What does Turbine use to create their game?

[Khafar]

They buy all the music.

They buy some of the music, but some was done by Geoff Scott and others, in-house.

As for the tools they use... it's a lot, actually. Besides the ones already mentioned, I believe they use Granny 3D for animation and Havok for certain effects (e.g. crumbling walls and such). They also use some package for developing particle effects, but I can't remember what it is.

On the programming side, they use Visual Studio to write and debug code, and Perforce for revision control.

Khafar

[Sapience]

They buy all the music.

Nope. We have very talented people in house who make significant contributions to our musical scores. It's fun to talk to them, they're usually doing little ditties the whole time. There is something inherently cool about someone absently playing on a concertina while answering questions.

[Jilla]

Nope. We have very talented people in house who make significant contributions to our musical scores. It's fun to talk to them, they're usually doing little ditties the whole time. There is something inherently cool about someone absently playing on a concertina while answering questions.

Those people are awesome. The music in this game is the best. Ahhh... if life only had a soundtrack too .

[Warbeast21]

Those people are awesome. The music in this game is the best. Ahhh... if life only had a soundtrack too .

but it does, you just got to be really quiet

[Tamandra]

Good developers are teams of people with many different sets of expertise. Construction kits are fun for hobbyists, but no single individual (or bunch of buddies) is going to have the needed combined expertise in graphics, sound, compiler design (for scripting tools), networking, algorithmic methods, real time methods, numerical analysis (for error reduction), human factors (for prediction of player behavior), programming, etc., etc., etc.

The days of FRUA and NWN construction kits were fun for hobbyists, but they don't really extend to MMORPG development.

A lot of the principals are the same though between 'hobbyist' construction kits and the tools used by devs teams.

Obviously it would be hard (read: nearly impossible) for an individual or small team to create an mmo in a modding environment. So they don't extend to MMORPG development in that sense.

However, skills learnt in creating modded content as an amateur can be quite applicable to doing something in a professional development team, whether it be a team producing a single player game through to a fully fledged MMO. (Valve and Bethesda both instantly spring to mind as developers who have recruited from people in the modding scene before now).

I'd actually be interested to know whether any of the Turbine dev team ever used anything like the NWN construction kit or the TES:CS before they became professional game developers and if they ever release any mods.

[Saxzon]

All LIES!!!


They took JRR's books, and scanned them, and saved the data as .bud files (plain text).

Then, they used a converter program called budweiser, that converts bud into game files.


Not that hard, really.

[Mellora1]

Nope. We have very talented people in house who make significant contributions to our musical scores. It's fun to talk to them, they're usually doing little ditties the whole time. There is something inherently cool about someone absently playing on a concertina while answering questions.

I love this!!!

And please convey my thanks to all involved - the musical scores in LotRO have been a salve to my soul

[Yula_the_Mighty]

Nope. We have very talented people in house who make significant contributions to our musical scores. It's fun to talk to them, they're usually doing little ditties the whole time. There is something inherently cool about someone absently playing on a concertina while answering questions.

That is so cool.

I figured that the stuff that I could not identify was from some business source that I was not familiar with. Nice to hear that employees that can perform music on the side. Can get a world wide audience. Even if no one know who the Turbinite is.

You use quality music from folks like Chance Thomas. Turbine has got very talented employees. Give them an a good round of applause and thanks from me.

[KainXI]

That is so cool.

I figured that the stuff that I could not identify was from some business source that I was not familiar with. Nice to hear that employees that can perform music on the side. Can get a world wide audience. Even if no one know who the Turbinite is.

You use quality music from folks like Chance Thomas. Turbine has got very talented employees. Give them an a good round of applause and thanks from me.

/agree. The music in LOTRO is great.

[CmdrMagic]

Didn't somewhere, some Dev state that LOTRO was powered by Crispy Cremes?

[Warbeast21]

Didn't somewhere, some Dev state that LOTRO was powered by Crispy Cremes?

Probably Sapience, that trouble maker

[Digital_Utopia]

I remember building my Doom world modeled after my house...

Ah, but game level design has come a long way since then hasn't it?

Now it's possible to completely recreate a house, with the only limit to accuracy being exactly how much time you want to put into it.

[Comstrike]

Nope. We have very talented people in house who make significant contributions to our musical scores. It's fun to talk to them, they're usually doing little ditties the whole time. There is something inherently cool about someone absently playing on a concertina while answering questions.

Might make a nice front page color article.

As I recall reading, the original body of music, dating to SoA's launch, was half in-house music, and half created by a noted composer in Utah.

I forget the composers name, but you can back track him on IMDB. He has created music for other LOTR games, and has a considerable body of work within the game and entertainment industry. The orchestral music he did, was created using a 75 piece studio orchestra. It was drawn from members of the Utah Film Orchestra, and the Salt Lake City Symphony Orchestra. The harp player I recall reading, was considered the best on earth. The vocals were done by an all male and a mixed choral comprised of 45 members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

If you know anything about what it costs to have that many musicians in one place for any reason, and the time it takes to create the tracks they did, you can appreciate how unholy expensive that music was to create. That music was created by truly world-class talent, and I think is one of the strongest points of the game.

Likewise, the in-house staff has truly made some great stuff. I have the game soundtrack on my USB drives along side that of the movies.

[Nymphonic]

I remember building my Doom world modeled after my house...

I did the same thing with Duke Nukem 3D!

[Yula_the_Mighty]

Didn't somewhere, some Dev state that LOTRO was powered by Crispy Cremes?

I thought it was:

1) Coffee
2) Hot Pockets
3) Pie
4) Bacon