Novalogic speaks!!!

[MC]

For all those who've been wondering (like I was) what Novalogic has been up to, well Action-Inside was able to get an interview with Jordan Blackman:

Many days have passed since we have heared anything out of the Novalogic camp. Speculation as to the next move of the long time military sim giant is rampant. Fans have been found searching new copyrights and domain names to find some insight as to what is on the horizon for Nova. Action-inside decided to simply just ask.

Today we meet Jordan Blackman, he is the current Producer for bhd console and looks like also PC production. Lets dig in and find out what Nova has to say about the questions we sent.

Action-Inside: Many of us know names such as Joel, Marcus, Gieorgina, Chad and others that worked for nova at about the time of the bhd release. What?s the scenery like around calabasis these days, Is there much work getting done, and who can we look forward to be building the next NovaLogic experience?

Jordan Blackman: It?s HOT here in Calabasas. It hit 100 today. There is a lot of work being done here in our cool office. I?m not really in a position to introduce our team right now, but it is a combination of many long-time employees and significant fresh blood.


AI: Since your console release last year, how has NovaLogic's approach to game development changed. How do you consider console gaming, more important than PC?

JB- We want to leverage our strengths as a company, and at the same time bring in a new generation of gamers. Consoles are an exciting opportunity, but we still value the PC as an important platform for us.


AI: Will NILE get newer versions and bug fixes? Or will NovaLogic switch back to the MapEditor a?la DF series in it?s future games.

JB- NILE is currently under development. We?re making it significantly more powerful, easier to use and more integrated with the game-engine.


AI: If NovaLogic is developing a new game, will they use the old engine (BHD/C4) or use a totally new engine?

JB- It?s a misconception if people think that JO used the BHD or C4 engine. JO uses is a significantly more capable engine. On the other hand, nobody ever throws out all their code when they start work on a new engine. Unreal 3 has code from the original Unreal in it. We?re working on tons of new engine technology, and intend to be competitive with anything on the market in terms of our engine?s capabilities.


AI: Joint operations pushed PC requirements when it was released how will the new game compare to JO min specs - will we need to upgrade drastically?

JB- The min specs on our upcoming in-house project have not been set, so I?m not sure to what degree people with the JO min spec will need to upgrade, but I can assure you that the min spec will be higher than it was for JO. It?s just the nature of having a more advanced engine and game. Of course the market changes too; more people have better machines with better video cards.


AI: Many great games have been released in the last year since Joint Operations debut. How will the next PC experience compete with the FPS gaming scene ? Anything you can divulge to us in terms of reaching the bar set by those releases.

JB- For now, all I can say is that we are seeking to make the most exciting single player and multiplayer experiences in the world.


AI: Many young fans are very interested in gaming jobs, what kind of openings are open for enterprising modders and mappers in the community.

What kind of requirements does NovaLogic focus on when hiring new meat.

JB- We like people who are dedicated, educated, and tenacious. It really helps to have strong communication skills whatever position you are applying for. An artist or mission designer, no matter how talented, will be limited if they can?t speak, listen, and write well.


AI: Regarding game mods, what is NovaLogics view of people creating mods to a game and what do they consider before approving a mod? Will more emphasis be placed to allow game mods to be included in Nova's Lobby

JB- We like to support modders. It?s fun to see what people come up with and are able to get a game to do. Generally, when we look at a mod, we make sure that there is no malicious intent with the mod, that the mod does not interfere with normal operation of the original game, that the mod operates correctly with the NovaWorld system, and that the mod does not contain non-NovaLogic copyrighted or trademarked materials. On the subjective side, we want to ensure that the mod is ?good.? Supporting mods on NovaWorld is something we continue to think about as our development efforts continue.


AI: The # of players seem to reduce due to abilities to hack or cheat in a game. Is Nova working on any new ways to reduce this for future games?

NovaLogic has always worked hard to prevent cheating, and we will continue to do so.


AI: A day in the life of - JBlackman game producer would be?

One of the things I like about my job is that what I do changes a lot over the development cycle. For example, in preproduction I may be in a lot of meetings and writing a lot. In production I?m tracking progress and working closely with the team on tough decisions. The variety is great, but some things don?t change: I spend a lot of time reading and writing emails: to hardware folks, software folks, platform holders, outsourcing people, marketing or sales people, etc? I also spend a lot of time speaking with members of the development team about current issues. Conflict resolution and proactive problem solving are key. When something comes up that isn?t easy to resolve, I make or facilitate (usually the latter) a decision to move the project forward on schedule.

Thank you for your time and patience.

Article by:
RPare aka Trigger-

Source: http://www.action-inside.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16613

 

[DiebytheSword]

Also, NWMod11 was quoted as saying in response to "throw us a bone? do we have to wait 18 months for the next title?"

"Watch out for reindeers on the horizon."

They have 3 titles trademarked, each one is making me happy

Delta Force: Blowback (likely to be the christmas title)
The Unit (almost **** myself for this one to get licensed, great show)
Operation: Acid Gambit (the code name for a hostage rescue in panama before we invaded in the 80s.)

I think we can expect portions of the unreal engine to be used, but still see Nova's mesh deformation when vehicles get blown up, and the same tried and true XML map format with a terrain mesh for those who have used Nile or DFX MED. I wonder if WAC will be made significantly more powerful, since once you learn that you can do really neat stuff with coop maps. Having it integrated in to the game makes me iffy, I'm not sure that's a good idea.

As for cheating, they haven't been trying hard enough. I've been playing Joint Operations excessively, and have seen all kinds of crap from CHAMPS (seeing through foliage and solid objects like they aren't there) to speed hacks, to walking on claymores, to walking through walls with the help of a vehicle, to logging on to nova with two characters, and using one as a headshot mannequin so the guy has 120 to 2 and all of them head shots at the end of the map on a STAT server.

It gets annoying, and filling out a cheat report might get them on the watch list, if enough people do it. Then you have team sabatoge on spec ops, and it's easy to see why people want to play Battlefield instead. If it weren't for the fact that most of the cheaters have no actual skill, I'd probably leave too. But I can kill even the most hacked up nob, champs only sees through everything in front, and I like to flank and shank

 

[MC]

Also, NWMod11 was quoted as saying in response to "throw us a bone? do we have to wait 18 months for the next title?"

"Watch out for reindeers on the horizon."

They have 3 titles trademarked, each one is making me happy

Delta Force: Blowback (likely to be the christmas title)
The Unit (almost **** myself for this one to get licensed, great show)
Operation: Acid Gambit (the code name for a hostage rescue in panama before we invaded in the 80s.)

I think we can expect portions of the unreal engine to be used, but still see Nova's mesh deformation when vehicles get blown up, and the same tried and true XML map format with a terrain mesh for those who have used Nile or DFX MED. I wonder if WAC will be made significantly more powerful, since once you learn that you can do really neat stuff with coop maps. Having it integrated in to the game makes me iffy, I'm not sure that's a good idea.

As for cheating, they haven't been trying hard enough. I've been playing Joint Operations excessively, and have seen all kinds of crap from CHAMPS (seeing through foliage and solid objects like they aren't there) to speed hacks, to walking on claymores, to walking through walls with the help of a vehicle, to logging on to nova with two characters, and using one as a headshot mannequin so the guy has 120 to 2 and all of them head shots at the end of the map on a STAT server.

It gets annoying, and filling out a cheat report might get them on the watch list, if enough people do it. Then you have team sabatoge on spec ops, and it's easy to see why people want to play Battlefield instead. If it weren't for the fact that most of the cheaters have no actual skill, I'd probably leave too. But I can kill even the most hacked up nob, champs only sees through everything in front, and I like to flank and shank

You never know, they might include portions of the Unreal engine or they might not, hopefully they do since I think the Joint Operations/Delta Force: Xtreme engine really needs an upgrade, especially in the physics department.

I used to spend hours in in Nile and tinkering with a WAC file for a map. You could come up with some cool stuff but I agree with you, hopefully they will make it much more powerful. They need to add a lot more weather effects and beef up the ones they have. The lightning and thunder effect was awesome but it kind of lacked.

Novalogic needs to really crack down on cheating, when I used to be part of a squad, 40% of the time (might not seem like a lot as compared to now) the other team used cheats in a squad match (one team even admitted it before we started a match). The only good thing about the cheats in novalogic games is that they are pretty noticable, the only problem is that a lot of players have that Counter-Strike mentality.