id on Rage Sequels and QUAKE's "Identity Crisis"

id Software Talks Rage,
Game Narrative on IGN recaps a talk by Tim Willits at the
Austin Game Developers Conference where
the id Software creative director discussed game narrative, making jokes himself
that id is not the first company one would associate with this topic. He
suggests that the story as presented in the game is only part of its narrative,
but it also involves the gameplay experiences of the user, using DOOM as
an example, saying if a user wrote down all their experiences playing DOOM and
their reactions to the game: "…it would be a great story. And that is from a
game that many people would say had a very bad narrative. The paper story is
only one part of the videogame story." He also discusses Rage, making it
clear they consider their action/driving game a franchise in mentioning how
sequels might be named, describing how the Rage story will play out, and how
creating a multiplatform game presents storytelling challenges as id strive to
appeal to a wider audience. He also discusses how audience preconceptions and
expectations are also elements of storytelling, offering a very frank assessment
of how QUAKE fell short in this area: "Quake I was so much different than Quake II.
When we were developing Quake II, we wanted to call it something else, but we
couldn't find a name, our lawyers told us all the names we picked were already
taken, it was extremely difficult to find a name, and we just wound up calling
it Quake II. When people played Quake II they were so confused. They had such a
preconception about what the franchise was that when they got to this game they
had to overcome so much that the experience and story that we wanted to tell was
actually hampered. Then, in our infinite wisdom, we made Quake III, which was
completely backwards and we failed in that concept again. Even to this day the
Quake series suffers from an identity crisis."


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