Also: networking as a dedicated activity isn’t real.

Effective networking is just building real relationships. Friendships, co-workers, collaborators, partners. Shared experiences. That is where a network comes from

You can’t force it and going to GDC with that goal won’t work

Yeah, know the feeling. Just for design.

The wild thing is that he was also an aspiring dev - apparently interned at Firaxis.

Some of us might know him 👀

The story is written:

This looks like my jam

Finally we have high fidelity realitme dynamic raytraced light in our games!

Let's keep "tall grass" as the only way to hide.

Really? I hear everyone within Ubi talk about how much we lack animators and tech animators on our projects?

so many studio closures and layoffs in the last couple years, and many of the groups that still exist are in their final round right now, and culturally the vibe among players mostly seems like "fuck devs. if they shut down, good". when there's nothing new to play they will not amend this position

And it is not that I feel this controller is better than let's say a Dualsense - it is just that it is so damn reliable.

So to conclude: A good traversal experience in games is more than the classic 3Cs (camera, controls, character), it is also crafted by the SPACE you move in, the ACTIVITIES it offers and the FANTASY it creates.

End of long thread

We did one more thing that is worth calling out: we doubled down on the fantasy of a personal bond to an animal. We added lots of small flavor animations and voice lines where the player character and mount reacts and responds to the contexts around them. Players have received this very well.

Smash also plays a key role in giving you micro distractions. Instead of airspace and ground being separate spaces, smash it opens a full range of open world gameplay and meaningful exploration. Defeat enemy installations by smashing ingredients, Loot by smashing containers, harvest by smashing pods

We want the player to ask themselves "what more can I smash?", "what places can I launch myself to?". Especially "Launch" is especially a skill that allows player expression. You can do cool stuff like, launch yourself in air, shoot a helicopter and land on the ikran again.

It was very important to design both of these skills as general "verbs" - not abilities to solve specific problems. We do onboard the skills on the main quest, and they both play a key role in moving the story forward, but they are broader than that.

On the core controls we only added a few new critical skills that open up the toolbox for what the player can DO in the air. The "smash" ability lets you hammer into things and destroy them, and the "launch" ability is an in-air dismount that just launches the player forward in air.

We crafted a world for flying. The world team created a vertical mountain canyon region... It is essentially Manhattan with tall spire mountains instead of skyscrapers, canyon rivers instead of roads. You can still go all the way up and above things, but often flying around stuff is more efficient.