Well, not literally:
Some random points:
- I’m pretty sure this is the first serious MMO bug copped to via Youtube.
- I worked with Colin Shannon when I was at Mythic. He is one of the best programmers out there and Mythic is damned lucky to have him. Internet yutzes who clearly would NEVER leave a bug in an MMO EVER on all the MMOs THEY’VE coded? Kindly STFU, thanks.
- Most of this video was, as usual, funny, in a veddy dry British Paul Barnett(tm) sort of way. This part was not:”Now, code’s general plan has been to blame the designers for this. Now, I’m about to prove, definitively, that this is code’s fault. Watch… and learn.”
Yeeeeeeeah. It wasn’t funny, even if Colin (who in addition to being a great coder is also an almost supernaturally tolerant person) was up for it. You don’t even do that sort of thing in team meetings. Jokes like that break morale like a twig. I’ve seen dark jokes like that (and to be fair, participated in them) from both sides of the fence. As a coder, I had a, let us say, adversarial relationship with one particular designer. When trying to explain to him what was possible and not possible, the response was almost always “But I designed it that way!” Which became such a tag line I finally wrote it on my whiteboard. Note: this was not a healthy relationship. And I guarantee you that there are team members who are not laughing when watching that video. Though they may be writing things on whiteboards.
Note to Mythic: I love you guys, but Designer vs Coder isn’t a valid playstyle.
Mark Jacobs’ response:
Folks,
Paul and Colin were trying to be funny. That’s Paul’s style and Colin is one of our most trusted, talented and valued guys. If they can poke a little fun at things…
And by the way, Paul also makes fun of himself and doesn’t take himself too seriously (well, most of the time
).
Bugs happen, design errors happen and nobody’s perfect. Well, except for some folks on the Internet who never make mistakes at their jobs and neither should anybody according to their posts.
A sense of humor is a wonderful thing and necessary, especially nowadays.
Mark
#1 by J. on December 6th, 2008
Supernaturally tolerant is probably a good term for it.
#2 by dmosbon on December 6th, 2008
Bored of Paul’s voice nowadays, maybe he should just BUTTON IT for awhile.
#3 by VPellen on December 6th, 2008
Honestly I found it fairly amusing, but yeah, it was a tad mean what with the mudslinging.
#4 by Pandanapper on December 6th, 2008
Rehearsed it seemed to me. But a poor excuse for a poor system is poor.
#5 by Athryn on December 6th, 2008
Barnett being a jerk again? Surprised not.
#6 by Tony H. on December 6th, 2008
I found it actually kind of funny and light hearted. Paul does seem a little bored over doing to videos. That or I feel that Paul actually is starting to look a little stressed. More then Colin was sort of embarrassed looking for being in the video.
Over all, it was just a joke, I think it’s a little mean but it seems absolutely British. I don’t think it’s all that bad.
#7 by Monty on December 6th, 2008
Hehehe, you Americans and your drama.
Mistake found, fix being made, comedy video to explain it, end of story. Cup of tea?
Monty.
#8 by Arrakiv on December 6th, 2008
Hm, needed more comedy and less down dressing to come across as intended, I think. More so with the way Colin was standing there looking. If he had more of a part than “I’m standing here being blamed and bowing to your statements,” and there was some amusing “bickering” back and forth it might have worked well. Then it would seem like a Mythic problem that Mythic was owing up to, rather than this one poor coder.
#9 by Dan Gray on December 6th, 2008
It was.. mildly amusing, like an episode of The Simpsons you’ve seen a few too many times.
I don’t quite get what he is trying to achieve, either. It was good for Mythic to have the loud charismatic Brit for release hype, but it would probably be better if he took more of a back seat now.
#10 by Abalieno on December 6th, 2008
Bah, you folks enjoy too much the politically correct and comment the superfluous.
What is relevant is that Warhammer’s real issues aren’t in the coding, but in game design.
So where’s the pillory of the designers?
Oh wait, Mark Jacobs would be one of them? Then I understand why they are blaming one coder.
On the specific issue it is good that they found the problem, it is good that who was responsible admitted it and apologized (publicly or not), it is good that now things can move on. What’s wrong is when mistakes aren’t understood and ignored.
Talk about facts, not form.
#11 by Larry Lard on December 6th, 2008
> Paul also makes fun of himself and doesn’t take himself too seriously
That someone makes fun of themselves and doesn’t take themselves too seriously does not magically give them carte blanche to make fun of everyone else and not take anyone else seriously.
Also, from the video (around 2:20):
> and so at a stroke I have been able to prove the reason that contribution is currently snafu’d
in rvr … is because of a piece of broken coder code that should never have made it there
‘Broken coder code’ as opposed to all that working-perfectly ‘designer code’? Oh wait.
#12 by Dave G. on December 6th, 2008
Yeah, I didn’t find about half of that funny at all, just mean-spirited and outright disrespectful. It’s not that I don’t get British humour. I get British humour just fine and I find it the best in the world when it comes to laughs.
This isn’t though. It’s not funny. Paul spent half of that clip belittling Colin, accusing him of “shoddy work”, and rhetorically asking Colin several times about whether or not the code should have made it into production. Yes asshole, we get it already. Move the fuck on with your life.
This leaves a really sour taste in my mouth. Is this the sort of shit that goes on at Mythic? The coders spending thousands of hours of their lives working on something get treated like a turd stuck to the bottom of some “designer’s” shoe?
This is not how you treat your team members, and one employee acting and carrying on as though they are infinitely superior to another employee is disgraceful. It’s certainly not something that I would ever put up with.
Unbelievable.
#13 by DrewC on December 7th, 2008
Chances the Technical Director wrote that particular piece of code: 0%.
So, some poor guy just watched his boss and his boss’s boss publicly belittle his work for the better part of 4 minutes. I’m sure that was a lot of fun for him.
The first rule I learned in this industry (ironically, working as a CSR at Mythic) was: you don’t talk down about your coworkers in front of customers. I’ve seen CSRs make inexcusably egregious errors, and been screamed at by customers for it, but I never, ever, denigrated another employee in front of the customer.
#14 by Siobhann on December 7th, 2008
I want to see the code. Sounds like it has a good chance of landing on the DailyWTF.
#15 by Freakazoid on December 7th, 2008
It’s really the fault of the industry for not really polishing MMOs like they should. WoW almost being the exception, every MMO has been treated like a paid beta compared to other PC games. You could try to shift the blame to coders, even quietly, but all anyone on the team needs is more time and more testing to fix every mistake.
#16 by Ardanna on December 7th, 2008
Poor guy. He was standing there with his head down for most of the time.
I think this Paul B guy is an asshole – people use humour as a guise for being nasty then accuse people of not being able to take a joke when they respond accordingly.
I’m a senior QA analyst and have dealt with loads of bugs over the years. The devs do their best but you just can’t get everything. Everyone on the team is part of the success or failure, you could have just as easily blamed QA or whoever else.
I think this was in poor taste, and a desperate scramble to explain away/provide a scapegoat to the “public”.
There’s a reason when my recruiter asked – is there anywhere you wouldn’t want to work, I respond “Electronics Arts”.
Gross.
#17 by Avrotir on December 7th, 2008
Paul Barnett = David Brent’s character from the Office
#18 by Korak on December 7th, 2008
The problem isn’t the code it’s how shitty the contribution system is. That’s the designers fault.
I did find it moderately amusing until you realize this shit eventually gets on most peoples nerves. In the long run it’s going to fuck up morale and in the short run I guarantee that coder is going to be making more mistakes than usual.
#19 by Mark on December 7th, 2008
It was a joke! Lighten up… I can totally see why they did this. But yes, it’s a British way of doing things, and not accessible to most Americans.
#20 by Random Poster on December 7th, 2008
I think it would have come across more as was intended if the coder wasn’t just standing there saying yes to every question he was asked. He looked uncomfortable.
I don’t think it was intended to be mean spirited and it did not come off that way to me.
Now if only RvR was a coding issue I might still be playing this game.
#21 by Hello Kitty on December 8th, 2008
I don’t think Paulie was mean. Rather I believe that they both had a part in the making of the video.
#22 by Juppstein on December 8th, 2008
How to make a drama out of a funny vidcast….
#23 by Dan Gray on December 8th, 2008
@Mark: As a Brit myself I have to object to you legitimizing this by passing it off as ‘British humor’.
Perhaps you were hoping people in this comment section were ignorant enough to let that one slide, but not me!
It’s definitely not very humorous, even (or especially not) to a Brit, and it wouldn’t make it any more acceptable even if it was.
#24 by Vaxhacker on December 8th, 2008
Seemed pretty unprofessional to me, but I’m willing to believe that the “humor” was more discernable if you’re a member of their development team.
However, I’d bet real money that the reason why that “insane” code was there in the first place was that the designer didn’t specify what should happen in that scenario, so the programmer threw something in that was supposed to force the designer make, you know, a design decision. Garbage in, garbage out.
#25 by pharniel on December 8th, 2008
it is a sin by virtue of not being funny really.
it starts strong, but then the bloke in the back just sits there and takes it.
i kept waiting for the IT Crowd style “yes it made it through…but wern’t you supopsed to be testing for this very thing?”
*uncomfortable pause*
“well yes, but i’ve got my eyes on bigger things!”
“what, like your last lunch?”
it was pretty much pilloring the coders when the devs are pretty much responsible for turning warhammer into boring, a far greater sin if ever there was one.
#26 by Peter Freese on December 8th, 2008
That was… embarrassing to watch.
I’m afraid that video could give a poor impression of the level of professionalism in our industry. Code bugs get into shipping products. So do design flaws. Plenty of experienced developers deal with those issues in much better ways than this video portrays.
#27 by Hiredgoons on December 8th, 2008
You can get away with being sarcastic if it’s funny enough. Barnett wasn’t funny enough. There is about 20 seconds of material here stretched out to nearly 4 minutes, the same ratio as found in most SNL sketches.
Anyway. The code is now being looked at by the same QA team that looked at it the first time?
Is this the same QA team that also missed how Open RvR incentives offer huge incentives to avoid combat?
Oh wait, that’s a design problem.
#28 by Hello Kitty on December 9th, 2008
As you could see from the video-response to this ‘outcry’ from people, I was right. They’re both in this together… both have humour.
To brits saying this is not british humour, I disagree. This is exactly british humour… you may just not have it inside you. (no offense)
#29 by Merc on December 9th, 2008
“Now if only RvR was a coding issue I might still be playing this game.”
^This.
#30 by yunk on December 11th, 2008
Sense of humor or no, I’ve twice in my career seen managers fired for treating developers like that. (Both times were at Motorola, so I guess that must be a pretty good place to work, too bad I didn’t know it at the time.)