04-06-2003, 02:48 AM
First off, it's pretty unlikely that it was a programmer that claimed that GPOWs can be generated since as far as I know, since most of the programmers I know would rather pay fines than chat with fans. <_<
Second, blizzard programs have written a lot of bug-free code. They've also written a lot of bugged code. Just like every other programmer I've ever heard of. And blizzard QA has missed a lot of bugs. And I personally have written a lot of code which I now forget but I'll continue to discuss as if I remembered because I think I still remember it. And if someone points out that I'm wrong, I'll be happy to admit it and thank them for the correction. So in this, I'm happy to agree with you: my track record for knowing what I've programmed is none to great.
A lot of people diss blizzard for horrible programming, and a lot of that is deserved. However, in doing so people tend to overlook our accomplishments too. Take a look at what the D2 servers are doing: ai for an average of forty monsters per player, path finding for all that, collision, countless missiles, all at most of the time 25 frames per second, and none of it exceptionally good ;) but there it is. A couple of hundred thousand players at once, which is by the way, more than the number of people chatting on yahoo at the moment. And all of it has to be done with a dense enough player to server ratio and low enough bandwidth in a real time game that we can avoid charging a monthly fee. And we were stupid enough to promise to people that that's something we could do, even though we had no evidence that it would be even possible to do so. So question our programming skills all you want, I'll admit that looking at some of the bugs that've come up it's deserved. But I'll always know that we did some pretty damn impressive things amidst all of our mistakes as well.
And personally, I think I learned a heck of a lot doing it. And if we can ever convince the financial types to try something this crazy ever again, I think we'll do a much better job the second time around. At least I hope so anyway :P
Second, blizzard programs have written a lot of bug-free code. They've also written a lot of bugged code. Just like every other programmer I've ever heard of. And blizzard QA has missed a lot of bugs. And I personally have written a lot of code which I now forget but I'll continue to discuss as if I remembered because I think I still remember it. And if someone points out that I'm wrong, I'll be happy to admit it and thank them for the correction. So in this, I'm happy to agree with you: my track record for knowing what I've programmed is none to great.
A lot of people diss blizzard for horrible programming, and a lot of that is deserved. However, in doing so people tend to overlook our accomplishments too. Take a look at what the D2 servers are doing: ai for an average of forty monsters per player, path finding for all that, collision, countless missiles, all at most of the time 25 frames per second, and none of it exceptionally good ;) but there it is. A couple of hundred thousand players at once, which is by the way, more than the number of people chatting on yahoo at the moment. And all of it has to be done with a dense enough player to server ratio and low enough bandwidth in a real time game that we can avoid charging a monthly fee. And we were stupid enough to promise to people that that's something we could do, even though we had no evidence that it would be even possible to do so. So question our programming skills all you want, I'll admit that looking at some of the bugs that've come up it's deserved. But I'll always know that we did some pretty damn impressive things amidst all of our mistakes as well.
And personally, I think I learned a heck of a lot doing it. And if we can ever convince the financial types to try something this crazy ever again, I think we'll do a much better job the second time around. At least I hope so anyway :P