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              <p><font color="#0000FF"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000CC">volume 
                1, issue 26</font></b></font></p>
              <p><font color="#0000FF"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000CC"> 
                </font></b></font></p>
              <p>  <p><font face="Courier New, Courier, mono"><b><font color="#339900" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Today 
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          To Balance the Powers</font></p>
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        <p align="RIGHT"><font color="#804000"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">By 
          <a href="mailto:sk@snowball.ru">Sergei Klimov</a></font></b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="mailto:randyp@home.com"> 
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        <p align="CENTER"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><i><font size="-1">"Seek 
          freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find 
          your liberty." -<u>The Coda</u>, Frank Herbert</font></i></font></p>
        <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><img src="../../images/letters/l.jpg" width="26" height="40" align="left">ife 
          sucks, shit happens, titles get delayed. </font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Developers 
          have to be ruled with a stick and a checking account or they won't ship 
          anything. Publishers are greedy and will always compromise quality for 
          higher OEM sales. No matter which side you align with, as with any form 
          of art, the interests of the creative side do not always merge well 
          with the interests of business.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>The Freedom</b></font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Freedom springs creativity 
          and gives room for totally original stuff that could not have been planned. 

          When you look at any of the great titles, whether it be <b>Star Control 
          2</b>, <b>System Shock</b>, or <b>Half-Life</b>, the end product is 
          as much a result of things done well, as it is the result of things 
          attempted, tested, and then crossed out. The whole process is non-linear 
          and for any particular step forward one sometimes take two steps back. 
          However, having complete freedom enslaves one as much as having a day-by-day 
          schedule: when everything is possible, nothing certain is done. If you 
          are familiar with East-European sci-fi tradition, you might remember 
          <b>Stanislaw Lem</b>'s argument against the nation of geniuses being 
          able to do everything; they won't do anything. Why try if you already 
          know you can do it?</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>The Schedule</b></font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Precise planning leads to 
          predictability and creates foundation for expansion of business. Electronic 
          Arts, Eidos and Take-Two live by their flow charts. The better you schedule, 
          the better business plan you have to attract the next investment from 
          NationsBank, or a good recommendation from the analysts of London City. 
          Long-term credits, successful IPOs, and happy shareholders would not 
          be possible without proven quarterly results and justified positive 
          projections.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">However, overtly predictable 
          scheduling destroys the creative model: "new" means "unknown and unknown 
          is far from predictable. While <b>Deer Hunter III</b> or <b>NFS IV</b> 
          might be the perfect cash cows, the progress of the industry at large 
          depends on the groundbreaking titles that help games evolve as a form 
          of entertainment. And, just like to justify a dozen of <b>Peacemakers</b> 
          there must be at least one <b>Perfect World</b>, to make room for a 
          dozen <b>Abes</b> there must be at least one <b>Another World</b>...</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>The Balance</b></font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">So. With interests of publishing 
          coming across the principles of creative development and vice versa, 
          is there a way to come up with a successful development style that would 
          work equally well as a real-world business model? </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Sure, and the recent years 
          demonstrate that there are solutions: despite the multitude of differences, 
          <b>Final Fantasy VII</b> is as good a game as <b>Unreal</b>. Now go 
          look at their development teams; I doubt you can find more diversity.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The final question seems 
          to be in the balance of power: the power of freedom and the power of 
          planning. Abandon any scheduling, and lose yourself on the road to nowhere. 
          Build a cage too tight, and indulge in mediocrity, betraying your artist's 
          soul. But master both and find the discipline. The discipline that will 
          set you free.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>The Story</b></font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The story below is a story 
          about the particular balance we have found with our own project, started 
          back in '97. The road to glory was rough and with our present experience 
          we could have evaded some of the larger pitfalls, but we still believe 
          the end result was worth it. </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Unlike issue #24's piece 
          on <b>Rebel Boat Rocker</b>, this is not a post-mortem; we're still 
          alive and kicking. :) Most of the people we meet say the days of evolving 
          projects are over. Some say small teams are long gone, too... However, 
          on a similar note, I happen to remember movie people being negative 
          about <b>Pulp Fiction</b>'s budget as well. :)</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The final message here is 
          that I don't think you have to hire 20 developers to build a good game 
          or borrow 40+ million dollars to make a decent movie: true, <i>Titanics</i> 
          and <b>Final Fantasies</b> happen, but there's always <b>Railroad Tycoons</b> 
          and <b>Knights &amp; Merchants</b> being created by one or two-man teams. 
          In essence, your game depends on the balance you manage to reach, and 
          such a balance comes free from financial or numeric requirements.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Thus, without further ado, 
          let us begin:</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Time &amp; Place</b></font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The time was late spring 
          '97, the place Moscow, Russia. Minus 20 degrees Celsius in February, 
          heavy snowfalls in March. A vast pool of development talent and a place 
          of relatively low budgets, quite a number of workshops doing outsourcing 
          and graphics for European and American game houses and a dozen native 
          teams struggling to break into the world market on their own.</font></p>
        <table width="196" border="0" align="right">
          <tr>
            <td width="188"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="warlord01.php"><img src="images/warlord_thumb.jpg" width="181" height="136" border="1"></a></font></td>
          </tr>
          <tr>
            <td width="188"> 
              <div align="center"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><i>Check 
                out this shot from <b>Warlord Vseslav</b>.</i></font></div>
            </td>
          </tr>
        </table>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Our studio had just finished 
          its first big title (an odd mix of action and tactics on hovercraft 
          and helicopters, who could guess where this kind of mix would lead to... 
          and signed a much bigger contract for a medieval RTS titled <b>Warlord 
          Vseslav</b>.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The Russian market was on 
          the rise and, having a stake in localization/publishing as well, we 
          did some good initial funding: $275K for a 16-month cycle, rather cool 
          for those days. And hey, we could recoup it from East-European sales 
          alone; three native titles had just grossed over $300K each on our territory 
          and the future looked brighter than the sun.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Target release date was set 
          for the second half of '98, but who could guess that 22 crunch months 
          later we'd be still adding new features, finishing yet another playable 
          demo, and meeting three potential publishers a month from all over the 
          world... Time to look at the starting position, then.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>The Assets</b></font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">From the very beginning, 
          we had great assets to go with the provided financial backup:</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">A great genius engineer who 
          did miracles with technology: in four weeks, we had a real 3D landscape 
          (the year was '97). One month later we had multiple alpha-channels, 
          then real-time lightning, then z-buffering for character items (so that 
          they could change their inventory parts on the fly), then a dozen of 
          other kickass features. A working prototype of the engine was up within 
          three months and it's still getting more features every passing day; 
          just added lightmapping two weeks ago...</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">An incredibly talented AI 
          programmer who did superb AI prototyping on Java. He later worked out 
          a unique RPG system and with his tremendous gaming experience was constantly 
          shooting out fresh concepts and ideas that were not just your nerdy 
          type with an MS in math who does smart stuff for his own sake, but an 
          addicted and passionate gamer who would play <b>Final Fantasy Tactics</b> 
          in Japanese with a dictionary running in the background :)</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">A very gifted master artist 
          who did superb texture and render work (just look at the screen below). 
          A man born to art, a man who got along perfectly with our designer and 
          took charge of the whole in-game world, making sure it was as alive 
          and believable as the one you see in your window.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Add here a fresh character 
          artist who in about a year got all of the necessary experience (sent 
          him to training 4 hours a day; he didn't seem to mind :), so that our 
          current animations are probably on par with <b>Diablo II</b> now, and 
          a designer/producer with the vision who took care of the storyline, 
          character bible, gameplay prototyping, and historical research (ever 
          wonder how many Russian books are out there about XI-century Europe? 
          :).</font></p>
        <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> </font> </p>
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    <td height="22"><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2"><b>Credits:</b> 
      Guest Editorial logo illustrated and is &copy; 1999 Dan Zalkus. This Guest 
      Editorial is &copy; 1999 Sergei Klimov. All other content is &copy; 1999 
      <a target="_self" href="http://www.loonyboi.com">loonyboi productions</a>. 
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