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#46417
Originally there were to be 7 questions, one from each of you for Douglas to answer. He was able to get them back to me way quicker than I originally thought he would, so he offered to answer more quick questions. I sent him the rest of your questions, and he answered about 80% of them, leaving some "no idea" questions out. Maybe next time we should lay off of the beta questions. :P

Click here to visit the thread and read more!
#46418
As a small note, the questions were reworded slightly so that they made sense. I did my best to keep the essence of your questions.

Here's your questions, as answered by Douglas Kalberg!
Douglas Kalberg wrote:
max.thunder wrote:How much time did it take to develop the game?
Did the developers go on a trip to the actual cities to take pictures for textures?
1. The first game took just over two years, it was delayed by almost half a year, but the team knew long ahead that it was impossible with such a small team, even with lots of overtime throughout most of the development. The sequel was much faster thanks to the engine being mostly there and a much bigger team.

2. Yes, the leads went to the cities on Driver 1, on Driver 2 the team was bigger so the city leads all went to their respective city, I think the art director may have gone to all of them too.
Olanov wrote:Why was Los Angeles in Driver 1 only at night?
Did you visit any Police Departments or use an officer's help in the making of Driver 1 or 2?
Were there any type of vans, trucks, or buses considered for Driver 1?
1. I think it was to get some variation, in Driver 2 the night textures were based on the daytime textures, in LA/Driver 1 they were based on photos taken at night and would have been much harder to turn into daytime.

2. I doubt that they would have been very supportive, it was still a small budget compared to Hollywood films.

3. Not that I remember, no.
RacingFreak wrote:What tools were used for making textures?
What happened to the cars cut from Driver 2? (ex. sporty blue car in chicago)
Image
1. Photoshop, although we actually used some really old school Deluxe Paint tricks to do the colour cycling in the LA city on the PC.

2. Guess they didn't fit. :P
PostalDude wrote:Were peds that were able to be run over considered for Driver 1 or 2?
Were guns considered for Driver 2?
1. The team wanted to, but Martin Edmondson wanted it family friendly. It would have been tricky to make them spin, since the limbs were spritebased and would always face the camera.

2. Not to my knowledge, the series was supposed to be fairly nonviolent, hence the pedestrians diving out of the way.
Runo wrote:For Driver 2, was weather/time of day going to be added to Take a Ride? (ex. Dawn, Dusk, Rain, Snow)
No idea.
Dykemann wrote:Do you know if any other vehicles planned for Driver 2?
No.
Coyote wrote:What was the missile in Havana meant to be?
Image
No idea, I wasn't involved in that area.
Thanks Douglas! And thanks to all of those who submitted questions! Until next time...
#46442
Great interview, i wish that the devs weren't so tight lipped about their old projects (don't know if they still have non-disclosure agreements) . But i can't complain, CarLuver69 actually managed to get an interview with a game developer, which is not easy. Thanks for this.
#46443
max.thunder wrote:Great interview, i wish that the devs weren't so tight lipped about their old projects (don't know if they still have non-disclosure agreements) . But i can't complain, CarLuver69 actually managed to get an interview with a game developer, which is not easy. Thanks for this.
He wasn't really being tight lipped, just honest. There was a decently sized team working on Driver 2, and everyone had their own assignments to do. Paying attention to all of the beta stuff and every little minor detail in the game wasn't exactly a part of his job, LOL. None of these questions were answered in a "I cannot confirm or deny" type of way, if he knew any of the answers to it, he would've answered them. You're welcome :P
#46459
Unfortunately he didn't know every little detail about the game during development, after all his main priority was making textures for the game, not dropping in on the programmers and asking if time of day was planned or why grey cars aren't used, haha. I for one have realized beta questions just aren't always a good idea, whenever I do an interview next, it'll be less focused on beta questions and more rather of how game development went. Just keep that in mind.
Coyote wrote:Well, there's 4 questions in there that we already knew the answers, so that was kind of a waste :P But nice one.
4 answers to questions from an ex-Reflections employee who, in his personal time, answered 12/13 year old questions, is better than not having an interview at all. Nothing was a waste, hearing it straight from one of the people who made the games possible is always a special opportunity in itself. I don't interview people to leech as much beta information out of them as possible, that's not the point behind it. It's a learning experience, to get a feel for what it was like to work for Reflections back in the day, etc.
#46461
I think you missed the point, 2 of the questions that max.thunder asked for example were found in the Driver 1 & Driver 2 magazine scans that max.thunder posted himself :P Obviously not everyone has read them, so yes, it is a "waste" of questions somehow as other people asked interesting questions too, with the difference that we didn't know the answers already :P
#46467
A massive team of artists were scooped off their feet and taken over to the actual locations picked for the sequel. It was their task to absorb every little bit of the visual detail into their minds so that they could recreate it for our benefit.
Source
However, this wasn’t the only reason for Driver 2’s technical misgivings. “It was a very tight development time – the publisher wanted it within a year, so we had just over a year (I think it came out during the Thanksgiving period) so very little time.”
Source

LOL, :oops: , my bad. Now i remember that i've read this some time ago but i forgot. Next time i will pay more attention before doing the questions.

I wish he answered the question about Cuban Connection short film .
#46470
Well apparently there's more of it because those quotes are not the ones I was thinking of :P

Either way, those informations have been known for ages and have been given away countless times by the developers and various magazines already, including the man who created the series himself. A simple search often helps :lol:

But it's not so tragic!
Crazy Copper Frenzy

https://youtu.be/xAE3QsULyB4

https://youtu.be/AxdGf3F0yIg

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