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Games Entertainment

John Romero Back In The Game 47

Posted by Zonk from the rock-your-world dept.
Gamespot reports that John Romero, the well known former id software designer, has opened his own development studio for the first time in several years. From the article: "Romero and Midway parted ways after just two years. He had been hired, along with former Ion Storm colleague Tom Hall, in October, 2003. His departure in July of this year was amicable on the surface, but chatter among industry wags suggested the Midway brass weren't entirely impressed with the work Romero and his team produced. At the time of his departure, Romero and Hall were working on the still-unreleased action role-playing game Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows."
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John Romero Back In The Game More

John Romero Back In The Game

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  • Romero (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tomchu ( 789799 ) <tomchu@NOSpaM.tomchu.com> on Thursday September 22, 2005 @11:18AM (#13622246) Homepage
    I'm thinking maybe he spent too much time shampooing and combing his lustrous mane rather than coding. Then again Commander Keen *did* own.

  • Ego the size of a planet... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Godeke ( 32895 ) * on Thursday September 22, 2005 @11:24AM (#13622298)
    There was a time I thought Romero was interesting: before I actually learned anything about him and just knew he was part of ID. Talk about letting a little success go to your head... he's like a warning label for the entire concept of ego overtaking your rational thought processes.

    • Re:Ego the size of a planet... (Score:5, Funny)

      by RealityMogul ( 663835 ) on Thursday September 22, 2005 @11:36AM (#13622401)
      Unfortunately, people keep feeding that ego too. Look at his forums. There's a user with the name of JohnRomeroWorshiper. Of course, that could just be Romero himself.
      • When your ego gets large enough it can become self sustaining. From then on you don't really need others, your ego just feeds itself. It's a self sustaining system, kinda like in nature with those lizards in Arizona that eliminated the need for male lizards to reproduce. No not really, never mind.
      • Hey, it's not my fault the Church of Romero has declared him to be the second coming of christ...

        I mean, he is... isn't he?

    • Re:Ego the size of a planet... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Jim Hall ( 2985 ) on Thursday September 22, 2005 @12:14PM (#13622765) Homepage

      There was a time I thought Romero was interesting: before I actually learned anything about him and just knew he was part of ID. Talk about letting a little success go to your head... he's like a warning label for the entire concept of ego overtaking your rational thought processes.

      No kidding! I just finished reading Masters of Doom [thinkgeek.com] and didn't realize until then how much of a prick John Romero really was. For those who haven't read the book - it's a "rise and fall of Id Software" book. It's interesting that after DOOM was released, Romero clearly became more interested in playing games than writing them. He pretty much left all the game-writing to John Carmack. The book spells out how Romero was a better programmer in the beginning, but Carmack quickly surpassed him and left Romero behind. Pretty much because Romero lost focus.

      These days, Romero is a big hype machine. Diakatana, [penny-arcade.com] anyone? Ha ha ha ha!

      • Re:Ego the size of a planet... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by fistfullast33l ( 819270 ) on Thursday September 22, 2005 @01:13PM (#13623259) Homepage Journal
        Yeah that book definitely sealed Romero's fate in the minds of most id fans, IMO. If you didn't know Romero before the book, you definitely knew after that his games were to be avoided. There's a reason why this guy is getting his first studio in "several years." When John enters a room, another whole person enters behind him. Between him and Carmack, the lesson to learn is that the best gamers definitely do not make the best developers. When asked by PC Gamer if he were stranded on a deserted island what one game would he want with him, Carmack's response was, "actually I'd just like a compiler."
  • Is that the one that thought it would be a good idea to use the Gauntlet brand, despite the press demo only ever managing about 6 enemies onscreen at once?

    Well done, Romero. Well done indeed. Really captured the essence, there.
    • Well, considering how Doom III captures as well the essence of Doom in regards to enemy quantity, i'd say he's just following a trend...
    • Ick. I'm sorry - why do developers even bother with that kind of crap? Here's a hint - if the gameplay is slow enough that I ever notice the sexy glint off of your quadremegamapped player-model's nipple shields, then your gameplay is too damn slow and I only noticed 'cause you bored me to tears.

  • New Slashdot Moderation Feature? (Score:5, Funny)

    by telstar ( 236404 ) on Thursday September 22, 2005 @11:39AM (#13622427)
    Is there any way to moderate the developer mentioned in a story "Overrated"?
  • ...what idiot venture capital firm gave him the money to do it, so I can tell everyone I know not to invest in the startups they invest in. Obviously these people are seriously disconnected from reality.
  • Never played Daikatana myself, but i know John Romero got slated for it. Any one like to comment as to why? I mean, what went wrong?

    • Re:Daikatana - what was all that about? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Lisandro ( 799651 ) on Thursday September 22, 2005 @12:28PM (#13622863)
      Gamespot had a great article about the development of Daikatana [gamespot.com], and pretty much resumes why the game ended being as bad as it was. Great read.

    • Re:Daikatana - what was all that about? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Despite hpye, Daikatana isn't the worst game ever. It's a sub-standard FPS which was missing a lot of polish, didn't allow you to save until a later patch (instead preferring to use save points), and generally felt like a chore to play.

      One of the problems was that this wasn't just some developer - this was one of the visions behind Id, who split off to form his own studio so that his creative vision could flourish.

      The second problem was that the game kept getting delayed so that they could hypothetically g
    • There were three things wring with Daikatana that earned it the reputation it has today.

      First off, you know how they poke fun at Duke Nukem Forever? Well before Duke, there was Daikatana.

      Next, the game was incredibly hyped. Everybody had high hopes for all the whiz-bang new features that it was going to have, and how great it was going to look. It only underdelivered slightly, but there was much too much hype for it to ever live up to, which was compounded by the last point:

      It was so late that it was behind
      • Plus you had programmers at Ion Storm making all kinds of comments about how bad the id Engine was and how there were all these math errors and what not ... then Daikatana comes out and it's just nothing special. That's why game developers only need to start hyping when they are close enough that they KNOW their game is rockin'.

    • Re:Daikatana - what was all that about? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Deathlizard ( 115856 ) on Thursday September 22, 2005 @02:52PM (#13624139) Homepage Journal
      Daikatana wasn't a bad game, as much as it was trying to do stuff far ahead of it's time, and then over hyped it to the point where it had to reinvent everything about the genre, or it would get blasted by everyone. This is what Duke Nukem Forever is going to be up against. DNF could be a great game if it comes out. DNF could be very fun and compelling, but it's going to get blasted by reviewers because it took so long to make, and should be absolutely flawless for the amount of time it took to make.

      Back to Daikatana. The biggest problem was the Bot characters. The AI for them was completely stupid, and suffered many problems.
      1) They suffered from "Natalia Syndrome" and would tend to run off on their own and get killed (which was bad, since you'd die when they did.)
      2) They also had friendly fire on the bots, so when they would lag behind you and they saw something move, they would almost always shoot you in the back.
      3) You never could "leave your buddy superfly" or Keiko when it came to the next part of the stage. This was just a pain. especially when half of the time they couldn't navigate the complex world.
      Nowadays, you see much more complex AI work seamlessly with the player, and in many cases, you see what Daikatana was trying to do in more modern games (HL2 and the freedom fighter squads you can control is a good example), although still not as extreme to the point that one person dies and it's game over time.

      Graphically, it's wasn't so bad. It looked ok, but it was no Half Life or Quake II, which came out around the same time or earlier. It however took a bold move and did all of the cut scenes as real time rendered scenes; something that You really didn't see much at that time, but see almost all the time today.

      Storyline, wasn't bad. It could have been better, especially in the naming dept.

      gameplay bucked a lot of the FPS norms. Weapons were interesting, especially the Daikatana, which leveled and got more powerful as you killed stuff with it. Kinda like the soulcube in doom III but more complex. You actually got levels and could apply them to attributes like speed, vitality, ETC.

      Price was the best thing about this game. I think I paid $0.99 for the thing. It was definitely worth that price.
    • Here's the gameplay. Start will a god-awful cutscene that is way too long. Then get killed by mosquitoes and frogs a few times. No, I'm not kidding, you have to shoot frogs and mosquitoes that are so poorly textured that you'll mistake them for the background. If you miss a frog, it will touch you and you'll explode (Why? No Idea.) Then you take the CD out of your computer, nail it to a wall, and rock back-and-forth with your eyes closed until they stop bleeding.

  • Keen 3D! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by metamatic ( 202216 ) on Thursday September 22, 2005 @12:21PM (#13622819) Homepage Journal
    Am I the only one who thinks "Commander Keen: 3D" would make a good comeback title?
    • Drop the "3D" and I'd be inclined to agree with you.

      </nostalgic luddite>
    • As much as we'd all love to see The Universe Is Toast, it isn't possible at this stage - iD still owns the rights to Keen, and doesn't seem to want to give them up, regardless of the fact that they aren't using them, and the last Keen game they tried to release was a flop (Commander Keen for Gameboy Color).

  • What does this mean for Gauntlet? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MilenCent ( 219397 ) <johnwh AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday September 22, 2005 @12:48PM (#13623053) Homepage
    Gauntlet, above all other action RPGish hack-and-slash things, deserves a great update. While Romero may or may not have been capable of it, I don't know if Midway can be trusted to do what's best for the series. Remember, they released the awesome Midway Arcade Treasures with a phoned-in interface and multiple sound bugs, waking up to the public's interest in it only when it *actually sold*.

    What follows is, in my not-so-humble opinion, what the Gauntlet series needs to remain interesting and relevant in its next incarnation.

    * Get rid of some of the sameness that filled the later areas of Legends and Dark Legacy. Hack slash hack slash hack slash. Despite the variety in environment, most of the areas were simply differently-shaped tubes through which the players flowed.
    * Get the hell rid of the lame collection quests from the home versions of those two games; one in the whole game (runestones) is enough. It's Gauntlet, not Banjo-Kazooie! All home versions of the game other than the Dreamcast one ruined the bonus rounds by having them grant only character unlock credits unstead of gold.
    * Put back in all the great gimmicks and concepts from Gauntlet II, with some additional clever multiplayer concepts. (GII was the game that gave us the IT Monster.) I've got some ideas for this, give me a call! (The author of this comment then waits by phone anxiously for several months, then walks away, sad, dejected, but wiser.)
    * Deepen the character development with some hard choices, but don't make it too complicated. This is Gauntlet, not Morrowind. At the same time, it's not Final Fantasy either, so there's no need to putz about with weapon and armor inventories or attempts to put in a "real" story. Gauntlet needs to be kept pure; it's still possible for a hack-and-slash game to do well, if it focuses on what hack-and-slash does best: quick thinking, on-the-fly strategizing, and action action action.
    * Keep the monster count up, and put back in strategic ways of taking out generators early. The key skills of classic Gauntlet players are the ability to shoot generators just as they come on screen (before they have a chance to produce bullet-soaking enemies), and the quick scouting trip to take out generators before they can produce too much. Both of these tactics are possible in L and GL, but not as useful. Aiming is harder because of the 3D nature of the game (even with auto-aim), and
    * And most importantly, LEAVE IN TIMED HEALTH LOSS! The fact that, at home, there was no penalty for waiting around waiting for your turbo meter to fill, directly harmed the game. Notice: ALL the (real) home versions of the original Gauntlet and Gauntlet II have timed health loss, while all the home versions of Legends and Dark Legacy had no such thing.

    It's easy to forget these days just how groundbreaking the original Gauntlets were, and they're still fondly remembered by many people. And damn it, they're still fun to play now, even the home versions of the arcade updates. Midway is sitting on a gold mine here if they can avoid dropping the ball. (Chances of Midway dropping the ball, especially now that original creator Ed Logg is no longer with them: 85%.)
  • Notorious, but not near as much as this guy [werewolves.org]!
  • Didn't he found Ion Storm? The company that brought us the unbelievably good Deus Ex?

    I'm willing to give him another chance. Daikatana was only bad due to its delays and excessive hype, imo..

    • Re:Didn't he found Ion Storm? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Ion Storm was made up of 3 seperate designers, each with their own projects. Romero made Daikatana, Tom Hall made the quirky RPG Anachronox (poorly designed, but well implemented, IMHO), and Warren Spector made the beloved Deus Ex. Not surprisingly, Spector's team was the only one that survived their first release.

      Now, Warren Spector has his own company, while the other two have yet to make a successful game (as mentioned in the summary).

      So, yes, Romero was a founder of Ion Storm, but no, he had nothing t
    • There were separate Ion Storm studios around the US. As far as I can tell, they never communicated with one another.

      Romero and Hall came out with Storm Over Gift 3, an unbelievably primitive and generally crappy RTS, and followed it with Daikatana, an unbelievably primitive and generally crappy FPS.

      Spector's Ion Storm studio came out with Deus Ex.

      Ion Storm was a company where the company logo meant either shit or sugar, but you had to look for which studio had produced the game.

  • Daikatana 2 (Score:3, Funny)

    by kinglink ( 195330 ) on Thursday September 22, 2005 @04:24PM (#13624944)
    Sweet, Jokes about Duke Nukem Forever are getting old, and look here comes Romero to be the butt of our jokes again!
  • Something I never understood about Romero is: What does he actually do? WIth Carmack it's pretty easy, he's the coder's coder. But Romero always had that nebulous title of "designer" which means what, exactly? Does he actually work on the levels, making art, programming rooms, or is he just the idea guy, writing emails and documents?
    • Apparently after seeing Daikatana and Doom 3 (or Quake 3 which I didn't care for that much but was solid) You can see where each guy exceled during Doom started and where their falling was. (apparently i'd have to Carmacks was hiring Romero, and Romero's was over hyping his shit.)
    • I was at Origin's office in New Hampshire when John Romero got hired to work on porting some of the Ultima games to the IBM PC. He kindly gave me copies of all the Apple II games he'd made in the past - he got his start the same way I did, making entire games from scratch, doing all the programming, art, levels, design, and sound effects. Most of his earliest works were done for budget software publishers that sold $5 or $10 game disks in inexpensive packaging.

      After Origin he went to Softdisk, where the

  • > At the time of his departure, Romero and Hall
    > were working on the still-unreleased action
    > role-playing game Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows."

    From an earlier interview with him from six months ago: Romero shouted "Content is king!" and pulled aside a hastily-erected curtain, exposing the latest alpha build of Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows on a giant high definition plasma screen. Immediately, an elf with a bow and arrow began shooting at some incoming frogs. "That's what action, adventure, and mystery is a

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