scar3crow's interview w/Romero (with commentary, heh)

[Baker]

scar3crow did an excellent interview with John Romero and it is on the Quake Expo site (http://www.quakeexpo.com/), where the site is hosted again by Echon of QuakeDev, scar3crow and Sajt have done most of the heavy lifting this year (and doing an outstanding job of it, btw.)

John Romero: You're right about the eyes - most of the monsters don't have them. The world of Quake is dark, wet and scary and they didn't really need em. The Shambler is supposed to have a shaggy coat.

So it isn't feathers, hehe. (poll thread on Shambler's hide from March)

scar3crow: I daresay then, despite complications, mission accomplished. It is still held up high and played furiously, even if all they play these days are dm3 and dm6 =)

John Romero: I love those two levels... In addition DM2 and DM4 rock... One of my all-time favorites is DM7 and CY2A.

It strikes me as very weird that DM3 and DM6 dominate in Quake, but in QuakeWorld DM2 and DM4 are quite popular as well whereas in regular Quake are kind of regarded as "newbie" levels for some reason (especially DM4).

Also strange that DM1 and DM5, which are quality levels, are kind of forgotten deathmatch maps. DM1 has no RL (in vanilla Quake), so that is understandable, but I think what ruins DM5 is the Pent, which doesn't ruin DM3 because the map is so large. (Just my take on it).

scar3crow: Quake has always had wonderful deathmatch, and it certainly popularized something many take for granted these days - rocketjumping. Aside from your lateral use of it in Mt Erebus in Doom, did you foresee it in the way it came about in deathmatch?

John Romero: We had no idea until after the game was released and I started hearing the word being used... Even then I thought it meant jumping over someone's rocket! When I saw it in action i was amazed and immediately starting doing it all the time.

I think most players will agree that rocket jumping is one of the coolest things in Quake that gives it character. Odd that wasn't forseen prior to the release.

scar3crow: Did you ever foresee Quake thriving 10 years later? During the original game design phases, and then later on during the development of what we know as Quake? Most games last maybe 2 or 3 years, yet Doom and Quake have lasted an incredible amount of time comparatively.

John Romero: Back then it was tough to see a game last long because tech was changing so quickly and competition was fierce and growing. We were on the verge of 3D acceleration and didn't know if Quake would survive in that world. I'm very happy to see the same community support around Quake that Doom enjoys.

I don't think anyone in 1998 would have expected Quake to be going strong in 2006. Quake looked pretty much obsolete when Half-Life came out and Quake 3 was the nail in the coffin. Quake was written off a "has been" as early as late 1997.

Yellow No. 5 once pointed out that Quake was viewed as "fugly" even back in 1996, kind of an anti-Doom. Not really pleasing to the eye. And around 1997 was when games started coming out that had some very slick 3D graphics making Quake quickly look obsolete from a superficial perspective.

scar3crow: I had taken notice of the use of the Vores at the end of Dismal Oubliette, though I would say they werent quite as tough as the Baron encounter (sure you might have 10+ rockets for the barons, but the blast damage is likely to kill you, whereas you have room to retreat with the vores). Why did the monster name switch from Shalrath to Vore? How about the Scrag being referred to as a Wizard in the code?

John Romero: In development you always have other names that originally were used but before release are changed to something more appropriate. The name Shalrath was one from, I believe, John C.'s D&D campaign. Likewise, the Scrag was originally called a Wizard. At the end it didn't do many wizardly things so we changed the name. If the creature *did* do some interesting magic the name would have been great to keep as it would have been one of the most unsettling wizards that anyone could have imagined.

Hehe

scar3crow: Why does Quake have nailguns rather than machineguns?

John Romero: Because it's different

That would have ruined Quake. We're lucky!

scar3crow: You headed me off at the pass with that statement, how was the reaction to Quake Done Quick? I myself was astounded at the simplicity of the e2m1 run as well, and make use of that leap even today in deathmatch.

John Romero: QDQ was pure awesomeness. Even DDQ is incredible. I can't even duplicate most of the moves those guys pulled.

You know, one of the coolest things about Quake is how the game doesn't "break" when speedrunners do all of these unexpected speedruns. A number of custom maps have triggers and such that speedrunning basically "breaks" the progressing of the map. It's nice none of the ID maps are "breakable".

John Romero: Nope. Quake was one original idea that got changed 7 months before shipping to something totally different and the name remained because the world already knew what the game was called.

That's interesting.

scar3crow: Speaking of weapons in Quake... why the huge strength differences in the shotguns between Doom and Quake? I can understand the concept of linear progression in damage for singleplayer (the double-barrelled shotgun actually doing more than twice as much damage as the shotgun, and the super nailgun doing literally double that of the normal nailgun), but for multiplayer it leaves me scratching my head sometimes.

John Romero: I don't think we did a very good job balancing the damage on Quake's weapons. DOOM's is perfection.

Doom's weapons are more balanced, but in Doom almost every weapon was a good one. The unbalanced weapons in Quake make map control much more of a factor and make the Quake experience unique.

scar3crow: How do you feel about bunnyhopping/straferunning? Some say this occurence is one of the principal dividers in the Quake community, due to the varying degrees of it between Quake and QuakeWorld physics.[/b][/color] Personally I just turn always run on and do the occasional lateral rocketjump, and in singleplayer games do not use even rocketjumps unless the author specifies he allows for such in his flow.

John Romero: You know, whatever you can do to push the odds in your favor is what anyone with extreme competitiveness is going to do - so design your levels for the ultimate or prepare to have your map hacked by experts.

John Romero says "I'm not touching that one with a ten foot pole."

scar3crow: One thing the community has been pleading for for years now, and I know of a lot of people who would greatly enjoy such, and a few who could really make use of it for their projects, would be the map sources to the id Quake maps. Would it be possible to get these? It would be a quite awesome gift to Quake for its 10th birthday.

John Romero: I'll look for them tonight.

Hehe, nice! Good work scar3crow! :d

scar3crow: How do you feel about Quake's lack of a sequel? Would you approve of a core team of fans developing their own free sequel using a modded engine sticking closely to the dark Lovecraftian tones and grit?

John Romero: Hell yes!

I think the only true sequel nowadays could only come from the Func_Msgboard conservatives teaming up the Inside3D or DarkPlaces type of guys. I don't think a corporation could do it, they'd have too many developers/designers that would try to warp the game into another cookie cutter first person shooter with sci-fi guns, neon and cyborgs.

----

I think that is one of the best interview's I've ever seen done. I think what makes the interview great is scar3crow's choice of topics and the fact that he understands all of the issues that really matter to all of the various different communities that the larger Quake community is composed of.

(Why can't sentences end with the word "of"? Well, I'm gonna do it anyway. To hell with that rule!)

[Canadian*Sniper]

I just read the entire interview now and thought scar3crow did an amazing job. Both of you were very indepth in questions and answers.

I was very suprised that quake was a rushed project as well as Romero playing dm7 (kickass map).

One thing I wanted to have the Ogre do is laugh and piss on your corpse after he killed you. We ran out of time...

Histerical! We have to implement this into rocketguy's coop server. We just HAVE too!

[Phenom]

Wow!

Its an awesome interview and I'd love to see/ be a part of a sequal to the actual Quake 1.

If theres anything I can do let me know!

I'm gunna be watching for this!

[JohnXmas]

Though Painkiller is a great game I wouldn't call it Quake's spiritual sequel

Yeah, maybe calling it spiritual sequel is too strong but despite Romero's opinion, to me, Painkiller is the only game that sometimes triggers this "OMG, it's Quake!" sensation so far.