In Honor of the New Engine... - Gridiron Dynasty

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I was digging through the archives, and found the original interviews we did with the Original developer of Gridiron Dynasty, the Triple Fake JConte. We were fortunate enough to interview the Triple Fake JConte three different times - before the release of GD 2.0, right after the release of GD 2.0, and upon his exit from WIS.

And so, without further ado, here's a flashback edition of "From the Warped Mind of Bob"

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GUESS REPORTS (GR) : Thank you for joining us today, Triple Fake JConte. Should I call you "Triple" or "TFJ" or ... ?

TRIPLE FAKE JCONTE (JC) : Mr. JConte is fine.

GR: OK, Mr. JConte ...

JC: WHERE??

GR: Uhm, you're right in front of me.

JC: Oh, I thought my dad had walked into the room. Maybe you better just call me JConte.

GR: Great. Well, the first question on everyone's mind, of course, is,..

JC: First, though, let me say that I'm really honored to be talking to such a successful coach. You really understand the game engine, as evidenced by your outstanding number of National Championships.

GR: But, I've never won a National Championship.

JC: You mean you aren't Dingo Nelson?

GR: No.

JC: Oh. <long pause> I see. <longer pause> Well, I took a long lunch to do this interview, so we might as well keep going.

GR: Thanks. I think. As I started to say before, the first question on everyone's mind is ...

JC: He's not coming back.

GR: Who?

JC: Snake. Or was it Ginobili? No, it was definately Snake. He's not coming back.

GR: That wasn't what I was going to ask.

JC: Well, it would have been the first question on MY mind.

GR: Yeah, but everyone else wants to know about the new engine update.

JC: That? It was done a long time ago.

GR: Why didn't you announce that it was implemented?

JC: Two reasons. First, we'd have to do a stupid Developer's Conference, and some smart *** would ask about the blocking back or the tiebreaker formula. Second, and even more important, it's not been implemented.

GR: Why not?

JC: It's a little embarrasing really. I forgot my password on the GD Servers, so I can't publish the new code. I tried everything I could think of -- HBDSUX, HDizntGD, FoxSports666, everything I had ever used as a password, but none of them work.

GR: Maybe you should try NDBOX=notrelevant ?

JC: <laughs> Funny guy. <Pauses a moment, grabs his laptop and starts typing> Hmm. Imagine that.

GR: So does that mean we should see the update soon ?

JC: No, first it would need to go through our rigorous Quality Control process. But before that can happen, I need to document the process. And before THAT can happen, I would have to come up with it. Then hire my best Customer Service reps to do the testing.

GR: By "Best" you mean ...

JC: The guy that shows up to work with donuts.

GR: I see. Couldn't you just use the Coaches Council?

JC: Is that even still around? Besides, the only thing we use that for is to float bad information to the masses through plague and vhoward.

GR: I'm sure they will be happy to hear that.

JC: I'm not worried. It's not like they ever read this crap. Oops, gotta run. I'm playing the HBD developers in a game of "1 vs 100" this afternoon. Guess which side I'm on?

GR: Thanks for your time JConte.

JC: No, seriously, guess which side I'm on.

GR: The "1" side ?

JC: Ha! Fooled YOU. I'm on the "1" side.

GR: But that's what I said...

11/6/2013 1:32 PM

bhazlewood

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We sat down in a Bob's Big Boy restaurant in northern Cincinnati OH to meet with the Triple Fake JConte, developer of GridIron Dynasty on WhatIfSports.com, a wholly ignored subsidy of Fox Sports.

Bob Hazlewood (BH) : Thanks for meeting with me, I am sure you are quite busy now.

Triple Fake JConte (JC) : Yeah, I have more tickets than a rap singer with a suspended driver's license.

BH: I bet.

JC: More tickets than ddingo has championships. More tickets than the Octo-Mom has babies. More tickets than Cam Newton has unexplained bank deposits. More tickets than Notre Dame has National Championships in the last 20 years.

BH: Uhm, that last one wouldn't be all that many...

JC: Man oh man we have lots of tickets. But it has been WORTH it!

BH: How so?

JC: I accomplished what I set out to do. No more snake_p. He's finally gone.

BH: I thought you banned his id earlier this year?

JC: Yeah, but that was just one of his ID's. Everyone knows he had multiple ID's. He had more ID's than nelsonba25 has championships. More ID's than the Octo-Mom has babies. More ID's than -

BH: OK, we get it. Maybe you can explain what you mean about him being gone.

JC: Sure. As you know, we've been working on the new GD Engine for 10 years. Or something like that. A long time, anyway. Well we had it fixed, perfect. No bugs. Balanced running game, balanced passing game, a beautiful substitution interface, a new AC routine that actually made them helpful - a real thing of beauty. It brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it.

BH: We don't have anything like that now though...

JC: I'm getting there, be patient. So we're all set to announce the new engine, when I start reading the message boards. And here's this snake guy, claiming we're going to dumb down the game. And that we want to get rid of all the old coaches and bring in new ones. And that President Obama was a better president than William Henry Harrison. Man, that guy boils my blood!

BH: Snake?

JC: No, William Henry Harrison. That whole "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" thing. They were SO unfair to Martin Van Buren.

BH: I don't see how...

JC: OK, so I am reading all this stuff and I say to myself, "JConte you have to get rid of this guy"

BH: You call yourself JConte?

JC: Sure, why not. It's easier to remember than "Joe". Anyway, I decide to get rid of this guy for once and all. But I can't just ban his ID, because everyone knows he has hundreds of ID's. I exposed that myself when I pointed out that he had ID's for every team in Camp D3 at the time. So then it hits me - if I make the game SO BAD that everyone leaves, then snake will be gone too!

BH: Isn't that throwing the baby out with the bathwater?

JC: <puzzled look> Why would you throw out bathwater? Just pull the stopper and let it run down the drain.

BH: It's a cliche. OK, so you basically ruined the game to get rid of snake?

JC: You can't believe how hard that was. I would break the FG logic, and the penalties were coming out right. Then I'd nerf the running game, and Clock Management started working again. It's crazy how hard it is to totally break something. I started with simple code like "If coach = SimAI then result =WIN" but it kept crashing when we found human coaches that were worse than SimAI. So then I thought about multiplying all the player attributes by negative one, and that worked for a while, but it just wasn't bad enough. So we finally hired brought in the folks who designed Fox Sports fantasy football, and that did it - one messed up game.

BH: Wow. I don't know what to say.

JC: I've got some regrets about it though. First, it really ticked off the coaches council. I really value the opinions of guys like dingo415, buckihoward, coyotedad, scotthoward, plagueso14. And you, of course.

BH: But I'm not on the council.

JC: Sure you are. I invited you months ago. Or I meant to invite you. Maybe I just overlooked it. Oh well, I had intended to invite you. And you know what they say, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".

BH: I don't get what that means...

JC: Me either, but it's the only cliche I could think of that had the word "intentions" in it.

BH: Right. Ok, and the second thing?

JC: What second thing?

BH: You said before that you had regrets, and started off "First..." which logically leads to a second thing.

JC: Hmmm. Nope, can't think of any.

BH: Aren't you worried that all the old coaches leaving will make the game an empty shell?

JC: Nope, we gave every person on the internet that doesn't play GD a free 20-pack of seasons. They will join and become the new user base.

BH: What if they read all the uproar in the forums and decide not to stay either?

JC: <broad smile> They won't. See, I wrote some code that says if they sign in with an ID not in use before the update, all they see are messages posted by hughesjr. Brilliant code, if I do say so.

BH: But what if snake gets a bunch of those ID's? Then you will have ruined the game for nothing.

JC: <Slowly a look of horror spreads across his face. Quickly he grabs his cell phone and makes a call.> "Tom Zentmeyer please. Yes, I'll hold.... TOM! Stop today's update! We can't afford to fix the game yet. Snake might still be around. No, no, I'll explain once I get back to the office." <turns back to me> Look, I gotta run. I'm sure you can fix this restaurant tab for me...."

BH: What makes you think that?

JC: Bob's Big Boy. Bob Hazlewood. DUH. Gotta run. Toodles. Love the GUESS reports, I click on an ad every time I visit.

BH: Uh, thanks.....

11/6/2013 1:33 PM

bhazlewood

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And the exit interview...

Joe Conte knocks on the door and enters, to find a beautiful woman sitting behind the desk. "This must be my lucky day" he mutters. "Please come in and sit down Mr. Conte," she says in a voice eerily similar to Marge Simpson. "Or not," sighs Joe.

"Mr.Conte, my name is Georgia Brown, and I am your Fox Sports HR Representative. If you start whistling the Harlem Globetrotters theme song, I shall be forced to throw a paperweight at your head," says the woman.  Joe, who was about to do that very thing, stops and nods his head. "Last time I was in Cincinnati I nearly had a fist fight with some guy named Tarik, who thought he was some kind of smart ***," she continued. She starts looking through the papers in a folder on the desk. "It says here that you are leaving our company. Now why would anyone want to leave a fine organization like Fox Sports?"

Joe clears his throat. "You want complete honesty, right?" he asks.

"Of course we do, Mr. Conte," says Ms Brown, frowning at Joe. "Do you not normally conduct yourself with honesty and integrity?" She writes a note on one of the papers. "Here at Fox Sports, unlike the News Division, honesty and integrity are primary values."

JC: "I just don't want to make a lot of waves on my way out. I've been at WhatIfSports for seven years now, and..."

GB: "WhatIfSports? This is FOX Sports, Mr. Conte. I have never heard of any WHAT IF Sports."

JC: "We're a division of Fox Sports. You bought us several years ago."

Ms Brown rolls her eyes. "I'm an HR representative at Fox Sports, Mr Conte. I would certainly know of any acquisitions that we cared about. Enough kidding around. What is your position here at Fox Sports?"

JC: "I'm the lead developer for GridIron Dynasty. It's a computer game."

GB with a puzzled look: "You work on a game about a waffle house? Like Diner Dash? What has that got to do with Sports?"

JC: "No, it's a college football simulation."

GB: "Then why don't you call it 'College Football Dynasty'?" <she shakes her head> "It's no wonder some divisions are losing money hand over fist... anyway, so you spend all your time writing programs for this 'Ground Iron Dynasty?"

JC: "Grid Iron Dynasty. Actually, I spent most of my time working on other programs like Hardball Dynasty and Hoops Dynasty. Baseball and Basketball games" he adds quickly.

GB: "So you spent most of your time doing something besides what you were being paid for? Now I understand why you are being fired."

JC: "That wasn't my choice. And I'm not being fired, I am quitting."

GB: "We don't like quitters here at Fox Sports, Mr, Conte" She scribbles more notes onto the paper. "Hmm... dishonest, doesn't do his job, quitter.  If you don't change your attitude pretty quick Mr, Conte, your career at Fox Sports will be short-lived."

JC: "I'm already leaving!"

GB: "There's no need to raise your voice, Mr. Conte," She makes another note "Rude. Combative. Doesn't take advice. Anything else you want to add about your time here, Mr. Conte?"

Joe sighs. "I guess not," he says.

GB: "Good. Now, have you thoroughly trained your replacement?"

JC: "They didn't name my replacement. They asked for volunteers, but one look at the GD forums and everyone backed away from the job."

GB: "Is that a YES, or a NO Mr Conte?"

JC: "Well, I guess that's a no."

Ms Brown makes more notes. "Uncooperative. Will not delegate or mentor." She looks at her papers and shakes her head. "I suppose I should thank you for your time Mr Conte, but I'm afraid I cannot recommend that Fox Sports offer you a position,"

Joe stares at her for a minute, then slowly begins to chuckle. "You know Ms Brown, that might be the best news I've had this year." He stands up and heads out the door. "Tell Joe Buck I said hello."

Ms Brown places her papers neatly back into the folder. "I never WILL understand computer geeks. Oh well, with that interview done, I have some extra time to balance my checkbook. Just need to find a computer.... ah this one appears to be doing nothing other than running a bunch of jibberish on the screen... Rockne, Camp, Bryant ... who know what any of that stuff means? I'll just hit control-C to stop this thing... let's see, where is the Excel icon?"

11/6/2013 1:35 PM