Chapter 15 Chapter 14 Silicon Castle

The bartender guy stood at the bar and whipped up another BFG cocktail: rum first, then a dash of cantaloupe and blue citrus liqueur.The name is undoubtedly derived from his favorite weapon in Doom.As a bar near Mesquite City on the same road as the id office building, BFG is naturally their most signature flavor. This glass of green juice can also be regarded as a toast to Dallas-it has now become an electronic The new capital city in the game Gold Rush. Dallas in the summer of 1997 was to the gaming world what Seattle was to the music world in the early 1990s, and id Software was Nirvana.Since the two Johns came to Mesquite five years ago with Pacman, the number of game developers in the neighborhood has tripled, around Richard Geliott's flagship company Viking in Austin. Numerous small game companies have also emerged. "Time" magazine called the players in Texas "the new generation of cowboys", "wired" magazine called them: "the children of Doom", and "The Boston Globe" called Decker The gaming revival in Texas is being called "the new Hollywood."

A more apt title would be "Silicon Alamo" (Silicon Alamo), because the cusp of this craze is first-person shooters.Shooting games have become a multi-million dollar industry, led by Doom, Quake, and Duke Nukem 3D, dominating the top computer game sales charts.This is exactly the dream that id promised in "Floppy Disk": to make the PC a real gaming platform.Sales of interactive entertainment software totaled $3.7 billion in 1996, of which $1.7 billion came from PC games. "USA Today" attributed the driving force of "the revitalization of the entire PC industry" to "the explosion of PC games".

Led by id and Ion Storm, a new generation of game companies has sprung up in Dallas, Rogue and Ritual, respectively focusing on making id and 3D Realms game mission packages, such as the new levels of Quake; former id employee Sandy Ensemble Studios, which Peterson joined, produced the best-selling real-time strategy game ever: "Age of Empires"; the creator of the former Microsoft flight simulation engine and the former Tianji employee founded the Terminal Reality company, dedicated to In launching cross-platform game products; the e-sports professional league is becoming the NBA in the game world by virtue of deathmatch.

Behind this thriving scene, there is a credit for the id engine technology authorization.In addition to Ion Storm, many other companies have also adopted id's engine. For this, they need to pay 250,000 US dollars first, and let id extract royalties after the game is released, that is to say, id can earn from competitors money.But the overwhelming shooting games have made the media speculate on who can play the role of "Quake Terminator", thus driving id from the altar. "Duke Nuke 3D" has long been considered a work with great potential, and now, a company opened by several ex-Microsoft employees in Seattle: Valve, using Quake's engine to make "Half-Life" (Half-Life) ), it won unanimous praise from players and the media at the E3 exhibition.A company called Epic that Scott Miller discovered in Northern California a few years ago also produced a first-person shooter game: "Unreal", and its demo version was also well received; of course, there is "The Great Sword of Romero".All of these games are coming, including id's own Quake2.The decisive battle in Silicon Castle is bound to be the most exciting drama in recent years. Of course, the premise is that all parties to the war can settle their own housework first, and don't hear the bad news of the backyard fire amidst the drums.

﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡ The race was gripping, with Carmack in his Ferrari F40 and a Porsche 911 hot on his heels.Carmack leased this country track in Ennis, Texas, for an in-house drag race.In the afternoon when the sun was shining brightly, it was a very happy thing to pull out the high-end sports car brought to them by the game and compete with each other.Recently, the work pressure is too great. They often hold such sports car competitions. Last time, Carmack even called the mayor of Mesquite and asked him to close the local airport for a period of time for racing. The mayor did not What is there to consider—respect is worse than obedience, because Carmack has donated tens of thousands of dollars of equipment and facilities to the local police station, including bulletproof vests embroidered with the Doom logo, and his request should naturally be granted.

It's not just racing cars that need to be compared. Although id's Quake2 was well-received at E3, the pressure within the company has not eased in the slightest.Carmack had withdrawn from what he called "emotional manipulation experiments" because he felt it was at odds with his nature and motivations, but others were less likely to let it go.They never miss an opportunity to taunt other shooters, even those that use the id engine.When the first Half-Life demo was released, many in the company asserted that there would be no tomorrow. Like his work Quake2, id has become more and more militarized and serious.Some employees felt that id was a dry well drained of humor and fun.The funniest people—Romero, Mike, Jay, Sean—are gone, leaving only the tension against Big Knife and the rivalry among the staff.McGee and others complained about Carmack: he shut himself in the room all day, and his inaction actually intensified all kinds of conflicts.

What makes employees feel at a loss the most is the bonus system.At the end of each quarter, shareholders will hold a meeting to decide how much to pay each employee, and the excess of the contract amount will be considered as a bonus.Someone might get 100,000 one quarter and only 20,000 the next.The bosses themselves admit that this freewheeling approach is deeply flawed, but it's the only way they can come up with.As a result, employees realize that if they want to get paid more, they need to outdo other employees, be smarter and more capable than other employees.It's literally a death race at work.

With the departure of Romero, the generalist, the competition among employees has intensified.McGee's days as an id prodigy at the beginning of Quake's development are long over. Carmack's indifference made him doubt whether there really was a friendship between them. People who are smart and wrong, like Romero, lose focus and motivation.And McGee's old rival, Tim, continues to consolidate his position in the company. More and more often, Carmack would leave the company with a laptop and disappear into a small hotel somewhere. He just wanted to concentrate on writing programs, and he only wanted to concentrate on writing his programs. The id problem, in his view, is definitely the kind of problem that can be avoided by controlling the size of the company and making the development team compact and efficient. "Any project," he chatted in the planning document: "has a suitable upper limit for the number of people. After this critical point, adding more people will only delay the project. This is because the extra people need additional communication and problem solving. The speed of id will decrease accordingly, which will deteriorate the efficiency, and the increase in manpower will inevitably lead to a decline in product quality. I believe that no matter how big the id team is, there will not be too many people.”

After Romero left, Carmack's lifestyle became more and more consistent with his coding style: simple, clean, and efficient.That's how he leads a company, that's how he makes a game, he doesn't succumb to internal pressure, he doesn't get sucked into a fantasy, he doesn't procrastinate for any reason, he Works will be delivered on time. On December 9, 1997, id released Quake2. ﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡ "Oh my gosh, Quake2 is the most exciting game I've ever played on a computer... Is there a game you've played lately that rivals Quake2? My answer is: NO!" In the plethora of glowing Quake2 reviews, This article comes from Romero's planning document on December 11. He played through the entire game in one breath for 48 hours without a break. How can you tell him not to be excited.

By adopting the Quake2 engine, Romero is now confident that all kinds of features and effects he wanted to add to "Big Sword" can be implemented, some special effects he has never even thought of-such as colored light and shadow.Not only is he composing the most magnificent music in the game world, he is also using the most powerful engine in the game world, which is a natural combination of technology and design, which is what he dreamed of when he was in id, and, Even better, no one—Carmack or whoever—could stop him now, at least, according to Romero himself. However, other employees of Ion Storm began to express various dissatisfaction with the company.The "Bitch" advertisement in April caused a commotion among players. At this time, the company entered the 1997 E3 exhibition. Later, Romero preferred to play games and do media photo interviews instead of telling employees how to realize his "Blade", so the completion date of the game became more and more out of reach.

Unlike Romero, most of the staff thought that upgrading to the Quake2 engine was a bad idea, in fact, they hated it: Romero had no idea how much extra work this change would entail, he wrote With a design document of 400 pages, he wanted to put 64 kinds of monsters into "Big Sword"!Four time and space!That's four times the Quake! "We have pushed back the release date to March 1998, so it is difficult for us to meet the deadline, and now, we have to upgrade the engine?! What do you want us to do?" It wasn't just the employees who were skeptical after E3. Ion Storm's owner, Eidos, was also unhappy to find out that their flagship game would miss the peak Christmas season.But this was Romero's company, and the big capitalists weren't too disappointed. Romero assured them and his employees that the game was only a few months too late. "There is strength in numbers," he said, and that's the way to success.Ion Storm already has 80 employees, and this number is still growing, "There are so many people working on things, how can things not be done? At the time of id, we only had thirteen people, but look at what we have done What kind of game." Eidos had no choice but to trust Romero's promise, after all, it was Romero who was in charge of managing the development of the game, and they had no way of intervening, all they knew was that in a few months, "Big Sword" would be released. It's really ready to hit the shelves, and they'll spare no expense for it. The so-called price is money.In less than a year, Ion Storm has depleted Eidos' $13 million investment in three games.Two million dollars to furnish the office alone, plus eighty salaries for eighty employees, and one hundred and sixty top-of-the-line computers with twenty-one-inch monitors, it's like a bottomless pit, they can't just This continues, and Mike Wilson, the market boy of Ion Storm, already has a plan in mind. As early as id, Mike had dreamed of running his own publishing company, and he had made this clear to Romero and the other partners when he first joined Ion Storm.Mike plans to set up a subsidiary dedicated to publishing games once the Eidos contract is completed, and they even have a name for the company: Ion Strike (Ion Strike).But Mike never imagined that Romero and Eidos signed the priority rights for the next three games behind his back, that is to say, Ion Storm received 13 million dollars from the first three games, and when they want to play again When doing three games, Eidos still has the right to decide whether to continue to take over these three games, then, the sooner they complete the first three games, and then put the following options in front of Eidos, the sooner they can get the next one Invest and get on the road to self-publishing sooner.It's time to charge. The first move was to buy the game Todd developed at 7th Level: Dominion.7th Level almost gave up on it after Todd left, and Todd felt it was a perfect fit for Ion Storm. He persuaded several other partners to buy the semi-finished "Territory" for $1.8 million. In six weeks, he'd be able to bring The Territory to market, and then he'd go back to his original project: The Evil Spirit.They made a deal with 7th Level, and that's just the beginning. In September 1997, Romero heard on the road that a game designer named Warren Spector was looking for a job.The 41-year-old Warren has rich experience in the game industry. He was born in a family of dentists and reading teachers in New York. While studying for a PhD in Electronic Media, he developed an interest in science fiction and games, became part of a community of gamers and writers, and eventually joined Richard Geliott's Virgin.Games are not just another form of entertainment for him, but the best thing for simulating reality. "There's never been a medium or a means of actually transporting humans into another world," he says. "We're stuck here." But a game that balances technology and storyline can come close. "It's the only medium that allows ordinary people to travel to other worlds...I'll never fly a World War I biplane, I'll never visit a space station, but, in the game, I can Do all of that." In Warren's eyes, id's masterpieces are boring and shallow shooting games, and the games he makes are what he calls "immersive virtual worlds", which are more connotative first-person perspective games, such as "Underground Genesis" , "Thief" (Thief), "System Shock" (System Shock), they not only test the player's accuracy, but also require the player to have a clever mind and changeable tactics.Romero thought Warren was a rare talent, and Warren also accepted the invitation of Ion Storm to start a development team in Austin. Their work is called Deus Ex.When Romero's public relations firm wanted to pull Warren into the water, he immediately made his position clear: "I would never say 'swallow it', and I would never think of anyone as me. Bitch," he told the group: "People here are going to be very image-conscious, so you better be prepared." Mike, on the other hand, didn't care about his behavior at all.At a games industry trade show in England in September, he convened a meeting with Eidos executives, in which he laid out his general idea for the next three games. "That's it," he said. Or don’t you?” Mike has blackmailed publishers before, such as using the Quake share version to bypass GTI and retailers, but this time, he failed, and the managers of Eidos didn’t even bother to discuss it with him. This Mike thought he was who?The first three games of Ion Storm have been postponed, and now you want to talk about the last three games?There are no doors! Todd Porter gets a call from Eidos executives after the meeting, and they threaten to get rid of Mike.Todd, who has always been opposed to kicking out Eidos as soon as possible, transferred the words to other partners and complained to Romero and Tom, but the two were only focused on making the games they were working on and had no time to take care of company affairs.Well, Todd thought, let me take care of the business.After looking through various documents, Todd found a situation that surprised him. In his opinion, Mike and Bob Wright, CEO of Ion Storm, were squandering the company's cash without restraint, and No clear accounts were kept. Just when Todd was about to take action against Mike, Mike was about to take action against Todd.The easy-going and funny Mike has been the boss of Ion Storm's young employees since the beginning, and they have expressed their disappointment and dissatisfaction with the company to Mike.Todd and his team on The Territory made it hard for them, as did the artists at Gere.The conflict between different cultures is emerging. Romero's team is mostly young players from the Doom community, while Todd and Jell's men are older and lack enthusiasm; Todd even hired a few doctors, and Romero's side is full of college dropouts; worse, Todd's people don't even know the games that made Ion Storm what it is today, and when an artist sees Doom on the screen and can't name it, the player They were shocked. Every day, Mike hears similar complaints, and it is impossible for him to turn a deaf ear to them.One afternoon in October, in a bar, he told Romero and Tom what the staffers were afraid to say: Everyone hated Todd, The Territory wasn't finished in six weeks as he'd promised, And that game looks pretty generic, too.Todd is not a good fit for Ion Storm, "What's the matter with him wearing a suit and ties at work?" He proposes firing Todd, and Romero and Tom agree. A week later, they were already in the elevator, ready to announce the news to Todd, when Romero hesitated, "Man, I can't do it," he told Mike: "We never gave him Opportunity. Just because other people hate him, we are going to fire him? We should talk to him first, give him a warning, and help him improve." Mike never expected Romero to change his mind temporarily, and his bit obviously Started beating again.What happened next was even more unexpected to Mike.A month later, Mike himself was called into the conference room.The partners, especially Todd, had had enough of him—Mike; Eidos called almost every day, repeatedly emphasizing that they could not work with Mike; A BMW; besides, his self-publishing big picture had nothing to do with what the company was doing right now; Ion Storm didn't need to publish games, Romero said, it just needed to focus on making them good.Since you, Mike, are desperate to be a publisher, you can only get out of here.Mike is gone. With fewer gossipers, Romero can focus on leading people to do the job at hand. In February 1998, he got his long-awaited Quake2 source code. With it, the completion of "Big Sword" is just around the corner.But when Romero opened the files and glanced at them, he froze.God, he muttered, what the hell did Carmack do? ﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡ "Did you take your aspirin?" Carmack asked his friend as they walked into a Las Vegas casino. "You have a headache?" "Not yet," Carmack said, "but it's going to hurt." It was February 8, 1998, and Carmack was about to challenge his brain power: count cards in a game of blackjack.This is his newest hobby. "As a person who knows a little about probability and statistics, and never believes in luck, fate, karma, God (or other gods), the only gambling game that interests me is blackjack." Carmack wrote in a plan "Playing blackjack can be regarded as a test of self-control. Knowing how to play and how to memorize cards is very simple. The difficult part is that you have to behave like a robot from the beginning to the end," the document reads. The same, rather than succumbing to the so-called 'intuition'." Before setting off, Carmack conducted some targeted training, just like he learned other things, he first bought some books to read, and then wrote the program on the computer ——Of course, this time it's not a 3D engine, but a blackjack game simulation program. The work worked out, and Carmack won $20,000, which he later donated to the Free Software Foundation: a hacker ethic who stood up for himself in a materialistic world. ethical organization. "I didn't want to make a living from blackjack," Carmack wrote after returning from the casino, "so I didn't have much to worry about being turned away from the casino." Not long after, on his second trip to Las Vegas, Garth, he experienced this experience when several burly men in black suits surrounded him and told him, "If you don't play blackjack, we would appreciate it if you play some other game instead. .” The people at the same table were unbelievable. "How could they do that?" one woman asked. "They think I'm counting cards," Carmack told her. "They think you can memorize all these cards?" "Well, that's about it." "Wow, what do you do?" "I'm a computer programmer." After saying that, he was escorted out of the casino. Carmack didn't just go to the casino that February.He has always yearned for a life of isolation like a monk, and finally one day, he left the company without much thought and came to an unknown small hotel in Florida.Although Quake2 was well-received and well-received, within the company, the dissatisfaction and complaints of employees, as well as the fights and complaints among them, were increasing day by day, and the bad working atmosphere even extended to the game.In the last level of Quake2, Tim placed photos of id employees in a secret room, and gave them different organs or animations-thus showing their different personalities, for example, when anyone approaches Carmack He disappeared without a trace. The same is true of Carmack in reality: he locked himself in that small hotel room for a whole week.There are pizza boxes scattered on the floor, no calls come in, no one knocks on the door, and the only momentary distraction from programming to life is when the thirst becomes unbearable—getting up to grab a can of Coke.For this retreat, Carmack even bought a Pentium II portable computer with a standard PCI slot so that he could install an OpenGL accelerator card from Evans & Sutherland.At first glance, it looked like he was out working on a new engine he called Trinity while the rest of the company was working on the Quake 2 mission pack, but when he returned to Mesquite's office a week later to update the plans While writing the document, he found himself wanting to talk about other moods, which is rare for Carmack: Name: John Carmack Position: Programmer Project: Quake2 Last Updated: Feb 4, 1998 03:06:55 (CST) Hmm, I haven't updated the plan file in too long. The enclosed research went smoothly. In a week, I didn't go out of the hotel except to buy Coke. This was simply too comfortable, because the chores in the office had already made me a little unbearable.In the future, when the project is not tight, I will probably do this kind of closed research frequently, and once a quarter sounds more appropriate. It is too early to talk about the three-dimensional engine in detail. Quake has gone through a lot of detours (light trees, door openings, etc.) Say anything that some people would take as a "promise". All I can say is that the work is progressing very excitingly. Many game developers are in this industry to make the final game. The long development stage in the middle is just a process that they have to go through. I respect their work attitude, but my motivation for doing game development is slightly different. Of course, I am also proud of the completion of the game, but the various difficulties I have overcome along the way are more memorable to me.I don't remember exactly when our old games were released, but I do remember the technological breakthroughs as far back as Keen's CRTC rewind for smooth scrolling (accurately, as early as understanding The structure in the parallel array in Apple 2 assembly language...), knowledge needs to be accumulated, and learning needs to be done step by step. My life is divided into different stages based on the accumulation of knowledge and the continuous deepening of learning. I used the iPhone 2 in school during my enlightenment stage, but the conditions at that time limited my learning speed and depth.The situation is much better today, as long as you have a cheap second-hand PC, a Linux CD, and an Internet account, you have enough tools and resources, and you can achieve any programming realm you want. The first six months of Floppy were a dream for me, for the first time in my life, I was surrounded by programmers who were more knowledgeable than I was (Romero and Rosser), and I had tons of books at my fingertips and stuff, and I could devote myself to programming, it was a really good time. In the next two years, until Doom and several home computer versions were ported, I was steadily improving my knowledge and technical level, including: more in-depth image programming, network, Unix, compilation principles, cross-platform, RISC Architecture, etc. The first year of Quake's development was a roller-coaster ride, with Michael Abrash as a consultant, I tried a lot of new topics.Graphics programmers out of college would be amazed if they knew how amateurish I was writing Doom when I couldn't even clip wall polygons correctly (that's why I used that inexplicable polar coordinate system) , Quake forced me to stay on track and explore new ideas at the same time. The last half year of Quake's development was a painful one. At that time, all I could think about was finishing the damn thing. Of course, all the hard work paid off in the end, but I don't feel nostalgia for this time. During the development of Quake2, my learning experience has been further expanded: GLQuake, quakeworld, radiosity, OpenGL tool development, Win32 programming, etc. At the same time, I also have a lot of ideas about what to do next. I think the development of the next three-bit engine will be as fruitful as Quake.I already have a very deep understanding of some topics, and I'm also experimenting with some new areas outside of graphics programming that will interact positively with all other aspects of my work. In the end, there will naturally be a wonderful game. :) ―――――――――――――――――― Carmack's good mood didn't last long. Just like Romero in Ion Storm, he also realized that the happy time of a few good friends playing games together is gone forever.Standing in the current office, he could clearly feel the depressed and uncoordinated atmosphere.Tensions are already at stake between Tim, McGee, and the other level designers, and Adrian and Kevin are having trouble with Steed.They hate each other to the point of not wanting to work with each other.Carmack saw all of this, so what should we do?Then make the next game in this hostile atmosphere-Quake3 will be mainly based on Carmack's three-bit engine, and there will no longer be a single-player pass-through mode, but only multiplayer battles, so that employees can not Reciprocally complete their respective work. Carmack's proposal didn't get much traction.Adrian made it clear that he was tired of space fighters and shotgun shooters after years of doing it!He wants to do something new.McGee was supportive of this, as was Steed, who wrote a design document with rich character plots and ideas, but Carmack killed his draft, telling him that the setting of the story didn't matter.This time, even the old team leader, Kevin, expressed his disappointment. He told Carmack that if he had to make this game, he would no longer be the project manager, and id would hire someone else.That's right, id has always been decided by Carmack, but now id has completely become Carmack's company, and Quake3 will be Carmack's game. McGee's time at id is finally coming to an end.He was called into a shareholder meeting and told he had been fired for not performing well enough.Carmack thought McGee had intelligence and drive, but he followed Romero's mistakes.When McGee asked them to make a statement, they told him that no one liked him because of id.No surprise, McKee thought, that since Romero left, the company would have gotten to where it is today: an id without checks and balances. McGee wasn't the only one who missed Romero; Steed, who had never worked with Romero, was beginning to think that firing Romero was a painful mistake. "Romelo is casual, while Carmack is serious. Their combination is like Tai Chi Liangyi, but if they are separated, what is it?" ﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡ The emerald green elevator doors slowly opened on the top floor of the Texas Commerce Center building, and a dreamlike gaming paradise unfolded before Romero's eyes. In February 1998, the decoration of the Ion Storm office was finally completed, and everything Romero expected was in place: a game room with a large arcade machine, a football table and a pool table; a circle of 21-inch monitors on the oak bar corridor , that is the arena of death, and there are twelve large color TVs forming a video wall, like a certain level in the game, the compartments made of stainless steel are scattered; the kitchen is full of candy and fast food.In this spacious and bright glass palace, Romero seemed to be walking on clouds, but there was only one thought in his mind: Hey!We're sure to make some amazing games! Of course they're going to make an amazing game, because, Romero knows, the Ion Storm's spending is also amazing.A total of 2.5 million US dollars was spent on the office decoration. The "Territory", which was expected to be completed in one and a half months, cost them 3 million US dollars. The original 13 million was gone, and Eidos is now paying ions every month. The storm approved a sum of money, and the salaries of nearly a hundred employees, plus daily expenses, totaled $1.2 million a month. There's another problem, a more serious one: Quake2's source code.The new engine was a far cry from Romero's predictions.During the development of Broadsword, the programmers had been working on Romero's hypothetical new engine, which he thought would make upgrading the engine easier, but as it stands now, Carmack has ditched it entirely. Previous practice, the new code structure caught Romero off guard.Of course, Carmack did not deliberately embarrass Romero in order to delay the "Big Sword". This is just a natural technological leap for Carmack-and this leap once again put Romero's grand game design into pain. "It's going to take a while," Romero told Eidos and his staff. month time.But not everyone is as confident as he is. They persuaded Romero to forget about id's new technology and release "Big Sword" using the Quake engine. "You can't keep up with Carmack," said the lead programmer, "so there's no point in trying." But Romero held his ground, and no difficulty would dampen his ambition. In late February, Romero announced plans for Broadsword 2 to Game Magazine.Meanwhile, two other Ion Storm partners, Todd and Jer, are working on starting a comics division.Several of Gere's artists had worked in comics.They plan to create a corresponding comic book for each of the company's games in order to win the favor of players and expand the popularity of the game.Although the plan was approved in Ion Storm, Eidos vetoed it as soon as he heard the news. "Games are what you do," they say. "Why should we pay you to draw comics?" The glass ceiling overhead was also a nuisance, a bright nightmare, to be precise.Because, apart from vampires, players are the ones who are most afraid of light. The thing they can't bear the most is too strong light around the monitor.No one could continue to work, and the decoration designer was called to the scene immediately. He installed stylish and elegant baffles on each grid, but the picky players still thought it was too bright.After returning from shopping in the home improvement market collectively, they took out their nail guns and wrapped all the cubicles in black felt. It's like a cameraman walking into a darkroom to develop film.The whole scene looks ridiculous: walking through a game paradise like a glass palace, surrounded by black caves. In the spring of 1998, everything about the ion storm looked like a black cavern.Even though they're now slaving away in 12-hour, six-day-a-week squeeze mode, The Big Knife never seems to be finished.Many people felt that the project was completely out of control: a few levels made by someone could not be loaded normally;Even Romero's most devout supporters—Will Locanto, Svero Kwienmo, and half a dozen other players—have become evasive, and they've started obsessing over death without telling everyone. Of course, others couldn't stand the competition, and finally one day, some guy was caught by Romero while yelling in the death match, and he was fired immediately. What bothers the players even more is Todd and Jer. In their eyes, these two people seem to regard themselves more and more as the bosses of the company, and it is they, the players feel, who are bringing the company home. road.譬如，托德最近不停加入到《大刀》的会议中，提出各种不着头脑的修改建议，而他自己的《领土》，那个看了画面就让人觉得抱歉的游戏，却是一片混乱，真是哪壶不开提哪壶，玩家们想道，难道就用这破玩意作为离子风暴的处女作？ ——他们已经忍无可忍。 5月13日，斯维若、威尔和罗梅洛小组的其他六人找到鲍勃·赖特，他们觉得既然鲍勃和麦克那么熟，那么他应该也是盟友。一起吃午饭时，他们商定了向罗梅洛摊牌的条件：要么托德和杰尔走人，要么他们走人。在鲍勃的指点下，他们把各种理由和抱怨一一写到纸上。 会议的风声走漏到了汤姆耳里：鲍勃居然还说要给那几个家伙提供成立新公司的资金——如果他们辞职或是被解雇的话。汤姆立刻给罗梅洛打电话，但时机不巧，罗梅洛不在办公室，因为他还是一个好丈夫和好父亲：贝丝刚产下了他们的第一个女儿：莉拉（Lillia）。罗梅洛前阵子还说服了前妻凯俐，叫她搬到德克萨斯，从而他可以坐在两个儿子身边和他们一起打游戏。今天本是女儿的降生，本应该是个喜悦欢庆的日子，真是人有旦夕祸福…… “扯什么淡？！”罗梅洛听到汤姆的消息后咆哮道：“行！敢来我的组里作乱，那你滚吧。”鲍勃随后被解雇了，但这不足以解决离子风暴的所有问题。五月份举行的1998年度E3大展上，《大刀》的演示依然让人失望，其他射击游戏，譬如刚发布的《虚幻》和即将发布的《半条命》，以及id的Quake3，夺走了所有风头。离子风暴在E3后发布了《领土》，但销量惨不忍睹。同是即时战略游戏，比起一两个月以前发布并好评如潮的《星际争霸》（Starcraft），《领土》就像是一件陈年旧货，它不光是卖不出去，它还等于是向那些对离子风暴心怀不满的玩家们证实：罗梅洛的梦工场不一定能点石成金。尽管，从某种程度上来说，玩家社群的演变和发展都源自罗梅洛在id时制作的那些游戏，但现在，同样这些玩家，毫不留情地嘲讽和讥笑起那曾经的游戏之神。 在Evil Avatar、Shugashack,、Blues News、Daily Radar等游戏网站上，玩家们尽情宣泄着怒火。醒目的头条大都是“光说不练”，或者“我拒绝购买《大刀》的理由”。某人绘制的四格讽刺漫画中，留着长发的罗梅洛在宣讲：“嗨……我是来告诉你们，《大刀》将是个精彩的游戏，你们知道的，我的游戏都很精彩，譬如Doom！记得Doom吗？我做的！还有Quake，记得？那也是我做的！设计决定一切！”最后一格里，他却在向一个卖热狗的摊主乞讨，“想得美啊，约翰，”老板告诉罗梅洛：“拿不出游戏，就别想有吃的。” 罗梅洛的死讯再度登场，这次更加绘声绘色：网上流传着一张罗梅洛躺在太平间里的照片，他的头上有个明显的弹眼。玩家们开玩笑说他在Quake死亡竞赛里输给卡马克后羞愤难当，只好自杀了事。一家网络游戏杂志确认了罗梅洛的死讯，还据称是“离子风暴内部消息”，但他们随后撤回了这则报道。尚未从“婊子广告”的余怒中平静下来，玩家们更加厌恨起这种自我炒作——而其实那张照片是泄漏自尚未出版的一期《德克萨斯月刊》（Texas Monthly）。 真正的大事发生在9月30日。一个自称Bitch X的人在“游戏内线”（Gaming Insider）网站透露了Eidos准备买下离子风暴的消息。几个月前，离子风暴的几位合伙人就开始和出版商策划紧急融资方案，五月份时，计划是用离子风暴净资产的19%和版税削减来换取Eidos的一千两百五十万美元，并免除先前的一千五百万美元债务。前任执行官鲍勃甚至要提出诉讼，因为他觉得离子风暴解聘他的目的是为了不让他从中得利。 方案一直商讨了几个月还没定下来，Bitch X从何得知？大家都一头雾水。这神秘人物在接下来几个礼拜又不断张贴了若干离子风暴的内部邮件，以及人事变动的消息。负责离子风暴公司网站的员工告诉老板们：“要么是已经离开公司的人还比我们这些呆在公司的人知道的事情多——多很多，要么，就是有内奸，希望公司能把这人揪出来。” 当然，没有人承认是自己干的，罗梅洛只好去翻查员工们过去的电子邮件记录，期望能找出究竟谁是内奸，但他一无所获。通常，亡羊补牢为时不晚，但这次，羊儿已所剩无几：猜疑和不满的气氛弥漫到公司的每个角落，员工们开始无所顾忌地表示出对公司财政前景的怀疑。在公司成立之初，他们本指望着能分到一些版税或者是红利，甚至是股份，而现在，谣言越传越玄，他们也越来越心如死灰。终于有一天，罗梅洛训斥起主程序员金·吉姆布莱尔，狄万戈网络的创始人之一，罗梅洛认为他花了太多时间玩游戏，而没有做好本职工作。这听起来是多么耳熟呵。 “伙计，你瞎搞什么呢？”罗梅洛说：“你怎么不干活？我们要做好这游戏，这不是闹着玩，你知道的。”金告诉罗梅洛他正在担心公司生意上的事，他看到了离子风暴的财务报表，他听说Eidos要关闭离子风暴。罗梅洛怒不可遏：“谣言！谣言！谣言！谣言！谣言！扯淡！你懂个屁的生意，这个不需要你操心，你根本不知道我们和Eidos的交易是怎么回事，你不懂的事情太多了。你就在这胡思乱想不好好做事，还搞得其他人也跟你一样，这都什么乌七八糟的！”但金不吃罗梅洛这一套，罗梅洛当场炒掉了他。 墙倒众人推，其他员工开始主动离开，再不回来。和Eidos的交易在签署合同前最后一刻谈崩了，这显然是因为那无限延期的游戏和公司一团乱麻的现况。为了支撑局面，也因为《领土》的失利，托德决定取消《恶灵》项目，转而把心思放到公司事务上来。托德知道他不能和罗梅洛正面较劲，于是他雇了一家审计事务所来理清公司那雪崩般的收支账目，托德也知道这种过于主动的态度会使他越来越孤立，但他必须要让《大刀》项目组重新振作起来，为此，他向罗梅洛建议削减《大刀》的内容，但罗梅洛不肯。员工们愈发憎恶起托德，因为他越来越频繁地当面斥责员工，譬如有一天，附近一幢楼被大火吞没，当他们围聚在玻璃幕墙边观看时，托德咆哮道：“你们拿薪水可不是为了站在这里看房子着火！” 秋天在不知不觉中来到了，离子风暴的后院也就要燃起大火。11月18日晚，罗梅洛和斯狄薇以及其他几名可靠的员工走进一家中餐馆。自从斯狄薇加入离子风暴，她就一直是罗梅洛忠实的伙伴，大风大浪中，她安慰着罗梅洛，并为他出谋划策。“我们听到一则消息，”她告诉罗梅洛：“你的整个《大刀》项目组会在明天集体辞职。”罗梅洛我自巍然不动：“滚他们的蛋！” 第二天，罗梅洛和汤姆被叫到会议室，《大刀》的组员们已坐在里面。“我们无法继续在这种条件下工作，” 威尔·罗康托开口道：“在我们看来，这游戏是永远也做不完的。所以我们要离开这里，成立一家新公司。” 穿过曲曲折折的走道，罗梅洛踱回办公室。他静静地坐在那里，他看着落日的余晖穿过玻璃穹顶，看着世界暗下，看着繁星升起。这都算什么？他问自己，我怎么会雇这些人？本来不必做这么大的，这太多的人，太多的钱。本来应该只是我和汤姆，以及几个能想到一块的伙伴；应该就像以前一样，那时，我们还不是什么生意人。我们只是玩家。