In summer 2005, John Romero's stint at Midway came to an end. The ex-id Software and ex-Ion Storm staffer had joined the company in 2003 as Creative Director and was involved with Gauntlet project Seven Sorrows. Shortly after his departure, he stated he was "looking at lots of exciting developments" but added that it'd be a few months before he announced his next destination.
Well, the sand's finally stopped falling through the hourglass and we can now exclusively reveal that the industry legend is at a new company and working on a massively multiplayer online project.
"I started looking at what I was going to do next, so I looked around on the net and I saw there was an opportunity for an MMO, there was a person starting an MMO so I contacted him," Romero told us recently, explaining where his involvement with the project began. "We talked for hours on the phone, we had a lot of common interests and ideas about this title and so basically this guy was really excited, brought me on as a co-founder of the company and I've been here for almost four months now."
Strangely, Romero isn't willing to divulge the name of the company, nor is he slapping a name on the MMO title. "I can't really say too much... this is [a] complete secret, stealth company", he said, adding cryptically that "This is not a typical games company and we're not making typical games".
According to Romero (who says he loves MMOs), the game he's working on is "very different from any other MMO for some special reasons." Precisely what those special reasons are, he wouldn't elaborate. He did, however, admit that funding for the project is lurking in the many millions of dollars bracket. "It's a lot of money, this is the most money I've ever spent on a game - in Gauntlet it was like $10 million, but this is much more," Romero revealed.
As for when we'll first get to see Romero's MMO title, he said nothing will be shown until next year. What exactly is he going to uncover? Should the likes of Blizzard and World of Warcraft be worried? We can only wait and see.
Read more from John Romero in PC Zone issue #165, out this Thursday, February 2.
"On yonder hill there stands a game, Who she is I will not tell Will you court her for her gameplay You must answer yes or no Oh no John, No John, No John, No!
On her box will be two great words, On a beast where guns do shoot If they should chance be 'Daikatana Online', You must answer yes or no Oh no John, No John, No John, No!"
It couldn't be a MMORPG sponsored by Major sports franchise, where you create a player character and then play as an athlete on a team and live the sporting life...could it?
He's a bit of a restless soul these days and doesn't seem to spend much time in any one company so one has to question what'll happen with this new venture.
There is a lot of joking going on, but I think it would be wise to save the mockery until he has unveiled the product. My bet is that he joined Red 5 Studios (www.red5studios.com), which would make perfect sense (its a MMORPG company working on something revolutionary that started approx. 4 months ago). In fact, I can almost say with some certainty what is special about the MMORPG. It is dynamic. Players will be able to have permanent effects on the game world via their actions. If the company does this right, it could be a really cool product. Time will tell....
Were it Peter Molyneaux in charge, the reaction would have been positive. Sadly, JC's recent work has been c**k on toast so I think it's understandable that people react with apathy or scorn.
Still, you never know, he could pull something out of the bag, as opposed to the sac.
romero is going to let us down again. he can talk the talk but without carmack he just can't deliver the goods.
i hope this MMORPG is something different and ground breaking like CCP's Eve-online. other than that the entire MMORPG genre is stale and boring at the moment.
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