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No, this isn't an article on RPG design. Allow me
to wallow in geekdom for a moment, though. In your typical fantasy
RPG, you can play a fighter, wizard or thief. Some RPGs also allow
you to multi-class (play a fighter/wizard, and so on). You can do
the same thing in game development, too. You can hire artist/programmers.
(Technical artists.) You can hire programmer/designers. (Gameplay
programmers.) You can hire game designer/artists. (Level builders.)
We have a few of these multi-class characters on our team. Both
James Chao and Alex Bortoluzzi are highly technical artists. They
know some programming, and they know how the engine works well enough
to jump through the hoops to actually get new art in the game. Jason
Bare, a programmer who owns every game console known to man, makes
his game design ideas become flesh. Tomo Moriwaki, who went to art
school, knows 3ds max, knows how to program in our scripting language,
and knows games. Matt Rhoades is a writer and game designer. And
me? I'm a programmer/manager/designer.
The problem with being a multi-class character, in games as in
life, is that you will never be as good in a given field as a specialist.
Everybody knows how valuable it is to have specialists. We have
several twentieth-level coders and artists at Treyarch--they are
devoted to their specialty. These are the people who save the company
on a regular basis. Without them, we would be nothing.
Still, generalists have their uses. Although in RPGs it's usually
a bad idea to play a multi-class character, it's not a bad idea
at a game company to have several of them around.
For one thing, they don't have to be dependent on other people
to get work done. Game assets go through a lot of hands before they're
finished: a modeler models them, a texturer textures them, an animator
animates them, designers and programmers script their behavior.
And whenever an asset is handed off from person A to person B, one
of these annoying things happens:
- Person B puts down what they're doing so they can work on the
new asset. (This is multitasking, and it's bad.)
- Person B finishes what they're working on early and then sits
idle while they wait for the asset from person A.
- The asset languishes while person B finishes what they're doing.
(Thus the asset takes longer to get done than necessary, and if
there are any problems with it, when person B discovers those
problems and bounces the asset back to person A, person A will
have already moved on to some other task.)
I personally prefer the third option, but that's irrelevant right
now. My point is, if you have one guy who can handle two stages
of an operation, there is no downtime or multitasking--with the
end result being that the asset becomes ready that much sooner.
Another thing about multi-class characters is that they can do
the work that needs doing. As a project goes from start to finish
the numbers of kinds of tasks that need doing change. If somebody
can do programming at the start of the project, and then switch
to becoming a designer at the end, when the engine is locked down
and you just need to add content, you're being more efficient.
The third thing about multi-class characters is they quickly become
hubs--go-to guys--partly because they're so productive they soon
are responsible for a large part of the game, and partly because
they understand a larger part of the picture than the specialists,
and partly because they can communicate between multiple camps.
This sets them up to make ideal leaders. In fact, whether they want
to be leaders or not, they will soon find themselves telling other
people what to do, and helping other people get past obstacles.
It's no coincidence that Tomo is the creative director, Jason is
the lead gameplay programmer, and James and Alex are art leads on
the Spider-Man team.
If there's a downside to multi-class characters it's that they
quickly become overloaded with things only they can do. Both Jason
and James have a list of tasks a mile long. They have become bottlenecks.
We need more of them, or we need to find some way to break those
tasks down so that specialists can do them.
So I've convinced you of the value of these people. The question
now is how do you get them? At Treyarch, we just got lucky. We hired
people to fill specialty roles, and it turned out they had other
talents as well.
But you don't have to rely on luck. And here come my untested theories:
You can hire multi-class characters. Other companies do this. At
Double Fine I've seen postings for both Gameplay Programmers (Programmer-Designer)
and Special Effects Programmers (Programmer-Artist). At Insomniac
I've seen postings for Gameplay Programmers. (My boss wants to know
what was I doing looking at other companies job postings. Um, researching
the competition, sir!)
And something that isn't done, but maybe should be: cross-training.
Teach a programmer to use 3ds max, or send him to art school. Teach
an artist how to get around in your scripting language. Send a game
designer to management seminars. Cross training works in manufacturing;
maybe it could work for us.
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