Interview with Bill Tiller - A Vampyre Story

Hello Bill!

First of all, we would like to thank you for taking the time to talk to Adventure Advocate about the most anticipated adventure game of the last years.

Here are our questions:

Could you tell us a few things about Autumn Moon Entertainment? Like: how and when it was founded?

Well I founded Autumn Moon myself, even though I wanted to found it with other Lucas Arts and former Lucas Arts artists and programmers. But for some reason or another people couldn’t do it either because they already had good jobs, didn’t want to take a risk, or didn’t want to make adventure games anymore. I don’t blame them. Starting up a company is risky, especially if you have a house to pay for and have children, like I do. But I did it anyway because it is makes the most sense to me to do it.

So I quit my good job at Stromfront Studios as Art Director on EA’s The Two Towers, cashed out my 401k retirement money I’d been saving for ten years and started on the A Vampyre Story 2d prototype. The images of Mona in 2d are from that prototype.

Some people said to me “What are you doing? Are you crazy? You are risking your home and security! Go get a safe, REAL job.” I appreciate their advice, but they just don’t understand. I HAVE to do this! Why? Because it just seems like the natural next step in my life. I love illustration. I love animation. I love computer games, and I love story telling. Well, adventure games combine all the things I love into one!

So naturally this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. It only took me 38 years to figure it out.
The timing seems to be right too. Lucas Arts has abruptly decided to do Star Wars and action games only for console and pc. Though I think a new Monkey Island game would do well especially with the Monkey island Movie coming out (Ron Gilbert is right. The Pirates of the Caribbean movie is really a Monkey Island movie).

So the type of game Lucas used to make only two companies, in the USA anyway, are doing it. Tell Tale and Autumn Moon. It is interesting to note that even though we are both doing adventure games, they have followed the path of getting existing licenses such as CSI, Sam N Max and Bone. Where as Autumn Moon is going the route of making original stories and licenses, though I’m sure Tell Tale will get around to doing an original game, and we would love to do games based on certain licenses. Lucas Arts did both back in the day, but now two spin offs are filling the gap.

How many people make up the team? Are there any other former Lucas Arts employees?

Depends on when you ask me. Right now there are only three, me and Dave Harris. We are writing and designing the game. But next week we will have Bill Eaken and Aaron St John on, and then Craig Rundles in a few weeks after that. When in full production this fall, we will have ten probably. But to keep costs down, we roll people on off when they are needed, and bring them on if when the schedule requires it.

So here is the list of Ex Lucas Arts People who have worked on my game so far:
Kyle Balda
Anson Jew
Bill Eaken
Gary Brubaker
Paul Mica
Maria Bowen
Mike Levine
Craig Rundles
Yuan Wang
Tony Burquez
Dave Harris
Ed Chin
Amy Tiller

A few other Ex Lucas people have helped a ton too. A lot of other non Lucas arts people have worked on the game too such as Brooks White, Jeremy Koerner, Aaron St John, Zach Quarles, Charles Beirnaert, Alan Hause, and a few other secret employees. And I am sure I m forgetting somebody, so I apologize to them.

How and when did you come up with the idea of “A Vampyre Story” ?

I love Halloween and scary movies, anything to do with macbre and ‘goth’ stuff like that. One of my favourite artists is Edward Gorey ( http://www.goreyography.com/west/west.htm ). Now if you don’t know who is run out and buy Amphagorey ad Amphagorey II, or The Gashlycrumb Tinies. He does these great black and white ink drawings of Victorian aristocrats in macabre and funny situations. He is the main inspiration, along with Dr.Suess for Tim Burton.

So back in 1995 I was on my honey moon, sailing on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. It was about a month before I was to start on Curse of Monkey Island. And I was on deck with my sketch book and started sketching some Edward Gorey like drawings. I love vampires so I decided to draw an Edward Gorey like vampire woman, and I named her Mona de Laffite, after the loading dock in the ride Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland.

I gave her a bat companion, whom I named Froderick, after what Igor in the movie Young Frankenstein called Fredric Frankenstein when they first met.

She and Froderick staid in my sketch book for four years while I worked on Curse of Monkey Island and Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, and the ill fated Full Throttle II: Payback (not Sean Calrk’s Hell on Wheels). Then I tried it o pitch it to Lucas Arts, but politics kept me from pitching it to officially, and in a way that was a smart move because anything I pitched to Lucas Arts they would have owned. I did show it to Hal Barwood, Jonathan Ackley and Larry Ahern AFTER they quit, and they all loved it, especially Hal. So that was encouraging.

I left Lucas because I could see that after Full Throttle II: Payback was shelved that Lucas was not going to do well. So I hopped around a bit and couldn’t find what I was looking for. So one night I decided to make what I was looking for, a company that was going to produce adventure games the Lucas Arts way- thus Autumn Moon.
Originally we were planning on making the game in black and white, using the Edward Gorey pen and ink style. But we abandoned it when it became clear the color version looked better. I still want to do short flash pen and ink looking mini adventure game, maybe some day.

Could you tell us a bit about the game’s story, characters and interface?

What would happen if you were turned into vampire, but you really wanted to do something completely different? A Vampre Story’s story is really a lesson in perseverance and making due with what life has given you. It is like the old adage “if life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.” So we have a young opera student, the best in her class, becoming the object of obsession for a psychopathic, and slightly pathetic, vampire. He turns her life upside down, first, be kidnapping her and taking her from Paris to fictional Balkan country of Draxsylvania, and second by killing her, and thus, making her a member of the undead, magically enslaved to her vampire master. And on top of that she knows virtually nothing about being a vampire, nor does she really want to. She would rather be singing at the Paris Opera, not turning into bat, sleeping in a coffin all day and sucking on people’s necks at night.

Are there any action sequences in the game?

Yes, right now we plan of at least three. But we aren’t done with our production plan yet, some may get cut. But they won’t be too difficult and will let players who don’t like action in heir adventure games to skip past them

And also how do you feel that some people believe that putting so much action elements in adventure games really helps and renews the genre?

No, I don’t believe that. What will renew the adventure game genre are better adventure games. They need to have better stories, non-frustrating but challenging puzzles, be funny, and have great art direction. THAT will renew the genre.
And I also think the games need to be in story genres that are popular. Take Grim Fandango for example. It is a great, great game, but in a story genre that a lot of main stream gamers didn’t find appealing. That being said, Grim still sold a heck of a lot of copies, it just wasn’t the mega hit many at Lucas at the time thought it should have been.
I think vampires are in a popular genre so I think the game will appeal to many more main stream buyers than some for the more obscure story ideas. At least I hope!

Could you describe to us the kind of puzzles we will encounter in the game?

No, not with out giving it away. But logically they are going to be very similar to Lucas arts puzzles, because those are the kind of games I worked on, and the kind of games people expect us to make. The only new twist on the puzzles is that Mona has vampire powers and restrictions, so some unusually solutions to problems will arise out of this new twist.

How far into the game are you? When should we expect it to be released?

We are 80% done with the game design, 5% done with the background art, 10% done with music, and 35% done with the engine programming, 50% done with the FMV scripts, 30% done with the character designs, 15% done with the storyboarding, 5% done with the animation and 3d character modelling, 1% done with the prop models, and 0% done with the game scripting. As you can see not very far, but we just started on full production in the last two weeks.

Why’d it take so long to start? Blame California and the fact we are not a technology company like Tell Tale. First California is expensive so we need twice as much money to do the same length game as many developers in less expensive parts of the world. We are in California because that is where Lucas Arts was, and thus we all live there.

We can’t get major capital investor’s because we are not making game engine to sell, nor are we publishing any games. So investors don’t want to invest in an unproven new story ideas, nor in a hit based business strategy - too risky. They’d rather invest in companies that make technology they can sell, or in companies that have optioned established licences such as Bone, Sam and Max or CSI. Since we aren’t creating a brand new engine and are creating a risky new story idea, the millionaires with money don’t want to invest.

But luckily for us there are a lot of smart German publishers who are pretty convinced this game will sell really well in their own country and in Europe as a whole. I thank them whole heartedly and agree 100%!

Have you found a publisher? If not, are negotiations coming to a conclusion?

Yes, we have, but details and announcements about this will be coming out soon. For now I can’t say anything beyond that.

“A Vampyre Story” (really, why write it with a ‘y’) has been under production for quite some time now and several release dates have been announced from time to time, which unfortunately were never to be the actual release date of the game. Why is that?

Money. No money no game. Now we have money so there should be a game. People want to know when we will finish the game so I give them my best guess. So I have decided to stop. But I can tell you we will not be working on this first game past the end of 2007. When the game will actually be released is up to the business guys at the publishers and what they think the best strategy is for a releases date. They have coordinated it with the marketing and PR team. So release dates get moved around quite a bit. It is pretty typical in the game industry. Hopefully as we mature as an industry we won’t have those kinds of problems in the future.

The first vampire novel written in English was called The Vampyre and was spelled with ‘yre’ instead of the modem ‘ire.’ So we spelled it the same way in honour of the book that created the whole romantic vampire genre.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vampyre

Is there any adventure game with which you would say that “A Vampyre Story” resembles? If yes, in which aspects of the game?

Sure, The Curse of Monkey Island and the Secret of Monkey Island, just in the horror genre instead of pirate genre. The art will be a lot like CMI, but I’ll be the sole art director on this time, so the character design may be a it different compare with CMI. But the puzzle structure and the types of puzzles will be very The Secret of Monkey Island like, because it is my favorite adventure game of all time.

How many playing hours - for an average adventure gamer - you expect the game to be?

We are shooting for 15 hours, at least as long as Full Throttle.

Have you really enjoyed playing any recent adventure games? If yes, have you been inspired by them in any way?

Siberia, Runaway, Tony Tough and Bone. I really loved the feel and look of Siberia and the story. And with Bone I really liked what they have done with the interface and GUI. And the animation is great. I have Dream Fall on my shelf though I haven’t played it yet, and I’m planning on getting episode 2 of Bone, because it got great reviews and looks fun. I loved the art in runaway and it inspired me to keep pursuing my game. Tony tough had some good atmosphere and wonderful character designs. But I have mostly been going back and playing old Lucas Arts games. I just went through CMI once more, and I plan to play through Sam and Max again this month.

Nowadays, adventures are not as popular as they used to be in Lucas Arts times. Nonetheless, you have decided to create an adventure game. What led you to that decision? And, what do you expect the reaction of the game community to be towards your game?

No I think they are just as popular as they ever were. The best selling adventure games, numbers wise, are selling the same as they did. There are just more game buyers now and the cost to make games is a lot higher. Syberia sold 161,000 copies in the USA, more than Grim Fandango’s 99,000 back in 1998, and Curse of Monkey Islands 106,000 in the United states alone. I don’t have European numbers but I bet they are the same if not better.

But they were less game buyers in 1997 than there is now in 2006, so adventure games percentage of the market shrank, but the total number of adventure game buyers stayed the same. The big problem is costs. The cost of living went up, cost of software, the size of the teams. and wages went up too, so companies had to invest in games that sold more units then, say, 500,000 world wide. Thus you get Halo and Grand Theft Auto, and endless amount of movie tie in games.

So this hurt adventure games too because the high priced talent went to the bigger higher paying games. That is why Tim Schaffer is making action games, why Larry Ahern is making flight sims, why Jonathan Ackley is making interactive attractions at Disney. I’m not paying high costs either. So the trick is to lure people to work on your project without using money as the sole motivating factor. They way I have done it is offer them a chance to work on fun a game. Almost all of my team members have worked on big name games, but the games are so big and so serious that they aren’t all that fun to work on.

Whereas I offer them a small, more intimate company with more chances to contribute to the projects, and I offer them a fun game to work on. Plus we are all friend so we get along great. How often do you get to work on a small game, for a small company where all your friends work there too, and it is funny game in a fun genre? That is how I get high quality talent to work on my game.

Sorry write such a long answer but this is a complicated issue, but there are same basic trends behind it. So many people just want to say adventure games are dead. They aren’t all. That is just a simplistic answer to complex issue. People make careers out of making simplistic assumptions that are always wrong.

It’s a fact that, as years pass by, games have become much easier comparing to the good old times (LucasArts). Are you going to follow this path too, as far as the game’s puzzle difficulty level?

It is so hard to gage the difficulty of puzzles. I thought for sure power plant robot puzzle Sean Clark and I designed in The Dig was easy- just program where you want it to go and the puzzle is easily solved. But no, all my friends got stuck right there. Like I said earlier we are going to have puzzles very similar to Secret of Monkey Island and Curse of Monkey Island. I’m not sure if people consider those hard games or not, but that is what we are shooting for.

How do you feel about the fact that major companies that produced some great adventure games in the past (Lucasfilm, Sierra and others) have now turned their backs at the genre?

Sad really. I was hoping Tell Tale or Bad Brain would actually get the rights to finish Sam and Max: Freelance Police. At one time Disney was in deep do do. Then they hired Michael Eisner. Everyone said that animated feature films were dead; no one would go see them anymore. Fox and the Hound was so so, The Great Mouse Detective didn’t do well because of the lack of any real marketing budget, and The Black Cauldron was just bad.

But Eisner was smart. He saw that the revival of the animated feature was at the core of revitalizing the company. He thought they would lose money, but he needed to create new intellectual property, or IP. And they’d make money off the toys, merchandise and the rides at Disneyland. But the same time Disney had an image problem. They were thought to be just for kids. So Eisner knew there was money to be made making R rated, more mature films. So he created a new company owned by Disney called Touch Stone. Under that label they put out R Rated hit after hit, such as Down and Out in Beverly Hills. Then Oliver And Company came out and did well, making good money. Roger Rabbit was a big hit. And these were feature animation, and new IP, which according to the industry experts wasn’t supposed to sell! So they put some extra money into The Little Mermaid and even marketed the movie to adults, and boom! It was mega hit! This spawned an animation renaissance that is still going today.

There is a lesson to be learned here. It isn’t the genre that is bad; it is the quality of the product in the genre. Remember when they said fantasy movies wouldn’t sell because they were all bad. Lord of the Rings proved again, it isn’t the genre, it’s the quality of the product.

There is room for the mature games and the sequels and the movie tie in games, but companies really need to invest in quality new IP and games that are not all violent, such as adventure games. Lucas could have and should put out Sam and Max: Freelance Police. Maybe because of the money they spent on it would have been a lose finically, but it would have shown Lucas Arts to be a creative place rather than a factory spewing out Star Wars and Indy sequel after sequel. By putting out Sam and Max they would have said to the industry and potential employees “We are not just about action games and Star Wars. We respect our history and are going keep it going, just like Disney did in the mid 1980’s.” Right now, if you’re a creative genius, why go work at Lucas Arts other than for the cool Presidio office and great benefits, unless you just want to make Star Wars or Indy games. If you are truly a creative person, go work at Pixar or Cartoon Network, where cool new ideas are actually appreciated.

What does the future hold for Autumn Moon Entertainment? Are there any other plans for another game on the works?

Oh yeah, for sure. I have eight other games I want to do, and new ones pop up in my head all the time. But A vampire Story first, and any sequels. Then we will get to other games. We are thinking about expanding to two teams and two projects in a year or two, but right now we are just concentrating on A Vampyre Story.

Sorry for the HUGE set of questions but we really wanted to learn a lot of things about this great game you are making!!!

No problem. Glad to do it.

source : adventureadvocate

Blizzard's Samwise Didier - Interview by Oli Wels

Art is important to Blizzard. The offices of the World of Warcraft developer, currently working on RTS sequel StarCraft II, are plastered with it. Vivid, colourful and extravagant concept art is hung everywhere. The offices even have a curator, part of whose job description is to ensure that huge floor-to-ceiling pieces are displayed around the campus. One such piece is in the canteen - a jolly painting of drinking dwarves by Samwise Didier.

Didier is art director at Blizzard, and a veteran of the company's early days. His bold, humorous style has set the tone for much of the studio's output, not least the look and feel of the planet's most popular virtual world. He also draws cover art for the World of Warcraft comic and the albums of Swedish power metal band Hammerfall, and sings (or rather, bellows) in Blizzard's terrifying in-house band, Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftain. (L70ETC's imposing body of work includes Rogues Do It From Behind and the mighty metal anthem I Am Murloc.) You can see examples of his work in a gallery at the Blizzard art site, Sons of the Storm.

On our recent visit to Blizzard HQ to play StarCraft II, we sat down with Didier to discuss what makes Blizzard games look like Blizzard games.

Eurogamer: When did you join Blizzard?

Samwise Didier: I started with Blizzard in 1991, when we were still under the name Silicon & Synapse.

Eurogamer: So you're old school...

Samwise Didier: Yes. Old.

Eurogamer: What was the first game you worked on?

Samwise Didier: An iteration of the Lost Vikings. In the final game there were three Vikings, in the one I worked on there were about twenty. It was very much like Lemmings. And then I went on to work on Rock N' Roll Racing and Blackthorne, and then really started hitting a lot of the PC games, when Warcraft came out.

Eurogamer: What are your personal influences? What was it that got you drawing when you were a kid?

Samwise Didier: It would definitely be Conan comic books that got me started. The Conan books with Frank Frazetta and John Buscema artwork. Mostly Marvel stuff, I mean I liked DC as well, but Marvel comics specifically just had that look that really started getting me into comics. And then the Hobbit movies, the old animated ones that were done back in the 70s, those were instrumental to me. I still think a lot of my dwarves look like the dwarves from those movies, just because that's where I learned to start drawing fantasy back then.

Eurogamer: The Warcraft and StarCraft worlds have a lot of archetypes in them... Orcs and elves, space marines and mutants. How can you make sure they look distinctive in your games, rather than generic?

Samwise Didier: Well, take our Orcs for example in Warcraft. Orcs are bad guys, but in our game they're not really bad guys. They were at one time, but we really push their whole kit to be, you know, bringing back the old ways of their shamanistic roots. They're no longer these demon-infused battle-crazy guys, they're more working with nature and becoming one with the elements.

Same with our Terran marines. Everyone's seen space marines, right? Well, we've tried to push ours to have a sort of - I always call it a biker/cowboy mentality, you know they're kinda gritty, they're kinda Old West in their sayings and the way they talk, some of them have Southern accents, sort of hillbilly-ish. We really tried to make our marines distinct that way. I don't think a lot of people have that - they're super good guys. We kinda have ours be a little bit shady. Their basic background is that they were all prisoners.

Eurogamer: So in both those cases, it's about something that runs contrary to expectations...

Samwise Didier: Yeah. We don't want to do something like have our Orcs be super good guys and paladins, that totally goes against what people think Orcs are. We just want to push it a little bit in our own direction so it has our own feel and flavour to it.

Eurogamer: In StarCraft II and Blizzard's other RTS games, you've got some tension in the art between having a really clear zoomed-out display, and a distinctive character to the designs - how do you balance that?

Samwise Didier: All the art in Starcraft II is going to be viewed in the top-down, three-quarter view, so we really put a lot of focus into the silhouettes of the units from that angle, so they're very distinct and iconic. Then we try to keep the detail level a little bit lower - bigger shapes, not as much little dots, nuts and bolts and all that on the metal. That's partly why a lot of our characters are a little bit bigger and over-proportioned, because when you look at it back from how we play, it needs that little bit extra.

Eurogamer: It must have been quite a challenge then to move to World of Warcraft - bringing the view right down, putting the player on the ground in the same world.

Samwise Didier: A lot of the guys really loved it because they could start doing the detail. But we still tried to keep a lot of the basic philosophies the same. Not too much detail, rely on nice big shapes or big swatches of colour, because when you're playing in WOW and characters are far away it's still nice to see that silhouette that you recognise: "Oh, that's a warrior or a druid." Especially in the later part of the game where you have the distinct armour sets that people are wearing.

Eurogamer: Another unusual thing about the games you work on here - whether you're talking an MMO like WOW, or a probable eSports hit like StarCraft II- is that they're going to be played for a really long time. Certainly it's the case with the first StarCraft - it's still going after ten years.

Samwise Didier: Yeah, that's amazing to me.

Eurogamer: So how do you ensure that stuff still looks good years years down the line? Is it fair to say it's because Blizzard places more emphasis on art than technology?

Samwise Didier: We push the technology enough so we don't look like we're behind the curve, but we don't want to make it so advanced that there are people who can't play it.

Another thing that helps out is the art style - it's sort of like if you look at an old Disney movie. It still looks good to watch because it's not a realistic movie, it's a cartoon, it's something drawn. A lot of the big 3D animated movies that come out now still aren't as cool as when Disney was still doing hand-animated things. There's something about a cartoony kind of style that never loses its look, it's always going to look cool.

I think ours doesn't really have a distinctive time style, it's just the Blizzard style. I think that's helped us hold up. I'll look at Warcraft III and go, eugh, that's low-polygon, but it still has a good feel to it.

Eurogamer: Does art have a gameplay function? Or could you replace everything with simple icons and still have essentially the same gameplay?

Samwise Didier: The reason why a lot of Blizzard games are popular is because the games themselves are just fun. You know, you could have worse graphics in our games and people would still be playing them. But I think the art really appeals to a lot of people as well, and helps get people who maybe wouldn't be interested in that sort of game to try it out.

I can't count how many times I've played a game because the art looks great and the game itself just isn't that great. But then there's like, stupid little Flash games you'll find online where the art is just X's and O's or whatever, but the game is just so fun and addictive. It's like, these guys did their job, the other guys spent all this cash making the art look great but they didn't have a fun game. It's like having a great-looking sports car that doesn't run.

Eurogamer: How important do you think the art was in World of Warcraft's success?

Samwise Didier: I think it was pretty important, because it definitely was different-looking than any other MMORPGs out there. Everyone else was a little bit more realistic, and all that's great, but people live in a real world and look like normal people already. Personally I don't like to play a normal-looking human, I always try to play whatever character is the big monster. In Warcraft I love the Horde, in games like Street Fighter I play Blanka and E. Honda, the big sumo guy. Something that I'm not in this world.

Eurogamer: What do the styles of Warcraft and StarCraft have in common? What are the common elements that make them quintessentially Blizzard?

Samwise Didier: Overall, the basic Blizzard art style is that everything's a little bit more over-proportioned, WOW being way more, StarCraft a little bit less. Everything's coloured a little bit more simply. We don't use a lot of light colours and pastels, it's more primary colours, you know, reds, blues.

Eurogamer: Is there a reason for that colour scheme, beyond a personal preference?

Samwise Didier: It basically started out that it's easier to see. The easiest thing in the world to see in a game would be one red square and one blue square going against each other, right? Or even better, a red circle and a blue square. Different silhouettes with different primary colours, no confusion. It's those philosophies, but not as simplified. So we go back to the silhouette, try to make those distinct.

And we put a lot of humour into our games I think, more than other people. StarCraft not as much perhaps, but even then, you keep clicking on those characters, you're going to hear some goofy pop culture reference or something funny.

I don't think we take any of our stuff overly seriously. As cool and epic as a character is, if you play with them long enough, they're going to say something funny. If you watch them long enough, they'll make some goofy animation. We want to keep the coolness of that character, but we're also not afraid to cut loose a little bit and have fun with them. I think that's part of the Blizzard style too, the humour: you know, Diablo cow levels, the Pandaren in Warcraft...

And back to the question of the art: the art of the original StarCraft is not why people are still playing the game. It's because it was a fun game. The gameplay is always the most important. As much as I would love to say that people play the games because the art's so cool, there is that, but it's the gameplay at the end.

You know, people are still playing checkers. That has lame art. Circles on squares - aha! Red and black. See? Classic silhouettes, coming back.

source : eurogamer

Florensia Interview - Set Sail! Begin Your Adventure!

MMOsite: First congratulations, you've successfully launched the first closed beta for Florensia on March 20th, 2008. How is everything going on with the testing? What's the feedback? Does it meet your expectations?

Simone Lackerbauer: Thank you very much! The test was a great success for us. The 700 players we chose out of 20.000 registered users gave us a lot of feedback via our forum. The beta absolutely met our expectations. There were no major bug issues and the positive responses regarding quests, teamplay and graphics quality showed us Florensia can and will be a great success outside Asia as well.

MMOsite: Why did you name the game "Florensia"? Does it have anything related to the storyline of the game? Any story behind it?

Simone Lackerbauer: Before the world of Florensia we know today came into existence, there was only one huge continent called Lux Plena and it was full of magic. Due to corruption and war, Lux Plena almost completely got destroyed and all that's left are the few known islands and the vast sea. But the governors of our world today know there is more to be discovered than only these islands. In the old language, "Florensia" means "travelling and working for your goals, going ahead on the way of life". Everyone in the known world �C may it be the pirates, the brave adventurers or the monsters on the open sea �C is working for their goals, so that "Florensia" becomes the reason for their existence.

MMOsite: It seems a lot of players are eager to play Florensia. And many players feel frustrated that they failed to receive a CB key. In your opinion, why Florensia is so appealing to them?

Simone Lackerbauer: First of all, common facts like the exceptionally appealing graphics and the whole look and feel of the game attract the players. We think our players know that Florensia is more than just a f2p MMOG. They can see we have a growing community which is one of the most important things for a massively multiplayer online game. They also know there is way more behind Florensia than what they have already seen. With the upcoming features, such as the battle pet system and the advanced job classes (and many more we can't name yet), the variety of things you can actually do in Florensia will significantly increase. The well-balanced interdependence of land and sea adventures is also an important aspect.

MMOsite: To tell the truth, I'm fascinated with the graphics of Florensia, which are in cartoon style and not too realistic. Would you care to talk more about the art design of Florensia?

Simone Lackerbauer: We are happy to hear that. The combination of cuteness, individual styles, sophisticated landscapes and dangerous monsters alongside the Japanese art design is really popular in our community. The team behind the graphics and the illustrations is amazing, we already received a lot pictures, for example the illustrations of the Black Dragons Pirate Hideout. One of the creative directors from the game Granado Espada has joined Netts for working on Florensia and we really love the special style of Florensia. For us, the look of a game is really important, because the players have to be able to identify with it.

MMOsite: As we know most navigation online games are based on the real history of the world, but Florensia is an exception. It is a fantasy MMO. What were your considerations?

Simone Lackerbauer: It is not possible to compare Florensia with any other game about seafaring. The naval adventures are closely combined with the adventures in the countryside and even when steering a ship, the personal character is still the decisive aspect. This concept really attracted us and we don't see Florensia as naval strategy game, but as MMOG with exciting features both afloat and ashore.

MMOsite: Compared with other navigation online games, what kinds of innovations and unique features do you have in Florensia?

Simone Lackerbauer: As already mentioned, the seafaring adventures in Florensia are a huge innovation. You can as well reach a higher sea level with your character, so everything is based on the things you yourself do inside the game. When reaching a higher level, it is only logical to extend your journey to the open sea and both parts don't rival. Besides, Florensia is very special regarding the high quality of all the contents that are and will be available. Instead of flooding the players with half-heartedly created contents, every new feature is following a straight concept to support the development of the player's personal character. Another considerable innovation is the introduction of ambitious PvP contents bit by bit. Unfortunately, we can't say more about that, but within a guild or party, teamplay and fighting strategies in sieges will become important in the future.

MMOsite: You emphasize that land adventure is as important as marine adventure in Florensia. So, what exciting experiences can we have on the land in Florensia? Will there be a large number of instances?

Simone Lackerbauer: The world of Florensia has not yet fully been discovered and further islands will be added to the existing maps. Every island and even the ocean inherit a lot of secrets and thus the answer is yes, there will be more dungeons and places for the players to discover. Besides, a big part of the PvP features will as well take place in the countryside.

MMOsite: Currently, there are 4 basic classes in Florensia. Can you basically introduce them to our readers? What sort of unique traits will each of them have? What will the job change system like in Florensia? And what will be the requirements for players to change job?

Simone Lackerbauer: The current basic classes are called Mercenary (a melee warrior type of fighter), Explorer (a swift and agile gunslinger), Noble (a mystic mage and illusionist) and Saint (bringer of light and healing as well as darkness).

Each of the four classes benefits from special buffs and skills for strengthening defense and attack and they all have offensive skills based on melee or ranged combat. Due to the various weapon types, different specializations are possible. Nobles can be played with light swords as well as with the magic energy converter called Kariad, Explorers don't only rely on guns and Mercenaries can choose to wear a shield or not. Thus, many various types and builds of adventurers are available for the players which will hopefully lead to interesting discussions.

As already indicated, the Mercenary is a brave melee warrior who can either tank and withstand enemies or choose the offensive way of combat.

The Explorer is a fleet-fooded master of swiftness with many powerful and lethal attacks for either guns or light melee weapons.

Nobles fight with elemental and spiritual magic power and illusions to trap and kill their enemies in a very effective way.

Saints can either support their friends as healers using the power of light. But they can as well attack with the divine power of light and nature or call upon the shadows of the night.

The first job change in Florensia takes place when the character reaches level 40. Each of the basic job classes can then choose between two advanced classes depending on their preferences. Without foreclosing too much �C the Saint will for example be able to choose the way of divine power or to concentrate on mystic energies and rites all around nature.

MMOsite: There is a rumored class Pirate Class on your official website. Can you reveal some more details about this class to our readers? Do you have any plan to release it in the second closed beta?

Simone Lackerbauer: Yes, there are rumors about a fifth base character class called Pirate who is supposed to be a sneaky melee fighter with sudden attack attributes at short distances. Unfortunately, we don't know yet when and how the Pirate will be introduced.

MMOsite: As a navigation-themed online game, sea battles must play an important role in Florensia. What kind of combat system will be available? And how will the PvP system look like?

Simone Lackerbauer: Unfortunately, we currently can't say more about the sea battles and PvP systems than what has already been described answering the other questions. We are eagerly waiting for the moment to reveal the siege warfare feature and the extension of the PvP battles.

MMOsite: How can players get their ships? So far, how many different kinds of ships are available for the players?

Simone Lackerbauer: Ship pieces can both be found and bought at different locations. In the harbor, the player can build his ship using different parts, such as main mast, ship rear, ship anchor and many more. Currently, there are five different ship types in different sizes:

Ironclads are huge armored ships with strong defensive abilities that won't draw aside when it comes to direct confrontations

Ram Ships are swift offensive ships that cause lethal damage using cannons or shocking horns

Giant Cannon Ships are specialized on long-distance fights and can cause damage to a wide area

Assault Frigates don't have the highest defensive or offensive powers, but due to their high speed, they can swiftly fire at enemies with their torpedoes without getting caught

Logistic Support Ships can repair other ships by means of various repair devices and buffs and furthermore, they can place underwater mines to slow the enemies

The higher the player's naval level, the better the ship. By completing the naval skill tree, a player's ship can use various new abilities. For setting sail, a crew has to be hired at the harbor (anything from sea veterans to lazy scoundrels is available). Furthermore, custom sails can be designed.

MMOsite: Many players are eager to know when you will launch the next closed beta for Florensia. Is there any sort of solid schedule for the second closed beta or open beta?

Simone Lackerbauer: The second CB of Florensia will start on Friday, April 18 and last more than one week. More players will get access to the game and we are really looking forward to see our international community grow and explore Florensia. There will be a third CB before the start of the Open Beta as well. The Open Beta is scheduled for end of May / beginning of June.

Source : mmosite

Συνέντευξη από την ομάδα του Theseis game

Το Wiggler.gr εξασφάλισε μια πρώτη ματιά στο καταπληκτικό next-gen ελληνικό game, Theseis! Ο Δημήτρης Παπαδόπουλος της Track7games είχε την υπομονή να απαντήσει όλες τις περίεργες ερωτήσεις που μας βασάνιζαν για τον πολυαναμενόμενο τίτλο! Ελπίζουμε να σας καλύψαμε!

Καταρχάς, θα θέλαμε να συστηθείτε. Με λίγα λόγια, ποιος είστε, ποια είναι η Track7games οι στόχοι και τα σχέδια της εταιρίας?
Είμαι ο Δημήτρης Παπαδόπουλος, υπεύθυνος προώθησης του Θέσεις παγκοσμίως. Δεν είμαι developer, αλλά ένα σημαντικό είναι ότι είμαι hardcore gamer, όπου με αυτά που έχω δει μέχρι στιγμής από τα παΐδια του development, είναι απίστευτο το πόσο ταλαντούχα είναι αυτή η ομάδα.

Θεωρείτε τα games είδος τέχνης?

Ναι πιστεύουμε πως τα games είναι ένα είδος τέχνης.

Ποιο είναι το αγαπημένο σας game και γιατί?

Είναι παρά πολλά!

Μπορείτε να μας πείτε μερικά λόγια την βασική ιστορία και το όλο concept του Theseis?

Ο Ανδρόνικος Καλογήρου, είναι άνθρωπος αφοσιωμένος στην επιστήμη και πολέμιος κάθε προκατάληψης. Από το γραφείο του, στο ιστορικό κέντρο της Αθήνας, εργάστηκε σκληρά για περισσότερα από 5 χρόνια ταξιδεύοντας σε όλη την Ελλάδα και αποκαλύπτοντας το ‘υπερφυσικό’ σε αυτό που πραγματικά ήταν: φαντασιώσεις μεθυσμένων και υστερίες αμόρφωτων.

Όμως η ασφάλεια που νιώθει μέσα σε αυτόν τον ‘πραγματικό’ κόσμο που ζει πρόκειται να καταρρεύσει όταν ένα τηλεφώνημα από την Φοίβη, την θετή αδελφή του και ένθερμη υποστηρικτή του μυθικού, τον ενημερώνει ότι ο πατέρας του όχι απλά είναι εξαφανισμένος αλλά θεωρείται πως είναι νεκρός. Με βαριά καρδιά, ο Ανδρόνικος ταξιδεύει στους τόπους που μεγάλωσε, ψηλά στις ελληνικές κορυφογραμμές όπου θα θάψει ένα άδειο φέρετρο και θα βρει την θυμωμένη, θετή του αδελφή. Δεν μπορεί όμως να φανταστεί ότι κάθε βήμα φέρνει αυτόν και τη Φοίβη πιο κοντά σε αυτό που τους επιφυλάσσει η μοίρα, χωρίς επιστροφή. Γιατί ο θάνατος του πατέρα τουςσήμανε το ξεκίνημα της μεγαλύτερης μάχης μεταξύ του καλού και του κακού, με τα λάφυρα να είναι το ίδιο το μέλλον αυτού του κόσμου.

Από τις κρυφές σπηλιές κάτω από την ελληνική μητρόπολη, γεμάτη με απομεινάρια μιας άλλης εποχής και θησαυρούς του παρελθόντος, σε μακρινά μυθικά μέρη σε όλη την Ελλάδα, ο Ανδρόνικος και η Φοίβη θα προσπαθήσουν να λύσουν το αίνιγμα μιας αρχαίας συνωμοσίας, που ύπουλα και με φόνους κατάφερε να μείνει κρυφή. Αυτό που θα έβρισκαν όμως, ίσως ήταν η κορυφή του παγόβουνου. Γιατί πίσω από τις σκιές και το χρόνο, μια

μεγάλη δύναμη βρίσκεται σε λήθαργο περιμένοντας τη στιγμή που θα ξαναβγεί στο φως της μέρας, ξαναβρίσκοντας τη θέση της ανάμεσα στους ανθρώπους.

Δέος και τρόμος, χιούμορ και αστραπιαίες αποφάσεις, ανακάλυψη και προδοσία, μυθικό και πραγματικό, όλα συνυφασμένα σε ένα γρήγορο πέρασμα στην ‘άλλη πλευρά’. Εκεί, οι μόνοι σου σύμμαχοι είναι αρχαίοι μύθοι του λαού, ασαφή (διφορούμενα?) μεσαιωνικά βιβλία και πάνω από ό λα, η ευστροφία σου.!

Το παιχνίδι θα είναι adventure ή θα δανείζεται στοιχεία και από action games (βλ. Tomb Raider)?

Ναι θα υπάρχουν action sequences. Χωρίς πιστολίδι, χωρίς θανάτους, αλλά με αρκετό action που θα βασίζεται στην σκέψη (π.χ. πως μπορώ να ανέβω μέχρι εκεί; Πως μπορώ να αποφύγω αυτούς τους αντίπαλους και να περάσω χωρίς να με πάρουν είδηση;) . Το theseis μπορεί να συγκριθεί με αλλά μεγάλα παιχνίδια action/adventure που έχουν πουλήσει εκατομμύρια. Και αυτός είναι ο στόχος του Thesειs. Να κάνει διάφορα στο τι σημαίνει action/adventure, με καινούργια στοιχειά . το Thesειs θα έχει ένα mix από διάφορα παιχνίδια που ήταν πτυχωμένα. Π.Χ, stealth, action, magic, humor, puzzle solving, 2 playable characters, και μια καινούργια μορφή inventory system όπου το βλέπουμε σαν πρωτοπόρο σ’αυτό το genre.

Θα υπάρχουν σκηνές μάχης στο παιχνίδι?

Υπάρχουν αρκετές action ακολουθίες, αλλά δεν νομίζουμε ότι είναι πολύ δύσκολες. Εναλλάσσονται αρμονικά στο παιχνίδι και δένουν με το σενάριο και τη διήγηση, οπότε πιστεύουμε ότι δε θα ξενίσουν τους φανατικούς φίλους των adventure.

Ποια είναι η ημερομηνία κυκλοφορίας του παιχνιδιού?

Δεν έχει ολοκληρωθεί ακόμη για να μπορούμε να σας πούμε για σίγουρα. Παντός αρχές 2008 το βλέπουμε, με την καλύτερη να είναι Τέλος 2007.

Το παιχνίδι τρέχει σε μηχανή γραφικών που δημιουργήσατε από το μηδέν?

Ναι , Η μηχανή είναι φτιαγμένη από το development team του Θέσεις. Είναι σχεδιασμένη εξ αρχής με στόχο next-gen γραφικά και την αξιοποίηση DirectX 9.0 και Shader model 3.0.

Αν το game πουλήσει καλά, θα σκεφτείτε να αναπτύξετε συνέχειες?

Εξαρτάτε, το σκεφτήκαμε, απλά έχουμε άλλες ιδέες για το επόμενο τίτλο της Track7.

Πιστεύετε ότι η πλατφόρμα XNA είναι εύκολη στον προγραμματισμό από την άποψη ενός Xbox360 developer?

Από αυτά που μου έχουν πει τα παιδιά του προγραμματισμού, Ναι είναι εύκολη.

Έχετε σκεφτεί την ανάπτυξη games σε αυτή την πλατφόρμα ως εταιρία?

Εννοείται, μπορώ να σας πω πως έχουμε καταλήξει πως αυτός ο τομέας είναι “must” πλέον.

Δεδομένου ότι η βιομηχανία παιχνιδιών στρέφεται περισσότερο στα Mmorpgs, έχετε σκεφτεί ως εταιρία το ενδεχόμενο ανάπτυξης ενός τίτλου με τέτοιες δυνατότητες?

Όχι αυτήν την στιγμή. Θέλουμε να φτιάξουμε παιχνίδι που θα βασίζεται και να δουλεύει με την ήδη υπάρχουσα μηχανή που φτιάξαμε από το μηδέν. Για να βγαίνουν και παιχνίδια ποιο γρήγορα.

Τι πιστεύετε για την σημερινή κατάσταση της αγοράς των games σε PC?

Δεν είναι και άσχημη, απλά είναι συγκεκριμένοι τίτλοι που πουλάνε πλέον. Όπως, WoW, The Sims ect. Στην τοπ 10 δεν θα δείτε action/adventure. Σπάνια θα δείτε κάτι τέτοιο πλέον.

Ποια είναι η άποψή σας για το PS3 και Xbox360?

Μπορώ να σας πω πως το Xbox 360 είναι μια παρά πολύ δυνατή κονσόλα από άποψη, online, γραφικά, και community, με ήδη 6.000.000 χρήστες του Xbox Live. Απίστευτη κοινότητα. Το PS3 είναι εξίσου καλό απλά έχει καθυστέρηση αρκετά, και η Microsoft είναι 1χρονο και κάτι μήνες μπροστά. Ήδη έχει εξασφαλίσει developers και έχει πάρει ένα μεγάλο πόσο του μεριδίου αγοράς. Εγώ παντός είμαι Χβοχακιας

Έχετε σκεφτεί να αναπτύξετε game ειδικά για το hardware του Nintendo Wii, δεδομένων των πωλήσεων που έχει κάνει?

Όχι δεν είναι στα σχεδία μας αυτήν την στιγμή.

Θα υπάρξει περίοδος closed/open beta πριν την κυκλοφορία?

Θα το δούμε αυτό, δεν έχει αποφασιστεί.

Θα κυκλοφορήσει demo?

Ναι , ένα μηνά πριν βγει στην αγορά.

Ποιές είναι οι συνθήκες για ένα gaming studio στην Ελλάδα, πιστεύετε ότι υπάρχει γόνιμο έδαφος για περαιτέρω ανάπτυξη του τομέα του game development στην Ελλάδα?

Σίγουρα υπάρχει. Απλά πιστεύω αρκετές εταιρίες μπορεί να φοβούνται κάτι που δεν έχουν δοκιμάσει στο παρελθόν. Η εταιρεία δημιουργήθηκε για να προσφέρει δίοδο σε καλλιτέχνες να δημιουργήσουν χωρίς κανένα φραγμό το έργο που είναι κρυμμένο μέσα τους. Η ανάπτυξη στον χώρο των ηλεκτρονικών παιχνιδιών ήταν η επακόλουθη κίνηση, για μια εταιρεία που απελευθερώνει την φαντασία μέσα από άτομα που μπορούν να δημιουργήσουν κόσμους φανταστικούς. . Αυτό μάλλον πιστεύουμε πως ναι θα ξυπνήσει και άλλες εταιρίες για αναπτύξει παιχνιδιών, αν γίνει κάτι τέτοιο θα είμαστε περήφανη και είναι χαρά μας και πολύ σημαντικό η Ελλάδα να αναπτυχθούν σε όλους τους τομείς και φυσικά και αυτόν τον τομέα. Μην ξεχνάμε πως είναι χαρά μας, μαζί με την ομάδα μας που δουλεύουμε από την Ελλάδα για να βγάλουμε προϊόντα τέτοιου είδος για το Εξωτερικό. Σχεδόν κάθε μέρα, μας στέλνουν άτομα βιογραφικά για να μπουν σ’αυτον τον τομέα, βλέπουμε πάρα πολλά ταλαντούχα παΐδια που έχει η Ελλάδα άλλα δυστυχώς αναγκάζονται να πηγαίνουν εξωτερικό η να αλλάζουν καριέρα σε ένα άλλο τομέα. Η δικά μας ομάδα είναι γεμάτο με πάθος και ταλέντο, και πιστεύω αυτό χρειάζεται για να αναπτυχθεί κάτι σαν την δικά μας εταιρία. Η πειρατεία είναι όντος μεγάλη στην Ελλάδα, αλλά πιστεύουμε πως με το Theseis, πολλά άτομα θα αγοράσουν το παιχνίδι και δεν θα κάνουν κάποια κόπια, αυτό μας λένε πολλοί fans, από διάφορα forums και διάφορα ελληνικά sites, καθώς πιστεύουν πως πρέπει ο Έλληνας να αγοράσει το παιχνίδι τουλάχιστον να στηρίξουν το Theseis και την Εταιρία να βγάλει πολλά ακόμα παιχνίδια όπως το Theseis, και να βάλουμε την Ελλάδα στον χάρτη του Games Industry.

Κάποια τελευταία λόγια για το παιχνίδι?

Το παιχνίδι θα είναι άξιο όπως και στο εξωτερικό. Δεν υπαρχή τίποτα να φοβόμαστε από τον ξένο ανταγωνισμό. Έχει ενδιαφέρον, και πιστεύουμε αυτό είναι μια αρχή για την Ελλάδα να βγάλουμε το καλύτερο μας έξω στον κόσμο του Gaming. Φτιάχνουμε ένα παιχνίδι που είναι Ελληνικό, από Ελλάδα, από Έλληνες. Τι άλλο να πω?

Ευχαριστούμε πολύ την Track7games και τον Δημήτρη Παπαδόπουλο για την συνέντευξη! Keep up the good work guys!

Source : wiggler.gr

An Interview with Thierry Doizon

A rising star in the digital art world. Thierry Doizon, also known as BARoNTiERRi to some, along with a rag-tag group of similar-minded artists such as David Levy (Vyle), are poised to have a major impact on the world of concept painting. We begin with this interview with Thierry Doizon this week and next week, we'll feature his buddy, David Levy. Oh, we also have an on-camera interview with Thierry. I just didn't yet have time to put it together. Should be ready in a couple days! Stay tuned!

CGC: Lots of things have happened to you over the past few months.
Would you mind filling us in?
Thierry: Things are going really well at Ubisoft on our project "Assassins", my
job is pretty intense especially lately with the making of an Assassin's comic
book for E3 (done with Vyle).
in the meantime I'm working with David Levy aka Vyle on few projects
especially with our collective of freelancers STEAMBOT

CGC: How does this busy schedule at Ubisoft play with your other
projects like Steambot?
Thierry: I have to admit that it's tough to do so much in only 24h, but it's very
exciting, STEAMBOT hasn't been advertised yet and we are already busy!


CGC: How has Steambot evolved and changed as a project compared to the original vision?
Thierry: David and I had this idea for more than a decade, back to our Industrial Design School, the project was just waiting for the stars to be aligned and it's about the right time!

CGC: What has changed since?
Thierry: Not so much it just took advantage of the technology and the latest communication systems. Now you can work fast from almost any part of the planet, even if our clients are mainly North American companies it works just fine.

CGC: How do you feel about some companies not letting their
people use some of these new technologies, such as MSN for
example in their workplace? Do you think it's too restrictive or just
plain common sense?

Thierry: It makes sense for them and this corporate attitude; I have a PDA
phone so I can chat all day long if I want to. They can't cope with technology
and they should trust their employees a bit more I suppose.

CGC: If you were offered to work on "The next Star Wars" type
project for a couple years, would you go?
Thierry: I have my opinion on the last trilogy and the actors... guess you don't

want to hear it, but yes I wouldn't miss the opportunity.

CGC: Yes, we would like to hear it, what would you change about the original trilogy?
Thierry: It would be an intelligent, interesting and emotionally intense trilogy. The special effects would be just a background to serve the story not to impress the audience and give some work to your studio. I would probably hire Dan Simmons (Hyperion) to write the script and I wouldn't care about pleasing people.

CGC: Tell us about this "Controversial" techniques you guys found using custom brushes in Photoshop to create complex details in a painting super quickly?
Thierry: Efficiency is the key in our job, we had a lot of fun when creating all these brushes and it helps fasten some of the processes... so why would you want to ignore it? It's like being against the electricity.

CGC: You were present at the last Gnomon Workshop Live
event. You reviewed many portfolios there. How does it feel
to be the one reviewing other people's portfolio? I’m sure you
were on the other side of the table once.
Thierry: Ahah you realize you're not a student with plenty of time to
go surfing!

CGC: Could you elaborate?
Thierry: I hope I can help these guys with the experience I have, it's a big responsibility and you want to give an objective opinion on their works, I don't want to be politically correct when reviewing, they need real comments and constructive critics. The market is tough and you need to get prepared.

CGC: On average, how would you qualify the caliber of work
you saw at the last workshop?

Thierry: Extremely impressive, most of the time I didn't really know
what to say. Today's level is very high thanks to the digital era and
internet. I was stunned by some of the portfolios I've seen,
especially Scott's students.

CGC: Some artists from the "Pre-digital" era claim a lot of work done by younger artists all look the same. They lack the experience traditional media artists have. How would you answer to that?
Thierry: I would say there is generally a lack of personality yes! But the average quality is so much better than before. It's good to start with a traditional background for sure it'll make you a better artist but style comes with confidence which come with experience, and the young guys there have plenty of time in front of them to express their personality.

CGC: Do you have any traditional background yourself, or is this something you would like to consider exploring one day?
Thierry: I do have a traditional background but I have less time to practice live-painting for example, and this is what every artist should do on a weekly basis at least. And I’d like to sculpt more. I just wish I had more time!!!

CGC: Tell us about speed-painting and the benefit it brings you and people who practice it?
Thierry: Speed Painting is the best thing I've experienced in the past few years, in about an hour you can do so much to answer a subject. Everyone doing Speed Painting improves a lot so you'd better start now! Use our 3CH generator to enjoy it even more!

CGC: What do you see as the next big thing in the field? Seems computers are super fast now, is there anything left to improve?
Thierry: Yes a lot more, 3D software are barbaric tools, except maybe for Zbrush who defined and interesting approach to sculpt in digital, 2D software are barbaric tools as well... so think about something that brings 2D and 3D together with an ergonomic interface and let the artists make them, not the programmers!

CGC: So, what do you see as the next thing beyond ZBrush then?
Thierry: Let see what they'll do next, but I think it would be nice to start something from scratch.

CGC: Tell us about your upcomming workshop(s)?
Thierry: This summer will be crazy, I'm on the list of instructors
for the forthcoming Concept Art Workshop in Montreal, then I
will show a demo with Vyle (again!) at the next Gnomon
Workshop in LA, then I should be joining Syd Mead, Dylan
Cole, Feng Zhu, James Clyne, Scott Robertson and Christian
Lorenz Scheurer at the ADAPT event in September.

CGC: Would you name some of your favorite artists in the industry?
Thierry: Jeffrey Jones, Kent Williams, Craig of course, Scott Robertson, Sparth, Vyle and so many others.

Thanks to Thierry for taking the time to answer all our questions!

Autor: Jean-Eric Henault /
Source: CG Channel / Omikron game
Language: English

Game/Space: An Interview with Daniel Dociu

This and all images below are Guild Wars content and materials, and are trademarks and/or copyrights of ArenaNet, Inc. and/or NCsoft Corporation, and are used with permission; all rights reserved].

Seattle-based concept artist Daniel Dociu is Chief Art Director for ArenaNet, the North American wing of NCSoft, an online game developer with headquarters in Seoul. Most notably, Dociu heads up the production of game environments for Guild Wars – to which GameSpot gave 9.2 out of 10, specifically citing the game's "gorgeous graphics" and its "richly detailed and shockingly gigantic" world.
Dociu has previously worked with Electronic Arts; he has an M.A. in industrial design; and he won both Gold and Silver medals for Concept Art at this year's Spectrum awards.
To date, BLDGBLOG has spoken with novelists, film editors, musicians, architects, photographers, historians, and urban theorists, among others, to see how architecture and the built environment have been used, understood, or completely reimagined from within those disciplines – but coverage of game design is something in which this site has fallen woefully short.

So when I first saw Daniel Dociu's work I decided to get in touch with him, and to ask him some questions about architecture, landscape design, and the creation of detailed online environments for games.
For instance, are there specific architects, historical eras, or urban designers who have inspired Dociu's work? What about vice versa: could Dociu's own beautifully rendered take on the built environment, however fantastical it might be, have something to teach today's architecture schools? How does the game design process differ from – or perhaps resemble – that of producing "real" cities and buildings?
Of course, there are many types of games, and many types of game environments. The present interview focuses quite clearly on fantasy – and it does so not from the perspective of game play or of programming but from the visual perspective of architectural design.
After all, if Dociu's buildings and landscapes are spaces that tens of thousands of people have experienced – far more than will ever experience whatever new home is featured in starchitects' renderings cut and pasted from blog to blog this week – then surely they, too, should be subject to architectural discussion?

Further, at what point in the design process do architects themselves begin to consider action and narrative development – and would games be a viable way for them to explore the social use of their own later spaces?
What would a game environment designed by Rem Koolhaas, or Zaha Hadid, or FAT really look like – and could video games be an interesting next step for professional architectural portfolios? You want to see someone's buildings – but you don't look at a book, or at a PDF, or at a Flickr set of JPGs: you instead enter an entire game world, stocked only with spaces those architects have created.
Richard Rogers is hired to design Grand Theft Auto: South London.
Of course, these questions go far beyond the scope of this interview – but such a discussion would be well worth having.

What appears below is an edited transcript of a conversation I had with Daniel Dociu about his work, and about the architecture of game design.

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BLDGBLOG: First, I'd love to hear where you look for inspiration or ideas when you sit down to work on a project. Do you look at different eras of architecture, or at specific buildings, or books, or paintings – even other video games?

Daniel Dociu: Anything but video games! [laughs] I don't want to copy anybody else.

Architecture has always made a strong impression on me – though I can't think of one particular style or era or architect where I would say: "This is it. This is the one and only influence that I'll let seep into my work." Rather, I just sort of store in my memory everything that has ever made an impression on me, and I let it simmer there and blend with everything else. Eventually some things will resurface and come back, depending on the particular assignment I'm working on.

But I look back all the way to the dawn of mankind: to ruins, and Greek architecture, and Mycenean architecture, all the way up to the architecture of the Crusades, and castles in North Africa, and the Romanesque and Gothic and Baroque and Rococo – even to neo-Classical and art deco and Bauhaus and Modernist. I mean, there are bits and pieces here and there that make a strong impression on me, and I blend them – but that's the beauty of games. You don't have to be stylistically pure, or even coherent. You can afford a certain eclecticism to your work. It's a more forgiving medium. I can blend elements from the Potala Palace in Tibet with, say, La Sagrada Família, Antoni Gaudí's cathedral. I really take a lot of liberties with whatever I can use, wherever I can find it.

BLDGBLOG: Of course, if you were an architecture student and you started to design buildings that looked like Gothic cathedrals crossed with the Bauhaus, everybody outside of architecture school might love it, but inside your studio –

Dociu: You'd be crucified! [laughs]

BLDGBLOG: No one would take you seriously. It'd be considered unimaginative – even kitsch.

Dociu: Absolutely. That's probably why I chose to work in this field. There's just so much creative freedom. I mean, sure, you do compromise and you do tailor your ideas, and the scope of your design, to the needs of the product – but, still, there's a lot of room to push.

BLDGBLOG: So how much description are you actually given? When someone comes to you and says, "I need a mine, or a mountain, or a medieval city" – how much detail do they really give before you have to start designing?

Dociu: That's about the amount of information I get.

Game designers lay things out according to approximate locations – this tribe goes here, this tribe goes there, we need a village here, we need an extra reason for a conflict along this line, or a natural barrier here, whether it's a river or a mountain, or we need an artificial barrier or a bridge. That's pretty much the level at which I prefer for them to give me input, and I take it from there. Most of my work recently has been focusing around environments and unique spaces that fulfill whatever the game play requires – providing a memorable background for that experience.

BLDGBLOG: So somebody just says, "we need a castle," and you go design it?

Dociu: Usually I don't put pen to paper, figuratively speaking, until I have an idea. I don't believe in just doodling and hoping for things to happen. More often than not, I think about a sentiment or an emotion that I'm trying to capture with an environment – and then I go back in my mind through images or places that have made a strong impression on me, and I see if anything resonates. I then start doing research along those lines. Only once did I have a pretty strong formal solution – an actual design or spatial relationship, an architectural arrangement of the elements – before that emotion crystallized.

But do I want something to be awe-inspiring, daunting, unnerving? That's what I work on first – to have that sentiment clarify itself. I don't start just playing with shapes to see what might result. Most of my work is pretty simple, so clarity and simplicity is important to me; my ideas aren't very sophisticated, as far as requiring complex technical solutions. They're pretty simple. I try to achieve emotional impact through rather simple means.

BLDGBLOG: Do you ever find that you've designed something where the architecture itself sort of has its own logic – but the logic of the game calls for something else? So you have to design against your own sense of the design for the sake of game play?

Dociu: Oh, absolutely – more often than not.

To make an environment work for a game, you have to redesign your work – and I do sometimes feel bad about the missed opportunities. These may not be ideas that would necessarily make great architecture in real life, but these ideas often take a more uncompromising form – a more pure form – before you have to change them. When these environments need to be adapted to the game, they lose some of that impact.

BLDGBLOG: I'd love to focus on a few specific images now, to hear what went into them – both conceptually and technically. For instance, the image I'm looking at here is called Skybridge. Could you tell me a little bit more about that?

Dociu: Sure. The request there was for a tribe that's been trying to isolate itself from the conflict, and the tensions, and the political unrest of the world around it. So they find this canyon in the mountains – and I was picturing the mountains kind of like the Andes: really steep and shard-like. They pick one of these canyons and they build a structure that's floating above the valley below – to physically remove themselves from the world. That was the premise.

I wanted a structure that looked light and airy, as if it's trying to float, and I chose the shapes you see for their wing-like quality. Everything is very thin, supported by a rather minimalist structure of cables. It's supposed to be the habitat for an entire tribe that chooses to detach themselves from society, as much as they can.

BLDGBLOG: You've designed a lot of structures in the sky, like airborne utopias – for instance, the Floating Mosque and the Floating Temple. Was there a similar concept behind those images?

Dociu: Well, yes and no. The reasons behind those examples were quite different. First, floating mosques were my attempt to deal with what is a rather obnoxious cliché in games – which is floating castles. Every game has a floating castle. You know, I really hate that!

BLDGBLOG: [laughs] So these are actually your way of dealing with a game design cliché?

Dociu: I was trying to find a somewhat elegant and satisfying solution to an uninteresting request.

BLDGBLOG: And what about Pagodas?

Dociu: The story there was that this was a city for the elite. It was built in a pool of water and it was surrounded by desert. Water is in really high demand in this world, but these guys are kind of controlling the water supply. The real estate on these rock formations is limited, though, so they were forced to build vertically and use every inch of rock to anchor their structures. So it's about people over-building, and about clinging onto resources, and about greed.

That doesn't touch on the game in its entirety – but that's the story behind the image.

BLDGBLOG: Finally, what about the Petrified Tree?

Dociu: That was part of another chapter in our game. We thought that there should be some kind of cataclysm – or an event, a curse – that turns the oceans into jade and the forests into stone. We had nomads traveling the jade sea in these big contraptions, like machines.

So the petrified forest was a gigantic forest that got turned into stone, and the people who were happily inhabiting that forest had to find ways to carve dwellings into the trees: different ways of shaping the natural stone formations and giving them some kind of functionality – arches, bridges, dwellings, and so on and so forth. It was a blend of organic and manmade structures.

At that particular point in time, quite a few of my pieces were the result of my fascination with the Walled City of Kowloon. I was really sad to see that demolished, and this was kind of my desperate attempt to hold onto it! I was incorporating that sensibility into a lot of my pieces, knowing it was going to be gone for good.


• • •
Thanks again to Daniel Dociu for taking the time to have this conversation. Meanwhile, many, many more images are available on his website – and in this Flickr set.




source : bldgblog