Romero's New Gig

Eurogamer is reporting on John Romero's newest endeavor, a studio designing a Massive game. Slipgate Ironworks is currently hiring, to work on ... a game. From the article: "The site doesn't offer many clues to the game's nature (although it does reveal that it will include weapons. And animation. And light!), but we do know from Romero's public comments that it will be ready 'when it's done' and isn't down for a 2007 release as some reports have speculated." I'm sure it will be up to the standards of Mr. Romero's numerous other good works.

Comments

zombies?

[paradigmdream]

massive zombie mmo that doesn't suck :crosses fingers:

Re:zombies?

[paradigmdream]

and then i realized that john is not george =(

Re:zombies?

[static0verdrive]

I've been thinking about if George A. Romero were to make an MMO. Imagine one where player characters were few and far between, and there were zombies everywhere. Once in a while you meet a living person (another player) and try to get supplies and/or better weapons, maybe from a mall or something, but then your friend has to log and you're alone and terrified again! It could be cool. Oh, and you don't keep your character. You start as someone trying to survive, and you build up what you have - and if you die, you simply start as someone else at the bottom (it would be easier to live once you have better weapons and more friends, God forbid you run out of ammo with no backup plan - so the longer you play one character the more likely you are to keep them for a lot longer). None of this "death doesn't mean much" crap like most MMO's.

Re:zombies?

[paradigmdream]

that would be a great game. if you want to log out you have to find yourself a safe place that the zombies can't get to but you can die while logged out if you don't find a good enough location

Re:zombies?

[rwven]

I hear John Romero and all I can think is "Daikatana." *shiver*

That game was enough to make a person want to gag themself with a daikatana...sharp end first.

Let's all hope in unison that whatever game he DOES make bears NO resemblance to that festival of tragety.

Re:zombies?

[Some_Llama]

I discussed this same Idea with a friend a few months back, an alternative to the child post would be if you are killed you become one of the undead and hunt down the remaining "survivors".

Instead of different "zones" which have the same game play going on, each zone could be in a different state of time after the "plague" started. Once all the "survivors" were dead you would re-start the zone.

Rockstars!

[andrewman327]

Maybe they can grab employees from the Rockstar exedous reported on /. the other day.

Already losing interest.

[Vo0k]

Keyword: Weapons.
It's really doubtful anything new involving weapons and combat can be invented anymore.
There are quite a few fields that could still create an original game. Quite a few might involve combat as an element, but I doubt any good combat-based game can be made anymore.

Re:Already losing interest.

[spyrochaete]

It's really doubtful anything new involving weapons and combat can be invented anymore.

What about Half Life's gravity gun? What about Black's art style? What about Prey's... EVERYTHING?

Yeah, there are only so many ways you can shoot a guy in the crotch, but FPS is the (second?) best selling genre on PC so people aren't getting tired of the genre yet.

Then again, I never thought I'd find fairly good shooters boring, but somehow paying $5 each for Operation Snowblind and Pariah felt like I got overcharged $8.

"Do ray mi fa so long, sucker!!" (repeat 30x)

Re:Already losing interest.

[msuzio]

What you need in a game like this is something else surrounding the fighting action. I still play the various wrestling games on the PS2 a ton, and that's because they have plotlines and character design elements that are fun. Nothing like deciding one night to make up a tag team of Kim Jong Il and Osama Bin Laden to wrestle as the "Axis of Evil" in the WWE :-). Took my friend three hours to design the characters and graphics in the game designer, but it was worth it to see them body-slamming Steven Austin!

So, yeah, fighting and weapon games can still be fun. It's just harder to be imaginative now. Halo is a good example of a game that took FPS and threw in a few new elements -- vehicle combat is one example -- and rejuvenated it to great success.

Re:Already losing interest.

[PaulMorel]

"I doubt any good combat-based game can be made anymore"

Flamebait?

I mean, that's a pretty broad generalization. That's basically saying that "only puzzle games will be any good from here on out".

Riiiight.

Personally, I think there is plenty of innovation left in combat games. I mean, the Wii sword fighting game seems to be a step in a new direction.

Re:Already losing interest.

[Total_Wimp]

It's really doubtful anything new involving weapons and combat can be invented anymore.
There are quite a few fields that could still create an original game. Quite a few might involve combat as an element, but I doubt any good combat-based game can be made anymore.

First off, new and good don't necessarily go hand in hand. I've played a lot of games that weren't exactly new, but were plenty of fun.

Secondly, I'm still pretty impressed by how much tweeks in a formula can change the gameing experience in an fun way. The gravity gun in Half Life 2, the green cloud that causes bullet time in SIN episodes and the combination of tanks, planes and infantry in Battlefield 2 were all new to me when I tried them and all were fun.

There's still much to be explored. Fully interactive and destructable environments? People claim they have it, but have you ever really seen it? I want to be able to blow out any wall with my tank, not just the few they say I can, and I want to see whole buildings collapse when I blow out too many of them. I want to be able to push vegitation out of the way. I want to be able to see where others broke off branches or trampled grass when passing by. Hell, I want to see just one shooter in my lifetime where you NEVER see anybody's legs sticking through a wall.

There's a lot to explore in the genre. I'll keep looking at them as long as they keep trying out new stuff.

TW

Re:Already losing interest.

[zyl0x]

What you're waiting for is a zombie insulter.

Bring on the FPIs.

Re:Already losing interest.

[cttforsale]

The Story of Aki. A gun that doesn't want to kill. Guide Aki to the land of Bulletfree, with his side kick Spent Kartridge. Will Aki ever see peace loving new home? Only you can decide!

Re:Already losing interest.

[Vo0k]

Halo is a good example of a game that took FPS and threw in a few new elements -- vehicle combat is one example -- and rejuvenated it to great success.

Not really. Halo was a medicore FPS but the only semi-decent one on xbox. If you have a platform/console userbase of several hundreds thousands of users and release only one reasonably good game of given genre, it must be a commercial success. Assuming every third user of XBox wants to play some FPS, for every third xbox a copy of Halo will be sold. Simply because there's nothing better available and xbox marketing machine made a good work of selling the console.
PC has a much wider choice of FPSes and some of them much better than halo, but since you can choose from several decent titles, no single game displays such spectacular success.
Outside of Counter-strike maybe.

Re:Already losing interest.

[Mr. Underbridge]

It's really doubtful anything new involving weapons and combat can be invented anymore. There are quite a few fields that could still create an original game. Quite a few might involve combat as an element, but I doubt any good combat-based game can be made anymore.

In other news, every new invention was created by 1850 and the patent office has been summarily shut down.

Re:Already losing interest.

[Vo0k]

Goddamnit that's some limited imagination.
So there are two genres: Combat and Puzzle. And nothing else.
What about strategy that aims at avoiding conflict? Simulators? Good old-fashioned non-combat arcades? Role-playing that leave combat as last resort instead of filler for 90% of content? Stealth games that prohibit fight (Thief, difficulty: hard)? "natural disaster" environment adventures? A game of espionage, if you draw your gun, you're screwed?
And puzzles aren't that bad either. A good puzzle-based survival horror where your weapons are practically useless against the enemy. Or a detective game, where you draw your gun to arrest the suspect, and preferably end the game without firing a single bullet? A negotiator game, where the puzzle is a psychological pressure game? Disarming bombs and figuring out their locations, fighting undercover terrorists you never see?

Re:Already losing interest.

[Vo0k]

For this you will have to wait a few years longer. Shooters are not quite dead but in a crisis. There is a lot to do in them yet, but the hardware isn't nearly up to it yet.

Gravity gun wasn't really a weapon. I mean, how often were you using it as a weapon when you had a choice? Even in Ravenholm which was designed with gravity gun in mind, a shotgun was much better. Gravity gun was a great tool that allowed for lots of fun in the game, but usage as a weapon was just its minor perk. Bullet time is another non-weapon perk, a combat support element played into ground in recent years. Multiple vehicles are okay in multiplayer, but in single player they are not only old (Amiga - Armourgeddon?), they also suck without decent competitive enemy AI (or natural I in case of multiplayer...)

For now there are still a few perks that are to be added and explored but won't make a good game, then a break of 2-3 years till really good games can be made again. Fully destructable environment, actual smart, good AI both on sidekick and enemy side, locational damage that causes related effects, stealth-based combat that makes sense, massive active environments that don't limit your gameplay area, actual mass-scale warfare operations, these things are yet to come, but not anytime soon.

In the meantime there's a lot of long-overdue "genres" that were neglected because they weren't really possible on the old hardware, but are possible now. Assume most of the above combat elements but with dynamism needed in combat removed. Fully destructable environment that may take up to 3 minutes to precalc the effects of the destruction. Good decision-making non-realtime AI. Stealth-based non-combat operations. Mass scale non-military operations. Many of these things were tried but failed because they appeared before their times. Now they have a good chance of success.

The basic problem with the gaming industry is that it caters to idiots. Games are getting dumbed down to be playable and understandable by the most stupid of players and as result lose their charm, they stop appealing to more intelligent players. Perks and tricks are being added but they are still the same old games.

Re:Already losing interest.

[Vo0k]

In other news, every new significant steam power based invention was created by 1900 and the patent office moved on to new technologies.
Corrected.

Later on the old technology has been recycled and improved on to use as a part of modern machinery (steam turbines in nuclear power plants for example), but no more revolutionary steam-based inventions were made. People moved on to gasoline, electricity, electronics. Steam technology still has its small niche but it's a margin.

Re:Already losing interest.

[Anonymous Coward]

I used the gravity gun for a huge part of the game, actually. Ammo for weapons in Ravenholm was pretty scarce, so I used the gravity gun as much as sensible. I would say one of the biggest complaints I had with HL2 was that is was more like a loosely duct-taped series of exercises for the gravity gun than a game. It looked pretty but it was easy and involved the gravity gun way too much for puzzles and combat.

Everyone thinks everyone else is an idiot. FPS games are meant for people that like FPS games. For me that largely means that I just buy games whose engines will be used for fun mods, but for other people running around shooting AIs is the peak of entertainment and they buy more titles. Pretending that they're stupid would be funny if it wasn't what Slashbots do to about everyone other than themselves about everything.

Re:Already losing interest.

[BytePusher]

This is clear, because as anyone can see(from the news) humankind has completely lost interest in warfare. We are reaching a historical time where men are clearly growing to hate fighting and violence. People would rather "just get along" than stand triumphantly on our enemies chest crying out, "Glory!!!" while shooting off our machine gun at random directions in the air. Nope, no more room for fighting games. None at all...

Re:Already losing interest.

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

being a diehard PC gamer and all, I do have to admit that I really enjoyed Halo and Halo 2.
On top of that, I'm really starting to get sick of all the high and mighty "I'm a PC gamer and I know everything, if a FPS doesn't have mouse+keyboard it sucks"

Bottom line is the game sold xboxes for a reason.
I mean, this generation is making me feel more and more like retiring from 'hardcore gaming' entirely. Maybe I could get some extra work done, or force my transcript to be less ugly. . .

Re:Already losing interest.

[Total_Wimp]

Games are getting dumbed down to be playable and understandable by the most stupid of players and as result lose their charm, they stop appealing to more intelligent players.

This is a real problem in almost any entertainment medium. People have been complaining about this in movies and music for decades. In those mediums, the answer is underground or indy films/music. Luckily, we have something of an easier fix in gaming.

This problem with gaming is almost exclusively present in single-player, or cooperative multiplayer games. If the game maker has to judge how strong/hard to make enemies/puzzles, he often ends up going witht he lowest commen denomenator.

The fix is multiplayer. I've been getting my butt kicked time and time again at BF2. Those guys are talented and smart and they'll find very creative ways to use their environment for an advantage. These are the games that I think would most bennefit from fully-destructible and other ways that you can leave a mark on your environment. The ability to track, better ability to hide, and the ability to destroy hiding spots, etc. could all make games much more interesting, but they depend on the basic premis that your enemy is at least as intelligent as you.

The one big problem with multiplayer is that there's not enough work being done to pit enemys of similar skill against each other. In sports they have various leagues that seperate different skill levels, but in multiplayer I'm often playing against morons on one game or gods on another. Both can be frustrating.

TW

Re:Already losing interest.

[sammy baby]

It's really doubtful anything new involving weapons and combat can be invented anymore.

What about Half Life's gravity gun? What about Black's art style? What about Prey's... EVERYTHING?

It's funny you should mention Prey... I'm not sure that anything about the game really qualifies as "new" anymore. The original game was proposed over ten years ago, and the "Native American guy gets abducted and must kick ass" angle has been intact since 1996.

There were non-interactive demos at E3 in 1997 which showed off the nifty-neato portal technology. Since then, the whole thing has been torn down and built up again once or twice, but when I first heard that there was a playable demo, my reaction was... well, it's not quite the gold master of Duke Nukem Forever, but it's close.

Re:Already losing interest.

[Vo0k]

Ammo for weapons in Ravenholm was pretty scarce, so I used the gravity gun as much as sensible.

But if ammo was less scarce (or just top limits of ammo capacity were higher, so that you could carry every piece of ammo you find, or at least all the smaller ones - aaargh, magnum, crossbow!) would you keep using it? It was the game artificially forcing you to use a sucky weapons to conserve ammo for better ones. Admit it: Grav gun as a weapon usually sucks. Quite a few puzzles were cool, and effects of the grav gun in combat were interesting enough to encourage using it, but it was NOT a revolution as a weapon. HL2 didn't make a better shooter thanks to it. It was a good game thanks to quite interesting puzzles, great mood, decent storyline and good fast-paced combat. Ability to throw a toilet at a zombie was sure interesting and quite legendary but it didn't contribute to HL2 being a good game much.

Everyone thinks everyone else is an idiot. FPS games are meant for people that like FPS games.
I wanted to think that until I started playing Oblivion. A sequel in the famous series of Elder Scrolls saga. RPG games are no longer meant for people who like RPG games. Oblivion is a hack&slash, dumbed down that it doesn't appeal to people who like the immersion, intellectual challenge and story of a RPG anymore, while being a great toy for kids who would love Diablo style RPG-alike hack&slash games. I must admit Half-Life series makes a great story and the fight, struggle in part 1 was matching the storyline quite tightly. But in part 2 the storyline, scenario, events are very weakly tied to the combat part. It has good storytelling and good shooter game, but these are completely separate. You could pass the whole game without understanding a single thing that happened in the "dialogue" parts, and no matter how you played, the storyline wouldn't change. Meaning: dumbed down so you can't screw up the story part through the FPS part.

And this trend lasts: Games have their "plotlines", sometimes they have "puzzles" but there's no way to impact the plotline significantly otherwise than by dying. You follow a scenario. Linearity or narrow branching. You screw up by running all out of rockets before a boss fight, or missing an essential weapon pickup point. You don't screw up by telling a sidekick to follow you and as result leave too small base crew to defend, or by taking the turn to a town overriden by enemy instead of following relatively clean coast.

Imagine this in HL2: No events that force you to go to Ravenholm happen if you shot down a scanner that follows you in a fair distance, instead a completely separate plotline starts, putting you in the lab coat for a while and changing quite a few events. Later you must pick your road along the coast, find maps, backtrace your steps from dead ends and at places have to turn back simply due to vastly overwhelming enemy power. Or you find a way to activate one of the boats and go there by sea instead. Or raid a citadel and take one of the "benefactors" as a hostage, forcing the Combine to release Eli.

I demand:
1) Continuity. Stop splitting the game into levels, blocks, areas, missions, quests, whatever. Make the game flow. (HL made this reasonably with plotline, but gameplay was awfully chopped)
2) Non-linearity, wide alternative arcs, significant decisions. (none of recent games has that, AFAIK.)
3) Make strictly gameplay events count in the storyline. (don't separate the above "decision making" from normal gameplay, don't create apparent crossroads but say, if you hurry up, outcome will be different than if you don't. If you kill more enemies on your way, a friendly base will have easier time and be able to stand the attack.)
4) Make things happen independently of player activity (non-player-triggered events.) Say, enemy units move according to specific orders and will appear in certain areas or not, and the player may have no way to impact it. Not that everything happens exactly when you show up there. These event

Re:Already losing interest.

[spyrochaete]

It's funny you should mention Prey...

Only because you haven't played it yet! Between the portals and the antigravity walkways there is TONS of new strategy and life in this shooter in terms of blasting and puzzle solving. You really have to see these features to understand the gravity (yuk yuk) of these design additions. I'm not much on multiplayer games but I might try a deathmatch or two just to try out the mechanics.

Also, not that it's new per se, the voice acting is really excellent in this game. The fact that the protagonist has a voice and a distinct personality is a stark contrast to the silent-but-deadly Gordon Freeman of Half Life.

At the end of the day you're shooting people in a shooter game. That ain't gonna change. But hey, you jump in platformers and you sneak in stealth games. You can only do so much to a genre without ailienating your audience, but in my experience Prey delivered a really solid mix of originality and familiarity.

Re:Already losing interest.

[Vo0k]

You missed out one word in my comment: "NEW".
Same old sucky games will keep being released and same idiots will keep buying them, while players who look for something better will be left out in the cold.


Being based on history, the, um, stages of the game, will also be based on battles which took--actually took place in ancient Japan.

So here's this giant enemy crab, and you...attack its weak point for massive damage.


Yes. There are people who will love this game.

Re:Already losing interest.

[Vo0k]

The question is: Did the game sell xboxes or did xboxes sell the game?
I don't deny it's a good game. But is it the best FPS you played ever? Didn't you play better ones on PC? Halo wasn't revolutionary, but still was one of quite a few. But best from the xbox ones, and as result very hyped by xbox fanboys who have no idea about games outside xbox, it gathered more credit than it deserved. It's a 9/10 game, not 11/10 one. It didn't change the world of gaming overall, but opened the world of FPS to consoles. This greatly increased the interest of publishers in consoles. And they began catering to average console user, instead of average PC user. Result: Games like TES4 Oblivion. Short, sucky hack&slash with candy graphics. About 1/4 of TES3: Morrowind size, half its features, but a really joystick-friendly menu and levelled loot/enemy keeping the enemies "challenging" during the whole gameplay.

Re:Already losing interest.

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

wow. . . I can understand your position on Halo but TES4? Did you even play it? You're right about the graphics, but the rest of the game IMHO is neither short, sucky, nor a hack and slash.

If you want to judge it on the main arc alone then you might be able to stretch that ~25 hours is short. Add one guild and then it's probably closer to 50 hours. . . and that's IF you don't actually play the game, just grinding through it.

To be fair though, the leveling of the enemies in the game is completely retarded. Easily knocks 20% off of my score for it. I mean, since when do kobolds have like full set of dwarven plate armor and daedric daikatanas anyway?
Luckily there exists a masterfully done mod that fixes the leveling problem in a way that doesn't feel like a trainer. Also the alcohol mod is interesting too.

to answer your question about halo, it was definitely the best co-op FPS I've ever played. I would like to know though, what your favourite FPS game is. Your question made me think of that and to be honest there really aren't that many good FPS games. I think we value many of them simply because of the nostalgia value that we attach to them. I mean, Wolf3d was an awesome game to me when I first played it. Now if we don't attach the nostalgia, it really isn't that good. Niether are doom, duke 3d, or heretic.

were they revolutionary games? yes.

but can you honestly say they're better than games of this generation? And can we honestly say that the games of this generation are better than the ones of the next?

Even if the gameplay stays exactly the same, the graphics, level design, and soundplay will follow the technology, increasing with each generation. How can one argue that the games won't be better?

I mean, quake, half-life, and unreal all blow them out of the water. But what happens when we make new games based almost entirely on the nostalgia factor of the old? Doom 3 happens! I mean, its got squeeky clean (for dirty muddy mars) graphics but its almost a step down on the game play level.

Also it is unfair to qualify mods when we're talking about FPS in a context of comparing PC to Console. Sure some of the mods for half-life, quake, and UT2kx have been amazing as far as gameplay goes but it is unfair to compare them to the static console world.

So with that said if I absolutely had to pick one FPS as my favourite it might be Halo or it might not be, I suppose it will depend on when FPS games are no longer made, it would probably be one of the last couple dozen that come out.

ha ha, we can only hope that it is Deus Ex :P

Oh well, everyone's entitled to their opinion so I say we should just hope in a {insert latest fps game name here} match and blast each other until the next one comes out.

One last thing, I hope I don't get ModerRAPED for probably grinding a lot of fps'ers gears.

Re:Already losing interest.

[Vo0k]

wow. . . I can understand your position on Halo but TES4? Did you even play it? You're right about the graphics, but the rest of the game IMHO is neither short, sucky, nor a hack and slash. If you want to judge it on the main arc alone then you might be able to stretch that ~25 hours is short.


Heh, I was announced unofficial God of Oblivion. I played it more than I wanted... Usually totally screwing both combat (just cheaty uber spells and items) and questlines (completed them all once, only DB and main weren't a waste of time, but both were short.) I spent most time exploring, finding immense pleasure in writing reviews for the game wiki for each location explored. But that can be done only once, not per person but per game title... the wiki list is full and I haven't played the game in a week or so already. And not likely to play it too.

Sucky:
The "levelled everything" makes the game easiest to finish when you are level 2. On level 40 you can forget keeping most of NPCs alive through Battle for Bruma, Kvatch and whatever. In daedric armour you die faster than in leather, because by the time you start getting daedric in random drops, enemies hit so hard you can barely survive. The way around this is to make a character with primary skills completely contradicting your role, say, pick all schools of magic then specialize in heavy armour and blunt weapons, or pick armourer, heavy armour, light armour, blunt, and such then play the character as an armourless master mage. Oh, and the journal. "I killed the 4th bear. I should locate the 5th bear, it should be somewhere near." No more thinking, just read the last line of current journal entry and it spells out what to do and how to do it. And compass. You know your hit is currently passing by Fort Nikel in direction of Skingrad. Yup, GPS tracking of assassination targets. Oh, and dumbed down spell system. And removed content (spells, weapons, skills, armour, companion share etc.) And simplified dialogue. And any usefulness of security skill replaced by a minigame. and, and...

Hack&slash, short:
How much non-hack&slash content was there?
What percentage of missions didn't involve killing something/someone?

1. Escape From Prison: Fight Mythic Dawn. (1h)
2. Deliver the Amulet: Travel, talk. Optional bandits. (3 min w/fast travel)
3. Find the Heir: First bandits, then daedra. (15 min w/fast travel)
4. Breaking the Siege of Kvatch: Kill Daedra. Lots of Daedra. (15 min, speedrun preferred)
5. Weynon Priory: MD again. (15 min. + fasttravel with companion glitches)
6. The Path of Dawn: First some "roleplaying", then kill MD. (30 min)
7. Dagon Shrine: Find, and infiltrate, then kill all MD. (1h)
8. Spies: Kill two spies. (15 min)
9. Blood of the Daedra: You can choose one that doesn't involve killing. Maybe killing sheep. (30 min)
10. Bruma Gate: Daedra fight, with sidekicks. (45 min)
11. Blood of the Divines: Kill Undead (1h)
12. Miscarcand: Undead. Lots of. (45 min)
13. The Defense of Bruma: Daedra. Crowds. (15 min (most of which is wasted following Martin and Jauffre walking at snail speed).
14. Great Gate: No time to kill, just run. (3 min)
15. Paradise: Daedra. Crowds. (1h)
16. Temple of the One: Daedra. (30 min)

About 8h.

Of cou

Re:Already losing interest.

[Anonymous Coward]

"the "Native American guy gets abducted and must kick ass" angle has been intact since 1996."

... Back when they called it Turok: Dinosaur Hunter...

Re:Already losing interest.

[BigFootApe]

Nothing like deciding one night to make up a tag team of Kim Jong Il and Osama Bin Laden to wrestle as the "Axis of Evil" in the WWE :-).

That's awesome.

Halo is a good example of a game that took FPS and threw in a few new elements -- vehicle combat is one example -- and rejuvenated it to great success.

I guess you've never played Tribes 2. Clipping people with the Shrike is so fun.

Re:Already losing interest.

[ultranova]

The way around this is to make a character with primary skills completely contradicting your role, say, pick all schools of magic then specialize in heavy armour and blunt weapons, or pick armourer, heavy armour, light armour, blunt, and such then play the character as an armourless master mage.

If I was a master mage, and was expecting trouble, I'd wear the heaviest armor I could get my hands on (and further enhance it with magic), and then basically act as a tank, bombarding the enemy from the distance and letting the armor take care of any counterattacks.

The "mages can't wear armor" bullshit comes from D&D, where mages need to wave their hands like amateur actors to get anything done - and even there, master mages learn to avoid such things and can wear armor. There is absolutely no reason to extend such absurdity to any fantasy world where magic doesn't require theater performance.

If anything, a master mage needs armor more than a master fighter, since the mage has less melee experience and muscles and is thus less likely to be able to dodge.

Re:Already losing interest.

[ultranova]

Halo is a good example of a game that took FPS and threw in a few new elements -- vehicle combat is one example -- and rejuvenated it to great success.

I guess you've never played Battlezone ?-)

Re:Already losing interest.

[Vo0k]

Nope, not the point. In Oblivion you can actually make a pretty "tank" mage character by enchanting several pieces of clothes with "shield" effect, giving protection of heaviest, best armour (and you can do it early in the game, while said armour starts appearing when you are level 20!)

The point is in the levelling system: Skills are everything. Levels are a handicap. The higher your level, the harder the game, but there's few if any profits from gaining levels. You gain levels from gaining "class skills". So to get skills you use high while keeping your level low, you pick class skills you're never going to use, and use strictly non-class skills instead. The non-class skills grow without negative impact on gameplay difficulty while the class skills rot there at their apprentice level forever and you use them once in a blue moon, or when the game feels too easy and you're looking for a challenge - then you "train" them (spend a night sneaking around a bed of a sleeping person, keep casting the same useless spell over and over, abort lockpicking minigame when you're about to press the last tumbler, try again, keep rolling the speechcraft minigame over and over, or find a mudcrab and let it attack you, while you wear steel armour, keeping healing yourself. You gain them, you gain a level, game gets harder but some extras get unlocked. The problem is these extras are hardly worth the increase in difficulty...

Re:Already losing interest.

[sammy baby]

Only because you haven't played it yet!

Well... yeah, except for the fact that I have. The demo, that is. I don't play, online or otherwise, as much as I used to since becoming a father, but I downloaded the demo for Prey to give it a shot. I found the dialogue to be incredibly obnoxious - I actually took extra care not to let my wife (who was an anthropolgy major in college) hear any of the audio, not just because the squishy flesh-rending sounds would bother her, but because the script is so lame. At least in HL2, the characters who do talk don't sound like they were scripted by a high schooler who is reading Casteneda for the first time.

Online play was about as frenetic as I remember Quake 2 and UT as being. The effect of the portals and rearranged gravity isn't as much as you'd think in a busy multiplayer game. In the end, you see someone move, you shoot them, and the fact that he's running up the wall at the time didn't really effect my perception of the gameplay too much.

Re:Already losing interest.

[msuzio]

I knew Tribes 2 did it, but no, I never did play it. I'm not claiming Halo invented it, but it probably exposed more people to that new play style than any other game up until then.

Someone had to say it..

[Rob T Firefly]

I'll have a look.. so long as he doesn't want to make me his bitch this time.

Re:Someone had to say it..

[WilliamSChips]

I don't think the marketing department is going to be so stupid to do that advertizing campaign again.

Re:Someone had to say it..

[The Snowman]

But look at his long, girly hair! I would love to be his bitch!

Re:Someone had to say it..

[gamesource]

Well, the creator of that campaign, Mark Reign, is over at Epic now, and was causing chaos with their PR department last year when he was making fun of the Wii or something. So yes, the old Daikatana marketing man is still doing the same tricks.

News at 11

[MandoSKippy]

Video games are enjoyed by adults and parents alike.

When it's done

[Cocoa Radix]

A game that will be ready "when it's done"?!

Oh....kind of like Duke Nukem Forever! Well, I guess we'll never see this mysterious new hit. Too bad. I had my hopes up for a second, there.

Re:When it's done

[billcopc]

Not like DNF, more like Daikatana. It *WILL* be released, just by that time nobody will care anymore. On that note, does anybody care right now ? Didn't think so.

Romero failed miserably at Ion Storm, and apparently had some fun in the cell-phone gaming industry.. remember this guy was fired from id Software after Quake 1 was out. Romero is a higher-profile, attention whoring fella, but Carmack is the real brains and that's why id Software still cranks out blockbuster engines while Romero's endeavors hardly cause a ripple in the time-space continuum.

But the question is ...

[sabit666]

... is he going to make you his BITCH?!

Ric Romero!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ric

It is a well known fact that many internet geeks have never seen a real breast.

I can't be the only one...

[iamjoltman]

Surely, I'm not the only one here who automatically equates Romero with George A. Romero, right? You know, the director of the Living Dead films.

Re:I can't be the only one...

[paradigmdream]

my first comment was about zombies. so no, you're not the only one.

Re:I can't be the only one...

[Linkiroth]

Wait... you mean that there's another Romero!?

Re:I can't be the only one...

[KlausBreuer]

Hmmm, The Living Dead...

Let me guess: this game is going to be a FPS where you shoot (un)dead things.
And it's going to stink. And it's going to be late.

he's still making games?

[grapeape]

Has Roemero completed anything since Daikatana? (yes I know its "completion" is itself questionable) I know at one point he was with some "mobile" gaming company that flopped, then was supposedly with Midway but I never saw anything indicating he actually producted something. Interesting to see the hype machine starting up. Perhaps Romero is pissed that Duke Nukem Forever took his vaporware crown. At least with a mmorpg he has the excuse of never being finished so he never has to realease it.

Clearly I spend too much time on a competing site.

[Manmademan]

I instantly equated "Romero" with a mustachioed news reporters.

Skip that!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's go straight to "Duke Nukem Forever 2, Revenge of Romero!"

other good works?

[Eil]

Not to be abusive, abrasive, or hostile in any way, but Romero hasn't had any "good works" since he left id and not even id has been able to equal the greatness of the titles of that era.

Re:other good works?

[ultranova]

not even id has been able to equal the greatness of the titles of that era.

To be fair, nothing can ever equal Doom in FPS games. There had never been anything quite like it; that's why it hit so hard. Every FSP game afterward has been just a gradual evolution, not a true revolution; that's why they don't pack the punch Doom did, even if some of them are as good or better.

There will be games that hit like Doom, but that's because they'll be revolutionary, not just evolutionary. And they won't be shareware, since the game industry is too large nowadays to make a hit without a marketing budget.

Re:other good works?

[drjenk]

I beg to differ. Quake3 IMO was id's greatest achievement, that game had some serious legs and is still fun to this day.

Wasn't Daikatana released when it was done, too?

[jmccarthy]

"When it's done?" What company in their right mind would allow Romero to keep his own schedule? Or even talk to the press?

"Numerous other good works"

[Doches]

I'm sure it will be up to the standards of Mr. Romero's numerous other good works.

What, like Doom, Quake, & Wolfenstein 3D? I don't understand why it's so amazingly popular to bash Romero. Sure, Daikatana wasn't great, but neither was Will Wright's SimHealth -- and no one bashes Will.

It's not like Daikatana was this epic disaster. It was hyped, it had truly terrible advertising ("make you his bitch...," what were they thinking?), and sales were pretty pathetic, but it did make enough to cover the cost of production. So, technically, Daikatana has been more of a hit than, say, the XBox. It's time we all jumped off the "John-Romero-sucks" bandwagon.

Re:"Numerous other good works"

[jdevivre]

So, technically, Daikatana has been more of a hit than, say, the XBox

You know, you're underlying point is quite good. I would simply suggest replacing "hit" with "success". Being a developer myself, anything that kept the bills paid (ie. paid for itself) was a success. I've had WAY too many products come nowhere near to paying: thus, failures (or, as we like to kid ourselves, "limited successes").

Re:"Numerous other good works"

[grapeape]

Perhaps is Romero actually releases something worth while the bashing will go away, Sim Health was very early in the Maxis days and the dozens of games that Wright has been involved with since then have more than made up for one disaster. If anything Wright managed to catch lightning in a bottle twice, first with Sim City, then a decade later with The Sims, both pretty much revolutionalized their genres. Gamers are fickle, all it takes is one hit game and the game mags will all declare "Romero Is Back!".

Re:"Numerous other good works"

[Breakfast Pants]

Will Wright is seen as the driving force behind all of the sim games; Romero isn't seen as the driving force behind any of the three games you named, but he *was* the driving force behind Daikatana. Simple enough?

Just to be contrary:

[Anonymous Coward]

Will Wright sucks!

(What now, huh?)

No it isn't.

[Anonymous Coward]

He does suck. Hard. He is a spoiled, pompous shit for brains. His role in the great games of id's past was as the "wouldn't it be cool if..." kid. Thousands of people do that in their heads all the time, and do just as good a job, and in many cases better. He has no talent or skill, and is not capable of actually developing games. He just wants to think of cool ideas and get to live a rockstar lifestyle.

People hate him for more than just daikatana, they hate him for every aspect of ion storm. They hate him for being an arrogant cock who got famous off of the hard work of others, then proved beyond a shadow of a doubt with ion storm that id's success had nothing to do with him, and yet tards like you still defend him. I took a shit this morning with more talent than romero.

Not entirely

[SmallFurryCreature]

If you read up on it you do find out that daikatana did sell a good number of games and would have been considered a success by other game standards. However ION storm/Romero had been burning money at such an awesome speed that even this "sucess" was barely enough to cover stated production costs. Note that these often do not include secundary costs. You would have to follow movie production a lot closer then most to learn the differences between the production costs of a project and the total costs involved.

But the real cost was not money but the fact that Romero lost the respect of his customers. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Who is going to buy Daikatana 2? For that matter any ION Storm game or any Romero game?

Daikatana was Romero's project and it sucked donkey balls as a game. I only downloaded it and still felt ripped off. It was so bad that it can't be believed.

Now the difference with Will Wright is that he A: never was going to make us his bitch and B had other successfull games. Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein 3D are not Romero games. In fact judging by the turd that Daikatana was and that Romero has produced nothing else worth while it may be claimed that these ID games became successes despite Romero's involvement, not because.

Play Daikatana. I dare you to disagree that it is bad. Selling an overhyped game however isn't hard, there are always suckers lured in by advertising who are not warned by bad reviews and word of mouth. But the proof is simple. In an industry of sequels there is no Daikatana 2. How many success games have there been without a sequel?

Re:Not entirely

[GodBlessTexas]

For that matter any ION Storm game or any Romero game?

You mean games like Deus Ex, Deus Ex: Invisible War, and Thief: Deadly Shadows? And Anarchronox was critically acclaimed, even if it didn't sell well.

Not everything to come out of Ion Storm was a joke, though Eidos killed off the studio. As for successful games without a sequel? How about Starcraft? And before you mention Brood Wars, it was an expansion pack, not a sequel.

Re:Not entirely

[Anonymous Coward]

"Who is going to buy Daikatana 2? For that matter any ION Storm game or any Romero game?"

Deus Ex was a good Ion Storm game according to reviews and players alike. Not a Romero game, but don't bash all of Ion Storm because of one game.

Re:Not entirely

[geminidomino]

They kind of burned that credit with Deus Ex 2, though...

Re:Not entirely

[Breakfast Pants]

Starcraft was in a lot of ways a sequel to Warcraft. I'd like a better example (although unlike the parent I'm definitely not claiming there isn't one).

Re:Not entirely

[regular_gonzalez]

How many success games have there been without a sequel?

Few come to mind. Starcraft, Ultima Online, Tron 2.0, Alpha Centauri, Chronicles of Riddick, Diablo 2, and Dark Age of Camelot just off the top of my head.

I can see it now...

[tansey]

The hype has just started.

Every month or so, we'll get small updates.
Then it will be within a year of release, and the updates will become more frequent.
Then finally when release is only 4 months away, it will be revealed.

Every magazine will be covered with headlines about...

Daikatana Online!

Re:I can see it now...

[Mattintosh]

Lemme guess... Supafly Johnson marches into the bowels of hell and does battle with the devil himself. And that devil is... JOHN ROMERO, AND HE'S GOING TO MAKE YOU HIS BITCH!

Massive?

[porkface]

Shouldn't Romero have picked a project with a more finite scope after his last fiasco consumed at least 6 years of his working life?

Re:Massive?

[datawhore]

Agree. MMOs are the single biggest challenge for both game design and execution, and for all intents and purposes are infinite in scope as they are never truly complete. For someone who's last 10 years have potentially given us an idea of what actual contributions he had in his successes before then, he needs to start small and make a GOOD game to restore people's faith in his abilities. By small, I mean inexpensive and fast turn around, not 'mobile is where every failed game designer goes to lick their wounds and restore their pride' small.

Daikatana was similarly huge in scope and he demonstrated he couldn't execute. Who's going to pay for that again? He has a little bit of the Doom cred left that he can cash in, but if this one flops I'm afraid he's done.

There can be only one!

[Anonymous Coward]

Two Romero's enter, only one leaves alive.

Re:There can be only one!

[Synic]

Is the one who exits living or living dead?

mod parent up!

[I judge you]

As a game-industry vet who's been personally screwed by Romero, I agree with all of the parent's post...

Re:mod parent up!

[znaps]

You probably wrote it.

Re:mod parent up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you that blonde chick that played first person shooters and posed in Playboy?

You know, Romero was a good designer.

[Rifter13]

I read an interview with him once, and the worlds he envisions are quite cool. It is making the translation from his imagination to the computer that is tricky. I think a large part of what made Doom so great, was his vision. When he did Diakatana, he was still on the high of making one of the most popular games ever created. Diakatana coming out to such horrible reviews pretty much kicked the crap out of his ego. Enough of that, and a person grows up. I think that he has the potential to bring us other great worlds, if he can keep his ego somewhat in check. :-) I have high hopes for games that Romero works on. One of these days, he going to get the pieces right, and blow everyone away. (at least, that is what I hope for)

Re:You know, Romero was a good designer.

[ludomancer]

There's a difference here though. Envisioning worlds does not make you a designer by any means. That's a concept, not a design. A designer makes a system of rules on how the universe in the game operates, and by universe I don't mean the "worlds" concept, I mean the gameplay systems and mechanics behind it that the player uses and interacts with to strike a balance between challenge and fun.
I have nothing against Romero at all and agree with your post. I feel bad for the guy because he gets such loads of crap. I don't know how he keeps going after all that, personally. I do wonder what his mind will produce next, be it a steaming pile or an well executed piece of entertainment, we just have to wait and see, and hope people lay off the guy enough to let him get it done.

Yes, he's still making games...

[Svartalf]

The mobile games company only really flopped because the platform wasn't
suitable for gaming like he thought it would be. When the money didn't
come in quite like he'd hoped for, Monkeystone was put largely bed
(The site's still there and you can download the PocketPC and PC demos
of the titles he did ship under the Monkeystone name, but there's no
product info under the products tab, nor any way to buy the titles
at this time from the site...)- you can still get the Linux iteration
of Hyperspace Delivery Boy from Linux Game Publishing through Tux Games'
online store. He did deliver on the initial title and it's a fun,
playable, if slightly simple game like you might find on a GBA. Which,
is what he'd officially sought to accomplish with it and the Monkeystone
studio.

One hopes he learned from each of the experiences of Daikatana and Monkeystone
and that this pass at doing things will do as well as DooM did for him.

Doom, Quake, & Wolfenstein 3D?

[Ender Ryan]

Doom, Quake, & Wolfenstein 3D were made by id, not Romero. Romero was part of the team that made those games. Considering that Romero has been unable to produce anything worthwhile in the DECADE since he left id, despite the vast resources that were just handed to him to do as he pleased, I think it's a fair bet that Romero had NOTHING to do, at all, in any way, with the success of the games in question.

Daikatana sold only because of hype, and sales virtually stopped after everyone heard how horrible it was. Some of the people who bought it afterwards did so: just to see how horrible it was, as a gag gift, and other embarrassing reasons.

In the way that John Romero "contributes" to game development... "Wouldn't it be cool if..." John Romero stopped making games? Fuck yes it would.

Industry resources are stretched thin enough as it is. There's no room for wanna-be rockstars and prima donnas like Romero.

Re:Doom, Quake, & Wolfenstein 3D?

[Pluvius]

It's dishonest to talk about how Romero hasn't made a worthwhile game in ten years while neglecting to mention that Carmack hasn't either. (Worthwhile engines and tech demos, yes...)

Well, besides Quake 3 Arena, but how hard is it to design an MP-only FPS once you've got the engine developed? Especially one as streamlined as Q3A was.

Rob

Re:Doom, Quake, & Wolfenstein 3D?

[Ender Ryan]

Uhm, erm... Touché! :)

Although, Quake 2 and Doom 3 aren't so bad. In fact, I think Doom 3 is terribly underrated by a lot of people. It's actually quite an immersive game.

But OTOH, id has concentrated on making game engines, not games. So even discounting Quake 2, which was mediocre, and Doom 3, which was too little too late, it's not quite comparing apples to apples. At least id has done a lot of good, useful work. There's a whole slew of fantastic games that were developed using id's engines.

Still, a fair point.

Cheers!

I want the list of investors...

[Il128]

He spoke to and got money from. I have a bridge they'd be interested in.

Re:I want the list of investors...

[easychord]

Investors arn't stupid, you need to come up with a something realistic. For instance, I have a plan to create an iPod killer that plays the MMORPG that is going to be bigger than Wold of Warcraft.

SimHealth?

[antdude]

Odd, I have never heard of this sim game. Did anyone else?

Re:SimHealth?

[minus_273]

its not a game, it is a Dos based health care system simulator.

Re:SimHealth?

[antdude]

minus_273: Ahh thanks. That explains why I never heard of it since I was into computer games for decades. Heh. :)

Rock On!!!

[eno2001]

It's gonna be Daikatana II MMORPG!!! This is gonna rock as hard as the original Daikatana did! I can't wait. Romero can code rings around that little dweeb Carmack! I wonder if this means that the old empire of iD will rise again and we'll see such innovative titles as the original Doom but updated for the 20th century? Maybe he'll even bring back Killcreek (hotcha cha!!! sizzle...)? I can't wait! To quote a much loved movie, "This is gonna be grrrreat"!

Where do I sign up?

[FarFromHomefish]

I only have a background in visual basic, directx 8, and vbscript. But I know Romero has a tendency to hire anyone who submits a resume... where do I send mine?

Re:Where do I sign up?

[bacterial_pus]

E-mail Mr. Romero at john at slipg8 dot com Tell him the devil sent you :)

Romero, who?

[popo]

In other news, (as long as we're dwelling on the irrelevant)
I hear the drummer for Modern English has a new solo album out.

Obligatory link

[vga_init]

Remember me?

Could it be???

[Anonymous Coward]

DNF:MMO edition?

Interesting to note:

[Kamineko]

The patent officer in 1899 didn't resign because there was nothing left to invent.

Eh?

[darkhitman]

Lots of details on this thing...

It will include weapons, it says. I doubt this. Weapons will most likely be cut out of the design document on the first review. They didn't need weapons in Doom or Qua---uh, well, they didn't contribute to the storyline at all which is what those games were all about.

High Hopes

[Sathias]

I hope it is as good as Diakatana.

Trolling, but still...

[Anonymous Coward]

JOHN ROMERO FUCKING SUCKS.

John Romer is...

[dafragsta]

... the Zapp Branigan of game development.

Sarcasm...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure it will be up to the standards of Mr. Romero's numerous other good works.

For those of you who seem to be missing something (There seem to be a few of you) the quoted line is, in fact, an example of sarcasm... Enough with the "What good works?" comments people. You're only revealing your inability to intepret subtle forms of humour...

Oh okay

[SmallFurryCreature]

First of starcraft. Mmmm, wasn't that a shootoff from another RTS warcraft. So it did get sequels just not directly.

Ultima Online is an MMO and so is Dark Age of Camelot. MMO's that still run don't offcourse get a sequel, they get expansion packs. MMO sequels are a bad idea because you are canabalizing your own audience.

Alpha Centauri is Civilization in space. It got its sequel with Civ 4.

Diablo 2 is offcourse a sequel itself. Also the company behind it has been rather busy. The same excuse also applies to starcraft. Blizzard can only do so much you know.

Tron 2.0 and Chronicles of Riddick are I think movie games wich make them typically hard to sequel since that would involve adding to the original story wich is often hard to do because of licensing. If the movies ever spawn a sequel so will the games.

Re:Oh okay

[drb_chimaera]

Tron2.0 was set up as a sequel to the movie - set in the vaguely present day you played (IIRC) the son of Jeff Bridge's character in the movie and really didn't do as well as I thought it deserved - I personally really enjoyed it and graphically it was phenominal - there are certainly no movie-based reasons they couldn't do a sequel.

Ditto Chronicles of Riddick - this was set in Butcher Bay (where Riddick got his eyes done) so is very much a prequel to both movies and broke cannon within 30seconds of the game starting, which has to be some sort of record* ;) Theres no real reason why another game couldn't be done within the timeline of the movies or for that matter afterwards - although the obvious choice would be some other lunacy while Riddick was being hunted down :)

*Note I never got far in the game (its sat on my shelf waiting for me to get around to it) so for all I know what I'm thinking of is resolved later on...

Re:Oh okay

[regular_gonzalez]

No amount of rationalization will convince 5 million Koreans that Starcraft has a sequel. Your point is akin to saying that "Well, Harrison Ford has been in other action/adventure movies, so it's almost like there has been a 4th Indiana Jones film already". Your point about MMOs not getting sequels while still running is contradicted by the fact that the three MMO sequels that come to mind -- Lineage II, Everquest II, and Asheron's Call II -- all came out while their parent was still very much alive and active. Again, see my point about Indiana Jones. Or ask anyone who is a hardcore fan of Alpha Centauri if they consider Civ 4 a sequel. What does being a sequel itself have to do with whether Diablo 2, an insanely popular game, got a sequel? Not sure what your point is here. Tron 2.0 wasn't exactly a fresh movie tie-in. That's like saying Knights of the Old Republic is a movie game which makes it hard to get a sequel until Star Wars films 7-9 come out. Speaking of which, that's another one to add to the list -- KOTOR 2.

Level design

[DeeDob]

Correct me if i'm wrong but didn't Romero work on level design in the mentionned games "Doom, Quake, & Wolfenstein 3D"? Add Daikatana to that and ALL of them have the worst level designs made: Bases that make no sense, cave tunnels and sewers connecting to high-tech computer rooms and house with doors on the second floors that required people to jump from over the OTHER building in order to enter them with not even an unopenable door on the first floor and so on... I mean, who in their right mind place an office workplace right next to a sewer? Or a lava-filled room? Even in the classic "DOOM", great game... The levels don't make ANY kind of sense though... just a bunch of rooms with no purposes patched together with corridors and random lighting elements.

Re:Level design

[Anonymous Coward]

God, you are soooooo right. In fact, I think that one of the primary reasons that GoldenEye 007 for the N64 was such a hugely successful game is that all of the locations were modelled after actual facilities, architecturally - the same with the guns, all based on real guns and subtly different. Compare that to Doom, who can forget the very first level. You start on a platform with a four-foot jump to a landing with a set of stairs leading to corridoors, a room with two lifts of some sort -purposeless- and a room with a vertical lift set in the wall and all sorts of odd architecture.

If this is what Romero designed, then all he was was a guy who designed within the rules of the gamespace. He took his architectural cues from a time when computer systems were too limited to do 'real' architecture, and so took on certain aspects that were ridiculous and certainly impractical.

Really, the whole Ion story is both fascinating and incredibly sad. Romero wasted his wealth, mixed business and pleasure, lost millions, learned the mistake of his emphasis on 'design', and both insulted and then became the laughing-stock of millions once Daikatana came out. I remember renting Daikatana when it was first released. We watched the intro, laughed our asses off at the cheesy scenes, and promptly returned it. A total piece of crap.

Amazingly, Ion produced one of the greatest games ever, 'Deus Ex', but of course Romero had virtually nothing to do with that awesome title and so cannot take credit. This reminds of one of those demotivational poster slogans: "It may be that the purpose of your life is to serve as a warning for others." Vis a vis, Romero.

Oh yes! I can imagine it.

[Anonymous Coward]

And then of course followed by "World of Daikatana". It will be such a smash megahit that it enters the everyday talk of even the non-gaming population. Along the lines of "Son, now you really are in a world of daikatana..."

Diakatana

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually he hasn't worked on a game called Diakatana, but apparently he contributed to a project called Monoakatana. Diakatana would obviously be only the sequel.

(Sorry, had to, as so many have misspelled it already...)

Daikatana Online!

[PhotoBoy]

You will all be John Romero's bitch at the same time!

artists

[drjenk]

I hear they are looking for frog modelers and frog skin artists. :)

Of course there will be bitches!

[cordsie]

I can see it now.

"zomg, they nerfed bitches!"

"53 JRB LFG!"

"wtf, ironworks hates bitches!"

"LF1M Badly Lit Office Corridor just need bitch and gtg"

etc...