This resulted in him abandoning the project. His experience with Quake was additive, levels were built in a void, while Unreal created levels by carving out air brushes from a solid vacuum. Not only were a lot of tools missing due to the early age of the engine, but Unreal was his first exposure to subtractive level design. However, while highly experienced with Quake editors, Worch found that Unreal's editors were too difficult to use. Using an early version of the Unreal Engine, the team consisted of level designers working together over the internet to create The Wheel of Time. His interview was attending QuakeCon '97.Īnother opportunity Worch had was with Legend Entertainment.
He soon got offered a job with Ritual Entertainment, a company formerly known as Hipnotic Software, a recent company that had gotten big by creating Quake Mission Pack 1: Scourge of Armagon. Hanging on the IRC chat rooms in 19, Worch witnessed many individuals being offered jobs during the birth of a fledgling industry of 3d level design. Using Quest, he had to modify the levels afterwards in a text editor to fix textures. He felt the jump to 3d was relatively intuitive due to experience with six degrees of freedom with the Virtual Reality Studio. The main reason he stuck around was due to the 3d environments and the online Deathmatch capabilities. There was less variety between Monsters, falling short of what made Doom great in his eyes, while the Weapons were highly inconsistent. However, Worch soon realized that while he enjoyed the subjects, he did not feel comfortable teaching or working with children.Ĭompared to Doom, Worch felt Quake was rather weak on the gameplay side. Instead, Worch enrolled into the University of Essen to become an English or Biology teacher, his best classes in high school.
While it was mandatory to join the military, he was deemed unfit due to a broken knee. In 1995, Worch graduated from high school. Worch ended his Doom level designing with Requiem, yet another PWAD that gained mass notoriety. According to Worch, what drew him in was the wide array of Monsters found in the game, the balance between them is unmatched. Worch also hosted his own national Deathmatch league, as well as numerous LAN parties. All three have become notable PWADs in the Doom community. He also created The Troopers Playground for said aforementioned game. He was one of the level designers of Memento Mori II (and created the custom status bar) and for Doom II. Worch soon took to the task of trying to capture the quality of the original Doom in Doom II, holding a great amount of self-confidence along with high standards.
Worch instead created his first map for an id Software game, little more than a test level, for Heretic. Doom II was highly disappointing in comparison to Worch, he felt the level design was so inferior that he never completed the campaign. However, once he started playing he was hooked into the Deathmatch community. Due to a computer virus, Worch heard about Doom through friends, but was slow to start playing it himself. When Wolfenstein 3D came out, Worch ignored it in favor of the more complex RPGs of the era such as Ultima Underworld.īy 1993, Worch was stuck with a broken DX2 he had previously obtained from his father through the computer company he worked for. Using the Virtual Reality Studio, Worch started creating 3d spaces. Worch stopped focusing on programming around this point, instead putting effort into level design. While he didn't fully register everything, nor did he gain a massive understanding, he was able to create basic programs.Īs he aged, he went from the Commodore 64 to the Amiga 500. Through this kid, he learned about "Maschinensprache für Einsteiger", a book that allows the user to program the Commodore 64 in 6502 assembly. This in turn resulted in him starting to learn English specifically the words "if", "then", and "print".īy 1988, he had met a local neighbor kid that was a bit older than him. His father had enrolled into a BASIC course, which in turn meant Worch taught himself programming from his father's notes. To ensure he could continue after being caught due to flashing red and green lights, he disconnected the LEDs. His solution to this was switching over to the television any time he heard his mother approaching. When he was eight, he started using a Commodore 64, though he was limited to brief periods of time as it was intended primarily for bookkeeping. He has also gone by the alias Langsuyar.īorn in Essen-Burgaltendorf, Germany in 1976.