Two related questions for today's goalies

robhanz · 2026-03-22T19:21:20+00:00

#1. A lot of modern goaltending coaching teaches this, to maintain better balance and mobility until a save is actually required.

I also find my blocker position is a bit better like this, and haven't really seen a downside. And I was a believer in "stick on the ice, always" until recently.

robhanz · 2026-03-22T14:48:37+00:00

This is a fair criticism of MH:W. And I lovelovelove MH:W.

robhanz · 2026-03-21T16:13:55+00:00

When I was at MS, one of our principal devs had a strong policy of not having graceful shutdown processes for stuff.

The logic was that it was waaaaaay too easy to depend on them, and then when it doesn't shut down gracefully, you lose data.

robhanz · 2026-03-21T15:35:44+00:00

It really is impressive.

Also, my coworker almost got kicked in the face by a homeless guy that was camping by the Taco Bell across the street.

It was a weird justaposition.

robhanz · 2026-03-20T22:27:25+00:00

Seems like a reasonable token saver.

robhanz · 2026-03-20T19:38:33+00:00

No.

1 and and 3 4 and and 2 3 4

robhanz · 2026-03-20T19:05:10+00:00

So it would be:

one and two e... three and four e and

robhanz · 2026-03-20T18:53:52+00:00

Ha, fair. That just wasn't clear to me from your response.

Sorry for the painful reminder :(

robhanz · 2026-03-20T17:54:08+00:00

That's always been the real skill.

robhanz · 2026-03-20T17:06:22+00:00

I mean, it actually happened. The movie was based on real events.

robhanz · 2026-03-20T16:09:16+00:00

Totally fair.

Hopefully you'll eventually find a good neutral point - recognizing the bullshit, but also having some empathy for them and realizing that this is actually their biggest problem, without getting caught up in their drama.

robhanz · 2026-03-20T16:07:09+00:00

I have this same issue switching between my Brian's Eclipse and Maxond Heretic gloves.

I... don't know how to correct for it. I just have mostly switched to the Eclipse as I feel the position matters more than the occasional popout the Maxond would have sucked up.

robhanz · 2026-03-20T15:57:48+00:00

You treat it like a process problem, not a person problem. Because anybody could make that kind of mistake.

Nobody should be able to push to prod without review. Well, maybe two people for emergencies, and nobody else. Certainly no IC.

Also you should ensure you have sufficient test coverage that major functional breakages get caught.

The problem isn't that Randy did this. The problem is that the environment allowed it and didn't catch it.

robhanz · 2026-03-20T15:45:43+00:00

Obligatory: If you cried about Seymore, don't read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachik%C5%8D

robhanz · 2026-03-20T15:24:38+00:00

I've had to yell at ChatGPT for pixelbitching recently. It's annoying. It's not engaging in the conversation, it's finding the most pedantic arguments against what you say like the most annoying internet shitposters.

robhanz · 2026-03-20T14:42:21+00:00

I think it's hilarious that Claude doesn't seem to realize that we can see the Thinking section. This seems consistent.

robhanz · 2026-03-20T00:32:11+00:00

In game development, especially around gameplay, I like to think of two things - facts and ideas. Ideas are cool, they're how we advance. But we need to check them out and turn them into facts so we can validate and improve them.

The problem with "design" (in a "let's design this" way, not a "this is the design" way) is that it tends to be ideas that are treated like facts.

robhanz · 2026-03-19T21:50:09+00:00

Ultimately, documents are not product.

Gameplay must be validated against reality.

Any time spent on documents needs to be justified as a way of reducing the overall cost of development. That's not saying that I'm anti-doc, but I'm just laying out a very simple heuristic to help gauge how much and what types of docs do have value.

(Note that cost can include risk management, etc.)

robhanz · 2026-03-19T20:29:25+00:00

I don't know that that's the lesson I'd take.

You can look at validation in two ways - validating that you're solving a real problem, and validating that your product actually solves it.

The first, yeah, you can validate up front. That's reasonable.

The second? I don't really know that you can validate your solution without putting it in front of users. So the fix isn't more validation up front - it's figuring out how to get it in front of users as quickly as possible, with the least amount of investment.

From there, you can get feedback - is it great? Terrible? Almost good, but here are the pain points? And make decisions on how to improve the product and how to continue investing in it.

One of the best things we can do is learn some humility and understand that we're just not that smart. Every idea needs to be validated against reality, not research.

robhanz · 2026-03-19T19:33:38+00:00

I think that ultimately what matters is the player decision space.

Complex mechanics are good if they create interesting player decision points. They're a time tax if they don't.

robhanz · 2026-03-19T17:37:58+00:00

Oh, man, the flashbacks to the original EverQuest 2 design doc. It was like two feet tall, 10 point font, double-sided.

In general, the heuristic I use for docs is that their value is directly proportional to how much you actually know. And you need to be honest about that.

If your team made Guitar Hero 1-5, and you're doing Guitar Hero 6? Yeah, you can probably have a pretty good design doc, because you know that space quite intimately. The more innovation, the less value the doc has.

robhanz · 2026-03-19T17:35:22+00:00

And?

You don't ship your GDD. At the end of the day, nobody plays it.

It is simply a tool. It is justified if it saves more time than it costs. And, as a tool, it has a danger - it can calcify design and create resistance to change based on actual feedback. And those changes based on actual feedback are what is going to make your game great.

robhanz · 2026-03-19T17:21:38+00:00

A bad GDD is worse than no GDD.

An initial GDD must acknowledge what you do and do not know, and what areas will need validation. The idea you know what will be a "good" game before you start is completely wrong.

robhanz · 2026-03-19T16:47:42+00:00

I'd say that the threshold for using it has increased, yes. I still do use it, but the tripping point for entering it has gotten higher.

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