User information for Some Dude

Real Name
Some Dude
Nickname
Some Dude
Email
Concealed by request
Description
Homepage
None given.

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Signed On
January 8, 2003
Total Posts
284 (Amateur)
User ID
15731
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284 Comments. 15 pages. Viewing page 1.
Newer [  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  ] Older
12.
 
Re: No subject
Feb 16, 2008, 05:16
12.
Re: No subject Feb 16, 2008, 05:16
Feb 16, 2008, 05:16
 
I blame cancer and stupid fat kids on Jack Thompson.

29.
 
Re: Not Familiar
Jan 24, 2008, 18:17
29.
Re: Not Familiar Jan 24, 2008, 18:17
Jan 24, 2008, 18:17
 
Well Eric, fortunately for me things like games and movies are art, not boxes of hats. I just hope the courts get it so I can continue trying to make the best games I can instead of shipping you the shit in a box that you want me to make.

27.
 
Re: Not Familiar
Jan 24, 2008, 18:06
27.
Re: Not Familiar Jan 24, 2008, 18:06
Jan 24, 2008, 18:06
 
Like I said, Dagok, you don't have to understand. It's enough that others do.

24.
 
Re: Not Familiar
Jan 24, 2008, 17:53
24.
Re: Not Familiar Jan 24, 2008, 17:53
Jan 24, 2008, 17:53
 
Yes, it absolutely matters. The difference is as critical as it is fundamental. And if the wrong people also fail to see that difference then we're in very big trouble.

Look, I'm sure there are all kinds of web sites and articles out there that take a guess at how games are made. Some of them might even have enough truth in them to be worth reading. I'll simplify it though:

If your kind of thinking puts me in a position where I can get SUED because 20 months ago I wrote that we'll have eight characters and I can only deliver seven, then the only SAFE thing for me to do is to shoot for six, every time.

There's a certain amount of fludity in the process that's probably alien to most other industries. You aim as high as you can for the time and resources you have and then you pare down whatever you have to. Goofy as it might sound, there's as much art to this as there is science. Your black and white view on the matter is going to force some of the passionate art side out of the process. I promise you that.

This comment was edited on Jan 24, 17:59.
22.
 
Re: Not Familiar
Jan 24, 2008, 17:40
22.
Re: Not Familiar Jan 24, 2008, 17:40
Jan 24, 2008, 17:40
 
What allegedly happened, is that Epic could not get the engine to them in a state where it was actually useful for their purpose, so they decided to go build their own.

No, Eric, that's not it at all. But your misunderstanding of the issue is precisely my fear. If you can't tell the difference between deliberately withholding a milestone and just plain missing one, how do you expect some moldy judge to understand?

20.
 
Re: No subject
Jan 24, 2008, 17:32
20.
Re: No subject Jan 24, 2008, 17:32
Jan 24, 2008, 17:32
 
I agree, lawsuits over breaches of contract are totally at odds with the "it's all chill bra" attitude of the gaming industry. If this is allowed to continue, we will careen down a slippery slope to the point where developers can only wear their Slayer T-shirts on Casual Fridays!


I don’t know if you meant to be funny or sarcastic but the circumstances under which I’m allowed to wear my collection of t-shirts from blues clubs around the country wasn’t the point.

If you ask me to make 50 hats and I give you a box containing 48, that’s a pretty clear cut thing. Making a game isn’t exactly like making a crate of hats though.

If 24 months ago I wrote that the particle system will handle 2,000 at a time and it ends up at 1,250, is that breach of contract?

Think that’s far fetched? I’m not so sure. The suit alleges that Epic deliberately withheld advances in the engine tech. Is it really much of a stretch from there to the kind of milestone bending that happens every day?

It’s entirely up to the language used and the interpretation of the case by some shady bastard further on up the road. Suppose the precedent is used later to apply the concept of negligence to a missed or bent milestone. The point is that if this thing paves the way to build a breach of contract suit around a renderer that fell short of its expected performance then yes, we are all fucked; makers and players alike.

How often do the courts actually understand what they're ruling on? How often do they understand it thoroughly enough to prevent causing more problems than they solve? Is this going to open the door to a whole new arena of fighting with the publisher? I don't know. Could it? Absolutely. The Dagoks of the world aren't required to understand; the rest of us will worry about it and figure it out for them.

14.
 
Re: Not Familiar
Jan 24, 2008, 16:33
14.
Re: Not Familiar Jan 24, 2008, 16:33
Jan 24, 2008, 16:33
 
It makes perfect sense, just not to you. If you take the stick out of your ass and retract the impotent, adolescent attempt of a swipe you tried to take at me I would be happy to explain my point of view.

12.
 
Re: Not Familiar
Jan 24, 2008, 15:53
12.
Re: Not Familiar Jan 24, 2008, 15:53
Jan 24, 2008, 15:53
 
Yes it sucks that something like this would get to th point of litigation. But if Epic did make promises in the Silicon Knights contract that they did not live up to, then they have the right to fight for that. My guess that if the case has gone this far, they may have some grounds for it.

Which in turn opens the door to someone like Silicon Knights getting sued for every milestone they miss or bend; for every cut feature, level, character or weapon that was in the GDD everyone signed off on months before they started coding; for every multiplayer game whose servers end up supporting 2,500 people instead of the 3,000 stated in the TDD, etc. etc.

That's why this is a stupid thing to do to themselves and to the industry as a whole. With any luck they'll fall into a sinkhole before they manage to fuck the rest of us.

Actually they did end up building their own engine for the game Some Dude.

Did they? That doesn't make much sense as a solution to the alleged problem. There are no circumstances under which pulling an engine out of your ass is less costly than simply adding whatever it is they felt was missing from UE3. Lieutenant Columbo would have closed the book on that one before the first commercial break.

So what really happened is they figured they could shift the blame for their failure, get the money back and cry "woe is me!". That's my interpretation, anyway.
This comment was edited on Jan 24, 15:56.
8.
 
Re: Not Familiar
Jan 24, 2008, 12:21
8.
Re: Not Familiar Jan 24, 2008, 12:21
Jan 24, 2008, 12:21
 
Nice, an all-time low for the industry.

I worked on an Unreal 2 project back when that version of the engine was still incomplete and under development. Since we were capable, rational adults we took responsibility for our own game and deadlines, meaning we just went ahead and wrote whatever code we needed to. Just like everyone else who somehow (mock dramatic accent) managed to ship an Unreal game in that period... you know, little things like Splinter Cell and the Army game.

Attention, Silicon Knights: Look, I don't owe anything at all to Epic but seriously guys, are you new at this game development stuff? Do you really think all it takes is clicking together some middleware that someone else wrote for you? You've got the source. Hire someone who knows how to use it, stop sucking your thumbs, grow up and write the damned code already. This bullshit is bad for the industry.


15.
 
Re: Ugh...
Jan 21, 2008, 18:32
15.
Re: Ugh... Jan 21, 2008, 18:32
Jan 21, 2008, 18:32
 
If it's still THAT buggy after long development, I fail to see how only 2 months will help.

You'd be surprised. Two months for a team in pure bug fixing mode is like... dog years, or lightspeed. This is a good thing. What usually happens is you don't get that two months to do nothing but polish the apple. This close to the end of a project you're typically in one of two modes: either you're scrambling because you're out of time and there are still major issues, or it's stable and the mandate is, "Don't ****ing touch it unless a flaming demon materializes and personally commands it of you." Granted, it's a little easier with PC titles because you're not tap-dancing around a submission to the electron microscope committee, but it still applies.

A fair number of recent releases have been on the disappointing side and I'm sure they're acutely aware of that. I don't at all take this move as an indicator of how cooked the game is. Rather, I think they're just going to make damn sure they cross as many Ts and dot as many Is as they can.

8.
 
Re: hmm
Jan 18, 2008, 15:32
8.
Re: hmm Jan 18, 2008, 15:32
Jan 18, 2008, 15:32
 
In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, an ancient race of people... the Druids. No one knows who they were, or what they were doing...

**edit

Crap, someone beat me to it.

This comment was edited on Jan 18, 15:33.
10.
 
Re: No subject
Jan 18, 2008, 01:54
10.
Re: No subject Jan 18, 2008, 01:54
Jan 18, 2008, 01:54
 
Rabbits with a HUD. Great. Next they'll sign a mutual defense treaty with the robots that feed off slugs.

I, for one, welcome our new Robot/Rabbit overlords.

7.
 
Re: Yet another subpar MMO?
Jan 14, 2008, 22:45
7.
Re: Yet another subpar MMO? Jan 14, 2008, 22:45
Jan 14, 2008, 22:45
 
whereas these other companies with less experience and less money cannot afford anything less than a stellar success.

Codemasters? Might want to have a look at them and read up on the company and their catalog. SOE they're not, but neither are they treading on unknown ground with an MMO.

This comment was edited on Jan 14, 22:46.
3.
 
Re: Yet another subpar MMO?
Jan 14, 2008, 21:54
3.
Re: Yet another subpar MMO? Jan 14, 2008, 21:54
Jan 14, 2008, 21:54
 
Nah. It doesn't need the population of NYC playing in order to make money. Just look at all the 'flops' in SOE's stable. Each of them claims just a fractional slice of the pie but they're still running. Do you think Sony is keeping those games up out of the goodness of their heart?

If getting 50,000-100,000 people to pay you $15/month is floundering, I'll gladly take a number at that seafood counter.

** edit

My understanding was that Codemasters handled LOTRO overseas.

This comment was edited on Jan 14, 21:57.
15.
 
Re: LOL
Jan 5, 2008, 21:25
15.
Re: LOL Jan 5, 2008, 21:25
Jan 5, 2008, 21:25
 
Must be a cold day in hell because I'm forced to agree with Derek.

I think a lot of the recycling is because there's resistance to screwing over someone's career. If I get a call about somebody I used to work with I'll gloss over whatever shortcomings I think they had. I guess the mentality is hey, they're not here anymore so it's not my problem. Why torpedo them? The exception is when the person calling is a friend, in which case I give an honest evaluation of their candidate.

The flip side is that experience in the game biz is unique, so a few titles on your resume makes you worth something even if you're not an all-around star. It's hard to pass on someone who's been "recycled" unless you get a clear vibe you don't like.

6.
 
Re: LOL
Jan 5, 2008, 17:40
6.
Re: LOL Jan 5, 2008, 17:40
Jan 5, 2008, 17:40
 
Wow, serious dirt.

I have to say though that the newbie areas weren't a problem. The progression and content from 1 to something-teen were fine. The character abilities needed a loving and experienced hand to make a pass on them, no doubt about that. There were some bugs, sure. But the biggest problem, when I played anyway, was that you just ran out of things to do at around 20. That's the only real problem I had with the game.

6.
 
Re: No subject
Dec 28, 2007, 19:30
6.
Re: No subject Dec 28, 2007, 19:30
Dec 28, 2007, 19:30
 
Wow. This game just set a record for "shortest lifespan on my computer".

For something that looks so awful you'd think it'd run pretty well on a machine that makes a bitch out of its specified requirements, but you would be wrong. I could probably overlook that if it was fun, but even the tutorial fighting is about as much fun as prison rape.

Pass.

40.
 
Re: No subject
Dec 22, 2007, 09:18
40.
Re: No subject Dec 22, 2007, 09:18
Dec 22, 2007, 09:18
 
Second, they were NOT moved to a PvP type server.

Third, they were purged of all "uber" gear that was terst realm specific leaving them with gear UNDER the maximum that someone on a live server can get.


If that's the case then this thing really was just blown out of proportion.

People need to stop comparing it to what happened in Eve; it's apples and oranges, baby. The blueprints that were given to the Eve developer's buddy are, by definition, Holy Grails that exist in tiny, controlled numbers. What happened there prevented everyone else from having their fiar shot to obtain those things.

Even if EQ2 didn't strip these guys of the high end stuff -- and barring Test-only items -- you still couldn't compare the two because everyone still has their fair shot to obtain whatever gear that might have been. Big difference.

If you look at this in a total vacuum then sure, you can get all pissy about it. But given the circumstances, I say big deal. These guys probably helped squash hundreds of bugs over the years and I'm sure that somewhere along the line their testing and feedback helped to improve other parts of the game. After three years of that they wanted to "retire" from that duty and just play the game like everyone else. Their reward was the granting of that wish, which seems justified to me. Who got hurt? No one as far as I can tell.

51.
 
Re: No subject
Dec 19, 2007, 05:42
51.
Re: No subject Dec 19, 2007, 05:42
Dec 19, 2007, 05:42
 
Blah, never mind. It's not worth an aneurysm.

Out.
This comment was edited on Dec 19, 06:56.
49.
 
Re: No subject
Dec 18, 2007, 17:53
49.
Re: No subject Dec 18, 2007, 17:53
Dec 18, 2007, 17:53
 
No apparently you ignored what everyone else has had to say

Which officially makes him a Blue's News poster.

This comment was edited on Dec 18, 17:53.
284 Comments. 15 pages. Viewing page 1.
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