Greetings from Westfaliah!

Grim Dawn Development Updates
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Hello Grim Dawn fans and supporters!

My name is Brian Stephens (Westfaliah) and I’ve just joined the ranks of the development team here at Crate. Though I’m new to the Crate team, I’ve worked on this tech before, now several years ago at Iron Lore on Titan Quest. I’ll be working on multiplayer and gameplay features, and I suppose anything else needed to get this game done and into your hands.

Most recently I worked at Harmonix helping fill living rooms everywhere with plastic guitars and drums and worked on most of the multiplayer and network features (leaderboards, battle of the bands, challenges, etc.), of the Rock Band and Dance Central franchises.

Before that, I came to Iron Lore near the end of the development of Titan Quest where I added low-level network optimizations and worked on UI elements including loading screens, HUD systems, skill trees, PvP scoreboards, achievement systems, and enhancements to the multiplayer lobby including a 3D character inspector for examining players in a multiplayer game, their equipment, and their weapons. And let’s not forget the time spent working on “Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Soulstorm” - a game title with a big number, a comma, a colon, and a dash.

Previous to Iron Lore, I worked on Empire Earth (also with Arthur Bruno), working on the multiplayer engine used in all Stainless Steel Studios titles, the sound engine, scripted physics, and numerous gameplay elements.

I’ve always loved aRPGs and that was a big part of what attracted to me first to Iron Lore and now to Crate. Both had great teams full of awesome and talented folks and I’m psyched to get started.

Also, I’d like to thank all of you for your support of Grim Dawn. When it’s said that this game couldn’t be made without you, it’s really the truth.

-Brian

P.S. Our next dev update is coming up on 02/03/14!

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Welcome! Grim Dawn will be more awesome!

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Welcome to Grim Dawn team!I m glad to hear that other person is joining the team really.and about Grim Dawn the game is going really perfect for me,(most people say that Diablo 2 kill him but for the game almost kill me was Titan Quest)and now-Grim Dawn really happy to have this game.

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Thanks for the intro. Some of us are quite excited by what you will bring to the game, let me assure you. :stuck_out_tongue:

I provide you here a link to an old thread that is (hopefully) going to fall on your todo list.

http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6616

Best of luck to ya

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  • adding visible dps to all abilities, not just melee attacks… Want to be able to see my blackwater cocktail dps on tooltip please!

Just a more comprehensive and in-depth breakdown of stats in the character sheets overall… A little more true explanation of what your offensive/defensive ability and statistics are REALLY adding to your character.

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Thanks for the scare, those where a few tense moments until I realized you meant 03/02/2014 :stuck_out_tongue:

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Greetings once again Westfaliah! (This time on your own dedicated thread :p) I believe jiaco summed it up the best by saying some of us are quite excited to see what having you on the team will bring to the table. :wink: And as I said on the thread that first mentioned your joining the team, anyone who worked on Empire Earth is a legend of the game developing industry, so count me among one of your fans already! :smiley:
Hope you have a great time working at Crate, and I look forward to seeing your work in action with the upcoming Beta release. :wink:
Welcome aboard!
Younghappy :slight_smile:

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Cool cool. Welcome here, good to see more devs joining on :smiley:

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I’m happy to read that, Grim Dawn needs you;)

Wish you best guys.

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Welcome! Glad to see more members joining the team, and from a couple of my favorite games (Titan Quest and Empire Earth)! Can’t wait to see what you do with Grim Dawn. :wink:

Soul

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awesome! hope this game is a big success. it certainly is fantastic for what is already available.

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welcome aboard brian!!!
glad to have another well experienced member on the already awesome dev. team! :slight_smile:

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Here is an interesting multiplayer feature for your to-do list. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Welcome yet again.

So no Grim Misadventures?

Ah well.

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At first I had my reservations about what it takes in general to tackle multiplayer development, but after seeing the picture of Westfaliah’s old car, all bad thoughts went away. If a man can make do with 4 gears + reverse, on a rear wheel drive rear engine car, he’s as close to the metal as it gets.:smiley:

I just hope you don’t have a knack for hero monster design. I mean between Zantai’s 360 degree projectile spammers and Medierra’s on death kamikazes, things are getting hairy.:smiley:

Looking forward to seeing your work in-game!

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Nice cred’s Brian. I have played many of the games you worked on. I still play Rockband (it’s so freakin’ addictive).

Multiplayer is the feature I have been most looking forward to. Look forward to seeing your work, GD is in good hands.

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Can I use this to already ask for a feature? :smiley:

Is it possible to make a ingame chat channel that connects to anyone else that has Grim Dawn running (both singleplayer and multiplayer) and has allowed this chat to connect to other players (so it would be optional for each player)?
Maybe having it running with some free chat servers or something in the background but all messages are seen inside the game in a UI?

It would be best of both world, let us have a single player environment with 0 lag and delay but still let us chat with all people playing GD at the same time.

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This.

Would love to have an in-game community feel rather than it just being confined to the forums. Would also help leaps and bounds with things like trading and setting up parties, whilst still being able to play simultaneously.

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Chat channel you mean a spam bot channel :stuck_out_tongue:
maybe wait until the development is further along? i’m just saying because they need to moderate those things which is a waste of resources currently i would say.

Also so impressed, Warhammer 40K the Original and Soulstorm was also a highly credited game, Titan Quest and Empire Earth, that’s some serious work to be proud of. It’s great that our faith in the game keeps getting reaffirmed by the dev team :smiley:

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Didn’t we already welcomed you? :stuck_out_tongue:

I am joking of course. Its good to hear you’re onboard, bringing your specialty on the table, to make one of our favourite games even better.