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Doomworld: On your Eternal Doom level "Time Gate," there are two portals at the end which exit the level.  Was there originally another idea for one of those two portals?  What happened to that idea?
 
Sverre: Yes, there was a third "wrong gate" initially but I eventually had to axe it. What the third gate did was time-warp you one hour back in time (the Timegate control-panel texture refelected this at the time), basically restarting the Timegate level. However, because of the archaic ways the Doom-effects work (I used a secret-level exit on a level where it wasn't supposed to be used) there was no way to ensure this would always be the outcome. Only if you played the level without saving at all would this effect be ensured (and since I rarely saved my game while playtesting my levels it took me a while to figure out that it didn't work right). Since it was the last two weeks of production I had no time to make a third area once the bug was flushed out. :/
 
Did the sheer size of another of your Eternal levels, "Darkdome," present any problems?  Was the level originally supposed to be any bigger?
 
Did I ever? I had a heap of problems with both Nucleus and Darkdome, because of the limitation of the save-game buffer. Both levels were about 20% bigger at their largest state, and I think I still have "full versions" backed up somewhere. As with any level designer, my heart would bleed every time I had to axe something, so those two levels are a study in how much you can cram into a Doom level and still having it run stable. If you load up the maps in an editor you'll see that all of the "effect-sectors" oustide of the normal map are triangles, not squares. The reason for this is simple, a triangular sector takes up less memory than a square one, having one less side-def. Similarily I would axe "three stim-packs and two hellknights" to add "25% health-box and a Baron" in stead, just to save the space. Anal? Yes. 
 
Ooo... where?  Are you sure?  Can I have them?  :)
 
They're on that old broken d: disk. You can have them if you pay for my HD-repair! ;)
 
I have also heard that you are quite the deathmatcher.  Did you ever win any Doom DM tournaments?  How do you compare to your ION Storm colleagues?
 
Doom was and is the best 1 on 1 game in the world, no competition. I managed to win the United Kingdom deathmatch championship and was shipped off to Seattle to "beat the yanks", at Deathmatch 95. Well, that obviously didn't happen (or I'd be Thresh now ;), but I got to the 2nd round where I was beat pretty good by one of the two finalists (not Thresh, the other guy:). There are some awesome Doomers here at Ion, but no one I can't beat regularily. Games between me and Natas or Voin can turn any which way. Romero's a walkover though. ;)
 
Before being hired by ION Storm, had you ever made a Quake level, or was your sole experience with Doom and Build levels?
 
While working on Redneck Rampage I goofed around with "Quest" on my spare time, but lost all my first levels in a hard-disk wipe right before starting at Ion. :O
 
Have you ever had any urges to make another Doom WAD in any capacity?
 
All the time! DETH is on my hard disk right now. I doubt I will ever get around to it, unless I find some unexpected free-time, but you never know. Once that creative bug takes a hold its not like I have a choice in the matter. The sectors just start making themselves...
 
What do you think you'd be doing right now if not for Doom?
 
Uhm, I'd probably be cleaning windows on the weekdays, getting drunk on the weekends and generally be one bitter Norwegian. 
 
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