Gameplay Q&A with Lead Gameplay Programmer Miroslav Maněna

[Baty Alquawen 3688]

Hey Survivors, 

We'll be dropping part two of the Filip Doksanský Enfusion Engine Q&A relatively soon, but in the meantime we're announcing our next Q&A with Lead Gameplay Programmer Miroslav Maněna!

This is your opportunity to get answers to all of those pressing gameplay development questions you've been dying to ask, and from the brilliant source himself no less. Dude is super smart! True story. 

We'll be taking questions until November 14th, so get 'em in while you can.

[joe_mcentire 2074]

i thought i would share this because i wanted to know a bit more about this profession:

 

Quote

When companies talk about hiring a gameplay programmer, what they are talking about is a programmer who will be responsible for code that directly touches on the game experience. That is, the programmer will be responsible for actually constructing the games, rather than engine or larger game systems. But beyond that, things vary a lot:

Some companies expect gameplay programmers to implement the user interface. Some don't. Some companies expect them to implement AI code, some don't. Some expect them to implement audio code, some don't. To be honest, the "gameplay" in gameplay programmer is an industry shorthand for "everything that we haven't hired a specialist to do". So these programmers need to be very versatile, and need to be able to learn new disciplines quickly.

I spent almost fifteen years being a gameplay programmer in the commercial industry, across five different companies.

My experience was that in some companies, a gameplay programmer is considered to be a junior or entry-level position; programmers who are only working on an individual game, after all, don't need to be as sophisticated as those who are working on systems that need to support lots of different games simultaneously, the way that engine programmers need to. In this sort of company, if a gameplay programmer does really well, he might be promoted into the engine team someday, if he can prove his worth. Or he might become a specialist, if he shows an aptitude for a particular area.

In other companies, a gameplay programmer is considered to be a medium-level position; programmers working on an individual game need to have some useful experience and be dependable. Inexperienced programmers might be given undesirable jobs to cut their teeth on (data pipelines, tools, etc), and eventually be allowed to move up into a "gameplay programmer" job. In this sort of system, a gameplay programmer who continues to do quite well might move up into a project leadership role, or else onto the engine team.

In still other companies, a gameplay programmer is considered to be a senior position, and to be a half-design position as well; these programmers are expected to be excellent, proven programmers, but also to have strong design sensibilities and qualifications, since they're directly touching the code that most strongly affects the player's experience with the game. In this sort of system, a really good gameplay programmer will likely remain a gameplay programmer forever -- this is considered to be the most valuable position which he can fill.

As a general rule of thumb, the better the company's games, the more senior a position they consider gameplay programmer to be (and therefore, the more difficult it will be to actually land such a job).

as found here

I think, in the future it would be super cool to give a short job description (related to DayZ) of the staff to get a better idea which questions make sense to ask. e.g. i have no clue what a gameplay programmer's task might look like, in general and particularly at BI or the DayZ Dev team. so i think it would help some people. E.g. even the source above speaks of a very vague term and an interpretation completely dependent on the company and their games they work on.

 

cheers

Edited November 7, 2016 by joe_mcentire

[joe_mcentire 2074]

hi, thanks for the option to ask some questions. so here my first one regarding to the post directly above this one:

1. in context of the statement above, what is the role of a gameplay programmer at BI, especially in the DayZ dev team, and what are the tasks and duties of a lead gameplay programmer there?
2. is there a clear differentiation between a gameplay programmer and game designer within the DayZ dev team? if so, how does the direct collaboration look like between the programmer and the designer at BI/DayZ dev team?

Edited November 7, 2016 by joe_mcentire

[sektor 0]

Hi, i have a question about shoes, running and different surfaces that are in game:

Will shoes you wear affect your speed on different terrain, and will there be different speed for different terrain in general?

Will there be a possibility you could spring your ankle if you sprint trough deep woods, or sprinting downhill, making players to use roads a bit more?

[Coheed_IV 381]

Is the CLE capable of changing any other parameters without patching besides loot. Like weather or temperature. 

[filip489 0]

When 1.0 drops, I believe there's going to be an increase in new players (including reviewers) with absolutely no knowledge of the map, crafting, looting or hunting. Do you have any plans to help new people get a more casual learning curve to conquer Chernarus, like turorials or a manual, or will you take the simulator approach and let them study hard or die trying?

Edited November 9, 2016 by filip489

[philbur 476]

Upon seeing the new conceptual representation of deep woods (deadfall, heavy shrubs, etc.) Will there be a point where the player can not continue to move through the area due to these obstructions?

Will you implement player slippage (falling or rolling maybe) when a steep enough slope is encountered while running?

Will vehicles eventually have keys?

How soon before the radio towers/stations become player-usable so we can broadcast to all those on the server who have radios?

Will there be a default frequency for these stations so players don't need to scan the entire spectrum to find the broadcast?

Will ammunition reloading be implemented as a crafting skill?

Thanks!

[hugoooo 0]

Will you ever balance the loot, so you can find more pistols and mid-range guns on the coast? I feel this would greatly improve the experience that this game used to have.

I even made a big rant about it.. I just hope you would care. :)

https://www.reddit.com/r/dayz/comments/5cnjfk/make_dayz_great_again_rant/

[zemos (DayZ) 9]

Will the video memory opition in settings get removed in the future and when will game be able to support more than 2gb?

 

 

[Coheed_IV 381]

Is it possible to place a Apple on someone's head, like in their hat slot? Then, is it possible for an Arrow to stick into this Apple?

I have big plans to not aim high with anyone who gets on my nerves. :D

[paingifter 0]

I realize that this question may be overlooked completely since it's ten days past the deadline for questions, however it is my hope that one of the moderators will see this and move it to the next Q&A perhaps.

My question is if I were to build a base or camp with walls surrounding it, would wolves and zombies spawn inside my wall if there is a spawn point there, or would the building objects negate those spawns to preserve the usefulness of building said walls?

Edited November 24, 2016 by paingifter

[Brokenbones 62]

Think bubbles...

[BCBasher 2465]

4 hours ago, paingifter said:

I realize that this question may be overlooked completely since it's ten days past the deadline for questions, however it is my hope that one of the moderators will see this and move it to the next Q&A perhaps.

My question is if I were to build a base or camp with walls surrounding it, would wolves and zombies spawn inside my wall if there is a spawn point there, or would the building objects negate those spawns to preserve the usefulness of building said walls?

There was some mention of a system to prevent server hopping/ghosting and moving to what would be inside the walls of a base the hopping back and spawning inside, I'd assume they'd be smart enough to have some system to prevent AI from spawning inside too. 

[Baty Alquawen 3688]

Here is it, enjoy! :)

 

[Espa 711]

12 minutes ago, Baty Alquawen said:

-Snip-

Thanks so much, Baty! It was awesome ^_^ I hope Mirek can show a little of a new action we've never seen next time! 

[St. Jimmy 1631]

Digging these videos a lot.

[joe_mcentire 2074]

@Baty Alquawen

please consider small job descriptions of your q&a participants. it would help to come up with better targeted questions. cheers

[Lithril 3]

A simple question: Can we make crossbows great again with improvised bolts being able to be crafted and make arrows and bolts recoverable after a kill? if killing zombies with a crossbow, we can find the bolt in their inventory, after gutting an animal we can find it on the ground etc? and players it would stick out of their body?

[Coheed_IV 381]

Thanks for answering my question about the CLE. I really hope they consider including other configs with the CLE (weather, temp., disease transmition probability, wild game population, fish biting, wolf aggression, etc.).  Being able to change the environment in DayZ on the fly would make this game more of an event. They guys at BI could play game master.

The draw of a changing environment would keep many  players coming back. The PR and videos about whats new would influence the long term growth of the community. 

[sneakydude 480]

On 11/24/2016 at 6:12 PM, BCBasher said:

There was some mention of a system to prevent server hopping/ghosting and moving to what would be inside the walls of a base the hopping back and spawning inside, I'd assume they'd be smart enough to have some system to prevent AI from spawning inside too. 

Reading then relocating a player lets say 200-500m in any direction, sounds like tons of checks.  Maybe throw the player on a roadway, special spawn point or something 1000m from any building spots. So when you place a building plot it basically says you can not build here. 1000m check point or something along those lines. There is only so many ways to handle this, without shoving a person way south again to respawn in.

 

Would be interesting, but i haven't seen any base building objects, or talk about it other then a small picture.

[Baty Alquawen 3688]

Here is a second part of Mirek's Q&A video. Enjoy!

 

[jappegaming 57]

I like these videos!

Is next developer chosen already to Q&A video?