| RTCM: |
How and why did you get involved with the NAM and WWIIGI games? |
| Matt: |
I was working at Monolith at the time. We had just completed Blood
and I was very familiar with the Build engine interface (remember, nobody had source at
that time). The publisher for Blood was GT Interactive. I also worked with 3D Realms as
they were the original publisher of Blood and then with them through acquiring the rights
for Monolith. GT wanted to do other, cheap, games and using the build engine seemed
like a natural way to get games out quickly. In addition, there were teams of Mods who
were familiar with Duke and willing to work cheaply compared to 'normal' development
teams.
So GT acquired the permission from 3D Realms for the Duke source and talked to Monolith
about doing the work. There were few people left at Monolith who worked on the Blood
source in the first place, and I was really the only one available to do the work.
First there was Nam (or Napalm in WalMart stores). This was followed by WW2GI. We
wanted to do something to make them more than just 'Duke' mods. This meant adding things
to CON that could not be done in Duke.
And that's how I started the CON enhancements. |
| RTCM: |
How where the enhancements requested or suggested? |
| Matt: |
I was not familiar with CON language, so I first read the guides on it.
After I got a grasp of the design of the language syntax and what some of the guide
writers said they wanted, I had some proposals. My main goal was to stay within the
existing CON language syntax with all additions. Mostly because this is the syntax that
the users of the language are used to; and also because that syntax is how the language
parser is designed.
The team working on Nam Con and art had some input as to what things they wanted
to be able to do in CON.
{EDITIOR NOTES: The NAM enhancements where all hardcoded, the CON
additions didn't show up until WWIIGI}
I designed and implemented language changes to accommodate most of their requests.
Sometimes, an implentation would provide opportunity to implement a suite of features in a
common area where just one of those features had been specifically needed to fulfill the
request.
Some things that we would have liked to have done would be just too much work on both
sides to implement in the time-frame given. For example, weapons under CON control. There
is a lot of changes necessary in the source code, as well as forcing the Nam team to learn
a whole new way of making weapon code and art. |
| RTCM: |
What type of changes where made to NAM? There doesn't seem to be any new
CON additions. |
| RTCM: |
You worked at Microsoft once upon a time, Why did you leave them? |
| Matt: |
I had been there 9 years and my options were fully vested. In addition,
MSFT had gone through many changes in that time; and most not making for a 'fun' work
environment |
| RTCM: |
Your work with Blood at Monolith is well known, Why did you leave them? |
| Matt: |
A couple of reasons. I was at the top position that I thought I could get
at monolith. The game cycle is very tiring in many ways, and I don't just mean long hours;
just getting a game publisher takes lots of work. I wanted a job where I could ship
products more often, and have them in stores where my mom could go see them. |
| RTCM: |
Do you have any other game experiance beside BUILD related? Such as
programming, managing or design? |
| Matt: |
Yes, I have lots. From my resume:
Responsible for establishing
feature priorities and schedules and communicating those to Marketing |
| LithTech
) – Project Manager |
Publisher: Monolith Productions |
For a complete list of Matts work see his resume at http://www.saettler.com/matts/mattsaettler.htm |
| RTCM: |
What are you upto these days? |
| Matt: |
I am not employed at the moment. I've been working on getting our house
ready to sell, working on our art community projects (http://www.saettler.com/artspawn) and my own
audio projects (recording and live sound engineering). |
| RTCM: |
Do you play anything besides Dark Ages of Camelot? |
| Matt: |
Had played EnB for quite a while. Stopped because game stayed the same.
Will very likely be playing WoW when it's out (or if I get into Beta). |