From Star Trek Game Information
This interview with Matthew "theNord" Nordhaus of Mad Doc Software took place on the 1st May 2001.
Armada Universe: Taking a moment from his busy schedule Matthew Nordhaus, one of the developers working on Star Trek: Armada II, answered a few questions for us.
Hello Matthew, thank you for taking the time to talk to us. Many people know you simply as 'theNord' because of your presence on the various Armada related forums. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself.
Matthew Nordhaus: I attended Dartmouth College. I met Ian Davis there. He's our fearless leader. We played in a band together and somehow I managed to major in Computer Science. After I graduated in 1990 I ran far away from programming, but the nerd in me kept asserting himself, and so I slowly worked my way back to programming via the web, databases and so on. Now I am fully "geek immersed" and am loving it. I'm married with my first kid due in about 2 months.
Armada Universe: Congratulations! Could you tell us about some of the previous projects that you've been involved with?
Matthew Nordhaus: Armada 1, Call to Power II and some contracting work for other firms.
Armada Universe: When did you start working for Mad Doc Software? What lead you to the company?
Matthew Nordhaus: I began work at Mad Doc at the beginning of 2000. At that point it was just me and Ian. I knew Ian from college and we had kept in touch pretty well over the years. When Ian asked me to join his venture I jumped at the chance. He is one smart cookie, and had a string of successful games at Activision. Being a game developer can be an uncertain business, but I guess I had faith in Ian's talents. And you don't have to worry that I am just brown-nosing here...whenever I feel his ego is getting too big I crush him at basketball...
Armada Universe: Hehe, it's always good to have some way to crush a boss's ego. How would you describe the atmosphere of this relatively new gaming company?
Matthew Nordhaus: It's going to be hard to answer this one without gushing. Amazing, fun, professional, hysterically funny, sometimes intense, goofy and educational all at the same time. It's very gratifying to work with a small group of very intelligent, professional people. Most of them have a large degree of experience in the industry (Looking Glass' demise was our windfall) and they all have a sense of humor about the work and the situation, so we never get overwhelmed. Everyone is willing to pitch in and help out if they can...it's just a great environment.
Armada Universe: You stated that you had worked on the original Star Trek: Armada. What was your role for Armada I and what role do you play now in the development of its sequel?
Matthew Nordhaus: I was a junior programmer on Armada1, and came on board right at the very and of the project. I worked on the demo, did some very low level stuff on the AI, and tested _a lot_.
For Armada 2 I am programming game core...basically what's left over after AI, Interface, Graphics, and Networking are done. I am also doing a lot of work on the editor.
I'm also designing 6 or 7 of the missions from start to finish. It's been great as a programmer using the mission tools, because as often as not when something needs to be added I just go ahead and do it, and then the other designers get to use the new feature. I think the missions in A2 are going to seriously rock.
Armada Universe: What do you draw upon when you try and think of ideas for missions?
Matthew Nordhaus: We have a storyline pretty well mapped out, so I know the general arc of the mission before I start. Usually I start by creating the map with terrain features and so forth, and do a first pass of the AI. Sometimes I ask the lead designer for help if I want to add another character or behaviour, so we make sure that it's consistent.
Armada Universe: You mentioned that your doing alot of work on the map editor. Can you tell us anything about what changes we might expect to see for it?
Matthew Nordhaus: Since we are using it every day, we are adding features that we find useful. Selecting groups of objects to move. Cut and Paste ships and objects. Precise placement of path points and objects. Precise roll pitch and yaw controls for the ships. An "All Objects" dialog that lets you check out all the objects on the map, sort by team, object type, edit and delete them, etc. There's probably some more stuff we added that I can't remember now.
Armada Universe: Armada has quite a large mod community. How has this been factored into the development of the sequel considering what they've managed to accomplish with the original?
Matthew Nordhaus: I think everyone here has been pretty impressed with the time and effort that the modding community has put into Armada. All I can really say at this point is that we want to make Armada2 EVEN EASIER to mod than the original.
Armada Universe: What, so far, has been the most enjoyable aspect working on Armada II?
Matthew Nordhaus: 1) Learning and 2) The people I'm working with.
Armada Universe: To wrap this up we'd like to ask if you're a fan of the Star Trek Universe? Have you watched any of the shows?
Matthew Nordhaus: I'm probably dating myself here, but I was actually alive when TOS first aired. My mother insists that, although I was only 18 months old, I wouldn't go to sleep until Star Trek was over.
I have been an avid sci-fi fan of books, movies and TV as long as I can remember. I am quite familiar with TOS, and watched TNG faithfully when it first came out. I'm not as familiar with DS9, and watch Voyager intermittently.
Armada Universe: We'd like to thank Mr. Nordhaus for taking the time to do this interview. If you have mission ideas that you think would make a great addition to Armada II take a moment and enter them into the Armada Feature Request System putting them under the category of Missions. Also ideas for the map editor can be submitted under Maps.
