Some of you remember wolf1337 - a guy who registered on the wolfenstein-zone.com forums explaining the development of Wolfenstein and revealing the more techincal side to Wolfenstein , such as the use of Splash Damage's ETQW engine (highly modified id Tech 4). He was the first to give us some real information on Wolfenstein's multiplayer. A few months later, wolf1337 returned by leaking the first multiplayer map screenshots of Wolfenstein months before its release. Recent events have confirmed wolf1337's previous information was 100% genuine. Now, he's back, this time revealing the full timeline of Wolfenstein's development and what Wolfenstein's MP used to be like before Threewave handed the project over to Endrant Studios.
Perhaps I should have phrased things differently. I was offering some background info on the development of the game, and putting to rest certain bits of speculation from the forums. I am not trying to dodge any questions, its more that I was posting here to answer questions about the game development. xskoalx, I don't have any answers for your 1st and 3rd questions, since they aren't about Wolfenstein in particular.
To further address the question about the choice of game engine- if you read more closely what I posted, I was saying (a) I personally don't recall these aforementioned performance issues in the ETQW engine being noted or discussed during Wolfenstein's development, and (b)I was speculating that Activision didn't note any serious concern about the engine after the game's release. I wasn't defending it. No one developing Wolfenstein (during Threewave's work) read complaints by competitive players about hitching or lagging or whatever was being mentioned by competitive players on public forums. I am not saying there were not any complaints, its that no one at Threewave bothered to read any of them. There is no point to that when there is work to be done on the maps and game design, and another company (Splash Damage) is controlling the engine tech. Switching the MP engine after ETQW's release-10 months into Wolfenstein MP's development would have been technically and financially unfeasible. The biggest issues of the day at Threewave tended to be about optimizing the Wolfenstein MP maps to make sure they were playable at a decent framerate, limiting the drawcalls, cast shadows, etc.
There was an extensive phase of weapon tuning, but since Raven's weapons were being integrated into the MP game, there was only so much that could be done by the MP team while waiting for Raven to finish the weapons (ironsights included, they were in MP because they were in SP). Effective ranges, bullet deviation, damage falloff, etc. were tweaked on all the weapons at Threewave, but they were later re-tuned by Endrant when the project was passed on, as well as the weapon choices.
Threewave didn't have time to integrate the Flammenwerfer into the game, for instance, so its nice that Endrant managed to do so. It seems as if some guns / character abilities didn't make it into the Endrant version of the game on their watch, though. I see why the 2 sides would share more weapons, since supposedly they are all German anyhow, so using American weapons makes less sense fictionally. Threewave made it so that enemies didn't drop anything on dying, so that you had to rely on your team engineer for ammo...it looks like maybe this is different now? I think the classes used to be something like this:
Molotov Cocktail (block off areas temporarily with fire)
XP deployable level 1: Barbed Wire Barrier
XP deployable level 2: Radar Station (shows enemy icons on mini map)
XP deployable level 3: Rocket Turret
Resistance Engineer:
Colt45
smg m1a1
m1_garand
Molotov Cocktail (block off areas temporarily with fire)
Ammo Packs
XP deployable level 1: Ammo Crate
XP deployable level 2: Atomikorps Mine
XP deployable level 3: MG42
Resistance Medic:
Colt45
smg m1a1
m1_garand
Health Packs
XP deployable level 1: First Aid Station
XP deployable level 2: Curse Pentagram (gave enemies that walked on it a contagious curse, causing damage slowly, and passing it to their teammates if they got too close to a cursed player)
Shock Grenade (block off areas temporarily with an electrical field)
XP deployable level 1: Barbed Wire Barrier
XP deployable level 2: Radar Station (shows enemy icons on mini map)
XP deployable level 3: Rocket Turret
Axis Engineer:
Luger
Mosin-Nagant
MP40
PPS43
Shock Grenade (block off areas temporarily with an electrical field)
Ammo Packs
XP deployable level 1: Ammo Crate
XP deployable level 2: Atomikorps Mine
XP deployable level 3: MG42
Axis Medic:
Luger
Mosin-Nagant
MP40
PPS43
Health Packs
XP deployable level 1: First Aid Station
XP deployable level 2: Curse Pentagram
XP deployable level 3: Spawn point
These weapons below were unfinished, model-wise, but there were hidden spots in the map where you could grab them as a weapon pickup. They dropped when you died and went back to their spawn point in 30 seconds if not picked up.
Tesla gun (pretty much as seen in WolfSP)
Unholy cross (locked on to an enemy and fired a ball of energy that homed and killed)
-this one used to be in the church in Canals map, as the final objective...it was kinda cool to grab it as the Resistance and turn around to use it to flee the church
Venom gun (almost like a mobile MG42 with overheat)
Also, someone on the forums complained about tossing ammo packs accidentally while trying to build something as an engineer. I believe the thought process behind that design was that it was actually more frustrating to run into combat and accidentally pull out a pair of pliers or a wrench and then get shot in the face. All the devs found that really annoying in previous Wolfenstein games. It was easier for the "build" option to be contextual. Pointing at a thing to build readies your wrench, then you look away and your gun is back up and ready to fight). Its really the lesser of two evils.
Summaries for the lazy people (Only added the important stuff) Part 1 - Summary
2004 - Early Wolfenstein concept art appears from Raven Software
Late 2005 - Nerve starts pre-production (minimal work, however they returned late into Wolfenstein's MP development to contribute to the UI [I'm assuming wolf1337 is refering to the Threewave version])
Late 2006 - Threewave begin work on Wolfenstein's MP simulatenously with the development of ETQW
2007- Threewave works on the MP game, continually integrating changes to the engine sent from Splash Damage during ET:QW's beta testing, and including new assets from Raven's SP game. Levels not finished during Threewave's involvement include Castle, Zeppelin, and any and all references to the Veil. The SP game is largely trying to include an open world game design, yet it is clearly not working, and supernatural references are very minimal. As a result, the MP game has very few supernatural elements.
Early 2008 - Threewave Software completes their contractual obligations for Wolfenstein, including the overall game design, and the 8 maps announced recently by Endrant Studios for the MP game.
July 16th, 2008 - Endrant Studios announced they are developing the MP game in a co-development partnership with Raven Software and Activision Blizzard on id Software's Wolfenstein IP
No one developing Wolfenstein (during Threewave's work) read complaints by competitive players about hitching or lagging or whatever was being mentioned by competitive players on public forums. (no one at Threewave bothered to read any of them)
The biggest issues of at Threewave tended to be about optimizing the Wolfenstein MP maps to make sure they were playable at a decent framerate, limiting the drawcalls, cast shadows, etc.
Effective ranges, bullet deviation, damage falloff, etc. were tweaked on all the weapons at Threewave, but they were later re-tuned by Endrant when the project was passed on, as well as the weapon choices.
Threewave made it so that enemies didn't drop anything on dying, so that you had to rely on your team engineer for ammo
there were hidden spots in the map where you could grab them as a weapon pickup. They dropped when you died and went back to their spawn point in 30 seconds if not picked up.
Molotov Cocktail (block off areas temporarily with fire)
XP deployable level 1: Barbed Wire Barrier
XP deployable level 2: Radar Station (shows enemy icons on mini map)
XP deployable level 3: Rocket Turret
Resistance Engineer:
Colt45
smg m1a1
m1_garand
Molotov Cocktail (block off areas temporarily with fire)
Ammo Packs
XP deployable level 1: Ammo Crate
XP deployable level 2: Atomikorps Mine
XP deployable level 3: MG42
Resistance Medic:
Colt45
smg m1a1
m1_garand
Health Packs
XP deployable level 1: First Aid Station
XP deployable level 2: Curse Pentagram (gave enemies that walked on it a contagious curse, causing damage slowly, and passing it to their teammates if they got too close to a cursed player)
Shock Grenade (block off areas temporarily with an electrical field)
XP deployable level 1: Barbed Wire Barrier
XP deployable level 2: Radar Station (shows enemy icons on mini map)
XP deployable level 3: Rocket Turret
Axis Engineer:
Luger
Mosin-Nagant
MP40
PPS43
Shock Grenade (block off areas temporarily with an electrical field)
Ammo Packs
XP deployable level 1: Ammo Crate
XP deployable level 2: Atomikorps Mine
XP deployable level 3: MG42
Axis Medic:
Luger
Mosin-Nagant
MP40
PPS43
Health Packs
XP deployable level 1: First Aid Station
XP deployable level 2: Curse Pentagram
XP deployable level 3: Spawn point
Weapons you could pick up
Tesla gun (pretty much as seen in WolfSP)
Unholy cross (locked on to an enemy and fired a ball of energy that homed and killed)-this one used to be in the church in Canals map, as the final objective...it was kinda cool to grab it as the Resistance and turn around to use it to flee the church
Venom gun (almost like a mobile MG42 with overheat)
omg so basicly they thought the engine was good ? these guys most just read the code instead of testing the game cause everyone bitched about et:qw engine for ages and ages also in the beta.
if they don't believe it then just google et:qw lag, 100zillion hits.
if they don't believe it then just google et:qw lag, 100zillion hits.
To the bargain bin.