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Geek Culture / who was/is your favourite coder/inspiration source?

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Lukas W
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Location: Sweden
Posted: 12th Jul 2006 10:15
i remember in 2003 when i got internet, i joined LLRGT.
i think a month or two after, i realized that TGC had it's own official forum, so i joined here too. but i spent more time over at LLRGT because the community was so clean and nice.

but anyway, i have had three people that have inspired me to continue programming:
TK, Teemu Puurunen and TMC. (i met/heard about them through LLRGT)

but i think the one that inspired me the most was TMC, because i kept dreaming that one day i would be as talented as he is

TK and Teemu inspired me to write a First Person Shooter, which is known today as "Zombie Hunter".

TK was allways so nice to me, he tried to teach me some math for slide collision but i didn't get it

Teemu was mad at me because i er.. borrowed.. his models from his zombie game and put them in my zombie game i forgot to ask him about it but he was and will allways be in the back of my head when i think of zombie hunter

so who was/is your favourite coder/inspiration source?

Jess T
Retired Moderator
21
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Location: Over There... Kablam!
Posted: 12th Jul 2006 11:13
Well isn't that cute... BUT IT'S WROOOOOONG!!

Seriously, though... When I joined, everyone seemed more talented than I was... A few still are, but I'm moving on, and I no longer stalk ANYONE

Nintendo DS & Dominos :: DS Dominos
http://jt0.org
Kentaree
22
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Joined: 5th Oct 2002
Location: Clonmel, Ireland
Posted: 12th Jul 2006 11:15
So it wasn't you following me last night?

Jess T
Retired Moderator
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Posted: 12th Jul 2006 11:18
errr... No, of course not

Nintendo DS & Dominos :: DS Dominos
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Three Score
20
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Joined: 18th Jun 2004
Location: behind you
Posted: 12th Jul 2006 11:19
probably Neophyte for mov tutorial stuff and TKFish current
I also liked that one cat guy(brobocat or something?) but haven't seen him in a few months

JouleOS and friends
great thanks to http://galekus.com for FREE HOSTING!
Dazzag
22
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Location: Cyprus
Posted: 12th Jul 2006 11:22
Dr Av. That ball game demo he did (like Marble Madness) was the first decent thing I saw in DB done by the community and got me interested in DB in the first place really.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Lukas W
21
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Location: Sweden
Posted: 12th Jul 2006 11:35
yea i forgot to mention Danny Akuma. (i don't know what his "forum name" is/was). but his game (Strutt) really Rocks! it was the first DB game i played that i really liked.

and Freddix, he inspired me / helped me with the world editor i wrote

Three Score
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Location: behind you
Posted: 12th Jul 2006 11:37
you sure that wasn't called Marble Run cause I have that game on my PC and it has the db icon(I stil play it to!)

JouleOS and friends
great thanks to http://galekus.com for FREE HOSTING!
Matt Rock
19
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Location: Binghamton NY USA
Posted: 12th Jul 2006 11:40
Hideo Kojima and Will Wright inspire my game designs on a conceptual level, if that counts.

and btw, Jess is a liar. When I came home today I could smell his cologne all over the bedroom. It was as if he'd dumped a whole bottle of it everywhere just so I knew it was him. Jess, it's over, please stop harassing me!


"In an interstellar burst, I'm back to save the universe"
Hobgoblin Lord
19
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Joined: 29th Oct 2005
Location: Fall River, MA USA
Posted: 12th Jul 2006 11:46
Brian Fargo/ Michael Cranford

I dream of the day I can live up to their standard of gamemaking.

http://www.cafepress.com/blackarrowgames
Check out my great stuff here
Arkheii
21
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Joined: 15th Jun 2003
Location: QC, Philippines
Posted: 12th Jul 2006 12:06
My current source of inspiration is that cute girl in our class.

Though I have to give a big thanks to id's Quake 2 source. I learned so much about C through it.

Jess T
Retired Moderator
21
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Location: Over There... Kablam!
Posted: 12th Jul 2006 12:07
Ooo, thought you'd caught me, eh!?

I don't wear cologne! Ha!

That smell is a mixture of skunk spray and garbage water...
I mean... I wasn't at your house!

Nintendo DS & Dominos :: DS Dominos
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French gui
20
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Location: France
Posted: 12th Jul 2006 19:52
My source of inspiration is Walaber. All he have done with DBPro helped me understanding this langage. Also, I've discovered Physics in games because of him.

Gil Galvanti
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Location: Texas, United States
Posted: 12th Jul 2006 20:23
The professional coder that is my inspiration is Will Wright, cause he always makes games that noone would think was possible, he always thinks outside the box. Games like the Sims and Spore, things people didn't think can be made, he's making or has made.

For the forums, a lot of people, everyone who helps me out ...a few that seem to help me quite a bit are "RUCCUS", "Van B", "Lost in Thought", "Cattle Rustler", and you (Lukas W) with PoPR .

Pirates of Port Royale
Live the life of a pirate.
Jeku
Moderator
21
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Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Posted: 12th Jul 2006 20:38
Nobody from here has inspired me

John Carmack inspired me when I was in high school and struggling to build my 3D engine in C++.

Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe (aka Two Guys from Andromeda) from Sierra inspired me with their Space Quest games. I wanted to work for Sierra when I was young.



My dad inspired me to stay in school and finish my degree. I see how talented and inventive he is and aspire to be like him.


"I understand creative people. After all, I worked with towel designers." - Ray Kassar, former head of Atari
flock
18
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Joined: 10th Mar 2006
Location: Earth
Posted: 12th Jul 2006 20:47
Programming - Tim Sweeny (I may have misspelled his last name)
Design - Miyamoto (duh!)


Hideo sucks, MGS 2 - 3 suck...but MGS 1 was good.

a.k.a. "flockhound"
Dazzag
22
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Joined: 26th Aug 2002
Location: Cyprus
Posted: 12th Jul 2006 21:33
Quote: "Marble Run "
Can't be certain, but pretty sure it wasn't called that. It was made probably pre-2000. Real early doors.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
TKF15H
21
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Joined: 20th Jul 2003
Location: Rio de Janeiro
Posted: 12th Jul 2006 21:38
My inspiration: Shirow Masamune.
This guy rocks. Every time I watch one of his animes (Ghost in the Shell, Appleseed) or read one of his mangas it makes me think, "Someday I want to code that AI."

Steam Assassin
19
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Location: behind you...
Posted: 12th Jul 2006 21:50
I agree with Jeku, my inspiration for programming is John Carmack!


Don't mess with Texas!
...Internet? What the hell is that!
Matt Rock
19
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Location: Binghamton NY USA
Posted: 12th Jul 2006 23:08
Grrr Jess! I was wondering why you smelled like Paris Hilton... Next time, you'll be caught. Next time!!!


"In an interstellar burst, I'm back to save the universe"
Fallout
22
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Joined: 1st Sep 2002
Location: Basingstoke, England
Posted: 13th Jul 2006 00:14
My inspiration comes from the plethora of crap games that have still managed to earn someone a wadge of cash.

Jess T
Retired Moderator
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Posted: 13th Jul 2006 13:23
@Matt,
Hahahahaa! You're a crack-up!

Nintendo DS & Dominos :: DS Dominos
http://jt0.org
Kentaree
22
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Location: Clonmel, Ireland
Posted: 13th Jul 2006 13:27
My inspiration comes from my generally twisted mind, and from wherever else I can drag it from.

The person I most appreciate in industry would have to be Shigeru Miyamoto though, he has been constantly innovative in his games, and created so many famous characters, more so than anyone else I can think of.

Van B
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Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 13th Jul 2006 13:31
Been doing it too long to be inspired these days .

The guy that got me set onto hobbyist development would be Roy Carnell, he made a big difference in spectrum text adventures, nobody else really added RPG elements in those days, his games had this kinda gothic feel, but 70'd gothic, like The Dark Chrystal movie, inspiration of course for Black Crystal from Carnell Software, look it up - it's probably one of the earliest RPG's you'll see!.

There's lots of coders here who ooze talent, but I'm not gonna name names, if someone does something I think is impressive I'm more likely to tell them than wait for a post like this .

Aegrescit medendo
Cash Curtis II
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Location: Corpus Christi Texas
Posted: 13th Jul 2006 16:48 Edited at: 13th Jul 2006 16:49
Richard Garriott, of Origin - all of the Ultima games!!! This guy had an RPG vision that was unlike any other. Nobody can compare to his games. He was ab bit of a freak, what with his capes and his castle and the mark of the devil above his office door... But he was Lord British!

I also took a lot from Sierra games, Kings's Quest, Quest for Glory, Space Quest... I loved how Ken and Roberata Williams did things back in the day.

They both represent games before they turned into multimillion dollar operations, when a nerd and his friend could revolutionize the industry with one great game.

I get a lot of inspiration from this community. John H's game (aka, RPGamer) looked really good, and spurred me to begin my RPG. Whatever happened to him and his game? It's been dead forever, and I can't seem to find it in the pile of bones known as WIP.


Come see the WIP!
Megaton Cat
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Location: Toronto, Canada
Posted: 13th Jul 2006 18:45 Edited at: 13th Jul 2006 18:45
That guy made too many Ultima games.

My inspiration would be...those 17 year bastards who got jobs as level designers/graphic designers without going to college. I hate you people, I really do. God bless.


New Catfolio.net coming soon!
Dazzag
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Location: Cyprus
Posted: 13th Jul 2006 19:24 Edited at: 13th Jul 2006 19:24
Quote: "I hate you people, I really do"
Friend of mine went for an interview at Rare years ago (might have even been when they were Ultimate - ... we are not worthy...) and said they had quite a few school kids there who just tested things out. And were on about £20k+ (this was sometime around 1990 if I remember rightly) for just doing the testing in their spare time (still went to school). He got talking to one guy and they reckon one of the kids got the boot because he went for a joyride in the bosses ferrari. Tops. All according to my mate, but I saw some of his amiga demos (why he got the interview with 2 other blokes) and wouldn't say he was lying. One I remember was one of those silhouette dancer demos. Apparently they were pretty well known (I was an ST bloke, so dunno). Anyway the 2 programmers didn't get the job, but the bloke who designed some of the demos got a job as a designer there. Mainly because he was so interested in games and how they worked. Apparently. Last my friend heard was the bloke had designed some Killer instinct characters and levels, but none got approved. Then he went to america to do something for Ninty.

Cheers

I am 99% probably lying in bed right now... so don't blame me for crappy typing
Jess T
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Posted: 13th Jul 2006 20:03
My cousin was doing some Game testing for EA, or Sony... or someone... A year or so ago in the UK.
He said it was one of the most boreing jobs he's had, mostly because it sucked all the fun out of playing the game!

If they found even the slightest thing wrong, or saw something that wasn't right... They had to write it down, then spend an hour trying to reproduce it.

Oh, and they weren't paying him that much, he was doing it to cover his rent whilst he lived away from home (dunno what rent's like in England, but here in Aus, that's not alot of money )



Nintendo DS & Dominos :: DS Dominos
http://jt0.org
CattleRustler
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Posted: 13th Jul 2006 21:10
Trilobyte (of The 7th Guest fame)
Graeme Devine now works for Id iirc. He also coded the coin-op Pole Position for atari when he was 16.

Science, Mathematics, and Physics do not lie - only people do.
Jeku
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Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Posted: 13th Jul 2006 21:45
Quote: "My cousin was doing some Game testing for EA"


Been there, done that, got the free t-shirt

Game testing is a very mind straining job, especially if you're responsible for game AI. Can you imagine testing a hockey game, slapping the puck into the glass and breaking it with 5 seconds left in the third period, and having the game crash? Now you must try and reproduce this bug.

But what if you had to slap the puck with a certain player wearing a certain jersey? The list can go on and on, so QA really do have difficult and numbing jobs.

Plus the 7 days/week 13+ hour days don't help (except with the large paychecks!)


"I understand creative people. After all, I worked with towel designers." - Ray Kassar, former head of Atari
Phaelax
DBPro Master
21
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Location: Metropia
Posted: 13th Jul 2006 22:31
Poorly written programs and lack of properly tested products on the market is what inspired me to start writing software.

Quote: "Trilobyte (of The 7th Guest fame)"

the dinosaur fossil?

"Using Unix is the computing equivalent of listening only to music by David Cassidy" - Rob Pike
Kevin Picone
22
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Location: Australia
Posted: 13th Jul 2006 22:40 Edited at: 22nd Jul 2017 04:20
The guys that influenced me ther most were those when I was growing up.

Jordan Mechner's karateka was a big early influence.
Karateka


Tom Griner Shamus and cluster of other vic20/c64 games.


Most, if not all of Andrew BrayBrook's games on the c64.

John Phillips was another (Nebulus)

There were hundreds of them really..

As an Amiga programmers in 90's it was hard not to be influenced by John Carmack.... Ahh, back n the days when everybody was writing a wolf/doom clone

PlayBASIC To HTML5/WEB - Convert PlayBASIC To Machine Code
French gui
20
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Posted: 13th Jul 2006 22:59
Oh yeah! John Phillips and Jordan Mechner were real heroes! I'm in love too with Eric Chahi games (Another World, Heart of Darkness)

Xenocythe
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Posted: 13th Jul 2006 23:04
When I was 7, I was at my older brother's freinds house. I saw him looking at this program with a bunch of buttons and 2d images of little people and a cave. I asked him, "Are you making a game????" and I was really, really, excited. He said, "yeah". i asked him how, and he showed me rpgmaker. For a couple years, I was longing to get my brother to download RPGmaker but he said it was a waste of time. Finally, I downloaded it in secret and started making a game. I was completely in shock. I thought only really smart and well trained people could mke games like those. Eventually, my brother and my dad both warmed up to it, and when I was 10 I got Dark basic Classic.

Now, I have DBPro, and well- you can check my thread in the WIP board called 'God of Time'

Can't beleive its not butter.
Toby Quan
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Posted: 13th Jul 2006 23:30
Andre LaMothe - Tricks of the Game-Programming Gurus

Michael Cranford - The Bard's Tale

... and of course ...

DJ Jazzy Jeff - Inspired me to make hip hop music
CattleRustler
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Posted: 14th Jul 2006 00:02 Edited at: 14th Jul 2006 00:03
Quote: "the dinosaur fossil?"

hey Im old but dont rub it in!
I wasn't weened on windows like most of you noobs here

7th guest broke ground for todays games - go look it up
And yes I played it on a 486 in the early 90's. That machine had DOS 6, Win 3.1, 8megs of ram, and a 1 meg Trident video card.

I have payed my dues, son!

Science, Mathematics, and Physics do not lie - only people do.
Jeku
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Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Posted: 14th Jul 2006 00:47
Quote: "7th guest broke ground for todays games - go look it up
And yes I played it on a 486 in the early 90's. That machine had DOS 6, Win 3.1, 8megs of ram, and a 1 meg Trident video card."


That was exactly my computer, except I only had 4 MB of RAM.

The 7th Guest was the very first game 1GB in size and on 2 CDs!


"I understand creative people. After all, I worked with towel designers." - Ray Kassar, former head of Atari
CattleRustler
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Posted: 14th Jul 2006 01:14
it was one of the first, if not the first, game that came on cd rom. it drove the cdrom market and helped make cdrom drives standard equipment on pc's back in those days. Also they helped push the envelope in video cards as well. Later, games like doom really pushed the video card market forward.

Science, Mathematics, and Physics do not lie - only people do.
Bizar Guy
19
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Location: Bostonland
Posted: 14th Jul 2006 01:28
Well, games that inspired me were Homeworld, Myst, Need for Speed 3, Mario World, Golden Sun, A link to the past, and latter on, Halflife2, Mario 64, and the Dark Tower books.

People on the forums who inspired me? Badgers, Drew Cameron, Van B, and those Tito guys.

Mostly though, I was inspired by ideas that I picked up in many places besides gaming.

Jeff Miller
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Posted: 14th Jul 2006 03:30
The unknown guys/gals who in the early '80s peddled game software on audio cassettes (you could feed the programs into a TRS Color Computer - which used your TV as the monitor - from the output of a cassette player). The alternatives were ROM cartridges (before floppies), which were limited in number and not impressive. The programs on the audio tapes were inherently printable, and a great source to learn coding techiniques.
CattleRustler
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Posted: 14th Jul 2006 04:04 Edited at: 14th Jul 2006 04:05
I had games for the Atari 400 on cassette (Zaxxon, States & Capitals) I also had Centipede, Galaxyian, and BASIC on ROM cartridges - LOL. Had to start somewhere back then in 1981.

Science, Mathematics, and Physics do not lie - only people do.
indi
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Location: Earth, Brisbane, Australia
Posted: 14th Jul 2006 04:12


ahh 50 shop windows cleaned and i bought this when i was 12

Jess T
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Posted: 14th Jul 2006 08:33
Damn it!

I so wish I was around back then
All the new innovation, all the fun, the individuality of programming... None of this huge corporate bull, all eyes were on gameplay rather than graphics...

That sucks

Nintendo DS & Dominos :: DS Dominos
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Drew Cameron
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Posted: 14th Jul 2006 11:26 Edited at: 14th Jul 2006 11:27
My inspiration was basically all Playstation games he he. The golden era: Metal Gear 1, Spyro, Ape Escape, Oddworld games, Final Fantasy (not personally, but I'm told it was good), Ridge Racer, first Gran Turismo (again, not personally, but I'm told it was good)

Man, all the l337est games or franchises are from the PSX. Take that, PS2, PS3, XBox and XBox 360. Graphics? BAH!

On the forums, probably Van B and Walaber. Fallout's stuff is looking very awesome also. All of these three members are also a hoot, as well as good coders! Wayhay!

x1b
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Posted: 14th Jul 2006 13:16
Combination of Lost in Thought and Van B

CattleRustler
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Posted: 14th Jul 2006 13:45
nice indi!
I still have my atari 400 and all of its stuff, and it all still works - burried in a closet at the moment however

Science, Mathematics, and Physics do not lie - only people do.
Kevin Picone
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Posted: 14th Jul 2006 16:56
Jess T,

Yeah it was fun. But perhaps that's just because it was new. The frustrating thing about most 8bit micro's was just how boxed in you were. Doing what appears to be simple by todays standards could take days/weeks/months to perfect. Often since the video hardware was generally not designed to be user friendly. And info was very scarce



Drew,

Quote: " Man, all the l337est games or franchises are from the PSX"


I must say, that given the limitations of it's video hardware in PSX (ie. linear texture mapping + no z buffer) there's some extremely well within software on it.

Jess T
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Posted: 15th Jul 2006 09:52
Kevin,

Understandable, but that would have been one of the major parts of programming for it, no?
Figuring out the hardware, getting past the little roadblocks... It all adds to that "I figured it out" effect

I like the idea of hand-held consoles, since they're limited, and have quite a specific hardware, it makes it more fun to program for. Admittedly nothing like what it was back then, but still, its the closes I can get

Nintendo DS & Dominos :: DS Dominos
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