Warlords IV: Heroes of Etheria Wrap Report

Areas for Improvement I think Infinite has still to prove itself in two key areas, use of technology, and graphic quality.

Graphic quality was a real issue for Warlords IV. We started from a poor position, with a lot of old artwork, and never really recovered. The art team did what they could, but did not have the luxury that the coders had of being able to start from scratch. This meant that everything we changed still had to fit with the generally dated look of the game. I still wonder if we had been more aggressive with the art schedule, if we'd have been able to get a significant improvement. The graphic quality of our future titles is of paramount importance to Infinite, and as we move forward onto our next two projects, we will be focusing more on the artwork than we have in the past.

A closely related area is the use of technology. It will probably surprise most people to learn that Warlords IV is actually a DirectX 9 game, completely done in 3D, using a lot of new features from DirectX 9. The problem was that all of the assets were 2D, so we have a game using 3D to simulate 2D. This really doesn't go anywhere towards showing what can be done with today's technology, and I think that in the current market, it is very important for a successful game to show a few cool tricks and gimmicks. Although our next title, Warlords Battlecry III, will still be in 2D, I think that from that point forward we will be working in 3D exclusively.

Lessons Learned I think that we learned a lot about scheduling with Warlords IV.

Firstly, I think we discovered that it is better to have many small deadlines and milestones than to have a few long milestones. We are now breaking all of our projects into three-week milestones. Typically, with a long milestone, you relax early and panic later. With a three-week milestone, you just keep working steadily.

Secondly, I think that we discovered how pleasant a beta test can be if the code is clean. As a veteran of many beta tests (some of them ugly), I have to say that the Warlords IV beta was the smoothest of them all. We will now rigorously enforce code reviews and bug-fix weeks into all of our game development cycles.

Finally, we really learned just how tough it is to compete with other quality games today. We are certainly right up there, but Warlords IV is only keeping its place because it is well-respected franchise and underneath it all, there is a good core game design. I think that we've learnt more than ever that we can't rest on our laurels, and moving forward, we have to really focus on what will be required in a top game two to three years from now.

Personal Thoughts Well it all happened rather quickly and it is a bit of blur now.

I know the game is good because I'm still playing it after release! I've grown attached to my level 43 Dark Elven Ghoul Warlord, which is precisely the reaction I was hoping to get from players.

One event that sticks in my mind was when I told one of the team that archers were horribly unbalanced because I could fill my capital city full of them and never be beaten. We played a game and he attacked me with a Treant and couple of catapults and wiped me out (Treants are strong vs. archers). I realized then that we had a created a fantastic little game with some real paper / scissor / rock things happening!

On another note - I'd also like to thank the Warlords community. They are an endless source of good ideas and inspiration, and their input was greatly appreciated and put to good use on Warlords IV.

Steve Fawkner Lead Designer Infinite Interactive

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