Square Enix increasing its inhouse development team

[Lex]

I've seen one or two people claiming the full article has a note somewhere that its like, 8 positions they want to fill. So the word "Urgent" is more of a "We really want you guys, so hurry up and join before the position is filled."

Can anyone verify?

The bottom of the page has 7 links, each one apparently referring to the respective position they wish to fill in.

[Google Translate]

Wanted jobs

Planner
- FFVII REMAKE / Battle Planner
- FFVII REMAKE / Level Planner​

Designer
- FFVII REMAKE / BG Designer
- FFVII REMAKE / VFX Designer
- FFVII REMAKE / Motion Designer
- Mobius FF / 3DCG Designer (character)

Programmer
- FFVII REMAKE / Programmer​

Each article about the position they wish to fill in are what you would expect: Details on what the job will entail, tools involved, work conditions, employment type, skills they desire applicants to have etc.

Front-pageable, or perhaps we could update the article Tets put up?

 

[hian]

Along similar lines, do you think CC2's work is nearing completion on just Part 1 or more than that?

This is difficult to say because I don't know how they plan to structure the parts.
For all I know, they're making as many assets and systems as they can up front, so they can reel out the parts in short order by simply slapping the stuff together and tweaking it over at SE's studio.
It could also be that the parts will be really, really different in which case however work is progressing on part 1 might have little to no bearing on the progress of the latter parts (say, if part one is the primary story, part two is a prologue, and part three is an epilogue, and all parts feature somewhat different gameplay mechanics because they center around slightly different casts and tasks), which may mean that there will be an ongoing back and forth with CC2 for sometime.

As I've said before though, I do think there's a case to be made that they've worked up resources going pretty far forward based on the Movius collaboration, and now one of the primary heads of the Movius production is a part of the management team of the remake over at Business Division 1.
So, if the remake is just a chopped up version of the original game's story, then it's not inconceivable that they have progressed beyond part 1 in terms of asset production.

Take that as you may, the only thing I think we can bet a few dollars on is that CC2 has finished a decent amount of work on part 1, whatever that is, to warrant this move from SE.
There is little to no reason for Division 1 to hire programmers and 3D artists unless this is true, and I can't imagine these people are going to be starting from scratch, or that a team scrambled together at this point in time would be more cost and time efficient than continuing to rely on CC2's team.

It would seem that at least time has come to put in the polish on whatever CC2 etc. have prepared for the SE internal FFVIIR team.

That being said, there's some interesting info burried in the job listing.

The battle planner position talks specifically about designing gimmicks for the boss battles. Taken together with Nomura's talk about the Guard Scorpion encounter, it's obvious the remake is taking an approach of creating boss battles that are not merely centered around doing massive damage to a power HP sponge, as has been rutine in a lot of FF games over the years.
Rather bosses will likely function similarly to games like Zelda, Megaman, Dark Sould etc. with particular attack patterns, weakness and enviromental interactions that make each boss encounter feel distinct and memroable - at least that seems to be what they're aiming for.

The flip side of this, is that if they're hiring more people to do this now, it means that many boss encounters have not been properly planned nor integrated yet. How much of part 1 this applies to, if at all, is impossible to say.

Also, fun fact. I applied for the battle planner position, because why not? lol

 

[Tashasaurous]

Excuse my gullibleness, but what's CC2 short for?

 

[ChipNoir]

Excuse my gullibleness, but what's CC2 short for?

Cyber Connect 2 (Squared?). They're the game studio responsible for the Dot Hack series, which is well known for continuous gameplay progress carry-over across multiple installments within a very short amount of time. Its hard not to think that Square partnered with them to pull on that experience.

That aside, CC2 has also worked with Square in the past, G-Bike, a temple-run style game based around the motorcycle mini-game in the original VII. So that familiarity also likely encouraged them to hire them. They work fast, and their work is quality, and well received for the most part. Square has shown through XV that they aren't afraid to turn to other companies when it comes to learning how to do things they themselves have little to no experience with.

Its a notion a lot of people are overlooking. This game has two different powerhouses working on it. So obviously they have no lack for people working on it. So I'm inclined to think Hian's theory is the only thing that makes sense.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

CyberConnect2, the game company Square Enix is outsourcing some of the work on the remake to.

EDIT: Ninja'd.

 

[ChipNoir]

CyberConnect2, the game company Square Enix is outsourcing some of the work on the remake to.

EDIT: Ninja'd.

I am the terror that squeaks in the night.

 

[Tashasaurous]

Ah, right, right. Thanks for reminding me. I forgot about Cyber Connect 2.

 

[hian]

So, they're shifting to full in house development it would seem.

http://kotaku.com/square-enix-is-no...m_source=Kotaku_Twitter&utm_medium=Socialflow

 

[Claymore]

Oh dear.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I wonder if we'll get any information from CC2 about the shift at some point, since it seems like their end of things is wrapped up. Obviously contracts and NDAs and such still apply, but I'd expect to see people reaching out soon at least.





X

 

[Lex]

I don't imagine they're happy about it. There have been grumblings that Nomura has been unhappy with their work since the reveal trailer.

General internet sentiment seems to be "uh oh, we liked what we'd seen so far and that's probably because SE had relatively little to do with it".

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

That was pretty much my reaction, sad to say -- basically, that if Nomura and/or SE are complaining that what we've seen so far doesn't meet their "quality" standards, it's because they looked at it and said, "You have an actual playable game here instead of just mega-ultra-super-shiny rocks tech demos and trailers with mysterious-sounding, faux-poignant phrases floating across the screen? What do you think you're doing? You best polish that shit. I want those rocks so shiny I can see my face in 'em without even going into the game all '.hack' style."

 

[Tashasaurous]

That was pretty much my reaction, sad to say -- basically, that if Nomura and/or SE are complaining that what we've seen so far doesn't meet their "quality" standards, it's because they looked at it and said, "You have an actual playable game here instead of just mega-ultra-super-shiny rocks tech demos and trailers with mysterious-sounding, faux-poignant phrases floating across the screen? What do you think you're doing? You best polish that shit. I want those rocks so shiny I can see my face in 'em without even going into the game all '.hack' style."

I didn't like the reveal trailer myself either, so I can't blame Nomura or Square for that.

And also, I can't tell if you were being sarcastic or not, but....why would anyone want to see their reflections in rocks? No offence, but that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

I was referencing what is now an in-joke for the Final Fantasy fandom. During FFXIII's much-beleaguered development, there were graphic artists working on the game who were assigned to render a single rock for literally days at a time:

We remember the first time we had doubts that Final Fantasy XIII was not going to live up to its heritage. Speaking with a Square Enix artist who was proudly showing off her portfolio, we asked her if she was just as proud of her work on FFXIII. “Of course,” she said. So we asked what she’d been working on that day. She paused, “A rock. I’ve been working on a single rock that appears in only one scene, for three seconds, for the past three days.”

Before we could ask whether this was standard operating procedure, another Square Enix employee chimed in, “That’s how that team works, everybody spends a lot of their days polishing rocks.”

 

[Teioh]

I have never seen that FFXIII's rock talk! I thought you were referencing this one FFXV tweet which was asking for fans to send environment locations to put random rocks into the game

 

[Tashasaurous]

Never heard of that one before either. Seriously, I find that joke to be silly and not all that funny. But then again, my sense of humor is completely different.

 

[Obsidian Fire]

The joke depends on the listener knowing how 3-D modeling works. The more complicated an object is, the longer it takes to do the art for as it has more edges/polygons. And if it's something soft and non-metalic like skin, fabric, etc. then it takes even longer. And if it's on screen a lot of the time it's often viewed from a lot of different angles so a lot of testing has to be done.

Most rocks are stationary objects that are fairly uncomplicated as far as 3-D objects go. They don't have moving parts, and don't interact with the lighting set-up in any weird ways. And if something is only on screen for 3 seconds, then it's probably not viewed from a bunch of different angles.

So if the team is spending three days on a relatively uncomplicated object that's barely on-screen, how long are they taking on stuff like modeling the characters/monsters?

And how much time would they save if they didn't spend as long on things the audience only sees for short periods of time...

 

[Claymore]

I wonder if we'll get any information from CC2 about the shift at some point, since it seems like their end of things is wrapped up. Obviously contracts and NDAs and such still apply, but I'd expect to see people reaching out soon at least.

I don't imagine they're happy about it. There have been grumblings that Nomura has been unhappy with their work since the reveal trailer.

General internet sentiment seems to be "uh oh, we liked what we'd seen so far and that's probably because SE had relatively little to do with it".

I really hope we get to hear CC2's side of things. Even ignoring the 'quality and schedule' remarks, being taken off such a massive dream project ... that is going to be a fascinating read.

 

[Tashasaurous]

Now that I remember, the Original game was on three discs as well.

Heck, Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy IX were both on three discs.

The reason for this was because all three games were for PS1 back in the 90's.

That all stopped when FFX was released and developed.

 

[ChipNoir]

Now that I remember, the Original game was on three discs as well.

Heck, Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy IX were both on three discs.

The reason for this was because all three games were for PS1 back in the 90's.

That all stopped when FFX was released and developed.

Four.

 

[Tashasaurous]

Now that I remember, the Original game was on three discs as well.

Heck, Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy IX were both on three discs.

The reason for this was because all three games were for PS1 back in the 90's.

That all stopped when FFX was released and developed.

Four.

Okay, four for FFIX, but I do remember both FFVII and FFVIII having three discs.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I wonder if we'll get any information from CC2 about the shift at some point, since it seems like their end of things is wrapped up. Obviously contracts and NDAs and such still apply, but I'd expect to see people reaching out soon at least.

I don't imagine they're happy about it. There have been grumblings that Nomura has been unhappy with their work since the reveal trailer.

General internet sentiment seems to be "uh oh, we liked what we'd seen so far and that's probably because SE had relatively little to do with it".

I really hope we get to hear CC2's side of things. Even ignoring the 'quality and schedule' remarks, being taken off such a massive dream project ... that is going to be a fascinating read.

Especially after having done REALLY quality work with other IPs (.hack & Naruto) not to mention their previous work on G-Bike giving them FFVII-specific experience. I'm really curious what all comes of that, and I want to hear their side because they're easily one of my favourite game studios. I'm keeping eyes on Piroshi Matsuyama's Twitter just in case anything shows up.

Now that I remember, the Original game was on three discs as well.

Heck, Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy IX were both on three discs.

The reason for this was because all three games were for PS1 back in the 90's.

That all stopped when FFX was released and developed.

Four.

Okay, four for FFIX, but I do remember both FFVII and FFVIII having three discs.

I mean... FFVII technically has a fourth disc, but it's all extra fancy pants material.






X

 

[Shademp]

FFVIII having three discs.

Spoiler: Four discs

 

[X-SOLDIER]

I'm thinking about back in February when, "Nomura said that he wanted to show a video but the office disallowed it." and what all that had to do with where things are going now insofar as who felt what way about what had been done thus far.





X

 

[Tashasaurous]

Sorry, sorry. I thought FFVIII only had three discs like FFVII did.