----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 mrfunkymonk@yahoo.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.