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[baruk]

an absolutely terrible game and is still adamant in his belief it's amazing.

Derek Smart suddenly seems humble and brilliant.

 Too far.

 This is just some dude, a gaming enthusiast with minimal technical expertise, who poured 1000 hours into coding his first ever game. Good for him, I say! Everyone has to start somewhere, after all, not all of Toady's efforts have been as stellar as DF. And I don't see the arrogance myself, just a guy taking a little pride in his work - I'd rather read an honest interview with a developer, naivety and all, rather than someone covering their ass with false modesty and trying to say what they think people want to hear.

[Forumsdwarf]

Haha, what does it say about Derek Smart that only a comparison to him rises to the level of "Dude!  Not Funny!"

[MrWiggles]

How is Derek Smart?

[Sensei]

You think this is bad?

Clearly you have not heard of Matt Dickie- or, "MDickie". He's the "only one-man developer ever". He uses Blitz3D. His innovative characters blink by retracting their eyeballs into their heads. He has his own site on which he quotes himself and has interviews that he surely made up. But it gets better- he's religious, and preachy about it. In fact he's got this new-age ideal which he thinks gives him a place to preach on all religions.

[Jackrabbit]

an absolutely terrible game and is still adamant in his belief it's amazing.

Derek Smart suddenly seems humble and brilliant.

 Too far.

 This is just some dude, a gaming enthusiast with minimal technical expertise, who poured 1000 hours into coding his first ever game. Good for him, I say! Everyone has to start somewhere, after all, not all of Toady's efforts have been as stellar as DF. And I don't see the arrogance myself, just a guy taking a little pride in his work - I'd rather read an honest interview with a developer, naivety and all, rather than someone covering their ass with false modesty and trying to say what they think people want to hear.

I'm not sure. How do you know if it's false modesty? You don't want to shoot someone down because he's too nice.

[Forumsdwarf]

Mr. Smart's Wikipedia entry shows he's been staying busy.  If I didn't know any better I'd think he maybe toned down the abrasiveness a little and is concentrating more on actual game development.

[baruk]

I'd rather read an honest interview with a developer, naivety and all, rather than someone covering their ass with false modesty and trying to say what they think people want to hear.

I'm not sure. How do you know if it's false modesty? You don't want to shoot someone down because he's too nice.

I found it was an interesting interview, he was honest about his frustrations and it gave a lot of insight into the tribulations of a first-time programmer. It doesn't exactly make him the next Derek Smart.

 The hostile reaction here seems somewhat thoughtless, especially on the forum of another indie game developer (a hint of tribalism, perhaps?). It's not as if anyone took the time to play this guy's game before consigning it to the refuse pile - consider the number of people who would also dismiss DF as trash based on a few screenshots.

[Jackrabbit]

I do agree with you. His attitude annoys me. He seems very up himself, and I believe he is, but obviously I could be very wrong and if I am I would apologize to him, should he come on here and take offense and prove me wrong. The game? I haven't played it so I can't comment on it.

That wasn't really all that relevant to my question though. My question was, how do you know if someone's being falsely modest? I mean, it seems wrong or at the very least rather cynical to dismiss someone because they were saying what you want to hear.

[baruk]

That wasn't really all that relevant to my question though. My question was, how do you know if someone's being falsely modest? I mean, it seems wrong or at the very least rather cynical to dismiss someone because they were saying what you want to hear.

  You wouldn't be able to tell without additional information. But it's beside the point. Ask yourself what strategy makes for a better, more interesting or entertaining interviewee: keeping your cards close to your chest, not trying to offend anyone, or being open and candid?

[Jackrabbit]

Oh I see. I thought you were saying it was better to be open and candid rather than polite, interesting and informative.

I get it now.

[baruk]

Oh I see. I thought you were saying it was better to be open and candid rather than polite, interesting and informative.

How is "keeping your cards close to your chest, not trying to offend anyone" equivalent to "polite, interesting and informative"?

[Jackrabbit]

It's not. See, I think that if you're being modest in an interview, you're being polite and informative. Interesting is a plus and I think it's often side by side with being informative. I think Toady is modest, for example. Obviously, you meant not modesty but false modesty. I wondered how you could tell the difference and I see now the difference is that being polite and interesting (and obviously, not hyping your game up, i.e. "This is the best game ever!") could probably be constituted as modest and keeping your cards close to your chest, not trying to offend anyone, could be constituted as false modesty.

Probably? I'm really not in the mood to overthink this, nor is my brain working as well as it could be.

EDIT: I've said 'Obviously' three times now. More proof my brain is running on emergency power.

[Pathos]

Wow at this MDickie guy. He has to be the biggest sack of crap I've ever had the displeasure of hearing about, and makes that Herman developer seem mild mannered.

People like this make me glad there're still people like Toady developing games.

Also, apparently there's never been any other independent developer who has had more than 100,000 people play their games. xD

[Outcast Orange]

Bay12, I thought you were smarter than this.

Can nobody spot a joke game?

I'm guessing nobody here has ever played this?

[cowofdoom78963]

Can nobody spot a joke game?

This.

MDickie

It was only a matter of time until he was brought up.