Author Topic: INTERVIEW: High Voltage Software's Joshua Olson  (Read 6367 times)

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Offline MegaByte

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INTERVIEW: High Voltage Software's Joshua Olson
« on: March 15, 2010, 09:35:52 PM »
We talk to the producer of The Conduit about lessons learned from that game, as well as what we can expect from their upcoming games.

High Voltage Software is a game developer located in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, one of the few developers left near Chicago.  Initially developing licensed games, the company has grown tremendously over the past few years to well over 100 employees.  Their parking lot has overflowed into surrounding lots.  High Voltage’s labyrinthine office hides groups of talented artists, designers, programmers, and testers.  The company even has its own motion capture studio, Red Eye Studio, located nearby.  The Conduit, an acclaimed first-person shooter for the Wii, was their first completely independent design.  We sat down with Joshua Olsen, producer of The Conduit, to talk about lessons learned from the development of that game.  Later, we chat about their upcoming games, Tournament of Legends and The Grinder.

Read the interview...
« Last Edit: March 16, 2010, 02:57:48 AM by MegaByte »
Aaron Kaluszka
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Offline BlackNMild2k1

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Re: INTERVIEW: High Voltage Software's Joshua Olsen
« Reply #1 on: March 15, 2010, 11:47:11 PM »
Does HVS have their own Wall of Shame on display?

<-click for larger version

Oh, and does the second part of the interview use any forum inspired/provided questions?

Offline MegaByte

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Re: INTERVIEW: High Voltage Software's Joshua Olsen
« Reply #2 on: March 15, 2010, 11:54:35 PM »
Yes, I think I asked most of your questions.
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Offline ShyGuy

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Re: INTERVIEW: High Voltage Software's Joshua Olsen
« Reply #3 on: March 16, 2010, 01:11:14 AM »
Well. They seem pleasantly candid when talking about the Conduit and any short comings. I detected an undercurrent of frustration when dealing with Nintendo in regards to online.

Offline NinGurl69 *huggles

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Re: INTERVIEW: High Voltage Software's Joshua Olsen
« Reply #4 on: March 16, 2010, 02:09:03 AM »
Not even Nintendo knows what their doing.  In Nintendo's position, they don't know who to be frustrated at.

A tea table?  Miyamoto's garden?
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Offline Mop it up

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Re: INTERVIEW: High Voltage Software's Joshua Olsen
« Reply #5 on: March 16, 2010, 02:46:47 AM »
Quote
JO: We work pretty closely with Nintendo, both on the exploits and the cheater front. We ban cheaters. We detect them and find them. We worked with Nintendo as well to solve some of the network issues, and the spawn issue -- the "black ring." We found out about it, determined what the issue was, and we worked to address it.
Is this really true? I see hackers on there all of the time, and the spawn issue shows itself whenever joining a game already in progress.


Offline BlackNMild2k1

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Re: INTERVIEW: High Voltage Software's Joshua Olson
« Reply #6 on: March 16, 2010, 03:46:08 AM »
Yes, I think I asked most of your questions.
cool. when does part 2 go up?

Offline BlackNMild2k1

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Re: INTERVIEW: High Voltage Software's Joshua Olson
« Reply #7 on: March 18, 2010, 12:09:36 AM »
So is part 2 of this interview on embargo?

Offline MegaByte

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Re: INTERVIEW: High Voltage Software's Joshua Olson
« Reply #8 on: March 20, 2010, 02:54:15 PM »
The rest of the interview is up!
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Offline Jonnyboy117

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Re: INTERVIEW: High Voltage Software's Joshua Olson
« Reply #9 on: March 20, 2010, 03:04:24 PM »
Lots of great content in the update. I'm perplexed by his answer about MotionPlus and the gladiator game. MP was announced in summer 2008 -- and it was already too late to implement in their game that's coming out sometime late in 2010?
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Offline MegaByte

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Re: INTERVIEW: High Voltage Software's Joshua Olson
« Reply #10 on: March 20, 2010, 03:17:40 PM »
I don't think it was "too late," just that they didn't want to spend the time redoing their controls from scratch.  It controls more like a traditional 3D fighter, not like the Sony demo, which means they would have had to essentially redo the game's entire control scheme.  I'm not sure when HVS got MotionPlus units, but AiLive said Nintendo was tweaking them practically until launch, so it might have been hard to develop for until that time.
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Offline D_Average

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Re: INTERVIEW: High Voltage Software's Joshua Olson
« Reply #11 on: March 20, 2010, 03:23:12 PM »
Slightly off topic.  I used to live near Hoffman Estates.  I can't imagine making fun games there.  The town is soulless.  They should pick up shop and develop in the heart of Chicago, or even Wrigleyville would be better.  The most inspiring thing near Hoffman Estates is the Woodfield Mall, former Mall of America.  If that doesn't work, move to San Francisco or LA, that way they can at least hire some new blood.
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Offline ShyGuy

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Re: INTERVIEW: High Voltage Software's Joshua Olson
« Reply #12 on: March 20, 2010, 03:46:18 PM »
Did they mention and I missed it that Tournament of Legends aka Gladiator game is now going for a T for Teen rating?

Grinder FPS still sounds awesome to me, I hope they do it. Maybe HVS will try to do a coop waves of enemies mode for Conduit 2, but I like the art style of The Grinder much better.

Offline MegaByte

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Re: INTERVIEW: High Voltage Software's Joshua Olson
« Reply #13 on: March 20, 2010, 04:06:40 PM »
Did they mention and I missed it that Tournament of Legends aka Gladiator game is now going for a T for Teen rating?
Yeah.
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Offline BlackNMild2k1

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Re: INTERVIEW: High Voltage Software's Joshua Olson
« Reply #14 on: March 20, 2010, 08:27:49 PM »
I'm happy that NWR used my questions("One of our forum members" ;)), but I'm not satisfied that we didn't get the answers that i wanted to hear.

So the Wii version has not been decided on if it's a FPS or overhead the Hunter style game? Honestly, i want and would probably buy both if they released on the Wii, So I really hope they sort that out and release the FPS this holiday and the Hunter style game next year alongside the PS360 versions. I think it would be a shame to throw out all the work they had done so far on the Wii version when we were all fairly excited about it the way it was.

Offline Morari

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Re: INTERVIEW: High Voltage Software's Joshua Olson
« Reply #15 on: March 21, 2010, 11:27:46 PM »
Slightly off topic.  I used to live near Hoffman Estates.  I can't imagine making fun games there.  The town is soulless.  They should pick up shop and develop in the heart of Chicago, or even Wrigleyville would be better.  The most inspiring thing near Hoffman Estates is the Woodfield Mall, former Mall of America.  If that doesn't work, move to San Francisco or LA, that way they can at least hire some new blood.

Or they could move as far away the city as possible. That would be much more inspiring. Nothing kills happiness and inspiration like the dirty grime of the city.
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Offline Jonnyboy117

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Re: INTERVIEW: High Voltage Software's Joshua Olson
« Reply #16 on: March 22, 2010, 02:18:07 PM »
I don't think it was "too late," just that they didn't want to spend the time redoing their controls from scratch.

Why not? They remade everything else from scratch, well after MP was announced.
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Offline MegaByte

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Re: INTERVIEW: High Voltage Software's Joshua Olson
« Reply #17 on: March 22, 2010, 02:33:15 PM »
There are several possibilities:
- They wanted more traditional controls/MotionPlus was not suited the type of game they were making
- They couldn't get MotionPlus controls to perform better than what they already had
- Those who are proficient in that type of programming are scarce compared to artists - it's easier to replace models/camera angles than the core mechanics of the game
- MotionPlus wasn't ready/development support was limited at the particular point of the development cycle - it's probably not coincidence that there still aren't many other MotionPlus games out, and that it's often not used effectively
Aaron Kaluszka
Contributing Editor, Nintendo World Report