Shroud of the Avatar

I've been following Richard Garriott's launch of a new MMORPG on Kickstarter entitled "Shroud of the Avatar." Garriott explained that they are making the game using the Unity 3D engine, which is cool because that's what we're using at work. I can't really explain how excited I am about his return to fantasy RPG making. A lot of people have been talking about how awesome this is, and for me it is as well. But I have a really unique tie to the game series because it became the basis of my oldest friendship.

When I was in 2nd grade, I met a friend named Mike who was a year ahead of me. We hung out for a bit, but because of the way our school was situated, the 1-3rd grades and 4-6th grades were segregated, and when the year ended, he basically disappeared from my world. I went on, drawing maps and inventory screens during recess on reams of computer paper my mom had brought home from work. Obviously, I was a very popular kid. When I moved up to 4th grade, Mike and I met again in school assembly. We spent the entire time talking about Ultima.

I had been playing Ultima 3: Exodus on my NES, and he was elbow-deep into Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny on his Tandy 1000. Over the course of the assembly (which we both paid no heed to), we became fast friends once again. So it went, that I would spend hours hanging out in his family's downstairs computer room, watching him play Ultima.

We would always switch off playing RPGs. For the most part, I did the heavy lifting of grinding for XP. I also memorized the runic alphabet used in the Ultima games and whenever it appeared in the game, Mike would have me translate it. To this day I can read and write it fluently.

When Ultima Online was in beta, he got in and we played the hell out of that. When the game launched, we both had horses and named them 'Paraguay' and 'Uruguay.' I've always enjoyed coming up with names, especially pets. For instance, my turtles are named Green Tea Mochi Ice Cream, and Walnut Brownie Surprise. I call them "Mochi" and "Walnut" for short.

Recently a friend of mine posted on his Facebook: "Ultima VII or Final Fantasy VII?" At the time, I said "It's a hard choice, but Ultima VII." Looking back, it's actually not a hard choice at all. I love Final Fantasy, but U7 had a book, written from the perspective of one of the characters in the game, that was a kind of 'Lore Guide' for the land. There was a medallion in the box, related to the story of the game. Most of the Ultima games came with trinkets and cloth maps like these, and put you as a player into the world, and cemented the experience with these tangible items.

Aside from that, the writing, the re-occurring characters throughout the series, and the immersive sandbox-style gameplay really stood out to me. These games are amazing. I listened to Metallica's "Master of Puppets" and "Ride the Lightning" while playing U7, and to this day whenever I hear songs from those albums I think of the game. Also: those albums are awesome. All good things surround Ultima when I think of it. Hell, I drive a Nissan Altima... but I wish it were called an Ultima.

Ultima VII had an kickass box. It was a black box with nothing but the title on it. I remember thinking at the time that this was a bold move, especially considering how so many books and games are sold based on their covers. It was very foreboding.

The kickstarter for Shroud of the Avatar ends on Sunday, and while they've already met their funding goal of $1 million, they still have a few stretch goals they're aiming for. One of the pledge tiers they have gives their backers access to original content developed for the game, completely royalty-free. This is great because it gives fans who are aspiring developers the opportunity to learn and use professional assets they wouldn't otherwise have access to.

The game itself has been prototyped using dummy assets bought cheaply on the Unity Asset Store. Using temp assets like this has allowed them to focus on gameplay and story and later they'll replace those assets with more refined art.

They also have a call out to any artists to create content for the game. Portalarium is going to publish a style guide and artists can submit work to be used in the game. If work is selected, they will pay four times the price on the Unity Asset Store, and the player will get the piece of art as a virtual item for free. If their work is not selected, then constructive feedback will be given.

It sounds like a lofty promise, but I think it's a great opportunity for any artists who want to see their work in a major game.

I'm excited to see how the game turns out. I really like MMOs, and I usually try every one that comes out. The game is supposed to dynamically join you with friends so you can play online with small groups of people you know, but still have interactions with strangers. Watching all the live Q&A's has been really inspiring, and it seems like the entire team is a group of people I would definitely hang out with.

Action is My Middle Name

Monday is behind me and this week is shaping up to be very busy. I have three distinct jobs to do. I say jobs because each one will require something akin to full time commitment.

I have a high-profile BD/DVD project I'm working on, I have to capture "hours" of video for a sizzle reel, and I also have to do creative and advise on other people's work for this new game so that a polished, playable demo is ready by Friday morning.

I was able to capture some footage for the sizzle reel, and it seems to be a lot more manageable than I had originally anticipated. I basically broke down all the shots that were listed in the spot and organized them into digestible chunks. The sources range from the PS3 to an iPad to a PC, and using a Gefen scaler I'm able to capture to my Mac via HD-SDI. The catch is I have to be actively using the apps and websites, so I can't just put it on auto-pilot. I may farm this work out to someone else as the week goes on and other deadlines loom.

The new game has us all excited and the Design team is going to be ready to show some of their work tomorrow. I was busy most of the day updating our internal wiki with guidelines for the designers. Matt and I also showed the designers how to use the Mantis bug tracking software; creating an entry, assigning it to a designer, and how to resolve and close out an issue.

What do I have in common with Quentin Tarantino? We both had floor seats at the Staples Center for Morrissey on Friday night. I briefly imagined a conversation where I chided him for not getting back to me with his approvals on a certain project. However, I realized it would not have been nearly as funny in reality as the poor guy was instantly mobbed the moment the lights came up.

I was trying to make my way back from whence I'd come when event staff told me to turn around and go another way. Someone was down on the floor, clearly injured. I passed a pair of EMTs who were wheeling in a stretcher on my way out the doors. It was actually the second stretcher I'd seen brought out that night. Some kind of fight had broken out in the section next to me about 3/4 of the way through the show.

For some reason, the Morrissey show required more EMTs and stretchers than the Marilyn Manson concert last week. Morrissey himself was blissfully unaware of any disturbances, however Manson's show at the Nokia was much smaller and intimate, so he felt the need to address the combatants. What are you tusslin' over? Are you tusslin' over a woman? Are you tusslin' over me?

Is Paul playing NIN's 'hurt' at the onset of this clip?

I'm looking forward to seeing the design concepts tomorrow and hopefully I'll get to make a few assets myself before the day is out.

New Game

It's been a bit since I last posted. I had hoped to continue something of a regular series of posts as I work on projects, but honestly I've been far too busy to stop and write.

Since the last entry, I was able to get a higher-poly version of the character put into the game without much fuss. The framerate didn't dip significantly, even with all the particle effects from the traps I made (flame gouts, arrow traps, etc.) going off all around the character. I also refined the walking and added a jump animation. I went for something akin to Mario with the fist pump in the air and the character's front foot propped out front. I feel confident that I could delete it all and do it again in about 20 minutes. Same with all the rigging. I know because I've had to, hah.

I was about to add the obligatory /dance animation as well as one of my faves from the DAoC days, /beckon (Think Neo from The Matrix), however that project has been put on hold.

Come at me, bro.

For the past few weeks, people have been kicking other ideas around. I spent countless hours prototyping 2D and 3D concepts. The directions were to come up with something simple and fast, but fun and engaging. Oh, and new & innovative. Finally, one night last week, Matt and I sat down and wrote a game design doc for an idea we've had for a few months. It was definitely not something that could be done quickly, but it was a game we would actually play and really liked. We stayed up til about 2am working on it. I stayed up another hour or so drawing concepts and wireframes. We presented it the following day.

While it was received very well, the higher-ups were looking at a really short turn-around time on development. So we went and cut about 80% of our ideas, leaving one core gameplay element and a little bit of flair. This concept was accepted, and we've begun work on the new game.

The assets are mostly 2D, and some 3D elements are going to be displayed as 2D. I think the game should be fun, and will hopefully pave the way to doing the full-blown concept we had originally mapped out. We have an internal wiki set up so that we can share the design bible and keep everyone on the same page. We can also use it to track bugs when the time comes. I'm having meetings with the design team today to go over my concepts for creatures as well as the UI layout. I'm really looking forward to working on this new title and I think it will be fun.

Breakthrough

I finally had a breakthrough today with a character I've been working on for months. I had been struggling for a few weeks (before the holiday break and again afterward) with an issue importing into Unity3D. The character came out looking like a misshapen pancake, whereas previous iterations looked just fine. I had added joints and skin weights to the skeletal structure, so I was certain it was something along those lines which had affected it, causing the model to implode on itself when added to the scene.

After some headaches and much Google searching, Matt was able to find me some good posts to check; a couple threads suggested to uncheck 'Segment Scale Compensate' in every single joint. I was skeptical, saving the model beforehand with a new iteration number lest I screw something up royally (or if there were no effects shown) and have to revert.

This turned out to be what I needed to do. Why it's on by default, what it does... doesn't really concern me. I can look it up later.

Pancake

I'm still working on texturing and I'm hoping to go with a higher-poly final result, but at least I'm no longer looking at a smashed, inverted lump when it's in the game world.