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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.
ah yes the good 'ol days, playing "Ultimate Doom" and "Heretic" on a 28.8 dialup. I miss those days :( Now you have to worry about some kidiot with an aimbot and wallhacks getting ready to AWP your ass through wall.
Pls No Negative Modding!
is that first person shooters after Doom were called "doom like" instead of "Wolfenstein3D like."
I suppose "doom" is easier to say, but it doesn't give credit to the real first, the one that opened the floodgates.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
When I was in High School my teacher knew some people over at ID and we got to alpha and beta test Doom in computer club. I remember the still monsters and walls you would fall through and the numerous crashes we would have. Even then the game was a total blast.
It was a pretty good read.
Interesting seeing how badly PCs lagged consoles in terms of gaming...the sidescrolling of Commander Keen was considered a technical breakthru, even though it started as a demo level of Mario Bros 3 as a proof-of-concept, and was basically the same thing the NES had been doing since the mid-early 80s...in fact, it was a while until PCs could play games that the C=64 and Apple II could, never mind the Amiga and Atari ST.
DOOM and, possibly to a lesser extent, Wing Commander really put the PC ahead of the consoles (at least for many genres) for a long while. I think the tide has turned now. (though YMMV depending on what genres you like--I'm just very glad not to have to worry about 3D cards and compatability and what not.)
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
I don't recall Commander Keen being cutting edge. Maybe in the PC world where scrolling was an issue. To me it seemed like a fairly second rate platform game compared with what I'd come to expect from other platforms over the preceding yeard. Talking of scrolling... I wish I could find my copy of Xenon II Megablast. I wonder if it will run at the correct speed on my more modern hardware.
The first thing that popped in my head was that it would be great to talk to either (or better both) John's about what it took to become the programmers/designers they are, how they got involved in the wave of revolutionary games, and how it changed their lives.
/. searched showed no results for either Carmack or Romero (in case such an interview has already occurred)... but perhaps it's just being buggy. As somebody who is greatly interested in such things (hell, the games are why I started coding initially) it would be great to hear straight from the "Johns" about their experiences, mistakes, and successes.
Strangely enough,
This is a great book! It is where I learned that Coleco stood for Colorado Leather Company was not a foreign name!
~insert tech sarcasm here~
Even more entertaining was the one expansion they made to ROTT where El Oscuro was not dead and you had to go at him again, only this time it was a LOT harder than the first time, which was no cake walk.
Having things like ludicrous gibs and the funny things the characters would say when they got gibs was neat too. Not to mention, the first game that let you pick a character that you wanted to play, and each character had it's unique starting stats like hitpoints, accuracy, etc.
All in all, my favorite FPS games rank like this:
1.) ROTT
2.) Blake Stone
3.) Wolfenstein 3D
4.) Doom/Heretic
ROTT gave the very first totally friendly map maker, not to mention one that would randomly generate maps you could compete with. The CD was loaded with all kinds of goodies..
Fun to look back and reflect on the time spent playing the true classics...
"I also respect more people who don't know them that people who do."
Then you respect me.
I don't give a damn about doom now or then and even less about the people who created it. I have been too busy living a real life to live in a fantasy world. I didn't know about doom ten years ago and now know only that its some kind of stupid computer game. The only thing good that came out of the computer game industry is the motivation for the development of super fast 3d graphics hardware.
I was "into" computers (professional software developer) almost 40 years ago. Long before most slashdotters were even a twinkle in their parents eyes. Likely even before some of their parents were born. Before even UNIX or its little sister, Linux was created.
Yes, there was a before Linux. The universe did not pop into existence just a few short years ago. There was even a before computers. I know, I was there.
Are there any plans to upgrade or re-issue? Can we still get the originals? Will they work on newer widows operating systems and Linux?
"Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it" Richard Feynman
Wolf3D? That was just about the most groundbreaking game I've ever seen. I remember walking into a computer store one day, and seeing this game that blew my freaking mind. Felt like a friggin' acid trip.
So are there a bunch of yougin's around here who have never played wolf? I think anyone who calls themselves a geek and never played Wolf is a poser, but that's just me. It's like required reading.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
I used to do DOOM I and II technical support. id outsourced it to a Colorado company called StarPak. For the first few days, I was doing the support practically alone, along with hundreds of other products with different companies. I'm proud to have recieved the first phone calls.
id provided an excellent knowledge base, and we were able to solve 90% of the problems people called in with. I felt really good enabling thousands of people to play this game - back then, everybody wanted to play it due to it's explosion of popularity and controversy, and people knew little about computers, just like today, with the difference that they were dealing with DOS and Win31, which was even harder for them.
I'll never forget the many times I heard kids scream "hooray!" in the background after I spent an hour on the phone with a very tired mother or father trying to make it work.
I believe that I received the first phone call ever of someone reporting motion sickness as a result of playing a video game due to the realism of 3D movement, since DOOM was the first game that had "bobbing". id thankfully had the insight to provide a switch to turn that off.
Another interesting call I recieved was from a guy who claimed to have produced (or maybe directed?) My Cousin Vinny, and said he wanted to make a movie out of DOOM. I put him in touch with id, and I'm glad nothing ever came from it. It would have made a crappy movie - the plot was a razor thin excuse to provide a setting for thousands of monsters to attack you relentlessly.
I also simultaneously operated on the 900 Hint Line. People would call up and ask the location of a particular key on a particular map. If you recall, the location of secrets was different between single player and multiplayer. We were encouraged to play the game while we worked (research! bwhaha!) and we always played multiplayer of course.
People thought it was amazing that me and my colleagues could rattle off the location of a secret on a map in single player mode while simultaneously playing multiplayer on a totally different map, all without checking the book.
Ahh, good times.
# Erik
I'm a little over halfway through the book and I've stumbled upon an interesting passage. In it, Kushner is discussing DirectX's beginnings as a tool to bring developers and games to Windows (and keep them there).
The Microsoft agenda was to make an impressive display of the new API's strengths, and the solution was to port DOS-bound Doom to Windows. John Carmack said he'd allow it (but not do the porting).
This seems to place Carmack, long an outspoken proponent of OpenGL as the superior API (for a number of reasons), as one of the reasons for DirectX's acceptence.
Is this the real deal, I wonder, or is there a palpable spin being had here?
Of course, Carmack is right to favor the open, robust and carefully oversighted OpenGL over the proprietary and hasty DirectX, but did his actions play a part in the success of DirectX?
njord
Now you have me trying to think of it, I played that game to you are talking about. I think it took place in a jungle or something. I found the shareware version at http://www.apogee1.com/keen1/
Actually I never caught why Slashdot is so anit-Amazon.com, could somone perhaps post a summary or a like to an article of the issue-in-question? And yes, I tried the search, it came up with hundreds of results which would take hours to wade through to have even a basic understanding. A concise paragraph and a link to a Slashdot article would be nice. Thanks!
'The staff in the hand of a wizard may be more than a prop for age,' -Hamá, the doorward
Ouch. I just wrote what I thought of the book in a way I thought would help people decide if they wanted to read it or not. It actually takes guts to submit something like this to /., knowing how many people will be more than willing to criticize you.
Now, if you will kindly provide your true identity, I'd be glad to refund your full purchase price you paid for this review.
If you have any constructive criticism however, I'd love to hear it.
Adventure. On a line printer. On a stolen Nebraska State Dept of Agriculture (Agnet) account at the University of Nebraska.
:)
I still have the 2 inch thick stack of printouts, complete with the occasional "who are you?" from an Agnet admin