If Wishes Were Horses
September 24, 2008
One of the small unexpected surprises of the Collector’s Edition was getting to flip through the concept art book and discover that the devs jotted down a few “behind the scenes” explanations of why such-and-such looks a particular way, or how they came to a specific look and feel for a class. For me, knowing the process of how things were decided and made can often be just as exciting as the end product.
If I could click my black-heeled sneakers together and make a wish today, it would be for an option to toggle a special section of the Tome of Knowledge that would be a developer commentary. You run into a new area, and on top of the normal world story, you’d get a blurb about the behind the scenes “making of” the zone. Obviously, it would need to be a toggle to keep from upsetting players who would cringe at fourth wall-breaking talk like that, but man, I would absolutely love it. I know devs in some computer games have created a developer commentary as a bonus feature — The Orange Box (Half-Life, Portal) stands out in my mind. Anyone with me?
Update: I guess Mark is — supasweet! Great to have you reading the blog, man.
Waaagh! A Warhammer Online Blog 
Sounds like a great idea and one they could easily add as part of a content patch / expansion.
I absolutely agree with that. I loved the developer commmentary stuff in the newer Half-Life games and believe any game would truly benefit from that kind of interactivity with the game’s creators.
[…] Quick shoutout to Syp over at Waagh! for his idea of adding a developer commentary to the ToK ( https://waaagh.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/if-wishes-were-horses). I’m not sure if that idea was already kicked around by Paul (I think it has but I’m […]
Wotcha everyone,
I’m with you, Syp. While my friends and I called the recent pre-release Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition books “Cash Cows”, they did offer a fantastic insight into the whole game creation and ethos process, and I for one really enjoyed reading them.
The Mythic podcasts hooked me into Warhammer, for the same reasons.
If the Tome of Knowledge had something similar, I would probably spend all my time reading that bit, rather than the in-character bit.
Cheers,
Hawley.
That is an awesome idea. I love it.
[…] shoutout to Syp over at his blog Waagh! for his idea of adding a developer commentary to the ToK ( https://waaagh.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/if-wishes-were-horses). I’m not sure if that idea was already kicked around by Paul (I think it has but I’m […]
Great, another reason for me to sit and stare at the ToK and not actually play. 🙂
Seriously, if added I’d be a happy camper.
Well Paul is not shy in coming forward so if don’t think he’ll take much persuading to have another means of him extolling his perspective and his ideas and attempts to influence the game but I’d love it to be extended to the entire dev team.
With this toggle active killing your first troll could mean an insight into the ideas leading the concept art, an issue with the modelling, what was done to make it unique and why all from the different people involved’s perspectives.
I know I’d spend more time reading that than a lot of the stuff in there. No criticism of the ToK and I’m biased. I’m that kind of geek. I hoovered up the podcast not so much for the what’s (I knew I’d be trying the game) but for the why’s.
Also if it’s not done with a fanfare it could start pretty soon. It would mean that in a fortnight’s time when a dev gets their first moment in the office to sit down and write it would appear in the ToK to be discovered by those that look back as well as forward.
So in my arrogent opinion it’s a great idea that I hope the peeps at Mythic implement.
Great idea!!! I love reading the ToK, and a developer comments area would be very cool, imo!!!
What an extremely cool idea 🙂
http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20176
This is nice, however my first wish for the ToK would be to be able to print it out.
I would finally enjoy an epic novel where I am the star 😉