"The Return" - John Romero and Adrian Carmack's Announcement Video

Nice joke. Let's tease... wait for it... A KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN! By the way, the game is at least two years away and we have NOTHING to show you. But it's John Romero so give us money.

Despite the 10 hours campaign listing that game seems quite interesting to me.

I you watch the entire video on Kickstarter, John Romero has a distorted reversed message at the end. He says:

Now their site shows 25min until something happens on twitch.tv/theromero. Let's see if they have anything to show.

Not sure what to think about it, at least the idea of returning to fps roots and the abstract level design sounds interesting:

“We wanted something where you could be in Boot Hill in a showdown in a Wild West town. A door opens and then you are in a castle and the ceiling is falling. What just happened?”

I wanted to make a prediction about Blackroom, but I can't.

Blackroom will either turn out to be a really cool game (not necessarily groundbreaking, but cool), an average shooter, or a failure like Daikatana. Seriously, with John Romero it can go either way.

One thing I can say is that I don't like the logo, I don't know what it's supposed to represent, but it doesn't tell me much other than the game has a hard, dark and sophisticated tone and atmosphere, I think it's missing something else, it should at least have one small detail that hints you more about what the game is about, like small details that represent the shattered virtual reality or abstract aspect of the game for example. I pay attention to these little things because I'm a designer myself.

Sorry if I sound cynical but everything on that kickstarter just sounds like retro-gamer bait to me.

"We're going to bring FPS back to their roots! It will PROVE that gamers want a return to classic FPS gameplay"

I've heard this stuff too many times before. It's getting old.

The story and setting isn't really my thing, But a new moddable fps with john romaro as design lead and Adrian as art lead, can't wait. I backed it.(edit) If you guy's don't like the idea then don't back it, simple as that. I'm sorry but there is a huge difference between all these retro kickstarters and john going for it, Because John actually knows what he's doing

MrGlide said:

Because John actually knows what he's doing

yeah, like Daikatana so eloquently showed us, right? :p

Doomhuntress said:

yeah, like Daikatana so eloquently showed us, right? :p

more like Doom 1+2+quake 1 showed us right? 3:1 is good odds.(edit) and it's this attitude that pushed john away from our community, Every one wants to be like "OHHH BUT DAIKATANA!!!" The man has done some great things for this community.

That and it was over 16 years ago for crying out loud, and he has worked on games after that.

Woah, music by the Dokken guy? That's pretty cool.

Stuff from stream:

* Winter 2018 means December 2018.
* Engine: UE4
* The game doesn't exist yet, just ideas
* The development will start if they hit $700k

The rest is just a typical "classic shooter this, classic shooter that". Nothing to back it up at all. In other words: nostalgia bait.

I'm not writing it off but let's be honest, everyone's got great ideas. Can you actually deliver?

Touchdown said:

I'm not writing it off but let's be honest, everyone's got great ideas. Can you actually deliver?

What have you "delivered" in your lifetime to this community or games in general? I know Romaro knows good game design, after all the garbage thats been coming out in the recent years I find this refreshing. (Edit)

Touchdown said:

The rest is just a typical "classic shooter this, classic shooter that". Nothing to back it up at all. In other words: nostalgia bait.

Ya I know right? How do you back up the thing you created?

i'm not sure why you're so defensive and insulting. i wasn't even being serious, and Touchdown is bringing up some good points. there's been a ton of new-school "classical shooters" being released lately that doesn't exactly hit the mark for what a classical shooter is, who's to say this is any different? just because it's done by some guys that had some big hits, what, two decades ago?

also, the "what have YOU done with your life" argument doesn't really make your point any better. for that matter, what have YOU done with your life if we're gonna point fingers at each other?

A lot of Romero answering the same questions again and again. Looks like Adrian was getting pretty bored before he left, what with his looking around at the ceiling and walls a ton.

Doomhuntress said:

i'm not sure why you're so defensive and insulting. i wasn't even being serious, and Touchdown is bringing up some good points. there's been a ton of new-school "classical shooters" being released lately that doesn't exactly hit the mark for what a classical shooter is, who's to say this is any different? just because it's done by some guys that had some big hits, what, two decades ago?

also, the "what have YOU done with your life" argument doesn't really make your point any better. for that matter, what have YOU done with your life if we're gonna point fingers at each other?

You're right, I was out of line to blow up like, It just get's old seeing the Diakatana thing over and over again, most people that say it like that are being sincere. As for why I'm I being so defensive? It very well could be that if it wern't for John contributing and help make Doom, we wouldn't be even having this conversation right now, on this forum. There is a difference between "what have you done with your life" and "what have you delivered to this community in your life". The prior would be trying to insult touchdowns personal self at a human level, In wich I'm not, but I'm saying that this man has done more for us then almost anyone else, and to scoff at that is very disrespectful. If this was anyone else in our community Who's had succsess we would be wishing them luck.

kuchitsu said:

Woah, music by the Dokken guy? That's pretty cool.

Yeah I'm kind of pumped to hear the soundtrack.

My hope is this doesn't end up like Mighty No. 9. They had way too many stretch goals that have delayed the game.

I always took it as Romero was all about a game he was working on... until it was released. Once it was out, it was "been there/done that" from his perspective. Then he wanted to hype and root for the next thing, and he always wanted the next thing to be completely different, where as the rest of Id software, even to this day, love remaking the the same game over and over. It always sounded like he was bored doing any work on sequels, as eager to start a new story for a new game... bigger and better.

I think he dared to dream, got a bit over excited, and made one mishap and was ostracized to hell and back for it. And despite the attempts to ruin his career over (1) mistake that everyone's quick to remember (while his near [10] genre-defining and industry-changing accomplishmemts everyone's quick to forget), he hasn't given up. I'm certain he'll be far more focused & centered this time.

Can't wait to see this game manifest, and wish their new team the very best. Backroom sounds and looks very promising. Definitely backing this one.

I was really excited about this until I actually saw the kickstarter video for it. Does it remind anyone else of the whole Shaker situation?

So far, what we've been shown is pretty underwhelming. Maybe I'm expecting some test footage or a little more than casually tossing out buzzwords and "retro" appeal, but I don't see anything that would really make this game stand out and be something I would be really excited for. I can't name a single game John Romero has worked on in the last 16 years so I'm not sure I can depend on his reputation alone to save the day. No one stays exactly like they've been 16 years before.

...And I really hope they don't stick with Commander Shepard being the protagonist and do something a little more unique with the artstyle (judging purely on the early conceptual work we've been shown). John Romero's taking fashion risks with that black nail polish, they should be confident enough to give it a style all it's own.

Wow.

2.5 years for concept art?

I mean really. You guys could have at least thrown together something in the Unreal 4 engine.

Conceptually it sounds great, but I can't help but feel like Romero is a bit out of touch. He knows all the buzzwords, and he's clearly paying attention with promises of DRM free and modding capability, but to throw up a kickstarter, to convince financial backers and publishers that gamers still want something like this, WITH NOTHING TO SHOW BUT CONCEPT ART.

Hell the idea is shaky too, holograms? Really? So lets take the holodeck from star-trek and base our 10+ hour game on it?

What made Doom and Quake so good, was the consistent feel of the levels and how they meshed together to form a believable and enjoyable experience.

IF Romero hadn't made that excellent map a few months back, I wouldn't even consider backing.

Ironhound said:

IF Romero hadn't made that excellent map a few months back, I wouldn't even consider backing.

I'm pretty sure that was the whole point of "Tech Gone Bad". It was to show he still has skill in mapping and monster usage. I bet with Adrian at the helm of the art part of all this it'll look alot cooler then it sounds, I mean you've got to admit Doom's setting sounds like something that would show up on cheesy ScyFy channel.

Ironhound said:

What made Doom and Quake so good, was the consistent feel of the levels and how they meshed together to form a believable and enjoyable experience.

I think playing through levels that have glitches in them where all of a sudden you are in a western setting then before you know it you are on a pirate ship is more interesting than playing the same setting 5+ maps in a row.
Also, nothing about Doom or Quake level design was believable. It was all abstract.

They didn't show much at all and the art-style lacks personality right now, but I still had to throw some money at this. I'm sure this will be decent at worst. John emphasized that he's playing to his strengths this time.

I don't think this will reach its goal though. Not unless John pulls some gameplay out of his hat.

ChickenOrBeef said:

I don't think this will reach its goal though. Not unless John pulls some gameplay out of his hat.

It's hit >10% in the first day, which bodes very well for it. History tells you that's about the number you want to be hitting in the first couple days for a campaign to be successful.

I'm neutral about the KS pitch video, it didn't show anything concrete. At least it's an FPS game, that's interesting to me. I think he should have jumped on the KS bandwagon very early, many known names missed that sweet period of innocence :D

I hope it reaches 700k. If it doesn't, then go with a tiny team and create a Doom clone with multiplayer based on one of the GPL GZDoom forks. It will gain a lot of traction on gaming media and twitch streams.

I submit this idea: First map is a derelict ghost ship in space. Our hero's little ship attaches to their side. Our hero uses the basic gun, a cutting/welding tool to create an opening and goes in. Standard Doom-style gameplay but with using consoles like in Vampire:Bloodlines to get info, open doors and affect the map, puzzles etc. Also you can leave a brute force hacking tool running which will take a couple of minutes to break the password. The player will be kept ... busy ... until it's done, eheheehhe! Using the info he gets he moves on to other ships and hidden bases.

Turns out the enemies are beings of different intellect, from warlocks with metaphysical powers to simpleton bone-gnawing beasts. The warlocks and other smart races keep the hordes of stupider species under their control by having created huge fake deities and awesome hellish monuments and churches devoted to those. This idolatry is the basis of their society and our hero must eventually travel to that dimension and destroy these idols to prove that the gods are fake and doom the enemies' dimension to ruin. The species posing as priests and half-deities will be massacred by the hordes and the rest will cannibalise each other.

Name of the game: Iconoclasm.

Aaaaand now it's time to go to bed.

Many devs must be happy to work with John Romero and Adrian Carmack, because they are true legends of FPS genre, BUT nobody knows that means "classic FPS game". Personally I'm totally dissapointed by Cliffy B. "arena FPS game for PC" Lawbreakers.

700K isn't too small if their choice is UE4 - technicals tools are pretty easy.

NoisM said:

Personally I'm totally dissapointed by Cliffy B. "arena FPS game for PC" Lawbreakers.

what, why? I forgot he was working on that and had to look it up, It looks really cool, what's wrong with it?

TDF said:

Does it remind anyone else of the whole Shaker situation?

Yup, very much. Another project that they wanted to sell on nostalgia. Both pitches are really weak. I wonder what is their idea of maintaining that campaign. Again, they have no game at all so what else can they show to get people excited?

Even if I ignore everything else, I still don't like the idea of all that holographic nonsense. The concept art is garbage too.

But you know what? This is a very good thing. Let's see if people really want an oldschool FPS or is it just a vocal minority of cynical whiners that complain about DOOM4 and modern shooters in general. And if it doesn't reach the goal, well, that'll be answer as to why they don't make games like that anymore.