Has Romero done anything good past Doom 1?

[Blastfrog]

Or even during Doom, for that matter? Sure, he did a lot of coding for the Doom engine, and made some really good levels for it, but he only made less than 1/3rd of the levels for the game. Doom 2, he did even less, and spent more of his time screwing around playing DM instead.

Quake 1 came along, and he was assigned the task of being it's lead designer, and was the beginning of his downfall. He wanted to bring the Quake character back, a man with a powerful hammer as a weapon. He wanted to make a game with brutal first person melee combat in some dark medieval environment. Thing is, he never got off his ass and did any actual design, never creating a design document beyond a few vague design ideas on a couple of pages. The others working on the game had nothing to go off of, and many levels were thematically very different to each other.

It got so bad that they eventually had to just go "fuck it, we're making another FPS just to get this crap over with already", and scrap the original idea. It was so bad they even had to redesign the plot to explain the sharp thematic differences between every single thing in the game. In the end, it's a freaking miracle that Quake 1 ended up being such a good game, despite all the odds against it.

After Romero left id, he went on to seek to make everyone his bitch with Daikatana, but simply ended up making himself a bitch, because... well, it was Daikatana. After that blunder, he's been reduced to making some shitty small-scale games for Facebook. He sucks, and his career is a failure.

[chungy]

Quake is great.

[DoOmEr4LiFe]

Sodaholic said:

his career is a failure.

Assuming you aren't trolling us, you are entitled to have the opinion that he sucks, but I wouldn't necessarily consider taking part in creating a handful of the greatest FPS's of all time a failed career. Say what you will about where he is now but the legacy is (essentially) in stone.

[Vordakk]

Very few individuals have a limitless supply of creativity, especially on the scale of John Romero. I'd argue his career was awesome, myself. Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM, DOOM 2, Quake, Daikatana, and the list goes on. As for making "some shitty small-scale games for Facebook", well Facebook is pretty massive and used by almost everyone, and besides maybe Romero just wants to enjoy his well-earned money and not be struggling to make the design deadline on some top-tier FPS or whatever. He made his mark, and now he can sit back and enjoy his later years casually. God bless him.

P.S. Yes, I actually liked Daikatana. Bring on the insults.

[hex11]

If he sucks so much, why is everyone on this site trying to emulate his Doom mapping style?

The other thing is, why do you think people have to keep working their asses off all the time? I can assure you that instead of buying ferrari's, etc. I would have instead bought a nice 40-foot sailboat, invested the rest of the money, and gone to cruise the islands indefinitely.

[Blastfrog]

DoOmEr4LiFe said:

Say what you will about where he is now but the legacy is (essentially) in stone.

I'm not denying that he's done a lot of great things, I just think that those (really great) successes were early on, and much of what he's done after those initial successes quickly degraded badly, to the point where he's hardly what he used to be.

I wouldn't exactly call great success early on, and two decades of complete failure afterward a very successful career, if you look at the whole timeline. A great start followed by nothing but fuck-ups isn't a successful career, even if the great start set a huge legacy for him.

chungy said:

Quake is great.

Without a doubt. As I said, it's extremely surprising how amazing the first game turned out given it's hellish development cycle, which pretty much set the project up for failure. It was everyone else who managed to take the utter mess of what was made for the game and turn it 180 into what it was released as.

[Technician]

It's hard to get past Daikatana and Ions Storm's failure. The man is a creative genius, but his onslaught of studios (Slipgate Ironworks, Monkey Stone, etc.) and leaving projects is a bit questionable.

I'm sure he's destined for greater games yet. I love the man, but he should probably stop marrying women for a while. I was shocked to find out his recent divorce from Rhaluka.

hex11 said:

The other thing is, why do you think people have to keep working their asses off all the time? I can assure you that instead of buying ferrari's, etc. I would have instead bought a nice 40-foot sailboat, invested the rest of the money, and gone to cruise the islands indefinitely.

Worked for Glitter.

[hex11]

You're putting too much emphasis on "career", and probably need some remedial Fight Club training. ;)

[Blastfrog]

Technician said:

It's hard to get past Daikatana and Ions Storm's failure.

Especially given the shit he put Quake's development through. He was screwing up even before Daikatana.

Technician said:

his onslaught of studios (Slipgate Ironworks, Monkey Stone, etc.) and leaving projects is a bit questionable.

He went through studios like toilet paper. I wonder why he keeps bothering to make his own studios when they all fall through time after time again?

Technician said:

The man is a creative genius ... I'm sure he's destined for greater games yet.

I fully agree. I think he's a pretty good designer, it's just that he somehow keeps mucking things up. I just wonder if he'll ever go back to more serious game development, or if he's just satisfied with where he is now.

[The Lag]

need your ass beat a few dozen times by space marines...it's ok, most people do.
after the sense gets knocked back into you, you will begin to see again.

[Archy]

The Lag said:

need your ass beat a few dozen times by space marines...it's ok, most people do.
after the sense gets knocked back into you, you will begin to see again.

...sexy :P

[Technician]

Vordakk said:

P.S. Yes, I actually liked Daikatana. Bring on the insults.

It's sad becasue the core game mechanics are well made. It's just the abysmal AI and level design that fucks everything up.

[DoomUK]

You have to ask what if there were no personal differences and Romero had stayed with id. What would have become of them as a studio?

[Technician]

DoomUK said:

You have to ask what if there were no personal differences and Romero had stayed with id. What would have become of them as a studio?

Good question. John wanted to make more interactive, RPS, strategy-like games, where Carmack wanted to make the same game over and over again.

His firing was destined if you think about it. His lack of commitment as the lead designer for Quake gave Carmack an excuse to rid his ass from office.

[esselfortium]

Have you ever made a map as great as any of Romero's Doom II levels?

[Csonicgo]

Sodaholic said:

After that blunder, he's been reduced to making some shitty small-scale games for Facebook. He sucks, and his career is a failure.

[infurnus1]

John Romero is a gentleman and you sir should be ashamed.

[lazygecko]

His Facebook work has millions upon millions of users. It may not be within our "sphere" of gaming, but that doesn't make his present career a failure.

[printz]

esselfortium said:

Have you ever made a map as great as any of Romero's Doom II levels?

He will be making maps as great as Hall's Doom I levels, close enough.

[Dr. Durr]

Doom II was a good game.
EDIT: Whoops didnt catch the part bout Doom II.
I still think Romero is respectable.

[dew]

Sodaholic said:

Doom 2, he did even less, and spent more of his time screwing around playing DM instead.

map11, map15, map17, map20, map26, map29. all rather unique and all considered among the very best of doom2. i knew i could just disregard the rest of your reasoning from that point on...

[Dr. Durr]

Sodaholic said:

It got so bad that they eventually had to just go "fuck it, we're making another FPS just to get this crap over with already", and scrap the original idea. It was so bad they even had to redesign the plot to explain the sharp thematic differences between every single thing in the game. In the end, it's a freaking miracle that Quake 1 ended up being such a good game, despite all the odds against it.

That wasn't Romero's fault. The rest of id was tired of waiting on Carmack to finish the engine, so after it was finished, id cast away Romero's design to clone their own game. Romero's concept for Quake was never actually coded.

EDIT: The final plot was so forgettable, many don't even know Quake had a plot.

[Krispy]

From what I've read, Romero did cause a lot of problems with delaying and wanting to be in control yet not doing anything. This set back his team quite a bit. If someone in this community did that, they'd be shunned.

[Aliotroph?]

Sodaholic said:

He sucks, and his career is a failure.

Your reasoning is laughable. I guess you're a failure too. After all, you haven't done any work to make you famous, you haven't built games with millions of users, you can't afford to live in a big mansion, and you probably never will.

Not only has he done these things, but he continues to be able to do what he wants to do and do it with people he wants. It doesn't matter that you don't like most of his work and that he did his best stuff 20 years ago.

He's also a nice guy. I would never wish him ill. So what if he can be a bit of a slacker who likes attention? Most people are like that.

[hardcore_gamer]

Sodaholic said:

Especially given the shit he put Quake's development through. He was screwing up even before Daikatana.

What did he do to Quake?

[Mogul]

He's been very successful since DOOM. He's had some missteps but as far as I can tell, his current venture with Facebook games is racking in the money. And before that, Hyperspace Delivery Boy helped pioneer mobile gaming beyond Snake. He might not be making legendary games anymore, but to label his career a failure just because he hasn't done three legendary games (instead of the two he has worked on) is mildly retarded.

[HavoX]

chungy said:

Quake is great.

I second this.

[Mordeth]

Romero isn't a slacker. He's merely a chaotic game god. He's everything that Carmack isn't. In a logical universe, a cooperation between the two of them should never have worked in the first place... but for a brief time it did, and it gave us Doom. Romero needed Carmack's rigid engine confines as much as Carmack needed (scrap that: needs) Romero's gaming spirit.

Also, don't forget that it was essentially Romero who re-invented id Software as a game engine relicensing business. He racked in more money for the company than any other, including his time wasted on deathmatch.

I hope he's in a happy place now, free from the burden of having to be top dog; doing the things he likes to do. I like that he is NOT part of id Software anymore, a place where they fire long-standing employees out of fucking spite while screwing said employee out of MILLIONS of dollars.

There you have it: my last word on this. I have spoken.

[Vordakk]

Mordeth said:

There you have it: my last word on this. I have spoken.

You didn't just say something, did you? :)

[Violator]

lol hope this is a troll thread