Why did Romero leave Id?

I never found this out. Was he fired? Or did he quit for some personal feud? What is the reason behind hiom leaving Id? It kinda makes me sad, especially since I read an article about Doom 3, and the parts where they talked about the older Dooms, they only mentioned John Carmack. I know Romero didn't work on Doom 3, but why ignore him when talking about the old Dooms? Wow, this quickly turned into a rant of sorts.

He was asked to leave.

Ahh really? That is sad. What happened?

Artistic and personal differences.

No doubt. I guess I'd be asked to leave were I at id; there's something about an artistic temperament and it's incompatibility with deadlines that doesn't mix with the desire to push new technology.

Nice doublespeak, JXT. I almost didn't catch it.

Wha...Romero LEFT id?!

He left right after Quake, about 8 years ago.

He left because he felt there were higher goals to accomplish.

Read Masters of Doom why don't you :P

Master Cilander

Are you aware that your username is very badly misspelled?

I knew this would happen.

Let me explain. Okay, when I signed up for AIM a long ime ago, Master Cylinder was taken. So I did this spelling. Now whenever I join forums, I use this spelling. It has a novel feel to it IMO.

He didn't just leave.

Basically, he was faced with the decision to either leave, or be fired on the spot.

This is due in no small part to his complete lack of direction for Quake, leading his team in circles, hence game delays, and of course a design that was nowhere close to the road to success. (wow, what a run-on sentence)

To add to that, instead of doing his job with Quake (right up until crunch-time) he was out producing titles like Heretic and Hexen. That's fair, as it was making id money, but it was pretty much the equivalent of shift-abandonment.

I really can't believe they tried to hold Romero helping Raven against him. I mean, it's not like they didn't know in advance that he would be involved with that project, and besides that, to hear Romero at least, he spent very little time on Hexen. According to what I heard, he only reviewed the alpha versions they sent him and he made various suggestions -- one of which was that zany idea to use a certain set of instruments for all the music (the music is excellent too, so I guess it worked ^_^)

I think that Romero is more of an old-school designer. He came up during the out-of-the-garage days (hence why he had a garage door in his Ion Storm office). This is naturally gonna lead to some culture clash with the people who want to do stuff the new Hollywood way.

Personally I hate how the game industry is going in that direction, but I suppose it was inevitable. One less creative avenue where artists can actually have control of their works.

Master Cilander said:

Let me explain. Okay, when I signed up for AIM a long ime ago, Master Cylinder was taken. So I did this spelling. Now whenever I join forums, I use this spelling. It has a novel feel to it IMO.

I assumed for some reason that it had something to do with cilantro. There's also AG Cilander.

SO what has he made 'other then that diakatana' after he joined Ion storm? Was he part of the team for 'Deus Ex'? Cuase that was pretty cool.
And what about 'Dominion:Storm over gift 3'? I never played that.

He also worked on Anachronox, an RPG that used the Quake 2 engine iirc.

http://rome.ro btw for the man himself.

If that article you read really did leave Romero out altogether then yes it's unfair but such is the way things are. Anyway don't be too sad for Romero, there's certainly been life after id.

Quasar said:

Personally I hate how the game industry is going in that direction, but I suppose it was inevitable. One less creative avenue where artists can actually have control of their works.

People are as capable of retaining "creative control" of their games as in any other medium, the issue is if large companies will underwrite them for millions of dollars in the process, which of course is not an entitlement.

Didn't Atari mess with it's developers? I seem to remember that.

As gargoylol said, read "Masters of Doom". This book is awesome it´ll give you a detailed "being-there"-look of what happened at id from the early days till early Doom 3 development.

Also, you will find a very good gamespot article about the development of Daikatana and Romero´s "downfall" at Ion. It is actually linked on planetromero.com

Will do. The Master's of Doom book sounds awesome. Is it sold at most majopr book retailers?

He had sex with Carmack's wife, that's why.

Master Cilander said:

Will do. The Master's of Doom book sounds awesome. Is it sold at most majopr book retailers?

It's not exactly a new release so you may have to search for it. Alternatively you can just order it online, or have your local bookstore order a copy for you.

Clawt said:

SO what has he made 'other then that diakatana' after he joined Ion storm? Was he part of the team for 'Deus Ex'? Cuase that was pretty cool.
And what about 'Dominion:Storm over gift 3'? I never played that.

He did Daikatana, and I think he did some stuff on Anachronox (although that was more Tom Hall's baby)

Deus Ex was done by a seperate wing of ION Storm, that survived after Romero's bit went to hell, led by Warren Spector and crew.

What I'm not 100% sure is what was his role on the creation of DOOM.

He seems to be the most aclaimed author for the comunity, but I think that the monster, textures, sound, gameplay design, and the engine are equal, or more important than being the author of the best maps of the game, imagine E1 with boring monsters, crappy textures, more limitations with the engine. Also, one the main factors of DOOM greatnes is the fact that it's easy to edit, I'm not sure here, but I think that we "owe" that to Carmack.

Amaster said:

He was asked to leave.

hehe ASKED to leave
"Say Rome, can you please leave?"
"aahhh no"
"Oh, okay then"

Master Cilander said:

Will do. The Master's of Doom book sounds awesome. Is it sold at most majopr book retailers?

The ISBN number is: 0-375-50524-5

Foofoo said:

hehe ASKED to leave
"Say Rome, can you please leave?"
"aahhh no"
"Oh, okay then"

Heh. I think it was closer to this:

Carmack, Adrian, and Kevin: We hate you, get out.
Romero: Mama mia!

Why did they hate him?

Holy rooflesticks, those 2 "quotes" are hilarious.