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Brian Hook Interview
A reader writes:"I just read this very in-depth interview with Brian Hook on a site called Curmudgeon Gamer. Hook used to work for id Software (Quake 2 and 3) and later for Verant (Everquest) and he apparently worked on Glide for the old 3DFX cards. Now he runs his own smaller game company called Pyrogon. In the interview he talks about development styles of Q2 and Q3, MMORPGs, the lessons of 3DFX, and development of cross-platform games like his Candy Cruncher (which is available for MacOSX and Linux!). He even gets into some criticism of modern games and the life of a smaller game developer. Lengthy read, but lots of stuff to think about there since he tells it like he sees it."
For some reason spending hours exploring dungeons and killing monsters is seen as adolescent; but spending hours making houses and watching simulated people is 'sophisticated'.
That one has always puzzed me.
I think a good issue is (re)raised here with regards to OpenGL having no one really looking after it now. OpenGL is the crux of porting games to non-ms platforms. He mentioned that it was a reasonable task to write rendering code that works across different graphics api's, and IANA graphics developer so I'd like to know what other people feel about this. And by extension, is it really that important for a game to use OpenGL to be easily portable?
-Reid
I attended a speech by Brian Hook at the University of Florida a few years back. He had once been a student there before dropping out to work at 3Dfx. As I recall he was still at 3Dfx at that time (which was well before 3Dfx melted down.) It was an interesting speech, relating how he went from a student half-way through his studies to the creator of the Glide API.
One thing that is interesting is that I think has become much less arrogant as he has gotten older (he seems quite humble in this interview.) I mean he did create Glide almost single-handedly. Of course I imagine that getting humble with age is a pretty standard trend, especially among software developers. How many developers in the audience remember how arrogant they were when younger? I know I was. Ah, the ignorance of youth...
If I might go ahead and speculate (which I love to do :-), then I'd say that Stellar Deep is Brian wanting to do something really big, but understanding intellectually that it's almost impossible to pull off.
He's not out to create something as grand E&B, but he's trying to compress the essence of what makes those games fun, into one small product just large enough to realistically be pulled off by his small team.
The problem might be that in his mind the game is still a little too large, and as more and more features are peeled off, the whole might not look as interesting any more. There's a certain reality to being a small developer that you must face.
But I think it's great that he's trying. He's out there doing what I'm only dreaming about, doodling away my time with books and mailinglist, deluding myself into thinking that maybe one day, the game of my dreams will "spring" from my fingertips.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
In any case, I'd much rather hear Brian Hook speak than, say, Seamus Blackley... now THERE is a bloated ego for no reason.
One of the best reasons for porting to alternate platforms I've ever heard. More Linux ports == Fewer bugs