Part 33: Best of the thread: Part Two
I realize this is the equivalent of ranking people's posts on Slashdot. I kinda feel like a douche who should put 5 - Insightful or 5 - Entertaining next to people's posts. Shoot me.
Kitfox88 posted:
Control over the Daikatana is limited at best? He can one hit gib Suspicious without even moving his arm, it's glowing blue, and it's at lvl5! Mishima can suck a dick. t
Edit: Oh god what was wrong with the priest or whatever's face and arms oh jesus
Frankomatic posted:
Wait, wait, wait. They game actually makes you hunt down your base weapon one in this episode instead of just letting you have it? That seems somewhat stupider than usual somehow.
And this isn't even getting into the werewolf bullshit.
EDIT: Also, a "Trigon"? Seriously, fuck you John. Just say fucking Triangle.
Inversion Impulse posted:
Good god, this entire episode's premise sounds like the plot of a second rate D&D campaign. Not surprising, since apparently the rest of the game was inspired by a second rate D&D game and all.
Play an organ to open a secret door into an important and hidden area of a cathedral? I see Romero snuck in an homage/knockoff of the first dungeon in Chrono Trigger, the forest cathedral in AD 600...
kissekatt posted:
Ugh, almost everything in this episode is wrong. Norway wasn't Christian during the Dark Age. Norway wasn't even remotely Christian in 560 AD, the major Christianisation took place during the final centuries of the Dark Ages. Then again, I guess you had to include the church, because the glass windows where the only thing in the architecture of the entire level that actually looked somewhat Scandinavian.
While there was indeed a plague going at that time, primarily in the 540's and 550's, it was largely in the Mediterranian region and never reached Norway. Also, Mikiko would most likely not be infected by a rat bite, as the plague is transmitted from rats to humans by infected fleas. It's more likely that the whole trio got the plague from going around killing the plague rats, causing the fleas to abandon their dying hosts for new blood, so to speak.
And for Odin's sake John, the names. Musilde, Gharroth and Nharre, do any of these even sound remotely Norwegian? I mean, I could have understood if you used Anglicised versions of Norwegian/Scandinavian names, like Canute instead of Knut, but no, you even had to fuck up something as simple as coming up with credible names. Then again, I guess that is what is to be expected after Superfly Johnson, but on the other hand you did manage to name the dynasties Mishima and Ebihara rather than say von Bismarck and Throatwobbler-Mangrove.
That felt strangely good.
Red Zeppelin posted:
Well, if you look at the buildings, seems more likely they're in Switzerland than Norway, honestly
And yeah, the names are pretty bad, and if he wanted names with lots of r's and h's, he could've just picked some authentic ones like Hrolf or Haraldr or Hroarr or Geirr. You'd only really have to flip through a couple of pages of the Heimskringla or Snorre sagaes to find good, authentic substitutes.
But, I guess. Couldn't spare a couple of minutes from precious "making people suck it down"-time to do the most basic of fact checking. Oh, and there aren't any bats in Norway during the winter, seeing as how they'd all die from the cold LONG before there was even snow on the ground. Nice, authentic choice for an annoying enemy, John.
Though I suppose if you really want to give Mr. Romero the benefit of the doubt, they could be referring the Black Plague, which hit Norway a good three hundred years or so after the country was Christianized at swordpoint - but assuming the brown-clad dude with the unibrow is a monk, he would've been among the first ones to die. Even then, though, if by some fluke he managed to place this section of the game in the right historical time period, everything... EVERYTHING else is wrong.
...Johnnnnnnnn! (You're right, that did feel pretty good)
slowbeef posted:
It's really like a 12-year-old made it. I used to think it was ridiculously stupid to name a character Max Payne, but this is 1000x worse.
I read the plot off Planet Daikatana; So Tetsuo Ebihara discovers a cure for the filovirus in 2030. He uses his wealth attained from the cure to seek out the Daikatana. In 2350, Mishima gets the Daikatana, kills the current Dr. Ebihara (who goes to see Hiro at the beginning), goes back in time and kills Tetsuo Ebihara. He steals the Filovirus cure himself so he can become rich in the future.
This is seriously one of those plots you think of when you're a kid and you think it's really smart, but then as you start to analyze it, it starts to break apart, or there's all little corollaries you have to add.
If he kills Ebihara's ancestors, how are the future Dr. Ebihara and Mikiko even existing? Oh, well, maybe they weren't direct descendants and it was a great-great-great-etc. uncle or something.
If he changed history, how does anyone even figure that out? He changed time - that's the new history. How did anyone even find out about this "previous" timeline? I guess he got drunk and told someone and the future Ebihara's found out.
Tetsuo Ebihara's life ambitions are to cure a (presumably) deadly virus AND secure a time-traveling sword? Why did it take so long to find the Daikatana? Who hid it in the first place?
If Hiro is a swordsman - and I think Proteus mentioned this, but it bears repeating - how is he so good (presumably) with rocket launchers, shotguns and discs? And come to think of it, why doesn't he start with a regular sword? He's a swordsman? Was it really so hard to start him off with something that looks like Daikatana but doesn't level up and isn't very strong?
I know video game plots aren't great to begin with, but it's like this goes out of its way to be retarded. It's almost like this is what Chrono Trigger would be if it were made in Hell.
You know what? That's really what it is.
For movies, you have Uwe Boll's House of the Dead.
For video games, this is John Romero's Chrono Trigger.
ChuckMaster posted:
I think that is also a drop in the bucket of water that is John Romeo's wet-brained design.
I'm attributing the complaints to shell shock. If you're in a trench and shells are falling all around you, dead bodies are left to rot mere yards from your line, food is scarce and your feet are rotting from trench foot. Eventually you'll just go numb to all of it. Because there will be a time you can't remember ever being anywhere else. Food has always been rotten. Shells have always tried to kill you. This is your pathetic existence now.
And when you see a spider in your boot, that misfortune is now the most awful thing in your brain. Everything else you have learned to live with, but this new annoyance is what occupies your mind. You hate the spider. You want it to die.
This, my friends, is Daikatana. At this point in the journey you just accept that weapons are useless, friends are useless, making sense of things is useless. Hope i s useless. All that exists is a never ending horde of frustrating things to kill you. You don't even know why you go on.
And after your numb mind slogs into the church, the only thing you're not dead to is how out of place it is. This shouldn't be. I can accept the teleporting zombies, but this religion shouldn't exist. This is the last logical portion of your brain in its death throes. You babble like a madman while everyone else just walks away, going through the motions. You've become that crazy old man you knew as a kid that used to shout at the ocean.
You pick up your cross bow. It doesn't shoot straight, but that doesn't matter anymore. The church is starting to look more and more like reality. The will to make sense of things has subsided. All that there is now is to kill and keep walking. The world is already dead to you. You walk to the lake. You jump.
And after the freezing water sucks the last life out of you, you crumple into a fetal position before uttering your last words into the bubbling deaths.
"I love Diakatana."
Suspicious posted:
John is obsessed with Chrono Trigger, so if it looks like he ripped something and shat all over it before including it in Daikatana, he probably did.
Proteus4994 posted:
Wow, my hard drive died this morning. The hard drive with Daikatana on it. This game is systematically destroying my computer.
slowbeef posted:
Proteus's Hard Drive: "I can't take this shit anymore."
Flare Elevar posted:
I think we found the gimmick of episode three. Not the return of impossible-to-hit enemies, not the face of that guy in the church (), not even the horribly rotten story that's an excuse for "go collect shit". The game will prevent you from progressing by corrupting your hard drive.
Daikatana is the ROMhack of ROMhacks.
Proteus4994 posted:
DOUBLE POST!
I don't even know why I thought this was even remotely a sane idea, but here you assholes go.
Daikatana - Bad Idea 1
Daikatana - Bad Idea 2
I have a third video, but I'm really thinking it'd be a bad idea to post it.
Torvec posted:
so is this the video you didn't upload?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?d...240715576739697
edit: personally i thought it was hilarious...never pegged you to be a happy drunk. heh maybe you, suspicious, and a guest should do a drunk video together.
ChuckMaster posted:
Holy hell what a chain texture.
How lazy can you be?
Proteus4994 posted:
From Wikipedia, key dates:
Initial game design completed: March 1997
First disastrous E3 showing: June 1997
Initial deadline: Christmas 1997
Rescheduled date: March 1998
First team quitting: November 1998
Quake II engine conversion: January 1999
"Hell or high water" release date: February 15, 1999
Demo released: March 1999
Second disastrous E3 showing: June 1999
Eidos takeover: June 1999
Release party: December 17, 1999
Gold status: April 2000
I forget when the second team quit, but I think it was around the Eidos takeover.
MORE CURLY FRIES posted:
Two trailers for this game, both released in 1998:
Trailer 1 - All pre-rendered stuff which seems to have no bearing on the actual game
Trailer 2 - Featuring fly bys of levels set to techno music while close ups of the models in 3D SMax are shown.
slowbeef posted:
Tasian sent this to me:
The latest Phoenix Wright game, Trials and Tribulations, has a Daikatana reference. Sorta.
(I know it's referring to Godot's coffee-drinking addiction, but still. That's a pretty specific way to phrase it.)
exmus posted:
Words of wisdom from John Romero and Stevie Case:
"Episode One, Kyoto, Japan, 2455 C.E.
Daikatana's first episode is set in far future, techno-industrial Japan. Your quest begins in Kage Mishima's man-made swamp. The vast majority of your attackers in Kyoto are Mishima's robotic security forces, with some extra help from human guards. They often possess lethal ranged laser bullet strikes, so you will usually be safest at a distance ducking behind obstructions.
Many of the massive robots, though deadly, are quite slow. Stay on the move to avoid the crushing robotic fists of the RageMaster. If you can circle strafe quickly enough, the Disruptor Glove packs quite a tough electric punch and will shatter most robots with a few hits.
Weapon Notes:
The Ion Blaster is a great distance weapon, but discharges in water for extra damage. If you plan on using it in the Marsh or other watery areas, make sure you are on the bank! Anytime you jump into liquid, switch to another weapon to avoid self-inflicted bodily harm.
Episode Two, Ancient Greece, 1200 B.C.E.
The mythical beasts of Ancient Greece employ mainly melee attacks. Stay a step away to maintain the advantage in battle. Fight each enemy as you encounter it, rather than running. The beasts will hound you through the entire level until the swarm is powerful enough to overtake your defenses. Trying to run usually results in being trapped against the rocks by a mass of attacking spiders, skeletons, thieves, and satyrs.
Your chances are always better one-on-one, so slash them to pieces as you find them. Use the rocky landscape to your advantage. If you're being chased, run backwards, firing at them.
Weapon Notes:
Though a single discus serves as another basic melee weapon, it can be built into a rather deadly tool. You cannot throw a discus again until it has retunred to your hands. Collect as many discuses as possible for a more potent, rapid-fire device.
Episode Three, Dark Ages, Norway, 560 C.E.
Mystical creatures abound in the dank dungeons of Dark Ages Norway. The magical assaults of these dispossessed beings and wizards can be quite unpredictable. Rotworms attack with poisonous spit and Fletchers with bow and arrow.
Wyndrax the Wizard will unleash his magical wisps as Stavros the Sorcerer summons meteors from the nether dimensions. Two of the creatures in this era must be gibbed once killed, or else they will return to life and attack again. The rotting Buboid is one of these creatures. Gib his corpse with any weapon. Be careful not to turn your back; the Buboid can melt into the ground and reappear nearby. To rid yourself of the Lycanthir permanently, it must also be gibbed, but only with the dreaded Silverclaw.
Weapon Notes:
The Ballista is a powerful weapon against all foes. Use it to pin your target to the nearest wall. The now-immobilized organism has little chance against your ranged attacks while trapped. It can also be used to perform a "Ballista Jump." To execute, run forward, look down, fire the Ballista and jump at the same time to sail high above the ground.
Episode Four, San Francisco, 2030 C.E
Futuristic, torn-down San Francisco is not a friendly environment, nor are its inhabitants. As you get closer to Mishima you will face seemingly endless Navy S.E.A.L.s, Sharks, and even escaped Lab Monkeys. Quick melee attacks will not stun them, so keep your distance and fight them in small groups. Keep an eye on your sidekicks' health. You will need their help to reach and defeat Kage Mishima.
Weapon Notes:
The Slugger, weapon number two, has an alternate Cordite Grenade attack. To select it, press the Slugger key a second time. These little bombs unleash a mini-explosion on their targets.
Experience Points
Experience points are gained each time you kill a creature. Each time you reach the number of points necessary to level up you will be given the option to add a skill point to one of the five categories: Power, attack, speed, acro, or vitality. Your current level is shown on the status bar in the right-hand window. Just to the left of the image of the body is a small experience point status bar. Once the bar reaches the top and all ten notches are filled, you will be able to level up and add a skill point. Specializing in one or two specific skills is highly recommended. The more monsters you kill, the more experience you get, so slaughter away and get smarter!
The daikatana itself can also gain experience and become powered up to level five. Daikatana experience points are gained in the same way as regular experience points: by killing creatures. The more you use the sword the more powerful it becomes. At level five the daikatana will slash even the strongest of enemies to gibs in an instant. Take note, however, when using the daikatana all experience points go to the sword and cannot be applied to boost skills! Accessing the game scoreboard shows the daikatana's current level. As an extra added bonus, the daikatana does double damage when slicing an unsuspecting enemy from behind.
Mikiko and Superfly
Superfly and Mikiko will join you at different points in the game. Sometimes you will battle alone, at other times only one of your companions will be arround to help, and on occasion both will be in on the action. Both sidekicks will automatically perform the tasks necessary to follow you.
The will defend your party whenever possible, pick up health and ammo, and aid you in exploring unfamiliar territory. There are some basic commands available to help you keep your cohorts in check. Each of these commands can be accessed in the sidekick control menu, or bound to a single key in the main Keyboard menu.
To tell Mikiko or Superfly to get an item, point at the item with your crosshair and use the GET button. They will follow by design, but can be told to STAY.
If your friends are really hurting and you wish them to stay back, the BACK OFF command will keep them from attacking and taking further damage when in battle.
Though it is conceivable that you could fight through a level and later return to get your sidekicks, it is highly recommended to bring them with you into battle to begin with. Their help can prove invaluable in the long run."
One question, does the ballista actually pin enemies to the wall like this says? I don't remember seeing any enemies get stuck to anything in the videos..
Dr. Destructo posted:
Let's Form Sentences About Daikatana and See How Long You Can Keep from Laughing!
I'll go first.
"The RageMaster is an enemy easily defeated by the use of the Ultimate Gas Hands."
Yeah, I lost.
Veotax posted:
The budget version of the game that I ordered had a PDF of the original manual, so I thought that I'd post the hilariously awful character art for those who don't have the pleasure of owning this masterpiece.
Tikki posted:
Found an old demo cd from a game magazine.
Gotta love the message in the winzip installer thing.
ChuckMaster posted:
There's a typo in the character descriptions. It should read like this:
Heros of Diakatana
Hiro Miyamoto:
Hiro is what John Romero wishes he was in real life, hence the strong jaw and flowing black hair. He is very patient, which is evident in the lines "Hey, let's keep moving" and "Hey, we have to leave now!" His wisdom is evident in the way that he keep going forward with reckless abandon without trying to develop any semblance of a plan or strategy.
Fun Fact: His expertise in physics allows him to fire a crossbow and have it land at a cock-eyed angle. Impressive!
Mikiko Ebihara:
Mikiko looks like Stevie Case if she was Asian and locked in a freezer for four hours while wearing only a jumpsuit. Her expression is that of someone who had just bit into a shit sandwich. She is a down to earth sort of girl, which is evident in her paranoia complex and mistrust of other minorities.
Fun Fact: Mikiko was voted as having the pointiest breasts in her high school class.
Superfly Johnson
Standing as a caricature of the Rock if he had dwarfism, Superfly is the former head of security in the Mishima corporation. He was stripped of his title when it was found out that he only had five years experience in the industry and was merely suitable for a supervisory position at best, and hid his Microcephaly condition from his medical reports. It was also revealed that he had been a famous actor in many 1970's blaxploitation films.
We didn't research into his past any further since we merely keep him around as a stereotype. Mysterious!
Fun Fact: Superfly's real name is Marcus, and was turned down the role of Shaft for being too one-dimensional.
Bonus: Superfly's father:
GUI posted:
I finally managed to fix the Wyndrax Tower bug and went to the next level, in which I found the best weapon ever.
After that I just quit the game and wondered why I'm playing it in the first place.
Kitfox88 posted:
KING GHARROTH HAS LEFT THE BUILDING
Seris posted:
I love how Mikiko returns to consciousness... WHILE SHE'S STANDING UP.
GetWellGamers posted:
Still rooting through magazines looking for Daikatana stuff, but some gems in the meantime:
Tresspasser Review: "Someday a PC may exist on which Trespasser can run smoothly- until then, avoid it."
Half-Life Review: "PC action game of the year? Easily. Heck, maybe of the century..."
Sidebar in an article about the recently-released Dreamcast: "How not to design videogame hardware: The Sega Way
Next-Generation Table of contents, April 1999: "Unreal Tournament Vs. Team Fortress 2"
Baldur's Gate Review: "It took a while, and it was made by a bunch of medical doctors, but great stuff comes from the unlikeliest of places"
And some actually relevant stuff:
From an interview with Carmack:
Next Generation: Do you ever have the temptation to walk over to your artists and say "OK, today I'm designing a level"?
John Carmack: I don't know I have the right skillset to be a level designer. I could create a level, but it would be more like a drafting operation than a really good creative operation. Just like Tim's not likely to come in here and write the next renderer, I'm not likely to do the next fabulous level. And I'm comfotable with that; it's just being honest with yourself about what your strengths and weaknesses are. (Emphasis mine)
Daikatana preview, April 1999: "Daikatana lies in the eye of the Ion Storm. Many team members have gone with the wind, but this title (shipping June?) may be enjoyable, ute unlikely to surpass Half-Life."
....A-ha! Found a full-on preview, May 1999. I'll get to transcribing it and post in a bit.
Also: "Inside the mind of JOHN ROMERO" sidebar!
...Ready to eat your words, John?
Proteus4994 posted:
Which is why Carmack is still one of, if not the, industry's greatest engine designers, while Romero was creating games for the N-Gage and even managed to fuck that up.
Edit: I just decided to go back and read Jeff K's FPS SMARTEY MAN SURVIVOR again and I forgot how great that era of gaming was.
Especially this:
And even more especially this:
GetWellGamers posted:
Daikatana
After delays and controversy, Ion Storm's flagship starts to take shape.
Format: PC
Publisher: Eidos
Developer: Ion Storm
Release Date: June
John Romero chuckles uncontrollably as he watches his creation presented on a big screen in Ion Storm's plush, corporate-friendly auditoriun. He's laughing because an unfeasibly large number of bad guys are on the tail of hs colleague demonstrating the game. He squeals with delight as members of the army of muscle-bound foes drop one by one, piece by piece, as a torrent of gunfire is unleashed upon them. And he takes further pleasure from looking on as blood splatters on the walls and body parts bounce around the floor. Everyone else observes from the comfort of black leather armchairs-- perhaps wondering if Romero's spent a little too much time running around dark corridors with guns.
Despite the fact that the lackluster C&C clone Dominion was Ion Storm's first commercial release (although the core of the game was designed when in the hands of 7th Level and Todd Porter), Daikatana is the title upoin which Ion Storm's fortunes ultimately rest. First Shown running on the original Quake engine to a muted reception at the 1997 E3 show, Romero's project received a technical leg up in the form of the switch to Id's beefier Quake II code, but progress hasn't been smooth since. The recent departure of the infamous "Ion Eight"-- the core team members who jumped ship just a few months ago-- was just the latest in a series of setbacks that has kept the epic frag-'em-up from store shelves.
But with (at press time) just four months left to go, it's now looking good if not quite yet up to the graphical standard of the current first-person benchmarks, Unreal and Half-Life. But with so much work still under way, it's a little early to pass judgement just yet. Of course, a bullish Romero is confident that it will live up to expectations: "You know, people have been blown away by Half-Life here," he concedes. "It's a totally awesome game, but we're really confident that our game is better. There's a strong storyline, great monsters, tons of great weapons, and cool sidekicks that go through the game with you."
The single-player game encompasses four self-contained worlds-- each set in its own time period that is reflected in the designs of the individual environments, monsters, and (of course) weapons. You play through the game as Hiro Miyamoto (no relation), a descendant of a famed swordmaster who forged the original Daikatana sword back in the 16th century. The quest involves hunting through each time period for the fabled sword with the help of two sidekick characters, Mikiko and Superfly, who assist you through the game. However, you'll need to watch their backs, too.
During Next Generation's visit, only the Deathmatch version of Daikatana was made playable, and work is progressing quickly on a demo to be made available soon. Deathmatch Daikatana-- at least, the version NG played-- is enjoyable if not sufficiently different from its competitors. It moves blindingly fast, the weapons are impressive enough, and the planned incorporation of weather effects such as fog and rain will provide new elements for players to deal with. But only time will tell if it has the magic recipie that will keep the networks buzzing.
It's just possible that Daikatana's strongest draw will be its single-player game-- a race in which suck titles as Quake II, Unreal and Half-Life have set a challenging pace. The four time zones-- which range from darkest medieval Norway to post-apocalyptic San Francisco-- are already looking well realized, with superb atmospheric effects, not to mention a total of 64 gruesome foes and 32 devastating weapons (which include the beautifully rendered Eye of Zeus as well as the matamaser, a "BFG-type fragmaster"). All this, despite these numbers having been scaled down from those in its original blueprint.
The first-person shoot-'em-up is an intensely competetive arena, and no one knows this more than John Romero as he guides his designers through the final stages of the game's completion. EExpect Ion Storm's big hope to make a prominent appearance in L.A. at this year's E3 show and to hit shelves later in the summer.
NG.
Screenshot Captions Accompanying the Article:
"The Quake II engine environments are a cut above Quake II-- is that good enough?"
"When the game is done, star Hiro Miyamoto will travel through time-- if only he could do that now."
"New effects such as fog, rain, and plasma perk up the graphics and add to gameplay."
GetWellGamers posted:
Sidebar: Inside the Mind of JOHN ROMERO
GQ called him "the Quentin Tarantino of computer game megaviolence," while Time says he "wears the mantle of pop-culture godhood with aplomb." He drives a yellow ferrari testarossa modified with a nitrous system to growl at a frightening 800hp. Whaever one says about John Romero, one can't ignore that, prior to the Dallas Observer* article anyways, he was as hot as a game designer gets in the U.S. While the most important game of his career muscles back into the limelight, NG cornered him for a chat.
Next Generation: Doom was created by a small team, for not a huge amount of money. How does Daikatana differ?
John Romero: It takes a lot of people and it takes a lot of time. To me, it's mostly the time because everyone is constantly trying to stay ahead of each other. The big difference between working on a project like Doom and one like Daikatana is that the team is bigger and that costs. And, of course, it has to look good. I mean, everybody is expecting Forsaken-tyoe flare effects, and alpha-blended this, that, and the other. And that has its costs, too.
Next Generation: But do you think all this investment is really adding to gameplay experience?
John Romero: Well, there's so much ground that's been covered already-- everyone is trying to push the boundaries. What's next? There are usually incremental steps once the revolution has happened.. I don't think that you can really have a revolutionary thing happen unless it's defining another genre. In this genre, the revolution has pretty much happened-- things are just getting more clearly defined.
Next Generation: So are you not eager to lead the next revolution, then?
John Romero: Yeah, definitely. I'm always thinking about what we can do next. I have cool ideas for what I want to do with the single-player genre. You know, I still love the shooter. I still love going and destroying shit into pieces. But how can we do that in a cooler way? I have an idea for having a replayable single-player game where you finish it and then you play it again to see how it's gonna change. For it to work, you need to have multiple starting points within the story-- different levels, basically-- and different story paths that the player can choose to go through. You;d have to have a ton of levels-- 50, minimum.
Next Generation: Is this your next project?
John Romero: This is what I'm planning on doing after Daikatana to push the genre a little bit forward into some other new area and see if it takes or not. The player starts the game and chooses what character they want to be. The character is kind of tied to a different location in the game- their hometown or whatever. SO you move along, go through some levels, meet people who give you information, and you'll reach points where you'll choose where you want to go. For example, are you gonna decide to go down into a dungeon or over a bridge? Your path through the game completely changes depending on which direction you go in. If you decide to go over the bridge, you won't see the dungeon level unless you replay the game from the start.
Next Generation: What does John Romero spend most days doing?
John Romero: The first thing I do when I come in is answer all my emails because I'm responsible for every aspect of the design from the programming to the map design to the art-- it's decision-making all day long. I don't get too immersed in the scheduling-- what I'm concerned with is matters like: Is this weapon doing what it should? Is it animated well enough? Do the maps flow correctly? Someone else does scheduling.
Next Generation: And schedules must be a sore point at the moment...
John Romero: Changing over to the Quake II engine is pretty much what delayed Daikatana. We thought it would be an easy change, but it wasn't, because Carmack had been rewriting everything, and nothing that we created other than the monsters-- the actual models-- could even be used. So we had to start pretty much from scratch. The other big difference is working with people that have not worked on 3D games before.
Next Generation: Certainly, having eight people choose to leave the team can't have helped...
John Romero: When you have people leave, it takes time to get new people up to speed. But in actual fact, the people that did leave weren't woking hard anyway, and now we have people that are really keen. Those that stayed have been amazed at the progress we've made in the past few months, though, and there's none of the negativity that we've had before.
Next Generation: In light of the recent controversey*, do you wish that you'd kept a lower profile?
John Romero: We wanted to make sure that people knew Ion Storm-- we haven't tried to push me. The press has always been asking to talk to me and take pictures. They're interested in it. The games industry is asking for me, and obviously I'm not gonna say, "No! Stay away!" The higher up you are, the more people are likely to want to take you down. It doesn't matter if you're the most noble, saintly person on the planet. The fact is that people are gonna hate you more than anything.
NG.
* The article in question is "Stormy Weather", a brutal and unrelenting dissection of how Ion Storm was setting itself up to fail from the get-go. Thankfully I won't have to transcribe that.
So where do we go from here? Should I go back in time to the first rumblings of Daikatana and Ion Storm, or press forward into their E3 showing and actual reviews?
Also, I'll let someone captiona screenshot in my deus ex LP if they can find me a good image of the cover of Next-Generation Magazine issue #29.
Hammer Floyd posted:
Also, let's face it. If Valve announced a new FPS that:
- Had a new weapon\monster every level
- Open-Ended environments, requiring exploration
- Engaging story with treachery and interesting characters
- Uses some of the best graphics technology to date
- Advanced AI
- Uses the leading game designers at the time
You'd be stoked. You would be unbelieveably excited for the game. See, the fact of the matter is that Daikatana is a FUNDAMENTALLY good game. All the above features there are the peices of what makes a game great. However, he fucked each part up completely
- New weapon\monster just offered a different way to kill you faster and weren't interesting
- Small areas, long load times, "exploration" = backtracking
- Really shitty story with painfully stereotypical characters
- Uses the best technology (of it's time) poorly
- What AI?
- Romero made great maps. He just sucked at everything else.
From his perspective: I can see why he still thinks it's the greatest game ever. Let's face it, if it delivered on all of these promises, it would've been up there with Half-Life.
kissekatt posted:
Regarding the Eye of Zeus map, this is all I have to say:
Phrosphor posted:
After watching suspicious's runthrough, something came to my attention. How come in that episode cold water continued to hurt you after you got out, but as soon as you get out of the lava you are fine?
If this really was an 'Expert FPS' surely the lava should insta kill.
I'm disappointed John, where is your consistency?
Dr. Destructo posted:
Every game designer battles to balance the old school conventions (in this case, hurt floor-style lava) with new innovation (in this case, dickish insta-hypothermia water).
John Romero doesn't actually battle this balance so much as he gets put in full nelson by it and has his neck cranked vigorously.
GunnerJ posted:
why the fuck is there lava ten feet underground and running through crypts in scandinavia?
GetWellGamers posted:
I think this brings up a good point: I genuinely believe John thought this was a good game at one point or another. I think he truly believed he was taking things to the next level, but he just couldn't see past how it looked in his head for what was actually appearing on the screen. No one wants to make a shitty story, no one wants to make weapons that are no fun to use; he just couldn't see it as it was instead of the summation of every "Wouldn't it be cool" thought he ever had coalesced inside his head.
You really have to feel sorry for him; how would you like for your magnum opus to all but bankrupt the company you started and make you a pariah of the entire game industry? It doesn't change the fact that the game is crap, nor does it excuse it, but it might go a long way towards at least explaining how such a giant festering turd ever had a gold master pressed.
Linguica posted:
The best part how Todd Porter was sending out emails to sell his BMW or whatever because he had bought a Ferrari while at the same time he's saying shit like "no biggie, we'll make back all the money when Daikatana and Anachronox both sell 2.5 million copies"
Daduzi posted:
This is true, but it's also worth remembering that John Romero actually had relatively little to do with Daikatana or indeed how Ion Storm was run, by all accounts his role as producer consisted of little more than looking pretty in photo shoots. And the people who did actually have a hand in how the company was run (like Todd Proter) seem to have been more interested in bumping up its valuation in order to make a killing when they sold it than actually producing decent games. Hence Daikatana being a by-product of a giant scam: it's not that the game itself was a scam, just that it was produced by a company that had gradually turned into one (and a very unsuccessful one at that).
Proteus4994 posted:
I disagree. John's role as a producer and a co-founder of the company means that he had pretty much direct control over much of the situation if he had chosen to utilize it. Let's look at some of the decisions that can be traced directly to John.
- Hiring Stevie Case and Chris Klie as level designers
- Having his entire staff blind-side him with a walkout when any reasonable person would have been able to sense it coming.
- Switching to the Quake 2 engine on a whim
- Promising release dates that were unachievable (such as the first one)
- Buying off on the retarded "John will make you his bitch" advertising strategy (which he claims he had reservations about, but doesn't change the fact that he bought off on it)
There are plenty more. John is hardly absolved of guilt here.
Suspicious posted:
You have to remember that John is still proud of the final product.
Static_Fiend posted:
To quote a phrase, "this game wasn't released, it escaped..."
WeaponBoy posted:
I should make a character on his WoW server named Daikatana or Superfly and follow him around getting myself killed and screaming for help and to not be left behind.
Critical posted:
Apparently John watched The Rock 3 or 400 times before making the Alcatraz level.
Renegret posted:
The intro to the new video taught me two things.
1) Superfly, the black guy, has seen many prison cells. (e: I guess you point this out, but it's still worth mentioning)
2) Apparently, porn is a crime. Just porn, not any specific kind.
GUI posted:
The funniest thing about gibs is that even dying of poisoning can make your body explode into a thousand pieces.
Suspicious posted:
I'm aware it's difficult to tell, but I haven't really become angry, just very exasperated and/or depressed. It's not helping that the game difficulty becomes really retarded midway into episode 4.
Dr. Destructo posted:
So the shotgun still fires a spread, despite being called the Slugger, which suggests that it fires slugs instead of actual shot. John, it's a fucking shotgun, don't try to snakeoil it as something else.
Even this game's subtleties are layers upon layers of failure, like an onion made of total shit.
bathroomrage posted:
I love how in the end of that cutscene, Mikiko is fidgeting pointlessly and Superfly has a bobble-head.
Design is law, I guess.
(part 3 finale coming later)