Developers in Manchester discuss white box validation of the underground facilities (exterior from Montreal, interior from the UK), the Lorville remake and its procedural building interiors, derelict settlements, and an ArcCorp refresh for the new player experience. Talent acquisition covers hiring, portfolios and outreach.
We're working on the UGF mandate with the UK team, with John Griffiths. So we're working on the exterior part and we're approaching white box validation. So we thought of grouping up together and just run a few things together live with Ian and get the reviews and get a few final notes and nail that white box.
So your Montreal sandbox team is working on the enormous exterior of the underground facilities, and then John Griffiths' EU Sandbox 2 team is working on the interior.
Exactly. Because sometimes things are sticking through, like, "Hey, I'm seeing your beams going into my subterranean." So there's a lot of feedback going back and forth. Also doors need to connect and everything needs to fit together. So communication is really important because we don't want things to be misplaced.
TL;DRA small team rebuilt Lorville using player feedback on scale and windows and is now polishing, collision and LOD passes in about two weeks, with the release tied to a tentative, non-committal next major patch.
Working on a city from the start is quite an enormous task for, I guess, the smaller crew that we have working on it. Maybe five or six, up to about eight that we got to along the way. And we had quite a lot of fun with it. It's changed, not so dramatically, and dramatically in other places. I think the last time we saw it, we were doing flybys through the city. And we read a lot of the feedback that people were talking about and what they were saying about it, like, "Oh, the window scaling was weird here," or "buildings are larger and smaller in this place." So we really tried to look at some of that off the early, midway point. And we kept going with player feedback from there. And now we're at the tail end. So we're just pretty much wrapping up, just doing our polishing touches, doing our collision passes and doing LODs and stuff like that. We're close to about maybe the last two weeks.
Lorville 2.0 is scheduled to come out with Alpha 3.19, which is currently scheduled for May or something like that. Don't quote me on that. The next major patch anyway. I know most of the focus is on 3.18.1 and the bug fixes and stuff like that. So it's hard for us to speak definitively about 3.19 dates and stuff, because obviously a lot of the focus, as it should be, is on 3.18.1 and 3.18.2, those fixes and stuff like that that are going in.
I think we're all pretty tremendously happy with the way it came out. When players get in their ship and they fly out in the hangars, it's going to be a totally different experience from the old Lorville. It's got the huge buildings that you can fly through and that you can explore around, walk around the city. And it's going to be quite the sight. It's going to be a very new thing and a wonderful, great thing. And all of us on the Lorville team are quite excited to wrap it up.
I'm getting on that right now. We're splitting up apartments into modules so that we can use our procedural tools to generate apartments. So we're looking to create lobbies, apartments, common areas, rooms with office spaces. We're looking to integrate everything into our procedural building tool and then just start creating buildings. We have our technical director, Jean-Philippe. He did some great work. He showed us a full building created with the rooftop and every single element in the building going all the way down to the lobby and exiting the building. So for us, the progress is doing great, and so the next step is just to add more modules, more diversity, different paths, side paths, main paths.
TL;DRStaggered development means separate teams work on Pyro, Lorville, underground facilities and more in parallel, and modular assets built for Stanton can be reused in Pyro, so content keeps shipping steadily without bottlenecks.
That's where staggered development comes into play, and that's where having a team of, including Turbulent, around a thousand people between our five collective studios comes in. Not everybody works on everything at every given moment. There are teams dedicated to Pyro and there are teams dedicated to the underground facilities, there are teams dedicated to Lorville, there are teams dedicated to this, just like there are teams dedicated to the platform fixes and the stuff that's going on there. And that all exists that way because, well, what's the common analogy? Nine doctors don't deliver a baby in one month. There's an inflection point in developing any feature where adding more people to it doesn't make it any faster, it doesn't make it any better. And you don't want any one thing to become a roadblock or to become a bottleneck to other things. Sometimes it's unavoidable. But for the most part, you try to avoid that by having this team on this, and this team on this, and this team on this, so that if something pushes, everything else behind it doesn't have to knock on. There are always going to be dependencies and stuff. And like I said, the only constant in game development is change. But the idea, and it works out this way more times than not, is that by having these staggered teams all working on different things simultaneously, we can continue to deliver content to players at a steady pace.
And even when, Nemanja, you said, "I just started on building interiors," that was you having moved on to building interiors. Obviously, we've shown work of other folks already starting on building interiors.
So talking about Pyro, I'm also supporting a team, if they need, for the derelict settlements. So for example, we're using the Raastar tool to create those, and we're building right now the library of all our modules to create the settlements in Stanton. But every single module that we create for Stanton can also be reused in Pyro. So the work we're doing in Stanton is just making our life easier in the future whenever we get to Pyro. For us, it's going to be a matter of a week or two maybe to create one settlement, max. And then we're going to be able to churn out a lot of those.
To follow up on what you said earlier: yeah, Lorville may not be the biggest priority, but that's the point. We overlap things. People on building interiors are already coming in as we're wrapping up and polishing.
And the building interiors work for Lorville applies to buildings in ArcCorp, applies to buildings in Orison and stuff. The underground facilities are designed to be placed within Stanton, they'll also be placed within Pyro, they'll also be placed within other systems.
We're building the foundation for things to be used everywhere. I just want to mention that when we built the space clinics, that was the first project where we got to use the early version of the procedural tool that will now be used for the building interiors. So it was like the proof of concept. So everything has a foundation and a use for the next steps.
We talked about the building interiors, we talked about the underground facilities, even things like the space stations. Even the stations of the Stanton system can serve as the basis for many of the decrepit space stations in Pyro and stuff like that. It's all designed to feed, and that's the whole reason we do as much as we can modularly.
TL;DRAnother team uses the Raastar tool to build derelict settlements much faster than hand-placing, with a batch of them in white box and tentatively scheduled for a coming patch.
Yeah. So before I jumped on the UGFs, I did a few settlements, I believe Sean as well. So that was in between things: as the UGFs were getting prepared, before we jumped on that, we were helping out the settlement team. The 600i and the Star Runner on Daymar. But there's still a team right now working, progressing on that, testing out the Raastar tool, as Nemanja was talking about before. So they're using what we built and just adding on to it and trying new variations, new setups.
Yeah. And now we're going to have a variety of those ranging from small, medium to large. I think we're aiming to ship 15 of them. We just passed the white box today. So that shows you the difference in the scale and the speed at which we can work with the Raastar tool compared to doing it by hand, where we did one in three months. Now we're doing 15 in three months.
And the Reclaimer was about six months. So the Reclaimer and the Daymar crash were both mostly hand placed. And once we got the Raastar tool, they've been doing settlements, like you were saying. We have two new Reclaimer ones coming in that are bigger. It also helps that last year we worked a lot on building the library, which they're now using. We really started putting together a formula for that.
Because there was nothing quite like that at the moment, and we started taking things and destroying them. And once you guys finally figured out what you wanted to do with them, now it's going way faster.
We showed a bit of the derelict sandbox, the various degrees, in ISC towards the beginning of this quarter. So the other team, I don't want to speak for the work of other teams, but that team is currently putting together a bunch of settlements and such that's currently scheduled for 3.20, if I'm not mistaken. And we'll actually be filming with them in Montreal for next season of ISC in a couple weeks.
TL;DRArcCorp has no Lorville-scale refresh planned, only new signage and updates for the new player experience, and the devs consider it in good shape but say never say never.
There are some refreshing elements, that's not a good phrase, to ArcCorp coming as part of the new player experience. I think it was recently added to the public roadmap. We'll be talking again more about that next quarter when we come back from hiatus on ISC. The first version of the new player experience is centered around ArcCorp. So that has required some new signage and some updates and stuff. I think folks actually saw a sneak peek in the weekly newsletter a week or two or three ago. That's what that was, with the cool new signage and everything that's being added around ArcCorp. So not the full scale of what's happening with Lorville at the moment. But if there's one thing I've learned about this project in, I hit eight years in like a week, it's never say never. So not today, not tomorrow, but it's possible.
I mean, there are things on ArcCorp that could be touched up, but for the most part, I think ArcCorp's in a pretty great condition. We looked a lot through ArcCorp for Lorville and how they built their formula from a modern, more built city in the game. But for the most part, I think ArcCorp's in great condition.
And the building interiors part was also a big factor in why Lorville had to be redone, just so they could take in those interiors. Some buildings were, like you said before, too small.
TL;DRStreet-level ArcCorp is something they discuss constantly, but with finite resources they must triage, and for now Lorville only gets ships low rather than letting players walk the whole city.
That's the reason I wanted to call it out, because it's representative of a conversation that continuously happens. We talk about that constantly. There's always lots of things we want to do and lots of things where it's "wouldn't it be cool to do that," but you have to balance them with everything else that would be cool to do and we want to do. And then think about them within the scope of an entire universe that we're trying to build. It's like, do we need to go down to that micro or should we go further out? Because even going back to what I said earlier in the show about multiple teams all working on different things, and approaching 1,000 people if we haven't crossed it over already, counting our friends at Turbulent, there's still a finite number of resources. It seems like a lot, but you can only work on X number of things at any given time. Then tomorrow, you'll only be able to work on X number of things, next week, next month, next year. So there's always this triage of ideas. There's always this internal battle of, yes, that would be cool, and yes, that would be cool, and yes, that would be cool. We can do two. And how do we determine which two? It goes back to that question from before, like you've got your interior and your exterior, and how do you determine what goes on? These debates, I'm going off on a little bit of a thing here, these debates that we see in the community, in YouTube channels and Twitch streams, heck, just in text on Spectrum, often mirror the same discussions we've had internally. The number of times I've been sent a link to a Spectrum post or whatever, and it's like, yep, just what I said. They're saying just what I said. The same conversations happen internally that happen externally. It's always a fun reminder of the obvious and open synergies between us and the community. And then there's the ones where it's like, I wanted that too. And unfortunately, this was deemed more important, and this was deemed more important, so I'm going to have to wait.
Yeah, you've said it pretty well, as I wanted to. We constantly discuss on Lorville that we want to get the players as close as possible to the ground. Unfortunately, you can't just walk around the city anywhere you want. But that wasn't our goal from the beginning, nor was it the goal towards the end. But there were many parts of the city where we're like, okay, we can get your ship very low. And that's the way we want it to be right now. Because otherwise, Lorville would take forever to make.
I mean, heck, you see how long a small space takes to make. Like Night City for Cyberpunk is half that game. Obviously, that's a rabbit hole that you can get trapped in. So we're constantly having to balance how far...
So Night City is one city, but if you had multiple planets with multiple cities, at some point there's a point of diminishing return where every city is not as unique. So for me, Night City is a cool idea, but with the size of Lorville, if we built Night City that size, to me, that would be too big. It would just be overwhelming for the players, for the devs also. But it is constantly something we talk about. And Area18 for me is one of the coolest places, where you feel like you're in Night City and you feel like you're on the ground in the city. So eventually if we get to expand, add more neighborhoods, add onto that, that will be great. But for the moment, that's not our plan.
Just in four years. And you've got to learn about every single team in such a level of detail. I feel like I do get to know how much is going on in development. We have to work out who needs what and where the priorities lie. It's been really interesting to learn all of those different things. You do feel part of the teams as well, because they bring you into their development cycles and pipelines too.
TL;DRHiring is prioritised from critical down to not critical, with many critical roles at once, so the recruiting team keeps syncing with directors and execs to pick its battles, and the team has grown to seven.
Yeah. So I get a list of priorities and how we prioritise roles, and it goes critical, very high, high and all the way down to not critical. But you'll have like 20, 30 critical roles to look at at once, and you just have to divide your time and speak to all the directors or the execs to align what is actually critical and important. And it's just continuous communication and syncing to ensure that. But like you say, you do have to just pick your battles and work out what the right thing to target is, and grow the team. The team's grown over that time as well. So when I started, there was just myself and a coordinator, but now I have a team of seven, including myself. So it means we can support more areas and give a better service to all of the teams as well.
Yeah, it sits under the HR bracket, but we are our own department as well. So we're there purely to support recruitment and talent development and hiring and strategy.
Let's start with the entry-level, no-experience individuals. I think what you really need to see is that passion that wants to work in the industry and that drive, and for us, that's really important. I think understanding the challenges and complexities, but having that passion behind it, is really important. I think a lot of the work that we do here is so groundbreaking, exciting, so different. To have that kind of mentality and attitude is really important. So for us, that's key. But then alongside it, obviously not every department needs a portfolio, but if they do, the portfolio is key. So you don't necessarily need to have a degree or do a course, but your portfolio is really important. Whether you're an artist, designer, programmer, whatever, that's key for us to get insight into your personal ability.
TL;DRArtists should show polished, photorealistic hard-surface or sci-fi work, designers should show MMO and multiplayer awareness, and programmers should present easy-to-read portfolios, often a small game with short videos, since every portfolio is reviewed.
So if you are an artist, we'd love to see hard surface stuff or some sci-fi, not necessarily sci-fi, but it's really important to have that there. The photorealism is really key, but just well polished and targeted to us, for artists. Designers, it depends on the kind of design work that you do, whether you do systems or level, etc. You don't have to tailor it necessarily to Star Citizen, but just having an idea of MMOs and multiplayer work is really important, unless you go down the combat route as well. And programmers, just really well laid out programming portfolios, easy for the directors to look at your portfolio and understand your experience simply, rather than over-complicating it, because we do view every single portfolio that applies, and that takes time. So the easier it is to view it, the better chance you have, essentially.
It's usually a small game that they've programmed and just short YouTube videos, and they'd say what they've done on that project. That's the normal thing.
TL;DRApplications are all reviewed manually, followed by a qualifying call, a roughly 30-minute hiring manager interview, a role-specific test, and usually an on-site interview, with over 25,000 applications received last year.
So typically someone applies and then my team reviews it. My team reviews every single application that comes through for all the roles that we have. Last year we had over 25,000 applications. So we went through them all manually, which is good, but obviously time consuming. And then we review them, share them with managers. They give us insight or ask us to ask those candidates some questions. And then we have a qualifying call with the candidate to understand more about their motivations, what they're interested in, expectations, and just cover off the usual questions. Then, if that all aligns, an interview with the hiring manager, normally 30 minutes, and then depending on the role, a test of some type: programming test, art test, etc. And then usually, now we're back after COVID, an on-site interview to meet the team, see the studio they could be working in, and then hopefully some success after.
I'll get back to you. It's difficult. We do try to respond to everyone, but with the sheer volume, it is basically impossible. We'd love to give personalized feedback to every single person, but again, it's like that priority thing. We have to deal with the people that we can move forward with. I always recommend trying to go to career advice sessions and stuff. We've done them in the past, normally with local universities, and we're trying to do more. But the general advice is there.
Yeah, we try to go to as many as possible each year. The pandemic obviously stalled quite a lot, but we did some virtual ones. We go to universities locally, and we're trying to do more as we expand the team. We go to Develop in Brighton, EGX we've been to before, Devcom in Cologne, Digital Dragons in Poland. We're hopefully going to go to Digital Dragons again this year, and then different universities in the US, and we're working with some more schools in Germany too. So we're just slowly expanding and reaching as much as possible. GDC maybe one year.
It's all part of our long-term growth plan. We're not going to always hire experienced people. We need to look long-term as well, at how we can bring talent to the industry. We're actually working with some schools to help design their curriculum, so then they're more aligned to what we look for as well. That's just one angle, but we're also looking at working with more training programs and institutions, with Matt, if he was here, but he's not. And working out how we can establish a better route to industry as well, to increase diversity.
TL;DRVideo outreach and the game's greater visibility and stability have helped hiring positively, and he has heard no negative reactions from candidates, though he says he wouldn't tell anyway.
I actually think definitely positively. I think more recently, very positively. I think with Star Citizen getting more visibility and the game being more stable and having more content, it's definitely helped, because people are knowing about the game. When people want to work in the industry, they'll know the big AAA studios or the studios that they're aware of. Our name is becoming more available and more visible, and I think it's definitely helped us attract more people that way. I think people viewing your content has helped for sure, because they get more insight into the project as well. And I mentioned to you quite recently that I'd like to do some more video stuff anyway with devs on hiring, more specifically.
I've always been curious, and since you were here, I figured I would ask whether there's ever been that inverse, whether somebody was going to join and then watched this thing on tractor beams with a burger beam that went into somebody's mouth and thought, I don't really think this is a very serious place, and I don't want to be here.
It didn't really exist before I was here. We managed it through HR and it was another part of their role. It actually started as the recruitment department. I rebranded it to talent acquisition. I won't bore you with why we did that. It's not very interesting.