sandslayer76 wrote...
So, basically, my question is this: How long does the average major (or minor) idea take to get implemented from the moment it is thought up to the moment it is first stuck into the game? I'll be satisfied with just a timeline that you feel fits, even if it's just "3 months" or something like that.
It's a big question. The easy answer is "it depends".
What does it depend on? How much the idea in question affects the overall game. Big stuff, the things that are fundamental to the design and which affect many other things, either are top-down directives (meaning they come from the senior leadership or higher-- many of those are just directional, but if they come from someone like the Lead Designer they can be specific design decisions as well) or they get run up the chain of command from below.
If it's a big thing that can have a direct impact on sales, it often takes a while for a change to be implemented. Or, if it's a change that's occurring mid-stream (such as when we decide something's just not working like we think it should mid-development) it can happen very quickly. Someone pulls the trigger (meaning someone with the power to make that call) and we rush to change it. You can only do that so much, however, as the entire process requires a certain amount of momentum. We're talking about a huge undertaking.
For smaller things, it really depends on what's part of your personal bailiwick. There are things I, as Lead Writer, have a certain amount of discretion over, for instance, even if ultimately everything I do is subject to the Lead Designer's approval. Part of that, of course, is the realization that my decisions can have an impact on other peoples' work. If I decide today that X follower is going to have a new conversation in a certain plot, that means I need to bring onboard the Tech Designer who needs to implement it and I'll possibly be affecting the flow of that particular plot entirely-- is there room for this dialogue? Did I just stick a conversation in the middle of what's meant to be an action sequence? The more effects a change can have the more careful one has to be. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, but it does mean you have to be careful. This is how bugs get introduced. One programmer or scripter's innocent change suddenly breaks three different things they weren't even involved in working on.
If it's something small and only affects the writing, and doesn't compromise the vision of the project or the budget I have to work with? Sure, a change can be made rather quickly. But as I just said in a post above, the ideas that people here on the forums tend to offer don't tend to be those sorts of things. They're more concepts or fundamental ideas, which are fine... but they're rarely simple, and thus they're the sort of things that get discussed in these parts at the very beginning of a project when we first start talking about how we want the Big Things to work.
As an aside, I noticed that you're usually regarded as the lead designer for the Dragon Age Universe. I know the lore took years to devise, but how long has the idea been bouncing around in your head? Are you the one that thought the premise up in its entirety? If so, what does it feel like the have created a genuine, popular product out of such a personal thing as an idea in your head?
Careful when you say things like "lead designer". I know you didn't use caps, but there's a big difference between my position and the Lead Designer-- who is the person that determines the design vision for a game. I had a big hand in putting together the Dragon Age world, yes, but that includes the fact I did so under a lot of direction from the DA Lead Designer (who at the time was James Ohlen). There's a lot of personal ideas of mine in there, as with anything I work on, but a given project is always going to be a collaborative effort. I cannot take personal credit even for the story (or blame, if you prefer) as that's going to involve other stakeholders such as gameplay, art and programming.
Fans like to think of game-writing as being similar to writing a novel... but it's more like writing a screenplay for a movie (although even that comparison breaks down when the idea of interactive gameplay becomes involved). There's a lot of hands involved.
But more directly related to your question, I guess there's a great deal of myself in the setting. Like any geek I have a certain amount of preference for a type of fantasy world... I like tropes that get turned on their head without being rendered unrecognizeable. I like fantasy that's grounded in reality without entirely losing the fantastical, and making fantasy characters relate to the issues we see in real life. Regardless of how much of me is in the DA setting (THE DA Setting-- damn the forumites for putting that in our heads.. we actually had a temp name for the setting that we rarely used because we knew someday we'd simply rename it. And when that day came it turned out the forum's temp name for the setting had become stuck in our brains. Serves us right.
) once you put something out there it takes on a life of its own. Same with characters we write. They stop being entirely ours, which is a very strange feeling.
And that's a much more extensive answer than I was planning on giving. I'm rambling, now. Time for coffee.
Modifié par David Gaider, 15 septembre 2010 - 03:38 .
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