alt.hn

6/24/2026 at 2:30:09 AM

How Quake Ruined Id Software

 https://twitter.com/SandyofCthulhu/status/2069592209645785294

by boredemployee

6/24/2026 at 7:00:37 AM

Does anyone else remember the very original concept of Quake, as explained in the "Previews!" option in the main menu of the first Commander Keen?

  As our follow-up to the Commander Keen trilogy, Id Software is working on "The Fight for Justice": A completely new approach to fantasy gaming. You start not as a weakling with no food--You start as Quake, the strongest, most dangerous person on the continent. You start off with a Hammer of Thunderbolts, a Ring of Regeneration, and a trans-dimensional artifact. Here, the fun begins. You work for Justice, a secret organization devoted to vanquishing evil from the land! This is role-playing excitement!

  And you don't chunk around the screen. "The Fight for Justice" contains fully animated scrolling backgrounds. All the people you meet have their own lives, personalities, and objectives. A 256-color VGA version will be available (smooth scrolling 256-color screens--fancy that)!

  And the depth of play will be intense. No more "whack whack here's some gold." There will be interesting puzzles and decisions won't be "yes/no" but complex correlations of people and events.

  "The Fight for Justice" will be the finest PC game yet.

by mdlxxv

6/24/2026 at 7:09:34 AM

Can you describe where in the main menu this text lived? I can’t find a screenshot and want to jog my memory.

Commander Keen, Space Quest, Duke Nuke encapsulate my earliest memories of using a computer.

by denotes

6/24/2026 at 4:58:39 PM

In the main menu of Commander Keen 1: Invasion of the Vorticons, there's an option called "Previews!" (between "Ordering Info" and "Restart Demo"). First it shows a couple screenshots of the next two games. Then a text screen with more details appears. It can be scrolled up and down. At the very end there's a description of what would eventually end up as Quake. It was quite different from what we actually got. Only the "Quake" name survived, I think :)

by mdlxxv

6/24/2026 at 7:54:23 PM

Amazing - I just remembered that all these old games are playable via the internet archive. Fired it up, followed your instructions, and found the text.

I don’t think I ever explored that menu option as a youngster. Seeing that blue wolf-like man before the text appeared sent a chill down my spine. Thanks for enabling this blast from the past.

by denotes

6/24/2026 at 7:23:33 AM

>All the team did a brilliant job, fulfilling tasks just right.

Pretty revisionist statement.

> the following men left id Software: John Romero

Wasnt it pretty well documented Romero was fired from ID for playing Doom and playing producer for another company instead of working on ID project?

>Mike Abrash

Was a mercenary hired to perform low level assembler wizardry. Went back to Microsoft when ID moved from bare metal DOS to Win32/OpenGL.

>EVERY ONE of us went on to an incredible career in game development

Daikatana failed to make us Romero's bitches https://thevideogamedatabase.fandom.com/wiki/John_Romero%27s...

> still making games, Mike Abrash as well

Abrash makes games?

>I think losing their offices affected Abrash, Taylor, Green, and Romero

Afaik Carmack's forcing everyone into single room was a direct result of frustration over people playing multiplayer Doom instead of working on the next game. People were swimming in money and not to eager to do Doom amount of work again so soon. Romero was busy building a house and collecting cars at this point. https://romero.smugmug.com/Cars/Cars-Houses-Things/i-pJ27nvm...

Someone else asked "Did you ever play later Quake games like quake 4 or enemy territory?"

>Nope. Too bitter.

Yep.

by rasz

6/24/2026 at 11:29:53 AM

Well put. and It's funny to see the disdain after 30 years, after all the money they made from the game.

by boredemployee

6/24/2026 at 1:09:27 PM

> Wasnt it pretty well documented Romero was fired from ID for playing Doom

> Afaik Carmack's forcing everyone into single room was a direct result of frustration over people playing multiplayer Doom instead of working on the next game.

It's been ages since I read "Masters of Doom" but the impression I got from its coverage of this era was that the rest of the team was "blocked" by Carmack's exacting vision that every release should feature an advancement in technology.

I mean, I don't intend to make excuses for one John or the other. There was definitely some hubris involved on both sides and, had I been in Romero's shoes, the decent thing to do would be to help out Carmack or de-scope Quake, scale back ambitions. I.e., that project needed better adult supervision. I just think that their organizational dynamics (considering their partnership's history) made Carmack the de-facto "engine developer" and Romero the de-facto "game designer/developer". When the going got tough, Carmack felt (rightly) slighted by the loose role definitions but Romero was too busy having fun.

Again, more maturity would've helped, either from a neutral third party or if they talked it out openly amongst themselves.

Also, FWIW, Romero is still credited as a programmer in Quake. So at least it's not like he left/was fired without putting anything of credit into Quake.

> Daikatana failed to make us Romero's bitches

Fair. And I'm still waiting for the big thing from Romero's Irish studio. That said, Romero has had an undeniably prolific career in games. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Romero#Games . This guy just loves making games.

by JsonDemWitOster