> Perhaps someone here who is a game/software developer can comment on
> the West's progress. That is, what parts of a complete game would be
> developed in what order, and is RL progressing in any normal or
> rational manner.
Well, I think most developers code 'stubs' and start at the bottom.
That is, you layout the source framework at the start, but all the
complex functions are just placeholders. So the code is full of
functions which are little more than declarations:
bool AmICrashingIntoAnything(Entity e)
{
return false;
That kinda stuff. So you get to a point where you have a working game
but with not much actually happening. Then the artists know file
formats and the underlying tech for animation, entities etc and can
start building, while the coders begin to flesh out the skeleton with
more useful function bodies which actually return useful answers.
I have heard many, many amusing anecdotes about companies going bust
because they didn't do it like this, they didn't build in increments,
they just tried to code the whole damn lot in one go. (The Mythical
Man-Month is a good book for this kind of thing).
Compare Papyrus and the Wests. Papy have released ICR, ICR2, GPL,
NASCAR 1, 2, 3, 4, NR2002, NR2003, NL. Each one has much better
physics, graphics etc than the last, and that is why they are where
they are. They ship, haul in some money, then write the next version.
id Software are the same. There are tons of things that they want to
put into the engine before release, but they force themselves to ship
and put it all in the new one. The Wests try to write the best racing
sim ever from nothing, and if history is anything to go by (looking at
developers with the same strategy), it will never see the light of
day.
It's often said that when you've finished the first 90% of a game, you
have to write the other 90%. I think the Wests will continue to add
features, update their physics, update their graphics algorithms as
new ideas come along, and never get to the point where they say,
'Right, enough is enough, we have to ship.' Whatever people say about
publishers, they do ensure that products hit the shelves, and
regardless of all the West/Empire sob stories, I'm pretty sure Empire
realised the dire state they were in and pulled the plug. Any
publisher would have done the same. Eidos stuck with Ion Storm because
they knew Deus Ex was on it's way, but they pretty much gave up on
Daikatana at a very early stage. If Deus Ex wasn't in development and
progressing well, they probably would have dumped Ion Storm
completely.
