SIGIL v1.21 - New Romero megawad [released!]

[Gez]

51 minutes ago, Rimantas said:

When ID Software were looking after Romero's work, games were produced in MONTHS.

When that DM-head had to look after works by himself, game took YEARS and piles of millions to make.

Then he returns to last good game he helped to make and tries to milk money from it. But still fails to finish it in time.

Romero's part of the work has been finished for a while; it's the physical goodies that caused delays. All you can blame him for is that he wants to wait until the physical boxes have shipped before doing the online release, so that people who bought the goodies will get a chance to play before the others.

[SamuelNMEvander]

Quote

1 hour ago, Rimantas said:

When ID Software were looking after Romero's work, games were produced in MONTHS.

When that DM-head had to look after works by himself, game took YEARS and piles of millions to make.

Then he returns to last good game he helped to make and tries to milk money from it. But still fails to finish it in time.

In my point of view Romero is not smarter than Beavis & Butt-Head. "Yeah yeah, money is cool."

Most of the games ID made in those days were 2D and much simpler to do and I'm sure things were running more smoothly with Carmack and everyone on board. Romero didn't really have as effective team after ID either. So I might understand the piling years into the development with advanced tech at the time. Though Romero did a huge disservice to hire a bunch of modders for Daikatana, at least that's what I heard from his comments, so I can't really back up that statement though he did have 9 artists for the game with a licensed engine. And I think the switch to Quake 2 might be the killing factor coupled with bad execution/design. Regarding his production since then, If you look at his track record, it's not like he has been slacking since Doom. With delayed Sigil, the megawad itself isn't unfinished. It's the Limited Run Games screwing up this time. I'm pretty sure Romero wouldn't have started advertising it back in last christmas if he wasn't confident on the product from his part of it. He did work on it during his spare time. 

 

 

Quote

"Yeah yeah, money is cool."

It's not like the Megawad costs anything. It's the consumers' choice to buy limited time editions after all. It was a pretty neat surprise for Doom's 25th anniversary. 

Edited May 5, 2019 by SamuelNMEvander

[DoomKid423]

2 hours ago, SOSU said:

Romero evil >:(

Because of the head? Is it not obvious? Haha lol

[DefilerPhil47]

Why are we all bickering about Romero's past again?  I'm just excited to play it, tbh.  No hero worship here.  I thought the maps he released were lots of fun and I will happily play this new stuff he releases.

[DooM_RO]

The WAD looked fun in the streams but I wonder if it will be as good as No Rest for the Living. I think it's the best IWAD right now.

[Kira]

26 minutes ago, DooM_RO said:

The WAD looked fun in the streams but I wonder if it will be as good as No Rest for the Living. I think it's the best IWAD right now.

I agree that NRFTL was the most polished and fun thing on the official side of classic Doom content, but personally if it's as fun as most of E1M8b I'm good.

[DooM_RO]

1 minute ago, Kira said:

I agree that NRFTL was the most polished and fun thing on the official side of classic Doom content, but personally if it's as fun as most of E1M8b I'm good.

 

I wish Id made more of those episodes, maybe even as a tie-in to the new games. On the same note, I hope Bethesda will give their blessing to Sigil.

[kristus]

So much drama. I guess I am alone to think Doom2's level design is exceptional and better than Doom 1 in every way. *Shrugs*

 

Looking forward to Sigil though.

[DooM_RO]

Just now, kristus said:

So much drama. I guess I am alone to think Doom2's level design is exceptional and better than Doom 1 in every way. *Shrugs*

 

It's better but uglier too. NRFTL is still the best IWAD so far.

[kristus]

Well, that just like your opinion man.

 

;)

EDIT: It's certainly a lot more abstract, and that is what I love about it visually. 

[DooM_RO]

2 minutes ago, kristus said:

Well, that just like your opinion man.

 

;)

EDIT: It's certainly a lot more abstract, and that is what I love about it visually. 

 

You can make it abstract and not ugly at the same time. 

[Dark Pulse]

3 minutes ago, kristus said:

Well, that just like your opinion man.

 

;)

EDIT: It's certainly a lot more abstract, and that is what I love about it visually. 

One man's shit is another man's sceptre, after all.

[Kira]

1 hour ago, kristus said:

So much drama. I guess I am alone to think Doom2's level design is exceptional and better than Doom 1 in every way. *Shrugs*

 

Looking forward to Sigil though.

You are far from alone (in fact I agree with you). I want to see how Romero tries to make Doom 1 difficult/fresh with this episode on the other hand.

[Barefootstallion]

6 hours ago, Rimantas said:

...

In my point of view Romero is not smarter than Beavis & Butt-Head. "Yeah yeah, money is cool."

1

 

You pretty much hit the nail on the head.  Romero got to ride into id on the coattails of John Carmack.  Carmack did all of the grunt work.  Romero wrote some of the map-editing software, but all he did beyond that, was to write a few levels.  If it hadn't been for the hard work of people like John Carmack, American McGee, Kevin Cloud, Adrian Carmack, and all of the rest of the people at id, John Romero's name would have been one which prompted "Who's that?" any time anyone said it, and nothing more.

 

In fact, John Romero stopped working pretty much all together after the release of Doom.  He had to be constantly cajoled back into working.  If the other people at id weren't on his backside all the time to keep working, John Romero would have been content to sit and play all day long.

 

On top of that, Romero was very busy sucking up the adulation Doom brought to id.  That is the main reason anyone knows who he is.  He was a spotlight-whore and a camera-hound.  If he would have been doing what he was supposed to be doing, namely working in the game-making trenches with the rest of id's staff, John Romero's name would have pretty obscure.

 

6 hours ago, SOSU said:

Romero evil >:(

 

Not evil necessarily.  But an idiot?  Very possibly.

 

8 hours ago, Kira said:

It's "5" because there's a fifth horseman of the apocalypse, and his name is Barefootstallion.

 

LOL!  Now I'm famous! :D

[SOSU]

3 minutes ago, Barefootstallion said:

Not evil necessarily.  But an idiot?  Very possibly.

 

No >:o if he were an idiot he couldn't have made those sexy maps plus he wouldn't be a good coder so he's evil >:OOO

[Barefootstallion]

Just now, SOSU said:

 

No >:o if he were an idiot he couldn't have made those sexy maps plus he wouldn't be a good coder so he's evil >:OOO

 

LOL!  OK.  I'll concede that there is probably an argument to be made there. XD

[seed]

2 hours ago, kristus said:

So much drama. I guess I am alone to think Doom2's level design is exceptional and better than Doom 1 in every way. *Shrugs*

 

Looking forward to Sigil though.

 

1 hour ago, Kira said:

You are far from alone (in fact I agree with you). I want to see how Romero tries to make Doom 1 difficult/fresh with this episode on the other hand.

 

Count me too.

 

Perhaps not in every single department (I will admit that the texturing isn't great in some levels), but otherwise, I take Doom 2 over UD too. But it does seem to be a minority opinion here.

[Dark Pulse]

1 hour ago, Barefootstallion said:

You pretty much hit the nail on the head.  Romero got to ride into id on the coattails of John Carmack.  Carmack did all of the grunt work.  Romero wrote some of the map-editing software, but all he did beyond that, was to write a few levels.  If it hadn't been for the hard work of people like John Carmack, American McGee, Kevin Cloud, Adrian Carmack, and all of the rest of the people at id, John Romero's name would have been one which prompted "Who's that?" any time anyone said it, and nothing more.

Code Romero also wrote:

• TEd, which through various iterations was the level editor for 33 different games
• DoomEd, their Doom map editor on NEXTSTEP
• QuakeEd, ditto but for Quake
• DeathManager
• DWANGO Client
• IGRAB, an internal tool id used to grab data lumps to put into WAD files
• All the setup-related code, up to and including Quake
• The SETUP programs used to configure the games themselves
• Various actual functions in Doom, including (but not limited to):
  • Saving and loading games
  • Flickering lights
  • Doors
  • Rising stairs
  • Crushing ceilings

You may well not like Romero's levels and think his hype is overblown, but you are seriously, seriously shortselling Romero if all you view him as is "the guy who designed some levels."

[dpJudas]

59 minutes ago, Barefootstallion said:

You pretty much hit the nail on the head.  Romero got to ride into id on the coattails of John Carmack.  Carmack did all of the grunt work.  Romero wrote some of the map-editing software, but all he did beyond that, was to write a few levels.  If it hadn't been for the hard work of people like John Carmack, American McGee, Kevin Cloud, Adrian Carmack, and all of the rest of the people at id, John Romero's name would have been one which prompted "Who's that?" any time anyone said it, and nothing more.

You have a lot to learn about game development. Carmack is an excellent developer, but he did virtually none of the creative things. After Romero left id software did nothing particular interesting. Quake is known for its amazing game engine, NOT its game. It is clear that Carmack primarily cares about engines, not games.

 

What made id software special with Doom was the fact they managed to create a full team of people that each did their role. Romero's role here was tweaking the game play and adding the things required for that to the editor. There was nobody else in their team doing this. He was also very good at making levels. Once several of the original people left id software the company stopped doing interesting releases in my opinion.

[SamuelNMEvander]

2 hours ago, kristus said:

So much drama. I guess I am alone to think Doom2's level design is exceptional and better than Doom 1 in every way. *Shrugs*

 

Looking forward to Sigil though.

Doom 2 is good for the first 6 levels. I'll give you that.

[GarrettChan]

4 minutes ago, SamuelNMEvander said:

Doom 2 is good for the first 6 levels. I'll give you that.

Map08 is good

[Nine Inch Heels]

13 minutes ago, SamuelNMEvander said:

Doom 2 is good for the first 6 levels. I'll give you that.

Chasm is one of the best iWAD maps that exist, and I'll knife-fight you in a back alley if you disagree ;-)

[dugan]

7 hours ago, Rimantas said:

When ID Software were looking after Romero's work, games were produced in MONTHS.

When that DM-head had to look after works by himself, game took YEARS and piles of millions to make.

Then he returns to last good game he helped to make and tries to milk money from it. But still fails to finish it in time.

In my point of view Romero is not smarter than Beavis & Butt-Head. "Yeah yeah, money is cool."

Wasn't that because Id Software was smart enough to reject (or at least massively pare down) everything Tom Hall suggested, while John Romero just went with everything Tom Hall said?

[SamuelNMEvander]

15 minutes ago, dpJudas said:

You have a lot to learn about game development. Carmack is an excellent developer, but he did virtually none of the creative things. After Romero left id software did nothing particular interesting. Quake is known for its amazing game engine, NOT its game. It is clear that Carmack primarily cares about engines, not games.

 

What made id software special with Doom was the fact they managed to create a full team of people that each did their role. Romero's role here was tweaking the game play and adding the things required for that to the editor. There was nobody else in their team doing this. He was also very good at making levels. Once several of the original people left id software the company stopped doing interesting releases in my opinion.

I mean, yeah, that explains why Doom 2 is so weird. Mostly carried by American McGee's levels, while Sandy psyched out.

[SamuelNMEvander]

On 5/5/2019 at 10:09 PM, GarrettChan said:

Map08 is good

Sorry, you won't see me defending "Tricks & Traps."

Edited May 8, 2019 by SamuelNMEvander : see*

[dpJudas]

1 minute ago, SamuelNMEvander said:

I mean, yeah, that explains why Doom 2 is so weird. Mostly carried by American McGee's levels, while Sandy psyched out.

My take on Doom 2 was that it was a filler product intended to bring in some money and keep the creative part of the team busy while Carmack and his engine team worked on Quake.

 

I don't know how much Romeo did of the work on Doom 2, but if I am to guess it wasn't particular much. My impression has been that after Doom he went into heavy idling mode, using the delayed Quake engine as his excuse for slacking. Which I'm guessing eventually caused the conflict where Carmack sacked him from id software.

[GarrettChan]

6 minutes ago, SamuelNMEvander said:

Sorry, you won't hear me defending "Tricks & Traps."

Sorry, I didn't intend to hear anything from you at the start. That's why I didn't even bother putting a period

[Moktar]

33 minutes ago, dpJudas said:

You have a lot to learn about game development. Carmack is an excellent developer, but he did virtually none of the creative things. After Romero left id software did nothing particular interesting. Quake is known for its amazing game engine, NOT its game. It is clear that Carmack primarily cares about engines, not games.

 

What made id software special with Doom was the fact they managed to create a full team of people that each did their role. Romero's role here was tweaking the game play and adding the things required for that to the editor. There was nobody else in their team doing this. He was also very good at making levels. Once several of the original people left id software the company stopped doing interesting releases in my opinion.

 

That explains why I can't stand playing Quake II for more than 3 minutes without uninstalling it forever, that, and why I've never finished DOOM 3, I can't stand that game for more than 1 hour, and I've tried so many times to beat it, but I find it terribly boring, soulless and uninspired.

[Sparktimus]

1 hour ago, Barefootstallion said:

 

You pretty much hit the nail on the head.  Romero got to ride into id on the coattails of John Carmack.  Carmack did all of the grunt work.  Romero wrote some of the map-editing software, but all he did beyond that, was to write a few levels.  If it hadn't been for the hard work of people like John Carmack, American McGee, Kevin Cloud, Adrian Carmack, and all of the rest of the people at id, John Romero's name would have been one which prompted "Who's that?" any time anyone said it, and nothing more.

 

In fact, John Romero stopped working pretty much all together after the release of Doom.  He had to be constantly cajoled back into working.  If the other people at id weren't on his backside all the time to keep working, John Romero would have been content to sit and play all day long.

 

On top of that, Romero was very busy sucking up the adulation Doom brought to id.  That is the main reason anyone knows who he is.  He was a spotlight-whore and a camera-hound.  If he would have been doing what he was supposed to be doing, namely working in the game-making trenches with the rest of id's staff, John Romero's name would have pretty obscure.

Man, for someone who has "done their research" on John Romero, you're doing a bang-up job demonstrating that you have done next to no research at all about anything he's actually done if you think he doesn't deserve any credit for his work. He was programming things on his own before Doom was even a fully fleshed out idea. Take a look at the Super Mario 3 PC port he worked on with the others and tell me that he's someone who doesn't know what he's doing. Of course he didn't do a lot of the work alone, but to say that he'd be little more than a footnote at id Software is an absolutely ridiculous claim.

Constantly bringing up his turbulent history with other game dev companies also seems like cherry-picking rather than any real reason to be doubtful of Sigil. No one is having a go at you for not being as excited or hyped at the others. You're free to not be into it at whatever capacity you wish. I'm just saying that you bringing Romero's dirty laundry from years and years ago (stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with Sigil itself) and all this stuff about how he rode people's coat tails honestly just makes this look like you want to be a contrarian for internet cool guy points.

 

2 hours ago, Barefootstallion said:

LOL!  Now I'm famous! :D

If getting replies on an internet forum thread is your idea of famous, that's pretty sad. Just sayin'.

[Dark Pulse]

 

8 hours ago, Rimantas said:

When ID Software were looking after Romero's work, games were produced in MONTHS.

When that DM-head had to look after works by himself, game took YEARS and piles of millions to make.

Then he returns to last good game he helped to make and tries to milk money from it. But still fails to finish it in time.

In my point of view Romero is not smarter than Beavis & Butt-Head. "Yeah yeah, money is cool."

Just wanted to chime in on this, but the WAD itself has been done for awhile now. The physical goodies for the boxed editions are what's causing a delay.

 

This delay isn't on Romero - it's on Limited Run Games.

 

Check your facts before you start insulting people next time.

 

53 minutes ago, dpJudas said:

My take on Doom 2 was that it was a filler product intended to bring in some money and keep the creative part of the team busy while Carmack and his engine team worked on Quake.

 

I don't know how much Romeo did of the work on Doom 2, but if I am to guess it wasn't particular much. My impression has been that after Doom he went into heavy idling mode, using the delayed Quake engine as his excuse for slacking. Which I'm guessing eventually caused the conflict where Carmack sacked him from id software.

Not much. He did six maps (MAP11, MAP15, MAP17, MAP20, MAP26, and MAP29), but like Carmack, he was mostly busy working on Quake. The main problem is by the time the Quake engine was ready, everyone was pretty much burnt out and just wanted it to be done and over with.

 

Quote

Sometime after id Software finished Doom II, they worked on a new, fully three dimensional game engine. The engine was not prepared to make a game for a year, and during that year, id Software always thought that it was going to happen at some point. John Romero wrote QuakeEd, and simultaneously exploring Quake level design wondering what it would appear as and what rules they should be following. There were nine people working on Quake, but only Adrian Carmack, John Carmack, John Romero, and Kevin Cloud had been with a game during its entire development, whereas both Sandy Petersen and Dave Taylor arrived halfway through Quake’s development. It was very difficult for the team because they had to continuously dispose of concepts that they worked on. For example, American McGee was working on various levels for John Carmack’s engine, only to have to delete them constantly. They also had to dispose of code in the scripting language because they just recreated the scripting language.

[...]
 

That year without any game design was quite hard on everybody at id Software. At one point, Adrian Carmack had prepared a set of Aztec textures because the designers thought that they would have an Aztec section, but American McGee was unexcited about them, so they had to be deleted. (Nonetheless, Mesoamerican textures were later reintroduced in Dissolution of Eternity.) They had to conceive a theme from which McGee could be inspired.

 

John Carmack had no desire to enlarge the company, so nobody else was hired at the time.

 

The engine was eventually prepared, but everybody else was mentally exhausted. In November, id Software held a meeting to discuss the game, but the designers were so exhausted that they couldn’t think of any new game design, and they desired to just finish Quake. American McGee proposed that the game have weaponry in the style of Doom, and his proposal gained overwhelming support. This disappointed Romero, because he really desired to make a new game design. Early on, Quake was supposed to be merely a fantasy world with swords, balls with chains, etc., but they decided to make the game more like Doom, as fast as they could, instead of a role-playing game. Romero worked on the game for seven more months, and it was ‘insane’ and arduous to make it. McGee was mysteriously absent, and the crew could not get a hold of him, so Romero had Tim Willits finish McGee’s works. Romero had to do a lot of sound work on it.

Romero did more for Quake than you are giving him credit for - just like he did more on Doom than @Barefootstallion gives him credit for. What really got Romero sacked, was this:

 

Quote

During the production of Quake, Romero clashed with John Carmack over the future direction of id. Romero wanted the game to follow his demanding vision without compromise, but Carmack insisted that the project had to make steady progress toward completion and accused Romero of not working as much as the other developers. Although Romero relented on his vision and joined a months-long death march effort to finish the game, this did not resolve the tensions within the company, and Romero was forced to resign.

Essentially: Romero wanted his design to come over the game being done; Carmack wanted the game to simply get done and wanted Romero to cut down on his vision, and even when Romero relented, the damage had been done and the writing was on the wall. Basically, Romero was to Quake what Tom Hall was to Doom - with the same end result of the guy being forced out, and the only difference being that Romero was still there when Quake was finished (unlike Hall who left with a few months left before Doom's release).

 

Unfortunately, dumping both your best creative minds within 3 projects of each other has a bit of a ripple effect on your fortunes... especially with a competitor rising just a few years later to challenge your latest titles within months (and in one case, within a week and a half) of each other. It's only natural that Quake III was a purely MP experience with no SP whatsoever effectively - and unfortunately from there the creative direction has just been mediocre at best, giving us a Doom most people didn't like, a pretty (but competent/ho-hum) shooter in RAGE, before finally seeming to hit success with Doom 2016.

 

But by now, of course, id is no longer the leader it once was. Epic has taken over with Unreal Engine on the big end, and Unity has got the smaller/amateur/semi-pro market, pretty much.

Edited May 5, 2019 by Dark Pulse