Doom 3 -- An Interview with id, Part 1

The id team talks about Doom 3, Romero, Quake-con, the "hype-factor" and more. Read on for this exclusive interview!

Everyone's heard of Texas tall tales, but when the crew at Mesquite-based id Software talks, it's rarely with exaggeration -- and people listen. id CEO Todd Hollenshead, Doom 3 Lead Designer Tim Willits, and id's Director of Business Development Marty Stratton were especially candid in our interviews for the April 2004 exclusive cover story. They didn't flinch when asked whether the company has changed in the wake of violent video game scrutiny, how they felt about John Romero's legacy, how Doom 3 will measure up to Halo 2, and why they were crazy enough to mess with one of the most beloved franchises in gaming history in the first place. Enjoy part one of this exclusive interview and check back later this week for part two!

GamePro: When did Doom 3 really start development?

Marty Stratton: Right after we finished up Team Arena. John had been working on the technology before that, and Team Arena came out in the fall of 2000. Tim had been doing a lot of work on it prior to that, but I would say from an artist and designer perspective, people transitioned after that. So basically for about three years, it's been a company-wide effort.

Tim Willits: We also did some support for Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

MS: Kevin Cloud basically managed those projects and was completely dedicated to that -- it's really only been since those were wrapped up that he's been completely back on Doom 3.

TW: Any time you have emerging technology and you have a company involved with other licenses, it's really hard to say. 'Cause we didn't all show up to work one day and say, "Okay, January 6 -- today, we start on Doom." It's not like making a car.

MS: Tim spent a bunch of time working with Raven on Quake IV stuff, so there's lots of stuff going on, but everybody generally stays focused on Doom 3.

GP: How hard is it to keep all this stuff a secret?

MS: I don't think we necessarily "maintain secrecy." Our general philosophy is when it comes to giving out information about the game, we try to pace ourselves. We try to pick opportunities and we use those opportunities efficiently and effectively as opposed to just a general seep of information out to the public -- you can get into trouble with that. You can get into issues with overhype or giving away too much. We have some characters -- obviously, bosses, we try to keep completely under wraps and leave some surprises for the player. Unless they've looked at all the publications, most players won't have quite the understanding of the story, and we want some things to surprise the player. You hate watching a movie trailer where you say, "Why do I need to go see the movie? I just got the Cliffs Notes version of the movie." But we've been working on the game now for a few years, and I think if you basically started from the beginning with an onslaught of information, you get yourself into trouble with a number of ways.

We did a cover with PC Gamer with the PC stuff back at the end of 2002, but it's really more about picking our moments, giving people new information but not overwhelming them with too much information. We generally try not to do the same thing twice. If we're going to have a magazine in, we wouldn't show someone two months from now the exact same thing we showed you just to get a cover. We want to show our fans a little bit more respect than that. We just kinda have to work under what you would maybe call a shroud of secrecy to protect the assets and protect the game.

GP: Does keeping things low-profile help the hype or hurt the hype?

MS: It probably is a personal thing. I think there are people out there who think we're ridiculous about it and people out there who respect the decision to keep some of it secret. There's a lot of people who don't want spoilers -- people who don't read articles just so they have a completely fresh experience. If we tried to gear everything we did to make everyone happy -- I mean, we say this on the design side: We try to give our fans a good experience, but we don't necessarily playtest with tons of people and make changes based on every single person's feedback. I think the same thing goes into our strategy on revealing information about the game. If you want information about it, we'll get it out there, in good time, and always give something new to look at or something new to read about, and hopefully not overdo it.

TW: It's the experience, really. Everyone's experience with the game when they play it will be unique. We all knew that Frodo was going to throw the ring into Mordor, right? But it was all the things that happened in the movie that are experiences that we had, and the experiences you'll have when you play the game, that's what makes the game.

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