What no 3am?

[TimElhajj]

We have to nip this in the bud. I would like to upgrade my comment from yesterday where I said I lived for news updates to this:

I actually live for the 3 am at the bottom of each news update.

Rip off, rip off! I want my money back. Oh, wait. This is the last of the free games sites. Dang!

Anyhow-- Come one Mark and Tom; find some witty little nonsense to stick at the bottom of Friday's news! :wink:

[Mark Asher]

Can't today. If you want craziness, go to www.fark.com.

The 3am things can be hard sometimes. I don't want to just lift stuff from Fark since everyone reads Fark. I prefer to find more obscure stuff.

[Sean Tudor]

Can't today. If you want craziness, go to www.fark.com.

The 3am things can be hard sometimes. I don't want to just lift stuff from Fark since everyone reads Fark. I prefer to find more obscure stuff.

It's great to see QT3 come alive again Mark. Are you still working at that games company ? (Whatever it was).

[Tom Chick]

I didn't break the news, but I'd like to field this question on behalf of Mark, since I know he already has to answer it a few times a day.

He was hired at PopTop specifically to work on the Mucho Macho edition of Tropico (I don't know if thinking up the *name* of that expansion was his job, but I'm hoping not). When it was released, there wasn't much work there for someone without a programming background, so thet weren't able to keep him on, which everyone kind of knew was going to be the case anyway.

Plus, I called Phil Steinmeyer and begged him to fire Mark's ass so we could start doing more Qt3 stuff.

-Tom

[TimElhajj]

Yeah, I bet they are hard to come up with. When I wrote that I meant it mostly as a compliment, not a complaint. Well, not too much of a complaint.

Anyhow--it's good to see you guys back. Here's to Mark landing a job way out of the gaming buisness--maybe documenting some old DOS-based accounting program.

[Mark Asher]

Heh -- funny, Tom.

The deal with PopTop is that they work on one game at a time. Mucho Macho was something of an aberration for them, as it meant they would work on 1.5 games or 1.25 games at once, etc.

In other words, they'd have to take someone off the big game they are working on to handle Mucho Macho. It made more sense to bring someone on, and since the job didn't require much programming or art, I could do it.

For PopTop to need someone with my skills full-time, they'd probably need to expand and work on two games at once. Phil's really a one-game guy, so that's not likely to happen.

It has been helpful. It looks like I'll get to write the story and in-game text for another game (not a PopTop game) that I'm excited about, so maybe it will lead to more work.

It was also interesting to see a game company from the inside.

[Murph]

I'd love to see guys like you (and maybe someday me!) writing the dialogue/text/etc. for games.


It looks like I'll get to write the story and in-game text for another game (not a PopTop game) that I'm excited about, so maybe it will lead to more work.

You're not talking about Max Payne 2, are you? I thought not. Shame...It could use a good writer.

[Mark Asher]

Nope, not Max 2. Sam Lake is doing the story again, and I think Scott Miller is irritated with me because I criticized Sam's writing in the first one.

The game it looks like I'll do some contract work on won't be announced for quite some time. So, I can't say anything about it.

Anyway, it's not for certain. They need to finalize a contract with the publisher. My guess is that will happen, but who knows?

[Murph]

Well, lotsa luck with that!

[Supertanker]

I think Scott Miller is irritated with me because I criticized Sam's writing in the first one.

So, he's mad at most of the English-speaking world, too? It is not like you were the only person over 12 to say the writing was bad. Or is he mad because that was shooting fish in a barrel and he thought they should get some mercy? When I see 3DR defending that dreck, it seems like they are just toeing the party line since no reasonable reader would think that was good.

[Anonymous]

it seems like they are just toeing the party line since no reasonable reader would think that was good.

The same can be said of Terry Brooks.