3) In fact, your team has emphasized the simulation aspect of your game. However, this has often been claimed to be the concern of other developers. Why do you think that almost none of them have pulled off the realistic simulation that many crave?

Well, for one thing, I'm a passionate tennis fan. I play it. I watch it a lot on TV and you're sure to see me at the Du Maurier Stadium every time the Tennis Masters Series stops in Montreal. And it's pretty much the same for the whole development team. As Tennis fans, we had kind of a personal motivation to respect the basics.

I can't talk for other development teams who have worked on Tennis games. There is some space on the market for different products and we saw an opening for a realistic Tennis sim. And since we started to announce the product a few months ago we received a lot of support and interest from Tennis fans that were starving to play a game bringing them back close to the court and to the game they cherish.

4) What have you done to address the perennial concerns of PC tennis fans over previous offerings, such as issues relating to the lack of precise control over ball flight and strength of shots, and the poor serving models?

The control scheme is one of the game features that make me very proud. The user has a very good control on how and where he is going to hit the ball and what ball effect he wants (slice, topspin, power top or lob). Same for the serve. You can really direct your service strategically, depending on the position and the aptitudes of your opponents. There are four serves the user may employ to trick his opponent; the Slice, the Flat, the Kick Serve, and Kick Slice each generating its own effect. Every player in TMS has skills reflecting specific styles of play. All of these have direct influence on gameplay. For instance, the strength or speed of a player will determine how hard he hits the ball or how fast he can get to it.

5) Typically, sports games aficionados have been critical of the poor AI of many offerings, what have you done to ensure that the AI in Tennis Masters is able to adapt to a player's playing style and respond accordingly?

In TMS, we wanted to have an AI that reflected the current tennis player's tactics. So we decided to categorize players within three types; Net Rusher, Power Hitter and Baseliner. Each player within these three categories differs from one another. This has allowed us to individualize all our players and to properly balance each one. In TMS, an AI player will learn from his mistakes. We implemented this feature at two levels: tactical and shot. For an example, if an AI player keeps failing at one tactic, he will then stop using that tactic (A tactic in tennis is a series of precisely aimed shots to arrive at a winning point). As long as a tactic is successful, it will increase the chance of it reappearing again. These AI players can only be seen in Pro and Master difficulty levels.

6) With the use of experts in the portrayed field a regularity in sports game development these days, whose help have you enlisted in developing Tennis Masters? What sort of impact has this had to the game?

We had the privilege of working with Eugene Lapierre (Director of the Tennis Masters Series in Montreal) and Martin Laurendeau (retired ATP tour player and Vice Director of the Tennis Masters Series in Montreal). We needed some reference-contacts who knew all the players on the ATP tour as we needed to create an AI that would reflect real tennis strategies. So Eugene and Martin gave us an analysis of 67 pro players. This analysis gave us a precise look at how these individual players would each react to literally hundreds of situations. Where they would hit the ball and how they would hit, if they would rush the net or stay back at the baseline. It enabled us to have the real players in our game but at a tactical level. So we do have the professional players but you can only recognize them at their play level – meaning that if you know your tennis very well, you'll recognize the player you're playing with even if its name and face aren't real.

7) What has your cooperation and licensing arrangements with the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) meant to the development of the game? Has this assisted Tennis Masters' team in making it a better game?

Basically, the Tennis Masters Series and Tennis Masters Cup licenses helped because we had something to start-off with. But the influence of Eugene Lapiere and Martin Laurendeau has been more instrumental to the development of the game. But still, if we didn't had the Tennis Masters Series and Tennis Masters Cup licenses, I'm not sure they would have worked with us to help us bring the game to the level it has reached. Now that the game is gold, our friends from Marketing and PR are working the licenses pretty hard…Reporters and buyers seem to give some credibility to games with licenses.

8) Indeed, it appears that you have attempted to reproduce the journey an ATP Tour pro engages in every season, in that he tries to gain tour points to qualify for the season-ending event. What have you done to enhance a virtual player's feel of "being there"? Will there be things such as improving attributes as a result of winning against higher ranked players in the game?

In the original design, there was a player evolution system in a career mode. Players would gain experience points after winning tournaments or beating higher ranked players. This evolution was progressive. The gamer would then spend his experience points to heighten his skills and feel his player get better and better every tournament he played. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and couldn't implement successfully the experience system. It was heart breaking but we were not ready to add a feature that wasn't perfectly developed and tested. Fortunately, the ATP agreement stands for a minimum of five years… so in the next version…?

9) I notice that you have not engaged real-life stars of the game and there is a no use of the names and faces of real-life stars. Was this a conscious effort to focus on reproducing the experience of a typical tour pro, such as playing in vastly different stadia and locales? If so, how have you gone about achieving this?

We couldn't sign any players for the first version. We wanted to have an official ATP product first. That seemed more important for the first version of the game. As I said we basically have real-life players but at a tactical level. But for the 2002 version of TMS, there is little doubt we'll have some real-life stars – if not all of them.

10) Indeed, it appears that you have attempted to reproduce the journey an ATP Tour pro engages in every season, in that he tries to gain tour points to qualify for the season-ending event. What have you done to enhance a virtual player's feel of "being there"? Will there be things such as improving attributes as a result of winning against higher ranked players in the game?

In the original design, there was a player evolution system in a career mode. Players would gain experience points after winning tournaments or beating higher ranked players. This evolution was progressive. The gamer would then spend his experience points to heighten his skills and feel his player get better and better every tournament he played. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and couldn't implement successfully the experience system. It was heart breaking but we were not ready to add a feature that wasn't perfectly developed and tested. Fortunately, the ATP agreement stands for a minimum of five years… so in the next version…?

11) How does Microids intend to support the Tennis Masters playing community? Will there be online tournaments sponsored by your company? Will you allow players to produce custom art work and introduce them into the game?

It is our intention to eventually bring TMS online and to organize massive tennis tournaments on the network. But as you know, this type of feature requires a lot of hard work and we weren't able to include it in the first release of TMS.

We also have the intention of creating an editor so players can create new players for our game. Tennis goes first person shooter ;) We will be using Discreet's G-Max tool to let players create their own stadiums, faces, gearings, clothes…

We would like to thank Mathieu Larivière for his time in answering our question about Tennis Masters Series.

Click here to pre-order this game for $39.99!

© 1998-2006 Sports Gaming Network. Entire legal statement. Feedback

Other Links:
[Free Credit Report  |   Car Insurance Quotes  |   Designer Shoes  |   Outdoor Equipment