Хм, я думала можно и без регистрации.
Hey everybody, this is Eric Lindstrom.
Yes, my secret lurker account name is Squamula. Justin can confirm this if he is so inclined. You can see that I joined about the time I started as Creative Director on Underworld, three years ago, and have never posted until now. This is mostly because I was told not to -- PR is a tightly controlled element -- but there were other reasons, too.
Because I am no longer an employee of Crystal Dynamics (yes, I was one of the 30) I am now free to post. as long as I don't break any of the usual confidentiality agreements, which I won't. I wasn't going to post, but there is too much being said that I don't feel is right to go unanswered. Although I haven't read anything bad about me personally, some of the misinformation out there can lead to conclusions that I have lied about one thing or another, and I don't want that impression to stand.
A number of people here on TRF are claiming to be employees or ex-employees of Crystal. I do not know who any of them are or if any of them are legit. I suspect some of them are. But even those who might be authentic are posting incorrect information. I don't think they are doing it maliciously...it's just that in any office you can ask someone what the story is about something and part of what they tell you is wrong, often just because info gets garbled as it gets passed around.
The main thing I wanted to clear up is about DLC. Everything I have ever said about this is true. I don't work for Crystal anymore so I have no reason to lie, nor does my severance agreement tell me to do so. I can tell you without doubt that the content of DLC was absolutely not held back from Underworld for the purpose of selling later down the road. I am one of only three people who knows this for sure because not only were there only three of us in the room at the time the decision was made, I was the one who made it. We had a production issue that was going to make us miss our ship date -- which we could not do -- and I needed to find a way to cut enough days from the schedule in a manner that would not rip a hole in the game that would take time to sew up. It was my idea to cut what was cut, and I did hope that it would one day be made available as a download mission, because there was great content already conceived and half completed, but on the day we made the cut, it was made purely for Underworld production reasons. Even if I was told on that day that we would never ever make a downloabable level, I still would have had to cut it. Anyone who says otherwise is speculating or heard someone else speculating, and is incorrect.
I am willing to answer other questions about my five years on Tomb Raider, now that I am free to post on TRF, but don't expect any gossip. I'll answer anything I can that doesn't violate anyone's privacy -- including the company's -- or my confidentiality agreements, which all employees and ex-employees are bound by whether they get riffed or quit. But that still leaves plenty -- magazines tend to ask the same basic questions -- they aren't interested or aware of the level of detail fans are.
For those who think that I'm going to lie and shuffle and whatnot because I want to keep my relationships with Crystal intact, all I can say is that there's no convincing people like that. They don't believe in anonymous sources, because they might be fake, and anyone who reveals their name must not be telling the truth because of fear of retribution...Catch-22. But this deoesn't apply to me because I don't lie (though, like any human, I can be accused of unintential exaggeration) and if there is something I can't reveal for some reason, I say nothing. I don't make up lies; I just don't answer. That's how I've been since you all first heard from me, and that's how I'll continue to be.
So, fire away. But don't ask me about any future plans of the company or the franchise, and keep it clean, folks.
Cheers,
Eric
Thanks everyone for the kind words. For those who don't believe it's me, just wait it out and maybe Justin will confirm in the morning (GMT) -- he and I have sent a few PMs to each other over the years. But really, you've been reading my words for awhile since I do all my own interviews...doesn't this SOUND like me?
Sorry for not posting the questions, but I hope I've made it clear what I'm answering...
dbot: I myself had it on my TO DO list to get the ragdoll physics tuned differently so she would appear less...well, I should say make her more rag-dolly...she right now is too stiff for my taste whi8ch made it not as cool as in the past, but in the prioritization of things we couldn't get to it. I would expect to see improvement here in the future, though (doh! Did I talk about the future?!) It was also a ratings issue -- there were no T and M ratings back then.
Carbonek 0051: I forget who said it, on another thread, but the higher up in the hierarchy you are, the harded it is to find jobs. I lead projects, so if there are no projects to lead, what do I do? In the past, Crystal had enough float such that I could do various jobs till I could start up a new project, but with the new focus Crystal is making, there really isn't room for me anymore. My studio design director took it hard that I was on the cut list because no one wants to lose talent because of the numbers.
lacryjr: The deaths of Alister and Amelia being anticlimactic is a matter of opinion, but I do see the viewpoint. To do justice to these deaths as a movie would have needed more space and effort than we had. It's a game, not a movie, so even at the end I didn't think anyone wanted to sit for ten minutes and watch a movie. I know plenty of people would, but as with all things tried to strike the right balance, and on that we hit the ball a bit short.
trin 303: it might tell you all a bit more about me to hear that when I read "Hey I'm Lara Croft and Eidos sacked me too... if you want you can ask me questions" I laughed out loud. Don't worry about offending me, guys. As long as we're talking about real things and keep a sense of humor, it's all fair game. And I will accept no apologies...people shouldn't be afraid of being skeptical, especially about something like this.
ajrich17901: about the rushed ending, partly I answered that above, but also I wanted later levels to be shorter than middle levels, to accelerate the pace as you got closer to the end. This is just dramatic common sense, but I won't say we got the pacing perfectly right in the end. That's hard to do with gameplay. But I was also concerned about all the statistics out there about how few people finish games, and I wanted to make a structure that encouraged people to finish as they grew accustomed to the gameplay going forward, and part of that was to taper the experience. As for remaking AoD, I can't talk about future plans, but read the end of the Journal...
Love2Raid: I'm not saying that none of the DLC came from Underworld. All I'm saying is that anything that was cut from Underworld that appears in the DLC wasn't held back for that purpose. And I don't really know anything about its schedule.
Candee Sparks: I really don't know about the PS2 version. I was in charge of the 360/PS3/PC versions only.
Larapink: I have been lurking around TRF for three years now, spending most of my time in Underworld, and a bit in Anniversary and Legend. I sense a trap, but I blissfully continue walking forward...
Angelus: a little too big of a question for me to answer. Yes, Eidos wants the revenue from Tomb Raider games, so more is better, but many people know the pitfalls of releasing too often. Three years separated Legend and Underworld, and Anniversary was a separate team. Doesn't mean you're wrong, though...
Dingaling: I can't say anything about the answers to Tihocan and all because these things might be addressed in the future. But I can say that we talked a lot about these things over the past 5 years, and have ideas of what the answers are, but if future games do return to these threads, they may or may not use the answers we have outlined. And my cat is named Savage, because she is a monster. She is a very happy and loving cat who knows no boundaries and plays extremely rough. It you could see my arms right now. I'll post a picture sometime -- she looks like those evil panthers from the game, not the cute kitten from the picture.
danny.rex: I absolutely wish we could have spent more time polishing Underworld, but yes, I'm very proud of the experience we made, if not the tech issues that shipped. But before blame gets too focused anywhere, I take my share of responsibility of aiming so high that we had a reduced ability to spend time on polish -- it wasn't all Publisher pressure. Good creative leaders need to scale appropriately, and I hope to do better at this next time.
Eddie Haskell: (and you don't sound like Eddie Haskell, if you know what I mean... Yo uask a big question. Here's a short answer that I can expand on later. The segment of the gaming audience that is interested in and patient with the kind of difficult and fatal gameplay you miss is too small for current AAA games to support. There is no model for making a game that cost as much as Underworld cost that could recoup that investment without appealing to a broader audience. This flies directly in conflict with much of what made Tomb Raider great at the start, and trying to find the right balance was a big part of my job. I know that the answer we presented disappoints the hardcore fans, and it was unavoidable. We can strive to make games as exciting as the past, but you likely won't ever see games as demanding as they were in the old days.
Rivendell: In truth, I always had a soft spot for you, because while you were one of the most critical of Legend and Anniversary (and early glimpses of Underworld) you were always extremely honest, respectful, and best of all, open minded and not quick to judge or jump to conclusions. You're praise of Underworld ranks near the top for me. And as for future games, I have a lot of respect for many of the creative guys still at Crystal, and like you, I hope for the best.
Love2Raid: If the mercenaries were made to look like me on purpose, I didn't know about it. I didn't noticed any resemblance till it was pointed out here, and it's probably coincidence given how generic their (and my) features are, but maybe there was something to it...
Shark Blade: I'm looking for a new home, and have many friends in the industry...wish me luck!
More coming...
Cheers,
Eric
trin 303: With respect to paying attention to forums, I can only speak for myself. I could only read a fraction of what was posted, and I did a lot of skimming, or cherry-picking topics that I was concerned about and not reading threads about things I knew were too late to affect or that I was set on what we were going to do. But I did read a lot, and Underworld would not look like it does today had I never read any forums. I looked other places, but the most traffic -- and opinions that I felt I could most effectively parse -- came from TRF. You all definitely can praise yourselves for toning down the white ledges...we were never going to leave them so bright, but we wouldn't have taken as hard a look and tested them so hard if not for forum traffic on the topic. You guys can't take credit for Alister's death, though...that one's all mine... But in terms of hearing something harsh, here's something. Often when a thread appears and people are shouting Consensus! we're only talking about 12 people. Even the GROZA groups and such are only a couple hundred people, and Tomb Raider games sell in the millions. We needed to kep this in mind, especially because TRF is a specialized audience, not a fair market cross section. Also, if you did an analysis you'd find that there are few consensus issues here anyway. Pony tail verses braid? There is no clear favorite.
Pietras: the Legend story did change throughout pre-production, including when Toby came on board, and me, too, since I was the Story Designer. Those locations you mention (forgive me for suppressing a smile) never existed. Much of the myth about cut levels were based on random pieces of concept art that some concept artist just tossed off one day that had no grounding in any story or design docs...just an artist's doodling. As for story changes, elements, and Lara's backstory, you can blame me as much as anybody. To be brutally honest, we didn't know anyone was as bonded to the original backstory as it turned out. That said, we probably would have made the changes anyway, and this is common. The Batman's backstory changes all the time, for instance. I'll talk more about the story stuff (Mommy!) and Toby later...
Aurelien52: Like I said when I was an employee, we were approached my Microsoft to do some exclusive downloads, it was a nice deal, and it happened. I don't know if it will ever expire to allow them to be downloaded on other platforms or available on disc.
Gladous: The ideas for Underworld came from all over for a long time. I'll say more when I talk more about story later. I can't really talk about ideas for DLC though because that's in the future.
(Phew...I'm kinda glad there's traffic about whether I'm really Eric...it slows you all down a bit and I'm really outnumbered here...50 hands typing questions and only 2 typing answers...)
immortalis08: The camera feature was cut from the game because it turned out to be a can worms -- not just bugs that were really hard to fix, but also conceptual weird stuff that would have taken much too long to trap. And, if you didn't know this you might find it interesting, we were getting a lot of negative feedback on how the camera didn't contribute to gameplay and just sharing pictures was stoopid. My greatest challenge as a creative director was the fact that 80 people don't naturally agree on everything, and we need to march toward the ship date as if we do. I don't have a favorite level, but I have bits that grabbed my imagination more. Favorites of mine are Shiva and Kali, the Artic Sea Statues, the eitr pool at the bottom of Xibalba...places that had a big presence and weight of conceptual meaning. I liked the tipped ship, too. And yes, the name of Amanda's first ship is the "Megaera". I'll talk more about the trilogy later when I come back to story stuff. I can't say much about the DLC except to say that it did not hinder Underworld in any way.
Awestruck: All games have things cut out. it's generally because we hope for more than is ultimately possible, as game designers. Movies are the same. There was nothing unusual about the cuts in Tomb Raider games at Crystal...the usual reasons seen everywhere in the industry.
Moon-Safari: The decision to ship or hold a game is always a tough decision for any studio and publisher. The longer you hold it, the more it costs and the more you need to make to earn it back. Holding it longer makes it better, but better at a rate faster than the rate you are increasing its budget? There are cynical answers, but it is always, in all honesty, a hard question for any studio. It was discussed here, and the decision to ship in November was made higher than me. I supported it, though in hindsight I second-guess my feelings there. The line between pre-production and production is blurry. We spent 3 years on the project in total, and we had a typical-to-good experience with respect to making and missing deadlines. We didn't plan out the games in terms of story in advance, per se...I'll say more about story later. And I didn't make the DLC deal. I cut content from the game, and it later turned out to be possible to use in DLC, for which I was happy.
Blowy: You found the game a bit more uneven than I did with respect to puzzles...if you could be more specific I could help. But the tension between time constraints and creativity and scale are always there, in any studio or publisher, and it's always agonizing.
CrazyMonkey: While I did take issue with some decisions made by management and the publisher, I have never worked at a game developer where this isn't the case. Companies are too big to do everything right all the time. The studio made mistakes, and I made mistakes. We're human. Can I blame the problems Underworld shipped with on Eidos? Yes, but I also blame myself.
Carbonek 0051: You said "Why were cheats made available through completing certain tasks not included in this game when it was included in the past 2?" I don't understand the question. We didn't include time trials because my research showed that very few people performed them in Legend and I didn't want to spend the programming and UI support needed to support such a marginal feature. I can't talk about story questions for the future, but I will say some things later when I come back to story issues. As for cut scenes, they were harder to make in Underworld because of next-gen issues, and so they had to be shorter, more concise and to the point, and yes this did make them seem less cool than Legend because we could take our time more then and make it more witty...in Underworld we had to focus more of the time on the information conveyed because we had fewer minutes at our disposal.
Pan: Is Natla dead? That's a future story question.
Laralover 07: Can't say anything about the DLC content coming up.
jeffery_van-oort: we didn't see how Amanda found Natla, but there are lots of things we didn't see. In stories there are always things you don't see depicted, but must infer or hear abuot second hand. Read Lara's journal for more info.
Larapink: Ah, so you're a Kurtis lover, yes? Can't say anything about what characters or plots will come in the future, but before yo uaccuse me of being secretive, it's because I don't know. Nothing is really decided until it's decided. I'll say more when I come back to story. But with respect to the cut scenes not being able to be replayed at the end, this one hurt me bad. This feature was always supposed to be in, but in the end it just couldn't happen, and here's why. All the cut scenes happen in-game, and the state of levels change. For instance, when you first found the maproom bridge in Thailand, there is a cut scene of Lara walking across it. But when you escape this room, you have moved the bridge. If you tried to replay the cut scene of her walking across this bridge, she'd be walking in midair! Sometimes cut scenes relied on things being as they start out, and sometimes as you the player configured them. The opening of Xibalba? That really happens, and the camera just shows it to you. To run it again would require a tone of specialty programming to run all these scripts to recreate these events that the player triggered manual in-game. The only feasible solution was to render out movies and put in a movie player, but there wasn't nearly enough room on the disc for this. We jammed everything onto the disc we could for the game itself and there was no room for movies. It was a sad day for me, but what else could we do?
Gladous: Can't talk about future stuff, I'm afraid...and I don't know about any movie deals, but I wasn't in that loop so it might be going on for all I know.
KIKO: Comparing Crystal's Lara with Core's Lara is tricky...I could ask you to compare Core's TR1 Lara with TR5 Lara with AoD's Lara. She's been expressed in many ways. I of course like Legend and Underworld best, but I am completely not objective about this.
Moon-Safari: The production issue that led to cutting some content were just garden variety production overruns...like happen on most games. Delay was a question for higher ups that I answered earlier.
Love2Raid: About stuff in the trailer that wasn't in the game...can you give me examples? We did some special content for trailers, but I can be more specific if you can be. With dynamic weather, I got misquoted in the press a lot about this. I never said there would be dynamic weather. I said weather was an important part of our emotional canvass, but that it was always raingin in Mexico because it was a "down" part of the story arc (after Alister's death, though I couldn't reveal that). I answered about the photos earlier...
MyRaider4Life: About night in Thailand, same answer as above, and I'll talk more about story in geenral later...
TRBeth: Underworld certainly would have been a better game if we had more time, and htis is true of pretty much every game on the market. More than that, I've said above... If I could do one thing differently on Underworld, it's related to that, however. I would have built in a longer polish interval to account for next-gen polish challenges. This would have made it a smoother and more successful experience for everyone.
konichi-wa: the evolution of the naga you see in the concept art was a reflection of the belief that earlier drawings were too cartoon-like and didn't match the style of the rest of the game and environments, so they were made to look like we ultimately shipped.
Forum Quorum: Fan fiction has had no impact on the Tomb Raider stories at Crystal because, in all honesty, I have never read a single piece of fan fiction. I love that people are inspired to write them, but I have never read any.
Nenya awakens: I'll talk about story stuff more later (and in fact I'm going to stop saying that, so subsequent questions about this I'll just skip over for now...I'll get back to them though!)
More coming...
Cheers,
Eric
Camera Obscura: When I got my pink slip (walking papers, ticket to exit, etc.) I didn't take it personally because of the nature of the focus the studio wants to take, and how there really isn't room for as many ship captains, and since my ship had sailed, etc. I mostly thought about paying my mortgage. And while I have different opinions about how the studio and publisher do business, everyone's got different opinions, right? Before you all think I'm Pollyanna or anything, I thought all the things you would imagine me thinking, but it serves no good purpose to spell them out here. And I really did post to clear up the DLC thing. I didn't want it spreading that what I had said about stuff not being held back for DLC was a lie. It wasn't, and I wanted to make that clear. But at the same time, I have wanted to be able to answer the kinds of questions you're asking today, but was unable to do so until now. And while I do know some people who were let go with me because I bumped into them, I really don't know who was on the list so I can't name names. I haven't talked to Toby in the past couple days so I don't know his status.
Lara's Backpack: As far as I know, the only contact between Crystal and Core is that we hired Toby, which, for the record, I believe was a very good thing and I can talk later about how much of what TRF maligns him for is completely false. I don't know of anyone coming into contact with LE stuff.
Bladrjr: Yes content was removed from TRU that would have added gameplay value, and it happens in all game development (and movie development) all the time. It wasn't a 1-year game, it was a 3-year game because Aniversary was a different team. If we had more time, we would have polished what we had, not made more.
Smog: AoD was mostly, to be very frank, a study in what not to do. But like in science, we learn as much from experiments that don't work out as those that do. The Mayan calendar bit was a bother to me. Early on when we first announced Underworld, we couldn't say much, so somehow the media turned the little part of the game we showed them (the Mexico forest trails) and was reporting it like it was the whole game. At the time I was frustrated and tried to tell later journalists that the game wasn't about the Mayan Apocalypse, that it was just one of the many underworlds, but to no avail...
coolezpunk: the layoff was to focus more tightly on what the company believes will drive success in the future, and only employees directly tied to that plan were retained. What that plan is, I don't know, because it was explained to the remaining staff while I was driving home.
laralover: Hmmm...sorry, but I don't know what "adding answers to the OP" means. You can always just do a search for posts by me tomorrow -- there have only been a half dozen or so.
trin 303: I'll talk about Toby and changing the franchise when I come back to story, but agani, it's not what people think.
gtkilla: A suprising amount of what we planned for Underworld made it in. Mostly things got reduced rather than cut outright. And the game would have beenbetter if we had more time, but again, every game can say that. It wasn't all that hard to work with Eidos day to day because there wasn't much of my day that required that contact...it was just the big periodic things and schedules and whatnot. The story stuff I'll come back to later.
Awestruck: All decisions were not unanimous, but it was important to me to get as many people believing in the final decisions as much as possible, which meant a lot of listening. People who don't get there way can complain that they weren't "listened" to, but I did a lot of listening. Most of the final decisions were mine, to the constraints of production and reality and budget and whatnot. But yo udon't get greatness without people having autonomy, so I did a lot of rubber-stamping when it came to talented team members doing good work on their own.
abraham: I think it was a common misconception that I was a producer or a spokesperson (which is a laugh...if Underworld was going to have a spokesperson like that, they would have found someone more...well, photogenic and able to adaquately express excitement...I've never been good about looking as enthusiastic as I feel inside. No, I am a game designer and have been so for many years. Check out my page on Mobygames...
Gladous: don't understand the question about costs, but i can't reveal how much anything cost. People who were riffed we informed by producers and whatnot -- I was told by my producer, who was also on the list to go, so we had a good laugh over it.
jumoeder: Again, mostly things got trimmed back rather than cut outright. No missing locations or anything like that.
MyRaider4Life: Level Editor? can't say for sure about the future, but don't hold your breath.
Chris.Talg0: I can't get very specific, even if I did know the details of the Microsoft deal, but yes, it was a coincidence that we had some candidate content for DLC when the deal was made. I was glad for it, otherwise the stuff I had to cut out would have never seen the light of day.
Dia2blo: Difficulty was mostly between the Lead Designer Harley and myself. Help on Demand was my baby from the start, and if anyone wants me to pontificate on that later, just ask. some of the differences among the Crystal games were due to different teams, but mostly to different goals. Underworld wanted to be more of a combination of old and new Tomb Raider stuff, while Aniversary was remake and had different aims. As for Lara's attitude, the fans helped me because I believed in her aggression and fans helped supoprt that belief. I'll talk about story more later.
Gladous: Underworld took 3 years from start to finish. I was named Creative Director after finishing Legend as Story Designer, though I had led projects before that. I became Story Designer on Legend because I joined the team after the other key senior slots had been filled.
Will I ever catch up...?
Cheers,
Eric
Moon-Safari: The Microsoft DLC deal was made very late in development, and that's a fact. It was told to the team relatively quickly -- no more than days or weeks. The bold type you are asking about...I actually don't know what it means. "this defined the whole Underworld experience the moment it was told to us." is a sentence I don't understand. And anything about it stalling, well I don't know what happened Friday afternoon after I left. I thought it was all still on course just fine. As for the rest, it is absolutely true that part of the DLC came from elements cut from Underworld, and it is absolutely false that this was done because the DLC was looking thin. I am the one who proposed and decided the cuts, and it was unrelated to DLC. But I am not saying that SacreficialLamb is lying, they were just misinformed by someone who didn't know the truth themselves. And the decision I made was only to cut the content from Underworld. The decision to make a deal with Microsoft for exclusive content was Eidos and Studio Production, and the decision to use some things cut from Underworld was made by the DLC team. Does that clear it up better? And what I would give that Eidos was paying me to spend my Sunday answering your questions! I'm sure they would prefer that I was not saying what I am saying today, but they can take solace in the fact that I am being fair and balanced.
Kittypower: I don't know anything about whether WB plans on continuing to buy more stock or the company outright. If I did, I couldn't say, but I don't.
Rivendell: Tomb Raider and Stargate? Ugh. Well, we kind of opened ourselves for that one with the shape of the portal in Legend, which we knew at the time was pushing it but I couldn't do anything about it. But Stargate's mix of sci-fi, myth, and truth behind the myth came after Tomb Raider, not before. If it helps, I enjoyed the movie but never saw any of the TV episodes.
lacryjr: I think Underworld was a much better tomb raider experience than Uncharted, but Uncharted succeeded very well at what they were trying to do. The games were just very different with only a slight connection in their high concept.
Angelus: EPIC!
Anarae: I really can't say what future stories will bring, or what "book" they will come from, not only because it would be telling secrets, but I just don't know.
Larapink: Good ideas are good ideas, whether they come from designers or 3D artists or testers. Good teams listen to everyone and know goodness when they hear it. I hope you find a good team someday.
Neteru: sorry to be keeping you up late...I know I'm on PST and not GMT, but people seem to be going to bed because I'm gaining ground on the posts!
Awestruck: changing the braide to a ponytail was a style decision in Legend that I wasn't a part of and also didn't understand, but I didn't feel the same attachment many of you did. It was also believed that the braid would not behave properly with the new level of realism and outr physics and collision, I recall. Same on Underworld, and we had established the pony tail. I don't know if people will like or hate me for this, but I specifically made sure that the doppelganger had a braid as a nod to this debate among the fans. That and a way of saying that the ponytail was not a reinvention, because the doppleganger having a braid means that Lara still had one at the time the Doppleganger for imaged from Lara during the events of TR1.
Immortalis08: Enemy AI is really hard. MIT issues PhD's on this sort of thing. The only way we could have done better on this would have taken a lot away from the rest of the game, we we felt that Underworld the games before it, should be more about climb and find that combat, so we allocated resources appropriately.
Matrix54: I'll talk about the story arc of the three games later, and how it affected Underworld. I don't think I agree that Mexico got all cartoony, though. The ful screen effects softened things a bit, and that edge can go against realism somewhat, but I didn't feel it was dramatically off.
Sblade: Even though the PC version was in my perview, I don't know tech details and stuck to creative elements and expression, so I don't know about the patches.
Evan C.: I have a great many Most Memorables with respect to Tomb Raider. Here's one at random that makes me look bad. On Legend I flew to London to direct Keeley doing cinematics and other in-game VO, and while all the important cut scene stuff was settled, I still had a lot of bits of in-game dialog to write, random comments about puzzles, ruins, stuff for the in-binoculars help, etc. I stayed up all night typing furiously (rather like I'm doing now) and finished ten minutes before going down to ride the tube to the studio, having been up for 40 hours straight...yikes. And we still got a BAFTA nomination for Best Videogame Screenplay! As for you fans, I often went to the forums to read posts when I was tired or depressed, because the enthusiasm and opinions strongly held always made me feel better, that these little things that consumed me at work really did matter to people. Even when it was all gripes and complaints, often about stuff that wasn't true, I took it all as energy and care about what I was working on. The fans helped a lot, on many levels. Even ole ben Croft could cheer me up, sometimes with flames, other times with unexpected sanity.
Quasimodo: What am I most proud of? Even where I think the story didn't express itself as well as I wanted, I am proud of that in both Legend and Underworld (I was only tangentially a part of the Aniversary story and script). Help on Demand was another, as small as it was...and you'd be surprised, but this feature more than all the others was what interested publications like Newsweek and Gamasutra. More will come to me...
croft94: "Epic Lindstrom" always made me laugh. It also reminded me of how we had a sign up that read "Epic Exploration Puzzles!" on the wall, and my Lead Level Designer KLyle Mannerberg used a ball point pen to change the "Epic" into "Eric" shortly before he died. The word Epic means everything to me that it means to you and more so because of it's association with Kyle, who we still dearly miss.
passing by: The reason I said that I suspected that some of the people claiming to be Crystal employees were possibly true is because I didn't really see much that was clearly wrong in what they were saying, within the boundaries of personal opinion anyway. I don't know who you are (if you believe I can keep your secret, send me a PM) but it sounds like you are legit, too. I did not realize that anyone was claiming that none of the DLC was cuts from Underworld, and if they are, then yeah, we have a truth issue here. (I haven't really read threads about DLC at all...) Without going out and looking at those threads, I'll just say that I stand behind what I've said, and if anyone wants to ask me directly to agree or disagree with claims of the prior CD posters, please do so. I didn't mean to say (reality is so complicated) that we had never spoken to Microsoft about DLC prior to the cuts I made -- these kinds of talks happen all the time -- but no deal was forged at the time. And thanks for the comment about my talents being noticed...I know that there are people on the East side of the building who are frustrated by mistakes they believe were made by me, but they don't know the whole story. I did make mistakes, but many of the complaints they have would lessen or vanish if they knew the circumstances. Rather than get mad or complain about me, I wish they'd just ask. The truth is available.
amiro1989: Can't talk about the future, but here's a polarizing comment...I never liked Kurtis. Don't hate him, either, just didn't see the need or value in him. To those who like him, I'm glad you got something you cherish. Will he ever come back in the future? Who knows? I don't.
Alister's Brain: We trimmed different transitional moves and whatnot but didn't really cut much wholesale. That screenshot is funny -- it's just that the collision on the boat is wrong so she is acting like it's a solid wall and not an unbraced ledge...
Megalith: When Microsoft approached us about exclusive content, they didn't know what we would want to do. It just so happened that we had a head start with assets in progress, so we could get going sooner and finish earlier. I think they approached us, but it might have happened the other way round...it happens at a higher level than I travel. I don't know what efforts were made to make similar deals with Sony or Nitendo, etc. I also don't know why there was no PS3 Demo. One could say that we were rushed in making these Tomb Raider games, but you can also say that we tried to do too much in the time we were given. Who's right? Well, it does come down to expectations. If the publisher expects something of certain size and quality in a certain time frame, it can lead to rushing that is unavoidable, but if we were better at our jobs could we have done it? Maybe. The real world is a murky place, and I try to avoid accusations I don't 100% believe in or can prove.
Let me preface this post by saying that I'm typing madly to answer as many questions as I can before I go to bed, so I'm concentrating on the actual questions in each post...but I VERY MUCH appreciate the kind words of support that I'm reading. I just don't have the time to type individual thank yous as I go and get the questions answered. But thank you thank you for the good thoughts!
Here's more:
pizzabob18: the Arctic levels were inspired by various photos of the area, and not any real place. We really took liberties with Jan Mayen Island...
larafan25: I already explained about replay cinematic... I don't know what you mean about outfits selection...what's your question? And as for level replay, ugh! You all know (I hope) by now that the 360 works in such a way that you get something BETTER than level replay, you have Chapter Replay (via the autosaves) which gives you more options than just level replay. This was supposed to be how the PS3 and PC worked as well, and the reason they don't is just a mistake. I even told Keir somewhat impatiently (sorry Keir!) that people were complaining needlessly and I didn't understand why people were confused, but it was me who was confused becsause I didn't know the autosaves were done incorrectly for PS# and PC. All I can say is that I'm sorry, and I truly am. The lack of functionality this represents is a pet peeve of mine when playing other games, and I hate that we shipped PS# and PC this way.
gtkilla: I can't really talk about storyline stuff that was discussed before settling on what we finally used because other things that we talked about might still get used. We talked about Tihocan, and he didn't make it into Underworld, and he might never appear again, but then again, he might.
larafan25: the relationship between the three games is a bit quirky, with Underworld being a sequel of Legend but Anniversary being in between them...I'll explain more when I come back to story.
MattTR: I'll talk about how Aniversary fits into the trilogy later...I don't quite get what you mean in your second question, though...but if I understand it correctly, the DLC deal with Microsoft was as you understand it, and not more than that.
Isaac: If I understand your question correctly, no, we never intended there to be a Croft Manor hub in Underworld. I knew from early on that the game was going to start with a flash forward of Croft Manor exploding, and that made the Croft Manor hub to complicated to deal with. But the reason we started talking about Lara having three manors back in Legend was for this eventuality. Anbd I will be posting for awhile, but probably not permanently. I want to answer questions for the past five years, but as I will not be in the loop for future titles (or if I am, I will be unable to discuss it) I won't have anything new to say. So I'll stay until the questions run out, and then see you when the next game comes out!
Carbonek 0051: No cheats in Underworld because even cheats take development time, and it was clear in the final months that we needed to spend all out time on the up front game. We had some pretty cool things we could see, but couldn't afford even a half-day to put them in. I hesitate to say this because people will be jealous, but one of our animatorss put different models on Lara's rig and it was hilarious! He put the Med Sea shark on Lara's rig, so you could play the game in what looked like lara wearing a shark costume. He also made one that was tomatoes, a big one for a body and a small one each for lara's arms and legs. God, we wanted to put that on the disk, but couldn't.
Tomb raiderx08: They let me go because they had too many captains for the number of ships...it's like musical chairs and when the music stopped all the seats were taken. and as for the future of CD and Eidos, not only do I not know, nobody knows.
Awestruck: If CD got bought and they asked me back, would I go? Depends. I like to work with people I know and trust, and if that's who's doing the asking, I would consider it, of course!
Eddie Haskell: If I knew the sales figures Eidos wanted, such that the layoff wouldn't have happened, I couldn't say, but I don't really know their hole card. (Sorry for all the lame cliches...it comes from typing so fast...) Clearly it was higher than 1.5 million!
Anarae: As to the AoD storyline, from what I heard, even Core Design only had a few notes as to where they were going to go with it, and we of course saw none of that. Obviously I can not say what storylines will pursued in the future, but in all honesty, when i was in charge of the Tomb Raider storyline, I wasn't interested in the AoD thread, personally. I didn't care for it when I played AoD, didn't really get it, and to pursue it I would have had to make up a bunch of stuff about what it all meant and what the Cheribum's were and all that. And it was all too mystical for me. I don't believe there is true magic in TR, just stuff that Atlantean tech can do that we don't yet understand...and I didn't get enough of what the real truth behind the myths of AoD was to interest me. There, I've said too much...
MattTR: No, The doppelganger wasn't meant to echo AoD jeans-wearing Lara in any way.
Awestruck: I've said Multiplayer has always come up and we do diligent work on how to do it properly for Tomb Raider, and this is true. It's just really hard, technically, creatively, and for Lara Croft. Maybe someday.
larafan25: Ah, you're being clever, but no, I can't say how Underworld has changed lara because only the future can say. As for the female friendly makeover, huh...I don't know where that came from. I feel that even though Lara has attributes that appeal to males, the games doesn't pander to a male audience. Look at all the other games out there with female heroes, and look at their bustlines and what they are (barely) wearing. My Lead Designer Harley (a woman) agrees that Tomb Raider is not a gender specific game, and research shows that it appeals to female gamers very well.
MyRaider4Life: Ah, I get you now. The footage you're seeing that didn't come from the game came from prototype test levels where we were proving out game concepts. We had the same thing in early Underworld, which never saw the light of way. In fact, I designed the test level for Underworld in such a nonesense way as to PREVENT footage being used for promotion, because I knew it would lead to rumors of lost cut levels or locations. Heh.
Dingaling: The decision to sign Keeley Hawes as Lara's voice was a group decision: me, Toby, and key producers. She was the clear winner at the time, in my opinion, and I've never felt otherwise since. If I could go back and change one decision, it would be to parcel my schedule differently to have a larger slice of polish time after Beta. That would have been the biggest win, I'm sure most of you would agree.
Blowy: Yes, the Artic levels were less integrated than the other areas, for a lot of little reasons. But partly this was the nature of puzzles. What was trivially easy to you, we had plenty of Beta testers find quite challenging. Some knids of puzzles have a much wider spread of how difficult players find them, and when we ran into these, the puzzles did simplify somewhat.
Tha_mattster: ah, a fresh topic. We were trying to smooth out the animation and control response toward the end of the game, and in this effort, some of the transitions suffered -- in the attempt to make her more responsive, which is always the trade-off -- and she got a little snappy. With more time we would have gone back and forth more on this, but ultimately decided to err on the side of control over perfect fluidity, because people would complain more loudly if they had a smooth lara that wasn't responsive enough. As for cut scene length, some of those earlier games had scenes that were wuite long, in terms of number of seconds. It's a next-gen issue because it isn't actors walking around on a set...every frame of the cut scene is built manually, and every second longer the cut scene lasts is a lot more work to do. It's as simple as that. I'll talk about the lara personality issues when I come back to story.
coolezpunk: everybody (well, lots of people) want me to say "Natla is dead finally and never coming back!" And the reason I can't say that is because I am benig honest and practical. Let's say I believed that Natla was dead and never coming back, and that everyone at Eidos and Crystal believed that, too. Fast forward 3 years and a new team can assemble and start making a new TR game, and they might say, "Hey, let's bring Natla back!" They come up with some reason why her death wasn't permanent, and off we go again! I'm not saying Natla is dead, not because I know of future plans, it's because people in the future can do whatever they want, and who knows now what they will do?
ThatNorseChick: Why did I say Epic so much? Because, unlike so many other things I said, there are few synonyms for EPIC. But also, I would talk to journalists one day, and then two dozen of them would print stories and interviews for weeks after that, repeating what I said in a demo over and over. I actually said EPIC less times than you heard it...the media just kept repeating what I said.
jeffery_van_oort: Will Eidos ever sell The Tomb Raider license? Only the future knows.
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