The man speaking in the ballroom was John Carmack and he is one of the most influential people in the history of video games. And a rocket scientist, for that matter.
His keynote opened QuakeCon 2008 and he talked about id Software, the upcoming Rage game, Doom 5, QuakeLive and the future of mobile games. The speech was almost three hours long and revealed a plethora of very interesting information. Below is a rundown of what Carmack talked about:
Quake V is put on hold
QuakeLive was originally supposed to be a test of the infrastructure for the upcoming Quake Arena project. This game has been put on hold and after finishing Rage, id Software will focus on releasing Doom 4 rather than Quake 5.
The future of Quake V hinges strictly on the how QuakeLive does. If QL is a resounding success with millions of players, then Quake V will be a project that major game publishers will be more interested in.
QuakeLive's name
Originally announced as QuakeZero, QuakeLive owes its name to the resourceful person that bought the quakezero.com domain name and offered it to id Software. The project was a couple of weeks old at the time and the company decided to rename the game rather than give in to "blackmail."
QuakeLive expectations
id Software was thinking of a six-month project with QuakeLive, as the engine was already there. It turned out that the website part of the game was really the challenge and there were many things that the company needed to learn.
The very first beta phase brought in about 100,000 registered users to the site without any much prmotion. id hadn't known whether to expect 50,000, 500,000 or 5,000,000 registered users initially.
The next pure deathmatch game
"You cannot do a $50 game which is that pure" is what Carmack had to say about the possibility of releasing another Quake Arena boxed game. He expressed the view that games are there to entertain people and while one component of the game can be the challenge, this compononet cannot be the entire game.
This is the case with QuakeLive, which is why the game is free and will run on in-game advertising. This means that most likely we will not see another major esports-dedicated game in the foreseeable future.
PC versus console
"Big budget, media-rich titles are not coming back on the PC."
The PC is a suitable platform for making video games because of it more powerful hardware than console, how it makes better use of the internet and also because "keyboard and mouse are still the best way to play an FPS game." A large round of applause followed the last quotation.
Multiplayer in Rage and Doom 4
Rage's multiplayer will be focused on co-op rather than player vs. player. Doom 4 is aimed to be an excellent single player experience. id would love to have a great multiplayer mode for D4 but that is not the focus.
SK Gaming asked whether they could try to build a game from the multiplayer up the same way StarCraft 2 is being built and Carmack said that they tried it with Enemy Territory and it did not work out for them. He said that we could expect Doom 4 will be a large enough game to create a rich multiplayer community just from the number of players playing it.
Enemy Territory and in-game advertising
If QuakeLive is a success, then the a similar online project might be carried out with Enemy Territory (or even Doom). In-game advertising is not what fits into every game, though. While billboards feel like an integral part of a QL arena, it might be strange to see people running around fighting nazis with a Coca-Cola commercial in the background.
QuakeLive ideas* You should be able to sit down at any computer anywhere and play the game with your personal settings.
* The users will not have to patch the game or download the latest mod - the website will do that for them.
* QuakeLive will also have a match-making system that will pair up players with similar skill levels.
* The game will gather various stats, give our player achievements and rewards, there will be sponsored tournaments and there is a possibility of sponsored maps as well.
* While the infrastructure is able to support random mods for the game, it is the company's choice for QuakeLive not to support them.
* QuakeLive will most probably be also available on the Mac.
Rage is a shooter
The racing section of Rage which was shown in the movie promoting the game is not going to be a main part of the game. It will be an action FPS shooter with elements of racing and a couple of race courses in the game.
Carmack said that he wouldn't want to talk about Rage at the QuakeCon keynote in two years so we could expect the game to be finished by then.
EA, Rage and being an independent studio
Activision, Electronic Arts, THQ and Sega were interested in being publishers for Rage. id Software is generally linked with Activision but signed a deal for Rage with Electronic Arts.
id Software does not sign long-term agreements but chooses to work with publishers on a game-to-game basis. They can afford to do so and dictate the terms to a certain extent for as long as each of their games is a success.
id Software's franchises
Asked what he thinks of game publishers releasing sequel after sequel of the major games these days, Carmack said that he supports the idea. For him it is essentially taking the game that people enjoy and making it even better. Some publishers say that they cannot produce enough of the game that people love.
In the early days id Software did not try to do that and wanted their games to be unique, from nazis in Wolfenstein 3D to hell in Doom to "whatever it turned out to be" in Quake. Now id Software has got more franchises than they can realistically handle (Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake, Orcs and Elves and now Rage).
Cell phone gaming
Carmack has talked at length about the future of mobile gaming. He said that the iPhone is essentially as powerful a platform for games as Nintendo DS and that it could become very important for mobile gaming.
id Software and an MMO
After Doom id as a studio was thinking of going towards "persistent multiplayer gaming" and to make RPG games. They were a small company at the time and decided not to go after something which is not their core competency.
We will not see id go into the MMO market on the PC but Carmack hinted that this is could be very likely on the cell phone plaftorm.
Open source
The Doom 3 code will be released in open source for everyone to use most likely after Rage is out. Carmack has plans of continuing the release of id's code as open source but has highlighted the danger that someone could want to study the code and sue id over a part of the code they had patented for millions of dollars.
How great will those games be?!
OMG
(What kind of game can be Quake V ?) Waiting with UT3 ...
Hah! I guess the fact you completely ruined the core mechanics of the franchise and used a shitty engine has nothing to do with the fact the game was bad. Please take off your rose tinted glasses and come back to reality.
ET was the game and still is a very good game.
but what ID did with it latter.... i leave it without comment. :(