Ravings
Submitted by Abalieno on January 8, 2011 - 15:57.
I know very well to stay away from this, but I decided to check it out, despite my vow to never again join mmorpg betas, because at the helm of this game is Scott Hartsman (former EQ2 technical guy and then producer, surely did better work as the latter) and he's one of the VERY FEW guys I have esteem for.
So I checked this out.
In short: Trion, the studio behind this game has been shopping for Mythic's devs for a while (Mythic's producer is the most recent acquisition). Scott Hartsman probably brought some SOE devs with him as well. The game uses Gamebryo, the DREADFUL engine that everyone learned to hate and scorn. It's the same engine used on Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout, DAoC and Warhammer, so you know what to expect.
The result is that Rift plays, looks and feels like an hybrid of EQ2 and Warhammer. The basic gameplay copies the first iteration of WoW (when quests had far less variety), plays the exact same way and has the exact same UI (but done in Guild Wars art).
There are two features that make Rift stand out:
- The "soul" mechanic, that makes the same class mix and cover different roles (tank, DPS, control, healer).
- The rifts.
The soul mechanic I approve (even if the specific implementation comes with some issues, like balance problems, redundant skills, and not quite streamlined skills purpose), in fact it's quite curious how one of the two distinctive features of this game that wasn't copied from some other MMO... is one of my own.
About five years ago (see forum date and original thread for evidence) I was proposing the exact same idea:
Here's how I'm following HRose's "fixed classes/flexible roles" concept ...
My idea was basically letting characters and a single class cover all "roles" in a party like "healer" "tank" or "DPS" so that some players could always form a decent group at all times, without having to sit an hour because they couldn't find an healer.
You could basically swap your party role to whatever was needed. And what is used in Rift is close to the same idea. (as long the swap is not permanent like WoW's talents)
It can take time, but eventually even the professional designers arrive to the same conclusions I arrived a few years ago. If you sit and wait in the place where everyone is going, then it looks like everyone is coming to you ;)
The other feature is the "rifts". This one seems an original concept, but it's just a variation of Warhammer's Public Quest. Quite shameless, imho. You arrive at the location of a Rift and you automatically obtain a Public Quest divided in sub-phases EXACTLY like Warhammer. First there's a wave of minor mobs, then a "boss" of some kind. When all phases are complete you can pick up a reward depending on how much you contributed.
It's exactly the same idea, with very minor adjustments. The only relevant one is that instead of being in a fixed location like Warhammer, these are scripted to occur at random in a number of points across the map, including quest hubs. You gain some dynamism, but you lose the handcrafted detail Warhammer's model allowed. Imho, it's not a step forward.
Conclusion:
Warhammer offered four kinds of gameplay: standard PvE, Public Quests, Battlegrounds, world PvP. Of these, two were badly broken due to bad game design (Public Quests not being scalable, world PvP being just horribly done and nerfed so that everyone was playing just BGs), but AT LEAST they were there.
Rifts plays essentially the same, but PvP seems entirely tacked on (and balance problems won't make it easier).
Warhammer was a big failure. Rifts offers even less and has far less ideas, but perhaps isn't utterly doomed. I think it was developed in a short time span and cost less than Warhammer (all thanks to Gamebryo, whose "discounts" will be then payed every single day). Without EA expecting millions of subscribers and Scott Hartsman at the helm I think they have a realistic plan and in the end the boat could stay afloat even if this game is on paper (and in what I played) sensibly weaker than Warhammer.
And for more Gamebryo HORRORS look here.
Different projects names, same people behind them. In the end I can't be surprised if all these games play exactly the same. From what I see, the larger the crisis in the industry and especially the mmorpg genre, the more fragmented it gets. Studios shattering in many smaller ones and developers finishing on the road and continuing to wander aimlessly like zombies between failed projects. It's not a recipe for success, and it will take many more years to see a new mmorpg that actually deserves the attention.
EDIT:
I LOLed at the beta forum:
What about the Gamebryo engine? What impact does it have on performance?
The fact that Rift uses the Gamebryo engine does not have a significant impact on performance. Rift uses a heavily modified version of the engine, and only for certain game systems. As such any issues you may have experienced with other MMOs using this engine will not affect Rift.
Wishful thinking :)
Submitted by Abalieno on September 18, 2009 - 14:33.
I was thinking: go on and make the PvE game harder in the initial levels like you said, now that the game is losing players and that the servers are almost completely empty. Especially the low level zones, I'd guess.
On Q23 I was reading this comment, likely from someone who played recently:
On the PQs, I think it's still a brilliant concept. No, you can't make it THAT challenging - these aren't coordinated groups. But it does foster some grouping and player interaction. I still think those are the best part of WAR. The challenge is that they're abandoned now. I'm not sure how you overcome that...but on release I LOVED the PQs.
The kind of problem we pointed out at release. Public quests are a broken design concept if you don't implement a scaling/adapting dynamic.
But then go on and put the nails on the coffin, it is surely better than the slow agony.
Warhammer failed and is sinking not because of technical competency, lack of resources or lack of support from EA. It failed because of very bad game design all around.
Submitted by Abalieno on September 17, 2009 - 00:46.
On Q23 today I noticed a necro thread about Warhammer (you know, that game we used to talk about a year ago). I went looking why it was resurrected and the reason is that all Mythic's services went offline. Including all Warhammer and DAoC servers.
It's quite a big fuckup (since I think it's been already a few hours, if not the whole day), so I went checking the forum to see if there was the kind of rage I'd expect. Not so much. It's quite calm. Maybe because there are only an handful of players left, and even those who are left aren't particularly caring either.
While looking at this I noticed a link to a gamasutra article that boasted this title: GDC Austin: Mythic's Hickman Shares Warhammer Online's Biggest Mistakes
I'm curious, let's see these biggest mistakes (the three major ones are reported). Let's see if, one year later and one Jacobs less, they got some clue.
Here's their three biggest mistakes they think they made on Warhammer:
1- The PvE game is too easy in the initial levels.
2- Since the game is too easy and too soloable, people don't socialize.
3- Farming gold and grinding is not important. But it brings together the community.
The article is also filled with brilliance and awesome insight, like:
"The era of boxed products is ending."
"Digital distribution is absolutely profitable"
"if your game is flawed and you have to make massive rebuilds, that's risky."
If you don't believe me, here the actual quotes about those three major mistakes:
1- "Warhammer, in PVE, in the beginning, is too easy."
2- "You can do so many things solo, that friendship, at least in the beginning levels, is not necessary, and it's super dangerous for your games."
3- "what it caused us to do was build a game where economy is not important enough. Economy brings people together."
It's also quite funny because when they asked him if these issues were the same reported by players during beta he said, obviously not:
"I'm not sure how many of our players would say it's too easy; it's not something they think about. There are a lot of things they point at and say are the problems, but [actually] it's that."
Players wouldn't say that PvE being too easy is the game's major flaw (maybe because players aren't as clueless as himself), but it's that. No really. It's that.
Now after my crusade against Mark Jacobs you'd expect that I find the current Mythic at least slightly improved (since he left, if you remember). I'm not. Mythic with Jacobs had at least some drive. Mythic without Jacobs seems just as clueless, and even lost all drive.
Submitted by Abalieno on July 30, 2009 - 21:11.
In the last couple of weeks I joined an heated discussion on Martin's board about the Hulk Vs The Thing Martin Vs Erikson endless debate.
I always try to prove what I say and explain my point of view the best I can. My final purpose is that if we have to disagree we'll disagree on some concrete opinions and not on misunderstanding or manipulation of opinions to win an argument. In fact, and even in this case, I participate in the discussion not to "prevail", but because I find it interesting and enriching in a way. Confrontation.
Problem is when your opinion clashes with the one of a moderator, whose opinion in this particular case is completely biased and unreliable (axe to grind). I actually read and appreciate his blog a lot. Just not about Erikson.
This was the last exchange put in context.
Iron Tusk:
i've only read gardens of the moon, but the impression i got from the book is that erikson writes like an anthropologist rather than an author. does that make any sense? regardless, i found gardens of the moon to be an extremely dry read and i highly doubt i'll continue on with the series.
that said, i thought the book was filled with wonderful ideas that were simply poorly executed (IMO) and i can see why this series is very popular, it's simply not for me.
End of disk one:
If your main problem was the writing, anyone will tell you that the writing in the first book is much different than in the rest of the series. It was written about 15 years before the rest.
Werthead (the moderator):
GotM was written about 8 years before DHG, but yes, a fair bit before.
Personally I always thought GotM was quite representative of the writing in the other MBF books (and superior to the last two, perhaps the last four, books), the only difference with the others is that you get used to it by the time you reach them.
Me:
I won't get again in the discussion but your revisionism is becoming just unbelievable.
Again, it's all a matter of taste and preference, but saying that the writing in the first book is the same of the writing of the other books is plain wrong.
I'm not saying plotting, characters, ideas and so on. Just the writing. If you think the writing is the same then I can't even believe anymore that you are being honest here.
I started reading Deadhouse Gates a day after the end of Gardens of the Moon and the difference was immense.
Werthead:
(about me saying it's false that the writing of the first book is the same of the other books) Possibly. In many ways, it is superior.
(about my comment on his revisionism) Sorry, I'm being lectured to on my opinions on this series by someone who hasn't read the damn thing?
We'll talk again when you know what the hell you are blathering about.
My reply to the last two lines Werthead wrote:
This again.
We were discussing the difference in the writing between the first and the second book. I read those. There's significant progress between the books that may or may not be appreciated. But it is there and it is undeniable.
Kuenjato:
Werthead's assertion was that the writing in GotM is superior to the last two (and perhaps four) books of the series, not DH or MoI.
My reply to kuenjato, that was deleted for "trolling":
Nope, you have to put that in context. Someone said that he didn't like the writing of the first book. Someone else replied that many years passed between the books and that Erikson improved as a writer. Then Werthead chimed in to say that it is true that years passed (but less) but that there wasn't any improvement in the writing, actually it got worse.
In fact he said that there wasn't any improvement and that "the only difference" is that us readers became used to it. This is just false.
I didn't notice a significant improvement between the first and the second book because I suddenly "got used" to the writing in the few days that passed before I started reading the second. I noticed it because it is there and it is undeniable even by those who do not like the way Erikson writes.
This part of a long forum thread where for everything thing that was said Werth came to say the opposite just for fun. Constantly and without any motivation. Even on those points that both Erikson's fans and haters agree.
That's what I call trolling. Coming to a discussion and say "no" to everything, without bothering to motivate anything. Then when someone opposes you, you tell him "you aren't qualified to speak" (because I only read four books), and then finally deleting my posts because his axe to grind was just becoming too obvious and his position indefensible.
About the actual debate, it's a proven fact that Erikson improves as a writer as the series goes on. Again, it doesn't mean that one who dislikes the first book will then obligatorily like the second, but everything is done much better and there have been many readers who said that they only started to like Erikson after the second book or the third, so this is often brought up when someone asks for suggestions like in this case. Opinions, sure. But denying progress in the writing is about denying something everyone else noticed and agreed upon. It's the most frequent comment you can read everywhere, in reviews or across different forums that don't have a particular bias.
For example, this is from Q23 (that is not a dedicated author's forum, and so less prone to bias), and it's not me writing it:
I'd also say that his writing generally improves as the series continues on; the biggest jump is indeed between Gardens of the Moon and the rest, but you can still kind of see it happening from book to book following.
Just one of many.
There can only be a discussion if we speak the same language. If one just wants to disrupt everything that is being said, disagreeing just to hinder the discussion, then I'll call that trolling.
Submitted by Abalieno on July 23, 2009 - 00:46.
A gaming interlude to give closure to the few hopes I had.
Today they were bragging that they reached whatever number of applications to beta they reached. The fact that the game should have been already out and they still haven't invited anyone to that beta appears secondary.
Their PvP system is incredibly original:
MMORPG.com:
What loot reward systems are in place for PvP in JGE?
Hermann Peterscheck:
Loot rewards will be sold to you by special vendors which require you to have a certain amount of renown to gain access to. Additionally you get XP and credits for kills, contribution to kills and other objectives which you can complete as part of PVP.
They also can't be arsed to write a design doc. I guess it's too soon to have one:
MMORPG.com:
What experience reward systems are in place for PvP in JGE?
Hermann Peterscheck:
Currently you get XP, Credits and Renown for all PVP kills. Depending on how well you do and your contribution determines how much of each you get. In the case of battlespace, winning the round will give bonuses. In the case of open world PVP, the winning nation gains control over that part of space which has consequences and benefits we have not specified.
Good luck with your next game Netdevil.
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.
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