Independent Production Guide/Eternal Silence Interview
International Game Developers Association
The following transcript is from an interview with Dan Menard, formerly the project lead on Eternal Silence, a Source engine mod available on Steam.
In your own words, what is Eternal Silence?
"Eternal Silence is a multiplayer space mod for Half-Life 2 currently released on Steam. Players fight in an interstellar war and form the crew of large capital ships. Fighting takes place in fighters and bombers outside the ships, and players can also board the enemy ship and fight inside. The combat is hectic and emphasizes team management and strategy. Players must choose which systems (Shields, Weapons, Hangar) to capture to achieve victory as their capital ships bombard each other with massive weaponry. A typical game involves destroying the enemy escort in the first phase of combat, then landing a boarding party and capturing subsystems to damage the enemy ship as much as possible while protecting your own. Eternal Silence also features more traditional FPS game modes like Capture the Flag, Control Points and Demolition."
What is your personal role in the project? How much time do you spend working on it each week?
"I am the project lead, though I am not currently developing the mod. That responsibility has been passed on to the community. I was responsible for all the programming, art direction and management during my time on the project, and I continue to contribute by maintaining close ties to the community."
Eternal Silence has been around for quite a long time for a mod. How have the game and your role evolved over time? How have you kept momentum up?
"Eternal Silence has been in development for almost 6 years now. I played an active part in development for the first 5 years. Since last year, a community-driven effort has taken over development of the mod and has been pushing it forward ever since. I have moved on to develop a new project (an unannounced XNA title). I used to spend nearly 20 hours a week on Eternal Silence. Now I am mostly on the sidelines, but I do chime in now and then. It's very rewarding to see a project become totally autonomous, driven by the community that plays it. I am still amazed by what they have been able to achieve and I encourage them to continue."
"We keep our momentum going by releasing often. Eternal Silence releases a new patch every couple of months with new maps and bug fixes. This keeps the community active and keeps everyone motivated as developers. The Steam platform has been incredibly helpful here, since it allows us to push new fixes to the entire community all at once without any kind of publicity required. When the original development team felt it was time to move on (after all, 5 years is quite a long time to be working on a single title), the community stepped up and took over."
What are the pros and cons of working with a distributed team of coders, artists, and designers?
"Working on the mod, the fact that we get such talented people to work for us for free is a big enough advantage to put up with a distributed team. As a team leader though, it puts a lot more pressure on you to keep things organized and ensure everybody is doing what they need to do. Developing a mod is great experience, and many people love to contribute their time for their own training and to benefit a community project. However, being a distributed team, you have to deal with the fact that people only work on their spare time. Sometimes people disappear, and without quality face-time with your team, it's hard to iterate quickly and get things "just right". It's a lot harder to detect problem people before they cause serious harm to your team, because you're not in frequent contact. For a mod, distributed development is great, and without it, Eternal Silence would never have been made. It does have its disadvantages though."
What does it take to work on a mod team? How has it helped you progress as a designer and developer?
"The most important thing is to be self-motivated. There is no one looking over your shoulder on a mod team. The leader will try to provide direction as much as possible, but you need to organize your time to be able to work on it. A lot of people never get past this first step and so never get anything done. Personally, it has taught me a lot about game development. Thanks to Eternal Silence I have an all-around understanding of everything that goes on in a development team. Mods are a great place to make mistakes as a designer, and you learn from your mistakes very quickly. Eternal Silence has been a big experiment, and has provided me with excellent experience for my future career."
How did your game make it onto Steam? What was it like working with Steam platform representatives? How did it affect the mod?
"Valve puts mods on Steam occasionally. It began with a first wave 2 years ago, and we were selected as part of the second wave. The people at Valve helping us through the transition were very helpful. There was a pretty big delay between getting all setup on Steam and getting released (an effect of Valve-time I suppose), but it allowed us to polish our initial release on Steam very well. Valve imposed a few conditions on our release, we had to pass through their initial round of QA. Aside from that, it hasn't affected the mod very much. Steam has been a great tool to get updates out, and it has increased awareness and made it easier for people to get the mod, but the game maintained its core values."
What sources of funding does Eternal Silence exploit if any?
"No sources of funding at all. We get the occasional donation, but they barely cover hosting costs."
How does the game’s community support and shape it?
"As stated previously, the game community has entirely taken over development of the mod. We have an active and vibrant community of people who all love the mod and are willing to do anything to make it more popular. The effort they put into developing and marketing the mod has been more than I could ever ask for."
Thank you for your valuable contribution of experience and inspiration to this guide.
Interview conducted by Chip Hilseberg on 2/13/2010
