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Interview With Todd Pappy (Design Director)
rpmcmurphy
Member EpicPosts: 3,502
Quite an interesting interview with the game's design director
NB. Quite interesting to hear him stating that they haven't decided what key gameplay systems will be in place when travelling in your ship.
I honestly would have thought that as travel will be a major part of the game it would get finalised rather quickly, not trying to make their mind up 4 years later
NB. Quite interesting to hear him stating that they haven't decided what key gameplay systems will be in place when travelling in your ship.
I honestly would have thought that as travel will be a major part of the game it would get finalised rather quickly, not trying to make their mind up 4 years later
Comments
These kinds of details get finalized closer to launch. Obviously we're not "close to launch" yet, lol
Those are very fundamental elements of the game, not just from design but technical point of view as well.
He is talking at least half of the interview about modular design of places (especially stations) so that they can use a basic set of tools to generate hundreds of places that look different (varying modular rooms, with varying tiles (e.g. GrimHex being Low-tech Alpha/Beta/Gamma) etc.)
Have fun
"Trump is a blunt force, all-American, laser-guided middle finger to everything and everyone in Washington, D.C." - Wayne Allyn Root
Jesus man. You and your lack of understanding.
I said that I was surprised they had not decided yet and that I thought it would have been finalised by this stage.
Those comments are a million miles away from saying they have not even thought about it.
"Trump is a blunt force, all-American, laser-guided middle finger to everything and everyone in Washington, D.C." - Wayne Allyn Root
Let's see, the game is about space, in space we have to travel, the time spent travelling in space will be quite large, what will we do in that time? how will we remain entertained? what will other people do in that time? etc etc.
Space travelling is integral to the game, it is one of the primary mechanics and you would think they'd nail down primary mechanics before spending time on secondary mechanics like mo-capped missions.
You start with designing core mechanics, then you work on the technology to support your design and then you add content.
Better your design manual is, the better.
However, what i got from the interview was that instead of doing the standard instant travel / animation (Done to death by other companies), they want to make it so you get a different experience every time you travel, which sounds awesome to me.
What you apparently got, was that they have absolutely NOTHING.
But then again, i guess ppl see what they want to see.
Also i see so many whine about SC wasting development resources on new ships, still anyone with enough iq to open a door should know they earn more money from ship sales then it actually cost to develop it. meaning we get another ship added to the game for free + additional resources for other features.
Even tough it will give us more content eventually, i personally do not agree with their ship selling strategy, it is WAY to expensive and i find the p2w aspect of it mind numbing.
"Trump is a blunt force, all-American, laser-guided middle finger to everything and everyone in Washington, D.C." - Wayne Allyn Root
In E:D there is not even that fluff. When you travel within the system and you are not exploring then there is essentially NOTHING to do for many minutes.
Some people even LIKE being interdicted by a pirate ;-) as it adds some excitement to long travel times.
Have fun
Lets say, he has 100 devs. 50 working on the PU, 25 on Ship/item design and 25 on World Generation etc.
Now, lets say they hit a hard number on how many ships are accessible at launch. Lets make the number for argument sake 50. Well two years from launch they create, test and flesh out all 50. You cant just take those design devs, and say ok go work on the PU, you can't throw people at something and expect that 2 year span to drop, so what do you do? well
1. you lay 25 devs off. This is bad, it makes the company in the minds of investors and Us the gamers jump up and go "Oh shit! they are doing layoffs this game is out of money" or some other nonesense.
2. you have them start working on more ships, items etc. The upside is you keep your people employed where they are strong, Last thing you need are design devs writing code o.O, and they continue to add to your already expansive game. The downside and this is only for SC as they sell the ships for RL Money atm. You make everyone suspect they are only after the quick buck.
The truth of the Matter is, it is far easier to design and implement shiny ships,items, etc. then hard code like landing on planets, NPC's conversations and the AI they are trying to implement. all of which have never really been done. The talk of NPC's running systems on your Co-Op ship with you, the tracking of their skills as they traverse the Universe. Their DEATH! I mean its really countless the amount of hours I am sure the Devs as a whole are doing to make this game take, not steps but LEAPS into the future of gaming.
As for what to do while in Quantum, shit..go drop a load of laundry, make a sandwich. To me this would be my Ok I have a 2100 meeting at xxxx system before the 2130 assualt on xxx planet. I am going to make the jump now that will take 20 mins and get some shit done real fast. Why does it always have to be an Ingame time sink during travel?
"Trump is a blunt force, all-American, laser-guided middle finger to everything and everyone in Washington, D.C." - Wayne Allyn Root
Thats why its hard to say anything about this project because there are so many comments and reports and changes and innuendo you never know what the current plan is.
You may be confused by comments and reports. Others .... are not.
YOU never know what the current plan is. Others ... do.
Have fun
Then, when you find that the tech can't deliver your intended design, you change the design reqs.
Then, 2 years later, all the tweaks you've made to the engine actually make half of your earlier "impossible" requirement possible. So you change the design requirements back...
The SC development process has undoubtedly been "fluid", with some stuff being scrapped and some added as they went along. That Frankfurt studio full of CryTech people is there for a reason.
I'm quite sure that SC's development has not been a model of efficiency and discipline. But that's just the way it is. No amount of forum whining is going to change that.
There's a lot of R&D on Game Development as things go on, so one can't design and plan all the details before the core and tech comes online, otherwise if after R&D something doesn't fit your design.... it will go down the toilet.
Or should they do final design before the R&D is even finished? Doing final design on a feature before you you know you will be able to do it as you designed doesn't feel like a smart decision.
Example on SC:
- The Cargo feature had its concept design years ago. Years after (months ago) the Cargo feature starts being worked on for implementation, and they go once again through design before working on implementing it.
Have fun
This cannot be more far from "fluid" development, I even have hard time grasping any sense out of it.
One just does not see them usually in a closed development environment -" we announce new games a few months before release only".
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"We need to figure out...", that is all you can hear. They essentially got an engine somewhat to work but they have no idea what to do with it in the first place.
It is all backwards of software development.