Interview With id Software's Robert A. Duffy

LEXI writes: "Accompanying our recent first set of Q3Radiant Tutorials I had the chance to interview one of the programmers behind the editor and the new engine, Mr. Robert A. Duffy of id software. 10 questions asked, 10 answers given. Topics range from personal details, education, job description, over to the new engine and the new tools, to violence in games and George W. Bush. The English original can be found here; the German translation resides at this very spot. The interview should be interesting for as well the quake player desperately awaiting the new engine, as the fresh or old-school mapper."

Comments

What a waste of questions.

[reaper20]

As far as I understand legislation in your country, it is part of the constitution that every american citizen is allowed to wear a gun. In my opinion that is one major reason for teenage high-school killings - while claiming games like "Doom" guilty is completely ridiculous. What is your opinion?

Are you kidding me? They get a chance to ask this guy 10 questions and this is what they come up with? Anyone do any research on this?

Slightly offtopic, but I was wondering how typical non-American's view Americans concerning the second amendment? Surely people don't think we're a bunch of cowboys shooting everything in sight ala Homer Simpson.

Re:What a waste of questions.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a non-American, I can quite honestly say, "Yes, we do".

Re:What a waste of questions.

[zulux]

Surely people don't think we're a bunch of cowboys shooting everything in sight ala Homer Simpson.


Yep! I've met a lot of French people who think we're all a bunch of gun carying death-penalty xenophobes. Of course when they talk to me, they think I'm one of the rare polite Americans. It's kind fun to watch their reaction when I tell them that I'm pro 2nd ammendment, and feel we should hold criminals accountable for their actions. They just can't seem to grasp that there could be someone that holds these views and is still a decent and kind human being.

I've actually been quite sucuessfull in persuading a large quantitiy of French people that personal responsibility and personal accountability are the true choice of a Liberty seeking people.

Re:What a waste of questions.

[sunking2]

Apparently the rest of the world is as ignorant of America as they claim Americans are of the rest of the world.

Re:What a waste of questions.

[zulux]

I tend to agree with a quote I read once: "As far as I'm concerned, your French should be bowing down to America on a daily basis, thanking us for saving your butts from the Nazis, which I'm still not convinced was that great an idea in the first place."

Don't mistake the hot words of the jerk French Socialists for the true feelings of most of people of France

Native French people are honored that we, and our allies, came to their defense and helped them in their time of need. Hell, they even have a bit of their homeland to the United States as a token of their appreciation. The gravesites of Allied soldiers from WWI and WWII are lovingly cared for.

One of the most touching things I've ever seen, was in a small church near Le Puy - inside was a chapel dedicated to the American dead of WWI. Complete with fresh flowers and a vigil candle, it wasn't a show for American tourists - there hadn't been one there for years.

If you ever have the chance to go to France, do two things: Learn a small amount of French (they'll love you for it) and travel outside of Paris (it's a completly different counry).

Re:What a waste of questions.

[dgroskind]

As far as I'm concerned, your French should be bowing down to America on a daily basis..

To a large extent, America owes its independence to French assistance during the Revolution as this history attests:
Throughout the war France dealt liberally with the colonies. She had driven no hard bargain, when she promised them her aid; if it had not been for French assistance, the army of Washington would have disbanded because the states were unable or unwilling to raise the money to supply the needs of the soldiers; had it not been for the assistance of the French army and fleet, Yorktown would not have been taken.

Perhaps it is you who should be bowing down on a daily basis.

Re:What a waste of questions.

[dgroskind]

I've actually been quite sucuessfull in persuading a large quantitiy of French people that personal responsibility and personal accountability are the true choice of a Liberty seeking people

Perhaps you succeeded where Montesquieu, Voltaire, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man failed.

Perhaps they were delighted to have an American explain what their true choice should be as a libery-seeking people. After all, the French had only abolished slavery in France a mere 70 years before it was abolished in the U.S.

Perhaps the French had no paragons of personal responsibility and accountability to match Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton and thus were happy to use your humble self as a working example.

Now perhaps some of your fellow Americans could stand some similar enlightenment.

No firearms?

[WhaDaYaKnow]

Robert Duffy: Well wearing a gun and owning a gun are two very different things and neither of them have to do with any game in my opinion. The only countries I have ever seen citizens wearing guns are ones where it was illegal. I don't think to date I have seen a citizen wearing a firearm in public here in the US.

Riiiight. That's not a gun in my pocket, I'm just happy to see you.

In Case of Slashdot Effect

[long_john_stewart_mi]

In case of the Slashdot effect, here's the interview:

Interviewer: Boxers or briefs?

Robert Duffy: I'll have to keep my take on this to myself.

Interviewer: We would like to thank Robert Duffy for taking the time to answer our questions and wish both him and id software all the best for the future.

Duffy is Now With id?

[idonotexist]

I always wondered what happened with Sergeant Duffy after his roles in Infocom's Witness and Deadline...

Someone Burn me please i'm at 50 who cares....

[phunhippy]

OK i'm drunk..
No. 1... no
2. That interview is so fucking lame..
no 3. i gave credit to the editors for posting good articles.. till now...

time to puff a bong.. almost makes me sorry i gave 5 bux to slashdot after this article..

It's not far from the truth

[schmaltz]

Relative to the rest of the western world, Americans have an astronomically high number of gun deaths each year. For 1998, there were 30,708 firearm-related deaths, 11,798 of which were homicides. And this was the lowest point of a 35 year downward trend.

To contrast, the United Kingdom, which has a population of around 60 million, had 49 firearm homicides in 1998. If you scale this to the US population of about 270 million in 1998, that would still only be 217 deaths. Given this, the US has roughly 50 times the firearm-related homicides of the UK.

So it's no wonder why the rest of the world thinks Americans are gun-toting cowboys... relative to them it rings true.

Just to provide balance, the United States doesn't have the highest homicide rate in the world, just of industrialized western nations. For example, Canada's homicide rate per 100,000 is about 2 in 1997, whereas the US is 7.2, yet Mexico is 14.6.

South Americans, on the other hand, enjoy an even higher homicide rate, ranging as high as 70 per 100,000 for Columbia in 1997. But Americans don't compare themselves to "third world" nations, only to G7 nations, really.

Re:It's not far from the truth

[Saib0t]

That's pretty low considering that there's probably many more than 50 times the number of guns per capita in the US than there are in the UK.

What a weird thing you're telling. IMNSHO it's totally irrelevant that the number of weapons per capita is higher, what matters is that it cost the life of 12000 people.

With death penalty and that 2nd amendment, it's really no wonder the american stereotype is a cowboy. And look at the majority of movies you export to the rest of the world: USA are depicted as a violent country with little moral values filled by cowboys, fat people watching TV and racists. Also, this whole story of the "american dream" depicted in movies translates fpr the common people into "americans are workaholics", "corporations are ran by power-hungry, selfish, discriminating people".

If I didn't know better, I'd think that too...