One of the core skills I think you learn fairly early on in your career in the creative industry is iteration, I can't tell you how many times we've provided group feedback on something a newer member on our team has done and they go away and completely redo the thing. The end result is always someone who has disdain for that thing because they just sunk 4+ hours into redoing it rather than just taking a step back, taking some notes and then thinking about how they can modify the thing they're working on to fit the new criteria set and lean into some of the more useful parts of the feedback provided. Also of course in level design having people record their sessions is key, especially for something more open like L4D maps. Being able to see how users perceive your levels flow, layout and how they're moving through it is extremely useful to iterating on the level design and in the end how they experience the level. Another one is of course taking every single bit of feedback to heart, be it in a negative way which usually unfortunately results in people lashing out, or in a toxically positive way where the person will add every single bit of feedback into their project which usually entirely blurs their original idea or just results in a mess of multiple other peoples different ideas about what the project is.
I get what you're saying, but I'm not sure I like framing it this way, because some ideas end up not being good and need to be abandoned, and I don't think designers should be afraid to walk away from things that just aren't working. But you're right in that you should try to do as much of this iteration as you can earlier in the process so that the work that you're potentially tossing is the quick and dirty test stuff, and not content that you've put a ton of time into. When I was doing architecture, sometimes we'd do a series of quick schematic sketches of a bunch of significantly different floor plans/site plans/etc, knowing full well that most of those schemes would not end up being the final product, but many of them would reveal some interesting ideas/opportunities/issues/problems/etc. that would inform whatever direction we decided to pursue more seriously. A lot of that initial work did pretty much get tossed out, so it was important not to get too emotionally attached to any of it, but still some useful ideas were extracted from them along the way. The way I like to think about it is that yeah, sometimes things get cut, but that doesn't mean it was a waste. Rather it was a necessary step for you to develop the better solution that you ended up moving forwards with, and you've taken what you've learned from it and worked that into the newer stuff. That's one layer of iteration. Then you hopefully come out of that with a solid base, and the second layer of iteration comes in when you build on top of that base and constantly refine things during the process.
I think a great example of this is with the Heavy Update in TF2. If I understand correctly, the intention with the update was to address Heavy being so reliant on either a Medic, Dispenser, or a health pickup to maintain his defensive position. I think the first attempt at this was a Minigun that healed on hit, but couldn't be rev'd down without firing. Well, turns out that is a nightmare to fight and really just benefited Heavy for doing what the already was doing - shooting at things. So, TF2 Team iterated on that, and that ended up with the Sandvich. Which, not only addresses the issue with the prior design, but moreover allowed for more character development, a fun trailer to go alongside - really just an altogether better idea.
I made a TF2 mvm map trying to use the iteration style used at valve. I think it came out good, and i really did-int throw away any parts. They all just changed. I wonder if stuff never gets thrown out because you realize very early when an idea doesn't work.
There supposedly was a cut campaign for L4D 1 named Dam It. At least its claimed as that. Supposedly if not included in the game because Turtle Rock somehow retained the rights to it when everything else went to Valve, do you maybe have any insight on this? Is any of it true?
do you know large large environmental destruction like a building or bridge blowing up was done in the games you worked on like portal and left 4 dead.
Hey Chet, I have some questions regarding a replica portal gun I have. Seems to have a lot of signatures from the creative team behind Portal 2. Signed in 2012. Would you be able to fill me in a bit?
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One of the core skills I think you learn fairly early on in your career in the creative industry is iteration, I can't tell you how many times we've provided group feedback on something a newer member on our team has done and they go away and completely redo the thing. The end result is always someone who has disdain for that thing because they just sunk 4+ hours into redoing it rather than just taking a step back, taking some notes and then thinking about how they can modify the thing they're working on to fit the new criteria set and lean into some of the more useful parts of the feedback provided. Also of course in level design having people record their sessions is key, especially for something more open like L4D maps. Being able to see how users perceive your levels flow, layout and how they're moving through it is extremely useful to iterating on the level design and in the end how they experience the level.
Another one is of course taking every single bit of feedback to heart, be it in a negative way which usually unfortunately results in people lashing out, or in a toxically positive way where the person will add every single bit of feedback into their project which usually entirely blurs their original idea or just results in a mess of multiple other peoples different ideas about what the project is.
I get what you're saying, but I'm not sure I like framing it this way, because some ideas end up not being good and need to be abandoned, and I don't think designers should be afraid to walk away from things that just aren't working. But you're right in that you should try to do as much of this iteration as you can earlier in the process so that the work that you're potentially tossing is the quick and dirty test stuff, and not content that you've put a ton of time into.
When I was doing architecture, sometimes we'd do a series of quick schematic sketches of a bunch of significantly different floor plans/site plans/etc, knowing full well that most of those schemes would not end up being the final product, but many of them would reveal some interesting ideas/opportunities/issues/problems/etc. that would inform whatever direction we decided to pursue more seriously. A lot of that initial work did pretty much get tossed out, so it was important not to get too emotionally attached to any of it, but still some useful ideas were extracted from them along the way.
The way I like to think about it is that yeah, sometimes things get cut, but that doesn't mean it was a waste. Rather it was a necessary step for you to develop the better solution that you ended up moving forwards with, and you've taken what you've learned from it and worked that into the newer stuff. That's one layer of iteration. Then you hopefully come out of that with a solid base, and the second layer of iteration comes in when you build on top of that base and constantly refine things during the process.
I think a great example of this is with the Heavy Update in TF2. If I understand correctly, the intention with the update was to address Heavy being so reliant on either a Medic, Dispenser, or a health pickup to maintain his defensive position. I think the first attempt at this was a Minigun that healed on hit, but couldn't be rev'd down without firing. Well, turns out that is a nightmare to fight and really just benefited Heavy for doing what the already was doing - shooting at things.
So, TF2 Team iterated on that, and that ended up with the Sandvich. Which, not only addresses the issue with the prior design, but moreover allowed for more character development, a fun trailer to go alongside - really just an altogether better idea.
I made a TF2 mvm map trying to use the iteration style used at valve. I think it came out good, and i really did-int throw away any parts. They all just changed. I wonder if stuff never gets thrown out because you realize very early when an idea doesn't work.
There supposedly was a cut campaign for L4D 1 named Dam It. At least its claimed as that. Supposedly if not included in the game because Turtle Rock somehow retained the rights to it when everything else went to Valve, do you maybe have any insight on this? Is any of it true?
do you know large large environmental destruction like a building or bridge blowing up was done in the games you worked on like portal and left 4 dead.
Hey Chet, I have some questions regarding a replica portal gun I have. Seems to have a lot of signatures from the creative team behind Portal 2. Signed in 2012. Would you be able to fill me in a bit?