Game Development
spellman23
NS1 Theorycraft Expert Join Date: 2007-05-17 Member: 60920Members
NS1 Theorycraft Expert Join Date: 2007-05-17 Member: 60920Members
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">linkies and stuff</div>A thread for posting cool tidbits in the world of Game Development!
To start, from Bisclaveret on IRC, why APB got screwed over:
<a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/08/16/redundancies-at-real-time-worlds/#comment-491791" target="_blank">http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/08/16...#comment-491791</a>
To start, from Bisclaveret on IRC, why APB got screwed over:
<a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/08/16/redundancies-at-real-time-worlds/#comment-491791" target="_blank">http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/08/16...#comment-491791</a>
Comments
To start, from Bisclaveret on IRC, why APB got screwed over:
<a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/08/16/redundancies-at-real-time-worlds/#comment-491791" target="_blank">http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/08/16...#comment-491791</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--coloro:grey--><span style="color:grey"><!--/coloro-->Here's a little video about the dangers of poor localization: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qItugh-fFgg" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qItugh-fFgg</a><!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
~~Sickle~~
Yeah spellman, I notice a few correlations with the RTW process and another gaming company out there right now.. well, more than one company. Seems like it's got a 50/50 chance of failing.
Yeah spellman, I notice a few correlations with the RTW process and another gaming company out there right now.. well, more than one company. Seems like it's got a 50/50 chance of failing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--coloro:grey--><span style="color:grey"><!--/coloro-->He means UWE.<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
~~Sickle~~
Oh and the so-called parallels to UWE, Get your head checked. It's very different.
As for why it failed, the company simply had too much money and the project lacked direction for the greater part of its development. There's an interesting article somewhere about how companies with a huge funding tend to do badly as the excess money just leads to silly spending and a lack of focus that tends to kill the whole thing further down the line. APB was no diffierent in that regard. The game also had bad design decisions in almost every single one of its mechanics but I'm still not quite sure who was really responsible for that to to this day :p
<a href="http://lukehalliwell.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/where-realtime-worlds-went-wrong/" target="_blank">http://lukehalliwell.wordpress.com/2010/09...lds-went-wrong/</a>
Teaser:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->From companies I worked for:
* The network gurus sending back a broken PS2 development kit to SCEA, after they clearly tampered with the sealed stickers in an attempt to possibly find what was wrong. Even worse was that they threw out the original box the PS2 dev kit came in, and decided it was ok, to send it back to SCEA in a... get this... Xbox development kit carton. suffice to say sony sent us pictures of this to our upper managment in amazement.
* Being told I had to ship a game in 4 months (from scratch) on console without the dev team having a dev kit or any expeience developing a console game.
* Getting laid off and re-hired three times in one year, each time with an increase in pay by the same company. Internal power struggle over who should run the company and one hand not knowing what the other was doing. They would lay me off, only to call back later that day offering me a new contract. oh and did i say I got laid off the first time on my birthday?
* Working with a development team in another country that barely spoke english. After four months of work they decided to ask " What does this word "fun" mean? " ...
I'll see if I can remember anymore, to be honest there's lost of odd stories. At least two stories where someone in the office went crazy from overtime. One of them bought a grand piano (without knowing how to play) and another took all the toys in the office early one morning, went into the stairwell, and proceeded to light them on fire. yeah, he thought they were evil.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I'd probably get fired for talking about most of the antics I've seen... I'll stick to relatively safe ones:
Back when 3D hardware for PC was a relative novelty and games still targetted software, I was working on a title where the management were being a bit over ambitious. Ignoring for a moment the requirement to create a game world with hundreds of detailed characters, it also needed to have fully destructable environments. That's not the craziest thing though - the craziest thing was being handed a level design containing a hall of mirrors...
I've had to throw someone out of the office when they've worked 4 days straight, only to have them return about 10 hours later and work another 4 days straight. At least they actually showered when they went home... I'm sure plenty other devs have witnessed that kind of thing though (er, meaning week-long shifts, not watching people shower...)
Oh, and one office I worked in was loaned out to the Police for a week while they staked out the drug dealer that lived across the road.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It : We really need to have these weapons firing from the same point.
Me : "From" the same point or "To" the same point?
It : No, no... from the same point.
Me : Wait a minute. I'm thinking that you're just complaining about the fact that the shots are currently going straight out from the facing of the guns rather than converging at the crosshairs, so you want the shots to lead out *to* the same point.
It : No, no, I mean there shouldn't have to be two streams.
Me : But there are two guns in two locations... You want there to just be one gun now?
It : That doesn't matter. You can have two of them. They should just shoot from the same spot.
Me : But they're not IN the same spot!!
It : I don't see what's so hard to understand about this. There should just be one stream of fire from one spot.
Me : Okay, so you want there to be some sort of connecting arc effect and a stream of bullets to come from the middle instead of the actual gun barrels?
It : No, they should come from the barrels, from all of them.
Me : All six of them?
It : Yes.
Me : So all six distinct locations should instead be one location and the guns will both be at that one point.
It : No, the guns will stay where they are... I like them on the sides.
Me : You just said sides... plural. That means more than one place.
It : No it doesn't.
Me : What do you mean it doesn't? Did you just mean one side, then?
It : If you have two sides of the same thing, it's all just one thing.
Me : But the thing has size! It actually takes up space!
It : Who cares about that? It just has to be in one place, which means the guns are in one place.
Me : So in other words, both the guns are in two distinct locations on the speeder, but their barrels aren't. The barrels are are all at one point somewhere out there, and that is the one and only point that bullets will stream out from.
It : See? It's that simple. You have some brains after all. Now... go drink some coffee, 'cuz you need to wake up, man.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Some of those stories sound scary, but here's some real footage of UK-based Stainless studios' christmas party, where they relish in the business-like practise of destroying office property, from furniture to fully-functional electrical equipment, including throwing it out of windows and down stairs, not to mention devkits that they needed for their project and actually had a shortage of. I would say that these guys need some sort of Darwin award, except somehow they're still going. What's even dumbar than all that? Putting it on Youtube with the company name stamped across it. GG boys, GG.
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=sK4gDtlEiTY" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=sK4gDtlEiTY</a> < Christmas party
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=GRB4PFpQ0Ig" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=GRB4PFpQ0Ig</a> < throwing a burning microwave from a first-floor window after it set on fire a singing Christmas tree
Assuming of course the guns aren't shaped like a candelabra.
Assuming of course the guns aren't shaped like a candelabra.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You mean like Duke's triple barrel machine gun?
Some real gems in there. I liked this one:
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->And some marvels of technical prowess --
It : Why is it that we don't support the bump on our ragdolls?
Our Physics guy : You mean bump mapping and ragdoll together or bump on the ragdolls?
It : The second one. I mean the bump making the ragdoll bumpy.
Our Physics guy : Aside from precision matters that would cause those kinds of high frequency variations to make things go utterly insane, how about the fact that ragdoll assets really don't carry that kind of information in the first place, and since we don't have the source code to Karma or its tools, we can't really do anything about it?
It : But I'm a millionaire.
All the programmers in the room : *Long puzzled stare at the creature in complete silence.*<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href="http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Cool-Cam.aspx" target="_blank">The Cool Cam</a>
<a href="http://www.moddb.com/games/frozen-synapse/news/what-indie-developers-can-learn-from-minecraft" target="_blank">http://www.moddb.com/games/frozen-synapse/...-from-minecraft</a>
HL1 had unique physics and its one of the main reasons I loved so many HL1 mods, dod, tfc, science and industry, vampireslayer, what is existence etc. Even today, I've played vampireslayer and some others just because of the bhop and movement system that these games have. So much depth and fun.
You just don't see these unrealistic but very idiosyncronatic physics in modern games because every one of them tries to be like as realistic as possible.
the movement just feels sticky (mind you not all enignes, but most)
<a href="http://kotaku.com/5558166/in-praise-of-sticky-friction" target="_blank">http://kotaku.com/5558166/in-praise-of-sticky-friction</a>
the movement just feels sticky (mind you not all engines, but most)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
THIS!
The number one reason i have preferred ns1 (half life engine in general) over so many other shooters is the simple fact that i feel like i have total one to one control over my movement. No weird "heavy" controls, no weird gravity settings, just the feeling that i have total control.
This is the exact thing that ruined Killzone 2 on the ps3 for me even though it's a great game, and made Resistance 2 so great. Killzone 2 just doesn't give me that in control feeling while Resistance 2 does. I personally do not understand why developers feel the need to give a game "heavy" controls. It just doesn't feel right.
Somehow I find HL2 physics (or at least TF2, L4D) pretty natural. Not like the old quake tech, but still the best of today's engines (even if source is already going old-school, even with expansions on the engine). Some things still feel sticky though, but those are related to props PHYSX!
And that's why you check your press build for the little things, kids.
I also worked with a publisher that was really weird about lens flare. Like, cowbell weird.
Threads with screenshots of development bugs are always hilarious, or photos of our whiteboards. The one in my office currently has a bunch of programmer code labeled "NEVAR FORGETS," among other things. Stick figure drawings used to explain bugs are always the best.
So... something like a third of them?
<a href="http://www.moddb.com/games/frozen-synapse/news/what-indie-developers-can-learn-from-minecraft" target="_blank">http://www.moddb.com/games/frozen-synapse/...-from-minecraft</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Nice article. I bought Frozen Synapse based on the fact it was 'about the right price' but have barely played it. I barely ever make knee-jerk sales decisions except when games enter this area where I'm intrigued enough to want more and greedy enough to see a bargain.
Minecraft isn't quite my cup of tea, but I'm sure if I see it in a Steam sale or otherwise at bargain prices (I think I missed the earlier sale a while back), I'm sure I'll pick it up, even if I only play an hour of it. It doesn't make sense in terms of hours spent playing a game, but when I see value I can't help but snap it up.
<a href="http://www.moddb.com/mods/age-of-chivalry/news/32-maps-released-and-a-reflection-on-age-of-chivalry" target="_blank">http://www.moddb.com/mods/age-of-chivalry/...age-of-chivalry</a>
<a href="http://www.moddb.com/mods/age-of-chivalry/news/32-maps-released-and-a-reflection-on-age-of-chivalry" target="_blank">http://www.moddb.com/mods/age-of-chivalry/...age-of-chivalry</a><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
"Of course if all else fails you could just add zombies..."
favorite line of the article