FIRST QUESTIONS (YEAR 2007)

 

 

Is there any hope of going back and finishing or starting over the creation of Populous 4? WackyAnimation

I don’t know. I’ve heard talk in the past from friends who work in EA LA (the EA ‘RTS’ studio) that they’re big fans of Pop:TB and would love to do a sequel. However games nowadays are very expensive to make and Populous’ tribal theme probably wouldn’t be thought of as mass market enough – which is a shame. The original Pop:TB, whilst critically acclaimed (and still loved after all these years by fans which is fantastic!), didn’t sell huge numbers compared to other RTS games of the time and due to this it’s pretty unlikely I would imagine that EA would do a sequel. Peter Molyneux, MD of Lionhead Studios, has also said to me in the past that he’d love to go back and do another Populous game (remember Pop:TB was the 3rd game) but again i think this is very unlikely for the reasons i mentioned above... but who knows! - I remember when Prince of Persia was coming out a couple of years back and thinking “they’ll never be able to resurrect such an old franchise” – and they did! Ultimately though, while EA owns the IP, it’s down to EA and i can’t really comment on what they will do – as i don’t know!

 

 

What do you see as the main differences of where you work now compared to when you were with Bullfrog? WackyAnimation

I joined Bullfrog after it had been acquired by Electronic Arts and after Peter Molyneux had left to setup Lionhead. Bullfrog at that time was an amazing place to work – full of very talented, passionate, developers who loved making original games. Over my years of working at Bullfrog (and later when i came to think of it as EA) things changed – we kinda grew up i guess in that we lost the brand and started working on Harry Potter games. Harry Potter was awesome and I really enjoyed all my time at EA – but the company changed quite a lot in the seven years and, suffice to say, Lionhead is much more like the Bullfrog of old – ‘cept this time it has Peter Molyneux too! :)

 

 

Did it take long to create Populous: The Beginning? [TLW]Swords

Good question and one i’m not sure of – i’d guess three years but i wasn’t there from the beginning of the project (I was there for the final 18 months). I think the first six months were just a couple of programmers playing around with gameplay ideas (early prototyping).

 

 

What kind of AI scripting did you use? [TLW]Swords

It was completely proprietary. Nowadays companies use scripting languages like LUA etc – in those days it was something made by the programmers. I don’t even think there was a name for it – maybe PopScript? I can’t remember. It was pretty powerful though from memory – one of the testers from Populous:TB worked really hard after the game finished to learn the scripting language and became a level designer/scripter on the expansion disk and did some very cool things with the scripting language.

 

 

Was Populous meant to be a large-scale success such as other EA games, for example, Need for Speed? [AsG]Radiance

Yes :) I don’t think EA ever wants to create ‘mid-success’ titles – even when we were making Pop there was very much a feeling of “a game has to sell over a million copies otherwise it’s failed”.

 

 

Are there any projects planned for Populous, now that is has survived for almost 10 years? [AsG]Radiance

I’m not sure what you mean. Do you mean are there any plans to do any more Populous games? I guess i’ve answered this with question 1.

 

 

If you were to make another Populous, would you add more features (more troops and spells, etc.)? What would it be like? [Rw]Jops

Wow. I was part of the design team on Pop: TB but much of the cool design features were already in place when i joined the team – the design was very much a team effort so it would be difficult for me to answer this without having the design team to contribute their thoughts as well! That said i think we always thought some more troop types could be cool (but we also liked the simplicity of the variation we had) and also the idea of better landscape manipulation – the ability to really mold/raise/lower landscape, more powerful/visually impressive spells., better level editing tools, scripting tools etc. that could be made available to the community (the stuff you guys have done has been amazing and it’s a real shame we didn’t make Pop more accessible for modding), more multiplayer functionality – leagues etc, variations between the different colour tribes... etc!

 

 

Were there any big problems whilst making Populous 3? [Rw]Jops

Loads! Making a game is always an ongoing series of big problems! I think when Pop3 was started it was a DOS game. Then it transitioned to Windows. Then it needed to have Direct3D support (which it didn’t at first as it was software render). Lots of issues with trying to get all the features balanced and working right (a stable multiplayer during development helped a lot for this) and some pretty major features were removed in the final months as we just couldn’t get them working as we wanted them to (such as direct raising/lowering of land).

 

 

Are there any things you are disappointed by? [Rw]Jops

The success! Up until Pop:TB i always thought that i only cared about making a game that gamers liked and got good review scores as i’m a big gamer. This isn’t the case – it’s sad when you make something that you’re really proud of, that you think is really good, that reviewers are saying is really good... and then to see it be outsold by other games that were much worse (Gangsters springs to mind!). That continues to be my biggest disappointment – plus the fact that we didn’t have the time to add the tools for you guys to easily mod!

 

 

Will there ever be a Populous 5? Predator_Oreo

lol!

 

 

Which was intended to be the hardest level? Smowy

Phew! I can’t remember. I do remember that the final level of the game (the one where you ‘become a god’) was a late addition and was not meant to be the hardest – we just turned off the spell range and thought “this is really cool!”

 

 

Which tribe was supposed to be the strongest overall? Smowy

The four tribes are identical i think.

 

 

Which spell was supposed to be most powerful? Smowy

Phew! Depends on what sort of player you are. It’s a trade off i guess between mana cost and effect. Me i liked volcano :)

 

 

Did you realize that flatten is better than erode at submerging huts? Smowy

Lol – i don’t remember – is flatten more expensive than erode? I love the way that buildings fall into the water – does flatten do that as well?

 

 

Is there any particular reason blue didn't get it's own respective name?[AsG]Storm

Umm.. Good question. I think it was because this was the ‘players’ tribe. The name of the tribes (and the names of the Shamans) was a real last minute addition – we wanted to add a story with cutscenes etc. but it never really worked out properly so the story was always a bit weak.

 

 

One final comment from Stuart:

PHEW!

 

 

 

SECOND QUESTIONS (YEAR 2008)

 

 

 

 

Stuart, Populous the Beginning and Dungeon Keeper 2 were highly popular games. Why shut down the lobbies that hosted both populous (Shut down in January 2004) and Dungeon Keeper 2 (sometime last year?) Keith52

I guess it's inevitable that any free service has a limited shelf life. I think in the case of the Populous server there was some complaints made by users over other users and EA took the view that it was easier to close down the server than continue. Dungeon Keeper 2 i can't comment on - but again, it's not a surprise that games servers that are offered as free are eventually closed down - the running costs aren't free and when a game is no longer making money and the number of visitors has dropped right down then companies will close them.

 

 

Stuart, we are possibly containing some of the greatest gaming minds inside of our little populous community, and many would love a chance to develop the next Populous game, but the one thing that stands in our way is the source code. How on earth do you suggest we get something like that? Keith52

Lol! You'd have to get it out of Electronic Arts - which is very very unlikely unless they one day decide to open source their old games. Very very few companies do this - in part due to lawyers who are worried about legal issues arising out of people using internal code (ranging from illegal usage of open source through to dodgy commenting of code by programmers). Typically it's safer just not to release.

 

 

How much do you think Populous has progresses since Bullfrog has left?[GoD]khaos

Not sure what you mean by this question. Populous The Beginning (and the expansion) were the last games i'm aware that were released - we did start on a Pop4 at Bullfrog but unfortunatley the lack of breakthrough success of TB meant that it wasn't commercially viable :-( EA could potentially resurrect it again...

 

 

Were certain glitches / 'easter eggs' in the game intended to be exploited / taken advantage of - such as using 'g' / patrol fires to get followers around tricky paths, or using landbridge to freeze volcanoes in a high-object count game? If not, were you aware of any of this at all? Other examples include the ability to lay plans in world view, guard towers having extended range when the door faces the the front, and shamans casting spells mid-flight (after being blasted) for damage limitation. [AsG]Hundredth

patrol fires (with the 'n' key from memory) was very much by design and was for real advanced players. Landbridge to freeze volcanoes sounds like a bug that can be exploited. Lay plans in world view - at one point the entire game was playable in world view but i got it removed - primarily as i felt that real advanced players would only play the game in this view which rather defeated the object of the pretty graphics. Didn't know about the guard tower door thing - certainly the higher the guard tower was increased it's range and that was by design. Shamans casting spells mid flight we were aware of but we thought it was funny so kept it in.

 

 

If there was any new Populous project in development, would you be interested in helping with it? TedTycoon

Phew! Much as i'd love to work on another Populous game my time is fully spent working on projects at Lionhead - so i just don't feel i'd have the time to commit. Besides if i was to go back and work on one game again that i made it would be X-Com.

 

 

Why did EA stop supporting Populous: The Beginning although as we can see its still a very popular and often used game online? [GoD]Karakrot

I guess it's just inevitable that games stop being supported over a certain time unless they are still very popular. I know that you guys say it's still very popular now but a measure of popularity for a publisher is probably hundred fold the numbers that are playing it nowadays. I guess the support would have lasted longer if more people had bought the game but sales were never stellar compared to other RTS games like C&C.

 

 

Since EA made Populous 1 for the Nintendo DS, do you think there will be a chance that they will make a Populous 3 for the DS? Taity-mini

Dunno. That would be pretty cool though :-)

 

Would you know if there is a way to extend the maximum number of codes [4,095] in a script file? Danzence_DT

Sorry - no idea!

 

 

What features were removed from the final release of the game? Fredrick

Good question. Probably the two biggest features not to make it in the final game were dynamic wall building/landscape manipulation and an editor. The landscape stuff was really cool but the interface was just a little fiddly and the editor was just too much work in the time we had to finish the game.

 

 

What happened to the early promised features of walls and bridges? Were they just too complicated to integrate with the game or was there some other reason for their removal? IncaWarrior

See above response to Fredrick - we had them in and working - it was the interface side that was complicated (manipulating something in 3d with a 2d mousepointer is problematic!)

 

 

Was there a reason super warriors were renamed fire warriors? Smowy_DT

I can't really remember. I know we renamed them quite late in the development. It may have been purely

down to the fact that 'super warriors' inferred that they were the best unit... which is debatable :-)

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Does anyone from the Populous development team still play Populous [online or offline]? Nightmare

I don't know. I know i've tried a few times but getting it to work on Vista is quite problematic. I've dusted it off a few times over the years to play it though. I'm still a big gamer and love playing RTS / FPS / RPG games - it was a real honour to work with the Populous team and between us i think we're all very proud of the game we created.