Chapter 8: Part 2 -- Work hard, play hard
Today, in part 2 of our exclusive chapter form David Craddock's upcoming book on Blizzard Entertainment, Stay Awhile and Listen, Condor develops a "work hard, play hard" mentality as it builds Diablo.
They didn't hire me for another year. I think I called them up once a week, saying, "Hey, how's it going? I'm still here!" At one point they said, "We really want to hire you, we just can't right now. Get back in touch with us every so often and we'll let you know what's up."One year later in 1995, Condor had drummed up the resources to bring on Sexton as an artist. He showed up for his first day of work excited to dive in, but found only a blank space in the main room where a desk should have sat. Rick Seis and the rest of the gang explained to Sexton what was required of him on his first day.I took that as a cue to call them every single week, and at some point they told me, "Hey, why don't you check in, like, once a month?" I might've slowed calling to every other week.
- Eric Sexton
You would take the VW van that Max owned, and you'd go to Desk Depot, and it was just old desks. You would pick your own desk, haul it up with everybody's help, and you'd just drop your desk down and that's where you worked. No cube farms or any of that crap, so communication was awesome. You just looked over at someone and said, "Hey."- Rick Seis
NFL Quarterback Club '96 for the Game Boy.
I've always been one of the worst roamers. Generally, even when I'm at my most productive, it usually happens in one intense three-hour chunk. For the rest of the day I'll kick around ideas or work on smaller-scale things, but I'm able to be a major distraction for everyone else.Condor's ability to bring on extra bodies afforded Dave the opportunity to work with his younger brother, Pete--if Pete could prove himself first. After graduating from Chico State with a business degree, Pete moved in with Dave and his wife, Wendy, until he could find a job. Dave's stories about the life and times of a game developer inspired Pete to approached Dave and ask if there might be a spot for him at Condor. To test Pete's resolve, Dave enrolled his little brother in programming boot camp.This is partially why Runic Games doesn't mind having me a thousand miles away from the studio in my current job.
- Matt Uelmen, composer, Condor
Dave would challenge me: "Here, write this." I would come up with algorithms and functions to figure out how to get things to work. My first goal was to make a game like Centipede. After I programmed that, I made a Pac-Man game.True to his word, Dave offered his brother a temp position. Pete became a regular around the office, hanging out with the guys and sharpening his programming skills while the others banged out milestone goals.- Peter Brevik
I looked forward to it every day. We would carpool together, and we would go to hockey games at night together, and work together. It was a great time.The team stabilized gradually and fell into a routine that flipped between hard work and hard play. Several times a day, Robin van der Wel and Dave donned their chef hats to bake EPROMs, erasable microchips that developers used to test-drive their Game Boy projects.- Peter Brevik
The microchip had a little window on the top. If you shot it with ultraviolet light, the light would remove all the data. So we put the microchips on this little platform, we'd stick it on this ultraviolet sheet, set the timer for around 30 minutes, and sit there.It was like making toast or something. Tick, tick, tick--ding!
- David Brevik
You couldn't just test out a little bit of code and run the program and see what happened. You really had to think about as many tasks as possible ahead of time. In that way you had to be a little more organized. You couldn't just change a line of code and re-run it.- Robin van der Wel, programmer, Condor
Learn about the making of Diablo's iconic cathedral and the construction of Tristram in later chapters.
For me, working on the M2 game was tough. I had to get out my college physics book to work on that game. I remember the PlayStation coming out. Sony had invested a lot of money into writing libraries to make the programming easier, but with the M2, there was no supporting code for that system.Anyone tired of banging their head against a problem had plenty of ways to let off steam. Some of the guys ghosted between desks to shoot the breeze or ask for advice. Others blasted demons in Doom, picked off aliens in X-COM, or crowded around the Sega to play or cheer on hotly contested bouts of NHL '94.It's funny because I think the whole course of 3DO's legacy would have changed had they just come out with the libraries at the same time they came out with the hardware.
- Brian Piltin, programmer, Condor
All day we would sit around and play NHL '94, pretending like we were working. We had a schedule up on the wall. Different people played on different days. We tried to spread it out, make the tournaments last a little while.There were specific moves we developed that would score most of the time. Almost all of the time. We had nicknames for every single one of the moves: "Oh, you straight-lined me!"
- David Brevik
Max, towards the end, actually starts to beat me. He's the only one that starts to beat me. I dominated for the most part. Dave would never come close, but Dave could always beat Max. Always. Whatever that was, whatever their styles were, Dave could always beat Max, but my style was always counter to Dave's style. Always.Erich and Max continued to move up, and yet Max would still get beat by Dave. So when tournaments would come I'd sit there chanting, "Please, Dave, beat Max! "Please, Dave, beat Max!"
- Rick Seis
NHL '94 was a hotly contested affair in the Condor offices.
We did everything together while at work. We'd go to lunch, and it wasn't like, "Ugh, we've got to go to a company lunch." Everybody wanted to do that. So we'd all go to lunch and inevitably the Schaefers would bring their newspaper, and everybody would pick a section and just eat lunch while reading the paper, with your buddies around you, and not much conversation would happen.When the clock chimed five, few people called it a day—sometimes because their tasks demanded that they stay, but usually because they didn't see any reason to leave.I'd say, "What sections are left?" Everybody wanted Sports or Business, and I'd end up getting Living or something.
- Rick Seis
We liked coming to work because it didn't feel like work. It felt like a club where you went to hang out with your friends.- Kelly Johnson
We hired people one by one as we found good people. We wanted to keep the group together, and I think having a steady group of people that worked together for a long time was something we valued pretty early on.- Max Schaefer
Tomorrow, in the third and final installment, we explore the early stages of Diablo's development, and see Blizzard Entertainment and Condor lock horns over how the game should play.
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David Craddock posted a new article, Chapter 8: Part 2 -- Work hard, play hard.
Today, in part 2 of our exclusive chapter form David Craddock's upcoming book on Blizzard Entertainment, Stay Awhile and Listen, Condor develops a "work hard, play hard" mentality as it builds Diablo.-
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Shack will post an interview on Thursday that addresses that very question. :) The short answer, I became friends with a few of them, and they helped me get in touch with their friends. I also tracked people down over Facebook, LinkedIn, and cold calling them. Dave Brevik got a dinner-time call, but was cool about it and eager to participate. He's been one of the most enthusiastic participants, along with Max and Erich Schaefer.
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