Warren Spector Q&A
Also on Computer & Video Games is this Q&A with Warren Spector. The game designer is asked about his new project, industry highlights of 2006, Microsoft's Games for Windows initiative and a few other topics.
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[deleted] 1784011840
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He was a lot less involved in DX2. He let the team (Harvey Smith) make a lot of the decisions, some against his own judgment (he was against the universal ammo).
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=53753
http://archive.gamespy.com/interviews/february03/spectordx2/-
geeze, universal ammo. If they had hired a single independent playtester familiar with FPS games, they probably would've blurted out, "WHUT in the BLUE FUCK?!" upon seeing universal ammo. At least the Hexen games had more than one type of mana, and the Tron 2.0 games had plenty of energy, as well as a very good default weapon that didn't use any energy at all.
I admit that I haven't even played the demo, but I've read the articles, seen the screenshots, and heard the tales of woe. If I did download and play the demo, it'd be just like the first time I saw Star Wars Episode II. "Yep, they were right. It sucked. Not surprised."-
I'm sorry, but regurgitating the same things you've heard from print and online sources does not give you insight into the mechanics of a game. I've read the same reviews and I thought they were quite biased. Please don't propagate the "myth" any further until you've played it.
I myself have played DX 2 and I actually thought it was a good game. Sure, there were about a million things about it that annoyed me, but the story, level design, combat/hacking, and character development were top notch. The universal ammo issue was minor when everything else is considered. The graphics when it came out were also _incredible_ if you had a machine that could play it, and coming out a year before Doom 3, it actually had MORE next-gen features (full normal mapped bumpmapping on everything, bloom, refraction/distortion effects, A FLASHLIGHT YOU COULD USE WITH A GUN!!!), yet it gets bashed over Doom 3's abysmal gameplay.
Also, I truly wonder what spectors role in the development really was. Everyone likes to say "oh, he was only slightly involved in it's development", but I find this very hard to imagine, considering he wasn't working on anything else at the time. If anything that was an excuse on his part for the poor reception. This is coming from a guy who worships Spector so don't think I'm bashing him or anything, I just think there's more to it than "he didn't do it so it sucks". If anything Eidos made him powerless and his involvement was minimized through internal politics.
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Wing Commander, System Shock, Thief, Deus Ex. This mans gaming history is almost as impressive as id Softwares.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Spector#Video_Games_worked_on-
Don't forget Ultima Underworld!
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Also the Ultima VII expansion, The Serpent Isle.
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