2 HN users recommended this interview2 months2016–2023score 2
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN points to it as a first-hand account of game netcode and engineering lessons from a Blizzard and Guild Wars developer.
Pat Wyatt, a veteran game programmer who worked at Blizzard and ArenaNet, speaks at HandmadeCon 2015 in a conversation with Casey Muratori. He discusses network code and architecture in games he worked on, including mistakes on Diablo and the success of Guild Wars.
“good interview with him talking about screwing up Diablo and doing a good job on Guild Wars” (HN, 2018)
What is fascinating is the guy who coded and designed the multiplayer is actually a genius, he was just inexperienced at the time. His next big project was a huge, complicated, MMO that you could start playing before it finished downloading, and everything worked from day 1, which is rather unique among MMOs!] edit, sorry: Pat Wyatt of Guild Wars good interview with him talking about screwing up Diablo and doing a good job on Guild Wars [this video]
Interview about Diablo mistakes and Guild Wars success.
See also: Patrick Wyatt interviewed by Casey Muratori at HandmadeCon: [this video] He was the 2nd employee at Blizzard, did the netcode for their games and also for Guild Wars. His blog is great [link]
He was at HandmadeCon 2015 [1] where they talked about the network code/design in games he had worked on, and various subjects relating to the gaming industry. This article was referenced at Gamasutra a few days ago, to which his response was that he should blog more. [2] [1] HandmadeCon 2015 - Pat Wyatt [this video] [2] Patrick Wyatt [link]
There are a lot fewer people with this expertise, and of those, that can communicate it well and have the time to write a book I'm sure makes them a relatively small group of people. They probably mostly work in AAA studios, since only they have the scale and money to encounter and tackle these problems. I do wish more of them would, however. Someone like Pat Wyatt comes to mind: [this video]
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