The Law of Unintended Consequences
Toward the end of the game's development cycle you try to
fix problems that arise in ways that will have the least impact, so you
don't end up creating more bugs than you fix. It looks like a late change in
the vehicle physics for the Warthog, a poorly timed save point (that could
trigger just before you were killed, creating an infinite cycle of death) a
convenient beam-triggering looping script and a very quick fix have come
together and created a brand new online multiplayer game for crazy forum
posters.
My late night fixes seem to be prone to creating
mini-games as I also inadvertently added the “Paint the Bridge with the
Blood of Invincible Marines Game” and the “Land on the Overshield to
Skip Most of the Shaft Game.” I guess experimenting with ways to horribly
abuse the level scripting is one way to add replay value…
-Flawless Cowboy (a.k.a. Jaime
Griesemer)
(posted
on the HBO forum 2/11/02 12:37 p.m.)