Developers, what are some of the craziest things you seen or heard about?
- Thread starter Brimstone
- Start date
Totally amazed at shootmymonkey's stories, I have a hard time believing they're true but honestly they're so damn funny I don't care.
Where are all the other dev's stories? nAo? DeanoC? Faf? I'm sure Baumman could tell us a thing or two...
shootmymonkey: what was the name of the game you were working on? Did it ever get any "previews" done for it? You have any "in-game" pics of it you can post?
Where are all the other dev's stories? nAo? DeanoC? Faf? I'm sure Baumman could tell us a thing or two...
shootmymonkey: what was the name of the game you were working on? Did it ever get any "previews" done for it? You have any "in-game" pics of it you can post?
I can't personally vouch for ShootMyMonkey's posts - but I can believe them, because if I was feeling more brave I could post similar or worse tales... I'll stick to ones less likely to get me sued though.
A company I worked at a while back once employed a particularly gifted programmer who was regarded by many as kind of the official office guru. He was unhappy at the wages (rightfully so I might add, he wasn't being at all unreasonable) and wanted a small increase of 2-3% to bring him in line with others. The company ignored him and eventually he left, with them making no effort to stop him. Then we had to pay about 15% more in wages to employ a replacement, as well as forking out for the agent fees. The replacement wasn't nearly as good.
We had a CD burner that only worked if you ran a particular desktop clock at the same time.
I had a marketing dude break the network because he thought you could just plug it all together like lego (this was in the days of 10-base-2 networks).
I've had more that one designer get carried away when we've mentioned putting physics into games. One assumed that this meant he could have a fuel truck at the top of a hill, shoot a hole in the side of it, have the fuel trickle down the hill, and then light the fuel to have fire travel back up the hill and make it explode. Automatically. With no progammer intervention required. (and while this might actually become semi-feasible soon, this was suggested something like 10 years ago). Yeah dude, because when we say physics we mean we're using an atomic-level simulation of the entire world...
I never again want to hear the phrase "I don't care if it's impossible, I've already told marketing so you just have to write it".
Another company I used to work for once had to fire a bunch of people. They took them all into one room, left us in another, and told us both simultaneously what was happening. Half way through the "so, the guys in the other room are being made redundant, but don't worry - your jobs are safe" talk, the boss stopped, looked up, and said (name changed to protect the innocent) "Oh - sorry Bob, you're in the wrong room". Harsh.
Random tale of personal stupidity:
I once made myself some chips (that would by "fries" for the non-UK folks) in the evening at home, and forgot to turn the frier off. Then I went to work the next morning. Then I did an all-nighter to get stuff finished, and eventually only returned home in the late afternoon. Fortunately my house hadn't burnt down - instead I was the proud owner of my very own pot of smelly tar. I've been eating much healthier since though
A company I worked at a while back once employed a particularly gifted programmer who was regarded by many as kind of the official office guru. He was unhappy at the wages (rightfully so I might add, he wasn't being at all unreasonable) and wanted a small increase of 2-3% to bring him in line with others. The company ignored him and eventually he left, with them making no effort to stop him. Then we had to pay about 15% more in wages to employ a replacement, as well as forking out for the agent fees. The replacement wasn't nearly as good.
We had a CD burner that only worked if you ran a particular desktop clock at the same time.
I had a marketing dude break the network because he thought you could just plug it all together like lego (this was in the days of 10-base-2 networks).
I've had more that one designer get carried away when we've mentioned putting physics into games. One assumed that this meant he could have a fuel truck at the top of a hill, shoot a hole in the side of it, have the fuel trickle down the hill, and then light the fuel to have fire travel back up the hill and make it explode. Automatically. With no progammer intervention required. (and while this might actually become semi-feasible soon, this was suggested something like 10 years ago). Yeah dude, because when we say physics we mean we're using an atomic-level simulation of the entire world...
I never again want to hear the phrase "I don't care if it's impossible, I've already told marketing so you just have to write it".
Another company I used to work for once had to fire a bunch of people. They took them all into one room, left us in another, and told us both simultaneously what was happening. Half way through the "so, the guys in the other room are being made redundant, but don't worry - your jobs are safe" talk, the boss stopped, looked up, and said (name changed to protect the innocent) "Oh - sorry Bob, you're in the wrong room". Harsh.
Random tale of personal stupidity:
I once made myself some chips (that would by "fries" for the non-UK folks) in the evening at home, and forgot to turn the frier off. Then I went to work the next morning. Then I did an all-nighter to get stuff finished, and eventually only returned home in the late afternoon. Fortunately my house hadn't burnt down - instead I was the proud owner of my very own pot of smelly tar. I've been eating much healthier since though
Didn't you notice the smell of smouldering oil in the morning?MrWibble said:I once made myself some chips (that would by "fries" for the non-UK folks) in the evening at home, and forgot to turn the frier off. Then I went to work the next morning. Then I did an all-nighter to get stuff finished, and eventually only returned home in the late afternoon. Fortunately my house hadn't burnt down - instead I was the proud owner of my very own pot of smelly tar. I've been eating much healthier since though
Oh my god this is the best thread in the last few years. ShootMyMonkey, u're the best.
And really, i cannot believe how insane that guy is, i'm of the idea he is constantly under the influence of "something". Wouldn't surprise me in the least, a millionaire with a company doing what he knows nothing about... Typical coke-head case...
And really, i cannot believe how insane that guy is, i'm of the idea he is constantly under the influence of "something". Wouldn't surprise me in the least, a millionaire with a company doing what he knows nothing about... Typical coke-head case...
ShootMyMonkey
Veteran
Quite simply because my hatred for it (and there are other stories I've avoided that would be a lot less funny and a lot more appalling) had mounted to the point where I could no longer refer to it as a human being. I can't even use pronouns that might signify it as a living creature. It's been a while since I've actually thought about it, though, so I'd kind of put it in the past.
Never left the industry. At least now, I'm at a real company. And actually, the first post I made in this thread weren't at the creature's company. I don't have any really weird stories yet about the company I'm currently at. Everything is pretty normal here.
I think I made have made one mistake earlier where I mixed up two separate conversations into one, but the content itself is true. That and the octagon one -- it was such a long exchange that my memory of it was not 100% complete... there was obviously stuff I was missing in there. When you get right down to it, though, the creature is not that unique of a... being. Some rich guy is just full of himself... arrogant to the point that he believes he's better than anybody and everybody... thinks everything he touches turns to gold. Really not that out of the ordinary.
Well, that's kind of why I've avoided names. Kept away from anything too specific that gave away anybody's identities. In any case, that was one company where I never had to sign any NDAs, so I could even go through stuff on the development side of things.
Well, like I said, I'm staying away from names. In any case, that game went through so many names that I don't think anything was finalized (not that they ever could be, what with the creature's horrid short term memory and tendency to have a new "thought" on what we should be doing on a day-to-day basis). And yes, I do have screensnaps and some various video captures, but the darn thing was so early in its stages of development that they're hardly worth mentioning. Finding them would involve digging through mountains of discs, though. I also have the full source code lying around.
No we never did any sort of "previews" or "trailers." Though I was supposed to be working on the music for a trailer, which is something I never actually finished. I was using garbage samples anyway. Yes, it was stupid to be worrying about a trailer at that stage, but the creature never had any brain cells anyway, and it's useless to argue with an idiot.
I don't suppose it got any near to building that Holodeck?
Don't know about you guys, but i REALLY want to hear another story about it........ Go on ShootMyMonkey... Just one more!!
ShootMyMonkey
Veteran
I'd thought about it. But no... I'm not crazy. On top of it all, the creature seemed to think I actually liked it. I did get used to screaming at the top of my lungs, though. The security in the building got around to the point where they started quipping about "those poor saps on the 6th floor." However, they were concerned with the fact that each of our office rooms had an open balcony on the 6th floor with no railing -- quite easy to jump.
No!!! It's supposed to come from all the muzzles at the same time, but all the muzzles are in one place! Haven't you been paying attention?!? Geez.
No... it's not capable of anything. And by the time we got our hands on the design, it became something along the lines of a BF1942 in a futuristic setting that involved a little more variety in its character classes so that we'd have FPS gameplay and 3rd-person melee gameplay and vehicle combat.
The creature, at one point borrowed someone's projector apparently for some hearing, and wanted my help because it managed after about 15 minutes of fiddling with it... how to turn it on. But at that point, it didn't know how to turn the projector off. And after I got there, the creature went off on a tangent regarding the importance of the size of muzzle flashes, and that laws should be set in place to illegalize games that don't have muzzle flashes and at least one gun made of chrome (yes, seriously)...
Questioning why we, at the time, didn't allow scaling of muzzle flashes so that they could be exceedingly large, the creature brought up its pirated copy of Call of Duty in order to show me what muzzle flashes should be like.
Part of that conversation (names replaced with roles) --
Me : "Well, that's going to have to wait because [Physics Guy]'s Karma wrappers currently assume that all models are going to have ragdoll assets assigned to them, so scaling is a problem. Scaling and rigid bodies don't go together. So until he checks in his next big change so that models without the solid flag set are not t-- "
Creature : "What? Did you say something? I wasn't listening. I was concentrating on how good this looks."
Me : "Right. I should have known."
Creature : "Well, that is the bigger issue at hand... the muzzle flashes."
Me : "And that's what I was talking about, but I guess there's no point bothering to say anything while you're drooling at pretty pictures."
Creature : "Really? Was I drooling?"
Me : "Figure of speech."
Creature : "Whatever, just explain it to me."
Me : "Again for the 5th time..."
Creature : "It doesn't matter how many times."
Me : "Well, yeah, I noticed that, too." ¬___¬
Creature : "Why are you looking at me like that?"
Me : "You'll probably never know."
Creature : "Whatever... A programmer thing, then. Anyway, the muzzle flashes are key to this game. When you get right down to it, all games need to be all about the special effects. Without that, you have nothing. You can't call it a game."
Me : "Right, I keep forgetting that's why Mario was such a financial failure."
Creature : "Right, exactly. Anyway, can you see how to shut this damn projector off?"
Me : "Right, right..."
Creature : "See? I've got a lot of stuff to put on your table today."
Me : "Gee, don't I feel privileged."
Creature : "Well, you should considering who's showing it to you."
Me : "By the way, your projector's off now."
Creature : "Huh? What? How did you do that?"
Me : "I double-clicked 'Yes' when it asked me if I wanted to shut it off."
Creature : "Ahhh... See? Two heads are better than one."
Me : "Huh?!??? Uuuuuuhhhh... okay."
Do you find the normalcy boring or refreshing?ShootMyMonkey said: