Yeah, I kind of absolve him more after reading that. I mean, that's what he wrote publicly, so I'm sure it was thought about tempered, and generally very reserved. And yet he sounds completely frustrated by the development process, almost like a guy regretting his decision. I mean, imagine if you got to live a dream and the dream wasn't really all you thought it would be.
Marweas still hasnt told us about getting fired
- Thread starter Reggs
- Start date
well I don't think it was the best project for his first one. It was the franchise he loved and he sort of was forced to watch it die in his charge. If he'd spoken up he would have probably missed the opportunity to be in the industry.
I'd sell us out too.
|Rx|Diogenes
Veteran X
Releasing software on deadline can be brutal. Many times you watch feature after feature getting pulled off the burner to hit that deadline. More than once I've signed off or released something that I was less than content with. I try to love my work, but not work on things I love. It would break me if I had to make those kinds of choices with Tribes.
This community has always made the people who interact with us the scapegoats even though they are the ones who have cared the most about making the games. I think that it would be very nice to get some input from Qix and people at IG without community members giving them constant shit.
Great Thread! So cool to see so many familiar names. To me, one of the finest features of Tribes was the incredible depth of competition and it's ability to entertain us as a spectator sport. How many of us remember the great matches as they were brought to us by the best shoutcasters. I miss those days as do many of us I'm sure. Too bad this point was lost with T:V
Anyway again great thread - keep it going!
Anyway again great thread - keep it going!
Howdy all.
I don't mind answering questions about T2 or the Sierra/Dynamix relationship. It's been long enough now that I don't think I'll be jeopardizing any careers (including my own) with honest answers.
I won't muckrake and I won't respond to tirades or abuse. Why? I don't feel like painting anyone else black, and I don't work for the company that's trying to sell you a game now, so I can say what I want to say (within reason). But I also don't want/have to endure the heaping spoonfuls of vitriol that I once consumed on these forums, so I'll hang out until it's not a conversation anymore and then I'll just go be a stranger again.
Did I make mistakes with T2? Yup. I did learn the lesson of "when making a sequel, make it pretty, but don't change the original". Unfortunately, I learned that the hard way. However, I agree with you now. (NOTE: I still would have improved the vehicles and some of the user interfaces, and some of the maps would have had to still be larger to accomodate the vehicles. Oh yeah...and I really liked the "Siege" game mode that we added, even if it was always a minority-share game. So, okay...I would have changed it in some ways...but leaving the core gameplay & physics strictly alone.)
Regarding the physics of the game...I didn't change any of that (except the vehicles, of course, which used Havok physics). The same programmer that did the physics in T1 did the physics in T2 and he was reponsible for any differences in feel you may have hated/loved.
It sucked that T2 got released while Sierra was being purchased by V-U so that management had little or no focus on the game and the bean counters ruled the school, insisting on ship dates rather than quality. It was obvious to everyone in Sierra and Dynamix that T2 wasn't ready to ship, but when the company says "ship it", dev teams can either quit in a huff, or ship it and try to fix it after ship. The latter is what we tried to do. We had to put a good company face on it, and try to spin it positive, but only because we were employees...not because we thought it was a good idea.
Do you think that's uncommon in this industry? It ain't.
I know that I offended some folks at Sierra when I started arguing strongly with execs there about quality, release schedules, and shooting ourselves in the foot...but everyone at Sierra was far more interested in looking good to the new V-U management than they were in helping to release a quality game. They (nameless folks at Sierra that I don't have specific names for because I don't know all of them and what does it matter now anyway?) started waving their pointy fingers at Dynamix as the source of all troubles (not just with Tribes) and managed to get all 96 of us canned so that fewer folks at Sierra headquarters would get laid off.
And "Tribes 2" was the *only* game that made money for Sierra that year...so go figure. Why would you cut the only team that makes you money? Because if you don't...your own job is in jeopardy. So yeah...fear and the V-U buyout had a lot to do with why T2 was released in the shape that it was in. (It also didn't help that some folks internal to Sierra thought they could do a better job designing a T3 game...and those folks were a lot closer to the political machine that made decisions than us folks down in Oregon at Dynamix and their voices were louder because of proximity and frequency.)
Okay...that's enough for a first post. If I've been offensive to anyone, well...it wasn't intended that way.
For what it's worth...
-- Dave.
I don't mind answering questions about T2 or the Sierra/Dynamix relationship. It's been long enough now that I don't think I'll be jeopardizing any careers (including my own) with honest answers.
I won't muckrake and I won't respond to tirades or abuse. Why? I don't feel like painting anyone else black, and I don't work for the company that's trying to sell you a game now, so I can say what I want to say (within reason). But I also don't want/have to endure the heaping spoonfuls of vitriol that I once consumed on these forums, so I'll hang out until it's not a conversation anymore and then I'll just go be a stranger again.
Did I make mistakes with T2? Yup. I did learn the lesson of "when making a sequel, make it pretty, but don't change the original". Unfortunately, I learned that the hard way. However, I agree with you now. (NOTE: I still would have improved the vehicles and some of the user interfaces, and some of the maps would have had to still be larger to accomodate the vehicles. Oh yeah...and I really liked the "Siege" game mode that we added, even if it was always a minority-share game. So, okay...I would have changed it in some ways...but leaving the core gameplay & physics strictly alone.)
Regarding the physics of the game...I didn't change any of that (except the vehicles, of course, which used Havok physics). The same programmer that did the physics in T1 did the physics in T2 and he was reponsible for any differences in feel you may have hated/loved.
It sucked that T2 got released while Sierra was being purchased by V-U so that management had little or no focus on the game and the bean counters ruled the school, insisting on ship dates rather than quality. It was obvious to everyone in Sierra and Dynamix that T2 wasn't ready to ship, but when the company says "ship it", dev teams can either quit in a huff, or ship it and try to fix it after ship. The latter is what we tried to do. We had to put a good company face on it, and try to spin it positive, but only because we were employees...not because we thought it was a good idea.
Do you think that's uncommon in this industry? It ain't.
I know that I offended some folks at Sierra when I started arguing strongly with execs there about quality, release schedules, and shooting ourselves in the foot...but everyone at Sierra was far more interested in looking good to the new V-U management than they were in helping to release a quality game. They (nameless folks at Sierra that I don't have specific names for because I don't know all of them and what does it matter now anyway?) started waving their pointy fingers at Dynamix as the source of all troubles (not just with Tribes) and managed to get all 96 of us canned so that fewer folks at Sierra headquarters would get laid off.
And "Tribes 2" was the *only* game that made money for Sierra that year...so go figure. Why would you cut the only team that makes you money? Because if you don't...your own job is in jeopardy. So yeah...fear and the V-U buyout had a lot to do with why T2 was released in the shape that it was in. (It also didn't help that some folks internal to Sierra thought they could do a better job designing a T3 game...and those folks were a lot closer to the political machine that made decisions than us folks down in Oregon at Dynamix and their voices were louder because of proximity and frequency.)
Okay...that's enough for a first post. If I've been offensive to anyone, well...it wasn't intended that way.
For what it's worth...
-- Dave.
ThraxEvil Light Bulb
Veteran X
=o
This is some compelling stuff
This is some compelling stuff
And most of the devs have the respect & admiration of us.
Others, though, left a bad taste in our collective mouths with nasty, condecending treatment.
Got Haggis?
Veteran XX
1000 pages by midnight
Good question! Inquiring minds want to know!
Evil Light Bulb
Veteran X
it's qix, rofls
btw: I don't think the changes you made to T2 over T1 were bad at all. In fact the game was almost perfect except the physics and some gameplay aspects which were corrected with T2 classic (and of course the maps, Recalescance??). It's pretty short sighted to say "let's make a sequel to a good game by just prettying up the graphics". Blizzard is very successful in innovating genres with each sequel they release.
btw: I don't think the changes you made to T2 over T1 were bad at all. In fact the game was almost perfect except the physics and some gameplay aspects which were corrected with T2 classic (and of course the maps, Recalescance??). It's pretty short sighted to say "let's make a sequel to a good game by just prettying up the graphics". Blizzard is very successful in innovating genres with each sequel they release.
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Now THAT is a story.