User:Valaggar/Sandbox

From the 1998 IRC chat with Toys for Bob (Fwiffo is both Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III here):

<LordR-man> Fwiffo- how did you come up with the StarControl seriese, what enspired you and Fred Ford to make these games?

<Fwiffo> The genesis of the SC series is a long story, beginning, believe it or not, at Electronic Arts. After finishing World Tour Golf for EA, my old partners Evan and Nicky and I decided to make a modem game (code-named Camero at that time) and we proposed a science-fiction Archon game.

From the 2003 IRC chat with Toys for Bob (fwiffo is Paul Reiche III, wimbli is Fred Ford):

23:05 < fwiffo> On our most recent game, one of the testers kept hearing 'ghost voices' in our dialog. Seriously.

23:08 < fwiffo> McMartin: What was funy (not funny) was that because our producers took the bug report seriously, I had to carefully listen to each and every WAV (hundreds and hundreds) listening for the ghostly voices.

From the 2003 IRC chat with Toys for Bob (fwiffo is Paul Reiche III, wimbli is Fred Ford):

23:13 < fwiffo> Meep-Eep: We play Bomberman a lot here, and whenever Chris plays with us the TV goes all crazy. Hence, EMF.

23:14 < eotus> When Chris plays bomber man with us the TV starts to go crazy like its being hit with EMF hmm is that EMP?

From the 2003 IRC chat with Toys for Bob (fwiffo is Paul Reiche III, wimbli is Fred Ford):

23:32 < fwiffo> Yep. The game I have played the most over the last year (besides SUPER Bomberman on the SUPER-Nintendo) was a palm-pilot version of Star Trader.

From the 2007 IRC chat with Toys for Bob (robot is Fred Ford, PR3 is Paul Reiche III):

00:01 <@Meep-Eep> Do you still play SC melee yourselves?

00:02 <+PR3> Greg J and Toby S and I used to play, but mostly it has been Super Bomberman lately. Like the past 8 years.

From the 2003 IRC chat with Toys for Bob (fwiffo is Paul Reiche III, wimbli is Fred Ford):

23:23 < fwiffo> Funny story about Pandemonium for the n-gage: Crystal called us about 18 months ago to see if we had the source code and data for the game. Now they had tape back-ups of the server, but for some reason they couldn't restore them. We found about 20 floppies, made over the last 4 months of the project and sent them off to a developer in England. That dude must have HATED us. But hey, there it is on the n-gage. Nice job.

From the 2007 IRC chat with Toys for Bob (robot is Fred Ford, PR3 is Paul Reiche III):

23:03 < PRH_> My question actually, Paul... What is your opinion of the SC2 3DO voices? Do you think they fit the races' characters as you designed them?

23:04 <+PR3> The sc2 3do voices... hmm... some were good, some were not perfect. My son Devin (now 24) played UQM last week and said that the ONLY voice he liked was the Talking Pet.

00:09 <+PR3> Honestly, there isn't much I regret about SC2, except maaaabe for some of the voices.

From the 2007 IRC chat with Toys for Bob (robot is Fred Ford, PR3 is Paul Reiche III):

23:18 <@Meep-Eep> Just to change the Q&A nature of the chat a bit: what's your best development anecdote for SC2 (question from the forum)

23:20 <+robot> Meep-Eep: This may be out there somewhere, but I particularly enjoyed when we showed Accolade a version that had no text in it (e.g. when you would meet an alien his text would say "Hyperspace hello 1") and they didn't realize the game wasn't done.

23:27 <+PR3> Recording the dialog for the Syreen was one of the most awkward experiences in my adult life. She as the parent of one of my kid's friends (I think) and we were alone in the office. She was quite professional, but I kept blushing and coughing.

23:34 <+Erol> Development pseudo anecdote: I remember feeling extreme joy while painting aliens for SC2, it was one of the the bestest and finest projects I've ever worked on. Paul gave just the right amount of description for me, leaving lots of freedom surrounding the core concepts. It would be great to experience such a thing again... Duh.

From the 2007 IRC chat with Toys for Bob (robot is Fred Ford, PR3 is Paul Reiche III):

23:52 <@Meep-Eep> The pieces of dialog missing from the 3DO version of SC2 consistently contained important gameplay hints. The Supox home world location, the Metachron, how the Melnorme can be contacted from Hyperspace, all references to them are gone. Did you have any plans for presenting this information in another way, or did the Crystal Dynamics hints line people get their hands on the source before it went gold?

23:52 <+PR3> We must of had a good reason... right, Fred?

23:53 <+robot> Umm... right.

23:53 <@Meep-Eep> I see

23:53 <+PR3> Maybe we thought we might juggle key locations to make replay more fun.

23:53 <@fOSSiL> Ah

23:53 <+PR3> Maybe it was a wizard

From the 2007 IRC chat with Toys for Bob (robot is Fred Ford, PR3 is Paul Reiche III):

00:10 <+Newa> what kind of state did you get best design results in? Office, lakewood camp, late night party, what? And what were the reactions when you retreated to make some "finishing touches" originally?

00:12 <+robot> Newa: I think continual play-testing was probably the best.

00:12 <+PR3> Regarding creativity, it seemed to wax and wane almost at random. Occasionally a milestone deadline would spur us on too!

00:14 <+PR3> I find the best ideas occur when you are telling someone about a different idea, which they hate. In desperation you start making it all up and act like that was the plan all along.

00:15 <+Jimmy> PR3: Agreed. I think I get more ideas off the top of my head, lying to people that "i've been thinking about it".

00:15 <+PR3> Episodic content seems much harder, since both the individual pieces as well as the whole need to work.

00:15 <+Erol> Often a good idea comes just as one is falling asleep, its kind of a test. Do you get up and write or sketch it or do you, ahhh just fall asleep.

00:16 <+tfb-chris> Newa: I'm a big believer in the occasional all-nighter, when working on something especially interesting or challenging. As Jimmy said, working on the occasional tangent often yields great results, or at least greater understanding of your primary problem.

From the 2007 IRC chat with Toys for Bob (robot is Fred Ford, PR3 is Paul Reiche III):

00:18 <+Psyringe> Who came up with the idea of using different fonts for the alien dialogue? It was a little detail, but made the game look very polished imho.

00:19 <+RainDaemon> that was really cool

00:19 <+robot> It added to each alien's character.

00:19 <+RainDaemon> <3 the vux font

00:19 <+PR3> One of the very first things I wrote on my Atari-800 was a font editor and I must have written 3 or 4 more since then. I love fonts! (are there font nerds?)

00:25 <+Slylendro> Do you like a certain sci-fi show? Babylon5, StarTrek, etc'

00:26 <+PR3> Babylon 5, Firefly

00:26 <+robot> Old Star Trek, Babylon5, Firefly

00:27 <+tfb-chris> Firefly was pretty excellent.

00:25 <+Spellweav> what do you think about having a periodical Melee championship held online?

00:26 <+Spellweav> an official championshipt with..say..T-shirts or the likes for prizes

00:26 <+Spellweav> signed by ours truly

00:26 <+PR3> I would love to be part of a Supermelee competition!

00:28 <+tfb-chris> Meep-Eep: Put me on the list for SuperMelee competitions, too!

Paul Mail:

>Another thing: How do you like all the fan creations the fans are making

>about starcontrol?

>I've read somewhere that you aspired to become a Scifi-writer, so I want to

>ask you this: Have you ever written a story? I would love to see it if you

>have! Second, do you ever read the starcontrol Fanfiction over at home of

>the Maelnum? (http://www.star-control.com/maelnum) because A lot of

>FANTASTIC stories are being written lately! (and ofcourse, all about

>starcontrol)

I think it's great that you want to be a science-fiction writer. If I was a better writer of novels, that's probably what I'd do half the time (I love making games too, of course!) I read "The War of the Spaces" a few years ago and was delighted with the creativity the author put into it. I've glanced through most of the other fan-fiction, but I haven't had time to really give it the attention it deserves.