Being on the front lines of Quake II deathmatch play can get you thinking. About life. About death. About why there is no hand-to-hand combat in Quake II.

　　Well, a rabbi or priest can tell us about life and death - and you can find more than a handfull of them in the Yellow Pages. But there's only one fellow in the world who can talk to us about Quake II weaponry.

　　For that reason, we've posed the following questions to John Carmack, Quake II's creator and holder of the killer's keys:

　　1. So, why no hand-to-hand weaponry?

　　2. The game is in many ways a throwback to Doom - as far as the weapons, theme, and level designs are concerned. Why Quake II and not Doom III?

　　3. While the AI is a definite improvement over previous id games, the new complexities introduce strange behavior - for instance, an enemy who continues to crouch even though he's being shot. Any plans for an AI fix?

　　4. Cooperative play seems more appropriate in Quake 2 than in any id game before it considering the premise, thus making the absence of co-op play that much more conspicuous. Any plans to add this feature in a patch?

　　5. How many simultaneous deathmatch players can Quake II support?

　　6. After the overwhelming success of the original Quake and the legions of fans that it spawned online, do you think that Quake II has any characteristics that will actually attract people that for one reason or another didn't play the first game?

　　7. How did the development for Quake II differ from that of the original? Which one was harder to make?

　　8. Was Quake II planned and developed primarily as an OpenGL game?

　　9. How many deathmatch/capture-the-flag levels will be in the Point release? And when will that be released?

　　10. How happy are you with the product that shipped? Would you change anything? And what are you planning to do next?

　　Thanks John.

　　And if readers have questions they'd like answered, send them my way.