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RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 2:21:25 AM

jwilkerson

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ChezDeJez

Steve is a retired Navy Chief. He flew in P3s. His contributions to AE have included aircraft data for the Japanese and testing. We appreciate Steve's application of his knowledge to our game.

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Post #: 61

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 2:26:47 AM

jwilkerson

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wdolson

Bill first joined as our test team coordinator at the end of 07. He set up the Mantis bug reporting system we've been using ever since and that has definitely helped manage the bug/issue tracking process over the past 18 months. When Don had to go inactive for a bit to relocate - Bill joined the technical team as a programmer. Bill is not assigned to a particular team but I use him to fight fires where needed. He has spent a good bit of time on land bugs - thus freeing up James for the AI work - and also Bill has done a lot of graphics work were his low level code experience has proved very useful. I thank Bill for his help and his level headed attitude which helps balance the team when we get "excited"

.

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Post #: 62

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 2:36:29 AM

USSAmerica

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Joe, this thread is great, and a fantastic idea!

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"Good times will set you free" - Jimmy Buffett

"They need more rum punch" - Me

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Post #: 63

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 2:38:22 AM

jwilkerson

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Brady
Brady has been a tester for many games. For AE he has gravitated towards being Andy's primary AI tester - and Brady can "break the script" with the best of them - so if you want to thank a third person for making the aeAI work - then Brady is the guy. Without him the AI would be a good bit "whimpier".

Mike Scholl
Mike is our resident AFB tester - he advocates for any and all things that will help the Allies - but we need all types on the team if we are to avoid group think - and Mike definitely helps with that. He is also one of the more prolific bug finders.

Halsey
One of the most experienced WITP players - Halsey has been a solid tester and his insights into the game - from a player perspective - are second to none. Halsey's efforts are appreciated.

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Post #: 64

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 2:39:15 AM

stuman

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Very interesting to get to know these guys from a different perspective.

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Post #: 65

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 2:56:10 AM

wdolson

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quote:

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

BigJ62

James is/was also a "late commer" to the project. We originally brought him in to do up a version of his editor. But then I fractured my wrist just as I was in the middle of implementing the new map code - and I would be holding up the whole project which needed the new map to work to really make AE be AE (we had been doing everything on the stock map up to this point). So we needed another programmer fast - James was a programmer and he was available - so he got hired!

James has been a great asset to the technical team - he works fast and his code works correctly. We got along well enough that we even hooked up for a real world project in Atlanta - the only team member I've actually worked with outside AE!

So James has done Land Code and Map Code and over the last year the AI Processor code and OBTW the Editor code - so a very prolific member of the coding team.

Without James, there would be no AE as it is today - not even close.

Thanks James!!!

aeAIaeAIaeAIaeAI !!!!!

I think James had the two most difficult areas of the program. The AI rewrite was a massive effort and the original land code was, I feel, more complex than the original naval or air code was. The new editor is also much better than the stock editor.

Bill

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Post #: 66

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 3:17:35 AM

Buck Beach

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This thread was needed not only to provide us fans information as to who was involved with what, but to give those on the team their appropriate recognition.

Thank you one and all and I will be one of those standing in line to show my appreciation where it counts with my wallet.

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Post #: 67

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 3:18:40 AM

jwilkerson

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TomLabel

Kelley joined the team as a ship artist - and he has cranked his share. Towards the end of the project Kelley has also become an "everything else" artist and redone many icons and really "spruced up" the look of the game as well as making the icons more informative. Bill supported Kelley in this effort and together they have really made things look better.

After Origins last year in talking with the "Flash Point" team - I wanted to steal one of their ideas and put "arrows" on the LCUs based on DL to indicate which direction the LCUs were moving (and if they were moving). Kelley drew and redrew the arrow prototypes for weeks until we got something we all agreed was workable. Amazing how tough something seemingly simple can be - the issue was we had so few pixels to work with. But eventually Kelley got something that looked good and Bill made it work in the code - and then we added something that you might hardly notice unless you think about it - but it is just one of the many details that make AE - AE.

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Post #: 68

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 3:49:45 AM

TheElf

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quote:

ORIGINAL: denisonh

Kudos Ian!

Great work. Given the professional and personal obligations you had in addition to committing time to AE, you are DA MAN.

quote:

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

TheElf

Ian has remained our Air Team Lead since day one of the project. He is an active duty US Navy officer with carrier fighter experience. He has also been a CHS contributor. His primary AE contribution has been to drive the air to air combat changes. Additionally he drove the training changes and the air unit support changes. Ian's efforts have definitely helped us address the areas that the team agreed at the start of the project - were top priority, the air to air combat and "air stacking" as some call it.

Ian did a tour in Italy during the project but is now in Texas - so he has been quite mobile - also while in the Med he seemed to be traveling almost constantly - so we have not had as much availbility from Ian as we hoped for - but the critical design things did get done - and we all thank Ian for successfully applying his expertise in these areas.

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Post #: 69

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 4:03:59 AM

Big B

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To all and sundry - you won't believe the change (For The Better) that Ian, and I believe Michael, and the Air Team did to make Air Combat seem much more realistic.

I know it still blows me away compared to old WitP.

B

quote:

ORIGINAL: TheElf

quote:

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

TheElf

Ian has remained our Air Team Lead since day one of the project. He is an active duty US Navy officer with carrier fighter experience. He has also been a CHS contributor. His primary AE contribution has been to drive the air to air combat changes. Additionally he drove the training changes and the air unit support changes. Ian's efforts have definitely helped us address the areas that the team agreed at the start of the project - were top priority, the air to air combat and "air stacking" as some call it.

Ian did a tour in Italy during the project but is now in Texas - so he has been quite mobile - also while in the Med he seemed to be traveling almost constantly - so we have not had as much availbility from Ian as we hoped for - but the critical design things did get done - and we all thank Ian for successfully applying his expertise in these areas.

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Post #: 70

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 4:06:07 AM

CaptDave

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Having been in software myself for close to 30 years, I understand what a major undertaking this project was. My heartfelt thanks and congratulations to the entire AE team!

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Post #: 71

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 5:08:04 AM

jwilkerson

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Cathartes

Our "Air Sides" guy. I do code - and I read books - and I can get a herd of project team members headed in the general direction of a galactic cluster - but - I don't do art. So, at the start of the project, I didn't realize we needed an "Air Sides" guy. But I learn new things every day and this was one of them. Ian did the "Air Tops" and recruited Cathartes do be the "Air Sides" guy - fortunately between them - they were able to get the "Air Art" done. Michael also gave the modders the option to do air art at the slot level without having to merge into a "palette" - so hopefully this will help those who engage in this arcane form!

Seriously, we appreciate Cathartes efforts - who also did good work on testing in his "spare time"

I can just say I envy these guys ability to crank so much good stuff so quickly. We'd be waitin' another 27 years for me to get all this done - one pixel - at a time ...

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Post #: 72

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 5:46:09 AM

bradfordkay

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quote:

ORIGINAL: khyberbill

quote:

So thanks to Andrew both for the new map and to his assistance to the team and the community.

As soon as I saw the map in CHS I stopped playing stock. Thanks to all for a great job and to Mr. Brown for a great map! I cant wait to explore the new map in AE.

It was Andrew's first map that saved WITP for me. I loved the game, but being a geography freak (my friends claim that I have an Atlas for a brain!) the original map drove me bonkers. I couldn't look at the game for more than a few days in a row before I would have to put it away for a couple of weeks. Once Andrew released his map, WITP took over my life...

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Post #: 73

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 6:00:48 AM

pad152

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quote:

planes do not need to be on a palette anymore � individual base art is now possible.

Yes, now plane art is just like ships and will make new aircraft art alot easier.

Now I just need to figure out the data for all that altitude band thing!

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Post #: 74

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 6:10:10 AM

Flying Tiger

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GREAT thread Joe. Many thanks for taking the time. And thanks (again!) to all involved.

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Post #: 75

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 6:10:52 AM

thunar

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Fantastic! WiTP was great, this will be even better.

Much thanks to the AE team for their hard work and Matrix for being the Great Grandmaster of Customer Satisfaction.

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Post #: 76

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 6:21:43 AM

TOMLABEL

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quote:

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

Bill supported Kelley in this effort and together they have really made things look better.

And great support he has given!!!

As already mentioned, Bill is just one of the great programmers we have on the team; however, he is one of several programmers on the team who understands us 'art' guys!!! We owe many kudos for his support given to all the crazy ideas us art guys came up with and finding a way (code-wise) to make it work!

< Message edited by TOMLABEL -- 7/24/2009 6:23:29 AM >

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Post #: 77

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 6:54:46 AM

Buck Beach

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I am so complied to ask this question with a preface. I am such a fan of El Cid and his game contributions, that have mostly gone unrecognized by the community. I know he is dogmatic, opinionated, argumentative, non-flexible and I am sure there was no way he could have ever worked with a team effort such as AE and in fact he was prone to just pissing people off along the way. In fact many of the people mentioned as contributors to AE, went out of their way to ridicule him along the way.

But you know what guys although he followed his own path without and any recognition or encouragement, he (with Cobra's map help) did develop quite a few different workable concepts . And now guess what, he is working on a real life game between the Chinese and Formosa.

And now the question. Isn't there any way you can throw this dedicated WITP gamer a bone here as a contributor if not just for some of his ideas .

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Post #: 78

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 7:16:32 AM

Andy Mac

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Everyone has helped on the AI but I would like to my especial thanks to James and Brady -

James has put up with my couldnt we make the Ai do this....comments for two years now how he remains sane is beyond me. I dont think he has ever said this cannot be done not even to my wildest requests

Brady did a huge amount of testing on the AI in many ways I have been playing brady via an interdiary for over a year now - cursing him as he finds a way to stop the AI - and then going back tot he drawing board to come up with another cunning plan to beat him.

Andy

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Post #: 79

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 11:45:44 AM

Micke II

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It will be nice to have a picture of all the members of the development team !

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Post #: 80

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 12:35:13 PM

Andrew Brown

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Micke II

It will be nice to have a picture of all the members of the development team !

Sure! But we live a long way from each other so we had to get the camera a long way away to get all of us...

Attachment (1)

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Post #: 81

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 12:44:21 PM

2Stepper

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Joe and company, congrats on a job well done I'm sure. I regret not having had the chance to join in the effort to bring a weather mans perspective to the game. Life, still being active in the military (though now retired after 21years) and some health issues kept me away.

That said though, I'm anxious to be able to get hold of this game and enjoy it as much as I did WITP. I may toss an odd suggestion or two around about the weather, but I'm sure we're in a better shape then before. One never knows. :) Besides, now that I'm in the software business professionally I can totally relate to the development cycle business so I won't be pushing for updates to spiral 300, dev build 1.1.1.1.1.1.0.a, or whatever it might be.

All kidding aside, it's good to be back and see so many familiar faces on the boards. So now it begins again! :)

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Post #: 82

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 1:30:56 PM

erstad

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

quote:

ORIGINAL: Micke II

It will be nice to have a picture of all the members of the development team !

Sure! But we live a long way from each other so we had to get the camera a long way away to get all of us...

Hmm, I can only see half the team. When do we get the other half?

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Post #: 83

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 2:02:13 PM

timtom

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Oh, that one's taken during the WitP:AE conference on Fiji last year, sponsored by M&M Enterprises and KABLAMMO (tm). Everyone was there. The Sea Urchin roe was some'it else I tell ya.

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Post #: 84

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 2:57:51 PM

DivePac88

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

quote:

ORIGINAL: Micke II

It will be nice to have a picture of all the members of the development team !

Sure! But we live a long way from each other so we had to get the camera a long way away to get all of us...

Look what I can see.

Attachment (1)

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Post #: 85

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 3:45:22 PM

USSAmerica

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Mike

"Good times will set you free" - Jimmy Buffett

"They need more rum punch" - Me

Artwork by The Amazing Dixie

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Post #: 86

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 4:06:20 PM

jwilkerson

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jrcar, tony luke

These two guys joined the test team late in 2008 ... they both get paid to "play" wargames for the Australian military (training software as they call it!). Rob (jrcar) and I played a PBEM campaign test from 7 Dec 41 through Aug 42 which revealed a number of issues which have subsequently been fixed. Tony and Rob have both played many turns and their professional opinions are both welcome and valuable.

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Post #: 87

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 5:39:39 PM

jwilkerson

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technical bugs/functional bugs/enhancements

During the past 18 or so months since we formed the AE Beta test team (Dec 07) we have encountered about 100 issues per month. This is actually pretty much aligned with the defect frequency I see on similar sized projects in my day job so fundamentally the raw defect count for AE is hardly abnormal.

For purposes of this discussion, I will differentiate defects into three groups:

01 - Technical bugs - these are things like the game crashing or locking up (infinite loop) or graphics not displaying correctly - disappearing units - disappearing leaders etc. We hope and think we have caught all of these - but with a code base as complex as WITP/AE we cannot be sure. We do think the frequency is lower than we experienced with WITP a few years ago. I would except the "synch bug" - I doubt we have nailed all the causes of that symptom - though I think we have nailed a bunch of them - and hence we should see reduced frequency in AE.

02 - Functional bugs - these would be things like casualties being too high in certain circumstances or ships being immune to damage - basically the game works - but produces results that we think are far enough off - consistently enough - that we think we should make adjustments. Over the past 7 months especially, we have made major efforts to improve the game results and place most results within a band that seems to reflect real life casualty/damage figures. The number of potential variables is emmense and hence we can never ensure that all results will be "realistic" - and hecque I find real world examples all the time - that seem - at first glance - to be impossible. And certainly WITP does not produce "normed" results every time - nor does AE - so there will always be out lier results - and there should be. Such results happen more frequently in real life that we might think - until we exmaine the data.

03 - Enhancements - often during our test cycle - someone will report an "issue". After examination the team will decide that things are either working as designed or that the reported issue is not of sufficient priority to resolve immediately. In these cases the item is added to the "patch list". Currently the internal "patch list" has 453 posts - though probably only half (or less) of these are actual proposals because there is often considerable "back and forth" discussion when someone posts to the patch list.

As we go through the GOLD process - the AE team will start to work on patch 01 - we will prioritize our efforts in the above sequence ... 01 tech bugs, 02 func bugs, 03 enhancements. Our expectation is that patch 01 wiill be released about 30 days after the game is released. Given testing and release processing time - this will really only allow 2-3 weeks for design, coding and unit testing, so we will be focused on critical items only for patch 01. And of course we have to allow at least a week after the release to allow time for the players to find things - so we cannot "close the kitchen" for patch one until at least a week after initial release.

Most everyone on our team agrees that a reported issue is an issue - where we get into contention is priorities - however this is inevitable. One of my software rules is that we can do (almost) anything - but we cannot do everything - so we have to prioritize. On the AE team we usually agree about issues - we often disagree about priorities - but someone has to set them - we only have finite resources and finite time. So the scope has to be set and a line drawn.

Once the game is released we will welcome feedback and we actually expect to heavily weigh real player opinion regarding our setting of priorities - but just as we on the AE team do not agree about all priorities - neither do real players - so everyone needs to understand this as well. We will consider priorities based on most benefit for most players - that will be a key criteria for us.

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Post #: 88

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 6:26:03 PM

CaptDave

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Joe, I just wish you were in a high-enough position at my old company to beat into the Client Services Group's collective heads that they can't have everything all the time! As you undoubtedly know, there's a rule in QA and Development: you can have it fast, cheap, or correct -- pick two. Too often Project Management (of which we had none) is underappreciated, along with being bloodied and bruised more than anyone else. Once again, my many thanks for your work on this project!

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Post #: 89

RE: AE Team - 7/24/2009 6:26:41 PM

jwilkerson

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rtrapasso
Bob as helped both the AE team and the WITP support team in several ways - perhaps the most important is by helping me answer the day to day WITP forum questions. I asked Bob to help me with this several years ago - since he was informally doing it anyway - and he agreed. Then there was a time where Bob had to leave the forum. When he came back he actually resumed the support help without any real discussion. I can say that Bob's assistance in this regard is a huge benefit to me personally and also to the WITP community at large and I wish to thank him for his generosity!!!

yamato hugger
Yammy first came on board to help Bob and I with WITP patch 1.8.0.7 (still in abeyance) then transitioned over to the AE beta team in late 07. Especially in the past 6 months YH has been driving hard in terms of finding issues - and might have surpassed Sonny II and Mike Scholl in terms of overall issues found - I'm not sure - would have to check - but certainly in the past few months I think YH has found the most. So everyone should thank our self-styled "sharp eyed bug hunter" because he has certainly proven these words to be true.

Sonny II
JoeC first came on board as a programmer - then had to leave the team - then rejoined as a tester and hooked up with Scholl and together I think they may have the lead in terms of number of issues found over the past 18 months. Recently, JoeC has decided to rejoin the programmer ranks and is transitioning back over to that role. We thank JoeC for his support and his flexability in being able to do what is needed - when it is needed to help the project.

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Post #: 90