Ian Caughley: TFS "biz" man

There have been many interviews, irc and icq chat logs that go concentrate on Team Fortress and Team Fortress 2. That is fine, but what about the people themselves? What about the guys who are making TF? What about the guys who left home and went half way around the world to bring TF2 to us?

Of all the material available, there really isn't much dealing with the human side of things. With this in mind, I asked Ian Caughley of TFS if he would be so kind as to answer a few questions and give us a glimpse of the history of TF and something about the guys who made it. Ian very graciously agreed to do so, and I appreciate it very much. Without further ado, here is what was said.

Bundy:
I've read every scrap of information I can find regarding Team Fortress and its history. I would like to talk about the human side of TFS and even before you became TFS. Would you mind telling us a little about yourselves and how you met?

Ian:
I was a good friend of Robin's brother, James, and we met through him. We were both best men at James' wedding. Robin and John knew each other from going to school together. They both ended up studying Computer Science at RMIT University in Melbourne and later shared an appartment. When I started ComSci I was in John's year, but Robin had dropped out by then and was working for NEC.

The fortnightly LAN parties at Rob and John's flat started in early 96 before Quake came out. We played Doom, Duke, C&C and some other games. The four player doom map 'Fortress' was one of our favorite battle grounds, and when Quake came out it lacked a few simple things that the single Doom map had captured. We had done a bit of hacking with almost every game that had allowed it, but when Quake came out we finally had the power to really make the game that we wanted to play out our LAN days.

Bundy:
Since you have degrees in both Aerospace Engineering and Computer Science, do you still have any desire to do computer modelling of aircraft systems? Has your training transferred over into game development?

Ian:
Actually, I'm starting a job at British Aerospace on Sept 7th. I am planning to still work on TF2 but will be taking a lesser role. Tyr will be taking on some of my work with coordinating the map team, and of course my 'biz guy' status dwindled when Valve took over that side of things and left us to concentrate on writing the game.

Bundy:
Did the three of you have any classes together at RMIT?

Ian:
John and I did second year together but he deferred to work full time on TF after that. I didn't have much more to complete and finished it part time. Robin left uni when I was half way through 4th year aero.

Bundy:
What do you find very different in the US than Australia (besides driving on the wrong side of the road and the seasons being reversed).

Ian:
This is a dangerous question when you consider that I only got to visit Seattle and Tulsa Oklahoma while in the States. I didn't get to see as much of the US as I had hoped since we spent a LOT of time working. It was the first place I had ever visited where I could see snow capped mountains while standing on the beach. There was definitely some magnificent scenery. I think Seattle as a tourist destination was best summed up by an add at the airport that read 'The Seattle Space Needle.... you've got to start somewhere.' I went to the top for some extravagant amount and then looked down on the needles roof 3 days later from the 50th floor reception room of our lawyers.

Hmm, I'm getting a bit off track now. Well, the food is better in Melbourne, I think we have a lot more multiculturalism (is that a word) than Seattle. Our cinemas are more comfortable, but the movies come out half a year later. You have more adds on TV, well at least at the time that we were getting home. Everything else was pretty much similar. Scaringly so. Maybe it was just me.

Bundy:
Can you tell me a little about how Valve and TFS came together? I read in an interview I found just today that Valve contacted TFS. I wasn't aware of that. Were you contacted by other companies?

Ian:
Actually it was all Sierra's doing. Quite a number of distributors had contacted us about working with us on our next product. That is reason that we decided to form a company. Sierra was very interested in getting TF ported to Half-Life or for there to be a TF2 demo on the HL CD. They were the first distributor to start getting interested, throwing around ideas and really getting behind us. They started us on the concept of doing TF2 for both Quake2 and Half-Life. Unfortunately HL was not in a state that we could start to write a mod without being close to the development team, so Sierra flew us over and gave us a place to stay.

After working with Valve for a while they decided that they would rather have us working for them than with them. Valve is an amazing company so the offer was too good to turn down.

Bundy:
There are a lot of what I call "TF knock offs" making the rounds now. I believe you released some source code awhile back to help people learn how to make better maps, if I'm not mistaken. Has anyone actually contacted you and asked permission to modify your code?

Ian:
Back when Quake came out, all the mod makers shared their code and what they had learnt. It saved a lot of time and effort by turning the whole learning process into a huge team effort. We continued to release our code up to TF 2.5. Unfortunately people were starting to take our code and in blatant disrespect for our wishes and copyright used it to create their own mods. Some mod writers have asked to use our code but we always ask them to just use it as a learning tool and to use there own ideas to create a mod that is truely there own.

Bundy:
As you may know, I have a hard stand against cheating and lamers. Do you think that your release of the source code was in some way associated with the epidemic of cheating we encountered? The cheaters like to say they are doing us all a favor by exploiting these "bugs" and by doing that they are really doing us all a favor. Any comments?

Ian:
There are always ways to cheat in life, but people who do are not doing anybody any favors. I don't think the release of source code helped them much, it is just that some bugs are so unlikely that it takes a lot of people playing the game before somebody stumbles on it. People always seem to be less honest on the net than in real life since there is little accountability. Thank goodness for Cheat_H8r.

Bundy:
Do you expect there will be a lot of people making maps for TF2 like there are for TF(1) now? Do you have any advice for anyone making maps for TF(1)?

Ian:
I hope so. We hope to make the map making process as easy as possible and are all for freely distributed maps. We are planning to include functionality in the TF2 front end that will install new maps and make sure all the files go in the right places. If people want to start working on TF2 then let it be know that the player is 76 units high. Level designers should be able to start making maps once HL comes out.

Bundy:
Are you guys really part of Valvesoftware now or do they keep you locked in a room and throw you an occasional peanut butter sandwich?

Ian:
We got invited to the odd meeting and the Valve team was always available to answer stupid questions and to play Clan Arena once the bosses went home. Unfortunately the bulk of Valve's resources were tied up in the completion of some FPS they are writing so we wont get to really exploit their talents till after they have finished their little game.

Bundy:
Do you see yourselves ever working on something besides the Team Fortress series?

Ian:
We had done quite a bit of work on another project which we have left behind now. Back then TF2 was just going to be a freeware port of TF1 to Quake2 but we decided it deserved more. What lies beyond TF2 is anyones guess. We have plenty of ideas swimming around so anything is possibile.

Bundy:
Ian, I want to thank you for your time, and for all you and TFS have done for us. We truely appreciate it and wish you well in your new job with British Aerospace. I hope you'll still have time to be involved with TFS in the future. Good luck and best wishes!