Tuesday, March 27, 2001

GDC: Fun and Games

We're back! GDC 2001 was awesome and we're already looking forward to GDC 2002!

Highlights include:
  • Playing Witch Hunt with 30 people late into the night.
    "Dana's the witch!!!"
    "Tim's the witch!!!"
    "Kill them both!!!"
  • Meeting lots of famous-in-the-industry people, including Will Wright (SimCity, The Sims), Warren Spector (Deus Ex), and Tim Sweeney (Epic Games)
  • Watching Second Reality on the big screen!!!
  • Snagging GDC signs
  • Sigma! "We think a gorilla is really cool. [showed a gorilla] We think an even bigger gorilla is even cooler. [showed a giant gorilla] And we think a gorilla with the head of a killer whale is the coolest [showed exactly that]" - Alex Garden, Relic Ent. [Update: Sigma became Impossible Creatures]
  • Facial animation session given by ILM with lots of SW:Ep1 animations, showing Jar Jar and Boss Nass from concept to 3d model to composite in the movie
  • Seeing friends becoming part of the industry
  • Playing with an XBox dev kit
  • Horse trading (trading work times with others): "If you're a programmer, think of a pointer chain. If you're an artist [pause] just remember the original person" - Ian MacKenzie

Party review
The parties and handouts weren't as lavish as they've been in the past. Suite Night used to actually be about going up and down to different floors and different suites in the Fairmont, now it's just about going from ballroom to ballroom on the second floor, with the same food and drinks in every room. Sadly, the Aquabats didn't play this year, however, there were a couple of bands playing, as well as karaoke. However, aside from the changes, Suite Night was still pretty cool, because it's all about schmoozing, and the food was tasty.

Now, I'm not sure why they keep throwing parties in clubs. You know it's a game developer party when there are basically only guys and they're playing hacky-sack on the dance floor instead of actually dancing. A lot of people just stayed back and played Witch Hunt instead, which was really a lot of fun.

We'll post the photos as soon as I get them developed and scanned (I really need a digital camera!). Until then, check out our past GDC and E3 pics in the gallery.

Monday, March 19, 2001

GDC!

We're at the GDC! Full report and pics when we get back!

Thursday, March 15, 2001

Hornet's Offline

Andy Voss posted this on comp.sys.ibm.pc.demos today:

"As of March 14, 2001, Digital River took most of the ftp.cdrom.com directories offline, including /pub/demos, aka The Hornet Archive. We're sad to see it go, but not all is lost. There is a fully operational mirror at ftp.scene.org/pub/mirrors/hornet. Digital River now charges for use of its space, but that fee doesn't justify returning the demos directory. We may revive the archive someday, on our own hardware, but for now we will let Hornet pass."

It's sad to hear that, but then again, it's been closed since September, 1998, but this feels more like its final death. The Hornet Archive webpage is still up, but downloading from the address we all know and love, ftp.cdrom.com/pub/demos, just doesn't work anymore. Long live ftp.scene.org and its Hornet mirror!