Some easter eggs from Doom cleared up.

[insertwackynamehere]

This is for anyone who cares. I just thought that I'd post an email explaining all the Doom II Easter Eggs origins. The email is a reply from John Romero. You can veiw my letter at the bottom.
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Thanks for the email - lots of questions and here's the answers:

> I recently pulled out my old shareware version of Blake Stone, which is
> said to be made by Apogee, and Jam Entertainment. However, the on-disk catalogue said
>that they sold Commander Keen and Wolfenstein, which I thought were Id Software games.
>Previously, I had read postings on the hanging Commander Keens, in one of the secret
>Doom II levels (I forget which). There were big arguments why; some said it was a
>joke, like your head on a stick at the last level of Doom II, but others said things
>like it was because of a rivalry, between Apogee and Id, since Apogee stole the
>Commander Keen idea. Then, there were the people like me (though I never posted) who
>thought that Apogee was Id's earlier name. I was wondering which theory is true. (To
>find the postings I am talking about, go to eeggs.com and navigate to Doom 2, or
>go to http://www.eeggs.com/items/1317.html however, this link may change by the time
>you get this).

(1) Yes, Apogee Software was id Software's publisher long ago before DOOM was released. The games' are id's and Apogee was the company who sold the games.

(2) The hanging Keens was Adrian's idea because he hated drawing the graphics for that series of games. ;) He likes GORE.

(3) Apogee never "stole the Commander Keen idea" - it's always been id Software's property. Apogee was just a pubilsher of our games back then. Apogee has been owned by Scott Miller and George Broussard for many years.

> Along with pulling out my shareware of Blake Stone, I took the 2 shareware
>disks of Doom. I couldn't get them to work (I think disk 1 was broken, because I got
>them to work once), but on the cover it said something about Mega Mouse Software. Who
>is Mega Mouse Software, since on the back, it still says from Id Software. I also
>noticed that both my Blake Stone and Doom shareware had something to do with SJT
>Enterprises, but I couldn't figure out what that was either.

(4) When we released our games as shareware, we allowed every company free distribution of the game. This meant that there were usually 4+ different boxes on the shelf, all with the same shareware version of our games. Mega Mouse must have been just one of the many, many companies that tried making money selling our shareware games.

> One more thing is, is that it's well known someone at Id Software likes
>NIN, since they do music and sound effects for a lot of your games, and because in
>Doom's E4M1 the map includes 3 sectors making NIN's logo, and in Quake, the boxes of
>nails having their logo. But who is the fan, and did NIN do the music/sound for Doom
>and it's sequels (excluding Doom 3)?

(5) American McGee and John Carmack liked NIN a lot and we had them do the music for Quake. The E4M1 NIN logo was American's idea.

- John

-----Original Message-----
From: David A. Horwitz [mailto:david.a.horwitz@verizon.net]
Sent: Monday, February 03, 2003 3:39 PM
To: john@rome.ro
Subject: Id/Apogee History


Dear Mr. Romero,
I recently pulled out my old shareware version of Blake Stone, which is said to be made by Apogee, and Jam Entertainment. However, the on-disk catalogue said that they sold Commander Keen and Wolfenstein, which I thought were Id Software games. Previously, I had read postings on the hanging Commander Keens, in one of the secret Doom II levels (I forget which). There were big arguments why; some said it was a joke, like your head on a stick at the last level of Doom II, but others said things like it was because of a rivalry, between Apogee and Id, since Apogee stole the Commander Keen idea. Then, there were the people like me (though I never posted) who thought that Apogee was Id's earlier name. I was wondering which theory is true. (To find the postings I am talking about, go to eeggs.com, and navigate to Doom 2, or go to http://www.eeggs.com/items/1317.html, however, this link may change by the time you get this).
Along with pulling out my shareware of Blake Stone, I took the 2 shareware disks of Doom. I couldn't get them to work (I think disk 1 was broken, because I got them to work once), but on the cover it said something about Mega Mouse Software. Who is Mega Mouse Software, since on the back, it still says from Id Software. I also noticed that both my Blake Stone and Doom shareware had something to do with SJT Enterprises, but I couldn't figure out what that was either.
One more thing is, is that it's well known someone at Id Software likes NIN, since they do music and sound effects for a lot of your games, and because in Doom's E4M1 the map includes 3 sectors making NIN's logo, and in Quake, the boxes of nails having their logo. But who is the fan, and did NIN do the music/sound for Doom and it's sequels (excluding Doom 3)?
Finally, I would like to say I am a big fan of all your games, especially Doom and Deus Ex, and that I still play and edit Doom regularly, even though it is a little out of date. I like it because it is so simple, but so complex, not to mention the fact that it's nostalgic. I remember playing it at my cousin's house, when I was 4 or 5, and having no skills, what so ever. So, when I first played Doom 2 about a year ago, after not playing it for about 6 or 7 years, it was like everything rushed back to me. Thank you for taking the time to read my letter, and I hope I hear your reply soon.




Sincerely,

**************


PS: My name is different than the email address, because I'm using my dad's account. Also, would it be okay to post the contents of your reply? Thank you, again.
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there it is. it has some quake stuph too, btw.
(the ">" mean that it's what was in my letter that Mr. Romero's reffering to)

[Fletcher`]

Heh you've been doing your homework. :)

Your sig is giving me a headache. :P

[insertwackynamehere]

sorry about the sig. maybe i'll change it later

[fraggle]

I fixed your formatting up a bit.

[Epyo]

Who wants to summarize it to 10 words?

[Cyb]

me romero. apogee gay. nin good. big bugs good. bye!

[Naked Snake]

rofl, I can just picture Carmack driving really fast down the road blasting NIN...roflmao.

[sargebaldy]

BBG said:

rofl, I can just picture Carmack driving really fast down the road blasting NIN...roflmao.

carmack always seemed like more a boy-band kinda guy to me :P

[NiGHTMARE]

sargebaldy said:

carmack always seemed like more a boy-band kinda guy to me :P

I always thought he'd be into classical music myself :)

[SteelPH]

I always though.... pass

i thought the same thing as nightmare :P