Molly Rocket
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2016–2023
1:07:22 · 33K views · May 23, 2016
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.
HN points to it as a first-hand account of game netcode and engineering lessons from a Blizzard and Guild Wars developer.
4 comments from Hacker News
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
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]
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
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]