4 ms·

second system effect? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-system_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-system_effect

by woid 17y ago

abossy 17y ago
I definitely think so. I remember reading an Gabe Newell interview in a 1999 PC Gamer magazine about this. Newell stated that, after the excellent critical acclaim of Half-Life, that he wasn't eager to begin Half-Life 2, because, "our fans will expect it to be the best game ever." Alas, six years later, Newell and Valve was able to deliver a worthy sequel. The Duke crowd certainly had the same problem, but perhaps lacked the managerial skills and vision necessary of such a project.
- jcl 17y ago
  The same is true of Team Fortress 2, which took Valve ten years and multiple from-scratch rewrites but was eventually released to wild success. It's like the DNF story rewritten to have a happy ending.
  - arohner 17y ago
    Does anyone have numbers on how much those 10 years cost, and how much they made on TF2? I got TF2 for free with the orange box, which I bought primarily for portal and HL2e2.
    - msg 17y ago
      I don't know, but I bought Orange Box for TF2, and was surprised to find Portal lurking in there.
    - ricree 17y ago
      Yeah, it would definitely be tough to figure the numbers out. I got the orange box mostly for TF2, and I'm sure I'm hardly alone. But other than the actual TF2 only purchases, it's tough to separate how many units TF2 really shipped.
- nickelplate 17y ago
  Yup, there was definitely somewhat of a second system effect in HL2 development. http://www.gamespot.com/features/6112889/index.html http://www.gamespot.com/features/6112889/index.html
xsmasher 17y ago
Second system effect, yes. Contrast to Quake, which succeeded under similar circumstances despite deep difficulty. A follow-up to the most successful game of the time, by a team with lots of money to burn. The original announcements described it as almost a prototypical world-of-warcraft type role-playing game, until it morphed back into something more like Doom. The result was uneven - a weird mix of fantasy castles and sci-fi fortresses speaks to the divisions on the design team - but at least they shipped, unlike DNF, and the end result was fun, unlike Daikatana.
- dantheman 17y ago
  I think your timeline is off. Id software had created a lot of games before quake. Here's a list of their games * Dangerous Dave (1988) * Commander Keen * Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion (1991) * Rescue Rover (1991) * Rescue Rover 2 (1991) * Shadow Knights (1991) * Hovertank 3D (1991) * Catacomb 3D: A New Dimension (1991) * Wolfenstein 3D (1992) * Doom (1993) * Doom II: Hell on Earth (1994) * Quake (1996) * Quake II (1997) * Quake III Arena (1999) * Doom 3 (2004) * Quake Live (2009 - Beta)
  - eru 17y ago
    They were several Commander Keens.
  - xsmasher 17y ago
    "Second system effect" is a term from The Mythical Man-Month - the post I replied to links to the Wikipedia entry. It doesn't imply that Quake was id's second game, or that DNF was 3D realm's second game.

second system effect? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-system_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-system_effect

by woid 17y ago

second system effect? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-system_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-system_effect

abossy 17y ago

I definitely think so. I remember reading an Gabe Newell interview in a 1999 PC Gamer magazine about this. Newell stated that, after the excellent critical acclaim of Half-Life, that he wasn't eager to begin Half-Life 2, because, "our fans will expect it to be the best game ever." Alas, six years later, Newell and Valve was able to deliver a worthy sequel. The Duke crowd certainly had the same problem, but perhaps lacked the managerial skills and vision necessary of such a project.

jcl 17y ago
The same is true of Team Fortress 2, which took Valve ten years and multiple from-scratch rewrites but was eventually released to wild success. It's like the DNF story rewritten to have a happy ending.
- arohner 17y ago
  Does anyone have numbers on how much those 10 years cost, and how much they made on TF2? I got TF2 for free with the orange box, which I bought primarily for portal and HL2e2.
  - msg 17y ago
    I don't know, but I bought Orange Box for TF2, and was surprised to find Portal lurking in there.
  - ricree 17y ago
    Yeah, it would definitely be tough to figure the numbers out. I got the orange box mostly for TF2, and I'm sure I'm hardly alone. But other than the actual TF2 only purchases, it's tough to separate how many units TF2 really shipped.
nickelplate 17y ago
Yup, there was definitely somewhat of a second system effect in HL2 development. http://www.gamespot.com/features/6112889/index.html http://www.gamespot.com/features/6112889/index.html

xsmasher 17y ago

Second system effect, yes. Contrast to Quake, which succeeded under similar circumstances despite deep difficulty. A follow-up to the most successful game of the time, by a team with lots of money to burn. The original announcements described it as almost a prototypical world-of-warcraft type role-playing game, until it morphed back into something more like Doom. The result was uneven - a weird mix of fantasy castles and sci-fi fortresses speaks to the divisions on the design team - but at least they shipped, unlike DNF, and the end result was fun, unlike Daikatana.

dantheman 17y ago
I think your timeline is off. Id software had created a lot of games before quake. Here's a list of their games * Dangerous Dave (1988) * Commander Keen * Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion (1991) * Rescue Rover (1991) * Rescue Rover 2 (1991) * Shadow Knights (1991) * Hovertank 3D (1991) * Catacomb 3D: A New Dimension (1991) * Wolfenstein 3D (1992) * Doom (1993) * Doom II: Hell on Earth (1994) * Quake (1996) * Quake II (1997) * Quake III Arena (1999) * Doom 3 (2004) * Quake Live (2009 - Beta)
- eru 17y ago
  They were several Commander Keens.
- xsmasher 17y ago
  "Second system effect" is a term from The Mythical Man-Month - the post I replied to links to the Wikipedia entry. It doesn't imply that Quake was id's second game, or that DNF was 3D realm's second game.