Vanguard: Saga of Heroes Q&A
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Q: Name 3 mistakes you made in gaming development that you would like to do differently in Vanguard.
A: Well, I've certainly made a lot more than three
I guess what comes to mind most stems from experiences trying different approaches to MMOG development. For example, having tried to develop an engine from scratch as well as licensing an engine with source and then modifying it as the project evolves, I definitely prefer the latter. It really gives a head start to the entire team, and getting the artists and designers working concurrently as quickly as possible is very important. Having them wait on the programming staff to build up an engine and toolset makes for a much longer and potentially more frustrating development cycle.
Another would be staffing up too early. I think putting together a small, core team of experienced developers and getting through the '˜prototype' or '˜alpha' phase is very important. The key is to get into real production mode before you start throwing people at the problem. Once you have your pipelines down and know how you are going to build the world, or create content, then you can schedule and plan out from then until beta and beyond and determine your needs personnel-wise much more accurately.
One other lesson learned is that holding onto the culture and collaborative environment when team building is as important if not more important than the skill sets of the individual team members. Certainly you want experienced, talented, and smart people, but MMOG teams are getting big which means a lot of the work is split up modularized in a sense. This means a tremendous amount of brainstorming together, helping each other out, collaborating and compromising such that the sum is greater than all of the parts. Unfortunately, there are developers out there who are extremely smart but don't '˜play well with others', so to speak. And if you want to make and finish a great MMOG, I've certainly learned they are to be avoided.
