Total id

This year's Quakecon will return to the Gaylord Texan hotel, just North of Dallas, and the site of the largest previous Quakecon's in 2004 and 2005. Quakecon is a BYOC LAN and exhibit showcase hosted annually by id Software that was previously scheduled for the Hilton Anatole, also in Dallas.

QuakeCon is hosted at the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine, TX. The event is from August 13 to August 16, with the first day of the volunteer effort on Monday, August 10, 2009.

For directions to the hotel, or to see an area map, refer to the directions and transportation page on the Gaylord website.

Attendees who made reservations at the Hilton Anatole Hotel will have their reservation at the Anatole automatically cancelled and will be required to make a new reservation at the Gaylord Texan at an equal or lesser rate.

id Software and the Gaylord Texan are in the process of finalizing the transition of venue, and the hotel will begin taking room reservations for QuakeCon 2009 very shortly. Please continue to check here for more information on when and how to make reservations.

Check back with Total Gaming Network for all of your Quakecon 2009 news and updates.

Posted over on the official Wolfenstein forums, id's Peter Sokal has revealed the minimum specs to run the PC version of Wolfenstein. Check them out:

SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS:
Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP or Windows Vista(R) (Windows 95/98/ME/2000 are unsupported)
Microsoft DirectX(R) 9.0c (included & required for Windows XP & Vista)

HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS:
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 3.2 GHz or AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3400+ processor
RAM: 1GB RAM
Video Card: 256MB NVIDIA(R) Geforce(R) 6800 GT or ATI Radeon(TM) X800
Sound Card: 100% DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
HDD Space: 8GB (Plus an additional 800MB for Windows swap file)
Media: 100% Microsoft Windows compatible DVD-ROM drive
Internet: Broadband connection and service required for multiplayer

Wolfenstein is set for a three system release for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on August 4th.

Gaming blog Joystiq reports that id Software now plans to keep future game developments more in house. Check it out:

When Raven Software's long-in-development Wolfenstein (remember when it was an Xbox 360 timed exclusive back in 2005?) finally hits store shelves this August, it'll mark the end of an era ...

... oh no! Not of Wolfenstein games – there are plenty more of those coming – but of outside developers working on id Software's hallowed franchises. John Carmack told Joystiq today that bringing external development back in-house at id is "exactly what's going to be happening." Carmack says that while id's had some hits (Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory springs to mind) and some misses (Enemy Territory: Quake Wars springs to mind) the externally developed titles haven't "had the same record that our internally developed titles have." We'd have to agree with him there.

With the lead team cranking on Rage for EA Partners, they created a second development team to work on Doom 4, with a still-formative third team currently toiling away on Quake Live. "We'll have three teams," Carmack told us. "We'll have Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake, and Rage and one of them will be taking a vacation each cycle and that will depend on what we want to be doing each time." So don't worry, you'll have plenty of all of the above to go around.

Check back to Total id for more news.

Gaming Blog Kotaku analyzes Bethesda's and id Software's big move and interview some of the main people involved. Check it out:

When Oblivion and Doom meet, the Fallout is bound to yield surprises; and perhaps offer some insight into the future of the video game industry.

Earlier this week the company behind post-apocalyptic video game hit Fallout 3 bought the developers of famed shooter Doom putting two of the most respected talent pools in the industry, id Software and Bethesda Softworks, under one umbrella: ZeniMax Media.

The result, analysts and ZeniMax says, will be studios that can spend more time on the creative process and less cutting deals with outside publishers. It also will mean the blending of the technological prowess and creative artistry of two of the most respected game makers in the industry.

The deal, though, is likely the sign of the times says Game Changer Research analyst Billy Pidgeon.

With Wolfenstein and Doom having already made their way to Apple's handheld platforms it is no surprise that id Software plans to bring more of their classic games to the Apple products. Check it out:

In an interview with Joystiq, id's John Carmack stated that he is "pretty passionate about the benefits of the iPhone" and plans to continue supporting the platform. "I've got a slate of iPhone titles, I expect to have an iPhone release every two or three months for the next year," said Carmack, noting that id will likely continue to plow through its classic titles (hope you like Doom!) before moving on to titles like Doom RPG and Wolfenstein RPG and eventually something based on id's upcoming title Rage.

Carmack stated that iPhone projects don't require much of id's focus, saying, "These are things that get a few people put on them for a little while, are fun for everybody involved."

"So far it looks like they're making pretty good money," said Carmack, "but they're not the blockbuster titles that they go do $100 million dollars."

Read the entire interview with John Carmack and Zenimax CEO Robert Altman right here.

Gaming Blog Joystiq talked with Robert Altman the CEO of ZeniMax and John Carmack of id Software about the recent acquisition of id Software by ZeniMax. Check it out:

Joystiq: How long has the acquisition process been in development?

Robert Altman: I had my first meeting with [id Software CEO] Todd Hollenshead at E3 a year ago. We had a general discussion about how our two companies might explore matters of mutual interest and the conversations then took place over the ensuing months. So it's been almost a year, on and off, that we've been having these conversations.

And how long has Bethesda – or ZeniMax in this case– been looking to expand that studio range outside of just Bethesda and Vir2L,etc.?

RA: Well it has been a part of our strategic plan for a long time to be expanding the numbers of titles that we will be releasing. Part of that is done through external development. At E3, for example, this year we announced that we are going to be publishing a game called Brink from Splash Damage. We're gonna be doing a game called Wet from A2M. So we have been expanding beyond just the titles that Bethesda has created internally. And we are also increasing the internal capabilities at Bethesda. But beyond that we are looking at other studios that might join together with us and at the top of our list, the most prized and most desired from our perspective, was id Software, for all the obvious reasons.

John, how about from id's perspective, as one of the most successful independent developers of all time? How long have you guys been seriously considering a buy-out?

John Carmack: Well, we've had offers since before Wolfenstein was even published. The original one. And over the years we've just always thought that we placed a lot of value on our complete independence. It's nice to be able to, you know, for me to be able to personally do whatever the heck I feel like, whether I think that I can justify it exactly in business concerns or not. But the landscape's changed a lot over 15 or 20 years and the stakes are so high now, when it costs tens of millions of dollars to make a game, and then the marketing budgets are tens of millions of dollars more. And the game's [development] take place over the space of 4 years. We knew that were gonna have to start making some changes and we had started the process of building up a second team so we could pipeline and share resources a little bit better and cover up over any mistakes.