Sacred 2 Developer's Blog: August 20th 07

[gogoblender 3,070]

Hey guys

 

We once again have have a Simon Truempler over from 1up.com , with his tribulations regarding game production deadlines, budget, and game models.

 

Enjoy the read

 

 

gogo

 

 

Sacred 2 - Developer Diary - Simon Truempler 4

Simon Dirkovich

 

Hi there! Excuse me if I make a few mistakes. I have to write in English! I'm getting used to it after two days of emailing our international outsourcing studios. Now, what was it I wanted to tell you? Oh, right, I've been busier that usual. Normally, I'd be sitting here with my feet propped up on my desk, sipping a cocktail and converting the Sacred interface. OK, I'm exaggerating! But I would definitely be working on the interface, if Dirk weren't on vacation.

 

Who is Dirk? Well, Dirk is usually in the next room communicating with all of our outsourcing studios. He tells people what they have to do, helps them if they have problems, accepts their work, sends them feedback and, at some point, gives final approval to all the graphics. If you think it's an easy job looking at sexy seraphim pictures and giving them the green light, you are wrong!

 

There's an enormous flow of work and information coming in and going out of this office. Often we receive lengthy emails with questions that can't be answered immediately. Then we have to gather information, conduct tests and formulate solutions to the problems and then we have to respond in a timely fashion. During the process there are cool animations, graphics, paintings, and who knows what else, that need to be approved. One especially time-consuming part of our job is to look at the models in the engine (e.g. if scripts are missing, packed data is damaged or something has been forgotten which, thankfully, doesn't happen all too often), and then give our technical approval. We open every single 3D studio max file we receive and test it thoroughly, so we know it's viable. It would be unpleasant to discover a problem with an unusable file six months later. Once a job has been approved and the invoices paid, making changes is very costly.

 

While we're on the topic of money, the style of the game has to be maintained from the beginning. We have to have a clear overview of what is in the game to keep costly changes to a minimum. This is a huge challenge. If something goes wrong later on...well...we only have ourselves to blame.

 

Then we have to deal with the additional problems of technology, graphics, and producing the game on schedule. Of course, you can't plan everything in advance. Unforeseen problems can arise. For example, an external studio wants to know how water is supposed to be integrated in a spring. In a case like this, a long-term solution, not a quick fix, has to be found. It would be disastrous if the spring water technology became obsolete three months later, causing all our work to that point to be tossed out.

 

That's just a quick explanation of what's going on behind the scenes! If we do our work well, the game will run smoothly. Right now, I'm juggling a million things, answering email, checking all the models and typing all the lists! Thankfully, Dirk will be back again soon and I can dedicate myself to my real job: the Sacred interface. It had a new shader for half an hour that makes the whole thing look even better! Another major improvement in Sacred is 16:9 resolution. I only mentioned three resolutions in my last blog because the graphics for these (in various sizes) were already finished. All other resolutions will draw upon these graphics, depending on what proves useful.

 

OK! Until the next blog!

Best regards! Simon!

[Schot 407]

Oh cool! Widescreen gaming. Now all I need is a, umm. Widescreen! Looks like poor Simon is working his butt off. Hope Dirk is back real soon.

[gogoblender 3,070]

I missed that.

Good catch!

 

gogo