2by3Games

Please wait while page loads . .

March 10th, 2004 - The first of many . . . . (Page 1/4)

This is the first of what we hope will be a monthly update on what's going on at 2by3 Games. Currently we're hard at work on both War in the Pacific and Gary Grigsby's World at War. As most of you probably know War in the Pacific is a massive and detailed game covering the complete Pacific War geographically and time wise, with an enormous amount of OOB detail. The game is shaping up nicely now, and I've got to say that I'm glad we published Uncommon Valor first before working on WitP. It's by far the biggest, most complex game we've ever worked on, and it's only because we had a solid system in UV that we've been able to finally get a handle on this massive subject. Although not yet technically at beta, WitP has been in test for over a year, and it's solid enough that our testers have several PBEM games going on now (check out the PBEM game AAR's at the WitP forum at www.matrixgames.com).

In the past month, Gary has been focusing on improving the AI while also fixing bugs as they are found (Keith has also fixed a few bugs, although he's been focused on GGWaW). Mike Wood (a Matrix employee) has not only been fixing bugs, but he's also continuously been adding new features like showing the course and speed in the TF sighting reports. We've also been tweaking some of the combat formulas, like the sub attack and ASW routines. At one point the Allied subs were sinking scores of Japanese ships in the first few months of the war, something that just wasn't right.

Journal Index

Go to page 2 ->

March 10th, 2004 - The first of many . . . . (Page 2/4)

After doing some more research, we concluded that we needed to make sure that early Allied subs were commanded by very unaggressive sub commanders. In addition we weakened some of the stats for the S-boats and some of the Dutch submarines. Along with a few formula changes, we think we've finally got a handle on this without taking away the ability of the Allies later in the war to wreak havoc on Japanese shipping. One source lists over 60% of Japan's ship tonnage sunk during the war was sunk by subs.

On the art side, three Matrix artists/contractors (Marc Schwanebeck/interface, Iain Christie/map, Steve Ford/ships and planes) have returned to the project to finish the art and they've made good progress. We expect to get the new menu art, map art, and ship and aircraft art finished sometime in March. Mike Wood has done a great job with the scenario and database editors and I think this is one of the big improvements made in WitP compared to UV. With the whole Pacific to work with and the ability to change just about everything, I expect we'll see lots of user created scenarios. Rich Dionne (a Matrix contractor) and Gary have been busy putting the finishing touches on the scenario databases. We now have the 15 scenarios in pretty good shape. A few still require some work to be considered complete, and they all still need play balance testing and tweaking. This final "polishing" of the scenarios should start within the next 2 weeks. The sheer size of the game is one of the factors that has made it so difficult and time consuming to develop.

<- Go to page 1

Journal Index

Go to page 3 ->

March 10th, 2004 - The first of many . . . . (Page 3/4)

So how long does it take to play the campaign game in WitP? When I set up an AI vs. AI test on my Pentium 4 2.00 GHz, 512 MB computer, it takes about 8 days, 24 hours a day, to run from Dec 1941 to late 1945. Of course the smaller scenarios can be run in a half day or less. For two players to play PBEM, it could take quite awhile, although I strongly suggest using 2 or 3 day turns for the long campaign. We've been very lucky to have a very experienced group of testers helping out on WitP, some for over a year now. A special thanks goes to Rick Porter who has taken on the role of test supervisor, a thankless task. Rick's made my life easier as he sorts through all of the tester reports while chipping in with some excellent suggestions for improvements.

As for our WitP development schedule, we're shooting to be at Beta by the end of March, and to be done with the game by the end of June. As we like to say, "It's a fine goal". When WitP is done, we're seriously considering starting the active development of a War in the Mediterranean game.

<- Go to page 2

Journal Index

Go to page 4 ->

March 10th, 2004 - The first of many . . . . (Page 4/4)

Work on GGWaW has also been moving along, with the focus at the moment on getting the art done for several different information screens and the units that will be placed on the map and info screens. As Marc provides the art, Keith has been hooking up the various screens. Jorgen Vasshaug, our artist (and webmaster), has just about completed the map art for the game. Our plan is to have most if not all of the art for the game in good shape by the end of March and to have the last remaining screens fully functioning by then. That will allow us to put the game into outside testing in April, and allow Keith and Gary to focus on improving the AI while reacting to tester comments and bugs. Unlike WitP, this game can be tested quickly. In WitP the longest scenario can last around 1700 turns, while GGWaW's longest scenario lasts around 25 turns. We don't have a definite schedule yet for getting to Beta or Gold Master (other than sometime in 2004), but we should have a much better idea in the next month or two as WitP finishes up and we get GGWaW into test.

That's all for now. Future updates will likely be shorter. The next few months should be very interesting, so make sure to check in again next month.

<- Go to page 3

Journal Index

Home Page Contact Us

All other copyrights and products mentioned on 2BY3 Games are the property of their respective companies.