Story Text Screens of DOOM

in a news about doom4 someone stated that these story texts in the original DOOM at the end of each episode weren't there in the beginning but were added later with a patch instead.
is this correct and also.. who wrote them? I couldn't find any information about this subject.

I would guess Romero wrote them, as he was the 'personality of id' at the time, as well as the lead design after Hall left. Petersen was just a filler level designer.

I don't know who said that the text was only added in a patch, but they're retarded. It was there since the 1.0 shareware version.

Now, the word 'buy' was changed to 'play' in 1.1, and Nightmare difficulty didn't exist till 1.2.

thanks for the quick answer. a definitiv information would be interesting though. I saw and read a lot of interviews about the development of the game but the question who wrote the story texts was never among them. I guess Romero would be the obvious candidate though without Hall.

I was just wondering about who wrote them yesterday...

I just emailed Romero about who wrote the text screens for 1, 2 and the two Final episodes. It may take him a while to get back, but we'll probably have a definitive answer if/when he gets back.

Looking forward to it ;)

Someone wrote those things?

Pretty sure they've been there since the first shareware release.

EDIT: Confirmed, they're in the 1.0 shareware release.

fraggle said:

Pretty sure they've been there since the first shareware release.

Ditto.

MFG38 said:

Someone wrote those things?

No, they developed a program that wrote it for them. They gave it key words to work from like 'hell' and 'demons' and the program improvised from there.

Of course they were too lazy to write that program themselves, so they developed a program to make that program.

Six said:

Of course they were too lazy to write that program themselves, so they developed a program to make that program.

so basically what you sayin' is.. John Carmack did them ;)

I have never bothered to think who wrote them

Wasn't it Dave Taylor? I think he wrote the code to display the intermission text, he might have written the text as well.

Probably Romero or Dave Taylor. I doubt Carmack had anything to do with it.

Sp00kyFox said:

so basically what you sayin' is.. John Carmack did them ;)

So basically what you sayin' is.. the REAL John Carmack's a computer program. :P

Wait, there's a chance John Carmack ISN'T a living computer? When was this info leaked?

GreyGhost said:

So basically what you sayin' is.. the REAL John Carmack's a computer program. :P

Wait so the the REAL Icon of Sin is John Romero and the REAL John Carmack is a computer program! I wonder what the REAL Adrian Carmack is and what is the REAL Sandy Petersen?

The real Adrian Carmack lives in a basement while the real Sandy Peterson lays on the beach all the day getting stepped on.

Sodaholic said:

I would guess Romero wrote them, as he was the 'personality of id' at the time

Then they would read more like:

YOU MADE THE FUCKING DEMONS YOUR BITCHES!
MADE THEM TO SUCK IT DOWN! MADE THEM DRINK YOUR JIZZ! 
FUCKING PUSSIES! 

YOU NOW ARE THE BOOTY-DADDY OF HELL AND THE DEMONS 
WILL BE YOUR BITCHES FOR ALL ETERNITY. AS YOU WATCH THE 
LEGIONS OF HELL KNEELING BEFORE YOU, DEFEATED, YOU WONDER  
HOW YOU'LL EVER MANAGE TO MAKE EVERY ONE OF THESE BASTARDS 
PAY FOR WHAT HAPPENED TO DAISY, YOUR PET RABBIT.

BUT THEN AGAIN, YOU HAVE ALL ETERNITY IN FRONT OF YOU....
WITH AN EVIL GRIN ON YOUR FACE, YOU UNZIP YOUR PANTS, AS 
YOU APPROACH THE FIRST GROVERLING DEMON, ITS DEVILISH 
BEHIND RAISED IN A SUBMISSIVE POSTURE

Romero just got back to me.

John Romero said:

Sandy Petersen wrote all the intermission screen text!

I was almost certain it would've been Romero, guess I was wrong.

and another doom mystery is solved, thx for asking romero!

And the City of Doomworld is saved once again by Sodaholic!

bum bum ba-dudu daaaaaaa

Maes said:

Then they would read more like:

YOU MADE THE FUCKING DEMONS YOUR BITCHES!
MADE THEM TO SUCK IT DOWN! MADE THEM DRINK YOUR JIZZ! 
FUCKING PUSSIES! 

YOU NOW ARE THE BOOTY-DADDY OF HELL AND THE DEMONS 
WILL BE YOUR BITCHES FOR ALL ETERNITY. AS YOU WATCH THE 
LEGIONS OF HELL KNEELING BEFORE YOU, DEFEATED, YOU WONDER  
HOW YOU'LL EVER MANAGE TO MAKE EVERY ONE OF THESE BASTARDS 
PAY FOR WHAT HAPPENED TO DAISY, YOUR PET RABBIT.

BUT THEN AGAIN, YOU HAVE ALL ETERNITY IN FRONT OF YOU....
WITH AN EVIL GRIN ON YOUR FACE, YOU UNZIP YOUR PANTS, AS 
YOU APPROACH THE FIRST GROVERLING DEMON, ITS DEVILISH 
BEHIND RAISED IN A SUBMISSIVE POSTURE

That... is the best thing... I've ever read... I so want to use that for a story text screen now.

Heh, I was just about to add the info to the wiki, but fraggle beat me to it. :)

PRIMEVAL said:

That... is the best thing... I've ever read... I so want to use that for a story text screen now.

Be my guest, it's released royalty-free and with a CC license.