Category: Game Design (Page 16 of 22)

How to Be a Console Fanboy

June 27, 2005 / Damion Schubert

Gamespot has put together a helpful list of rules regarding being a fanboy of one console or another. Some of the useful rules:

Innovation is what it’s called when your console has a unique feature. Otherwise, it’s called a gimmick.
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A sequel on another console is a “rehash,” while a sequel on your console is not; in fact, it’s highly anticipated.
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A person who owns just one console is inherently less biased than editors at GameSpot who have access to all consoles.
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[I]t is up to you to monitor how companies are doing and report every dip in stock price of manufacturers of other consoles. You’re all experts in the fields of economics and finance, so your analyses will always prove correct.

Putting together this list for MMO fanboyism would be a lot of fun. Might get me fired, though.

One of the things that we talk about at work when we talk about the remarkable success that World of Warcraft has had is that it is going to age well. The reason why? It’s not ‘realistic’, and so it sidesteps that entire arms race of everyone else trying to figure out how to draw elves with more polys in each pointy ear.

Ultima Online had this advantage, too. Yeah, the art is old, but since few MMOs share that perspective in the US marketplace, their art style has managed to survive better. 3D games inherently have it rougher – my old game, Meridian 59 looked old when Everquest came out. Everquest looked obsolete when EQ2 came out. One can expect this trend to continue for future realistic games as well. Meridian takes some very interesting and innovative design risks, and Everquest has something like 6 years more content than EQ2 does, but that’s not what you think when you glance at screenshots on the back of the box. Continue reading

A Spirited Defense of Graphics Over Gameplay

June 15, 2005 / Damion Schubert

I always have a fondness for writers who tell it like it is. You know, the guys who defend levels in RPGs and think that hit points work just fine. Even if you disagree with those stances, I think too many people dismiss the status quo without really understanding how we got there.

This morning, Andrew Phelps challenges the notion that gameplay always trumps graphics.

In the not-to-distant future each of us will be asked to plunk down a not insignificant amount of money for a new console, either an X-Box 360 or a PS3 or a Revolution. Well, the first thing I’m going to do is play a game on my new toy, and it had damn well better look better than the last console.
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That’s a really important point so I will say it again a bit differently: the consumer is deciding whether or not a title is worthy of personal investment based on its appearance. Yeah, I know, shallow. So transparent. But I can guarantee that no one will know about your super-smart awesome character AI and intricate plot details (and believe me, I love super-smart toons and plot details – its why I read science fiction in the first place) if there isn’t a pretty face to suck people in. It has got to look worthy of investment.

What is Immersion?

June 14, 2005 / Damion Schubert

…and is immersion something that designers should strive for?

Of course, your response will vary based upon which definition of ‘Immersion’ you like the best. I do think any definition of immersion should include not just audio-visual masterpieces, but also games like Heroes and Bejeweled that completely stole your attention for 8 hours straight. Continue reading

Imperfect Information

June 10, 2005 / Damion Schubert

The corollary to the concept of Tactical Transparency is the concept of Imperfect Information, a delightful gameplay construct to mess around with. Imperfect Information can be summed up as what your players DON’T know that they wish they could. Imperfect information creates doubt, keeps the player off-balance and helps keep the little guy in the game.

Game designs run a full gamut on how ‘perfect’ the information they provide. Chess, for example, is a game of very nearly perfect information. All of the information is visible right before your eyes, with the exception of the devious plan resting in your opponent’s mind. Many strategy board games have fully or nearly perfect information — computer strategy games use tactics like ‘fog of war’ to make this information more imperfect. Still, it’s definitely possible to make a classic game with fully perfect information. Continue reading

Tactical Transparency

June 7, 2005 / Damion Schubert

‘Tactical Transparency’ is a term I throw around to describe the concept that the player should always know what his options are. This is not to say that the player should always have the right answer – he certainly should have the option of making a bad choice, or be beaten by bad luck, but he should always be able to figure out the odds. Blackjack, for example, is reasonably tactically transparent, but you still have the ability to be screwed by bad judgment or luck.

This term is useful when talking about many things, including combat, AI and 3D graphics. For example, one place where game designers really screw up tactical transparency is in poor use of the heightfield. Most games have an angle of terrain, above which you simply cannot climb – let’s say 40 degrees. Fair enough. But then those games don’t stop worldbuilders from building slopes at 39 and 41 degrees, both of which look virtually identical to each other to the user, which creates a world which feels inconsistent to the user. Continue reading

He Speaks Truth

June 2, 2005 / Damion Schubert

Nathan McKenzie has this gem to say in the thread that will not die (2014 Damion notes: link to old comment thread in archive.org)

One of the problems, I think, about being a game developer is that we don’t really show our audiences the stuff that doesn’t work. The ironic thing about the laundry list of stuff that players routinely clamor for is that, more often than not, we’ve tried every one of the things they announce loudly that they’d like. And then, after we’ve proven to ourselves that those ideas are not, in fact, fun, new people enter the industry and have to prove those same facts to themselves. Over and over and over.

His whole post is well-spoken. Go read it.

The Combat Rut

June 1, 2005 / Damion Schubert

The AI discussion that Jamie started has started to spread, and its leading some interesting places. One of my own random synapse firings: I think the need to provide a group puzzle is a huge reason why we’re stuck in the Combat Rut. Whether it be EQ’s AI model or another, it’s not that difficult to come up with an interesting Combat model that follows the following parameters:

It differs (albeit mildly) from experience to experience.
It is very social play, requiring cooperation
It provides very clearly different roles between other players that must work in unison.

You Don’t Want Realistic A.I.

May 31, 2005 / Damion Schubert

In reading over the ridiculously overhyped gamer’s manifesto from last week, Jamie points out what I failed to, which is that people think they want realistic AI, but they really don’t. His quote:

One of the reasons we make game AI stupid is not always lack of processor power but often because a smarter AI would school our players too deeply and they’d turn to simpler games. Look at chess – we’ve got some great AI there, so great nobody wants to play against the computer. Stealth games would be another example: if the security in a stealth game actually was decent, playing these games would become an exercise in frustration instead of an exercise in feeling like a kick-ass ninja commando.

Yep. It is ridiculously easy to write an AI that will kill you instantly.* And you may think you want a world where every guard in the complex converges on you if you trip an alarm, but in reality, you don’t. It is actually a much larger challenge to write an AI that doesn’t pwn on demand, but still appears intelligent. Continue reading

3D Isn’t the Problem

May 28, 2005 / Damion Schubert

The games industry continues its inevitable slide to a world where games are all 3D all the time. The conventional wisdom is that 2D games are losers that won’t sell in the new world, and games like Age of Empires, Starcraft, and Diablo are dinosaurs that snuck in below the wire. So it wasn’t a huge surprise that both HoMM V and Civ IV both showed at E3 with full 3D visuals.

Going 3D isn’t automatically a negative for a license, provided that the gameplay is king, and that you don’t stray too far from what the license is really about (I’m looking at you, Advance Wars). Still, there is definitely past examples of games not handling the transition well. Greg Costikyan, in particular, is concerned about these storied licenses. Continue reading