Games and Life - Origins of a Multiplayer Lead Designer #7
"Props" By Ed Moore - Multiplayer Design Lead
For this latest issue of my designer diary, instead of trying to scrape the bottom of the creative barrel for not another episode about games, life, and career, I thought that now, on the cusp of the release of Pacific Assault, it would be a good time to talk about props. Not the physical or even the virtual kinds that populate and inhabit the spaces that we live and play in, I'm talking about giving props. As in, sending out kudos and respect to the architects of the multiplayer game you are about to get your hands on.
Let's start with TKO. The TKO guys are an eclectic bunch of characters from the wacky burg of Santa Cruz, California. I've spent some time in this sleepy little NoCal surfer-hippie town during the development of Medal of Honor Allied Assault Breakthrough and now Pacific Assault Multiplayer, and I've come to the conclusion that they've gotta be putting something funny in the water supply up there because it sure does attract a lot of weirdness! But these guys have provided the backbone and the soul of this multiplayer game, and I'm proud and grateful to them for buying into and believing in the potential and vision behind this product and bringing it to life. So let's raise the curtain and turn the spotlight on this crew.
Starting off with Jeff Zaring - aka JZ. Known in the circles of the Quake III community as "Unitool", he was responsible for the "Palermo" level for the Breakthrough Demo way back when and has been my main man on the ground. He has done a fantastic job of setting the upbeat tone for the TKO design team, taking ownership, and being the steward for building the levels. The other members of the design team include John "Yogi" Hughes (and for a while his wife, Julie), Scott "Kropcke" Swearingen, and our ever-loveable Darren "Black Bart" Korman. If you catch him online playing Invader, make sure you hit that 'h' button plenty of times. Darren loves it when you do that!
I can't begin to say enough about TKO's lead engineer -- Dave Scott. From the beginning, the multiplayer project was definitely going to be engineering intensive. He has never steered us wrong in terms of overextending our resources or promising more than TKO was capable of doing, and I could always count on his integrity. In heated conference calls, few things made me smile more than to hear Dave say that a task or request would be "trivial." I gotta give much-deserved props to him and his team -- the fashion in which they took on the sheer challenge of overseeing a distributed development (not only was the engine in-progress down here in LA, but they had to make the Invader mode on top of it and support our mod initiatives) was nothing less than exemplary. The amount of hard work, passion, dedication, leadership and commitment Dave demonstrated is nothing less than awe-inspiring. And by the way, congrats to you, your wife, and your newborn baby. Dave had his second child a few weeks before beta - it was kind of tough to pry Dave away from his keyboard (yeah right!) but the rest of the engineering team stepped right up to the plate and the project never missed a beat, including Andy "MustardHouse" Wright (aka "Silent Bob"), Victor "Verticorpse" Dods, Chris Caron, Nesan Waran, Sean Cosgrave, Nate Lieby, and Stuart Fulmer, who worked on our Dedicated Server Launcher. We also have Jason "Hjodill" Abbott. Remember his name all you admins and modders out there, Jason's a big MMORPG community nut and he kept your interests in mind and heart with every line of code he checked in. And Ian, if you're out there reading this, thanks again for taking on the enormous task of making the multiplayer user interface happen.
Moving onto artistic matters, let's talk about Craig Schiller. As the Art Director, he initially started working on establishing the look and art style for all the levels, but once we got into the project we realized that we needed someone dedicated exclusively towards lighting. Craig took on this task and dove in headfirst but I'm not sure if he really knew what he was getting into! It's difficult to learn in-progress tools that weren't fully mature yet - but then again, neither is Craig (although his George Clooney-esque looks indicates otherwise)! All joking aside, Craig has done a fantastic job with the lighting - I've always believed that lighting is 50% of your visuals and I'm proud to say that ours don't disappoint in anyway shape or form. And I have to make a special mention of the tireless diligence demonstrated amply by Mark Ishak. Ishak's a great kid, taking him out of test, bringing back on the team, and putting him in a position where he helped Craig shepherd all the lighting for the levels was a smart decision.
While Craig was taking point on all the lighting, Ethan Oates, the lead artist, took care of overseeing the creation of the rest of the art assets. Other members of the art team include Jonathan Gregory, Chad Campbell, and Josh Prigg. Josh is a lucky kid - not everyone gets to work on the latest installment of a multi-million seller hit franchise for their first time in the industry, and Josh has done some great work, collaborating very closely with our Particle "Zen Master" Paul Jury to create some knockout visual effects in our multiplayer levels. And special thanks to John Duggan for chipping in when needed to contribute to the interface art. All in all we have some class-act, sharp looking stuff in our levels, and it's thanks to these guys.
We have our animators, including lead Bart Kaufman, Tom Westerlin, and Johnathan Chao. I hate to say it, but I don't have a funny little anecdote or story to share about these guys -- so I'll just keep it simple, thank you guys for your effort -- the characters look terrific when they move. Shanking someone in the back with a bayonet never looked so slick!
We have our production staff, including Rawson Stovall, Eric "Zeebo" Zimmerman, and Jim "Shammy" Hudson. Rawson likes to bust out the good scotch on special occasions (their server, Oban, is named after a particular brand) and makes a mean Mint Julep. Jim is now actually in Texas and has entered the seminary to become a minister. There are larger flocks in need of tending than game developers (good luck and God bless to you, Shammy). Oh yeah, and then there's that guy Powers. He's tolerable I suppose... (Just kidding Matt! Please don't remember this during my performance review!) All in all, great job with keeping the whole team organized and on schedule under difficult circumstances.
I also want to make a special citation for my boy, Scott Carroll. Scott's our lead multiplayer tester at EALA and he's been a terrific partner on this project. Testers are the low rung on the totem pole of game development and they put up with a lot of crap and grunt work, but their work is so important, so very essential and crucial. Whether it's going out for Red Bull runs for his boys for yet another late night test marathon or getting the whole group of testers to clap and cheer when someone from the development team comes down to the test department for the first time, Scott runs a great ship with his upbeat, positive attitude. He, along with Karl Drown, TKO test leads Brian Riggsbee and Isaiah Merill (stick with the cornrows, dude, looks pimpin') and everyone in both the EALA and TKO test departments (who are too numerous to mention here) are really the ones who deserve the credit for fine tuning and balancing the game. Playing the same game day in and out is a lot more tedious than it sounds -- but thank you for your persistence - you've got a big fan upstairs.
Finally, I'd like to give a shout out to Leilani Ramirez, who I've worked closely with for the multiplayer dialogue recording sessions. Special thanks to the engineers at POP Sound where we do our dialogue recordings, our team of historical advisors (Captain Dale Dye, Staff Sgt. Julia Rupkalvis, Ph.D., Sgt. Quay Terry, and Dan King), and our talented voice actors, especially Ben, Jiro, and Mitsuyuki for being so professional and flexible for coming in during our last minute pickup sessions. Domo arigato gozaimashita!
Ok, I'm all done. If there's anyone I've forgotten, I apologize. Buy and enjoy the game already!
-- Ed
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