Summary of Update:
User Name.........jwand
Full Name.........Jeff Wand
Description.......Artist
Last NT Logon.....Friday, November 07, 1997 at 04:36
jwand@ionstorm.com
Jefferson H. Wand
Jeff
"Mad Somoan"
WARNING! WARNING WILL ROBINSON! The following statements are my own and odds are even that they don't reflect ION Storm's opinions. Also, this is the .plan of an artist employed at ION Storm. You have been warned.
11-19-97
If anyone knows of a good 2d/Photoshop artist that's really good with medieval themes, could you send them my way or e-mail me? It would require moving to Dallas too. I only want to see 2d samples of drawings or 2d computer work.
11-17-97
Well, this Friday is my last day here. Sniff, sniff. I'm leaving to pursue a career in the WWF as "The Mad Somoan". Just kidding. I'm really moving to the closest thing I've ever had to a hometown, Austin, to join Warren Spector's ex-Looking Glass team and an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of new game.
I've been here for nine months and indeed it has been a wild ride. I was the second artist to arrive through the doors of ION. At the time, I was entertaining thoughts of heading to the west coast, which I was reluctant to do because I wasn't raised in a dysfunctional environment and am actually rather fond of my family. So I made the decision to make the short trek from Austin to Dallas rather than head to "Hollyweird".
I had never seen so many people as passionate about their games until I came here. There is such an overwhelming atmosphere of competition whether it be flag football, foosball, Quake, Age of Empires, Doom, Tekken3, or Omega Race (Omega Race?!) I think it will come across in our games.
I think I can safely say that I modelled about %80 perecent of the character models without being pelted by my fellow artists and am really proud of how they came out with minimal pounding by Brian and Jerry. I put a lot of myself into these models and I really hope they knock the socks off people. Even more amazing, I'm walking away from them, pretty confident that what I saved off of as a final object will survive the tweaking process to lunge at me when I play Daikatana for the first time. I have complete faith in the folks that are breathing life into them as we speak and that is so, so rare. Ken, Ron, and Murphy have their work cut out for them.
I want to thank the Daikatana team
-John Romero for creating the most badass sandbox to play in.
-Jerry O' Flaherty for taking the chance on me.
-Bryan Pritchard for understanding you can take the Mad Somoan out of Austin, but you can't take the Austin out of the Mad Somoan
-Mike Wilson for actually hearing me out on a few of my weird ideas
-Andy and Andy for Andyland
-Dabug, Sverre, Rescoe and Dr. Sleep for surpassing my expectations
-Ron for being my Age of Empires buddy
-Murphy for being the cynical Mormon nubian-lovin' guy that he is
-Chuck for wising up and finally leaving the "lame-O"
-Jim for reminding me that I'm a frustrated comic artist
-Ken for reminding me that I'm a frustrated painter
-Kee for never throwing anything at me
-Shawn for telling it like it is
-Will Loconto for letting me meet a rockstar! Really, I loved Information Society!
-Nelno the Amoeba for gifting us with his protoplasm
-Voin for inventing Tetris
-Rooster for not pointing out the child labor law violations
-Russell and Clay for joining the Austin train
As much as I loved being on this team, Dallas is just not my cup of tea and one thing my life as a military-brat pointed out, "You don't have to live where you don't want to". So as much as I enjoy working with Romero and crew, going back down to Austin is my chance to live in a great city and still work at a great company. In other words it's my chance to have my cake and eat it too.
Some people see this company either as a bunch of cocky egomaniacs trying to hype themselves as rock stars or a passionate and innovative experiment in game design with a lightning bolt of business savvy on a grand scale. I think I like that.
Anyways, all I can say for now is "Hey Warren! Get that sandbox ready! Wahoo!"
P.S. Dallas sucks and yes, I'm still bitter about my truck getting broken into.
11-12-97
I just want to warn folks something. Don't finger my .plan manually. It's become a tad on the lengthy side. I'll figure out what to do with it eventually. Maybe after I find a publisher. Heh....
11-11-97
I just finished playing the dirtiest nastiest game of AoE I hope to ever play. And came out on the winning side. Awwww yeaaaa.
The Daikatana demo from the Frag is out finally. Hopefully there'll be more of my stuff in the next one. The satyr is the only a taste of what's to come. There's sixty more guys like him. Hope you dig it.
Back to the battlefield!
11-04-97
Sorry I missed the Frag folks, but I was out of commission with the flu. Ack. But I did manage to close on my house! Wahoo! I'm a homeowner! Eventually the impact of that will eventually hit me, but at least I have space for my Street Fighter II machine. Now I need to save up my lunch money for a jacuzzi....
And good luck Gary, say hi to Sonya for me. I'm going to be bummed if you guys end up being millionairres before I do... :)
10-24-97
Ok, no more submissions please.
10-23-97
Just to clarify some points on potential artist candidates. It requires relocation to Dallas and the emphasis is on 2d drawing skills. Also we're only looking for one artist.
10-21-97
Hey we're hiring!
We're making some personnel changes really soon and several artists will be moving onto another project, so we're looking for a 2d texture artist for Dabug's medieval levels. The artist MUST HAVE TOP NOTCH DRAWING SKILLS and be proficient in Adobe Photoshop or an equivalent. Send samples to Jerry O'Flaherty at jerry@ionstorm.com or me and I'll forward them. You can also mail them to us at
ION Storm
2200 Ross Ave. Suite 3050
Dallas TX 75201
10-16-97
Doh. Stormfront. Sorry guys.:) Do I really sound like that? I think a "pansyfilter" was being run over my voice.
10-15-97
Just saw the latest PCGamer and the article on ION. It's a pretty gushy "ION is swell" piece and man, what a huge photo! Anyways, it'll take all of two seconds for someone to guess where the Mad Somoan is in the photo.
And Levelord, we know nothing about any fire, it must have been the sun's rays passing over some smog, or swamp gas or something and on that note, we know nothing of the missing 15 pounds of plutonium from Cassini for that matter.
Also, I'll be on Pseudo's Stormwatch tomorrow at 8 Eastern/ 7 Central.
9-30-97
Hmmm. I just realized when I said I was happy with the way the chain gunner came out, it sounded like I modeled him, which actually I didn't. Murphy Michaels did. Maybe I'm just fried from doing so many models that I think I did models that I didn't even do. Maybe I meant I just really liked him a lot and was happy for Murphy...Yea...
Anyways, I think we'll be putting up more of our creatures up on our site, hell we've got sixty or so to eventually choose from, but no bosses will be posted.
Oh yeah. Check out Murphy's Doom Bat. He's neat!
9-29-97
Went to a Sci-Fi collector's convention this weekend. It was cool and Star Wars memorabilia was everywhere! There was a dealer that had the most impressive collection of original star wars figures still in the box that I've ever seen. They also had an impressive lineup of guests, David Prowse (Darth Vader), Phil Brown (Uncle Owen), Chase Masterson (Leeta, Deep Space Nine) and some Star Trek Voyager dude. Regretfully Warwick Davis cancelled. While some of my friends bought Star Wars stuff, all I did was pick up some trading cards of artists like Frazetta, Gil Elvgren, Ken Kelly, Olivia and about a dozen comic book graphic novels. Oh yeah, a little Speed Racer Mach 5 car too.
Umm. Well we're finally confident enough to show a little of our art. There's some on our website. Just look in the Games section at the main menu. I'm pretty happy with the way the chain gunner came out.
9-22-97
Went to Ensemble's ship party last Friday and watched Romero suck it down. Not bad for someone that never played it before. Anyways, he's really digging it and is on a big Age of Empires kick now. It's pretty cool, but buggy. Tricia a.k.a. Sxygrl was in town. Spent the weekend recovering from Niqui's birthday and Tom's party afterward.
Finally got a chance to watch my Gundam videos. I've been searching for the Mobile Suit Gundam episodes on tape for several years and finally found them. It's amazing how well the series holds up after fifteen years!
Doing a minor overhaul on several character models to give them more personality and make them more dynamic. I'm really impressed with Final Fantasy VII and Abe's Odyssey's marketing campaign. Blitzkrieg baby, blitzkrieg!
"Tread lightly.., for we are on the path to hell"
-Ogami Ito "Sword of Vengeance"
9-19-97
I just wanted to offer my congrats to Sonya Roberts a.k.a. "MsBarrows" on her new job at Pseudointeractive as a level designer and artist. Pseudointeractive is a company started by ex-Origin Systems programmer and friend of mine, David Wu and several friends. David was only at Origin for several months before he got sick of the politics and corporate culture, but he made a hell of an impact there and had everyone eating out of his hand trying to get him to stay on. Right now they're working on an incredible looking vehicle combat game called Inertia. There are some pretty amazing things going on in the game, physics and lighting wise and that's just in DirectX. I'm looking forward to the 3dfx version in the near future. If you're interested, try bugging them at www.pseudointeractive.com into giving out their demo. At first impression, it's raw, the controls needs refining, and the levels are very, very basic, but hey, that's what Sonya's there for. Anyways, keep an eye out for Inertia in the future. David's going to go far in this industry, you can bet on it.
9-10-97
Just got back from this big weird uber-rave. Moby, Empirion, and 808 State were there among other acts. There were lots of fine women and good music. It got really weird during Aphex Twin's gig. Giant neon teddy bears, women in pink spandex on stilts, and even a streaker.
Paul's .plan had nothing to do with me. I'm not the Jeff of "Jeff and Andy" that he was referring to although I bump into him every once in a blue moon.
Our character/creature skins are going to be beeeyoootiful thanks to our secret weapon. Models too.
9-07-97
Sheesh! I've been spending a lot of time in Austin lately. It's nice to see old bosses (Warren) and old teammates (Dave, Steve, and Kraig) come aboard. One thing I find amusing is how little the Quake community knows about Warren. ION Storm hired "some dude named Warren Spector" indeed.
Been playing Outlaws. Got stuck twice so far and had to consult a walkthrough guide. I'm not a gaming purist, unlike Romero. Sorry. However, I would like to thank Roger Tan for his informative Outlaws website and walkthrough guides. You rule!
8-20-97
Well, I've been moved into my warehouse loft digs and it's real cool. Totally bohemian and the iron girders give it "ambience". Now I need to save up for the downpayment to actually buy the thing instead of renting it. It's real quiet except for Fridays and Saturdays when everyone swarms into Deep Ellum for the nightlife and the occasional shooting murder, but I've got three other IONStorm neighbors to help in a nasty situation. Well.... Ok. I've got some nunchuks and bug spray.
Looked at the Chasm demo. It's really cool and I can't wait until I see more. What I'm really looking forward to seeing more of is the X-Men TC. The models are great and the skins really utilize the models for all their worth. It'll be interesting seeing what else comes from John Gorden.
Did a doublefeature of Event Horizon/Time Bandits. Time Bandits was better. Event Horizon was basically Aliens and a Clive Barker story. The sets were awesome though.
As for Daikatana, I'm busting them out and the animators are hot on my trail animating them. Maybe some previews will be put up soon. They're fly. The fledgling low-poly corp of artists are producing some quality models for Anachronox. Not bad for 2nd generation Paul Steed scions and that Squaresoft artist is like, good and stuff...
Also, I'm looking into learning level editing, as if I don't have enough things to do.
8-15-97
Thresh may be the deathmatch king, but I can stuff 20 gumballs in my mouth. Suck it down.
8-02-97
Damn. I'm out of pumpkin seeds....Sigh.
7-21-97
Well last week was fun although my truck getting broke into yet again was kinda anticlimactic. :( What kind of moron picks/slim jims my doorlock, siphons the gas, steals the car registration, leaves the lights on, and leaves a drink coaster on my dashboard? This is getting pretty damn surreal. Hell, there ain't jack squat to steal thanks to previous break-ins. I'd think it's almost funny if I hadn't spent all Sunday trying to find someone to get a jumpstart from.
Well, I did go to Quakecon. One of the first things I did was attend Paul Steed's seminar on low-poly modeling. I was pretty much up on most of the things Paul covered but it helped confirm I was on track with the approaches that I was taking towards the character models. If anyone was wondering who the hell the big dude was that Paul would periodically point to in the middle of the room, that was me. Paul's absolutely right about the hardware requirements for lowpoly modeling. A 486 DX2 and 3DSR4 is all it takes to model and animate game-quality real-time models.
One of the next things I did was hook up with Dan Rockwell from ADV films. They distribute a lot of manga and asian films and I've been corresponding with him over e-mail for several months, trying to score some free stuff AND IT WORKED! Woohoo! They've got a pretty cool selection and they're a pretty classy setup overall. They've got quite a few familiar hit titles that I didn't know they distributed and they're not overzealous in their appreciation for manga unlike a lot of "otaku" I've encountered. Keep me up to date on new releases Dan! And stay cool!
Finally met Thresh! After bumping into him down in the convention center, Romero and crew went up to Centaur Interactive's suite and we shot the shit with him. I even got to watch him handily smack down challengers over at Romero's Thursday and Friday night. Watching him play is like...a religeous experience. Over those two nights, he beat Romero, Paradox, Killcreek, Shadow, and Voin. Usually into negative scores too. I considered playing him for about .0001 seconds before I realized I would have nightmare episodes so brutal they would make me curl up into a fetal position after he would get through with me.
Saw the id guys there. Romero and Carmack chewed the fat over (what else?) their Ferraris. Some other guys I met were Onethumb, Zoid, Nash Werner (from PCGames Online), and the notorious Blue! Voin, Vertigo, and I did a little RealAudio for Nash, but guess what? All it does is play Blue's interview! Wassupwitdat? :)
I saw Hexen2 over there. It's lookin' good. Looking forward to its release.
I finally got to meet Tricia or "sexxygrrl" on #Quake. She's the Eidos rep that was tromping around the IONStorm gig at the Harvey hotel in the slinky black dress. She's an interesting gal. Are you ready for this? She's asian, into asian cooking, comics, skating, hong kong movies, VERY into manga, and I hear VERY VERY into Tombraider2. "But" she's taken. Oh well...
I've gotten to see both Tom and John's houses. They're very cool, but damn, what a commute!
Anyways, I'm moving out of my roachmotel of an apartment and into Cleaner's old loft in the "Stormdorm". Should be cool. I have the feeling many an Ionstormer will be stopping by when they have a few yaegermeisters too many... That should take some of the load off of Doug "Fresh". Poor Doug would be macking on some girls and all of sudden "knock, knock!!! Oh, gee guys, how nice of you to stop by..."
Favorite quote this week:
Sverre (to Thresh): "Um..how'd you get the rocket to bend around that wall?"
7-17-97
Going to QuakeCon later on, tell ya how it was soon.
The Master of Infernal Noise is doing some of the freakiest music I've ever heard right now. Sends shivers down my spine.
Heard there were more layoffs at Origin and some of my friends got let go:(
I saw Wild Arms this week. Really cool and the music is out of this world.
Also, Voin seems to have developed a new superpower. All he has to do is kneel next to a computer and without touching it, it will reboot. We did a background check on him and discovered he was indeed born in Chernobyl. I'm bringing some microwave dinners from home tomorrow to help him test his next superpower in development.
7-10-97
Cocky little artists whose names rhyme with "groin" that manipulate other artists' .plan files should be subjected to a christening ala Jake Hughes syle or be made to smell Todd Porter's finger.
7-9-97
Well poopie.... We had a little tourney here last night to decide who'll represent ION Storm in the Quakecon celebrity (or was that celery) deathmatch contest and I didn't make the cut. Just barely got edged out... Ok, ok, I was thirteenth out of sixteen. Anyways those that made the cut were Voin, Indigo, (Lord) Shadow, and Squirrel. Not a big surprise there I guess. Since Voin kinda had the most frags after the five rounds, now he's got a big head and is demanding that we all drink only Fresca soda, wear sportscoats and learn Russican because he's too damn lazy to speak English. We're pooling our lunch money together to put a contract out on him, but wait, who would do awesome low poly stuff? (my dog?). After Quakecon, that is...Oh yeah, I think Romero placed seventh.
I contemplated growing my hair out like Romero, but with my curly locks and dark complexion, I think I'd end up looking like Slash.
7-8-97
My, oh my, it's been a busy week! I'm looking forward to QuakeCon and might be doing a little deathmatching in preparation. I had a relatively safe 4th of July weekend, mostly staying in touch with old friends and just overall chillin'. Some of us went to Billy's Society of the Damned gig at The Galaxy Club. I thought their posters were so cool that I just had to go! Anyways, we played a little pool with the Cat Daddy and a friend, hung with Rob Atkins and I even spied a large contingent of Prey team members there. What really made my day was that a couple guys from Boston e-mailed me the day before about potential hotels in the Dallas area if they were to fly in to see SoTD (and catch some Dallas sights). Well, these guys ACTUALLY SHOWED UP at the club and we gave them the whirlwind tour of the ION digs afterwards in exchange for a ride back.
I have seen into the abyss called John Romero and it's....hmmm....unsettling.
Romero was showing some comics he did when he was just a wee little game-tycooon-to-be and it's some sick and twisted, yet curiously hilarious stuff.
I've been training several artists here in the art of low-poly art for Anachronox. It's pretty cool, I've got them doing all kinds of stuff like painting my fence, waxing my cars, one finger push-ups, the whole nine yards. I'm just worried that they'll realize none of that stuff has anything to do with low-poly modeling and then the jig will be up. I saw that Paul Steed plans on doing a workshop at Quakecon on low-poly creation and animation. I learned a lot from him at Origin Systems, so if you're interested in that stuff, I encourage you to make the time to attend. You'll be in for a real treat and make sure you come in on time.
On a final note, one of our producers, Rob Legg got REALLY REALLY hurt in Mexico over the 4th of July weekend. It was a potentially lifethreatening situation and definitely a quality-of-life-threatening injury. It's frightening when something like that happens to a nice guy like Rob. He's the ION Stormer with the really thick drawl on Pseudo's Stormfront show. Anyways, send him a virtual postcard or something when he gets back. You'd be a beautiful person if you did:)
Quote of the week I heard over the 4th of July weekend:
"No Dan! Let 'em go! For God's sake, don't shoot!"
-anonymous Dallas Police Officer at a roadblock
(taken out of context)
6-30-97
Hmm. I found this on Next Generation's online mag.
"With the rise in shear numbers of women playing games and online games ion general, there has been a logical increase in female Quake clans and female participation in Quake tournaments. One prominent example of these recent happenings is Kill Creek, the twelve year old girl who handily crushed Quake designer, John Romero in a head-to-head Quake match following her victory in a Quake tournament sponsored by TEN."
Paradox, you're a sicko!
Just kidding. I've met KC and she definitely does not look like a twelve year old, if you catch my drift. Also, she didn't compete in the CGDC TEN tournament, much less win it. The author is getting KC mixed up with Kornelia. Although Kornelia, who I just recently met, did win the TEN tournament and beat Romero in an exhibition match, she is also not twelve by a long shot.
I know you'll sleep better knowing this....
6-27-97
Ah, well it's the end of the week. I just got back from dinner and a movie with Tom and some of his Anachronox fiends. We checked out Face Off with Travolta and one of my favorite actors, Nicolas Cage and directed by the dare I say legendary John Woo. I've been a John Woo fan for several years and must say that it's classic physics-defying choreographed gunfights galore and everyone's performances were right on the money. There are even a few cameos with Margaret Cho and Billy Joe Bob Briggs. Anyways, if you're into the Woo/Cameron type of storytelling action-kablooie-rama thang this is your kinda movie.
Dr. Sleep's fellow clanmate and all-too-rare Quake playin' female has been hanging around here humbling several of us in deathmatches. Out of respect, I won't go into detail about scores and such, but Romero, Squirrel and Shadow's skulls are mending.
While deathmatching on Quakeworld tonight, someone informed me that I've spelled "Somoan" wrong as in "Mad Somoan". Being sorta polynesian, this distressed me, but as I far as I can tell, both "somoan" and "samoan" are used to describe the Somoan/Samoan island as in "Western Somoa" and "Western Samoa". Oh well, I won't lose any sleep over it....
Quote of the week:
"I always thought it'd be the worse thing in the world to be thrown in a cage with the 'Samsonite Gorilla'....
-John Romero
6-24-97
Well, it's been an interesting last few weeks. We made the push for E3 and from what I hear, things went off with only minor snags. I heard there were some very cool games in addition to Quake2 and HexenII. Mmmmm. Tomb Raider. DungeonKeeper. I really would have liked to have seen Wing Commander Prophecy. I REALLY wanted to see the Red Annihilation finals. I can't wait til QuakeCon. There's a half dozen guys here just itchin' to go one-on-one with Thresh. Anyways during all that hoopla, I went to my little brother's wedding, babysitted the newbie artists, and hung around IRC. The #Qoole people wanted me to mention their #Qoole channel but I didn't want to give the impression that I'm endorsing Qoole over any other editors, so sorry #Qoole people, but I don't think I'll mention the #Qoole channel in my .plan. Well, while I didn't manage to go to E3 this time, I'm looking forward to SIGGRAPH. If I'm lucky I might manage to sneak in some boogie-boarding while I'm in L.A. I also saw us mentioned in an article on online gaming in Yahoo! Internet Life magazine. There were several photos of well-known online gamers, including a notorious Miss Stevie Case a.k.a. "Killcreek". "Stevie"?! Hmmm. Well you're still my hero Killcreek. Anyways, we're all busy staffing Anachronox and I'm working out the logistics of my next apartment move. Does anyone know what a professional mover charges for a one bedroom apartment worth of stuff?
6-9-97
It's been a fun past week or so. The party/SotD gig was really fun. It was held on the roof of a warehouse that's been converted into loft apartments that several IONStormers rent. Warehouse apartments are just so "maverick". I want to buy one just so I can do the Highlander thang. I got to meet some guys from Rogue, Hipnotic, and Ensemble that night. Pretty fun guys, but some of you Ensemble guys are just a tad shy. Although Cat Daddy Mike did try to get some moshing going, noone would do anything til me and Niqui got out there. We did rough up the painting on one of the walls a bit, but after I told the manager there were several dozen artists in the room that could repaint it, he relaxed a bit. The weirdest sight was seeing Todd Porter in there with Docker jeans and loafers taking people, including Levelord out.
I finally checked out IRC to do an interview with NAWC and chatted with folks over the weekend. Between ICQ, IRC, and iChat, I am just SO jacked in. Oh and Sonya, you've got a pretty cool website. I checked out your Quake levels and look forward to seeing more. We're in need of some new deathmatch levels over here.:)
I HAVE read Paul Steed's .plan and have to clear something up for you iD vs. ION Storm instigators. I've known Paul for several years from Origin System days and in terms of real-time character modeling, consider myself a protégé of his. While I don't admire his eagerness to pick a fight and lack of tact, :) there are several things I do admire about him such as his talent, family, and physical fitness, which reminds me, I need to hit the gym. Also I'm not into software evangilism, I'm just grateful to be using something other than EOR.
Still looking for artists, particularly 2d texture artists for Quake engine level tiles. There'd be plenty of training involved for anyone that might be hesitant to send stuff because of a lack of 3d experience.
Are there any aspiring comic book writers out there looking for an artist? I've been wanting to do some comic work, but it would have to be on a relaxed schedule. What I really want to do is a limited series that's finished before I ever solicit to publishers. The only comic writer friend of mine I have is too busy writing for two titles so I either have to make up my own story, which at the moment I don't really want to do, or find someone. In terms of art style, I'm kind of a Frank Frazettish-Matt Wagner-Adam Hughes-Milo Manara clone. I just need a script, preferrably something nonsuperhero-ish and very character driven. For anyone interested, the kind of comics I'm into at the moment are:
Grendel
Madman
Sin City
Sandman
Akira
Watchment
Darknight Returns
Shi
Kabuki
Books of Magic
Cerebus
Strangers in Paradise
Sanctuary
Crying Freeman
Bone
Batman: Year One
Watched El Mariachi for the umpteenth time at Tom Hall's place. He's got a pretty rockin' pad with all kinds of cool sniping spots and it's only a matter of time before a Quake map will be made of it. His new place must really be something if he's leaving this one. He's going to be renting out his old place to some Anachrofolk and artists. I expect to become a permanent fixture in that jacuzzi and heated pool. Aaaaaaah.....
Going to Austin this weekend to partake in Mongolian BBQ and my brother's wedding.
Right now, all you Quakeheads should be looking into attending QuakeCon. We'll be there, iD'll be there, Hipnotic'll be there, Rogue'll be there, it'll be beautiful. Meanwhile I make do by watching Noel "Shadow" Stephens in his new hobby, challenging Quake clans by himself and winning.
I'd like WC4 a lot more if only I had an analog joystick.
6-3-97
WTF? I can't believe Janitor Bob took the textures that I submitted to Hipnotic when I applied several months ago and called them his own! I worked for days in Dpaint to get the exact fecal brown color on those checker tiles. Do you know how hard it is to get that exact brown when all you have are the colors from the Quake palette? No easy task indeed. Hipnotic and Janitor Bob can expect to get a little letter from our lawyer. Yea, that's right. Lawyer Bob. I don't know if the two are related, although they did both start at ION Storm at the same time.
5-29-97
Happy, happy, joy, joy! I met the id guys, ok, most of 'em. Kevin, Adrian, Tim, Todd and fellow ex-Originite Paul Steed all came over for a visit. While John proceeded to show Tim and Adrian any and all of our trade secrets (gee, thanks John) I got to show off our Daikatana models to Kevin. He's a really nice, humble kinda guy and had a few good words to say about the stuff. He was impressed that our characters will have thumbs! Anyways Jerry, Paul, and I dialogued on the benefits of 3Dstudio vs. Alias vs. Lightwave3D for the purposes of creating real-time models. Paul and Kevin are buying a copy of Lightwave tomorrow based on this conversatiion and after a short demonstration. You owe me one Newtek.
I just finished playing a little Quakeworld and I suspect I'm the one Disruptor was developing his newfound rocket juggling skills on.
Also, Killcreek and Paradox are here at the moment. Killcreek was using our network to play in Red Annihilation and just barely got edged out even though she tied for second place in what I have to say was the most screwed up deathmatch I've seen in a while. There was a five minute pause when the lag got unbearable and connections were getting lost, people were dropping etc.. It was a mess and she is not happy. There were even some guys playing on some T3 lines. Where the hell they got hold of them, who knows. Anyways Paradox and Shadow went at it a few rounds and while Paradox did some smacking early on, Shadow gave him a whuppin' ION Clan-style and Paradox was lucky to even leave DM4 with a positive frag score this evening.
Oh yeah. Go buy Wing Commander IV Playstation. It's good for the yang.
5-28-97
Well, I'm all rested from my little Memorial Day vacation and am ready to get back to work. I'm starting to do some animating and we're stuffing more artists in here even though the rightsided-brain to leftsided-brain ratio has already been shot to hell. Also there will be screenshots forthcoming, but they are under lock and key and will be out whenever a certain long haired game company chairman/Star Wars lovin'/mouse smashin' cuz he got beat game designer whose name rhymes with "Bolero" sees fit.
Squirrel and Jake are still glued to Chronotrigger and Squirrel's quest is to play out every possible miniquest/ending possible and videotape it.
We have a temporary clubhouse that Tom made when he was in one of his "OhmyI'vehadtoomuchPepsiagain" episodes. It's made out of a cubicle and cardboard boxes and has been dubbed "Anachrobox". There's even a little futon in there for taking an "Anachronap". We're waiting for the future programmer that is supposed to inhabit the cubicle to graduate from high school and don't know what Tom'll do with the clubhouse when the guy gets here.
IONStorm Quote of the Day
"You'd be surprised how easily flesh tears"
-Deadhorse a.k.a. Chris Depping
5-20-97
The art intern is bigger than I am.
I'm taking the rest of the week off to visit my Ma and Pa, go to my little brother's graduation, pick up my paintball gear and get my Mongolian BBQ fix.
Been playing a bit of Quakeworld lately. I realized that Lightwave minimized in the background was the source of my chunky framerate even though I had a decent ping. Those guys whose skins are just a wall texture, or pure black drive me nuts, but otherwise most of the players are fun to play against.
Tom Hall's couch, a.k.a. "Anapronox" (tm) is very comfy. Makes me wish I HAD a couch. The closest thing I have to furniture are a set of drapes I've yet to hang up.
Wing Commander 4 for the Playstation is almost out. It was my last project while at Origin. The graphics are cool, especially when you consider that the textures on the ships are 4-bit! Anyways, it's a good port of a Wing Commander game, maybe not as good as the 3DO version, but definitely better than Wing Commander 3 Playstation. It's got a real solid framerate that hovers in 25-30 fps and supports the dual analog joystick. Some of the gameflow graphics are a little blah, but well.. too many cooks in the kitchen is all I'll say about that.
5-16-97
Man, oh man. Boy, do I wish I had my paintball gear with me. I'd be out there this weekend smacking paint with those Hippies and id folks. Yessirree bob. Oh well. Next week I'll be in Austin to see my little bro graduate (with a sigh of relief) and I'll grab my paintball gear then. It's a sweet little Automag that's been tricked out by the guys at Olympic Paintball. Kersplat!
5-15-97
Oy, what a headache I've got right now. Ever since my near fatal accident last summer during my stint at Lion Entertainment, I get these migraines whenever a storm comes. One of these days, I'm afraid my head will just blow up. Kablooie. No more Mad Somoan.
There aren't too many places that you'll hear "Suck it down" as a battlecry while playing Magic: The Gathering. The next evolution will be full contact Magic: The Gathering.
I'm making all the artifact objects now. The characters are being animated right now. The froginator looks great, the animations look great, the game will be great.
I read Romero's interview in Next Generation. I hadn't realized how strongly he felt about GT Interactive.
Quote:
Deadhorse: I feel like going to Wok today.
Brian: Last time you said that, you walked to Waco.
Deadhorse: No. I said WOK. W-O-K.
Note: Wok's a chinese restaurant.
5-9-97
Watched The Fifth Element today. Excellent job. The production designs were absolutely awesome. I heard Moebius was behind the character designs, so that would explain why they looked familiar. Really great stuff. I also have to mention that Milla is very easy on the eyes and the stewardess' costumes were finger lickin' good. I do have to say that the Rhooby character was drawn out too much and didn't add to the story very well. Overall I'd have to say it's up there with Terry Gilliam's stuff and City Of Lost Children.
I've been fixing models and advising on stuff that's being outsourced. Also, I've got great news. Our human real-time models will have NOSES! That's pretty good news when you're limited to several hundred faces rather than several thousand.
Hung out at the Coppertank with some IONStormers, played a little pool with Rocketman before we headed to the Palace to see Billy "Joel" Haskins and the rest of Society Of The Damned. Once we got to The Palace, we played more pool. We lost a little, won a little against some other game company called Hippo-Tick or something like that. Anyways Society of the Damned was pretty good. They're kind of an 80's throwback to club music like Duran Duran and Aha. Very happy-go-lucky stuff. After that, we went down to Deep Ellum, crashed Jake Hughes place, then crashed Dougy "Fresh"'s pad. I've got to get me a loft down there.
Anyways, check the new CGW. The article on Daikatana was well wrote. The competition this fall will be something fierce. What's up with everyone calling themselves "the Quake-killer" and the "anti-Quake". That could hint of insecurity and admission that Quake is the benchmark. Quake is, and should be the benchmark, but Daikatana isn't a "Quake-killer", it's "Daikatana".
Things to check out:
http://www.artbell.com/
Tekken3
Fire and Ice (the animated movie by Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta)
5-8-97
Morning Haiku:
John's Ferrari fast,
Horsepower charged with nitrous,
Hear Carmack's faster.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
5-7-97
Well we're moved in our temporary spot while the "penthouse" is being redecorated. There are some good points and some bad. I have to wear a sportscoat. A Mad Samoan in a sportscoat. Hell, that's one of the Four Horsemen right there. Three to go. It's also a pretty funny sight, kind of like a wet cat. The garage is like a sauna and the bums around there are afraid of us. The good news is now I have room for my groovy posters, second machine, and DISCO BALL! I've been playing a bit of X-Wing Vs. Tiefighter and I have mixed feelings about it. Multiplayer rocks, but some of the missions and ship designs are kind of iffy. I've always been split between Wing Commander/X-Wing and this game didn't really tug in X-Wing's favor that much. I was really disappointed in the cinematics, I mean Lucasarts is within spitting distance to ILM and that's the best they could do? I'll admit I did have high expectations for it, but oh well.
Overall it's a good, but flawed game.
Anyways, I've been busy cranking out real-time models, and trying to get potential artists to come work for us. We're just going balls out for E3. Romero elaborated on more stuff that he wanted to see in Daikatana and it made my jaw drop. He's really one of the most imaginitive guys I've met.
IONStorm Haiku:
I love Tom Hall's couch.
Must get furniture at home.
Tom's cost three hundred.
I was channel surfing last weekend and saw the ending to Baywatch Nights where apparently there was a dust storm occurring in the scene. David Hasselhoff's character was climbing into his sport utility truck and you could the see the reflection of a cameraman/boomguy in the sideview mirror. Oh yeah, go read my interview on Sandmoose's Daikatana Cabana.
4-21-97
Quote of the moment: "Oh by the way, Deanna, we use the word "f*ck" around here a lot"
-Mad Somoan
Today we welcomed Murphy Michaels and Deanna Didn't-Catch-Her-Last-Name, two new arteests. We're really out of space and Russell the Love Muscle has been blowing the circuit on our side of the area by turning on his lamp. With all these ginormous (that's pronounced "jai-nor-mus") monitors and machines, we're blowing the circuits daily. I've been working on low-poly stuff for the past few days for E3 and am counting the days til we move. Today this place felt like a sweatshop and listening to surf music while blowing a fan full blast in my face just doesn't cut it. All it does is dry out my contacts and make me long for my surfing days.
I heard Whaleboy got a job at Apogee/3Drealms. My congrats to him and he gets to keep his Rodeo and celphone.
This weekend I bought a couple of surf music CD's which Squirrel and Shadow are deathmatching too at this moment and a book called "OBLAGON" which is a collection of Syd Mead's work. Syd is the god of conceptual design and a really pleasant guy. I had the pleasure of meeting him once. I know, I'm a bastard for being such a name-dropper. I also bought "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Dating" for well, never you mind.
Oh yeah, I rented a manga series called Mad Bull 34. That's some crazy shit. I guess if you like "Legend of the Overfiend" you'll like it and I don't mean just for the quality of the animation. It's written by Kazuo Koike, who I believe is the guy that wrote "Lone Wolf and Cub" and "Crying Freeman". Oh, yeah Anime-Kon 8 is coming next month. Can't wait to get my hands on some anime that I used to watch when I lived overseas as a kid.
I'm envious of all the bastard designers getting to do interviews. At least I'm honest enough to admit this.
================================================================================
4-11-97
Quote at the moment:
"ASSY NIPPLES!
-Squirrel
All the muckymucks have been in Europe doing the press tour all week so we've only got the weekend to clean up the mess from the week-long party. Boy, those llamas could par-tay.
This week some of us found an awesome comic book shop called Stage and Screen. They've actually got a variety of Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill stuff and even a Gundam poster or two. I bought a Gil Elvgren poster-art book and some other stuff. I'll definitely be going back there. Now, if I can just get my hands on a Ghost In The Shell soundtrack, life would be grand.
Shadow found a weird comic strip involving a Quake Shambler and the Spice Girls on their web site. There are some pretty fly pictures there too.
There are some very cool new developments in Daikatana. Atmosphere effects and such. The textures by our resident Hugh Grant look-a-like arteest, Clay Hoffman, look awesome.
The gals here have mentioned that they'd be more interested in deathmatching if there were female characters, so I'm looking into making some.
Jerry and some arteests are at NAB checking out Newtek and their new Lightwave goodies. Hope they bring me back some cheesy souvenir like a button or foam keychain.
I heard Bruce Lemons finally left Origin for Digital Anvil. I wonder if they have digital roadrunners or digital coyotes over there.
I met Sverre Kvrenmo, new level designer from Norway and although he's cool for a European, we'll turn him into a real Texan yet.
===============================================================================
4-09-97
Quote at the moment that is NOW:
"I'm OK, you're OK and that there is what it is!"
-H.I. McDunna "Raising Arizona"
Well, it's been a while since I updated. I caught the Tokyo Shock Boys on the boob toob. Very few things are as funny as breaking a chopstick in two with the crack of your ass. Ha ha. Kinda makes me long for the days when I lived on Okinawa.
I finally assembled my weight machine. I'll be Paul Steed in no time!
I'm just counting down the days til we move. When you have three artists and a secretary in a seven by twelve foot area, you've got problems.
I'm pretty stoked about the attention we're getting. The big dudes are on tour in the UK doing the hype thing. By the way, Apogee's response to Janitor Bob thing was.....dull.
The PMS Clan seem pretty cool, but the Crackwhores have got to be bogus. I've been checking out Future Vs. Fantasy and Team Fortress and I dig it.
Also I've been checking out Death32 and Death32A. Whoa. It takes some getting used to. I've been getting the smackdab put on my ass on Death32. Ouch. By the way, Squirrel and Shadow are stranger than is at first perceived. I mean it. No really.
I hear my buds at Lion Entertainment are almost done with MacQuake. I hope they're almost done with Wing Commander IV Playstation, so I can get my free copy.
WORDS OF WISDOM:
If you order raw oysters, that is not some kind of crumbled cheese, it's pure horseradish....
At the moment, Mad Samoan is into:
BMW convertibles
Asian Women
Tokyo Shock Boys
The Orb
Madman (the comic)
Lulu spare ribs all-you-can-eat
Russ Meyer movies
Yoplait Custard-style yogurt
===============================================================================
3-22-97
After an hour long search, we (me, Shadow, Squirrel, and IDM-Guy) found a Chinese Restaurant
that was open at 12:30am . We ultimately found it using Zip2 on 'da Web! Whoa... Anyways, it was a scary drive in lower Greenville right in the middle of Friday night festivities. Looked kinda like a scene out of the Crow and there we were looking for Chinese food...
I don't miss janitor Bob. He still owes me money.
===========================================================================================
3-21-97
Well this is my finger! Hi, I'm Jeff, or around here, Mad Somoan. Anyways, I'm an arteest. I came from Origin Systems in Austin, Texas. If any of you wanna ask me what it was like being there for four years, don't. Not for a while anyways.
I've been here for about three weeks and I dig it although Dallas will take some getting used to. Less than 24 hours after I arrived in Dallas I got a ticket! Jeesh.. Then, two days after I moved into my apartment complex, some lameass broke into my truck and stole my speakers and amp. For some strange reason they left the wire cutters...It seems thieves like leaving crap behind. Last December, my truck got broken into and they left a butterknife. Oh well, I just had to get that stuff off my chest, so I can be my nice optimistic self.
What it's like to work here in ION Storm's art department. Hmmm. Well for the last few weeks I've just been training on Lightwave, reading tutorials, manuals, etc... It's rare that you get to spend this much time ramping up on software.. Jerry looks to be a good guy to have for a boss. He's definitely not a babysitter. Four more arteest friends of mine from Origin just arrived, so it's good to have some familiar faces around. Ultima Online will just have to do without them. We just got a really good concept artist from Marvel. He's a kickass comic book artist named Jim Daly. I'll have to dig into my morgue of photoreference to donate to his Jennifer Aniston shrine. Romero's extremely cool and an ex-Originite too, I like him already. Tom's a trip, when I mentioned that he resembled a Klingon, he started belting out Klingon opera. Jonathan (Nelno) is a pretty cool character, he's the guy that created the Zeus and Cujo bots, which I like more than Reapers because they end up in the water.
The environment around here is loud. Really loud. Quake is running eighty percent of the time. These are some of the best Quake players around. I'm not good enough to get in on some of the "man matches" and there aren't milk matches right now because the milk tends to go bad pretty fast. You can actually see the layers of separated liquid. Yeesh. Every now and then Hipnotic comes over and spars with the ION Clan. These guys really smack it to each other. We're moving to the Texas Commerce Bank Tower next month. That place is like a palace! What a lobby!
(File last updated on Wed 19 Nov 1997 at 17:28)