John Roadie Interview with Jay Wilbur
This comes from a file called idtalk.zip, which also contains
.voc audio portions of the interview.
ID_Talk: A Transcript of Id_Jay's talk show appearance on KLIF, AM 570 in Dallas TX.
The interviewer's name is John Roadie, and Id_Jay was on for about 1 hour.
This has been paraphrased in parts because I didn't feel like typing
useless info that we already know, but the content as a whole is more or
less complete. A WAV of two of the calls is also available as ID_TALKW.ZIP.
Re_hi to Kluster, Creeper, Devious, Deviant, Lotlhwl, BenJos (congrats on the marriage!),
Riana, Rob, Munchkin, DrWu, O-Sensei, Hardball, Hemp, FragMe, and everyone else!
-Zaphod-
(I better get ops for this!! )
Begin: Interview, 2pm CST, 9/15/94
[Roadie briefly describes what Doom is all about, accompanied by sound effects]
[Roadie] They tell me Oct 10th is "Doomsday!"
[Id_Jay] That is correct, that's the day that Doom ][, the sequel
to Doom, hits the streets.
[Roadie] Man, you have got to be pretty proud of yourselves there.
[Id_Jay] (Describes Wolf 3d, Comm Keen, etc.)
...And the success of Doom is pretty well off the scale!
[Roadie] (describes the shareware concept)
[Id_Jay] (Talks about how Ep 1 is free, 2&3 are for sale)
(Plugs 1-800-IDGAMES to order a copy)
[Roadie] But you're not doing that with Doom ][ this time?
[Id_Jay] Correct, thats a part of the big "method to our madness" plan.
All of our games we release a shareware version, a reg version,
and a sequel into the marketplace. (Describes SOD, etc.)
[Roadie] (Babbles awhile about how you can buy the shareware version
if you have no modem, etc. Finally..)
Have you gotten complaints Jay, that this game is just too
darned violent?
[Id_Jay] Actually, no! The only time that comes up is in response
to the press, asking about our reaction to the rating system.
[Roadie] And what do you think about the rating system?
[Id_Jay] We support it! We feel that providing the consumer with information
to make a good decision is a good thing. Now when the rating
system crosses the line of censorship, now that is bad.
[Roadie] Are there disclaimers? Etc?
[Id_Jay] Describes the File_ID.Diz file
[Roadie] You guys are creative geniuses with the technology, but isnt
there another way to use the technology? Isnt there another
scenario, a less violent one, you could have used?
[Id_Jay] Of course. But, just the background of id Software, we are
game players. We write the games _we_ want to play. And,
Doom is the game we wanna play. We would not want to play
an educational game, we are all pretty well educated. We
wanna play Doom! And luckily, everyone else seems to want
to play Doom as well.
[Roadie] They sure do! Now how has this affected your corporate culture
at id? You are still located in Mesquite, but nobody over there
wears a suit, do they?
[Id_Jay] No! Shorts and T-Shirts.. Rarely socks. We're a fun-loving bunch
of guys!
[Roadie] Kinda like the 'Ben & Jerry' of software right? (<--Moron)
[Id_Jay] I guess so...Yeah!
[Roadie] (Again plugs Oct 10th...Doomsday..Sheesh!)
Now what can we expect in Doom ][?
[Id_Jay] Quickly it's bigger, better, and badder then Doom. Technically
it's the same technology, but with updated content.
(Describes new enemies, nothing we dont know already)
[Roadie] (Chuckles like a moron as Id_Jay describes them)
interesting stuff. Now, I asked this last time
you were on (??) : No Macitosh platform yet?
[Id_Jay] Not as of yet. you'll be happy to note that we
are working out the paperwork with Lion Entertainment
in Austin TX to do the Macintosh port.
[Roadie] Do you see any problems with porting the code?
[Id_Jay] Actually, John Carmack, who is the technical "guru"
here, actually wrote the code so that it would be
highly portable. It will be a challenge, it won't
be easy, but it won't be _extremely_ difficult.
Currently in the works are a port to the Atari Jaguar,
Sega 32x, we are working out some stuff with Nintendo
for the ultra 64 platform, through Williams entertainment,
beleive me - if there's a 64-bit platform out there,
they've talked to us.
[Roadie] Now comment a bit on the Internet. There's actually
a newsgroup out there, "Alt.Doom" is it? (Idiot)
[Id_Jay] Alt.Games.Doom. There are very few games that have
their OWN newsgroup, and from my understanding it's
one of the busiest.
[Roadie] Last I saw, 1200 messages. (Like he's ever been on)
[Id_Jay] That was probably a slow day.
[Roadie] The #1 complaint on there; Eveybody wants Doom ][!
Now you guys are marketing geniuses...
(Proceeds to mention hint book and cheat codes)
[Id_Jay] Right, it outlines every single bit of the game; it
gives you a fighting chance. At least it gives me
one, I'm not that good at Doom! (!!)
[Roadie] We're getting lotsa calls here, lets take a few,
here is [caller #1]
[caller#1] (Cant get Doom to run...Turns out he's running under
Windows)
[Id_Jay] (Politely explains why he shouldnt run Windows with Doom)
[Roadie] (Suggests a clean boot)
[caller#1] Yeah, but then I can't use my mouse (Geez!!!!!!)
After you play keyboard for awhile, yer arms start to hurt!
(BUahahahahaha! Can you believe this guy actually
got Doom to run at all?)
[Id_Jay] (Describes how to load the mouse driver. He has more
patience than me. Finally gives him the help #.)
[Roadie] Ok, (Plays Doom awhile) back to the phones...
[caller#2] Hey, I'm really impressed with Doom. Now, I've got
about a million wadfiles for it.
[Id_Jay] Cool!
[Roadie] Wadfiles are audio, now, right? (/kick Roadie :)
[caller#2] Actually, they're like levels.
[Id_Jay] Additional levels created by users and passed amongst
each other for free.
[caller#2] Right. I was wondering, will Doom ][ be able to
use external wadfiles?
[Id_jay] Yes. The level editors that have been created by our
level-editing friends will need to be modified to use
the new textures in Doom][, and you will need new
(Doom][-specific) wadfiles, but indeed the feature does
remain.
[caller#3] Any news on a Doom III?
[Id_Jay] Unlikely. We will stop development on Doom, and devote our
efforts to the next great Id software product.
[caller#3] One more Q: What about all the competition? (System
Shock, etc.)
[Id_Jay] As there were Wolf-Alikes for Wofl3d, there will be Doom
alikes for Doom. Frankly, we're flattered.
[Roadie] Now, theres...umm..some kind of..a tournament.. Somewhere
in Austin somewhere??
[Id_Jay] Correct..(Describes the AVG tourney)
[Roadie] Now one of the things a lot of people may not know about
Doom is that it's a NET-WORK-A-BLE (says this very slowly)
game in that if you have a modem, and a buddy across town
also had Doom and a modem, you could play. Is that right?
(Duhhhhhhh)
[Id_Jay] That's correct. It's 2 players modem to modem, 4 on a network.
Some friends on the internet actually designed a driver for
TCP/IP, and yesterday I tested it by playing someone in
Australia over the Internet.
[Roadie] So how did you do that? You like, boot up Doom and then get on
the internet at the same time?
[Id_Jay] (Explains how the internet works to Roadie. Sheesh.)
"There's this little wire that goes into the computer..."
[Roadie] We got [Bitch#1] here in Keller TX...
(The next two segments are recorded as a WAV, and will not be typed for that reason)
[caller #4] (Asks how to learn game programming)
[Id_Jay] (Explains that he is the "bix guy" and that id's programmers
learned from the "school of hard knocks." Learning by doing.)
[caller #4] Are the Ferraris still rolling in?
[Id Jay] (Describes who has what Ferrari, plus Adrians Viper)
[Roadie] (AGAIN plugs Doomsday.) What's the retail on that Jay?
[Id_Jay] Suggested $55.
[Roadie] WHOA! $55!
[Id_Jay] Youll probably find it on the street for $39-$45.
[Roadie] Do you have a count of how many units youve sold?
[Id_Jay] Of Doom ][?
[Roadie] No, Doom i.
[Id_Jay] Over 100,000 sold worldwide. We have an industry-accepted
registration rate of 1%, which, doing the math the other
way shows us to have about 10 million users playing epsiode
one.
[Roadie] Just imagine all the people who bootlegged it.
[Id_Jay] (laughs) Yeah.
[Roadie] Then the numbers go crazy!... (Tactful, Roadie.)
We got [caller#5 on the phone..]
[caller#5] (Greets, compliments the game)
(Asks about WinDOOM)
[Id_Jay] We hope to have it out by Christmas. It is being developed
by MS in coordination with us, it's looking good, it's
target of course is CHiacgo, but it will work using Win32s.
It's looking HOT.
[Roadie] (Explains what Chicago is)
[caller#5] Will you include a shareware version of WinDOOM?
[Id_Jay] Absolutely! WinDOOM will show up on the nets, just like
Doom. In fact, we will likely distribute an executable
that you just throw in your DOom dir to update.
[Roadie] Now we got [caller#6]
[caller#6] For those of us with cart-based systems, will we see Doom?
[Id_Jay] No, with the exception of the Jaguar. The SNES does not
have the horsepower.
[caller#6] And 64 bit systems?
[Id_Jay] Absolutley. We are working with pretty much all of them
on bringing a version of Doom to thier platform. The Jag
and Sega 32x versions should be out by Xmastime. All
others are strictly in discussion.
[caller#7] Just curious about a CD Rom version.
[Id_Jay] We hope to have Doom 1 pressed to CD by Christmas. Doom ][
comes in a variety of flavors, either floppy or the CD
version. The CD version allows you to either install from
the CD or play directly from it, depending on your hardware
setup.
I've got a 2x drive on a Pentium, and it flies. (From CD)
With a 4x or 3x and a 486, it might just perform adequately,
it depends on the users tastes.
[Roadie] There are some lagtimes when accessing sounds, etc right?
[Id_Jay] Oh, yes sir.
[caller#7] How about a CD Rom for Wolf3d?
[Id_Jay] Unlikely. Wolf is finished. If you havent seem Doom yet, you
really should pick up a copy - It really...puts Wolf to shame.
It's AWESOME.
[caller#7] My kids may have it, I don't know....
[Roadie] (Plugs again, gives us caller#8 on a car phone)
[caller#8] (Asks about his AMD 40mhz, says he can't play Doom)
[Id_Jay] If it's 100% Intel-compatible, it should work. This is
the first I;ve heard of problems...Perhaps its something
other than the chip?
[Roadie] (Mentions hint book and helpline, gives us caller#9)
[caller#9] I too have an AMD 40mhz, and Doom kills on it!
[Id_Jay] Great! I do think it's something other than the chip.
[caller#9] What I am calling about is running Doom under Chicago,
which is now titled Windows '95.
(Apparantly works for MS or something, discusses Win95
and ram, etc.)
Running Doom under Win95: It is SO smooth, guys...
[Id_Jay] Have you recieved a copy of WinDOOM?
[caller#9] No, I havent.
[Id_Jay] I've neglected to run the Dos version under Win95, Ive
always run the WinDOOM version.
[caller#9] Its really...WOW.
[Roadie] (Exits call)
Now Doom][...is it more violent than Doom?
[Id_Jay] Equally as violent.
[Roadie] Good answer. (Gives us [caller#10])
[caller#10] (Asks if Doom's strafe mode can be used in Wolf3d)
[Id_Jay] No, the project is locked away, and futher work is unlikely.
[caller#11] Is there plans for Doom][ for OS/2?
[Id_jay] Yes sir, glad you asked. Look for a platform specfic
PM version of DOom][, hopefully by Xmas. It will be
native to OS/2, and will erase the problems OS/2 users
currently have running Doom.
[caller#12] (Asks about the future of the industry, where it's headed)
[Id_Jay] I firmly believe that multi-player is where it's at.
In the next say, 4 years, if your game does not support
multi-play, it's not going to make it. Who will rise to
the top? Not naming names, but those who implement
multi-player NOW will have the advantage.
[caller#13] I'd like to pass on a big round of applause from UNT.
(YEAH!!!!!!! My school!!!!)
#2, I'm an internet surfer myself, and there's a lot
of talk about a new gaem from Id called Quake. Can you
expand on the format of this game?
[Id_Jay] Excellent question. At this point, Quake is still in
concept. Its hard for me to say anything, because if
I told you ten things now, 9 of them would be lies
tomorrow. Let's just say that Quake will be to Doom
what Doom was to Wolf.
John Carmack does not make minor improvemnts to an
engine and call it the next big thing. He locks away
the old code and begins completely from scratch. Every
single time. It will be a COMPLETE overhaul. We have a
lot of great ideas, but I'd rather not say anything for fear
of building expectations that may or may not come true.
[Roadie] (Plugs again, thanks Jay, and the interview ends.)
As I said, this is NOT verbatim. But it is a very accurate summary of what went on with
Jay's talk radio appearance this afternoon.
-@Zaphod-