DICE's Lars Gustavsson Talks About The Perils Of Innovation Over Execution

[Dark Pulse]

Lars Gustavsson, creative director for Mirror's Edge, gave a talk that Gamasutra sat in on. In it, he uses Mirror's Edge as an example as he talks about how sometimes, innovation takes precedence over execution - even if it leaves developers ripping their hair out.

The team came up with three ideas, and prototyped -- and then scrapped -- each one. "What the team quickly found out when we played it was that it's very hard to control or see your limbs in first person shooters," he said, and at this point ideas from parkour and Prince of Persia were introduced.

"The team stepped back, and started with paper and pen, trying to sort out all the problems with the first person view," said Gustavsson. "Once they had it on paper, the next step was animations, trying to prove that it could work." Eventually, they prototyped it and found it to be fun.

[Bersy]

I think a cross between UT and mirror's edge would be a pretty cool idea. I mean, you have your clean colorful environments, the ability to see your own body as you move, do more advanced things like swinging with your arms off poles.. but then also the ability to pull out your RL in mid air and rain rockets down on an opponent.

[nELsOn]

Originally Posted by Bersy

I think a cross between UT and mirror's edge would be a pretty cool idea. I mean, you have your clean colorful environments, the ability to see your own body as you move, do more advanced things like swinging with your arms off poles.. but then also the ability to pull out your RL in mid air and rain rockets down on an opponent.

that would make for some really interesting situations. kind of reminds me of that UT3 teaser that showed Othello fighting against that robot.

[Bersy]

yea exactly, was gonna use that as an example.

[Fuzzle]

I'd take just the clean environments. If there's one thing I feel is fundamentally flawed in ut3 from a design standpoint, it's how visually busy the levels are. Playing against necris characters on DM-Fearless is a bit of a headache.

[Dark Pulse]

Originally Posted by Fuzzle

I'd take just the clean environments. If there's one thing I feel is fundamentally flawed in ut3 from a design standpoint, it's how visually busy the levels are. Playing against necris characters on DM-Fearless is a bit of a headache.

I'd rather have that than 2kx's ultra-clean look. For a tournament battlefield, some places looked TOO sterile. Sure, there's all that business about how they'd be cleaned after a match, but come on...

[nELsOn]

Originally Posted by Fuzzle

I'd take just the clean environments. If there's one thing I feel is fundamentally flawed in ut3 from a design standpoint, it's how visually busy the levels are. Playing against necris characters on DM-Fearless is a bit of a headache.

gotta play instagib against them for the lasting effect

but seriously, i know what you mean. i love all those details but it happens to me a lot that i just don't see anybody else on the maps because there's so much decoration.

i guess it's just something the new tech brings with it. the last engine version was quite a leap forward in details as well, so...