New Designer Threads on gamespot: John Romero

[ysbreker]

A very nice podcast with John Romero over at gamespot. Very open interview and there are some interesting questions, and answers

[brkl]

Is he still a dick?

[Oath]

He sounds very likeable.

[elmuerte]

/me agrees on the ghost recon remark

[Marek]

Is he still a dick?

Hang on, Romero was never a dick.

He was just naive and immature.

[Oath]

He was just naive and immature.

He acknowledges that here too, commenting that the extravagance of Ion Storm was kinda stupid.

Since this feature at Gamespot seems to be picking off the San Fransisco developers, maybe Tim Schafer will be up next, seeing as how he's paid visits to them in the past. I like Kasavin, so that would be nice to hear.

[Kolzig]

Man that was a long talk, I listened to about half of it.

[brkl]

I've always thought of Romero as a useless blowhard. Maybe it's because Daikatana was released at a time when I started to think about who specifically is behind the games I play and such.

[MrHoatzin]

Of all the old iD people, John Carmack is the only consistently brilliant one. They did amazing things together, it is just that independently they're not worth much.

[miffy495]

Still not his bitch, but I don't think he's such an idiot now.

[elmuerte]

Of all the old iD people, John Carmack is the only consistently brilliant one. They did amazing things together, it is just that independently they're not worth much.

I think Carmack is slipping.

And what about Tom Hall?

[MrHoatzin]

Carmack has fairly consistently been in his element for the past ten plus years...

[n0wak]

Of all the old iD people, John Carmack is the only consistently brilliant one. They did amazing things together, it is just that independently they're not worth much.

Consistently brilliant game engineer, yes, perhaps. As a designer? I don't know.

[baconian]

yeah yeah, I hate this crap.

The so-called designers came up with something like 'hey, what if you were running around with a gun and there were monsters, and hey, lets set in on mars or something!' And the actual games id made were fun because carmack made then fun.

He's a brilliant games programmer, and that means more than some airy fairy designer who did a bit of putting crates in levels or something. He just knows that the crux of designing a good game is the programming and tuning of the game system, not the nice pictures you put on top.

NB I don't really want to start an argument here, I just have the opinion that games design != art style

[Roderick]

This interview kind of redeemed him in my mind. I also always thought Romero was kind of an arrogant dick, but now he seems pretty reasonable. Plausible, even.

[n0wak]

NB I don't really want to start an argument here, I just have the opinion that games design != art style

I never said art style == game design. I said game design != engineering.

[MrHoatzin]

Consistently brilliant game engineer, yes, perhaps. As a designer? I don't know.

I never said, nor did I imply, that he was a designer. I just said that he was consistently brilliant. I didn't much like Doom 3, but that was one damn snappy engine.

[Marek]

Carmack has done the most steady work in the past years but he's also losing relevance every day. Advancements in engine technology are all around us: Unreal engine, CryEngine, Source, Lithtech and so on.

Baconian, you can't say something that's entirely wrong and not start an argument. The one thing that Carmack does is make engines and tools. That's it. After the Softdisk days he virtually didn't do any game design or creation at all, he just made technology.

Also: game design, even on the gut-based level that John Romero operates on, is not saying "hay guyz let's make a game with guns!!! ok nap time". They did a lot more than drawing gun sprites. Even in those days, you couldn't make a good game without some solid creative input and an intuitive sense of what's fun, and Romero and others were responsible for that. Carmack's tech turned the gaming world's eyes on the games, but it were the designers who made the games actually worth playing at all.

And the actual games id made were fun because carmack made then fun.

Credit him for the tech, not the games. You've got the wrong guy.

And what about Tom Hall?

He's also working at a startup doing MMOs. Honestly I'm kind of sad that he and Romero are doing MMOs. Romero should be running a small studio and churning out action/fighting games for XBLA or something. And it seems Tom Hall would be best working on a full scale singleplayer game given that he made Anachronox and Commander Keen. I have a feeling the MMO bubble is going to burst soon and it'd be uncool if they got caught in the explosion.

By the way, I've always thought guys like Romero or CliffyB were just immature kids thrown into a big world (and they were) but I've learned not to underestimate personalities like them. I don't know all that much about Romero's design sense but after hearing CliffyB at the GDC Game Design Challenge (and I think he's sort of a similar guy, having also sort of randomly emerged from the FPS genre) I really regard him as a super smart and intuitive designer.

Whew, I really typed too much.

[miffy495]

I think of Carmack as a brilliant programmer. He can make damn good engines, but he needs a team to make a game based off of it. Also, you gotta admire what he did/tried to do with Armadillo Aerospace. I always actually kinda hoped that he'd give up on games now that so many people are doing their own engines and try and get more people motivated in space exploration. A lot more people would recognize his name over that of an astronomer, and he could really get a movement going. Fingers crossed.

[Marek]

Yeah I totally agree with you.

[Aussie Ben]

Spot on, Marek - I'd love to see Romero and Hall making some Live Arcade games. I've been aching for another game like Commander Keen since I was eight.