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Nirolak · May 18, 2015

A lot of people were asking about this in the other thread and I remembered I forgot to post this interview back when it happened.

Capcom said:
- Tell us about the development structure.

Many of the management members, including me, belong to Consumer Games Development Division 2 Department 2, but for "deep down", with the project goal of fusing our technological strength in consumer games with our traditional know-how in the management of online games, we organized a team with no barriers between development and management. This is not just for "deep down", but the policy at Capcom for future development.

- What were some of the challenges to development?

We're still facing a ton of challenges (laughs). For starters, there's the whole process of developing games for the newest next-generation consoles. Every solution we came up with seemed to create more problems than it solved, so it has really been one step forward, two steps back the whole way. On top of all that, we had to tune up the servers for the online management aspects. We had a really hard time trying to develop a game that combined all the elements.

Source: http://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/interview/2014/vol03/index.html

Toki767 · May 18, 2015

The Monster Hunter Frontier team is doing Deep Down?

Psycho_Mantis · May 18, 2015

Are their problems and consequent solutions from a game design stand point or technical stand point? There getting help with the latter by SCE and still its like that?

DarkLordMalik · May 18, 2015

This is from 2014, no?

The part about online being a challenge is why I hate Deep Down. Why not just focus on creating a Single Player RPG. After all, even Witcher 3 and Bloodborne are hugely successful these days.

Relaxed Muscle · May 18, 2015

Nirolak said:
A lot of people were asking about this in the other thread and I remembered I forgot to post this interview back when it happened.

Source: http://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/interview/2014/vol03/index.html

with the project goal of fusing our technological strength in consumer games with our traditional know-how in the management of online games, we organized a team with no barriers between development and management. This is not just for "deep down", but the policy at Capcom for future development.

- What were some of the challenges to development?

We're still facing a ton of challenges (laughs). For starters, there's the whole process of developing games for the newest next-generation consoles. Every solution we came up with seemed to create more problems than it solved, so it has really been one step forward, two steps back the whole way. On top of all that, we had to tune up the servers for the online management aspects. We had a really hard time trying to develop a game that combined all the elements.

A bright future indeed.

You'll think that of all the japanese companies, Capcom would be the one to struggle less with next gen. Seems like they are suffering what the other did 8 years ago...

OnionPowder · May 18, 2015

DarkLordMalik said:
This is from 2014, no?

The part about online being a challenge is why I hate Deep Down. Why not just focus on creating a Single Player RPG. After all, even Witcher 3 and Bloodborne are hugely successful these days.

That's not enough money though. They need to pour millions into making games that suck the life out of their players every week with hats and other dumb free to play items.

Maggots · May 18, 2015

Id rather they made a new monster hunter

OnionPowder · May 18, 2015

Maggots said:
Id rather they made a new monster hunter

Didn't 4 come out like 3 months ago?

Chaos2Frozen · May 18, 2015

Maggots said:
Id rather they made a new monster hunter

They've just made one recently.

DarkLordMalik · May 18, 2015

Maggots said:
Id rather they made a new monster hunter

They are already making one likely for the next Nintendo handheld.

Callibretto · May 18, 2015

DarkLordMalik said:
This is from 2014, no?

The part about online being a challenge is why I hate Deep Down. Why not just focus on creating a Single Player RPG. After all, even Witcher 3 and Bloodborne are hugely successful these days.

they did make Dragon's Dogma. those are really big single player rpg by Capcom, cost a lot of money, got great reviews, I'm not sure if the game made it's money back.

Com_Raven · May 18, 2015

That seems like an unusual explanation. Why wold you say "hey, we have trouble doing things that lots of other developers are doing just fine"?

Bloodrage · May 18, 2015

Maggots said:
Id rather they made a new monster hunter

I know right? Because fuck new IPs.

Sephiroth_GR_ · May 18, 2015

Pantsu - Rei can't fit into PS4. It was meant for PS5. Years ahead....

Koh · May 18, 2015

Reading this interview didn't exactly inspire faith in deep down. Some of the answers sounded like this is a phone game made pretty and those core business priorities are defining the rest of the game.

The discussion of continued content immediately made me think of the Destiny character wheel, where you hurry up to the max only for that max to be invalidated by new content. (which might be from some other game, but Destiny is where i encountered it.)

Durante · May 18, 2015

Honestly, they should probably just license UE4.

(What happened to the company which created MT Framework?)

DarkLordMalik · May 18, 2015

Callibretto said:
they did make Dragon's Dogma. those are really big single player rpg by Capcom, cost a lot of money, got great reviews, I'm not sure if the game made it's money back.

The reviews exactly weren't what I consider "great" since it is currently 75 meta.

But it was well liked by the fans and became a cult hit. The problem was that they missed potential markets for it. A re-release on PS4/XBO and a PC port should have been no-brainer, but they haven't bothered yet. Instead they choose to make a DD online for PC/PS3/PS4? I mean seriously WTF =/

They are basically killing it before it even began.

Coulomb_Barrier · May 18, 2015

It's really frustrating what is happening with this game and also Planetside 2, the latter of which has had a release date on PS4 that has become so protracted that I wonder if anyone gives a shit anymore.

But for Deep Down it hasn't quite got to that stage yet.

Bronetta · May 18, 2015

All these development issues make me laugh because these publishers were fiending for new hardware not to mention that PS4 is supposedly very easy to develop for.

TheSpoiler · May 18, 2015

Making it a single player RPG isn't always a viable idea, especially with what the game is trying to achieve. Saying "morph this game into something I like" doesn't always work for the game's design.

DarkLordMalik said:
The reviews exactly weren't what I consider "great" since it is currently 75 meta.

But it was well liked by the fans and became a cult hit. The problem was that they missed potential markets for it. A re-release on PS4/XBO and a PC port should have been no-brainer, but they haven't bothered yet. Instead they choose to make a DD online for PC/PS3/PS4? I mean seriously WTF =/

They are basically killing it before it even began.

From what I understand, remastering DD would take a lot of effort. Something about the engine needing to be reworked? It was in a topic somewhere a few years back, basically noting how bad the FPS gets is because of some tech they put in. Getting DD to a stable 30FPS (or instead, 60FPS), updating the garbage textures, and reimplementing the Pawn system probably takes a lot of work.

Bronetta said:
All these development issues make me laugh because these publishers were fiending for new hardware not to mention that PS4 is supposedly very easy to develop for.

Very easy to develop for =/= development problems. The latter is vast and full of constant issues beyond the hardware it's on.

Jawmuncher · May 18, 2015

A part of me expects deep down to do nothing for them by the time it releases. The current gen output from JPN devs has been underwhelming compared to the same time frame last gen.

Acquiescence · May 18, 2015

Makes them look bad when From Software can announce a current gen-only game in June, and get it out in a finished state by March the following year.

Mets9 · May 18, 2015

It was the only game to make me think about getting a ps4.
Well, I think I can wait more.
If it ever goes outside Japan.

exmachina64 · May 18, 2015

Com_Raven said:
That seems like an unusual explanation. Why wold you say "hey, we have trouble doing things that lots of other developers are doing just fine"?

Because almost every other Japanese developer is going through the same struggles.

Xion_Stellar · May 18, 2015

exmachina64 said:
Because almost every other Japanese developer is going through the same struggles.

Yeah the same thing happened with the PS3 and Nintendo was going through the same thing with "HD Development" but now upon retrospect I have to ask Why?

Why do Japanese Developers have such a hard time adapting to new hardware or development tools? Do they not train their staff,hire new employees with the know how? Whatever happened to Software R&D? Do these companies not future proof themselves or it's too hard keeping up with Western Build Engines(Crytek,Unreal Engine,Unity etc)?

Evolved1 · May 18, 2015

I still believe this will be good.

bomblord1 · May 18, 2015

Xion_Stellar said:
Yeah the same thing happened with the PS3 and Nintendo was going through the same thing with "HD Development" but now upon retrospect I have to ask Why?

Why do Japanese Developers have such a hard time adapting to new hardware or development tools? Do they not train their staff,hire new employees with the know how? Whatever happened to Software R&D? Do these companies not future proof themselves or it's too hard keeping up with Western Build Engines(Crytek,Unreal Engine,Unity etc)?

If I had to take a shot in the dark. Most Japanese Dev's keep their engines in house and don't use standardized systems like their western counterparts.

EA for example has a few key engines that are used company wide they just take the engine and tweak it for their current project while Nintendo has no standardized engine and will build something for whatever game they are making while maybe using an old engine as a base.

Relaxed Muscle · May 18, 2015

exmachina64 said:
Because almost every other Japanese developer is going through the same struggles.

Konami already shipped a couple of games with their new propietary engine and has one major AAA game coming in the next months.

From Software released their first next gen already on their new focused next gen engine.

Namco switched to UE4 and they have already one game using the engine.

And SE?...well, is SE....

The rest of the companies don't care enough to put enough resources to create a dedicated propietary engine, and most of them just create upresed ports from PS3 games.

Meanwhile Capcom dosn't have a single Phanta Rai game out and we are in the second year of the gen. (Also their only other pure next gen game is using UE4).

Something went horribly wrong there.

Out of the majors Japanese companies, Capcom is one that has yet to release something on their new engine.

Newboi · May 18, 2015

I'm still hopeful for Deep Down as Capcom has poured too much time and money into it to just drop it at this point. I'm however not hopeful that it will show up at E3. Is it still a PS4 exclusive?

At this point, I wonder if the real culprit behind the issues with current-gen development (besides utterly ridiculous benchmark expectations for visuals and effects) is the CPU for these systems?

Sony and Microsoft's efforts to building "balanced" systems have definitely proved costly in the CPU department. The biggest issue with PS3 development was that the esoteric nature of the Cell forced devs to learn and work with a completely new programming paradigm that took years to wrap their collective heads around (along with the whole split memory pool issue). It looks like, for this generation, that underpowered CPUs have forced devs to learn a completely new programming paradigm once again with GPGPU computing to mitigate performance deficiencies with the CPU.

The industry mindset of "bigger, better, and more" has caused expectations of both customers and developers to massively outpace available hardware.Building these amazing engines that have to be massively scaled back, thus causing many games to suffer with being either: unfinished, underdeveloped, or bug ridden has been a real issue so far.

I think a game like Bloodborne has been the exception to the rule more so because it looks to have been made with reasonable expectations in the first place.

Dictator93 · May 18, 2015

Phanta rei is gorgeous, it is shame it will be gutted and destroyed probably in its transition to real console hardware.

Well...

Newboi · May 18, 2015

Dictator93 said:
Phanta rei is gorgeous, it is shame it will be gutted and destroyed probably in its transition to real console hardware.

Well...

Yup. The team aiming for 1080p was also crazy too. It looks like they were working for completely real-time dynamic lighting and advanced fluid mechanics for massive amounts of volumetric effects.

As much as Sony said they worked closely with developers and publishers, from Unreal Engine 4 to Phanta Rei, it looks like developers had no idea at how much less powerful the next-gen consoles would be then originally thought.

vpance · May 18, 2015

Relaxed Muscle said:
Out of the majors Japanese companies, Capcom is one that has yet to release something on their new engine.

It's definitely a curiosity. Last gen they came out of the gate pretty fast with Lost Planet, DMC4 and RE5 on MT Framework. Maybe they're being too ambitious with the physics simulation stuff.

thehillissilent · May 18, 2015

vpance said:
It's definitely a curiosity. Last gen they came out of the gate pretty fast with Lost Planet, DMC4 and RE5 on MT Framework. Maybe they're being too ambitious with the physics simulation stuff.

If I were Capcom, I would just go all in with Unreal Engine 4. They are already using it for SFV anyway.

Also, Deep Down uses procedurally generated dungeons which can be tricky to troubleshoot.

Xion_Stellar · May 18, 2015

thehillissilent said:
If I were Capcom, I would just go all in with Unreal Engine 4. They are already using it for SFV anyway.

Also, Deep Down uses procedurally generated dungeons which can be tricky to troubleshoot.

I agree with this because those that DO make their own tools don't make much use of them for example all of that R&D to make Crystal Tools just to end up using it only on 5 games? Square-Enix wtf is wring with you?

Considering Konami's current situation what else is going to end up using the Fox Engine beside MGS V?

Capcom still has not game out for the Panta Rei engine

It really seems easier to simply rent a 3rd party engine.

Evolved1 · May 18, 2015

Procedurally generated dungeons full of traps are going to be soooo fun. Man I hope they give us a date at E3.

EGM1966 · May 18, 2015

Hell I'd actually forgotten this game.

DonMigs85 · May 18, 2015

I bet they're trying to wrestle with those 6 damn Jaguar cores

thuway · May 18, 2015

Bronetta said:
All these development issues make me laugh because these publishers were fiending for new hardware not to mention that PS4 is supposedly very easy to develop for.

Makes you laugh :/? Damn.

This isn't a PS4 inherent problem, this is a Capcom/Japan issue. Capcom is a front runner in Japanese HD development, however, they are still truncated in comparison to their Western contemporaries.

I imagine the PS4/X1 PC like architecutre is helping Japan develop lateral streamlined code. In the long run it's for the best, but teething issues are expected.

DonMigs85 · May 18, 2015

thuway said:
Makes you laugh :/? Damn.

This isn't a PS4 inherent problem, this is a Capcom/Japan issue. Capcom is a front runner in Japanese HD development, however, they are still truncated in comparison to their Western contemporaries.

I imagine the PS4/X1 PC like architecutre is helping Japan develop lateral streamlined code. In the long run it's for the best, but teething issues are expected.

Also strange considering much of their arcade hardware has been x86-based for a while now and they've been doing pretty optimized PC ports for years.

NESpowerhouse · May 18, 2015

Xion_Stellar said:
Considering Konami's current situation what else is going to end up using the Fox Engine beside MGSV?

I want to say that PES has been using the Fox Engine for the past couple of years.

Sammy Samusu · May 18, 2015

Toki767 said:
The Monster Hunter Frontier team is doing Deep Down?

Capcom Online is the studio behind both games, so yes.

Zuhzuhzombie!! · May 18, 2015

bomblord1 said:
If I had to take a shot in the dark. Most Japanese Dev's keep their engines in house and don't use standardized systems like their western counterparts.

EA for example has a few key engines that are used company wide they just take the engine and tweak it for their current project while Nintendo has no standardized engine and will build something for whatever game they are making while maybe using an old engine as a base.

That, and with regards to the post you're responding to, EA has had a fucking hell of a time getting Frostbite to not suck tremendous ass.

1.21Gigawatts · May 18, 2015

I would love to hear more about this game. It seemed to be pretty far in development at TGS 2013, it was playable there, then it disappeared.

I thought it looked pretty impressive at TGS:

WolvenOne · May 18, 2015

Xion_Stellar said:
Yeah the same thing happened with the PS3 and Nintendo was going through the same thing with "HD Development" but now upon retrospect I have to ask Why?

Why do Japanese Developers have such a hard time adapting to new hardware or development tools? Do they not train their staff,hire new employees with the know how? Whatever happened to Software R&D? Do these companies not future proof themselves or it's too hard keeping up with Western Build Engines(Crytek,Unreal Engine,Unity etc)?

Japanese developers have a bad habit of building whole new engines with each game, this was the big issue that most Japanese developers had going into the PS360 era, it just wasn't very practical anymore.

Capcom at least had a common engine they used for a lot of different games, however it appears that either said engine isn't upgrading very well, or the new next gen engine is taking more work then they thought.

I might add that From Software isn't having this problem, as they got into the habit of using a lot of pre-fabbed Middleware during the last software generation. As such, their development pipeline is a lot more similar to a western developers than many other Japanese developers.

PS: On this subject, this is the reason why the supposed complaints Konami executives have had concerning the Fox Engine strike me as insincere. Yes, the engine cost a lot, but now that it's completed it could be used over and over again for any game Konami might have decided to make.

The only way it wasn't going to make back the money invested in it, is if Konami decided to get out of the console/PC game industry altogether. Which of course appears to be what they've decided on.

L Thammy · May 18, 2015

Koh said:
Reading this interview didn't exactly inspire faith in deep down. Some of the answers sounded like this is a phone game made pretty and those core business priorities are defining the rest of the game.

The discussion of continued content immediately made me think of the Destiny character wheel, where you hurry up to the max only for that max to be invalidated by new content. (which might be from some other game, but Destiny is where i encountered it.)

Just going to leave this here:

Mugaaz said:
The cash shop shit in Frontier is also completely fucking insane. I COULDNT IMAGINE what it would be like if the game was also F2P. Which everyone here seems to want? I know it would change if brought West, but the cash shop stuff is just so crazy. Im pretty tolerant of IAP stuff and not a guy who yells P2W every time a game sells skins, but holy shit lol. The stuff you can buy with real money in frontier is insane.

Here's some examples of the cash shop in Frontier

Hunter's Course: $14/30 days. Required to do anything relevant in the game. Without it you can't gain exp or fight much of anything except Kut-ku.

Extra Course: $6/30 days. Gives you access to boxes in town (otherwise need to go into private area, PITA), ability to buy additional items (honey, traps, mats for meals, etc), and gathering missions where you can gather 14-16 times per node instead of normal 4-6.

Premium Course: $10/72 hours. Gives you 200% exp, access to premium quests that gives 200-500k z.

Assist Course: $10/72 hours. Gives you a demigod AI partner that uses drinks on you, heals you, plays flutes, deal absolutely crazy damage, can't die, and wake syou up from dizzy/sleep/etc.

BoS Course: $10/72 hours. Gives you another 200% bonus exp, and extra books of secrets for when you are grinding Style Rank. (Another leveling system for each specific weapon that begins at HR 500 and limits the rarity of equipment you can use on quest, gradually being removed as you level up. In return you get some additional moves for each weapon. SR carves are required for high end gear)

Forward Course: $30/72 hours. Lowers damage you take by 60-70%, gives you a 25% damage boost, gives you an extra carve off everything

Cash Shop Armor/weapon sets: $25-30. These are usually around 95% as good as normal armor, but about 100000x easier to upgrade. When you see people in various anime outfits or using weird looking stuff its from here.

Armor/Weapon "Booster Packs": Same as the sets, except you get random tickets for various items int he set, and you need several of each ticket to make / upgrade.

III-V · May 18, 2015

My expectations just keep dropping overtime I hear news of Deep Down.

SmartWaffles · May 18, 2015

So they basically admits it is in development hell now?

ChosenPredator · May 18, 2015

should of just went all in with dragon dogma 2 cut deep down cut dragon dogma Online..and go full throttle with DD2

Devilgunman · May 18, 2015

On top of all that, we had to tune up the servers for the online management aspects. We had a really hard time trying to develop a game that combined all the elements.

How about make it and off-line game instead?

John Bender · May 18, 2015

Hm, interesting.
Still, if it's a F2P online-game in the end = No buy!

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Deep Down's development issues explained

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Ask me about the moon landing or the temperature at which jet fuel burns. You may be surprised at what you learn.

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People should stop referencing data that makes me feel uncomfortable because games get ported to platforms I don't like

make sure the pudding isn't too soggy but that just ruins everything

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People should stop referencing data that makes me feel uncomfortable because games get ported to platforms I don't like

make sure the pudding isn't too soggy but that just ruins everything

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Perhaps he's wondering why someone would shoot a man before throwing him out of a plane.

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