Those expecting any bombshell announcements from this year’s QuakeCon keynote may have to wait for another time. While id CEO Todd Hollenshead did officially announce the next Doom game, job postings for the title had already surfaced on the internet, leaking the news far in advance, mitigating much of the impact of the announcement. Nothing more than a teaser image was released regarding the title, and audience reception seemed cautious, calling for “flashlight tape” and hoping for a more robust multiplayer experience.

The event then focused on extended trailers of some of the studio’s previously announced titles, starting with Wolfenstein before the new Rage footage was shown, both of which only expanded slightly on previous videos. Technical director and co-founder of id John Carmack then took the stage, speaking about the studio’s technical aspirations, specifically with frame rate targets of 60fps for Rage and 30fps for the new Doom, both of which will run on the same id Tech 5 engine. Carmack also attempted to quell some rumors caused by the announcement that EA was publishing Rage. While some had speculated that the announcement was a sign that id and Activision were no longer working together, Carmack emphasized id’s history of signing one title at a time and encouraged the public not to read too much into it.

The speech went on for quite some time, earnest and casual, as if John Carmack’s LiveJournal exploded onstage, covering everything from mobile gaming to rocket science. Not oblivious to the current prevalence of the console market, Carmack also addressed the changing role and relevance of the PC as a gaming platform, acknowledging that while big budget titles are generally at a disadvantage on the PC as compared to on consoles, the PC still retains the advantage of mouse and keyboard control, of which Carmack enthusiastically preached the superiority, and the ability to disseminate information, particularly via the web and leaderboards and the like. While he seemed doubtful that id’s free, web-based QuakeLive, currently in beta, represented the brave new world into which PC gaming must go to survive, he hoped it might be a step in the right direction for a certain portion of the market, at least.

As for the consoles themselves, Carmack discussed some of the technical difficulties involved in porting Rage to consoles, noting that while he preferred the Xbox 360 hardware, Sony’s Blue Ray disks were better suited to containing the massive amount of textures in the game. While he said that the Xbox 360 version of the title would certainly be spread across multiple DVDs, he stated that prohibitive costs associated with using more than two DVDs might force id to further compress textures, resulting in poorer graphical fidelity on the Xbox 360 as compared to the Playstation 3.