Devs from the past or just experienced programmers?

[CallakDW]

Ok, I've heard some whispering about the who's who of the past devs that still participate on these forums, but no longer work for the current company. I know I've heard several people that seem to know somthing can't or can be done with near sertainty (or take exeption when players get angry and say the wrong things about the game and it's developers), and these people allways seem to be the same bunch. I was thinking it would be nice to know who is actually saying somthing that should be given more weight because they have experience in the game's developement and who is just making comments based on programmers intuition even though they have never touched the game.

I'd like to request those who actually have had a hand in HZ developement to post here and let everyone know who you are, at least for those who don't know.

[Balthizar]

Bump I wish to know too

[Fratricide]

Whom do you have questions about?

[Vahrokh]

There's a number of people that for a reason or another have talked or even "assisted" developers in the past, and some who even went to do stuff with them.

Most of them are gone though, those left can just tell what they have seen in the past (basically DB times, with IRC being often used).

I can ie tell how bonuses for spells / skills are applied and how/why the coefficients are retrieved off (because it's what I was involved in), but nothing else bar some guesstimate as programmer. Others worked more in graphics and can tell more about that. No one has seen the code afaik, and all it's known has been told by Smeglor and very few others in the past.

[CallakDW]

Whom do you have questions about?

I was trying to get away without naming people, but honestly you were one onf them. }:=8D

[Fratricide]

I was trying to get away without naming people, but honestly you were one of them. }:=8D

Well... I'll have to state then that I have never actually worked on Horizons... all my opinions are mostly that from my programming experience and from what I am able to gather from talking with others.

[Goriax]

This is a very good question which should be answered by anyone who purports to have inside knowledge.

I have made technical comments but have never worked on HZ although there's certainly been some mention of HZ technical details in these forums over the years. Therefore, you won't see me saying that HZ does such and so in it's schema, although I have heard on these forums that it uses SQL Server and might make general comments based on that. Likewise, I've never seen it's source code but there's certainly been enough evidence that they mainly use C++ and Microsoft Visual Studio (of course) as do I (although I appear to use a different version). So I may have comments about that. Or about general Windows issues since I've seen mention that even the servers run Windows.

I'm the senior Windows developer at my company (unmanaged C++). I've been doing Windows/C++ for about 15 years and I've been programming longer then many on these forums have been alive. I've also been coming up to speed on .NET and C# (I LIKE that language) but that doesn't really apply here I guess.

[Danna Firesoul]

This is a very good question which should be answered by anyone who purports to have inside knowledge.

I have made technical comments but have never worked on HZ although there's certainly been some mention of HZ technical details in these forums over the years. Therefore, you won't see me saying that HZ does such and so in it's schema, although I have heard on these forums that it uses SQL Server and might make general comments based on that. Likewise, I've never seen it's source code but there's certainly been enough evidence that they mainly use C++ and Microsoft Visual Studio (of course) as do I (although I appear to use a different version). So I may have comments about that. Or about general Windows issues since I've seen mention that even the servers run Windows.

I'm the senior Windows developer at my company (unmanaged C++). I've been doing Windows/C++ for about 15 years and I've been programming longer then many on these forums have been alive. I've also been coming up to speed on .NET and C# (I LIKE that language) but that doesn't really apply here I guess.

What he said. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was me.

Though I'm currently working as a Contractor in C# at the moment, my work experience shadows Goriax pretty closely (including the "been programming longer than many ... have been alive"). I've got a fair amount of DB experience that he didn't mention, but most applications programmers have some DB experience. At least in my experience. I've never seen the HZ source or db schema, so I'm limited to making educated guesses, so I tend to limit myself to "That's not necessarily as simple as you make it sound" type comments.

[CallakDW]

Question- Does anyone think it would be bad form to put my suspected list of names down?

[Menkure]

A "Suspected list" is hearsay, unless you have an official word as to who specifically is working on the project, and what they are doing. I'm not saying anything against it, but you have to be careful with hearsay and rumors, as they can blow up into things they never were meant to be.



A lot of information can be dissected from the various interviews since the reacquisition of Horizons and its subsequent sale to Virtrium. Virtrium LLC is a company owned by Rick Simmons. Rick was once the CTO of Tulga and a lead programmer. There is also Sean "Reyem" Meyer , who is our community manager and customer service guru. Most of the time it is Reyem that is posting as "Horizons CS", but that account, which is the basic "customer service" account, is used by pretty much everyone. I do know Rick has posted under it as well.

Reyem is working with a new hire, Eurantia. Even I don't know who Eurantia is, but having sent in my own fair share of tickets as of late, Eurantia has been absolutely wonderful in helping me out with the issues I've had.

There is also Jason "Amon Gwareth" Murdick, who under Tulga was the lead game designer. His role in Virtrium has been undefined, but considering his experience in both game design and coding, it is likely his job description is rather nondescript because he is handling a lot of everything.

While Virtrium has not released any notices on new hirings (with the exception of the new gerbils and hamsters they have ordered to replace the others), there are many others who have been providing assistance. Many others from the days of Tulga have been seen logging in here on the forums, including Amadan and Smeglor, but who knows if they are helping out with anything, or are just simply logging in to read threads and keep up with how Horizons is doing since the sale.

It was also mentioned in an interview that David Bowman was assisting on a "contract" basis. This is rather understandable as no one knew the world development tools better than him. Almost all of the world post-merge, as well as the newly gifted isle and Lesser Aradoth, were done by him.

To my knowledge, these people are not the only ones assisting with Horizons. There are many others, but until an official note from Reyem is passed down, we can only guess who is helping.

-Menkure

[Deth]

Yes never ever throw names around with anything that could be even remotely thought of as bad as someone will misunderstand some where and it will just lead to bad things.

[Tryagain]

from

http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/824/824529p2.html

Jonric: In addition to you, does the current team include many members who worked on Horizons previously?

Rick Simmons: Some members on the team who might be recognized as previous Horizons developers are Jason, Roger, Adam and Zack in design; Sean in support; Jeff in facility / operations; and Jason E. in technical. Many other previous developers are involved in advisory capacities to help out if critical problems come up. There are other new members to the team who are involved in art, support and design. We have a great core team that is very capable of making things happen in a progressive and timely fashion.

----------------------------------

The other advisors he is talking about I believe are David Bowman and Smeglor.

[CallakDW]

Please understand my motive in naming names was not to be confrontative or start rumors, but to confirm suspicians I have had for a while. Yet, if you feel this would be a bad idea I will do no such thing, as this was my first thought anyway. Unfortuantately some of the people I suspect have yet to post here and I am left wondering.

[Hal`cyon Sskyler]

I haven't seen this list, but I'm guessing I'm probably on it. Most people know about my internship last summer just before the EI buyout where I revamped the crystal loot and helped out a bit with confectioner stuff. Long story short I took out a student loan and flew out to see what the gaming industry is really like. In the end I realized that at times it's a blast but at others it's stressful and difficult, especially when you watch everything you came to help fall to pieces in front of you. Although, I did get to eat ice cream with David Bowman who, despite many people's opinion, is a genuinely great boss and a good guy overall.

Anyway, once the band started to get back together when Virtrium took over I was contacted to help finish some of what was started before everything went black in July 2006. Something about working for free really helps you get noticed. Since then I've mostly done some grunt work on the game, plenty of database entry and little fixes along with a few quests. I've had ideas bounced off me over IM countless times, and generally done nothing much worth mentioning until recently. Now I'm helping out with confectioner and testing as well as throwing out random ideas here and there.

Recently the amount of time and influence I have for the game is starting to pick up and I've decided it's probably no longer a good idea to post in the forums as a player. Everything I've posted up until this point was based on things I learned from my known internship, but in retrospect it really wasn't fair. I was trying to post as a player but since I had insider knowledge as to the game's systems I was being deceptive. For that I do apologize and would like to say that everything up to this point was my opinion, not Virtrium's.

Horizons was my first real MMO and I want to see it succeed. It's also good experience should I ever decide to follow a career in games and I enjoy working with the staff. Currently I'm an junior in college masquerading as an Oracle DBA by day and a Horizons monkey at night. Aside from that I do a lot of Java, C++, and OpenGL work in my spare spare time and try to squeeze Horizons into there somewhere.

Now is the time where I get to put on my developer hat and it's newfound responsibilities. Do you like it? It's a sombrero that says DEVELOPER across the brim. I made it myself.

[C`gan]

If I'm on your suspect list, Callak, let me reassure you I'm a player, not a dev. I don't even test on Blight all that often.

[CallakDW]

I think it's perfectly understandable that your underlying motives are being questioned, Callak. Your posts come across as barely hidden confrontations for an unnamed list of people to "put up or shut up". Rather than contacting your "suspect list" through private messages, you post asking for these unnamed suspects to ... I'm not sure what you want them to do. Confess something?

It's just a question. Are you or are you not a past developer? It's not a confession to a crime. In fact it would probably be a place of honor. And also that's why I made my last post. Nothing said here has been offensive in the least.

It's been posted a number of times those names on the forums that are official parts of the development team. Anyone, myself included, else who is posting something that you're wondering "Is this official?" when you read it, is not. If you think they are, my best suggestion to you is to report the post and let Reyem (again, the official guy) determine if what someone said is a misrepresentation in some way.

I've seen some of these, but they are all scattered about. If there is a list in one place I've not seen it.

So, with that all said, I'm going to come back to my "thesis statement" and ask again... Why does it matter?

Why? Because I do get a bit miffed when I make a suggestion or see someone else's suggestion and someone outright tells us it would or would not be feasable for reasons of the way the game is made. I've seen this on many occations, and it's my opinion that if someone is going to make such firm comments in public, than everyone, not just myself should know what grounds they have to make such a firm stance on it. Up untill now, when someone does this, I usually clam up and go the other way instead of arguing the matter because I assume they can say this because they know somthing of the way the game was developed, I would really like to know for sertain.

[LaughingOtter]

It's just a question. Are you or are you not a past developer? It's not a confession to a crime. In fact it would probably be a place of honor. And also that's why I made my last post. Nothing said here has been offensive in the least.

That's a fair question, but a complex answer. Bear with me, please, as I'm going to try to give you an honest reply without writing something that turns into the Roy Batty Speech.

You're right, Callak, nothing you've said has been offensive. The issue is with how some other players have acted in the past. There have always been players with ties to the development team - friends, family members, guild buddies form other games, all sorts of things. Sometimes those ties have become known, most have not.

Some of the players who's ties have become known have been subjected to all kinds of harassment, from in-game verbal abuse or griefing (training a field-pull on them, for instance) to accusations of recieving favoritism or worse. In one case I can think of - and have the chat logs for - a player was accused of trading sexual favors to Tulga employees to get a portal added in a community where she owned property. I've also heard of players submitting false accusations of misconduct against team members in an attempt to get that employee fired, all because of a personal conflict with a player known to have ties to the employee in question.

I'm not saying that these sorts of things happen to everyone, but they did actually happen, and I have no doubt there have been other issues that I'm not aware of.

Another issue that Hal & Velea have touched on is the tendency to begin viewing what an "insider" says as being an official statement - or, worse, a promise - even though that person clearly and repeatedly indicates that they are speaking just as a normal player or stating a personal opinion.

One more issue I'll mention is the perception that a player's ties give them some kind of hotline to, or influence over, the development team. Sometimes they get asked to endorse or promote a given suggestion, or to find out what's happening with a specific issue. Other times they get harassed for 'influencing' how development decisions turn out. Truthfully, most of these players understand that such requests could put the employee they have ties to in an awkward position and they don't want to risk getting a friend or family member into trouble.

Again, these are examples and not everyone will run into the same things. The things I mention, though, have indeed happend at one time or another.

I'm giving all these examples to show why someone might not want their association or involvement known - not because they have something to hide, but just to preserve their privacy and avoid the experiences of others.

In my case, yes, I'm one of the people working on content for Virtrium, but that's hardly a secret. I know a little something of the game systems because A) I paid attention when they were discussed by folks like Smeglor, Tango, David, or Amon, and B) because I've had to learn and ask questions about things like Simdoc and how the server, databases, simulation, and client work in order to find out why some thing can or can't be done in a quest. As a side note, Callak, you'd wondered about Fratricide; he's one of my co-guildleaders and from time to time he's asked how something or other works or why something can or can't be done. If I knew or could find the answers and they were not something covered by NDA, I'd explain it as best I could. Usually, all that involved was referencing something stated publically by a Tulga staff member. He paid attention.

I think many of the other folks on your list also just paid attention. If you ask a question and someone remembers a comment from a team member that provides an answer, they might repeat the information but neglect to provide an attribution.

As for the identities of anyone else contributing to Virtrium, I don't think that information is or should be secret, but it's for those individuals or Rick to say who they are. That's just a matter of respecting their privacy. I will say that I'm confident that nobody on the Virtrium team is seeking - or getting - ego gratification or power or special treatment. To borrow a phrase from the SCA,

"We do this in service to the Dream."

[CallakDW]

Heh, I'm simply a player that also has a programming job dealing primarily with C++, some mild Oracle and SQL work, so I have some vague ideas of what causes problems and issues in the game and system based on that.

However, I can believe what you are saying LaughingOtter. Back in the early EI days, I spent a lot of time telling people to be patient and wait to see what EI does, it's too early to tell anything, and provided all sorts of information to proove my point all dredged up from frequent visits to the forums.

At one point this one very impatient person got the idea in his head that I was somehow affiliated with EI, because of the fact I knew the names of people from EI that were making statements (all plainly visible on the forums, aparently he didn't visit much), eventually got really mad at me and put me on his ignore list. Just prooves people can be really irrational sometimes.

Anyway, all I wanted to know is who is actually making comments based on real information and who is bluffing and trying to sound smart. Comments that say somthing isn't feasable because of game design put a stop to a suggestion thread conversation real fast, because if it's not feasable according to someone that has gotten their hands dirty in the system, then why continue to talk about it? Sertainly the players don't know as much as a designer.

I don't have an issue with accepting the word of someone experienced in the games developement with an "Oh, ok". But I do have problems accepting the word of someone that hasn't and would probably continue to debate the possibilities.

[Goriax]

I still consider this a very fair question. Over the years there have been a lot of posts by people discussing the internal workings of HZ, the dev team, or specific people. Many have been pure unadulterated fantasy. I think that if you're going to claim such knowledge the least you could do is say where you got it.

If you don't want to own up to such inside knowledge for whatever reason that's fine. But don't then come here and try to make some post about how this or that feature could or could not be put in on the basis of your "special" knowledge. In any event, once someone makes a post like that I'd think they would be subject to any of the problems mentioned anyway.

If you wrote a paper you'd include your sources. Same thing here.

[gopher65]

I think many of the other folks on your list also just paid attention. If you ask a question and someone remembers a comment from a team member that provides an answer, they might repeat the information but neglect to provide an attribution.

This is what I do. I have a near-perfect memory for certain types of information. I can paraphrase dev posts from years ago with decent accuracy. Most people have the ability to selectively parse information they receive into "trusted" and "untrusted" categories. Think about how you respond to things in RL. Something a friend tells you is believed, while a non-friends input is parsed out and forgotten. So a dev post from 5 years ago was put into my Trusted category of HZ information, while anything written by D0ZeR was discarded out of hand. Therefore I'm fairly confident when, on rare occasions, I shoot down someone's unfeasible idea.

Why? Because I do get a bit miffed when I make a suggestion or see someone else's suggestion and someone outright tells us it would or would not be feasable for reasons of the way the game is made.

If someone came up with a truely new idea I don't think anyone but one of the Devs could shoot it down. Most of the rest of us, probably all of the rest of us, don't know enough about the systems of HZ to decide something like that. The thing is though, that most of the ideas that are presented are just rehashes of old ideas that were thrown up into the air years ago. Every single one of those ideas has been asked to a Dev, and the Devs have already responded to them. Sometimes they responded in an HoC chat when those were still happening, or in a PM, or on forums that no longer exist.

So when someone like Starmind throws out a "new" idea (some of which are neat, some of which aren't), those of us who have been here reading forums since launch can dredge up our ancient memories of past events and say, "nope, that idea won't work". How do we know this? Cause 4 years ago we suggested that same feature. And then 3.9 years ago someone else suggested it again. Then someone else suggested it again 3 days after that on another forum. And then again.

The phrase "there is nothing new under the sun" applies here. All the questions have already been asked, and all the answers have already been given. It's just that not everyone heard them. So when someone asks, we repeat what the devs told us when we asked the same question long ago.

If you wrote a paper you'd include your sources. Same thing here.

This is the interweb, not a PhD thesis. We don't do sources here.