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Romero's New Gig 113

Posted by Zonk from the better-than-jazz-tap dept.
Eurogamer is reporting on John Romero's newest endeavor, a studio designing a Massive game. Slipgate Ironworks is currently hiring, to work on ... a game. From the article: "The site doesn't offer many clues to the game's nature (although it does reveal that it will include weapons. And animation. And light!), but we do know from Romero's public comments that it will be ready 'when it's done' and isn't down for a 2007 release as some reports have speculated." I'm sure it will be up to the standards of Mr. Romero's numerous other good works.
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Romero's New Gig More

Romero's New Gig

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  • zombies? (Score:3, Funny)

    by paradigmdream ( 915171 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @11:23AM (#15698290) Homepage
    massive zombie mmo that doesn't suck :crosses fingers:
    • and then i realized that john is not george =(
    • I've been thinking about if George A. Romero were to make an MMO. Imagine one where player characters were few and far between, and there were zombies everywhere. Once in a while you meet a living person (another player) and try to get supplies and/or better weapons, maybe from a mall or something, but then your friend has to log and you're alone and terrified again! It could be cool. Oh, and you don't keep your character. You start as someone trying to survive, and you build up what you have - and if you d
      • that would be a great game. if you want to log out you have to find yourself a safe place that the zombies can't get to but you can die while logged out if you don't find a good enough location
      • I discussed this same Idea with a friend a few months back, an alternative to the child post would be if you are killed you become one of the undead and hunt down the remaining "survivors".

        Instead of different "zones" which have the same game play going on, each zone could be in a different state of time after the "plague" started. Once all the "survivors" were dead you would re-start the zone.
    • I hear John Romero and all I can think is "Daikatana." *shiver*

      That game was enough to make a person want to gag themself with a daikatana...sharp end first.

      Let's all hope in unison that whatever game he DOES make bears NO resemblance to that festival of tragety.

  • Rockstars! (Score:4, Funny)

    by andrewman327 ( 635952 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @11:24AM (#15698303) Homepage Journal
    Maybe they can grab employees from the Rockstar exedous reported on /. the other day.

  • Someone had to say it.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rob T Firefly ( 844560 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @11:25AM (#15698312) Homepage Journal
    I'll have a look.. so long as he doesn't want to make me his bitch this time.
  • Video games are enjoyed by adults and parents alike.

  • A game that will be ready "when it's done"?!

    Oh....kind of like Duke Nukem Forever! Well, I guess we'll never see this mysterious new hit. Too bad. I had my hopes up for a second, there.

    • Re:When it's done (Score:2, Insightful)

      by billcopc ( 196330 )
      Not like DNF, more like Daikatana. It *WILL* be released, just by that time nobody will care anymore. On that note, does anybody care right now ? Didn't think so.

      Romero failed miserably at Ion Storm, and apparently had some fun in the cell-phone gaming industry.. remember this guy was fired from id Software after Quake 1 was out. Romero is a higher-profile, attention whoring fella, but Carmack is the real brains and that's why id Software still cranks out blockbuster engines while Romero's endeavors ha
  • ... is he going to make you his BITCH?!

  • I can't be the only one... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by iamjoltman ( 883526 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @11:50AM (#15698569)
    Surely, I'm not the only one here who automatically equates Romero with George A. Romero, right? You know, the director of the Living Dead films.

  • he's still making games? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by grapeape ( 137008 ) <mpope7 AT kc DOT rr DOT com> on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @11:58AM (#15698633) Homepage
    Has Roemero completed anything since Daikatana? (yes I know its "completion" is itself questionable) I know at one point he was with some "mobile" gaming company that flopped, then was supposedly with Midway but I never saw anything indicating he actually producted something. Interesting to see the hype machine starting up. Perhaps Romero is pissed that Duke Nukem Forever took his vaporware crown. At least with a mmorpg he has the excuse of never being finished so he never has to realease it.
    • The mobile games company only really flopped because the platform wasn't
      suitable for gaming like he thought it would be. When the money didn't
      come in quite like he'd hoped for, Monkeystone was put largely bed
      (The site's still there and you can download the PocketPC and PC demos
      of the titles he did ship under the Monkeystone name, but there's no
      product info under the products tab, nor any way to buy the titles
      at this time from the site...)- you can still get the Linux iteration
      of Hyperspace Delivery Boy fro

  • other good works? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Eil ( 82413 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @12:12PM (#15698752) Homepage Journal
    Not to be abusive, abrasive, or hostile in any way, but Romero hasn't had any "good works" since he left id and not even id has been able to equal the greatness of the titles of that era.

    • not even id has been able to equal the greatness of the titles of that era.

      To be fair, nothing can ever equal Doom in FPS games. There had never been anything quite like it; that's why it hit so hard. Every FSP game afterward has been just a gradual evolution, not a true revolution; that's why they don't pack the punch Doom did, even if some of them are as good or better.

      There will be games that hit like Doom, but that's because they'll be revolutionary, not just evolutionary. And they won't be sharew

    • I beg to differ. Quake3 IMO was id's greatest achievement, that game had some serious legs and is still fun to this day.
  • "When it's done?" What company in their right mind would allow Romero to keep his own schedule? Or even talk to the press?

  • "Numerous other good works" (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Doches ( 761288 ) <Doches@nOSpAm.gmail.com> on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @12:15PM (#15698771)
    I'm sure it will be up to the standards of Mr. Romero's numerous other good works.

    What, like Doom, Quake, & Wolfenstein 3D? I don't understand why it's so amazingly popular to bash Romero. Sure, Daikatana wasn't great, but neither was Will Wright's SimHealth [wikipedia.org] -- and no one bashes Will.

    It's not like Daikatana was this epic disaster. It was hyped, it had truly terrible advertising ("make you his bitch...," what were they thinking?), and sales were pretty pathetic, but it did make enough to cover the cost of production. So, technically, Daikatana has been more of a hit than, say, the XBox. It's time we all jumped off the "John-Romero-sucks" bandwagon.

    • So, technically, Daikatana has been more of a hit than, say, the XBox
      You know, you're underlying point is quite good. I would simply suggest replacing "hit" with "success". Being a developer myself, anything that kept the bills paid (ie. paid for itself) was a success. I've had WAY too many products come nowhere near to paying: thus, failures (or, as we like to kid ourselves, "limited successes").
    • Perhaps is Romero actually releases something worth while the bashing will go away, Sim Health was very early in the Maxis days and the dozens of games that Wright has been involved with since then have more than made up for one disaster. If anything Wright managed to catch lightning in a bottle twice, first with Sim City, then a decade later with The Sims, both pretty much revolutionalized their genres. Gamers are fickle, all it takes is one hit game and the game mags will all declare "Romero Is Back!".

    • No it isn't. (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      He does suck. Hard. He is a spoiled, pompous shit for brains. His role in the great games of id's past was as the "wouldn't it be cool if..." kid. Thousands of people do that in their heads all the time, and do just as good a job, and in many cases better. He has no talent or skill, and is not capable of actually developing games. He just wants to think of cool ideas and get to live a rockstar lifestyle.

      People hate him for more than just daikatana, they hate him for every aspect of ion storm. They ha

    • Not entirely (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @01:00PM (#15699127) Journal
      If you read up on it you do find out that daikatana did sell a good number of games and would have been considered a success by other game standards. However ION storm/Romero had been burning money at such an awesome speed that even this "sucess" was barely enough to cover stated production costs. Note that these often do not include secundary costs. You would have to follow movie production a lot closer then most to learn the differences between the production costs of a project and the total costs involved.

      But the real cost was not money but the fact that Romero lost the respect of his customers. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Who is going to buy Daikatana 2? For that matter any ION Storm game or any Romero game?

      Daikatana was Romero's project and it sucked donkey balls as a game. I only downloaded it and still felt ripped off. It was so bad that it can't be believed.

      Now the difference with Will Wright is that he A: never was going to make us his bitch and B had other successfull games. Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein 3D are not Romero games. In fact judging by the turd that Daikatana was and that Romero has produced nothing else worth while it may be claimed that these ID games became successes despite Romero's involvement, not because.

      Play Daikatana. I dare you to disagree that it is bad. Selling an overhyped game however isn't hard, there are always suckers lured in by advertising who are not warned by bad reviews and word of mouth. But the proof is simple. In an industry of sequels there is no Daikatana 2. How many success games have there been without a sequel?

      • For that matter any ION Storm game or any Romero game?

        You mean games like Deus Ex, Deus Ex: Invisible War, and Thief: Deadly Shadows? And Anarchronox was critically acclaimed, even if it didn't sell well.

        Not everything to come out of Ion Storm was a joke, though Eidos killed off the studio. As for successful games without a sequel? How about Starcraft? And before you mention Brood Wars, it was an expansion pack, not a sequel.
      • How many success games have there been without a sequel?

        Few come to mind. Starcraft, Ultima Online, Tron 2.0, Alpha Centauri, Chronicles of Riddick, Diablo 2, and Dark Age of Camelot just off the top of my head.
        • First of starcraft. Mmmm, wasn't that a shootoff from another RTS warcraft. So it did get sequels just not directly.

          Ultima Online is an MMO and so is Dark Age of Camelot. MMO's that still run don't offcourse get a sequel, they get expansion packs. MMO sequels are a bad idea because you are canabalizing your own audience.

          Alpha Centauri is Civilization in space. It got its sequel with Civ 4.

          Diablo 2 is offcourse a sequel itself. Also the company behind it has been rather busy. The same excuse also applies

          • Tron2.0 was set up as a sequel to the movie - set in the vaguely present day you played (IIRC) the son of Jeff Bridge's character in the movie and really didn't do as well as I thought it deserved - I personally really enjoyed it and graphically it was phenominal - there are certainly no movie-based reasons they couldn't do a sequel.

            Ditto Chronicles of Riddick - this was set in Butcher Bay (where Riddick got his eyes done) so is very much a prequel to both movies and broke cannon within 30seconds of the g

          • No amount of rationalization will convince 5 million Koreans that Starcraft has a sequel. Your point is akin to saying that "Well, Harrison Ford has been in other action/adventure movies, so it's almost like there has been a 4th Indiana Jones film already". Your point about MMOs not getting sequels while still running is contradicted by the fact that the three MMO sequels that come to mind -- Lineage II, Everquest II, and Asheron's Call II -- all came out while their parent was still very much alive and a
    • Doom, Quake, & Wolfenstein 3D were made by id, not Romero. Romero was part of the team that made those games. Considering that Romero has been unable to produce anything worthwhile in the DECADE since he left id, despite the vast resources that were just handed to him to do as he pleased, I think it's a fair bet that Romero had NOTHING to do, at all, in any way, with the success of the games in question.

      Daikatana sold only because of hype, and sales virtually stopped after everyone heard how horrible
      • It's dishonest to talk about how Romero hasn't made a worthwhile game in ten years while neglecting to mention that Carmack hasn't either. (Worthwhile engines and tech demos, yes...)

        Well, besides Quake 3 Arena, but how hard is it to design an MP-only FPS once you've got the engine developed? Especially one as streamlined as Q3A was.

        Rob
        • Uhm, erm... Touché! :)

          Although, Quake 2 and Doom 3 aren't so bad. In fact, I think Doom 3 is terribly underrated by a lot of people. It's actually quite an immersive game.

          But OTOH, id has concentrated on making game engines, not games. So even discounting Quake 2, which was mediocre, and Doom 3, which was too little too late, it's not quite comparing apples to apples. At least id has done a lot of good, useful work. There's a whole slew of fantastic games that were developed using id's engines

    • Odd, I have never heard of this sim game. Did anyone else?
    • Will Wright is seen as the driving force behind all of the sim games; Romero isn't seen as the driving force behind any of the three games you named, but he *was* the driving force behind Daikatana. Simple enough?

  • I can see it now... (Score:3, Funny)

    by tansey ( 238786 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @01:11PM (#15699210) Journal
    The hype has just started.

    Every month or so, we'll get small updates.
    Then it will be within a year of release, and the updates will become more frequent.
    Then finally when release is only 4 months away, it will be revealed.

    Every magazine will be covered with headlines about...

    Daikatana Online!

  • Massive? (Score:3, Funny)

    by porkface ( 562081 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2006 @01:19PM (#15699270) Journal
    Shouldn't Romero have picked a project with a more finite scope after his last fiasco consumed at least 6 years of his working life?

    • Re:Massive? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by datawhore ( 161997 )
      Agree. MMOs are the single biggest challenge for both game design and execution, and for all intents and purposes are infinite in scope as they are never truly complete. For someone who's last 10 years have potentially given us an idea of what actual contributions he had in his successes before then, he needs to start small and make a GOOD game to restore people's faith in his abilities. By small, I mean inexpensive and fast turn around, not 'mobile is where every failed game designer goes to lick their wou
  • I read an interview with him once, and the worlds he envisions are quite cool. It is making the translation from his imagination to the computer that is tricky. I think a large part of what made Doom so great, was his vision. When he did Diakatana, he was still on the high of making one of the most popular games ever created. Diakatana coming out to such horrible reviews pretty much kicked the crap out of his ego. Enough of that, and a person grows up. I think that he has the potential to bring us oth
    • There's a difference here though. Envisioning worlds does not make you a designer by any means. That's a concept, not a design. A designer makes a system of rules on how the universe in the game operates, and by universe I don't mean the "worlds" concept, I mean the gameplay systems and mechanics behind it that the player uses and interacts with to strike a balance between challenge and fun.
      I have nothing against Romero at all and agree with your post. I feel bad for the guy because he gets such loads o
  • It's gonna be Daikatana II MMORPG!!! This is gonna rock as hard as the original Daikatana did! I can't wait. Romero can code rings around that little dweeb Carmack! I wonder if this means that the old empire of iD will rise again and we'll see such innovative titles as the original Doom but updated for the 20th century? Maybe he'll even bring back Killcreek (hotcha cha!!! sizzle...)? I can't wait! To quote a much loved movie, "This is gonna be grrrreat"!
  • I only have a background in visual basic, directx 8, and vbscript. But I know Romero has a tendency to hire anyone who submits a resume... where do I send mine?

  • In other news, (as long as we're dwelling on the irrelevant)
    I hear the drummer for Modern English has a new solo album out.
  • Remember me? [penny-arcade.com]
  • Lots of details on this thing...

    It will include weapons, it says. I doubt this. Weapons will most likely be cut out of the design document on the first review. They didn't need weapons in Doom or Qua---uh, well, they didn't contribute to the storyline at all which is what those games were all about.
  • I hope it is as good as Diakatana.
  • ... the Zapp Branigan of game development.
  • Correct me if i'm wrong but didn't Romero work on level design in the mentionned games "Doom, Quake, & Wolfenstein 3D"? Add Daikatana to that and ALL of them have the worst level designs made: Bases that make no sense, cave tunnels and sewers connecting to high-tech computer rooms and house with doors on the second floors that required people to jump from over the OTHER building in order to enter them with not even an unopenable door on the first floor and so on... I mean, who in their right mind plac
  • You will all be John Romero's bitch at the same time!
  • I hear they are looking for frog modelers and frog skin artists. :)
  • I can see it now.

    "zomg, they nerfed bitches!"

    "53 JRB LFG!"

    "wtf, ironworks hates bitches!"

    "LF1M Badly Lit Office Corridor just need bitch and gtg"

    etc...

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