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Dre
11-14-2002, 09:29 PM
http://xbox.ign.com/articles/377/377372p1.html



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November 14, 2002 - At Big Blue Box we take a certain amount of pride in what we think of as 'creative chaos'. We like to feel that the constant flow of ideas from the people who work here will cause the game to evolve into something fresh and original. It's an exciting experience, feeling that, at any moment, some whim of game design might whisk us off to hitherto unexplored territory.
Suffice to say, this sort of attitude is absolutely, 100% guaranteed to scare both buttocks off any publisher. What's more, if we're being perfectly honest with ourselves, this sort of chaotic approach is no way to develop games these days. When you're spending millions of pounds and you've got 25 people whose livelihood depends on your game actually being finished, you've just got to be a little bit more structured in your approach. Simply put, a project without a plan is about as much use as a spam banjo.

And this is where scheduling steps in.

Scheduling
The very word sends shivers down our collective spines. To the layman, it probably doesn't sound like the most rank, evil, black-hearted piece of anal flotsam ever shat out by the dark lord himself but, trust us, it is. Most publishers today have very distinct views on the amount of detail they want in project plans, and it can be an absolute nightmare.

To realise why, just think about what a detailed schedule can involve. Essentially, you take your period of development -- say, 2 years. You turn that into days -- roughly 520 of them. Then you break down your game design into the work that needs to be done; all the textures, meshes, levels, code, animations, sounds, etc. Then, and here's the fun bit, you take your 25 members of staff and try and predict which of those pieces of work each of them is going to be doing, every day for the next 520 days of development. What's more, every time you deviate from the plan (i.e. every 2 weeks) you have to redo it all.


http://xboxmedia.ign.com/xbox/image/fable_111402_460a.jpg

As a job, that really rates right up there with used condom recycling and being a male fluffer on a triple penetration porno. "Gianni," we'd say, "the third Wednesday a year next April, you'll be working on 'old woman picking crops' animation." That is, if you haven't been driven utterly barking by our obviously doomed and futile attempts at preplanning and micro-scheduling every single teeny tiny task out of the millions that make up a decent game.

Thankfully, life isn't quite like that for us. We're constantly grateful that our relationship with our publisher is such that we've so far managed to strike a decent balance between sensible planning and the flexibility we need. On the one hand, we've got detailed enough plans to know what features of the game are going to be finished, and when, and on the other we can still get our creative juices going.

http://xboxmedia.ign.com/xbox/image/fable_111402_460b.jpg

This sort of approach has a much better affect on the overall quality of a game than rigidly sticking to a predefined plan. The other week, for example, Dene came up with the idea of 'boasting', where you can take your hero into the middle of town, and boast about how brilliantly you'll perform on your next quest. If you then finish the quest successfully, your fame throughout Albion will be boosted significantly. However, if you fail then you won't hear the last of it for ages. It's a nice little idea, one of hundreds of nice little ideas that we've had for the game. If, every time we came up with a cool idea like that, we had to sit down and plan out exactly which textures, sounds, animations, etc had to be implemented, by whom and exactly when, we'd soon stop coming up with cool ideas. Thankfully, that's not going to happen, and we now have more cool ideas than we could possibly implement in one game.

Interestingly, last week, one of our artists decided to get himself crushed underneath a washing machine, cracking three ribs, breaking both his hands and embedding his eyebrow piercing into his left temple; he definitely wasn't scheduled to do that

GokuX
11-14-2002, 09:57 PM
Originally posted by Dre

Interestingly, last week, one of our artists decided to get himself crushed underneath a washing machine, cracking three ribs, breaking both his hands and embedding his eyebrow piercing into his left temple; he definitely wasn't scheduled to do that

What the.......:confused: That rinse cycle is murder sometimes.

Genocide
09-10-2003, 01:23 PM
Eh, a little off topic, but click the search button. I think someone h4x0r3d it. It's a bit odd.

http://members.lycos.co.uk/donteatpoop/ohno.gif

Oh no!

I clicked the search button, and the results page said "anal sex" "anal penatration" among other things.

EDIT: Sorry, didn't mean to bring a thread back from the dead, I didn't see the date. :eek:

Casper
09-10-2003, 01:27 PM
Originally posted by Genocide
Eh, a little off topic, but click the search button. I think someone h4x0r3d it. It's a bit odd.

http://members.lycos.co.uk/donteatpoop/ohno.gif

Oh no!

I clicked the search button, and the results page said "anal sex" "anal penatration" among other things.

EDIT: Sorry, didn't mean to bring a thread back from the dead, I didn't see the date. :eek:

Yeah, I see that, some kid just has obviously way too much time on their hands, it's amazing, isn't it?

I'm going to close this, but if you see something like this, next time just report it to one of us on staff by click on the Report button or just send us a PM. Thanks.