[pmcginn]

Oh, wow. OMM, talk about memories (the linked article is from 2000.) Among other things Chet and Erik were famous for the Time To Crate system of reviewing games by how long it took from starting the game until you saw a crate. Since this was the late 90s/early 2ks, it was generally zero seconds. This was in comparison to real life, where I frequently go years at a time without seeing a single crate, but then again, I am not a genius game designer.

[modeless]

The Crate Review System is a true classic that's worth reading even though a few of the jokes are outdated: http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/39.html

[anthonyb]

This one's timeless though:

Kevin: This shot reminds me: You'll see games with forklifts and crates, but you won't see one goddamn pallet. You know what a pallet is right? Yeah, you worked at the warehouse, you know. But all these whiny bitches who go to college on their parents' money and then design games have never been inside a real fucking warehouse and have no fucking clue that in order to move a fucking crate, you need to have a goddamn pallet.

[jerf]

I thought crates were actually on their way out a few years back. Then cover-based shooters became popular. For those who don't know, a "cover-based shooter" is a shooting game in which the game explicitly has a concept of taking cover, such that your character can actually duck behind things and has explicit support for popping up and shooting things. As opposed to simply ducking behind a wall in Doom or something, which has always been good strategy but never actually been part of the engine.

Sadly, there are only two forms of cover level designers seem to be able to work into games now: crates, and in a true sign of giving up, completely unmotivated chest-high walls, which apparently on the battlefields of the past, present, and future are just sort of treated like a basic decoration tool, like an "arch" or "window". ("Hey, hon, I cleared a space in the backyard, what should we do with it?" "Ever since I was a child, I dreamed of having a white picket fence, a dog, and a small maze of chesthigh walls in the backyard. Grab a shovel.") Now we're back to a TTC of approximately "whenever the first firefight" occurs, so, yeah, few seconds tops.

[electromagnetic]

> I thought crates were actually on their way out a few years back.

Ironically I think crates went out faster IRL than in game. I haven't seen crates in forever, barrels yes but not a true crate. Most things now are placed on a pallet and shrink wrapped like crazy. They'll stack a couple of these on top of each other and they remain intact.

The strange thing in games is that crates manage to get themselves into places where it just doesn't make sense. Like in Kingpin, they managed to get down an alley way with a small area for the buildings back doors. It was like some hobo was wheeling crates around the city with a dolly cart.

[rdl]

On (working) military bases, and some industrial sites, you will still see plenty of crates (often reusable), pallets with built-up storage things for liquids or special purpose parts, and 10', 20', and 40' containers. Plus, barrels. I was surprised just how much bases in Iraq and Afghanistan looked like video game levels.

[electromagnetic]

I was going to add how I thought Half-Life given its military bases is probably the only major shooter of its era that actually had a reason for all the crates and barrels. I think the circus you end up in (if I'm remembering the original game and not an expansion or total conversion) is actually the only other place I saw a genuine crate. Incidentally it was filled with food for the animals and not headcrabs.

My problem with most shooters is that the crates are placed randomly. At least in Half-Life the crates were more often than not in a storage room/area/rack than piled in the middle of a room or in an obscure corridor.

Fallout 3 resolved the box problem too, in that most items were actually found on shelves. Something I hadn't seen since the days of isometric RPG's where tables actually found their heyday.

[bonzoesc]

Chet and Eric got jobs at Valve, where they helped design a game that has an inanimate crate as one of its most memorable characters.

[Stormbringer]

The companion crate?

[limmeau]

Sokoban?

(I'm really not familiar with recent games)

[anthonyb]

Not to mention their 'beta testing' of Asheron's Call's anti-griefing features by playing an effeminate sailor and harassing people.

The highlight for me though was their guest book. Rather than write their own, they and their entire readership would go and crash someone else's, with a new one each week. Here's a wayback link: http://replay.waybackmachine.org/19991010010423/http://www.o...

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have archived any of the actual postings, but they were as deranged as they sound :)

[irondavycole]

Fans of OMM might be interested in the Wikipedia drama surrounding the OMM article deletion:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/03/02/old-man-murray-de...

I have no dog in the fight, Wikipedia arguments are dizzyingly pedantic, but I found the conversation interesting.