being a fan of id and a company and their ideas stopped somewhere between quake 2 and quake 3 for me. It's all been a band rehashing their greatest hits and cashing in since then, for me.

Times have changed and the whole industry has changed. I evaluate id now the way I evaluate raven: they are doing what they think needs to be done in an industry that is now entirely different than it once was.

When every moron has a smart phone, games are no longer primarily on computer and they are also no longer primarily for smart people. There's no room left for earth-shattering, genre-defining, satanic counter-culture like Doom was, or Quake was. I have so much admiration for those guys who were able to express a Lovecraftian POV in an FPS back in the day, but even when people try to do it now, it's overdone and it certainly isn't counterculture. 

We need to get czg to go fix id and get them to make a new game based in a Lovecraftian world with proper level design. 

I think Doom (esp. Doom 3)'s vision of hell was pretty boring, and far less interesting than the Lovecraft universe that inspired Quake.

I don't especially think that Lovecraft is overdone in games. Sure, there have been a few games that have been influenced by it, and some that are directly using it, but compared to military FPS games, the numbers are basically zero. 

Every game Willits directed has had terrible level design compared to Doom and Quake. Compare Q1 to Q2 to D3 to Rage. It only went downhill. Q1 SP maps despite being rushed are all little gems of level design. Q2 is a lot more flat and linear, D3 is Q2 but incredibly cramped and slow. Rage is good in a lot of ways but the mission level design is boring as hell.

Doom is nostalgia for me, Quake's 3D approach to maps pretty much made Doom's 2D layouts obsolete. Even though there's a bunch of memorable designs in it. Also when I play Doom I really miss the light mapping which adds so much to the atmosphere.
Funny how FPS level design since has became much more 2D again. Think it has something to do with the size limits and the key system. 

very good in fact. The only issue seems to be that they were too thematically narrow but I think that was a conscious game design decision (compared to quake). 

but most the id quake maps arent that 3d. A lot of the custom maps are but I disagree that the stock standard id maps are more 3d than q2's. 

All your awesome film reccomendations won't save you now!

lol.
out of e1, 3d architecture definitely let them do impressive things (though I guess even e1m5's front could be done in doom, basically), but the only really 3d layouts occur at the end of e1m2, and throughout e1m3/4.

Ziggurat Vertigo was an insane level, especially for the time, but it is a novelty, and for the id levels, 3d level design seems to have been mostly a novelty. I suspect even now, Q1SP hasn't _really_ used the potential of vertical design. 

Just having monsters attacking you from slightly above helps a lot with the 3D feel really.

Having worked with making "pro" maps for a few years now, I am always incredibly frustrated by watching focus test recordings where the player actively refuses to look anywhere but straight ahead.
So many designs and ideas I've had were scrapped because some fucker with a gamepad didn't want to look up and got bored.
And on the flipside; So much time and effort has been spent on environment and events that nobody ever notices up above. 

just disagreeing that q2 had less of it in comaprison. 

games are no longer primarily on computer and they are also no longer primarily for smart people (tronyn)

I am always incredibly frustrated by watching focus test recordings where the player actively refuses to look anywhere but straight ahead. So many designs and ideas I've had were scrapped because some fucker with a gamepad didn't want to look up and got bored. (czg)

This is the bottom line and this is why we can't have nice things. Big budget games are made for the lowest-common-denominator. All a publisher gives a shit about is profit margin, and if joe sixpack can't be bothered with a game where you have to look up, then you'll just get games where you don't need to look up. The same principle applies to other game mechanics and designs.

Maybe some indie developer somewhere will eventually make a proper Quake-style fps and bring the universe back into balance, but I can tell you we sure as shit won't be getting one from the mainstream games industry. 

100 monster base map. 

I always thought that the moment in Portal 2 had a fun nod to the problem of getting players to look up - literally the first thing they get you to do in the tutorial is look up and then look down. "This completes the gymnastic portion of your mandatory physical and mental wellness exercise". And it's not inappropriate for the game, as puzzles often require you to find things on the ceiling. 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-03-26-tomb-raider-has-sold-3-4-million-copies-failed-to-hit-expectations

3.4 million copies of Tomb Raider have been sold in four weeks, publisher Square Enix has revealed, which is not enough to hit the game's sales target.

Fellow Square Enix title Hitman Absolution sold 3.6 million units since its launch in November last year, while Sleeping Dogs sold 1.75 million since last August.

There's no mention of what the company's internal sales expectations were for the trio, just that all three missed their respective marks. 

When I was at Crytek I made a 3D physics puzzle level as a prototype for a new game. The game was rough but it started at the base of a tower and involved the player constantly climbing and looking up to solve puzzles. Spent ages coming up with rope gun puzzles and large world objects to interact with and various safely nets (check points) to prevent the player falling too far down. I then did a walk through video to be presented to the top management. First comment, too vertical, xbox users don't look up! It got scrapped.

As much as we all bitch and moan about players never looking up, I don't think it is an instinct of people to look up. If you asked someone to walk along a street and then asked them to describe the roof top detail, hardly anyone would be able to describe what was there. I don't think this is a game issue but a people issue. 

Or I swear I will just release it un-tested. 

For a shooter sure, but for a 3D puzzle game, is looking around really too much to ask of players?
Plenty of modern games require it, Portal 2, Mirror's Edge, Mario Galaxy...

I guess the problem is that shooters have to be nothing more than shooters nowadays, try to mix anything else into the genre and you alienate 50% of the playerbase. 

I agree. When I travel, I always make a point to take pictures of the ceilings in churches and various buildings because it's just not something I ever look at normally. Then if I have to build one for a game, I at least have some damned reference. Heh.

We have that same conversation a lot with Gears levels ...

"This area is too vertical"

Grr... 

 

I'll test it, I've played through Starkmon like 3 times since I downloaded it a few days ago! Click my name for my email! 

I just discovered triangular LEDs! 

Check your email :) 

I would love to test as well, and send you an RMQ demo. 

I have sent you a demo of my blind playthrough! 

Maybe some indie developer somewhere will eventually make a proper Quake-style fps and bring the universe back into balance, but I can tell you we sure as shit won't be getting one from the mainstream games industry.

I bloody hope so. I'd love to do something like that, but I worry I wouldn't be able to do it, or get enough people on board that know what they are doing to help. The 7DFPS (http://7dfps.org/) challenge from last year was quite interesting, but I don't know if they made and old-skool shooters with 3d level design.

I'd really like to play something like metroid prime but with coop and more action packed gameplay similar to Quake or Doom. Honey was close to that I guess, but I want more!

Actually, the Metroid Prime games were pretty fucking awesome. They had a totally different aiming mechanism to most FPS games though, which enabled very fast action scenes with enemies moving quickly in all directions. Creative ways of solving the won't look up problem do exist, and I think it's just a case of finding them. 

Good call on Metroid Prime - I'm an enormous fan of it (the first GC Metroid Prime at least).

There are tons of ingredients essential to making a game "Quake-style" imo, but two big things (that Metroid Prime also has in spades) that you rarely or never tend to see in action games these days are:

1) Exploration created by the existance of multiple alternate routes and optional areas.

2) Surreal environments that don't allow themselves to be compromised by "realism".

The reason for 1) is I think twofold - a) it confuses the modern gamer who doesn't like to have to make choices or become disoriented even for a second, and b) it's too expensive to develop content that might not even get seen by the player.

2) Is a bit harder to justify - I think people are more comfortable being fed the same shit that they already know (i.e. military-themed shooter in an urban environment), and are probably put off by a game setting that is too alien or wierd to them. I'd like to hear other people's theories on this, because I'm struggling to find a decent reason.