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This is the interview I did with John Romero when I started DoomNation.com.
I decided to upload this because I think it is pretty intresting and should
not be forgotten forever.
-Steve "fUnKyMoNk" Noonan
[email protected]
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Q: Ok, first off, I'd like to thank you for doing this interview. This
thing will basically will take you back about 3 or 4 years, so be
prepared :-).
JR: No problem, i love talking about DOOM!
Q: When did you first realize that Doom was something bigger then just
another game. What do you think Doom had that made it so popular?
JR: Well, during development on a game at id we always knew that our
latest game was going to be better than our last game, so it was obvious
to us all that DOOM was going to be better than Wolfenstein 3D/Spear of
Destiny. Carmack's idea of adding netplay to DOOM was when i told the
other id guys, "This is going to be the most badass game in the history
of the planet Earth."
Q: I have heard you say that Doom was made to be modified (on EFF Net
#doom2). Why then were you not able to patch some types of sprites and
flats? Also, when level editors first came out (DEU for example), the
authors had to sign some type of contract (or agreement, what was that
all about?
JR: When we made DOOM modifyable, we didn't go "all the way" in making
it EASY to modify. Our previous games had all used some form of
compression in their data files that was very hard to crack (because
some essential information was linked into the EXE file, which was
compressed too). The fact that we removed all compression from DOOM
data files was a large step toward making it easier to modify.
Releasing the data specs was the other important aspect to helping
others modify our game.
Q: I noticed the Nightmare mode is not in version .99, when you put this
in, do you expect people to play it, or was it more or less a joke?
JR: We definitely added it in as a joke. Some people were complaining
that they were literally walking through the game in Ultra-Violence mode
unscathed. We coded Nightmare in and went, "Live through that, pal."
Q: Where do you think Doom would be today, or in that matter all first
person shooters, if the internet did not exist?
JR: Well, you must remember that when DOOM was released the Internet was
nowhere near as massive as it is today. The Web was in its infancy.
Because of this, when we released DOOM on December 10th, 1993, we first
FTP'ed it to the University of Wisconsin and then immediately uploaded
it to the Software Creations BBS, the largest BBS in the world at that
time. Today, you would NEVER upload your game to a BBS for
distribution. The major reason DOOM spread so far and wide was the fact
that we *encouraged* everyone with a distribution system to sell the
game and let them keep all the profit. To prevent users from getting
ripped off, we even added a "Suggested Retail Price - $9" to the DOOM
Shareware title screen. Back when it was released, you could go into
CompUSA and see a minimum of 6 different DOOM boxes, all from different
vendors, all selling the same game. It was everywhere, and THAT is how
it spread like wildfire.
Q: What was one of your favorite Doom Deathmatch experiences? How about
your favorite DM level?
JR: I have a couple favorite DM experiences. One of them is from an AVG
tournament (Austin Virtual Gaming) back in the summer of 1994. Shawn
Green and I were a team and we won the first three AVG tournaments in a
row, all the while we were screaming up a storm while playing and pretty
much shocked everybody with our language. I remember an awesome kill
that I had on E1M5 where I chased my opponent through the pentagram
teleporter (I was 2 seconds behind him). I emerged from the teleporter
and just knew that he was after the blue armor in the secret area off of
the slime room. I bolted up the stairs (near the secret Shotgun), did a
superquick 90-degree right turn and fired a rocket. It caught the guy
in mid-air as he was hopping off the bridge into the slime. It was
awesome!
Another hilarious match took place soon after I was the first person in
the id offices to get the brand new Pentium 60's that just became
available. I used to play Shawn Green all the time and with the newest,
fastest system he simply could NOT beat me down while we were testing
DOOM II. So, since he was getting completely raped everytime we played,
he went to Carmack and asked him if there was anyway he could code a
cheat into the game so he could win. Carmack came up with the "-turbo"
option (it didn't print anything to the screen at this time). So, with
DOOM II all modified, Shawn told everyone, except me of course, that he
was definitely going to win this time. We started playing on MAP13 and
I was so confident because I just could not lose. For some reason, I
couldn't track down Shawn so I had to hide and watch carefully to see
what he was doing. He finally passed close to my hiding place, so I
started following him, planning on sinking the double-barrel into the
back of his skull. All of a sudden, he totally started hauling ass and
I was wondering what the hell was wrong with my mouse! I started going
nuts, smashing the mouse around on the mousepad and starting to lose it.
Then, after Shawn had torn down a lot of my health and was far behind
me, I was running toward the Beserker Pack next to the stairway into the
warehouse and all of a sudden he dropped down in front of me onto the
pack and punched me into gibs! I screamed my head off and at this point
I just KNEW something was up. Interestingly enough, Bobby Prince
recorded EVERYTHING that I was screaming during the entire match onto
DAT. I have all the funny parts as WAV files, including that scream.
Q: Will Daikatana carry out a similar deathmatch play that Doom has, or
are you going for something new?
JR: There are many things that we're doing do make Daikatana deathmatch
play as great as DOOM, including faster walking/running speeds, limited
sound cueing, and a few other important options.
Q: Would you like to see a large scale deathmatch tournament like the
quakecon/thefrag but dedicated to Doom?
JR: Yes, in fact there is going to be a DOOM 2 tournament at The Frag2
on October 30th.
Q: What do you think is the thing most overlooked in the FPS's coming
out today?
JR: Well, there are always a million little details that people can get
very nitpicky about when they scrutinize a game, but I think that
overall the developers in this genre are doing a good job of adding new
features that will become baseline features in future FPS games. The
most important function of a game is what you do in it and so far, many
of today's FPS titles have a strong fun factor, combined with the latest
technology. The fact that everyone in this genre wants to beat each
other down makes for a very competitive environment, which generates
better games for everyone to play!
Q: Have you seen any of the source mods (Boom, Dos Doom, Legacy, Zdoom)?
Any comments on them?
JR: I've played some of them and I love them all. Of course, there are
some things I would not have done in those mods, but that's just my
opinion. But overall, all the effort that everyone's put into
revitalizing DOOM has been amazing and I thank them all.
Q: What about GL Doom, do you think that better graphics will mean
better play?
JR: I don't think the game will play any different, just look different.
Maybe even look better than the original, but I have yet to see GLDOOM
for real.
Q: How is your webpage (johnromero.com) doing? I saw that animation you
had before, but I would imagine that you would have no time for it.
JR: I don't have time for it, but a lot of content has been scanned in
already and is ready to be put up, but I can't find the time right now.
There's still a massive amount of writing to do as well and more work
only gets done here and there on weekends. Someday, though, it will be
cool.
Q: Ok, time to bring you back even further back, just say what comes to
your mind when I mention the following: "Aardwolf", "ROTT's God Mode
(with the funny moans)", "Quake: The fight for justice", and "TED5".
JR: Aardwolf makes me instantly envision the graphic of the aardwolf in
NEXTSTEP's Digital Webster, it was the name of our first file server at
id and was the super secret answer in a level of Wolfenstein 3D.
ROTT's God Mode reminds me completely of Tom Hall.
The Fight For Justice brings back memories of Carmack's ballmapping demo
that ran just before Quake:TFFJ ran. I remember seeing the early
version of QTFFJ which was a top-down RPG like Ultima, but with more
complex line-of-sight than Ultima V had.
TED5, the biggest most badass tile editor I've ever seen. What a mess,
but what a bunch of fun I had coding that utility.
Q: And finally, what's in store for the future of John Romero?
JR: More game development! I've been making games for almost 20 years
now, why stop? Especially now when today and tomorrow's awesome
technology will enable me to create even more amazing worlds than I ever
thought possible.
