RAGE Creative Director Answers all id Software Qs, Except Stupid Ones

Tim Willits, Creative Director of upcoming mega-awesome shooty-racer RAGE, talked with the good people of Gamingbolt and answered all sorts of questions about his company and their games. The most awesome news to come out of the review is that Doom 4 is going to be awesome. This is, however, only a technicality as he simply refers to the game as “awesome” twice, and gives no other information.

The review is (thankfully) filled with much more detailed information for other subjects, such as the creation of the rocket jump, the state of PC gaming and why the company that invented death-match decided on enhanced co-op instead of traditional multiplayer.

Apparently the guys at id think about the likelihood of selling a game with certain requirements or specifics. This came in to play when they released Quake 3 and forced people to start using some kind of graphics-focused hardware, and it was the basic motivator for their decision to not include death-match type multiplayer modes in the upcoming game. In substitution, they went with things that were fun to do on your own, but even more fun with a partner, like vehicle combat. “Our mentality was not ‘follow the same paradigm,’ our mentality was ‘do something better,’” elaborated Willits.

id won’t be supporting dedicated servers for RAGE on the PC, and he claims that it is mainly a business decision. Cross-platform development has become a requirement for almost all developers, so the lack of PC focus should be expected, but also reminds us that non-dedicated servers were, “something we basically invented in action gaming.”

Willits also speaks about some of the original seminal moments of gaming, like Quake 1 giving the world the idea of clans, and how John Cash, a former employee, was the first person to ever use the rocket jump:

“… he was like ‘you know what? If I’m dying, I’m taking you guys with me.’ He looked down, fired the Rocket and popped up in the air and landed behind us; and ‘Rocket Jumping’ was born.”

Then the article takes a dark turn and the interviewer asks poor Willits about Commander Keen, a game that most of the whipper-snappers on this site know nothing about. “That’s more of a John Carmack question. It’s not high on my list of things to do,” Tim replied. Tim Willits is a busy man, he does not have time for fan-service!