Whoever built the landscapes in the Gothic games. In fact, let’s go for a picnic -say on that hill over Trellis.
Whoever wrote the NPC scheduling stuff in the Gothic games, who is presumably reading the Skyrim thread and crying, so maybe this’ll make him feel more noticed.
It’s funny, because I usually hate difficult game and want to face punch devs, too, but I had so much fun with what I was able to complete in TrackMaina that I would buy them a beer. I didn’t finish the black or red levels, but I had a lot of fun getting there.
More than half of these games were not mostly or at all designed by him. His name appears on the box because he’s an executive producer now, but most of the work was done by less well known but equally talented people.
For example, Civ IV, according to MobyGames:
Original Creator of Civilization Sid Meier
Lead Designer and AI Programmer Soren Johnson
Lead Programmer Mustafa Thamer
Lead Artist Steve Ogden
Senior Producer Barry Caudill
Producers Jesse Smith, Dan Magaha
Sid Meier doesn’t even have a Producer credit on this one. He gets credit because of his work on the original Civilization game, but he has done less and less work on each one, and some of these have added some pretty interesting additional gameplay elements (religion in Civ4 to me was a big change). But Sid didn’t do any design docs, code, art, or anything else relating to making a game for this title.
I only reply because this sort of thing irks me, how a name on the box (or a public face in videos) gets way more credit than is due.
I accept said beer next time you are in Toronto. In fact, I will accept all AC1/2 beers on behalf of the team, whenever anyone is in the Toronto area. Said beers will come with many stories from the trenches.
I’ve already bought beer for many of my peers, but there are a few for whom I have not. Mostly I’d just like to buy beers for a lot of indie devs. Jonathan Blow, since I know he posts here. Your beer is on me! Others, I don’t know their names. Too many of them stay anonymous. But I think it’s safe to say that any time I meet an indie dev in person, I will likely buy them a beer. That shit is hard.
I will buy anyone who wrote, programmed, designed, etc (anything hard really) for the following a beer:
Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn (Bioware)
Planescape: Torment (Black Isle)
Fallout 2 (Black Isle)
Vampire: Bloodlines (Troika)
NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer (Obsidian)
I <3 these games. I have re-played each at least twice.
I would buy a beer for everyone at Bethesda, for showing that long games with a lot of good content are still feasible in this day and age.
I would also buy a beer for the Relic guys, for having completely redefined the way RTSs can be with Company of Heroes. For a similar reason I’d buy beers for the GPG people.
And I would buy a beer for the STALKER guys, for making one of the most amazing FPSs of all time.
Those are the first recent ones that came to mind, I’d buy a beer to other people too.
For that list, I will buy Kunikos a beer!
You did that? You sir, are a hero! I’ll buy you a beer for sure next time I’m in Toronto…which may be a while, but I will most certainly do so if I ever come by that direction! LOVED those two games and the fighting!
I’d also want to buy plenty of margaritas for the staff at Monolith, not just as a thank-you for NOLF, but also to convince them (when they’re appropriately drunk) that they must stop producing mediocre shooters and start work on NOLF 3. I’d even give them some design ideas that will sound awesome after five margaritas.
Sid Meier, Stephen Barcia, the Gollop brothers, Will Wright, Ed Ringler, Gary Grigsby, Norm Koger, and Dan Bunten if he were still around.
Edit: And the guys that made Starflight!
Oh, good one. I regret very much that I didn’t know that Dan lived in Arkansas at the time I was living there. I would certainly have hunted him (pretty sure he was still going by Dan at that point) out and pestered him endlessly.
I’d say whoever the character and animation lead on Rise of Nations and Rise of Legends was probably deserves a few beers. He would probably enjoy Belgian beers, but that’s just a guess.
Everyone involved with alpha centauri.
I would buy a beer for any of them punched in the nose by an irate gamer. Oh and Randy Glover for Jumpman & Jumpman Jr .
Johan Karlsson and Kristoffer Osterman.
(and a bunch of the people already named)
Here here, second round’s on me!
I can only think of a very, very few exceptions, so I’ll just say “all of 'em” and call it good.
So, any of you guys that come to the Bay Area, please feel free to hit me up for a beer.
Off the top of my head special mention to a few (not all “devs” per se, but hey…):
The Bioware crew for… pretty much all of the their games. No company I can think of pulls me in so consistently.
Lum, Sanya and company for DAoC. God, I loved that game.
Original Diablo2 folks. <insert “gank the dev for loot” joke here> More hours than I care to admit gone into that one.
Richard Garriott. Absolutely adored the Ultima series. Plus he seems like he’d have some absolutely crazy stories.
Richard Bartle. Self-explanatory, I hope.
Peter Ginsberg. For putting up with my shit for so many years. ;)
Charles. Both for helping make some awesome games, and for his contributions here.
Ha! Better yet, give me a small gift card (such as Amazon) to help buy me a home brewing kit. I can make 5 gallons of beer out of it. ;) Speaking of which, I need to figure out if I can start my next brew this long weekend.
Also, whoever did the intro video for Syndicate Wars I would like to give them a high-five for doing such a good job explaining visually how citizens mistakenly love their oppressors.
This. I would love a new NOLF game.
That beer was sent by our very own Jonathan Crane!