11–20 of 104 posts
I liked the discussion of transmitting game state for network play. Quick summary: Doom sent differences of state, which had to be received and therefore acknowledged. Quake sent the whole game state each time, but compressed, so it wouldn't matter if a transmission was lost. Neither approach seems optimal from an information theory point of view. The Doom approach needs feedback, but communicating at the optimal rat…
I liked the discussion of transmitting game state for network play. Quick summary: Doom sent differences of state, which had to be received and therefore acknowledged. Quake sent the whole game state each time, but compressed, so it wouldn't matter if a transmission was lost. Neither approach seems optimal from an information theory point of view. The Doom approach needs feedback, but communicating at the optimal rat…
I'm not an expert, but don't you have the timeline wrong? E.g. Luby's "LT codes" is from 2002, well after Quake's 1996 launch date. Honestly, though, I think the Quake guys were going for - and achieved - "good enough". (Also, coding obviously doesn't work for client -> server communication, since the server has to keep going even if packets are lost.)
I don't follow the final parenthetical comment: the point of the coding is precisely so that the server can recover all information regardless of packet loss so that it can keep going. If a client disappears then the server acts as if it disappeared at the last successfully decoded delta (it has to have a means to deal with clients disappearing regardless).
Maybe it is different if you're writing Quake, but I guarantee you the 43rd best selling game that year also had programmers "encouraged onwards" by tales of the glory that awaited after the death march.
I got the hero speech too, once. If anyone ever mentions the word "heroic" again and there isn't a burning building involved, I will start looking for new employment immediately. It seems that in our industry it is universally a code word for "We're about to exploit you because the project is understaffed and under budgeted for time and that is exactly as we planned it so you'd better cowboy up." Maybe it is differen…
The 90% + 90% is soooooo true. Everyone wants to do new shiny stuff, nobody wants to fix bugs so the product can be pushed out of the door.
I got the hero speech too, once. If anyone ever mentions the word "heroic" again and there isn't a burning building involved, I will start looking for new employment immediately. It seems that in our industry it is universally a code word for "We're about to exploit you because the project is understaffed and under budgeted for time and that is exactly as we planned it so you'd better cowboy up." Maybe it is differen…
I got the hero speech too, once. If anyone ever mentions the word "heroic" again and there isn't a burning building involved, I will start looking for new employment immediately. It seems that in our industry it is universally a code word for "We're about to exploit you because the project is understaffed and under budgeted for time and that is exactly as we planned it so you'd better cowboy up." Maybe it is differen…
I get your point, but I think that's really not what Michael Abrash was meaning here when referring to "heroes". His point is simply to show how hard it can be to finish a product, no matter how well or ill managed the team is.
There have been many a horror story of long long LONG hours posted on here ranging from RockStar (lost the link) and many others because of a looming deadline with no working benefits for those extra hours.
I got the hero speech too, once. If anyone ever mentions the word "heroic" again and there isn't a burning building involved, I will start looking for new employment immediately. It seems that in our industry it is universally a code word for "We're about to exploit you because the project is understaffed and under budgeted for time and that is exactly as we planned it so you'd better cowboy up." Maybe it is differen…
I get your point, but I think that's really not what Michael Abrash was meaning here when referring to "heroes". His point is simply to show how hard it can be to finish a product, no matter how well or ill managed the team is.
Finishing projects should not require this and anyone who tells you different is your enemy. I mean that.
The 90% + 90% is soooooo true. Everyone wants to do new shiny stuff, nobody wants to fix bugs so the product can be pushed out of the door.
Sounds like a Market for making bug fixing compelling and fun.
I liked the discussion of transmitting game state for network play. Quick summary: Doom sent differences of state, which had to be received and therefore acknowledged. Quake sent the whole game state each time, but compressed, so it wouldn't matter if a transmission was lost. Neither approach seems optimal from an information theory point of view. The Doom approach needs feedback, but communicating at the optimal rat…