Yeah, the first gun sucks major ass, but it gets better when you have more firepower. 

I'm reading through this article, and seeing stuff like this:

"The time I spent at id was a revelation to me. It was the first time I had ever seen a team of highly talented, extremely creative individuals at work on one project. I found it absolutely irresistible."

"when I saw the group at id, I realized that I was aching to work with other people � people whose artistic visions and abilities would give me a daily jolt of awe and inspiration."

"I knew they had licensed the Quake engine, which was the only technology that really interested me. I couldn�t understand why someone didn�t take the best engine they could get, namely Carmack�s, and use it to tell fantastic first-person 3D stories. Needless to say, when I finally got a look at what Valve was up to, I felt an immense cosmic click." 

In a few different ways, Valve finished what id Software started and abandoned.

1) Good level editor - Hammer after acquiring Worldcraft
2) Taking single player story telling and taking what Quake did and extending to new heights. (Half-Life for starters, ..)
3) Taking multiplayer and extending it to new heights .. Counter-Strike ---> Team Fortress 2 ---> CSGO
4) An integrated store with user ids and built-in accounts, with options to purchase more stuff --- Steam, obv.

id Software went the other direction, boiling Quake deathmatch down to a pure "bots"/multiplayer direction ---> Quake 3 Arena.

id went to the simple route, Valve went the diverse route.

id Software is a ghost of what it could have been, Valve maximized what it could become to the limit. 

I think what "killed" id was really the creative loss they suffered around Quake, to be honest. Carmack drove the company in a very technical direction from that point on, and I think the real legacy since has been the technology they produced. Q3A may have been barebones, but the id tech engine for that game went on to power a good chunk of the industry, even to this day. (Call of Duty, as far as I know, is still built on top of the codebase they started with, which was id tech)

I think what's hurt them now is the expanded requirements of gaming. Competition is rougher, and engines need to do more and do it better as well. Newer id techs just don't grab as many eyeballs as they used to, and the licensed engine business has been dominated by a few core companies, none of which are id. 

What was the question?

This seems like a cool article, thanks for the link. I had no idea Laidlaw had worked @id. 

Oh, I forgot to remove the title before posting.

I couldn't formulate the question. 

I guess my question is� that there seems to be no place for such an environment in today's world anymore.

Sometimes I have the impression that if Carmack was starting today, he would have no chance. Neither Romero, or most of the others from the beginning of id.

Carmack evolved his knowledge from Hovertank 3D to Quake III Arena in just 8 years, creating most of the tech by himself. But he had a supportive team by his side. They trusted Carmack's potential, and helped him so he could keep studying and coding for as long as possible. I don't see this happening in any company today.

The more I read about id's history, the more it sounds like a fairy tale. Too good to belong in today's world. 

Well, if you count infighting that cost the company Hall and Romero, it wasn't the happiest of fairy tales. 

 

Seriously?

You can't say "small team cannot make popular game" today.

Ever heard of Minecraft?

Most popular game in recent history completely undermines your statement. 

I guess if id were starting today they would be an indie dev team. 

It's not about popularity (although that helps to pay the bills). On the contrary.

It's about creating amazing ambitious innovations, with bold artistic expressions that aren't afraid of taking risks or becoming unpopular. About having a rich and strong creative vision and following it.

The infighting was a collateral effect, but they still managed to create truly inspiring things no matter what. 

1) The early works of id Software were not works of art. Commander Keen? Wolfenstein? Doom? Quake 3?

2) They were targeted specifically to be POPULAR.
2a) Blood and guts everywhere
2b) Berserker powerup in Doom, enemy turns into bloody pulp when hit.
2c) Evil "God mode" looking powerup
2d) Nine Inch Nails sound track and NIN on health boxes? I don't claim to know much about NIN but I think they were a popular band in the 1990s.
2e) Carmack giving away his Ferrari in a tournament? He was about being cool.
2f) Quake 3 arena announcer saying cool stuff in a super-manly voice like "Excellent"?

I do not know what id Software you are talking about, but it isn't this one.

/You can make part of that argument about Quake about art, if you successfully ignore all of their early works and also ignore Quake 3 Arena.

Note: Being unpopular in business = no sales. 

 

Holy fuck, I just wrote a 5 paragraph reply about this and bloody Chrome thrashed it.

Anyway. Id wasn't afraid of pissing people off. They didn't want to be "popular" as in pleasing everyone. Their games weren't bland watered down crap with hands-holding gameplay. They didn't play safe when developing their games.

Their primary goal wasn't about being popular. It was about giving excitement to people, no matter how controversial their means could be. It was about building a loyal audience with people who liked the kinds of things they were creating. This is not the same thing as trying to please everyone. 

...people who liked the kinds of things they were creating...

Yup, that's what being popular means. 

"It was about building a loyal audience with people who liked the kinds of things they were creating. This is not the same thing as trying to please everyone."

Spot on. Not everyone around were gore / thrash metal / NIN fans back then nor are they today. They were definitely making games for like minded tastes. The games themselves were good which got them success despite their vibe.

They could of also gone a more clean star trek / star wars / marathon vibe but no their thing was thrash metal horror movie culture stuff, with lovecraftian stuff and dark industrial sounds later on with Quake.

After that point though they lost the aspect of creating a consistent vibe within their own "pop culture", surely due to the team breaking apart or the teams evolution of taste going separate ways.

Doom 4 is in those vibes now by design to punt on the nostalgic aspect. The teams are way too large now to have this kind of thing organically appear.

Luckily a pretty decent effort was made of it, they sure hired the right music guy, they seems to also have hired the right art guys etc etc.

And we should not forget to thank Sergeant Mark IV for Brutal Doom, without its demonstration of the popularity potential of ultraviolence in this context I don't think Doom4 would of been what it is. 

And we should not forget to thank Sergeant Mark IV for Brutal Doom, without its demonstration of the popularity potential of ultraviolence in this context I don't think Doom4 would of been what it is.

Without the Br�tal Doom inspiration, I have a strong feeling that Doom 2016 would've been yet another major disappointment. 

 

Gobbledygook, Hogglewash 

 

For all those who weren't completely a fan of the Quakeguy jump sound and his noisy landing. These are the "huhmp!" and "ooph!" sounds redone using the footsteps used in AD as a base:

Jump: jump.wav
Jumpland: jumpland.wav

<engages shield> <braces for flak> 

Talk above on id's history reminded me of some of the things Carmack said in his BAFTA speech this year.

"I can remember when I was a teenager, and I was convinced that I'd missed the golden age of Apple II gaming, that I would never get to be Richard Garriott," [Carmack] told the audience.

"The opportunities I had aren't there for people today, but there are new and better ones. And, personally, I'm more excited about these than any that have come before."

Source

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-04-12-thank-you-for-this-honour-but-im-just-getting-started 

video

General overview of the history of id while he was there, with a few Quake bits at the end + he answers a few Q&A questions about Quake. 

http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2016/40/1475744709-night-sentinel-ranger.png
I saw it too fitting since I always saw Q1's human bases as a mix between raypunk and dieselpunk, adding a mix of medieval into it just fits.