An interview with Oscar "Yamrak" Santos, the Lead Producer for the Live Team of Ensemble Studios.
GameReplays: Hello Oscar, we are very glad that you were able to set some time aside for GameReplays.org and the rest of the Age of Empires community. We know you are a producer and you seem to be one of the "higher ups" in the Ensemble Studios AoE balance section. However, not much else is known about your role at Ensemble Studios or your dealings with the balance of the Age of Empires 3 series.
So, why don't you start by providing a little background about yourself? What exactly is your job at Ensemble Studios and what type of schooling or happenstance led you to where you are today? Did you have other gaming jobs first? Or did you land the job at ES right out of high school? Have you worked on any other games?
Oscar Santos: First of all, hello to GameReplays.org and thanks for the chance to sit down and chat with all of you. I do frequent the site to check out the articles and replays and enjoy the site alot, so thanks for being part of the Age of Empires community.
To answer your question, I am the Lead Producer for the Live Team for Ensemble Studios. The Live Team is the branch of Ensemble Studios that focuses in everything related to post-ship for ES’ games (currently this is the case of Age of Empires 3 and eventually Halo Wars once it ships). What post-ship means is everything related to managing any issues, bugs, fixes, balance and content for the game in the form of updates or patches.
As for my background, I graduated from Computer Engineering in ’03 from the Tec de Monterrey university in Monterrey, Mexico. Immediately after that I was hired by Microsoft as a technical Program Manager for the Windows Server division and moved to the US to work in Redmond, WA for 3 years in the web server and ASP.NET teams. However, my passion has always been games – being RTS and MMOs my favorite genres – so I eventually moved within the company and found an awesome job at Ensemble Studios in early 2007 and relocated to Dallas, TX.
Age of Empires 3 has been the first game I have worked on. However, because of my background in software development and computer engineering, the change was not that drastic I am still applying the skill set of my previous software job with the benefit of adding my passion for games to the mix.
GameReplays: Donnie "WaCkO" Thompson, a balance tester of Ensemble Studios, told us in his
interview that the most difficult thing about being a balance tester, in his opinion, was coming up with sufficient proof to get changes in and being able to back up those changes when confronted by a 'Devils Advocate' point of view. Besides that, he said that there would always be a flaw in any balance arguments. How do the balance testers come to a conclusion after debating a balance issue what should be in the patch and what should not?
Oscar Santos: Patching is more of an art than a science. However, after taking over the post-ship process for Age of Empires 3 starting with The Asian Dynasties, I am pushing for more software development principles into to the patching process to make it more of a science while still retaining the art aspects. Wacko is a great tester and has good instincts and insights for the changes we need for the game. However, it is common to talk with him or the other testers and get a comment like “Oscar, we need to nerf Crossbowmen’s ranged attack by 3.” An interesting idea, which I immediately reply with “sure, why not change it by 5? Or why not by 9? Or why not just not change it at all?” to which a tester may respond “Well, 2 feels right.” At the end of the day, I am pushing for more data and facts to support those “hunches” and “instincts” from playtesters. It is much better to hear an argument like “We need to lower Crossbowmen ranged attack by 2 and improve their multiplier against Heavy Infantry so that they are still good at their role, but we remove their general usefulness of the unit. That way we don’t see people just spamming them in colonial wars.” which only by being devil’s advocate and really trying to find the real reason of the problem is when you will get to a solution. A good playtester will find the problem, not stick with the symptoms of the issue. Solutions might change based on time, resources and level of quality, but as long as we work towards fixing the problem and not the symptom we will be better off.
