Do your own thing.

Rage is such a mishmash of ideas and direction. What did they set out to do? To me it seems like the entire game was an attempt to prove that they could do a bright game set in an outside environment and then filling it with semi-modern ideas and features. There was no point to anything. The game ended up being a hollow car-combat game with small combat arenas that you visited. Almost all the missions are completely interchangable and do nothing to further the "plot".

Not to go on a RAGE....rage, but ever since id told us how they envisioned the game and what thoughts were behind it, I knew it'd end up somewhat like it did.

VERY loose quote: "We were making this darkness game that took place on a dark island and suddenly we realized that we had been doing dark games forever. So then we decided to scrap that and make a really bright game....and hey cars are cool right? Let's have some racing in there!"

When I first heard about rage I thought it would be an id software take on Mario Kart as in the racing with weapons but then it wouldn't really make any sense as you'd kill them rather than temporarely disable them like in Mario Kart unless they were aiming to create some kind of deathmatch racing. :P

I don't like judging a book by its cover and I haven't played RAGE but Shaviro's comments do pretty much echo the fears that I have had about the game since I first heard of it too. No doubt I'll get a chance to play it at some point but, so far, I have seen nothing to sway me away from what I thought the game was going to be like and certainly nothing to really make me want to go and get a copy.

I am sure it must be selling but, IRL, I haven't actually heard anyone discussing playing the game either.

Vordakk said:

If you end up liking Quake, consider using a source-port next time you play it for a different experience. I prefer Darkplaces myself. You won't need to use DosBox, and the source-port cleans up a lot of the graphics by using 3D acceleration to smooth the polygons and better lighting effects. Although playing through the game as it was in 1996 is great too.

Smooth out the polygons? I believe you're mistaken. Do you know how difficult it would be to take all of the 3D models and tack on additional triangles? You'd have to have some sort of Directx 11 tesselation feature to accomplish that. Hell, you can tell by the screenshots that isn't true. Not trying to make a fool out of you, I just thought that was a very odd comment.

Probably just highpoly models or something.

Also in the early 2000s, ATI had a feature called Truform on their cards that basically did what you describe, with little performance hit IIRC. With 64MB(!) of RAM lol. It never really took off tho, because it made models not designed with it in mind look weird.

You don't need extra polygons to "smooth" them out.

Dark Places doesn't smooth polygons; but it does smooth their movement since it uses interpolation.

Quake models just jump from one frame to another. The effect it gives is peculiar. Someone here in a previous Quake thread compared it to a Ray Harryhausen movie; I agree with it. While interpolation makes the game smoother and more pseudo-realistic, there is an odd charm in the stop-motion-like behavior of the monsters without it, something that gives a sort of poetry or surrealness which exaggerates the moody theme and ambiance of the game.

Csonicgo said:

If you ask me, the only company that seems to listen is Valve.

Gearbox also listens. As the DLCs were being developed for Borderlands, Gearbox paid close attention to what fans suggested and implemented a lot of it into the DLCs. And Blizzard listens as well. The amount of gameplay improvements and new content that got added to Diablo II over the years via patches was impressive, and much of that was due to fans posting their ideas on how to improve the game.

You know who DOESN'T listen that really should in my opinion(at least in regard to resurrecting\rebooting old franchises)...Sega.

Technician said:

I don't think id has made a decent game since Quake 2.

I pretty much agree. I mean, Quake 3 and Doom 3 were okay games, but Quake 2 was the last Id game I actually felt excited about.

Shaviro said:

The problem is that id apparently aren't going their own way. They're following behind other companies, but they're dragging their feet and constantly fighting against the direction they are taking, yet still going along.

If they are going the same place as everybody else, what's the point of getting there slower? I'm not arguing that they should be going the same direction as everybody else and they definitely shouldn't stay locked in a 1994 mindset. In my opinion they should throw their history, false sense of security and the current fps direction (or lack of) out the window and start fresh. Do your own thing.

Rage is such a mishmash of ideas and direction. What did they set out to do? To me it seems like the entire game was an attempt to prove that they could do a bright game set in an outside environment and then filling it with semi-modern ideas and features. There was no point to anything. The game ended up being a hollow car-combat game with small combat arenas that you visited. Almost all the missions are completely interchangable and do nothing to further the "plot".

Not to go on a RAGE....rage, but ever since id told us how they envisioned the game and what thoughts were behind it, I knew it'd end up somewhat like it did.

VERY loose quote: "We were making this darkness game that took place on a dark island and suddenly we realized that we had been doing dark games forever. So then we decided to scrap that and make a really bright game....and hey cars are cool right? Let's have some racing in there!"

Actually Shaviro, I'd say Rage is id doing exactly what they want to. The the core of id's design philosophy (i.e. Id's id) is a American ideology know as Way of the gun. Basically, the idea that a gun is a tool used as expression of ones ideas but not necessarily part of the idea it's self. Now, even the most radical NRA lobbyist will admit that a gun needs to be respected because it is a dangerous tool that can kill people. Id's response was to say "OK then. How about we just put you in a place where all you can shoot is Nazis, demons, monsters of chaos, evil alien cyborgs and assholes on the internet so you can learn to respect guns the fun way".

Now, it's not the 90's anymore. People know that guns kill people thanks to documentaries about gun violence. But people are worried about another problem. A newgun. People have been saying for a long time that Cars are dangerous. They cost money to run, they are damaging the planet, and they kill far more people then guns do. The difference is they are not meant to do those things. They are meant be safe, clean, help you get to work on time. If you respect them.

So what did id say?

"I tell you what: Here's the keys to your car and; Opps! a meteorite fucked the world up. Now everyone on the road is an asshole out to steal your shit. Do what you will. We'll even give you some guns to if you like."

I heart id Software.

Captain Red said:

Now, it's not the 90's anymore. People know that guns kill people thanks to documentaries about gun violence.

Even tongue in cheek, you make it sound like people didn't know that guns could kill people before the 1990s. ;)