DOOM: Own tech gives us an enormous advantage

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id having the best tech isn't news. RAGE might've been a flop in some ways but they did build what seems to be an amazing engine. I am sure having Tiago Sousa take over after Carmack wasn't exactly devastating either
 
While Id does make good engines, the fact no one else uses them makes you question the financials behind doing so.
 
While Id does make good engines, the fact no one else uses them makes you question the financials behind doing so.

I'm not super familiar with their newer tech, but their previous engines were used by countless games.
 
I'm not super familiar with their newer tech, but their previous engines were used by countless games.

Each engine has had limited use; it's typical that each release gets 5-6 games that run on it. The engines are not really licensed much given that developers have long preferred DirectX to OpenGL.
 
Each engine has had limited use; it's typical that each release gets 5-6 games that run on it. The engines are not really licensed much given that developers have long preferred DirectX to OpenGL.

So, wikipediaing each engine, I'll have to agree on anything post id Tech 3. The newer ones all seem to be Quake, Doom and Wolfenstein games lol
 
So, wikipediaing each engine, I'll have to agree on anything post id Tech 3. The newer ones all seem to be Quake, Doom and Wolfenstein games lol

Which is fine with me. I mean, I'd love to see some Raven games return to the engine, Hexen maybe? Really though, id and only a small handful of other devs seem capable of making these engines shine like they should. Raven, Arkane, Machine to name a few that have used Tech 4 or higher. Ritual and American McGee made decent use of Tech 3. A ton of people did quite a bit with Tech 1 and 2. (The Source engine was basically Tech 1.5 for the longest time.) That says a bit about the types of studios that can use them correctly.

That said, I've heard REALLY good things about id's code, the way they comment, the cleanliness of it, so you would think it would actually be easier to use than some other engines. Maybe they don't provide the kind of tools though that someone like Epic does. I'm not a dev, just things I've picked up over the years.
 
Well, a huge part of that is because of Bethesda these days. They use to license them out. However, Bethesda wants to keep it in house.

This actually worked pretty well once Arkane worked the Dishonored 2 engine bugs out. I thought it looked and felt pretty good a bit after release. More of their studios should take advantage of having them in-house. I know they also got a bit of consulting on FO4's gunplay, which actually seemed to do them some good (over something like FO3).

I think the reason it's not a bit more widespread there though, is id's engines aren't classically geared toward the open-world environments that Bethsoft designs their games around. Maybe a bit more collaboration couldn't hurt though.

They should also poach Raven (or what's left of them) :D Grab Carmack, McGee, and MAYBE Romero, put the band back together and release something the world has never seen. (while I'm on the subject of baseless dreaming. :D )
 
Tech 5 did have some serious issues. Related to Virtual Texturing if not mistaken.

Tech 6 ran well in Doom 2016. AMD card owners enjoyed a nice boost from Vulkan in that title. Should be same or better with Doom Eternal being based on Tech 7, which is Vulkan only and well optimized for it. Will be interesting when we see the Nvidia RTX cards running Ray Tracing under Vulkan in that title.
 
Well, a huge part of that is because of Bethesda these days. They use to license them out. However, Bethesda wants to keep it in house.
This. id Tech 6 and all engines going forward are now proprietary. They are no longer licensing the engine out. Before that Zenimax stepped it to stop id Tech 5 from becoming open source after id's promise to do so for all of their engines after a certain amount of time had passed. So unfortunately we're not going to see amazing source ports running their classic games in 20 years anymore. Hey, Zenimax, you may want to figure out why people are still playing the original DOOM 25 years later and are so interested in getting it running on a smart thermostat before it's too late.
 
Which is fine with me. I mean, I'd love to see some Raven games return to the engine, Hexen maybe? Really though, id and only a small handful of other devs seem capable of making these engines shine like they should. Raven, Arkane, Machine to name a few that have used Tech 4 or higher. Ritual and American McGee made decent use of Tech 3. A ton of people did quite a bit with Tech 1 and 2. (The Source engine was basically Tech 1.5 for the longest time.) That says a bit about the types of studios that can use them correctly.

That said, I've heard REALLY good things about id's code, the way they comment, the cleanliness of it, so you would think it would actually be easier to use than some other engines. Maybe they don't provide the kind of tools though that someone like Epic does. I'm not a dev, just things I've picked up over the years.

From what I've seen over the years, their code quality is good. But let me be clear: OpenGL was and always has been a horrible API to actually work with, so building an engine around it with no DirectX option makes it *very* unattractive for a lot of studios, especially compared to Unreal.

My point stands: Id would be far better served by just licensing Unreal then spending a significant time and money building game engines that are used by just a handful of games.
 
From what I've seen over the years, their code quality is good. But let me be clear: OpenGL was and always has been a horrible API to actually work with, so building an engine around it with no DirectX option makes it *very* unattractive for a lot of studios, especially compared to Unreal.

My point stands: Id would be far better served by just licensing Unreal then spending a significant time and money building game engines that are used by just a handful of games.

I can see why you'd say that. However, as someone who's played and anticipated their games and tech since Wolf3D, their tech is as much a part of their appeal to me as their actual gameplay. They wouldn't be id anymore if they licensed UT. They'd lose their whole mystique if I may be so bold. Their engines also very much suit their games which is to say that they convey the larger than life, raw environments in a way that I've never seen in any other engine. That's obviously up to their artists as much as their engine, but the engine I feel is definitely a part of it.

As far as the rest of your post, I agree. I can see why their engine only appeals to a certain set of devs. I'd wager to say that most of the studios that have made id-Tech powered games in the past, have a very similar view on things like non-MS APIs, and other id-trademark "isms".

From a purely practical point of view, what you say makes a lot of sense. From the point of view of what I expect from id, practicality goes mostly out the window.
 
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From what I've seen over the years, their code quality is good. But let me be clear: OpenGL was and always has been a horrible API to actually work with, so building an engine around it with no DirectX option makes it *very* unattractive for a lot of studios, especially compared to Unreal.

My point stands: Id would be far better served by just licensing Unreal then spending a significant time and money building game engines that are used by just a handful of games.

I can see your point. iD was a pioneer and used to be the industry leader in game engine tech. But Carmack moved on and Unreal now is well, unreal. While not for gaming, AE4Arch demonstrates just how advanced it is. Cine Tracer looks incredible too. I would imagine iD could make some incredible content with Unreal engine.
 
I can see your point. iD was a pioneer and used to be the industry leader in game engine tech. But Carmack moved on and Unreal now is well, unreal. While not for gaming, AE4Arch demonstrates just how advanced it is. Cine Tracer looks incredible too. I would imagine iD could make some incredible content with Unreal engine.
Innovator and pioneer? Sure.
Industry leader? Hardly. That distinction goes to Unreal Engine. Prior to Gen 6 consoles it was Renderware.
 
Tech 6 ran well in Doom 2016. AMD card owners enjoyed a nice boost from Vulkan in that title. Should be same or better with Doom Eternal being based on Tech 7, which is Vulkan only and well optimized for it. Will be interesting when we see the Nvidia RTX cards running Ray Tracing under Vulkan in that title.

Mostly this. Even without ray tracing, just building from Vulkan up may make a pretty big difference. So far as I know, they're the only house that's done this with AAA-class games.


To me, what separates id Tech apart from the rest is that they get the 'feel' of the game right. Smooth and responsive with modern graphics, not something at all trivial.

And that gets me wondering why it isn't Zenimax's 'Frostbyte', used in everything. Because they should be. I will personally be supremely disappointed if Elder Scrolls VI isn't on id Tech.
 
Mostly this. Even without ray tracing, just building from Vulkan up may make a pretty big difference. So far as I know, they're the only house that's done this with AAA-class games.


To me, what separates id Tech apart from the rest is that they get the 'feel' of the game right. Smooth and responsive with modern graphics, not something at all trivial.

And that gets me wondering why it isn't Zenimax's 'Frostbyte', used in everything. Because they should be. I will personally be supremely disappointed if Elder Scrolls VI isn't on id Tech.

That is actually HUGE where their games are concerned. id games aren't what you'd call complex in the game-play department. There's usually not much more than run, collect, shoot going on. (which is good, because they're one of the few studios still making pure shooters) They absolutely nail everything from aiming, to the connection between view and shots that are fired. There is a weight to their weaponry that is missing in a lot of games. Everything is responsive, the controls are transparent due to their simplicity, and because their artists tend to make everything larger than life, the environments pull you in, in ways that others' do not. Many other engines, or at least other studios' use of them often get that slightly if not very wrong. Even studios that I love often mess up when it comes to feel.
 
Many other engines, or at least other studios' use of them often get that slightly if not very wrong. Even studios that I love often mess up when it comes to feel.

That's the part where id could actually be of significant utility- and what I expected Zenimax to do, only to be extremely disappointed. Perhaps the integration has taken more time that I had expected, and we'll start to see games that play better due to id's involvement in engine optimization and gameplay refinement.
 
My point stands: Id would be far better served by just licensing Unreal then spending a significant time and money building game engines that are used by just a handful of games.

Right. Thank god id Software is run by people capable of making better decisions than you. What utter non sense

Maybe you've missed it but id has had the best engines for the better part of the last ~25 years or so. Their games and their engines have a distinct feel to them. They run really, really well
 
Right. Thank god id Software is run by people capable of making better decisions than you. What utter non sense

Their failure to broadly license their engines pre-aquisition doesn't really speak to making 'better decisions'.

Maybe you've missed it but id has had the best engines for the better part of the last ~25 years or so. Their games and their engines have a distinct feel to them. They run really, really well

The best engines? Their engines run great for the content they chose to produce, but as above, there has been very little use of their engines outside of their own content. No statement of relative quality can really be supported versus engines that both support more features and are used for far broader selection of games.
 
Their failure to broadly license their engines pre-aquisition doesn't really speak to making 'better decisions'.

While I'll grant you that Epic is an absolute juggernaut in that arena (for better or worse... :S ) I think id has made precisely the decisions that they should have up until now (other than maybe remaining independent instead of selling to Activision or Zennimax). They aren't hurting at all by keeping their engine in-house. I'm not even sure that this would have been id's decision (more likely Beth/Zenni) but it hasn't hurt them in the slightest. They still make the games they want to make, and the quality speaks for itself. They aren't games that appeal to absolutely everyone, but they know their audience for sure.

I'd love to see more studios use their engines, but as was discussed earlier in this thread, I'm not sure a lot of other studios could use their engines and make the same quality of games.
 
I can't really say that licensing their engines out would have been beneficial for themselves or for licensees over UE4- but I do disdain the lack of responsive, smooth performance in many games and I think that id has something to contribute here. Pre-aquisition they could have definitely expanded a bit, and post aquisition, well, Bethesda doesn't have a game franchise that even approaches the level of performance that id gets out of their engines, other than those from id.
 
I can't really say that licensing their engines out would have been beneficial for themselves or for licensees over UE4- but I do disdain the lack of responsive, smooth performance in many games and I think that id has something to contribute here. Pre-aquisition they could have definitely expanded a bit, and post aquisition, well, Bethesda doesn't have a game franchise that even approaches the level of performance that id gets out of their engines, other than those from id.

I agree with this. They definitely could have had a lot to offer for studios to glean from their released source, up and coming indies, etc. It really would have been good for the industry as a whole. Still, new Tech versions aside, I think there is probably a lot to learn even by going back to their older engines up through Tech 4/5 and checking those out. I'm sure a lot has changed with some aspects, but those games still hold up pretty well. I still play Doom 3, Quake IV, RAGE, etc. quite a bit. While the overall appearance tends to pale in direct comparison to some modern titles (especially id's modern titles) there are still some very impressive effects lighting tricks, etc.
 
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