SandyMan
VIP
(id: ES_Sandyman)
posted 10-19-09 01:52 PM EDT (US)
the latest incarnation of Ask Sandy. All questions are possible.
1) Who is Sandy?
A) Sandy Petersen, a designer at former Ensemble Studios. He was design lead on Rise of Rome, The Conquerors, and the Warchiefs. He was part of the design team on Age of Emipres II and Age of Empires III. He has worked on numerous other games, and has been in the digital game industry since 1988.
2) What is Sandy doing now?
A) He teaches game design at The Guildhall at Southern Methodist University.
3) What are Robot / Bonfire up to?
A) Sandy will not answer ANY questions about Robot or Bonfire's plans -- he knows and likes the people who work there, and wishes them well. They deserve the right to make their own press releases.
Hoop Thrower
Skirmisher
posted 07-08-10 09:12 PM
EDT (US)
226 / 238
Did you ever consider adding non-north american natives on the Warchiefs? The Incas are pretty famous and important and of course the Mapuches could had been an interesting civ.
SandyMan
VIP
(id: ES_Sandyman)
posted 11-09-10 11:57 AM
EDT (US)
230 / 238
I know I haven’t written for months, but here I am again to answer the last few queries. Sorry about the delay.
1)The AOE 1.0c/ROR 1.0a Save Game crash bug is a commonly discussed topic on the AOE Heaven Forum. Since the only retail version of AOE/ROR still available [known as the Collector's Edition] has the late patched exes and a lot of AOE/ROR players play the Collector's Edition [not having old disks of the earlier versions], this is a pretty big issue.
A – you have my sympathy. I hate crash bugs as much as everyone else. I can’t do anything about it though – and since MS broke up the ES team I’m not sure what we could do either.
2)what else do you want in a game if re/bonfire/other ensmble studios break offs, make a game?
A – well, they DID break off and make games. I’m excited to see them.
3)Where do you plan to retire to?
A – I hope to die in the saddle, still working on games.
4)Would you host us a Call of Cthulhu-game if I begged pretty enough?
A -well maybe. But you have to take away the Jefferson “quote” from your signature, since it’s actually not by him.
5)what part of AOE3 should be changed? As in, civilizations, maps, revolutions
A – I’d only change balance issues, not major features. Additions are changes I guess and I’d like to see more civs, and maps.
6)what program did u use to make all the AoE, RoR, AoK, Aok:C, AoE3, AoE3 WC, and AoE3 AD
A – they were programmed in C++
7)Who have the rights to the AGE series, since it is no more Ensamble Studios, Is it Microsoft?
A – it has always been MicroSoft. The right to the “age of empires” name was never owned by ES.
8)Did you ever consider adding non-north american natives on the Warchiefs?
A – yes. In fact the original design spec had Incas, but we decided that we could only do three civs, not four, so Incas went by the wayside.
9)I remembered something you said: “[...] clearly the year that was spent by Tim Deen and Angelo Laudon working on the interface was a good job.” I wonder if you happen to know something about what they did, how they did it etc. Eg. what books did they read beforehand and what kind of research they did.
A – I don’t know of any books they read. It was just trying out interface after interface, experimenting non-stop and seeing how things worked on the screen. They played console RTSs like Pikmin and Herzog Zwei. It was all very practical, with almost no theoretical aspects.
10)what exactly was your involvment helping design AOE 2?
A – I managed the campaign design, I had lots of input for the main body of the game (weapons, units, upgrades, etc.), and I designed all of the enemy AI. Then I was the lead designer on The Conquerors and was responsible for everything.
11)Somewhere I read that TAD wasn´t planned by ES, the only xpack that ES planned was TWC. How was that story?Did BHG say "Hey, Age3 needs Asian civs", or somethin'?
A – MS said they wanted another expansion pack, but we didn’t feel like we had enough bandwidth to do it ourselves. BHG were friends of ours, and were big fans of the Age series, so we felt they would be able to pull it off. The logical extension was Asians – we almost did Asians instead of native Americans for the Warchiefs, after all.
sigmatta
Skirmisher
posted 07-31-11 01:47 PM
EDT (US)
235 / 238
Hoping that Sandyman will pop up sometime to answer those now rare questions...
I was always wondering about available civilizations in AoE series,like why we have 3 greek civilizations-greeks,minoans and macedonians-arent they basically same civilization(greeks)?Arent Carthage same as Phoenicia and palmyrans-never heard of them...why is India missing from first 2 ages and why no love for italians(im sure they werent that bad).Would be nice knowing these odd choices(IMO).
Thanks.