Interview NWN2 intervoo at Firing Squad

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Neverwinter Nights 2

There's <A href="http://www.firingsquad.com/games/nwn2_interview/">an interview</a> with <b>Feargus Urquhart</b> over at <a href="http://www.firingsquad.com/">Firing Squad</a>. Naturally, he's talking about <a href="http://www.atari.com/nwn2">Neverwinter Nights 2</a> because that's the fun thing to talk about these days. Anyway, here's a bit about how <a href="http://www.obsidianent.com">Obsidian</a> is taking a long, long time:
<br>
<blockquote><b>FiringSquad: First, Neverwinter Nights 2 has been a long time in development it seems. Did Obsidian anticipate taking this much time to create the game when it first started designing it?
<br>
<br>
Feargus Urquhart:</b> Once we started working on the game in August of 2004, we began to add more and more to our "wouldn't it be cool" list and since we ended up doing most of those things, the project has taken longer than we expected. So, when we started designing it we felt it would be an 18 month-ish project, but after adding the new graphics system, using a new animation system and re-writing the toolset it started to become obvious that it was going to take longer than that.</blockquote>
<br>
That's kind of teasing, isn't it? Saying the <i>Wouldn't it be cool if</i> thing followed by just bringing up <i>teh graffix</i>.
<br>
<br>
Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.bluesnews.com">Blue's News</A>

 

[ad hominem]

Wow, I didn't realize Neverwinter was such a foggy place...

If there is anything that we haven't changed a bunch, it's the multiplayer element.

Can someone who didn't just play the game for 2 hours and give up (like me), maybe Volourn or someone, comment on whether or not this is good?

 

[Nightjed]

with all the weather effects, fog and stuff the outdoors look pretty good, the indoors look kinda crappy tho and the screen interface seems a bit big, you should be able to minimize your companion windows into "health bars" or something (btw, their 3d actual game graphics faces look a lot worse than the old bitmaps)

 

[Jasede]

They've [the devs] all really wanted it to be everything the fans would want [...]

Hmm. The fans...

 

[psycojester]

Everything the fans want aye? So thats duel weapons and the ability to play as Sepiroth right?

 

[Vault Dweller]

They've all really wanted it to be everything the fans would want since Fallout 2

Fixed.

 

[obediah]

FiringSquad: As Obsidian worked on the game were there any surprises or unexpected changes in its development?

Feargus Urquhart: Of course not. And if you believe that I have this bridge for sale.... I think the major challenge has been that we didn't anticipate how a lot of the changes that we were making to the engine would effect the overall make up of the engine. Every new system that got added or was changed a great deal, seem to necessitate an even larger number of changes than the previous one. On top of that, while we did take multi-player into account, I think we could initially taken it even more into account when it came to how we approached the design of our campaign and a lot of the changes that we made to the engine.

God, why do game developers all suck giant donkey balls? I wasn't suprised to learn that PtD was a clusterfuck from a design/management persepective - every "hey let's make some software" project is. But seasoned game developers should realize this stuff. You'd think with the thousands of aborted games, hundreds of late/buggy shit games released, and scores of development houses gone bankrupt, that good project management would be the first goal of any new project.

My experience is with small-ish 1-3 person projects, and even then all have lived or died on project management. It's got to be a bazillion times worse for a 20 person team on a 18-36 month project.

I can hear it from here:

Developer: It would be wicked cool to add feature X. Let's try it and see if it works.

Design Fairy: Hold on, let's take a few days to look at the existing feature and track down how it is used, and get a handle on it's interface and any side effects it may cause, yada yada.

Developer: I've only got 18 months to finish the game, no time for that stupid crap. Why waste 3 days on that, when I can just work on it today and if it works, commit it and if not revert it.

Design Fairy: Because you'll get it to work today. And over the next 30 months (yeah 30 not 18), your change will cause several mysterious bugs to br found, and each will take days or weeks to track down, causing you to rewrite your modification and tickling all the other you've already found relating to the change.

Developer: Bullshit, I'm teh genius programm3r. Specifications are for the weak! klingons rule haha.

Design Fairy: Have fun during your 6 month long 126 hr/week crunch period dumb ass.

 

[Voss]

That's kind of teasing, isn't it? Saying the <i>Wouldn't it be cool if</i> thing followed by just bringing up <i>teh graffix</i>.

It isn't teasing at all. Its simply that the only cool things feargie and his crew could think of were graphics and badly designed kiddie plots.

 

[Surlent]

Feargus' reply was to question did they estimate their project length accurately. Now I'm betting writing new renderer, making new models and animations takes lot more time than adding ingame features if that's what you were expecting.

 

[elander_]

It's not adding features that takes time. It's testing those features and have it all work together which is usualy done at the limit of the delivering date. That's why adding complex behaviors and non-linears quests with multiple choices and broad consequences require more brains and time than making simple linear quests. It's almost like making a strategy game. On the other side the graphics requirements is an imposition to every game studio doing a game with the scope of NWN2. No publisher would pay for a game of this scope without the best graphics possible so what did you expect.

 

[Direwolf]

So is this PC exclusive or are they going to release the game on "teh next-generation consoles" as well? Cause interface looks like something that console gamers will just love.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I'm curious about what classes will be available in the game (all the classes in the original + the expansion packs maybe?) Or would that be asking too much? Also, I'm holding out abit, and I'm really wondering what the game will be like, if it will be good or not, so I'm undecided at this point.

 

[spacemoose]

...so they've been tightening up the graphics eh?

 

[Volourn]

"I'm curious about what classes will be available in the game (all the classes in the original + the expansion packs maybe?) Or would that be asking too much?"

All the core classes + the shitty warlock + all the NWN1 PrCs (except the druid one) + about a dozen new PrCs.

 

[Paranoid Jack]

After reading the first page my hopes have falling even farther. I won't go into huge detail but the responses he gave just weren't very promising. Since I haven't followed the development very closely... maybe I am wrong. Just seems they changed up and refocused on graphics part way into development not from the start... not knowing how it would effect their over-all design? Seems a bit back-ass-ward since this guy has quite a few years of experience in the business. Hopefully I am assuming too much. And I do realize the single-player game mechanics may still be tight (hopefully better than the original). Then again since it's an Action RPG with pause using D&D rules as a backdrop it tends to loose my interest after a few dozen hours of game-play (again based on the original and numerous other games of this type). Now if they would have made it real-time with turn-based combat I would be sporting wood right now. Of course we all know super-graphics sell games not the game-play and even though the Publishers already knew that. But when games like Oblivion sell millions it just cements that into their money hungry little minds. :wink:

Damn, spent to much time typing and Lucyfur wants my attention again. Lucy.. I mean Abby is a five month old coco colored Chihuahua who is very high maintenance. Not even my puppy, my daughters... of course the puppy knows who plays and who doesn't. I am wondering can I find one of those Hannibal Lector No-Biting-From-The Crazy-Man masks for a puppy this size? Or will I be forced to use my Wrists-Of-Neck-Snapping +3 on her little ass and just bury her out in the back yard?

(Just kidding, I love this little rat.)

 

[obediah]

Damn, spent to much time typing and Lucyfur wants my attention again.

I've got a pair of 6 month old male bengal kittens you can borrow. Having a puppy use you as chew toy is bad, but having a 5 lb kitten crawl up in the curtains and wait for people to walk buy and then leap at their face with claws out is, well, just mean. They've broken 3 light bulbs knocking lamps over, they've drawn on the wall with an ink pen, pulled a curtain rod out of the wall, managed to perfectly replicate the fingernails on chalkboard sound via claws on drywall, turned a tiny scrape in said drywall into a full blown hole, and worst of all... well let's just say I no longer sleep comando.

 

[gromit]

Lucyfur

Ha, that's my dog's name... although sometimes I refer to her as "Beag-elzebub" for variety's sake.

 

[Bradylama]

they've drawn on the wall with an ink pen

A cry for help? And why the bloody Hell are you keeping Bengal tiger kittens?

Seems a bit back-ass-ward since this guy has quite a few years of experience in the business.

Feargie has several years experience of failure. If the old adage has anything to it, NWN2 is sure to be a classic.

(hopefully better than the original).

I don't see how it couldn't be, seeing as how there were practically no roleplaying elements, and the story revolved around Hot Elf Chick Joins the Lizardmen. Oops, did I spoil that? Too bad, because that's when I quit playing. Disgusting.

 

[dojoteef]

But seasoned game developers should realize this stuff. You'd think with the thousands of aborted games, hundreds of late/buggy shit games released, and scores of development houses gone bankrupt, that good project management would be the first goal of any new project.

My experience is with small-ish 1-3 person projects, and even then all have lived or died on project management. It's got to be a bazillion times worse for a 20 person team on a 18-36 month project.

The big successful games are successful only because they spent extra time to polish the game.

Take Half-life for example. Valve wrote a paper in Game Developer magazine about their development after they completed the game detailing their methodologies and overall dev cycle. They had initally planned for a 18 month dev cycle. After 18 months they realized the game was no fun and redesigned it and thus ended up releasing it a full year later.

Look at Blizzard's strategy. They will create entire games and scrap them, only to restart from scratch because the game turns out not to be fun. Yet they are considered one of the most successful game developers.

Look at God of War. They started out with a concept that turned out not to be fun, then redesigned it (watch the developer video on the disc after beating the game). It caused headaches for the team, yet it turned out to be one of the most successful games on PS2.

Why is this? Mainly because the "fun factor" for games is very mutable. Not even the most successful of game designers can sit down and design something in a vaccuum from day one and expect it to turn out fun by the end. Sometimes the changes that are required push the development off-schedule. It happens. That is why developers have started spending more time and effort on throw-away prototypes before hand in order to get a handle on the game's design and overall scope of the project. Not every developer can afford to do this though. Most developers are under very tight budgetary constraints.

It is true that people can get a game completed and shipped on time or even ahead of schedule despite budgetary constraints if you stick to a predefined schedule. Yet the game might not necessarily turn out to be fun or on the cutting edge. So I guess what I am saying is there is no need to be so judgemental.

 

[Volourn]

"seeing as how there were practically no roleplaying elements"

Stop lying.

 

[obediah]

But seasoned game developers should realize this stuff. You'd think with the thousands of aborted games, hundreds of late/buggy shit games released, and scores of development houses gone bankrupt, that good project management would be the first goal of any new project.

My experience is with small-ish 1-3 person projects, and even then all have lived or died on project management. It's got to be a bazillion times worse for a 20 person team on a 18-36 month project.

The big successful games are successful only because they spent extra time to polish the game.

That's a problem. It's a problem common to all software development, and while each project has it's own hobgoblins, there has been a lot of research into ways to make the process run more smoothly, cheaply, and reliably.

For the record, I didn't tear into Feagus for getting an extension on the development time. What is inexcusable is haphazzard way they went about mucking up the engine. No one should get to his position without having the skills to prevent or at least mitigate such a classic pitfall.

Take Half-life for example. Valve wrote a paper in Game Developer magazine about their development after they completed the game detailing their methodologies and overall dev cycle. They had initally planned for a 18 month dev cycle. After 18 months they realized the game was no fun and redesigned it and thus ended up releasing it a full year later.

I sure hope the take away message here is, You're an idiot if you don't play test your game until release. Seriuosly, how could of they not had massive warning bells going off at 6 months? 9 months? 12 months?

A lot of developers do address this particular problem by copying gameplay from existing games (hooray , and by designing the mechanics to be higly configurable from the ground up. The wide acceptance of the second point is maybe the greatest improvement in game design over the past 10 years or so.

"Fun" is an interesting problem for game development though. I hadn't really thought about it before, so thanks for bringing it up. But I think you can manage the risks of fun, just like other risks with early planning and testing.

Look at Blizzard's strategy. They will create entire games and scrap them, only to restart from scratch because the game turns out not to be fun. Yet they are considered one of the most successful game developers.

Just because developing a shitty game and eating it is better than dumping it on the public, doesn't mean it's something to be proud about. I'm sure the people at Blizzard consider ghost, or whatever game you're speaking about as failure, and modified their development processes to lessen the chance of it happening again.

Look at God of War. They started out with a concept that turned out not to be fun, then redesigned it (watch the developer video on the disc after beating the game). It caused headaches for the team, yet it turned out to be one of the most successful games on PS2.

I'm not suggesting all development be done on a rigid waterfall model, where the release date is set in stone on day one and and a bug-free box ships on that date no matter how boring or featureless it is.

A few simple guidelines can make any game development cycle easier.

1. Be realistic with estimates (far easier said then done)

2. Use target ranges rather than deadlines. If you're speaking about something that will happen more than a year away, speak in quarters, not days. Every target should also have your best guess at making it 85% likely to make Q1, 2007. Revise them as appropriate.

3. Never assume your project will move faster than it is now. If you're 2 months late, 2 months in - 4 months in 100,000 times more likely to be 5 months late rather than even.

4. Use one of or a combination of the development models to organize your effort.

Why is this? Mainly because the "fun factor" for games is very mutable. Not even the most successful of game designers can sit down and design something in a vaccuum from day one and expect it to turn out fun by the end. Sometimes the changes that are required push the development off-schedule. It happens. That is why developers have started spending more time and effort on throw-away prototypes before hand in order to get a handle on the game's design and overall scope of the project. Not every developer can afford to do this though. Most developers are under very tight budgetary constraints.

Standard practice is to identify all the risks in a project and rate them by a combination of severity and likelihood. Very likely or very severe risks are addressed at the beginning of the cycle. Making sure the game is fun would be one of those risks. That way, even if best efforts fail, you know you need to shift your target earlier than you would have otherwise. A 6 month delay at the halfway point, is much better than a 6 month delay at the 90% point.

It is true that people can get a game completed and shipped on time or even ahead of schedule despite budgetary constraints if you stick to a predefined schedule. Yet the game might not necessarily turn out to be fun or on the cutting edge. So I guess what I am saying is there is no need to be so judgemental.

Rigidly sticking to a predefined schedule is very out of vogue. Rapid, Agile, Extreme, and whatever other design buzzwords people throw around are just about all based on dynamic schedules.

 

[kingcomrade]

I remember reading something some programmer (not for games, though) wrote. He was an older guy who had been in the field since almost the beginning, and he was saying that in the beginning the company he worked for would spend most of its time debugging the stuff, but near the end of his career before he retired that that time was instead spent in "pre-production" or planning so that when they finally wrote the code there would usually be relatively few bugs to search out.

 

[Direwolf]

Take Half-life for example. Valve wrote a paper in Game Developer magazine about their development after they completed the game detailing their methodologies and overall dev cycle. They had initally planned for a 18 month dev cycle. After 18 months they realized the game was no fun and redesigned it and thus ended up releasing it a full year

GSC Game World have exactly the same problem with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Game has been finished for more than a year now and there is no fun in it. They have everything ready, but the gameplay is not there. The guys don't even know what to do now.

 

[VenomByte]

Will NWN2 singleplayer again be a 40 hour goblin bash complete with opening countless locked barrels of rainwater in wolf dens to find magic rings, or are they changing it?

 

[Mefi]

Will NWN2 singleplayer again be a 40 hour goblin bash complete with opening countless locked barrels of rainwater in wolf dens to find magic rings, or are they changing it?

They've changed it. NWN2 sp will be a 30-60 hour gnoll bash complete with opening and closing countless locked barrels and doors in ogre dens to find epic artifacts.