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Dark Reign 2
1/28/00
Happy New Year, everyone. I don't think it's hit me that it's the year 2000 yet. I remember when I was a little kid wondering what the year 2000 would be like, and I don't think I could have imagined I would be making video games and working on such a great game as Dark Reign 2. I hope your New Year is going great so far. I've got a feeling the year 2000 is going to be remembered as one of the best years in gaming.
Things have been going pretty darn good at work lately. Everyone took a little time off over the holidays to recharge their batteries. Our Australian programmers all went back home for a bit to regain their accents. And now we're all back looking down the home stretch. We've got a few remaining programming tasks that we are wrapping up, including save game (we always like to leave this until the end), some modifications to our sound code, some final mission-specific coding, some cleanup to our instant action AI, and the final touches on our Internet lobbies and game launching. But after that we are strictly bug-fixing.
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Most of the art is in the game at this point. Now it's up to Willie (our art director) and the rest of the art team to put all their final touches and make it really shine. This is the time where the game really begins to look beautiful. So if you've been impressed by any of our screenshots in the past, you haven't seen anything yet. The last big art task is the final pass on all weapons effects and explosions. We are just beginning to start that now, and I think you'll see some screenshots in the future with some glorious effects.
As for the designers, all the missions have been completed to a first pass. We are now going through them all one more time with a fine-tooth comb and refining them to perfection. We've also begun the all-important task of play balancing. We probably spend at least half of everyday discussing the hit point of units, their armor, build times, resource-collection rates, unit speeds, etc.
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So it's a real exciting and nervous time on the Dark Reign 2 team these days.
I've included a few new screenshots with this week's diary. You can now begin to see the final layout of the interface. I have to say this is one of the things I am most proud of in Dark Reign 2. It seemed like real-time strategy games had gotten into a bit of a rut as far as interface innovation over the last couple of years. I think we've made some huge strides forward. Our interface isn't as cumbersome and doesn't take up a good portion of the screen, and yet offers you everything you need to play the game effectively along with some new innovations that I think will become the norm for RTS games of the future.
The email box for Dark Reign 2 was pretty full after my last GameSpot Designer Diary. It seems that everybody has an opinion about the delay of a game. But overall, everyone seemed very pleased that we were taking the time to finish the game properly and not rushing it out the door. It really does make a difference. I think the last month or two of a production can often be the most critical. You need some time with the game near its final state to be able to put those things in that really make it special. Whether it be a new special effect, or the inclusion of better movies to progress the story, or the addition of one more unit that really perfects the balance, this time is critical, and unfortunately, not a lot of games really get a chance to "do it right." It's always a shame to work on a game for a couple of years and then ship it out the door a month too early because of time or budgetary constraints. Fortunately, Activision has been great with us about this and understand that we are dedicated to making Dark Reign 2 the best RTS game ever.
Next: Addressing the interface
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