/vr/ - Retro Games

>>7209360
>>got him to make levels more interesting than just wolf3d box mazed
This part was really two-way, primarily between Romero and Carmack, the engine was going to be more advanced than Wolfenstein 3D, and when Romero decided that they should really be making much more abstract levels to show off the capabilities of the engine, Carmack (who had encouraged experimenting) was really impressed by what he was doing and loved that the levels made such extensive use out of its capabilities, he'd add features and Romero would suggest or ask for more, and they would work that stuff out a lot, back and forth.

Romero just carelessly breaking the limits of the engine with pic related forced Carmack to realize that the initial approach wasn't working. After implementing Binary Space Partitioning, the results would be not just a much faster and more capable engine, Romero would really show what the improved engine could do, which was more than Carmack could have dreamt of at that point in time.

>>6445467
>How is that Romero being at fault again?
Because it's an RPG at this point, and where is the story, where is the world, where are the characters, where are the locations? He had hastily scribbled down a single one-sided sheet of stuff as a design document, which gives people little to go on in terms of making the game.
What kind of levels/areas do we make?
What kind of characters do we need?
What kind of quests do we write and plan out?

It'd be unlike Doom which was pretty much just abstract levels with no linked progression or focus on story, and with no abstract objectives, you would need much more planning and execution.

>it was Carmack who insisted they keep the ship date, which was ridiculous at that point
Fair, but they also had very little of substance close to the intended release, and that's still a problem, and it means that the current goal wasn't working.

>carmack won't quit fucking with the 3d engine
Trying to make it render correctly (there were problems with planes being randomly absent), doesn't preclude experimenting with making your world meanwhile, if the specs change for what's possible once the engine is stable the levels can be altered for them.
On Doom, Romero made level geometry which the initial engine simply could not render (pic related), forcing Carmack to research and develop Binary Space Partitioning, and him pushing the boundaries of what their software could do lead to the software developing further to accommodate it.
Could a similar problem have slowed development more? Possibly, but I'll concede that the release date was needlessly rigid, however this was the result of Romero actually working with and developing for the game, which he was doing much less of with Quake.