Loadout Interview

Mark Nau is the creative director at Edge of Reality, a venerable and largely console focused studio with a release history going back to the Nintendo 64. Mark himself has worked on everything from Spiderman games and the Call of Duty franchise to quirkier fair like the 1998 Hack-And-Slasher Die by the Sword. Mark has graciously agreed to talk with us for a bit about their upcoming fast-faced, highly customizable, free-to-play shooter Loadout. 

True machismo needs no body armor

Tell us a little bit about Loadout. From the description it sounds like the highly customizable weapons are the stars of game.

Absolutely. That’s the centerpiece right there. Players can assemble all these different crazy weapon pieces together to make any weapon they want.  And I’m not talking about just little number tweaks, either. I’m talking about “Hey I just made a sniper rifle that can shoot cluster-fire proximity mines!”

Many of Edge of Reality’s previous projects have been franchise based, with a single player emphasis. What made you guys decide to tackle a free-to-play shooter?

We’ve got an opportunity now to make a game we love. This game from start to finish was what we wanted to make. The team is making the game the way they want it to be made, because this is our baby. We’re making a kick-ass, high-action, multiplayer shooter with this outrageous weapon customization. And we’re doing it on our own.

Free-to-play is a great way an independent studio like us can fund an awesome game like Loadout and get it directly to the players.

You can only model so many AK-47s.

What has most surprised you about developing a game like Loadout? For example were there any gameplay or design issues that came as a complete surprise?

When we were floating the idea of allowing players to make their own weapons from parts, with like a ka-zillion possible crazy combinations. The designers were all “This is awesome and fantastic and totally horrifying, all at the same time.” We thought we might have to back off, or severely limit the scope of creativity. But no. It’s full-on weapon invention. I’m amazed the team pulled it off, but it’s in there.

As Creative Director, what sort input do you get on game development? Do you wrangle other developers, do design work yourself, or some combination thereof?

I’m the head of the design department at Edge. My style is to find out places that obstacles exist and try to kick them down so the team can do its work. All the stuff in Loadout, that’s 100% the people on the team deciding how to make a great game.

Fiery death is the best death.

Monetization of free-to-play games is a tricky and sometimes controversial issue. Can you share anything about how you plan to make Loadout fun and accessible when played for free while still tempting players to drop actual cash?

We’ve got a list of principles for monetization for Loadout. #1 is “The free player has an awesome time, feels like we’re treating him fairly, and tells all his friends that Loadout is the game to be playing.” Other games have shown that if you make a great game and people love it, they will be willing to pay money for cool extras, to show support, and to fine-tune their equipment. You don’t need a pay-to-win sledgehammer to get people to chip in.

Just from watching the videos many of the weapon types look exotic and quite creative. I saw electric beams, remote control missiles and scuttling explosive payloads, to name a few.  Just for fun, do you have a favorite weapon component or combination?

I sure do! We even make “What’s your Loadout” video clips and post them on our YouTube channel. I just got done making a gun I call “Blue Balls,” because it shoots a huge scatter of bouncing blue balls that careen all around the level. It’s terrible for precise shooting or wide-open spaces, but total magic for close-quarters spray-and-pray.

Thank you very much for your time. Best of luck with Loadout and your future projects!

You can check http://www.loadout.com/ for future update and potential Beta access.

Articles copyright James Cousar, games and images copyright their respective owners.

Kalani W. Streicher Interview

Kalani Streicher is a gaming industry veteran, with over twenty years experience in development, design, and production. He has credit in dozens of commercial games, including the classic Super Star Wars SNES Trilogy and X-Wing/Tie Fighter Series. He’s worked and produced games for such formative companies such as LucasArts, Activision, EA, Universal, Microsoft and has founded several of his own.

 
Thank you for taking a few minutes to speak with us today.

How did you find yourself in game development? Did anything in particular inspire or motivate you to go into the field? What skills or experience have you found most valuable?

Well, I didn’t really pursue getting a job in the games industry. I grew up in Germany and it is all about precision mechanics and fine German engineering. I did an apprenticeship in tool&die in my teens, though I knew then I wanted to get into computers and software. After that I studied computer science and precision mechanics at the Technical College in Frankfurt. At the time computers and computer graphics were just at its infant stages though I was very intrigued by it. I knew the best place to be part of computer graphics and visual effects production is in California. Therefore I move to San Francisco and started looking for a job in that field. Since I had a background in programming and was fluent in German my first contract job was translating C, C++ books from English into German for Microsoft. 

At the same time Lucasfilm Games was looking for someone that can port and localize all their story games for the European market. I was there at the right time and was responsible for the translations and ports of all the story games (Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken, Loom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, etc.) to languages such as German, French, Italian, Spanish and platforms such as PC, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore64, etc. 

The skills and experience most valuable are having a good understanding of software technology, programming and logic. You have to be adaptive to the different platforms and input devices. Further, being highly creative, organized and having a passion for games is a must. 

  

What was working for LucasArts like? Was there anything you particularly enjoyed, disliked, or stands out in your mind?

It was incredible working at LucasArts. The culture and creative atmosphere is like no other place. The attention to detail and the combination of creativity and technology is amazing. Working at Skywalker Ranch was totally fun and it is amazing being surrounded by the most innovative and creative people in the film and games industry. 

You’ve worked with many different types of games over the years. Space sims, platformers, adventure games, and so on. Which have you most enjoyed creating, and why?

I enjoyed each one of them. I like the variety of the different genres with their intricate game mechanics I’m always hungry to learn, understand and evolve my design and development skills by building different games. I strongly believe future games will become a playground of the different game mechanics from different genres. We already see this trend with many games in merging different genres as well as embedding many mini-games or sections of the game with different play mechanics. 

How do you feel many of the classic games you were involved in, like the Super Star Wars and X-Wing/Tie Fighter series, have held up over time? If you were asked to remake them today what, if anything, would you do differently?

I believe they’ve held up relatively well. They are definitely considered some of the top classic games. Though game design has evolved since then and if I’d be given the opportunity to remake them today I’d keep the core essence of the game play and add many more new design features. For example, the Super Star Wars was aimed at the core to hard-core player. Back in the days that’s what all players were. We didn’t have a casual player. Therefore the game is tailored to be very challenging to play. Today I’d make the “Easy” and “Normal” difficulty modes a lot easier, though keep “Jedi” mode for the hardcore. I’d improve some of the level design and also add a better save game system. Back then you had to play a level over and over from the beginning after you died. I don’t think that would fly today. I’d add save points or some other save-game mechanism. I’d give it a graphical and aesthetics facelift, and lastly, I’d add a social and content creation component to the game similar to Little Big Planet.

With X-Wing/Tie Fighter I’d definitely upgrade the visual quality. Today PC or console platforms can make it look like the movie. You’d feel like being in movie. I’d focus on seamless integration of story content and game play. The AI of X-Wing/Tie Fighter is phenomenal and still holds up today, but this area has evolved over the years and I’d add better emergent and expert systems, adaptive AI, as well as more emotional depth.

You’ve recently started a company, Kalani Games, which seems to have a mobile focus. In the past you have also worked for a mobile company, MauiGames. Do you believe the industry is heading away from the traditional business model for big budget “AAA” games? Do you think we’re likely to see the bulk of the gaming industry’s growth in smaller, more agile to develop, social, mobile and “casual” games?

Kalani Games focuses on a variety of game genres and platforms. That is what I’ve done my entire career and will continue to do. Currently we are working on a Virtual Worlds/Casual MMO, DLC, Facebook, and iPad/iPhone/Android games.

Console games today are harder to get off the ground just because most of them are tied to big licenses, budgets and resources. These games are definitely approaching, if not surpassing, the budgets of films and movies. I don’t think console games will disappear in the near future, there is still a lot of room to improve and bring an even more immersive, visual and emotional experience to the player. Though the market and revenue growth will flatten off more over the years. We are approaching what the movie industry has been for the last decade and reaching a certain saturation point. I believe we’ll see additions of other new features such as social, 3D or sensory systems in the console games.

On the other hand, the social, mobile and casual game markets will grow at a more rapid pace over the next decades. There are still so many people that aren’t playing games and our goal as game designers is to capture everyone on Earth playing some sort of game on a device.

I believe these are the areas where game play will innovate the most over the next years. We’ve already seen different ways to engage the players with new interesting game play mechanics. People want to play games anywhere they go and socialize with each other. The new devices such as smart phones and tablets are paving the way. In addition, with the rapid technology development, new input mechanisms and faster Internet bandwidth will accelerate the quality of games. We’ll already see the 3D era on the tablets happening and the convergence of console, PC and tablets. The consoles are slowly becoming the “arcades” games of the past. Soon we’ll be playing console-like games on our mobile devices and be totally connected between various platforms.

Any brief words of advice for the next generation of game developers?

Work hard! Attention to detail! Innovate! Have Fun!

Do or do not. There is no try.

Thank you very much for your time!

You can visit Mr. Streicher’s company website here:

http://kalanigames.com/index.html

Articles copyright James Cousar, games and images copyright their respective owners.

Daniel Erickson Interview

Daniel Erickson is the lead writing director at Bioware, perhaps best known for his work on Dragon Age: Origins, and the highly anticipated upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO. Mr. Erickson has also worked as a game critic for the now defunct Daily Radar website, and has production and design credit for the NBA Street and SSX series from EA sports.

Thank you for taking a few minutes to speak with us today

1. What’s the job of lead writer like? Do you mostly co-ordinate other writers and their work? Do you get to do much writing yourself?

Erickson: It varies from game to game. On Dragon Age and Mass Effect, for instance, the lead writers are critical path writers, contributing huge amounts of actual hands-on content to the game. With a writing staff the size of the one on The Old Republic I get to do a little writing here and there but most of the time I’m more of the guiding force behind the fiction content for the game. As a former lead designer, I’m also more involved in the senior design structure than I think is usual for a lead writer so my duties are a bit more eclectic.

2. How do you feel about working with a pre-existing Intellectual Property (Like Star Wars) as opposed to one that you’ve been able to build from the ground up? (Like Dragon Age) Do you have a preference?

Erickson: They both have advantages and disadvantages. I loved working on Dragon Age: Origins and being able to come up with a world the team owns is extremely rewarding. It’s also a ton of work and means you have to educate players on all the rules, expectations, etc. You can’t assume any familiarity with the content. With something like Star Wars you’ve got built in fan appeal and a huge amount of content to draw from so you can just jump in and get started which can save months or even years of time. That said, there are a huge amount of Star Wars experts out there so you better know you stuff and you don’t have the flexibility to change the way the world’s mythology works to get around a sticky design decision like you can with your own IP.

3. Have you found writing for games has challenges you didn’t expect?

Erickson: It can be difficult to work in an aspect of game design that’s so much in its infancy that many people still don’t understand why you’re there or see it as a necessary evil. I doubt programmers and artists have to justify their existence as much as writers do. Also, like design, it’s something everyone thinks they understand and can do/comment on.

4. You’ve been quoted as saying: “You can teach a writer to be a junior game designer. You cannot teach a junior game designer to be a writer.” Do you think the two disciplines should be taught and implemented together, rather than as separate aspects of game development?

Erickson: What I was saying there is that writing is a specialty discipline like anything else in games. You’re either a writer or you’re not and if you’re not, you’ll never be anything more than mediocre at it. If mediocre is fine for your game and nobody much cares about the writing than sure, give the writing tasks to a random designer who enjoys it and move on. In the same way I wouldn’t bring in a screenwriter, train them to do basic design and then ask them to balance my combat system! And yes, cross training is crucial so that all designers learn about the complexities of and respect each other’s specialties.

5. Do you have a favorite bit of Bioware writing? A particular conversation or narrative thread that you thought was exceptionally funny or epic or spot on in characterization?

Erickson: I don’t know about a specific line, but I’m proud of the city-elf origin in Dragon Age. I did a ton of research for that one; made sure I really understood the subject matter and tackled some issues rarely seen in videogames. And I tried to do it in a way that I felt was adult and mature in the actual sense of the words, not an excuse for juvenile titillation.

6. Any brief words of advice for the next generation of game writers/designers?

Erickson: Writers write. That’s how you know you are one. Run pen and paper RPGs. You’ll learn a ton about player agency and writing your stories for the audience instead of yourselves. Designers design. Make board games, make card games, learn to do basic programming and make web apps. Anything and everything you can do to test your ideas of what makes fun.

Thank you very much for your time!

Articles copyright James Cousar, games and images copyright their respective owners.