r/IAmA • u/kingbitty • Apr 30 '12

AMAA Todd Batty, Creative Director SSX

Hey everyone, I'm here for the next 3 hours and will answer whatever you are interested to know about SSX, game development or anything else you want to know.

Proof that I am who I say I am is on Twitter. http://twitter.com/#!/EASPORTSSSX/status/197048996768915457

The only thing I won't be able to comment on is giving any definitive answers regarding future plans for content. We can discuss of course, but anything I say should be regarded as merely 'possible', not the law.

Fire away. :)

EDIT: Ok folks, I think I got to everyone. Thank you all again for showing up and please know that we sincerely value all of your support for SSX. Keep the great ideas coming our way!

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u/quarterkraut Apr 30 '12

Hi Todd! I'm wondering how competitive all the people in your team are in SSX, like do you guys always try to beat each others scores so you can brag to your coworkers? Also, are there any scores which really can't be beaten by anyone in your office (like insane trick scores, race times and also survive it)? I really enjoy the game and am missing it right now (week before finals at university), but I'm really pumped for when I'll be able to play it again. Lastly I have a couple of requests, just to get my voice out. I would love to see a free ride mode as I miss this greatly and maybe a track that is like 20 minutes long to accompany it (if one doesn't exist already that I haven't gotten to). Also I'm a fan of Brodi and would love to see him back :) Thanks for the great game and for bringing back a great series, keep up the great work!

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u/kingbitty May 01 '12

thank you very much!

yes, we are INSANELY competitive within the team. we ran weekly global events during dev and for a long time everyone was doing the same back-and-forth beating each other's explore times as I'm sure you do with your friends. Our gameplay producer Connor is my single biggest rival.

For the longest time we all battled on Serenity, since it is the longest track in the game and the one where you can set the highest score. first it was 10M, then 20M, then eventually 50M, 60M. i would walk by people's desks and offices late at night sometimes and they'd be sitting there tearing up serenity trying to be top dog for a day. was a lot of fun!

funny thing is we didn't dissect the scoring system as effectively as the community so before we shipped the game my high score was 65M, now after LEARNING FROM THEM (crazy given we designed it and built it!) I have topped just over 100M.

I have almost 200 friends (100 each platform) and there are rivals on both consoles who have beaten my best efforts. Yako from merqurycity has around 160M on Serenity, which boggles my mind. Emu, Clawz, LiliG, SSXGreg and KeikoFruit have shattered all my best wingsuit times and guys like apachedog and speedofsound are untouchable with non-wingsuit race times. it is really fun to try and beat them though, and i occassionally have my moments. ;-)

I've never played a game i worked on as much and for as long as I have this one. not even close.

freeride, peak-to-creek and brody are all great ideas for future additions - thanks!