Jericho Community Day – Write-up

[Satine]

On Friday 12th October, fourteen community members made their way to Codemasters HQ in Warwickshire, UK to spend the day with us.




At around noon, we kicked off with a tour of the premises and showed our guests where the magic is made! We split into two groups to better execute the tour.



Here are the guys in the reception area




This is a photo of the model of Codemasters premises. Look, it even has cars and a dolphin next to the lake!



This picture was taken in one of the dev studios where they make Race Driver.

[Satine]

This photo was taken in the office where I sit – Codemasters Online. At the back you can see all of the screens that continually monitor all of our MMORPG game services.




That's Kyle, a.k.a. Laeth who works in the community team too. He's not as scary as he looks.





This picture was taken in the audio department. The walls are padded to stop them hurting themselves when they're banging their heads against the wall. Well, it's either that or for acoustic reasons. I still believe it's the first reason.









This is Sam. (He has a great name). He works in the PR team and gives a really great tour ^^

[Satine]

We also ventured outside to have a look at the grounds. This shot is in front of the old building – the one that was originally the old farmhouse.

Eventually we made it to the meeting room where we would stay for the rest of the afternoon. We had a bite to eat and then Tim Woodley, the Vice President of Brand came down to give everyone a talk about Jericho. Whilst he did so, Jonathan from QA very kindly demo'd on screen.





Once Tim had finished his presentation, the guys were invited to ask their burning questions.

Then came the time when the guys could have a play of Jericho for themselves. We'd set up a few stations all with the full game on them and with the speakers blasting out extremely loud gunfire they set about making us deaf. Thank goodness the farm is out in the middle of nowhere!






In between white chocolate cheesecake I heard mumbled cries and muttered swearing as people got their backsides whooped by the different nasties in Jericho. Some of the guys showed good prowess with their skills and others, well, not so much. But that apparently was due to the "controllers".

One of the chaps that came down was Dee – the fellow who won the fansite contest. He explained how he wasn't going to enter until the day before it was due to close, he downloaded the fansite kit and was inspired by the lovely artwork in there. He then set about on an all-nighter to build and finish his site in time. What a great effort – and it was certainly worth it!

We also met Hussar and well, let me just say "Jamie" as his forum name is…well let's just leave it at that. Hopefully after the threats they received the other guys will stop by to say Hi on these forums too.

All in all I had a great day and I hope all of the guys did too. It was really lovely to meet you all and to have you visit us. Thank you for coming!

[Varedis]

hey Sam, nice write up
Sad to see I only feature on two pictures though
hehe was a great day

[Hussar]

All in all I had a great day and I hope all of the guys did too. It was really lovely to meet you all and to have you visit us. Thank you for coming!

Yes I enjoyed it very much. I'm liking that last picture the most. I finally got my camera working again so I'll make one of them Flickr accounts or something in a bit, upload 'em and then edit this post and stick the link in, most are just outdoor shots but pictures of the day non the less.

Was very fun, I'd definatly try to go again given the chance.

[Satine]

Peer's going to upload them to our Codies Flickr account - and there will be a few more. I didn't include them all in the write up you see

[Zomzom]

OOOOOO I found my old account details!

Excellent tour around the facilities - VERY interesting, thanks Pete for the tour and everyone else (Sam, Peer et al) for all the other bits.

I don't think there is a job/department that I would not like to work in!

Sam, you didn't shout loud enough to enable me to dodge all of the pictures!

The game far exceeded what the demo promised too.

One question....Where do we send our adresses to so that you can send us a copy of the game that must have fell out of the goodie bags?



:P

[VANNO]

Hi there

It was a fantastic day, with a great tour hosted by Pete and Sam around Codemasters HQ, and what a great HQ it is too. I was expecting some industrial building in a business park somewhere, but it turned out to be a very nice spot in the serene countryside (that is until they fired up Jericho) the perfect spot for artistic creation.

I had been thrashing the demo out since it came out on PS store, and already thought the game was top notch, but after spending the afternoon playing the finished game I'm even more impressed. This game definitely has depth to it, with Clive barker's style written all over it, from the chains and hooks hanging from the sealing, and the contorted faces of the monsters (reminded me very much of "Hellraiser") to the way in which the enemy AIs bodies would evaporate into a cloud of insects Ala "Candyman".

And after playing the game at a bit more length you really see how much of a necessity it is to use the playable characters strategically in order to stay alive. You can't just run into the enemy Rambo style, as they are very tough and you won't last long. You have to learn how to use the playable characters assets tactically in order to keep everyone alive, because once your characters start to die you can become quickly overwhelmed by the enemy.

So thanks to every one involved at Codemasters for such a brilliant day, especially Peer, Sam, Pete and Tim and I shall be compiling a full write up of the day and my thoughts on Jericho so far when I find the time and should have that posted some time next week.

P.S

"One question....Where do we send our adresses to so that you can send us a copy of the game that must have fell out of the goodie bags?"

LOL!!!!!!!!!

[Hussar]

Uploaded most of my pictures of the day here, some are blurry but thats before I realised I had the wrong photo mode on, sadly no pictures of the game either but I was having to much fun to think about grabbing pictures of it.

Originally Posted by Zomzom

One question....Where do we send our adresses to so that you can send us a copy of the game that must have fell out of the goodie bags?

Haha, I think my copy fell out of my bag too.

You can't just run into the enemy Rambo style, as they are very tough and you won't last long.

Anyone that watched me play for around 5 minutes would of seen me do just that, I'd just run up to 'em, whack them with my gun then kill 'em, needless to say it didn't work very well against most of the enemies.

[Varedis]

Anyone that watched me play for around 5 minutes would of seen me do just that, I'd just run up to 'em, whack them with my gun then kill 'em, needless to say it didn't work very well against most of the enemies.

Think we all tried that at some point, "screw reloading, im going in"