As a kid, I used to dream of making my own video game. I remember at one point I grabbed my tiny notebook and started writing down my ideas. When I was finished, I kicked back on my beanbag with a satisfied grin on my face thinking that somehow, one day, it would actually all come together. I suppose as a kid I had a problem with mixing reality with wishful thinking and delusions of grandeur. 10 years later, here I am sitting behind my computer typing about my lethargic pursuit. My dusty notebook lost, probably tucked away somewhere underneath an old cartridge of Duck Hunt. I think it all abruptly stopped when I found out I wasn’t smart enough to figure out what the hell a preprocessor was.
I’ve realized that talking about game development is much less dry than actually DOING game development. I’ve found a new respect for game developers after researching the struggles they go through in finalizing a product. Just hearing about the multitude of problems they are faced with and overcome on a daily basis makes me wonder, “maybe they were born with computer chips in their brains…”
Just to skim the surface and show the community some of these problems game developers run into, I’ve spoke with two independent developers working with the rare MMOFPS genre and asked them a single question:
"As an independent game developer, what has been the most notable struggle towards a solid product?"
"Well, we started development back in 2001 and "finished" in 2006 when we released Face of Mankind commercially. I'd also like to add that an MMO is never really finished, and at that point FoM definitely wasn't. The biggest struggle was to survive this long development period without any income whatsoever. The financial struggle has always been the worst. It hung like a sword above our heads, always ready to fall down and destroy everything we've built up.
It's also very difficult to find the right compromise between the time and resources you have available and the quality of your work. You just can't do everything as professionally as Blizzard can. Once you understand this, there's actually a good chance you might bring your development to an end, what we luckily achieved. Many independent MMO developers don't even reach beta, not to speak of retail. That would be my tip for other studios. Be aware of your limitations.
Besides the organizational and financial struggles, there are, of course, technical difficulties as well. An MMO is the most complex, hard to craft, painful piece of game software. Where normal games end, problems just begin with MMOs. Technically it was very difficult to implement the rather unique game design of Face of Mankind. It had to be extremely "free" when it comes to player choices, promote true ongoing role-play. To boot, the fighting part was never supposed to become minor.
The most often revised feature was our mission system, which was a real pain to get right. And to be honest, it never did. It started as a very open, completely player-made system where players even reviewed and evaluated the mission result. The problem with that system was that there were no game mechanics in place to evaluate the actions of the mission team, and for a game to be fun you need such mechanics. There must be some features for players to see how well they are doing.
The mission system went through some revisions and ended in a completely modular mission objective type design. Players were able to put together the mission they wanted by adding freely editable objectives based on measurable mission events. To bring this story to an end, it ended with a compromise we had to do for balancing reasons.
Anyway, we've learned from our mistakes and are now trying to do it right with Face of Mankind: Rebirth. It won't be perfect, but an evolutionary step in the right direction. :-) "
"When you have a company, such as Microsoft, that basically runs the desktop industry, our schedule can face setbacks based on that one single company. For instance, we were all set for Vista and with DirectX 10 support, but that changed when most of our gamers made the switch back to XP using DirectX 9.0c due to Vista problems.
The future is DirectX 10, but this recent setback isn't good for the industry. We have to rely on what Microsoft and/or Apple does. Support for Mac has been easy, especially with the new Leopard OS X. We haven't seen the amount of problems with Mac as we do with Microsoft.
Another problem we faced was game engine support. We usually find the bugs first and report them to the company that made the game engine. Unfortunately, they are slow on resolving these critical bugs. They are proactive, but very slow on updates. This is frustrating because our game relies on the engine as much as it relies on the OS maker (Microsoft).
On average, it usually takes 3 to 6 months for the game engine company to roll out an update that might fix 2 problems. By then, we already fixed and developed a solution ourselves and have moved on to new bugs.
So far to date (for the past year), we found and fixed 48 bugs with the game engine. This is frustrating because it put us one year behind schedule for "Lost Colony."
While this is all a struggle, we as developers try to view as "challenges" so we can overlook the frustrations. It's very important for us to keep our motivation topped at all times. If we view these struggles as "challenges", then we are actually making a better game with better bug-fixing solutions."
I guess if we were to sum it all up, juggling between compromise and keeping a game current seem to be some of the top problems in independent development. As I mentioned, this is only skimming the surface of a few problems these guys face on a daily basis. So the next time you feel like pursuing game development take a second to think "Am I able to spend countless hours without income, just to fall into a pit of bugs, troubleshooting , and endless development?". If the answer is yes, than my next question is "Are you a sentient being, or a cyborg?"
Lee Hammock, the Lead Game Designer for Fallen Earth answers a slew of questions from our own, Ahmed Ghanem, in a MassiveFPS.com exclusive Q&A.
Questions :
Ahmed: What can you tell us about the engine that Fallen Earth uses?
Lee Hammock: Icarus Studios developed the engine in-house along with the Icarus Studios Tools Suite. It can handle a wide variety of virtual environments, from cartoon-style cell shading to the more realistic graphics used in Fallen Earth. It can also handle numerous environments, from the desert scrub that has been seen in most of the Fallen Earth screenshots to forests, grasslands, and others which are also being used in Fallen Earth. The Icarus Studios Tools Suite makes implementing content in the game much easier since we can create large amounts of content with minimal need for actual coding.
Ahmed: What can we expect to see from the GUI ? Will it be crowded with buttons or just a simple MMO interface with drag and drop inventories?
Lee Hammock: The UI is pretty simple. It has a level/xp/hit point bar, a minimap, a quick slot bar, and chat window. Most of those can be closed, and they can all be dragged around. Players can also open and use other windows, like inventory or gear windows. The windows' transparency is also adjustable, so players can have a lot of viewable space even with windows open.
Ahmed: What will be “macro-able”?
Lee Hammock: Very little so far. We don't want a game that people can play on auto-pilot.
Ahmed: What can you tell us about future expansions? Will you introduce new factions or species ?
Lee Hammock: Future expansions will include free additions to existing content, including new towns, encounter areas, and even new sectors of game play. Future purchasable expansions will offer entirely new sectors of play in different regions outside the original setting. These purchasable expansions will be the largest sectors available and will take the players to new areas of the American Southwest, such as Hoover Dam or Las Vegas. New factions and sub-factions, skills, gear, mutations, vehicles, etc will be introduced in expansions, but new species are less likely.
Ahmed: You've mentioned PvP will be centered in conflict towns and special high level maps. Although your FAQ states there is no player cap, will there be one in these specific areas?
Lee Hammock: All PvP areas will have level limits placed on them so only players within a certain fair range will be able to attack other players in that area. This range can be quite large, but we still want to keep advanced players from making a bad time of it for newer players.
Ahmed: The game is skill based, but you gain APs from leveling up. Do you feel combining twitch with RPG elements will cause balance issues?
Lee Hammock: There undoubtedly will be balance issues; anyone who expects to produce a perfectly balanced RPG before release is fooling themselves. We hope that players who like both FPS and RPG games will find enough of their preferred game style in Fallen Earth to stick with the game, though players need a bit of both skill sets to survive. Fallen Earth plays very differently from most other MMOs (FPS combat, classless system, etc) so we're covering a lot of uncharted ground in terms of balance.
Ahmed: What options do you have for player groups (clans/guilds etc)? Can we expect to see guild centers or a place that a player can call home?
Lee Hammock: Our guild functionality is still being worked out. Players will be able to form guilds/clans/gangs, but everything that entails has not been finalized yet, and as a rule, we'd rather be called tight-lipped because we say nothing rather than be called liars for promising something we don't deliver.
Ahmed: How do you plan to include group hunting? Will there be any benefits from group hunting? Can a player go solo all the time?
Lee Hammock: A solo player will always have something to do at his level that he can accomplish alone. That said, such a player will miss out on a lot of content in our levels and instances, which are very group-oriented. There are simply places in Fallen Earth one should not go alone because you will be horribly outnumbered. Players who never group up will be able to play, but they'll miss out on a lot of story, items, recipes, etc.
Ahmed: How does death work? Can the player get back into battle quickly? Does death differ in PvP and PvE environments?
Lee Hammock: A player reduced to 0 hit points is incapacitated. Another player may revive him with certain mutant abilities or a special item, such as a Resuscitation Kit. Alternately, he may activate a clone of himself at the closest LifeNet pod, which also destroys his old body. LifeNet pods are located away from PvP areas, so players can't be corpse camped. If the player is involved in PvP, he will have to run back to the fight from the LifeNet pod, which can take a minute or so. Also if a player dies several times in rapid succession, he will begin suffering XP and stat debuffs to encourage the player to go do something else instead for awhile. We hope that this system will allow players to get involved in PvP without fear of terrible repercussions, but encourage them to eventually leave the field instead of continuing in never-ending battles where everyone just keeps resurrecting and jumping back into the fray without consequence.
Ahmed: You confirmed "hit boxes" a while ago- does it affect the amount of damage only, or will we see head shots?
Lee Hammock: If by “seeing head shots” you mean actually seeing a critter's head explode or some such, then no. The hit location system is primarily used as a damage adjustment.
Ahmed: What character movements have you planned to include in the game (crouching, walking, running, swimming, emotions etc…)?
Lee Hammock: Walking, jogging, running, sprinting, crouching, crawling, riding mounts and in cars, swimming, climbing ladders, among others.
Ahmed: Do players have the option to choose between FPS and TPS?
Lee Hammock: Yes. I find that it's much easier to use ranged weapons in FPS mode, but much easier to use melee weapons in TPS mode, so I tend to switch back and forth a lot.
Ahmed: Does the game utilize auto aim in any form?
Lee Hammock: None at all. There is no lock on targeting, no sticky target, nothing of the sort. Folks seem to get confused about this one, so just to be clear, there is no type of aiming assistance at all in Fallen Earth.
Well, that about wraps it up. Although we won't be seeing heads exploding we're defenitely looking at a quality action MMO, and we're psyched for the release. Big thanks to Lee Hammock for taking time out of his busy day to let the MMOFPS community know about his game. It will definetely be one to keep our eye on.
"Well, we started development back in 2001 and "finished" in 2006 when we
The most often revised feature was our mission system, which was a real pain
The future is DirectX 10, but this recent setback isn't good for the
Lee Hammock, the Lead Game Designer for 
Ahmed: What character movements have you planned to include in the game (crouching, walking, running, swimming, emotions etc…)?