I've been trying out A Tale in the Desert lately. Much like any wide open world, I soon found myself traveling in a random direction wondering where the winds of fate would take me.
After a while of this, I started writing down random things and people I came across, so here it is, journal entry for 8/29/08.
Cradle of the Sun
SunnyOne
LuckyLisa
Philadelphia
Bartoshep
DoranM
Along a riverbank
Karnack
Rena
Stariz
Quijdan
Korrin
Desert Area
Limestone
Cactus Sap
AnieW
Munnos
Narkho
Small Chest
Large Chest
Traveller's Shrine
Mines
Oasis
Saw map... didn't like it.
Approaching Nile
Grassland
More mines
Giant Lavender Stonecrop
Golden Pampas Grass
Big Leaf Plant
More mines
Traveling West
Taro
Silt
Massan
Passam
River crossing
2 chests
5 mines
Even more mines... joy.
Quarry
Desert
RexBaron
Natural Land Bridge
Cactii
2 Fields, plant unknown
Lions Grass
More cactii
Common alter
Line of small chests
29.8.08
Architecture
After my recent successes in importing models into Multiverse I've found myself in something of an architectural quandary. How exactly do I populate a sixty to seventy story tall construct that is meant to function as a literal floating city.
Some are almost a given, the parks towards the front, the operations and maintenance areas down low, and up high, and the inner curve being populated with shops. Even those aren't nailed down in terms of final layout. For most of it though, I'm left with little more than basic concepts of the necessity of schools, hospitals and security.
Anybody out there that knows a bit about architecture willing to give me a hand, or point me in the direction of some good study material?
Some are almost a given, the parks towards the front, the operations and maintenance areas down low, and up high, and the inner curve being populated with shops. Even those aren't nailed down in terms of final layout. For most of it though, I'm left with little more than basic concepts of the necessity of schools, hospitals and security.
Anybody out there that knows a bit about architecture willing to give me a hand, or point me in the direction of some good study material?
28.8.08
Do players want something new?
During the latest round of blogs, I've heard a large number of people saying "players don't want something too new anyways." This is hardly a new topic of thought for me, but I thought I'd go into some persuasive hyperbole on the topic.
For starters, I'd like to give you a test. The test consists of three questions, at the end of which I should be able to accurately predict what you want in a marriage.
1) How badly do you miss beating your spouse?
A. Very much
B. Slightly
C. Very little
D. Not at all
2) How many days a week is it acceptable to cheat on your spouse?
A. 7
B. 5
C. 3
D. 1
3) Your potential wife must hold down a steady job.
A. Strongly Agree
B. Agree
C. Disagree
D. Strongly Disagree
Obviously this questionnaire is fundamentally flawed. At every point we make certain assumptions, that the taker is abusive, considers promiscuity acceptable at some level, and that they are marrying a woman. For the majority of takers this will provide a result that is non-applicable, though it will always return a result as there is no condition in which it cannot.
When we come to asking questions as to player's wants, needs, and motivations we tend to fall into similar traps. One of the greatest criticisms of the Bartle Types is simply that the tests assume you fall within those bounds. They will report a final type report, so long as you completed the test, even if you do not have any preference for any of the given activities. But the basic principle extends out to our probing of players for their preferences. For instance we might ask what genre of game they plan to buy next, MMORPG, RTS, FPS, Flight Sim, Racing, Sports, RPG, and completely miss the reality that their next purchase may be Arcade.
Obviously, we can expand the list, but that does little to solve the fundamental problem. Without being able to build a comprehensive list of all genres that have, do and ever will exist the answer will always be flawed. Even having such a list wouldn't be a magic bullet though.
Those doing the asking are not solely faced with this problem, the ones being questioned face a similar dilemma. It is very difficult for a person to think outside of what they know and to extrapolate out a choice that they didn't know themselves to have. To bring it into sharper perspective, few people could have possibly expressed their interest in purchasing first person shooters in 1973, shortly after pong's release. This isn't any sort of criticism of players, either, it is simply the reality that we seldom express interest in options we don't know exist.
A great TED talk by Malcom Galdwell comes to mind. I'll go ahead and embed it so that you can take this opportunity to watch it if you haven't had the pleasure yet.
I've heard some criticism of his talk in that the idea of diversifying product lines is not a new one. That wasn't my take away, though. What I had picked up on was that there had been a segment of their market that they had previously been unable to sell to, simply because they didn't know it existed. MMOs recently went through this, we hadn't known there was a market for relatively speedy leveling, end game raiding and pop references in a setting created within the games industry.
Generally speaking, I don't pretend that the games I wish to make are anything other than niche products. However, I am generally slow to speak as to what exactly the customers of the MMO market want. I feel that, in many ways, we haven't finished growing our market. Because of this, in terms of financial success, it is almost impossible for us to accurately state what is or is not what the players want. And likewise it is impossible for the players to tell us what, if anything, they want outside of the current offerings because they have no frame of reference for those 'other' things.
For starters, I'd like to give you a test. The test consists of three questions, at the end of which I should be able to accurately predict what you want in a marriage.
1) How badly do you miss beating your spouse?
A. Very much
B. Slightly
C. Very little
D. Not at all
2) How many days a week is it acceptable to cheat on your spouse?
A. 7
B. 5
C. 3
D. 1
3) Your potential wife must hold down a steady job.
A. Strongly Agree
B. Agree
C. Disagree
D. Strongly Disagree
Obviously this questionnaire is fundamentally flawed. At every point we make certain assumptions, that the taker is abusive, considers promiscuity acceptable at some level, and that they are marrying a woman. For the majority of takers this will provide a result that is non-applicable, though it will always return a result as there is no condition in which it cannot.
When we come to asking questions as to player's wants, needs, and motivations we tend to fall into similar traps. One of the greatest criticisms of the Bartle Types is simply that the tests assume you fall within those bounds. They will report a final type report, so long as you completed the test, even if you do not have any preference for any of the given activities. But the basic principle extends out to our probing of players for their preferences. For instance we might ask what genre of game they plan to buy next, MMORPG, RTS, FPS, Flight Sim, Racing, Sports, RPG, and completely miss the reality that their next purchase may be Arcade.
Obviously, we can expand the list, but that does little to solve the fundamental problem. Without being able to build a comprehensive list of all genres that have, do and ever will exist the answer will always be flawed. Even having such a list wouldn't be a magic bullet though.
Those doing the asking are not solely faced with this problem, the ones being questioned face a similar dilemma. It is very difficult for a person to think outside of what they know and to extrapolate out a choice that they didn't know themselves to have. To bring it into sharper perspective, few people could have possibly expressed their interest in purchasing first person shooters in 1973, shortly after pong's release. This isn't any sort of criticism of players, either, it is simply the reality that we seldom express interest in options we don't know exist.
A great TED talk by Malcom Galdwell comes to mind. I'll go ahead and embed it so that you can take this opportunity to watch it if you haven't had the pleasure yet.
I've heard some criticism of his talk in that the idea of diversifying product lines is not a new one. That wasn't my take away, though. What I had picked up on was that there had been a segment of their market that they had previously been unable to sell to, simply because they didn't know it existed. MMOs recently went through this, we hadn't known there was a market for relatively speedy leveling, end game raiding and pop references in a setting created within the games industry.
Generally speaking, I don't pretend that the games I wish to make are anything other than niche products. However, I am generally slow to speak as to what exactly the customers of the MMO market want. I feel that, in many ways, we haven't finished growing our market. Because of this, in terms of financial success, it is almost impossible for us to accurately state what is or is not what the players want. And likewise it is impossible for the players to tell us what, if anything, they want outside of the current offerings because they have no frame of reference for those 'other' things.
27.8.08
25.8.08
So the blogosphere has been ablaze.
And strangely enough everyone is talking about something that applies to what I do. Although I'm probably a bit late to the party, sorry for taking the time to get my thoughts in order.
Echoes of Nonsense - Circle Strafe the Moon by Ardua brings up something that really has me piqued. Of course it's not that it's said once, it's that Tobold and a few others seem to be bent on repeating it. Actually now that I think about it, perhaps Sid67 at Serial Ganker said it first.
What they've said is this, "Brent [et all] don't want to play an MMORPG". I'd like to say something along the lines of 'no offense but you're wrong', but instead every time I hear it I want to reach through the internet and slap someone. You see, none of us, Brent, Darren, Adam, I or any of those of our general opinion have any problem with MMOs, we don't even have any problem with MMORPGs. What we have a problem with is MMO dungeon crawls.
There is absolutely nothing revolutionary about creating RPGs that aren't dungeon crawls. Ever heard of the Storytelling Adventure System? Trollbabe? Call of Cthulu?
We've built a whole generation who only knows online multiplayer RPGs as being dungeon crawls. I tend to side with one of Jonathan Blow's recent talks on how games are conflicted when it comes to MMOs. We've built every inch of the gameplay dynamics around one thing, killing foozles to collect xp and loot. Why on Earth SHOULD anyone pay any attention to quest text when we literally reward players for getting through them as fast as possible. There is almost no reward for taking the time to smell the roses as it were, and only the players innate ability to find their own reward in activities seems to propell them towards actually doing anything even remotely resembling role playing.
All of this doesn't add up to make WoW or WAR or any of them bad games... but lets be perfectly honest, we've been dungeon crawling for almost 30 years now. Don't some people have every right to be bored out of their freaking minds.
Rant out of the way, I'm going back to the work I started with the Multiverse engine tonight and tomorrow. Someone clued me in to a great way to implement airships for an idea I was toying around with, so that may be the project I work on while I'm still teamless. All of this discussion has convinced me of one thing though, this project will not have any combat. NONE! We have spent so long developing combat as we move through these dungeon crawls, even if I'm not working on something that will be particularly succesful, I do want to focus on the creation and implementation of the non-combat aspects for a change.
And maybe... I just miss the real magic.
Echoes of Nonsense - Circle Strafe the Moon by Ardua brings up something that really has me piqued. Of course it's not that it's said once, it's that Tobold and a few others seem to be bent on repeating it. Actually now that I think about it, perhaps Sid67 at Serial Ganker said it first.
What they've said is this, "Brent [et all] don't want to play an MMORPG". I'd like to say something along the lines of 'no offense but you're wrong', but instead every time I hear it I want to reach through the internet and slap someone. You see, none of us, Brent, Darren, Adam, I or any of those of our general opinion have any problem with MMOs, we don't even have any problem with MMORPGs. What we have a problem with is MMO dungeon crawls.
There is absolutely nothing revolutionary about creating RPGs that aren't dungeon crawls. Ever heard of the Storytelling Adventure System? Trollbabe? Call of Cthulu?
We've built a whole generation who only knows online multiplayer RPGs as being dungeon crawls. I tend to side with one of Jonathan Blow's recent talks on how games are conflicted when it comes to MMOs. We've built every inch of the gameplay dynamics around one thing, killing foozles to collect xp and loot. Why on Earth SHOULD anyone pay any attention to quest text when we literally reward players for getting through them as fast as possible. There is almost no reward for taking the time to smell the roses as it were, and only the players innate ability to find their own reward in activities seems to propell them towards actually doing anything even remotely resembling role playing.
All of this doesn't add up to make WoW or WAR or any of them bad games... but lets be perfectly honest, we've been dungeon crawling for almost 30 years now. Don't some people have every right to be bored out of their freaking minds.
Rant out of the way, I'm going back to the work I started with the Multiverse engine tonight and tomorrow. Someone clued me in to a great way to implement airships for an idea I was toying around with, so that may be the project I work on while I'm still teamless. All of this discussion has convinced me of one thing though, this project will not have any combat. NONE! We have spent so long developing combat as we move through these dungeon crawls, even if I'm not working on something that will be particularly succesful, I do want to focus on the creation and implementation of the non-combat aspects for a change.
And maybe... I just miss the real magic.
24.8.08
It's Sunday.
And I have so much I want to do, and so little motivation to do it.
How about you all? Anything you want to do, but just can't seem to get the drive up to go for it?
How about you all? Anything you want to do, but just can't seem to get the drive up to go for it?
23.8.08
My Perfect MMO
Someone wiser than I once said, few truly great ideas are also truly novel. Today I realized that I don't really have to try so hard to quantify my perfect MMO. Someone already did. Seventeen years before I was born, in fact.
So here it is, put beautifully and succinctly:
So here it is, put beautifully and succinctly:
22.8.08
Some WAR poetry.
Cry terror in the empty night!
The worst of war approaches,
not the angry mob,
nor the dogs let slip.
Thus approaches the casualties,
our known, our friends,
our mirror in the night.
Cry shame in the angry night!
Whence came the strangers?
Whence came those who cried 'Havoc!',
for thence am I bound.
On their door step shall I cry 'Havoc!'.
On them shall I loose the dogs of war!
Only then am I well found.
Cloying, cancerous, claustrophobic catharsis.
Concerned, calculated, conformist council.
Cool, composed, contemporary casualties.
The worst of war approaches,
not the angry mob,
nor the dogs let slip.
Thus approaches the casualties,
our known, our friends,
our mirror in the night.
Cry shame in the angry night!
Whence came the strangers?
Whence came those who cried 'Havoc!',
for thence am I bound.
On their door step shall I cry 'Havoc!'.
On them shall I loose the dogs of war!
Only then am I well found.
Cloying, cancerous, claustrophobic catharsis.
Concerned, calculated, conformist council.
Cool, composed, contemporary casualties.
17.8.08
One Story
John Montrage:
Odd as it is, I still remember a few strange details from my life as a shitfaced little punk. There were the girls and the beer, but they all kind of blurred together. A few moments tend to stand out though, fuck if I know why.
There was this one time I was in the shitter after an all night bender, nothing new really but for whatever reason I actually looked around. Noticed there were these ants on the floor, a whole fucking line of them leading straight up to the ass end of a fucking Dorito. I don't know why the ants were so set on this one piece of shit chip, and it was in the shitter of all places.
I walked out to the kitchen to take a look around, see if they got into any more shit. Nope, not a single fucking ant in the whole kitchen. Went and had a look in my bedroom since I slept on the floor back then. Not a single fucking ant. So no ants where the food is kept, no ants where I ate the food, but a whole fucking line of ants trying to get at this one fucking chip in the god damn shitter.
Still don't know why the hell they were there of all places.
Maxine Fields:
Why did I decide to be a Veterinarian? Ants. I know, why a vet and not an entomologist? Well I like working with animals, and maybe when you hear the story you'll understand it a bit better.
Back right before I left for college I was in the bathroom one day and happened to look down. There was a whole line of ants, single file, marching very purposefully around the floor mat towards a single point. You see, I was living with siblings who had young children of their own and one of them had left the edge of a cheese chip in the bathroom. It was swarmed with ants, almost looked black from all the ants on it.
Of course, I immediately questioned why they had come to the bathroom in search of this food. You see, I was quite certain from earlier observations that there weren't any ants in the kitchen, and I slept on the floor in my room so I would have known if any were there. So if the major food and garbage sources were left untouched, why here? Of course I began formulating all sorts of theories: maybe their nest was under the room, or they were simply passing through one of the other bedrooms. But the important part is that I asked why.
Over the next few weeks I kept noticing animals doing things and kept asking myself "why?" Eventually that thirst for knowledge dragged me through vet med school. By the second day of hands on I knew I wanted to deal with animals in a useful way. The rest was history.
Maxine Fields (Post Transformation):
I'm not so human anymore. I know it, I know a human wouldn't do what I've done. They wouldn't eat- they just wouldn't.
But I'm still holding on a little, can't quite cut that last tie. Strange it isn't something human, something emotional, that keeps me this side of humanity. It's ants, or rather a memory of ants. Of watching them walk across a bathroom floor and do something trivial, eat at a chip I think, and yet made me ask so much.
My rationality, I guess, that's what keeps me tied down. Maybe we are just rational beings, maybe that is what makes us different. Then again, I'm writing this on tissue paper for fucks sake. I don't know how much longer I'm going to live, two more died last week... at least that is the public information, who knows if it's the real number.
We're such fucking ants, but so are they. I just hope we're in the kitchen here and not dying for the chip.
Jean Gerdie:
Hmm, you're interested in the painting of the ants. Well, what does it mean to you? I see.
Well you're asking the wrong person. Yes, of course I painted it. Doesn't mean I know why they were in the bathroom. Well it's more of a memory than a real creation.
Of course ants can move through bathrooms like that, I saw it. Yes bathrooms. No, they weren't. Well, I don't really care if it's all that logical to you, it's what I saw.
Well I'm pretty sure they weren't under my bed. Because I slept on the floor, that's why, still do in fact. Yes there were black ants where I grew up. Well your source is wrong. I know what I freaking saw asshole.
You know what, get out. Get the fuck out of my studio!
Odd as it is, I still remember a few strange details from my life as a shitfaced little punk. There were the girls and the beer, but they all kind of blurred together. A few moments tend to stand out though, fuck if I know why.
There was this one time I was in the shitter after an all night bender, nothing new really but for whatever reason I actually looked around. Noticed there were these ants on the floor, a whole fucking line of them leading straight up to the ass end of a fucking Dorito. I don't know why the ants were so set on this one piece of shit chip, and it was in the shitter of all places.
I walked out to the kitchen to take a look around, see if they got into any more shit. Nope, not a single fucking ant in the whole kitchen. Went and had a look in my bedroom since I slept on the floor back then. Not a single fucking ant. So no ants where the food is kept, no ants where I ate the food, but a whole fucking line of ants trying to get at this one fucking chip in the god damn shitter.
Still don't know why the hell they were there of all places.
Maxine Fields:
Why did I decide to be a Veterinarian? Ants. I know, why a vet and not an entomologist? Well I like working with animals, and maybe when you hear the story you'll understand it a bit better.
Back right before I left for college I was in the bathroom one day and happened to look down. There was a whole line of ants, single file, marching very purposefully around the floor mat towards a single point. You see, I was living with siblings who had young children of their own and one of them had left the edge of a cheese chip in the bathroom. It was swarmed with ants, almost looked black from all the ants on it.
Of course, I immediately questioned why they had come to the bathroom in search of this food. You see, I was quite certain from earlier observations that there weren't any ants in the kitchen, and I slept on the floor in my room so I would have known if any were there. So if the major food and garbage sources were left untouched, why here? Of course I began formulating all sorts of theories: maybe their nest was under the room, or they were simply passing through one of the other bedrooms. But the important part is that I asked why.
Over the next few weeks I kept noticing animals doing things and kept asking myself "why?" Eventually that thirst for knowledge dragged me through vet med school. By the second day of hands on I knew I wanted to deal with animals in a useful way. The rest was history.
Maxine Fields (Post Transformation):
I'm not so human anymore. I know it, I know a human wouldn't do what I've done. They wouldn't eat- they just wouldn't.
But I'm still holding on a little, can't quite cut that last tie. Strange it isn't something human, something emotional, that keeps me this side of humanity. It's ants, or rather a memory of ants. Of watching them walk across a bathroom floor and do something trivial, eat at a chip I think, and yet made me ask so much.
My rationality, I guess, that's what keeps me tied down. Maybe we are just rational beings, maybe that is what makes us different. Then again, I'm writing this on tissue paper for fucks sake. I don't know how much longer I'm going to live, two more died last week... at least that is the public information, who knows if it's the real number.
We're such fucking ants, but so are they. I just hope we're in the kitchen here and not dying for the chip.
Jean Gerdie:
Hmm, you're interested in the painting of the ants. Well, what does it mean to you? I see.
Well you're asking the wrong person. Yes, of course I painted it. Doesn't mean I know why they were in the bathroom. Well it's more of a memory than a real creation.
Of course ants can move through bathrooms like that, I saw it. Yes bathrooms. No, they weren't. Well, I don't really care if it's all that logical to you, it's what I saw.
Well I'm pretty sure they weren't under my bed. Because I slept on the floor, that's why, still do in fact. Yes there were black ants where I grew up. Well your source is wrong. I know what I freaking saw asshole.
You know what, get out. Get the fuck out of my studio!
Games can't grow up.
I'm rather with Yahtzee Croshaw's assessment from the Psychonauts review. But I kind of feel the need to take it one step further.
The games industry cannot grow up, since it's customers still have not grown up. I'm not talking about age, I'm talking about being mature and less self centered. I'm sure that quite a few people finding this off GAX or through CoW are quite mature, but those of you who are take a step back and ask yourself if you really are the norm...
How is the games industry supposed to find the room to breathe life into new genres when the self entitled twats their selling too seem to spend all day screaming about useless things. If you have to choose between making people whine with a free system that generally works no matter how many users, or roll the dice on just how many people you need to serve and invest millions in something that will almost certainly fail, the choice is kind of obvious and you would make it too. If it's a matter of nerf a class or watch your game slowly decay from perceptual imbalance you do it. If you can't sell a game for so much as peanuts unless you've spent $20mi in graphics, but don't see any monetary reward for spending more than a pittance on writing, you invest in graphics and tell the writers to bugger off.
There really are a few companies out there that really are trying to do their best by you. Kind of like politicians though, a lot of them apparently don't lie their asses off enough to actually get people to pay them exorbitant amounts for shit and chips.
I'm not saying don't criticise companies. Everyone has the right to criticise and be criticised. However the purpose of criticism is such that people can do things BETTER than they did before. It's not valid to criticsise people for not doing the impossible.
The games industry cannot grow up, since it's customers still have not grown up. I'm not talking about age, I'm talking about being mature and less self centered. I'm sure that quite a few people finding this off GAX or through CoW are quite mature, but those of you who are take a step back and ask yourself if you really are the norm...
How is the games industry supposed to find the room to breathe life into new genres when the self entitled twats their selling too seem to spend all day screaming about useless things. If you have to choose between making people whine with a free system that generally works no matter how many users, or roll the dice on just how many people you need to serve and invest millions in something that will almost certainly fail, the choice is kind of obvious and you would make it too. If it's a matter of nerf a class or watch your game slowly decay from perceptual imbalance you do it. If you can't sell a game for so much as peanuts unless you've spent $20mi in graphics, but don't see any monetary reward for spending more than a pittance on writing, you invest in graphics and tell the writers to bugger off.
There really are a few companies out there that really are trying to do their best by you. Kind of like politicians though, a lot of them apparently don't lie their asses off enough to actually get people to pay them exorbitant amounts for shit and chips.
I'm not saying don't criticise companies. Everyone has the right to criticise and be criticised. However the purpose of criticism is such that people can do things BETTER than they did before. It's not valid to criticsise people for not doing the impossible.
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