Todd Hollenshead leaves Id

[Jonathan]

But Id's management culture has always been dysfunctional: Tom Hall left due to conflicts with John Carmack, Romero was fired, Adrian Carmack was fired and sued in retaliation, Paul Steed was fired - allegedly for conspiring with other employees over making Doom 3, American McGee was fired, and I'm sure there's plenty more cases that never reached the public domain.

Whatever Id's strengths as a company, employee harmony and retainment have never been amongst them, and in that sense Hollenshead getting fired is just more of the same, even if this time it's a result of corporate diktat rather than intra-company intrigue. At least it might lead to the imposition of an effective management regime, rather than just more of the same.

To me, the narrative of Id as a plucky family of game developers being mistreated by a corporate behemoth just doesn't ring true, because, unlike the examples Quasar listed, I don't think the team was really all that cohesive to begin with. Now the modern Id seems to struggle for an identity as anything other than "the place where John Carmack works" and "the company that made games you loved during the 90's". Ten years ago, a talented game developer fresh out of college would have dreamt of going to work at Id. Nowadays, I'm not so sure.

[printz]

Oh come on, Doom 3 wasn't so abysmal to warrant saying that id has become next to nothing after 2000…

[Gez]

printz said:

Oh come on, Doom 3 wasn't so abysmal to warrant saying that id has become next to nothing after 2000…

It's not because of Doom 3 that people say that.

Id is a company without a direction. It wanders blindly around. By chance, it struck gold early in its history, with Commander Keen, Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake all being literally game changers for the PC scene. Smooth platforming! Super-fast raycasting! Fast pseudo 3D! Fast real 3D!

Since then though, they've done nothing noteworthy. Carmack stuck in his way of trying to sell his games through being a clever wizard and devising some innovative new thingamajig in his engines, but frankly there never was the same qualitative leap as there was between Wolf 3D and Doom, or Doom and Quake. By focusing entirely on the tech side of things, he has created as many problems as he solved (Doom 3's darkness because the engine couldn't handle too many lit things on the hardware of the time; Rage's spectacularly botched launch because of all the driver problems since it used radical new OpenGL features that nobody had bothered implementing yet, etc.).

[Touchdown]

It's not really fair to expect id to revolutionize the industry. The times where a smart move could break new grounds and become 'the right direction for everyone' are long gone.

[myk]

I suspect ZeniMax was aware id was already in its old age when they bought it and that the id team wasn't likely going to last too long, going for the DOOM, Quake and Wolfenstein brands as assets rather than the future of the id staff.

Wizards of the Coast bought TSR in 1999 and they eventually got rid of TSR as such and the TSR brand, keeping the D&D games. This could be similar. Carmack is the remaining cornerstone of what id was, so they'll likely keep him as an engine coder or technical adviser as much as they can.

[Gez]

Touchdown said:

It's not really fair to expect id to revolutionize the industry. The times where a smart move could break new grounds and become 'the right direction for everyone' are long gone.

Exactly, and that's the problem. They want to keep revolutionizing the industry -- remember all the technical hype about megatextures and stuff that Carmack engaged in shortly before Rage's release?

They should instead focus on making good, fun games; but Carmack wants to make a new Doom, a new Quake, and it's not a viable plan anymore.

(Especially now that most of the market is on consoles, meaning that you get stuck with having to cater to aging hardware; and even PCs do not progress as fast as they once did.)

[OpenMaw]

On the contary. Computer hardware is increasing in power exponentially. The difference just five years ago compared to today is insane.


And I don't think it's fair to say that Carmack is the problem at id. Not at all. His technology has always been the finest stuff out there. Wolf 3D to Doom. Huge leap. Quake 3 to Doom 3. huge leap. Rage is certainly not the next big thing, but it was actually at least a semi different kind of game from id, and although it had some issues, I think it was still a decent outing.

[exp(x)]

OpenMaw said:

Computer hardware is increasing in power exponentially.

Not really. Single thread performance definitely isn't, at least, and you can consult Amdahl's law for the implications of that.

[DooM_RO]

OpenMaw said:

On the contary. Computer hardware is increasing in power exponentially. The difference just five years ago compared to today is insane.


And I don't think it's fair to say that Carmack is the problem at id. Not at all. His technology has always been the finest stuff out there. Wolf 3D to Doom. Huge leap. Quake 3 to Doom 3. huge leap. Rage is certainly not the next big thing, but it was actually at least a semi different kind of game from id, and although it had some issues, I think it was still a decent outing.

The difference in computing power may be huge but the difference in games is not all that big. Most games still struggle to reach Crysis ONE levels of graphics and that was 5 years ago.

I agree about RAGE, it was not the next big thing in graphics, in was a COMPLEMENTARY feature for the Art Style. A thing like Megatexture was bound to happen sooner or later because I've noticed that the more you increase texture resolution, the more texture repetition becomes obvious. The problem with megatextures was that like Doom 3, it came out too early. Now the hardware relative to their release could most certainly run the games at a satisfactory or a bit more level, the problem was that the hardware was not good enough to use the engine to its full potential. In the case of Doom 3, they had to use darkness in order to increase performance and were restricted to cramped areas while the megatextures in RAGE require a lot of memory for texture streaming and a lot of space to deliver them at a DECENT quality.

I think we can go even further with Id revolutionizing technology too fast, as far as Quake actually. I think that 3D came in a time when the industry had not matured as much as it should have and at a time when early 3D models were actually uglier than quality 2D. I consider Curse of Monkey Island to be superior to Quake in terms of VISUALS(not necessarily graphics) than Quake because of that. Also, for this reason, we never really tapped the potential of 2D art, which (potentially) has a timeless quality to it and we are only just rediscovering the advantages of 2D. Finally, 3D graphics directly led to AAA games. Just to be clear, I am a huge admirer of beautiful 3D graphics and AAA games, it's just that I think we got this stuff before gaming was ready for it, it's like giving booze to a 15 year old and expect him to be responsible about it...but this is a story for another time.

[Da Werecat]

DooM_RO said:

A thing like Megatexture was bound to happen sooner or later because I've noticed that the more you increase texture resolution, the more texture repetition becomes obvious.

Probably the funniest thing about Rage is that it still have copypaste. And I'm not even talking about sewers, although it's the most jarring example.

DooM_RO said:

Also, for this reason, we never really tapped the potential of 2D art, which (potentially) has a timeless quality to it and we are only just rediscovering the advantages of 2D.

Most prominently, we rediscovered giant pixuls. Giant pixuls all the way.

[Fulgrim]

Komenja said:

Hopefully the former.

Given the dev-hell that DOOM 4 is in, I'm going to say the latter. If an when Doom 4 comes out I see it as the make and break game for the company.

[DooM_RO]

Da Werecat said:

Probably the funniest thing about Rage is that it still have copypaste. And I'm not even talking about sewers, although it's the most jarring example.


Most prominently, we rediscovered giant pixuls. Giant pixuls all the way.

So you think Mark of the Ninja is an ugly game?

[Da Werecat]

DooM_RO said:

So you think Mark of the Ninja is an ugly game?

I have no idea. Never played it.

[Touchdown]

I have to say, I don't buy into the whole doomsday scenario that everyone is convinced about. I'm not ruling it out completely but somehow I think a lot of it is an exaggeration.

Also, as unpopular as it is, I actually really like Tech 5 so far. Most of the criticism really does seem like just people being more picky than they should. It's not a universal engine that can do anything, no one's arguing with that. But then again, not every engine should be. I can appreciate having amazing graphics and still maintain a steady 60fps. Sure, Battlefield 4 looks better but think of a rig that's required to run it at max settings even at 30fps. A lot of the things will improve especially now with new consolse raising the upper limit and personally I'm excited for future Tech 5 projects.

[Phml]

Even I noticed the texture quality issue in Rage, and I'm the guy who usually scoffs at people who care about such things. The contrast was simply too jarring.

[Touchdown]

It is a valid complaint, both texture streaming and low res textures in certain situations. But I've always accepted it as a trade-off for unique texturing and 60fps. Obviously I'm in a minority because it's clear most people prefer to stick their noses into walls rather than appreciate breathtaking vistas at silky smooth framerate.

And again, this will improve. Carmack pushed for 60fps on 360/PS3. Target 30 on current gen or any framerate on new consoles and there's a lot more power and memory to use on that.

[Phml]

Obviously I'm in a minority because it's clear most people prefer to stick their noses into walls rather than appreciate breathtaking vistas at silky smooth framerate.

The first glimpse I got of the texture issues was specifically *because* I don't stop and look at walls. It's impossible to fail to notice low res textures on all the scenery being replaced by a higher res texture in front of your eyes as soon as you make a quick turn. It was evident as soon as I exited the vault you start from and tried to get my bearings. Is now the part where I should make a dismissive assumption about people who supposedly play too "slowly" to notice, possibly with "inferior" control schemes (gamepads)?

For that matter, art direction and execution are so much more important to good visuals than engine choice. As the player, why do I care if idtech5 uses megatexture or whatever? As far as I understand, the point is so no detail is repeated and the artists can paint unique stuff. From the perspective of someone who doesn't press his nose against the scenery with a magnifying glass, common textures are enough I never notice the repetition, if the level design is competent, using the right amount of contrast to break monotony, the right amount of focus to direct my gaze, and so on.

Also, while Rage looked good, no questions, I can't say I'd qualify any scene in the game as breathtaking. I certainly don't remember anything in particular, just struck me as your standard post-apocalyptic industrial desert setting. Ok, here's a part I remember: the aforementioned exit of the vault, with the mining pit and all - because the texture issue was so jarring I thought it might be a glitch, a driver error or whatever, and I alt-tabbed, did some research and tried several things. So that part I can remember.

Borderlands 2 certainly looks a lot more vibrant and interesting, and maintains 60 FPS on a current gaming rig. I could probably describe about half of the zones in that game by their visual style and their memorable landmarks, and that game has a lot of zones.

Dishonored was fairly pretty as well; and if you played this one, you might recall it had fairly atrocious texture quality. But here, it's the kind that only pops up if you stop and look, unlike Rage, and Dishonored's art direction was so distinctive and full of character it didn't matter. The game being a console port, needless to say it easily runs at 60 FPS on PC.

Smooth 60 FPS is critical for me, especially in a FPS, so I appreciate and applaud the focus Carmack has on that. The texture issues haven't stopped me from playing (and enjoying) Rage start to finish, but I haven't noticed any advantages either, so of course I'm going to see a game where the entire experience, including visually, is smooth, as the superior experience. Whether this game is powered by megatextures, tesselation or magic pixies to achieve that, who cares. End result is what matters to the end user.

[Touchdown]

I guess I was prepared for that. Right before the release of RAGE Carmack talked a lot about all the issues, including texture streaming on quick turnarounds. I kind of accepted that, much like when flashlight thingy was described in DOOM 3 previews, as 'ok, that's how it works, fine'. It never bothered me nearly enough to complain about it.

I consider multiple scenes in RAGE to be breathtaking, especially in the Wasteland (bridges and stuff). Jackal Canyon looks amazing as well. I do agree though it's a 'standard' post-apocalyptic setting. That's one of my main general complaints about the game.

Of course the end result is what matters. I'm just saying I appreciate the engine and I disagree with the excessive criticism. The question whether one notices repetition and when is open for discussion. Artists certainly appreciate the possibility of stamping layers on textures until they're satisfied without having to worry about limitations. Users, apparently, do not care that much. I'm really curious what kind of tech related responses will Wolf and The Evil Within get upon their releases, it'll be interesting.

A random note: Dishonored is amazing.

[Da Werecat]

Phml said:

Also, while Rage looked good, no questions, I can't say I'd qualify any scene in the game as breathtaking. I certainly don't remember anything in particular, just struck me as your standard post-apocalyptic industrial desert setting.

The whole Ark/Outrigger territory is a masterpiece. I'm sort of a fan of this particular theme, and the Borderlands games are a little too corny with their cel shading to pull it off the way I like.

[Orchid87]

Bethesda/Zenimax is not an "evil corporation" by any means, they've produced Arkane's Dishonored and the damn game was a breath of fresh air in the genre. It's just the lack of creativity on the id part.

id should just die and Carmack should join the Oculus Rift guys and work on the awesome technology (both the game engines and the hardware) that other game developers (like Bethesda themselves) could license for their work.

And Doom 4... since Zenimax owns the franchise now thay should've just gave it to Arkane. I know that Arkane works on Prey sequel but who really cares about Prey? Let's face it, Doom 4 by Arkane (with Carmack's engine obviously) would be more awesome than Doom 4 by today's id.

[Waffenak]

Todd isn't as irritating as willits. Carmack and Romero should just shake hands and start doing stuff together. Romero steps to ID office singing:" Here I come to save the day" and rest of the old team follows him inside. Not gonna happen but it was cool imagining it to happen.

[Da Werecat]

Making another Daikatana is not everyone's definition of saving the day. :trollface: