GDC Online 2011: Final Details on Panels

The overlords at GDC Online released their session schedule for the exhibition. BioWare Austin will be represented by Damion Schubert, Rich Vogel, Ken Shuck, Erik Olsen, Blake Rebouche, Hall Hood, Wynne McLaughlin and the previously announced, always entertaining Georg Zoeller. Their topics will be:

  • Blake Rebouche, Wynne McLaughlin and Hall Hood - Building a Bridge Between Design and Writing

  • Erik Olsen (with Cody Bye of ZAM, Gordon Walton of Playdom and Donovan Duncan of Curse) - Full Immersion: Taking Your Game Everywhere

  • Damion Schubert - Double-Coding: Making Online Games for Both the Casual and the Hardcore

  • Georg Zoeller - Rapid MMO Content Iteration and Validation with Spatial Analysis in Star Wars: The Old Republic

  • Rich Vogel and Ken Shuck - What's Beyond Agile?


GDC Online 2011 will occur from October 10 to October 13 at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas. For the full schedule of all speakers and panels, please visit the GDC Online website.

UPDATE: Gamasutra spoke with Georg Zoeller about his panel. Head over to Gamasutra to read the full interview.

The description, date, time and location of each BioWare session follows the jump.

SESSION: Building a Bridge Between Design and Writing
SPEAKER/S: Blake Rebouche (Bioware Austin), Wynne McLaughlin (BioWare Austin) and Hall Hood (BioWare Austin)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Tuesday 9:30-10:30 Room 3
TRACK / DURATION / LEVEL / FORMAT: Game Narrative Summit / 60-Minute / Lecture
DESCRIPTION:
In the quest to present both compelling narratives and great gameplay, conflicts sometimes emerge between the increasingly specialized and discrete creative visions held by game writers and designers. What steps can we as developers take to bring the worlds of writing and design closer together, even as these two groups are forced into increasingly specialized roles? Join three developers from Bioware Austin with perspectives from both sides of the issue for their thoughts on the topic and a group discussion with attendees.

IDEA TAKEAWAY: Attendees will take away from the talk a historical perspective on the core conflict between game writers and designers, an understanding of how their two roles have diverged over time due to specialization, and a collection of thoughts and best practices on how to foster healthy collaboration between them.
INTENDED AUDIENCE: This talk is intended for game writers and designers of all experience levels who work on projects requiring cooperation and understanding between these two creative design forces. No prerequisite knowledge is required, apart from a desire to tell compelling stories married with compelling player interaction.
ELIGIBLE PASSES: All Access Pass, Summits & Tutorials Pass



SESSION: Full Immersion: Taking Your Game Everywhere
SPEAKER/S: Cody Bye (ZAM), Erik Olsen (Bioware), Gordon Walton (Playdom) and Donovan Duncan (Curse)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Tuesday 11:00-12:00 Room 9AB
TRACK / DURATION / LEVEL / FORMAT: Customer Experience / 60-Minute / Panel
DESCRIPTION:
One of the most undervalued areas in online gaming is what players do outside of their actual in-game experience. How can gaming companies motivate their players to interact with or think about their game while they're at work? Traveling? Commuting?

One answer to that question is out-of-game resources that allow players to explore areas of their game world and plan their progression even when they're surfing the web on their mobile phone. This panel focuses on the need for these out-of-game resources and how developers should consider designing their upcoming MMO or online game for this sort of experience.

IDEA TAKEAWAY: At this session, attendees will get a crash course in out-of-game resources including why they're needed, what it takes to build one, and how developers can help encourage this sort of development - with their own web team and outside contractors - by putting together quality, high level data and making that information available to parties that are willing to work with it. Our panelists will be well-versed in both the development of these resources and what sorts of advantages are gained by providing these resources to their players.
INTENDED AUDIENCE: Designers interested in community building and development-based customer issues, community managers, marketing managers, and more!
ELIGIBLE PASSES: All Access Pass, Main Conference Pass



SESSION: Double-Coding: Making Online Games for Both the Casual and the Hardcore
SPEAKER/S: Damion Schubert (Bioware Austin)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Tuesday 4:30- 5:30 Room 6
TRACK / DURATION / LEVEL / FORMAT: Design / 60-Minute / Lecture
DESCRIPTION:
Mainstream success does not mean sacrificing the hardcore for the casual, but understanding the deep, symbiotic between the two markets. Double-coding is a design concept talking about designing games and concepts for both casual and hardcore markets - designing games that are approachable, yet offer depth and aspirational goals. This talk discusses how to straddle that divide, how to rethink what value casuals and hardcore players bring to your online game, how to leverage the hardcore to build your casual market, and how to convert your casual players into online devotees.

IDEA TAKEAWAY: Hardcore gaming isn't dead -- all of the big 'mainstream' successes (WoW, Starcraft, Wizards 101, Facebook games) have a hardcore path, and work hard to convert their casual gamers into hardcore gamers. But doing so may require rethinking your definition of 'hardcore', and what it means in your particular game.
INTENDED AUDIENCE: Designers and producers, especially of online titles.
ELIGIBLE PASSES: All Access Pass, Main Conference Pass



SESSION: Rapid MMO Content Iteration and Validation with Spatial Analysis in Star Wars: The Old Republic
SPEAKER/S: Georg Zoeller (BioWare Austin)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Wednesday 1:30- 2:30 Room 6
TRACK / DURATION / LEVEL / FORMAT: Design / 60-Minute / Lecture
DESCRIPTION:
Using examples from Star Wars: The Old Republic, this lecture focuses on how spatial analysis can be used to support a rapid content iteration process during the late stages of MMO development. The lecture will show how BioWare's homegrown 'HoloProjector' spatial visualization toolkit is used in day to day development to surface user behavior metrics down to the developers on the ground for decision making and content validation. The talk will show a selection of interesting 2D and 3D visualizations, discuss lessons learned and provide information on how to get started with the topic on your own project.

IDEA TAKEAWAY: Attendees will learn how BioWare leverages spatial analysis on user generated playtest data to contextualize and better understand user feedback and behavior and how this can be used to rapidly iterate and improve game content.
INTENDED AUDIENCE: Attendees should be familiar with the topic of metrics and telemetry in online games. Familiarity with the mid and end stages of MMO development is helpful but not required.
ELIGIBLE PASSES: All Access Pass, Main Conference Pass



SESSION: What's Beyond Agile?
SPEAKER/S: Richard Vogel (Bioware Austin) and Ken Shuck (BioWare Austin)
DAY / TIME / LOCATION: Thursday 9:30-10:30 Room 7
TRACK / DURATION / LEVEL / FORMAT: Production / 60-Minute / Roundtable
GDC VAULT RECORDING: No Vault Recording
DESCRIPTION:
There are many ways to skin a cat when developing processes to manage a game development project. People managing projects are always looking for better ways to make their schedules more predictable and teams more efficient. This round table will provide a lively discussion around the different flavors of project management out there (lean, agile, waterfall) and how people used them in their projects. What worked, what didn't, and why. How and what tools were used to track and maintain the project schedule? Did the project management process change over the life of the project? Come join us and share you experience and knowledge with others so that we can all learn better ways to increase team efficiencies and predictability.

ELIGIBLE PASSES: All Access Pass, Main Conference Pass

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