EQ2|Interview auf RPGVault.IGN.com

Auf RPGVault.IGN.com wurde vor kurzem ein Interview mit "Lead Client Programmer" Richard Baker und "Lead Server Programmer" Jon Davis veröffentlicht bei der es vorrangig um die Grafikengine und um die KI ging. Wie immer gibt es das Original auf English in den Details, hier die Zusammenfassung:

Original Veröffentlicht von: gracjanski am 29. 2004 - 16:25 Uhr 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | May 28, 2004 - Targeted to launch later this year Sony Online Entertainment`s EverQuest II is a persistent state title that takes place in a parallel world five centuries after the time of its groundbreaking forbear. During a unique period in its history, Norrath has been shaken to its very roots by one unexplained calamity after another. Their gods silenced, once powerful and seemingly impregnable empires have been torn asunder. The few inhabitants fortunate enough to escape with their lives have flown like dried leaves caught up in a windstorm, scattering across the seas to the far corners of every continent in search of new lives and directions. Under the stern gaze of Lucan DeLere, the Human city of Freeport, long home to Dark Elves and Ogres, is now virtually awash with assorted Trolls, Iksar, Kerrans, Gnomes, Half Elves, Erudites and Ratongas. It`s only natural that those who would stem this dark tide have been drawn together as well. To this end, numerous Dwarves, Halflings, Kerrans, High Elves, Wood Elves, Erudites and Barbarians have swelled the native Human and Half Elf population of another community, Qeynos, located on the shores of New Antonica. Following their leader, Antonia Bayle, they are pledged to advance the cause of good and nobility, their goal being the restoration of hope to the devastated world. And of course, there are some who linger in the shadows, waiting to see which side fate favors before casting their lots. With the team hard at work building on this backdrop, and interest continuing to rise, we had the chance to ask Lead Client Programmer Richard Baker and Lead Server Programmer Jon Davis about various facets of the game`s underlying technology. Jonric: At the early stages of the EverQuest II project, what were the key questions with respect to its technology, both in-house and third-party, and what did you ultimately decide? Richard Baker and Jon Davis: Very early in the game`s development, we built a prototype with a huge, seamless world. Early play tests indicated that this wasn`t taking things in a direction that was as entertaining as the first EverQuest, so it was scrapped in favor of our current zoned design. Fortunately we were able to leverage much of the early seamless technology to enable very large play areas in the same memory footprint as the current game. We definitely use third party libraries where appropriate, including Criterion`s DPVS, RAD Game Tools` Miles and Granny, and the Annosoft Lipsync SDK. We only use a library when its technology matches our needs and using it would save us significant time. Jonric: What goals did you initially set with respect to key features and the overall performance of the graphics engine, and how did you decide on them? Richard Baker and Jon Davis: We decided to build a graphics engine that allows for realistic visuals in a fantasy world. One of our most important features is that we use hand-drawn normal maps for intricate surface detail on characters, creatures and the vast majority of all other geometry in the game world. This allows the use of normal maps in a more artistic sense than their typical usage to simply approximate a higher polygon model. We wanted the engine to be visually competitive with the best games on the market at the time we launched. Since we know that EverQuest II will be played for many years to come, we designed an engine that would be scalable to future hardware while performing well and looking great on the current generation of PCs. Jonric: There`s a fairly common perception the graphics in massively multiplayer games will always be behind the leading edge. To what degree does this apply to EverQuest II, and what are the key trade-offs? Richard Baker and Jon Davis: MMO engines tend to have different performance tradeoffs from other games, given that the primary focus of an MMO engine must be to render the hundreds of characters and creatures that can be in a given area at a time. They also require a much higher degree of scalability due to the unpredictable nature of the game environment and the sheer quantity of content they have to represent. On the other hand, as an online-only game, we have the unique advantage of being able to continually improve our rendering technology to take advantage of any future hardware advances where appropriate. We`ve built our systems and art in a way that will easily allow us to support new graphics architectures while maintaining performance on typical machines at the time of our launch. Jonric: Turning to a different part of your technology, the artificial intelligence, what primary goals did you define at the concept stage and during early development? Richard Baker and Jon Davis: Our AI goals were designed around the ability to have entertaining AI that allows for a high degree of designer control in keeping with our overall goal of large quantities of engaging handcrafted content. This makes the average encounter a lot of fun while still allowing our designers to override the creatures` default behaviors in many ways we hadn`t considered when the system was originally implemented. We wanted creatures to work together in groups, so our combat mechanics and AI were designed around this concept as well. Creatures can assist each other and make decisions based on the overall status of the entire encounter, including the group makeup and specific actions taken by the player group currently opposing them. Jonric: We often see players asking for AI that`s "realistic", but then complaining when monsters are too tough. How much of a consideration was this? Richard Baker and Jon Davis: There are many definitions of the word "realistic", and they are not necessarily appropriate when thinking about building a game. For instance, how does realism apply to giant fire-breathing dragons? How would the dragons *really* act? It`s also important to consider that realistic doesn`t necessarily mean fun. We have always been driven by the tenet that our game must be fun, first and foremost. Instead of trying to make AI that acts realistically, we build behaviors that allow the creatures to interact with players in compelling (and fun!) ways. Jonric: While they may say otherwise, many players want monsters to be highly predictable, but this can correlate with repetitive gameplay. How are you addressing this seemingly contradictory issue? Richard Baker and Jon Davis: Most EverQuest II content is encounter-based instead of being based around individual creatures. A typical encounter has enough factors affecting the outcome that the same encounter will play out differently each time it is engaged. This helps avoid predictability even in cases where a particular encounter usually occurs in a specific place. Jonric: How much can seemingly similar creatures vary in their abilities and behaviors? Will they do things like run away when outnumbered or wounded, call for help and lure players into traps? Richard Baker and Jon Davis: Members of any NPC race can be of any class, and therefore can have dramatically different abilities. We can also add specific abilities to particular creatures to make things even more interesting. Our designers have direct control over the behavior of any individual creature, and can use almost any information about the current state of the battle or the game world to determine what the creature should do. This allows creatures to do the usual things like run away and call for help as well as perform more complex actions based on the needs of the designer who is crafting a given encounter. Jonric: In what ways has the fact EverQuest II will have pocket zones affected the design or implementation of the game`s AI? Richard Baker and Jon Davis: In addition to single encounters, a pocket zone allows a handcrafted series of encounters that are designed specifically for one raid, group or player to experience in sequence. In this way, they become just another tool that our designers can use while building the game. Jonric: What are the minimum and recommended hardware specs for the game, and what level of hardware will be necessary to obtain the best possible performance, both graphically and overall? Richard Baker and Jon Davis: The minimum requirement is a 1 GHz processor and a video card with 64 megabytes of RAM that supports pixel and vertex shader technology; we recommend a 2 GHz processor and 128 megs of video RAM. We have dozens of options that affect the balance between quality and performance, and when you install the game, it will adjust your settings to give you the best combination possible. EverQuest II will benefit greatly from the next generation of video cards such as the Nvidia GeForce 6800. A fast processor will also have a major impact on your performance, as well as having at least a gigabyte of system RAM. Jonric: Are there other important aspects or features you`d like to note for our readers, or something you want to ask? Richard Baker and Jon Davis: We hope everyone enjoys the game as much as we do. At the E3 trade show earlier this month, we heard and overheard a number of favorable comments about the graphics in EverQuest II, which means that portion of the project`s technology is already being appreciated and enjoyed. Both here and at our dedicated EverQuest II Vault, we`re looking forward to a lot more fun elements, and our thanks go out to Sony`s Richard Baker and Jon Davis for telling us what`s under the hood in various areas to help provide them.