Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Quake First Person Shooters (Games)

How Doom got its Name (from John Carmack interview) 97

Posted by CmdrTaco from the amusing-anecdotes dept.
Yumpee writes "DOOMWorld interviewed John Carmack recently. The site itself is a bit sluggish but Blue's News had this snippet on how Doom got its name: Carmack: There is a scene in "The Color of Money" where Tom Cruise shows up at a pool hall with a custom pool cue in a case. "What do you have in there?" asks someone. "Doom." replied Cruise with a cocky grin. That, and the resulting carnage, was how I viewed us springing the game on the industry. "
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

How Doom got its Name (from John Carmack interview) More

How Doom got its Name (from John Carmack interview)

Comments Filter:

  • Doom! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Man I wish they would re-do doom and use the Quake3 engine for it. Doom brings back alot of memories. Doom made you want to go out and buy a 486 :) Anyway rock on ID!
    Natas
    Like industrial music?
    http://www.amp3.net/viewsongs.html?artistid=524 or http://www.mp3.com/pedophagia

  • DOOM (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I remember downloading DOOM from a local "warez" BBS and being completely blown away. DOOM was the only reason I upgraded my 386/33 to a 486DX2/66. Hilarious! Come to think of it, every single PC upgrade has been due to a new ID game...

  • doom on the bottom of the world (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward


    True Story:

    Once upon a time there was an antarctic research station totally addicted to Doom.

    The staff only had the shareware version and after a few evening of play the game was shelved.

    When the station "closed" for the winter, rules relaxed and some bright soul figured out how to get the multiplayer game working on the Novel Network. After some lackluster attempts at cooperative mode, someone with a darkside suggested deathmatch and then the fun really began.

    A core group of people with little in common would spend hours every evening relaxing and virtually killing each other.

    Over the years I've often wondered if such passtimes would be a good way to releive tensions in other situations where people are confined. Perhaps doom/quake should be investigated as mandatory fair for other remote research stations, space stations, mars missions, or prisons.

    After endless hours of fraging the gamers thought to expand their horizons by getting the full retail version.

    One problem: No mail could be sent in or out of the station for months.

    One "Beaker" made inquiries to ID regarding the possibility of paying for the game with a credit card provided that ID could FTP a copy to us.

    ID (American) responded by GIVING us Doom2.

    The real gift was not the game, but the time they spent trying to stuff those megabytes through a cranky satellite link.

    This was truely an act of good-will. ID never used it for publicity, and expected nothing in return.

    Sigh.

    The good ole days.....



  • Doom! (Score:1)

    by Matrix ( 290 )
    Cool as that would be, I think I'd prefer Wolfenstein 3D done up with a new engine. Man, that game kept me entertained for so long. It's still one of my favorite games (I just bought Wolf3D+SOD for about $15, definitely worth it even if I do have to use DOSemu). Not that I wouldn't like to see an updated DOOM, but Wolf3D is where my heart is.. :)
  • Man, I never wanted to think that the all time game of games (and Doom really was, no matter how far Quake has taken the idea since) was named after a line delivered by Tom Cruise...

    ----

  • ROTT was the only game I ever lost a _lot_ of sleep over - because I was up, playing it over the modem with a friend of mine. Truly, that was (and is!) one of the best multiplayer games ever.
  • Technically, it's "not allowed to", not "can't". Such a Quake TC exists, available from any moderately disreputable mod site.

  • Quake is the codename of an entity sending stuff to attack Earth (again). The entire plot of Quake is a half-page in the CD-sized manual.

  • Posted by Julian Cross:

    Yes! This is my favorite game ever. I loved Doom and all but System Shock was the only game that ever completely sucked me into its plot and took over my life until I finished it. It did have a small but fervent following but overall didn't get the glory it deserved.

    Now System Shock 2 is in the works... hopefully they won't mess too much with the original combination of FPS, RPG and sci-fi storytelling that made the original so amazing.
  • Posted by pawt:

    As I was reading all of these posts, I remembered that I had won a copy of The Ultimate Doom a long time ago. I went on a little quest and found my cd, I now have hours of fun ahead of me!

    -Scott
  • Posted by rcdc:

    The Wall of Science. It has been a long time since I've heard or seen a reference from Firesign Theater...You must be old...just kidding. I loved Doom and did not play it untill Doom2 and it took me a long time to like Quake or Quake II. I still like Quake the best. The music and sound give it a "bad dream" quality that gives me goose bumps. If you know of any where to get a hold of any Firesign Theatre or Phil Austin give me a shout...Thanks

  • >/.++->:)

    Do you mean, by your sig, that the enhanced Slashdot is should be called /.++ ?

    I like it.

    -Ben
  • I tried System Shock. Hated it. It was technologically advance compaired to DOOM but just bored me to death.

    But hey, some like Coke and some like Pepsi.
  • Half-Life is the only post-Quake game (IMO) to create the same atmosphere as DOOM (at least until Xen where I lost interest).

    As for DOOM era games my favorite non-DOOM FPS game would have to be Dark Forces. Damned fine game.
  • I remember that period very well.

    Way back in fall of 1993 temnsions were running very high in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action as DOOM was running late and everyone (at least quite a few of us) was frothing at the mouth waiting for it to come out.

    The number of DOOM related posts were starting to down out the posts for all other games combined. Someone made the comment that DOOM would not have the high buzz factor if it had a dorky name like "Spashing Pumpkins Into Small Piles of Putrid Debris".

    A spark hit the gasoline. Withing hours posts began flying around about this new game referred to as SPISPOPD that was to DOOM what the atmoic bomb was to a sharp stick. The descriptions ranged from fully 3D Quake-like worlds with ruby and neon lasers to how to beat Linus Van Pelt (Peanuts), herald of The Great Pumpkin.

    Seth Cohn created the "Official SPISPOPD FAQ" filled with many of these posts and the history of Ego Software. I have a copy of the FAQ around here somewhare...

    The guys at id head all the SPISPOPD hubbub and Dave "DDT" Taylor wrote named the no-clipping cheat "idspispopd" (later changed to "idclip" in DOOM2).

    After DOOM was released Jamul Software (two guys in a college dorm room) wrote an Atari 2600ish top down game called SPISPOPD in about 48 hours. It was nothing like the Legendary SPISPOPD but it was very fun.

  • One one hand it is too bad they didn't go by the original workingt title: "It's Green And It's Pissed". On the other hand "DOOM" is a real catchy name that sums up the entire game.

    Quake and it's offspring, cousins and ripoffs may have more technologically advanced engines but DOOM had gameplay and atmosphere. DOOM is the only game ever to scare me. I don't ever remember trying to peak around a corner in a room by staring into a moniter at an angle in Quake, Quake 2, Unreal, Half-Life, etc.. like I did in DOOM.
  • Doom was, and still is, the only game I've ever played that made me feel pure terror.

    I think id must have stumbled into this, because Quake and Quake 2 do not have the level of immersion that Doom has.

    There are some goofy things about Doom, like running 200 mph with your head bobbing 10 feet vertically, but it's still the only game that I've played that makes me feel like I've actually been in the levels, and not just played through them.

    I hope id eventually figures out how to do this again.

    TedC

  • I would have thought that halflife might have knocked some sense into them, but I guess not.

    I think it was Half Life and Unreal that caused them to change direction to multiplayer only games. Both Half Life and Unreal took forever to finish, and it doesn't really make sense for a small technology company like id to be working on such a huge project.

    TedC

  • Doom 2000 (Score:2)

    by TedC ( 967 )
    There have been hints of a game called 'Doom 2000' being the next thing that Id Software creates after Quake 3.

    I read a few months ago (on Blue's or Redwood's, probably) that id registered the doom2000.com domain name, so obviously they're seriously thinking about it.

    I'd like to see a true 3D cyberdeamon; I still get that rush of terror when I hear the first roar. :-)

    TedC

  • Hehe. I remember getting the first version of doom and trying to play it on my 386DX/33 with 5 megs of RAM... it worked but was very very slow. Boy was I amazed when I got a 486/66! Doom flew on that box. ;-)
  • Anyone else ever get addicted to multiplayer Duke Nukem 3D? :-)
  • ID registers ANY domain that might lead to situations that might suck for them down the road.

    I remember reading about a talk Carmack was giving, and in it, he started to shoot off names of ideas (I think one of them was Quake 3: Arena), and one of the other employees rushed off right there and then to register the domain.

  • Doom! (Score:2)

    by Sludge ( 1234 )
    There have been hints of a game called 'Doom 2000' being the next thing that Id Software creates after Quake 3.
  • "Doom" at least makes sense - I mean, it has foreboding implications that fit in well with the game. I never heard where the name "Quake" came from, though. It doesn't fit in anyway I can see.
  • Remember that big round pie faced thing that floated around. Damm... that scared the crap out of me. I was having nightmares about that thing.

    Walking down that long hallway and seeing one of those things flying out after you! That is enough to make you stop playing the game.

  • Supposedly one of the player models in Q3A is the Doom Marine. That should be cool.
  • GLDoom is quite enjoyable, but the antialiasing makes the old blocky sprites look kinda funky. The only problem I had was finding my old Doom/Doom 2 WAD files...
  • Now that would kick ass...

    aieeee!
  • You're correct:
    bash# whois doom2000.com
    [rs.internic.net]

    Registrant:
    id Software (DOOM17-DOM)
    18601 LBJ Freeway, Suite 615
    Mesquite, TX 75150
    US

    Domain Name: DOOM2000.COM

    Administrative Contact:
    Hollenshead, Todd (TH5651) toddh@IDSOFTWARE.COM
    972-613-3589 (FAX) 972-686-9288
    Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
    Cash, John (JC2447) jcash@IDSOFTWARE.COM
    (972)613-3589 (FAX) (972)686-9288
    Billing Contact:
    Hollenshead, Todd (TH5651) toddh@IDSOFTWARE.COM
    972-613-3589 (FAX) 972-686-9288

    Record last updated on 24-Jul-98.
    Record created on 24-Jul-98.
    Database last updated on 3-Apr-99 21:42:11 EDT.

    Domain servers in listed order:

    SATAN.IDSOFTWARE.COM 192.246.40.37
    NS1.NTR.NET 206.112.1.1
    ASTI.NTR.NET 206.112.1.2


    --

  • I had a lot more fun playing Wolfenstein than I did playing DOOM. Maybe it's because I was younger, maybe because Wolfenstein was the first of its kind and it was all so new to me. But I don't think so.

    I think Wolfenstein was simply a better game. I'm not sure what the difference is, but when I played Wolfenstein, I was on edge. There were periods of slight nervousness, ended abruptly by a single gunshot that made me jump in my seat, followed by a fit of sheer panic: "Where the fuck is he!?". I'm sure a lot of you know exactly what I'm talking about.

    DOOM never gave me that feeling. Quake brought back a little of it, but not enough.

    I think the later games just got too big. Bigger monsters and bigger guns translated to bigger health packs and stronger armour. In DOOM(2) you're plodding along waiting for a target worthy of the BGF because using it is a treat. In Wolfenstein you're just trying to stay alive.
    --

  • I loved the game, but I couldn't stick with it 'cause it made me nauseous! DOOM cured that with the 'bouncing' gun effect. I'd love to know how they came up with that...

  • Actually, back when ID was making sidescrollers like Commander Keen, "Quake" was the name of a roleplaying game that they were working on that was always about to appear Real Soon Now, but never did. I guess when they realized that the RPG was never going to be finished they recycled the name.
  • I had lots of fun playing Wolf3d but I would always eventually get nauseated (sp?). I think
    it was because my _intentions_ to turn did not
    correspond to how fast I could turn my character in the game. This was fixed when I started using
    the mouse as the controller.

    Anyways, I felt Doom I/II captivated me even more. Especially the sound of triggering the Cyberdemon. And the level designs amazed me.

    Just my different personal opinion.
  • the shareware game was made AFTER the rumors about them calling it spispopd were around a bit. someone decided itd be cool to actually make the game.
  • >Remember that big round pie faced thing that >floated around. Damm... that scared the crap out >of me. I was having nightmares about that thing.

    That would be a Cacodemon. It was about the time that I had a dream about Doom in which I tried to kill one by jumping up and down on it (note: I am not the slimmest person in the world so this might just have been effective) that I wondered if I mightn't be getting obsessed and if I should give it a break for a while... :-)
  • I think that you are confused. The Playstation 2 will not RUN Linux. The games CAN be developed on Linux and then cross compiled to the Playstation 2 hardware.

  • For a scary game try System Shock...blows DOOM
    away on that front IMO. DOS only unfortunately.
  • Which game was it (quake or doom) that was rumored to be called Smashing Pumpkins Into Small Pieces of Putrid Debris?

    I think it ended up being the noclip cheat in one of the games.

  • Same here. Everyone says doom is outdated. Who cares if you can't jump? No game has touched doom (on the computer anyway) and probably no game will.
  • Seems like they don't care about 1st person anymore. Q3 is only multiplayer. I hope it bombs terribly. They need to get off of their asses and make a new game. I would have thought that halflife might have knocked some sense into them, but I guess not.
  • Drunk missiles! Yeah!

    Was that an eyeball that just flew past me?

    "Where are you?" "Over here."
    "Behind ya!"
  • WOW. didn't eidos make that? Have you been able to get it running in linux at all? either wine or source (which I doubt is out)


    great game@#$ =]

  • I dunno. I was completely addicted to Wolfenstein, also, but I loved Doom/DoomII. Quake single-player did very little for me after the initial rush of "true" 3d (versus Doom's 2.5d). Even deathmatch wasn't all that fun (I'm no god). But I was instantly addicted to Capture-the-Flag and subsequently to Team Fortress. It's all about certain styles of gameplay.

    Wolf was much more of an arcade game. Nazis hiding behind columns wasn't very realistic -- exciting, perhaps, but not realistic. Doom's AI made things a bit more interesting but you could still figure out the patterns after a while and outmaneuver even the scary boss barons. That makes it more of a maneuvering-skills test than a mental game. Deathmatch, and for different styles, Team Fortress, are games for the mind.
  • Yes, even though I hate most things Macintosh, I must say that even the first Marathon was a big step above DOOM. DOOM only had 2.5 dimensions. surely you all remember the ludicrous image of firing a missle and having it amazingly decide to slope up three stories to hit a monster above you when you had just shot it at the wall? And Marathon actually has a plot, a SciFi story behind it. Oh yea, and it uses a palette that has more than brown and red on it. Can't say that for any of the DOOM or Quake games.
  • I usually destest 'me, too' posts, but I just have to echo the sentiments in this thread. Doom was, and still is, the only game I've ever played that made me feel pure terror. I haven't played in a long time, but I can still cleary hear that frightening shredding noise that meant I was about to die a horrible death at the hands of imps I would never see.

    I'm into flight sims lately and I love 'em, but I can't say I've ever felt the same shivers up my spine, or have my hair stand on end when frantically trying to evade enemy SAMs like I did walking those dark halls of DOOM and just feeling an immense dread before opening that next door because I only had five shotgun shells left.
  • I just thought I'd jump in and say that
    while I disagree strongly with ESR's advice
    to young hackers about choosing a boring
    handle, I do think that it's a really really
    really good idea to avoid a name that someone
    else is going to use for a video game some day.


  • Yeah, I agree single player marathon was a picnic, but we had some really kick-ass multiplayer guys at school on our lan
    That's where I learned the importance of zig-zagging while running to avoid being missiled form 3 locations at once!
    Of course, I sucked compared to them, but it was a rush anyway.
    // Half Life Uplink nearly made me piss my pants
    ...and I have to run in 500 x 400 or somesuch rez cuz I traded my voodoo for a stack of burned CDs...
  • Staying up late on my friend's HOT 486 blasting Nazis...Doom just seemed like the same thing with diff skins at the time. Now, multiplayer Marathon, that was an experience! I had to take a break when I started having nightmares about napalming my family.
  • Good game, but for the life of me, I can't figure out how to kill those sandworms! I've got tons of sonic tanks, I'm watching my harvesters like a hawk, and I'm on the 7th mission of House Atreides. Is there a way to-...? Oh wait, did you say Doom 2000? Oops, never mind.


    Skevin

    "...Be warned that some creatures, like WinMinions, are not only powerful, but also malicious, and will continue to attack dead characters who gave them a hard time to prevent them from coming back. Such creatures are more concerned with forcing you to spend money than with their own personal safety(just like real executives who live in Redmond)."
    -Players Guide excerpt from Redmond, a computer RPG I'm writing

  • Well, on the Generations message board it says they took their files down yesterday. Apparently the latest beta was buggy, and they took the one before that down too (even though it worked fine.)
  • As long as we're being petty...
    Marathon was slow, without the rush or adrenaline that DooM had, and never had the saturation that DooM had because it was released on a Mac platform. Not to disparage the Mac itself, but that the game wasn't doing itself any favors by being a Mac release without a dual PC release, though I think a later Marathon game was also a PC title.

    On comparison, I believe that the Mac always had a richer color palette than a PC, because it always had access to more colors and a better color range. We're talking about an era when 256 colors was hot stuff on a PC, where the Mac had a choice between thousands and millions of colors available to them. And which iD game has ever strayed from browns and reds? And succeeds despite it?

    The DooM phenomenon is about visceral thrill, adrenaline, and apprehension, where a plot, story, and advanced graphics add little to the game. If you're not into those aspects, then obvisouly DooM will not appeal to you as much as, say, Alone in the Dark, or Half Life, or many other Lucas Arts games.

    AS
  • YES!

    I thought I was the only one that remembered hearing about that! It sounded pretty kick ass, but I guess technical / time constraints made Quake was it is today.
  • Or is that what Half-Life is?
  • >Well, ya wanna know where they got the logo for doom? They ripped it off from the English
    >hardcore band DOOM, which was around from the 1980's. Ask any punk!

    As if punks don't need another reason to say "yeah, I was there when it was cool, in fact I was one of the first people to see doom in concert in their mother's garage." (or something to that extent)

    Elitist bastards. :)

    -Chris

  • quake (Score:1)

    by t0ast ( 22382 )
    Makes me wonder how they named Quake... did someone let a ripper fart off or something? :)

  • there is a chainsaw in q3a.
  • He sure got that right! Man, I loved that game. Quake and Quake2 are both superb games in their own right, but DOOM gave me nightmares and dumped me out of my computer chair many times.
  • So if the name of the game came from what was in the case why isn't the "BFG" called the "Balabushka"?
  • Back in the Doom days, when they talked about Quake, they talked about a real-physics universe where the player is basically Thor and the main weapon is the hammer.

    I remember in particular one line about how you were going to be able to knock someone down and then go over and kick the s**t out of him while he was down.

    It was like Daikatana, really, in that it revolved around this one apparently primitive weapon that gained power. I think you were supposed to be able to cause local earthquakes with the hammer and open up cracks in the ground or something like that.
  • I remember running Doom on my NeXTstation '040. 2-bit greyscale made it hard to even see the keys or monsters. No audio at all made it even harder to play. But the kicker was that it only ran at about 4 FPS.

    But I -had- to play it, since it was developed on the NeXT platform, and I was a NeXT zealot at the time.


  • I don't ever remember trying to peak around a corner in a room by staring into a moniter at an angle in Quake, Quake 2, Unreal, Half-Life, etc.. like I did in DOOM.

    ...or falling off my chair while trying to dodge incoming fireballs.

    Ahh... those were days.

    ;-)

    --

  • if there was *ever* a killer app for the Gravis UltraSound, Doom was it... that E1M1's music was outstanding on a GUS MAX),

    Doom and Star Control 2 vied very closely for that title. Every few weeks, the theme music for the Ur-Quan (Kzer-Za) floats into my head, and it still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

  • Amazing. I didn't see this series on Doom until today because my son and I have been *playing* Doom all weekend.

    It's still a *great* game. The more so because it can be played multiplayer. Sometimes my wife even joins in! The only other "shoot them up" game she would play was "The Wizard of Wor" on the old Atari because it could be played multiplayer too.
  • There were many days when I would close my eyes to go to bed and run through Marathon levels in my head. And I'm not talking about planning what to do, I'm talking going through the levels as if it were me. All my friends had the same experiance. I even have a theory as to why this happens. My guess is that games like Marathon are so intense that you mind doesn't have the time to process all the visual info. Then when you close your eyes at night, everything comes back to haunt you as you mind finnally gets a chance to play catch up. Marathon ruled b/c it had something that doom lacked: a plot that made you just have to beat one more level before bed. I miss those days, and don't even get me started on Marathon 2/infinity.
  • Thats a better reason for upgrade than most people, they usually have to do it coz Micro$oft Bloatware demands it...
  • Let me guess, your first computer was a Pentium and you're too young to really remember the original release of Doom, right?

    Half-life is a nice game, that is true, but you are comparing a Model T Ford to a Ferrari F50 - both revolutionary in their respective era, but head to head - no fair contest!

    Imagine trying to run HL on your 486sx-25, with 4Mb RAM, 120 Mb HDD and 512k VGA - I don't think so...
  • I remember first seeing it on a friends machine.

    I was taken aback by the quantum leap in gaming it represented - a real third dimension - the ability to totally immerse oneself into a game.

    Now I feel like one of those junkies who say they're always chasing their first "high" - everytime a new game comes out I check it out to see how cool it is, but I never get that same feeling as the day my buddy uttered those unforgettable words "Hey, check out this new game - it's called Doom!"

    I can't see the screen now - I'm all teary!!!

    John Carmack - you're the MAN!
  • Check this out, if you haven't already, it really is "Tres Cool". GLDoom!!!

    http://www.frag.com/doom/

    You need to run it under Windblows 95 or 98, but it's really worth a look.

    P.S. On a par with ttyQuake I'd say!
  • Someone deny that Dead Simple is the greatest multiplayer deathmatch map of all time :)

    I never got too into QuakeX, I mainly play shooters only with my roomates and Doom2/Duke are the most fun for us anyway. I like Duke, but I always find myself going back to Doom2, and Dead Simple is one of the main reasons.

    Kas
    --
  • ATC was absolutely brilleant! And Mr. Fisher was a humble New Zealander - not bad for one of the "colonies" (pun intended) :)
  • Marathon brings back scary memories for me. I was helping work the TypeTamer booth at MacWorld '95, and right next to us was the Bungie booth. Punky kids had 8 Macs set up running Marathon 2, with lines that stretched way out into the aisle. Marathon's hardcore techno theme was blasting full volume. Never underestimate the power of good marketing. :)

Slashdot Top Deals

Neutrinos have bad breadth.

Close