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Sandy Petersen Interview (w/ Mahmut Saral)

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It makes sense that Pain Elementals, Chaingunners, Hell Knights and maybe even Arachnotrons were planned for Doom 1, but weren't finished for the release date. Their absence clearly hurt Doom 1 monster variety, especially in episode 2 and 3. Lost Souls somehow look awkward without the PE, and it's always annoying to see the Baron instead of the HK in standard areas.

 

Archviles, Revenants and Mancubi however clearly felt like Doom 2 additions, they look like something from a different game.

 

As for the interview, I like Sandy's interpretation. He made uncomfortable looking areas instead of pretty volcanic caves as hell. While maps like Map 6 or 7 in NRFTL look amazing red volcanic areas, a horrific level like Map27 clearly felt closer to hell IMHO. I also firmly hold my opinion that Map27 is the best IWAD level ever!

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30 minutes ago, Nancsi said:

It makes sense that Pain Elementals, Chaingunners, Hell Knights and maybe even Arachnotrons were planned for Doom 1...

 

Archviles, Revenants and Mancubi however clearly felt like Doom 2 additions, they look like something from a different game.

He says the exact opposite of this in the interview.

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Well one such level was Doom 2 level 24, The Chasm. I had a nightmare in which I was moving through a network of walkways and narrow bridges over incredibly deep dark chasms. So I made a level to reflect it.

That map is indeed a nightmare, I agree.

 

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we needed a final boss that was different from the previous ones, but I couldn't get permission to create a whole new monster, particular a boss, which always are harder [...]

That's a real shame. I would really have preferred if Doom II had a more conventional final boss. One can't help but to wonder what it would have been like. Probably another demon+machine fusion like the other bosses if I had to guess. Maybe a big boy with a BFG?

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It's the thousand yard stare that terrifies me. Clearly a man who has seen things no mortal should.

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That monster condo is based on a dream makes sense. It's the most interesting map in doom 2 and you can really feel the dream-like atmosphere, with the darkness, the dual clone rooms and more. It feels weirdly subconsciously familiar.

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3 hours ago, Linguica said:

That quote regarding Doom 3 and his former colleagues is, uh, something.

I don't understand Sandy's comment here. Who was demoted? Paul Steed was someone who lost his job because of Doom 3, but that was before development of the game even started. Adrian Carmack is the only person that I can think of who didn't benefit from Doom 3 because he left ID in 2005. Otherwise all of the people who sandy worked with either kept their positions or were promoted. Besides, why would anyone have been demoted because of Doom 3, sure it was a critical failure with fans, but from a commercial standpoint Doom 3 is one of ID software's best selling games.

 

John Carmack, still the primary engine developer.

Tim Willits, lead developer for RAGE

Kevin Cloud, lead developer on the old Doom 4

Romero, McGee, & Green where already long gone before Doom 3 even started development.

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Although I've played PSX Doom, I'm having a tough time imagining how PC Doom and Doom 2 would have changed, in terms of perception, with the inclusion of the monsters that didn't make it due to development time.

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15 minutes ago, Job said:

Although I've played PSX Doom, I'm having a tough time imagining how PC Doom and Doom 2 would have changed, in terms of perception, with the inclusion of the monsters that didn't make it due to development time.

Has there been a Doom II project that recreates Doom with the added beastiary to balance or flesh out the levels? Granted of course outside of KDITD the levels couldn't be exactly the same - I assume copying the shareware levels is okay. I feel like this project does exist already.

4 hours ago, Linguica said:

That quote regarding Doom 3 and his former colleagues is, uh, something.

Yeah, this baffles me. I would assume he would like the more horror themed elements but obviously I would be wrong. Still, to go further and trash his former company seems unnecessary and bitter.

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This interview is interesting but the translation isn't very good... I feel like the Doom 3 comment in particular may have suffered quite a bit due to that.

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12 hours ago, Jaws In Space said:

He says the exact opposite of this in the interview.

 

LOL, true, misread it. Still think what I said. Those 3 enemies felt different (well, Mancubi not that much), while the others from Doom 2 felt like relatives to existing Doom 1 baddies.

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I would have bet that the chaingunner and hell knight would have been something you see in episode 2, 3 and 4 if implemented back then.

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The "archivile etc were cut from doom 1" thing also makes sense because Greg Punchaz wasn't re-hired in the Doom II dev window, he had one gig and did all the models at the same time.

 

Reading "Masters of Doom" earlier in the year it really felt to me like they shat Doom II out to buy time whilst Carmack was researching the Quake tech.

 

19 hours ago, Johnatone said:

Yeah, this baffles me. I would assume he would like the more horror themed elements but obviously I would be wrong. Still, to go further and trash his former company seems unnecessary and bitter.

 

Well they did fire him. This would seem to confirm that it was acrimonious.

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I read this article a time ago. It’s in the same line, sort of.

 

https://feldherr.org/2017/11/28/evil-high-priest-interview/

https://archive.is/Y9nfy

 

I have nightmares quite often. During these nightmares, I don’t like them, but when I wake up, I remember them and often use them in my game ideas. A lot of Doom levels are based on nightmares I’ve had, for instance. Believe it or not, I have never had a nightmare in which Cthulhu figured. However, Lovecraftian elements are common.

 

 

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From another interview, on memories of id software:

 

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<ScreamingGerman> What was your favourite memory of working at id?

<SandyPetersen> Listening to John Carmack, who at the time had no comprehension of how humans interact, try to praise someone.

 

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<liquidbicycle> What is your favorite memory from working at id software while designing Doom?

<SandyPetersen> I loved it most when I'd try some weird experimental thing. Then John Carmack would berate me for stretching the engine too far. Then Romero, McGee, and Green would do a bunch of levels imitating it, because they liked it. Then John Carmack would change the engine. One good example was when I did a whole outdoors level, set in a city. Then everyone else had to make one.

 

On Doom 3:

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<SandyPetersen> I thought Doom 3- was a total misbegotten snooze. It basically killed Doom for me. If I hear tons of greatness about Bethesda's version I might check it out.

source

 

It does not seem his style to hold back.

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On 12/8/2018 at 4:47 AM, JadingTsunami said:

<SandyPetersen> I loved it most when I'd try some weird experimental thing. Then John Carmack would berate me for stretching the engine too far. Then Romero, McGee, and Green would do a bunch of levels imitating it, because they liked it. Then John Carmack would change the engine. One good example was when I did a whole outdoors level, set in a city. Then everyone else had to make one. 

I wonder what this is referring to. Were there any features in the Doom engine implemented specifically in response to something Petersen did/tried to do?

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27 minutes ago, JudgeDeadd said:

I wonder what this is referring to. Were there any features in the Doom engine implemented specifically in response to something Petersen did/tried to do?

I'm guessing he's referring to Downtown with that quote (Mt. Erebus being the other candidate that would come to mind, but Downtown is more truly a "city", and there doesn't seem to be a rash of E3M6 imitation in the original Doom).  Could've prompted the increasing of the visplane limits in later versions of the engine?  As I recall that was done at around the time Doom 2 was being worked on (since Raven apparently had to raise the limit themselves for Heretic, which was forked off of one of the earlier versions of the Doom codebase, v1.2 or so?)  I'm just speculating though.

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4 hours ago, ETTiNGRiNDER said:

I'm guessing he's referring to Downtown with that quote (Mt. Erebus being the other candidate that would come to mind, but Downtown is more truly a "city", and there doesn't seem to be a rash of E3M6 imitation in the original Doom).  Could've prompted the increasing of the visplane limits in later versions of the engine?  As I recall that was done at around the time Doom 2 was being worked on (since Raven apparently had to raise the limit themselves for Heretic, which was forked off of one of the earlier versions of the Doom codebase, v1.2 or so?)  I'm just speculating though.

 

Those are both good guesses. In another interview, responding to user linguic4 (hmm...wonder who that could be...), Sandy mentions E3M6 as the first "outdoors level" in Doom. It is possible that the event he's remembering would be tied to that if it was a first.

 

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<linguic4> Hi Sandy, I have long had a pet theory that Doom E3M6 (Mt. Erebus) was at least spiritually influenced by Myst island. This is at least theoretically possible given the original release date of Myst (September 1993). Am I totally off the reservation?

<SandyPetersen> If there is a connection, it was subconscious. I was obviously aware of Myst and had looked it over, though not played too extensively (just dabbled, really). Mostly I was trying to have an "outdoors level" which hadn't been attempted before in Doom.

 

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It occurred to me that there's another possible reason Downtown and things like it could've caused issues with the engine that were later patched, that being how much vertical space there was in the areas.  Most of the levels in the original didn't go too wild with sector heights and it was, in fact, possible for overly tall rooms to cause weird things to happen in early versions to the point that early editing docs had warnings against making tall sectors ("tall" being as little as 512 units or so).

 

11 hours ago, JadingTsunami said:

Those are both good guesses. In another interview, responding to user linguic4 (hmm...wonder who that could be...), Sandy mentions E3M6 as the first "outdoors level" in Doom. It is possible that the event he's remembering would be tied to that if it was a first.

If it's Mt. Erebus in the previous story, though, what are the imitations?  Downtown has a fairly obvious candidate for a possible me-too (Industrial Zone).  I guess Gotcha is a decent possibility for something that could be considered a Mt. Erebus imitation.

 

Of course, memory is imperfect and it's entirely possible that both of them had something to do with it.

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