[ Mod News ] DICE signs agreement with Trauma Studios

Winters

Well.... many of you know who I'm talking about when I say Trauma Studios, but if you dont, Trauma Studios are the team that brought you Desert Combat. The following press release from DICE (Digital Illusions) sheads some light on what has been one of the most talked about things within the Battlefield community since the release of Desert Combat.

Digital Illusions signs agreement with Trauma Studios
Digital Illusions CE AB (publ) 2004-02-04
Digital Illusions has begun collaboration with game developer Trauma Studios Inc. During one year Trauma will work on an upcoming product, together with Digital Illusions.


Trauma Studios developed the popular mod* to Battlefield 1942, DesertCombat. The new collaboration is for one of Digital Illusions' previously announced projects. The Company estimates the costs for the collaboration to approximately 550 000 USD during a period of 12 months.

- We understood the impact DesertCombat had quite early. This mod kept Battlefield's popularity in place during the last year, as well as helped us sell a considerable amount of games, says Patrick Söderlund, CEO, Digital Illusions.

- We have established a close cooperation with Trauma, and now we have come to an exclusive agreement with them, says Patrick Söderlund, CEO, Digital Illusions.

- We are delighted to be working with Digital Illusions on this project. Digital Illusions is one of the premier game development studios in the world and Battlefield 1942 is the best FPS game to be published in years. Everybody we have met at the company has been fantastic to work with and we are looking forward to collaborating with them on this project, says Frank DeLise, President, Trauma Studios Inc.

* A mod is a kind of modification to a game already existing. With DesertCombat Trauma reprogrammed some parts of Battlefield 1942 and thereby created new environments and new features for the game. To be able to play a mod you need the actual game that the mod was developed for. This means mods push sales of video games.

About Trauma Studios Inc.:
Trauma Studios Inc. is a Manhattan based game developer specializing in FPS military style games. Best known for the DesertCombat MOD for Digital Illusions' hit game, Battlefield1942, Trauma started out in 2002 as a grass roots game developer and created the #1 MOD for 2002 and for 2003 (as voted on Gamespy). Trauma Studios' DesertCombat has had over 3 million cumulative downloads and consistently ranks amongst the top 3 games played online. For more information, please visit .

From Digital Illusions Press Office

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There is also a bit of info on the Trauma Studio's website Press Release, here. Fantastic

regeneration

Surprised that no one else has mentioned this yet..

http://global.dice.se/press/pressreleases/?article=d04a8c1f-4064-4bb5-bcb3-c757d42dfa47

Seems like what people thought would happen has happened; the DC team have sign up with DICE to work with them, and obviously produce the next BF game - clearly going to be battlefield: desert combat or something like that. I wonder how the money breakdown will work, since people have come and gone in the mod team.

shinzon

thanks bit of god, no more bloody 660 meg patches

great day

shin

Winters

Originally posted by regeneration
Surprised that no one else has mentioned this yet.

Already done so yesterday. See full press release and details on this thread.

Merged two threads...

shotamoose

How have Trauma studios been making their money until now? I don't remember paying for Desert Combat . Have they just been assuming that DICE would inevitably come along and give them loadsamoney?

regeneration

they haven't - it was beign done for the fun. Presumably the fact that DC has overtaken regular BF in terms of popularity with net gamers, and the "high" quality of their work meant that DICE did a valve on it and bought the team. It's been done before as we all know.
Wonder how it will effect later releases on the net

Winters

Originally posted by regeneration
Wonder how it will effect later releases on the net

I'd say possibly not too much. At the moment DC is far from their origional plans. Possibly the agreement may see it being released as an expansion pack when they are finished. It may still be a long while till we see British and French etc. in the game. They must be finished with the yanks soon though .... christ how much more can they add?

Also, DICE may be now providing DC/Trauma Studios with help on implementing AI or other little modding things. Hopefully when 0.8 comes out [as its too soon to make an impact on 0.7, being released tomorrow] we will notice the differance DICE help makes.

regeneration

Originally posted by Winters
I'd say possibly not too much. At the moment DC is far from their origional plans. Possibly the agreement may see it being released as an expansion pack when they are finished. It may still be a long while till we see British and French etc. in the game. They must be finished with the yanks soon though .... christ how much more can they add?

Dude, I seriously don't think Trauma will get round to the British, or at least I'd be surprised. They're close to 1.0, so what I _think_ might happen is DICE releasing the 1.0 version (which of course will contain just US and Iraq) as the retail. Though yeah, I really would like to muck around with a well-modelled LeClerc(french) or Leopard(german) tank

Also, DICE may be now providing DC/Trauma Studios with help on implementing AI or other little modding things. .

AI - it's a headache but you don't need DICE to work it. I made two maps with working altered AI before working with something a little less clunky; I always think it's a big failing of BF mods that no one invests time into learning AI scripting. Basically it's opening up text files and working out what does which.

Winters

Originally posted by regeneration
Dude, I seriously don't think Trauma will get round to the British, or at least I'd be surprised. They're close to 1.0, so what I _think_ might happen is DICE releasing the 1.0 version (which of course will contain just US and Iraq) as the retail. Though yeah, I really would like to muck around with a well-modelled LeClerc(french) or Leopard(german) tank

Last I heard the DC team are still going to go ahead with implementing other nations into Desert Combat. Just because they are at alpha 1.0 doesnt mean anything, it doesnt mean they have to release. Though as you say, it may make sence for EA/Dice to release DC when it reaches alpha 1.0. Maybe (and hopefully) alpha 1.0 will be the finishing of the US forces and moving onto other forces (god knows the US have a big enough aresnal as it is in the game), we just dont really know. They really should put up a roadmap though.

AI - it's a headache but you don't need DICE to work it. I made two maps with working altered AI before working with something a little less clunky; I always think it's a big failing of BF mods that no one invests time into learning AI scripting. Basically it's opening up text files and working out what does which.

I know, i've looked at the text files myself, easy enough and also makes it easier to understand how bots work ingame. Its not just implementing AI into the DC maps, but also have help in getting better suited AI to DC. See how to get them possibly to work the planes better or even to get working AI code for the helicopters. Hell, i'm sure DICE wouldnt mind getting that one working. Access and help from DICE on AI would mean more then just being able to add them to the custom maps.

Really, a lot of the custom maps that have CO-OP support are just origional Battlefield maps with edited terrain and AI waypoints.

Winters

In another twist to the tail of DICE and Truama Studio's, gamasutra today had the following.

Representatives from Battlefield 1942 developers Digital Illusions (otherwise known as DICE) have confirmed that the company has entered into an agreement with Trauma Studios – makers of the highly popular Desert Combat mod.

The two companies will now jointly develop a new, currently untitled, game - although Digital Illusions have agreed to pay all production costs for the first twelve months.

From Gamasutra.com

So, if this is true ... then we may see a new game being released upon the upcoming Battlefield: Vietnam engine that is created by Trauma Studio's and DICE. The story gets more interesting...