06/04/2008    |    Devlog    |    Brady    |    Discuss

It’s been a long time since I’ve written a devlog, so I should probably start with a brief introduction. My name is Brady, and I took over as lead programmer several months ago when Joe moved up to the producer role. My primary focus so far has been to foster a culture of fear and mutual suspicion amongst the programmers. It’s a bit of a shift from the cooperation and mutual respect that Joe promoted. But I believe that after the initial adjustment period, everyone will see that it’s for the best.

The real purpose of this devlog is to introduce you to two recent additions to the programming team. The first is John Zipperer. John has been focusing on our art pipeline tools, which enables our artists to be more productive, and gets art assets into the game faster. He’s also been tracking down client crashes, and addressing performance issues in the game. In addition to all this, John grows a mean moustache, winning the company-wide moustache competition in his first month. He demonstrated incredible toughness by refusing to shave, even when the itching grew unbearable. Qualities like this are what make a winning team.

The other new programmer, Luke, AKA Snap, has been here for two weeks, and he’s already digging into the ship insurance system. This is a feature that we would not have been able to get in to 1.5 if not for Snap. He’s coming up to speed and becoming productive incredibly quickly. Look forward to lots of great features and bug fixes from Snap in the near future.

The rest of the team has been busy fixing bugs and adding polish this milestone. We’re also adding additional logging and tools that will give our customer service representatives more visibility into the game. I don’t have as much time to program as I used to, but so far this milestone I’ve been focusing on an annoying problem with allied ship AI. Often times, players will emerge from a boarding action, or sink an enemy ship after a lengthy battle, only to find that their AI ally has sailed several kilometers away with an enemy ship. At this point, the player can either wait and hope that the ally wins, or try to chase them down. The code I’m adding will keep AI ships from getting too far away from their allies. It’s a bit tricky making sure a change like this doesn’t break any existing scenarios. But, in the end, it should save players a lot of inconvenience.

We’re still looking for good programming candidates, and have just added a posting for an experienced MS SQL Server DBA. Check out the listings in our jobs section, and if you know anybody who is qualified and interested, send them our way. Thanks!

06/04/2008    |    Devlog    |    Brady    |    Discuss