Further discussion:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=604941
http://kotaku.com/todd-hollenshead-president-...-590514717
http://www.polygon.com/2013/6/26/4468060/id-s...ves-studio
http://www.shacknews.com/article/79936/todd-h...r-17-years
http://www.bluesnews.com/s/142884/todd-hollenshead-leaves-id
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-06-27-...r-17-years

Previous Kotaku article about the state of the company: http://kotaku.com/five-years-and-nothing-to-s...-468097062

things are looking really bad for id :(

Oh no, what will happen to QuakeCon without Todd.

They still have Todd Howard, they'll be okay.

Oh, he´ll still be there.

Maybe they'll have a QuakeCon that gives a fuck about Quake without that pony-tailed moron. Good riddance.

Agreed. The dude spent 90 percent of last quakecon ogling at young girls and proving time and again he couldn't give a shit about quake and/or see it as anything more than a dumb thing for kids, let alone a sport.
cya freak.

young girls > Quake

all that counts is carmack anyway ;-) ...
still id is in *heavy* need of a good game design guru

Carmack just works on his rockets. id was todd. without todd there is no id and no ql.

it is' gg :(

Not. Todd is the dickhead that has mistreated and misrepresented Quake and its fans for years. How the fuck is Todd getting any tears? Dude is a turd.

maybe so but he was the ceo

who they going to get now? can you imagine if syncerror becomes ceo at this point? haha

they both should have been fired a long time ago

you morons, the guy did financial side of company, which is duplicated by the current management bethesda which is why they are saving money to get less jobs duplicated

todd probably did this in advance as he was the original person who did the merge he probably just was planning to retire, and as far as i know he did account and bussiness side of things that hess much less to o with making actual games

you understand that quake will never be a primary concern for them right?


they develop games. they've had serious development issues for the past 10 or so years with mediocre sales. why the fuck would they give a shit about a 20k viewer stream of people that endlessly bash and bitch about their products "for not being like quake" since 1999?

Why didn't anyone speak up against him for doing those things for all those years?

sadly u r right probably,
id's days are gone ...
but rage was not that bad imho.,
some hope is still left for doom 4 ...
though all this project mismanagement stuff is already a bad sign ...
haven't seen any happy ends so far with project mismanagement in the games industry ...

They should sell up to blizzard maybe.
Bliz can poor abit of money in. quakes about to blow up in a pop way, trust. look at viewers for faceit.

ponytail fans are crying about this news

No more death metal in id Software! )

Not good for QL.

Those two dudes back there surely agree.

aw fuck

http://imgur.com/q6Av9Dq

... im not sure what that means for id.

i wish you all the best, todd!

Most of [Id’s] top talent has left or been fired,” said another unrelated source.

It’s not going well,” said another source. “Poor management, poor organization... [Id] just couldn’t nail down design... It’s just a mess.”

Two sources told me that earlier this year, frustrated with the lack of progress on Doom 4, ZeniMax came to Id with an ultimatum: make something happen, or else. The specifics of the threat are unclear, but there are plenty of rumors floating around Dallas, Texas, where Id is based.

One rumor is that ZeniMax threatened to shut down Id if they don’t finish the game within the next year, but two people told me that seems unlikely.

What’s more likely, sources told me, is that if Id can’t get Doom 4 together, ZeniMax could clean house and refocus the company to work on tech like the Id Tech 5 engine, which is currently being used for multiple projects at studios owned by ZeniMax

http://kotaku.com/five-years-and-nothing-to-s...-468097062

looks like house cleaning.

I really doubt that Zenimax would close id, or have id totally focus on just tech. The id Software name still holds clout and still sells games. How the fuck did Rage sell? It was all pushed and promoted based on the fact that id Software designed it. Too bad it was a lump of shit, especially to the medium that made that fuckin company.

Maybe this'll make them focus on titles that WILL make them money. eSports is a big buzz word now and id essentially started the whole thing... maybe they'll be pushed to make a new Quake or something.

rage 2 was cancelled

their entire team (what is left of it) is now working on doom 4 and that just got scrapped/rebooted recently

they are not going to be allowed to focus on other titles. zenimax will make sure of that. Just tech

2011 isn't that recent. Unless you're saying it was rebooted a 3rd time. In which case id is starting to look like 3D Realms.

kotaku isnt always right with their rumors.

yes but rage 2 getting cancelled, doom 4 getting scrapped and ql doing as bad as it is, is all anyone needs to form an opinion about the company and the direction it is going

It has been said that QL isn't doing bad at all. Having a skeleton team maintaining a game makes a difference. It could be better in NA, but EU is sure keeping it rocking.

i never saw anyone talk about quake live in any of the links above. most people do not know id is even working on it

carmack spoke about rage2 even rage1 wasnt released yet. thats highly strange.

what counts is the final state of doom4. i dont want a cod game. restart = good.

>ql doing as bad as it is

when i surf on sites its in the top10 of free2play games.

maybe they decide to repackage rage 2 maps as doom 4

for me its not clear if they actually began the work on rage 2. i must read the 2 sentences from carmack again (quakecon speech, interviews). i believe they were under a lot stress with the rage 1 release date. we can ofc analyse the old leak pics of doom4.

i think the gaming press right now is really stupid to press the finger on a non existed wound, asking pete hines all the time about prey 2 and rage 2. its known that bethesda didnt scrap the rage ip. it makes sense, to built and promote an ip costs a lot of money. who wants prey 2 and rage 2 right now?

question for me is the singleplayer gameplay of doom4. i liked serious sam 3/hard reset. pc gameplay, oldschool design, big places with monster hordes like in classic doom. i played some amazing custom maps with doom2 the last two years. it never bores me, even if clichees are used. hidden shotgun room, a shiny blinking item in the middle of a big place *guess what happens, a door that opens and the whole hell is unleashed. ways you cant see because of some perspective tricks. maybe the time is over for that, its not modern game design. only indepandant studios do that today.

btw i like your posts above. you hit that good.

The correct approach for doom4 is what they did with doom1 and 2: focus entirely on single player, no mp. At most throw coop in there, but no coop-only maps.

yes and no. if modders want to tweak multiplayer deathmatch later, it would be good to have a very basic version out of the box. i read this somewhere, i am not a modder. but a deep focus is not needed, daccord with you. personally i believe id has timepressure and will skip mp. it sounds a bit brutal, im sorry, but no veteran fps player is excpecting a good mp.

It's been almost all downhill since Romero left lets be honest here.

Probably get rolled up into a different Bethesda division soon and then have their IPs used by competent companies.

Then Carmack will probably retire into rockets and be a consultant or something.

QUAKE 3 ARENA

Almost all

Quake 2, Quake 3 and Doom 3 were all done without him.

Can you see the trend?

You got it, buddy.

is this good or bad news?

The general rule is a president/ceo resign is not a good sign.

Add to that the constant struggles in doom3's and rage's development (the only games they made in 10 years), the fact they had to remake doom4 because zenimax thought it was subar and that the quake franchise is a side proyect (2-man dev team with zero exposure), and you have that there's a good chance doom4 will be their last attempt in trying to make AA/AAA games. Also who knows what will happen with QL, maybe a shut down.

On the other hand, from the video interview released in last year's quakecon, seems like Todd was the one who decided dropping quake since 1999 and in QL's specific case. It could be good news for us.

hmm so this guy todd was bad news then. i mean it all comes down to happens next. whoever replaces him. so he was in charge of business for id. what if the next guy just see's QL as something that cannot be saved..........D=

Despite what people think I'm pretty sure syncerror loves quakelive and he probably wouldn't let QL shutdown or at least let the community take over.

Edit: Having said that it might be out of his control.

can an admin post a picture of the pony tailed dude on the news post? looks more professional that wa

Just take and analyze the software which was used to creat Rage world. Everything will be clear as day to you why are there so many problems atm...

GUYS LETS GET 100k CONCURRENT VIEWERS FOR QUAKECON. THIS WILL MAKE THE HEADS SEE POTENTIAL MARKETING WITH QL ESPORT. WE CAN DO IT GUYS! TWEET, FACEBOOK, REDDIT, SPAM SPAM SPAM

Hahaha. I'd be damn happy with 10k. That'd be pretty slick. What did FaceIt Spring Championship hit? 5.3k? Pretty impressive for a game that is primarily pushed by only EU.

if we get this shit to the front page of reddit. get slasher to get all his esport friends to retweet stream, we can do it. i know we can!

I share your enthusiasm for QL but I honestly think that would be pretty damn close to impossible.

Carmac, 2GD and Slasher to name a few were all tweeting the Faceit Spring Championship as it was going on and we got 5.3k at the peak so i doubt we will get much more than that.

didnt slasher also say some big lans were happening at the sametime though? at least 1 dota cup

5.6 max and twitch had issues all weekend
i bet 6k would have happened had twitch been running like usual.
i can see 10-20k max for a lan like quakecon/dreamhack.
we'd have to get out there and hype the game in every corner of the net for that to happen tho. we can't rely on just reddit and teamliquid anymore, we have to expand :>

100k is damn near impossible, lol. we'd need mainstream help for that to happen and i don't see it happening. shame joe rogan doesn't play anymore, he could have provided us with some good support.

it never, ever happened. Without external viewers (featured on twitch or before another game's finals) and no advertising (in quakelive.com, reddit and others), QL's max potential is about 4k.

One can think LANs will get more viewers than faceit finals, but it won't because we already reached the max viewers. The last time that happened was.....one week before it, with the last faceit sunday prior the finals (exact same amount of viewers as the finals), but it also has several times in previous LANs.

the faceit finale had a steady 5k for the semifinals and the finals
i believe the only time it went below was during a break,
so 5k is actually the current max.
a previous week(june 15th) had some spikes of 5k+ but it wasn't steady like it was during the finale, it mainly stayed in the 4k range that day.
quakelive is growing on twitch, that's a fact. whether or not it has stopped growing, well we'll just have to wait to find out.

That's counting external people, since on both occasions it was featured on twitch. Having that spot on the site changes viewers numbers massively.

I mean 4k tops btw, only composed of quakers. That's very rarely achieved, reserved for big LANs that are advertised.

so what if they're external? like lol has 300k viewers of lol players ONLY, same for sc2.

what's your point, other then writing shit just to write shit?

why do you think LoL has so much viewers? It's because it has dozens of millions of players, the most active game now and of all time.

LoL viewers are mostly LoL players. Same happens with quake and everything else: it's not like the majority of baseball viewers are soccer fans. The potential for max. baseball viewers is.....baseball fans, not soccer fans, especially in the case of videogames since they all require to know intricate rules first in order to enjoy watching them, a lot less intuitive than watching a human being hit a ball.

Of course we don't have the numbers, but that's the logical explanation and on stream's chat 0.1% of what's written there is someone asking about the game (out of those half are quake players trolling anyway). It's also backed up by the fact all QL lans didn't have more than 6k viewers if they didn't have external viewers, waiting for another game or because it was advertised on the front page of the biggest games streaming site, even though that never got quake more than 6k still.

LOL has viewers that are not regular lol players, soccer has plenty of viewers who don't have a clue about soccer.

LoL is now the trendy GamerGurrrl :P portal zelda so awesum XD facebook brigade of "gamers"/viewers.

I do a good blitzcrank impersonation.

But you're right about having millions of players, it's just I think there are a lot of quake players that don't know about streams or ESR or anything.

6k+ is IMO doable

edit: would also like to add that I would see Faceit reaching 6k before any quake lans do.

But has never happened (on matches that weren't on the same stream before SC2 or LoL).

Quake alone has reached 4k and 5k plenty of times, but never six.

they did...... during cs:go finals

That's why I said I'm expecting faceit to reach 6k first.
Or should I rather say hoping rather than expecting.

I know twitch frontpage adds some viewers which would technically be cheating, but hey, maybe we can reach more than 6k \o/

you need a serious reality check

This. I watched shit tons of SC2 streams, never played a minute.

Watching SC2 is boring. BW all the way.

you and teenqueen should marry

oh wait

I'm not gay.

I really think that Quake has a massive potential in viewing. All of you are doing a great job in making this a real spectacle.

But what needs to be addressed are the technical problems. If I would not know (and love) the game and would get lags, I would possibly go after 1min. I know it's not your fault, it's Twitch and individual bandwith, but I guess that's the main problem.
Shouldn't Quake actually have an advantage with the graphics being not overabundant so to speak? Btw. I actually fear the possibility of a "new" Quake, although there sure is room for improvement, there is also the risk of messing the original game experience up.. but okay, I'm not an expert, just a viewer who wants this Game to stay.

No. Quake is at a massive disadvantage because the fast movement requires a lot more bandwidth to get the same picture quality as an LOL or SC2 stream where the entire screen does NOT have to be constantly refreshed. This is the main reason why Quake streams for the longest time ran with "Picmip 10".

... I really doubt that's the issue with internet connections this day and age.

Google Fibre is not avaible now in Texas, the guys from Loadout told that on stream once

I have 100/100mbit optical fibre and I still get stuttering with Twitch whenever the viewer rates go up. (It works fine during the days, but at the evenings it's prone to stuttering)

You really think it's the game of Quake and not the fact that the twitch network is maybe bogged down? Heh. Weird thought process.

Geez how stupid are you really? The point I am making is, that Quake requires more bandwidth to broadcast at the same visual quality than a game like Starcraft 2 or League of Legends. Simply because there's a lot more NEW visual data to process every frame.

This is not a secret, nor is it unheard of. And it doesn't matter that people got good internets as it can run just as poorly for them as the vast majority of the world that got shit internet connections.

...are you dumb? Did I dispute that Quake has more information per frame? Apparently, somewhere you read that. I am, however, saying a big "so what?"

Internet bandwidth isn't an issue in 2013. Home internet connections are streaming Quake without an issue. Thousands and thousands of viewers are not having issues with watching it (aside from when Twitch is sucking). Internet connections, bandwidth and data per frame are not an issue Quake needs to worry about.

Whether you think it's a disadvantage to even note is your own opinion. Don't cry when someone has a differing one.

Your argument is a little bit short sighted though. For example are you totally neglecting the bandwidth (and encoding) cost on the delivering resp. server side, where it in fact matters in an accumulative manner.

Put differently, why do you think do twitch's quake streams suck while they're ok with other games?

I've never had issues with Quake streams aside from when there are actual frame drop issues on the side of the streamer.

Well, I'm constantly having them.

First off, your general assumption that "Internet bandwidth isn't an issue in 2013" has little to do with reality. I'm for example living in a rural area where all I can get is DSL with 3MBit downstream, due to the telephone line's attenuation.

For that reason, I'm already incapable of watching streams like they're produced by faceit or zoot without lagging, because they're running at >2.8 MBit to account for all the low picmip detail, but not constantly but in bursts well over 3MBit. Which, as already said, makes them lag for me.

So I've got to rely on twitch transcodes due to these reasons, and those plainly suck for quake in every imaginable respect. They're blurry. They lag. They stink. And why? Because twitch is - understandably - willing to spend only so many resources on these transcodes, due to the cost. And what they're willing to spend - in terms of bandwidth, encoding power, whatever - just isn't enough to produce a good low picmip transcode.

So that's why the poster you tried to shout down with your uninformed generalizations has a valid point. And in more respects than you seem to be able to even imagine.

Seriously, you're going to use rural users as your basis of argument as to why bandwidth isn't an issue in 2013? Canada has an urban population of 80%. United States has an urban population of 79%. Europe as a whole is estimated to be around 82% live in urban areas.

Not to mention it's easy to find out the information on how many people in developed countries are on high speed internet connections.

You really think that the rural community a) contributes at all and b) is a worthy basis of argument for bandwidth isn't an issue? Yea, maybe Quake isn't watchable in buttfuck nowhere Romania but who cares? It's negligible to any game's market.

Source for your figures, please?

Because, by those percentages, I'm certainly living in an "urban" area. A town with 4000 inhabitants roughly 20 kms away from Heidelberg. Lots of people live in these kind of places, certainly in central but even more so eastern Europe, which should be the area contributing most players to the game these days.

But then, yeah, they're having their own streams, optimized for decent bandwidth usage. Guess they're having more of a clue than some other folks have. Certainly more than you have.

Where you're still using that one-sided "everyone should have ample bandwidth" argument. And are totally neglecting the cost. Dumb, dumber, dumbest. That's really where this is going. Like when using the term "high speed internet connection" where my 3 MBit would still be marketed at that. Getting that? I'm having a "high speed internet connection".

Still shouldn't prevent you from naming your sources though. Including the definition of "urban" you're implicitly using there.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL

I didn't even give a definition of what is considered urban. What the fuck are you reading? Clearly, you have some command of English, so tell me exactly what my definition of urban is. I sure didn't write one. You apparently defined it yourself in your head then disagreed with the definition you created for me. I have no idea what is deemed urban nor do I know if your tiny little dick town is considered urban, either.

Based on my source, it is defined by your national statistical office.

Going by the awesome wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_regions_in_Germany

I'm going to lean towards that you are NOT considered urban at all and are a rural peasant with bad internet. In Germany, yes, there apparently are a lot of you who are considered rural. At least based on my source above. Which still means that around 74 percent of Germany's population is considered urban.

Don't be sad you're part of the minority.

You're getting way too serious. I'm leaning towards the "couldn't care less" stance at this point.

Sure you couldn't care less. I wouldn't care less too when throwing around numbers without knowing what they actually mean while trying to support a retarded "it's 2013" pseudo argument to shout down complaints and being called out on it.

So you're giving figures on "urban areas" without knowing what urban actually means. Still more importantly, it's totally unclear how those numbers translate into connection speeds.

For that, you rather should be looking at reports like this
http://www.akamai.com/stateoftheinternet/

Looking at a 3 year old breakdown
http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/11/12/real-conn...the-world/
for example, back then the average speed in Germany was 4.1MBit. Which is about just enough to properly play those faceit/zoot streams. Mind you the average, so a notable number of viewers would not have been able to do so 3 years ago.

So, since you're such a big "it's 2013" fan then maybe do your homework and figure out what it actually means. Which numbers of users are affected by what and, more specifically, have to rely on those shoddy twitch transcodes, and where on this globe.

Once you've done that I may believe that you're possibly having a vague clue of what you're talking about. Where this still wouldn't be enough reason to prevent users suffering from lags and miserable stream qualities from voicing their opinion.

Edit: while at it, you might also want to take a look at average Romanian connection speeds. Specifically in regard to your "buttfuck nowhere Romania" comment.

Ok. You win.

EDIT: Based on your own url, Canada, USA, Germany, etc, were all around the same average internet speed 3 years ago. It makes sense to assume the rest of the world progresses at the same rate, at least in developed countries.

Therefore, internet bandwidth and connectivity isn't an issue in 2013.

Nm, I win.

Win what? The national lottery? Winning arguments might be something narcissistic rhetoricians are concerned with. I'm not.

The points to keep in mind are
(1) a considerable number of users is not able to playback those faceit/zoot 720p+ streams without lags, simply because they're not having the bandwidth for whatever reason, like technical or daddy not willing to pay for it
(2) the twitch transcodes of low picmip streams suck visually
(3) and those twitch transcodes seriously lag often enough themselves.

Part of the problem of course is the amateurish approach of the streamers to their business. Is it anywhere written what bandwidth is needed to playback which stream? No. So somebody with 2MBit downstream might try to play the HD stream, experience lags and complain simply because he doesn't know what's going wrong. And in response comes a loudmouthing fart telling him "bandwidth isn't an issue in 2013". How productive (yuck).

Edit: you're an idiot nobody cares about.

I thought I said something about the fast 3D-Rendering, but my memory fails me.. something like "run as minimal pixel as possible as fast as possible." but no.. since sometimes 1800p with Picmip 0 does work, and it's *** worth it.

There are high times when it's not working, hard to differentiate if the problem lies at the sending or receiving end, but according to chat it's both.. at the main events the servers, definitely. Someone said that Twitch is building new ones in Europe. Let's just hope it will get better :)

those numbers are reserved for LoL events

100k people watching a spinning logo? Doesn't seem likely.

Great news for ID and Quake(con).

Man, am i the only one who enjoyed RAGE ? the ending was lame (there was none), but otherwise i enjoyed it !

I played it last year when i bought the id pack off steam thought it was great fun to play. I never finished it though just haven't had time.

I'm probably top 10 in the world of spent hours in Rage (speedruns and such) and the game has great fps multiplayer potential with some polishing. Interesting movement system (very different from q3) and some interesting projectile based weapons.

do you video some of your runs or do you know some good video runs. wanna see stuff.

There are no good speedruns out there yet but I'm currently working on a single segment run (will be about 25 minutes faster than current WR) that probably will be done by the end of this week. Then I'm doing a segmented run. I've put up some stuff on my youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/Kitinid/videos

your damn fast :)

His what?

His damn fast.

Could you explain the movement system? Also any speed running tricks that relate to the movement. I've never played Rage.

Sure, I can explain rage movement system.


All you have to do is dasdasdsijfsdjvndsdsnfjadsvdjfe sdojnv efs jko dsfn e dsgn e kosdfoncejon oe o ejonves feqw ae fneq ni eq fiek q


You need to alter a lot of settings in the config to make the jumping cool - it wouldn't even be such a disaster if id wouldn't start blocking cvars so the game becomes less and less customizable with each update.

They removed QL equivalent of "toggle" for scoping and crouching if I'm not wrong.

Nah, which settings? :) All I can think of is godmode so that you don't die from fall damage and longer sprint time, but the mechanics is the same without any altering and the jumping is still cool imo. This for example can be done without godmode etc.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuHHJsV_uXw&lc

The sprinting is rarely a problem since you can just rapidly release the sprint key when the guy starts panting to gain full "stamina" again.

Edit: But you're right, it was really idiotic of them to remove all the fun cvars. I don't understand the reasoning behing it "Oh noes, pepolez are doing teh hacks in our singleplayer game"

The strafe jumping is pretty much the same as in quake 3, except you can't gain as much speed in rage. The circle jumps and the ramp jumps however is ridiculous. Also you somehow got more controll over the character, if you use the same technique as in vanilla quake 3 physics when you turn a corner (making a fast circle jump to maintain some of the momentum) you doesen't loose much momentum at all in Rage. Kind of hard to explain. Watch my channel for speedrun tricks (as in tricks to skip parts of the game to finnish it as fast as possible).

The game SUCKS big time.

The launch was disaster with drivers. It really generated a lot of RAGE.
Graphics are good when they are loaded, lol. In modern game, seeing how your graphics are loading in a real time, when you move your mouse too fast is just ridiculous.

Gameplay has a bit fun, but the world consists on a few corridors with few areas to explore. Monsters are pretty much the same, with you progressing. You just have to put more bullets in them, which also sometimes looks questionable: to kill some bandits, you have to shoot like 50 bullets from assault rifle.

Few quests, 1\3 of which are backtracking. Little towns, with almost nothing interesting. Everything really reminds Fallout 3.

The ending was arguably the most disappointing ending ever.

The game is just RAW. And they sold this shit for 50euros.

for an id game it was revolutionary, so much stuff to experience, weapons, turrent, spider sentrys, bombcar, wingstick. i ran around with 2 spiders at some time. if a spider stopped on a obstacle, you could push the spider and it adjusted. and there was a place when a enemy spider came. my and the enemy spider fought lol. in the first playthrough it pissed me off that i couldnt jump on crate. i tried it all the time :D on a harder difficulty you need the crates for cover. it later.hitdetection: you can zoom with the pistol and hit a pixel perfect.

I love rage :)

just stop

noone believes you

you just praise everything id does

No, I'm a freak for anything post-apocalyptic, I think Rage captured the whole wasteland-ish atmosphere quite well and just the way I like to imagine it. Landscape was magnificent (albeit on a rather small map :/ ), huge collapsed buildings, obliterated ground with small holes to crawl into, the characters were colourful, memorable and had great facial expressions. I didn't really dig the whole driving wars thing, I think just driving around the wasteland and exploring the vast map would be much better and would fit the gameplay better.

Sadly Rage falls short on any storyline whatsoever - the game introduces bad guys and good guys and suddenly everything ends. You killed some guys in a chamber which have little effect on the story outcome, THE END.

Was really disappointing :(
Mostly because before I got till the end the plot was promising, each vault equivalent of Fallout had its representing gang, some were vicious, other a bit shabby, then there's big bad government guys -

I really wanted to play another fallout without the RPG elements, Rage was fantastic but holy shit, those texture bugs were annoying as hell.

Overall I would say Rage, (if properly optimized) can be a great gaming experience, I would even recommend dishing out the 5$ when its on sale this summer.

To each his own, there are probably far more popular games that I personally dislike.

Todd Hollenshead and the Q3 Bus 1999
http://popcultureblog.dallasnews.com/2013/06/...ears.html/

should've used those huge scissors on his fucking ponytail, AMIRITE GUYS???

NO, YOURE NOT.

Such a shame, Just give Id 6 months (and hopefully after QuakeCon) to figure out what's gonna happen with them. Maybe good maybe bad, only time will tell.

C A R M A C K
A
R
M
A
C
K

he never was a key person, nor important for the quake movement ,nor an ambassador for us. but he was part of our people, he was with us. it is a loss for our community. however he is not dead! let's tip our hats for him and move on, we lost a good man today but we will remain

I fucking hate being Bipolar. its awesome.

I have long hair like Todd.

ouch, that sucks bro:/
get well

I'm sure he gets lots of sucks :0

Thanks for the laugh, bitch.

u should better get some arms like him ;-)

is this syncherror?

inb4 24

y'all forgetting quake will outlast id software.

will it?

QL is the only quake that can really die 100%, because it can be shut down by id. Where do we go if that happens?

quake 4 :O

:O

Q3 cpma obviously :)

Ulbe 64

Reborn

QLOFFLINE plus community made portals?

This and all alternatives share the same problem: a marginal portion of QL players will transfer to it, therefore the game and community will die.

Shrink for sure, die? na

They're done. Serves them right. Disband, id Software.

why do you want them to disband? you don't want to see them try? are you a quitter?

they have had 4+ years

everyone has given them a chance, including zenimax

time is up

Why is time "up"? Who put you in charge of time keeping?

can you name a game that had more players 4 years into its release after it went live?

i can't name any game besides quake and angry birds, what does that have to do with anything? does it mean you're in charge of time keeping for game developers?

I heard all the cheaters and tierslummers in qlive ran him out. He couldn't take it anymore.

ouch gg?

Hey, that's my line.

Todd was not a smart guy. It's good that id got rid of him.

we were having a good laugh at this in #natdm.ql: http://toddhollenshead.com/ :D

this dude shouldve been fired after q4 imo (whether the website is factually accurate or not!)...

rofl i was just going to post that.

hahah I'm cracking up

lmao

syncerror was mainly responsible for q4 from what i read.

Lol I need to run a taco stand at this quakecon. Maybe I'll be able to pay for a trip to it then

http://toddhollenshead.com/

Memento_Morri is copycat of todd in terms of style of closes/hair and stuff. I spoted that the 1st time i saw memento :P

Could be todd incognito.

They both stole it off unnamedtony... respect.

https://twitter.com/L337Lauren
he mentioned once the name of the wife of CliffyB

"I think having the support of somebody like him - in terms of position within the company - is crucial. It may easily make the difference between the game being shut down, or another business model being tried out."

-Memento Mori about hollenshead
http://www.esreality.com/post/2130975/todd-ho...pid2131504

obviously hes going to work together with 2GD on reborn - heard it here first =)

Reborn is joke.

It takes time to develop games on a shoestring budget.

They should get Av3k to help with that

Does this mean QuakeCon will not be 100 % about the car raffle?

BAWLS

:DICKS

Are these the same personal interests Jessica Alba, band Girls Generation and certain french news anchor pursues in my dreams?

what a dick!

good riddance!!

"finally", I'd like to say, but unfortunately it's invariably the sinking ship that rats desert.

I think Bethesda is chance for id Software, their words about Doom 4: "this game must be popular as Skyrim". I don't know who is Todd, John Carmack is da boss, and talented developers around him, as for me, id Software is philosophy and way of thinking. If Bethesda WANT, they really can find many and many developers influenced by Doom & Quake, most talented and smartest guys in industry.

It depends on how they deal with each other. I think Zenimax can't really decide who are Id's employees.

On other hand, all this really depends on how much money Zenimax already lost.

If Id fails again they will for sure be close to losing any initiative on what they are doing. Losing tens of millions of dollars just can't work.

Doom is brand, Quake is brand and id Software as well IS BRAND. I don't think Bethesda want to close legendary developers, coz Rage isn't fail for sure. Game have many issues, but FPS part is very very good and smooth, very nice feelings, AI, design... if game must be finished and oriented on powerful hardware, Rage must be great game. IMHO. Hope will never die, if id Software is still in business. :)

I don't really know about Todd other than I noticed his name being one of few listed in the Q3 credits.

I think ID has bigger problems than Todd ATM though. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them were internal but my guess is most of them are external.

The FPS gaming world has shifted away from what doom/quake were into two camps: COD/BF3 and gimmicky play offered by games like portal. Before quake at least had the atmosphere of demons and rock music and satanic symbols... but they toned down and threw out most of that to get the Teen rating. =/

Because gimmicks have largely been explored and are very hit or miss I would say ID needs to focus on getting with the times, maybe resurrect quakewars and just blatantly rip off COD/BF3. They should be able to push out something that gains at least 20% of that market share - more than enough money to keep them afloat and fund OUR favorite game titles.

That and they need to suck it up and commit to making a doom game in less than 3 years time.

Quake... I could write a 15 page book on what quake needs.

todd was the media spokesman for many years, before Rage. it suprise me that you never seen him in videos and interviews. before the sale he was id co-owner. about his primary work and decisions as CEO i have no info.

We will see how well the new ROTT does, after that we can judge if there is no interest for awesome 90's shooters anymore.

That said, for me personally, Rage, Doom 4 and what not hold no interest. I don't want to play single player games, I want a true successor to Quake 3, where multiplayer is the main goal.

So as long as they keep making Doom 4 they wont see any money from me, the market is flooded with FPS shooters that have a single player campaign, but there is a certain lack of classic multiplayer deathmatch games like Quake.

Even if the times moved on, I'm more stoked about the new ROTT as for any Call of Dutys or Battlefields.

i honestly thought this guy would be syncherror, wtf

now i found a pic of syncherror, who seems to be a handsome guy

http://esreality.com/?a=post&id=1282724

lol

Todd looks like he playing in Morbid Angel band. :)))

he looks like a german guy from the band DIE PRINZEN
Sebastian Krumbiegel

.

i c wat u did thar

"They just sit around smoking weed and giggling about the next monster they could add to doom. Cooking oven pizzas and trying to maintain fleeting relationships with young air-headed Texas sluts."
Office intern 2011

More like JEALOUS office intern 2011.

weed, adding monsters to game, pizza, sluts, OMG HEAVEN :D

leaving the sinking ship while still possible, smart choice tbh

I don't think this has any significance whatsoever. From my understanding Todd was more or less a sales representative. With id been bought, they might have kept him around if id had churned out games every other year like in the nineties. But with current days' development times there's really little sense in keeping him at was probably was a considerable pay check.

they even deleted him from the id clan roster lol wtf

sounds like an internal fight broke out

I like the theory that id will just be refactored into an engine tech dev for zenimax.

It's been obvious for years now that they can't really make innovative games anymore.

maybe they reunite one day and do it again, like these guys

http://vimeo.com/68489748

I lost respect for this guy after this:
http://www.sk-gaming.com/content/18090-QuakeC...ra_matters

boah, hardcore vid

wow

Ew, that's so disgusting. And nice of Carmac to voice an opinion and collect proof for everybody to witness.

sickening

stratton, hollenshead and syncerror should all be axed by zenimax for that disgrace. total incompetence

that was hard to watch...Cypher displaying so much patient dignity. Just ugly.

As sad as it sounds watching that made me feel pretty sad haha, in my books a LAN or a gaming convention whatever you want to call it should be dedicated to the games not to getting all the free shit just because you can...

I know loads of people who are always like "yeah we'll go to lan and just drink some beers" and all that bollocks but at the end of the day, we all go to LANs because we like watching and playing the games they've got there (or at least Quake when that's there ;) shame this kind of shit actually happens I suppose!

nothing of worth was lost, that guy's a douchebag.

yeh, I don't see why id shouldn't move over to engine tech dev only. They have made the pinnacle of competitive fps that is QL and any further bullshit (like Q5 or Doom4) will just cut the community into pieces.
That shit happened to Quake once already (Q4 hype), but when people realized that Q3 still remained the best duel fps in every way possible the community went back to it's roots.

The best outcome for id now, probably, is to maintain their best talent that is engine development and (hopefully) keep QL alive and blooming. Change the monetary system of QL, maybe, but keep this perfect hardcore challenge alive.

The thing is - the reality won't give us the best outcome unless a force is applied and energy is spent (the only way to fight entropy), hence - QL's only hope r the Quake enthusiasts inside id's bowels.

OR - they can set QL free and open the source code. If it's in JC's hands - he will do it.

it is all out of their control now

I'm not even sure id should make tech anymore.
Leave it to people like Epic and Crytek.

shut up with all the q3 is best talk ...
q3a improved on nothing compared to q1 and q2 ...
q1 and q2 are different, q3a is just inferior compared to those 2 games

bad maps: tourney4 and tourney being the most played maps speak for itselves ...

I am sorry, that you started gaming with q3a and think it is the pinnacle, truth is hitting you hard, but qw and q2 were just *BETTER* ... q3a was just a dumbed down version for the masses (no double jumping ,no bunnyhopping ,symmetrical maps, etc.) ...
don't care that you can't accept the truth and state whatever bullshit how great q3a is ... FACT is it improved on exactly nothning and was actually even a *REGRESS*

shut up with all the q2/qw is best talk ...
q3a improved a lot compared to q1 and q2 ...
q1 and q2 are different, q3a is just superior compared to those 2 games

good maps: dm6 the most played map speak for itselves ...

I am sorry, that you started gaming with q2/qw and think it is the pinnacle, truth is hitting you hard, but q3 is just *BETTER* ... q2/qw is just a dumbed down version for the remaining 5 players (gimmicky double jumps, no play movement animation, unbalanced weapons, etc.) ...
don't care that you can't accept the truth and state whatever bullshit how great qw is ... FACT is q3 improved on exactly everything and was actually even a *PROGRESS*

nice persiflage, but it's just that, nothing else, definitely no counter argument ...

qw had dm2, dm4, dm6 for example ...
q2 had q2dm1, q2dm3, q2dm2, q2dm8
q3a only had q3dm6 and q3dm13 the rest of the maps are just shite ... and q3a was a multiplayer-only game with tons of maps out of the box, just ridiculous ...

and maps are the weakest point, let's head to the gameplay ...
qw, bunny hopping, aircontrol
q2: bunny hopping, double jumping
q3a: nothing, everything removed ...

weapon balance ... it's a matter of taste, can't make objective statement, could as well say it machine gun in q3a is there to make it possible for n00bs to get some frags ... also the railgun is much easier to use in q3a than in q2 for example ... there are pros and cons to weapon balancing, can't make an objective statement

final verdict:
Maps were far better in the previous quakes, and the gameplay wise they have much more to offer than q3a ...

Only thing that is exciting in Q3 is 1on1 and what makes it exciting in 1on1 (balanced weapons etc), makes it suck in all the team based modes. The community is also painted into a corner when being dependant on ID to support the game. It was GG.

it's a matter of taste, can't make objective statement

That applies to more than what you think.

everything can be reduced to a matter of taste if you want to ...
still people with half-a-brain prefer chess over checkers ...
cuz it becomes a bit dull to just move pieces that move diagonally ...

Same in quake, people with half-brain prefer aircontrol and double jumping over nothing at all. For most people who played q3a, it was their first quake, they didn't know any better, it's like beginning to play checkers just moving diagonally, you think this game is the end of the world, until someone comes along and shows you the game of chess, pieces moving vertically, pieces being able to jump like the knight, etc. and a whole new world opens up just in front of your eyes and you realize how much that old game limited and stopped the the development of your mental abilities

People with half-a-brain prefer aircontrol and double jumping, while people with a fully functional brain prefer weapon balance.

Look, these skillful little thingies like aircontrol, ramp jumps, wall jumps, dodgings and dashes are all nice to have, but they're luxury features, while gun balance and spawns are core.
And if the core is broken they ain't worth crap.

cpm has the best weapon balance of any 1v1 fps that i've ever played, that includes quakelive.
random spawns are fine, especially in a fast paced game like cpm.
nothing is broken with cpm, it's one of the best 1v1 games ever made. period.

You could as well play tic tac toe, since the core has a very good balance.
Take q3a weapons and mix it with q1/q2 elements, ql is pretty much that, still lacks aircontrol and more player bounce though, ql is the game id should have done back then, 12 years after is just too late, just imagine what quake could be today, it would still be a great game along starcraft ... In fact it is unbelievable how much success id had with q3a being such a famous multiplayer game, although the game was subpar in gameplay and maps ... When q3 was released id and quake were still major brands and quake was the fps to play, especially in multiplayer. Now after q3 q4 and other subpar titles, the quake brand and id itself just lost a lot of light and these titles are only really known by gamers who were around in the time when these things were crafted

Like immortal said in an interview:
I feel that less natural skill is required to master Quake3. As John Carmack once said I believe "It's designed so anyone can get a kill on Thresh".
http://www.caligirl.net/interviews/q3w/immortal.html

Heres some supporting quotes from carmacks .plan during q3 development

the game will be more entertaining if the inferior players are not completely dominated

we should try to avoid weapon decisions that allow the hyper-skilled to pull even farther away from the rest of the crowd

http://fd.fabiensanglard.net/doom3/pdfs/johnc-plan_1999.pdf

"On the issue of railgun firing rates – we played with it for a while at the slower speed, but it has been put back to exactly Q2’s rate of fire.
I do agree with Thresh that the way we had it initially (faster than Q2, but with the same damage) made it an overpowered weapon in the hands of highly skilled players, which is exactly what we should try to avoid.
An ideal game should give scores as close to directly proportional to the players reletive skills as possible. The better player should win in almost all cases, but the game will be more entertaining if the inferior players are not completely dominated.
Quake 1 had really bad characteristics that way – Thresh can play ex- tremely talented players and often prevent them from scoring a single point. We wouldn’t put up with a conventional sport that commonly game scores of 20 to 1 in championship matches[superbowl blowouts???????], and I don’t think we should encourage it in our games.Eliminating health items is probably the clearest way to prevent blowout games, but that has never been popular. Still, we should try to avoid weapon decisions that allow the hyper-skilled to pull even farther away from the rest of the crowd. They will still win, no matter what the weapons"


http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ycn-10910347

"Eliminating health items is probably the clearest way to prevent blowout games"

It's like the opposite lol. Imagine dm13 with no health :/

wow,

"Some reasonable messages have convinced me that a single immediate
jump after landing may be important to gameplay. I’ll experiment with
it.
Strafe jumping is an exploitable bug. Just because people have practiced
hard to allow themselves to take advantage of it does not justify it’s existance. When I tried fixing the code so that it just didn’t work, I thought it
changed the normal running movement in an unfortunate way.
In the absense of powerups or level features (wind tunnels, jump pads,
etc), the game characters are supposed to be badasses with big guns.
Arnold Schwartzenegger and Sigourney Weaver don’t get down a hallway
by hopping like a bunny rabbit.
This is personal preference, but when I play online, I enjoy it more when
people are running around dodging, rather than hopping.
My personal preference just counts a lot. :-)"

lol
he wasn't joking about trying to make the game for himself.
i believe the early q3test's betas limited strafe jumping to 3 times max! your avatar would have to take a break from jumping after 3 consective strafe jumps. it's crazy to think that q3 was like that at one point.

know what else,
i've gotten the same vibes from 2gd, when he has talked about the reborn.
His description of the early game(quake4 clone, no lg, dumbed down movement system) sounds like something that would fit perfectly with his playing style. It's going to be a sad day if the game ends up being like that :/

qw and cpm take a lot more mechanical skill than q3/ql, it's not even close.
good ql players can take months off and not lose any skill.
that's not possible in qw/cpm, take a month off and you're going be struggling to get back to where you were at. If you don't believe me, ask purri, vo0, andysak, or ddk their thoughts in a private chat.
look, quakelive is a great game, but if something came out that had support and improved upon it(quake 5, quake 4.1, reborn), i'd ditch it in a heartbeat.

ID made quake by mistake, weren't strafejumps and so on just a bug of the engine? Seriously, what made quake a competitive game was the community and the modders. The game became completely different once people learn how to play it, i always said the standard quake 3 client was something like an open beta that anyone could create a full game of it. ID never realized what quake actually was or what they could have made with it...

These guys didn't give a damn about keeping the scene, if they did they would have hired different people all over the world from mappers to coders, build a newer platform with an improved interface for competition and attract crowd for the sole reason of watching some guys playing against each other. Instead they just took advantage of the hype the game had back then to organize different events with the main purpose of marketing.

This should have been done in 2003 or something, when people would just go to Internet-cafes and they would just play q3 cos it was the cooler choice. If they knew how to build a competitive game quakelive (or whatever it would be called by now) would have way more skilled players right now, like big leagues, big prizes and big media events. What's the point of doing this 10 years later?

In my usual group of friends is essentially formed by gamers and they didn't know shit about quake, after some LAN meetings and shit they started to know a bit more about how the game works just by watching or talking about it, and lets be honest, I'm not big thing in quake but they all respect me cos i "can" play it.

Too bad ID was run by nerdy assholes and not by guys with "sportish" mentality.... but hey, we will always have LOL, right...

* they would just play q3 cos it was the cooller choice

Fixed.

Nearly every great game I've played was created by fluke/mistake not in tune with the original vision the game designers had (Team Fortress and Quake being the two largest examples)... And its simply becuase Game devs/designers are not gamers themselves, and certainly not competitive gamers, they never have any sort of clue =/

This why so much blind optimism for Reborn, if it were to come out it would literally be the first fps game to be released by a true fps gamer who actually knows what competitive gaming is about and can bring to the table. Too bad it won't ever come out probably D: (hope to be proved wrong!)

Team Fortress? As far as I know there wasn't some fluke or mistake when it came to QWTF. The mod was fucking amazing or are you talking about TF2's success?

In that case... yea, I got no clue how that game is popular. Dumbest FPS out there.

talking about the design.. and tf2 is actually way more in tune with their original gameplay visions back in the 90s.. not the bhopping conc jumping rocket jumping water sharking chop hopping insanity it became and evolved over the last 15+ years :)

Actually, as an extremely competitive QWTF player in my younger years, bhopping hadn't really been 'discovered' yet. It was hardly known and hardly used. This would've been around 97/98.

If TF2 is what they wanted QWTF to be, then I'm damn glad it was a fluke because TF2 is an atrocity.

so true

Cypha the snypha won't miss him.

Cypher is already missing Todd. Why do you think he himself decided to retire as well?

whoever kept id software small, carmack or hollenshead... it´s economical, but didn´t do them good in the long term. games quickly became much more complex than they were in id´s heyday. you can´t make advanced graphics today with a few guys, no matter how good you are. now there are hundreds of people working on a game, with budgets rivaling movies. see, id made a game every 1-2 years in the nineties, then suddenly slowed down to a game in a decade after q3 (same thing that broke 3drealms´ back btw). to make things worse, id tech 4 specialized with indoor lighting (which still looks nice, imo), but the upcoming military shooters required large outdoor areas. competing engines were better at this. i like rage, but it´s obvious that graphics by dice or crytek look more advanced. perhaps id should have listened to romero when he wanted to go big after quake... well, he left, was unsuccessful with ion storm, and to the guys at id this might have looked as if staying small was the best solution.

or maybe coke n' hookers

"...you can´t make advanced graphics today with a few guys, no matter how good you are. now there are hundreds of people working on a game, with budgets rivaling movies..."

Maybe a little off topic, but as an example I want to mention that Blizzard has been working on Diablo 3 for many years, with a large team and a major budget, while on the other hand there is Grinding Gear Games, a small team of dedicated gamers, who have created Path of Exile. With a modest budget, they've created a game with acceptable graphics, free to play (!) and everything D3 should have been.
Of course, an action RPG is totally different from an open world FPS, but GGG proves it can be done.

Sometimes I even happen to think that the everlasting battle of graphics improvement and increasing complexity of games come at the expense of overall gameplay experience.
(Not to mention the money it takes to be able to play new games, like an average €500 a year in my case.)
I cannot say that I like gaming these days a lot more than I did 15 - 20 years ago. I even think the most fun I've ever had while playing games was back in the days of Doom 1 & 2, Quake, Unreal and Warcraft and the likes.
Hell, I even liked Boulder Dash, River Raid, Knightmare, Hyper Rally, Kings Valley and so on on my cool MSX Yashica a lot better than many nowadays' games. That was almost 30 years ago...
We are some spoiled brats altogether, it seems.
I've never asked for graphics improvement, but like almost everyone, I've been poisoned with it.
As for the growing complexity of most games, there's the lack of time to play and the aversion to spend 5 hours only to understand the gameplay itself. That's why I like to play QuakeLive so much I guess.

As for Todd, I wish him all the best.

The graphics of PoE are more than acceptable, IMO. Such a gorgeous game.

This could also be the pickup+lodbias talking. xD

i get it. you talk about gameplay design. and a good shoot of "i grown up with that". i think you and i are just emotional detached to old games. but games in the past were for kids. and we arent that anymore :)

Yeah, I guess you are right about the nostalgic part.
But aren't nowadays games also supposed to be for kids as well (as for grown-ups)?
True, we aren't kids anymore, as much as I'd like to be sometimes. But your statement says that we have to grow up linear to the increasing complexity of games.
If old games were for kids and modern games are for grown-ups like us, who's gonna play games in 30 years from now?
Imho that's the exact reason why free to play 'hey I have half an hour o' spare time today' Warcraft 1 or PacMan like games are so popular these days.
There's a line somewhere.
Large gaming industries tend to cross that line by trying to increase graphics and inventing real time auction houses and stupid stuff, and forget the initial target group of people willing to play a game for a few moments of fun. Their target group is significantly decreasing.
It's quite simple, people don't want to spend unnecessary money and unnecessary time to play games. The bar is often set too high.
Problem is, there's so many of those 'easy to play' games on internet now.
And as we all know, tastes differ quite a lot..
Conclusion for gaming industries: invent something new.
Constantly.
The market becomes exhausted, there's too much competition in gaming development. When a group of few folks can create a game more popular than Diablo 3, for free, being Blizzard you're doing something wrong.
Nonetheless Badb0y, I have the feeling I'm not giving the modern kids enough credits. They're prolly a lot smarter than we were back then. But to invest millions of dollars in a game over eight or so years doesn't seem to be very wise.
Dunno if I've been putting this all very clearly, I've had a couple of beers and also I'm Dutch. I pity the guy who has invented the English language.
But in my limited mind it's all clear.
Well, gaming industry is tipping over to... ehrm... I dunno.
Guess that's why I'm Toilet_paper.

some things you said i must overthink another time.

i think there is a target group for each game, analysts everywhere these days. its better to do a more consens game to appeal many target groups.

well the "grow up stuff" is much more complicated under the surface. maybe like music taste. which type is a player, going with zeitgeist, stuck in the past, something between. but i think there is data somewhere. i read once most people are stuck in music taste when they are around 20. my childhood was c64 games with perverted hard difficulty settings. i didnt spent much time in the present to go back to play these sado-maso things.

for me theres 2 new things in fps after doom. medal of honor was like a hollywood movie. and stalker melt with rpg. so what we have now?

doom likes (past raven games maybe, hard reset and serious sam 3 from indi studios, to come: wolfenstein 2013/shadow warrior and rise of triad reboot)

medal of honor likes (cod adapted the formular with effects/cutscenes but overdid id, today its heavily influenced with console gameplay and quicktime events)

stalker likes (crysis 1 open world. borderlands. dead island. metro series is maybe a mix of stalker and cod)

about doom4, its impossible for a major studio to go retro, they need the new kids. if a studio is interested in money and zeitgeist, they would go doom/cod style. but this is on many layers contrairy to each other. each gameplay decision manifests a style and negates the other style. so can a doom/cod mix be done in a good way?

"so can a doom/cod mix be done in a good way?"

Maybe a bit far-fetched, but...
Let's assess the housing market in Holland.
The demand for housing has been huge in the past decennia. Even better: in the past centuries.
As a result, the number of building companies has been rising proportionally. Almost disproportionally.
Every observant entrepreneur has been leaping into this 'white hole' of promise.
These days, there's a huge decrease in the demand for housing (which I think is a good thing, 'cause 7 gigs 'o humans is more than enough for this planet. But who am I to say that my neighbour's wife, who wants to have at least 8 children just for fun, is morally being as smart as a trainwreck...).
Therefore, building companies are going bankrupt by the dozen.
Amazingly fast, really.

Crisis, they call it here in Holland.
I for one do not begrudge anyone from making a good living.
But I happen to think it's mere logic.

Remember, housing is just an example.

Gaming industries are still in the 'growing phase'.
New developers are hopping in like flies on horse sh*t, 'cause there's money to be made.
Or so they think.

Only, there are only so many people available to play games.
The number of people paying games has increased, I know.
However, with the increasing amount of different consoles, different types of gameplay per console, different gaming developers and so on, different target groups have been created likewise.
You can put as many game analysts on a new game as possible, but the offer of gameplay variety has grown larger than many posters' egos on ESR.
It's rather useless.

To put it simply mathematical:
In housing, not many years ago there were 100 companies building 10000 buildings a year.
Now there are 150 companies building 5000.
"Yay, Imma choose construction engineering when imma hit university".
NOT :-).

In gaming, in the early days, there were 10 developers creating games for 100,000,000 worldwide. Leaves ten million potential gamers.
Now there are tens of thousands devs creating games for 1,000,000,000 worldwide.
Leaves a hundred thousand potentional gamers per game.
I know, it's not all black and white like I stated, but it's pure logic. Call it toilets' law or whatever.

So, to answer your question:
'...can a doom/cod mix be done in a good way?...'
Of course it can be done. I'd be very happy, prolly just like you, when 'they' do it.
But it is impossible to hit the right spot with a shooter, when you expect millons of players/people to buy the game.
Like I stated in my previous post, Blizzard has been spending tons of money trying to do the same thing wih an RPG, while in the mean time, some dedicated dudes created an even better game, or better put: a better experience, for free.

Seeyah Todd best of luck with all your future endeavors!!! Id just lost it's biggest fan and spokesperson...

See you @ San Fernando valley.