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PrimetimeUGC Interviews CaptainGeko (Part 1)

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
edited April 2012 in Galactic News Network [PC]
The team at PrimetimeUGC has released part 1 of their interview with Lead Designer Al Rivera. Check out the episode, made completely with the Foundry, here.


Link to the interview.
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    We had an awesome time.

    Thanks to Al for coming on.

    Make sure you tune in this monday and the next for the continuation of the Interview as well as for a special panel on foundry writing with guest Cryptic_Kestrel
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    Cool, love the interviews with Al, thanks!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    Yes, what Al described about branches is exactly what is holding me up from fixing the UPS Foundry map.

    After I built UPS (even before it went live), I shifted from Branch 17 (which is the branch that is live currently) to Branch 20, to work on Starbases.

    Usually, we would have 2 branches on our machines at once. This is how we've done it on Champs, and back to COH. One Branch is whatever you're currently working on (for me, Branch 20), and one branch is labeled as "Fix" and is usually, whatever is currently live, so if we need to make fixes, we do them there.

    But Star Trek is a significantly bigger game than our previous efforts.

    One branch of STO, is something like 350-400 GB. I have a 1 TB drive, and with everything else I have to have on my system to do my work, I don't have enough space to make another copy of the game. So I have no "Fix" branch. All I have on my machine right now, is Branch 20.

    Any work I do in one branch, is automatically passed forward to all subsequent branches. In other words, if I fixed something in 17, those changes automatically propagate through 18, 19, 20, etc. However, if I fix it in 20, 17 doesn't get those changes. In addition, the file links will be broken, so even if I did go back and do something in 17 after changing it in 20, those changes wouldn't carry forward anymore. The changes in 20 would move forward from there.

    So, that leaves me with the conundrum of UPS Foundry map. Here are my options:

    I don't have enough hard drive space for a second branch (17).
    I could fix it in 20, but then you guys won't see it until Season 6 (this option is sadly the most likely at this point)
    I could change my existing branch to 17, fix it, then change back to 20, but that's almost 2 days of doing nothing. (It takes a long time to change branches)
    I could try (and have tried) to find someone else with a working copy of Branch 17, and change things on their machine. This has been difficult as everyone has moved forward to 20. The one computer that I found that still had 17, had an issue preventing 17 from starting up.

    So, apologies again for the UPS Foundry bugs, I promise they will be addressed. Sadly that may have to wait until Season 6 goes live. Sorry for the inconvenience.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    Tumerboy wrote: »
    Yes, what Al described about branches is exactly what is holding me up from fixing the UPS Foundry map.

    After I built UPS (even before it went live), I shifted from Branch 17 (which is the branch that is live currently) to Branch 20, to work on Starbases.

    Usually, we would have 2 branches on our machines at once. This is how we've done it on Champs, and back to COH. One Branch is whatever you're currently working on (for me, Branch 20), and one branch is labeled as "Fix" and is usually, whatever is currently live, so if we need to make fixes, we do them there.

    But Star Trek is a significantly bigger game than our previous efforts.

    One branch of STO, is something like 350-400 GB. I have a 1 TB drive, and with everything else I have to have on my system to do my work, I don't have enough space to make another copy of the game. So I have no "Fix" branch. All I have on my machine right now, is Branch 20.

    Any work I do in one branch, is automatically passed forward to all subsequent branches. In other words, if I fixed something in 17, those changes automatically propagate through 18, 19, 20, etc. However, if I fix it in 20, 17 doesn't get those changes. In addition, the file links will be broken, so even if I did go back and do something in 17 after changing it in 20, those changes wouldn't carry forward anymore. The changes in 20 would move forward from there.

    So, that leaves me with the conundrum of UPS Foundry map. Here are my options:

    I don't have enough hard drive space for a second branch (17).
    I could fix it in 20, but then you guys won't see it until Season 6 (this option is sadly the most likely at this point)
    I could change my existing branch to 17, fix it, then change back to 20, but that's almost 2 days of doing nothing. (It takes a long time to change branches)
    I could try (and have tried) to find someone else with a working copy of Branch 17, and change things on their machine. This has been difficult as everyone has moved forward to 20. The one computer that I found that still had 17, had an issue preventing 17 from starting up.

    So, apologies again for the UPS Foundry bugs, I promise they will be addressed. Sadly that may have to wait until Season 6 goes live. Sorry for the inconvenience.

    no problem. it was broken from the start so its not like everyone used it and then it went wrong. just ix it when s6 goes live. we will just have to wait a bit longer.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    Listening Now, great interview so far :)

    LMAO the fake ads are awesome! :D


    Also, it possible you could make the show subscribe-able via podcast aggregators like iTunes?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    Tumerboy wrote: »
    So, apologies again for the UPS Foundry bugs, I promise they will be addressed. Sadly that may have to wait until Season 6 goes live. Sorry for the inconvenience.

    But i like the Enterpise G.. erm.. i mean the USS SUPERTIGERHAWK5000 now with extra nyan cats... or something like that ;-P
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    Listening Now, great interview so far :)

    LMAO the fake ads are awesome! :D


    Also, it possible you could make the show subscribe-able via podcast aggregators like iTunes?

    We've been considering this.

    The main problem is that because we're not an audio podcast, and Video is our identity, we would need a lot of bandwidth and that's expensive :/

    We are looking into it, but at the moment we're sticking with YouTube.

    What we may do in the mean time is setup a basic RSS feed to be subscribed to that will have the links and be used simply as notification.

    :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    Tumerboy wrote: »
    So, that leaves me with the conundrum of UPS Foundry map. Here are my options:

    I don't have enough hard drive space for a second branch (17).
    I could fix it in 20, but then you guys won't see it until Season 6 (this option is sadly the most likely at this point)
    I could change my existing branch to 17, fix it, then change back to 20, but that's almost 2 days of doing nothing. (It takes a long time to change branches)
    I could try (and have tried) to find someone else with a working copy of Branch 17, and change things on their machine. This has been difficult as everyone has moved forward to 20. The one computer that I found that still had 17, had an issue preventing 17 from starting up.

    So, apologies again for the UPS Foundry bugs, I promise they will be addressed. Sadly that may have to wait until Season 6 goes live. Sorry for the inconvenience.

    Sounds like you need a second machine.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    Sounds like you need a second machine.

    Cost-Benefit Analysis. Is he going to make enough use of that second machine to justify purchasing it? Though having a machine dedicated to holding the latest branch for the purposes of bug fixes and making that machine a "community" machine is something that they might want to look at if they don't already have such a machine (as the post seem to imply that they might).
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    We just need bigger hard drives. Swall just got a 2 TB drive (I'm not jealous, I swear) so he could get a fix branch going.

    Might be able to work something out with him once it's up and running.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    Tumerboy wrote: »
    We just need bigger hard drives. Swall just got a 2 TB drive (I'm not jealous, I swear) so he could get a fix branch going.

    Might be able to work something out with him once it's up and running.

    Surprised you guys don't just keep a 'hot swap' drive around for just this type of situation (assuming your development workstations are the same base hardware.)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    Armsman wrote: »
    Surprised you guys don't just keep a 'hot swap' drive around for just this type of situation (assuming your development workstations are the same base hardware.)

    Interestingly enough, I've always discouraged developers from developing on local machines as they do not have dedicated backups and the resources that say servers which have more CPU/memory/RAM and faster disk IO (as a SAN or NAS) would. If someone's desktop goes up in smoke, their work goes with it. If a server dies, the data is stored on external storage (which is faster than local disk by far) and can simply be brought back into existence by moving the IDs to new hardware with minimal to no downtime.

    Then again, I do like high availability... :cool:
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    Everything is backed up whenever a dev wants to, through source control. We check in and out files all the time. Anytime we check something in, that version will always be available.

    If there is a major loss of work, it would be because the dev in question had not checked his work in in however long. This has never really happened to my knowledge in the 7 years I've been here.

    ETA: I take that back. I lost a couple hours of work once because my hard drive blew up. Still, frustrating, but ultimately a minimal loss.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    Tumerboy wrote: »
    Yes, what Al described about branches is exactly what is holding me up from fixing the UPS Foundry map.

    After I built UPS (even before it went live), I shifted from Branch 17 (which is the branch that is live currently) to Branch 20, to work on Starbases.

    Usually, we would have 2 branches on our machines at once. This is how we've done it on Champs, and back to COH. One Branch is whatever you're currently working on (for me, Branch 20), and one branch is labeled as "Fix" and is usually, whatever is currently live, so if we need to make fixes, we do them there.

    But Star Trek is a significantly bigger game than our previous efforts.

    One branch of STO, is something like 350-400 GB. I have a 1 TB drive, and with everything else I have to have on my system to do my work, I don't have enough space to make another copy of the game. So I have no "Fix" branch. All I have on my machine right now, is Branch 20.

    Any work I do in one branch, is automatically passed forward to all subsequent branches. In other words, if I fixed something in 17, those changes automatically propagate through 18, 19, 20, etc. However, if I fix it in 20, 17 doesn't get those changes. In addition, the file links will be broken, so even if I did go back and do something in 17 after changing it in 20, those changes wouldn't carry forward anymore. The changes in 20 would move forward from there.

    So, that leaves me with the conundrum of UPS Foundry map. Here are my options:

    I don't have enough hard drive space for a second branch (17).
    I could fix it in 20, but then you guys won't see it until Season 6 (this option is sadly the most likely at this point)
    I could change my existing branch to 17, fix it, then change back to 20, but that's almost 2 days of doing nothing. (It takes a long time to change branches)
    I could try (and have tried) to find someone else with a working copy of Branch 17, and change things on their machine. This has been difficult as everyone has moved forward to 20. The one computer that I found that still had 17, had an issue preventing 17 from starting up.

    So, apologies again for the UPS Foundry bugs, I promise they will be addressed. Sadly that may have to wait until Season 6 goes live. Sorry for the inconvenience.
    Tumerboy wrote: »
    Everything is backed up whenever a dev wants to, through source control. We check in and out files all the time. Anytime we check something in, that version will always be available.

    If there is a major loss of work, it would be because the dev in question had not checked his work in in however long. This has never really happened to my knowledge in the 7 years I've been here.

    ETA: I take that back. I lost a couple hours of work once because my hard drive blew up. Still, frustrating, but ultimately a minimal loss.

    Somebody send TB an extra 1-TB thumb drive...quick !

    <chuckle>
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    DaveyNY wrote: »
    Somebody send TB an extra 1-TB thumb drive...quick !

    <chuckle>

    DEAL! 3216635
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    Tumerboy wrote: »
    DEAL! 3216635

    How's this one sound?

    It's even on sale. :D
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    Tumerboy wrote: »
    One branch of STO, is something like 350-400 GB. I have a 1 TB drive, and with everything else I have to have on my system to do my work, I don't have enough space to make another copy of the game. So I have no "Fix" branch. All I have on my machine right now, is Branch 20.

    (....)

    I don't have enough hard drive space for a second branch (17).
    Would you like me to drive down (no pun intended) to Cryptic HQ with a spare 1TB external drive? ;)

    I'm actually surprised there's no budget to send you over to Fry's to grab a spare HDD. Can we say backups? :eek:
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    Tumerboy wrote: »
    We just need bigger hard drives. Swall just got a 2 TB drive (I'm not jealous, I swear) so he could get a fix branch going.

    Might be able to work something out with him once it's up and running.
    Oh, for goodness sakes, I also have a spare 2TB internal drive here. Are you guys truly lacking that much storage space?

    If *I* were the QA manager, there would be words... (Deadlines to meet! Productivity to be improved! ;) )
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    Upgrades are in the works, just takes time to roll them out.

    My computer is nearly 3 years old now *gasp*

    ETA: ZOMG! *DING!* I just realized I've been at Cryptic for 7 years as of today.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    Tumerboy wrote: »
    Upgrades are in the works, just takes time to roll them out.

    My computer is nearly 3 years old now *gasp*

    ETA: ZOMG! *DING!* I just realized I've been at Cryptic for 7 years as of today.

    HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!

    We are celebrating your anniversary by dancing in Club 47 right now :D ESD #2!

    Cheers,

    Brandon =/\=
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    So then it would be prudent to wish you a "Heppy Cryptic Day" then Tumerboy?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    wrote:
    Upgrades are in the works, just takes time to roll them out.

    My computer is nearly 3 years old now *gasp*

    ETA: ZOMG! *DING!* I just realized I've been at Cryptic for 7 years as of today.
    Congratulations. I suppose. :)

    Can you use the anniversary as an advantage in bargaining with the IT guys?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    Tumerboy wrote: »
    Upgrades are in the works, just takes time to roll them out.

    My computer is nearly 3 years old now *gasp*

    ETA: ZOMG! *DING!* I just realized I've been at Cryptic for 7 years as of today.

    Give that man.. taco.. thing... a Coconut.. and a banana.. and a cigar.. just to cover all bases you know.


    Happy Cryptic Anniversary...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    Tumerboy wrote: »
    Everything is backed up whenever a dev wants to, through source control. We check in and out files all the time. Anytime we check something in, that version will always be available.

    If there is a major loss of work, it would be because the dev in question had not checked his work in in however long. This has never really happened to my knowledge in the 7 years I've been here.

    ETA: I take that back. I lost a couple hours of work once because my hard drive blew up. Still, frustrating, but ultimately a minimal loss.

    And you didn't even notice yourself saying "7 years"? What were you doing, modelling stuff whilst typing that post out? :p

    Oh, and congratulations!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    dalolorn wrote:
    And you didn't even notice yourself saying "7 years"? What were you doing, modelling stuff whilst typing that post out? :p

    Oh, and congratulations!

    Meh, I've been rounding my years for. . . er. . . years.

    It just occurred to me in that earlier post that yesterday was the actual date of my starting my first game industry job.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited April 2012
    DaveyNY wrote: »
    How's this one sound?

    It's even on sale. :D

    Nah, can't get him an SSD, everything I still read is they are limited in the write cycle dept., so it wouldn't be good for the work part heh.

    Not to mention, you can get a 3TB HDD right now for about 10% of what that one you linked cost!
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