03/09/2004 5:00:29 pm

LukeDidd Entry

CM5 going gold is fast approaching! Over the last few weeks we have been spending our days and nights working hard, eating loads of delicious food, fixing and balancing the game.

We have also been working on creating the CM5 demo. The CM5 demo reveals key improvements and additions. The first version of the demo was at Gamestars. A few of you have seen this demo and posted comments on the forums. Yes the scorelines are currently high and the reasons for this are:
 Formation – 0-8-2 is being used meaning there are no defenders and plenty of attackers so loads of goals are being scored.
 Goalkeeper fumbles - The goalkeepers seem to be fumbling the ball to often and sometimes even into their own net.
 Defensive covering – The defenders were not closing down the ball in dangerous situations correctly, meaning a more clean cut opportunities for attackers.
 Ruff up – Players are often giving away penalties as the AI seems to like this option and apply it too often.

Rest assured – we do know what the issues are and are working hard to resolve them. Please wait for the demo which will be available soon.

I took a trip down to Gamestars on Wednesday and the people I spoke to were very positive (some negative) about the game. It was nice to see our competitors playing the game too. I hope they enjoyed it!

Anyway, back to work for me now! Got to make sure we get this demo and game finished so you can all have a go… I hope to post some more news soon.

03/08/2004 8:08:09 pm

Rutter Entry

It's the run up to Alpha - and we're busily cramming stuff into the game at the moment. For those that don’t know - Alpha means that we'll stop putting new stuff in, and start making sure what is already in works.

Heres how it’ll happen:

1/ We eat lots of Pizza/Thai/Curry/Pot Noodles/Salad and work late making sure that there isn’t anything left that we wanted in the game still to do. That is until about 1 or 2 weeks before “Alpha Day”

2/ We then eat lots of Pizza/Thai/Curry/Pot Noodles/Salad and work late making sure that the game is sufficiently stable (no Bugs) to allow people to play the game and prove that everything we say is in it – is in it.

3/ We send a version to the Quality Assurance (QA) team at Eidos. They then spend a good week or 2 giving the game a “Good Kicking” – and basically try to prove us wrong.

4/Bug fixing, balancing and polishing continues until the game reaches Beta.

At Beta the game is essentially finished – no Class A bugs (Crashes or problems which prevent the game being played to the end), hopefully no Class B bugs (problems which hamper progress in the game, but don’t stop it dead). Class C bugs will probably knocking around – missing punctuation, spelling mistakes, or poorly aligned graphics. It doesn’t stop you playing or enjoying the game. It just makes us look bad. At this point we should also have all the foreign languages in - and the installer, manual and other less glamorous, but still important things done.

Wish us luck – the days and weeks are starting to feel shorter – and with the Footy Season about to start we have all the distractions we could do without. Still – it could be worse. We could have proper jobs

03/08/2004 12:14:57 pm

Welcome to my new blog