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| Chat Highlights: Stuart Moulder, The Man Behind Age | |
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On June 28, 2000, Stuart Moulder, manager of Microsoft's Action/ Adventure/ Strategy gaming unit, visited the Zone to chat with Zoners about Microsoft games and the gaming future. We've edited out some of the highlights, in case you missed the big event.
chaosphEnx> Good evening Stuart, beautiful work on StarLancer btw. I'm impressed with the graphics. Was there some new technology or advanced coding that went into this? Perfectly smooth even on a low end card versus low graphics on other games, what's the secret?
Stuart@AAS> First, the credit really goes to Warthog and Digital Anvil. The Warthog team worked on Privateer 2 and brought a lot of what they learned on that game to StarLancer. They started with a really nice software renderer, so they were focused on delivering a smooth experience for everyone, not just those people with the latest machines. chaosphEnx> MechWarrior 4 -- is it true the new interface will use the keyboard less. If so, how? Stuart@AAS> What we want to do is free players to be able to drive the Mech entirely from a joystick if they would prefer. We really want a broader audience to have a chance to have fun with MechWarrior title and previous games have been pretty challenging to learn with all the keyboard commands AND the joystick. So we think this is going to actually make learning and playing easier and more fun for more people. We've been testing the game with folks and the results look great. _ATLAS_WON_> Hello, I currently play MW3 and have for a year. A 3-part question. 1. What kind of ANTI-hacking steps for the latest installment of MechWarrior? 2. Will there be ActiveX 8.0 for such game? 3. What about the included BattleCom (voice chat program)? Stuart@AAS> First question -- not sure of the technical details on all that we are doing to deal with hacking. I can tell you that MW4 is a client-server game which is inherently a bit easier to protect. Part 2 -- We will support DirectX 8, but not require it. Part 3 -- Honestly not sure. I don' t think we will support BattleCom when we ship, but probably will via a patch or a possible expansion pack. AVG_TG_INFINITE> I am a tremendous Age of Empires fan and own all Age of Empires games. My question is: How did u get involved in the action/ adventure/ strategy gaming unit? And at what age did u get involved? How would I get involved? Stuart@AAS> I hired into the Microsoft Games business about 6 years ago (my anniversary was yesterday!) I came in as a Senior Producer (we call them Lead Program Managers) and came here with about 4 years experience at Sierra On-line and The Sierra Network. I first got involved in the games business in my late twenties doing online work with Compuserve in their game forum. Kind of like Debbee, actually [host of our Zone chats]. Then did game reviews for magazines and finally managed to con Sierra On-line into giving me a job as a Producer (at a serious paycut over my then current job). __YAG> Hello, what do you believe will happen to the AOE series in the future after the The Conquerors Expansion is released later this year? Stuart@AAS> Well, we haven't made final plans yet but there will definitely be more Age games. We want to push into other areas of history (naturally), and we want to explore 3D technology. We also want to look at seeing if we can do some Age games that are less strictly historical, but still feel like Age of Empires to folks. GUS_> Hi Stuart, I just wanted to know if you know how long it took to design Age of Empires 2? I also wanted to know the 5 new civilizations in the expansion. And who developed the rating system? Stuart@AAS> First question -- design started right after Age 1 shipped and ran in parallel with the Age 1 Xpack. Design is something that really continues right until we ship the game. That's because we're constantly fine-tuning the balance of the units and civs and generally trying to polish and refine the game. So in a way, it took 2 years. Since it built on Age 1, you could say it took 4-5 years! Civs: Spanish, Koreans, Mayans, Aztecs. Don't remember the fifth, if there is one [yep, it's the Huns]. Don't know who came up with the rating system. TM_Raver> Are there ever going to be any other games like AOEROR, that you have to build and conquer everything with army? Maybe not so old but like modern times. Stuart@AAS> We are looking at taking Age more modern. There are some neat things to be done, but the scale of the game is kind of funny. You have individual humans and buildings. Doing WWII at that scale would be a bit strange. Still, there are fun games to be done with Age that we haven't had time to do yet. Mercury_Booger> In Mechwarrior 3 LAN games, I have had the problem of some people not being able to hit other people (arms waving). I was wondering if this is fixed in MW4? Stuart@AAS> MW4 is built on a completely new engine, so we shouldn't have the same issues. It sounds like a sync issue with MW3. Obviously, we aren't immune to bugs of our own, but I'm confident we wouldn't ship with this sort of problem. ENiGMa_I_Death> Expansion: is there going to be 3D graphics in it? How much will the expansion cost? Also, are there codes that you can use in the game that are new? Are there any other games that you know that you would recommend that are going to come out that I should get? Stuart@AAS> No 3D graphics. Same engine (basically) as Age 2. Price will be $30, I believe. No new codes (that I've been told about). If you haven't gotten it already, check out Motocross Madness 2. It's stunning to behold. Also, the new MW4 when we ship. And StarLancer! Rocks_Virtue> Hey, in the Expansion for AOE2, did you do anything to prevent the use of trainers? Stuart@AAS> Yes, we have put in code to prevent trainer use. I won't get more specific because I don't want to give the hackers any clues, but we definitely want to eliminate the trainer problem. _GNUELL_> 1) I have been playing Age of Empires and Rise of Rome and Age of Kings for 3 years now mostly online here on the Zone. But the main problem in multiplayer games is that you get disconnected to easily, there are cheats (trainers), and lagging games! Are you going to fix that in newer versions, or update the old ones?? Stuart@AAS> We've patched Age 1 and ROR to try and eliminate the trainers that can cause out of syncs and disconnects. With Age 2 and the Xpack, we've done more and hopefully this problem is going to be much better. We watch what is happening on the Zone and try to figure out the best solution for these sorts of problems. Lord_Harald_II> Did you think of any different units in AoK other then the ones used now? Do you play AoK? And if so, do you really think the Teutons are better then all other civs? I think they are as good as the rest, but people don't like me playing them. Stuart@AAS> Yes, there are some new special units. The Koreans get 2 -- a Turtle ship and a War wagon, for example. I do play AOK and generally get my posterior kicked by my testers. But it's still fun. We think there may be a balance issue with the Teutons and we have done some tweaks in the Xpack to ensure that all the Civs are balanced. PitS_1> Good night Stuart! Is Age of Kings expansion pack, The Conquerors going to be translated to Russian? If yes, who will distribute it? And what's the approximate price for the license to translate and distribute? Stuart@AAS> We aren't planning on doing a Russian translation ourselves. It's really driven by market size and the piracy issues in Russia have really held back the market for legitimate software. Sorry! NC_ZIL> Can we get a beta version of MW4? Or some sort of demo Age games? Stuart@AAS> There will be a limited beta of MW4 prior to release, similar to what we've done with the Age games in the past. Everyone will have a shot at getting one and we'll do a lottery to determine who the lucky ones are. And we'll do a short demo/trial version for downloads. MoD_Barrow46> Hey, how's it going? I was wondering if there was a specific marketing reason that Microsoft Baseball is like 30.00 cheaper than other new baseball games. Is there something missing? And, when is the release for the expansion? Stuart@AAS> First question: we purposely priced Baseball aggressively so we could get more folks to give it a try. We are the new kids on the block with our sports games and we wanted folks to try them out and see how good they really were. Then we figure folks will want the next version. Age2 Xpack releases end of September, early October in the US. Somewhat later outside the US (mid to late October). DDay_GaNgStA_> In Conquerors, will 200 still be the pop limit and will each civ have new team advantages? Stuart@AAS> Pop limit will be the same. There may be some team advantages for certain tribes, but not universal advantages. AntiData> How long did it take to build Motocross Madness? Also, will any more vresions of Motocross come out? Stuart@AAS> MM took about 2 years or so, though some technology was being built for about a year before that. There will be more versions of Motocross, but since we just shipped #2, I can't say when the next one will be done. _Jigen_> Hello! AoK initially sounded like it had a lot of new innovative features (like raider civs), but the final product was like AOE with higher memory demands. I don't think u worked on it (or did u) but are u satisfied with the way AoK turned out? Also, part of the fun of AOE was micromanaging, do you think making villagers too smart will detract from the gameplay? Stuart@AAS> I am satisfied. We DID try a lot of different ideas and we struggled with the balance of doing new things and at the same time, retaining the magic of Age. So we wound up cutting a lot of stuff that sounded great, but didn't play great. For example, the raiders were fun for a while, but they didn't do resource management, grow their civ or research technologies. So they weren't as much fun as other civs. In the end, we seem to have done pretty well. Folks like the game a lot and we've won some industry awards including PC Game of the Year. And personally, I love the game and would buy and play it whether I worked here or not. Micromanaging is kind of a tough call as well. Too much and folks are frustrated. Too little and they're bored. We've been playtesting smart villagers for several months and folks are universal in loving them. It eliminates a task that folks found annoying rather than fun. War_Elephant_X> 1) Is the Conquerors expansion pack complete or are there more technical details left? 2)Will you be able to point on a place on the map and ask allies for help in single player mode. Keep up the excellent work!! Stuart@AAS> Xpack is complete bar bug fixing and polishing. I don't think we'll have the allies feature you asked for though. Sorry! The Zone would like to thank Stuart Moulder and all the Zoners who made this chat a fascinating experience. Get ready for the XPack! |
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