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Neverwinter – The Foundry
01 month ago
Disclaimer – I am not a Foundry Expert. I’ve only poked my head into the Neverwinter version twice, and have given the Star Trek Online version some half-assed attempts (I don’t know the ST lore well enough to feel comfortable making something of worth). However, I have spent hours working with the Neverwinter Nights Aurora toolset which, while totally different from The Foundry tools, adheres to many of the same goals: ease of use, powerful, and comprehensive. This is a brief overview, and a preface to my 1:30 minute video presentation.
Game development is a Dark Art, or so it would seem. There are many gamers, but only a relatively few game creators, and those with the know-how to even put the most rudimentary avatar under user control have probably heard someone exclaim “I wish I knew how to make games” at some point in their professional lives.
The problem with giving players control to make content is that the general public is often ill equipped to be in public. The Penis Correlation states that the time between tool set availability and the point at which the first virtual genitals are seen in the game is directly related to…something something something. I don’t know. I just wanted to make a point that players can’t always be trusted to use good judgement when given the opportunity to show off in front of their fellow gamers.
But tools like The Foundry allow players to create content with restrictions, but with restrictions far enough out that they don’t hamper the creativity that players can express. The toolset itself looks horribly complex until you understand a few things, which help creators, and gives a pretty frank look into the process of actually creating content for games, in some cases.
A Foundry project starts with a timeline. This is a flowchart of things that happen, and the things that need to happen for things to happen. It’s a really big road-map of cause and effect, starting with a motivator, and ending with a reward. It can be as complex as Game of Thrones, spread out over several adventures, or as a simple as a three-act play involving a single player, and a single NPC.
Players can create maps by picking one from the existing roster used in the game itself, or they can create new ones room by room. The editor takes care of mundane tasks like creating doors, and minimizes the complexities of setting up lights and ambient audio by presenting options through dropdowns and pick lists complete with descriptive tool-tips. Once the layout is complete, rooms can be populated with details like tables, crates, tombstones, trees, and other decor. Finally, add in NPCs or packaged encounters, and voila! You’re well on your way.
For the more complex examples, the Foundry allows for the creation of complex dialog trees that include objective or item gating, triggers, and rewards. While not as robust as the dialog editor in the Aurora tools, I was pleased with the depth of what can be accomplished with this tool.
NPCs can be picked from stock examples that players will be familiar with from the game proper, but for a personal touch, each NPC can have his or her outfit customized in a near dizzying array of options. You’re not stuck with the standard studded leather thug; you can put that bruiser in a priest’s robe and wildly inappropriate pauldrons, if you’re so inclined.
You can even create flavor items. Sometimes your story will call for an item to be retrieved (it’s the bread and butter of MMOs, after all!), and you can create whatever item you need to fit into your story. You’re only limited by the fact that you can’t create usable tems: no armor or weapons or buffing items. The Foundry is for adventure, not twinking.
The last step is to put it all together on the Story tab, the place where you link the maps and the NPCs and the dialog together to create the flow of the story. This is where A + B = C, and where all the disparate pieces are put together to make a coherent experience for the players. All the triggers and conditions coalesce into your narrative and action-packed vision, and when you’re done, all it takes is a press of the Publish button to release it to the masses. You can even use the Foundry to review the reviews posted by those who have played your adventure.
After spending time putting together the most rudimentary map, and reading the documentation put together by community member gillgrmn, I can see how powerful the Foundry is. And why not? If I’m not mistaken, Cryptic used the Foundry to make Neverwinter itself! This follows a long but sadly sparse tradition of game developers releasing the tools they used to make their game, to the public. While making the video last night, I mentioned how the complexity of “the game” that we play is laid bare when we realize that it’s nothing but maps, NPCs, dialog, costumes, and items, arranged along a timeline controlled by triggers and conditions.
The best thing about The Foundry is that it’s like the Home Expansion Kit. In a best case scenario, the best authors will float to the top, and Cryptic can release more assets for people to use, resulting in a flood of top-notch, professional grade story arcs available on-demand from now until the point where the sun burns itself out. Sure, there’ll be duds, but word gets around on who makes the best adventures, which ones are worth your time, and which ones aren’t.
Neverwinter Gateway And Missed Opportunities
11 month ago
In yesterday’s post on Neverwinter, I mentioned the Gateway system as a footnote, which is an ignoble assignment for such a fantastic piece of work. So I’m giving it a post of it’s own.
The Gateway is in beta, as is the game (“beta”), so it may not be working 100%, and not all features are enabled, possibly, but so far, it seems to be firing on all cylinders for what I’ve been using it for.
So what is Gateway?
- It’s a way to view your character online
- You can buy and sell through the auction house.
- You can send and receive in-game mail
- You can do…stuff…with your guild (Not in a guild yet, so I don’t know what is offered)
- You can update your professions progress (crafting)
I’ve been playing MMOs since the dawn of the “modern” design, and the one concept that has always been at the forefront of conceptualization was the idea that so long as we’re accessing game data through a client via the Internet, why can’t we access the same or a subset of data through other clients via the Internet? Granted, we’re talking about product data, which is essentially what we’re paying for, and what we’re paying the operators to keep safe on our behalf, so there’s the data integrity concerns, but if a company employs enough smart people who can create and run a real-time game that allows thousands of people to simultaneously dance naked in a virtual town square, I think they’d be up to the challenge of creating a web app to allow me to check my auctions and launch my crafting tasks through a browser. Why this hasn’t become standard is beyond me.
Granted, not everyone wants or needs to take care of game business…you know…from work or school. Here’s the thing: we’re rapidly transitioning from a gated model of online gaming to an honest to goodness ‘Murican buffet model. We have so many games to choose from that we buy them now at stupidly low prices or download them for free and promise that we’ll get to them some day before we die. Loyalty of the customer is, quite frankly, a thing of the past, or is relegated to those few with unusually strong wills. Not everyone can make a good product, which means even fewer people can make the kind of product that causes people to forego all other opportunities that are too good to pass up, or that they’re peer-pressured into adopting. If you want to attract people, and more importantly, to keep them playing your game, why not give them the opportunity to never leave? It’s an insidious plan worth of Illithid, sure, but it’s wrapped up in so much fun that folks will thank you for the privilege. Thanks, Cryptic!
More importantly, and as loath as I am to say this, the ubiquity of mobile devices practically begs for some kind of way to play without playing, and for companies to keep their product in the thoughts of it’s users no matter where they go. To be honest, if your online game isn’t offering some kind of portal that gives your players an opportunity to keep playing while on the go, I have to wonder if you’re as dedicated to being as “cutting edge” as your About Us page claims you are. Technically, this would have been cutting edge in 2000. Now a lack of extra-game tools is just a gaping hole of pure let-down in 2013.
Neverwinter
01 month ago
by Chris Smith
in Neverwinter
Because as bloggers who jump from game to game, we are contractually obliged to post something about the new game on the block while the game is still relevant in order to get page views as people scour the Internet for information. The usual disclaimers apply: This is an impressions piece, not a review.
Founders got to get into the open beta period ahead of the general public as a thank you for shelling out money on a game that will be free to download, free to play. Cryptic is staging access, with the Big Spenders getting five days early access, the Moderate Spenders getting three days, and I think that’s it. Everyone else can get in on Tuesday. I like this system, as it means that the starting zones will be clear of the last round of entries when the next round enters. It sucks for friends who are on disparate plans, however.
But wait…Tuesday is usually Launch and Retail Day in the gaming world? Is this an open beta, or a launch? Soft launch, really, as there will be no wipes between open beta and the official launch date. It’s kind of squirrely, but Cryptic does things differently than other companies, I’ve learned.
If you’ve played Star Trek Online, you will be familiar with a lot of what Neverwinter does. Whereas many of what I’ll call “convenience features” were added to STO over the years, NW gets em all up front, and benefits from what Cryptic learned through STO.
The Dashboard is shown when you log in, or by hitting the ‘L’ key.
When you load in, the first thing you see is a kind of dashboard. I love this. I think this is really what sets the tone for Cryptic’s M.O.: give people access to information about almost anything that’s going on almost anywhere in the game that doesn’t deal with the “main story”. Cryptic has scheduled events that rotate through a 24 hour period, like additional XP if you play Foundry missions, or additional Astral Diamonds if you do the team instances. Sometimes you want to log into the game, but not bust ass along the same old story trail that every game expects is the reason you’re playing the game, and Cryptic understands this. The Dashboard provides upcoming events (also available as a fly-out on the mini-map), featured Foundry missions, and even “Suggested Content” that you might like based on what you want to accomplish: earn cash, explore, or level. There’s even a calendar for a broader view, and the Dashboard allows you to queue for instances and PvP.
NW is an action take on the Dungeons & Dragons 4E ruleset, and that sound you just heard was the door slamming as several people left in disgust at the term Dungeons & Dragons 4E. Well, screw em, because if 4E was the “MMO-like” implementation of the D&D rules, then NW is the pudding that provides the proof. You don’t need to know 4E to “get” NW, but you’ll appreciate the way they’ve translated the rules to the game if you do.
The venerable Cleric, one of several careers you can choose in Neverwinter.
You have a limited number of abilities that you can use, which is instantly going to turn off another segment who can’t abide by restrictions. I prefer to think of it as “tactical economy”, but I also like to make up phrases, so there’s that. There’s At-Will powers (bread & butter attacks that keep firing if you hold the mouse button down), Encounter powers (with cooldowns). and Daily powers (require you to build up a reserve of energy before you can use them, which is a conceit needed by a video game version of 4E). The gist is that you point your recticle at a target and go to town. It really doesn’t get much more complex than that, and that’s going to really piss off some people who want more more more options.
Thing is, D&D wouldn’t be worth a damn if it weren’t based on the story, and like it’s older cousin Dungeons & Dragons Online, NW strives to make your dungeon experiences more about the experience than they are about the experience points. There are traps to detect and disarm (if you can), and hidden areas to find. One nice/frustrating feature is the class-ability-specific items you’ll find. Clerics, for example, can access altars that they find, but other classes cannot, unless they are carrying special kits that grant them a percent chance to get something from the loot crate. In a balanced party, everyone has a chance, but soloists aren’t locked out totally either. I like their dungeon designs, and your quest log contains a running journal of Neverwinter lore that you find in dungeons or just by entering into an area within a zone. I’ve read the Neverwinter Campaign Setting book cover to cover, and I appreciate this “ground-level view” of the lore put into practice. Some folks just want to kill, and that’s fine; think of NW like a third-person Diablo and that should be all you need to put it into perspective.
Another convenience factor I discovered today was that the auction house will make recommendations for you. Seriously! You get a mission to talk to the broker, and he’ll offer you a list of a few things that are suitable for your level and class. Thing is, the dude also tells you that if you don’t want to pay, you can tackle a certain quest and get the item as a reward. I thought that was very sweet of him.
A bunch of us G+ers tackled the first group “instant action” scenario, and it went pretty well. You can queue as a party, or PUG it. We had to take on waves of undead, and then tackle the end boss monster. We did it during a scheduled time where we could earn Rough Astral Diamonds for our trouble.
So now that we’ve gotten rid of 4E haters and limited option haters, let’s complete the trifecta and talk about the cash shop. Cryptic relies very heavily on their cash shop, and because of it, we need to face some facts: these games are expensive to run in terms of hosting and support staff. We like new content, right? Well, those people need to be fed and watered (and get health benefits) so when your product is free to obtain and free to use, the money needs to come from somewhere. The trick is, then, to make the store contents enticing enough that people want to buy them, but don’t force people to need them. The Secret World excels at this because it’s got a core of avatar customization at it’s center, and people love to buy clothes and play dress-up. STO players know that Cryptic can seriously stock their shop with “nice to haves” that can easily be seen by some as “need to haves”. I don’t mean “need to have” as in “in order to play” or “in order to advance”. No. Actually, I was looking for XP boosts in NW’s shop, and they didn’t have any. What they do have are companions — NPC minions you can use in combat — mounts, limited outfit options, and rename and respec tokens, among other non-essential-but-convenient (there’s that word again!) items. People end up really wanting these things to enhance their gameplay, not continue it.
What may end up cheesing people off, though, is the Astral Diamond system. Similar to Dilithium in STO, ADs are a special breed of in-game currency that bridges the gap between totally worthless “game money” (copper, gold, etc), and real world money (cash, but you knew that). You usually earn Rough Astral Diamonds (RAD) that can be refined into regular AD at a rate of 1:1. However, you can only refine about 24,000 RAD per day. AD is used all over the game to buy all kinds of things, including a lot of things that really shouldn’t logically require ADs, like enhancements for your companions. Why not just use in-game cash? Well, it’s a hook to get you to buy Zen — Perfect World’s cash-for-currency denomination — and to convert it into AD. Want it now? Buy and convert Zen. Can you wait? Do events and earn RAD and refine it to standard AD. The cynical among us (read: the Internet) will probably jump on this as “bad” and “exploitative”, and I will admit that it can be annoying when A) you see things you want, and B) you don’t have the AD to buy them, and C) it’ll take you quite a while to earn the RAD for it, so naturally D) you’ll feel you’re being railroaded into paying for *GASP* something you enjoy. I know, Internet. I know. It’s horrible.
Crafting is…unique. Everyone can do all crafting branches, but there’s a prerequisite system in place. For example, if you want to craft mail items (shirt, boots, etc), you need to hire a prospector, which is represented as a dude. Just a dude. You need a prospector for each crafting task you undertake in this branch, so while you start out only being able to tackle one branch, you may end up needing many prospectors if you’re mass-producing some mail items. You then need materials, either found or bought, depending on the recipe. You can then queue up the activity if your crafting discipline is of appropriate level. The end result is that you’ll get the item(s) that you craft, and some XP specific to that crafting discipline. Some queues can take seconds, minutes, or hours, depending on the output and the complexity. At first I was unsure how to see this, then I realized that the “people” you hire through this process are nothing more than crafted materials needed to craft additional materials. It’s fun, though, especially since you can eventually queue up something like nine simultaneous activities across several disciplines.
The last feature is the doozie: The Foundry. I have only peeked under the hood on this one, since I’ve not read the documentation [here] and [here] on it. It’s supposedly more powerful than the Foundry in STO, which you need to be a subscriber to use, so I’m super excited to have this one available to everyone. I’ve played one mission made by the Internet’s Own @Wininoid which I enjoyed, and I’m eager to get into there myself. I was sad, however, to see that Cryptic didn’t include the Wall or the Chasm as map zones that could be used. I hope they remedy that in the future, although I can see those areas being held for an expansion, since the Chasm does extend down through the Underdark.
Despite the overpowering scent of sarcasm contained herein, there really isn’t a reason I can think of for not jumping into Neverwinter. It’s free. It’s got decades of IP behind it. It’s social (if you like that), and Cryptic does a stellar job of letting you know that you don’t need to follow the Golden Path every single time you log in, and they make it stupidly simple to explore the corners of the game rather then keeping them out of sight until you’ve reached a certain level or zone. While the AD situation can be off-putting with it’s insistence and ubiquity, that Cryptic allows players to earn RAD means that technically nothing is out of reach: I started today with no AD, and left with over 3000, which came just from two runs of the initial skirmish instance, and some other minor but enjoyable activities (fact: you can pray in-game every hour and the gods will reward you with some RAD). Neverwinter looks to be a good “pick up” game, alone or with friends, and since it doesn’t cost you anything except time and maybe the risk of being less of a grumpy-pants, then check it out this Tuesday at http://www.playneverwinter.com.
Added Bonus: Sometimes these things get obscured in the fancy UI, but I found three items of immediate note in case people were interested.
The first is that you can collapse the scheduled events next to the mini-map by clicking the tiny arrow below the scheduled items, and can roll it out again by clicking the arrow above the scheduled items.
The second is one thing that has plagued STO players for years: Instances and friends. While they are using a server setup, you can be in the same in-game area, but not see your friends who are also in
the same area. This is because Cryptic uses instances to balance the players. If you want to hop to the instance you’re friends are in, you can click the blue…thing…in the upper right corner of the mini-map to get the instance list.
And Jumping Jesus On A Hamburger, check out http://gateway.playneverwinter.com. It’s 2013, people. Why the hell isn’t this kind of thing standard?! You can view your character, check your auctions, do your friggin crafting, and check up on your guild. Seriously? There are rock-stupid and useless systems which have become “necessary” for an MMO to launch, yet this is something that still hasn’t caught on the way it should? We need to re-examine our priorities, people.
Home Again, Home Again
11 month ago
by Chris Smith
in Rift
As many are aware, Raptr is offering current and possibly former RIFT players a free copy of the game AND a free copy of the Storm Legion expansion pack if you meet their play-time criteria. Never one to look a gift…gift…in the mouth, I picked it up because it also gives lapsed players 30 days worth of play time (I know RIFT has some level gated “free” play as well).
As many MMO nomads are aware, going back to a game after a lapse can be interesting at best, painful otherwise. It all depends on how long you’ve been away. RIFT is one of those games that I played a lot, but I also quit it quite some time ago, so when I re-installed and fired it up this morning, my first order of business was to figure out what had changed.
There’s good news, and bad news. The good news is that not much has changed. I recognize a lot of the game, which is good. Hitting the starting zones again (for the bazillionth time) has proven to be less of a chore, as Trion has reduced the chores in the tutorial zone. There’s a lot of “helper” aspects to the game now, with soul selectors and new ability pop-ups to let you know how powerful you’ve become.
Now the bad news. My main, a Defiant cleric, had her souls reset. If this was an overnight thing, I’d say OK, and get about putting things back the way I liked them. But I haven’t the slightest clue what abilities I had. My cleric was a finely tuned custom machine that was a real powerhouse to be reckoned with; now she’s an empty, confused shell in a mid-level haze. My only alternative was to start a new character from scratch and see if I can re-create the magic.
This is pretty much my standard situation when returning to a game. Learning a game is fun; re-learning a game is not so much fun. I remember enough to allow me to bypass a lot of tutorial junk, but have forgotten enough to actually be effective at the point where I left off.
Through The Eyes Of A Child #DefianceGame
02 months ago
Defiance is available on PC, Xbox, and PS3, which means that on a purely statistical level, 2/3 of people playing the game haven’t played an MMO before. I don’t actually believe that’s the actual ratio, but for the sake of argument, we need to acknowledge that there WILL be people who play nothing but consoles, and who have never approached a PC for gaming, let alone MMOs. In fact, one such example is the reviewer over at Xbox360achivements.org who talks about Defiance in this morning’s review.
The poor 360 players seem to be getting the royal shaft with this title. There seem to have been more troubles with Defiance on the Xbox than on any other platform, and a lot of it seems to be on the back end. If this were Trion’s first rodeo, it might be easy to point the finger at them, but they have always been amazingly responsive to issues in Defiance and RIFT, so it’s entirely possible that the Xbox engineers have been caught with their pants down. Microsoft has always been more hesitant to allow this kind of game on their console, and I think it’s coming back to haunt them. Consider this the “growing pains” for Durango, I suppose, but that’s not the point I want to raise here.
The review isn’t very favorable, ending with a score of 65/100. I think the author’s dissatisfaction stems from two conceits: that he’s exclusively a console gamer, and that he has little to no experience with MMOs. Console games generally are more focused on wringing the best visuals from the system, and not necessarily experimenting with alternative game play, so the author finds that Defiance is a pretty lackluster CONSOLE GAME compared to other, somewhat similar console games that he has experience with. Defiance doesn’t have the visual fidelity, or the console-specific focus that allows for a tighter, easier to manage UI, so in this aspect, I think it’s reasonable to give his opinion it’s due.
We long-term MMO players, however, might read the review and gloss over 98% of his dings for the game’s “MMO-ness” because they’re all aspects that we have (often begrudgingly) come to accept. Calling out the wide open world and the ability to play with others at the drop of a hat may make us nod sagely — welcome to the wider world of gaming, my friend! — but our vision might cloud when he takes exception with missions that seemingly go on forever, and seem to have no overarching point. We MMO players know this on a cellular level, but as is often the case, we’re so immersed in the genre that we can’t articulate the forest for the trees, something that this author does with ease because he comes at the MMO aspect of the game with no previous baggage. He can speak about Defiance’s “MMO-ness” with clear vision, and in doing so, raises points about most MMOs out there that we instinctively know, but may not have been able to talk about with such surity for a long time.
As a console game, Defiance may not on par with Call of Duty or Halo or Gears of War, and in my circles, I think the agreement is that as an MMO, it’s pretty OK, but not revolutionary. None of that really seems to be making a lot of difference in people’s enjoyment, though, as from where I sit it seems that the vast majority of people really like it. I’m not so interested in the opinion of the reviewer on the game as much as I was fascinated by the view of a non-MMO gamer on an MMO game, because it’s been so long since I felt objective about MMO mechanics that it was refreshing to see how someone who is not as steeped in the genre views the aspects that the rest of us have taken for granted.
The #Defiance Ones #DefianceGame
42 months ago
by Chris Smith
in Gaming
I’m not into doing reviews because everyone’s got a different take on a game, so I’ll call this an impression of the recently released Defiance (PC version).
But wait! It was only released yesterday! I had played in beta, and also in alpha, and while neither are indicative of the final product, this is an impression post, not a ”focus on the details” post. It’s more like running your hand over the game, not licking it. So with that stimulating image in mind, let’s begin.
It’s RIFT with guns!
I like RIFT. It was the first MMO in a long time that I played for a long time, and although I don’t play it any longer, it has a plaque hanging in my mental “MMO Hall Of Fame” gallery. As in RIFT, your character in Defiance is following some broadly-painted narrative which seems to exist solely so you don’t feel aimless in your progression. There’s one main story running through Defiance, at least as far as I have gotten, but unlike other MMOs where you have NPCs assigning you their personal laundry lists as “stories”, Defiance knows that you’re playing for one reason, and one reason only: to shoot the hell out of shit.
Aside from the main story, side quests pop up from time to time. And these are literally “side quests”. Most of them can be had, ad hoc, from the side of the road, where you approach, accept, and head out. I like this trend towards dumping the quest hub mentality because it fosters movement, and getting people out in the world. Don’t go looking for any grand scheme to these side quests, though: most of them have generic text, and generic voice-overs. It’s the first design I’ve seen that acknowledges that people don’t read the damn text. The rewards are displayed front and center for a quick in, quick out, as the quest dispenser is usually right outside where the quest wants you to be. Aside from shooting stuff quests, there are also epeen quests, where you can put yourself on a leader board with other players, and time trials, like ATV racing or “sniper rifle whack-a-mutant”.
Comparing Defiance to RIFT wouldn’t be complete with mentioning the actual “rift” mechanic, called arkfalls. Like the rifts, these happen on occasion, in different locations. Like rifts, you roll up (literally, as you get vehicles to drive) and start shooting localized stuff that appears in waves, until the objective has been completed, or the timer runs out. If you’re lucky, you’ll be there with other people…a lot of other people. Everyone’s shooting stuff, driving vehicles all over the place, blowing stuff up…it’s pretty grand and chaotic, and there’s more motion than there is in RIFT, mainly because everyone is attacking at range and the targets don’t stand still.
Is it a shooter, or is it a shooter?
Some folks may be concerned about a “shooter MMO”. This hybrid hasn’t proven too successful in the past (Tabula Rasa, APB), but the odds are improving (Firefall, Planetside 2). Trion claims that Defiance is a “pixel perfect shooter”, meaning if you want to headshot a target, you can. This is usually a sound strategy for NPCs, as a good tap to the noggin with a sniper rifle can usually end an argument before it begins, but it’s more meaningful when dealing with arkfalls and hellbugs. Hellbugs especially, as their firefly-like underbellies and tails are their weak points. Aiming for these small and only-occasionally-accessible locations will go a long way towards ending a fight as quickly as possible.
But like any MMO, there will be issues related to network transmissions, and when you have a game filled with a whole lot of fast moving players and targets, there’s going to be issues. In a hellbug event last night, the matriarchs — extra large, extra badass hellbugs — kept vanishing, and not underground like their smaller warrior counterparts do. Eventually, they popped back into frame, and the battle continues.
I’m also sure that some folks expected a “shooter”, a la Call of Duty, and will find things to nitpick. I’m also sure that some people expected more of a real “Rift with guns”, meaning more classic MMO, less live-skill based. If you can bring yourself to find the middle ground there, I think you’ll be pleasantly content. Not blown away, but content.
Platformer performer
One really interesting thing is that this game released on the same day for PC, Xbox, and PS3. So did Bioshock Infinite, but this is an MMO. That it released on consoles at all is quite a feat, especially for the normally third-party-allergic Xbox.
But I expect this to be…an interesting experiment. PC gamers are used to the MMO lifestyle: frequent patches, downtime where the game is inaccessible new content sneaking in when the servers come back up, and the inevitable DLC and expansions. Console gamers aren’t generally used to getting frequent patches, or having their game unplayable on a schedule. How well Defiance does on these platforms will say a lot about the future of massive multiplayer games for the next generation of consoles.
The sad thing is that each platform has it’s own server (I believe). PC players can’t play with consoleers. The good thing is that each platform has it’s own server (I believe). So console players can’t play with PCers. But be warned: do NOT go near the forums. Jussayinsall.
Transmedia
The big deal about Defiance is the game/TV show crossover. The show isn’t available yet, but in a short clip interview with Grant Bowler (Nolan), he mentioned that in the time between the release of the game, and the pilot of the show, his character and the character of Irisa, who you meet in the game when you start, end up traveling from the San Francisco area (the game) to St Louis (the show). I actually “met” these two in a side mission in the game, and was told to look them up later on. I wonder if the characters will be available in the game after the show starts, and if not, what that means for players who arrive to the game late.
We’ll have to see exactly how the crossover stuff works once the show starts.
Check with your doctor to see if Defiance is right for you
What’s in it for you? Well, that’s up to each person to decide, but there’s a few things to consider:
- If you want a team-focused, objective-based shooter, this is not for you
- If you hated RIFT, this is not for you
- If you’re looking for a deep, engrossing story in a game, this is not for you
However:
- If you want a really fun shooter you can jump into quickly, and not have to worry about scheduling time with people to meet up to do stuff, this is for you
- If you’re interested in a fun shooter that focuses on shooting, and are interested in getting your lore and back-story from a big budget TV show, this is for you
- If you like having a fun time shooting bugs and mutants (and really, who doesn’t from time to time?), this is for you
The general consensus among my peers is that Defiance is a good secondary game. There’s not a lot of cerebral stuff that will keep you up at night plotting on how to tackle it. Instead, if you want to blow off steam, meet up with your friends, and drive around like a pack of Mad Max wannabees, this is the right place to do it.
Personally, I suspect that once the show starts, the flow will be “watch the show, jump into the game to see what (if anything) has happened as far as crossovers, play and monitor the game stories during the week, and watch the show to see what leaked in from the game.” Rinse, and repeat. The fact that it’s subscription-free is also a good reason to keep it installed, in case the urge to jump in and shoot stuff is too strong.
Is Defiance a good shooter? Purists will probably have complaints. Is Defiance a good MMO? Purists will probably have complaints. Is Defiance a good MMO shooter? On that, I’ll say yes, partly because it does better than it’s predecessors, but mostly because it does do a good job at what it does.
Kickstarter And Buyer’s Remorse
02 months ago
by Chris Smith
in Op-Ed
Kickstarter is like “Baby’s First Investment Strategy”. The concept is that someone pitches an idea, and people filter by like a future liberal arts major scanning tables at his high-school college fair. When something grabs your attention, you stop, peruse the brochure, and decide whether or not to fill out an application. Unlike college, however, funding a KS campaign does a bit of a mental teabag on you (although maybe by the time you reach your junior year in college and are staring down the double-barrels of having to find a job and paying off student loans, you’d prefer the teabagging).
KS is turning out to be a good idea on paper, but because of the way people are using it — the way everyone is using it — it’s running amok. People looking for money are turning to the system for various reasons: it brings the pitch directly to the fans; it circumvents traditional avenues and cuts out middlemen; it ensures creative freedom; I couldn’t get funded any other way. All of those are valid from an empirical point of view , but never having started a KS, I can’t say whether any or all of them are good reasons. The system has worked for some, but not for others, and there are a variety of factors there, but most importantly, it’s due to the people who are browsing the site and looking for somewhere to put their money.
The concept of KS is that it’s a kind of incubator, or an investment scaffold that brings ideas to people with money, where the producers get to dictate the return instead of the investors. Most KS projects that I have seen (or more accurately, contributed to) have promised some level at which they’ll provide you with an instance of their outcome. If you fund a game development project, you can get a copy of the game, for example. I usually fund at this minimum level because I’d like to get something out of it, and that’s kind of the rub: many people who throw money at projects aren’t professional investors. They are, however, professional consumers, and look at KS the same way they look at buying something off a shelf.
That means that sometimes, people throw money at a project, and find themselves less than satisfied with the results, or the progress of the project itself. I know some people don’t like stretch goals (myself included). They fund projects based on the initial promise, and the term “Stretch goal” is synonymous with “feature creep”. Other times, weird things happen during the development process that make you question the validity of the project, or whether it’ll ever see the light of day. Sadly, once you’ve committed the funds, and the KS campaign is successful, you’re on the hook. You can’t get a refund, so you’re locked into the fate of the project, for good or for not-so-good.
But “buyer’s remorse” in terms of a KS project is a misplaced emotion, based solely on the spirit of the service. I’ve seen people lament their investment in a project, and others tsk tsking folks who have sponsored a project. When we buy physical goods, often times we can return the product if we’re not satisfied, but with an investment, there’s no way to know if the investment will pay off. We can’t read tea leaves or say with any kind of certainty that a project will make it to completion, or will even be any good if it does. We’re asked to provide money based on what appeals to us. Maybe their video pitch was funny or moving; maybe their reward photos are inspiring; maybe they are projects headed by people who have pleased us in the past. But none of that is a guarantee. Some guy can come out of the woodwork with nothing but a washboard and a can a of beans, and manage to create a cold fusion reactor, or he could end up blowing up half the county in the attempt. We don’t know how it’ll turn out, and that’s the point of KS investing: making someone’s dream a reality based on our perception of what we hope to get out of it. Sadly, there’s the possibility that they’re not up to the task, and/or that we’ve misjudged, but so long as we understand that willfully putting on money into a project is the same as deciding to throw it into the wind in a bet on which way it’ll fly, we can’t give into buyer’s remorse if we’re going to continue to be investors.
Choosing A Subject Matter
02 months ago
by Chris Smith
in Random
Here’s a question that’s really more for indie/hobby developers than for larger company developers: how (and/or why?) do you choose the subject matter for your projects?
I saw an RT on Twitter for a company that just released their latest game to the App Store and Play Store. I thought’d I’d look into it, and it turns out it’s a Spring (as in the season) themed match three game. OK…match three games are a safe bet; everyone understands them, they’re easy to play, quick, and people seem to like them. But why the Spring theme? It could have been sci-fi, horror, cartoon, underwater, Victorian era, or some other dress.
Every project has a “theme”. With AAA games we’re used to broader strokes like “high fantasy” or “survival horror”, but games like this one that I checked on are more about the gameplay, with the “theme” being the decoration around it.
How does the theme of the project get chosen? Is it chosen for it’s selling power? In the case of this match three game, I can see how it’s timed to coincide with Easter, as it features rabbits and chicks (the egg kind), but what about in 6 months? Will the theme still be paying off when we’re no longer in Spring?
Developer Appreciation Week 2013 #DAW
02 months ago
It’s already Thursday, and I’m slacking. I meant to do this earlier, but because I’m late to the game, I’m going to cram it all into one post. This should not be construed as apathy for bandwagon’s sake; Just economical.
Super special thanks to Scarybooster for keeping this ball rolling. Despite his on-again, off-again affair with blogging, this yearly effort is a huge boon to both the developers and the community.
You’re All Winners!
No, that’s not the whole post. However, I do believe that all developers need to be appreciated. Most of us are adults, and we all have to go to work (or work from home). We all report to someone in exchange for a paycheck, and chances are a lot of folks only work because they need the paycheck.
Game developers have great jobs: it’s not something you accidentally fall into because you were assigned there through a temp agency. You need to be a great programmer, or artist, or musician, or server admin. You need to make contacts. You need to love what you do because developers also have amazingly shitty jobs. They get so much grief from so many people for the least rational of reasons, and yet they will almost always tell you –enthusiastically – that they love what they do, and wouldn’t dream of doing anything else. And for that, I love all developers.
Trion
I used to play Rift back in the day, and I loved it. Me being me, though, I stopped playing, but I always remember how excellent Trion was during beta, and afterwards. I’m looking forward to Defiance because I am. I enjoy the game, and really that’s why we’re here, isn’t it? To enjoy the games we play? Right? Maybe it’s just me. I’m also eager for the TV show. I don’t watch a lot of TV, so that’s a Big Deal for me. That Trion is making a go of this “trans-media” thing is pretty ballsy, no matter how it turns out.
FunCom
The Secret World doesn’t treat you like an idiot by dangling artificial “rewards” in front of you. EVE Online usually gets the high-fives for it’s meta-gaming, but TSW meta-games just as well, and even better. You don’t have to be a douchebag to feel good about yourself in TSW; that feeling comes from stretching your intelligence and expanding your knowledge. It’s a big gamble, treating players like intelligent folks instead of greedy gear-whores, because if most comment threads are any indication, they could have been over-estimating the range of their audience. But I’m glad they made a game that actually requires thinking.
ArenaNet
I know it seems like a pandering choice, but when a game holds my interest so that I can actually reach the cap, that’s saying something. I’m not a fan of their rapid-fire content updates or their habit of scheduling them in relatively small windows. They’ve achieved an almost Blizzard-like Zen with Guild Wars 2: instead of layering on mechanic after mechanic, they’ve stripped the systems to the bare minimum, and built up the content. If there’s a game up for consideration that pushes the genre in a different direction, this should be it.
Double Cluepon
I sometimes feel like a fair-weather friend when it comes to gaming, because I don’t actually pay attention to a game until about a week before it’s release. I don’t hang out on forums, or start fan sites or anything like that the way I used to, and that holds true for DC’s Emerald Kingdom, but the good thing is that the DC crew aren’t sequestered in their office; they’re out beating the pavement, milling around with the populace, and aren’t afraid to talk about their vision instead of spouting meaningless PR. I don’t think there’s been a more honest group out there, really.
Cryptic
Cryptic does cash shops right. In Star Trek Online, their shop is filled with things that people want, not what they think they need to be able to just play the game. STO is one of the few games that no matter where I go, there’s a ton of people present and on screen. I’m hoping to see this trend continue in Neverwinter. And super-massive props for their Foundry. Building in a way for users to create content not only serves the community, allowing the community to serve itself, but is a strong draw to return for both the creativity and consumption.
Turn Off The Resource Spigot?
62 months ago
I was fortunate enough to have the misfortune of finding Space Unity for Unity. First, this is one of the most bad-ass systems I’ve seen. Second, I’m sad that I don’t (YET!) have the money to buy it. Third, I say “misfortune” because it got me dreaming about my original concept for Project Universe, in which the player is a cargo ship, and the mission is nothing more exciting than building a financial empire by personally buying low and selling high (actually, there’s a lot more to it than that). Naturally, after seeing Space Unity in action, I couldn’t stop thinking about using it for this original purpose, which lead down a rabbit hole of system concepts, including resource availability and acquisition.
The sad thing is, I couldn’t stop thinking about EVE Online as a reference base. Sad, because I realized that I was thinking about this theoretical game as a re-built EVE. Specifically, I was hung up on resources, because a huge part of EVE is that players acquire and sell and use resources in a player driven economy. There’s little reason (or opportunity) to buy usable items from NPC vendors in EVE, as it’s mostly commodity crap that’s only good for new players to cut their teeth on trading. Everything else in the game starts off in a ship’s cargo hold.
And that’s where I got thinking: what if EVE ran out of raw materials? I mean, these materials come mostly from asteroids. Asteroids aren’t infinite; they are the remains of interstellar bodies, and planets and moons aren’t spontaneously detonating all over New Eden, right? So when a corporation mines the hell out of a belt, that belt should vanish! Or at least, be devoid of further materials. Logically. I understand that space is vast and contains infinite wonders and blah blah blah the chance of strip-mining the universe is really remote and etc I get it. This is a thought exercise, not a recommendation so don’t go looking for an argument.
So then what? People know that the resources are finite, and start hoarding materials, driving up the price on the market, allowing groups to control the flow of resources, bringing production to a halt, allowing a few corporations to corner markets and set prices. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? That would certainly drive many players away, as it would end up being prohibitive for new or less established players to replace ships and ammo, which leads to fewer people for players to engage. Boom! Implosion. So it’s a stupid idea, sure. Unless…
What if the system allowed you to turn scrap (I know it already exists in the game) back into usable resources? When you destroy a ship, you can collect the debris and refine it to a lesser amount/lesser quality raw material that can be used to make a new ship, or new ammo, or other components. Maybe you can sell scrap and earn a fortune. People are always going to be blowing things up in EVE, so there’ll be a never-ending cycle of raw materials to products to scrap to materials. I thought about how BattleTech used to work in regards to the lore, where humanity got so stupid that they couldn’t invent new ‘mechs, only salvage and repair and cobble together parts into existing designs.
Then I thought, what if each generation of salvage decreased the quality? So on the 20th salvage, the quality of the materials are so low that the structural integrity oft he ship/ammo/component is so paper-thin that a single jump tears it apart. This is EVE; players are used to the brutality anyway, so this should be right up their alley! But it would extend the life-cycle of the resource pool, possibly forever, but could give the illusion that some day, the universe won’t be able to make any more anything.
This whole thing came about when I was thinking about markets, moving resources around, and providing resource spigots for players, and how they seem to be never-ending. With unlimited resources, the value drops; with resource scarcity, the value skyrockets. Somewhere in between is a balance, and in EVE‘s case, I think it’s time. It takes a long time and a lot of effort for a single person to mine enough materials to be worthwhile (add in PI and you’ve got a whole lot more to worry about as well). You won’t see a flooded market because when you have dozens of people working together, chances are good they’re looking to USE those materials. When you have a single harvester, chances are he or she is going to flip the results.
You never really have an appreciation for a system until you try and consider changing it, I guess.
Levelcapped.com is a blog devoted primarily to the Massive Multiplayer Online gaming genre, although there's a lot of other game types covered as well.