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 United Kingdom 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 United States of America Threewave handed the project over to United Kingdom Endrant Studios.

Full posts (very long)
QuoteHi guys, glad to see you all still heatedly debating Wolfenstein!

I really enjoy what I have seen of the game so far, so I thought I'd drop in after lurking to set a few things straight about Wolfenstein, and if you care to read- my point of view from a developer's perspective. Please feel free to post any questions you have in this thread.

First to fill in a few gaps...
Timeline of Wolfenstein development (dated when possible):

2004: Early Wolfenstein concept art appears from Raven Software.

Late 2005: Pre-production starts under the auspices of Nerve Software. This involved game design documents, and early experiments using Raven's modified Doom3 engine being used to develop the SP game. Nerve's involvement was minimal, and pre-production lasts only a few months. Contributions wouldn't resume until late in MP's development and was limited to the UI work.

Late 2006: The project is contracted to Threewave Software, who develop the MP game, using mostly assets created by Raven Software for the SP game, and to develop it simultaneously with the development of Splash Damage's ET:QW's engine.

2007: During this year, 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 as they are created. 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. I don't know anyone at Endrant, so I can't comment on their reasons behind design choices seen in the beta footage or in screenshots. I only know what was changed in the game design between Threewave Software and Endrant Studios work. I do know that when they started the project, they had maybe 6-8 people to work on it, so it seems to me that most of their work involved tuning the game, weapons, and balancing them with the new Veil powers that by that point were in place in the SP game. The maps appear to be about 90% the work of Threewave Software, so it would be odd if only Endrant was credited with the MP development.

Since I haven't seen the game since before Endrant worked on it, I can only comment on the design changes.

I also want to comment that I am disappointed that the demo was leaked, and I hope there is worthwhile DRM on the final retail product. I won't be DLing the leaked beta, because frankly, piracy robs me of an income. Facilitators of piracy should be ashamed at their sense of entitlement. They should also have no illusions that they are harming the game industry, specifically the PC game industry, for their own selfish reasons.

I also hope the community don't take out their frustrations on Peter Sokal, who I don't recall from my time on the project. I don't envy his job at this point, and I hope people take it easy on him.

Quote
Quote by vIf Threewave designed the levels then surely Endrant had to build them. Which you dont mention. Or are you saying Threewave built 90% or just on paper. Im not sure what the point of your post is as all this info is out there anyway.

Sokal gets it in the neck because he's the face of the whole deal.

if this is a q&a answer this. What comes with the sp sdk? tools wise.


The maps so far seen in the leaked beta, are 90% Threewave Software made maps, who spent over a year designing and building them. The screenshots seen here were taken before Endrant Studios even had a contract for their portion of the work on the MP game:
-Admin: mp map screens, have to remove them-

I have no idea what the plans are for the SP sdk. Those decisions were made after my time.

Quote by Jarvis"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."
What includes 'overall game design'?


Well, game design is pretty much everything about the design of the MP game. Like I have mentioned before, Threewave Software had the game done to beta or nearly beta. I have seen Endrant have changed some of what was done before them. If you really want a list of things that were removed by Endrant I can tell you, but I am not sure it really matters. It was Threewave's plan to reduce character classes to 3, for instance.

Quote by Jarvis
You wrote that you were continually integrating changes to the engine sent from Splash Damage. This enigne is the main problem for many players. After beta leak Wolfenstein looks and feels generally like etqw with cod graphics and features + some veil. Did You have other concept for the gameplay?


Are you asking about the engine? Game play is part of game design, so I am not sure what you want to know.

Quote by Jarvis
Maps are considered to be the best part of the beta leak. Why didn't You do all the MP part?


Threewave did do "all the MP part". Activision wanted to further refine the game with incorporated elements from the SP game, so Endrant Studios were hired to do that afterwards.

Quote by Jarvis
Why did you use splash damage's modified etqw engine instead of Q4 engine with id's improvements, which appears to simply fit Wolfenstein style better. (and is more playable than etqw engine...)


As a beta tester for ET:QW, I don't recall any of these performance issues being reported on the beta test forums. Activision was happy enough with its performance to recommend it be used with Wolfenstein MP. Maybe its a matter of opinion. I personally don't recall noticing any issues either. I would GUESS that Activision still doesn't see anything wrong with the engine, especially since the Metacritic score for ET:QW is 84. Maybe bugs happened later in development- I really can't say for sure.

Quote by Jarvis
Do You know/heard anything about any other rtcw/et projects like rtcw2 or et:live?


Nope.

Quote by xskoalx
Why is it they decided to use the same engine which every competitive or knowledgable gamer hates? Its not smooth and it has issues. It should never be released this way, and is simply lazy on their part to do so. Why is this the case?


See above.
...

QuotePerhaps 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:

Resistance Soldier:
  • Colt45
  • fg42 (XP rank upgradeable) scoped semi-automatic rifle
  • bar1918(XP rank upgradeable)
  • smg m1a1
  • Bazooka
  • Frag Grenade
  • 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)
  • XP deployable level 3: Spawn point

Axis Soldier:
  • Luger
  • mp40
  • fg42 (XP rank upgradeable) scoped semi-automatic rifle
  • mp43 (XP rank upgradeable)
  • Panzershreck
  • Frag Grenade
  • 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)
  • 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

  • The maps so far seen in the leaked beta, are 90% Threewave Software made maps, who spent over a year designing and building them.
  • Threewave Software had the game done to beta or nearly beta.
  • Endrant have changed some of what was done before them.
  • It was Threewave's plan to reduce character classes to 3
  • Activision wanted to further refine the game with incorporated elements from the SP game, so Endrant Studios were hired
  • Activision was happy enough with ETQW's performance to recommend it be used with Wolfenstein MP

  • 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.

MP classes before Endrant Studios

Resistance Soldier:
  • Colt45
  • fg42 (XP rank upgradeable) scoped semi-automatic rifle
  • bar1918(XP rank upgradeable)
  • smg m1a1
  • Bazooka
  • Frag Grenade
  • 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)
  • XP deployable level 3: Spawn point

Axis Soldier:
  • Luger
  • mp40
  • fg42 (XP rank upgradeable) scoped semi-automatic rifle
  • mp43 (XP rank upgradeable)
  • Panzershreck
  • Frag Grenade
  • 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)