With the re-launch of the official Realm of Empires blog, we thought it’d be a great idea to give our readers, an inside look at the members of the RoE team. As a result, we’re rolling out our very own interview series, where each installment will give insight into the lives of the Developers and also present new information about Realm of Empires.
Today we had a chance to sit down with Greg Bala, a developer for Realm of Empires and also a familiar name for many veteran players.
What do you do as a developer for Realm of Empires?
Well, I am one of the original designers, inventors and developers of Realm of Empires and I also lead the development team. I participate heavily in game design and I get my nose into just about anything design and development related, even if not asked!
What’s a typical day like working for Realm of Empires?
My typical day starts off with a fresh cup of coffee and reading the latest technology and game blogs. On a regular basis, about half of my day will be devoted to development and design. I also make time for managing and helping my development team with any issues they may be having. Of course now and then, I like to get involved with the heated debates on the forum which I thoroughly enjoy! The rest of my day is spent dealing with emails, maintenance, support, bugs, as needed. Our white boards are constantly filled with potential new features based on your suggestions!
With the release of realms 8 and 10, we saw the introduction of magic spells which received mixed reactions. What is the future direction for Realm of Empires?
This is something that’s constantly on our minds. Very soon we will be releasing a Realm of Empires roadmap blogpost dealing with exactly this question. I think everyone will be pleasantly surprised! Stay tuned.
A lot of our players have been wondering if we’ll ever see the in-game mapper?
We've struggled with a lot of technical issues trying to accomplish this. We would like to give players the kind of interactivity as you’d expect from the in game map, as well as the high level view that you see in the mapper. Those are difficult requirements to satisfy together. The mapper will probably be implemented as a flash/silverlight plug in, eventually. At the moment we have a lot of neat things on our plate, so it’s not considered a high priority. I really can’t give you any meaningful dates but we will get to it sooner or later.
What can you tell us about tournament realms? Will we be seeing them soon?
We've had great fun with tournament realms and do plan to offer regular (perhaps weekly) tournaments, starting at different times, with different parameters (like duration). However, at the moment starting a tournament realm is a somewhat tedious, manual (read - error prone) process , thus we first need to make a couple of game changes before being able to offer tournaments more often. My guess is early next year at the latest, but we'll have at least a few more tournaments this year as well.
You mentioned working on some ‘neat things’. Are you currently developing any other games at the moment?
Sort of! Let’s wait for the roadmap to answer this question. ;)
So there you have it, the latest scoop from Greg Bala, Realm of Empires developer and Team Leader. Stay tuned for more from Greg and also our next blog post, ‘The Realm of Empires Roadmap – where we’ve been and where we’re going’.
Have an opinion or thought about the interview? Leave your comments below!
Want to connect with Greg Bala? Add him on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/bubaman
Want to connect with Greg Bala? Add him on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/bubaman
10 comments:
Waiting eagerly for the next tournament realm.
love the to do list :D
hey greg make the tournament realm monthly. dont make it weekly, then it will steal my job away..lol. actually waiting eagerly for the next tournament realm
Haha love this interview. It really shows what you guys do to make this game better. It's already an AWESOME game already though ;).
Greg, I am currently working on a war flight simulator game. I come up with a lot of ideas and have a good imagination that allows me to develop new things to add to the game. I sometimes think of things that could benefit RoE in more ways than one.
I like the white board!
I've seen some funny stuff in ROE forums, but that white board is the funniest ever!
Merging with farmvill, what is in it for RoE? Cattle…
…That is about it…
Love the game, but closing off the realms too early is a concern for me.
I think the game Realm of Empires is fun game. The game Realm of Empires is a game that takes stradegy, intellegence, freinds, ext.I think the game Realm of Empires is fun game expecially because they have a chat box for you to chat to a bunch of nice people in while you are waiting for money, supplys, troops, to finsish a building, ect. I also like that you can be in allinces or clans with your freinds so you knoe who to trust and who not to. I would recromend the game Realm of Empires to anybody and everybody I know (I did too).
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