How is it that this is not the longest running debate in Business history. The young is trying to make a name for himself, the old is trying to hold on tho the name he created in his years on the job. Hmmmm.

So the problem, the young has good strong ideas that cost money and may or may not be the answer in the old guys eyes. The old is supposed to have, or thinks he is supposed to have all the answers, or is paid to have all the answers.

So the solution to the debate is the balance. If they both understand their roles, and points of view, it is remarkably easy. Old timer, you are no longer the smartest guy in the building, you want to think so but it is not true, if it is true you have done a bad job hiring. Young guy you may be one of the smartest guys in the building, but not the wisest, unless you are truely elite, and there are probably parts of the picture you are not looking at.

Old guy, you are supposed to manage your talent, part of that management is to explain why so he can use the information at a later date and refrain from asking a similar question in the future.( Oh and get them to wright the code cuz it will get done faster)Young guy, I know this will be hard but you have to listen to what the old guy is telling you, i know sometimes they dont always say what they mean and it seems like they change their minds allot, but so will you when you are old.Find the hidden code!!!!that will make you uber!!

And young guy one last bit, sometimes the old guys no matter how wrong they are are still right, even if it makes no sense to anyone but the old guy, and even if later they realize they were wrong and change it to the way you wanted it to begin with, but just different enough not to be the same. You have to give them that because when you are old you will need it and the young guys will give it to you. Or you will fire them.

Oh and young dude the old guy is not you peer, so dont talk to him like he is, it's rude and insensitive, old guys are sensitive.Oh and old guy watch out for the Aggro emotions of the young guy they still work on the FFE plan.

Fight it, F*&k it, or eat it.

PSSSFFFFTTTT!!!! Debate over I win.I take donations for my counciling services, too.Beta keys excepted.

Friendly Disagreement > Unanimous Agreement > Unfriendly Disagreement

Debate within a development team helps the development. It breeds ideas. The best you can do for a game is bring as many major conflicting opinions as you can into a team and make them get along. If you can manage to do that -- and it is extraordinarily difficult -- you have a recipe for something great that will improve with age (see: EVE) rather than deteriorate (see: Galaxies).

Like the gene pool.

The title should be 'Vangaurd: Saga of Heroes: Arrogance v. Wisdom: Dev Debate'

Real men don't have to puff up their chests and stand on their tippy toes to look big and manly.  When grasshopper learns this lesson, he will  have matured a little.

Well, they are also at opposite jobs.

The tech guy has to make sure the game is functional, that it work.  If you listen too much to this guy, you will end up with PONG with maybe an extra feature.  It will run smoothly, very nicely, no lag, and the server will be able to support millions of players, lagfree.

The Designer has to make these guys work harder.  They have to find the stuff that will make this game cool and better, they basically have to figure what features and what aspect they can manage to get the older folks to accept to program and make functional.

Without the tech guys, I don't think the Designer can make much of a game at all, it will be all sweet and cool...in his head.  However, the best techs put together give results similar to what Microsoft do...and Microsoft isn't exactly earthbreaking in terms of interesting gameplays.

Basically, if we have to sums it up, the Designer have to find/figure/design a way to make sure the tech guys make an awesome game that will be a great success.  The Tech guy, he is the very core of what make the game...however, he needs support, because techies despite having awesome qualities, often fail at understand how to make the gameplay more interesting, cool...

To make the techies smile, the best designer on earth is prolly to drunk to care!  Which is a lot worser then the techies working for MS! 

This is too cute

Sounds like the Sigil team are having a ball of friendly teasing contests at work. The best working atsmophere is one where you can get things done but adopting the philosophy that life's ment to have some fun in it

So this is Derek's FIRST job? that guys gotta be the luckiest SOB I've heard of. Got a ticket through college and a seat right in the industry he's been dreaming of. Others like myself however have gotta pay our way through college and cross our fingers that our 3rd or 4th job tittle invovles something in the industry we've been looking for. Congrats to him I supposed I must say

-Quote-

"...the one I've played the most is Everquest. I started playing in middle school, but playing became hard after my parents found out that I preferred EQ to homework."

Lol same.  I started eq in 7th grade when it came out and my parents from that point on began taking away computer/power cables/blocking ip adress every time they got mad at me.

At the same time i ahve to ask, how old is derek then? I started EQ in 7th grade and im 19 now.. did he start working at sigil when he was 20? lol

Having been the 'old guy' in several Unix Sys Admin shops, it was great fun to read the article and the thread.  There are two more very important reasons for the mix of old and new.  The new kids keeps all us old farts on our toes!  And second, one of the greatest rewards I've ever received, while working, was mentoring the next generation and watching them grow up!  The new blood must come in and take up the slack!

Sign me,

Happily Retired!

this made me laugh.

As some one starting a 3 year degree in video computer games at the ripe old age of 37 it also gives me a glimmer of hope that I too will find my niche in the industry.

More discussions like this please and sorry but I gave Vanguard a hard time on a post and feel a bit guilty now! Just fed up of class based fantasy games...but I am sure Vanguard will rock as big as WoW! }:)

LMAO! Sigl is my fav. dev team now! I mean lol... I would love so much to meet those guys. Just check employee spotlight. If guys can joke like that... I'm sure Vanguard will be a good game.

to all people that make Sigl

Production costs money and the longer production go's on the more money it cost im not a geinius to point that out. I have see alot of great Ideas for games come along and then see them canned simply because they became too expensive to make or other games came out on the market that attracted players attention so that the great games that are still indevelopement simply got forgotten about or rushed through developement so that when the game comes out it's so buged and unplayerble people simply give up playing it. We can continiue to put lots of great features and content into a game untill the world ends but it has to be decided when you have enough of a game that is different and more inetevive enough than there is currently on the market.

So its got to be considered even though something seems like a great idea youve got to decide " is this going to add too much time and money into the developement" , "are people going to wait that long for it to be developed ". I really like the look of this game and it do's have alot of really good ideas and i cant wait to play it . Which is what allot of people will be thinking also. There is always room for more Idears and content but I think it is best usesd in after sale's production in the form of monthly updates and expantions.

i am so much in favorite of ryan's arguments i could come over there to pull some ears myself!

there is a reason  older programmers need to do things in specific ways. This involves stability, workflow, cost/time analysis and so much more.  A leading character in the industry will be of course able to analyize, estimate and if approved, implement a new idea,  safe route or ever re-design that a young puppy would suggest. In this way both characters would work exaclty "as itended" as far as their ceo manager mind is concerned.

to younger ppl : be alerted, learn as much as you can and dont RUSH. when your opinion is asked, state your answer assertively. When you THINK you have a great idea and want to suggest it, try first an "inner debate" and then share it with your colleagues. Your skills and maturity then will be widely recognized.

cheers all, anxious to start playing with your baby !!

//altair arch engineer dplg.

      Having a hard time understanding why Vanguard has this linked on their site... definitely not the kind of positive hoo-ha they throw around.  

  I don't know how many people here have actually followed the development/plan for Vanguard. At a guess I think this is an attempt to sell the game due to the amount of resistance they have generated from a good portion of the MMO community. Simply put, despite the style, what this article seems to be trying to say is "Trust me, we've put a lot of thought and debate into this, it's what you want despite what you might think".

 According to Vanguard's site, this entire game is designed to be "Old School". It is intended to basically emulate EQ 1 with new technology in terms of content (long, very hard quests with little payoff, etc...) and to ultimatly favor uber-raiders who can put a "lifestyle" type committment into the game.

 This is compared to the "new school" that put games like WoW on top of the charts, where even the most casual player could login for half an hour and usually feel like they accomplished something.

 WoW succeeded because Blizzard seemed to understand that the majority of people out there have lives, and that MMOs (due to the money involved) have more or less replaced true single-player CRPGS (games like Oblivion are far and few between, the days of Wizardry, Ultima, and Might and Magic are more or less gone). Thus the best way to go is to make an MMO that allows both solitary and group type play.

 Of course an industry criticism of WoW is that due to Blizzard's way of programming it *DID* turn into an Uber-raider game in a way because people blew through the first 60 levels of content pretty quickly. This lead to the development of more and more 'old school' type raiding time sinks (along with week-long reset timers in many cases) to keep people occupied. The problem with the "New School" is that it requires a level of content production that the primary innovator (Blizzard) was unable to meet, and ultimatly to be maintained is going to make less money due to production compared to a game that can be just left there to sit and generate cash.

 Indeed it's argued by many that within 6 months of release "Burning Crusade" will be exhausted, and many of the people currently involved in the 'endgame' just aren't going to tolerate the way things are now while waiting for the next expansion and move on. As it is, the "Carrot On The Stick" is what has kept a lot of people (and even guilds) going.

 That said, even with the raid Zones Blizzard put a lot of effort into making sure it was possible for someone who plays alone to get gear comperable to what can be pulled out of most raid instances without having to actually deal with another person. It's theoretically possible to get BWL equivilent gear through PVP (and you don't have to use pre-made groups, although it is easier), and a lot of the CC gear from "Medals" and faction grinding is equivilent to what can be pulled out of an endgame zone.

 At any rate, what your typical MMO player wants is a game like WoW, except with enough content to keep it going with that level of pacing, without having to rely on 39 other people, or your online social abillity. This is now what Vanguard is though.

 The Vanguard concept seems to be highly competitive, and designed around the idea of servers where less than 1% of the population will totally dominate and will be worshipped by their lesser peers (OMG! Where did you get that item!) these people being utterly hard core. We've seen it in EQ all the time. For this to work however it requires a lot of casual gamers to come in and effectively make up the peasantry, something that you find less and less people willing to do. Your average guy does not want to sit around in say Mithaniel Marr and talk about how cool "Afterlife" is. They want to be able to do the same things as opposed to being locked out from going forward because they have to work 8-10 hours a day, or do homework.

  It's also known that when MMO players committ to a game, they tend to spend time whining and 'naysaying' and don't usually leave a game. Indeed to an extent all the crying, footstomping is part of what makes the guys on top feel special about themself (as odd as that might sound).

 The point here is that this is a carefully premeditated sales pitch. Vanguard looks like the best game out there in a lot of respects (graphics, some of the game play concept), but it's the overall theory of it's development that has sparked this kind of advertisement/article to begin with.

 Basically Vanguard seems to be being developed by a bunch of guys who want to recapture the old days when EQ 1 was pretty much the only MMO option, and a handfull of people at the top got to hold court/be worshipped in places like the North Freeport Bazaar, or Qeynos (before Luclin came out that is where people gathered to trade and were the social hubs of the game, depending on the server). As a result even the "new guy" seems to subtly lean in this direction, and the "old guy" is much wiser and such.

 All this rambling aside, my point is that if your not familiar with Vanguard you should check out their site and some of the things that have been said there over the many months of it's existance. If your in any way casual Vanguard probably isn't the game for you. If your hard core, you probably won't get what your looking for in  Vanguard since I don't think "the peasantry" is going to be there anymore. Reading their site is probably the best way to understand what I'm talking about (and why they are advertising this way).

  EQ1 and it's concepts of advancement/dominance and such are antiquidated. A dinosaur ridden by cavemen so to speak, and Vanguard is trying to play "Jurassic Park".

                                     >>>-----Therumancer--->

                Mage Speaker: Kamahi Immotum (Shadow Council Server, WoW)

        (Yes, I'm an experienced Endgame raider in multiple games despite everything I said)