Developers, what are some of the craziest things you seen or heard about?

also, the idea of having a programmer on music duty would've caused me to bail out on this project!! ;D ooh! zing! j/k
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It decided to take advantage of the fact that I also studied music theory in college in addition to CS.

So here's the creature trying to pitch our title over the phone to EA (and this is after we'd all gotten our hands on it and turned into a multiplayer team combat sort of thing), and all the while not letting any of us get a word in edgewise.

(this is the major part of it, after all the waiting and pleasantries were exchanged and all)

It : "So here's the idea here. In simplest terms, it's... kind of loosely based on this one game out there called The Battlefield 1942; I don't know if you've heard of it."
EA Rep : ".... yes, I've heard of it. We published it."
It : "No you didn't."
Me : :oops: "....."
EA Rep : ".... Ummm, yes we did. EA owns the rights to it."
It : "But do you really know what it's about?"
EA Rep : "Yes, yes. Go on."
It : "So the thing is, it is kind of based on that, but the setting is totally futuristic with these aliens and the way they move and there are all these physics happening with the vector normalism things and whatever. You know, these guys here can explain it better."
Me : "Yeah, so the biggest difference --"
It : "You know we have both the first-person and the 3rd person game of play, so you can have both the marines and the ninjas on the same team if you wanted."
Me : "What he's trying to say is --"
It : "Because it's a futuristic setting and all, we can be more free to stretch the mind and go beyond the trappings of weak limitations that shouldn't be there 50 or 100 years from now."
AI Guy : "Some of the things are actually --"
It : "Well, also the point of a futuristic setting is to make the game itself look futuristic and so everything is totally functional."
Me : "Can I get in a word?"
It : "So you know, I've been in the construction business for years, and I started out washing dishes at McDonald's, and now I'm one of the top three in this area, and so I know what it takes to succeed in all kinds of business, and that's what I have here."
EA Rep : "Well, you know, it sounds interesting on the surface, but from your description it sounds as though there's a lot of similarity to Battlefield."
AI Guy : "Don't go by his description. It's lacking in--"
It : "Well, no, it's futuristic, so it's totally different. I mean, one is stuck in the past and ours is looking forward to the way things ought to be."
EA Rep : "....yeah, well, I think it sounds as though it could potentially cannibalize the sales of our existing IP, so we'll have to decline."
It : "Of course not. It's futuristic, so that means you'll invariably have more sales."
EA Rep : "That's... not really the problem. It's a matter of them being similar enough to share a market segment."
It : "Listen, I totally agree with you..."
Me : (under breath) "Oh boy."
AI Guy : (under breath) "Here it comes..."
It : "... but that's not the way the world works. You see, I started this business, so I know how the world works."
EA Rep : "....... Well, I'm sorry, but we're going to have to decline."
It : "You must be from the California. Are you from California?"
EA Rep : "This is the Los Angeles office, yes."
It : "I knew it. You know, all people from California are crazy, so..."
EA Rep : "huh?"
It : "It's not your fault. You can't help it."
EA Rep : "Thanks. I'll work on that."

Don't worry... after the phone call, it didn't fall on the classic sitcom gag of "where were you guys? You were supposed to back me up!" Instead, it kept sulking on and on... "how can those guys be so dumb? They don't have any brains or something... They're just... dumb" Came back 20 minutes later with a new rationalization, "you see, they were afraid of it. They knew it was going to sell too well. You know, those guys at EA. They're not idiots." yyyyeah.
 
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rofl.gif
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Quick, someone on friendlies with EA find out if they remember what the name of the crazy guy who pitched the futuristic BF2 game to them was.... ;)
 
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EA Rep said:
....yeah, well, I think it sounds as though it could potentially cannibalize the sales of our existing IP, so we'll have to decline.
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So explain why you killed Ultima and Wing Commander. :mad:
 
Here's one that's a little off-color. This one actually doesn't include the creature at all -- rather, it's two of us carrying on a conversation mocking it all the while, and using a lot of its favorite phrases in the process. Proving that at least some of the time, we did have some fun with the creature's nature. This was over IM, so you'll see multiple lines from the same person from time to time, but I changed the screennames to fit the formatting I've been using thus far.

Me : If it sees the UC2 trailers, you're going to be in a living hell for a while.
Physics Guy : Why's that?
Me : The trailers demo a lot of the melee stuff that we're trying to get to, and that means it's going to bug you to the point of insanity over the "ragdoll"...
Me : sorry... I meant ... "the ragdoll"
Physics Guy : But vehicles are crrrrucial.
Me : We need to have the bump on the ragdoll first.
Physics Guy : We need to have the STFU on the Creature.
Me : *sigh~~~~~* We need to have the month of May come sooner... and not end.
Physics Guy : What about May?
Me : The creature will be gone for the entirety of that month... or so it claims.
Physics Guy : New term: I can't wait for the May.
Physics Guy : The May will be crucial.
Physics Guy : Do you hear what I'm saying?
Me : Yes, but I'm talking about the special effects right now. It's all about the *effects* and the *exploosions*. You know, without that, all you have is a horse's head in your bed.
Me : Be glad I didn't say anything about your "sweet patooties." :p
Physics Guy : Oh look! Behind you! I thought I saw a Nazi! Maybe you'd better go check it out...
Me : You have to remember that the Nazis were really great architects. They could have made this building a lot better. "I swear it is the worst managed business I've ever seen in my life."
Physics Guy : For him to have said that really means something.
Physics Guy : He's the guy whose own Mom refuses to work with him.
Me : He's probably never looked in the mirror before.
Me : Mirrors don't have enough specular for his taste.
Physics Guy : This building must be run almost as badly as the McDonald's with plates and siverware.
Me : You mean the slave labor camp Micky-D's?
Physics Guy : I have to go polish the ragdolls now.
Me : Don't bother changing all the font colors in your codes or your fired.
Physics Guy : Were you here a few days ago when he was asking us how many lines of code we had each written?
Me : Yeah... he was asking me...
Physics Guy : A million, right?
Me : Naw... it'd be a million if I were writing in Modula-2 or something... C++, it's probably more like 13 million.
Physics Guy : Internally, I've implemented physics all as a single ginormous LISP expression.
Physics Guy : 1 line.
Me : Hell... maybe we should switch over to brainf*ck...
Physics Guy : In fact, it also runs as an emacs module.
Physics Guy : I always though emacs needed an FPS.
Physics Guy : Take that, vi!
Me : No... what emacs really needs is a "tatteris" game... but shiny.
Physics Guy : In fact, emacs could use more specular everywhere.
Physics Guy : Shiny letters. Mmmmm.
Me : The buttons need the glow on them, though.
Me : Otherwise, they're not functional.
Physics Guy : Why would you even want to use a text editor with old, ugly, 2D letters? How could that even be good?
Me : The way I understand it, you need a lot of memory to store the letters in 3d, because you can't just store the letters, but also all the ragdolls and the specular maps for them.
Physics Guy : The letters need to have per-polygon collision to get the kerning right.
Me : Can't you just fix that? It's all just codes anyway.
Physics Guy : And it needs an editor using the realtime engine.
Me : You should take a look at the editor they have in the Torque engine.
Physics Guy : See, but that requires learning to write codes. If you think about Bill Gates, he never knew how to program and that's all there is to success.
Me : Well, then I guess this company will be among the top 3 game developers in the Houston area after all -- the creature's stupidity guarantees it!
Physics Guy : He said top 3 in the Houston area?
Me : You were there.
Physics Guy : How many developers are there in the Houston area anyway?
Me : Including us... 3.
Me : We've already reached our goal!
Physics Guy : Break out the champagne.
Me : Not yet. emacs still isn't glowing. It's a total joke.
Me : And it doesn't edit eternal terrain in realtime.
Physics Guy : "I always thought realtime meant 60 frames per second."
Me : 60 was 3 days ago. This morning it was 100.
Physics Guy : Did he actually say "eternal"?
Me : Yep. Usually used the word "neverending", but it somehow became "eternal."
Physics Guy : So why did they even make Notepad? It doesn't edit eternal text.
Physics Guy : Why would anybody want to use that when there is all this 9700s and things?
Me : We programmers are weird.
Me : Good thing we won't be needed after this game is done.
 
Here's one where I basically lost it, and I wasn't alone in that.

It : Why can't you just have that scroll as an animated texture?
Me : Well, that's fine, but that's a lot of texture files to be storing for just a simple scrolling effect.
Art Director : You can get the same effect on world models just using the UV scroll scripts you added.
Me : Yeah, and the world models go through a simpler renderpath anyway, so it's a lot faster.
It : What about the object models?
Me : What about them? I don't know of any case where we plan on an animated texture on an object model.
Art Director : There's the scanner thing that the *******s have, but we can probably get by with a specialized effect for that, rather than generating a big flipbook of textures.
Me : Yeah, from the demos that [Animator] showed me, I can probably whip something out in an hour or two for that.
It : Can't you just use one texture instead of making some specialized thingy?
Me : Then... it's... not animated.
It : No, I mean you break it up into different parts that are animated differently, you only have one texture.
Me & Art Director : Huh?!?!?
It : I mean you just have one texture, and you animate it.
Art Director : Right, but animated textures are just videos dumped out as separate texture frames.
Me : And I don't even know why you're so worried about this; All the texture animations we want to consider are on world models and they're all UV animations.
It : See but if you use the same texture and just animate it, you don't have to script anything.
Me : Then you have all these texture files for no reason -- the UV animation scripts are faster anyway.
It : But it's just when you take all these things in the texture and animate them, it's all one texture.
Me : Oh my god, I'm having flashbacks to 'guns in one place' thing all over again.
Art Director : I think the image you have in your head is a little off.
It : What?
Art Director : Never mind.
Me : Listen, the thing we're talking about is simply animating UV coordinates on a model... animated textures are just animation frames. You have a series of frames dumped as separate images and a list of those images in order...
It : But you only need the keyframes and the bone positions for an animation... so it's just one texture.
Me & Art Director : TEXTURES DON'T HAVE BONES!!!
It : Can't you just fix that?
Me : GO... HOME!
Art Director : ...and don't come back.
It : Decaf, boys. Decaf.
Me & Art Director : SHUT.... UP...
Me : Before you make an even bigger fool of yourself.
It : Are you drunk? It's only the afternoon.
Me : I reiterate... GO... HOME!
Art Director : ...and don't come back.
 
...awesome! Glad to see you could at least get away with retaliating a little bit. Shame you had to, but if he were as sensitive as he seems like he could be, ew. Actually, I guess he seems like his head was so thick he rarely even noticed insults. XD So...\ I hope to read more stories in which you abuse him! ;;;D
 
I don't know weather to laugh or be concerned, oh well you seam to of come out of it okay, I'm just surprised at how many stories you have.
 
I didn't realize I had an obligation. I'm starting to lose track of which ones I've actually put up, especially since I haven't exactly been adhering to any specific order.

Anyway, here's a really fun one (chock full of creature-y goodness in one little conversation) --
It : Y'know, I just noticed something about that trooper character.
Me : Oh, you're not going to talk about him looking dark-skinned in a dark area again, are you?
It : Does he do that?
Me : You were just whining about that yesterday!
It : Oh... well, that's kind of bad if he looks like something else when it's dark.
Me : Is there a reason you're here?
It : Do I need a reason to be here? I mean, I own the place and I own all the guys sitting in it.
Me : That's great... I meant you were starting to talk about something that you seem to mistakenly think is worth mentioning.
It : Huh? Oh, yeah, about the trooper guy.
Me : ... yeah.
It : I just noticed he doesn't smile when you kill a guy.
Me : I really shouldn't have asked.
It : I mean, I always smile when I kill one of the bots in The Unreal Tournament. Shouldn't the guy smile, too?
Me : *sigh*... leaving aside the fact that the trooper's gameplay track is actually first-person shooter gameplay, so you wouldn't really see his face anyway, the fact that the game is set in a warzone has a little something to do with it.
It : But yeah, that's exactly it, you know what I'm saying? It's just like how you laugh when you kill someone in the game, you're happy when you're in war and killing people.
Me : I can't recall anybody ever describing battlefields as a happy place.
It : Sure they do, they talk about angels and stuff.
Me : They talk about ending up among them! As in being dead...
It : But --
Me : -- and before you say it, let me remind you that it's only in the games that you respawn after you're dead.
It : Okay, but you see, I'm talking about killing others, not yourself. You need to listen to what I'm saying.
Me : I'm not even clear how you ran across this in the first place.
It : I don't know.
Me : o___O you... don't... know?!? How do you not know? You brought it up. And why are you even telling me about this? Isn't this more of an art issue?
It : Oh. Wait a minute... but you're... oh... I thought... *sigh...* Okay, I'll go see what [Art Director] says.

minutes later, I heard a series of unintelligible screams from the other side of the wall (which of course, were later described to me in detail), most of which were going down this same line. Though the one moment that made me laugh when I was told about it was that when speaking to the art director, it had admitted to forgetting that I was a programmer.

I also like the "I own the place and all the people in it" part... that's very much its attitude about employees in general (BTW, it didn't own the place, it was renting).
 
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Im enough of a geek to actually know what the word "optronic" comes from(no idea if "it" do):

Startrek. The holodeck and transporter technology uses optronics to store the quantum data, and probably need at least cpu capacity equal to a 1km in sqare solid metal array of Cell processors doing quantum math to actually process anything, and then slow as a snail.

The most knowns startrek computer running one, is those on the Galaxy class vessels. one CPU core is about 10 m wide, 25 meters tall, and runs many, many times the speed of light, and use optical processing, in warp speed. And the Enteprise used 3 of them.
 
Im enough of a geek to actually know what the word "optronic" comes from(no idea if "it" do)
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Well, it is a fan of Star Trek, even if it can't really separate it from reality at times. And I can sort of accept that with its poor short-term memory, that it may make the mistake of saying "optonic" when it meant to say "optronic."

EDIT :
So, since you mentioned the holodeck (and I believe I already mentioned the creature's little idea of a training level being a holodeck-like room where you shoot at circles that move around on the wall). I searched around in my text files for mentions of the holodeck and excluded those I've already said, and ran across this one.

This was about 2 weeks after we'd hired our erstwhile female coder --
It : So now that we've defied the laws of the universe, what do you think?
Me : Defied the laws of the universe, how?
It : I mean, now that we have, what do you think? I always thought it's like a holodeck program or something.
Me : I really have no clue what you're talking about.
It : I mean the what's her name, the new girl.
Me : [Female coder]? You really have a problem with names, don't you?
It : Do I?
Me : Yesterday, you called me 'Brian' 4 times, which is funny not just because most everyone refers to me by my initials, but because there's no one in this company even named 'Brian.'
It : I don't know anybody named 'Brian.' I know someone named 'Ken,' though.
Me : You mean the guy we interviewed about 3 days ago?
It : Was his name 'Brian'?
Me : Can we get back on topic, please?
It : So, we've defied the laws of the universe; What do you think?
Me : I'm not clear how we've defied the laws of the universe or how a holodeck got into the discussion.
It : Well, it's... it's a metaphor thingy... you know... like a holodeck thing because you can make anything in a holodeck.
Me : Okay.
It : You know how you can make a team of supermodels to satisfy you.
Me : Which is pretty much why a real holodeck would be the downfall of humanity.
It : So it's like right now with the math.
Me : The math? What math?
It : A girl doing math.
Me : Oh, god, we're on this topic again.
It : Well?
Me : Well, what?
It : What is it? Is it live or is it Memorex?
Me : What am I supposed to say, that your image of the universe is based on talking Barbie dolls?
It : I don't understand. Explain it to me.
Me : For god's sake, she was in the engineering program at Rice -- the same school that told you never to apply again, and I seriously doubt they'd let someone in who couldn't "do math."
It : So she got away with it.
Me : I would happen to think it has something to do with having at least enough knowledge to know that an octagon has eight sides.
It : What's that look supposed to mean?
Me : Nothing. Nothing at all.
It : You know, sometimes I wonder if I'm not in a holodeck right now.
Me : Why's that?
It : Well, something tastes artificial about all you guys.
Me : O____o Ummm... I'd be concerned if you were actually tasting any of us.
It : See? Like that!
Me : .................
 
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Thanks for the creature stories. It was a great move writing that stuff down, making things like that up is very hard or impossible.
 
Some people asked for more, and it's getting a little harder to search manually through text for something that's just plain funny (and not just plain hateful) and not simply a re-occurrence of something else already mentioned (which happened a lot, by the way)...

Since the last one had something about trouble with who is who and not remembering names, I figure I might as well include this one.

It : "Who's going to be working on the HUD?"
Me : "I figure [Win32 Guy] can work on that. I mean, we hired him for various extra side tools and things, but I'm fairly sure he wants to get in on the game side of things, too."
It : "Which one is he?"
Me : "There are only five programmers here, it can't be that hard to keep track."
It : "Yeah, but which one is he?"
Me : "He's the one who sits closest to the door."
It : "Oh... is he that awkward kind of really super-nerd looking fellow?"
Me : "That... doesn't really narrow it down. You just described half the people who work here."
It : "Okay, but sitting closest to the door...."
Me : "You... should be able to see him... it's a glass door."
It : "Yeah, but I see all the programmers. Except for [My Initials]... I wonder where he is."
Me : "He's sitting in front of you questioning why he hasn't shot his boss yet."
It : "You know, sometimes you just don't make any sense."
Me : "I kind of figured that would be lost on you."
It : "Did [My Initials] call you and tell you he was going to be late?"
Me : "For crying out loud, that's me! I'm right here!"
It : "Okay, okay, so I'm bad with names. So sue me."
Me : "I notice you don't have quite this much of a problem with the artists' names."
It : "I don't know, I guess it's because they make more sense to me. I guess I like them more."
Me : "Because you pay them less?"
It : "Of course."
Me : -____- "I'm going to go give everybody their asignments."
It : "Who?"
Me : "Everybody! As in all the people you see in that room!"
 
ShootMyMonkey said:
IIt : Do I need a reason to be here? I mean, I own the place and I own all the guys sitting in it.
Me : That's great... I meant you were starting to talk about something that you seem to mistakenly think is worth mentioning.
It : Huh? Oh, yeah, about the trooper guy.
Me : ... yeah.
It : I just noticed he doesn't smile when you kill a guy.
Me : I really shouldn't have asked.
It : I mean, I always smile when I kill one of the bots in The Unreal Tournament. Shouldn't the guy smile, too?
Me : *sigh*... leaving aside the fact that the trooper's gameplay track is actually first-person shooter gameplay, so you wouldn't really see his face anyway, the fact that the game is set in a warzone has a little something to do with it.
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wow.
 
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