Apos
Tank
- Joined
- May 14, 2003
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Just so people are clear, this is a 98% fake interview. Try to figure out which 2% is real, it’s like a game!
Anyway, here’s the interview, copied from the latest addition to Gamespy’s advertisement delivery collective, PlanetHalfWit.
Planet Halfwit: Today we’re really excited to present our exclusive sit-down interview with Valve veteran Stelly Brainer. Mr. Brainer, thanks a lot for agreeing to do this exclusive interview with us.
Stelly Brainer: No problem.
PHW: So, what do you do at Valve again?
SB: Well, like everyone here, a little bit of everything. We’re really sort of like a socialist commune in that way: all employees are expected to chip in and play every role in the company from time to time. One day, Gabe could be the boss-man chewing me out for sneaking blood splatter into the kiddie editions, and the next day, it could be Gabe’s turn to scrub out the urinals. That’s when I get to be the boss! And let me just say, the other day, Aaron Barber was...
PHW: Well, hey, that’s really amazing and all, but let me cut you of there, because our fans don’t care about crap like that. All they ever want to know is: does Half-Life 2 Multiplayer have vehicles?
SB: (snorts) How many times do we have to tell you that we won’t talk about multiplayer? What a waste of a question! I mean: duh?
Listen, all I’m going to say is: if you spend even a second in HL2 MP when you aren’t either piloting at least one vehicle, or are at a very minimum just temporarily getting out of a vehicle only to get into an even cooler vehicle, then your money back, guaranteed. I mean, vehicles are almost so passé for us at this point that we’ve had to “kick it up a notch” with stuff like vehicles inside vehicles. For instance, imagine zooming around on a Segway inside the trailer of a Mack truck that itself is driving around inside the hangar of a giant alien spaceship that’s rocketing off to the moon. If you get real philosophic and all and realize that Gordon himself is a sort of vehicle that you “drive around” in the game, that’s like, four layers of vehicles right there.
PHW: Wow: and that’s in the multiplayer game?
SB: Ha! That was from a tech test like, two years ago! That’s just something to get you thinking. I don’t want to give anything away, so that’s all I’m going to say.
(long pause)
Pogo sticks. On the back of a flatbed truck. That’s driving around on the deck of an aircraft carrier that's on fire. In the middle of a hurricane. You didn’t hear it from me.
PHW: Wink wink, you got it! Can I ask you some technical questions about what sorts of things Steam supports?
Well, sure, but let me just say that you have to understand that there’s more to Steam that just supporting this or that. I mean, lots of game designers talk about their engine supporting this or that, but Source not only offers you all the support you could want, but it also lifts and separates.
PHW: Uh, I’m not really a techy sort of guy, so I’m not sure I understand what that means. Maybe we’d do better to stick to specifics: does Source support terrorism?
SB: No. But it’s really more of a design decision than a technical limitation. We’re really interested to see what the mod community does with this. Of course, we’ll be officially adding in support for terrorism with the CS2 release.
However, I want to make something clear. Under no circumstances should anyone make a mod in which the primary or even secondary goal is to kill, kidnap, or even pester the President of the United States. That’s utterly, totally, outrageously illegal.
PHW: Seriously?
SB: Seriously. Though, we think it’s pretty ridiculous. I mean, according to Master Chief Justice Rehnquist of the U.S. Supreme Court, you can digitally simulate virtually every sort of depravity known to man, from serial killing to, now, unbelievably, child pornography. And yet, if you so much as a make a game level in which Alyx just happens to mention offhand that she had a dream once where she thought she might like to kill the President, the Secret Service will bust down your door and drag you off to Guantanamo. Boy, did we learn that the hard way...
PHW: Ouch. Well, what about Presidents that are already dead?
SB: That’s really sort of a gray area. I think, just to be safe, if you make a mod where Abraham Lincoln is the final boss monster, you should, again just to be on the safe side, make it very very clear that this is some sort of zombie Lincoln, and that by stuffing fragmentation grenades into his suspenders and then running away as fast as you can, what you are ultimately trying to accomplish is to help his poor, undead soul find the peace of the grave that he so-rightfully earned through his long service as one of our greatest Presidents. Make sure to work a sentence like that in there somewhere, and you should be safe from prosecution.
But also remember that foreign dignitaries are totally fair game, and a much safer option. If you want to have a mod in which you hunt down a naked Gerhard Schröder (Chancellor of Germany) for sport, and then pummel him to death with manipulator-launched watermelons, the Supreme Court of the United States says that it’s your right and duty as an American citizen. Just make sure it’s tasteful nudity.
PHW: But not all Half-Life fans live in the U.S. I doubt the censors in Germany would tolerate something like that.
SB: Well, with Germany, there’s really a simple solution to censorship requirements: robots.
PHW: Pardon?
SB: Robots. In Half-life, the parts where you kill human marines simply wouldn’t have passed muster with Germany’s censors. So we simply called the marines “military robots” and took away the flesh gibs. Boom: we were in the clear. We’ll certainly be taking the same approach with Half-Life 2. Although, frankly, it’s going to be even more absurd this time around: with our new emotive facial animation and acting technology, you can have a character that weeps passionately about its hopes and dreams, cries out in painful agony, and begs you to spare its life while you’re hacking it apart with the crowbar. And yet, as long as it bleeds sparks and is called a “robot” in the manual, the game will sell like crazy in Germany.
PHW: Wow: why do you think Germans hate robots so much?
SB: Well, ultimately I think it all comes down to the fact that many of them blame robots for Germany’s defeat in World War II. It’s actually a little disturbing when you think about it a bit. I mean, the most popular book in Germany right now is some tract called “The Network Protocols of the Elders of Cybertron” that’s all this crazy anti-robot ranting about how the whole banking industry is all computerized now. I hear they’re even shown Terminator 3 in history classes.
PHW: Whoa, that’s pretty ominous right there.
SB: Sure, if true. We really try not to think about Germany too much. There’s only so much we, as game designers, can do about what I can only imagine is centuries of entrenched hatred.
Anyway, here’s the interview, copied from the latest addition to Gamespy’s advertisement delivery collective, PlanetHalfWit.
Planet Halfwit: Today we’re really excited to present our exclusive sit-down interview with Valve veteran Stelly Brainer. Mr. Brainer, thanks a lot for agreeing to do this exclusive interview with us.
Stelly Brainer: No problem.
PHW: So, what do you do at Valve again?
SB: Well, like everyone here, a little bit of everything. We’re really sort of like a socialist commune in that way: all employees are expected to chip in and play every role in the company from time to time. One day, Gabe could be the boss-man chewing me out for sneaking blood splatter into the kiddie editions, and the next day, it could be Gabe’s turn to scrub out the urinals. That’s when I get to be the boss! And let me just say, the other day, Aaron Barber was...
PHW: Well, hey, that’s really amazing and all, but let me cut you of there, because our fans don’t care about crap like that. All they ever want to know is: does Half-Life 2 Multiplayer have vehicles?
SB: (snorts) How many times do we have to tell you that we won’t talk about multiplayer? What a waste of a question! I mean: duh?
Listen, all I’m going to say is: if you spend even a second in HL2 MP when you aren’t either piloting at least one vehicle, or are at a very minimum just temporarily getting out of a vehicle only to get into an even cooler vehicle, then your money back, guaranteed. I mean, vehicles are almost so passé for us at this point that we’ve had to “kick it up a notch” with stuff like vehicles inside vehicles. For instance, imagine zooming around on a Segway inside the trailer of a Mack truck that itself is driving around inside the hangar of a giant alien spaceship that’s rocketing off to the moon. If you get real philosophic and all and realize that Gordon himself is a sort of vehicle that you “drive around” in the game, that’s like, four layers of vehicles right there.
PHW: Wow: and that’s in the multiplayer game?
SB: Ha! That was from a tech test like, two years ago! That’s just something to get you thinking. I don’t want to give anything away, so that’s all I’m going to say.
(long pause)
Pogo sticks. On the back of a flatbed truck. That’s driving around on the deck of an aircraft carrier that's on fire. In the middle of a hurricane. You didn’t hear it from me.
PHW: Wink wink, you got it! Can I ask you some technical questions about what sorts of things Steam supports?
Well, sure, but let me just say that you have to understand that there’s more to Steam that just supporting this or that. I mean, lots of game designers talk about their engine supporting this or that, but Source not only offers you all the support you could want, but it also lifts and separates.
PHW: Uh, I’m not really a techy sort of guy, so I’m not sure I understand what that means. Maybe we’d do better to stick to specifics: does Source support terrorism?
SB: No. But it’s really more of a design decision than a technical limitation. We’re really interested to see what the mod community does with this. Of course, we’ll be officially adding in support for terrorism with the CS2 release.
However, I want to make something clear. Under no circumstances should anyone make a mod in which the primary or even secondary goal is to kill, kidnap, or even pester the President of the United States. That’s utterly, totally, outrageously illegal.
PHW: Seriously?
SB: Seriously. Though, we think it’s pretty ridiculous. I mean, according to Master Chief Justice Rehnquist of the U.S. Supreme Court, you can digitally simulate virtually every sort of depravity known to man, from serial killing to, now, unbelievably, child pornography. And yet, if you so much as a make a game level in which Alyx just happens to mention offhand that she had a dream once where she thought she might like to kill the President, the Secret Service will bust down your door and drag you off to Guantanamo. Boy, did we learn that the hard way...
PHW: Ouch. Well, what about Presidents that are already dead?
SB: That’s really sort of a gray area. I think, just to be safe, if you make a mod where Abraham Lincoln is the final boss monster, you should, again just to be on the safe side, make it very very clear that this is some sort of zombie Lincoln, and that by stuffing fragmentation grenades into his suspenders and then running away as fast as you can, what you are ultimately trying to accomplish is to help his poor, undead soul find the peace of the grave that he so-rightfully earned through his long service as one of our greatest Presidents. Make sure to work a sentence like that in there somewhere, and you should be safe from prosecution.
But also remember that foreign dignitaries are totally fair game, and a much safer option. If you want to have a mod in which you hunt down a naked Gerhard Schröder (Chancellor of Germany) for sport, and then pummel him to death with manipulator-launched watermelons, the Supreme Court of the United States says that it’s your right and duty as an American citizen. Just make sure it’s tasteful nudity.
PHW: But not all Half-Life fans live in the U.S. I doubt the censors in Germany would tolerate something like that.
SB: Well, with Germany, there’s really a simple solution to censorship requirements: robots.
PHW: Pardon?
SB: Robots. In Half-life, the parts where you kill human marines simply wouldn’t have passed muster with Germany’s censors. So we simply called the marines “military robots” and took away the flesh gibs. Boom: we were in the clear. We’ll certainly be taking the same approach with Half-Life 2. Although, frankly, it’s going to be even more absurd this time around: with our new emotive facial animation and acting technology, you can have a character that weeps passionately about its hopes and dreams, cries out in painful agony, and begs you to spare its life while you’re hacking it apart with the crowbar. And yet, as long as it bleeds sparks and is called a “robot” in the manual, the game will sell like crazy in Germany.
PHW: Wow: why do you think Germans hate robots so much?
SB: Well, ultimately I think it all comes down to the fact that many of them blame robots for Germany’s defeat in World War II. It’s actually a little disturbing when you think about it a bit. I mean, the most popular book in Germany right now is some tract called “The Network Protocols of the Elders of Cybertron” that’s all this crazy anti-robot ranting about how the whole banking industry is all computerized now. I hear they’re even shown Terminator 3 in history classes.
PHW: Whoa, that’s pretty ominous right there.
SB: Sure, if true. We really try not to think about Germany too much. There’s only so much we, as game designers, can do about what I can only imagine is centuries of entrenched hatred.
