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Games Entertainment

Brian Reynolds Interview 49

Posted by Hemos from the talking-with-a-master dept.
jyak writes "Over at the Daily Radar, there is an interview with the game legend, Brian Reynolds, about his new company, Big Huge Games. Apparently, Firaxis is now hiring, if anyone is interested." He hangs out with Sid Meier. That gives him near-heroic status in my book.
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Brian Reynolds Interview More

Brian Reynolds Interview

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  • Who created Paranoia? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    From the article:
    Douglas Kaufman also leave Firaxis for the Reynolds start-up. Kaufman created the classic pen and paper RPGs Star Wars and Paranoia for West End games
    I always thought Greg Costikyan [crossover.com] created Paranoia. The other names listed for Paranoia are: Dan Gelber, Eric Goldberg, Ken Rolston, and Paul Murphy. All I found for Kaufman were some Torg books.
  • No offense, but everyone knows who Sid Meier is because he puts his name on all of his games. The names of most of his games are not as famous as he is; a sure sign of the propaganda working.

    nevertheless, he DID do some interesting work with civilisation. I loved that game, as I'm sure many did.
  • Sid Meyer is a racist putz. I can't think of a game he's written that didn't have some minority represented in a conspicuously unflattering way.

    Just off the top of my head:

    + "Fanatic" units == Arabs (Civ II)

    + "Converted" Indians can only be employed in manual labor jobs in the colony. Cigar rolling is too complicated for them. (Colonization)

    + Indians are usually hostile, and violate all their treaties within 3-4 turns. (Colonization)

    + The Chinese are the insect-like "human hive" (Alpha Centauri)
  • Firaxis wants people who have been trained, in a way they believe a university can provide.

    Or, Firaxis wants people who have shown a particular motivation, that completing a university degree can be a sign of.

    There's no need to have a degree to get going in the industry as a whole; though. Just write your own game, make it really good, and sell it to a publisher. :-)

    Yes, I'm being optimistic. Sue me.
  • Have you ever read Orson Scott Card's The Worthing Saga? He describes a game very similar to this. Extremely realistic simulation of a world. Players buy countries to command. I suppose they could probably let people buy pieces of the country to sub-command too. A very interesting idea there.
    -Matt
  • Racism aside, this is exactly what the original poster referred to: All of the games you name were for the most part designed by Reynolds, but had a "Sid Meier's" label on the package (well, I'm not absolutely sure about Colonization).

    genuine Sid Meier games are: the original Civ, Covert Action, Gettysburg, the orginal Railroad Tycoon, and a lot more.

  • only time I've had the "must have a degree" door slammed in my face is when applying for a visa to work in the states. The immigration law says "must have a 4 year degree or equivilent experience", well I've been working in the computer industry for 5 years and I've done 3 years of a 4 year degree, but because it is the company you are applying to (the sponsor) who has to put in the application, they are usually not willing to make a case for you. It's a shame because they need my skills (thus the only reason they are trying to get the visa) but they are afraid of the immigration laws.
  • Did you read the article? The part about:
    "BR: Yes, at Firaxis we were both owners of the company and equal partners."

    So, one of the partners left the company. Big deal. No one got screwed here.

    Later
    ErikZ
  • What are the reasons for the split between Reynolds and Meier? There seems to be some implication in the interview that Reynolds didn't have the opportunity to assume complete responsibility for a product.
  • In Civ2, the nicest civs are the Egyptians (african arabs), Babylonians (iraqi arabs) and Persians (iranians).

    Whatever.
    None of those games were designed by Sid. Although "Sid Meier" games, they were all made by Brian.
  • Warning: Major cynicism here.

    How was Firaxis formed? By breaking off of Microprose. So the people who broke joined Firaxis were the ones without any job loyalty.

    Now, less than a year (IIRC) later, people _again_ leave the group and form their own company. If a company is formed by a faction in another company, they should not be surprised when people leave the second company again for "professional reasons".

    Or than again, maybe I'm just being cynical. Firaxis is a great company, but...

    void recursion (void)
    {
    recursion();
    }
    while(1) printf ("infinite loop");
    if (true) printf ("Stupid sig quote");
  • Brian, Tim, Doug (and Jason & Dave) are all great guys. I'm sure their company will produce cool stuff once they get set up properly. As long as someone can convince Jason not to use DirectX for multiplay. You've got business independence, now go for platform independence!

    But my main complaint with BHG is that they're so damn busy. I hope they're at least spending some time with their families.
  • Sid Meier is a great game designer- his name is out there for two reasons though.

    1. His games are popular.
    2. His name is on all of them, like he said.

    If someone came out with a game called "Joe Shmuck's Hairball Toss" and nobody knew abotu it, his name wouldnt be anywhere. However, conversly, someone would have been REAL popular if they got their name as "XXXX's Starcraft" or "XXXX's Half-Life"

    ----
    Don't underestimate the power of peanut brittle
  • Daily Radar is owned by Imagine- but why do *THEY* get the exclusives and not as much IGNPC or even PCGamer? As for incite... they seem to already have a major foothold in Europe (there are a lot of .de sites with the incite banner.. which ALSO often get a lot of exclusives, such as a huge batch of TF2 images or a few Halo shots)

    And by the way... exactly how was my post at all trolling? It doesn't make any sense. Daily Radar and Incite both cheapen the community for different reasons. Daily Radar for their biased and sometimes idiotic reviews. (Did you see their Q3 vs UT peice? UT has the most advanced bots ever... on bots: "They both suck, Edge to Q3.". UT has a very nice interface that remembers "hey, we dont have to use our arrow keys for this anymore" but they shot that down saying "Q3's is more gamey!")

    Incite just takes the PCXL 'sex n' games' philosphy a step further, only without the humor which makes PCXL a good read.

    ----
    Don't underestimate the power of peanut brittle
  • What i don't understand is why Incite and Daily Radar get all the exclusives. I dont know a single person who likes Incite magazine, and Daily Radar is pretty much a laughing stock in the gaming community. I mean, they gave the Princess Mononoke movie a "MISS" MISS! And they gave a "Hit!" to the new 007 flick even though they said, and i quote "this is not a good movie" in the review.

    yet they get all the first look high-quality movies and interviews.

    ----
    Don't underestimate the power of peanut brittle
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I think civ 2 was mainly BR's work
  • Hmmm sort of reminds me of chris crawford. he ran a one-man mag going on about game design, why most games are crap. He even slagged off doom, even though i dont think any of his games can hold a candle to it.
    Has he stopped complaining about how bad games are and how everyone is getting it wrong, and more importantly, has he decided how to do it right?
    No need to hold my breath, i feel...

    p.
  • Speaking as a Civ junky I don't know how you can say that "his games are not as famous as he is". True his name does grace Civ and others, but Civ, Civ 2, etc are huge in the gaming community. His godlike status is earned, not because is name is refferced, but because the original Civilization was his brain child, as opposed to being created by a group/team.

    I still find Civ to be one of the most mentally challenging games of all time. So many options, possibilities, flexibility, etc. I wish the effort that is put into games like Quake was put into Civ.
  • Just in case you didn't know (who knows, maybe you're being "funny"), he's named Brian Reynolds, not Ryan Beinholds. And I looked throughout my Starcraft manual and didn't see his name anywhere in the credits. I hope I don't look like an idiot if you ARE making a joke. But I just thought I should "set you straight" about who he is. Brian Reynolds helped create Alpha Centurai. -- Chance S.
  • Yessss..... but what if while one side is busy designing loads of little softare tanks, the other side launches a REAL Cruise missile?
  • I don't like his games. They are plain, boring, uninteresting, lame, and dull. I'd much rather stick to the times and play Quake III. Not some stupid 2D strategy game that people like because they think Sid Meier is good and popular. He should be forgotten about lest he provides a decent, well thought out game. Good bye forever Mr Sid. Adieu.
  • I don't like her becsuse she is titless, curve less, facially unattractive, mentally dull and witless. I don't like Sid Meir either. He is also all of what Natalie Portman is. I use Windows 95, don't like Star Wars and disregard linux as a lame-ass operating system with no potential compared to Microsofts fame and fortune. I own a Pentium 166 and my favourite game is Dune 2000. Long live me and long live you. Because you wil have to live long without a life in front of a computer screen. Hahahahahhahahahahaha!!!! I am good.
  • My stupid corporate filtering software won't let me look at the story. But the Big Huge web page is so new it isn't blocked yet. :-) But I don't see anything there about their first game. Can anyone tell me if there's anything about it in the article?

    But in the absence of that information, I do have two things I'd like to see them do.

    1. Put the *Real* designer's name on the game. At Microprose and later Firaxis every game had Sid's name slapped on it, whether he designed it or not. Apparently the marketing folks think the sales value of Sid's name is more important than giving the true designer his due. When Firaxis was asked about this policy, their reply was that it is really a "stamp of approval" from Sid, and doesn't really mean that he actively worked on that game.

    Because of this, most folks don't even know that Brian actually designed CivII and Alpha Centauri with little significant input from Sid. And now that he's on his own, he finds that the name value that should rightly have been his on both of those great games instead stays with Sid.

    So I'd like to see Big Huge take up a policy of crediting the proper game producer, just like movie studios do at the front of a flick. Let the actual game designers have the credit (or blame) that is rightly theirs.

    2. As for their first game, I'm dearly hoping its MOO (Master of Orion)-like. That's a game that has had people screaming for for an update for years. Some of the BR touches that CivII and SMAC had would do wonders for the 3x turn-based space genre. Plus anyone who read the back of the SMAC manual knows what a big fan of science fiction Brian is.

    Anyway, I wish nothing but success for Brian and Tim and all the gang at Big Huge. And if they need a beta tester there too, my email's attached. :-)
  • > How was Firaxis formed? By breaking off of Microprose. So the people who broke joined Firaxis were the ones without any job loyalty.

    "Job loyalty"??? This is actually *incredibly* common in the Gaming industry.

    > Now, less than a year (IIRC) later, people _again_ leave the group and form their own company.

    Uhhh, not quite. I don't remember the exact founding date, but I know I registered my interest to be a beta tester on Alpha Centauri with them sometime in the summer of '97. I believe they even had a game out already by then (Gettysburg). Back then the hot game everyone was playing was Warcraft II.

    Since then I've worked in 3 different programming orginizations in 2 different companies (and two different states). I have a child who is walking and talking who wasn't even born back then.

    So no, I don't think this is an unreasonably short amount of time for Brian to have stayed on. Particularly not in the gaming industry.
  • The problem with writing your own games these days is artwork. Its damn hard to get good artwork if you're not an artist yourself, and I'm not that kind of artist.

    In some cases, such as with tdt (http://richard.iguana.co.nz/tdt/) I have managed to create something that looks ok without needing to have nicely drawn textures and buttons as stuff.

    But in most cases, like every tile-map based game I ever wrote, the lack of artwork meant that no matter how good the game mechanics, it just looked crap.

    This doesn't mean that I didn't believe people might like it, we've all gone on about how graphics aren't the most important thing in a game, but many times I have reached a stage in the development where I've looked at my game, and at another game which is similar, and suddenly seen that gulf in looks and polish and just given in, it just didn't seem worth the effort.

    Ahh well.

  • Yeesh, check out the requirements on that page for programmers:

    1. Must have a CS degree.
    2. 5 years experience in games programming
    3. AI, 3D on consoles and PC, Distributed network stuff.

    Well, I don't have a CS degree and have never programmed a game professionally. AI, 3d graphics on the PC and distributed networking I know pretty well, but I guess I wouldn't even get a look in, I imagine they junk anyone without a CS degree in the first pass.

    Sad really. Ahh well, hopefully they'll make some good stuff.

  • It was, which is why mikewood was talking about the _original_ Civ.
    --
  • Oh, okay, so he might as well remove any differences between factions in Alpha Centauri. In the next Civ game, he should make Tanks just as strong as Musketeers, so he doesn't give the impression that he'd like to crush some underdeveloped country. And delete the World War II scenario, because the Germans don't like being portrayed as the bad guys.

    Wait a minute. Scratch that, he should just disable combat completely, because war is bad.

    (end sarcasm)

    Give me a break. To make a decent strategy game, you have to reduce things to simple rules. Yes, that means that certain groups of people are reduced to simple rules. But Sid makes GAMES, not political speeches.

    And meanwhile, let me correct a couple of things. Unless you hacked the configuration files, there were no Arabs in Civ II. ANY country could have fanatics. In Alpha Centauri, white Christian Americans were portrayed in an unflattering way, and I'd hardly call them a "minority". And the time portrayed in Colonization was a racist time in history - I'm fairly certain that Indians were not given "equal opportunity" jobs - and to deny that would be revising history.

    You were just looking for some pseudo-insightful reason to spout off on Slashdot.
    --
  • I don't know about this position, but I do know that I graduated with a Psychology (Cognitive Science) degree twelve years ago, and have since ended up in a number of positions that said "Must have a CS degree".

    Usually what that actually means is that you went to a real college, as opposed to a technical school, and that you can demonstrate that you had training in Comp Sci methods. If you can do that, the CS requirement usually vanishes.

    Training in Comp Sci methods is especially important. I know a lot of kid like to think that they can learn everything by just hacking away, but unless you are a true genius, you really do learn something in a degree program that you won't just hacking around.

  • Network Real Time Strategy Games (Score:3)

    by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Wednesday March 22, 2000 @01:46PM (#1181853) Homepage Journal
    there's no doubt that network play adds something to real time strategy games. Attempts to make better strategy engines have been very successful but nothing beats a human opponnent. I thought at one point that a great addition to Internet play would be to open the archetecture. Standardize your unit interface and allow anyone to create units (graphics + code) as well as maps. With strict rules as to what defines strength of the unit, speed, etc, one could come up with a cost per unit in resources that doesn't give any one unit an advantage (eg, lots of little foot solders or one really big tank cost the same). Then one day I had a really strange idea: What if all those "credits" you were spending were actual cash? It would be very much like gambling (except this is a game of skill.. not exactly gambling by las vegas standards). One could envision a scenario where two countries wish to go to war but neither country has an army.. so rather than wreck their economy by recruiting their peasant farmers, they hire mercenaries and agree to pay them on a per-kill-basis. So you buy a unit for (say) $2 and when it is killed, you opponent gets $1.50 (depreciation you know), the designer of the unit gets $0.10 and the rest goes to the game developer (or the server). You could have games ranging from free games to super expensive games where the players are fighting with weapons of mass destruction.

    Another idea was that individual players should be able to take over one unit that is a "leutenant". That unit can have other units assigned to it by the commander. The leutenant is paid by the commander to mobilize some of his/her units against the enemy. This way people could participate in expensive games and learn the ropes, whilst getting paid for it, before they enter the paid games themselves.

  • Eeek, for a minute I thought you meant the Big Huge Games page! I've made my living programming computer games for 9 years now and don't have a C.S. degree (mine are in History and Philosophy). It's really more a matter of "do you have what it takes" than do you have this or that degree, and there is more than one way to spot a good interview candidate. Brian

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