"Automatons" meeting - Ronan, Romain, Maxence, Laurent and Jeff
New additions to the GUI
Laurent, also known as Lt_Miles on the forums, is our Producer. First to arrive, and probably last to leave the office (does he actually leave?!), he does an incredible job at Amplitude. Amongst other things, did you know that he is actually the guy who pushes the RELEASE button for every new update on Steam? That man has the power, you should all just bow and read what he has to say.
Tell us what you do at Amplitude.
Basically, and in a nutshell, I am a mix of project manager and butler: I am helping the team to reach quality, time and budget constraints and I make sure that the communication goes well within the team. I am helping them to focus on creating the game by taking care of some side aspects: for instance, set-up and application of the Scrum agile methodology, implementation of the localization, outsourcing relationship management, data management, release of the Steam versions, etc. When needed (and if it's not too complicated for my programming knowledge...), I implement some assets, like icons or GUI elements/scripts.
What did you have to change on the GUI, for the Automatons? Do they have their own portrait, diplomacy hologram or loading screen illustration?
The Automatons faction is the winner of a contest which the idea comes from the community. The previous state of the game didn't allow the implementation of this faction exactly as expected by Panzer, its creator. But as the participation of the community in the vote was important, we decided to allocate time and budget to code features used by the Automatons, keeping Panzer in the loop for the final approval.
And with new features comes new feedback... We had to find location in the existing GUI to clearly display the value of the stacked industry and its cap. So we have added this information in the star system tooltip on the galaxy view, in the development panel on the system view, and as a gauge on the empire view.
The Automatons are a custom faction, like any faction you could create on your own (except their affinity), but we wanted to push forward their great interest by adding their own art. Initially, we planned to only add the faction portrait and the diplomacy hologram. But the background of the faction is so inspiring that we decided to add a specific illustration for the loading screen. Concerning the 3D models, thanks to one of the others features added in the free add-on – the ability to mod ship meshes and textures – the community will be able to embody its own vision of the clockwork beings!
Faction balancing
Maxence (aka Meedoc) has have had quite an important role on this “Rise of the Automatons” add-on: in charge of Game Design, you have recently discovered the worked he have done with Rémi, on Alliance System and the Trade Routes. This time, let us focus on The Automatons and your cooperation with Panzer!
How did you contact Panzer, our Faction Creation Competition winner? What was his reaction?
Well I sent him a private message… to start a discussion with him on the Automaton’s Affinity. From the very beginning, we wanted to work with him in order to be in compliance with what he had in mind for his faction. After all, the Automatons are his children. ^^
After reading the Automaton’s lore, did you think the work you were going to start was going to be a piece of cake?
Actually, it was quite the opposite… The described affinity was really interesting but difficult to implement, just the way it was, in the game. It was not compatible with the current FIDS system and would have been especially hard to balance…
Did you actually try to implement everything requested by Panzer, or did you explain to him what was possible, and what wasn’t?
I contacted Panzer with a proposal based on the Automaton’s lore and we started our discussions from that. I explained to him my point of view and tried to understand which philosophy he wanted for his faction (because the gameplay philosophy is as important as the actual affinity).
From the proposal, he gave me his feedback and made suggestions. We played some kind of table tennis game, sending each others messages in order to refine the affinity and finally we find a satisfying compromise.
What new type of gameplay will the Automatons bring to the game?
Well first, I just want to clarify that we tried to externalize the new mechanisms the most, in order to give new toys to the modders. ^^
So, the Automatons have the ability to stack industry they do not spend (until a max cap). The stacked industry grows by itself until it’s spent. So you can stack some industry, and then use an conversion improvement until the stacked industry reach its max capacity and then build a whole fleet or improvements.
They also have an improvement which brings a new modifier: they receive a bonus regarding the number of their ships orbiting around one of their system. We also prepared the field to add stuff using friendly, allied or enemy orbiting ships. I am hoping players will have fun with these new things, and modders too!
"Automatons" meeting - Ronan
Giving shape to the Automatons
Ronan, also known as Solentis on the forums (the guy with the kiwi, you know).
Can you please introduce yourself and the work that you do?
Ronan: Hi! I’m one of the concept artists working on Endless Space. My work is to give shape to our writer and game designers’ ideas, but doing some research on everything they can imagine, and by refining little by little the design so the final result is what they expected. Also, I will find myself adding details they did not think about in the first place.
Did you start drawing an Automaton portrait out of the sketches made by Panzer? What were his requests/wishes for this portrait?
Ronan: Actually no, I started from scratch, just based on the lore he has written. His sketch just allowed me to immediately define this faction would actually be robot-like without necessarily being aggressive.
Did you have to submit several versions of the Automaton’s portrait, or did Panzer enjoy it right away?
I submitted a research board with the most advanced version of the portrait on it, which quite pleased him. Besides, when I explained to him that his writing reminded me of the robot in the movie “Castle In The Sky” and I took some inspiration from it, we then immediately agreed. Later on, I improved the general appearance to add the Dust element, and the head as well.
Adjusting the lore
Jeff, Slowhands on the forums, actually is a productive writer and one of Amplitude’s co-founders.
Hey Jeff, can you introduce yourself and the work that you do at Amplitude?
I’m a writer who has been writing games pretty much full time for about 8 years now. I knew Mathieu and Romain from some previous games we did together, and was more than happy to join Amplitude as The Writer Guy. For Endless Space I worked on the universe history, faction documents, the technology tree, all the descriptive texts (resources, anomaly types, etc.) and other game texts. In other words, if there is text in the game that has an error it’s my fault…
Do you remember the Faction Competition? How did Amplitude think about this competition?
To be honest, the community thought of the competition before we did! From the beginning we wanted to build an easily moddable game and have a community with a lot of modders, so it was inevitable that there would be custom factions because it’s one of the things that a mod builder loves to create.
From there the decision was simple – let the community create a bunch of cool factions (which they would do anyway) and then put one in the game (a great idea from SpaceTroll and Skamaks).
Can you tell us about the Automatons’ lore? Did it change much from what Panzer originally wrote for the competition?
No, and that was for a couple of reasons. First off, we purposefully made the lore of our universe vast and flexible; we want the players to feel that the galaxies are full of history, adventure, and danger. The basic idea of Endless Space is that myriad cultures and societies could be in any stage of development, so it is easy to add in a relatively ‘small’ culture that is at the beginning of space exploration.
Second, Panzer did a good job of thinking up a faction that tied in to the history (the crash of an Endless ship and the use of Dust) and that had a similar ‘feel’ to the other faction histories. As a result, most of the work I did was just editing and simplifying. No big changes were required.
Do they fit in the Endless Space universe?
Wonderfully. In fact, Panzer thought a lot about gameplay and lore when he was building the faction, which is what we always have to do. We build games so the gameplay comes first, regardless of whatever ridiculous idea I may come up with (and I’m good at that…).
Panzer thought about the style of play and his own faction’s history as well as the existing lore, which made it a great addition. A lot of people have factions from other games or universes that they love, or factions they have invented that they love. I think Panzer did a great job of taking his idea and making it work in the existing framework.
"Automatons" meeting
Next week is going to be exciting. I hope you are all ready for it.
WARNING: please keep in mind that your old saves won't be compatible with the new version. Make sure you finish your game!