Alright, meeting\u2019s on, phones off, quiet down, cut the chatter people, yadda yadda. We ready?<\/p>\n
Okay!<\/p>\n
Things are going pretty good! We\u2019re at the halfway point of the project, we\u2019re doing fine, doing fine. The world\u2019s first virtual hell is well on its way, and you guys have shown you can definitely take us the rest of the mile.
\nHowever, there are a few issues I\u2019d like to bring to your attention. Nothing horrible, just, you know. Issues.<\/p>\n
1: Evergreen content design
\nTelling no lies, I appreciate that we\u2019re working under a somewhat strict set of design protocols without a lot of room to expand \u2013 our user experience begins and ends with \u2018you are in a bad place and are being tortured.\u2019 Still, I think there\u2019s room for expansion. Procedurally generated limited-time murder pits; extremely painful slaughterhouses that award ten-minute pauses in agony upon completion, etc, etc. Just because we\u2019re programming brimstone doesn\u2019t mean we don\u2019t need to try and keep it fresh, and I want you all to put a little more effort into planning with this in mind.<\/p>\n
2: Poor flame optimization
\nI know that perfection is a goal. It\u2019s a good goal, a damned fine goal, and it\u2019s one we\u2019re all working towards in, uh, ideally. But that urge to tinker has to be directed appropriately, and I\u2019m a little concerned with the amount of leeway that\u2019s been given to the graphics department in their creation of basic assets. Specifically, we now have possibly the most realistic fire effects ever imagined by a human being without using a lighter, and although that\u2019s really impressive I\u2019m concerned with the impact that this has on performance. This hell is meant to be for everyone consigned to it for civic rehabilitation, personal psychological reform, poor job performance, and so on. We can\u2019t presume all its inhabitants will have access to top-of-the-line supercomputers \u2013 and I can\u2019t help but notice that even those have a lot of trouble in the burnier places, like Gehenna-B or the deep end of Hades.
\nIn short: we admire your passion for your craft, but we\u2019d like it if you could also show some passion for the rest of your job. Or you won\u2019t have it. Please.<\/p>\n
3: Significant overbudgeting in the writing department
\nOkay, I\u2019m going to drop one of my rules and get specific with names here. Craig, what the flipping burning hell are you doing? We put you in charge of the writing team, and you gave them some rough outlines and shut yourself in your office for six months. When we came back to check on you, you\u2019ve got this damned war-and-peace novel of dialogue for one character, whose entire function we described to you as \u2018basic information guide.\u2019
\nYeah, yeah, Dante\u2019s Inferno, we get it. But (1) I recall that the writing team agreed this was a pop-accessible virtual hell, not a direct lift \u2013 Dantesque, not Dante-proper \u2013 (2) you haven\u2019t written anything else on your list at all and you\u2019re STILL NOT DONE and (3) I can\u2019t help but notice this \u2018tour guide\u2019 is written almost exactly like the last six characters you were assigned, mostly in that he spends most of his time making long speeches about calling women whores.
\nPlease. Something else. And smaller. Else and smaller.<\/p>\n
4: Sloppy machine learning implementation in torturers
\nIf there\u2019s one piece of our virtual hell platform that makes me proudest, it\u2019s the individuated torturer experience. Imagine \u2013 not an immense, impersonal hatred, but a specifically personalized and tailored experience for the user, compiled from their own search history and identification, guaranteed and finely-tuned to make them lose all hope for all time.
\nThat\u2019s our greatest goal, our greatest pride, and the feature that\u2019s listed in the largest print on the investor\u2019s handbook. So I hope you can understand why I\u2019m speaking to you with just a hint of disappointment.
\nFirst of all, machine learning is of course the future, the way, the holy grail, a beautiful form of AI, the pathway to the singularity, etc, etc. But I\u2019m concerned with our current usage of it. The first time that the software covered the torture pits in dog photos? Hilarious. Good meme fuel for the postproduction media teasers. The second time, after you\u2019d fixed it? Annoying. Third time? Troubling. We\u2019re up to six canid inversions now and I\u2019m a little goddamned vexed. Secondly, that\u2019s not even mentioning the clown problem, which I am now mentioning. I know clowns are frequently associated with horror, but that\u2019s often a statement made, you know, IRONICALLY. Few people are just scared of a guy in clown paint, and the way the software keeps mass producing clown paraphernalia and stamping it on everything degrades the torture experience we\u2019re looking for. It makes us seem cheap and shticky, rather than futuristic and flexible.<\/p>\n
5: Physics engine
\nYou guys have got some of it working. We want all of it working all the time forever. This is going to be hell, remember? Immersion is key. We don\u2019t want someone uploading smuggled videos of demons clipping through walls; torturers stoning people and getting murdered with comical rebound shots; or corpses falling over and spontaneously shooting into orbit. One little moment of snickering stupidity and the whole pathos of the user experience is gone.<\/p>\n
6: Tighten up Satan design elements
\nLook, I know you guys are artsy. I think I heard one of you describe something using \u2018Goya\u2019 and that\u2019s pretty fancy. But again, this is a virtual hell for the people, and the people get what they want, and they don\u2019t want some sorta weird distorted abstract\u2026thingy as their face of ultimate evil. They want a large red guy, preferably with hooves but without too much other goat stuff. I know you may be disappointed by this, I know you may think of it as beneath you, I know you may want to rail and bitch about the incredible tastelessness and illiteracy of the masses who only want the same thing over and over \u2013 mostly lacking in goat stuff \u2013 but here\u2019s the thing: they want it, they got it. Think of it not as creative constraints, but creative guidelines. Limitations foster innovations, right?
\nSo yeah. Satan. Not too much goat stuff, okay?<\/p>\n
7: Leaks
\nI know you\u2019re all very proud to be on the team making the world\u2019s first virtual hell, but please, please, please those NDAs you signed are there for a REASON. I don\u2019t care how oblique or coy or playful you think those tweets and posts are; I don\u2019t care how secretive your spouse is; hell, I\u2019d rather you didn\u2019t even tell it to your cats. Because \u2013 and I really, really shouldn\u2019t have to say this again \u2013 nobody cares about the schmucks who make the world\u2019s SECOND virtual hell. And if you get too loose lipped sinking-shipped on us, that won\u2019t be Topchunk. It\u2019ll be us. And it\u2019ll be your fault.
\nBut no pressure!<\/p>\n
Okay, that\u2019s about everything on the list. Good talk everyone, good going, and have a good working weekend. Remember: pull this off, and every single person being tortured for a simulated eternity for the foreseeable future will have you to thank for it.
\nGo get \u2018em!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alright, meeting\u2019s on, phones off, quiet down, cut the chatter people, yadda yadda. We ready? Okay! Things are going pretty good! We\u2019re at the halfway point of the project, we\u2019re doing fine, doing fine. The world\u2019s first virtual hell is well on its way, and you guys have shown you can definitely take us the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-short-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamieproctor.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamieproctor.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamieproctor.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamieproctor.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamieproctor.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2122"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jamieproctor.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2123,"href":"https:\/\/jamieproctor.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2122\/revisions\/2123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamieproctor.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamieproctor.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamieproctor.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}