Meet the Fallout 3 devs - Dan Ross

Dan Ross is a Software Tester for Bethesda Softworks. He uses his own name on Bethesda Game Studios forums.

The following are some of Dan's posts from the Meet the Devs threads on Bethesda forums:

Dan Ross's posts
(Apparently inexplicably) Congo Rats!

On his weekend: I watched both seasons of Dexter and lost my Sunday evening to this game, Spectramancer, that Briosafreak recommended.

As for the office, no shenanigans detected so far...

One guy did steal another guy's sticky note dispenser once, and returned it to him in a bowl of Jello. That was amusing. This was in retaliation for taping the bottom of his optical mouse.

On spectramancer: Oh good, because I ran into an awesome sound bug when someone plays a creature that damages all other creatures currently in play. Sweet looping audio of the damage sound until you quit out.... gotta love it.

On Dexter: Second season was, I think, as good as the first. I need to pick up the novels next and see if they are any good, though I imagine they are.

So good! My favorite TV show by far right now. Can't wait till season 3 in September.

On favorite foods:

Lasagna

Fajitas

Avocado Chicken Wrap (Why yes, I am from California... how did you guess?)

Meatball Sub

Club Sandwich (no tomato, provolone cheese)

On Sarah Connor Chronicles: I've been following it on Hulu. Ad supported, web-based streaming TV. Who'da thunk it?

Anyone figure out why they titled it 'Dungeons and Dragons'?

Planning on watching it tonight. I spent all of last night watching more Chuck.

On which show is better: Hmm tough one.

I'd go Dexter>Heroes>Sarah Connor>Knight Rider

On artificial intelligence and the future of 'virtual reality': Or we could go Altered Carbon/Kiln People style and copy our whole personality.

On the Oscars: Didn't watch. I was probably watching old episodes of Chuck or organizing my iTunes playlists and locating/creating album art

How did I get into TV again? I haven't watched this much TV in years...

On the biggest bottle cap collections: Probably FZ! (Fred Zeleny) unless he's cleared his desk from the last time I passed by.

Or were you talking about in-game?

On reading: I do, but it comes in bouts of reading. So I'll read several books back to back over a month and then nothing for a couple months. I lean toward sci-fi/fantasy by default, but I'll read anything that strikes my fancy.

I watched the uncut T2 over the weekend. I forgot there were a bunch of deleted scenes. Pretty cool!

Cake? Probably chocolate, but really... if it's cake I'll probably have a piece.

Morals vs ethics: Last bit is probably splitting hairs... doesn't immoral behavior include unethical behavior?

Hey accountant man, a debit is always a debit, a credit is always a credit right?

In this case you'd be debiting the children's cancer research account and crediting the criminal dirty money account. It doesn't matter which account you are debiting for the credit though, it's still a credit.

Or in other words, yes it is immoral to steal from a criminal, because stealing is immoral. You can make up for it by donating it to a good cause, but you still stole something and committed an immoral act.

I'll have to work on the second example but so far I am thinking it's not really an immoral act, unless you gave the old employees zero notice, no severance pay, cut them off completely etc. In which case I would also consider it unethical.

Hmm some interesting stuff on a Google search.

As for Dexter, there's no doubt that it is immoral. For the greater good, sure, but he is doing immoral things. Which he kind of realizes during the 2nd season I think, especially toward the end. That's in the nature of the "greater good" concept though; one person does immoral stuff so that others don't have to. Does that make it moral? I dunno, but in D&D terms he'd be operating on a Lawful Evil or Lawful Neutral alignment.

On cookies: I tend to eat the cookie whole, sans dunking. I hate the floaty crumbs in my 2% milk.

On deliberately introducing errors: Wait you think I have access to code?

"Hmm I'll just delete this semi-colon here, add a couple parentheses there... comment this bit out... and we're set for the evening."

It's ok though because I called "Sleep with your wife buggy blue!" before I did it.

If Video killed the Radio star, did the internet kill the encyclopedia salesman?

Encylo-huh? Maybe high school? Pretty sure the Internet didn't help.

'''What does the word "Divinyls" conjure up in your mind? Austin Powers perhaps?'''

Divinyls... a double LP album?

'''If you received 10 Million Dollars (6,509,866 Euros, 4,979,113 Pounds), would you keep your current job? If not, would you work at all? If so, doing what?'''

Probably, but I would drive a nicer car and live closer.

'''Who here just loves studying quantum physics and temporal mechanics? Yeah, I know.'''

I did pretty well in quantum physics for a non-science major.

'''Worst Grade you ever got in school? Why?'''

I flunked a screen writing class once on my first attempt at finishing undergrad. Not sure why exactly but it may have had something to do with the fact that I stopped attending after the first 2 weeks of class. Not recommended, btw.

Dev you have a secret crush on? Dev crush? I have nothing funny to say... stop looking at me like that Fred!

What will/did you have for lunch today?

Lunch! Hmm I dunno. Depends on what's on the menu. I'm leaning toward something with chicken though.

'''Breakfast? (You know it is the most important meal of the day, stop skipping it!)'''

Breakfast was Cheerios and coffee while I read my morning email and caught up on the QA bug database.

Average number of socks that go missing in a month?

I don't lose many socks. Or at least I don't think I do...

Ever stake out the dryer to see if someone is stealing them?

Great, thanks, now I have to audit my sock drawer.

Haven't seen (10,000 BC), wasn't really planning on it and have no real opinion. I heard about the same though. I'd probably rent it at some point.

HL2 was quite good. I pretty impressed by the flow they maintained. I also like the episodic content idea.

I haven't been on a Carrier, but I did get to explore a Tarawa-class LHA in San Diego and an older submarine, (not sure what class but I seem to recall it was smaller and than a Los Angeles-class, Seawolf-class maybe?) back in high school.

I've had cabeza/sesos tacos and lengua tacos before, when I lived in SoCal.

... with some fava beans and a nice chianti.

I discovered Chipotle is closed on Easter. What kind of holiday is this!?

On his guitary stormtrooper avvy

Darn tootin'!

Rock on Storm Trooper, rock on.