The answers you've all been waiting for

[Unstoppable]

I never checked out this interview but i'm damned glad I just did. Hell all I did was type JC Denton in Second Life (an mmo) and bam. The answers of why Invisible War was what it is, and why you must definately be excited about Deus Ex 3. This time it will be what it was destined to be.

 

Believe it! -Trinity from the Matrix

 

HL: Moving over to Deus Ex: Invisible War, when you took over as project director, tell us about the main challenges you faced, in its creation.

 

HS: Well, you make mistakes on every project. We made one huge mistake that I regret. All the others were trivial.

 

HS (continued): We tried to create our own renderer and did not manage the process very well-- as a result, we ended up with an interesting renderer that didn't serve the game very well, which required making a game that felt different.

 

Part 1

http://secondlife.blogs.com/nwn/2004/07/the_second_life.html

 

Part 2

http://secondlife.blogs.com/nwn/2004/07/th...ond_life_1.html

 

Part 3

http://secondlife.blogs.com/nwn/2004/07/th...ond_life_2.html

 

Part 4

http://secondlife.blogs.com/nwn/2004/07/th...ond_life_3.html

 

Part 5

http://secondlife.blogs.com/nwn/2004/07/th...ond_life_4.html

 

Finally the reason why the game was the way it was. Despite all that I still liked them both on some level. I know many of you here were dissapointed. All i'm saying is, Deus Ex 3 will not repeat on the failures of Invisible War. I truly believe that. Remember Harvey is not working on Deus Ex 3.

 

All parts are small not really that long to read.( of the interview)

Edited May 22, 2007 by Unstoppable

[demagogue]

HS: Well, you make mistakes on every project. We made one huge mistake that I regret. All the others were trivial.

 

HS (continued): We tried to create our own renderer and did not manage the process very well-- as a result, we ended up with an interesting renderer that didn't serve the game very well, which required making a game that felt different.

 

Yeah, this is what Krypt told us in the ttlg TDS forum long ago (link), that I mentioned here.

 

That's what made me more optimistic about DX3 in the sense that the biggest mistake in DXIW was really a preventable one, and everything else was fluff compared to that one.

 

The rest of the interviews make for interesting reading, though. Thanks.

Edited May 22, 2007 by demagogue

[Unstoppable]

thanks to you and the other person as well. That's how this all started with the old Ionstorm forums and TTLG. We all asked questions, why dammit why. Deus Ex was a masterpiece and IW was not even close. I'm just glad that Deus Ex 3 is close to being made. Just need the green light from Eidos. Maybe I should start a petition. Couple thousand signatures and send it to Eidos. Hmmm

[Ratty]

Hey I just jumped into Second Life today for the first time. What are some cool things to do?

 

As far as Harvey Smith, he seems like a scary guy to me. I think something's wrong with him. I've read more than one interview with him where he states, in so many words, the most important thing to him in designing a game is to have a team of people he likes and gets along with. The world is divided into cool people and uncool people, and if he had his way he would never associate with uncool people. That's a shit attitude if you ask me.

Edited May 24, 2007 by Ratty

[OrbWeaver]

I've read more than one interview with him where he states, in so many words, the most important thing to him in designing a game is to have a team of people he likes and gets along with.

 

There's nothing wrong with that; any manager will tell you that a team achieves a lot more if its members get on well and work together.

 

The phrase "cool people" can refer to people who are easy to get along with, it is not necessarily a comment on somebody's social rank or status.

[Vadrosaul]

As far as Harvey Smith, he seems like a scary guy to me. I think something's wrong with him. I've read more than one interview with him where he states, in so many words, the most important thing to him in designing a game is to have a team of people he likes and gets along with. The world is divided into cool people and uncool people, and if he had his way he would never associate with uncool people. That's a shit attitude if you ask me.

If that's the way he worded it, maybe he's just not good at interviewing. Frankly he doesn't need to be; producers need to be good at creative direction and planning out the games development. Not saying that Harvey is neccesarily good at those either

[Domarius]

<-- *agrees with Orb*

 

Regarding the renderer - Looks like the trend is companies specifically for making renderers (id software, hehe) and other companies use them to make games. No longer is it very feasible to write your own renderer.

[Unstoppable]

<-- *agrees with Orb*

 

Regarding the renderer - Looks like the trend is companies specifically for making renderers (id software, hehe) and other companies use them to make games. No longer is it very feasible to write your own renderer.

 

Glad many people here feel the same way. If only Deus Ex 2 and Thief 3 didn't use their own renderer. I always told myself why don't they just totally convert the Unreal 2k3 engine. Forget about dynamic shadows. There can be some via switches and what not. At first the idea was great but truly Thief didn't have dynamic shadows. Thief The Dark Project that is. It's still a better game than Deus Ex 2 and Thief 3 by far.

[Macsen]

any manager will tell you that a team achieves a lot more if its members get on well and work together.

So the Dark Mod is doomed!

[Crispy]

Nonsense. We squabble occasionally, sure, but we get over it.

[jdude]

Tighter bonds are formed through conflict and resolution

[oDDity]

That's why DX2 sucked and why the next one will be shit. You'll find that the most talented people generally aren't the most cool and sociable, so what you'll end up with on that team are a bunch of asslickers and ladderclimbers, not the real talent.

It's obviously Harvey's ambition to have a nice fun day at work rather than make the best game possible.

I've been wondering for a long time why the games industry has been going down the shithole, and this is another reason to add to the list, when you've got twats like that in charge.

[Crispy]

All sociable people are untalented asslickers. QED. Thus spake oDDity.

 

If you mean unsociable as in "nerdy", then sure. Any gamedev company hiring only non-nerdy people is probably screwed. But if you've got team members who are unsociable as in malicious and evil, you get rid of them ASAP. They might be the best at what they do individually, but they poison the atmosphere and prevent the rest of the team from working well.

 

I have to hope he was talking about the latter type of unsociable rather than the former. If the former, then I'd agree with you. But if he means the latter (which I would tend to assume, since I have this pesky habit of assuming that people are not total morons until proved otherwise ), that just shows he's got his head screwed on correctly.

[Ratty]

that just shows he's got his head screwed on correctly.

I have visions of him hiring his perfect team. They're all chummy, get along well and share the same vision. Great! You can't deny this is the ideal working environment. Who wants to have to work with people you hate? Guess what? That's life. Creative people can be complex. One day there's a disagreement. Someone feels a little too passionate about his idea for the game. Or someone accidentally takes Harvey's sandwich from the fridge. Whatever. Suddenly there's tension. Oh No!!!! Harvey's uncomfortable. THAT MUST NOT BE! Team cohesion is suffering. The quality of the game deteriorates. The sandwich-stealer must be fired! A team-member finds themselves in the middle of a divorce. They become depressed and withdrawn. Spending long hours at the office absorbed in their work. They don't laugh at Harvey's jokes, except sometimes a little in that afraid way ... They don't go out for beers with the gang. That person is a downer man and MUST DIE!

 

Ah, now I have to go hunt down that interview just to show you guys. It came across as a little bitter and self-important. At least that's what I saw in it. My lip curled up when I was reading it but maybe that was just me. Harvey is icky I tell you.

 

On edit: I noticed this in the SL interview: Increasingly, I am into team culture and creative direction. I see he's calling it team culture now. But we know what he really means.

 

So, along with some really talented allies, I am going to start a game studio in Austin, Texas. Allies, eh? The man is looking at his work partners as enemies or allies. Doesn't this raise red psycho flags for anybody else??

Edited May 26, 2007 by Ratty

[Macsen]

In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed - but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

[Crispy]

It really depends how he goes about it. If he would fire people over sandwich-stealing or merely because they're going through a rough patch then obviously that's bad. But if he's actually well-intentioned and really does want to promote good relations among the team, then he'd just go and have a friendly chat to the sandwich stealer, and try to get the divorcee more involved in group activities. I think either case could be inferred from his comments, so it's not fair to immediately assume that one of them is true.

 

I think you're jumping to conclusions. I can't say that your conclusion is necessarily wrong, but I can't say that it's necessarily correct either. Give the guy a chance.

[Nyarlathotep]

On edit: I noticed this in the SL interview: Increasingly, I am into team culture and creative direction. I see he's calling it team culture now. But we know what he really means.

Jump to conclusions much?

 

So, along with some really talented allies, I am going to start a game studio in Austin, Texas. Allies, eh? The man is looking at his work partners as enemies or allies. Doesn't this raise red psycho flags for anybody else??

Is there a reason Harvey Smith has to be a monster, rather than your average screw-up game dev?

 

Try not to read too much into people's choices of words. A lot of people choose a word poorly because they want to avoid the connotations of another word (often the only other word that came to mind). Hell, I wind up doing exactly that more often than not.

[Order of the Hammer Bureaucrat]

I agree, in that reading too much into specifics of sentences is not the best idea as often interpretations and extrapolations are wrong.

[jdude]

That's why DX2 sucked and why the next one will be shit. You'll find that the most talented people generally aren't the most cool and sociable, so what you'll end up with on that team are a bunch of asslickers and ladderclimbers, not the real talent.

It's obviously Harvey's ambition to have a nice fun day at work rather than make the best game possible.

I've been wondering for a long time why the games industry has been going down the shithole, and this is another reason to add to the list, when you've got twats like that in charge.

 

I wouldn't say that the problem is within the developers of games. I think there is just as many good games coming out now as there was at any time. The only difference now, is you get games which are hyped up through media and advertising which is directed at a large audience. With the rising success in games, we have seen trends, like WWII games and a sudden burst in the amount of FPS games coming out. I rarely see an advertisement outside of the internet for games I enjoy, but somehow it feels like everyone is playing these games I don't like because I see advertisements for them all over the place. Every once and a while I buy into it and try the game only be remindedf that these 'trend' games are always horrible. If anyone should be blaming anyone it's project managers. It's not like a bunch of geniuses get together to create a good game.

 

Also games now requires so much more effort, where once you could make a game where characters were 16x16 bitmap images, you now have to have realistic movements and polygons to make it even look slightly appealing and that costs money... But that's kind of a tangent.

[Ratty]

What was that great movie where that guy could suddenly see aliens all around him but nobody else could see them? To everybody else they looked like normal human beings. I'm like that except I see crazy people. I was involved in a job interview once where the guy was applying for a programming position and charmed everyone else with his off-the-wall quirky comments. When asked what he most wanted to do in life he answered "Write poetry!" Everyone else was laughing and smiling and I was sitting there with my mouth open. The guy was clearly psycho but nobody else could see it. And yes, he started acting weirder and weirder. They'd find him in the morning playing Doom, he'd been there all night. It got worse--I won't go into detail. People got scared of him. Eventually he was fired.

 

Walking down the street with somebody I can spot em blocks away. Friends will ask why I want to cross the street all the sudden. They don't see it. But they do when the cursing and ranting starts though. I can see em I tell ya! Why can't anybody else???

 

Now I never met Mr. Smith but even from the bits of interviews I've read I can tell. Oh yes, I can tell. You'll see, you'll all see when they cart him away! Hmm, who would have thought, you'll be saying to yourselves. Well I thought. Just you guys remember that.

[Vadrosaul]

What was that great movie where that guy could suddenly see aliens all around him but nobody else could see them? To everybody else they looked like normal human beings. I'm like that except I see crazy people. I was involved in a job interview once where the guy was applying for a programming position and charmed everyone else with his off-the-wall quirky comments. When asked what he most wanted to do in life he answered "Write poetry!" Everyone else was laughing and smiling and I was sitting there with my mouth open. The guy was clearly psycho but nobody else could see it. And yes, he started acting weirder and weirder. They'd find him in the morning playing Doom, he'd been there all night. It got worse--I won't go into detail. People got scared of him. Eventually he was fired.

 

Walking down the street with somebody I can spot em blocks away. Friends will ask why I want to cross the street all the sudden. They don't see it. But they do when the cursing and ranting starts though. I can see em I tell ya! Why can't anybody else???

 

Now I never met Mr. Smith but even from the bits of interviews I've read I can tell. Oh yes, I can tell. You'll see, you'll all see when they cart him away! Hmm, who would have thought, you'll be saying to yourselves. Well I thought. Just you guys remember that.

 

Keen eye for spotting the unstable, eh

 

The movie you are thinking of is They, where sunglasses give the protagonist the ability to spot the aliens among the populous. As opposed to the rose-colored glasses your colleagues wore when interviewing that guy you mentioned

[demagogue]

Ah, rowdy Roddy Piper's finest moment (well, he had a lot of fine moments ... so one of them, anyway)

Funny enough I just looked this movie up very recently for some random reason ... after years, decades of ever thinking about it. So it's funny to suddenly see it independently referred to by someone else.

It really is an under-appreciated pulp classic.

Edited May 27, 2007 by demagogue

[oDDity]

I wouldn't say that the problem is within the developers of games. I think there is just as many good games coming out now as there was at any time. The only difference now, is you get games which are hyped up through media and advertising which is directed at a large audience. With the rising success in games, we have seen trends, like WWII games and a sudden burst in the amount of FPS games coming out. I rarely see an advertisement outside of the internet for games I enjoy, but somehow it feels like everyone is playing these games I don't like because I see advertisements for them all over the place. Every once and a while I buy into it and try the game only be remindedf that these 'trend' games are always horrible. If anyone should be blaming anyone it's project managers. It's not like a bunch of geniuses get together to create a good game.

 

Also games now requires so much more effort, where once you could make a game where characters were 16x16 bitmap images, you now have to have realistic movements and polygons to make it even look slightly appealing and that costs money... But that's kind of a tangent.

 

Cock and balls.

The quality of graphics shave nothing to do with it, or how much time it takes to make them.

It's do to with pure greed, big publishers with shareholders to please, and developers who will suck anyone's cock if they have the money to pay for it.

Everyone's in it for a career, not because the genuinely want to make fantastic, innovative games.

It's becoming big business, and that means generic trash, as with TV, movies, newspapers and magazines. Appeal to as many people as possible, and then divide by the IQ of your dumbest customer.

 

Anyway, if you'll point me to some of these non-commercial, non-trend games that have come out recently, I'll take a look, because I literally haven't played any games at all for a year.

[Unstoppable]

This is a repost but well worth it. This game owns.

http://www.freewebarcade.com/game/the-last-stand/

 

http://www.theshiponline.com/

 

As for wanting a career that is true. However there are some people out there who are truly making games for passion and trying to make things new.

 

1)Hellgate:London www.hellgatelondon.com www.flagshipstudios.com

Creators of Diablo

2)Guild Wars www.guildwars.com www.arenanet.com

Creators of Diabo and battle.net Arena Net is their company name.

3)Nintendo

I don't know about you but Nintendo is quality and career minded company. They just keep churning out high quality titles. The Nintendo DS is quite a system in itself. It pretty much rips a new one into any handheld that has tried challenging. The kicker is you can just buy all the high quality games since you're not forced into anything.

4)Relic entertainment

High quality combining game franchises = gaming goodness

5)Bioware

hah nuffsaid

 

Truly this list can go on and on. Epic Games. Blizzard. There are many good companies out there. I don't see why you hate the industry so much. Check these guys out. http://www.3drealms.com They give royalties to their developers and there the developers rule, not the publisher.

 

Sure there are many companies just trying to make a quick buck, however no one is holding a gun to my head and saying buy that title etc.

Edited May 27, 2007 by Unstoppable

[jdude]

Cock and balls.

ect ect

 

I wouldn't say that's true, what about big companies like Rockstar or Blizzard who keep pushing out games that are great.

 

Example of a fun non-trendy game:

Penumbra