Strategy Wrap Report - Time of Defiance

Key Strengths The team did a great job in all areas of the development, so listing only a few would take away from that. We worked long, hard hours with limited resources to make Time of Defiance the best we could. Nicely Crafted benefits from a committed, highly creative team who always perform to the best of their abilities - top guys with some big plans for the future. The company's key strengths are its technology, creative vision and close team. Watch this space...

Time of Defiance is a unique game; it is different and plays differently... though it does share some mainstream RTS elements.

Areas for Improvement We could have put more effort into the art early on, though we restricted ourselves to keep the download low, and perhaps some time spent on concept art work would have been time well spent. We are working on this now though; with a new graphics engine, our room to maneuver is greatly increased.

Something else is the game audio; once again, we did not have the skills when Time of Defiance first was conceived, so we used more generic sound effects. Game ambiance is important, and we perhaps let that slip a little due to other things, but now, with more time in the schedule, this is set to improve as well.

We made a decision for all the game joining mechanics to be web-side. This was bad, so with the new release, we have fixed this with a client-side launcher that allows players to jump straight in and join up and coming games a lot easier and smother.

Lessons Learned Early test is key - get all game play elements in place and test, test, test in a live situation. MMO games benefit from the fact they can do this. We did not have to press the game play button three months before we ended development; we pressed it three months into development.

Fundamental technology design is key, and an understanding of it. Spend as much time as you can here to avoid future delays and problems later on.

Let the people who are going to do the post-launch support design the post-launch support system. Customer relations management design is remarkably difficult if you are not going to be the user at the end, so let your support team extract what they will need and design the structure around that. Do not force a support structure upon people that had no say in its conception. Otherwise, back to the drawing board you will go...

Audience Response Time of Defiance is a unique game; it is different and plays differently to any other game though it does share some mainstream RTS elements. However, when you try to do something like this, it is not going to be everyone's bag... and we understand that.

The reviews for Time of Defiance have been very good on average, and we are very pleased with how well it has been reviewed by the media, both online and print. I think the aspects that are criticized the most are the graphics and the sound, but once players get into Time of Defiance, these concerns disappear. First impressions are a huge thing however, and we are working hard to make sure Time of Defiance makes a great one. Criticisms usually leveled against the graphics and sound are partly justified and partly a misinterpretation of what we are trying to do. The game plays great though, and that's where we have concentrated our resources.

Personal Thoughts Time of Defiance is noteworthy and so is Nicely Crafted. Developing Time of Defiance has been a fast learning, intense, rewarding, satisfying and fulfilling process, and as we start to develop our next generation of titles, we intend to push the boundaries even more. RPG Vault's readers will greatly enjoy the experience. All our staff are here to ensure that; we are passionate about delivering the best MMO experience we can, and we do...

Mark Ashton Senior Producer Nicely Crafted

Ben Simpson Creative Director Nicely Crafted

[Since introducing them in November of 2003 to offer post-release viewpoints from the respective teams, it has been our pleasure to publish Wrap Reports on a number of other titles. Lists of the previous ones on both RPG Vault and Action Vault may be found on the next page. - Ed.]