Interview With John Romero 211
spensdawg writes "Here is an interesting interview with John Romero on Games.net. He gets into the original design philosophy for the first Doom games, what he would have done differently, and his plans for the future. Worth watching if you want to know a little more about the mad scientist behind Doom." A warning: this is a video interview
Re:I'm sorry, the genius behind Doom? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Flashplayer 8 required :( (Score:5, Interesting)
It brings in more revenue because it's harder to quote (bloggers love to copy and paste entire sections, just as
Re:I'm sorry, the genius behind Doom? (Score:5, Interesting)
Eivind, former game developer.
On level design & Romero (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact, fans are still recreating Doom levels for other games as homages, which isn't to say those levels were stunningly brilliant. No, they were all they had to be--because the gameplay was so great. And the great fun rubbed off on the levels.
By contrast, Daikatana's levels were built and rebuilt, polished and repolished. Fat lot of good it did. Design is law, of course, as the Ion Storm mantra went; but Daikatana is $0.99 in the bargain bin, too.
Romero's on better ground when knocking Doom 3 for being dark, repetitive and predictable. Although he doesn't realize it, this argument bears on his earlier misguided comment. D3 is a masterpiece of level design, or at least of a certain highly-detailed future-industrial style. And that's all anyone takes away from it: how it looked. Having stood in line to get a copy the day it came out, I'm still trying to forget how mind-numbingly poorly it played.
Bottom line: level design is vastly overrated. Sure, it can be an art form (see, for instance, old custom Quake levels built by geniuses such as Headshot or Mr. Fribbles). But most games look alike today; no matter how technically sound their appearance, few do more than go for realism or ape genre cliches. This even as hyper-realistic design means longer development times and higher costs. And nobody thinks games are more fun than their blockier predecessors--no, quite the opposite.
So where Romero talks about level design as a virtue and even dreams about going back in time to revisualize Doom, the truth is something different. Level design is becoming little more than a clonable commodity.
The solution is to outsource it. Set up companies that do nothing but build cities, dungeons, jungles, etc. to some standard, scriptable world-building spec. Devs can then buy chunks of these "places" and build their games in them--for much less than the cost of paying salaries for asset creation. This would liberate game companies to pour their energies into gameplay before it becomes a lost art.
Old news... (Score:2, Interesting)
inappropriate videos? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'm sorry, the genius behind Doom? (Score:3, Interesting)
But that's all besides the point. The point was that Romero's own acheivements do not make him a "gaming god" worthy of emulation. His own actions caused him to be "asked to leave" id software, and since striking it off on his own he has failed to become a commercially successful name.
Re:I'm sorry, the genius behind Doom? (Score:5, Interesting)
He was the lead designer of Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, and Quake and co-founder of id Software.
Lead designers are kinda important for these projects and influence the gameplay quite a bit.
But conversely, it's not enough with just one decent lead designer when making a game, as Daikatana showed.
Re:I'm sorry, the genius behind Doom? (Score:5, Interesting)
Incorrect. I can say with a great deal of certainty that there have been very few games like Quake and the classic Doom series in recent years. Run and gun is not stale at all, just as long as it's done right. Being story driven does not necissarily make a game better, and being run and gun does not necissarily make a game worse. I still play Doom all the time, but whats more, I've introduced Doom to other relatively new gamers, and once they get past the graphics they have a lot of fun with it too.
In my opinion, John Romero and John Carmack made a great team. Romero had the nuts ideas and awesome level designs, and Carmack had the engine and the smarts and the work ethic. Without Carmack, Romero didin't have the tech or the reigns to keep him on target with Daikatana. Without Romero, Carmack and the rest of ID couldn't figure out how to make a fun FPS.
Re:Flashplayer 8 required :( (Score:3, Interesting)
Flash Video is Evil. Yes, that's with a capital "E". Computer designers had video overlays nailed back in Windows 98. Remember the "Buddy Holly" video? Are you all trying to tell me now that we are throwing all that efficiency away and replacing it with a flash object painting to a browser renderer, which then paints to the screen? I can't believe my 3.0GHz dual-core is dropping frames now.
You can't save it either, nor can you zoom in / resize. I'm running at 1600x1200, your 100x100 flash video is the size of a postage stamp. "Always on top overlay mode"? Forget it.
Adobe are KILLING flash. Embedded video will never be more than a novelty thanks to them, they seem to be eating up all of the video content providers.
Re:And then? (Score:3, Interesting)
Funny, what engine do all these new great games use? Often as not, something Carmack makes. He's an engine designer, and he's damned good at it.
Romero is a useless turd though.
And it's Romero's fault... how? (Score:4, Interesting)
It wasn't Romero that decided to introduce the devil into the game, and it wasn't Romero that made that NPC summon enough demons to destroy the world. It was the GM. Plain and simple. It was the kind of spiteful GM action that occasionally nukes everyone's characters to make a point, or as a quick "I've got the power" trip, or just being tired of the existing campaign. We've all run into moments like that.
The fact is, the game was at all times under the control of the GM. If you don't want your players to nuke the world, don't lead them to a room with big red button that launches the nukes. If you don't want them to bring forth the apocalypse, don't lead them to a room with a big pentagram and written instructions on how to summon the four horsemen. Etc. If you choose to "test" them with an event that may destroy the world, don't be surprised if they push the big red button just to see what happens.
And if you really want to save the world, you can always twist the rules as you like. That's why you're called a Game _Master_. Maybe decide that that big red button needed to first be activated by the Pentagon, or could be overriden by the Pentagon, so the missiles don't launch. Maybe a bunch of soldiers charge in and try to arrest the party, shooting the cable from that switch in the process. Etc.
Or in your example, maybe the devil can be toned down so the party can win. Maybe, I don't know, an archangel descends and blasts the book into oblivion. Whatever. If you're the GM, you have the power to pull that kind of shit.
Basically if you're the GM and (A) you've lead the players to a situation where they can destroy the world, and (B) you let them do that, then just accept the responsibility. _You_ ended the game, not the players. It's ok, if that's what you wanted to do. Start a new campaign or whatever. But don't be a prick and act as if some player is a great monster that deserves all the blame.
Plus, it's just a freakin' game. Acting like Romero is some monster that destroyed the whole world, strikes me as (A) taking it waaaay too seriously, and (B) pretty damn unimaginative and contrary to the whole spirit of the game.
I mean, have you actually played a tabletop RPG? That's exactly what the players are supposed to do. In a sense, it's sort of like playing chess against the GM. The whole fun is trying to (A) personally be creative and (B) to challenge others to be creative, in response to some unforeseen twist. That's a _two_ way street: the GM challenges the players and the players challenge the GM.
Heck, even that Demonicron episode's tame stuff. Look at some episodes on Full Frontal Nerdity (same site as Nodwick) for some stuff that good gamers can pull. Stuff like someone choosing the "royal blood" trait just so later they can usurp the new king of the realm, and turn the whole campaign on its head. Now that's the good stuff. That's what good players _do_.
As long as it's not deliberately trying to annoy someone or prevent them from achieving their goals, acting unpredictably in a creative way is what RP is all about. Just following the campaign and acting in a predictable way is _boring_.
From there it's the GM's job to react. It may be some equally surprising twist, or just proclaiming it to not be possible, or somewhere in between. That's what the game is all about.