
Ten years since Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory shipped - angrow
http://www.clicknothing.typepad.com/click_nothing/2015/03/ten-years-down.html
======
rl3
2005 was a crazy year. It feels almost surreal it's been ten years.

Chaos Theory was one of the first games to use DirectX 9.0c/Shader Model 3.0.
A couple months later, Battlefield 2 was released. A few months after that,
F.E.A.R. and Age of Empires 3. By the end of that year, X3: Reunion. All of
these games had incredible graphical fidelity for their time, and the
remarkable thing was that for the most part, they weren't just glorified tech
demos.

From 2004 to 2007, it really felt like a renaissance in graphics. Far Cry and
the UE3 demo in 2004 served to kick it off. During 2007-2009, things sort of
solidified in a sense, locking us in to this weird post-modern level of
graphical fidelity that's stayed more or less evolutionary ever since.

Hopefully there will be another golden age. Perhaps VR will lead the charge
this time, rather than the GPU.

\---

Also, Amon Tobin's score for Chaos Theory was excellent. IMHO, it played a
huge role in making the game what it was. Even today, you rarely see scores so
eccentric, let alone in AAA titles.

~~~
zokier
> From 2004 to 2007, it really felt like a renaissance in graphics. Far Cry
> and the UE3 demo in 2004 served to kick it off

HL2 was also massive benchmark in graphics. But probably the most impactful
thing that happened in that period was the release of new generation of
consoles (X360/PS3). You might also note that almost all early UE3 games were
released console-first.

~~~
rl3
Good points. I'm not sure how HL2 slipped my mind.

In addition to graphics, HL2 was more or less the game that ushered in truly
modern physics. Even today, some AAA games don't have physics systems as good.
Likewise for facial animation.

There was also Doom 3 that year, though arguably it lacked the same level of
fidelity. However, it was really ahead of its time in the years leading up to
release.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj3dPyk7hPI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj3dPyk7hPI)
_(Doom 3 at MacWorld 2001)_

~~~
on_and_off
I replayed Half Life 1 & 2 recently. While Half Life did not age very well,
Half Life 2 and its episodes could be slightly refreshed graphically and
released as a 2015 game, it would probably be the FPS of the year. I don't
know whether it is a compliment for HL2 or a shame for the slow evolution of
this genre but it does many things better than most modern FPSes (long and
very varied campaign, some very interesting weapons, ...) and has very
certainly been an huge influence in the last decade. It is not perfect of
course, for example in a game where you spend all the time shooting at things,
the game take away this mechanic at some key points, especially when faced
with a traitor that many would be inclined to shoot at. It is hard not to lose
your immersion in this situation. The silent protagonist is also slightly
aggravating IMO, sadly Valve seems very committed to it.

~~~
jamesgeck0
Iirc, Half Life 2 has actually recieved a few graphical updates since it's
initial release. I'm almost positive it got a Source engine update a couple
years back, but I can't find any announcements about it.

~~~
ekianjo
Yeah, that's for sure. I played it again recently and there's no way it looked
THAT good 10 years ago. They have clearly refreshed the engine.

------
_Adam
While I can understand Clint's concerns, I am very wary about his conclusion
that his memory loss is a _direct_ result of his stressful job. He doesn't
mention if he ever saw a neurologist.. it's possible he had a "silent stroke".

[http://www.webmd.com/stroke/news/20061009/can-you-have-
strok...](http://www.webmd.com/stroke/news/20061009/can-you-have-stroke-not-
know)

~~~
elvispt
Right or not this is definitely cause to go to a neurologist.

------
BinaryIdiot
After working in software development for over 10 years I've been part of many
late nights, weeks and even months before. Every time I have to work well over
the normal 40 hours many things start deteriorating. I am tired all the time,
the quality of my work goes significantly down and I certainly have issues
concentrating and remembering things. I've had weeks where I've worked 100
hours and I'd be surprised if I was 50% effective as I was working around 40
hours.

Stress sucks and it ruins so much.

~~~
FrankenPC
When I get into that state, by mind starts to lie to me about the quality of
work. I start believing I'm still being effective. Must be some sort of
survival mechanism.

------
orasis
I experienced the same thing with my startup. My vocabulary started to
deteriorate, my memory was shit, and it was taking me longer to calculate
tips.

This is very alarming for a previously "smart" person.

I ended up retreating to a small town in the mountains and it took about 3
years for my brain to heal.

~~~
_Adam
Were you getting less sleep than normal? I have a theory (which is supported
by a few papers I've read) that an extended period of reduced sleeping time
can cause what we might call "brain damage".

~~~
thisjepisje
Haven't looked into it a lot, but it reminds me of the concept of sleep debt:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_debt](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_debt)

~~~
_Adam
Agreed, and that article doesn't even mention this relatively recent finding,
which I think offers even stronger evidence of the importance of sleep:

[http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-10-perchance-reveals-
brai...](http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-10-perchance-reveals-brain-
trash.html)

------
moron4hire
Every week we get a new article about a developer's battle with burnout and
too many hours, and they always get filled with replies from other developers
with their own stories that are largely the same, and I'm sure there are 10x
as many people who have been through it themselves as well and never comment.

And yet it still continues to be a problem.

I'm starting to think we only have ourselves to blame. Fool me once, shame on
you, fool me twice, shame on me. Why do we continue to let companies treat
employees so poorly? Hell, why do we continue to start our own companies where
we treat _ourselves_ so poorly? If we can't have a little respect for
ourselves, how are we going to expect some middle-manager at a gigantocorp to
care?

No more long hours. Stop it! I don't care how exciting your startup is. The
work will be there tomorrow. No, you aren't trying to beat someone to market.
Hire more people. If you can't afford more people, then you can't afford the
project. Because you're going to pay, one way or another.

I used to do it, too. I used to work 60, 80 hours a week, especially when I
first started freelancing. I'd get burnt out and started goofing off during
the normal busy hours. Then I'd feel like I had to make up for it, so I worked
more.

I had to just stop doing it. I was lying to people. I was saying "on yeah, the
work is done", and then staying up until 3am to finish it so they could have
it the next day. I was lying to myself, "you can make up for this, and then
everything will be back to normal."

I finally just stopped lying. I finally just told people, "no, that's not
done". I took my lumps. And it wasn't that bad. I didn't lose any clients.
They didn't even express disappointment. It was just, "oh, okay, let us know
when it's ready."

By forcing myself to work NOT work OUTSIDE of a normal schedule, I also grew a
much more healthy respect for the normal schedule. I don't goof off during the
regular busy hours anymore. Work time is for work, because I don't want
leisure time to be for work. I set the schedule, regardless of who thinks they
set the schedule. If people say, "we need it sooner than that" I just tell
them, "sorry, I can't." It's when you stay up the late hours and make miracles
happen that they start expecting it.

~~~
egypturnash
We are in America, where overwork is the cultural norm. It's that old Puritan
"work ethic" combined with dramatic concentration of wealth in the hands of a
few. The propaganda campaign waged against unions for several decades in the
name of increased corporate profits hasn't helped either.

~~~
Jare
This happens everywhere (the article specifically refers to a game developed
by Ubi Soft Montreal)

~~~
munchhausen
Well, I don't know what GP meant by "America", but I can imagine Montreal
fitting under that umbrella, nay?

FWIW, IME the work ethic in Canada is very, very similar to what it is in the
US. There's certainly an accent on the notion of "going the extra mile" by
sacrificing a weekend here and there for the sake of a project that's in
danger of not meeting an arbitrary, crazy deadline.

It seems amazing and a little sad how so many smart people can collectively be
so deluded and piss away their health and, ultimately, years of life down the
drain in order to make the boss happy/earn that promotion, etc..

There's nothing like being on a conference call with a bunch of smart folks,
some of whom are having trouble keeping a short meeting agenda in their heads
for 30 minutes due to being profoundly burned out.

~~~
Jare
My impression is that Canada does not have such a culture of overwork and that
it is not dominated by Puritan ethics.

Tech, however, and games in particular, do have that kind of overwork culture;
but they have it everywhere in the world. Reasons include high potential
reward, constant change, unpredictability of results, and relatively young
workforce. Nothing to do with unions, Puritanism or the like, really. And that
culture is indeed destructive for many people, but we only get to hear from
the survivors (among which I count myself)

------
rocky1138
Looking back at when I was a kid, these games and products felt like something
that simply always existed as though they were a force of nature, something
created by a huge faceless team that knew what they were doing.

Being in the industry myself now, what amazes me most is almost every one of
these great forces of nature was actually the result of one leader burning
themselves right to the ground in order to get it done. In some cases, it's a
small handful of people, but even then there's usually one that takes the
whole thing on their shoulders even above the rest.

It helps further the old saying "if you want something done right, you have to
do it yourself."

~~~
nkg
Managing a team means that you have to get everyone to do their job the best
they can, not that you have to burn yourself out to fill the gaps. As a
developer, I have seen a lead dev burning out and that wasn't heroic, that was
pathetic.

~~~
rocky1138
You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. The desire to go
above one's level to do the work to make real change has to come from within.

------
nekitamo
Just a random aside: What's also interesting about Splinter Cell Chaos Theory
from a security point of view is that it was one of the hardest games to
crack, ever. It was protected with a beefed up version of Starforce 3, and
iirc it took around a year for a proper crack to come out, which is a huge
achievement considering most games are cracked the day they are released.

~~~
AlyssaRowan
Longer than a year. RLD released a proper after 424 days.

Inquisitive minds wanting more information should be directed to
_StarForce.RE.Tools.ReadNFO-RELOADED_ \- [http://www.glop.org/files/rld-
sfrt.rar](http://www.glop.org/files/rld-sfrt.rar) (sorry for the hotlink!) -
for a detailed technical analysis published concerning the StarForce 3
protection. A fine piece of work, if I may say, though I shall not identify
the authors.

StarForce 3 was really quite intrusive, including secretly-installed
ring0-access device-drivers. Flaky and damaging to the security of your system
and very widely complained about.

I would not say such a monstrosity is an achievement UbiSoft should be proud
of: indeed, they actually apologised, although I would not say they were
genuinely _sorry_ in any sense.

I would like to thank the developers working on the actual _game_ , of course.
I feel sorry for them that the publisher had such strong opinions about that.

~~~
jsheard
I'm still holding out hope for an analysis of the Denuvo DRM scheme, which has
only been defeated with unwieldy and slow emulators after five months. As far
as I know it doesn't use any invasive kernel modules like StarForce did.

Probably won't happen though...

~~~
nekitamo
Denuvo seems to be Securom 7 ported to 64 bit. I imagine it's taking a while
to crack because the reversing tools for 64 bit Windows are still quite
inferior to their 32 bit counterparts, and most reversers are stuck in '32 bit
mindset'.

~~~
AlyssaRowan
I wouldn't say that's true, but I am unable to comment further.

~~~
voltagex_
If you know any of the RELOADED (or FAIRLIGHT?) guys/girls - say thanks for
me! Their work has introduced me to the demoscene, infosec and reverse
engineering.

------
lkrubner
I have been through something similar, when facing very tight deadlines. The
most recent was in 2012. It was the first project where I had ever worked with
Clojure, had ever worked with the JVM, had ever worked with "functional"
concepts. I had to learn a great deal in a hurry, and the hours were crazy. I
got very sleep.

I developed weird memory issues, in particular about people's names. I could
remember details about people -- where I knew them from, what they did, but
their names went completely. This included some people who were close to me,
so there was a scary feeling of the memory loss being strange and almost like
dementia.

I have rarely had to learn so much in such a short amount of time, and for
awhile it was literally as if each new thing I learned was pushing something
else out of memory, as if my brain was full and I could only learn new things
by erasing something else.

Thankfully, the project ended, I got some sleep, and a few months later I felt
normal again.

~~~
IndianAstronaut
I am experiencing something similar. I was in biology, but the field isn't in
good shape so I had to put in long hours into programming. Now I barely even
remember DNA base pairs and basic info.

------
mikeknoop
The 2v2 SC:PT and SC:CT online multiplayer was the absolute best. It was
asyemntrical, well balanced, and required good communication with your
partner.

I've never been able to replicate that experience in another game.

Someone tried to clone it but never took off:
[http://www.projectstealthgame.com/](http://www.projectstealthgame.com/)

Best wishes to OP for the game and (at least) giving me fond memories.

~~~
rl3
SC:CT's adversarial MP really was fantastic, even more so when you consider
that it managed despite an engine that was roughly a generation behind what
the single player and co-op modes were using.

The only thing is that, like quite a few games today, it was best in beta. I
distinctly remember that in the final version, they tweaked the lighting model
across all levels to be far higher contrast, and that pretty much killed it
for myself and everyone I knew who played it.

Yeah, you couldn't cheat anymore by turning up your gamma, but that came at
the price of destroying those priceless moments where you thought you saw
something in the shadows, but you weren't sure.

------
iLoch
I was 11 when this game came out. My brother bought it for us to play and I
have to say, even as an 11 year old I could tell this game was unique - I have
never seen such a well designed game since the release of Chaos Theory.
Everything about this game was fantastic. I'd definitely buy a "anniversary
edition" if they made one.

~~~
engi_nerd
There was a "Splinter Cell Classic Trilogy" HD re-release for PS3, but it was
technically hit-or-miss. Chaos Theory got the best treatment and graphically
it's still great. However, neither Pandora Tomorrow nor Chaos Theory remakes
have the multiplayer component.

------
michaelmior
Splinter Cell is probably my favourite game franchise. This gives me more
respect for the people who make it happen :)

~~~
moron4hire
Things aren't going to change until we stop treating such behavior with
"respect". You treat it with "respect" and it become a "respectful" thing to
do.

~~~
michaelmior
I don't think the two are equivalent. I'm not saying I necessarily think it
was a good idea to make the sacrifices that he made. But that can't be changed
now and I appreciate the amount of effort that was put in.

~~~
moron4hire
You can't make that sort of distinction. It teaches kids the "sacrifice" is
worth the "glory". We need to be doing everything we can to de-glamorize this
sort of behavior.

------
moron4hire
It really bothers me that so many people in this thread are talking about the
game, their formative experiences with it, how much they enjoyed it, and not
the man and his health issues caused by the unreasonable expectations set upon
him by his employer. Right now, the only thing the top comment has in common
with the original article is that they both mention "Splinter Cell: Chaos
Theory".

It bothers me on one aspect because the article is only tangentially about the
game, so this talk about the game is really all off-topic and distracting from
the bigger issue of healthful work-life balance. But even worse than that is
the aspect that it is because of this single-minded attitude on the consumer
side that employers like Ubisoft put this sort of pressure on their employees.

------
hellbanner
I can't help but notice the post date is almost 2AM (after talking about late
nights).

------
slowmotiony
What a fantastic game that was, with an even more fantastic soundtrack. I wish
they thought about a Remaster edition for the newest gen consoles.

