The project in our SourceSafe is dated at being opened Mar 25. I've expended somewhere around 150 man/hrs. I'm not sure if the other 3 team members tracked theirs. A lot of that was in getting over the learning curve of the editor and the strat system. If we were ever foolish enough to bother doing another one we could prolly cut that time by 30-50%.
This terrain was never intended to be the last terrain you'd ever see. No one ever said that all future terrains have to be exactly like this one. It was intended to be one among many in a rotation. That’s what it will be soon. So we felt we had a little leeway to pursue a particular design philosophy that might be different than the others.
The design of this terrain was a direct reaction to the inequities present in many of the other MA terrains that attempt to shoehorn a historical terrain into a MA environment. I’m sure its possible to do that and be perfectly play balanced for a three way war, but we haven’t seen one yet that was. While we enjoy historical terrains as well, we wanted at least “ONE” terrain that was totally dedicated to play balance and fun density even if that meant surrendering any claims to historical accuracy. We wanted at least “ONE” terrain where no team enjoyed an initial advantage or started off at a disadvantage due merely to the accidents of historical geography. Our two fundamental design criteria were maximize play-balance, maximize fun density. Historical accuracy was not a criteria. Surely in a map rotation there is room for at least one map strictly optimized for game play and fun density. If we can’t tolerate at least that much variety then this is going to become a boring arena. If you wish to re-enact WWII then the CT and scenarios are always going to be much better venues for that. In the MA, in our opinion, BALANCE and FUN are by far the more important requirements.
Now, there are larger issues at stake here that I think many of you should consider carefully. Doing a terrain of this size is a huge amount of work. The degree of effort on a terrain grows linearly in relation to the surface area of the terrain (assuming a relatively even field distribution). So these terrains will roughly take HTC FOUR times longer to implement that the previous terrains. Assuming they are not going to be adding on additional staff, you’d have to expect the time interval between new terrains is now going to be FOUR time longer than they were previously. It’s also a zero sum game. Man/ hours that are committed to a terrain are going to be man hours taken away from modeling new planes and new vehicles and other art assets.
It became apparent, at least to me, that to maintain the variety, and pace of development that we have all come to enjoy, a way had to be found for HTC to be able to accept MA terrain submissions from outside sources in a way they could still feel comfortable with. The MA is their bread and butter. Their criteria and standards for a MA terrain are an order of magnitude higher than what they are willing to accept for the player run scenarios and CT arenas. You can’t just hand them some pet terrain and ask them to put it in the main. You have to come to them with a blank piece of paper and work with them over a period of time to come up with a design from scratch that meets all their criteria. You might have to scrap it and start over several times. There might be features you badly want to include that HT won’t agree to. He does make every effort to allow you artistic freedom, but in the end, after you argued your case, he has the final say. Period. If you aren’t willing to accept that then you’re wasting your time and his. I think there are a lot of “artistic” types that would end up throwing a tantrum and walking off in a huff. You have to be willing work with HTC like an adult. There are sometimes you’ll get what you want; there are some times you have to accept their judgment. In the end, its more important to establish and cultivate a mature, productive working relationship with HTC than it is to get your way on any one particular feature or idea.
So after all that, the huge man/hour commitment, subordinating your artistic vision to someone else’s control, turning over your finished work to become their property which they can change anyway they want, use it or just throw it away…after all that if they do decide to use it you can look forward to pile of derision and complaints on the bbs because it’s a certainty that you won’t be able to please all the various factions. Do you think people are going to be beating down HTC’s door to signup for that kind of abuse? In the end will that bring you more terrains and more variety, or less? Are you encouraging others to make the same effort for no pay or are you showing them that its prolly not worth the hassle? If for every one terrain you don’t like, might you get one or two that you do?
I’ve been on the Internet long enough to develop a cast-iron shell. The words of amazinhunks roll of it like water off a duck’s ass. And I certainly wouldn’t be naive enough to make an argument on the basis of common courtesy, However, I’d think that even the biggest bellybutton should be able to reason. You might want to think carefully about the tone of your reaction to the efforts that others have contributed to the community. If not for common courtesy, then perhaps at least enlightened self interest.
That’s all I have to say about that.
Regards,
Wab