User:Jon Lupen/Adding New Content

Adding New Content - Linsey talk

First I would like to break down for you guys what is needed to set up a new zone ("elite" status or otherwise) including how many different people it takes and then I will talk a little bit about new content in general. A new zone requires these things:

Map

This means a level designer to work with the lead on the project to get down the layout and flow of the zone. It then gets kicked over to the level artists who will lay down all the terrain textures, wall cladding, lighting, props etc to turn the zone into the final product. While the level artist is working on that, another artist is needed to create new textures and props to support the new aesthetic of the map for the level artist to use (even if we reuse a majority of existing assets, some of this is still needed). An effects artist will also likely be needed for new effects which add to the aesthetic of the zone. Then we need the level designer to generate the mini map and get the map hooked up in the world.

Design

A designer is needed to detail out the overall design and drive the project. A couple other designers are needed to assist in designing and writing all of the quests, NPCs, mechanics, chatter, etc. <This could be done by one person, but as a frame of reference, to introduce M.O.X. as a new hero with his quests it took one designer to drive the design of M.O.X himself, Me to design the overall design of the four quests, and two other designers to design the details of two of those quests all over the course of two months and believe me when I say it was still stressful and tight on time.> A writer is needed to go through all the text making edits for spelling, grammar and awesomeness. Once those edits are done, Jeff Grubb does a continuity pass for any red flags and a last round of edits are made. Then the text goes to localization where a team of people translate everything into the languages we support. A designer is needed to design out all the creature armies, their skill sets, themes, etc. An item designer is needed to design any special items functionality (things like consumables, green items, etc) as well as design out what loot can drop in the zone and all of their drop rates.

Art

A concept artist is needed to concept out the overall aesthetic of the zone, any armor, weapons, NPCs, new architecture, bosses, monsters, etc. Everything gets concepted before being made. A character artist makes any armor pieces needed as well as new NPC models. A creature artist makes any new creatures (reskins or otherwise). An animator is needed to animate any new models or adjust animations that are disfigured based on the reskinning (for instance, M.O.X. needed some substantial help to get him moving and using his anims properly at his size. He used to float around a lot and not in a good way). A prop artist is needed to create any new items that can't use the amazingly versatile "red bag" model. A concept artist is needed to make any new inventory or skill icons. If we make anything like books or other containers (like the Moa incubator) then we need a graphic/UI artist to fix up the images on each page or to create the UI art. An effects artist is needed to make any skill effects.

Implementation

A creature designer makes all the species needed (that's NPCs, monsters, and any other things which are spawned), this is usually someone who's entire join is creating species, but it can be done by two or three of the regular designers like myself who have been trained in how to set this delicate stuff up. The item designer hooks up all the inventory and bundles items needed. Again this is something that another designer can technically be trained to do but items are even harder than species so it generally falls to the one man who knows everything about our item system. Same deal with setting up the loot lists and drop rates, but this is even more scary and delicate so it isn't easy for someone who is not intimately familiar with the system to pick it up and get it done without serious training. The designers on the project then take all the species generated and script out all the spawns for the base spawn, the quests, any special NPCs etc. Once the spawns are down in at least their most basic state, it can be sent to a content programmer who hooks up all the quests, special mechanics, special items, skills, monster and NPC AI, etc. New sounds need to be recorded and coded into the map too. New mechanics like the battles down below in the Turai BMP mission required a lot of prototyping and additional server, engine and graphics programmers to make work at an acceptable level. If there are any cinematics, that requires another team of people to code the cinematic, do any special animations, effects, sounds, etc.

Testing

Once most of the pieces are together, a QA team begins searching the zone for bugs. Bugs are all over the place like animation glitches, floating props, effects not working, creatures spawned in unpathable spots, quests blocked, too many creatures spawning in an area, quests interacting with other quests poorly, spawns being too difficult, drop rates, skills not working or acting strangely, missing effects or icons, typos in text, text not localized, crashes, drops in frame rate, disconnects, you name it we got it. So round after round after round of bug fixes are made by all the people previously involved. Then there are rounds of testing for playability, balance and continuity and subsequent rounds of tweaks and more bug fixing.

Release

Marketing and Web are needed to working on any promotions being done. A web page for the feature needs to be created complete with its own text and graphics requiring more peoples time and effort. Update notes need to be compiled and checked against what is in game. A Dev Update needs to be written and edited. Community needs to be up to speed on everything involved. All the files involved have to be integrated up to the Staging servers where the whole testing process begins again with another round of bug fixes. Then everything needs to be integrated up to the Live servers and distributed out.

General Notes

I know there are lots of things I am leaving out, but this should at least give you all some idea of what is required for just one zone. We are talking about ~20 people MINIMUM to accomplish. I would LOVE to make a new God Realm. LOVE. But getting all these resources at this point would be extremely difficult.

On the topic of new content in general, I mentioned a little bit about what it took to make M.O.X. so you know that doing any new quests is not a trivial task. I don't even want to talk about how stressed I was trying to get the Wintersday quests done in half the time with less people. From start to finish, a single quest can take around a month of development. Granted, certain people only work on it in specific stages but never-the-less, it is a time consuming process. But in all honesty, I would not have been as interested in working on the Live Team in the first place if I was not going to be able to add new content at all. It was the first question I asked when I was assessing whether or not I wanted to leave the GW2 team for this. In the six months since we started, the Live Team has already added a brand new hero with his own series of quests and brought Wintersday to the Eye of the North with its own series of quests. That is new content and I fully intend for us to be adding more small pieces of new content like this as we move forward. It's all just a matter of acquiring the resources and time needed. We have a VERY LONG list of things we want to do and new content is certainly on it. We know you guys want it and we do want it too. :D