(From Casey/The Consultant - CEO of Ship of Heroes/Heroic Games)
https://www.shipofheroes.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&p=12251#p12248
https://www.shipofheroes.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&p=12251#p12248
My reflections on GDC 2018
1.
About Epic Games: Epic had a huge booth, as usual, not too far from the
Amazon Lumberyard booth. There seemed to be less of a focus on engine
developers this year, except for these two. Epic was in fine shape, and
we had some very meaningful tech discussions with them and made a couple
of new contacts for the future. This year Epic was busy explaining how
they made Fortnite, in an entire series of talks. This was, in many
ways, the technical highlight of the convention for us. We're still
watching and re-watching the videos form a couple of these talks. One of
the key conclusions was that upgrading to UE 4.19 is very significant
for any team making an MMO with Unreal. Shortly we'll have a newsletter
out about what we are doing with the SoH engine version, and why. But
changes in 4.19 are significant enough that a lot of key tech suppliers
are also releasing updates geared around the 4.19 release from Epic.
2.
We were able to speak with a lot of industry insiders and experts at
the convention. Not only do they often present, but they are generally
accessible before and after their talks, as well. We walked the show
floor multiple times as well, speaking with devs from SpeedTree,
TrueSKY, and many others about their technology.
3.
We were able to set an appointment in place with the founder and CTO of
PopcornFX, with their superb game FX technology. This was really
exciting, since Epic is moving away from their Cascade system and toward
a newer system called Niagara, but has fully enabled PopcornFX in the
Engine. We are going to be doing much more with PopcornFX (this also
relates to engine version for us), which is part of our strategy to
upgrade and also level the FX from superpowers in Ship of Heroes. It's
hard to convey how exciting the Popcorn stuff is, when you see it. But
our community is going to be seeing more and more of this kind of
advanced stuff in-game.
4.
On a personal note I had a number of very meaningful meetings and
lunches. I have a favorite little Thai restaurant near to the Moscone
Convention Center. I was able to meet Gordon Walton of Crowfall for
lunch there one day. Gordon always offers me insights into MMO
development -- he's an incredibly smart and generous person that I first
met several years ago at GDC 2016. I also had a really fun meeting with
Andrew Ross of Massively Overpowered. This was the first time I'd met
Andrew, and we had a wide-ranging, fun talk, which became a very
in-depth interview on MO. If you have not read it, it is worth looking
at.
http://massivelyop.com/2018/ 03/23/gdc-2018-in-the-crows- nest-with-ship-of-heroes-ceo- casey-mcgeever/
But
one of my favorite moments was meeting up with one of our coders in
person at the show. As some of you may realize, SoH is a small team, but
we've still managed to get two guys named Casey, two named Chris, two
named David and two named Justin. We also have two surnamed Smith (no
relation). So here we were, in my favorite Thai spot -- the two Casey's,
talking shop. As a virtual team, this was an unexpected bonus to the
trip.
5.
Summarizing: we spoke with many people, listened to many talks, and
visited many booths. Some of my takeaways are the following:
- The big move in MMOs is toward having more players on the screen. This is a good thing for SoH, as the underlying tech issues for this feature are significant, and every tech company that helps with this feature is directly good for SoH's development.
- In single player games, the big trend continues to be in the direction of movie-quality visuals.
- AI is big and gets bigger every year. Applications are apparently unlimited, from writing dialog to monitoring chat.
- I think there is a move back toward subscriptions for MMOs and multiplayer in general.
- More and more people and organizations are pushing back against toxicity in gaming.
- I did not see anything that suggests to me that a niche game like SoH will not succeed. Just the opposite in fact.
- I am always interested in the stories of other development teams and what kind of market research they utilized, when they decided to make a new game. I think this is an under-published field, along with some confusion over the difference between features and benefits, in gaming. Features are about the game. Benefits accrue to the player.
Anyway,
this post has become far too long. But I enjoyed the conference, as I
do every year, and I learned a lot. We're still following up on meetings
we had last week. Now it is back to work for me. :)