A Real Origin Hero (November 29, 2009)

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Finder of things, Doer of stuff
Sheri Graner Ray is a senior game designer with Schell Games as well as one of the founders of Women in Games International. Like many other game industry vets, she also got her start at Origin Systems. In a recent blog posting, she reminisced about her time at Origin including some amusing Wing Commander anecdotes.
"My first office at Origin was a "fishbowl." It was on the second floor in an interior office with big windows into the hall. My desk was pushed up against one of those windows so it was a bit like sitting in the hallway. (Coincidentally the office directly across from me had a window into the hall too... and was occupied by Steve Beeman!) On about the third or fourth day at my new job, I heard the sound of Kazoos. Then down the hall came a HUGE bunch of helium balloons (obscuring the person carryingi them) and a parade of people all playing Taps on their kazoos. Of course I had to join the parade and see what in the world was up. We made our way through the building to the smokers' porch. There the person with the balloons stood up and gave a speech commemorating the valient work of G.I. Joe and his contribution (as the rotoscope subject) to the Wing Commander project. They went on to talk about how they were now sending him on to his next assignment. And sure enough there was a GI Joe tied to the bunch of balloons. He had a note tied to him, telling whoever found him to report his location back to Origin and we'd send them a copy of Wing Commander. Then with applause and laughter the balloons were released and GI Joe was lifted high in to the sky. And.. actually about six weeks later we did get a call. He'd been found in an oil field outside of Houston Texas!"


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Original update published on November 29, 2009
 
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Yo Joe!
He'll fight for freedom where ever there's trouble.
GI Joe is there.

It's GI Joe against Cobra the enemy
Fighting to save the day.
He never gives up.
He's always there,
Fighting for freedom over land and air

GI Joe- A real American hero
GI Joe is there

GI Joe is the codename for American's daring, highly trained
special mission force.
It's purpose, to defend human freedom against Cobra-
a ruthless, terrorist organization determined to rule the world.

He never gives up.
He'll stay til the fight's won.
GI Joe will dare.

GI Joe- A real American hero
GI Joe

so was it just the body they used? or did they use the head too?
 
That's a funny story though it seems pretty random to me. But I'm not too familiar with G.I. Joe...was it popular to thank him for whatever?
 
They ROTOSCOPED Gi Joe. Which means that literally some the action shots in wing commander were made by filming GI Joe dolls in various actions/positions and drawing over them. So in a way GI Joe stars in Wing Commander.
 
They ROTOSCOPED Gi Joe. Which means that literally some the action shots in wing commander were made by filming GI Joe dolls in various actions/positions and drawing over them. So in a way GI Joe stars in Wing Commander.

So it was "Flint" and "Slip Stream" running the hallway? :D
 
...And yet another confirmation that Lost Vale truly did exist and was completed... and lost. The next entry in her blog talks more about Lost Vale itself.

It really is extraordinary, working in the games industry these days and seeing how even the least important junk is always archived, to think that they had no backups at all of the project.
 
It had even "gone gold" (master copy), so even though there was no actual backup, there probably was some stuff researched and kept online(Keep in mind that you can always use the concept, the art, the story and apply them to another setting), there was no reason not to use the storyline for another ultima, something was to be shelved, why waste all the work.
 
The question I have about lost vale is, was it on the backups wcnews.com copied? There were mainframe tapes in those backups suggesting some of those archives are pretty old.
 
I would also want to know if Lost Vale was found on some of those backups...


It's weird that nothing survived at all...
 
There wasn't. If there were, the CIC would have broadcast it from the highest server tower after Mythic.

"we found almost NO source code in the backups/CDs/DAT tapes/floppies we archived--and no Lost Vale. " - Joe Garrity's comment
 
I'm not really sure what Joe is talking about. We still have a whole stack of DATs we haven't recovered yet.
 
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