Differences from MMG

[Amish John]

Norb and team,

Besides multiplayer and improved graphics, what improvements/differences do you envision for this new series of games compared to MMG?

John N.

[JohnD]

John N,

That's an interesting way to phrase the question about what we are about. Norb's priorities for NSD's first game is to have multiplayer and nice graphics. As producer, that's zackly what I'm working to help him achieve.

There will be gravy...the amount of which is dependent upon Norb's satisfaction that his basic objectives have been met. And his position, I will defend to the last man.

v/r

John D.

[norb]

Isn't that enough?

Most of the differences for me are internal, stuff you may never see. I was able to step back and completely rewrite everything, taking the time to do things the way I wanted also bringing lessons learned into the mix. The game may look and play very similar to past games that I have written, but the guts are all changed. In order to do this I really needed a producer that could handle taking over for me. I had been the producer of all past games, mainly because there was no one else that could handle the job. After seeing John's performance on the last game, I knew that if he wanted to, that he could do the job to a level of my satisfaction. This allows me to focus on what I do best which is code. Although it may not seem like a big deal, it is a huge deal for me. In past games I had to make sure all the parts came together, this takes a very large amount of my time. Now I just focus on coding, so I have more time to do things the way I want in the code. Ask anyone that has produced a computer game, it's a very tough job and one that very few people can do well.

So the main difference is the leadership. This cascades down into other areas. MP is a direct result of that, by allowing me to focus more on coding, I was able to take the time to do MP. I was able to evaluate different 3D engines and get them in the code. Where I used to spend my time making sure all the scenario writers finished, making sure the map creators were moving along, coding the screens, updating the web site, organizing the test team, managing the content, writing the help text ... now I no longer have those responsibilities (which I used to handle alone) and just focus on coding.

This will cascade into the engine, as you can already see. It's taken a while to get back to the base, but the engine is better for it. It did require a lot of core rewrites to make it MP ready, but I am confident that it's there. We do have more concepts for the future, I've had some for over 6 years and still haven't had the time to get them in. But if we get this MP thing right on this next game, then I'll be very happy.

[Amish John]

Norb,

Thanks for taking the time to reply. Good luck and we'll be anxious to hear more details and see some screenshots when the time is right.

John