| Interview
With Doug Merrill |
By
Jason
'FACE.UK' Sloan |
Page 1 of 1
02/19/03 - Some of you may not have heard of Doug Merrill, but most of you will have heard of Opulent and his DOOMed Speed Demos Archive. This site, in my experience, is the most often updated DOOM demo site on the 'Net. Whether you're someone who makes DOOM demos or not, Opulent's sites should be some of your regular DOOM places to visit.
 Name?
Doug "Opulent" Merrill
Age?
35
Country of origin?
Illinois, USA
Web site?
The Doom
II Resource
Computer Specs?
I have 2 of them, like most people do now, but the current machine is: 2.0
Ghz Pentium4 - (a now slow)266 Mhz forward bus - GeForce4 Ti4600 AGP-128MB DDR
(2) Ultra 133 ATA 80 Gb hdds - crappy Logitech 3-button optical Wheel mouse 40X
CDRW - 48X Cdrom - an aging 19"(18" viewable) monitor Windows98SE
Can you remember the first time you played DOOM?
I don't recall the specific time very well. My younger brother had brought
it home from school. We played it on my father's 286... used to take about 30
seconds to load. =P I loved it (of course), but I didn't even imagine it would
take over my life.
Favorite port?
PrBoom; mainly because I am a purist but also since I love the demo support.
MBF/Fusion/Boom would be next... My deepest respect and gratitude to Lee, Florian,
Len, and TeamTNT. Many excellent ports out there now... for example, when I talk
to non-DOOMers, the first thing I say about ZDoom is that it is more advanced
than Quake... that the dual screen (2 players can play on the same monitor) stuff
for Serious Sam was taken from Legacy... and anyone who has played RoomOverRoom
or Edge has got to be amazed. .
Favorite editor?
DCK. But if I was a serious editor(or even a good one), I'd register DeepSea
in a heartbeat... then force myself to learn it. :)
 Best wad you have played?
Wow, what a question... don't want to sound like an ass, but I better define
'best'. AlienVendetta Map20, Darkening2 Map12, P:AR episode -- those are clearly
the pinnacle of DOOM editing. Personally, I like wads that are always fun to play
-- gameplay is a speedrunner's gravy. :) TVR! by Thomas van der Velden or Dmonfear
by Adam Windsor are both perfect, IMO. Authors that consistently make quality
gameplay: Sam "Metabolist" Woodman, Yonatan Donner, Stephen Robinson, Anthony
Soto, Espi, Brad Spencer, Travers Dunne, Anders Johnsen, and Gemini. (there are
probably others, that is all I can think of atm...)
Last wad/level played I played through Swmort05 and liked it a lot, so I used
the -record parameter the next time around. :)
Do you prefer to play deathmatch co-op or single player games of DOOM?
I'd play deathmatch all the time if I had that ability... but the client/server
ports have too much latency for my connection and there is no one here that will
play DOOM with me. :( I hope to visit Bahdko's residence sometime and get pasted
by anyone in attendance. =P
Do you make any of your own levels?
Yabber. Certainly nothing to brag about, but I think some of them are fun to
play. To have players like Adam Hegyi and Albert "Vrooomer" Valls record demos
on my maps was the greatest reward I have ever received in gaming. Thanks guys.
Have you released any of your own levels?
To the chagrin of Ty Halderman, alas, yes. :)
Do you think you will continue to play/make levels for DOOM 1 & 2 when DOOM
3 arrives?
Without a doubt.
Your site is a speed demos site. For people who do not know what this is can
you explain a bit about it?
Sure. The DOOMed Speed Demos Archive is just that: an archive of playback demos
of mostly patch-wad levels of single-player and deathmatch mode for DOOM and DOOM2.
It is based on the Quake-SDA and is intended to compliment the best demo site on
the net, the Compet-N.
Where do they come from? Who made the first demo?
Anyone can record a demo -- most of the source ports and DOOM versions support
recording/playback. I imagine Tom Hall and John Romero made the first demo. :)
Simon Widlake made the first demo for the Compet-N, but the DOOM Honorific Titles
was around for awhile before that. I have little doubt that if it weren't for
the passion for playing the game by players like John Romero and Yonatan Donner,
games like Quake and Unreal Tournament would never have had demo-support. Thanks
guys, for wasting my life away. :)
Are you any good at it?
Umm... no. But I can play these games (DOOM, Quake, etc..) well enough that
I can appreciate the professionals accurately.
 Could you list your top ten Demo Gods?
OMG, what a question... uhhh... Anders Johnsen, Adam Hegyi, Drew "stx-Vile"
DeVore, Radek Pecka, Chris "Ryback" Ratcliff, Vincent "Per0xyd" Catalaa, Juho
"ocelot" Ruohonen, Marijo "Sedlo" Sedlic, Henning Skogsto, Daniel "Demonlord"
Lindgren, Andreas "Anthe" Kren, Zvonimir "FX" Buzanic, Adam Williamson, Thomas
"Panter" Pilger, Dimitris 'Xoleras' Theofilopoulos, and Jim "Xit Vono" Leonard.
16.. so I can't count. How can I not list Waldon, Humpert, Rimmer, Koskimaa, Donner,
Bolton, Xenos, Vrooomer.... lot of excellent players out there. :)
Have you ever played a map that you could not get a good time on? No matter
how hard you tried?
HAHAHAHA. Let me answer that with the fact that I have no Compet-N points.
=D
What is / was the best wad for demos?
Hell Revealed - genius maps.
What makes a good map for Demos?
Plenty of ammo and weapons... the "Robotron"-philosophy, where the player controls
the map, not the other way around. Watch stx-Vile cut through the TVR levels like
a warm knife through butter... A good challenge has value, but play Classic Episode-E1M1
-- I guarantee it to be fun every single time you play it.
Can any port be used for Demos?
Nope. PrBoom virtually 100% support for any demo recorded with Boom/MBF or
the real game. Legacy and ZDoom tend to have fair demo-support, if you use the
same engine that the demo was recorded in(which is fine with me).
Your web site used to contain a 'DOOM SDA Featured Map'. Why did you stop doing
this?
Just don't have the time. I have 5 web sites, work around 55 hours a week, and
try to watch every good demo from DOOM/Quake/Quake2/Quake3. For example, I have
over 3000 demos in my 'incoming' folder. doh! I wish I had the time to do any
of my sites justice... I have too many hobbies, I guess.
Related Links:
· The
DOOM II Resource
· Opulent
FPS Demos
· DOOMed
Speed Demos Archive
· Tool
Assisted Demos
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