Quote from: Kyle Aaron;686375Or in fancy-talk, the idea is the prerequisite, but is not sufficient.

The idea is the sperm and egg, but someone has to grow it and bring it into the world. Many guys throw a lot of sperm in places they won't find an egg. So much for ideas.

Yeah, I did that earlier today.

I'm not sure the OP is anything new - it was either Edison or Churchill or Oscar Wilde or somebody else who gets quoted a lot who said "success is 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration". In the case of throwing sperm in a place where you won't find an egg it's more like 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration, obviously.

Quote from: Rincewind1;686245Funny you should mention that, as Daikatana came about just as I got my first PC .
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Funny how John Romero became a Failed Game Designer forever because of that one flop. With Wolf3D, DooM and Quake behind him, you'd think he would ultimately be forgiven for one dumb, ego-fuelled rampage... but no. NEVAR.

Meanwhile, Peter Molyneaux is given carte blanche for everything although he has not made a good game in multiple decades. And neither has John Carmack, whose "back of the napkin" designs have been technically proficient but boring and soulless ever since Romero has not been working next to him.

So there is something - while genius is 80% perspiration, you still need that extra 20% to create something really big.

Quote from: Melan;686419Funny how John Romero became a Failed Game Designer forever because of that one flop. With Wolf3D, DooM and Quake behind him, you'd think he would ultimately be forgiven for one dumb, ego-fuelled rampage... but no. NEVAR.

Well, you've gotta admit it was a pretty damn epic Egosplosion.  Though I've heard that it was as much or more marketing-driven than anything Romero actually advocated.

Quote from: Melan;686419Meanwhile, Peter Molyneaux is given carte blanche for everything although he has not made a good game in multiple decades.

Some people in the game industry get accolades because they say things that people want to hear, and are good at making themselves sound "deep".  I can think of many examples.

I'll take a good level-designer or two over even a good idea man any day of the week.  The impact that those guys have on the final product can't be overestimated.  They're the unsung hero-craftsman of the industry.

And for a "visionary"?  I'll trade you five visionaries for one of those really good content guys.

It's actually sad that "content designers" are so frequently looked down upon.

Quote from: Melan;686419And neither has John Carmack, whose "back of the napkin" designs have been technically proficient but boring and soulless ever since Romero has not been working next to him.

In fairness, iD hasn't been a game company in quite a while.  They've been an engine company for a few years now, probably a decade.

Quote from: Melan;686419Funny how John Romero became a Failed Game Designer forever because of that one flop. With Wolf3D, DooM and Quake behind him, you'd think he would ultimately be forgiven for one dumb, ego-fuelled rampage... but no. NEVAR.

Meanwhile, Peter Molyneaux is given carte blanche for everything although he has not made a good game in multiple decades. And neither has John Carmack, whose "back of the napkin" designs have been technically proficient but boring and soulless ever since Romero has not been working next to him.

So there is something - while genius is 80% perspiration, you still need that extra 20% to create something really big.

It may have to do with Romero's general cavalier attitude during the making of that game, combined with massive losses incurred by it - the development was costly at the time, and the whole campaign wasn't cheap neither, and when the game busted, Romero's risk to reward ratio skewered too high to the left. Molyneaux, on the other hand, still manages to crank the sales - I mean, original Fable didn't pull me in past first hour of gaming, but they made 2 more games into the series, which means it must've sold.