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Layoffs hit ID Software Today

RoboPlato said:
Fuck, this sucks. Rage was fucking awesome and gets way too much hate. One of my biggest surprises of 2011. Hope everyone lands on their feet since they're all super talented.
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I don't think Rage got all that much hate, people here seem to like the shooting, id's biggest claim to fame is their graphics tech but aside from running at 60fps, visually it just wasn't much of a jaw-dropper, the shooter genre is too overcrowded and when you're launching near BF3 and MW3, you're going to get hurt.
 
ProfessorMoran said:
I don't think Rage got all that much hate, people here seem to like the shooting, id's biggest claim to fame is their graphics tech but aside from running at 60fps, visually it just wasn't much of a jaw-dropper, the shooter genre is too overcrowded and when you're launching near BF3 and MW3, you're going to get hurt.
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Bingo. Plus the texture loading was unforgivable on PS3
 
I don't really think this is suprising.

RAGE shipped, and bombed.
Doom4 is using the same tech as RAGE so get rid of some tech guys. Sounds like the reasonable "management logic" we are used to.
 
SneakyStephan said:
Your first shot had diceroll spread (before recoil kicks in) , unlike in any other arena or oldschool shooter ever made.
That alone completely killed the game for me, you get in he groove and twitch headshot people left and right but get denied by the game.
It made the hit detection feel like SHIT.
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Is that true? Hate diceroll when it comes to shooting.

padlock said:
No. Because they could have made a more exiting game.

Id games used to be a huge event to PC gamers. Think Blizzard or Valve levels of hype.

Unlike Blizzard or Valve however, that hype was heavily based not on gameplay, but on the incrdible graphical inovations their games introduced. Going multiplatform prevented that, causing Id to really only on it's game design prowess to attract attention. Obviously, it didn't work out to well.
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What gameplay design innovations were there?

Going multiplatform wouldn't have prevented id from making the best-looking console game possible which is the market they're competing in, they simply didn't make a game good-looking enough to compete against what was out there.
 
I really liked Rage on the 360. I hate it on my PC because it has horrible pop in and a frame rate that is all over the place. This is on a i7 with a 6970. I hope they can get things figured out.
 
DaBuddaDa said:
id Tech 5 is in-house only, it's not being licensed, and id Tech 4 is dried up.
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And even then, only Prey 1/2 and Brink licensed idTech 4; the rest of the games based on the engine were IPs owned by id.

Id hasn't been much of a player in the engine licensing arena since Quake 3. That was supposed to change with idTech 5, but either no one was interested, or the delays in shipping Rage made it impractical (previous iterations of id's engines were not delivered to developers until after the first internal game based on that IP shipped, which means no one could have published a game on it until late 2011 even if they wanted to use the technology).
 
FoolsRun said:
And even then, only Prey 1/2 and Brink licensed idTech 4; the rest of the games based on the engine were IPs owned by id.

Id hasn't been much of a player in the engine licensing arena since Quake 3. That was supposed to change with idTech 5, but either no one was interested, or the delays in shipping Rage made it impractical (previous iterations of id's engines were not delivered to developers until after the first internal game based on that IP shipped, which means no one could have published a game on it until late 2011 even if they wanted to use the technology).
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I thought the Call of Duty games are using a heavily modified version of IT3

edit: fixed in bold. disregard my post
 
Aselith said:
How was that trolling?
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R0mwI.gif
 
Gattsu25 said:
Thanks, updated my post.Trolling? What the hell are you on about?
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It's a trolling point for me that I use every CoD engine thread. Hence at least get the trolling point right.

Even Carmack's trolled CoD about it with "You know your engine is good when it's still being used ten years later." (Yeah, how is that working out for iD Tech 4/5, Carmack?) like two-three years ago when the series was still in high-gear.
 
TheSeks said:
It's a trolling point for me that I use every CoD engine thread. Hence at least get the trolling point right.

Even Carmack's trolled CoD about it with "You know your engine is good when it's still being used ten years later." (Yeah, how is that working out for iD Tech 4/5, Carmack?) like two-three years ago when the series was still in high-gear.
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Okay. So this is all just a misunderstanding, then.

You incorrectly inferred hidden subtext that wasn't there from a question asked without any passive aggressive intent.

Stand down, soldier.
 
DerZuhälter;34169738 said:
I don't really think this is suprising.

RAGE shipped, and bombed.
Doom4 is using the same tech as RAGE so get rid of some tech guys. Sounds like the reasonable "management logic" we are used to.
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Yes. They're eliminating redundancies now that Rage is out the door. We will still see Doom 3 and Rage 2. People can stop freaking out.
 
Not sure what Zenimax will want to do. Given the circumstances today as a fan I would like to see an independent id at a very small size that is flexible in what they do.
 
Grayman said:
Not sure what Zenimax will want to do. Given the circumstances today as a fan I would like to see an independent id at a very small size that is flexible in what they do.
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This is exactly why it took five years to make DOOM 3 and seven for RAGE. They just can't stay small, independent, and solvent all at once in this day and age.
 
didn't rage win several e3 awards in 2009? it should have been release that year. they also had a lot of ads everywhere 1 year before it was even released. in addition to all that, the MP in rage was crappy.
 
Always a bummer but not surprising after what I played of Rage on 360. All the talk of awesome huge textures even on consoles meant nothing to me when just turning would have so much pop in I'd get headaches.

The classic troll way to talk about a games graphics is the proverbial "stand in a corner and stare at the low res rock!". Unfortunately this game was the opposite to a harmful extreme, that rock texture was GREAT...until you moved.
 
Sucks for those who lost their job, but this better not fuck up Doom 4.

Rage can go sit in the yellow/brown corner with Borderlands for all I care.
 
Sciz said:
This is exactly why it took five years to make DOOM 3 and seven for RAGE. They just can't stay small, independent, and solvent all at once in this day and age.
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I was thinking going larger than indie but not 150 person studio. Rage size is not solvent for them. I really think their strength would have been at getting smaller again after doom 3 and going mostly digital.

Their gameplay is great, they still have good level designers, carmack can make a game look great with tech and lighting. They would not have had the Polish wages but a post doom 3 id could have made a game like Hard Reset in size and sold it at full price.
 
NullPointer said:
A dog, crossing a bridge over a stream with a piece of flesh in his mouth, saw his own shadow in the water and took it for that of another dog, with a piece of meat double his own in size. He immediately let go of his own, and fiercely attacked the other dog to get his larger piece from him. He thus lost both: that which he grasped at in the water, because it was a shadow; and his own, because the stream swept it away.
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wow best non car analogy ever
 
ProfessorMoran said:
Is that true? Hate diceroll when it comes to shooting.



What gameplay design innovations were there?

Going multiplatform wouldn't have prevented id from making the best-looking console game possible which is the market they're competing in, they simply didn't make a game good-looking enough to compete against what was out there.
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Carmack's desire for cross-platform equality mandated that the textures be equal across all platforms, which in turn meant that the PC and PS3 versions were also limited to ~21GB (2x X360 DVDs for SP, another for MP). There is no technical reason as to why the textures of the PC and PS3 versions of the game are not vastly superior. In other words, they're garbage due to both Carmack's aforementioned goal and the X360's reliance on DVD.

However, id Tech 5's lack of "next-gen" features such as motion blur and dynamic HDR lighting is indeed a limitation of the engine (at least in its current form) and not a result of multiplatform development.
 
JaseC said:
Carmack's desire for cross-platform equality mandated that the textures be equal across all platforms, which in turn meant that the PC and PS3 versions were also limited to ~21GB (2x X360 DVDs for SP, another for MP). There is no technical reason as to why the textures of the PC and PS3 versions of the game are not vastly superior. In other words, they're garbage due to both Carmack's aforementioned goal and the X360's reliance on DVD.

However, id Tech 5's lack of "next-gen" features such as motion blur and dynamic HDR lighting is indeed a limitation of the engine (at least in its current form) and not a result of multiplatform development.
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I freely admit to not following the tech side of the game very closely but after reading a few interviews I was under the impression that the textures of the PS3 were bottlenecked more by the split memory design and increased OS memory footprint present on the system than by any limitations present due to platform parity.

Agreed on the PC version, though. The fact that the PC version shipped broken for 1/2 of the PC customers didn't help.
 
Id's keys to success for both themselves and their parent company. BTW they wont do this.

1.) Doom 4. Make sure to get it right this time. The last game teetered between realism and arcadish gameplay and suffered for it. There is a lot you can do to be loyal to the game and still be modern, but skeletons with rockets on their shoulders and guys that turn into tanks isn't going to work. Imp's, pinkies, and maggots do work. Find what will work and mix in some new enemies.

2.) You have one of the best engine builders on the planet in house. Use him. Between the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series Bethesda needs an engine that is tailor made for what they do. (We swear it's not) Gamebryo has been adequate for them, but they could do so much better with an engine that is custom built for large worlds with lots of objects to keep track of.

3.) Let Zenimax license the engine. There is nothing wrong with licensing your engines out to your competitors. I don't see Epic complaining. And an engine that is built around the concept of large open worlds would sell very well in this day and age. When you consider how many open world games there are nowadays and how attractive this kind of engine would be for them I could see this being a very nice source of income for Zenimax and maybe even a way to ensure that Id gets to keep it's autonomy as long as the money is coming in.


I think it's a good plan. But usually good plans don't happen, and it doesn't seem like the kind of thing Carmack would go for anymore.
 
I bought RAGE day one and sold it before finishing disc one.

I was pumped for RAGE; even took a vacation day so I could spend a three-day weekend with it. The two biggest problems I had were with how lifeless the overworld felt and how instanced and dungeon-like the rest of the game felt. None of it felt organic or connected, which I've gotten used to with other games.

The shooting felt great, I liked the weapons, and I wish I'd seen the game to the end, but I had just forced myself to finish Dragon Age II and couldn't put myself through that again.

Considering RAGE is now $20, I may pick it up again for the backlog and see if I can force myself through it.
 
Gattsu25 said:
I freely admit to not following the tech side of the game very closely but after reading a few interviews I was under the impression that the textures of the PS3 were bottlenecked more by the split memory design and increased OS memory footprint present on the system than by any limitations present due to platform parity.
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Textures are held in VRAM, and while 256MB certainly isn't much even at a 720p resolution, they could've been better in the PS3 version. The quality of the textures in the game isn't a matter of resolution or inherent detail, but rather data compression. If you look hard enough, you can find textures with visible compression artefacts!

Agreed on the PC version, though. The fact that the PC version shipped broken for 1/2 of the PC customers didn't help.
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On that note, I can't believe it took AMD well over a month to finally get its OGL support in order. The only explanation I can think of is that nvidia hired literally every professional OGL programmer on the planet.

I H8 Memes said:
Id's keys to success for both themselves and their parent company. BTW they wont do this.

1.) Doom 4. Make sure to get it right this time. The last game teetered between realism and arcadish gameplay and suffered for it. There is a lot you can do to be loyal to the game and still be modern, but skeletons with rockets on their shoulders and guys that turn into tanks isn't going to work. Imp's, pinkies, and maggots do work. Find what will work and mix in some new enemies.

2.) You have one of the best engine builders on the planet in house. Use him. Between the Fallout and Elder Scrolls series Bethesda needs an engine that is tailor made for what they do. (We swear it's not) Gamebryo has been adequate for them, but they could do so much better with an engine that is custom built for large worlds with lots of objects to keep track of.

3.) Let Zenimax license the engine. There is nothing wrong with licensing your engines out to your competitors. I don't see Epic complaining. And an engine that is built around the concept of large open worlds would sell very well in this day and age. When you consider how many open world games there are nowadays and how attractive this kind of engine would be for them I could see this being a very nice source of income for Zenimax and maybe even a way to ensure that Id gets to keep it's autonomy as long as the money is coming in.


I think it's a good plan. But usually good plans don't happen, and it doesn't seem like the kind of thing Carmack would go for anymore.
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I don't think the engine being limited to Zenimax-owned developers (and perhaps also Besthesda partners) was a call made by id. After all, the announcement came after the acquisition. Surely, if id had planned earlier not to license out the engine, Carmack and co. would've mentioned as much seeing as it flies in the face of previous id Tech iterations.
 
"As part of its standard business practice, id regularly evaluates staffing to ensure it has a workforce that meets the needs of the studio. As part of that process, some id employees were recently let go," the statement reads.

Despite the layoffs, the publisher additionally noted that it is "still recruiting and hiring qualified developers" for id Software, and that "development work on future id titles continues unabated." id Software is currently working on Doom 4, the next entry in a long-running franchise for the studio, as it has been for the past four-ish years.
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http://www.joystiq.com/2012/01/10/bethesda-confirms-layoffs-at-id-software-work-on-future-id-tit/

Not so bad news? Shame they got fired though, still I'm sure they'll be back on their feet soon enough.
 
For what it's worth, the reason I passed on Rage was because all the promotional imagery for it was centered around ugly, deformed mutants scowling in a desert. I don't care if the technology and raw graphical prowess were excellent - aesthetically it just looked dreadful.

So my advice to id for future games would be to work on fixing that. I think we've reached the point in games where your artistic design is more important than your graphics tech.
 
I'm thinking Doom 4 will sell no matter what. Doom 3 was their biggest commercial succes.

And a lot of people who weren't nostalgic towards the original doom games loved Doom 3.

And considering that it'll be in a closed environment with dynamic shadows at 30fps on consoles. It will look very impressive compared to the other game out there imo.

Rage already looked great for current consoles imo. The overal production values were great as well. The details on everything and animations were some of the best out there.
 
KareBear said:
That would not work out well on a console.Look at how Quake Arena Arcade turned out.
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They were so wrapped up in the PC version, they did not give a crap about the XBLA version. If they wanted it to be awesome, they could have done it.

id need to get working on Doom 4 and make it old-school and awesome. They could also knock out Quake HD in the meantime to remind people what kind of shooters id make.
 
Raide said:
They were so wrapped up in the PC version, they did not give a crap about the XBLA version. If they wanted it to be awesome, they could have done it.

id need to get working on Doom 4 and make it old-school and awesome. They could also knock out Quake HD in the meantime to remind people what kind of shooters id make.
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Arena shooters are horrendous on consoles. The only way shooters work on consoles is by slowing them down 1000%, adding auto-aim and or magnetism, and limiting weapon selection. All of which goes against classic arena shooter design.
 
I think the failure was megatextures. They thought it would save them time when the artists dont have to think about the texture memory budget that they could use. But instead of saving them time they needed 7 years to make it work right. If they had used traditional texturing they would have ended with like 4 years i guess.
 
MTMBStudios said:
I think Rage would have probably gotten more buzz and success if it was touted as a big balls out PC exclusive shooter like when Crysis came out. At least then it would have had something special about it...
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LOL
Wow PC gamers are really grasping at straws here.
Rage bombed because of a open world that was not on par with current open world games & the interior levels were a lot of linear cramp one way paths.

That just don't fly today's gaming.
 
See You Next Wednesday said:
LOL
Wow PC gamers are really grasping at straws here.
Rage bombed because of a open world that was not on par with current open world games & the interior levels were a lot of linear cramp one way paths.

That just don't fly today's gaming.
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sounds exactly like today's gaming. I found Rages levels to have just enough design to them to be interesting. They were not straight hallways everyone else is selling.
 
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