Channing Eggers - Game Programmer

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The Division 2 - Warlords of New York Ubisoft Page
Professional Internship AAA Snowdrop C++ AI/NPC 2020
Team Size: AAA Behaviour Trees Squad-Based AI NPC Animation Control Visual Studio Perforce Jira
Third-Person Tactical Shooter Multiplayer Online COOP Open World Live Service

The Division 2 - Warlords of New York

‘Tom Clancy’s The Division 2’ is an online action role-playing tactical shooter video game developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Ubisoft. ‘Warlords of New York’ (WoNY) is a content & narrative expansion to the base game.

The ‘Warlords of New York’ (WoNY) expansion shipped on March 2nd, 2020, for PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Stadia.

Internship

During my internship as a Junior AI/Gameplay Programmer, I joined the AI/NPC team in the gameplay department. This was on-site in Malmö (Sweden), but the last couple of months were remote due to COVID policies.

I joined The Division 2 project when it had already launched earlier that year, because of that, I worked on several post-launch updates. However, for the expansion - Warlords of New York, I took part in the majority of its development. Doing both feature work and periods of (post-launch) bug-fixing & polishing.

My internship started in September 2019 and concluded around June 2020. This period can be split up into multiple parts:

  1. Getting familiar with the tech and development environment.
  2. Working on post-launch updates — bug-fixing and working on live issues & crashes.
  3. Working on the WoNY expansion — notably on cooperative NPC behaviour.
  4. Working on post-launch WoNY — polishing of systems, bug-fixing, and working on live issues & crashes.

Role(s) & Main Responsibilities

AI/NPC Gameplay Programmer

  • Was a full member of the NPC team, joining in stand-ups, sprint reviews, meetings, play-tests, ‘fika’ etc.
  • Worked on post-launch updates for The Division 2 base game and its expansion.
  • Was partly responsible for NPC and AI Systems within The Division 2.
    • Debugging, bug-fixing & polishing of systems.
    • NPC Behaviour Trees, Movement, Detection Systems, and more.
    • Monitoring and resolving live server issues & crashes related to NPCs.
  • Supporting (level) designers with (scripting) of NPCs.

Additional details:

  • Worked on the ‘WoNY Intro Mission’ and adding additional NPC cooperative behaviour.
    • Specifically working on “Kelso”, an NPC that joins forces with the player, guiding and fighting alongside them throughout the mission.
    • Closely collaborated with level design on missions with cooperative NPCs.
    • Added additional NPC-related systematic scripting options for level designers.
  • Instigated and added more onboarding documentation for the NPC/AI team.
  • Shown flexibility as I worked on several issues that weren’t AI/NPC
    • These being more related to gameplay systems or 3Cs.

Learnings

  • The Division 2 and WoNY were my first AAA commercial products that I have been a part of — the overall experience was incredibly insightful.
    • Additionally, it being a live service game was also an interesting yet valuable learning experience.
  • To find a better balance between “making things fun” for the player, and perfecting systems/code/features.
  • That I was well prepared for the game industry due to my studies and project experiences at school.
    • As from what I have noticed, integrating into the NPC team went smoothly and without issues.
  • To try and maintain a healthy work-life balance.
    • This is important for physical & mental health in the long run.

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