sid_19840
International Coach
Part II of the interview questions recently asked by our PlanetCricket members has been replied to by the game developers.
Cricket Life 2007 Interview Part 2 of 2
The interview was held on behalf of Planet Cricket on September 16, 2006 with James Carlton, senior programmer, CL2007 development team and S.A. Uzayr, CL 2007 project head.
The questions were asked by some of the members of Planet Cricket and all questions emailed before 15th of September were attempted to be answered.
Here?s the final part of the interview :
Q1: From what I gather this is (one cricketer) management/cricket simulation game. Can this be confirmed? (Lattimorx)
(James): Cricket Life 2007 is a real-time cricket strategy game that lets the users control all major aspects
of a cricket player?s life.
Q 2: Are all the domestic teams available for India? (mettalics2006)
(James): Yes. All major domestic teams playing in the domestic tournaments from all major countries,including India are included.
Q 3: Is there any option to answer questions asked in the presentation ceremony? (mettalics2006)
(James): Such a feature would be nice, but won?t be included in this version.
Q 4: What will the 3D aspect of the game be, and if it is the matches which are shown in 3D how good are the graphics going to be...ICC standard? EA Cricket 2005? BLIC 2005? or BLIC 2007
standard?(Manee)
(James): It would be better for the end-users to judge the game after seeing a playable version. You may have seen some screens earlier, but they were of pre-Alpha stage. Should you wish to see what the final product will look like, you may have to wait until Beta stage is passed. It w on?t be anytime sooner and you may not be able to get direct answers to some questions, but you will appreciate when you learn about some features later.
We try not to promise anything unless we are sure that they would be included in the release version. In some cases, we prefer not to reveal anything about it (and hence avoid a direct answer) until before
release of a demo version due to various reasons.
Q5: Have you sought help from some Cricket experts? If yes, who? (Viral1991)
(S.A.): We have consulted various cricket analysts and conducted mathematical research to model various game parts realistically. The concept development and mathematical data modeling took a considerable time before the actual coding started.
Q6: If there is actually the ability to play a match in the game, what game play features have been included to compete with companies that have more experiencing in creating cricket games? (lattimorx)
(S.A.): As already said earlier by us, we are not competing with existing cricket games and do not intend to compete with others. This is a game that belongs to a different genre and in fact, belongs to multiplegenres. It isn?t like you w ill buy one cricket gam e so you w on?t buy this one or vice versa. In our case,users will consider this game as one from a different category and hence would buy this as well, in addition to buying their regular ones.
As the game itself is different from those created by other companies, I wouldn?t prefer to say that our features were included just to compete with other games. In general, by now you may already know about several features that are unique in the game. However, a bigger revelation is yet to come and won?t be announced until demo is out.
For those who may have made their mind not to buy the game for whatever reason, they have the privilege of not buying it. But I will recommend everyone to see the demo before taking a decision.
Q7: Will this game have any licenses? (Lattimorx)
(George): The game concept and theme matters more than licenses. However, acquiring licenses,in possible cases, is not a problem as we can negotiate for them should we wish to do so. Even if we do
manage to acquire licenses, for instance, from various cricket boards to officially license the product,eventually the gamers will have to pay the extra buck out of their pocket. This is the reason we had decided against licensing.
However, we are working on endorsements.You shouldn?t be surprised when you find your favorite player on the product.
Q8: How have the licenses owned by EA and Codemasters? affected the creation of this game? (Lattimorx)
(George): There isn?t any significant im pact other than that it w on?t have original nam es of players,associations or organizations. However, anyone can create or edit existing pool of players and other details quite easily.
To compensate for such impacts, from time to time, we may release add-on-packs and extension packs to keep the game updated, to add some new features and to improve existing ones.
We also plan to release SDKs (Software Development Kits) that will give control to you, the gamers, to actually program some elements in C++ to modify, improve or even add new features or elements to the game.
Our goal is to enrich gaming experience and we will do exactly that whenever and wherever possible.
Q9: What was the process of developing the game like? Did it pose any challenges? (sid)
(S.A.): There were lots of features to add but time was the only restriction. Some planned features were upgraded and more elements were added during the development. Some of the recommendations and requests of gamers were also added recently to some sections of the game. This has caused a delay in
the development cycle but it added to the functionality of the game. A big list of features to consider, to manage the development time and to cut some of those features out of the beta and release version have been some of the ongoing challenges.The development isn?t com plete yet, so the bigger hurdles are yet to appear.
Cricket Life 2007 Interview Part 2 of 2
The interview was held on behalf of Planet Cricket on September 16, 2006 with James Carlton, senior programmer, CL2007 development team and S.A. Uzayr, CL 2007 project head.
The questions were asked by some of the members of Planet Cricket and all questions emailed before 15th of September were attempted to be answered.
Here?s the final part of the interview :
Q1: From what I gather this is (one cricketer) management/cricket simulation game. Can this be confirmed? (Lattimorx)
(James): Cricket Life 2007 is a real-time cricket strategy game that lets the users control all major aspects
of a cricket player?s life.
Q 2: Are all the domestic teams available for India? (mettalics2006)
(James): Yes. All major domestic teams playing in the domestic tournaments from all major countries,including India are included.
Q 3: Is there any option to answer questions asked in the presentation ceremony? (mettalics2006)
(James): Such a feature would be nice, but won?t be included in this version.
Q 4: What will the 3D aspect of the game be, and if it is the matches which are shown in 3D how good are the graphics going to be...ICC standard? EA Cricket 2005? BLIC 2005? or BLIC 2007
standard?(Manee)
(James): It would be better for the end-users to judge the game after seeing a playable version. You may have seen some screens earlier, but they were of pre-Alpha stage. Should you wish to see what the final product will look like, you may have to wait until Beta stage is passed. It w on?t be anytime sooner and you may not be able to get direct answers to some questions, but you will appreciate when you learn about some features later.
We try not to promise anything unless we are sure that they would be included in the release version. In some cases, we prefer not to reveal anything about it (and hence avoid a direct answer) until before
release of a demo version due to various reasons.
Q5: Have you sought help from some Cricket experts? If yes, who? (Viral1991)
(S.A.): We have consulted various cricket analysts and conducted mathematical research to model various game parts realistically. The concept development and mathematical data modeling took a considerable time before the actual coding started.
Q6: If there is actually the ability to play a match in the game, what game play features have been included to compete with companies that have more experiencing in creating cricket games? (lattimorx)
(S.A.): As already said earlier by us, we are not competing with existing cricket games and do not intend to compete with others. This is a game that belongs to a different genre and in fact, belongs to multiplegenres. It isn?t like you w ill buy one cricket gam e so you w on?t buy this one or vice versa. In our case,users will consider this game as one from a different category and hence would buy this as well, in addition to buying their regular ones.
As the game itself is different from those created by other companies, I wouldn?t prefer to say that our features were included just to compete with other games. In general, by now you may already know about several features that are unique in the game. However, a bigger revelation is yet to come and won?t be announced until demo is out.
For those who may have made their mind not to buy the game for whatever reason, they have the privilege of not buying it. But I will recommend everyone to see the demo before taking a decision.
Q7: Will this game have any licenses? (Lattimorx)
(George): The game concept and theme matters more than licenses. However, acquiring licenses,in possible cases, is not a problem as we can negotiate for them should we wish to do so. Even if we do
manage to acquire licenses, for instance, from various cricket boards to officially license the product,eventually the gamers will have to pay the extra buck out of their pocket. This is the reason we had decided against licensing.
However, we are working on endorsements.You shouldn?t be surprised when you find your favorite player on the product.
Q8: How have the licenses owned by EA and Codemasters? affected the creation of this game? (Lattimorx)
(George): There isn?t any significant im pact other than that it w on?t have original nam es of players,associations or organizations. However, anyone can create or edit existing pool of players and other details quite easily.
To compensate for such impacts, from time to time, we may release add-on-packs and extension packs to keep the game updated, to add some new features and to improve existing ones.
We also plan to release SDKs (Software Development Kits) that will give control to you, the gamers, to actually program some elements in C++ to modify, improve or even add new features or elements to the game.
Our goal is to enrich gaming experience and we will do exactly that whenever and wherever possible.
Q9: What was the process of developing the game like? Did it pose any challenges? (sid)
(S.A.): There were lots of features to add but time was the only restriction. Some planned features were upgraded and more elements were added during the development. Some of the recommendations and requests of gamers were also added recently to some sections of the game. This has caused a delay in
the development cycle but it added to the functionality of the game. A big list of features to consider, to manage the development time and to cut some of those features out of the beta and release version have been some of the ongoing challenges.The development isn?t com plete yet, so the bigger hurdles are yet to appear.
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