Ask John Romero Questions

[NoahRules]

What do you think of story-based games?

[Z.Franz]

Why were the green trees not used in official Doom2?

[Sotenga]

I would ask something like this: "What do you think about the state of first-person shooters today, and are you proud to have made such a large evolutionary step in the genre?" Maybe a little less wordy, but something to that extent.

[Chezza]

Romero, help us settle this debate. Was Doom 1's atmosphere intended to be more horror, action or a mix?

Edited March 25, 2021 by Chezza

[Kizoky]

What mod for Doom made you say "oh wow" while playing it? Were you impressed?

[1Destro3456]

5 hours ago, Keyran-Solo said:

Question: how do you get your hair so silky and smooth?

I also want to ask this

[Viridovix]

Are you going to do another megawad like Sigil?

[rzh]

What's the deal with Hecatomb? Was it just a vague notion, an unfinished concept when it got cancelled, or was it already decided to a certain degree what the game was supposed to look/ play like? What were those innovative design ideas yet to be seen?

[Death Egg]

If you were handed free reign over a new Doom title, what kind of innovations would you want to make on the existing formula?

 

Edit:

Have you ever considered teaming up with old id Software employees to make a new map set?

[Roebloz]

I have contacted Romero to ask him if he prefers answering the questions by himself or if he wants a list of questions but I have yet to get a reply.

[MattFright]

On 3/23/2021 at 9:04 PM, Sergeant_Mark_IV said:

Since the sprites are Kevin Cloud's arms, then I suppose these are real gloves? Whose they belong to? Where they got them. Where they are now?

 

I remember in one of the many interviews with him, he's said that the gloves were just drawn over the hands.

 

Which interview out of the dozens? I don't remember.

[bobbie424242]

On 3/24/2021 at 9:45 PM, Viridovix said:

Are you going to do another megawad like Sigil?

 

That's the only question that matters.

[Dr.Ferret]

Will John Romero make a new doom wad? I know people didn’t like similar but I thought it was great!

 

 

 

edit: just realized that was already there lol.

Edited March 26, 2021 by Dr.Ferret

[Maximum Matt]

Which one of you guys was responsible for Maximum Doom?!

[ReaperAA]

1 hour ago, Maximum Matt said:

Which one of you guys was responsible for Maximum Doom?!

 

Of course your question had to be about Maximum Doom :D

[ChopBlock223]

Sverre Kvernmo suggested once that Shawn Green worked on more levels for Doom and Doom 2 than he was ultimately credited for, and that one or two levels which were attributed to Sandy Petersen were rough drafts of Shawn's which he fixed up or did major revisions to. Is there any truth to that?

 

Me and others have speculated that maybe Map 28 : "The Spirit World" might have been such a level, as large parts of that level are cut out of the beta version of Map 22 : "Catacombs," a level which as a whole was ditched, and another level (which in the beta build was Map 04 : "The Focus"), ends up in its place and is known as "Catacombs" today.

Pictured here is said beta Map 22 which was 'cannibalized' to make the final Map 28. With doom.wad loaded, that fills in some of the missing textures, and it does look sorta like underground tunnels and burial vaults, which makes the name Catacombs more suitable here in my mind. How rigidly were level names adhered to during development?

[deleted.]

.

Edited June 12, 2022 by a.a.i.

[PeterMoro]

If you could go back to the creation of Doom and Doom II, what would you change?

[StrangerRanger]

Do you still play Doom Deathmatch these days?

[Aaron Blain]

Hey guys, if you are interested, there are some great videos on YouTube where John has already answered a lot of these. For example, he does get complimented on his hair quite a bit.

 

Here's one I particularly enjoyed:

 

My question: How did Doom's mechanics and balance evolve? How did things like HP, damage, monster wakeup times and painchances etc. develop the way they did? Were there points in Doom's development when it had a different 'feel' or different dynamics, and you refined it to get the desired effect?

[Chezza]

31 minutes ago, Aaron Blain said:

My question: How did Doom's mechanics and balance evolve? How did things like HP, damage, monster wakeup times and painchances etc. develop the way they did? Were there points in Doom's development when it had a different 'feel' or different dynamics, and you refined it to get the desired effect?

 

I like this question. I recall how Wolfenstein once had more stealth elements to it, like carrying bodies and hiding them. It would be interesting to know if Doom had other mechanics or designs planned.

[intacowetrust]

An maith leat Gaillimhe?

 

Being from Ireland and as someone who keeps a close eye on the Irish Games industry, I'm curious to hear about your experiences so far setting up a development studio there. What are the benefits you have found and are there any areas you feel that could be improved upon to encourage more game development within Ireland?

[Diabolución]

On 3/24/2021 at 3:04 AM, omalefico32x said:

what parts of doom did he code?

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20040217072712/http://projectdoom.com/romero2.html

 

JR: 'Most people don’t know that I did a bit of coding on DOOM.  I wrote all the saving and loading code, all the interactive level functionality (flickering lights, painful slime, raising stairs, opening/closing doors, etc.), basically, any part of the level that moves or has light levels changing, I coded that.  I also wrote the entire DOOM level editor on the NeXTSTEP platform (it was titled DoomEd).  With all the coding I did on the project, I didn’t have the time to do more levels than I did. My favorite level I ever created for DOOM is E1M7.  Second to that, I’d have to say that I’m very happy with E1M5.'

[omx32x]

27 minutes ago, Diabolución said:

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20040217072712/http://projectdoom.com/romero2.html

 

JR: 'Most people don’t know that I did a bit of coding on DOOM.  I wrote all the saving and loading code, all the interactive level functionality (flickering lights, painful slime, raising stairs, opening/closing doors, etc.), basically, any part of the level that moves or has light levels changing, I coded that.  I also wrote the entire DOOM level editor on the NeXTSTEP platform (it was titled DoomEd).  With all the coding I did on the project, I didn’t have the time to do more levels than I did. My favorite level I ever created for DOOM is E1M7.  Second to that, I’d have to say that I’m very happy with E1M5.'

oh thanks dude i honestely could not find any mention on what romero did anywhere on the internet seens like his contributions to doom's code got overshadowed by carmack

[Wavy]

What does Romero think of Doom 64 in comparison to the other two Doom games?

[Devalaous]

I know its too late, but I'd ask him if he would be interested in remixing/remaking his older E1 maps so that they fit with his new E1M4 and E1M8 maps and giving us a modern Knee Deep in the Dead from its original creator.

[dei_eldren]

4 hours ago, Devalaous said:

I know its too late, but I'd ask him if he would be interested in remixing/remaking his older E1 maps so that they fit with his new E1M4 and E1M8 maps and giving us a modern Knee Deep in the Dead from its original creator.

 

After he releases a set for Doom 2, that'd be a great continuation, damn!

[pcorf]

Which map out of the maps you created for Doom, Doom 2 and Sigil is your personal favorite?

[NightFright]

Would id have done Doom 2 without the  GTI deal? And if so: Which impact could that have made on the final game (e.g. would there have been a shareware release, would the maps have been any different...)?

[Redneckerz]

Doom on NeXTstep exists as NeXTDoom and existed earlier than the MS-DOS version and obviously the Linux version. The binary that exits is version 1.2. It contains a DOOM1.WAD file dated February 5, 1994, making it roughly inbetween version 1.1 (December 16, 1993) and 1.2 (February 17, 1994).

 

My questions:

• Is there any earlier or later release id worked on given that Doom and Quake were developed on NextStep?
• If so, for historical reasons, is there a way that these can be placed in /idstuff, similarily to NeXTDoom 1.2?
• Doom was developed on a NeXTcube and now can run emulated pretty well. How was the performance on its little brother, the NeXTStation, if possible?
• Was there any support made for the i860 based NeXTDimension accelerator? I did find some references that this was the case but ran poorly, but given that the NeXTDimension was a computer of its own and brought color to NeXTStation's, i wonder if there was research into taking advantage of the NeXTDimension as a special version of Doom. Given its feature set, i'd reckon that Doom would work well under it. And i know the NeXTDimension was used by id using the NeXTtv app as seen in Fabian Sanglard's Doom book.