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MechCommander 2: Volume #2
Producer Mitch Gitelman talks about plans gone awry.
By - Mitch Gitelman
Okay, I wanted Mike Lee, our Lead Designer to talk to you all about our new
interface for putting the right pilot in the right 'Mech for the right
mission. He was gonna go into the precarious balance of satisfying hardcore
BattleTech aficionados while appealing to a broader audience. I had cool
screenshots ready of our revised 'MechLab and stuff. It would really give
you an idea of our thought process and execution.
That plan didn't work out. Welcome to game development.
Mike's going to write that stuff, just not right now. "Now" is about
rebalancing all the pilot skills. "Now" is about making sure all the
cinemas, voiceovers, and sound effects are in the right places and playing
correctly. "Now" is about bug stomping, bug stomping, bug stomping.
And "now" is about E3-the Electronic Entertainment Expo.
I imagine that lots of teams are scrambling right now to "make E3". Been
there. You may read other Dev Diaries that talk about the caffeine haze, the
sleepless nights, and the manic push to have a good show.
A lot of developers call this sort of thing a "dog and pony show". That's
where you work your ass off to polish up your latest version of the game,
trying to force in a few last minute bells and whistles, all the while
feeling like you should be working on the game rather than a
demo.
Man, not here. I guess it's all in the approach. E3 was on our schedule last
year-in fact, it was a milestone. We had a list of features that we wanted
to get in for the show. Not coincidentally, it was the same features list we
wanted to get done to progress the project. It's a great feeling working
towards a tough deadline and knowing that your game is gonna look good AND
that the project will benefit from it. This
year, we have all our features in and it's just a matter of putting together
a nice demo map that shows off our terrain and gameplay.
But I guess we also see E3 from another perspective. It's a chance to
communicate directly with gamers. Yeah, you can prophesize that people will
like a particular feature or something, but there's nothing like
watching them use it for the first time. Then you know whether it's really
cool or not.
I love personal interaction with gamers. They're honest and direct ("Dude,
that sucks!") and it's really easy to know when they truly like your game
("Dude, that rocks!"). Last year, there were guys that came back to the
MechCommander 2 machines several times over the weekend so they could "get
better at the game". I dug that a lot. It was really encouraging that they
wanted to spend more time with something we worked on for them.
So I'll be at E3, waiting to talk to you. I won't be one of those guys who's
tired and jaded and wants to get rid of you so he can go to a strip bar.
We can talk at the bar, too.
Next: Developer Diary index...
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