06/01/2000
Name: John Carmack
Email: johnc@idsoftware.com
Description: Programmer
Project: Quake 3 Arena
Last Updated: 06/01/2000 02:51:45 (Central Standard Time)
------
Well, this is going to be an interesting .plan update.
Most of this is not really public business, but if some things aren't stated explicitly, it will reflect unfairly on someone.
As many people have heard discussed, there was quite a desire to remake DOOM as our next project after Q3. Discussing it brought an almost palpable thrill to most of the employees, but Adrian had a strong enough dislike for the idea that it was shot down over and over again.
Design work on an alternate game has been going on in parallel with the mission pack development and my research work.
Several factors, including a general lack of enthusiasm for the proposed plan, the warmth that Wolfenstien was met with at E3, and excitement about what we can do with the latest rendering technology were making it seem more and more like we weren't going down the right path.
I discussed it with some of the other guys, and we decided that it was important enough to drag the company through an unpleasant fight over it.
An ultimatum was issued to Kevin and Adrian(who control >50% of the company): We are working on DOOM for the next project unless you fire us.
Obviously no fun for anyone involved, but the project direction was changed, new hires have been expedited, and the design work has begun.
It wasn't planned to announce this soon, but here it is: We are working on a new DOOM game, focusing on the single player game experience, and using brand new technology in almost every aspect of it. That is all we are prepared to say about the game for quite some time, so don't push for interviews. We will talk about it when things are actually built, to avoid giving misleading comments.
It went smoother than expected, but the other shoe dropped yesterday.
Kevin and Adrian fired Paul Steed in retaliation, over my opposition.
Paul has certainly done things in the past that could be grounds for dismissal, but this was retaliatory for him being among the "conspirators".
I happen to think Paul was damn good at his job, and that he was going to be one of the most valuable contributors to DOOM.
We need to hire two new modeler/animator/cinematic director types. If you have a significant commercial track record in all three areas, and consider yourself at the top of your field, send your resume to Kevin Cloud.
06/01/2000
by Zoid zoid@retrostudios.com
Thursday June 01, @ 10:52AM EDT
http://www.retrostudios.com/
One thing I learned about JohnC with my three and a half years with id--he's extremely to the point.
Well, I'm not surprised that he (and others there) would like to make another DOOM. DOOM was a very successful product and an incredible game. Capturing its spirit will be a challenge since a lot of DOOM's factors were in its ability to give you such an impending sense of danger and power:
DOOM featured rooms of dozens upon dozens of enemies. This was something that just wasn't feasible in Quake or Quake2 with the limitations of the number of polygons on screen. I hope that JohnC has some solutions to achieving this. DOOM had one of the best musical scores of any video game. The monster design was amazing. I remember screaming when I first encountered the Cyberdemon and the fear he instilled into me. DOOM only had LAN based play (and modem one vs one). A proper client and server arcitecture for DOOM based deathmatch would just simply rock. DOOM had insane player speeds. The DOOM guy ran almost twice as fast as the Quake guy did in relation to the world. Such speeds aren't really condusive to internet play since it makes prediction harder. However, I hope those insane speeds make it into the new DOOM.
But there are some issues--when DOOM came out, people were new to the first person shooter genre and one of the reasons DOOM was such a fun game was as you learned how to play you started being able to kill monsters better. These days I (and most experienced players) can run rings around a Cyberdemon and toy with him. DOOM taught me how to strafe, dammit. 
It's a shame to see Paul let go. He was certainly one who didn't have any problem expressing his opinions. But he could sure pound out some amazing 3D models. His work in Quake2 and Quake3 was outstanding--it's sad to see his art won't be in the new DOOM.
A part of me is upset with my own disassocation with id. I would have loved working on DOOM CTF levels.
In any case, I can't wait to see what id can come up with in a new DOOM. I want to be scared all over again.
/// Zoid.
