Questions about Illwinter, the company

[Nerfix]

Originally posted by johan osterman:
"neither dominions -PPP or CoE made anything more than pocket money."

That is very sad...
I feel bad for not bying the Dominions I...

[ September 18, 2003, 15:01: Message edited by: Nerfix ]

[MythicalMino]

HA!!! I bought it....3 times even....although, I am wondering if I could get my money back for one of them....75 bucks for the same game is kinda strange...especially with me wanting to pre-order Dom2.....but, I cannot figure out how to email the certain company that i paid through....enough rambling....

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by Pocus:
While we have a bunch of Illwinterized people roaming the new forum, I will take advantage of this rare situation to ask somes questions which always teased me. Feel free to not respond, if there is secret facts about it.

How IW is organized, as a company with full times employees, or is it still a garage studio, with benevolents people burning all their spare time to develop a game (and have a work outside).?

Does a dedicated artist works for IW, or is it more some freelances hired from time to time?

How many devs there is in the team? Johan, Kristopher, anybody else?

Are the beta testers friends of the IW team, or are they choosen amongst venusian or altarian population?

Do you eat pizza when you code?<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Kristoffer (ph - pah! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

A couple of beta testers are old friends. When we joined forces with Shrapnel we got some new ones that gave us good imput on basic details that swedes are unable to observe. They also had newbie approach wich was wery informative. Our friends were used to old UI misses that the shrapnel crew quickly found.

I drink coffe.

* Edit * Johan Osterman is our main critic/idea contributor, but most of our friends give us imput from time to time.

[ September 18, 2003, 16:55: Message edited by: Kristoffer O ]

[Pocus]

Stop distillating graphics from Doms II in subconscious doses !!!! Is it not an undead manticore that I see as your avatar, You sneaky Bringer of the Much Awaited Intellectual Food.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ September 18, 2003, 20:01: Message edited by: Pocus ]

[Nerfix]

Yes it is!
And i saw J.O's avatar about 2-3 weeks ago in the Dominions X Boards.
Pocus, Pocus, you don't know what you have missed...

[ September 18, 2003, 20:05: Message edited by: Nerfix ]

[Pocus]

While we have a bunch of Illwinterized people roaming the new forum, I will take advantage of this rare situation to ask somes questions which always teased me. Feel free to not respond, if there is secret facts about it.

How IW is organized, as a company with full times employees, or is it still a garage studio, with benevolents people burning all their spare time to develop a game (and have a work outside).?

Does a dedicated artist works for IW, or is it more some freelances hired from time to time?

How many devs there is in the team? Johan, Kristopher, anybody else?

Are the beta testers friends of the IW team, or are they choosen amongst venusian or altarian population?

Do you eat pizza when you code?

[johan osterman]

Originally posted by Pocus:
While we have a bunch of Illwinterized people roaming the new forum, I will take advantage of this rare situation to ask somes questions which always teased me. Feel free to not respond, if there is secret facts about it.

How IW is organized, as a company with full times employees, or is it still a garage studio, with benevolents people burning all their spare time to develop a game (and have a work outside).?

Does a dedicated artist works for IW, or is it more some freelances hired from time to time?

How many devs there is in the team? Johan, Kristopher, anybody else?

Are the beta testers friends of the IW team, or are they choosen amongst venusian or altarian population?

Do you eat pizza when you code?<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The company essentially consists of Kristoffer Osterman and Johan Karlsson, they are the developers Johan does almost all of the coding, Kristoffer most of the graphics and most of nation race design etc. Daniel Serra is in charge of the economics. Johan is currently unemployed otherwise so he is closest to working full time on illwinter at the moment. Most of the swedish beta testers and the developers are people that have played various rpgs and boardgames together for several years. No one is hired by illwinter, neither dominions -PPP or CoE made anything more than pocket money.

*Edit* Johan eats ice cream after he has coded.

[ September 18, 2003, 12:40: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

[Pocus]

Thanks for all these infos!

[PvK]

Dominions I is definitely the best fantasy conquest computer game I've seen, for my own tastes anyway. Scads of money has gone into developing your inferior competition (HOMM, AOW, etc). You guys deserve to make a bundle! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

The attribute scales and lethality rates remind me of the RPG systems I like (TFT, GURPS) - which RPG systems do you folks like?

PvK

[Kristoffer O]

My personal favourite is undoubtedly Ars Magica. The setting is unbeatable, at least if you have a historical interest. There is an endless amount of material on the world, although some historical facts are harder to come by, and every one is familiar with it. The mythical setting, a great magic system and a campaign oriented gaming style makes the game a true pearl. I often dislike the way religions are represented in games (I work as a teacher in religion), but Ars Magica avoids the problem by using a mythical Version of our history. Complete with christianity, heretics and heathens.

Other old favourites are Powers and Perils, Earth Dawn, and various swedish games, particulary the latest Version of "Drakar och Demoner" which has a nice touch of swedish folk lore and old Norse history and mythology (Johan Karlson is a strong AD & D fan).

I'm also quite fond of historical boardgames such as Great Battles of Alexander, SPQR and Imperium Romanum. Unfortunately I have spent less and less time playing these games.

[Pocus]

amongst the trend of SPQR (gmt games I suppose), and Imperium Romanum, have you tried Res Publica (avalon hill), which is a boardgame and not a wargame, but quite interesting (faction politics which still have to cooperate against foreign wars, or everybody loose).

Pax Romana (coming in december of this year) is a pc game with a blend of Imperium Romanium and Res Publica, if you are interested

[Kristoffer O]

Never heard of Res Publica, but I have played some very entertaining games of Republic of Rome where you control factions in the senate. I have heard of people playing Republic of Rome as PbEM, but never tried this myself.

[Pocus]

yes, thats the same. Sorry, Res Republica is the 'french' name of Republic of Rome when it was sold.

a good one this game, very tricky and insidious I must say. Though I didnt like that each year one senator was randomly killed. Play balance I suppose.

[PvK]

Very interesting - thanks.

[Kristoffer O]

The yearly death was indeed very frustrating when you played with many players and few senators were available. But it was a good way to stir the pot. Larger factions more often got affected, but unfortunately weak players could loose their precious senators as well.

The General magazine published an excellent article called something like '100 ways to be loose Republic of Rome'. It was very educating. Try to find it if you are still playing the game. It gave you opposing advice that would lead to the same end: your defeat. Examples: spend all your money on knights, spend no money on knights etc.

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by Pocus:
Stop distillating graphics from Doms II in subconscious doses !!!! Is it not an undead manticore that I see as your avatar, You sneaky Bringer of the Much Awaited Intellectual Food.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Actually the original BOTMAIF was Johan O. And it is not an undead manticore. It is a tartarian monstrum http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif (in the shape of an undead manticore with a head that is strangely Rob Zombiesque). We call him Rob.

[Pocus]

Ah yes, I had a moment of hesitation. Was it you the one I once called BofMAIF, or your brother. I decided he could share the title anyway, so the risk was low http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

I'm curious how you managed to came with Dominions. You did it while finishing your studies, or while doing a daily job? I think that the fact you were never a lone man team was rather instrumental in keeping the faith in the project.
I have put on hold (after puting more than one thousand hours into it) a game project not unlike yours. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

[Kristoffer O]

I got to know JK when studying. CoE, our first game, was made as a hobby. When we started with dominions we still studied and had the intention of making a more serious game. During development of Dominions (4 years) we were studying/working/unemployed in no particular order. When Johan was working he worked less on Dominions and vice versa. Studies is easier to combine with development. Currently I work, but teachers have long summer vacations in sweden (10 weeks).