Speaking With the Devs Behind a 7-Year Game Mod Project 100
Gamasutra has an interview with members of Off Topic Productions, the team behind the recent completion of The Nameless Mod, a Deus Ex modification that was in development for seven years. They talk about how they stayed interested in such a lengthy, unpaid project, and also how their vision for the mod shifted over the years as a result of experience and feedback.
"We estimate that we recreated everything we did during the first 2 or so years because we got better. The plot went through 4 revisions in the first year and was continually tweaked, expanded, and revised. Most of it also simply came about as we experimented with the game and the engine and grew familiar with what we could do — originally we were planning something even more open and free-form than we ended up with, but when we realized how fundamentally the game was built for a completely different type of structure, we reigned ourselves in and adjusted our design. ... Also, I don't know if you ever go back and read what you wrote 6-7 years ago, but in my experience that's a great way to embarrass yourself — I spent a lot of time rewriting old dialogue to be less embarrassing."
I've been working on a Duke Nukem Forever mod (Score:5, Funny)
I plan to release it seven years after it's been released, which will be in... Oh damn, Slashdot comments aren't long enough to fit in the year, but it'll be a while.
Maybe now that they're free... (Score:5, Funny)
... they can move over to the DNF team. Though these guys might be a little fast-paced for that crew...
7 years we've been on our own (Score:5, Funny)
Moss grows fat on a rolling stone, but that's not how it used to be.
Think about this. Demolition Man [imdb.com] was released 16 years ago. As much as I liked the movie, and as much as it remains as topical and entertaining as ever, in the meantime so many other good movies were produced that to simply focus on one good movie over the years is to miss out on everything else.
Bye bye, Miss American Pie.
Re:I've been working on a Duke Nukem Forever mod (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Rein, not reign! (Score:5, Funny)
I think you mean "plain [wiktionary.org]," unless you think Spain is covered in aircraft or woodworking tools. Hoisted by your own petard, eh?
Re:Rein, not reign! (Score:5, Funny)
No, he just recognizes that Spain is part of a separate plane of existence from ours.
Re:Marathon Too (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I've been working on a Duke Nukem Forever mod (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I've been working on a Duke Nukem Forever mod (Score:4, Funny)
Oh boy, am I glad I didn't make that joke! :-P
The three games I admire most (Score:5, Funny)
The vapor that I long for most
The duke, the wolf*
And the Starcraft: Ghost
They saw their code build
So they'd boast
The day
Their sche-----dule died.
* http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/best-games-never-made1.htm [howstuffworks.com] - ""Werewolf: The Apocalypse" was going to be a PC game based on White Wolf's tabletop RPG [...]"
Way to Go! (Score:4, Funny)
Sounds like an Agile success story.