Ask Eric

[Evan C.]

Thanks a lot Eric,you are a great person
My best wishes,seriously.

[coolezpunk]

Originally Posted by Squamula

Anarae: I really can't say what future stories will bring, or what "book" they will come from, not only because it would be telling secrets, but I just don't know.

OK, well, I guess the answers still remain a mystery..

Originally Posted by Squamula

Awestruck: changing the braide to a ponytail was a style decision in Legend that I wasn't a part of and also didn't understand, but I didn't feel the same attachment many of you did. It was also believed that the braid would not behave properly with the new level of realism and outr physics and collision, I recall. Same on Underworld, and we had established the pony tail. I don't know if people will like or hate me for this, but I specifically made sure that the doppelganger had a braid as a nod to this debate among the fans. That and a way of saying that the ponytail was not a reinvention, because the doppleganger having a braid means that Lara still had one at the time the Doppleganger for imaged from Lara during the events of TR1.

Very interesting. And I LOVE the Doppelganger, and how she had a braid. And that was your doing, for reasonable reasons. Thanks for that!

Originally Posted by Squamula

croft94: "Epic Lindstrom" always made me laugh. It also reminded me of how we had a sign up that read "Epic Exploration Puzzles!" on the wall, and my Lead Level Designer KLyle Mannerberg used a ball point pen to change the "Epic" into "Eric" shortly before he died. The word Epic means everything to me that it means to you and more so because of it's association with Kyle, who we still dearly miss.

I'm glad you have sense of humour for these little 'epic' jokes.

And I'm sorry for Mr. Mannerberg. I'm sure he played a great role, not only in the game, but also in your friendship with him.

Originally Posted by Squamula

amiro1989: Can't talk about the future, but here's a polarizing comment...I never liked Kurtis. Don't hate him, either, just didn't see the need or value in him. To those who like him, I'm glad you got something you cherish. Will he ever come back in the future? Who knows? I don't.

Hm, thanks for clarifying that. I'm a Kurtis fan myself, and I believe he did have a value, since his role in AoD was really significant.

Thanks for being honest on your opinions toward him. And for now, it seems the whole AoD trilogy still remains a mystery.

Oh, and you don't need to reply back to these comments, Mr. Lindstrom. Just in case you didn't know.

[larafan25]

2009 Has started out.....not BAD but very...weird

I want to hope that these things will get better but I don't want to disapoint myself or anything like that.

I hope the former crystal workers get jobs and make a great game that they love and enjoy working on

And I hope for a tomb raider game that will be real;

[amiro1989]

Thank you Eric. I'm happy you answered my post, I'll figure out more questions for you soon. Thanks again. I'm sorry once again, for your loss, and say "Hi" to that kitty of yours for me .

[Chris.Talg0]

thanks for the reply eric!!!

[WSOwen02]

Would you consider starting a blog? I know I, as would I'm sure many fans, would be interested in knowing what you are up to and where you go moving forward. I loved your work on Tomb Raider and would be interested in following your next project.

[MMAN]

You were pretty much the last person you'd expect to have been fired, and it's also all the proof I need that Eidos have completely gone off the deep end; while I changed my mind in agreeing with a couple of things you said during development of Underworld in hindsight after playing the game, you seemed one of the developers who really seemed to "get it" overall.

1: Maybe this overlaps with a "future story" thing but I'm really curious about the overall attitudes towards the locations overall; some of the concept art (including some from Legend days) showed locations that looked much more ambitious in theme and style than anything in the game, as an example, here's exhibit A:
Of course there's mention of concepts being chucked away and stuff, but this is the kind of stuff that surely must have someone on the team going "we can really do something with this", and I'm wondering whether things like that are quashed because of Eidos time constraints (preventing truly ambitious and out-there level design concepts from being designed and tested), that places like that don't fit the story, or some sort of overall fear of straying from more familiar themes?

2: That leads on to the overall portrayal of mythology in Underworld; were plans for the Underworlds much more ambitious at first and had to be cut down, or was a "down to earth" (sort of) portrayal of the Underworlds intended from the start?

3: I'm not sure whether you had a part in this but I'm kind of interested in Natla's personality change in Anniversary; the original Natla was obviously evil, yet also seemed to have a certain twisted selflessness (almost naivety) to her motivations and spoke more of her brood than herself. Yet in Anniversary and Underworld she's undistilled super***** and ME ME ME.

Maybe it wasn't really intended at all but I see what I listed above about the original Natla every time I watch the cutscene at the top of Atlantis, and if TR1 was studied a lot I'm sure at least someone must have got an interpretation of Natla like I did, which makes me curious of what thought went into the "new" Natla (especially as I frankly found the interpretation I got of the original one a far more interesting character concept, and since depth was added to every other character in Anniversary it seemed odd to me to have Natla go backwards).

4: How late was the no bossfights thing established? I don't mind it and think it's probably a good idea, but the storyline seemed to bias things towards multiple boss set-ups, ESPECIALLY the Doppleganger. Which makes me wonder how she came in to things; considering Toby allegedly had the idea for years was there a sort of "my baby needs to be in this game!" attitude that lead to her addition (or prevented her subtraction) even if/when it didn't really fit the gameplay ideas?

[danny.rex]

I have one last question Eric, it's about the DLC, but different to previous questions

I think I heard somewhere that you were part of the team working on the DLC, were you? and if yes, did you finished before getting fired?

Thanks a lot for your time

[aussie500]

l also have another question which probably only Colin O'Malley or Troels Folmann could answer but l will ask it anyway. Why is it the music we all thought was called Deep Sea Encounter, plays in the Manor? Was it originally going to play elsewhere, and where would that have been, the Arctic Sea perhaps.

[Squamula]

Let me preface this post by saying that I'm typing madly to answer as many questions as I can before I go to bed, so I'm concentrating on the actual questions in each post...but I VERY MUCH appreciate the kind words of support that I'm reading. I just don't have the time to type individual thank yous as I go and get the questions answered. But thank you thank you for the good thoughts!

Here's more:

pizzabob18: the Arctic levels were inspired by various photos of the area, and not any real place. We really took liberties with Jan Mayen Island...

larafan25: I already explained about replay cinematic... I don't know what you mean about outfits selection...what's your question? And as for level replay, ugh! You all know (I hope) by now that the 360 works in such a way that you get something BETTER than level replay, you have Chapter Replay (via the autosaves) which gives you more options than just level replay. This was supposed to be how the PS3 and PC worked as well, and the reason they don't is just a mistake. I even told Keir somewhat impatiently (sorry Keir!) that people were complaining needlessly and I didn't understand why people were confused, but it was me who was confused becsause I didn't know the autosaves were done incorrectly for PS# and PC. All I can say is that I'm sorry, and I truly am. The lack of functionality this represents is a pet peeve of mine when playing other games, and I hate that we shipped PS# and PC this way.

gtkilla: I can't really talk about storyline stuff that was discussed before settling on what we finally used because other things that we talked about might still get used. We talked about Tihocan, and he didn't make it into Underworld, and he might never appear again, but then again, he might.

larafan25: the relationship between the three games is a bit quirky, with Underworld being a sequel of Legend but Anniversary being in between them...I'll explain more when I come back to story.

MattTR: I'll talk about how Aniversary fits into the trilogy later...I don't quite get what you mean in your second question, though...but if I understand it correctly, the DLC deal with Microsoft was as you understand it, and not more than that.

Isaac: If I understand your question correctly, no, we never intended there to be a Croft Manor hub in Underworld. I knew from early on that the game was going to start with a flash forward of Croft Manor exploding, and that made the Croft Manor hub to complicated to deal with. But the reason we started talking about Lara having three manors back in Legend was for this eventuality. Anbd I will be posting for awhile, but probably not permanently. I want to answer questions for the past five years, but as I will not be in the loop for future titles (or if I am, I will be unable to discuss it) I won't have anything new to say. So I'll stay until the questions run out, and then see you when the next game comes out!

Carbonek 0051: No cheats in Underworld because even cheats take development time, and it was clear in the final months that we needed to spend all out time on the up front game. We had some pretty cool things we could see, but couldn't afford even a half-day to put them in. I hesitate to say this because people will be jealous, but one of our animatorss put different models on Lara's rig and it was hilarious! He put the Med Sea shark on Lara's rig, so you could play the game in what looked like lara wearing a shark costume. He also made one that was tomatoes, a big one for a body and a small one each for lara's arms and legs. God, we wanted to put that on the disk, but couldn't.

Tomb raiderx08: They let me go because they had too many captains for the number of ships...it's like musical chairs and when the music stopped all the seats were taken. and as for the future of CD and Eidos, not only do I not know, nobody knows.

Awestruck: If CD got bought and they asked me back, would I go? Depends. I like to work with people I know and trust, and if that's who's doing the asking, I would consider it, of course!

Eddie Haskell: If I knew the sales figures Eidos wanted, such that the layoff wouldn't have happened, I couldn't say, but I don't really know their hole card. (Sorry for all the lame cliches...it comes from typing so fast...) Clearly it was higher than 1.5 million!

Anarae: As to the AoD storyline, from what I heard, even Core Design only had a few notes as to where they were going to go with it, and we of course saw none of that. Obviously I can not say what storylines will pursued in the future, but in all honesty, when i was in charge of the Tomb Raider storyline, I wasn't interested in the AoD thread, personally. I didn't care for it when I played AoD, didn't really get it, and to pursue it I would have had to make up a bunch of stuff about what it all meant and what the Cheribum's were and all that. And it was all too mystical for me. I don't believe there is true magic in TR, just stuff that Atlantean tech can do that we don't yet understand...and I didn't get enough of what the real truth behind the myths of AoD was to interest me. There, I've said too much...

MattTR: No, The doppelganger wasn't meant to echo AoD jeans-wearing Lara in any way.

Awestruck: I've said Multiplayer has always come up and we do diligent work on how to do it properly for Tomb Raider, and this is true. It's just really hard, technically, creatively, and for Lara Croft. Maybe someday.

larafan25: Ah, you're being clever, but no, I can't say how Underworld has changed lara because only the future can say. As for the female friendly makeover, huh...I don't know where that came from. I feel that even though Lara has attributes that appeal to males, the games doesn't pander to a male audience. Look at all the other games out there with female heroes, and look at their bustlines and what they are (barely) wearing. My Lead Designer Harley (a woman) agrees that Tomb Raider is not a gender specific game, and research shows that it appeals to female gamers very well.

MyRaider4Life: Ah, I get you now. The footage you're seeing that didn't come from the game came from prototype test levels where we were proving out game concepts. We had the same thing in early Underworld, which never saw the light of way. In fact, I designed the test level for Underworld in such a nonesense way as to PREVENT footage being used for promotion, because I knew it would lead to rumors of lost cut levels or locations. Heh.

Dingaling: The decision to sign Keeley Hawes as Lara's voice was a group decision: me, Toby, and key producers. She was the clear winner at the time, in my opinion, and I've never felt otherwise since. If I could go back and change one decision, it would be to parcel my schedule differently to have a larger slice of polish time after Beta. That would have been the biggest win, I'm sure most of you would agree.

Blowy: Yes, the Artic levels were less integrated than the other areas, for a lot of little reasons. But partly this was the nature of puzzles. What was trivially easy to you, we had plenty of Beta testers find quite challenging. Some knids of puzzles have a much wider spread of how difficult players find them, and when we ran into these, the puzzles did simplify somewhat.

Tha_mattster: ah, a fresh topic. We were trying to smooth out the animation and control response toward the end of the game, and in this effort, some of the transitions suffered -- in the attempt to make her more responsive, which is always the trade-off -- and she got a little snappy. With more time we would have gone back and forth more on this, but ultimately decided to err on the side of control over perfect fluidity, because people would complain more loudly if they had a smooth lara that wasn't responsive enough. As for cut scene length, some of those earlier games had scenes that were wuite long, in terms of number of seconds. It's a next-gen issue because it isn't actors walking around on a set...every frame of the cut scene is built manually, and every second longer the cut scene lasts is a lot more work to do. It's as simple as that. I'll talk about the lara personality issues when I come back to story.

coolezpunk: everybody (well, lots of people) want me to say "Natla is dead finally and never coming back!" And the reason I can't say that is because I am benig honest and practical. Let's say I believed that Natla was dead and never coming back, and that everyone at Eidos and Crystal believed that, too. Fast forward 3 years and a new team can assemble and start making a new TR game, and they might say, "Hey, let's bring Natla back!" They come up with some reason why her death wasn't permanent, and off we go again! I'm not saying Natla is dead, not because I know of future plans, it's because people in the future can do whatever they want, and who knows now what they will do?

ThatNorseChick: Why did I say Epic so much? Because, unlike so many other things I said, there are few synonyms for EPIC. But also, I would talk to journalists one day, and then two dozen of them would print stories and interviews for weeks after that, repeating what I said in a demo over and over. I actually said EPIC less times than you heard it...the media just kept repeating what I said.

jeffery_van_oort: Will Eidos ever sell The Tomb Raider license? Only the future knows.