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Masters of Doom
Virtual reality was the craze of the time, and Doom offered a glimpse into what it was all about. But this innovative game did not come from any of the "big" video game developers of the time, and it was not the built by a large team with huge resources. Although it was the product of many people's efforts, it was primarily the creative genius of two people, both named John.
John Carmack and John Romero are names that every self-respecting Slashdot reader knows. Carmack even posts here occasionally (hi John!). Until I read this book, I knew very little about the personal life of Carmack, and I thought I probably knew too much about Romero. Like many, I have been intrigued by their successes (and failures), and was interested in learning more about what makes them tick.
Masters of Doom starts off with a chapter for each John, telling stories from their childhood that made me realize they were just typical American kids, with the same kind of problems that many of us probably had. These are important chapters, and the author repeatedly references these stories throughout the book. Although the book chronologically covers the entire lives of the two Johns, most of the book details their working years, from their time at Softdisk until now.
This is where the book was most interesting to me. The details of the camaraderie that existed among the team made me feel like I was there. The author got a lot of his information from personal interviews with people, and it really shows in his writing style. First-person accounts are woven together so you get to know what each person was thinking while the story plays out. For instance when the id team met with Sierra On-Line in 1992, you get first-person impressions from both sides of the meeting, giving the reader a lot of insight that you would ordinarily never get.
For me, the book's climax was during the initial releases of Doom, when huge checks were pouring in. Things were going really well for the team at this point, and the book describes things like John C. and John R. dropping off a check for five million dollars at the bank's drive-through, while riding in one of their Ferraris. Although things were looking great for the team at this time, the future really held turmoil and disappointment.
The only negative comment I have about this book is not really a criticism of the book itself, or even the author. I believe the story was accurate, and while it didn't have any shocking new information, it left me feeling sad to see such a powerful combination of talent break apart because of personality conflict, and sad at the thought that Carmack seemed to be losing interest in id Software. The book does mention Carmack's current interests in rocketry (which are even more exciting to me than his games), and Romero seems to have settled into a life he is enjoying, but the mood of the book seemed very depressing to me in the end.
Anyone who is a gamer or a self-taught programmer like Carmack and Romero would enjoy this book. The book does not require the reader to know much about games or computer programming, but I suspect it might be uninteresting to people who aren't either gamers or interested in computers. To the average Slashdot reader though, I would definitely recommend this book.
You can purchase Masters of Doom from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Don't try to rewrite history! Wolf 3D and Doom were great games, but Commander Keen stunk day one.
"I believe the story was accurate, and while it didn't have any shocking new information, it left me feeling sad to see such a powerful combination of talent break apart"
It saddens me that Romero ever made Daikatana. Perhaps the greatest disaster ever witnessed by man could have been avoided.
Masters of Leisure Suit Larry!
Was reading this like going to theme park at the age of 10 and riding the tea-cups realising after about a minute that your way past the age you should be riding the tea cups?
Harder.. Better.. Faster.. Stronger
John Carmack and John Romero are names that every self-respecting Slashdot reader knows.
I'm having trouble understanding everything after the 'every' and before the 'knows.'
I feel so dirty posting this.
"Kevin reviews below David Kushner's Masters of Doom"
Slashdot editors are construction masters of sentences.
I'm still playing rouge and hack.
do you become master of your doomain?
Noone ever made a game called Daikatana. Quake 3 Arena was pulled before release when it was decided that it was just a cheap cash grab! RTCW was released without crippling bugs that made it unplayable on Radeon cards, and Doom 3 runs on mainstream hardware and was released in the first quarter of 2003.
The Johns stay together, get married, and live happily ever after!
The End.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
28.8 dial up? You call that the Good ol' days? You little whippersnappers don't know nothin' about the good ol' days.
When I was your age, all we had was seven computers in the whole world, five of them were in Nigeria, and they were connected by old loops of string. Instead of packets, you had to put a color coded ribbon on it and pull the string for 60 hours until the ribbon got to the other guy. Then he had to manually enter the data into his computer via punchcards and smoke signals, and we liked it that way!
We didn't have no fancy 3D engines, or even 2D, all we had was 1 dimensional games, lines with broken spaces in between and you had to pretend the long ones were space cowboys and the short ones were mutant trolls. It took 84 hours of processing time to draw 1 pixel, and we liked it that way!
You spoiled bratts and your instant messaging eDoom 7.0++ with real time anti-aliased bitmaps don't know nuthin about the good ol' days.
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WARNING:Slashdot karma not redeemable in the afterlife.
Teacups don't get fun until you get enough older kids in there to get it spinning so fast that nobody can move their arms to the wheel in the center anymore. As a kid they were always kinda lame, but now they're centripetally delicious.
I read the internet for the articles.
Enter the latest in Trolling techniques: "It's cheaper at Amazon!"
I guess the best reply is:
"You must be new here! We don't buy from Amazon."
My favorite snippet (paraphrasing): "It was 1991, and John Romero wanted to program in a hot new programming language called 'C'." (emphasis mine)
Way to go, amazon-associate-percentage-reaping-whore!
Obviously you have never seen the movie "Gigli" .
IDKFA
I am the master of doom.
0110100100100000011000010110110100100000011000100
Actually it's spelled "flour" for the cooking ingrediant there Shakespeare. Maybe you should check yourself there G...
Fellow Slashdotters, prepare to be dazzled! [walks to the front of the room] Well, as timothy already mentioned, the name of the book that I read was Masters of Doom. It's about these... [describing the book jacket] games developers. Games developes... with patches over their code... and... shiny red ferraris... and long goofy hair on their shoulders... [pause] Did I mention this book was written by a guy named David Kushner? And published by the good people at Random House. So, in conclusion, on the timothy scale of one to ten, ten being the highest, one being the lowest, and five being average, I give this book... a nine. Any questions? [hands go up] Nope? Then I'll just sit down.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
And you're so excited about the Amazon Associates commission that you put five exclamation marks in your subject and post!!!!!
Joe
http://www.joegrossberg.com
[Grammar Nazi = ON] Less is used for amounts of a continuous stuff, fewer is for discrete items or people. For instance, you would use less flower in the next batch of brownies to serve fewer people. If you can count them, use fewer. [/Grammar Nazi]
[Grammar Nazi = ON]
Flower is used when describing a things that are planted in the group with stems and petals. Flour is used as a baking ingredient, often in brownies.
[/Grammar Nazi]
[Spelling Nazi = ON]
Unless you're making "magic brownies", you'd probably using more flour instead of flowers.
For instance, you would use less flower in the next batch of brownies
I make my brownies with flour. Yours must taste pretty funny. Do you use the stems too?
Apparently grammar nazis don't pay attention to such trivialities as homophones.
Damn, and I thought all those "Make money trolling on slashdot" spams were a shuck!
"...Is there a reason we can't say FPS?..."
Yes. The reason is that there are no vowels.
There arises from a bad and unapt formation of words a wonderful obstruction to the mind. (Francis Bacon)
Did violence exist before doom?
Certainly not! The Brady Bunch? That's how things went down before the age of doom!
Was our society less corrupt before doom?
How could you even ask such a stupid question? The mere concept of corruption was introduced with doom. The concept of piracy didn't come until doom 2, though. I fear for what doom 3 will bring.
Does simulating an sinful act constitute a sinful act?
Most definately.
If so then does playing the part of a murderer in a play constitute a sin, or does it depend on your intentions?
Not at all, a play is sofisticated, and does not in any way provoke violence, it rather introduces the viewer of other cultures, thus playing in one is an act for which you will be rewarded when you go to heaven.
Errhm... I think we're going off topic here...
------- I fumbled my registration and I now must suffer