Reply With QuoteJust saw this on Daily Radar...
I'm almost beginning to feel sorry for FIRAXIS.
DOUGLAS KAUFMAN JOINS BHG! (sounds familiar?)
AWARD-WINNING VETERAN GAME DESIGNER DOUGLAS KAUFMAN JOINS BIG HUGE GAMES
Hunt Valley, Maryland (March 14, 2000) Award-winning game designer and industry veteran Douglas Kaufman has joined Big Huge Games to help create the next generation of real-time strategy games. A longtime collaborator of Big Huge Games co-founder Brian Reynolds, Kaufman has been in the games industry for over 20 years, and has garnered acclaim
in virtually every genre of interactive entertainment. A partial list of his credits includes Command, Darklands, Dragonsphere,
Colonization, and Civilization II®. Most recently, Kaufman was a driving creative force behind Alpha Centauri and Alien Crossfire.
"I'm really excited to have Doug on board with Big Huge Games", said Reynolds. "He and I have a special synergy together that helps create the incredibly addictive quality of our games. He's proven his ability to know what makes a compelling gaming experience, and will play a key role in making sure Big Huge's games will be as fun as they are
realistic and visually stunning.
Kaufman's career began with the publication of his first game, Ace of Aces with Al Leonardi while he was still in college getting his bachelor's degree in General Dramatics. He then moved to West End
Games, where he designed several pen-and-paper titles set in the Star Wars universe. Kaufman also worked on games like Arabian Nights, Kings & Things, and the classic role-playing game Paranoia. In 1990, he moved to Microprose® Software. There, he spearheaded the design on several coin-op and adventure titles before joining Reynolds to create
1993's breakthrough hit Colonization. The duo followed up that success with two more smash titles: Civilization II (1996) and Alpha Centauri(1999).
Headquartered in Hunt Valley, Maryland, Big Huge Games is creating the next generation of real-time strategy games, with a definitive focus on cutting-edge technology and aimed at mass-market sales. Big Huge Games was formed in February of 2000 by Brian Reynolds, Jason Coleman, Tim Train, and David Inscore.
Just saw this on Daily Radar...
I'm almost beginning to feel sorry for FIRAXIS.
I would be feeling worse for them if they had kept a regular correspondence with Apolyton.
I wonder if they consider the Apolyton community a true representation of the strategy gaming public?
Does firaxis have anyone left besides sid meier? i bet sid meier is going to leave and come to bhg next. .
perhaps they just didn't like the name firaxis anymore, and they just wanted a really wacky way to change the name. .
it sure would be nice if we had people from firaxis talking to us. . screw the PR bullshit, lay it straight with us.
from the firaxis team page, the following (remaining)firaxians worked on civ2
Jeff Briggs - President and CEO
Sid Meier - Chairman and Director of Creative Development
Jerome Atherholt, Artist
Mike Bazzell, Artist
Mike Ely, Producer/Designer
Dave Evans, Director of Software Development
Greg Foertsch, Artist(CivNet actually)
Chris Pine, Programmer
Nick Rusko-Berger, Artist
beyond the civ2 guys though, there are other who worked on smac, so they are not unrelated to civ games...
btw, in the team there are listed 22 people(actually it's 23 with Kaufman(the page is not updated yet)). in the civ3 faq it was mentioned that there were 27 people in firaxis...
quote:
Originally posted by MarkG on 03-14-2000 03:06 PM
btw, in the team there are listed 22 people(actually it's 23 with Kaufman(the page is not updated yet)). in the civ3 faq it was mentioned that there were 27 people in firaxis...
the civ3 faq hasn't been updated since Feb. 10th, which is before everyone left, so... they probably do have 22 people.
Poor Firaxis
They actually might use some Hasbro people (God forbid) to do Civ3.. We'll have to wait and see.
Firaxis cities revolt! BHG influence suspected. Poor Sid, he should not have allowed bribing to be so cheap.
Sometimes change can be good for everybody involved. It must be hard to keep working on TBS when you prefer RTS. If you have key members who aren't really excited about a project, that can drag everybody down.
So as far as Civ3 is concerened, it seems like this shake-up might actually benefit the game. And I'm REALLY looking forward to an awesome TBS. Of course, I'm also looking forward to BHG's first RTS.
Xin Yu -
Uh-oh... rats are really leaving the, um, ship.
So there's only one programmer left. This will delay even Dinos, no matter how succesfully Firaxis can hire new people.
Bye bye Civ3...
Hello CTP2, MOO3 and Galactic Civilizations!
that's a list of only the people who worked in civ2. there are 13 other people in firaxis and probably even more in the quite propable case that they are not list in the team page...
OK, my bad. Firaxis's site lists three programmers (Jason Bestimt, Jeff Morris, Chris Pine).
About these mysterious "other people" not on the team page:
quote:
Additionally, this group includes a wide array of talents including musicians, dancers, painters, illustrators, jugglers, fencers -- even the conductor of the Baltimore Mandolin Orchestra
Quote from Firaxis "About Us" page. So no programmers among them, it would seem. More like artistic types.
Doug Kaufman has been removed now from their site, BTW.
I think they should replace the lead programmer of Civ3 with a Mandolin Player.
I must admit though that I have slight difficulties to understand what they are doing with jugglers, fencers and a conductor of mandolin orchestra.
I know it. They perform at the workshop to increase other people's productivity.
In Gamecenter's report on the Doug Kaufman thing today they state that Sid Meier has personally moved to Lead Designer of Civ 3.
Hopefully he'll read the Wishlist too. Sid isn't very famous for listening to fans.
This is quite bad I reckon.
I got reminded that Microprose will be working on Civ3 aswell. So I don't think that all is lost.
I have all the requirements to take the graphic artist job, I would take it, except I live in New Zealand.
I also wanted to say that BHG sounds like a tough job.
They're going to have to wipe out Blizzard (including Warcraft III), in order to live up to their name.
If they don't. They're going to be easily insulted. And known as Bad Huge Games, or Big Hunk of Gunk
There are heaps of names you could come up with to insult them. That's not a good move. The only way you can get past that is to make a BIG HUGE GAME. And it's gonna have to be pretty darn big. Bigger than every game.
Personaly, I don't think they have the *will* to do it.
sigh.....
It's a bad news for civ3, bad news for civ fans, bad news for Firaxis, and maybe good news for Big Huge Games.
quote:
Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate.
who knows.... maybe someone will leave Big Huge Games in one or two years.
------------------
Thunderfall
Civilization Fanatics' Center
Personally, I don't think it's that bad.
Colonization is an interesting game, but it doesn't play that well. Civ2 is good, but nevertheless it is evolutionary, not revolutionary. SMAC is much in the same vain as Civ2: an evolutionary decedant of Civ transplanted to another planet.
Maybe Sid can get Steve Barcia (MoO, MoM) on board. That would be way cool.
Well, we've got Microprose working on a civ3, Activision working on CtP2, firaxis working on a civ3 (someday), and Mark_Evereson & Co. working on Clash of Civilizations.
That's FOUR possibilities of having a great sequel to civ2. I'm positive that 1 or more will be good. Most other games should be so lucky.
And who knows? Maybe BHS will release a civ3 RTS... that works. Hey, it could happen.
Theben, isn't Firaxis working with Hasbro, i.e., Microprose, on Civ3?
To quote Imran:
quote:
They actually might use some Hasbro people (God forbid) to do Civ3.. We'll have to wait and see.
Maybe that means Civ III will come with a funky console that you put on top of your keyboard, like the Tonka dirt digger software!
Yeah, that could make the Raise/Lower/Level Terrain commands interesting…
Maybe they'll change the Elvis to a Slim Whitman playing a mandolin.
Don't mind me--I'm just BUMPing everytihng into veiw...
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