What NEW questions would you ask John Romero?

[Voros]

- Did you ever think how far the modding of Doom would go?

- why the mangled Romero head? Did you agree?

- What was your reaction when Doom 2016 was shown?

- Are you happy with it?

- And... Do you ever want to answer Linguica's questions?

- Oh, What happened with Daikatana that it came out so bad? Was Doom's success just came from pure luck?

- How come id didn't notice that invulnerability sky bug?

[pritch]

Inb4 2016.

I'd probably ask him if he wants a beer.

And if he said yeah, then some of Ling's questions maybe.

Except for the Lost Soul limit. Pretty sure that was for technical limitations and/or sanity.

[Clonehunter]

Cyanosis said:

Why there's no idle/lying dogs in Wolf and why Korax's steed was made Korax and Korax was made the Heresiarch in Hexen.

Is that what happened? I always thought it was weird that Korax's lieutenant was the guy to appear at the end of Heretic as opposed to Korax himself. It also seemed odd that Korax looked more like a mutant Chaos Serpent than D'Sparil (Who rode one). What you said explains a lot, although I've never heard that before. The last two Serpent Riders really sort of missed the whole "serpent riding" concept.

[40oz]

Linguica said:

What was your process for adding new line actions to the game? Was it ad hoc as you came across a situation where you wanted them, or did you ever draw up a list of a bunch of things you knew you wanted to put it?

I think I read somewhere that it was the former, but it might have been someone here just conjuring it from looking at it. If the order of the numbers of the linedef types are any indication, it looks to be a little of both.

Linguica said:

Whose idea was it to remove “gamey” elements like one-ups, a points counter, etc, in the middle of development?

I think John Romero was quoted in the Masters of Doom or somewhere else saying that Doom was a "modern game" which drove the removal of lives, if that helps answer the question. (some patterns go W1, S1, WR, SR)

Linguica said:

I’ve read that Sandy Petersen’s first ever Doom map was E3M6. Is this really true?

Sandy Petersen confirms this in a youtube interview with mattchat I believe.

Linguica said:

In one of the early alphas, Tom Hall’s levels all had boundary markers drawn around the outside. Was there a specific reason for doing this? Was it important to keep the levels inside a defined space for some reason?

I cant remember where I read this, Doom Scarydarkfast maybe, but Doom was supposed to be a hub-style set-up where you can go into places and return to previous places like in half life. The maps were designed in such a way that they roughly resembled the geometric building shapes in this picture

Linguica said:

Why was the rifle replaced with a pistol during development?

Gez once made a really interesting comparison of the Doom weapon sprites to the removed alpha weapons in the "Things about Doom you just found out" thread, many pages back, but he observed how wildly different all the weapons look in Doom. Weapons like the machine gun, shotgun, rifle, and bayonet look roughly the same, while the guns that are currently in Doom have highly different shapes color schemes, etc. which probably made them much easier to discern in lower resolutions. It sounds like the most probable reasoning to me.

Linguica said:

So you were executive producer for Heretic during 1994. What did that entail, exactly? Were you on location in Madison a lot? I’ve never really read much about that arrangement.

I think in the Tim Willits interview that Marnetmar linked to, Tim spoke a bit about being on site during the development of Heretic, but he said that Raven Software was so talented and imaginative that they really didn't want to intrude on their work and left them to do whatever they wanted.

I'm not really in a position to be giving you definite answers having not been there but that's what I've picked up. Great questions btw.

[Lila Feuer]

Some more. Mostly opinion related questions. Just trying to think of stuff people don't ask him much, if at all, since I'm sick of seeing the same DOOM related stuff over and over.

Were you pleased with how Heretic came out? What about Hexen?

Is there anything that didn't make the cut for Heretic/Hexen that you can remember? Any big changes take place during development?

What was the original plan for Hexen 2? Didn't it have a different name initially?

Do you still enjoy Wolfenstein 3D to this day? What do you think of the newest ones?

What about Heretic and Hexen? Do you find them enjoyable to this day?

How do you feel about the new DOOM? How did you feel about DOOM 3?

Does it make you happy to see DOOM and Wolfenstein still living on and having titles released to this day?

What was the deal with the FormGen Wolf3D episodes?

Would you support a Heretic 3 or Hexen 3? How about a Quake 5 with the same tone as the first?

How much involvement did you have with Strife?

What was id's and your relationship like with Rogue and Hipnotic/Ritual? How did you meet?

What about id's and your relationship with the guys at Raven?

Was Scott Miller upset when id decided to branch off from Apogee? What did you think of Duke Nukem 3D when it came out?

What was your/id's involvement with ShadowCaster? Was their any involvement with Necrodome or CyClones?

What was it like to work with Warren Spector? Did you enjoy what many consider to be his magnum opus, Deus Ex?

Do you talk to any current or former id employees still?

if you could go back and change one thing in Wolf, Doom and Quake, big or small, what would it be?

What was it like working with Trent Reznor on Quake?

If you could do more Commander Keen games, would you?

Did you like the Keen character?

[HorrorMovieRei]

Have you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Saviour?

[Voros]

After the Pain Elemental reached its Lost Soul limit, was it meant to roam around?

[Doomkid]

How does exploding barrels make you feel?

(oh god please forgive me)

Voros, I think every question you've posted has been answered.. Is there a repository of Romero interviews somewhere, either text or video? Seems pretty relevant for this thread.

[Mr. Freeze]

You've got a very distinctive style when it comes to tone and visual design- almost comic-book like. Do you plan the crazy stuff out meticulously or do you take separate ideas and join them together until it fits?

[Deleted_Account]

Dear John Romero;

What is your favorite movie?

What is your favorite novel?

It's Sunday morning, what are you having for breakfast?

What is the most embarrassing moment in your life?

What is your favorite television show?

[MrFlibble]

Cyanosis said:

What did you think of Duke Nukem 3D when it came out?

Actually there's that old video interview (for some British channel) where he mentions Duke Nukem 3D as the second of his top five favourite games (YouTube link).

The date of that interview is unclear, but it is implied at the start of the feature that Daikatana wasn't released yet at the time.

[SavageCorona]

Linguica said:

What was your process for adding new line actions to the game? Was it ad hoc as you came across a situation where you wanted them, or did you ever draw up a list of a bunch of things you knew you wanted to put it?

Considering how limited vanilla mapping is I would definitely say ad hoc