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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>
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              <p>  <p><font face="Courier New, Courier, mono"><b><font color="#339900" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Today 
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        <p align="LEFT"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0022A8"><b><a target="" href="../../corner/index.html"><font size="-1">Guest 
          Editorial</font></a><font size="-1">:</font></b></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="+3" color="#0022A8"><br>
          To Balance the Powers</font></p>
        <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"> 
          </a></font></font></p>
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        <p align="right">&nbsp;</p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Nine months later and we 
          were all equipped to conquer the world:</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">A standalone Character Editor 
          (work with inventory parts, tune animations and their cycles, adjust 
          palettes and the rest of the fun), custom plugins for LightWave and 
          MAX for smart rendering and post-processing (did our own grass plugin 
          for LW, by the way), Dialogue Editor fit to create the next <i>Pulp 
          Fiction</i>, a special easy Script Language to do movies on the engine 
          (command characters, play with the camera, set dynamics for the whole 
          in-game world), and an in-game Location Builder were just a fraction 
          of the bells and whistles we prepared for a successful work that would 
          free us of the regular content limitations.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Twenty months later and we're 
          still there... Doh! What went wrong, Marge?</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>The Ambition</b></font></p>
        <table width="223" border="0" align="right">
          <tr>
            <td width="215"><a href="warlord02.php"><img src="images/warlord_thumb2.jpg" width="208" height="155" border="1"></a></td>
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          <tr>
            <td width="215"> 
              <div align="center"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><i>Another 
                cool shot from <b>Warlord</b>.</i></font></div>
            </td>
          </tr>
        </table>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">From the very beginning, 
          the idea of the game was to have an immortal hero take part in a real 
          life rendition of XI-century Northern Russia and Scandinavia (kind of 
          "can be killed but will be reborn" type- we call them "heroes"). The 
          yet uncovered social structure and highly effective weapon range are 
          a treasure of unique gameplay situations; a two-volume monograph on 
          swords and spears provides a lot in terms of providing inventory balance...</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">We wanted a game played from 
          the first person perspective (in terms of experiences, not in terms 
          of engine mind you! :). The experiences had to be as real as if you'd 
          been hit by a car on the street. Yet we wanted a game with the personality 
          where you would act in a certain style, so that you couldn't really 
          enter your own village and start killing innocent bystanders: you have 
          preset moral values and opinions on these kinds of things. We also loved 
          the idea of multiple informational layers for all in-game information: 
          characters can lie, deceive, scheme, manipulate, and exaggerate. Make 
          your own judgement on them, just like you'd do in a good novel or movie.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The hero of the game steps 
          into the role of a warlord for the prince of a small valley and faces 
          the challenge of defending it against another immortal of his own kind. 
          Just a different hero, not an evil type by all means. See, we were attracted 
          by the diversity of the interactive system, the living valley, which 
          could be set to develop on its own and, having the characters react 
          on your actions, provide for a vast variety of gaming experiences. Something 
          scripted and simple was not enough for the Snowball boys &lt;big grin&gt;.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Throwing these ideas onto 
          the specific team have set in motion a never-ending quest for The Perfect 
          Game: if we were living in any other country, sooner or later we'd have 
          to face the necessity of paying bills or changing cars, but in Moscow 
          $275K for a five-man team is as close to developers' heaven as it gets... 
          Sometimes I wonder if Peter Molyneux felt the same way when he started 
          <b>Black &amp; White</b> after quitting <b>Bullfrog</b> &lt;big grin&gt;.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>The Evolution</b></font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Describing the drawbacks, 
          we did turn out to be overly theoretical for the task of creating The 
          Big Thing on time with four MS's and MA's among the team, not surprisingly 
          every design document turned out to be too general and abstract. By 
          Jove, many features and concepts were so widely formulated, there wasn't 
          any single day when you could say at least something would go unchanged!</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">We also had the misfortune 
          to commit to a "when it's done" plan and set neither solid, nor approximate, 
          dates for prototype stages within the cycle. Yes, we had a great time 
          experimenting with different protos, but look at us now as we have just 
          come to merging the final content resources with the gameplay module. 
          And that's after over twenty months of hard work...</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Speaking of work, working 
          7 days a week and 12 hours a day the five of us did probably more stuff 
          than any 20-man crew would do (we all own the company, so it came about 
          naturally...). People got married between the release of alpha-2 and 
          alpha-3, going on a 5-day honeymoon with <i>Secrets of Character Animation</i> 
          packed next to their wedding rings. Defended their LLM in between drafting 
          versions 4 and 5 of the design document. Skipped their hockey team's 
          finals to prepare location maps. Yet initially we failed to set any 
          certain limits that would enable us to finish something solid: the last 
          two years have been mostly a continuous R&amp;D journey both in terms 
          of concept and technology.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">To describe it in one statement: 
          it was an open-ended evolution. Unfortunately, until the last few months, 
          an uncontrolled one. It took us all a lot of blood and sweat to understand 
          the value of discipline and discover a way of placing limits while keeping 
          intact our creative freedom.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>The Scope</b></font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The scope of this evolution 
          was mighty indeed. Ever wonder how your local press might react, seeing 
          a prototype migrate over the genres every other six months? The good 
          news, though, is that on average we scored about three full-scale previews 
          per magazine &lt;g&gt;.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Step one was attained when, 
          after six months of RTS development, we decided that a tactical strategy 
          was not enough for hero-warlord, even with the extended group management, 
          and so we went to develop our own RPG system. At first the new prototype 
          looked like an RTS/RPG mix, then it became RPG/RTS, then we came up 
          with a Role-Playing Strategy concept (RPS, for short :). </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">It held for a record seven 
          months before we came up with a different one when the non-linear story 
          began to flesh out with hundreds of interrelated quests. It became obvious 
          that there was more adventure than we ever anticipated, so we called 
          it a RPS Adventure.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Still, after three months 
          of playing with this prototype we have added the highest, strategic 
          level (form and manage troops, lay sieges, defend roads and key points 
          of the landscape) and changed combat system (built a brand new set of 
          basic behaviors, looks more like <b>Bushido Blade</b> than <b>Fallout</b> 
          now), we finally failed to find any clear genre definition :). So it's 
          just a story now, about <b>Warlord Vseslav</b> and his adventure, around 
          which we have built gaming experiences using RPG, RTS and Adventure 
          as our gameplay palette. </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Meanwhile...guess what happened 
          on the business side of the project? :)</font></p>
        <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>The Business</b></font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">When we moved to the RPG 
          concept, our local publishers lost their connection (my guess is they 
          were thinking mostly in <b>Warcraft</b>/<b>Diablo</b> terms) and were 
          quite nervous about stretching the initial release schedule over 16 
          months, so after about a year of development we have parted as friends 
          and continue to finance the project with our own money.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">When we signed a US publisher 
          last summer (for the reasons known to loonyboi<b> </b>they prefer to 
          remain anonymous, but it's a pretty cool one with a mighty hit in '98), 
          we had the RPS system under control and just started experimenting with 
          the strategic level. </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Over three months we had 
          seen a similar fade of understanding as soon as we started changing 
          the specs and doing prototyping for things that weren't originally on 
          the schedule, so on a note similar to the EA/RBR letter, the termination 
          came for reasons of failing to reach a stable stage, with praise of 
          our well-developed storyline and excellent content.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Furthermore, when I look 
          back I see that the understanding was never really there since their 
          external producer and marketing people were thinking primarily in terms 
          of interface and definite statements, when we had a "from general to 
          particular" 100-page design bible which failed to give simple answers. 
          </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">(So it doesn't say it's a 
          real-time strategy? No, but it says it's a game where all events happen 
          in real-time, see page 14; How can I use ranged weapons? See under Combat 
          System for dynamics, Skill System for Bow/Crossbow skills, Tactical 
          Level for character and group controls :)).</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">We planned to have a final 
          graphical realization of the interface ready during the last months 
          of production (still do); they wanted to have pictures six months before 
          shipping. We planned to experiment with the balance of tactical/strategic 
          elements and friendly AI characters; they wanted something straight 
          and understandable in terms of "text on the retail box." </font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Do I have to continue? :)</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Final Analysis</b></font></p>
        <table width="214" border="0" align="right">
          <tr> 
            <td width="206"><a href="warlord03.php"><img src="images/sbs_thumb.jpg" width="197" height="119" border="1"></a></td>
          </tr>
          <tr> 
            <td width="206"> 
              <div align="center"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1"><i>A 
                side by side comparison between <b>Warlord Sveslav</b> and <b>Baldur's 
                Gate. </b></i></font></div>
            </td>
          </tr>
        </table>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Summing it all up, I would 
          say that with no hard-set definition of the game, we kept the luxury 
          of flexibility until as late as beta or even final. But the same lead 
          to a constant gap between prototype and content, and the same lead to 
          an absolutely unbalanced development schedule.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">As it stands right now, we 
          have no US or Euro publisher and the state of the Russian economy doesn't 
          promise any new local investments, so we'll try to keep on our own as 
          we did for the last ten months and hope to reach a playable version 
          before we drain our savings accounts... :). And yet I get three to five 
          emails a week from Euro publishers and just this January we had three 
          companies fly down to Moscow to take a good look at the project and 
          talk about possible a w/w deal. Loyalty to your title buys loyalty to 
          the developer, just ask Derek Smart :).</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">However, after the previous 
          experiences, we're not in a hurry to close unless and until we have 
          a playable version that we can finally call stable. With most publishers 
          not accustomed to working with evolving projects, testing the limits 
          of their understanding won't do much good to the fate of the title.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">So. Is the result worth the 
          price? I believe so. To us, it looks like we finally understood the 
          major questions set forth by the dynamics of evolution and are on the 
          final run for a successful release. And speaking honestly, I believe 
          we will be one of a very few developers to say that we put into our 
          game every cool feature we wanted to have there.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">I am absolutely certain that 
          a game which was built with such open-ended philosophy as our <b>Warlord</b> 
          has a much higher chance to break into new ground and create new gameplay 
          experiences, moving the whole medium one step forward, but the final 
          resolution would be well postponed until we either ship the game or 
          close the project. It's still up to real life to prove if it's viable 
          as a business model (if under any conditions it is, living in Moscow 
          with the low cost of local development should help... Guinness at $0.30 
          a bottle, anyone? ;-).</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Believe me or not, but after 
          years of prototyping we plan to finish a playable Episode One within 
          eight weeks from now (did I just say that? :), and we'll probably do 
          some formal press-releases at that time to find the final publisher... 
          We'll see if we've finally mastered that beast of an evolution and, 
          you know what? Book me up for a round of margaritas at this <b>E3</b> 
          if we did, since rollerblading along Venice sounds to me so much better 
          than plowing through the snow of Podmoskovie :).</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="mailto:sk@snowball.ru">Sergei 
          Klimov</a><br>
          </font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Designer/Producer<br>
          </font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Snowball Interactive</font> 
        </p>
        <p align="right">&nbsp; 
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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>. 
      Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited and not nice.</font></i></td>
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