DescentBB

An interview with Matt Toschlog has recently been published online. It details Mr. Toschlog's involvement with Reactor Zero, Quantum Signal, and Parallax. It also gives a well-rounded picture of Mr. Toschlog as a person.

http://www.techpersona.com/wp/2007/05/2 ... sinessman/

Interesting, thanks. Now if he would actually reply to emails..

Grendel wrote:Interesting, thanks. Now if he would actually reply to emails..

LOL yeah, I see you got "mentioned" Grendal. ^_^

Maybe if we find his adress and pay him a visit...

He should create Descent 4 ...

(I wonder where my first post stating that is ...)

Diedel wrote:He should create Descent 4 ...

(I wonder where my first post stating that is ...)

He created multiple threads on the DBB. That particular thread was moved from E&C to Multiplayer (now closed).

Oh. Looks like I must be careful not to get paranoid here.

Diedel wrote:Oh. Looks like I must be careful not to get paranoid here.

Too late for that.

Well, it wasn't really an \"interview\" as much as it was a story on him. Regardless, it's interesting to see what former Descent developers are up to all these years later.

A good read indeed, but was anyone else troubled by his assertion that \"Art skills aren’t important for gaming programmers\"? As a software engineer who also enjoys various creative pursuits, I'm having a hard time agreeing with that. I'd argue that nurturing one's creativity through art can also enhance problem-solving skills, which are essential to programming. Plus, an engaging game needs at least some visual appeal, and wouldn't it benefit the programmer to have artistic capabilities that could help him marry the game's artistic elements--which must be handled by SOMEBODY on the team--to the techincal ones? Wouldn't an art background help the programmer better imagine how the final aesthetic should turn out, and better understand how to manipulate the tools at his disposal to produce the desired result? It should at least make for prettier explosions.

Here's a another, somewhat related article on programming as an art: http://www.paulgraham.com/knuth.html

Krom wrote:

Diedel wrote:Oh. Looks like I must be careful not to get paranoid here.

Too late for that.

You haven't seen true insanity yet.

Sedwick,

imo Matt is right. I am not a very gifted artist (well, I am a good potter, but that's it), yet I (think I, cough) am a good programmer and would be a good game programmer, too. Creativity doesn't need to express itself in what is commonly considered art.

Sorry for my double-post above, anyone please delete it. I was happy to have found the right subforum but somehow overead this thread

BTW, I totally agree with D3Fan. It SUX that the 1.5 patch hasn't been released.

Moon wrote:BTW, I totally agree with D3Fan. It SUX that the 1.5 patch hasn't been released.

I agree with that. D3 has lots of bugs and problems that need to be fixed.

well, it's out \"as is\". Just no mac support. I can't remember if the Linux end was in it.

Duper wrote:well, it's out "as is". Just no mac support. I can't remember if the Linux end was in it.

1.5 is PC only, none of the ports were completed IIRC.

I think you're right Krom. Thanks.

I remember that the ports were nearly done with a few bugs to work out, at least with Mac... which is too bad as the Mac OS has changed now and it the port might not be compatible. .. oh geez.. did I say that out loud?! -_-

When I win the lottery, I'm going to pay for the whole descent community to pay this guy a visit, and ask for the code...

d3jake wrote:When I win the lottery, I'm going to pay for the whole descent community to pay this guy a visit, and ask for the code...

Or mabye you can pay for the right to make Descent 4: Invasion?

Krom wrote:

Duper wrote:well, it's out "as is". Just no mac support. I can't remember if the Linux end was in it.

1.5 is PC only, none of the ports were completed IIRC.

Supposedly Kevin had a unified source for all three OS' before he disapeared..

If I win the lottery, I'll not bother asking anyone for any rights. I'd just make a game that would be Descent 4 as it's supposed to be, and call it \"Invasion 4 Descentrs\"!

If I win the lottery I will build myself a Pyro and fly off into space. You'll never see me again.