id Gets Bought Out

[Dr. Zin]

Don't know how to post this on the news forum, but:

http://www.cnet.com/8301-18603_1-10272030-73.html

Carmack says he is staying with the company.

[Hitherto]

FUCK.

[Dr. Zin]

If you read deeper, Carmack and Hollenshead said that it was because Activision wanted to use the well known id franchises with its own development studio, and keep most of the profits. This probably going to mean more games actually from id, not the slew of installments produced by third party developers on id properties, as we have seen recently.

[Creaphis]

Meh. If this is a good move for them then it's a good move for them. Times change, etc. I don't feel particularly attached to their current games or crew, anyway; they aren't the group that made "Doom" anymore, not since a monkey had the stones to go to Dallas.

[TheeXile]

Ya'll lost your patience with the News submissions system, huh? :P

[Nems]

I'd say that I'm neutral/apathetic/indifferent about this move. However, it does bring up some concern (at least for me) as it pertains to Doom 4 in terms of publishing. Bethesda Softworks' track record when it comes to use of SecuROM in their last two games (Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles and Fallout 3) has been poor. I'm not tech-savvy enough to know how to get rid of SecuROM, if I can still play the game without SecuROM, and if the newer versions of SecuROM are better about not raping my PC.

My concern in regards to SecuROM comes from this part of RYG's site as well as other parts of the site with information on RYG.

Hopefully when Doom 4 does get released id will have enough sense to make sure the game doesn't have SecuROM on it. Again, I'm not really tech-savvy in regards to this, so hopefully if I'm wrong about something someone will correct me. :v

EDIT:

TheeXile said:

Ya'll lost your patience with the News submissions system, huh? :P

Totally. :U

[TheeXile]

Only thing that could concern me is if this somehow changes Id's policy about releasing their engines as open source in the future.

[Nems]

TheeXile said:

Only thing that could concern me is if this somehow changes Id's policy about releasing their engines as open source in the future.

I forgot about that, too. D:

[Nomad]

Creaphis said:

Meh. If this is a good move for them then it's a good move for them. Times change, etc. I don't feel particularly attached to their current games or crew, anyway; they aren't the group that made "Doom" anymore, not since a monkey had the stones to go to Dallas.

That's about how I feel. It's a surprise, sure, but I don't really care either way. I haven't particularly cared for anything id has put out since at least quake III.

[Bastet Furry]

I hope that this will get rid of the fuc^h^h^hreal bad Gamebryo Engine in TES games.
[dream]The Elder Scroll V will use Tech5![/dream]

[CODOR]

Actually this probably isn't that big of a deal... id has been Carmack's playground for a while now and I don't think this will change that much. It might even encourage them to release more in-house games.

Hopefully it doesn't change Quake Live or any plans they might have had to release the source to Doom 3.

[Enjay]

Creaphis said:

Meh. If this is a good move for them then it's a good move for them. Times change, etc. I don't feel particularly attached to their current games or crew, anyway; they aren't the group that made "Doom" anymore, not since a monkey had the stones to go to Dallas.

Precisely my feelings.

[Aliotroph?]

The SecuROM in their last couple games basically amounted to a CD check. It did nothing else and the game was ridiculously easy to pirate. No computer raping there.

I'm curious to see what happens when the tech guys from Bethesda start talking with Carmack. Wicked engines, anybody?

First Bethesda game I played was Terminator: Future Shock. Many reviews at the time called it a DOOM clone. It wasn't. It was something different and weird. Damn high-tech for its time. Also happens to run quite nicely on the newest DOSbox.

Maybe Carmack will convince Bethesda to open source some olde code. That would be neat. Ancient freeware games like TES: Arena could be made playable and liberated from their nasty control schemes.

[Nems]

Aliotroph? said:

The SecuROM in their last couple games basically amounted to a CD check. It did nothing else and the game was ridiculously easy to pirate. No computer raping there.

Ah, okay. Thanks for that info. (:

[ReFracture]

My only hope is that from now on Bethesda can concentrate on making good games and not technology.. because frankly, the gamebyro engine is a piece of shit.

[Gez]

Nems said:

I'd say that I'm neutral/apathetic/indifferent about this move. However, it does bring up some concern (at least for me) as it pertains to Doom 4 in terms of publishing. Bethesda Softworks' track record when it comes to use of SecuROM in their last two games (Elder Scrolls IV: Shivering Isles and Fallout 3) has been poor. I'm not tech-savvy enough to know how to get rid of SecuROM, if I can still play the game without SecuROM, and if the newer versions of SecuROM are better about not raping my PC.

Securom Removal Tutorial

That said, as far as I know, the SecuROM code used in SI and FO3 is only run when you insert the disc and let the autorun do its thing. If you have disabled autorun and just manually launch the setup program, you bypass it. Also, for Fallout 3, it's integrated to a DVD check when you start the game from the Fallout 3 launcher. But if you start the game by running Fallout3.exe directly, you bypass it again.

As a matter of fact, I was able to install FO3 on my computer (to test if it would run, as I wasn't sure it would, given my GPU is a bit old -- and indeed it didn't) and did not get securom crap.

Mike.Reiner said:

My only hope is that from now on Bethesda can concentrate on making good games and not technology.. because frankly, the gamebyro engine is a piece of shit.

Beth already concentrates on games. Gamebryo is licensed from Emergent Game Technologies. When Beth did their own engines, it wasn't bad at all -- the Xngine (used in Terminator Future Shock, Terminator Skynet, Daggerfall, Battlespire, Redguard and maybe one of the car games they were making back in the days) was really powerful for its time.


However, if they switch from Gamebryo to Idtech, then there is the hope to see the source code in the future. Something you shouldn't expect from EGT.

[40oz]

Hmm. At first I thought what happened to 3d realms is happening to id. Guess not. I doubt it's much of a loss. They don't really do anything doom related anymore anyway.

[Technician]

JohnnyRancid said:

They don't really do anything doom related anymore anyway.

DOOM Classic for the iPhone

DOOM RESURRECTION, DOOM 3 styled rail shooter for the iPhone

DOOM 4

[Aliotroph?]

My buddy just found Doom for his phone running Android. Will be interesting to see how playable it is since it's somebody else's port.

I always thought the Gambryo engine was in house, since I recall them saying it was built from the engine they used in Morrowind. It's also similar in terms of things like map structure to the Xngine. I don't think it's a horrible engine. It lets them build a big game much faster than any Quake-based or Unreal-based engine would allow. All of id's engines are designed for crawling through tunnels, except for maybe id-Tech 5.

FO3 was the first Bethesda game I've played in a long, long time that felt mostly finished on the first run through. Oblivion only starts to feel that way with a load of huge mods tacked on. Same goes for Morrowind.

[leileilol]

I hope id software doesn't become 'licensed game bitch' only rolling out generic Cthulhu, Elder Scrolls and Terminator games rather than being the new frontier of game engine technology.

[Rankle]

Nomad said:

That's about how I feel. It's a surprise, sure, but I don't really care either way. I haven't particularly cared for anything id has put out since at least quake III.

True there is no point being a fanboy these days

[Gez]

Aliotroph? said:

I always thought the Gambryo engine was in house, since I recall them saying it was built from the engine they used in Morrowind.

Gamebryo (formerly called NetImmerse, which is why its models and animations are stored in files with the .NIF extension) is also used by games such as Freedom Force, Prince of Persia 3D, Civilization 4, Dark Ages of Camelot, Axis and Allies, Zoo Tycoon, Warhammer Online, and more. The very stage of development for Morrowind used an evolution of the Xngine, but they dropped it quickly, all they did with it was a "concept prototype" that would showcase how the game would look and feel.
http://www.emergent.net/en/Clients--Titles/

[Sharessa]

It didn't get bought out, it changed publishers. Nothing to see here.

[myk]

Danarchy said:
It didn't get bought out, it changed publishers. Nothing to see here.

http://www.idsoftware.com/

[Csonicgo]

so does this mean that carmack has to make his game engines buggy as all hell now? I swear that has to be bethesda policy.

[Zaldron]

90% of the replies in this thread are infuriating.

[Enjay]

Zaldron said:

90% of the replies in this thread are infuriating.

21.6 infuriating replies eh? ;)

In what way are they infuriating?

[Technician]

Zaldron said:

90% of the replies in this thread are infuriating.

Hate Cauldron

[Reisal]

As long as they don't dick around with the source code for Doom, I'm all good.

[Technician]

I don't think this could possibly affect the release of the source code on any of their games they released it for thus far.