's Werelds eerste kennismaking met het bedrijf Certain Affinity vond plaats in 2007. Toen waren zij verantwoordelijk voor de allerlaatste Halo 2 Map Pack en niet lang daarna schakelden ze over naar de volgende generatie consoles, waaronder de Xbox 360 en de PlayStation 3. Vooralsnog zijn ze een tamelijk onbekend bedrijf dat zichzelf nog moet bewijzen, maar het vertrouwen van Capcom en Valve hebben ze alvast verdiend (respectievelijk de publishers van XBLA-titel Plunder en de coöperatieve zombie shooter Left 4 Dead). Twee grote namen in de gamesindustrie die een recent geopende firma steunen; het klinkt in ieder geval veelbelovend...

Hoofd van Certain Affinity is de heer Max Hoberman, de welke gedurende z'n tewerkstelling bij Bungie onder andere het innovatieve party-systeem voor Halo 2 en Halo 3 bedacht. Enige tijd geleden vroegen we aan de man of we hem mochten interviewen, en gelukkig voor ons was hij vastberaden om antwoorden op al onze vragen neer te typen! Het resultaat ziet u onder deze alinea:

X-Power: How did you go from Bungie to Certain Affinity? Did you feel that there needed to be more multiplayer focused games that utilized a matchmaking / party system, or was founding your own company something you’ve always wanted to do?

Max Hoberman: Yes, I definitely think that more multiplayer games could use a party system! But I always wanted to start a game company. In college I spent an entire summer working on a little multiplayer space shooter with one of my roommates, but we were creating an engine from the ground up and we got mired in the details, and the project never quite got off the ground. I went to work at Bungie not long afterwards and he soon joined me and we both became leaders at the company. I was there for ten years before finally returning to my home town, Austin, and starting Certain Affinity. At CA I’ve tried to recapture some of the magic of working at Bungie in the early days.

XP: Is this multiplayer space shooter a concept you’d like to turn it into a full-fledged downloadable game some day? And could you provide more details about its gameplay?

MH: Well, it wasn’t anything overly ambitious; funny enough it was multiplayer by design from the ground up! It bore the unassuming title “Space Battle,” a nod to our intentionally limited scope. It’d be a great game for the downloadable space. It was also asymmetric by design, something I’ve wanted to get back to for ages. It’s a shame we bit off so much technically because we did a great job of staying focused on the design side.

XP: Would you be interested in collaborating with other, inexperienced XBLA developers should there be an increase of thorough multiplayer games on the service? Or might this be something that generally isn’t done in the industry?

MH: The games business is competitive, though I do have a little bit of experience collaborating with other groups inside of Microsoft. A lot of people used to come to me asking how to build a community web site as strong as Bungie.net. I always had the same answer—focus on building a game that people are passionate about, and then you can worry about everything else! It would be hard for me to help someone that lacked this focus, but if I found someone I’d gladly share some of my experiences with them. I’ve already done that with a couple of local developers here in Austin, which has an amazingly friendly game development community.

XP: If I remember correctly, Wideload Games also consists out of a few ex-Bungie employees. Have you coincidentally helped them along, or have the lot of you gone your seperate ways?

MH: I’m good friends with several of the Wideload guys, including the founder (Alex Seropian), who was also one of Bungie’s co-founders and incidentally is the one who hired me at Bungie way back in the day! We’ve gone in somewhat of separate directions though—their main focus seems to be on comedy, ours is on long-lived multiplayer and co-operative gameplay with a little bit of humor thrown in. They also seem focused on lighthearted games exclusively, while we’re splitting our efforts between lighthearted (thematically) games like Plunder and lighthearted zombie kill-fests like Left 4 Dead ;-).

With the recent release of their latest title (Hail to the Chimp), I think we’re actually starting to come back together again though, at least in terms of multiplayer.

XP: Have you found your ‘niche’ in the industry (maybe only on XBLA), i.e. primarily making multiplayer titles? Or do you consider this as a general misconception, as the company may also be interested in single player focussed projects somewhere down the road?

MH: There’s no question that our niche is multiplayer right now, both competitive and co-operative play. I’m as interested as you are to see where we go, but I suspect we’ll never stray too far from our roots. That said: we love storytelling and inventing worlds, and there’s lots of room to do so in a co-operative setting.

XP: I’d be the last guy to complain about a game with pirates in it (especially with team-based multiplayer), but why did you opt for something like Plunder as Certain Affinity’s ‘actual’ debut?

MH: We really just fell into it—we made a fun multiplayer prototype, and it just sort of took on a life of it’s own. We’re having a blast though. Pirates are fun!

XP: Now here’s something that also intrigued me for a while: how did Certain Affinity’s relationship with Capcom actually get off the ground? When Capcom suddenly announced that it would publish your game, a game with pirates at that, it honestly seemed a little peculiar that they were involved…

MH: We met with a lot of publishers when we were at GDC in 2007, not long after we started the company. Capcom made a point about being interested in small, downloadable games and so when Plunder was ready to be shown we called them up. They came to visit, played one game, and - excuse the pun - were hooked. Once we met their team we were really excited to work with them. I always tell my team that the best business partners are the ones that need you, and we saw a definite need on their part that we fulfilled, and vice versa. Our goals are amazingly aligned, creating the highest quality social online experiences around. I didn’t leave Bungie for nothing; Certain Affinity is determined to put out only AAA quality games that fit this billing.

XP: Did Certain Affinity sign a deal with Capcom just for Plunder, or can we expect another collaboration between both companies in the near future?

MH: We have an awesome relationship with Capcom and I certainly expect it to continue.

XP: What’s your opinion about other XBLA games, at least the way most developers handle their multiplayer component? The majority of XBLA games sadly have a terrible netcode and some games even get released with features that don’t work properly…

MH: The downloadable game space isn’t really that different than the retail game space—there’s a huge range of quality and many games neglect multiplayer, or if they do support it they do so half-heartedly. It’s more understandable in the downloadable space, where budgets are incredibly restrictive and cutting-edge features like party support and intelligent matchmaking can end up costing as much to engineer as the entire rest of the project. There’s a common set of needs here, getting people together before and after games and helping them communicate, and I hope that as the space matures there will be more technologies available for people to use as a foundation. This isn’t really something you’ll find even in the full game space, but here’s to hoping.

XP: At times, the communities of XBLA games with an online multiplayer component seem to disappear rather quickly. Why do you think this happens and do you think there’s a way to remedy this?

MH: Again, I don’t personally feel the space is that different in a lot of ways than the larger game space. Few games of any type manage to earn and keep a large online community. I think this is tied to the quality and design of the games themselves, not the means of distribution. The remedy is more high quality, addictive, ultimately replayable multiplayer and co-operative titles. There are huge communities for successful board games, card games, even old-fashioned arcade games, and I see no reason why an XBLA game can’t enjoy the same success.

XP: With that said: are you confident that Plunder (and Left 4 Dead) won’t suffer from the same mistakes, given your expertise ever since your career at Bungie?

MH: We set out with huge ambition for Plunder’s online features, but limited time and budget got in the way of doing something quite as robust as what I’ve done in the past. That said, we’re proud of where we’ve ended up, with features like a map editor and map sharing. We also have a great foundation to build on for the future, which is an important step towards the types of online social features I’m used to working on.

Left 4 Dead is another matter—we’ve had more time to work on the online social features and we’ll have something a bit more impressive!

XP: On the subject of Left 4 Dead’s online features… Valve hardly updated the 360 version of Team Fortress 2 (partially due to Microsoft’s certification process). Seeing how Certain Affinity specializes itself in multiplayer for consoles, can we expect a more frequent rate of patches for the Left 4 Dead port? Perhaps shortly after Valve’s team fixes some issues on the PC?

MH: This hasn’t actually come up yet, so I’m not quite sure what to tell you. We do always try to build in the ability to update things like matchmaking playlists on the fly without having to go through cert, so some of these problems may be alleviated.

XP: How’s it going with the Left 4 Dead port, by the way? Are you trying to keep both versions identical across the board, other than adjusting the aiming sensitivity of course? Or will you - just to give random examples - decrease the amount of zombies, maybe even adjust their running speed because a player arguably can’t aim as fast as with a mouse?

MH: The game has become a very big project at Valve, and in the process has undergone a few changes. Right now we’re working on the Xbox 360 version’s online features and just keeping everything running on the console as smoothly as possible. Once more of the dust settles we’ll re-evaluate any needed changes, but in general everyone would like it to be the same game across platforms.

XP: Back to Plunder… Have you settled for 8 instead of 16 players because not too many gamers possess a connection that can handle that large a number with hardly any lag? Not that I’m bothered by this final decision, mind you.

MH: To be completely honest: 8 was an entirely arbitrary number. We didn’t want to go too large and lose the small-game, personal feel, but we also knew that if we went with too large a number of players we’d outstrip our ability to playtest our creation—we only had ten employees at the company when we started the game! (We’re now close to 30!) I wish we’d chosen 9 so that we could play three teams of three.

XP: Would it be feasible to add that extra player at some point with a patch, even if it’s just for a separate mode? Or isn’t the game designed to take such adjustments into account?

MH: I asked Paul, our programming lead. He said it’s definitely possible, but it would also be a lot of work. Too bad because it was a somewhat arbitrary number!

XP: Let’s say someone wants to host a custom game where anyone can join. Sometimes it takes a while before someone joins said session (including friends you’ve invited), so I’d like to know if bots will be present in Plunder? The kind that automatically gets replaced once a human player joins in on the action and vice versa…

MH: Absolutely! Bots are available in multiplayer, though you’ll need to enable them at the start of the game. There are basically player slots that the leader can set to be open to players (real, live, human players) or fill with A.I. characters. There are also seven different “bots,” each with his or her own play style. The jury is still out on who’s the “baddest of the bots,” with Filthy McScuppers currently in the lead and Trained Monkey in his rightful place at the rear of the pack.

XP: 'Console customization' has been mentioned for both Plunder and Left 4 Dead by a number of sources, but no one explained what they exactly meant by that. Could you clarify whether this basically means that the host may adjust a wealth of options, similar to the Halo games?

MH: I can’t reveal much about Left 4 Dead, but we do have a ton of options in Plunder! I definitely think that the player should be able to customize the experience to his liking. Usually you have to weigh the extra work and especially the distraction of supporting lots of customization options against the benefits of focusing on fine tuning a specific experience, but finding the right balance is what separates the men from the boys.

XP: Can you give a few examples of some options you have in mind for Plunder?

MH: Let’s see, as I have the game right in front of me… I can change the number of towns needed to win, the time limit, starting ship upgrades, town upgrade limits, which curses show up on the map and how frequently, starting resources, and so on. Even better: I can bake all of these settings into my custom map so they get shared with the map, though they can also be changed in the lobby if something isn’t quite right or you just want to try something new.

XP: Will Plunder be 60 frames per second come release, as I read on Gamasutra that you’ve already reached up to 170 fps with its engine?

MH: Plunder ended up at a solid 60 fps and I don’t think we drop below 30 fps even in 4-way split screen game. Go hexagons!

XP: And how’s the framerate of Left 4 Dead, or is that uncertain at the moment?

MH: I don’t know what the final framerate will end up at quite yet.

INTERVIEW MET MAX HOBERMAN - DEEL 2