Total War, Funcom talks added to GDC Europe 2012 line up

Two new talks have been announced for GDC Europe's Game Design track.

The first comes courteys of The Creative Assembly lead designer James Russell, and is called "Designing Grand Strategy: Making the Mechanics of Total War". Drawing on his expereinces with the titular strategy series, Russell will address "'realism' and simulation versus game rules, mystery versus clarity, gameplay depth versus micromanagement," and more.

Funcom creative director Craig Morrison will be on hand to present "Surviving the Jungle of MMO eco-systems." Morrison has a range of experiences to draw on here; Funcom is soon to launch its third MMO and the first two suffered notorious birthing pangs. He'll discuss "the complex relationships that players have to virtual worlds and how designers need to understand the forces at play."

Additionally, over on the Programing track (which is of such interest to consumers like myself), AMD's Jay McKee and research partner Takahiro Harada will have a lightweight chat about "Forward rendering pipeline for modern GPUs", introducing a new piece of tech called Forward+ which "allows for scenes with the same number of lights expected from a modern deferred renderer (on the order of thousands)." Fascinating.

GDC Europe 2012 runs August 13-15 alongside gamescom in Cologne.