+Julia@ZEvents> Tonight we have 4 special guests with us from Gamestock 2001 (in Redmond Washington).
+Julia@ZEvents> Our guests tonight are Chris Taylor, Pres/Designer of Gas Powered Games;
+Julia@ZEvents> Alex Garden, CEO/Designer at Relic Entertainment;
+Julia@ZEvents> Lorne Lanning, Pres/CoFounder of Oddworld Inhabitants®; and
+Julia@ZEvents> Carl Schnurr, Program Manager, Amped at MS-Salt Lake Games Group!
+Julia@ZEvents> I would like to start our chat out with a brief introduction of each guest, after which I will ask them each a question then we'll open the forum up for you to ask your questions.
+Julia@ZEvents> I have some awesome Tshirts to give away tonight, so look for your name to be announced as a random winner during the chat.
+Julia@ZEvents> Thanks for being with us tonight all, now let's begin :-)
+Julia@ZEvents> Carl, welcome!
+Julia@ZEvents> Could you share what thrills, chills and surprises you encounted in going from Producing/Designing a game like Rainbow 6 to Snowboarding for Xbox.
Carl@Gravity> It's awesome, really....
+Julia@ZEvents> Carl Schnurr - Program Manager, Amped - Microsoft, Salt Lake Games Group
+Julia@ZEvents> Carl recently joined Microsoft to head up Amped, an Xbox launch title that promises to set the standard for snowboarding games for years to come.
Carl@Gravity> I'm a console gamer at heart, and
+Julia@ZEvents> Previously, Carl worked at Red Storm Entertainment where he produced and designed the award-winning PC titles Rainbow Six and Rogue Spear.
+Julia@ZEvents> Both games succeeded beyond expectations in a crowded FPS market (more than 2.5 million units sold world wide, all platforms) and introduced the world to a new sub-genre, the tactical shooter.
Carl@Gravity> am psyched about working on the XBox.
+Julia@ZEvents> Chris Taylor has spent more than a decade creating and designing video games.
+Julia@ZEvents> His portfolio includes such classics as Hardball II, 4D Boxing, Triple Play Baseball, and the critically acclaimed Total Annihilation RTS title.
+Julia@ZEvents> In May of 1998, Chris founded Gas Powered Games on the east side of Seattle.
+Julia@ZEvents> With a team of 20 talented people, his new company is currently working on "Dungeon Siege," a fantasy RPG with an action-oriented spin that takes the genre to a new level of excitement.
+Julia@ZEvents>Alex Garden - CEO/Designer - Relic Entertainment
+Julia@ZEvents> Alex began his career in the video game industry at age 15 working as a game tester for Vancouver BC based Distinctive Software Inc.
+Julia@ZEvents> Over the years, Alex has worked with some of the world's leading developers at Electronic Arts Canada, Radical Entertainment, Sierra On-Line and Microsoft Games.
+Julia@ZEvents> Currently, Alex is CEO of Relic Entertainment, one of North America's premiere game development studios.
+Julia@ZEvents> Relic's first title, "Homeworld" has won over 50 awards. Relic's second strategy title, Sigma, is currently under development.
+Julia@ZEvents> Lorne Lanning - President/Cofounder - Oddworld Inhabitants®
+Julia@ZEvents> Lorne brings fourteen years' experience in the field of Computer Generated Special Effects to the helm of the Oddworld team.
+Julia@ZEvents> Lorne is the indefatigable mastermind of Oddworld Inhabitants, stamping his indelible imprint on every aspect of production, from Abe's™ distinctive gait to all of Oddworld's many Inhabitants.
+Julia@ZEvents> With the multiple award-winning Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee® and Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus™ under his belt, Lorne is now scheming to extend the Oddworld franchise into the home
+Julia@ZEvents> of every man, woman and child on Earth, with Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee™.
+Julia@ZEvents> He's also more twisted than an epileptic pretzel. :-)
+Julia@ZEvents> now let me ask each of you a quick question just to get your typing fingers warmed up
+Julia@ZEvents> Carl, welcome!
+Julia@ZEvents> Could you share what thrills, chills and surprises you encounted in going from Producing/Designing a game like Rainbow 6 to Snowboarding for Xbox.
Alex@Sigma> Sigma is what we think of as the evolution of the RTS genre. We're calling this "Streamlined RTS". We've scaled up the pace of combat while scaling back the micro-management of the game to create an experience that is focused more on creature combat...
Alex@Sigma> ...and army building. The units in Sigma are limited only by your imagination. And, for the record, the animals in Sigma don't actually mate. That's in Dungeon Siege. Hi Corey!
Carl@Gravity> Basically, it's awesome. Ii've always wanted to design something elegant and non-complicated. Something that would succeed or fail based on pure gameplay.
+Julia@ZEvents> cool!
+Julia@ZEvents> Alex has ESP and answered what I was about to ask him....
+Julia@ZEvents> Alex, welcome!
+Julia@ZEvents> How about a little intro to what Sigma is all about and please tell us about the "unique" and fun animal mating abilities in Sigma!
+Julia@ZEvents>:-)
Carl@Gravity> It's actually not that different, really.... Both games are 'sandboxes' where players get to explore and interact wtih the level however they want to.
+Julia@ZEvents> Lorne, welcome!
Carl@Gravity> ga
+Julia@ZEvents> I heard you are (aside from being the chief designer and CEO) a Voice Actor for Oddworld Inhabitants… what's that like and how did you get started in that?
+Julia@ZEvents> while he's typing that out.. we'll go to Chris's question :-)
+Julia@ZEvents> Chris, welcome!
+Julia@ZEvents> I know you worked on Total Annihilation… what did you find as the most interesting (to you personally) difference in working on TA and Dungeon Siege?
Chris@DSiegea> Dungeon Siege is a huge game... The amount of work that goes into an RPG is an order of magnitude greater than that of an RTS. Frankly, not a day passes when I don't think, what the hell was I thinking!!?
+Julia@ZEvents> lol
+Julia@ZEvents> ok lets open the floor up to some questions shall we?
+Julia@ZEvents> ga, toddst :-)
toddst> Good job on everything, and thanks for coming! Lorne: Although Much's oddyssey looks awesome, I've heard rumors of Munch's Odyssey being targeted for 3.6 mpps. Is this true, or has the target been changed? If so, to what? ga
Lorne@Oddworld> test
Alex@Sigma> Don't worry, you passed.
Lorne@Oddworld> no. We have been targetting lower than that, as we care much about frame rate. 1.2 mmps is good enough at this date.
+Julia@ZEvents> ty toddst! ga weezer_YenSid :-)
weezer_YenSid> For Chris Taylor: What part of Dungeon Siege do you take the most pride in creating? (Aside from the loveable and innovative pack mule!) ga
Lorne@Oddworld> error! We CARE MUCH ABOUT FRAME RATE!!!!
Chris@DSiegea> Weezer!! Good to know you made it...
Chris@DSiegea> I think the best part of creating the design for Dungeon Siege is finding all the "low hanging fruit". By this I mean all the elements which are really obvious, but that no one has figured out yet.
Lorne@Oddworld> Okay, my drinking was too heavy last night. 3.6 is right. The calculator is now working. duh.
+Julia@ZEvents>lol these guys have been having long days (nights) at GameStock :-)
weezer_YenSid> Aww, nothing specific ;) Good enough :) Can't wait for it
+Julia@ZEvents> ty weezer_YenSid! ga ShokahnMetri :)
Chris@DSiegea> Some examples are things like the pack mule, and the ability to drink only a little of your healing potion. And also being able to bring up multiple inventories on the screen at once. They are simple, but have a huge impact on the game experience.
ShokahnMetri> My biggest concern after seeing the footage from Gamestock, the concerns I have which are echoed by many are why do all screen shots look so PC'ish? Were the games running on actual XBOX hardware or not?
Carl@Gravity> Absolutely.
Carl@Gravity> They were XBox all the way...or my engineers owe me a real explanation.
+Julia@ZEvents> flup, Shokahn?
+Julia@ZEvents> ty ShokahnMetri!
+Paw@ZEvents> azih , Congrats you have just won a a special Zone/Game Tshirt !!!! Please send you full name and mailing address to tourney@charter.net
+Julia@ZEvents> ga GeMiNii_ :-)
GeMiNii_ To all: I'm part of a very small group working on our first game, and I was wondering at what point did you know that your idea was going to make an incredible game, and how did you get over those rough spots in development...
GeMiNii_ I was also wondering whats realistic high end mpps we can expect from the xbox over its life span at 60fps DONE
Lorne@Oddworld> If you don't believe it's going to be an awesome game... you're going to have a lot of problems. You need to believe in your game from the beginning.
+Julia@ZEvents> ty GeMiNii_ ! ga Wynnn :-)
Chris@DSiegea> 42
Wynnn> This question is for Chris Taylor. I'm eagerly looking forward to getting my hands on Dungeon Siege™! What is one of the most challenging problems you've run into while developing DS, and how have you tackled the issue? ga
Chris@DSiegea> That would probably be the siege engine. Creating a huge seamless 3D world was an enormous undertaking. Wynnn (flup)
Chris@DSiegea> But now that we have it working, I can tell you it was worth the pain!! :)
+Julia@ZEvents> ga with flup, Wynnn
Wynnn> And what is the most surprising (in a good way) thing that you've seen come out of development? Anything make you go "wow" even though you helped make it yourself? ga
Chris@DSiege> Well, that's a good question! The most surprising thing was the ease in which we could create our world using the Siege Editor.
Wynnn> Thanks, I'm definitely looking forward to this one! NOQ
+Julia@ZEvents> ty Wynnn! ga Guttenaffe :-)
Guttenaffe> ChrisT-I'm asking it on behalf of Cire as he couln't get be around tonight (workign on GBL 2.2) could commet on the interface that DS will use...
Carl@Gravity> For me, it's the weight I put on working long hours... No wait...that's a bad thing.
Guttenaffe> Will it be dplay complient or are you gona "embed" tcp into ipx for specic only game servers.If dplay tcp could you elaborate on the scoring system. ga
Chris@DSiegea> We use the dplay interface inside DX8. I can't go into any other details right now so please send this question to chris@gaspowered.com and I will have the engineers provide more information to you.
+Julia@ZEvents> ty Guttenaffe!
+Julia@ZEvents> +Quikie , Congrats you have just won a a special Zone/Game Tshirt !!!! Please send you full name and mailing address to tourney@charter.net
+Julia@ZEvents> ga jetli2003 :-)
jetli2003> Lorne: As far as size goes how big will the world of oddworld be in a comparison to actual size..........and what kind of things do you plan to use the Hard Drive for...........and could you please elaborate on this question......and one last thing...
jetli2003> and will weather play a major role in the game and how long will one day be in actual time? ga
Lorne@Oddworld> Each outside level in Munch's Oddysee will not be endless exploring. They will be contained within a few hundred acres of land. This allows us to contain the experience to flow in a way that we feel provides a good balance of exploration vs action.
Lorne@Oddworld> more...
jetli2003> about the hard drive please
jetli2003> what will you use it for?
Lorne@Oddworld> The harddrive is something that we've been looking at for loading speeds and savings schemes. We haven't been targetting the hard drive too specifically yet as the dev system is still being refined for it. But regardless, the cpu, gpu, and RAM make...
Lorne@Oddworld> for enough of what we're looking for at this point in time. It gives us what we need for the experience we want to create.
+Julia@ZEvents> ty jetli2003! ga XboxFanatic_01 :-)
XboxFanatic_01> With All The Extra Power Of the XBOX, Why Not make The Whole character models and environments ridiculously high count and beautiful (i.e. CG quality)? ga
Lorne@Oddworld> Weather... will play a role when you are causing it to rain and heal the environment.
Lorne@Oddworld> That's the intent.
+Julia@ZEvents> flup, Xbox?
Lorne@Oddworld> goota run folks. Thanks for chatting with me.
XboxFanatic_01> bye lorne!
+Julia@ZEvents> night Lorne!
XboxFanatic_01> will some1 answer my question then?
+Paw@ZEvents> night lorne!
XboxFanatic_01> possibly chris or carl or ne1 else?
Carl@Gravity> That's what we're shooting for...
Carl@Gravity> The games you're seeing are ridiculously high-poly compared to what's out there right now.
Carl@Gravity> ga
+Julia@ZEvents> ty XboxFanatic_01! ga ACE_Erindel :-)
+Paw@ZEvents> Mrs_ProSaturn , Congrats you have just won a a special Zone/Game Tshirt !!!! Please send you full name and mailing address to tourney@charter.net
ACE_Erindel> Hi Chris, i would like to know if the characters in DS will be able to shoot, hit or cast spells while moving, like the units in TA. (and when are you going to make TA 2 :)... please... the TA community is waiting for you !! :)) ga
Alex@Sigma> Hey everyone, I have to get going as well. Thanks for dropping by.
Chris@DSiegea> At this point in time the characters can't shoot while moving, but there is still a chance that we could add this. It's not quite as important as it was in TA.
ACE_Erindel> bye alex :)
+Julia@ZEvents> nite Alex.. thanks for chatting with us!
Chris@DSiegea> As far as another RTS like TA2, that's something that is very likely, it just won't be called Total Annihilation.
ACE_Erindel> it will help preventing DS to be click feast no ?
ACE_Erindel> and yes :) thank you chris :)
Chris@DSiegea> The characters are set by default to automatically engage enemies (you can set them not to with an option). However, we have worked hard to give your finger a break! :)
+Julia@ZEvents> ty ACE_Erindel! ga FoX_RN :-)
FoX_RN> Hey Alex, the recent rendered models released look absolutely amazing, however the general consensus is that this level of detail didnt transfer to the screenshots...
FoX_RN> Was this due to the models being newer than the screens....LOD....?
Carl@Gravity> Gotto go, guys.... It's been great chatting!
FoX_RN> ga
FoX_RN> oh..and everyone in IRC is harrassing me to say hi
Alex@Sigma> Hey Corey! :) The models are done in 3DS Max, and are modeled with patches. They can scale up or down in Sigma to just about any detail. We use a lot of metrics to decide how many polygons you can see in a model...
Alex@Sigma> ... and in the case of the screens you see online, we still have a lot of optomizing to do and we
Alex@Sigma> ...
Alex@Sigma> ... are going to have much more detail in everything the next time you see the game.
Alex@Sigma> ga
Alex@Sigma> HI to everyone at RN!!
FoX_RN> any thoughts on beta?
+Julia@ZEvents> ty FoX_RN! ga, Scarab_X :-)
Scarab_X> Hello gentlemen. My first question is for Carl. Could you give us a brief rundown on the rankings and points system for advancement and how media exposure affects your progress through Amped? ga
Alex@Sigma> Lots of thoughts!! :)
+Julia@ZEvents> Carl has left the building.. sorry
Scarab_X> oh did Carl jet?
Alex@Sigma> okay, now I really have to go... Carl's my ride. Ciao!
Scarab_X> then no further questions :(
+Julia@ZEvents> bye Alex
+Paw@ZEvents> +IcEmAn_FA , Congrats you have just won a a special Zone/Game Tshirt !!!! Please send you full name and mailing address to tourney@charter.net
+Julia@ZEvents> sorry Scarab.... ga azih :-)
azih> First off thanks for the Tshirt Zone people.. though it does mean that now I have more gaming T-shirts than normal ones, which is... disturbing
azih> Hm, most of my questions were regarding Xbox, but all the console ppl seem to have gone.. so anyhoo. For Chris, you've got inside info at MS. How much of the Xbox has MS shown so far and how much will they show at TGS/E3/GDC?
azih> like a rough guess would be great
Chris@DSiegea> I think it was an excellent cross section of games that show the power of the xbox. Let me tell you, if I doubted this machine before, I don't now.
+Julia@ZEvents> ty azih!
+Julia@ZEvents> and thank you Chris, Carl, Lorne and Alex!
+Julia@ZEvents> Our guests have to all jet outta here now.... so we'll close with a big THANK YOU for joining us here tonight all!!
Chris@DSiegea> Thanks, guys. Gotta go.
Alex@Sigma> thanks
Chris@DSiegea> Bye
Alex@Sigma> bye
+Paw@ZEvents> Night guys!