RPS: Getting more technical - care to talk about the mod situation?

Hines: Folk probably took for granted that every time we make a game, there's a mod tool. We explained to folk that it takes a lot of time and effort to get that tool ready for release, and it's not on our schedule right now. We need to get the game done and out. It's not to say we won't do it. It's that right now we have an enormous amount of work to do, for three platforms and all these different languages to get it out around the wall. Right now, we can't say definitively "there will be mod tools, and here is when they'll be out". That work remains to be done.

RPS: There's a Conspiracy Theory that would suggest that you're removing the mod tools to make downloadable content more attractive. As in, if you get extra value for free, why buy the official stuff?

Hines: That's a good theory, by the way. And probably on some level it would work… but from our standpoint, whenever we do an Elder Scrolls game and release those mod tools, it takes a ton of work and effort. This is a bigger undertaking for us, and one we've not yet scheduled for. Is that to say it'll never come out? No, I'll never say that. If we have the time, we'd absolutely like to put them out. As we've seen with Oblivion and Morrowind those things definitely create a sense of community and there's tonnes of people out there modding. We have our own little blog we run from Bethesda, and every week we're out there interviewing people from our mod community - so it's clearly something we support, something we take interest in and something we place value in and spend a lot of time highlighting good mods. It's just the tools take time. They don't magically appear. Someone's got to write help files for what all the scripts do, and get it released as a consumer product. Because it's not in that state otherwise. Developers will make do with anything.

Another Journalist Interjecting: Also, it's part of a PC world, which is not part of the console world which is a bigger part of the business than it might have been previously.

Hines: That's the other thing. Yes, the PC mod community does help extend the life of a product by the number of people who are still playing it, but as we've seen in Oblivion, there's still people who are playing it on the 360 in the tens of thousands two and a half years later. In insane numbers. For two years in a row we were still in the top 10 most played Xbox games in the year, with zero user-mods. So yes, I definitely think it helps extend the community - but it's not the only thing out there. The games themselves also do lend themselves to be continuously played and replayed. So yes, it's a good conspiracy theory, but has nothing to do with the facts. It's just a case of "Who the hell is going to do this?" as everyone is working on getting the game done right now.

"We're trying to convince them there is nothing to be afraid of," he said. "DRM-free, that is something they are really scared of, but on the other hand we can say 'all of those games are available pirated widely so it's better to sell them for small money than make the customer's life difficult and get some more revenues'."

Kicinski's comments come as EA suffers from a backlash over the restrictive DRM system implemented in Spore, which despite measures still suffered from high rates of piracy.  "We're gamers and we are using all these digital distribution platforms," commented Kicinski. "I had Steam but I had the problem that my internet provider could not work with it so I couldn't use the games I bought. I think that if somebody is paying for the game then they deserve own it, not with a certain list of conditions and sometimes the list of conditions can be long."

The boss of The Witcher developer went on to explain that many companies were dropping DRM due to the complications it causes the end users.  "It's the same with buying music online with DRM, Amazon has decided not to provide it with DRM, iTunes is doing this iTunes plus." He added: "DRM makes customer's lives too complicated, and this is usually because of some corporate ideas, policies and trying to be smart, too smart, in how to get customers and how to keep them and no let them go somewhere else. We are believers in the free market and bringing freedom to customers."

VideoGamer.com: Have you copped a lot of flack over this?

JW: Yeah and we will! All the barbarian players are delighted and all the necromancers hate us. I understand, I don't begrudge them that. I would hate me too! But what I would say is that when we announce the next class, which is quite similar to a previous class, then all those players will hate us too. You can't make everybody happy, but I think when the game finally come out players will find there's a good class for them, one they will love as much as the ones that came before. And if they don't, I absolutely promise that in the expansions we'll consider bringing back old classes. We just don't want to do it with the first release. We want to establish our identity.

VideoGamer.com: So if people want D2, they should play D2, right?

JW: Well like I say, I sympathise. I understand why they want these things. But it also comes down to what inspires us as developers. Good games come out of passion, and if one of the dictates had been, "Okay, we're just going to take all the classes from D2 and re-do them," I don't think a lot of people on our team would have been that excited about it. In fact, I know they wouldn't have been. It came from the team that they didn't want to re-do the classes. So one of my jobs as lead designer is not only to steer everyone towards those choices, but also to make sure the whole team is excited by the choices we make. Sometimes that means we have to look at things and say, You know what, maybe this could be awesome, maybe the necromancer could be an awesome character for Diablo 3 - but if no-one on the team is interested in making him, he's not going to be great. He's going to be mediocre.

Shack: How did the focus on more complex AI change the level design of Warhead?

Bernd Diemer: Two things changed. One is that our creative guys, our level designers, programmers and everybody, they are a lot more familiar with how to build levels for the nanosuit. And how to build levels for this alien AI we did, because we could use what we learned with the humans, how to construct interesting scenarios by changing geometry, in the level. Like in that canyon you played, that really is tailor-made for the alien AI the way it is now. Because they can jump, similar to the MK nanosuit dudes, so the level has to reflect that. And then we can create this "oh my god" situation, where you have one guy jumping over here, or over there. Like you experienced a moment ago: where you are completely surprised by what the AI is doing, but still you can get a grasp of what is going on. So we got a lot more comfortable building levels for nanosuit and alien AI.

Shack: What exactly have you changed as far as destructible objects and environments?

Bernd Diemer: We added a lot more stuff that blows up. [laughs] For example, one thing which always annoyed me in the original game is that we had these really nice, big fuel tanks, which didn't blow up. Which is realistic, because in real life fuel tanks don't blow up like they don't in Hollywood. But it's so much fun, so we said, "To hell with realism, we want these things to blow up."

So is Quake Live the next step for PC gaming?

John Carmack: I don't think this is the future of PC gaming, though it's certainly an aspect of it. PC developers need to start considering the PC as a unique platform rather than a gaming machine that happens to be in your den rather than your living room. The traditional big-budget, media-rich, single-player type games like we used to make at id Software through to Doom 3, all that really has to be done cross-platform on the consoles now, to basically cover the development expenses for something like that. But the PC still has huge success stories, with things like The Sims 2 and World of Warcraft, which have been bigger successes than any console game has ever been, or possibly ever could be in the near future. At the end of the day, you have to look at the PC as a platform with its own strengths and weaknesses.

So Quake Live plays to these strengths?

JC: While Quake Live isn't a big-budget extravaganza, it is consciously playing to what we consider to be the PC's strengths. The PC is still a better information platform in terms of browsing the web and showing a lot of statistics and information. That's still really painful to do on the consoles. It's still got the mouse and keyboard interface which for a competitive first person shooter is still far and away the best way to play, versus playing on an analogue thumbstick or whatever. And I do think that the neat aspect of being able to jump on and play from any place where there's a PC is going to be interesting also.

Would id ever consider doing something like this with a new game?

JC: There's no way we could justify building a modern game for the PC exclusively. Not to say that it's impossible, but it just wouldn't be a good bet. Even a big-budget extravaganza like Crysis didn't do very well in the larger scheme of things. So if you want to develop something on the PC right now, it had better either be cross-platform (like what we're doing with Rage) or it'd have to be something like Spore or The Sims 2, that really caters to the type of game that more people are playing on the PC. Or it'd have to be something a little bit different, like what we're doing with Quake Live. At least that's my assessment of the business situation right now. Everybody's still free to make their own decisions, but I don't think the trends are encouraging for high-end, media-rich, PC action gaming.

What about the PC gaming business?

LL: The other thing happening on the other end of the spectrum is communities -- connected gaming. Personally, I'm more excited about what I see happening on PC because I see it allowing for more smaller games to be sold that can be delivered to anyone who's connected at much lower price points. PC games also allow people to build their game as they chose. There's a big difference between spending $50 or $60 on a game and hoping I love it and buying a game for $5 and then buying additional content for that game, so by the time I have invested $50 in it I really love it and I've personalized it a lot more to what I'm interested in. And I'm sharing this experience with a global, connected audience.

Bashiok: So, everybody's back from WWI now, have been for a while. Where is the development team focused right now? What is everybody working on?

Jay Wilson: Well the team's pretty big so we've got them split up on different things. Most of the art team is actually working on the second act of the game, because a lot of the team is really production focused now and we're generating content for the most part a lot of the tech and underlying engine is really solid. Most of the design team is still on Act 1 because we're refining and improving the quests and flow and some of the big game systems that we haven't really announced yet. We kind of dove back into content production fairly quickly.

Bashiok: You mentioned that art has moved on to Act 2 but design is on Act 1, or kind of spread around. How much of the development time is actually charging through to new acts, and how much is actually going back and retouching old acts?

Jay Wilson: We spend, we initially kind of work in a linear fashion, we've started at the beginning of the game and gone to the end and there's a lot of different ways you can do it but since so many of our systems are progression oriented it's easier to start at the beginning.

Bashiok: Sure

Jay Wilson: But you want your best work, which you tend to do latest in the project, to be at the beginning of the game. So what we try to do is focus. We focused on Act 1 a lot because it was just kind of the core of our game and you know, getting the game play fun and getting monsters to be cool and all of those things. Once we felt like it was good enough, we moved on to Act 2 but we'll come back to every act along the way, especially Act 1. We'll probably do a major iteration on it later in the development cycle. It's pretty much how Blizzard works; we have a tendency to iterate over and over again on everything we do. So we build something and then we rebuild it. If we haven't rebuilt something five times it really doesn't deserve to be shipped. That's pretty much our policy.

Q: Europe as a market has developed a lot in the past five years - how do you assess the territory's importance on the global stage now?

Yves Guillemot: First, our money - the pound or the euro - is very strong and because of that the turnover from those countries is heavier than they used to be. So for Ubisoft turnover Europe is actually more important than the US now, and by more than 5 per cent. It's become a very strong market for us.

I think there are lots of customers that want to play - because in Europe we love to play - the only problem we had was that the games were becoming more and more difficult to play. Now that there's more accessibility, some accessories that are helping people to have fun, I think this market has no limit in the growth it can have if we can make sure that the people that are coming in are staying.

A game like EndWar, for example, which you can control by voice - it's totally changing the industry because it gives you the opportunity to command what's happening, and to have a quick answer to the orders you give. And it's the same for a lot of other games, like the party games you can play - the games with guitars are also helping things to increase the fun, and bring more people. Because when you have fun with your family on the game, you take them into more games with you.

What are User Clips and what do you expect to see from XBLA players? Do you expect any surprises?

George Broussard: Every time you play the game (single player, co-op or DukeMatch), the game saves a game clip. You can view the clip later or share it with your friends. You can even jump into old clips and play the game (in single player). Your clip can also be uploaded to the leaderboards if you get a top spot. We have a Time Trial leaderboard that tracks how quickly you play a level. It's really cool to download people's clips and see how they ran through a level, then try to beat their times. I think there will be some fun battles on the leaderboards due to this feature.

And Painless Death sounds like something everyone is going to want to know about. Tell us what that's about...and how long do you think it will be before other developers start copying it?

George Broussard: One of the core things that makes you stop playing a game is dying. It's frustrating. This is a feature that spun off the demo-recording mode that was already in the game. John Pollard, one of the programmers, said "Hey, I can do a cool death thing with demo recording, look at this." Once we saw it, we had to pursue the idea.

What happens is that once you die, you are presented with a TiVo-style timeline of your play in a level. You can then scrub along the timeline and jump back into the game at any point during your play of the level. You can still quicksave your game, like 12 years ago, but you no longer need to. You just play. You never ever think about saving the game. This worked well for a classic game where you don't want to replay a level ten times and you don't want to be bothered saving a game in a checkpoint world. Would this work in Halo or Call of Duty? Maybe, maybe not, but it's a fun area in which to experiment and see where it takes us. Braid and Prince of Persia clearly show that the mechanic is a solid idea.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't ask what everyone wants to know...what's up with Duke Nukem Forever?

George Broussard: It's going really well. There are several hours of fairly polished game to play. We're actively testing parts of the game and getting feedback from play testers and things are coming together. It's fun, it's in focus, we know what bits are fun and which are not, and it's just a matter of time now. I've probably never been as happy or excited about the game as I am these days.

IGN: What would be that thing that would pique someone's interest? What are you building in that could draw someone's interest and make them want to know more about the lore?

Leonard Boyarsky: What we're thinking is that there are certain things you can see or have happen, that - if I run across a scripted event or I see two people fighting or a conversation that I can overhear as I'm running by that gives me a piece of information that I can use later, but I don't need it. The hardcore action guys, they are first and foremost number crunchers, they're loot crunchers, they want the best gaming experience in terms of, like, how to maximise those areas, so if we can drop clues into the story as to how they can maximise their loot and maximise their armour, that would intrigue, I think, the hardcore action player to maybe look more into that. Obviously that wouldn't be the only way, and the minute the game comes out all that stuff is going to be available on the website anyway. There's going to be some people who just want to play it as an action game and that's fine. Our goal isn't to impede that at all, it's just - we want it there for the people that really want it.

IGN: In terms of drawing people into the game, you've introduced voices for the player characters. What was the process behind that decision? On one hand, with a player character that doesn't talk, you embody that role, whereas there's a danger that the player is distanced from a character with a defined personality.

Leonard Boyarsky: We went back and forth a lot on that. First we wanted to do it, then we didn't want to do it, then we wanted to do it. The reason we decided we wanted to do it was because it really enables us to have your player drive the action more.

IGN: How much choice do you have as a player to shape your character's persona? Dialogue trees or anything like that?

Leonard Boyarsky: There won't be any dialogue trees per se, but we're working on ways of your player affecting things. That's all I'll really say about that right now. We do want your player to feel like he's driving the story, and we looked at it more like a character that you can watch develop and identify with, as if, a bit more like a book you're reading or a movie you're watching, you know, a character you can identify with and be fired up to be that character, be excited to be that character. And it remains to be seen whether people get behind that or not. It is a risk...

MPC: Are you using DirectX 9 equivalent? For Doom 4 as well?

JC: Yes to both. It's one of those things I get asked a lot. What's big and exciting for DirectX 10 or DirectX 11? There's not a whole lot of… really not a whole lot. The big touted geometry shaders were in many ways, a mistaken belief that people desperately wanted to create stencil shadow volume.

There's a tough thing with that. You get a bunch of people who make APIs, and they think “it's my job to make APIs. I make new APIs every year.” There's a reality of approaching a functionality curve, and the DX9 level gives us a whole lot of stuff where it's not like before, even at the DX7 functionality level. Graphics programmers have tried every possible configuration, and they've tried every state and know what happens when. But, as soon as you get programmability in there (as happened with DX9) you're writing code now. The code is limited, but we're so far from exhausting the possibilities.

Sure, when DX10 hardware is ubiquitous and that's our baseline platform, we'll find something useful to do with all that extra hardware. It's not like we're saying “no, we won't use this”.

MPC: Do you think we've reached a point of diminishing returns with regard to graphics?

JC: There're interesting things to talk about in that direction, [for example] with Quake Live. We're taking this ancient graphics technology, it's nine years old, but we're wrapping it in this other way to innovate, with the website interface for all of that. It's clear that there are certain types of games that we're past the curve for the benefit. For the highly competitive games, competitors would crank the detail all the way down, sometimes going too far. It's cool that we're running those games now at 60Hz on 2 million-pixel monitors.

There's still value to be gained at the high end with graphics. We've got some wonderful looking stuff with Rage where we can do things with the environments that people have never seen before. Rage and id tech 5 will make a lot of games start to look plain. We've seen that phenomenon with previous games, where people don't know exactly what they're missing until they're shown it, but it makes some of the other things look shabby in comparison.

I still think there's one more generation to be had where we virtualize geometry with id Tech 6 and do some things that are truly revolutionary.

Kikizo: Would you say there were any weaknesses in Doom 3 that need to be corrected?

Matt: I wouldn't call them weaknesses. We had very specific goals in mind, and we had a relatively small team with brand new, state-of-the-art technology, and I think we took advantage of that really well. I think the sales show that. So design wise, because our focus was narrow, I don't have any regrets there.

Todd: I think there are three people on the internet that keep making these posts that Doom 3 was "bad", and they get no credibility from any other people... there's some mass-misperception out there. I get this occasionally - why don't I think Doom 3 was successful? We sold over three million units! It's the most successful game in id's history.

Matt: The things we're doing with id Tech 5 have really opened things up design-wise. I work closely with Tim Willits who's the creative director on id Tech 5 and the guiding force on Rage, and we're going to do some things which I think are just going to blow people way - it's just going to be on a whole new level. Things that you have never seen in any game before, some things borrowed from different games, really action focused. Just as a designer we can do things in these giant worlds and with these vehicle systems and still maintain the things that people love id for, which is that control and the FPS action combat, but now we can introduce all these other elements, so it's really opened things up. On the design side, we've never had more energy, it just makes us giddy to be able to use this tech.

Kikizo: What will the trend in gaming be for the next ten years?

Todd: I still believe that the industry over the next ten years is going to be driven primarily by technology, and I think that it has been since its existence over 25 years or however long you want to say it's been around. The chief innovations have been enabled by the rapid pace of technological progress on the hardware, and then by what engineers like John and others have been able to do on the software side. And I think that is the enabling factor that allows us to do all these things like a higher art form so you're not just moving white blocks around a screen or chasing dots through a maze. All that stuff is fun, but when you talk about emotional aspects of games, or better storytelling, or more interactivity in the environments, just more visual richness, all these things are constraints put on the industry that we work within. So I do see the future being driven by what the pace of technological change is, and when John talks about that stuff - and he's been right for fifteen years so I'm not going to swim against him on stuff like this - when you see what he's done here at the texture level, and being able to make the perfect level - glorious, unique, huge, vast and at the same time incredibly detailed - and then when he talks about the next horizon is geometry, I think you start to talk about things that you've really only been able to do with massive offline render farms, being able to be done and realised in real time. What sort of characters, worlds and interactivity you can develop, is being driven primarily by what technology enables. So it's a technical question, but I think ultimately the answer is that the industry will be driven by that. It will allow the artistic side of the industry to shine through.

We are upset at ourselves actually, because we miscommunicated some of the things. We labeled certain things wrong inside the game, like configuration for example. We could have labeled it more efficiently, saying that very high [detail] should have been ultra high, and high should have been very high, because our high compared to other games' high was a generational difference. But the perception from the gamer was that if he qualified for medium, he said, "Hey, I'm playing other games at high. Why don't I play Crysis at high, too?" And it's a fair enough question.

It was just a naming convention issue, because our medium could easily compete with any high, and very high should have been ultra high as a means of futurizing. Then we might have received less critiquing about configuration issues, and this created the feeling of, "I will not play this game until I have the right PC because I don't want to spoil my experience." This kind of excuse happened even between my friends. I said, "Guys, play the game now. Don't wait for it like three months, six months, because it's out now."

I think we are fixing a lot of this with Warhead.

The other critique outside Crytek was the fact that the PC industry is really, at the moment, I would say the most intensely pirated market ever. It's crazy how the ratio between sales to piracy is probably 1 to 15 to 1 to 20 right now. For one sale there are 15 to 20 pirates and pirate versions, and that's a big shame for the PC industry. I hope with Warhead I hope we improve the situation, but at the same time it may have an impact on [our] PC exclusivity in the future.

PCG: Why this new direction?

JC: I would say that there is this sense of trying to figure out what to do with PC gaming. Historically, id Software has been a PC gaming company, with consoles a secondary business that happened later. And even though the PC doesn't get the focus that it used to, in many ways our hearts are still there, and we'd like to do things where the PC is the appropriate platform. [We'd like to] do something that really speaks to the future of where the PC can be superior to consoles.

Obviously, we have examples like World of Warcraft that show how the PC can be viable and vibrant in its own way. But in terms of first-person shooters, if you look at something like Crysis and say that's the height of what the PC market can manage, I don't think that's necessarily that exciting of a direction for the PC to be going in the future. With Quake Live, we hope that there's an opportunity for people who've never played shooters to give this a try, and with that, the potential of actually growing the PC gaming market. I still have a lot of a faith in simple gameplay formulas - it might not be the game that everyone plays for three hours a day to be the best at, but it's something that offices, dorms, and schools across America can have fun with.

The piracy issue reared its ugly head recently when developer Crytek said that it wouldn't be creating any more PC exclusives, due to the mass pirating of its latest PC work, Crysis.

"[Piracy] is not why [Crysis] didn't sell as many as they wanted," argued Wardell. "Everybody knows why Crysis didn't sell more copies. I couldn't run Crysis. ... I have a $6,000 Alienware box that's obscene, the most powerful setup. And it doesn't run Crysis great. People say I can run it at a lower resolution, but I say look, I have a 24" monitor. I want to run it in its native resolution. If it runs chunky at that resolution, that's not a good experience."

Despite Crytek's piracy concerns, Electronic Arts-published Crysis was able to sell 1 million units worldwide. Stardock's titles aren't such big blockbusters, but Wardell says that they don't have to be in order to be a success on PC. This year's Sins of a Solar Empire, a hardcore 4X real-time strategy game (that was a Games for Windows title), has sold 300,000 copies so far. "Sure 300,000 isn't much when compared to a console title that's gone off and sold a million copies, but at the same time, we didn't spend $7 million or $10 million on Sins. It was more like $1 million to make," said Wardell. He added that Sins hit break-even at about 100,000 units sold, and "everything after that is just gravy."

Eurogamer: Is the PC market robust enough for you to be single-platform with Clear Sky?

Oleg Yavorsky: It is if you focus on the heavy PC markets. Russia is 98 percent PC still; Germany has a big piece of the market. There is a lot of piracy, but people are still buying games: with our game, they really were. I've seen people on the internet, and someone is saying, "I've just downloaded S.T.A.L.K.E.R.!" Someone else will say, "Hey, these are local guys - support them and buy it." Then the first person will say, "I just wanted to take a look - I will buy it! I will buy it!"

PCGH: Do you use advanced features of Direct X 10/Shader Modell 4 like Geometry Shader, Virtual Texture Management etc.? Can you please give examples how they are utilized? In what way do these features improve or simplify the rendering process?

Corrinne Yu: We take advantage of many features of SM 4.0. We use DX 10 geometry shader to improve shadow map precision. We use virtual texture management to increase pixel fidelity of our rendered worlds.

PCGH: Will the DX 10 visualization differ substantially from the graphics that are rendered with DX 9 hardware?

Corrinne Yu: Lighting, shadowing and visual fidelity will improve on DX 10 hardware. SM 4.0 allows us to compute lighting more correctly. The GPU API is designed better this time around.

PCGH: How much of a performance hit will the improved optics of DX 10 incur? With all details maxed out is a typical first gen DX 10 card like the Geforce 8600 GTS/8800 GTS (320 MB Video RAM) or HD2600/2900 XT already running at its limits?

Corrinne Yu: I recommend the GeForce 8800 GTX over earlier GTS models. VRAM-wise we can display details even on a 320 MB adapter because of our streaming system and the render buffer memory design we created for our gun compositing system.

PCGH: Finally: Can you tell our readers what hardware will be recommended (not required) to play the game with all detail in 1.280x1.024 (no FSAA/AF) and 1.600x1.200 (4x FSAA/8:1 AF)?

Corrinne Yu: I recommend a DX 10 class card coupled with a PC with a lot of CPU memory, not just GPU VRAM. Sufficient CPU RAM is crucial to the proper performance of virtual texture management.

Eurogamer: One question which always comes up whenever we discuss the PC market is piracy. The "is PC gaming dying?" debate is nonsense, of course, but we're at the point of the cycle again where the consoles are turning out gaming experiences comparable with high-end PCs - and they don't have the piracy problem that the PC does.

Roy Taylor: I think that we're going to see more digital authentication, and we're going to see more of an approach that says that PC games aren't products - they're a service. You're going to start out with a basic service, which is the game, and then increase the value of that service through patches, mod packs, expansions, maps and so on. That's the direction it's going to go, because the pirates are just killing the developers - and I think it's really unfair what they're doing.

In terms of your other point, which you're right, is related - in terms of where PC development sits relative to consoles, I think we have to face the facts - the value of consoles is such that no-one is going to make a PC-exclusive game in the future. Why would they? Why would they ignore consoles? That said, PC gaming is changing - and consoles don't threaten PC gaming. They're just different. Adapting to that and understanding that is what I think is really, really important. Most PC gamers also own consoles - not all of them, but a lot of them. What we're seeing happen is that, yes, people are developing for Xbox 360, for PS3 - but they're also developing for PC.

The console is now a baseline. If you look at Gears of War or Assassin's Creed, they came out on console and they were great experiences - but the PC versions had additional aspects to them that also made them attractive, whether you owned the console version or not. The PC version was better. That's something that people need to get their heads around - the console is a baseline, the PC is going to be an improved version. That's an exciting future, and that's why I don't see anything threatening about console at all.

The other aspect is that in the past, PC gaming development meant pandering to the lowest common denominator - which meant some poor integrated graphics. Today, developing a PC game means starting at a console, and console graphics are way above integrated graphics. That means the baseline is getting better. Now we're going to add to that version additional features, additional content, to make the PC version even better.

Next-Gen: Were Cevat's recent comments about "no more PC exclusives" for real, or just out of frustration felt at that moment?

Engine business manager Harald Seeley, Crytek: When Cevat said we would not create new PC exclusives, he was referring to any new projects we will start in the future. Of course Warhead has been under development for quite some time, and we had no desire or intention to disappoint our loyal PC fans. So, after some careful consideration, we decided to continue our support for the PC Crysis franchise with this release. But yes, all new franchises we develop in the future will be created with a cross platform strategy in mind. Of course we're also aware of the danger of making a game that is only designed for one particular audience and platform, and failing to meet the needs of the others. So any game we create will always offer something unique on each platform and will be carefully tuned to both the capabilities and strengths of that platform, as well as the intended audience.

Will any extra measures be taken with Warhead in order to combat piracy?

Engine business manager Harald Seeley, Crytek: While we are certainly very concerned about piracy and copy protection, we are also concerned about the potential opposite problem, that of inconveniencing legitimate buyers with newer measures that interfere too greatly with their enjoyment of the product. So we are carefully considering all possible options here, however we are not yet at a stage where we have made a final decision. Once we do make it, I very much doubt we would announce it publicly before Crysis Warhead releases.

PC Gamer: What inspired you to resurrect Quake III Arena as Quake Live?

John Carmack: At the very highest level, Quake Live - what we originally called Quake Zero - was one of my experiments about what we could do usefully on the PC platform. The consoles are very good machines for a lot of things, but there are some things the PC platform uniquely does better, such as anything having to do with a web browser and the superior mouse & keyboard interface. [Those things are] pretty darn good reasons to be playing on the PC, and we're also trying out an innovative business strategy that could pave the way for the future.

It's completely free - there aren't any micro-transactions. Quake Live is completely ad-supported on the web browser pages and [through] in-game advertising. Of course, this is speculative - we're going to have to see how this works out. Early on, we were tossing around two different orders of magnitudes - anywhere from 50,000 to 5 million people playing. We have no idea where it is going to be in there. The fact that 70,000 people have signed up in a week means that we're going to be looking at hundreds of thousands of players, if not millions. We hope that that can be a sustained critical mass of a community that can play this type of game, and be self-supporting.

Quake III Arena was always my personal favorite id Software game. It's such a pure activity kind of game - more of a sport than a movie. And I'm excited to have this opportunity to bring back the pure type of gaming as opposed to the "everything and the kitchen sink" modern design. We have no pretensions about it being the best multiplayer game in all types of things, but for any player looking to test their [deathmatch] skill, I think Quake III Arena is the best there ever was.

PCG: Why this new direction?

John Carmack:: I would say that there is this sense of trying to figure out what to do with PC gaming. Historically, id Software has been a PC gaming company, with consoles a secondary business that happened later. And even though the PC doesn't get the focus that it used to, in many ways our hearts are still there, and we'd like to do things where the PC is the appropriate platform. [We'd like to] do something that really speaks to the future of where the PC can be superior to consoles. Obviously, we have examples like World of Warcraft that show how the PC can be viable and vibrant in its own way. But in terms of first-person shooters, if you look at something like Crysis and say that's the height of what the PC market can manage, I don't think that's necessarily that exciting of a direction for the PC to be going in the future. With Quake Live, we hope that there's an opportunity for people who've never played shooters to give this a try, and with that, the potential of actually growing the PC gaming market. I still have a lot of a faith in simple gameplay formulas - it might not be the game that everyone plays for three hours a day to be the best at, but it's something that offices, dorms, and schools across America can have fun with.

Shack: What's the current state of development on Left 4 Dead?

Doug Lombardi: So the game is pretty much playable all the way through right now. And as we've done with most of our games, we get to a point where, it's playable all the way through, there are some [minor] issues that we need to work on, and we try to add more time to the schedule to have as many people as possible play the game, to make sure that it's approachable to players of all skills. We want to make sure that all the game that we've built gets played, not just be like, "Okay, it's complete, let's ship it."

For example, Half-Life 2 was pretty much done in April of 2004, and we spent the rest of that year just looking at pacing, and looking at approachability, and making sure the easy setting was easy enough, etc. So we're in a pretty similar state right now, with it being, what, early May, and we're looking at the same time frame--November--for shipping.

So we're going to be spending a lot of time just bringing it to events like this, taking it to Quakecon and Leipzig, and just getting as many people's hands on it as possible to make sure that it's playing right and that it's fun, and that the group dynamics are showing up and are visible to people.