Zen Of Design

The design and business of gaming from the perspective of an experienced developer

Month: May 2006 (Page 2 of 2)

Reimagining Shadowrun

May 10, 2006 /

A Shadowrun game has been announced! There’s just one problem:

when we decided to do Shadowrun we realized there was a ton of baggage that came with it. We had been through it with our BattleTech games (MechWarrior, MechCommander, MechAssault) for years and had the battle scars of trying to please hardcore fans and new players at the same time. It’s a rough road to travel and it usually ends in tears. Fans got pissed because we weren’t “following the rules” or “keeping to canon”. New players felt like outsiders because so much had gone on before it was like starting to watch LOST in season three…

So what should we do? Satisfy fans of the paper and pencil game? The novels? The SNES and Genesis games? It wasn’t a long debate, really. We decided to restart the Shadowrun timeline and grow the fiction over a series of games, allowing the world we loved to unfold over time.

The natives are not amused.

And who can blame them? There is a whole bunch of people who have been waiting faithfully for a Shadowrun game to become a reality (I am one of them). I feel somewhat like I did when early reports of the new Superman movie reported that the director didn’t think the Man of Steel should fly. It will be interesting to see if a similar fan revolt will occur, and if so, if it will result in similar results.

Original comments thread is here.

Build an Experience, not a Genre

May 9, 2006 /

The Rampant Coyote posted a good article that talks about escaping the genre, and actually getting to the root of what your game should be about. Needless to say, we’ve been talking a lot about genres and licenses here in the office as we try to figure out what we’re doing next, and one thing that comes up a lot is actually ensuring that the game feels like it’s theme.

Earth and Beyond and Eve were both space shooters. E&B tried to be Everquest in space. Eve was more true to what the idea behind a space trading game should be. Guess which one is still around? Continue reading

Sony Takes McQuaid Back

May 8, 2006 /

This weekend, in a surprise announcement made near the close of business Friday (therefore guarunteeing the community guys had a hellish weekend), it was announced that Sigil was divorcing itself from Microsoft, and working their way into a ‘copublishing’ agreement with Sony.

The Vanguard faithful are upset primarily about SOE’s involvement in the deal. This is unsurprising, given that Vanguard’s community has basically been built by promising a version of Everquest true to its original vision (read: before being sullied by the hands of the unwashed heathens that currently run it). This positioning by Sigil is, in fact, what was so surprising about the change in bedfellows. Continue reading

PVP’s Sting

May 5, 2006 /

It’s fascinating to watch the people in the previous thread talk about how World of Warcraft’s PVP has no ’sting’ or consequence to it. This, to me, shows a profound failure to understand what it’s like to… well, not be very good. The penalty for a PK death in most games with ‘light’ penalties is more painful than most care to admit.

  • Time. Time spent running back to your corpse is time spent doing an extremely boring activity — excascerbated by seething.
  • Pride. “You may feel a slight sting. That’s pride fucking with you.” Losing is a shameful act. Losing repeatedly is even more so. This is lost on people who are used to winning.
  • Experience Disruption. Is it safe to go back to where you were adventuring? Heck, is it safe to get back to your corpse? Do we have to reassemble our raid group now that the priest was forced to quit?
  • Social Disruption. I’ve been part of two guilds that effectively came unravelled when they hit the 30s in WoW, where they felt they couldn’t complete a quest without being ganked 3 times. When those guildmates started to leave, my attention in the game started to unravel as well – PvP’s sting reached someone who wasn’t the one being ganked!

Continue reading

That Instancing Can O’ Worms

May 3, 2006 /

Perception is a funny thing.

I’ve been a loud voice claiming that instancing isn’t the silver bullet that some designers claim it is. And I’ve felt pretty lonely.

Dan Rubenfield’s claim is that instancing is one of the most powerful tools in the toolbox, and that it currently isn’t being used very well. Reading from his post on the matter, he seems to think he’s in the minority on this, too.

I know, I know.. You’re thinking “But instancing ruin’s MMO’s. Just look at .(sic)”

Those games sucked because those games sucked. They fucked up multiple levels of development. It wasn’t the addition or segmentation of their world that made it less than inspiring, or less interesting than it should.

The ironic part is that I agree with where he’s going, if not the finer points. Still, one is left to wonder which games he was referring to. City of Heroes was an extraoridinarily tight little MMO. Instancing served it well most of the time, but was a tad overdone in my opinion. Guild Wars leveraged instancing heavily to provide many of the benefits he referred to in his post, but provided a world that didn’t feel like a world (which wasn’t enough to stop it from selling a million boxes or so).

And of course, despite the fact that WoW is touted as being an argument against instancing by some, most of WoW’s high level content is instanced. 30% of level 60 players raid per month, presumably in instances. I’ve stated before that I believe that instancing in WoW is used at about the appropriate degree. I still think that.

The real power of instancing is the controlled adventure. You can ensure that every variable in an adventure is in the control of the world designer. You don’t have to worry about another group running ahead and unlocking all the doors. You can have the terrain be altered by player actions. You can ensure fairness.

The real danger of instancing is silence1. Instancing hurt CoH and GW the most when you were in an instance alone, and all of the cross-chatter on your chat channels slowed down. When you play a game that is purportedly a ‘massively multiplayer game’ and your chat channel is barren as a tomb, the sense of isolation is devastating and the irony is inescapable. Ensure that instancing is done intelligently, and that the game still feels like a social space, and instancing can deeply improve the world you provide.

Using instancing doesn’t require balls, just brains.

1 I talk about this in greater length in my Vegas talk, for anyone who isn’t bored with that yet.

Original comments thread is here.

Tabula Rasa Brings teh Pretty

May 2, 2006 /

Speaking of NCSoft, this here TR movie sure is pretty. I especially like how the game is bright and colorful – dark and grim are all too common ways to take sci-fi, and while it’s great for Battlestar Galactica, it doesn’t bode as well if you’re trying to adhere to the corner bar theory.

Of course, a movie doesn’t convey what the gameplay will be like. The game is described as a mix between RPG and shooter – the key will be on where, exactly, the fulcrum of that balance is. I wish I could get to E3 to put my hands on it.

Tabula Rasa Interview

May 2, 2006 /

Last week’s Escapist has an interesting interview with Robert and Richard Garriott, which can be used to extrapolate the direction that NCSoft is pursuing. The revelation that’ll make the kiddies talk is that Richard likes to buy online gold (this is perhaps unsurprising, as Richard is the definitive example of a game player who has more money than time).

[Richard said], “I buy virtual gold all the time,” he says, adding, “I have no problem with it. I’m a supporter. I understand that my position on this is different from our sole corporate perspective. But anyway, I participate in it.”

Continue reading

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