I start every interview with a small blurb about the person I am interviewing, NOT because you don't know who they are, but to share small experiences I have had with each person. I usually have a funny story to go along with each interview. . . . this being no exception.

At this years E3, first day of the show, I make a bee-line straight for the Team Arena area at the Activision booth. . . I was standing next to some guy ( pretty friendly. . . not too talkative ) who was setting up and / or playtesting the new Q3A: Team Arena while Todd Hollenshead ( id CEO ) was narrating. I asked if I could film a little of the action, and the guy says "sure"...

....it's not until he typed in the console rduffy.cfg that I realized I am standing right next to Robert Duffy. 

Good God, I'm retarded... 

1.) How'd you get started in the Game making Game? It seemed as if you just suddenly appeared at id one day. . . what was before id??

Before id goes something like this, I did my first commercial programming when I was about 17 ( 19 years ago ), after that I spent about 6 years at a small company called Ingenuity Inc doing a variety of software from some commercial apps to ladder programming on some digital stuff. I then joined an assembler shop here in Dallas called PCSG who had put out some very well selling and award winning stuff, I did a lot of pure assembler stuff and tons of stuff with small handhelds ( Casio, Sharp, etc. ). That company became Lucid Corporation, in the process I became the Director of Research and Development, after Lucid I co-founded InterGO ( and acted as VP of Engineering ). We wrote a lot of net software at InterGO back in 94 and 95 including one of the early browsers ( around the time of Cello and Mosaic ). After InterGO I was Director of Technology with a company in the LA area called PAI, they did some interesting things ( and still do ). In all positions, in addition to management stuff I also coded a good percent of one project or another. At that I believe is the most in-depth dissertation I have written on the subject ;-)

2.) id seems like a pretty damn fun place to work, what's the most outrageous thing you ever did ON the job.

id is a very fun place to work. I don’t do a lot of outrageous things anymore, well there was that one thing with the bazooka and the car parked in John’s space.... er.. well I had better leave that story out.

3.) People you admire in the industry.

John Carmack

Kenneth Scott

Kevin Cloud

Rick Johnson and whoever else is responsible for all the cool stuff that comes out of Raven.

The creative forces behind Valve’s products..

4.) What's the most annoying thing to deal with as a Game Stud.

Hmmm.. I don’t think I am qualified to answer that. BUT I do get a lot of e-mail like “I tried to build a map and can’t, can you help?” Yes I can help but it would first involve those folks pulling their head out of their butts and sending enough information along so I can actually respond with something valid.

5.) Everyone knows the QERadiant/Q3Radiant story, but humor me. . . how did you go from programming tools to a full fledge id employee??

About two and a half years ago, I was pretty frustrated with WorldCraft and when John released the source for QE4 I thought if id could use it to make Q2, then I could use it. WOW! I was amazed they had actually made anything with it. There was a lot of power but the UI sucked. So I spent some time working on it, making it run better on lesser machines and with software GL and then released it. Since, it ( or versions of it ) have been used by Raven, Rogue, Ritual, ION Storm, id, Nihilistic, EA, Raster, Xatrix, etc. on games or Mission Packs so it has had some measure of success.

John contacted me at one point and asked if I would do the Q3A version, and I did and over time when they decided to bring another developer on, John and I discussed it, they made me an offer and I took it.

6.) Tips you can give a tool making guy who wants to be employed be a big fat numero uno company like id. . .

Find a need, write a tool to fill it, support it like there is no tomorrow and be kind to small furry creatures.

7.) Drink of Choice

Diet Coke.

8.) Tunes of Choice

Rock and Roll, and some of the new alternative crap.
 

9.) Babe of Choice

My Wife.

10.) Game you are most looking forward to. . . .

Elite Force if I had to pick one.

11.) your working on a project right now, how much ass is it going to kick??  

Actually I am working on two, Team Arena and DOOM. Team Arena is in the very final stages, we are just tweaking on the new UI and making final adjustments. It rocks. DOOM is going to kick complete ass.

12.) If you had the POWER tomorrow. . . is there anything you would change?

No more child abuse.

13.) We met at E3 this year and you seemed like just “one of the fellas” does the whole thing get overwhelming at times?? I mean, no one is poking fun at you YET like the great wizzard Crispan Ant-Cow ( JeffK and the FPS Survivor series ) but your part of a super high profile company now. . . does it ever get to be too much??

Nope.

( sheesh, such a long winded response on question #13. . . I figured this'd be a good place to add some more pictures of Robert at E3!! ) -Steve

and the bonus question

whats it like working with John Carmack, one of the greatest gaming minds there is. . . intimidating or inspiring??

More inspiring than anything. John is one of the primary reasons I joined id, because I had a really good gig before so the main draw was working with John, working at id and working on games. He is definitely brilliant but remains very approachable. My strengths are in the overall software process, coding techniques, and making sure things go from point A to point B in a relatively straight line. 3D Math is NOT one of my strong points, so when I come up against something I don’t understand I just ask and he explains it, from that point of view he is not intimidating.. from the point of view that you realize he is doing things that are years ahead of everyone else and he just kind of produces them overnight, yes he is very intimidating ;-)

Thanks!

As with all my id Software interviews, I am giving away two free copies of Q3A: Team Arena when it ships.... With a little coaxing ( very little ) Robert agreed to get me a few copies when it ships for this giveaway!!! So hit the box below and get in it to win it. .