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Frankie's Bungie Updates - Search results for Jaime
Friday, August 13, 2004
So Butchie put the beta out on a branch this week and really wants the code to stay jolly and happy until he goes to RTM...wherever that is...and what is he doing taking a vacation anyway?! All of the levels are undergoing performance reviews (are they even eligible for a raise?) and things are shaping up nicely. Even though Jaime's running around his level with ¾ of his screen filled with debug info, we still have trouble getting him to stop playing so Butchie can run his analysis tools. He's evidently having a blast, and that's a good thing.
Friday, July 16, 2004
Chris Butcher's Collected Shorts
The game becomes steadily more fun. Jaime mocked up a fake multiplayer game with some Master Chief AI that just stands around and lets you shoot it - so I spent about half an hour exploring some new physics in-depth.
The beta is a lot of fun, we're getting the chance to do a lot of in-depth playing of a single fixed build. This is a really important part of the process - in order to understand your game in a deep way, you have to have a lot of continuous time with a build that isn't changing. We're coming out of the beta with a ton of changes that we want to make to the physics and weapon balance for the final game.
Friday, July 09, 2004
Jaime Griesemer
I am convinced that the primary reason Halo 1 was a success was that it was extremely approachable.† Many games are almost sadistic in the way they abuse novice Players.† They throw you into a confusing high-pressure situation with almost no guidance and then punish you with long load times and loss of progress when you inevitably fail.† Halo, on the other hand, was a greased slide that took novice gamers, hooked them, introduced them to the controls and the game mechanics and taught them how to have fun with the game.† When they die, Halo gets them back in the action within seconds, without losing any progress or abilities.† It doesn't punish them or make them feel incompetent.† That means that Halo was played by a lot of people that would be turned off by most game experiences.
†
The way we made Halo into a greased slide for novice gamers was user-testing.† Lots of user-testing.††We brought people in, put them in front of the game and watched them from behind one-way glass.† We recorded them, analyzed them, questioned them and then we took all that information, changed the game, and did it all over again.
†
So that's what I did this week.† Adrian got the first version of our training system working and we brought in a bunch of people to try it on.† I'm not talking about hardcore Halo fans.† We brought in a†40 year old mother who only plays games to make sure they are appropriate for her young children (guess what, Halo isn't) and an 18 year old RPG gamer that doesn't like anything that isn't turn based and a 55 year old City Councilmen who only uses his console to play golf games during the winter.† Then we threw them into a free-for-all deathmatch game and see how well our training system worked.
†
It's painful to watch.† You want to go rip the controller from their hands and show them how to play.† You want to ask them why in the world they aren't reading the help text for dual-wielding.† You want to shake them and force them to use the look stick and the move stick at the same time.† But you can't because if they can't figure out how to have fun on their own, then nobody else will either.
†
Luckily, our tests went really well.† We had some rough spots, but the 40 year old mother was gunning folks down with dual-smgs within 20 minutes.† The RPG gamer was intentionally giving the enemy his Ghost so he could board them and take it back.† The City Councilman decided that leaping down on someone and shotgunning them in the head was better than putting for birdie.† We've got a long way to go, but Halo 2 is on track to be as user-friendly as the first one.† Next week we put the tutorial in the labs, and since it's only half done, I guess I know what I am doing this weekend...
Friday, July 09, 2004
Tyson Green
†
The Living Room Simulator is now open and ready for business, and many of the single player missions are to the point where we are getting polish level feedback.
†
Aside from grinding on my levels, in the past week I've been picking up some odds and ends. The Pelican received an update, and can now do more than just look intimidating when it enters a hot drop zone. Ditto for its Covenant counterpart. Both dropships are now moving around entirely of their own accord thanks to Damian and Jaime (and a little Eamon), which means we're updating our levels to make use of that ability.
†
During some downtime, I spent a bit of time making a human vehicle more drivable, and even more destroyable. Happily, it behaves almost exactly as you'd expect when someone takes one of its wheels off. Before the day is done, I hope to have it a little more stable when taking hard corners—it rolls like an SUV right now.
Friday, June 18, 2004
Dave†has the new HUD in and looking mighty fine. It's a change from what people are used to, but there's good reason for the change and we're confident it's the right decision. In fact, Jaime just got back from a usability test and is standing at my desk telling me just that. Oh, and of course we have the new multiplayer scoreboard in as part of the HUD!†Woohoo! Dave and I are also†working on cleaning up a whole slew of UI in time for†the milestone. Mat Noguchi is just now checking in the magic code that†makes players on Xbox Live†look like more than just a†name, I'm psyched!†Our Xbox Live UI is going to make people†jump with†joy, and I don't think I'm exaggerating. Once you try it you'll never go back. Anyway, way too much to do, currently 38 bugs on my plate for this milestone. Gotta get back to work!"
Friday, June 18, 2004
Jaime Jams
Jaime says they've finished adding "boarding" seats to all the vehicles. That means that quite apart from the vehicle-jacking stuff, every vehicle that can be boarded, sat on or otherwise utilized, now has functioning seats for real-life multiplayer and AI single-player modes. One thing hardly anyone at E3 noticed, was that when you board a Warthog, instead of taking over the driver seat immediately, you simply yank the driver out you then have to hop into the Warthog manually. A two-stage process designed to create interesting encounters on the slightly more boardable Hog.
Jaime also showed off the largely complete HUD which has moved everything around dramatically, but should still be recognizable to Halo folks. Obviously adding dual wielding makes this challenging, but the new HUD handily shows off the ammo/charge left in a gun, and more importantly, it tells you what your reserve, or third weapon is. THIRD WEAPON!!!? WHATCHOO TALKIN ABOUT FRANKIE? Well, if you're holding a weapon in one hand, and you have another "holstered" you can dual-wield a third. That means the reserve weapon simply stays put when you pick up the dual-wield weapon. Effectively that lets you have three weapons at one time.
Of course, that means that for newbies at least, it can be tricky keeping track of what you've got. To be honest though, after an hour or two of play, you stop thinking about it.
There's also been something of a separation for church and state as far as the shield level and health meter are concerned. You'll see in good time how that works, but it makes a big difference.
Friday, May 21, 2004
SONIC THE GRIESEMER
Right after E3 Jaime went to work tweaking the physics on vehicles.
†
Mostly he has been building on what we showed at E3.† Some of this involves tweaking, including the addition o fan extended camera shake for all the grenades so you can feel them from farther away, reduced the number of needles requires for a super-detonation, that kind of thing.† He's also added some new weapons to the mix, which of course we can't mention here, but both are VERY different from each other.† Once you have a solid balance, like we did for E3, you have to add new elements very carefully so you don't throw it out of whack.
†
Jaime and the team are also working on a final calibration of some of the fundamental systems like time, damage transfer, gravity and collision damage.† These are broad, sweeping systems that you have to nail down fairly early. Jaime says he feels like we know enough about our missions and gameplay to do this now, which is important because we won't be able to re-visit them later.† He says it's hard work but it will form a solid foundation for the rest of the game.
†
Jaime says we recorded a ton of combat dialog.† And he says that our combat dialog plan is basically insane.† Jaime argues that the combat dialog in Halo 1 still holds up well, but that Halo 2's dialog will make it look primitive.† He says that the AI is so much more aware of what is going on around it, we couldn't help but take advantage of that with more dialog.† He's pretty sure we recorded more unique lines for one character than we had in all of Halo 1.
†
Jaime's also been spending a lot of time this week setting up a brand new Covenant vehicle. He thinks it is the coolest-looking Covenant vehicle so far and he can't wait to get it into the game. He wouldn't tell us if it was single, multiplayer or both.
†
BONUS QUESTION: Jaime - what was the coolest thing you saw at E3?
†
For the first time in 5 years I didn't get to go to E3.† I was too busy writing combat dialog and wrangling the character behaviors.† The new Zelda looks damn cool though.† Link is a total badass.
†
Friday, April 30, 2004
Nathan's Animation Station
Nathan's on a roll this week, saying, "I think I saw John's knuckles bleeding this week. He was talking to his knuckles too...it was either to give them congratulations from really hard work on the Elite, or gently spoken murmurs of encouragement before John pops me one. I am unsure which is true, but I do know that the Elites' animations are very tight.
Buddman has been working on another top-secret character while taking some time out to calm the Jackal...quiet and collected, Mike Budd trudges through the toughest characters to make them awesome. I wish we could say more about his secret character, since it will rock harder than a quarry when you see it in-game.
The Billmation studio is still going strong. While working on Grunt animations we occasionally get blessed by poorly done Christopher Walken impressions coupled with a nice rendition of "Can You feel the Love Tonight" as sung by Nathan Lane. The scariest part is the Nathan Lane as Christopher Walken impression. I wanted to run away but couldn't since I had just soiled myself from laughter and slipped on my own feces.
I have been tightening the multiplayer Spartan animations, addressing bug after bug. I am thinking of changing my name from "bentllama" to "Orkin Man", though I don't think I will need the hardhat. I also have blisters on my palms from those damn S controllers. They have this plastic seam of razor along side them that really dig into your hands while clutching the controller in anger. When the multiplayer maps get to a stage where everyone is getting angry, then you know they are fun. Mark my words Jaime, I will get you back...you and you pony named 'One trick'!"
Friday, April 16, 2004
Ghosting
Jaime Griesemer, always a beacon of hope for the weekly update, didn't disappoint, and tells it best himself, "The Ghost handling is final. Eamon made it bank into turns, so it feels more like a physical vehicle and less like a magic floaty one. It's also much lower to the ground than Halo 1, which increases the feeling of speed, makes it react to the ground more and makes it easier to run people over. Shiek also added some ground effect lights which "connect" it to the ground even more."
Woot! Ghosts rule! But Jaime has more to say, "We've almost got a final list of combat dialog triggers in preparation for recording in a few weeks. I'm pretty excited because we're pushing the system a lot farther than we did in Halo 1.
And he continues, "I've also been spending time with Dave and Paul working on one of the human-themed levels. We're trying to make a real, sensible human space with a believable structure, instead of the ant-hill type environments you usually see. That means that rooms and halls fit together to fill the interior space, all the walls have reasonable thicknesses, all the hallways lead to actual places, all the rooms have purposes and are connected to the other rooms logically.
Friday, April 09, 2004
Staten Station
Joe Staten, cinematic guru and friend of the poor, has been making story stuff happen, saying, "This week revisited Earth-City. I finalized the storyboards for a super-duper, "event" intro, and CJ began creating the videomatic."
On other fronts, he's begun to work with the level-designers to organize and flesh-out their "mission-dialog" (basically, all the interesting things that get said in first-person that isn't part of the combat-dialog system) as well as help Jaime and Damian finalize the combat-dialog spec.
Marty, Michel and Joe have also begun to plan for the second dialog-recording session (late May) that will cover cinematic pickups and all mission and combat-dialog. This is going to be a whopper of a session, and will likely necessitate a week or so of hotel-time with Marty (lucky Joe).
Friday, April 09, 2004
The Griespit
Jaime has been very busy, finalizing Ghost and Warthog handling so the sound guys can work with confidence. The need to make sure that sound ties in correctly with motion is obvious, and all of the sampling, including the gravel on tires recording done with the poor Subaru Outback we abused, is ready to be applied and processed. The Ghosts in particular (in my opinion) are starting to sound brilliantly "alien" and cool.
Jaime has also been finishing up the connections between rooms for one of the early levels with Paul and Dave. He wouldn't elaborate on which level, BUT I can reveal that you might have seen something like it already.
Jaime is also figuring how CENSORED will work on (gasp!) a new CENSORED!
When he wasn't doing that thing we can't talk about, he was working on new triggers for combat dialog. So that Marines and others will say cool stuff when they're supposed to, and won't just blabber away when they're not supposed to.
But one of the coolest things Jaime was doing this week was adjusting the scale, type and shape of damage done by a new weapon. I've tried this one before Jaime's ministrations and it is BRUTAL. And no, that's not a pun on the word Brute. It's just a vicious bone hammering bastard of a weapon.
Friday, March 26, 2004
Jaime Griesemer's Patented Brain-Bending Cranium Tonic and Bum Lotion!
Jaime, as ever, blew my mind with the usual stream of stuff we can't talk about, but he's also working on something we CAN talk about. The tutorial! Jaime liked it the first time around, but for the new game he wanted to concentrate on stuff that you need to know to play the game, instead of the usual ? this is your shield, this is how you crouch ? kinda stuff. The example he used was that flanking is important, so the tutorial should "force" you to learn how to flank, without interrupting the flow of gameplay or narrative. Then you'll learn and know how to apply that the next time you find yourself in a similar circumstance.
Jaime is also pleased to announce that they've beefed up both the Battle Rifle (in an unspecified way) and the Needler. The Needler will now be a gun you look for, instead of one you use as a big purple boxing glove in melee situations.
Friday, March 19, 2004
Other Stuff!
Jaime has been working on enemy AI, tuning the aggressiveness primarily to make them melee-attack a little more. My efforts to prevent this fell on deaf ears. I'm scared of Elites you see, ever since that one jumped out at me on Truth and Reconciliation. I nearly filled my pants
Jaime is also working with the team on honing weapons, including the Battle Rifle and the Rocket Launcher, the latter of which has been improved upon in a number of significant, but non-jarring ways. Basically you should enjoy using it more, without knowing exactly why. The Battle Rifle is of course brand new, so you'll probably just enjoy the experience. Right now it's my second favorite weapon. Can't say what my favorite is. But I can tell you that the Battle Rifle makes one of the best noises ever. Brap!! Blapp! Blam!!!
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