AE Team

[jwilkerson]

ChezDeJez

Steve is a retired Navy Chief. He flew in P3s. His contributions to AE have included aircraft data for the Japanese and testing. We appreciate Steve's application of his knowledge to our game.

[jwilkerson]

wdolson

Bill first joined as our test team coordinator at the end of 07. He set up the Mantis bug reporting system we've been using ever since and that has definitely helped manage the bug/issue tracking process over the past 18 months. When Don had to go inactive for a bit to relocate - Bill joined the technical team as a programmer. Bill is not assigned to a particular team but I use him to fight fires where needed. He has spent a good bit of time on land bugs - thus freeing up James for the AI work - and also Bill has done a lot of graphics work were his low level code experience has proved very useful. I thank Bill for his help and his level headed attitude which helps balance the team when we get "excited" [;)].

[USSAmerica]

Joe, this thread is great, and a fantastic idea!  [8D]

[jwilkerson]

Brady
Brady has been a tester for many games. For AE he has gravitated towards being Andy's primary AI tester - and Brady can "break the script" with the best of them - so if you want to thank a third person for making the aeAI work - then Brady is the guy. Without him the AI would be a good bit "whimpier".


Mike Scholl
Mike is our resident AFB tester - he advocates for any and all things that will help the Allies - but we need all types on the team if we are to avoid group think - and Mike definitely helps with that. He is also one of the more prolific bug finders.



Halsey
One of the most experienced WITP players - Halsey has been a solid tester and his insights into the game - from a player perspective - are second to none. Halsey's efforts are appreciated.

[stuman]

Very interesting to get to know these guys from a different perspective.

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

BigJ62

James is/was also a "late commer" to the project. We originally brought him in to do up a version of his editor. But then I fractured my wrist just as I was in the middle of implementing the new map code - and I would be holding up the whole project which needed the new map to work to really make AE be AE (we had been doing everything on the stock map up to this point). So we needed another programmer fast - James was a programmer and he was available - so he got hired!

James has been a great asset to the technical team - he works fast and his code works correctly. We got along well enough that we even hooked up for a real world project in Atlanta - the only team member I've actually worked with outside AE!

So James has done Land Code and Map Code and over the last year the AI Processor code and OBTW the Editor code - so a very prolific member of the coding team.

Without James, there would be no AE as it is today - not even close.

Thanks James!!!

aeAIaeAIaeAIaeAI !!!!!

I think James had the two most difficult areas of the program. The AI rewrite was a massive effort and the original land code was, I feel, more complex than the original naval or air code was. The new editor is also much better than the stock editor.

Bill

[Buck Beach]

This thread was needed not only to provide us fans information as to who was involved with what, but to give those on the team their appropriate recognition.

Thank you one and all and I will be one of those standing in line to show my appreciation where it counts with my wallet.

[jwilkerson]

TomLabel

Kelley joined the team as a ship artist - and he has cranked his share. Towards the end of the project Kelley has also become an "everything else" artist and redone many icons and really "spruced up" the look of the game as well as making the icons more informative. Bill supported Kelley in this effort and together they have really made things look better.

After Origins last year in talking with the "Flash Point" team - I wanted to steal one of their ideas and put "arrows" on the LCUs based on DL to indicate which direction the LCUs were moving (and if they were moving). Kelley drew and redrew the arrow prototypes for weeks until we got something we all agreed was workable. Amazing how tough something seemingly simple can be - the issue was we had so few pixels to work with. But eventually Kelley got something that looked good and Bill made it work in the code - and then we added something that you might hardly notice unless you think about it - but it is just one of the many details that make AE - AE.

[TheElf]

ORIGINAL: denisonh

Kudos Ian!

Great work. Given the professional and personal obligations you had in addition to committing time to AE, you are DA MAN.

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

TheElf

Ian has remained our Air Team Lead since day one of the project. He is an active duty US Navy officer with carrier fighter experience. He has also been a CHS contributor. His primary AE contribution has been to drive the air to air combat changes. Additionally he drove the training changes and the air unit support changes. Ian's efforts have definitely helped us address the areas that the team agreed at the start of the project - were top priority, the air to air combat and "air stacking" as some call it.

Ian did a tour in Italy during the project but is now in Texas - so he has been quite mobile - also while in the Med he seemed to be traveling almost constantly - so we have not had as much availbility from Ian as we hoped for - but the critical design things did get done - and we all thank Ian for successfully applying his expertise in these areas.

[;)]

[Big B]

To all and sundry - you won't believe the change (For The Better) that Ian, and I believe Michael, and the Air Team did to make Air Combat seem much more realistic.

I know it still blows me away compared to old WitP.

B

ORIGINAL: TheElf

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

TheElf

Ian has remained our Air Team Lead since day one of the project. He is an active duty US Navy officer with carrier fighter experience. He has also been a CHS contributor. His primary AE contribution has been to drive the air to air combat changes. Additionally he drove the training changes and the air unit support changes. Ian's efforts have definitely helped us address the areas that the team agreed at the start of the project - were top priority, the air to air combat and "air stacking" as some call it.

Ian did a tour in Italy during the project but is now in Texas - so he has been quite mobile - also while in the Med he seemed to be traveling almost constantly - so we have not had as much availbility from Ian as we hoped for - but the critical design things did get done - and we all thank Ian for successfully applying his expertise in these areas.

[;)]

[CaptDave]

Having been in software myself for close to 30 years, I understand what a major undertaking this project was. My heartfelt thanks and congratulations to the entire AE team!

[jwilkerson]

Cathartes

Our "Air Sides" guy. I do code - and I read books - and I can get a herd of project team members headed in the general direction of a galactic cluster - but - I don't do art. So, at the start of the project, I didn't realize we needed an "Air Sides" guy. But I learn new things every day and this was one of them. Ian did the "Air Tops" and recruited Cathartes do be the "Air Sides" guy - fortunately between them - they were able to get the "Air Art" done. Michael also gave the modders the option to do air art at the slot level without having to merge into a "palette" - so hopefully this will help those who engage in this arcane form!

Seriously, we appreciate Cathartes efforts - who also did good work on testing in his "spare time" [:D] I can just say I envy these guys ability to crank so much good stuff so quickly. We'd be waitin' another 27 years for me to get all this done - one pixel - at a time ... [:)]

[bradfordkay]

ORIGINAL: khyberbill

So thanks to Andrew both for the new map and to his assistance to the team and the community.

As soon as I saw the map in CHS I stopped playing stock. Thanks to all for a great job and to Mr. Brown for a great map! I cant wait to explore the new map in AE.

It was Andrew's first map that saved WITP for me. I loved the game, but being a geography freak (my friends claim that I have an Atlas for a brain!) the original map drove me bonkers. I couldn't look at the game for more than a few days in a row before I would have to put it away for a couple of weeks. Once Andrew released his map, WITP took over my life...

[pad152]

planes do not need to be on a palette anymore – individual base art is now possible.

Yes, now plane art is just like ships and will make new aircraft art alot easier.
Now I just need to figure out the data for all that altitude band thing!

[Flying Tiger]

GREAT thread Joe. Many thanks for taking the time. And thanks (again!) to all involved.

[thunar]

Fantastic! WiTP was great, this will be even better.

Much thanks to the AE team for their hard work and Matrix for being the Great Grandmaster of Customer Satisfaction.

[TOMLABEL]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

Bill supported Kelley in this effort and together they have really made things look better.

And great support he has given!!![&o]

As already mentioned, Bill is just one of the great programmers we have on the team; however, he is one of several programmers on the team who understands us 'art' guys!!! We owe many kudos for his support given to all the crazy ideas us art guys came up with and finding a way (code-wise) to make it work! [&o][&o][&o]

[Buck Beach]

I am so complied to ask this question with a preface. I am such a fan of El Cid and his game contributions, that have mostly gone unrecognized by the community. I know he is dogmatic, opinionated, argumentative, non-flexible and I am sure there was no way he could have ever worked with a team effort such as AE and in fact he was prone to just pissing people off along the way. In fact many of the people mentioned as contributors to AE, went out of their way to ridicule him along the way.

But you know what guys although he followed his own path without and any recognition or encouragement, he (with Cobra's map help) did develop quite a few different workable concepts . And now guess what, he is working on a real life game between the Chinese and Formosa.

And now the question. Isn't there any way you can throw this dedicated WITP gamer a bone here as a contributor if not just for some of his ideas .

[Andy Mac]

Everyone has helped on the AI but I would like to my especial thanks to James and Brady -
 
James has put up with my couldnt we make the Ai do this....comments for two years now how he remains sane is beyond me. I dont think he has ever said this cannot be done not even to my wildest requests
 
Brady did a huge amount of testing on the AI in many ways I have been playing brady via an interdiary for over a year now - cursing him as he finds a way to stop the AI - and then going back tot he drawing board to come up with another cunning plan to beat him.
 
Andy
 

[Micke II]

It will be nice to have a picture of all the members of the development team !