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0s hello everyone and welcome back to the
2s fifth episode of deconstructing this
6s month on the podcast community manager
8s Megan Everett sits down with game
9s designers John Gogol and Shervin Goswami
12s to talk about how warframe is made also
15s you should note there are some mild
16s spoilers ahead for the movie Armageddon
18s but without further ado sit back and
21s enjoy welcome to episode 5 of the
41s deconstructing podcast my name is Megan
43s Everett I'm the community manager for
45s warframe and I have two very special
48s warframe designers here with me today I
51s have names my name is John goal I've
54s been here de for a little while now a
56s technical designer
58s hey it's chirpin Casas Annie I've been a
61s technical designer for a little bit
63s shorter and yeah working on warframe as
66s well alright so before de before working
69s here what kind of schooling or maybe
72s even jobs that are relevant or not
74s relevant did you guys have oh yeah so
77s for me before before here I went to
80s school at the University of Waterloo I
82s did engineering there before de I did a
85s bunch of jobs used to be a math tutor I
87s used to be an IT tech technician and I
90s had a little small gig at IBM as well
92s and then my first gig here at D was a I
96s got my start working QA on Dark Sector
98s so I've been here ever since
100s IBM OLC like a software more more
105s software engineering kind of thing as
106s more of a testing gig as well verifying
108s like web software like yeah no no it's
111s not as exciting as games at the end of
112s the day but you know I last night this
115s is stupid but I was on Netflix I was
117s watching jeopardy and they had that
119s Jeopardy show with the Watson idea but
125s that was this is like ages and ages ago
128s I don't want some super big now but yeah
130s that's the extent of that do you is my
132s first game gig and
133s yeah I've been here ever since so thanks
135s worked out pretty well for me so I went
137s to Carleton University for computer
139s science down in Ottawa and then I worked
144s at a variety of places actually IBM as
147s well I did a co-op there coops
152s yeah and then and then after that I
155s worked at a startup and did that for a
159s while we were actually at the beginning
161s trying to make mobile games and then we
164s ended up transitioning to mobile apps
166s and then I ended up moving to New York
168s City and I did my graduate studies at
171s the NYU game center so I actually have
173s like a master's in game design John's
178s throwing like air quotes Erica yeah it
181s means I think I know stuff but I really
183s don't he knows a lot I did a couple
185s internships there on some mobile games
187s in New York and then I moved back to
190s Canada for De no it wasn't that bad of a
193s change so what does it really mean to be
194s a designer
195s it's a I think it's a broad term like
198s you guys work on a lot of things you
200s might have a small hand in one thing a
203s large hand in something yeah it's a good
205s question because you know you'll see in
207s a lot a lot of different other Studios
209s you know designers have a lot of
210s different categories like your content
212s designer your narrative designer your
214s sound sound is its own thing as well you
216s could be a sound designer a system
217s designer systems design yeah and the RUS
220s were technical designers which just
221s means hey you can write some code as
224s well along the way right is I think I
226s think the the meaning behind that so for
230s us we're doing you know we're always in
231s the codebase we're always scripting you
233s know we have a hard skill associated
235s with it right but in terms of being a
237s designer it's it's 90% problem solving
240s right it's just hey there's a there's an
242s issue with XYZ system right like can you
245s help us so and of course you know the
249s idea process is also part of it but from
252s a day-to-day perspective it's always
254s just you know how do we help how do we
256s fix something that's broken right at
258s least that's that's my perspective of it
260s yeah the way I look at it like from a
262s day-to-day perspective here's you're
264s kind of like
265s spiritual producer no no but like I know
269s that sounds like with well it's
271s intentionally like wishy-washy which is
273s like okay like people come and we'll ask
275s you questions about like a certain
277s feature or thing about the game that
279s like you're known as being responsible
281s for sure like you're essentially just
284s making sure that this thing you were
286s under this category of things that
287s you're working on ends up being good or
289s as good as it can be and that involves
291s curating ideas and and on top of that
294s like John said you're technically a
297s technical designer you're writing code
298s so you're prototyping testing out ideas
302s playtesting doing things like that just
304s to make sure that like the thing you're
305s working on is actually good right there
308s are game designers who don't code and so
310s those guys have to operate within the
313s engine as well as they can or they'll
314s pull in a programmer to help them like
316s make the thing they need to make and
317s then test it and then give feedback and
319s have a slightly longer iteration loop to
322s us but the tech guy is just kind of like
323s diving headfirst and try to make the
325s thing work like that you mentioned like
329s something that you've been working on to
331s make sure that it works so what's one of
334s the projects that you've been a part of
335s that you're most proud of
337s Oh for frame specifically are here at D
341s yeah for work frame for me at least the
345s the big the big thing I really shifted
347s at least the way that we thought about
348s the game was was POV plans Eidolon
351s so as soon as we we shifted to that
353s first open world and we started doing
354s you know a bounty system we started to
356s trying to do open world missions we
358s tried to be more dynamic it really you
361s know I mean it made us think had to have
363s to think laterally in a lot of different
366s situations and of course there's
368s inspirations that you can draw from but
369s it was a big shift for us because
371s especially as a studio we've always been
373s making sort of linear based games like
375s you know whether it's Dark Sector for
377s the darkness 2 or our Star Trek game or
380s things that we've made before that but
384s we've we've always sort of been in that
386s vein right we've always been a
387s story-driven kind of studio and making a
389s a 2 a to be a to be game and then when
392s as soon as we we made that shift to p OE
395s you know all the open world
397s games that we've all been playing along
399s the way we could sort of leverage that
401s and you know draw some inspiration and
403s it was fun it was fun to think about it
405s a different way right in terms of
406s warframe that was where I probably had
408s the most most fun thinking about stuff I
410s guess so was there a game and specific
412s that you drew inspiration from when we
414s started playing for personally I know
417s everyone here was probably playing
419s horizon zero dawn and stuff like that I
421s don't know maybe Shervin you've got I
424s heard horizon a lot like that wasn't on
426s POV that Maurice I came on really late
429s to it but from what I remember seeing it
431s was yeah a lot of talk about horizon
434s later on people started talking about
436s breath of the wild a lot yeah that's
438s true that was the big one yeah Grand
439s Theft Auto is obviously like there's
441s there in super early on that stuff too
443s so in terms of projects then I guess
447s peewee and Venus was an extension but
450s and the scope is a little little larger
454s was it much different designing Valis
457s and Venus considering we've already done
459s planes and Cetus it was tougher because
461s you know you your port you pour most of
464s your ideas into the first the first
465s iteration there and you don't want to
467s repeat yourself too much you can't want
469s to try new things and and try and use
472s the space differently especially it's a
473s different landscape different weather
475s systems things like that how do we tie
477s it all together you don't to just be you
478s know jump it to Pele we do your do your
482s normal missions then if you jump into
483s Venus and you're sort of doing the same
484s thing it does don't feel too great so it
487s you have to keep thinking and coming up
489s with new content new ideas and making
491s sure it's fun so it's always going to be
493s tougher as you go on right today to
496s build new content but I mean that's part
498s of the fun of it to you you have to just
500s keep thinking but it probably helped to
502s have like the skeleton kind of an open
504s world and a vendor system essentially
507s mm-hmm absolutely
508s yeah so it was like we could reuse the
510s bounty system in a lot of cases you know
511s just a few improvements here and there
513s to make it work but it was good to have
516s the base to work for him like you said
517s so Sherman is there a project you've
520s worked on that year super proud of for
523s warframe probably the rail Jack stuff
526s like the latest stuff just because it's
528s like it's
529s cutting-edge air quotes again everything
533s on that stuff is just like we're taking
535s the best thing we can the best tech we
537s have and trying to use it to show off
539s like the coolest version of a game right
541s so it's it's that's really fresh - which
544s is which is nice you get to think you
546s know there's a whole new space to sort
547s of explore there right yeah and whenever
549s you look up a concert like whenever you
550s look whenever you look back on stuff you
554s always hate it at least with me like
556s with my work so like you can see the
559s improvement as you go on ya always feel
561s embarrassed when you especially with
562s code like when you go and look back at
564s your code you're like who the hell wrote
565s this so yeah the real check stuff was a
570s big step I came on right when venus was
573s like getting started so I really kind of
576s like dope then on on Venus a bit with
578s regards to like the general like going
581s back to what John was saying about like
582s trying to do it differently I think
583s that's basically where I'd tried to help
585s out a lot so the global alert system was
587s something that I talked about a lot
589s reverencing GTA right like that was the
591s first thing I noticed and I thought it
594s would be a good way for giving the
595s control to the player of like how while
597s they want their their version of
599s warframe to be some guys like fishing
601s other people want to just blow up
602s everything they can and I thought that
604s star system was a big thing mhm and then
607s obviously I basically started and
609s finished the conservation system
611s actually I'm joking they call myself the
615s animal man so dude I had you as
617s conservation king or king of concept
619s that also ever actually go with that I
621s keep always expecting and I was it
624s obviously never happened but I was
625s hoping to wear like a fox hat I was not
631s gonna go that far I don't think I think
633s we're like we're like very different
635s sizes of people it's like baggy on me
645s yeah there's only one external con it's
651s happening you can wear my corn costume
653s oh yeah I could do that too alright so
656s some of the projects and I know you've
658s worked on because I write the patches
662s keeping my stuff break out the team
669s before many live streams but I do read
673s everyone's changeless what I'm making
674s patch you have to do all the patch notes
676s so of course you have to read them all
677s make sense when you see how many
679s submissions have been on a day to day
681s basis you're like oh my god yeah and
683s that's like like I don't read literally
686s every submission every day because we
688s don't do a main line every day when it
690s is a main line and I have to go through
691s literally everything I've ever been
693s submitted from you know respect man
697s respect thank you all right that's fine
700s but I do get to see some gems in terms
702s of descriptions okay I appreciate a good
705s description sometimes I'll just
707s literally use whatever you say and put
709s it in my patch notes because I'm a tired
711s human being sometimes you guys write
713s some funny stuff John Koga you did one
716s back in the day for when you're working
718s on Venus yep and I won't say the end of
720s it cuz it's a spoiler to the movie how
722s dare you by the way pretty old so you
724s should have watched it doesn't mean that
726s everyone has seen it so this is an
729s example of a john goal of change
731s description he's working on Venus
733s assassinating he says in the movie
734s Armageddon NASA sent two shuttles to the
737s asteroid on a collision course with
738s earth in an attempt to save all of
740s humanity these shuttles freedom and then
743s he puts in brackets something to do with
745s warframe function named for one of our
747s API calls yes perfect and independence
750s and another function call I presume are
753s an example of a time-tested strategy
755s known as always have a back-up plan try
757s very hard to find a good spot on nab to
758s spawn the assassinate target and retry
760s is necessary so you basically use an
763s Armageddon reference oh my god right and
768s the I mean the truth the true nature of
771s that change is like we're trying to
773s trying to raycast down from the scribe
774s or from the sky trying to find like a
776s good spot in the world to spawn this
778s target for an assassinate mission and if
781s it ever fails and you don't get a target
782s well now you don't have a mission right
784s so to try really really hard in some
786s situations to find one and what I found
789s at least when I was doing it one way was
792s well sometimes it fails so just send
795s a second shuttle right okay I'm like
801s you're gonna nuke it like what because
802s they nuke the asteroid like the first
805s shuttle doesn't get their spoilers that
806s I guess right but so you got a thing
812s here so if you didn't watch it on city
814s TV a hundred times already probably
816s that's your community's reference but I
819s mean that is probably one of the most
821s Canadian reference you're watching this
822s on MTV one for our American friends sure
826s American MTV oh yeah I mean that's
830s that's just basically I mean that's that
832s was the one I probably tried to fix that
834s bug five or six times and that was
837s probably the sixth six check in the
838s finally work that's exactly why that's
842s why it makes perfect sense now yeah cuz
844s you're like I'm done with this finally
847s done with this I sent the second shuttle
848s it's okay now guys now it always works I
853s think you finish cross yeah 99% of the
856s time until it's breaks and we get
858s reports back and you're like all right
860s third shuttle or shuttles we're just
862s Iran it cuz I literally had to fix that
864s this morning again because it look the
866s clan changed
867s oh my god well Sherman's felt that the
872s pre process so long because there's all
874s the a knows how to go through and I
875s didn't wasn't even trying to look for an
876s animal so I don't have to approve
878s process all of them right I mean you
881s know it's a it's a it's a it's a giant
884s world I know how it works yeah that's
888s fair everybody wants their powers so
892s yeah everyone loves those things so that
894s is super solid that those exists now I'm
897s a wicked design story for you about
899s flukes by the way I I don't think I've
902s ever told anybody the tea we're spilling
904s tea
905s so yeah inside inside baseball on how
908s flu started okay as we were developing
911s conservation is a whole system we kind
914s of were nice and we started giving a
917s decent amount of syndicate rep for it
918s which is great but we kind of realized
921s like there is no reward and so we were
923s trying to figure like
924s okay like what do we give players for
926s doing this there's not like a giant kind
929s of progression path laid out for
931s conservation obviously you spend more
934s syndicate points you get more losers you
936s hunt bigger animals for more syndicate
938s points and that worked out pretty well
940s as I was thinking about this for my 30th
943s birthday or 31st my girlfriend actually
947s sent money for an arctic fox
950s conservation mm-hmm and I didn't she
953s didn't know I was working on
954s conservation like which is really funny
956s that this is all serendipitous and it
958s happened this way
959s well what the conservation did was send
962s me a a furry fox like a stuffed animal
965s and so as I was trying to figure what we
968s should do I was like we should be giving
971s stuffed animals like and then at the
974s beginning Steve was like no no we can't
975s we don't have the resources and sure
977s enough the next month I was on Friday
980s and then on Monday morning Greg had
981s already made like oh he can I may be
989s animal man but he's for sure floof god
993s that's his rapper name to this that's a
995s good rapper yeah so he just started
1001s banging them it was one of those things
1003s where like and this happens all InDesign
1004s I'm sure John seeing this were like you
1005s do something and you're like oh without
1007s a doubt like this is the thing like we
1009s need to do this now it's not even a
1011s question anymore sometimes things just
1012s appear on this screen and you're like
1014s this is a thousand percent happening we
1016s can't not do this we actually were this
1018s happened a bit in the 10 o clock demo to
1020s where we were talking about the real
1024s Jack cannon to shoot players out mega
1027s seven nightmares now yeah PTSD sure yeah
1030s but the funny thing was that like as we
1032s were talking about it and slag all of a
1035s sudden like I think me and Steve at the
1037s same time we were both like you should
1039s just run through ships
1044s and then we both started laughing really
1046s oh my god like of course yeah like
1048s everybody thinks about it right so for
1052s now for now it will work you guys did do
1057s that demo basically every everyday for a
1060s month I want to say I think times per
1063s day and then I eventually was like twice
1065s a day no got to three I've got the three
1068s closest something I should like do like
1072s a ten okon kind of like recap one day
1075s with some of the production people just
1077s be like how much work does it take to do
1078s this thing let alone like the demo
1080s itself is like a big deal and yeah and
1082s obviously like the cool thing is that we
1084s don't like fake a lot of the stuff all
1090s the stuff that we did for this Tenno con
1093s was like full real systems that we
1097s sucked like we didn't even do I'm trying
1099s to think like yeah we didn't really do
1100s much to like force it to do the thing we
1103s just put the pieces in place and it all
1105s just did the thing that we wanted it to
1107s do yeah so that was my that was actually
1109s like one of the things I was really
1110s proud of it was like we did we we didn't
1113s do the smoke and mirrors thing we like
1114s we did it
1115s do you remember when because I do when
1117s Steve sent kind of the company like the
1120s script like the Tenno con demo script do
1122s you remember like your first reactions
1124s to it it's insanity
1125s I literally messaged him and I was like
1128s this is a goddamn insane yeah like I was
1131s like there's no way we can do this that
1132s was mocking me too I was like that's not
1133s happening like we can't pull that off
1136s yeah like this is insane and then this
1138s is where like the and I'm sure you'd
1140s notice this John like there's like a
1141s masochistic sense in you where you're
1143s like oh this is gonna be like it's gonna
1145s be tough to pull off but like I'm
1146s excited now I have like a big challenge
1148s that we have to try to do to be fair
1151s when you when you when you're really
1152s trying to put on a show like yet or you
1154s gotta reach for the meat man right yeah
1155s yeah if you don't hit every every mark
1157s that's fine but go for the top end as
1160s far as you can right and that's that's
1162s why I at least is exciting about it it
1164s evolves along the way right so because
1166s you you you you want to hit certain
1168s beats along the story and you or along
1170s the script that you sort of have for a
1172s demo like that and you want to end on a
1174s high note you want to
1176s you know everyone's got that nice little
1177s story curb or there's a couple lulls
1179s here and there but you always want to
1180s kind of you want to end on something
1183s that's super super cool right it was a
1184s good moment at the end there right so
1186s were you nervous as like a tech designer
1188s to have to absolutely especially if it's
1191s close to the wire it's very difficult
1193s because you know you can't you got to
1195s take some risks you have to you know
1197s work a little faster you have to it's
1199s harder to test your stuff especially in
1200s this demo situation which is why like we
1202s would always come to come to your guys
1204s demo sessions right it's like oh there's
1205s four people playing here like I don't
1206s have to load up four instances on my
1208s machine to see how it's gonna work so
1210s it's super useful for us as well and
1212s like hey I could sit there and talk to
1213s Sherman or some other designers as you
1215s guys are playing it's like oh yeah why
1217s is the Simon we did that a lot actually
1218s this is you know a broken corner it's
1220s like it's a it really helps the the
1222s process there and I think that's part of
1224s you know what made us what made it
1226s successful at least at 10'o calm because
1228s we had those people in the room and we
1230s had you guys doing the demo basically in
1232s front of us every day right there was a
1234s bunch of times I remember during those
1236s practice demos were John and I I
1237s remember specifically John and I would
1239s sit there and we were trying to
1240s understand why something wasn't working
1241s yeah I know it was as you guys were
1244s playing it we were like reverse
1245s engineering the decisions you made and I
1247s was like okay this is they did this than
1250s this and we this should have happened
1251s but this didn't and that's why you're
1253s seeing this now for the demo I was
1256s sitting with another D employee and when
1259s she minimized or like it looked like one
1261s of the screens wise I thought it crashed
1265s on a cross I literally fell to a knee I
1267s was like I had to be like a Tim Tebow
1269s football thing where I was like I can't
1270s look at this like like it's oh my god
1273s and literally it was like I can't
1275s believe it crash and then he went back
1277s up and I was like thank you so much
1282s that's when like Danielle and I came up
1285s on stage and Rebecca had to like move
1287s out of the way to I think she's just
1289s like smash that what happened I think so
1292s like control or something and like hit
1294s the keyboard and just minimize press
1296s Start and I just remember cuz I'm like
1300s I'm in my zone at that point right I'm
1301s thinking about nothing else but this
1303s demo being a success sure and I just
1305s hear Rebecca audibly gasped I mean look
1307s at her
1307s Green is just white and I was like oh my
1309s god but then I see the little stupid
1313s Internet Explorer logo and like I said
1315s oh I didn't even see because the I was
1317s watching it from the big screen so I
1318s didn't see that and so I'm like oh it's
1320s gone
1321s oh wait like yeah I've never even like
1323s what is happening right now and then it
1324s came back up and I was like she
1326s minimized it like yeah all right do you
1334s guys have like social media I'm on
1337s Twitter like oh you can you can just
1340s send me MIT like I'm in the the warframe
1343s disk or you can just send me message
1344s there if you really want to ask any
1345s questions or whatever but I don't really
1347s have any true social media I guess at
1350s the end of the day what's you username
1352s John Jay global it's pretty pretty low
1356s key how do you spell that with it with a
1358s J yeah nice I'm you can usually find me
1364s on its gassy gah
1366s Zed I but if you want to talk about
1368s conservation hit me up I'm your man I
1374s mean King of Commerce conservation zinc
1376s and converse it yeah maybe that's what
1377s we'll do okay I'm ko see you call me
1384s what sorry Bruce well you gotta go Ben
1387s Affleck he's like Bruce Willis dies oh
1394s you spoiled you spoiled the movie
1397s earlier on you did when he said the
1399s asteroid blew up I didn't say that
1401s actually I didn't know I actually
1403s pointing at each other right I actually
1406s didn't say that I'm not gonna say what I
1408s said cuz they nuke the asteroid no I
1421s I might have alluded to how how they
1425s were trying to other trying to slide in
1427s I didn't say they blew it up
1429s [Music]
1433s there's only one way to find out
1435s go Oh drama get in that's my plug I
1438s guess alright thank you for listening to
1441s episode 5 of the deconstructing podcast
1443s and thank you to John and Shervin for
1445s joining me today hopefully we didn't
1448s cause too much stress in your friendship
1453s yeah all right this has been the fifth
1456s episode of deconstructing we'd like to
1458s give a big THANK YOU to John it and
1460s Shervin for being on the show this month
1461s and we'd like to thank you for listening
1463s tune in next month for another episode
1465s of deconstructing