[mono]

Has Carmack made any recent comments about the scalability of the D3 engine, or changes to his next engine to allow for levels with a bit more scenic grandeur?

I'm admittedly an id fanboi, loved D3, despite its simple gameplay, and its repetitive aspects. However, I'd certainly love to see some outdoor wide-open levels in an id game. Q3: Team Arena made a go of it, but those levels are primitive compared even to the 1st Unreal Tournament. I don't know if the design decisions Carmack makes requires a sacrifice of large scale outdoor environments for level of detail in tighter spaces. It would sure be nice to see a Far Cry or UT2004 scale map or two interspersed with all the id industrial corridors or cavernous construction maps.

There are other games which provide that large scale fix, and Doom3 shines in other areas, but level variety would go a long way towards making id games appealing to a broader spectrum.