Volitions Advocate on 18/3/2011 at 05:57
I would think that Valve would hire somebody with his CV with the hope that he would add to their operation, not turn him into a drone.
Koki on 18/3/2011 at 07:44
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
Doug Church, Randy Smith, Brian Fargo, and Chris Avellone need to get together and start a company that makes Facebook games. I want to see how much pain Koki can take.
I don't care that Doug was hired by Valve. The problem is that
you do, and for no other reason that *ten years ago* *he was part of a team* that made good games.
Warren Spector played a major role in developing Deus Ex. Then he played a major role in developing Invisible War. How do they compare? Ken Levine has been walked on to death here so no need to mention him. Or how about Chris Taylor, who made a brilliant RTS and then a shitty Diablo clone, then a mediocre spiritual sequel of the brilliant RTS.
And you don't even know what Doug will be doing at Valve. For all you know, he might be there working as a secretary and the only moment he sees the game will be when the project goes into deadline hell mode and everyone, even the janitor, is a playtester.
This is almost as stupid as saying "Company X makes good games". Registered trademarks don't make games, people do, and they seldom do it alone. The staff changes between projects, the same people might hold different positions, they might change personally, the market might change and they may need to adjust, or maybe they're just good at one type of game but utterly suck at everything else.
Truth is, you know next to nothing. But of course you gotta assume the best.
Digital Nightfall on 18/3/2011 at 07:49
While what Koki said is all true, I can do some vouching. Those who I work with who have worked with Doug Church can confirm that he deserves a great deal of credit for at the very least Shock and Thief.
But, yes, we don't know. He may be working on DotA, which would be a sad-face-generation-machine.
mothra on 18/3/2011 at 07:55
but what operation ? let's look at valve's track record:
hl1 - very, very nice linear shooter with a botched ending
hl2 - aehm, same old only now you can use radiators as cover and throw exploding barrels instead of shooting them and a bad "fuck you" ending
hl2:ep1 - a joke
hl2:ep2 - what hl2 should have been and then some. the only innovation since hl1 is the pseudo-open last level where you get a car to drive between a few hotspots, well done
l4d1 - more of an alpha being put out in the open for full price, abolition of the dedi servers and browser for a not working console-y peer2peer
l4d2 - wow, the promised update is a new game, still no change for the menue/matchmaking, casual shooter, nothing to write about
portal - awesome, a game by someone else, some of them left valve in the meantime
portal2 - d'oh, let me guess: like hl2 to hl1 - nothing new, more bling
TF2 - fkn hats are the new carrots infront of the donkey
writing: hl has no story, best way to avoid anything substantial, gordon is a fkn moron and npcs emoting to a mute get boring soon
portal: very, very nice
what is Mr. Church going to do there ? there is nothing immersive, nothing rpg-y, no player self-expression, no randomness in Valve's medical clean pixar-esque world. there
are no rough edges to cut yourself on, only perfect shapes and safety nets. B O R I N G
Digital Nightfall on 18/3/2011 at 08:07
Although Valve's track record is as you stated above, they are also Looking Glass fans. It's always possible that they're working in something secret more in our vein.
Thirith on 18/3/2011 at 08:15
Thing is, mothra, you mix your valid points (Doug Church's track record, Valve's style and the apparent mismatch) with a generous helping of "I'm cool because I diss popular things!", which perhaps makes it too easy to dismiss everything you're saying. It's easier to engage with you when you don't pile on the obnoxious crap.
Melan on 18/3/2011 at 08:16
Quote Posted by dethtoll
God, just fuck off you insufferable unpleasable shitbeef.
That's beautiful. Here, have 120 Internet points. :cool:
Koki on 18/3/2011 at 08:19
Quote Posted by mothra
hl1 - very, very nice linear shooter with a botched ending
hl2 - aehm, same old only now you can use radiators as cover and throw exploding barrels instead of shooting them and a bad "fuck you" ending
hl2:ep1 - a joke
hl2:ep2 - what hl2 should have been and then some. the only innovation since hl1 is the pseudo-open last level where you get a car to drive between a few hotspots, well done
l4d1 - more of an alpha being put out in the open for full price, abolition of the dedi servers and browser for a not working console-y peer2peer
l4d2 - wow, the promised update is a new game, still no change for the menue/matchmaking, casual shooter, nothing to write about
portal - awesome, a game by someone else, some of them left valve in the meantime
portal2 - d'oh, let me guess: like hl2 to hl1 - nothing new, more bling
TF2 - fkn hats are the new carrots infront of the donkey
FFS Koki if you're going to sockpuppet you should at leastl make it less obvious
mothra on 18/3/2011 at 09:18
Quote Posted by Thirith
Thing is, mothra, you mix your valid points (Doug Church's track record, Valve's style and the apparent mismatch) with a generous helping of "I'm cool because I diss popular things!", which perhaps makes it too easy to dismiss everything you're saying. It's easier to engage with you when you don't pile on the obnoxious crap.
you must keep the overall perspective in mind. For me many games - that happen to be popular - pale in comparison to those old games he worked on. Sure, graphics, sound and menue/HUD design have gotten much better but the "sum of all" has not been beaten. STALKER:SOC/COP comes very close. And if we talk about Mr.Church/Valve the bar is up there in heaven (for me). If you would ask me about Valve alone I would say they are ace devs, support modding and made a few cool games, in comparison to other linear shooters even the best there are. But no Thief, SystemShock or DeusEx. Not even fkn close. Shit, Batman:AA and TheWitcher is more immersive than any hl game and it has been made in 3rd person (which is a total immersion breaker for me)
And yeah, Valve are fans of TTLG but I bet Cliff "GOW/Bulletstorm" Epic says that as well while he explains how such games would fail nowadays and need an epic killcam. Words without any backing. Everbody and their mum can be fans of something, good for them to aspire to something great but will they prove it and bring it ???
my bets are on arkane, gsc and cdpr for the next best thing.
Shadowcat on 18/3/2011 at 09:55
I secretly (well, publicly) hope that Valve have hired Doug to resume work on the <a href="http://www.1up.com/features/story-steven-spielberg-lmno">LMNO</a> concept. I thought that sounded fantastic.
