Ravings
Submitted by Abalieno on April 25, 2009 - 01:45.
Huff, I didn't want to enter this debate, but since everyone seems to agree with her, I'll have to disagree:
Why do I ask? Mostly because I know a lot of talented game designers in the industry that most people have never heard of in their life. They don’t read blogs, they don’t read design theory novels, they don’t analyze the psychological reasons why people interact how they do. They simply know how to make good games, and don’t use theories behind it.
This sounds as realistic as someone playing wonderfully an instrument without having ever studied music.
Made worse by the fact that game design isn't art, it is science. Sure, there are artistic aspects, but I quite believe that the practical ones are more relevant. If things work there's a reason. Maybe some designer can have an innate talent and get things right from the start, or without knowing exactly the motivations. But those motivations exist and if you want to succeed more than once it's a good practice to start looking at the causes. I believe that an analytical mind is more useful than a creative one, in this field.
The circulation of ideas, from my point of view, helps immensely as long you know what to do with it. Or we would be stuck remaking pac-man (that for many actual designers isn't far from truth).
But *real* game designers? They'll hardly write or read anything. They are too scared that out there everyone knows better then them. Being deaf and blind is the only way they have to stay sane. As long they don't lose their job.
Submitted by Abalieno on April 25, 2009 - 00:24.
In February I said I was going to hope the new Jumpgate was a good game. I'm still hoping, but the more I read about the game the more I got my hopes crushed.
I could summarize what's wrong in a quote of the producer from the last dev chat, it explains what's wrong at the core:
Hermann: When you look at game development it's my preference to always please everybody.
And pleasing everybody is the shortest route to please no one and make a forgettable game that enters and then exits the market within a few months, without anyone remembering it.
The "concept" that I identify with my hopes about Jumpgate is about a game with space combat, with intuitive controls and big battle with awesome dogfighting, following the tradition of X-Wing, Freespace, Wing Commander and so on. Add some warring factions and territorial control and it would become a dream of a game.
Without going through the usual missteps (game is based on experience and levelling up, PvP only exists in instanced battlegrounds), it's the controls to be the biggest issue. Especially in the perspective of a PvP game.
As with the quote above, the devs think of pleasing everyone. Jumpgate classic had an horrid flight control. You know, the kind where the direction where your ship points IS NOT the direction where you are going. The kind where the whole game is about not blowing up when you're trying to dock. It's all there. Or "Newtonian physics". I tried it in Jumpgate, it was not fun. I tried it in all those 2D top-down asteroids clone, it wasn't fun. It's not that it's hard to master, but then it gets better. Nope, it's just not fun.
Now, this new Jumpgate will have a different flight model. Ships will fly in the direction they are pointed to. You turn and the ship changes direction. But they are also trying to please everyone. So you can switch freely between one flight model and the other. It's your choice.
Isn't everyone happy?
No, I'm not. It's not my fucking choice. I want dogfighting gameplay, ok? Dogfighting gameplay means that there is maneuverings. You trying to stay on the tail of your target, anticipate his moves while trying to dodge the bullets of others. This is dogfighting gameplay. I want this. Now think that I'm chasing my target, right in the center of my bulls eye. I'm about to fire when my target does a 180 spin and starts firing right at me while his ship is flying in the other direction. WHERE THE FUCK IS MY CHOICE NOW? HUH?
There isn't any damned choice. If you allow a different flight model to exist, then it will have an effect on MY gameplay. If ships spin around freely then there isn't any dogfighting, it's a wholly different game. And, FOR SURE, you aren't pleasing me.
So, as a game designer, it is your choice whether to make a game in a way or another. It isn't written anywhere that one flight model has the right to exist, while the other hasn't. But "giving players the choice" is a fucking joke. Is about not taking responsibility of what you are doing and destroy gameplay in every way possible.
I guess this sums up why Netdevil never made a decent game: they are unable to make choices.
The best answer was this one though:
DK_FR: Is the game going to be released in June or later?
Mike: Possibly.
Are you deaf or drunk? Possibly.
--
I also wanted to add this passage, because they seem to drown into really simple design quirks:
Hermann: The original game had multi-faction squads and right now we're planning that won't be the case. A controversial issue. The reason is that it starts to interfere with core problems. For example, if you're in a multi-nation squad, say there are five Quantar and five Solrains, and you're out in an open PvP scenario in the same squad capturing a beacon, do the Solrains kill the Quantars? And how do you communicate that difference to people? That also goes for instanced PvP, when you join a squad of people you plan on playing with them a lot. But if there's any implied negative relationship between the groups then it conflicts directly against that.
It's a core issue which can get really big as more people are added to the game. If you have a game that is separated along any kind of a line, they tend to isolate players. We don't want to isolate people completely, but there are these natural points where it just becomes easier to separate people in some way and enforce that with gameplay rules, rather than confusing that by letting people mix as much as they want. Then having to fight the gameplay problems that come from that.
They have a problem with multi-faction groups. They want these groups to exist, so that the factions don't isolate players, so they can group freely together. But then this can be confusing.
So, since they can't decide for anything even here, they give up on the system and just removed multi-faction groups. They preferred isolation to confusion.
Excuse me, but why are things confusing as you say? In PvE no one cares. You shoot mobs, so you don't care to recognize if another player is in an enemy faction or not. Besides, either you are enemy or aren't. No?
This is a PvP problem. PvP is also only instanced. Think about it for longer than two seconds? Good, problem solved. American's Army made everyone believe the other faction was "terrorist", no matter of the side you were on. So will Jumpgate game designers manage, in an instanced room, to flag an enemy group as "enemy"? This must be a really hard task. In Eve-Online they use red cross for dangerous targets. In Quake they make one side "red" and the other "blue". It seems to work quite well and it doesn't matter if on the same faction there are giant eyes, demons or other weird things. You look at the dominant color and that's it. You shoot.
Will Netdevil daring game designers succeed in reinventing the wheel? A controversial question.
Submitted by Abalieno on March 30, 2009 - 17:55.
1- Blizzard has no competition and they don't need to try anymore to stay ahead. There isn't any need to fight even on the last thousands of players. They win, everyone else lost. Game over.
The patches are getting slower and more insubstantial, filled with pages of convoluted class changes. It's quite obvious that the there's no creative push behind this and that they are only trying to please the current many subscribers, especially the ones still heavily invested in the game. There is no attempt to reach further.
It's also quite obvious that resources are being moved. A while ago Blizzard was only working on WoW. Now they have WoW, Starcraft, Diablo and another MMO project. They were never able to do more than one thing at once and now the focus will start to shift. As always in this industry you only see the effect of what happens behind the scenes a few years later. It starts now, the effect will come later.
The lead designer, Jeff Kaplan, left WoW to move on the new project. We know only of the public figures but it is obvious that he is followed by many more that work in the back.
WoW is now in the (un)capable hands of Kalgan. Have fun.
2- Lum quoted various pieces from a conference (where industry people only go to feel proud, boast their cultivated shortsightedness, feel validated among equals, avoid challenges, avoid reality, shake hands, and whose game design relevance is a negative number) where Jeff Kaplan talks about quest design. Jeff Kaplan is in my "good guys book" and I'm not entirely sure if he was mocking the audience thinking that they would only grasp the superficial level anyway, and so talk in a language they could understand.
It's not the specific of what he says to be wrong, it's the overall sense. I only read Lum quotes but those ideas were considered good ideas "on paper" that revealed to be poor in practice. Bottom line: these ideas should be avoided.
That's a wrong conclusion. Wrong interpretation. It's about trying to understand aspects of the game with only one rigid model. That's the inner flaw. It's not in the quest ideas, it's in the approach.
Everyone of those examples isn't just a "good idea on paper". Gone bad in practice. Why? Because it obviously was a bad idea even in paper? Nope. It was a possibly good idea with an inappropriate execution.
That's the point: good ideas with bad execution. All of them.
Take the example of the quest in Stranglethorn. The idea is cool. It is also not an obligatory quest, so if you don't like the added layers you can always skip it. Where's the big flaw of that quest? Not in the concept. It's in the limits of the inventory. So. You may solve the problem by erasing the quest entirely. Or you may fix the one problem. In this case you could create a container object that takes 1 slot in the inventory and that can contain all the parts that can be then taken and sold in the auction, traded or whatever.
"For a single quest to consume 19 spaces in your bags is just ridiculous."
That's right. That's why you solve the one problem, as the cool concept behind the quest wasn't to consume all those spaces, but to create an economy and add a new layer.
Now this is an example, but every one else following is the seed of the same consideration: inappropriate quest concepts because they don't fit the standard framework. Not BAD quest concepts. Just quest concepts that step out of the limited tools given.
Problem is the framework, not the material. The problem is execution, not quest concepts. Given that implementation, the quest didn't work. But this doesn't make it an universally bad quest that wouldn't or can't work in other cases.
The "quest chains" aren't bad because of what they are. They are bad because the quest UI is standardized and doesn't support them properly (in fact the only way to see even a short chain quest is to use MODs like Wowhead). It's again a flaw in the framework. You are bringing creative ideas to a framework that doesn't support them. Either you dump all creative quest concepts, or you invest in programmers that expand the framework to support new quest types properly. But, again, the rigidness of a framework is the real true cause of a good or bad idea applied to it. Its context.
So enjoy your GDC. Either I'm overestimating Kaplan, or he was there just to deceive you with apparent sincerity. He keeps the good lessons (solutions) for himself.
P.S.
Ubiq on this as well. That would lead to think that he doesn't get it either, but look further, deeper. That's the hidden war he's doing to Bioware. His purpose is there. Nowadays when devs have an hard time to impose themselves internally, they rant externally.
Submitted by Abalieno on February 20, 2009 - 01:16.
Dave Perry on Gamasutra:
Showing names like Shigeru Miyamoto and Hideo Kojima on the screen, Perry said Japan has produced some of the best video game designers of all time -- "but would you be willing to bet China will never produce one of those names?" he asked.
Yes, I'm willing. They won't.
If that level of talent emerges in China or Korea, and decides to make games using the free-play-model, traditional game developers with traditional business models may be unable to compete for an audience, Perry warned,
China and Korea are known to prefer quantity over quality. If that level of talent was supposed to surface, then it would have already. It's not like China and Korea aren't making games. In fact they are producing A HUGE PILE OF SHIT.
If China and Korea haven't produced anything worthwhile it's because that business model promotes disposable games that have the lifespan of one week. Only shit comes out of that kind of fragmentation and lack of focus. Games with no depth.
"Our" industry is done and buried the day they betray our traditions and talents to mass produce the same shit and chase mediocrity. The path to failure is about forgetting who you are and what you do best in the name of "market innovation".
And become just a pale imitator of mediocrity.
Submitted by Abalieno on February 18, 2009 - 19:07.
A comment on Tobold's blog about the higher and higher requirements to be able to join a group:
It really is about the risk on the time invested. In the second week of January, or so, it seems the majority caught up with the achievers, and all of a sudden there was a severe drop in the competency and preparedness of the average PuG'er. I started leaving a lot of heroic groups five minutes in when I'd end up doing over 40% of the damage or our "tank" had 18k health. The situation has degraded with PuG raids. I've seen a Naxx10 fail because six of the DPS were doing less than 1500dps.
To me, it's an issue of respect. I invested time and effort into ensuring that I am competent and well-equipped enough not to hinder the success of the run. I expect the same in return from other players. DPS should significantly outperform tanks in their role. Tanks should have at least 5k more health than I do and be able to hold AoE threat. Healers in heroics should have enough spellpower to spare a heal on someone other than the tank, and enough awareness to see when they're needed.
Slackers who seem to think attendance qualifies entitlement show disrespect, and are undeserving of my time and effort.
I am disgusted.
Not at the reaction of this player (sample of a general trend) but of the fact that a massive game encourages and promotes this type of interaction.
It's also counterproductive, as the more requirements rise higher, the harder for new people to reach that level. A social fracture.
Submitted by Abalieno on February 12, 2009 - 03:35.
Beside the fact they really tried hard to lengthen the patch notes at the expense of readability, this following passage goes beyond what is reasonable:
* To earn a Domination Point from a Keep, it must be claimed by a Guild and then held for 2 hours. If you lose control of a Battlefield Objective or Keep at any time, you lose the Domination Point.
* Multiple Domination Points cannot be gained from a single source (for example, it isn't possible to get 6 Domination Points by capturing Martyr's Square 6 times).
Why that second point? Why to clarify what was already implicit and so making it more confused?
If to gain control on a zone you need to hold all six contested points, and if you lose one you lose the point associated to it, then it is obvious that you won't get anything by capturing one more than once.
1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 - 1 + 1 = 1
Not 6.
You simply need to conquer and hold all the contested objectives, and hold each for a set amount of time before it counts. That's all. There was no need to use "points" in this system and apply specific rules. Overcomplicated design and contrived explanation.
EDIT: Another less minor quibble I saw pointed out on the forums:
* Playing with Fire: This ability will now hit for the correct amount of damage.
Well, since you were at writing 55 pages of notes at least you could have made them informative.
I'm glad the ability now hits for what you think is "correct" damage, but maybe knowing how much would be too useful? Or know if the damage was lowered or increased?
They were too worried to make these patch notes look positive, more than make them look informative. Less complaints if the notes don't explain the merit of balance changes. Things were "fixed"! Now it is all "correct"! 55 pages! Don't worry anymore.
Submitted by Abalieno on February 12, 2009 - 02:33.
No polemics, really.
i just think it's silly that you write a whole post saying nothing and make me read the comments (Grimwell) to have a good guess at what happened.
Anyhow, good luck. I'm always glad when someone makes it. I almost never agree with Zonk, but... HOORAY. Passion is always worth a try (o two, or three).
P.S.
Totally unasked opinion: on the matter of DC Universe Online I expect the market situation to be not exactly favorable. Right now there's already a fairly successful MMO about super heroes and two more big titles in production. Is there really a need for more?
Between the two I hope SOE is more successful. With Champions Online Cryptic declared they don't believe in virtual worlds and ongoing development, and that they aren't committed to keep their games up to date and competitive. Champions Online is made to replace City of Heroes and it will be in turn be abandoned and replaced as soon something new and shiny catches the eye of those developers (Bill Roper first, one who thinks his public persona is more important than any game).
On the matter of DC Universe Online I know very little, but, it has bad art (personal opinion) and the animations from videos released are terrible, terrible, terrible (fact). SOE games having bad animations is becoming an overall rule, what's up with the animators over there? How it is possible that across all games you can't even make one that matches a standard of quality?
Submitted by Abalieno on February 9, 2009 - 03:57.
Freespace 2 is one of the legendary space-sim dogfighting games, along with X-Wing, the earlier Wing Commander and Freespace (the newer X games instead are crappy dogfighting games but they offer more for space exploration, trading and so on). While on a emulator the three Colony Wars for PSX are still a lot of fun.
Freespace 2 is still a valid game to play today. The genre is dead commercially, but this is one of the games (along with Falcon 4 or Jagged Alliance) that got a huge following of modders along the years. The source code was released and work on the game never stopped since. Today you can play it relatively bug free with a very good engine and all the graphic redone for a much better quality overall. Definitely worth checking out since now it's both pretty and fun as it always was (if you never played it then you should).
I spent a day figuring out the best install possible and it wasn't an easy task at all.
So, in the case I need to go through this again and for you, here are all the steps to follow.
Freespace 2 perfect install - Freespace 1 + 2 with all campaigns, missions, audio files, movies and updated graphic
1- Get in some way the three original CDs of Freespace 2. Freespace 1 is not needed.
2- Install the game normally (full install).
3- Get this file and move it to FreeSpace2\Installer\ (create this folder if it doesn't exist)
4- Get the very latest .exe.
5- Get the latest launcher (at this time 5.5d).
6- Get the compressed FS2 cutscenes. All the files of 4,5 and 6 go in FreeSpace2\ directory (root, no subdirs).
7- Check the latest Media VPs release (at this time 3.6.10). This is all the updated graphics and effects.
8- Create a new folder called "mediavps" in your Freespace 2 install folder. All the following files go in there.
9- Readme.
10- mod.ini.
11- Launcher graphic.
12- Main file.
13- Music.
Now to get FS1 files:
14- Check latest release (at this time 3.1.1).
15- Create a new folder called "fsport" in your Freespace 2 install folder. All the following files go in there.
16- FSPort 3.1.1 Core.
17- FSport Mission Pack.
18- High Resolution Interface Art.
19- Cutscene Pack.
20- Voice files.
21- Command Briefings.
22- Music.
23- Create a new folder called "fsport-mediavps" in your Freespace 2 install folder. The following file go in there.
24- FSPort Media VP Pack.
Now to configure:
25- Run Launcher.exe from root directory.
26- Press "browse" and select the .exe to use (at this time: fs2_open_3_6_10r-20090203_r5063.exe).
27- Go to "video" tab and set everything as you want.
28- Go to "feature" tab, list type "graphics" and check the following: enable specular, enable glowmaps, enable environment maps, apply lighting to missiles, enable normal maps, enable 3D shockwaves.
28- list type "gameplay" and check the following: enable 3D warp, enable flash upon warp.
29- Add the following to "custom flags" field: -ambient_factor 35 -ogl_spec 20 -spec_exp 15 -spec_point 1.2 -spec_static 1.5 -spec_tube 1.5
30- Go to "MOD" tab, press "select MOD" and pick the right directory. It's "mediavps" for Freespace 2 and "fsport-mediavps" for Freespace 1. You need to swap these if you want to change between the two games.
That's it. My complete install took about 3.65Gb of hd space. The rest is about configuring the options in the game, controls and all the typical stuff. If the two games and all their missions aren't enough you can still find a number of brand new campaigns and total conversions on the forums. There's as much content as you want.
Have fun with one the best game in its genre, it's rare nowadays to find one worthy. Maybe Jumpgate Evolution won't suck, but then Netdevil has taught me to keep hopes low.
Submitted by Abalieno on February 5, 2009 - 00:20.
The applause is for the words of Sanya and Lum. It's refreshing to see people to step out of the proper path to defend what is worth defending.
I can't say anything because I don't know anyone at Mythic, but I appreciate when people talk straight. Even the fanboys didn't swallow this.
My only hope is that all this, again, isn't about wasted words, but lessons to learn and then used to change things radically. It's a crisis and maybe it is likely to be paid by the wrong people. But, ultimately, I hope it all comes back and those who really deserve it will be rewarded. Hopefully sooner than later.
Just one last thing: That Mythic lost a lot of very good people is obvious. It didn't start the 3rd February 2009.
Submitted by Abalieno on February 4, 2009 - 05:09.
I had promised myself I wouldn't waste more of my time writing about game design but today goes like this and I want to stop that itch.
Lum on monster AI:
This is not an experience people will pay for. Game design, in many ways, is convincing players that they won a struggle against imposing odds. It does not mean actually creating imposing odds.
Also, I have seen metrics prove conclusively, time and time and time and time again, that in a game that *does* have monsters with decent AI and that use strategies that require some thought to defeat, that players will avoid them in droves and seek out the ones with the most brain damaged AI possible.
Players dislike challenge. They SAY they like challenge. They lie.
I know he is generalizing, but I don't quite agree.
Today, if I play a game where I feel I have to kill an easy monster over and over because it's the faster path I'd unsubscribe faster than I can gain two levels. Sure, I WILL behave exactly like you describe, but not for long. It's the wrong way to approach the problem. You also give for granted a bunch of arbitrary (but common) conditions. That the game is based on levels, that experience points are not linked directly to something specific you do and that the main draw of the gameplay is to grow the character's power.
It is true that what you describe is a pattern that exists and is fairly common. I just don't think you can take it and deduct rules and generalizations about it.
I'm writing this post because the other day I was thinking again about what's wrong in Fallout and Oblivion combat. My answers are also pertinent to the topic here.
What's wrong in Oblivion is that the combat "feels" generated through an editor. The monsters you encounter all share the same system. They just change a bunch of numbers relative to stats and dice rolls. It's different graphic and animation linked to numeric variables (just different chances to dodge, parry, attack). The result is that it plays the same from the beginning to end.
The difference with games whose combat system I consider well done (like God of War) is that in these (those well done) monsters don't share all the same rules or just have different variables regulating their actions, but they actually come into play and challenge the player in new ways.
Since the beginning I didn't talk about "AI", but about "patterns". From my point of view no mmorpg needs an AI system (even less need it built and then all monsters in the game referencing to it), they just need fun variations. Different approaches.
We need NO AI. Think of WoW's instances. Every monster there has all the tools to kill players at ANY time. But not. It will shout to you "Hey, I am going to use my special power in 60 seconds. Pay attention to the counter on screen, or you'll die!". What we have is "patterns". Planned exits. The game and the encounter is only as good and fun as the pattern offered. What we have is clearly defined ways to win. To learn and execute within a margin of error. If you add too much randomness or unpredictability to the system you would just obtain something "opaque" that ends frustrating the players.
When it comes to MMOs we are still at the level of Space Invaders. If the waves of ships would come with some variation it would be already something. We need mobs that act as a group, that use their own unique tricks and skills differently from any other mob in the game. We need them to be environment-aware and not just random spawn points around a map. Oblivion feels mechanical like a MMO. The reason is that no monster is truly unique and built as a single entity. It's just a database reference with different variables. All the game was generated through that system and the game reflects that. No modder could ever fix that because it's not the *use* of the database to not work well, it's the system itself that lacks versatility. You can "rearrange", but it's always the same game. The same gameplay.
As always the truth behind this is the same: there are no shortcuts.
Making (good) games is hard, takes time. Creating a monster, with lore, behavior and role in the game takes a whole lot of work. If you take shortcuts, because games need to be made within constraints of time and budget, then the result will reflect that.
But the problem isn't that players enjoy dumb combat against database references and so dumb combat is what you should give them. Don't learn the wrong lesson.
EDIT: I wanted to complete the concept. What I examined here is not specific to a MMO, but common to all games. It is more visible in a MMO because they are "stretched" single-player games. Right now no game company can afford to make 400 hours of gameplay. This is why a MMO dilutes the experience and uses other hooks to keep the players interested. The "grind" is just the revelatory feeling that comes from lack of actual gameplay. There are no shortcuts.
Submitted by Abalieno on January 31, 2009 - 16:57.
Last on the list, official forums.
Once again I think another step in the wrong direction. Why? Ive always been for official forums. First to receive support and not talk to each player individually (as, usually, when problems exist they are experienced by many), second to quickly gather up to date infos that don't fit on a web page (servers going down, problems to connect etc..). Then obviously to get feedback from developers and discuss meaningfully the game.
I've explained the way I'd moderate it. Not tolerating spam and trolling. Not looking for manners or good disposition, but rewarding arguments, motivations.
There are two aspects that make obvious what Mythic's forums will really be.
1- Account levels that will allow Mythic to pick their favorite posters/friends/supporters and rail them as champions of the community
2- Developer feedback is a privilege, not a right
There all that is wrong. In order to discuss things and read what developers think, you have to be a privileged person who's passed Mythic's rite of initiation.
Mythic's dev feedback is too precious to be shared among customers. It is of a so high complexity and depth that enlightened players with access to it will have to sign yet another NDA that will forbid them to divulge the Sacred Words.
I hope you'll do nicely, with your fist of sand.
P.S.
I still also remain convinced that having official forums are not a guarantee of success for an MMO.
...Do you know where he may have possibly heard that official forums guarantee success for a MMO? In his head, you say?
P.P.S.
I laughed (but look at the screenshot down that thread if you think nothing could surprise you anymore). Developing a forum grind is some form of misunderstood genius.
Submitted by Abalieno on January 30, 2009 - 18:58.
Every time I spend some time looking at what's happening with Warhammer I find more and more proofs of game design incompetence.
Beside the latest, blatant, "People who really want to do Open RvR, though, were falling behind PvE and scenario players in terms of gear" and Mark Jacobs' "avoiding other factions in a RvR/PvP game are always tough to solve even if you could only level through RvR/Pvp since many players/groups tend to always want to have an edge on the other group", now we have this upcoming change to BOs and keeps that mirrors exactly what I was saying: they do not get it, and so keep making things WORSE.
Since players loved to swap BOs and keeps quickly to get points, you know what will happen next patch?
That you'll have to SIT in a BO for half an hour, and a keep for TWO HOURS in order to get the points/loot. Awesome. I'm sure players will love this.
The REAL problem here is that they are handing points for PvE (NPC guards) objectives. Players learn this and learn that if points come from killing NPCs then fighting real players is just an hindrance. So they go killing NPCs and avoid fighting each other since this maximizes the reward.
Instead of fixing this system and link the ORVR rewards to RVR activity (as is reasonable to do if they had a clue) they double all the timers in the game, so that it's not possible anymore to swap quickly the objectives. But, since the rewards STILL come from PvE, the only effect is that now you'll sit idle waiting for a timer to run to zero and the bag of loot to open to you.
If you are a kind of player who enjoys this kind of gameplay then I'm glad for you.
This game isn't flawed in production value or because Mythic isn't working hard enough. This game is flawed because they don't get the basics of game design, and four months down the road they still haven't understood problems that the majority of players noticed all along.
You can work as hard you can, but if the direction is all wrong nothing good will ever come out of it. That's Mythic's path.
P.S.
And to demonstrate that I base my critics on concrete motivations and not bias, I'll also say that making ORvR authoritative over Scenarios is a step in the right direction (meaning that if you control a zone in ORvR you'll control the zone in the campaign as well, no matter the results in the Scenarios).
Submitted by Abalieno on January 30, 2009 - 03:46.
When I thought I was done being surprised I find this.
Mark Jacobs answers a player who brings up the same complaint I've been reading for the last four months: players avoid the fights and run in a circle around the maps.
- Tier 4: problems with everyone farming renown and inf by avoiding each other faction, instead of that "War is everywhere" that all we want.
This is Mark's comment to this long standing problem:
avoiding other factions in a RvR/PvP game are always tough to solve even if you could only level through RvR/Pvp since many players/groups tend to always want to have an edge on the other group
I'm honestly baffled.
He doesn't have even a VAGUE idea of how the game works. He thinks that players run in circles and avoid fighting because THEY ARE SCARED TO LOSE.
Could he be more out of touch? The problem is game design giving out RvR rewards (exp, gear, renown) for PvE action. The system TRAINS players to realize that it's faster and more convenient to bypass the enemy than to put on a fight because the rewards don't come from PvP itself. Players avoid fighting because the system can be exploited, not because the players don't want to PvP because they are cowards.
For all the time Mark Jacobs wastes justifying his work, for once he should stop and actually listen what others are saying. BECAUSE HE IS CLUELESS.
Submitted by Abalieno on January 29, 2009 - 19:20.
I was digging the archive to see if I could find the quote where Mark Jacobs said that Warhammer will never be like DAoC (since the announce of Darkness Falls).
I didn't find it, but I found this:
“The initial partnership between Mythic and GOA resulted in Dark Age of Camelot being the number one MMORPG in Europe for many years,” said Mark Jacobs, CEO and President of Mythic Entertainment. “With WAR our goal is nothing less than to take Europe by storm and regain that leadership position in the European market.”
We love DAoC and by continuing to improve and invest in the game, it will be able stand up in the face of current and future competition. We believe by continuing to drive DAoC's evolution, it will remain the top RvR-based MMORPG as well as one of the top MMORPGs in the world. If you agree with us, we're willing to put in the time and investment to make it happen.
Yes, I agree. But I'm not that gullible so I don't believe (and didn't).
P.S.
For once we agree.
Submitted by Abalieno on January 24, 2009 - 15:08.
I'm strongly against this new habit across game companies of announcing the announcement. Hype should be built on the merit of things, not on false expectations or projections. I say this not as a personal preference, but because I believe that hype built without a foundation is hype that will hurt in ALL cases, even the best ones.
Mythic will announce something next week. Dunno if it's a free expansion, a patch or whatever, but these are the small expectations Mark Jacobs is building:
While our patch notes for the next version are certainly worth reading, I think the new content is pretty good as well. Now, whether players consider them totally over-the-top, mega brilliance or simply, kewl, interesting, next generation stuff will be interesting to see. There are other options of course, but I'll stick with those for now.
Imho, things should be talked about in two cases. Before the fact, if devs want to participate in a discussion and and confront and integrate players feedback. After the fact, to discuss the merit of things.
But announcing and hyping the announce, without anything concrete and objective to say. Why? What for? It's since release that MJ hypes patch notes, only to have real patch notes out deluding players and him ready to hype the next. This policy operates at a loss, every time it's a little worse. You're training customers to not trust you.
Especially when your customers have a critical eye for what you do and you keep going with blind self-praise. It creates a disconnection with the players that won't bode well at all. There isn't anything worse than self-praise in the face of your customers.
Submitted by Abalieno on January 15, 2009 - 14:40.
I'm the first to say Xfire numbers are unreliable. If you look at Eve-Online the game had a HUGE increase of active players during the holiday, that now seems dying down. This coincides to when they reactivated all canceled accounts for a period of time, so it may explain the surge of activity.
But the "real" numbers looked almost unaffected by that. Look at these graphs. These measure the activity in the same way of Xfire, only of all the players instead of a smaller sample. It is weird that the huge activity increase that Xfire showed is only very slightly reflected in the other graph. The recent weeks also aren't showing the same consistent dip on Xfire. How can this be explained? Maybe they had a special promotion through Xfire that rigged those results, maybe some bug on the client or database.
In any case Eve-Online seems to have stalled during the last year, maybe reaching its full potential within the constraint of game design that sure isn't made to be appealing to the large public (along with basic flaws that they simply decided to not address). Now it is slightly growing again, but probably as result of momentary situation related to promotions or launch of expansions. They have already another in the works where they rewrite for the 10th time the tutorials (hint: it's gameplay that should be reworked, not the tutorial text).
Hard numbers: currently Eve-Online has 250k subs. Putting it head to head with DAoC at its peak.
Now lets see Warhammer. No real numbers to see, beside it vanishing from forums discussions and relevance overall. Xfire is all we have. Not meaningful or reliable, but reasonable. The game is relatively stable, slightly dropping as players burn out. We don't have real subs numbers, not even projections. Sure is that we won't have them as EA is likely not too pleased to the point of publicizing them. MJ public "target" was at least 500k, but from other interviews it was quite obvious that his and EA target potential started from 1M going up (or better, a target to reach. didn't mean to have 1M in 1 month).
Warhammer doesn't likely have 1M now, I doubt it has 500k. I doubt it has 400k. From Xfire and general reception it is likely that by now its success is set. Meaning that I doubt it will see a relevant increase or even a sudden relevant decrease. It is whatever it is. We can only guess that number, but we know that to sway it now it will take some "extreme triggers" that it is not realistic to expect (especially from Mythic's righteous game design).
On Warhammer potential subscribers I've said a whole lot of different things. Now I'll explain so people won't accuse me of writing all kind of things to the different forums and then only link those that were right (I'm not one who wants to win arguments when in fault). When Mythic decided to sell out to EA, I said that Warhammer would have never surpassed DAoC at its peak. 250-260k then. This was as a reaction to the sellout. I explained that I thought it was a bad move. Mythic needed money to be more "secure", so they went with EA that was working like a guarantee and put them out of troubles. My point was that this transition also had negative aspects to not underestimate. One of them is that if you get much more money to make the product, then this product also HAS TO be much more successful. So if Mythic could be successful by reaching a certain target, with EA's acquisition that target would become much, much bigger. It's like as if going from 1 to 10 Mythic didn't want to go through all the steps, but make a big leap and find itself at 10. I'm against those sort of things.
This year, in August, I got the occasion to try Warhammer. I was surprised, found a game much better than how I was expecting. Good execution, good artistic talent and direction, overall well done and strong in potential. Under these conditions and in a moment favorable for MMO market (no matter what you are going to argue), I thought that the potential subscriptions would climb from my own first "blind" guess. So I wrote on F13 that I expected it to be between 250-500k, with the potential for more if they solved some basic problems (irony: look two posts down and there's another revelatory in retrospective question).
Well, not too shabby for a prediction. Four months later Warhammer didn't solve those basic problems, but made them worse in some cases. As I wrote in various occasion I don't think the game moved in a positive direction, but actually did a number of counterproductive and wrong moves. Pretty obvious that all the potential I saw wasn't and isn't going to be realized. The game's real performance seems rather close to my view.
Today, it is a meaningful thing to notice Eve-Online is probably going to be more successful than Warhammer. We won't know when exactly since we don't have numbers. But it is happening.
It is also an obvious defeat for all those who thought EA's marketing power was enough to attract the big numbers.
P.S.
About showing numbers and naysayers: this will never affect the market in a relevant way. Sure, forum warriors use numbers all the time to prove validity of their opinion (I did it here), but they do not influence results. If there's a site who shows a chart of a game population going down the game won't continue to go down because of that chart. The numbers are consequences, not causes. So: fire all marketers, hire competent game designers with eyes that can see.
Submitted by Abalieno on January 10, 2009 - 10:00.
It's here.
Two things:
- Good mindset.
- Good dev presence (and not just for shit and giggles) on the forums.
The downside is that it's not cheap for a "game" so low on bandwidth and related maintenance costs.
Submitted by Abalieno on December 13, 2008 - 00:09.
As I wrote on the forum I wouldn't bet today any money on the success of the Bioware MMO. It's not about the announce/denial of the game being based on RMT, which again may be ascribed at the difference between "being official" and "being true", it's that there are only reasons to justify skepticism.
The horrible art style is the 1# reason why I'm skeptical about this game. From the first screenshots released a while ago, to this new video I simply think it looks terrible. I've looked up their art direction guy, Jeff Dobson. It all makes sense: he comes straight from Star Wars Galaxies, another game that I thought looked like ass. Plus this video has also crappy and jerky animations to make it worse.
2# reason that justifies skepticism: the game is built on a bunch of unproven third party middleware. From the graphic engine to the server, they are using third party tech. And it's third party stuff that has never been tested on a *real* game.
3# reason: no good ideas at the foundation of the game. These are some of SWG guys who believe that the main flaw of SWG was that it wasn't heroic enough. So they make this new game. They give everyone a lightsaber and a single player story. Nope, the main flaw of SWG wasn't not being heroic. SWG flaw was that it had, simply put, bad gameplay (just think of the combat system). Giving everyone a lightsaber (as they tried to do with NGE) didn't help the game in any way, if anything it pushed away those few who liked it. So the Bioware guys stick to what they do: single player storyline. Which doesn't answer the most simple of the questions: why a MMO?
Bad art, unproven tech, no ideas that develop the innate qualities of a MMO. I just don't see anything that is worth looking for in this game if not the big names.
Bioware is known for the good stories, so it made sense for them to stick to what they know. But again, why a MMO? Either you do as Blizzard and change the face of your business and welcome a dramatic change to adapt to a wholly different genre, or you stick to what you do already: single player games.
The main problem is that no one likes to read online, especially in multiplayer. Everyone has innately different speeds to immerse himself in a story. The very last thing you want is that every player in a group is stuck at different stages, while other wait someone else to finish reading and make his choice. You have played WoW, you should know very well that even the small text in the quest window sometimes feels too much. Online games need a different pacing, and in particular they need to use their potential to the fullest, not to the minimum. This Bioware game is attempting to do a MMO through a style that is inappropriate to it and that doesn't use any of the potential.
Sure, you can add voiceovers, branching dialogues and ramp up the interaction. But this increases exponentially the costs and the time required to develop content. At some point the game has to launch. At lighting speed players go through all the content and surpass the speed at which that content is done. Moreover, to avoid boredom the content has to stay fresh, and its freshness is proportional to all the possible interpolations (variations), so limited by an engine.
What I'm saying is that this model is suicidal, simply because it can't realistically work in the longer term. Assuming, of course, that you expect this MMO to have a longer life cycle than the average single player game.
Maybe you can reduce the odds by adapting the business model, like making players pay for smaller content pack (which is why I say there may be some truth in the RMT announce by changing the perspective). As Guild Wars, you won't be scared if players leave, as long they return when you're done developing content overhead. But this just seems a hopeless and pointless battle to fight, when instead what makes sense is simply to EMBRACE the potential there's in a MMO and that still all the major companies are scared of.
My opinion, of course.
Want something to look forward with slightly more hope (at least till they don't sink those hopes)? I'm waiting to know more about Guild Wars 2 and that side company to Bethesda, Zenimax Online. Something good may come out.
Submitted by Abalieno on December 12, 2008 - 04:41.
Had to be expected. After the gold bags at keeps encouraged avoidance instead of conflict (keep trading) now there's the new influence system that takes player kills in very little consideration while it hugely rewards keeps takeovers.
Result: another incentive to avoid a fight and cooperate with the enemy faction. You trade keeps and maximize the rewards. Before it was gold bags for gear, now it is gold bags + influence. I also note that now there are three overlapping systems just in ORvR that provide gear: gold bags, renown vendors and influence system. How many broken systems you are going to pile up before you start to make work what's already in the game?
This is a perfect example of Mythic not understanding the basic of game design. Not only they made the mistake with the gold bags, but instead of recognizing it, they make it worse.
Official response from a CM:
James Nichols: Unfortunately the path of least resistance is also tempting,
Nope, it's not tempting. It's the way the game is designed. Doing quests in WoW isn't "tempting" it's the way the game was designed.
Simply put: You continue to design RvR so it promotes avoidance. You got many occasion to correct this, instead you make it worse.
James Nichols: rest assured though we'll continue to improve RvR to make it so that conflict is a common occurrence as best we can,
How? Does your team even recognize how game design works? Because with every step they are making things worse.
James Nichols: but players adjust to massive RvR may still have yet to learn that a lot of the fun of RvR has to do with what you make of it.
It's hard to be fun in a game when bad game design is an obstacle. Blaming the players because they don't know how to have fun is blaming them for your very own faults and failures.
James Nichols: We expect to see players naturally migrate towards conflict as the initial influence frenzy calms down.
After the players understand even better than avoidance maximizes the reward? I don't know what trends you see in games, but over time things get "gamed" more and more. If players pursue the path of least resistance NOW, in a week or a month they'll do it even more.
Making mistakes is one thing, but making them over, and over, and over... well, there are no excuses for that. See below, Warhammer had its chances. It wasted them all.
Submitted by Abalieno on December 11, 2008 - 08:11.
I've said many times that the game industry, especially the MMO branch, needs more failures. There have been many recently, but it doesn't seem even close to be "enough". Maybe some developers are concerned because it becomes harder to find money to start new projects, but the point is that in all cases these projects are born from a "me too" intent, more than a need to make something new that is felt as *indispensable*. If your game doesn't add anything new and isn't felt as indispensable, in a way or another, then it doesn't deserve to be made.
Things need to be done because there are solid ideas behind, because they answer a demand. Projects shouldn't be started before the ideas are there. Today any new MMO announced brings absolutely nothing new to the table, nor has any idea on how to improve what we have already. Under these premises, I'm happy if they continue to fail.
Successes should be motivated, not simply incremented. I want a MMO to succeed not so that other companies have an easier time finding money. I want a MMO to succeed when there are good motivations to make it a success. No MMO released in the last years had good motivations that would justify a success. If we had MMOs being successful without being good games, then we would have an industry that feels legitimated in releasing more crap and lowering the quality level. We should be all thankful if this isn't happening and if this genre isn't felt anymore as the goose that lays the golden eggs. That trend just brought us crap and we still aren't out of it. So the more failures, the better.
From the personal perspective, the way I consider a good game is the same that makes me consider a good book: if after a while I feel that I could do a better work then I stop reading/playing, because I feel that I'm just wasting my time. Fortunately, this isn't happening often.
These are some examples from games that I played recently and that I enjoyed:
Assassin's Creed - It is redundant and probably needed more time to add some variety (as Charles admitted on the forums), but it gives a lot of freedom and has that "visceral feel" done rather well. The Controls are also well thought and original in their own way. Where it truly excels is in the animation system and direction. Up to now the crown was of God of War. Assassin's Creed surpassed it. Best animations ever, and obsessive attention to detail.
Fallout 3 - It's one of the better realized worlds, visually. Probably one notch above Bioshock (but Bioshock was more creative). I never liked Bethesda's gameplay design, and even here I believe that the majority of gameplay is rather bad. Everything that moves looks bad and the effect becomes exponentially worse when it involves scripted NPC sequences. It's the game where the environment surpasses the gameplay. A bad game, but a world that deserved to be experienced (as long you just watch, and don't pretend to interact).
The Witcher - Another game with terrible gameplay. The combat system has nothing that is worth saving. Counterintuitive, clunky, hard to parse. The reason to play this is the opposite of the usual: it's a bad game with a good story. It has an eastern european flavor that is on its own unique, and it's one rpg where you can actually "roleplay". There's not much in the way of "game", but there's a lot in the way of being in a story and let it flow. A game from the past.
Left 4 Dead - This is a game, like other Valve games, that attempts to do just one thing, but manages to do it exceptionally well. I don't think it's worth the full price as it is just a mod idea done with high production value. The narrow scope makes it extremely limited and so not worth the price, imho. That said, there's virtually nothing I would change in game design. It's as close as possible to a flawless execution. Good graphic, fast engine, the best cooperative gameplay ever. Playing with just four players represents the perfect cooperative balance. For the full price I'd have expected ten different characters or so to pick, with some subtle differences in gameplay between them. Also one more campaign and even there different gameplay instead of just different environments.
FarCry 2 - It's the concept of the kind of game I may love. One seamless world to explore. A FPS sandbox that makes you play the way you like. With non-linear paths and different storylines to follow and entwine. This game only realizes a fragment of these ambitions, but it is enough to make an interesting game. It's immersive, has an engine that runs well and yet accomplishes/simulates a number of features that have consequences on the gameplay. It has many flaws, especially in game design, but they can be forgiven. I still can't figure out why they haven't released a patch that increases respawn timers. Everyone rants about that, it's easily fixable (add a slider maybe), yet they do nothing.
Call of Duty 4 - Last year, but still on my HD. It's the best shooter gameplay. The game is rather short, but it has a high replay value. The gameplay is so well done and fun that it never gets old. Very good engine, good graphic. It's entirely scripted, but it's this scripting that makes it good. Not only you can pick different paths through a level, but every time you die and redo the last bit, you seem to find a different situation. It's a reactive game, scripted perfectly. Good to play on "hard" difficulty as dying doesn't really break the flow (you are back into action right away, being surprised again).
Sins of the Solar Empire - I didn't have a lot of time to dig in this one but it is the perfect blend between the no-personality 4X strategy games and Homeworld. Mix of tactical and strategical. It is an indie game that deserves success, also because of the absence of copy protection and the good support (with patches, the main reason why I bought it). Good production value, huge battles, decent engine. It's a pleasure to explore and the demonstration that even an indie game can have a decent production value and very good gameplay. Also good AI.
Fifa 09 - Huh, well. The type of game to fill that niche where you want to have some fun without too much commitment. It's either sport or driving games. Up to this year the best was Pro Evolution Soccer 6, but that franchise went worse instead of better. Fifa 99 is playable. It gets a bit repetitive and deja-vu, stuck into certain patterns, but it has pleasant controls and avoids a lot of the frustration. Maybe a bit too easy to "game", and could use a lot of tweaks in the UI and plenty of other minor, and easily solvable quirks.
WoW: WotLK - It's still the best, better designed MMO by far. When this one launched it brought many, many good ideas to the genre and fixed an almost endless list of problems. A list that today isn't considered because those aspects are now considered norm. If the game was successful it's because it had very good game design and many good ideas. If other MMOs fail today it's because they have bad game design and because they solve or improve virtually nothing. WoW has two flaws. The PvP is still only a fragment of its true potential (I haven't tried Wintergrasp, but the idea to make the zone so hard to reach is already a terrible flaw), and the game is so big that it may become a problem. Sometimes you have so much to do that it may take too much time to get there that you just won't bother. You can feel that it is eating your life.
These are the games that I played recently and that I thought were good in a way or another. Add maybe Mount & Blade.
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