MEDAL OF HONOR: PACIFIC ASSAULT (Published by EA Games)

Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault (MOHPA) was a very ambitious project in which the Quake III engine (used by Allied Assault and it’s expansions) was reworked to incorporate a new renderer, Havok Physics, and other pieces of middleware technology. After Breakthrough, I was reassigned to be the Design Lead on MOHPA Multiplayer, which was outsourced once again to TKO Software. My initial job was to generate and maintain a Design Document outlining the features and mechanics of “Invader”, an objective-based multiplayer gameplay mode. I collaborated closely with the TKO Leads in all disciplines (art, animation, design, engineering, production) to document changes to the overall conceptual game design and shepherd it from concept to creation. It was also my job to help define milestones, to help delegate responsibilities and tasks to members of the TKO Team, to facilitate communication between corresponding disciplines on the EA and TKO teams, and to help resolve technical dependencies and keep TKO apprised of changes to the design and art production pipelines and engine technology.

As time progressed, I wore many different hats on the project, effectively acting as an Associate Producer. I interacted with and solicited ideas and feedback from our multiplayer fan base and community through EA’s online forums. I generated interface specification documents that outlined new, more intuitive and robust shell features for multiplayer matchmaking, chat, and hosting that were requested by our community and fans. I consulted with historical advisors, wrote dialogue, and directed voice acting sessions. I contributed to the game’s marketing efforts including writing press releases, articles, and designer diaries, directing video capture sessions, and representing the game at events such as the Cyber-Athlete Professional League (CPL) Tournament. I worked closely with our QA department to balance and tune the multiplayer weapons and mechanics, and generated focus group surveys which helped refine the gameplay and surfaced issues in need of attention. I also helped define the features, tools, and wrote documentation for our Mod Development Kit (MDK), which TKO also developed and released to the community. I was also responsible for tuning and play-balancing all the weapon variables for multiplayer, and built a Invader level, Bataan.

In short, I worked diligently on any front that I possibly could to insure that the MOHPA Multiplayer project would ship successfully and meet the intended goals. The nature of MOHPA’s development (2 geographically separate game production teams working on an in-progress engine) represented hugely complex technical and logistical coordination challenges. From this role, I learned a great deal about managing development teams under difficult circumstances and what it means to be a team-centric creative leader.

BATAAN (Multiplayer Level)

The first set of screenshots shown here are from the Bataan level that I worked on. This level started life as a test bed for particle effects built by one of the other designers on the team. A lot of my teammates commented that it would make a great multiplayer level, so I started working on it in my spare cycles. My primary involvement with this level was terrain refinement, vegetation asset placement, as well as gameplay scripting. Unlike the other Invader levels, Bataan was much smaller and featured fewer objectives. In some ways, I intended it to be the opposite of the Malta level I built for Spearhead – whereas that level was quite expansive, Bataan would be tighter and more focused.

MULTIPLAYER USER INTERFACE/SHELL

I’ve also included a selection of shots of the multiplayer shell screens and HUD. User Interfaces for PC multiplayer games can be very intricate, and the knowledge and insight I gained on UI design and general interface methodologies served me well in subsequent projects.

Here’s also a link to a downloadable multiplayer demo for Pacific Assault. You should be able to browse the shell screens as well as start an Invader gameplay session.

http://files.filefront.com/3621524