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Quake First Person Shooters (Games)

John Cash Leaves id Software for Blizzard 80

Posted by CmdrTaco from the but-I-still-can't-play-diablo-2 dept.
Jacek Fedorynski writes "John Cash has left id Software to work on a yet unannounced project at Blizzard. Here's Graeme Devine's .plan update on the subject."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

John Cash Leaves id Software for Blizzard More

John Cash Leaves id Software for Blizzard

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  • That's SYgate. Not SYSgate. And SYgate is now too expensive. They used to have a good, reliable, and inexpensive product. Now it's pick any two of the above, as long as you're not picking inexpensive.

    Hey Rob, Thanks for that tarball!
  • Those bitches at blizzard need to get cracking on diablo II so that sucker will ship before the end of the year.

  • Re:Yikes. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Carmack is IdSoftware dude. He pretty much owns the company, literally. And I recall reading months ago an interview where he discussed the possibilities of id ever being sold out to a publisher or mega-studio - basically slim to none to never gon' happen. So to answer your question ... nope. JC ain't ever leaving or giving up on Id.

  • "He works for Microsoft research, which you'll note keeps all of its research papers online." -- If you believe that, I have a nice bridge to sell you.

    The point is that MS/Research has published a considerable amount of pure research papers. I'm sure they have some amount of stuff that's close to release that they don't publish -- just like every other corporate research arm, such as Bell Labs.

    But I keep forgetting -- this is Slashdot, where "the truth is irrelevent, you will be assimilated".


    --

  • But I keep forgetting -- this is Slashdot, where "the truth is irrelevent, you will be assimilated".

    nice. attack the messenger rather than the message. based on Microsoft's history, any reasonable person would be dubious of the notion that Microsoft's Reseach labs are truly free and share all their findings.
  • Just curious, but are there any secret rituals at id software (don't forget these guys are pretty twisted) have when long-time employees leave the company?

    Have they ever placed secret levels or easter eggs in their games where they could take out their frustrations and old time rivalries on digitalised versions of their ex and fellow employees?

    I wouldn't mind being able to frag John Carrmack!

    If I rembember correctly that with some special codes, one of the final bosses of Doom2 was in fact a digitalised floating head of an id employee with his screams being played out in reverse!

    Well anyway, best of luck to John Cash at Blizzard and thanks for bringing us some great games in the past. Keep up the good work no matter where you are mate.

  • I read the post's title and for a moment there i thought it read:

    John Katz leaks IQ everywhere, goes for wizards
    (as in M$ wizards)...

    sorry Jon.
    ========================
  • The sound effect is called "rimshot".
  • ...innovative game we know ID can produce

    I'm confused.. what game since DOOM (we'll just say it's more innovative than wolfenstein since it was multiplayer) was innovative exactly? All their games are the same old thing drug back out of the closet with a new engine slapped on them. The non-iD 1st person shooters did so well because they have a (*gasp*) plot and give a more varied and interactive experience than the tired old iD 'lookie, i'm a space marine! Uh oh, it's lava!' bit.
    Dreamweaver
  • I would say Quake was pretty innovative... Although the storyline wasn't great (but what was there was pretty good) it was the first game in a completely new format (true 3d enviroment) and it was actually FUN, single or multi (it probably had the best monster mix in any ID game.) Quake 2 was really the first 'meant for multiplayer' as was revealed by the single player (which sucked) and the good weapon balance (better than Q3A!!)

    But seriously, at least the other games had new weapons. Q3A really is just the same old stuff over again, and IMO not even done as well this time. I would really rather play Q2 than Q3A. Q2 has more weapons, better weapon balence, and runs faster. Q3A... umm... is pretty... I guess. And UT blows it out of the water.
  • The final boss of Doom II is John Romero's head on a stick, and while I don't know about his screams, upon entering his room he says, "To win the game, you must kill me, John Romero" backwards. It sounds really strange.

    The boss is always the head on a stick, but you will only see this if you use the code "idclip" to pass through the wall he's behind (you cannot normally get behind the wall.)
  • Then maybe the 'News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters' moniker should be changed to read 'Discussion on stuff that was news recently, but now doesn't matter' Still, I see your point.

  • nice. attack the messenger rather than the message.

    Actually, I attacked both.

    based on Microsoft's history, any reasonable person would be dubious of the notion that Microsoft's Reseach labs are truly free and share all their findings.

    No, A reasonable person doesn't make knee-jerk conclusions, particularly when you could have just followed the link and saw with your own eyes that MS publishes a considerable amount of material.

    But that won't matter. We all know that MS is held to a different standard.


    --

  • Id still has a strong hold on the market. But what I believe is going on is a change in the player sophistication. Everyone loved Doom and Quake. Doom brought a new level of interaction, while Quake brought in immersion to a virtual world. Quake 3 refines what has been done to date. Half-life takes it one step further by having a virtual world that can guide you. Now it is time to add a new level in realism. Perhaps the ability to flip views is needed. Something along the lines of having a first person camera view as you do a flip in Action Quake of Action Half-life.e
  • You forgot a few: Dave Taylor: started his game company crack dot com, that company went down. Now working at Transmeta. American McGee: Fired, or something. Designing a game called "Alice" for EA. Mike Wilson: Left to help start Ion Storm, bailed out of Ion Storm when it started looking lame. Now founder of G.O.D. Jay Wilbur, originator of the business card title "biz guy". Now at Activision (?).
  • Bah!

    Q3A is far superior in multiplayer than any previous id project. Everything was made for multiplayer. No single-player maps forced into a frag-fest comprised of wondering when you'll run into someone, no horribly balanced weapons, and few mods. Q3A fixes all that while upping the graphical standard. You know, people always complain "Yeah, but it's just another FPS, it's not innovative", but when was the last time someone said football should start using new ideas?
  • (And yes, Mesquite is part of the DFW Metroplex).

    not that Dallas claims it as such ;)
  • Can you explain to me how Q3A is better than Q2? There are less weapons(IIRC), they don't work any better (or any different really) and they are IMO comparitively poorly balenced. As for mods, each game means developers must make a whole new set, so there were more for Q2 than Q3A, at least at the beginning. And there were custom DM maps in almost every ID game since Quake, and the community makes its own maps pretty effectively.

  • ID's turnover (Score:3)

    by MicroBerto ( 91055 ) on Tuesday May 09, 2000 @02:00PM (#1082487)
    Is it me or does ID have relatively high job turnover? It seems that someone big leaves every 3 or 4 months.

    The last time I asked htis, i got flamebait, but it was cool that John Carmack himself replied to me and explained what had happened.. but still: what's going on over there?

    Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net [mailto]) -GAIM: MicroBerto

  • I was pretty sure Cash came in during Quake... so I found this [idsoftware.com] page with old press releases, which unfortunately doesn't have the whole text, but only a headline: "JOHN CASH JOINS id SOFTWARE AS "NETWORK GUY" - Cash Brings his Networking Expertise to id's QUAKE".

    I'm almost positive that Cash came in towards the end of the Quake project to work on the networking.


    --

  • You can see the "ultrasound" of Romero's baby at thes e mirrors [bluesnews.com].

    Warning: I think I'm safe in saying that it's looking like a mighty ugly baby. :)

    Hopefully when we see the full deal, it'll look a lot better.


    --

  • Nope. He's right, man.. Cash was in it during the DOOM days.
  • I so used to be into realtime graphics programming and read a bunch of stuff about it including Michael Abrash's graphics programming Black Book but of course I never really "got it" as far as the technology went.

    I would still love to do that kind of work for a living, but it seems like there's no way for a person to get into that nowadays without tons of previous knowledge.

    Right now I'm working on an associates in computer programming at ITT but I know that won't put me anywhere near where I would like to be knowledge-wise. Oh well. Maybe my chance to get real paid will come along someday in the future, but I doubt it.

    you can see that complaining is what i really do best

  • id in trouble? (Score:3)

    by WasterDave ( 20047 ) <davep.zedkep@com> on Tuesday May 09, 2000 @02:20PM (#1082492)
    You know, I've been thinking this for a while. Q3 was all well and good, very pretty - not that you've got time to look at it. But it is a sport, not a game as such.

    So where'd all the magic go? These games used to suck you in so you'd forget to eat. My flatmate failed his degree because of Doom2 (I only survived because I passed my degree before 486's were commonplace). I was thinking that maybe I was getting old, but, well.... half life.

    Are id in trouble? Have they lost their way? Have we reached a point where merely better graphics will not make a game more immersive, and did we get there when Quake was released?

    More to the point, when the hell do we get Duke Nukem forever?

    Dave :)
  • and here I thought John Cash was a country singer

    <insert thing you do with drum roll to denote corny punch line...forget the name at the moment>
  • Although, I have to say, both Hook and Abrash have gone on record as saying one of the reasons they left was get to a greener environment. I haven't heard if this was part of Cash's motivation. :)

    That I will grant you. Dallas is basically a big field of concrete :)
  • Can he hoist a jack? Can he lay a track? Can he pick and shovel too? Unlike John Cash, my 486 100 will do whatever I tell it to.

  • Slashdot is for Discussion (Score:3)

    by Dhericean ( 158757 ) on Tuesday May 09, 2000 @10:44PM (#1082496)
    In the main I do not expect to actually get my news from Slashdot (though I must admit there are a number of things I see first here). Rather Slashdot is about providing a forum for the discussion of these pieces of news.

    If the article does not appear the instance the news hits the web then that's not a problem. After all there are times when such news is repudiated or modified by other sources shortly after its release. Slashdot only post a handful of stories any day and they want to wait long enough to be sure that the item is worth posting and not just a flash in the pan.
  • Ok we really need a -2 (spam) or the like to get read of these ASAP!
  • Now you need to go into a rant about how the whole scene has degenerated, and how it's nothing like it used to be back when you first got into it two years ago.
  • not that Dallas claims it as such ;)

    Got that right. My friends call it the "armpit of dallas." :)

  • You know, people always complain "Yeah, but it's just another FPS, it's not innovative", but when was the last time someone said football should start using new ideas?

    February 3, when the XFL [xfl.com] was announced.

  • I see the train 'a' commin'. It's rollin' down the bend. I haven't seen the sunshine since; I don't know when. I'm stuck in Folsom Prison and time keeps dragin' on...



    Lets not forget Johny Cash. I have the folsom prison blues because he is currently terminally ill. He is just at that age in his life when his body isn't doing too well in fighting disease and infection. My heart goes out for him...
  • So what body part is Grand Prairie then? :)
  • I haven't heard an official term, but I think Grand Prarie must be something like the ruptured spleen of Dallas ;)
  • Um, Excuse me, but isn't this a bit late? The .plan update was in the middle of the day yesterday, and bluesnews.com ran a story about it around then too. Slashdot seems to really be dropping the ball on news a lot lately.
  • Hmm... with John Cash leaving now, and Dave "Zoid" Kirsch leaving before that, is iD software now going to be looking to hire a couple of replacements?

    Nicholas

  • Actually, I remember a .plan update not too long ago saying that they were looking to hire.


    -- Thrakkerzog

  • Johnny Cash (Score:3)

    by ajlitt ( 19055 ) on Tuesday May 09, 2000 @01:09PM (#1082507)
    Wasn't he responsible for the Burning Rings of Fire in Quake3?
  • At least they released the code.
  • I believe, but I'm not sure, that John Cash is the first programmer id ever hired. Carmack and Romero were founders. If I recall correctly, they hired John Cash from Novell to help with the netcode in Doom, and the rest, as they say, is history.

    Mr. Cash is famous for being a mormon, having 5 kids, and the "John Cash Diet".
  • Actually, Zoid never "left" id, as he was never "there" to begin with. He was a contractor who just happened to have a long-term, very good relationship with id.

  • New Game (Score:4)

    by Datafage ( 75835 ) on Tuesday May 09, 2000 @01:03PM (#1082511) Homepage
    3 to 1 says Blizzard South's second team is working on a massively multiplayer game. It is known that they are working on a completely new franchise, not a sequel, and the master of network coding being hired would suggest that they want a LOT of people at once. I only hope its better than the MMORGPGs that are out now...

    -----------------------

  • The _just_ might be a little busy moving to the new server.

  • Cash moved from Nowhereville, Texas to Blizzard in Irvine, CA. Hook left and went to San Diego.

    I'm sensing a pattern here... I think Id needs to move to So Cal. :)


    --

  • Hope its not a first person shooter. The thought of Blizzard making one of those is a bad one but you never no they're really good at suprising consumers with new games to revolutionize the gaming world. "Bob is not a sheep, vote for bob" -2000 campaign for bob
  • Mea culpa, accidentally pounded the shift.

    But the point still remains...

    Nicholas
  • You forgot Adrian Carmack, the guy who did all the textures for every game since, I think, Wolf3D. No relation to John.
  • Excellent... Blizzard is the best!
  • As a big fan of his music, I'm glad to see John Cash [johnnycash.com] is leaving the game scene. I just hope he'll hit the road and tour for a while. I can't wait to hear A Boy Named Sue live.
  • So remember, when it's legally possible, sharing information benefits us all in the long
    run. You can pay forward the debt for the information you gain here and elsewhere by
    sharing what you know whenever you can, by writing an article or book or posting on
    the Net. None of us learns in a vacuum; we all stand on the shoulders of giants such
    as Wirth and Knuth and thousands of others. Lend your shoulders to building the future!

    Very odd coming from someone who now works for Microsoft, the company which epsouses the exact opposite philosophy. I guess we all have our price.
  • Dallas, TX isn't exactly Nowhereville, Texas.

    (And yes, Mesquite is part of the DFW Metroplex).

  • The conspiracy deepens (Score:4)

    by Quintin Stone ( 87952 ) on Tuesday May 09, 2000 @02:44PM (#1082521) Homepage
    • One must admit, however, that the whole John thing is a little strange. John Romero, John Cash, John Carmack. Does that mean during the early days of id, all three people in the company were named John?
    Even stranger still... has anyone else realized that all three of those people were issued U.S. social security numbers the day after Orson Welles' famous "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast in 1938? A little digging reveals that the original staff list of Id Software included such unlikely monikers as "John Bigbootey" (pronounced 'big-boo-tay') and "John Smallberries", just to name a few. That's a lot of Johns.

    I, for one, am a little suspicious of the true nature and origin of this particular game company. My Jamaican friends paint a darker picture of Id than most people are aware. If only a fraction of what they suggest is true....

  • Cash was a behind the scenes grunt at id. A nice guy, yes, and a good programmer, but there are hundreds of other John Cash types in the game business, people who have worked on amazing 3D games. It's strange that being at id causes such fame, with so many talented 3D gurus laboring in obscurity.
  • Cash had done a ton of really impressive stuff before he got to id. He certainly wasn't a "new programmer", or a newbie by any stretch of the imagination.

    Your right about id having more than their share of the great progarmmers though.
  • sorry, had to!
    J.
  • Wow, look - my own personal ass kissing troll! He/She/It has even followed me now from another discussion! Needless to say, the link above is bogus. Thanks.

    Hey Rob, Thanks for that tarball!
  • Actually, in Doom II, you can.

    Mind you, it's a @#*%! hat-trick and a half trying to launch yourself vertically into that crevice, but it'll drain almost all of your life as you get pelted on by all the other monsters trying to take you out.

    It took me just over a month to finish that without god mode or any other cheast...one lucky bastard I know did it in eight days.
  • Most of the major people who've left have been programmers. The art people (Paul Jaquays, Tim Willits, Paul Steed, etc) seem to be pretty steady.

    I would guess that some pretty talented programmers come on to Id looking to get a chance to work in a 'bleeing edge' environment. What they get is and obsesive-compulsive work-a-holic controlling Carmack working 99% of the R&D/interesting coding and getting them to fill in the gaps/bugs. Heck - this guy takes 'vacations' by locking himself in a hotel in some remote place and developing new 3d engines for a few weeks.

    The programmers eventually get over the 'awe' of working with Carmack and then get a chance to work in some other cool environment where they will possibly get more of a hands-on role and can apply some of the knowledge they've picked up while watching Carmack work...

    That's my guess, at least...

  • Cash wasn't hired until Quake, otherwise he'd be in the credits for Ultimate DOOM which he isn't. Cash was actually the guy who told carmack how to fix the bug that the original DOOM had with flooding networks when people were deathmatching. Cash even kept in touch with him but he wasn't hired until the Quake days.
  • More to the point, when the hell do we get Duke Nukem forever?

    If id had it their way, probably never. That's because Duke Nukem is by Apogee, not by id... :-)
  • Check out the diakatana Dance!
    http://www.elvesontricycles.com/dance/
  • How on earth do you launch yourself vertically in a game that permits neither jumping nor even looking up or down? Sure you haven't been playing zdoom all this time?

    You can destroy it without codes, but you can't see it, not by any method I know.
  • This was posted on the Quake sites a few days back. The comments generally went along the lines of:

    (a) There were too many programmers, ever since Hook was replaced. Cash had nothing to do.

    (b) Blizzard wanted him for a massively multiplayer title (unannounced, of course.)
  • ID is a 'limited' company. They do excellent technology and software, have a large fanbase, but are typecast into the FPS game/world.

    It'd be interesting to track all the ID graduates over the next 5 years. Hook, Romero, Zoid, Cash, and Carmack. We'll see Romero's child this year, if all goes well(Xs fingers).

    Well, best of luck to Cash and the rest of ID's ex members, and ID!

    -AS
  • Id is like the training grounds for new programmers, or the arena in which all newbies must show what they can do.

    It seems like all the greats have worked for Id at some point!

  • I wish I had moderator points to mark that as Funny. No one here gets it though, apparently ...
  • In my opinion, ID software needs to get the old crew back instead of driving them away. Ever since Q1, the single player experiance has been degenerating, and Q2 multiplayer had better gameplay and weapon balence than Q3. Anyone who disagrees just needs to look at Q3A. World's most beautiful engine with the worst game ID ever produced(granted, it's still OK by most standards.) I mean, there wasn't ONE original weapon is Q3A (the gauntlet is just a new graphic for the chainsaw.) Right now, ID is riding their prior successes and the community(would anyone have bought Q3A if there were no mods?) , but they can't do it forever, not with games like half-life and UT around. Unless their next offering is the kind of truly innovative game we know ID can produce, they'll soon be forgotten.
  • From what i understand later releases of the mod code were better or they had fixed something about it in point release.
    crt of rocket arena fame (one of the most well known and most played mods for Q1 and Q2) had publicly flamed id when the mod code was first released (back in January i believe?) but in the latest announcement he showed a total 180 in his feelings on id's code release.
    His latest:
    The development for this has been much easier than the last, thanks to the Quake 3 engine. This really is a developer's dream come true. It's obvious Carmack has put a lot of thought into every part, and the entire mod community feels it.

  • He works for Microsoft research [microsoft.com], which you'll note keeps all of its research papers online.

    Just because a company is closed source, doesn't mean it doesn't have a sharing philosophy. Or, put it another way, Bell Labs is (was) just as "closed source" once you got to the product stage. Do you put them into the same category?


    --

  • Sorry; no offense. When I pictured "Mesquite", I pictured some hot, dry desert out in the middle of the sticks. I didn't realize it was a suburb of a real city.

    Although, I have to say, both Hook and Abrash have gone on record as saying one of the reasons they left was get to a greener environment. I haven't heard if this was part of Cash's motivation. :)


    --

  • the gaming industry is just very high profile.

    Look at ShugaShack and the others. Every time Carmack (or any other iD person) updates his .plan file, they write a story about it.

  • He works for Microsoft research, which you'll note keeps all of its research papers online.

    If you believe that, I have a nice bridge to sell you.
  • Thank god his job change did not put him into a postoffice. The combination of a "Doom" mentality and whatever it is that postal work does to people could not be a good thing.


    ...................

    ... paka chubaka

  • No, the first programmer Carmack hired was Michael Abrash. In fact, Abrash recently released the chapters pertaining to Quake from Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book on Blues News [bluesnews.com] at this address [bluesnews.com].


    --

  • Yikes. (Score:3)

    by be-fan ( 61476 ) on Tuesday May 09, 2000 @01:44PM (#1082544)
    Yikes, at first I thought John Carmack was leaving id. Whoa, that'd be the day. One must admit, however, that the whole John thing is a little strange. John Romero, John Cash, John Carmack. Does that mean during the early days of id, all three people in the company were named John? Secondly, does anybody think Carmack will leave id eventually. A man does get tired of doing one thing. In interviews Carmack has shown himself to be pretty narrowly focused, but not closed to the idea of using his skills for other tasks. In fact, he's already done some stuff with porting X to Darwin and some stuff with graphics cards under linux.
  • No, not Michael Abrash, Abrash came in when carmack was working on Quake (I have the book, I actually have Zen of graphics programming, the preceeding book, as well), but now that I think about it, I think Sandy Petersen was the first programmer id hired.
  • I doubt Carmack will ever leave id, as he is part owner, and the driving-force behind the company, I think if Carmack stops doing it, that's the end of id.

  • Well, Abrash precedes Cash... but on third thought, I think the first might've been Dave Taylor. :)

    I'm not actually certain whether Taylor or Petersen came first.


    --

  • No, Cash came in during Doom, Abrash came in during Quake, therefore Cash was first,

    I think you're right about DDT, though... My current thought is this:

    DDT, Petersen, Cash, Abrash, Hook...

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