http://floor13.keenspace.com/doom2000.htm
DOOM 2000 : THE INTERVIEW
Earlier this week, John Carmack's shock .plan update (specifically it was in English and contained no technical gubbins that we mere
mortals couldn't understand) was the first official confirmation that we were finally going to get our hands on the game that everybody
has been hoping for - Doom 3. iD's press release stated that they were not going to give any interviews on the subject, and sure enough
when we rang them up no information was forthcoming. Luckily a little assistance from Jimmy the Hangnail, local gangster and
professional ballet dancer, was easily obtainable and we zoomed down to Texas. In this way we were able to get the very first interview
with the entire team, not to mention some exclusive screenshots and Kevin Cloud's right testicle (Jimmy got a little over enthusiastic)
First things first. Why Doom 3?
CLOUD : If we tell you, you'll let us go, right?
If I like what I hear......
DEVINE : Damn.
CLOUD : Quiet. Well, basically after finishing off Quake Arena we were bored. John was still busily working away on the new 3D engine for
our next product, a few of the guys were messing around with Team Arena - you know, the add-on designed to turn Quake Arena into
Unreal Tournament....
DEVINE : At this point they sat me down on the floor and said "We've just realized that you haven't actually come up with anything yet.
You're the designer - design something."
And this was Doom 3?
DEVINE : Actually no. We decided to explore a new type of game - the FPS Puzzler. The player, who would be totally unaware of his own
identity, would go into a big haunted house and play logic puzzles.
This sounds somewhat familiar...
DEVINE : We got away with it twice. Still not sure how.
CLOUD : Adrian and I were all for this idea, but the rest of the team weren't so keen
How could you tell?
CLOUD : Little things. Banners on the walls saying "We Don't Want To Work On That", a massive staff walkout, my car was torched.....
DEVINE : Morale seemed pretty low, certainly. We were even having people threaten to go and work for John Romero.
CLOUD : In any case, the rest of the team wanted to work on Doom 2000, and we agreed to let them. The only other option was to fire them
all
And you didn't?
CLOUD : Please! That's Kelly Flock's job. Unfortunately we couldn't afford to lose the engine, so we couldn't do that. We were able to fire
Paul Steed of course. That came as a great relief to everyone except for the people on the Doom 2000 team - I can tell you!
iD politics aside, what can you tell me about the game?
DEVINE : We wanted to go back to all the things that made the original game a big success. The atmosphere, the combat, the engine, the
graphical st...
Wait a minute....the engine?
CARMACK : 01010100101010000100101001010
Huh?
CLOUD : Unfortunately we've reached something of a plateau in engine design.
You mean that modern systems aren't able to handle the level of graphics?
DEVINE : Not quite...you see the latest one is so advanced that it fused with John's brain to become a cyborg. It's growing in complexity at
an exponential rate and we don't even understand the documentation any more.
CARMACK : 10100010100101010101010101
CLOUD : Calm down, John. We're just afraid that if we code in any fighting AI the Quake engine may take over the world and enslave
humanity. That doesn't make for a very good advertising campaign.
So you're going back to the Quake engine for Doom 3?
DEVINE : There is no Quake engine.
CLOUD : SHUT UP!
DEVINE : We may as well fess up now.
What do you mean, no Quake engine?
CLOUD : It was SUPPOSED to be a secret - but all Quake 3 is is a highly effective piece of network code. When the player moves the
information is sent over here - we render it in 3D Studio Max and send it back.
Why?
DEVINE : We never actually got any further technologically than Doom. At least, not in our games - the engine was always in Carmack's
head - literally. Tim Sweeney was leaps and bounds in front of us, and we had to maintain our technology lead because let's face it we have
had jack shit success making games ever since Doom.
But what about your single player games?
CLOUD : All of the monsters' movements were directed by the team here. There was no AI, they were all moved by hand.
But they were stupid! They were moronic!
DEVINE : They were controlled by Paul.
Ah.
DEVINE : So anyway, we're back with the Doom engine. The game takes place shortly after the end of Doom 2 which is convenient because
we don't actually know what happened then having replaced the ending with a crappy sequence of monsters dying at the 11th hour. Hehe.
CLOUD : Stop that.
DEVINE : Sorry. Anyway, Doomguy returns to Earth to find that it's still overrun with monsters and even though he can take down demons
with his fist the military hasn't gotten around to sorting out the mess. It turns out that he only actually destroyed a small part of Hell during
Doom 2, and now Satan himself is on his trail. He has to find the last Gate in order to reach the Underworld, travelling from a wartorn military
base on Earth to a wartorn military base on Mars and from there into a wartorn military base in Hell itself. He then needs to progress down
to the very base of Hell and collect something - we haven't decided what yet - from a wartorn base in Satan's very buttocks, which will
destroy the evil
The evil?
DEVINE : We haven't decided what yet. The final design was submitted last week - it's a highly convoluted story with lots of characters, set
pieces and cutscenes
Who are the characters?
DEVINE : We haven't decided yet. Probably a large chested soldier, a geeky scientist, a token love interest...it's a rich tapestry
Yes......
EXCLUSIVE
The first level of Doom 2000!
The full working title of the game is
Doom 2000 : Thy Cash Consumed and will come with
a contract signed by every team member to
reassure customers that John Romero has
had no contact with it at any stage
CARMACK : 00100100100100101001
CLOUD : Good point John. We have made some changes to the Doom engine to bring it up to spec technology wise.
And they are?
CLOUD : Well, you know when you were playing - sometimes it wouldn't aim at enemies properly?
Er...yes?
CLOUD : We've fixed that.
(pause)
Er..is that it? How about mouselook and jumping?
CLOUD : Shit. Got a pencil?
So there's no mouselook and jumping?
CLOUD : Mouselook, yes - but not jumping. We decided that it took something vital away from the game.
DEVINE : Don't worry - I've written that into the story. Early in the game (during the intro actually) you inadvertently step on the toes of a
magical rock star who curses you :
Your boots across my feet did trip
I hereby curse thee to forever stick
With the playing of this diabolical riff
'Less you use the stairs or drop off a cliff
CLOUD : The basic idea comes from Plato.
DEVINE : Er...yeah. Whatever. But it means that the player is permanently sealed to the ground unless they fall
CLOUD : And it allows us to do really nasty puzzles
You mean putting the exit door at the other side of a chasm which even I could jump across - at the start of the level?
DEVINE : Alright - who told you!?
A wild guess. So, which weapons are going to be included with the game?
CLOUD : None. We don't want people shooting each other.
Let me rephrase that - which weapons are going to feature in the game?
DEVINE : Fist, pistol, chaingun, shotgun....
....plasma rifle, BFG, rocket launcher and flamethrower so that you can take it out at the last minute?
DEVINE : Yeah. The fans always make several flamethrowers - we'd hate to deprive them of that
CLOUD : It's a boost to the mod community
DEVINE : A public service
CARMACK : 0100100001000
Indeed. Don't you think it's time for some new toys?
CLOUD : No
DEVINE : No.
CARMACK : 0
Alright - the question on everybody's lips - who will be playing Doomguy?
DEVINE : The player. Obviously
I meant the character...
DEVINE : Well, we've been casting around. We'd like someone reasonably well known - but not in this particular field. Bernard from Day of
the Tentacle did a good audition tape, and Lara Croft was considering a change of direction - but we want to go for someone in the
community.......
An early Doom 2000 screen test
(with apologies to Penny Arcade)
So - the question on everybody's lips....
CLOUD : Oh jeez, not another one
They're big lips. Have you found a replacement for Paul Steed yet?
CLOUD : Yes. Practically as soon as Paul left the building we got a call from an up and coming artist called Daup Steel, a former resident of
Cuba. We are not permitted to see his face, but we're really excited with the stuff he's been producing!
This is the first sketch of Satan's right hand man Pintagrum -
a thorn in your side right from the start. Fear him....
Right. What ca.....
CLOUD : Listen, sorry about this - but I'm bleeding rather badly over here. If you remember, your friend cut my right testicle off - which hurt
a lot more than I let on - and I really think that I should go to hospital.
DOOM 2000 : THE INTERVIEW
Earlier this week, John Carmack's shock .plan update (specifically it was in English and contained no technical gubbins that we mere
mortals couldn't understand) was the first official confirmation that we were finally going to get our hands on the game that everybody
has been hoping for - Doom 3. iD's press release stated that they were not going to give any interviews on the subject, and sure enough
when we rang them up no information was forthcoming. Luckily a little assistance from Jimmy the Hangnail, local gangster and
professional ballet dancer, was easily obtainable and we zoomed down to Texas. In this way we were able to get the very first interview
with the entire team, not to mention some exclusive screenshots and Kevin Cloud's right testicle (Jimmy got a little over enthusiastic)
First things first. Why Doom 3?
CLOUD : If we tell you, you'll let us go, right?
If I like what I hear......
DEVINE : Damn.
CLOUD : Quiet. Well, basically after finishing off Quake Arena we were bored. John was still busily working away on the new 3D engine for
our next product, a few of the guys were messing around with Team Arena - you know, the add-on designed to turn Quake Arena into
Unreal Tournament....
DEVINE : At this point they sat me down on the floor and said "We've just realized that you haven't actually come up with anything yet.
You're the designer - design something."
And this was Doom 3?
DEVINE : Actually no. We decided to explore a new type of game - the FPS Puzzler. The player, who would be totally unaware of his own
identity, would go into a big haunted house and play logic puzzles.
This sounds somewhat familiar...
DEVINE : We got away with it twice. Still not sure how.
CLOUD : Adrian and I were all for this idea, but the rest of the team weren't so keen
How could you tell?
CLOUD : Little things. Banners on the walls saying "We Don't Want To Work On That", a massive staff walkout, my car was torched.....
DEVINE : Morale seemed pretty low, certainly. We were even having people threaten to go and work for John Romero.
CLOUD : In any case, the rest of the team wanted to work on Doom 2000, and we agreed to let them. The only other option was to fire them
all
And you didn't?
CLOUD : Please! That's Kelly Flock's job. Unfortunately we couldn't afford to lose the engine, so we couldn't do that. We were able to fire
Paul Steed of course. That came as a great relief to everyone except for the people on the Doom 2000 team - I can tell you!
iD politics aside, what can you tell me about the game?
DEVINE : We wanted to go back to all the things that made the original game a big success. The atmosphere, the combat, the engine, the
graphical st...
Wait a minute....the engine?
CARMACK : 01010100101010000100101001010
Huh?
CLOUD : Unfortunately we've reached something of a plateau in engine design.
You mean that modern systems aren't able to handle the level of graphics?
DEVINE : Not quite...you see the latest one is so advanced that it fused with John's brain to become a cyborg. It's growing in complexity at
an exponential rate and we don't even understand the documentation any more.
CARMACK : 10100010100101010101010101
CLOUD : Calm down, John. We're just afraid that if we code in any fighting AI the Quake engine may take over the world and enslave
humanity. That doesn't make for a very good advertising campaign.
So you're going back to the Quake engine for Doom 3?
DEVINE : There is no Quake engine.
CLOUD : SHUT UP!
DEVINE : We may as well fess up now.
What do you mean, no Quake engine?
CLOUD : It was SUPPOSED to be a secret - but all Quake 3 is is a highly effective piece of network code. When the player moves the
information is sent over here - we render it in 3D Studio Max and send it back.
Why?
DEVINE : We never actually got any further technologically than Doom. At least, not in our games - the engine was always in Carmack's
head - literally. Tim Sweeney was leaps and bounds in front of us, and we had to maintain our technology lead because let's face it we have
had jack shit success making games ever since Doom.
But what about your single player games?
CLOUD : All of the monsters' movements were directed by the team here. There was no AI, they were all moved by hand.
But they were stupid! They were moronic!
DEVINE : They were controlled by Paul.
Ah.
DEVINE : So anyway, we're back with the Doom engine. The game takes place shortly after the end of Doom 2 which is convenient because
we don't actually know what happened then having replaced the ending with a crappy sequence of monsters dying at the 11th hour. Hehe.
CLOUD : Stop that.
DEVINE : Sorry. Anyway, Doomguy returns to Earth to find that it's still overrun with monsters and even though he can take down demons
with his fist the military hasn't gotten around to sorting out the mess. It turns out that he only actually destroyed a small part of Hell during
Doom 2, and now Satan himself is on his trail. He has to find the last Gate in order to reach the Underworld, travelling from a wartorn military
base on Earth to a wartorn military base on Mars and from there into a wartorn military base in Hell itself. He then needs to progress down
to the very base of Hell and collect something - we haven't decided what yet - from a wartorn base in Satan's very buttocks, which will
destroy the evil
The evil?
DEVINE : We haven't decided what yet. The final design was submitted last week - it's a highly convoluted story with lots of characters, set
pieces and cutscenes
Who are the characters?
DEVINE : We haven't decided yet. Probably a large chested soldier, a geeky scientist, a token love interest...it's a rich tapestry
Yes......
EXCLUSIVE
The first level of Doom 2000!
The full working title of the game is
Doom 2000 : Thy Cash Consumed and will come with
a contract signed by every team member to
reassure customers that John Romero has
had no contact with it at any stage
CARMACK : 00100100100100101001
CLOUD : Good point John. We have made some changes to the Doom engine to bring it up to spec technology wise.
And they are?
CLOUD : Well, you know when you were playing - sometimes it wouldn't aim at enemies properly?
Er...yes?
CLOUD : We've fixed that.
(pause)
Er..is that it? How about mouselook and jumping?
CLOUD : Shit. Got a pencil?
So there's no mouselook and jumping?
CLOUD : Mouselook, yes - but not jumping. We decided that it took something vital away from the game.
DEVINE : Don't worry - I've written that into the story. Early in the game (during the intro actually) you inadvertently step on the toes of a
magical rock star who curses you :
Your boots across my feet did trip
I hereby curse thee to forever stick
With the playing of this diabolical riff
'Less you use the stairs or drop off a cliff
CLOUD : The basic idea comes from Plato.
DEVINE : Er...yeah. Whatever. But it means that the player is permanently sealed to the ground unless they fall
CLOUD : And it allows us to do really nasty puzzles
You mean putting the exit door at the other side of a chasm which even I could jump across - at the start of the level?
DEVINE : Alright - who told you!?
A wild guess. So, which weapons are going to be included with the game?
CLOUD : None. We don't want people shooting each other.
Let me rephrase that - which weapons are going to feature in the game?
DEVINE : Fist, pistol, chaingun, shotgun....
....plasma rifle, BFG, rocket launcher and flamethrower so that you can take it out at the last minute?
DEVINE : Yeah. The fans always make several flamethrowers - we'd hate to deprive them of that
CLOUD : It's a boost to the mod community
DEVINE : A public service
CARMACK : 0100100001000
Indeed. Don't you think it's time for some new toys?
CLOUD : No
DEVINE : No.
CARMACK : 0
Alright - the question on everybody's lips - who will be playing Doomguy?
DEVINE : The player. Obviously
I meant the character...
DEVINE : Well, we've been casting around. We'd like someone reasonably well known - but not in this particular field. Bernard from Day of
the Tentacle did a good audition tape, and Lara Croft was considering a change of direction - but we want to go for someone in the
community.......
An early Doom 2000 screen test
(with apologies to Penny Arcade)
So - the question on everybody's lips....
CLOUD : Oh jeez, not another one
They're big lips. Have you found a replacement for Paul Steed yet?
CLOUD : Yes. Practically as soon as Paul left the building we got a call from an up and coming artist called Daup Steel, a former resident of
Cuba. We are not permitted to see his face, but we're really excited with the stuff he's been producing!
This is the first sketch of Satan's right hand man Pintagrum -
a thorn in your side right from the start. Fear him....
Right. What ca.....
CLOUD : Listen, sorry about this - but I'm bleeding rather badly over here. If you remember, your friend cut my right testicle off - which hurt
a lot more than I let on - and I really think that I should go to hospital.
AMD PoloMarco 23500 gigakilometer - 96" Quadcrystal scherm - Detonator 28010.25 afgerond op 2 decimalen - PlakBand @ 768 TB - 512 GB ZIGB - UltraFlex 100 GPU @ 5.5 ghz / 10 ghz - Isootjes @ 1 GB/sec
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