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09.09.2010 20:03
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PTERODON - Behind the Scenes

Chapter 3 - Red Sky in a Blue Dawn
Written by Christian Konieczka

With the eminent release of Vietcong Red Dawn, a long anticipation and many speculations from both the Vietcong community and the PTERODON team have ended. The latest title in the Vietcong franchise was in development longer than expected, and what you are about to read is the development journal for the recently released addition to the Vietcong franchise, Vietcong Red Dawn.

"We actually started working on the free add-on without knowing it" says Christian Konieczka, and continues, "While working on Vietcong, our level artists worked for three months on a single player mission called "Ricefields", which is now featured in the add-on. However, Jarek Kolar, in particular, our team leader, did not feel that the graphical and gameplay aspects of the mission fitted into the original game. Therefore, we decided to include it in Vietcong Red Dawn when this project was announced internally back in April 2004".

As we had started to work on Vietcong 2, mission programmers, Jirka "Max" Pecher and Honza Korinek, who were just hired, needed to practice their scripting skills before the actual scripting work on Vietcong 2 began. Therefore, we decided that they would work on some test missions. Because our artists were already busy working on Vietcong 2, we had to recycle some of the missions from the original game. The idea to create a completely new add-on came from our lead multiplayer designer, Lubomir "Azael" Dykast. The planning stages had begun, and it was decided that the add-on's main focus should be a multiplayer COOP campaign, along with a single player mission, which only needed some enhancements. Work had started, and the team was optimistic. Most of the multiplayer maps were already created during the development of the original Vietcong, and only needed to be converted into the multiplayer mode of the game. For fans of the CTF game type, we decided to create the biggest multiplayer map in Vietcong's history. Entitled "BridgeCountry", we put together different multiplayer maps and combined them in one, along with more hiding places and action spots. The work on the "BridgeCountry" multiplayer map already started during the development of Vietcong Fist Alpha. However, the multiplayer map was too big to be finished on time to be present in the add-on. While creating Vietcong Red Dawn, we prepared fifty screenshots together with a trailer showing the game and its new features.

During the summer of that same year, we were nearly finished with the project and decided to start an intensive testing of the add-on. Vietcong Red Dawn was sent to the testing department of Take-Two Interactive, but also to external beta testers that had volunteered. Due to "BridgeCountry" that needed many players, we arranged test sessions with Illusion Softworks, Take-Two Interactive, and ourselves, PTERODON employees, together with external beta testers, which had been elected because of an advertisement stating that we were searching volunteering beta testers at our web site. However, most of our external beta testers had already tested patches and multiplayer maps for Vietcong in the past, and were considered to be trusted.

On the 29th of July 2004, the first of many beta tests was commenced, and tens of beta testers started to download the first beta version of Vietcong Red Dawn. Soon after, the planned test sessions began, where employees from Illusion Softworks, Take-Two Interactive, and PTERODON joined to help finding problems related to the product. After the beta test, the external beta testers were keen to submit their comments and findings for the add-on, which had proved to be a success. While the first beta version of Vietcong Red Dawn contained serious amounts of problems, we knew that it would soon be released to the public, and we were excited to see it on diverse web sites. Take-Two Interactive also informed us about their marketing plan, which involved sending the free add-on to gaming magazines throughout selected countries, and made us work even harder on finishing the project. As weeks went by, the second and last public beta version was prepared and contained tons of bug corrections. In addition, it was immediately sent to our beta testers, with a message describing the last test session that would involve intensive testing of the product. Despite the low numbers of participants for this, we managed to receive a few reports of minor bugs, and corrected them soon after.

The hard work and the intensive beta tests had ended. Vietcong Red Dawn was sent to our publisher, Take-Two Interactive, to have a look at the latest version of the game, which was reported to contain no bugs. We thereafter waited for a response for a specific release date, which was revealed to be released shortly after as a Christmas gift for all Vietcong fans. The advertisement material that was prepared earlier was ready to be shown to the public, and we silently awaited the announcement of the add-on, while knowing that hundreds of fans were starting to lose their enthusiasm about the game. Several well-trusted community members were granted permission to start small rumours about the add-on, which, while not official, started massive discussions at our forum. It was hard to wait with telling anything for such a long time, especially while seeing the community split up from one day to the other. However, Take-Two Interactive promised to do something about the hard times very soon.

The one-year anniversary of our web site had passed, along with the promised release of Vietcong Red Dawn in the Christmas season. Rumours had also started that not only had Vietcong Red Dawn been cancelled, but that we also had stopped the development of Vietcong 2. We wished to inform the community of what the hard times were caused by; that we, by all means, did not wish to abandon the Vietcong franchise, and that we had thrown neither Vietcong Red Dawn nor Vietcong 2 into the trashcan. Therefore, Jarek Kolar started to work on a new series of articles in form of a diary that explained what was happening internally. The first chapter described a secret project entitled "Vietcong Blue Dusk", which instantly informed the community that Vietcong was still alive, and that a free add-on would soon be released. The hard times were almost over.

On the 17th of March 2005, Vietcong Red Dawn was released on a DVD disc in a computer magazine from the United Kingdom. While an announcement of the add-on was avoided, we instantly wished to let the community know of the release of the add-on and announced it at our official web site. We explained about the new features, released nine of the fifty screenshots and a video showing the add-on, and announced an official release date for when people would be able to download the add-on from the Internet. It was a great day for everyone at PTERODON, but the fun was just about to start. Only a few days later, Vietcong Red Dawn became available on many game related web sites before the official release date, and fans of Vietcong had finally received the opportunity to play the much-anticipated add-on.

On the 25th of March 2005, we had started to upload Vietcong Red Dawn to the Internet, and we prepared the release text and picture. Everyone was eager to see the community's reaction, and later that day in the evening it was official; Vietcong Red Dawn was officially released and publicly available for free download at the download section at our web site. With its new COOP campaign, single player mission, theme music, and multiplayer maps, we wished to thank everyone from the community for their endless support. Despite the few months of pessimism from some people, it was all over, and our gift was released. That same day, a new Vietcong fan site arranged a release party, which would take place in the "BridgeCountry" multiplayer map with members from the community and a PTERODON employee. The comments were overwhelming, and after months of anticipation, we were allowed to speak about the add-on and play it together with our fans. It was a great day indeed.

Days after the release, we received hundreds of positive e-mails, and read thousands of both positive and slightly negative messages at our forum. Because of the happy circumstances, both Jarek Kolar and I, Christian Konieczka, replied a few messages to show our gratitude for the end of a long expectancy. Vietcong Red Dawn was released, and so were months of silence from PTERODON and much pessimism from the community.

Today, we are experiencing even happier times, as our latest project, the sequel for the highly acclaimed Vietcong, was announced. Terms such as "the next Vietcong" are over, and the new term, "Vietcong 2", is here. Now, we just await many hours of hard work in order to finish the wonderful game, namely Vietcong 2. Additionally, we will soon announce big things in regards to the project, which will definitely, once again, start big discussions at our forum.
Bear with us, dear fans. We are still on your side, and we are anticipating the announcements that will be released very soon. Thank you for your endless support and feedback. Please be patient while we work on the greatest game in our company's history.

You may read the previous chapter entitled "One week visit" here.