Retro Asylum interview with John Romero

[retroasylum]

We thought Doom World members might be interested in our recent interview with John. He had loads of interesting stuff to say and it was a blast chatting gaming with such a legend.

http://retroasylum.podomatic.com/entry/2014-08-12T14_08_29-07_00

During the interview John talks about what making games means to him, what Doom’s legacy is for modern developers, Daikatana’s marketing, how he’d change modern day shooters and how Doom’s shareware model back in the day is replicated in today’s free to play market.

John also settles the score on the rumours following his recent Facebook check-in.

We hope you enjoy it.

[Patrol1985]

retroasylum said:

We thought Doom World members might be interested in our recent interview with John.

Of course we would! Big thanks for for sharing the interview!

[DooM_RO]

Thank you for sharing this! John is such a cool guy and I wish he posted here more often and I wish he actively involved himself in the Doom modding scene. WE NEED YOU JOHN!

[Patrol1985]

DooM_RO said:

John is such a cool guy and I wish he posted here more often

You mean he posts here at all? o_O

[Quasar]

Patrol1985 said:

You mean he posts here at all? o_O

I'm not sure if he has or not... he did come into some of the Doom IRC channels a couple times. Haven't seen him since one of the chanops kicked him one time with the message "Get back to work on Daikatana" :P

[Blastfrog]

DooM_RO said:

I wish he actively involved himself in the Doom modding scene.

He's probably very busy with his current career. I'm sure if he had infinite energy and time he'd love to, but busy people have to prioritize.

Patrol1985 said:

You mean he posts here at all? o_O

Yes, but rarely. Check the Doom the Way id Did thread, he did post in it.

Quasar said:

Haven't seen him since one of the chanops kicked him one time with the message "Get back to work on Daikatana" :P

The fuck? Great way to drive off an important person. What was the channel op thinking?

[Patrol1985]

Quasar said:

Haven't seen him since one of the chanops kicked him one time with the message "Get back to work on Daikatana" :P

What sort of a fucked up behavior was that?!

[VGA]

Hahaha, maybe they knew each other and were screweing around. Or it was an imposter?

[ETTiNGRiNDER]

retroasylum said:

Doom’s shareware model back in the day is replicated in today’s free to play market.

Barf.

[Blastfrog]

ETTiNGRiNDER said:

Barf.

Seriously. They're not comparable, Doom gave you a third of the game with no restrictions inside of that portion; you could play it uninhibited. Pay To Win nickles and dimes the player into getting an even remotely enjoyable experience. A more accurate comparison would be to arcade games, and even then, those were more tasteful and respectful in how they handled mictotransactions.

[Jaxxoon R]

Doesn't TF2 handle free-to-play pretty well?

[Doomkid]

Thanks a million for posting this interview!

[Xaser]

Patrol1985 said:

You mean he posts here at all? o_O

He posted a few nuggets in the original DTWID thread, starting here. Cool stuff, that.

[Jaxxoon R]

The audio was way too quiet, so I ran it through a compressor in Audacity and gave it a thorough listen. Very interesting, I especially liked the talk about preserving games and info on their development.

I wonder if many years from now, digital curators of some kind will track down dumps of notable games/crack open the source codes and have them disassembled/port them to whatever hardware's in use then.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Jaxxoon R said:

Doesn't TF2 handle free-to-play pretty well?

I suppose, it could be a lot better, though. The best free-to-play games offer some sort of way to convert your time into game currency. TF2 doesn't, instead having a timegated system for random drops, where you're pretty much forced to trade the 5th copy of that useless weapon for what you actually want, meaning high value items can only be obtained through luck or real cash. There are definitely better models out there, it kind of bugs me that everyone puts TF2 on some sort of pedestal. It's not a bad model but it's not the best.

Ideally a free-to-play game is so much fun that the time investment to get items is something you want to put in anyway. I've bought items in more than one game just to support the developers, not because I felt I needed to to stay competitive or anything. When the model isn't implemented greedily, I'd say it's actually superior to a shareware model.

[Clonehunter]

But those high value items are generally cosmetic, or it's an awful weapon or a weapon reskin. In many cases, "high value" weapons are basically weapons with kill counters, because when you have a Hale's Sniper Rifle, chicks will suck your cock without refrain, or something like that.

Sort of off-topic, maybe.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Yes, and that masks the weaknesses of the game's model. The game is fun and the model works well enough for it considering it was tacked onto existing systems. Just think for a second how terrible it would be if the game had tiers of weaponry or something similar, though. That's what I mean when I say it's a not the best model. It only works as well as it does because TF2's developers (usually) make a great choice in having alternate weapons be alternate playstyles rather than improvements on the base weapons. Weapons are worthless because they're incredibly common and usually inferior to the standard ones, meaning they're easily traded for.

Basically, my point is time -> game currency -> desired item is a better system than time -> random items of random value. The random drops can potentially cut the time investment down to close to zero if you get lucky, but I still think a system that lets you get exactly what you want for your time investment is much better.

[DoomGater]

Sodaholic said:

Seriously. They're not comparable, Doom gave you a third of the game with no restrictions inside of that portion; you could play it uninhibited.(...)

Don't forget the Ultimate-Doom-Upgrade: the 4th episode of Ultimate Doom is also f.o.c., which means, that 50% of Ultimate Doom is playable for free :-)

[retroasylum]

We're glad that people enjoyed what we put together. I must that sitting down having time with John exceeded our expectations of what a good guy he is.

[Badboy]

should be main news.

[DoomGater]

WTF ?? - I'm off