• justsomedude (unregistered) in reply to Sam B

    God i miss the heights of the flight/air-combat simulator days. If only someone could take the FSX engine and add combat (and at a quality level commensurate with the rest of the sim. Jane's is better than nothing, but still feels lacking compared to FSX core).

    FSX is awesome w/ tri-mon and TRACK-IR head tracking...

  • Preston (unregistered) in reply to tin
    tin:
    Fourthst.

    Also, I didn't see this as a WTF the first time, and still don't. Programmer creates gimmick to trick execs into keeping the project. Hardly a WTF, and probably quite smart.

    Obviously, the WTF is that it worked. Instead of the superficially logical task of fixing the bugs, something completely unrelated got the project more developers that ended up fixing the bugs and shipping the project.

  • Confused (unregistered) in reply to luis.espinal
    luis.espinal:
    ... All in all it's a nice story. Obviously the damage was done in that money (and talent that quit( was bleed profusely for the first 4 years. But that a gimmick, as unbelievable as it might look, actually saved the project. It might not had recouped the previous losses, but it certainly allowed the team, and the company to finally ship a product that was certainly destined to doom until the cool button arrived. ...

    You need to learn to pair your parenthesis. I'm still looking to find out what happened to the money...

  • (cs) in reply to Drew
    Drew:
    The Classic executive to... Oh look, a distraction!

    Squirrel! http://www.bobthesquirrel.com/

  • Worf (unregistered)

    Alex, you do realize that Raymond Chen has a queue of at least a year and a half?

    Yes, his new post queue is at least one and a half years, and today's post was written probably early 2008. Sometimes he pre-empts his queue with something recent (but everyone still ribs him on it - re a recent MJ posting and the first comment was "Wow, Raymond predicted his death a year ago!").

    Hell, Raymond Chen could be run over a bus today and we won't know until 2011!

    BTW - my two annoyances with the BSG Blu-Ray - the first disc of every season has the director's speech, and the Universal Studios logo is extremely loud...

  • (cs) in reply to RBoy
    RBoy:
    I would actually like to play a build of a flying game where the wings fall off when you shoot, and the airplane bounces into space.

    Sounds fun.

    Get a job in QA for a game company. Or get a job as a game programmer.

    Although it gets really old, really fast. Especially if you're a programmer. Some particularly nasty ones have left me with hanging my head going, "Noooooo, o, o, o.....". Sure, I could see how it was funny, but when it's your fault and you have to fix it? No so much...

  • jobrahms (unregistered)

    This story reminds me...

    I had a friend that worked as a tester for Evans and Sutherland when we were in high school. We'd go there after hours and play quake II on their super high end vid cards. At the time they also had some pretty sweet flight sims set up - four networked fighter plane cockpits that actually moved, a hang glider sim, and most awesomely, an actual 737 cockpit with a wraparound screen. It was awesome to fly, but suffered from the same bug as this game - if you aimed straight for the ground, when you hit it the sim would send you flying backward. The thing already kind of made you feel nauseous just from normal flight, but I about barfed when that happened the first time.

    Great times...

  • dildo faggins (unregistered)

    after daddy got done with me my asshole was thiiiiiiiiiiiis wide

  • (cs) in reply to Zach Bora
    Zach Bora:
    MP:
    Interesting read.

    I went looking for the credits: http://www.mobygames.com/game/european-air-war/credits

    [try #1]

    I found Brand G., it's Brandon Gamblin.

    Betcha it's not! Double or nothing!

  • Anonymously Yours (unregistered) in reply to OutlawProgrammer
    OutlawProgrammer:
    I think that this should be taken as an important lesson in the human side of software development.

    One Wall St. project that I worked on used a fancy-pants Oracle database for nothing more than logging a few transactions. These transactions were loaded at application startup, but that was it. No querying, no reports, nothing that actually needed a database. The developers, including myself, felt like this was using an expensive, overly-complicated bazooka to kill a housefly.

    As it turns out, saying your software is "powered by Oracle" is the only way to market things down on Wall St. We didn't need Oracle to run the product, we just needed it to sell the product. Now, anytime management comes up with some crazy harebrained idea that makes no technical sense, I always think twice about the marketing implications.

    Wait, were you the one who submitted A Software Problem, A Marketing Solution?

  • jordanwb (unregistered) in reply to JoJo
    JoJo:
    Matt:
    First. Sorry I'm late. My wings fell off :(

    I guess you're also posting from Jupiter?

    lol!

    Another fun bug caused the enemy AI to do your work for you. A rogue enemy plane would suddenly reject his mother country and start shooting down his own teammates. That is, until his wings fell off the plane since he was firing his guns. Then he'd kamikaze his plane into the ground, which would launch the plane into outer space that the MicroProse executives probably didn't find nearly as funny as I do.

    See my previous reply. I would've wanted a copy of that game mainly to do that.

  • (cs)

    This story made me lol the first time I read it, and again the second time. I love how it repeats retelling the bugs in different ways.

  • OutlawProgrammer (unregistered) in reply to Anonymously Yours
    Anonymously Yours:
    Wait, were you the one who submitted A Software Problem, A Marketing Solution?

    Heh, I didn't submit the featured article, but it looks like I have a featured comment about the same story I just used for this article. If Alex can reuse stories, then I can reuse comments dammit!

    Unfortunately we don't have too many WTFs where I work now but I will try to fuck things up so I have more interesting stories to share in the future.

  • (cs) in reply to kaiser_wilhelm
    kaiser_wilhelm:
    Well, uhh, a little known thing about Nazi technology developed in World War I...

    Yeah, right. Apparently, another Nazi technology was time travel...

    Well shit... and I thought that things developed in the past would continue to exist at some point in the future.

    Or is this the sort of time travel where you say to an unsuspecting mouth-breather "Let's see what the future looks like thirty seconds from now", and then look at your watch until 30 seconds have elapsed, and announce "Wow! It's wonderful!"

  • (cs) in reply to rfsmit
    rfsmit:
    kaiser_wilhelm:
    Well, uhh, a little known thing about Nazi technology developed in World War I...

    Yeah, right. Apparently, another Nazi technology was time travel...

    Well shit... and I thought that things developed in the past would continue to exist at some point in the future.
    "Nazi technology" means technology developed by Nazis, not just used by them. (Otherwise, you could say we all use "Nazi technology" every day.) Thus, anything that was invented before the 1930s cannot be "Nazi technology".

  • (cs) in reply to monkey
    "A rogue enemy plane would suddenly... start shooting down his own teammates... until his wings fell off... Then he'd kamikaze his plane into the ground, which would launch the plane into outer space"

    European Kamikazes?

    Another unheard-of Nazi technology I suppose...

  • AndyC (unregistered) in reply to luis.espinal
    luis.espinal:
    The incredible WTF is that Tim's gimmick saved the day at all! Either by his design or just plain dumb luck, it's an incredible and entertaining happy ending.

    Tim joined a project, knowing full well it was riddled with bugs, long overdue and probably about to be cancelled. He implemented one feature and saved the project.

    It's pretty safe to assume dumb luck had nothing to do with it.

  • The Dark Lord (unregistered)

    Quick, I need a cool cam for an Identity Management system. Before 9:30 tomorrow.

  • (cs) in reply to Doug
    Doug:
    Central Harlem Anonymous:
    ... and why was this new programmer allowed so much free reign?
    meu:
    OMG PONIES!!!

    I think that explains the free rein.

    Thanks for putting two and two together for me. As a non native English speaker I di... oooh loooook, shiny!

  • Late laugh (unregistered) in reply to rfsmit

    Rest assured that all Nazi jokes are legitimate. There was no air combat in World War I because the technology was not in place yet.

  • Lee K-T (unregistered) in reply to kaiser_wilhelm
    kaiser_wilhelm:
    Well, uhh, a little known thing about Nazi technology developed in World War I...

    Yeah, right. Apparently, another Nazi technology was time travel...

    Mummy! Mummy! Are You My Mummy?

  • (cs) in reply to Lee K-T
    Lee K-T:
    kaiser_wilhelm:
    Well, uhh, a little known thing about Nazi technology developed in World War I...
    Yeah, right. Apparently, another Nazi technology was time travel...
    Mummy! Mummy! Are You My Mummy?
    Go to your room !
  • pinky the narf! (unregistered)

    this one failed so bad, it underflowed, and wrapped around to awsome

  • methinks (unregistered)

    Interestingly enough, in other installments of this same story on the web The Great Saviour is called "Tom" instead of "Tim"...

    I understand the need to protect the innocent (or more likely the guilty...) in case of real WTFs, but this guy was great and thus deserves his right name!

    ;o)

  • kaiser_wilhelm (unregistered) in reply to rfsmit

    sigh

    I thought this was obvious. You don't live in Europe, do you? How about looking up when the "Nazis" appeared first?

  • ping floyd (unregistered) in reply to Late laugh
    Late laugh:
    Rest assured that all Nazi jokes are legitimate. There was no air combat in World War I because the technology was not in place yet.

    Huh? Ever heard of the "Red Baron?" He'd be interested to know that there was no air combat in WWI!

  • Anonymous Coward (unregistered)

    The sorry state that project pre-coolcam reminds me of Tattoo Assassins. The accounts of that trainwreck are simply phenomenal.

  • (cs) in reply to kaiser_wilhelm
    kaiser_wilhelm:
    Well, uhh, a little known thing about Nazi technology developed in World War I...

    Yeah, right. Apparently, another Nazi technology was time travel...

    And yet you had no problem with the airplane's, um... "velocity torque rotary viscosity" thing? :P

    The excuses at the meetings were BS, that was the point.

  • kaiser_wilhelm (unregistered) in reply to Arancaytar

    I'm sorry. Next time I will put add a gazillion smileys such that everyone "gets" it.

  • Who is cool Cam? (unregistered) in reply to SR
    SR:
    I'd much rather be employed and making software that actually gets used than producing something technically perfect with a user base of one (i.e. me).
    Only technically perfect?
  • cogo (unregistered) in reply to !?
    !?:
    Drew:
    The Classic executive to... Oh look, a distraction!

    Well put.

    I guess the WTF is that the executives had Attention Deficit Disorder, i.e. The "Ooh Shiny" Syndrome

    There is an acronym for it: ADOS

  • Defaultluser (unregistered) in reply to kaiser_wilhelm

    According to Dean Koontz, absolutely.

  • hoodaticus (unregistered)

    This is exactly why I wish sometimes the execs would just leave us alone and just let us program.

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