Are You a Top or a Bottom

Designer that is. I should have probably gone with one of those Rocky and Bullwinkle style titles such as "I Like It on Top OR Bottoms Up!". Who knows maybe something even a little more Ron Jeremy from the 70s. Alas, this is just a thread reminding me to read an article on Bottom Up and Top Down game design. Sort of relevant to work as of late. I tend to prefer the bottom up approach, I imagine, as, to me, story is nice flavor and you can't beat a game like Fallout that just has the right flavor going for it, but, at the end of the day, I'm a gamer, a designer, and not a writer, and if it isn't fun, then I don't really want to read your story. How's that for a run-on sentence. Eat it Ms. Crabtree!

Oh yeah, btw, did you see that now that Bethesda has cashed in on the once great franchise of Fallout, good ole Interplay is still planning to do that MMO. Here's a little prediction for you. Bethesda doesn't think much about Fallout as an MMO when they can do Oblivion and it will be so much more the WoW killer. Uh...yeah. Whatever. I wonder what the hell Matt was thinking when he went over there.

Gamasutra

Daedalus Project Updated

You know what to do. Get on over there and support the cause. Let the world know we don;t just make games with high elf quotients. Especially go over there and represent if, latz kan gruk wut dis uruk am blahin'!

AGDC Links

I'm planning on writing up my time at AGDC this year as there are a lot of good tools that I came away with. In the interim, here's a list of links about the show that I need to read and you might find interesting as well.

Panels
MMO on Console - I missed this one but someone IS going to do it and they might even do it well. Ok yes, technically someone HAS already done. A few somebodies actually. The news here is making it cross platform, oh and probably also trying to make it suck less than previous attempts. NCSoft has already thrown their cape in with the PS3. Maybe even the PSP?

Defining Fun - I didn't see this but BLOO and many were very impressed. It defines fun through the PENS model (Player Experience of Needs Satisfaction) :
- Competence
- Autonomy
- Relatedness

BLOO notes:

This matches with other research and opinions of other game academics
and designers.

- Competence (PENS)
- Achievers (Killers in PvP) (Bartle Player Types)
- Game (Schubert)

- Autonomy (PENS)
- Explorers (Bartle Player Types)
- World (Schubert)

- Relatedness (PENS)
- Socializers (Bartle Player Types)
- Community (Schubert)


Richard Bartle:
Player Types In MUDS: http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm
Bartle Test: http://www.guildcafe.com/bartle.php

Damion Schubert: http://www.zenofdesign.com/

Tools
Vivox - Warcry covers the Vivox demonstration. Vivox is a cool voice technology we've looked at before and it include some cool multi channel command and control layering that might just work excellent for the game.

Big World

News
Matt Frior moves to ZeniMax. I've always admired Matt and his talks at AGDC are among the best. Very focused and down to earth. ZeniMax on the other hand...hmm...well, technically I probably can't talk about it, so I won't. Good luck Matt, you'll need it.

Star Trek Online - Killer Tribbles. Really, what else is there to say? Not much apparently.

Romero - Even less to say. I did sit next to him and Stevie Case one year flying out to E3. I remember thingking at the tmie "Wow, that chick is hot!". That was years before everyone starting talking about WoW. I'm visionary, you see, just like John!

Raph Koster - Interview. Raph really stole the show for me this year in the final panel. While I don;t think the big MMOs are going anywhere soon (and neither does Raph I bet), the success of web based and casual spaces is ludicrous to argue against. Habbo Hotel, more players than WoW and more importantly a 60% ROI? Seriously...

Cool Thing of the Day

Many thanks to ahwulf for digging this up.

News Flash! Escapist magazine Doesn't All Suck!

Ok so the head lines a little over the top but honestly, I can rarely read all the way through the fluff pieces that fill up the latest trendy industry web-zine blog-thingie. That's probably as much to do with the gawds awful layout that they use to give it that whole 'zine-thingie. Yuck.

Anyway, today they talk about gold farming:

Then there's the question of the game designers' intent. Having worked with designers, I know they hate farmers more than a lot of players do, because the farmers are finding and exploiting design weaknesses in products they've worked on for years. Some people would say, "Hey, tough luck. If your design is weak, it's your own fault."

Well, Darius pretty much nailed that one. He goes on to add:

Others would take the stance that people who agree to play a game are entering in an implicit contract to not only play by the rules, but to play reasonably within the designer's intent.

These "others" are the same ones who believe that there is some sort of code of conduct among the player community and not following this unwritten code constitutes cheating. Most of these codes come into play in PvP and VW's where game rules are largely up to the player. You can see where that all leads. Yeah, when someone else isn't playing the way you want them to play that's cheating... uh huh. Let's invite 7 million kids over to the house this weekend and tell them not to get into any trouble while we go to the movies. Here's a thought for an AGC talk: "If you don't want people doing RMT in your game, design it out of the economy."

I really can't get designers or players who have an issue with the concept that my best friend Kevin wants to give me some gold because I need to buy a mount and since I play a hell of a lot less than he does so he's got the scratch among his 7 alts.

Does it really make any difference if the above scenario is altered to a worse case and I don't know Kevin and his name isn't Kevin and I used my lunch money so he could buy lunch and pay his light bill? "Others" might think so.

Note to Self: Read This

Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) are some of the most complicated software systems under development today, often requiring dozens of developers, hundreds of artists, and truly massive infrastructures. This article is the first in a series of articles that will shine a light on the systems, storage, and networks needed to run an MMOG. It provides an introduction to MMOGs and demonstrates one approach to sizing a game's infrastructure. Learn how to figure out how much infrastructure you might need, as well as how to operate an MMOG...

Link

I Need This!!1

Lately we've been looking for some middle ware on which to base our next terrain editor. We've got some pretty steep requirements. Need to build a half scale map of Europe with several thousand towns with roads and rivers and satellite digital elevation data as the foundation.

In the past we've looked at many editors but nothing really designed to do what we need. I want it to be automated as much as possible. I'd like a cross between Sim City and Combat Missions. I don't need what most MMO engines have and shoe box shooters can't make stuff on the scale I need. Take a look at Blueberry or Terrex for something close for sim applications. Trouble is I don't want to use satellite pictures and I really need to have playable spaces out of all this.

Those guys have some cool stuff. I think we can work something out of it that might give us quick production and good results. Then I see this:

1 - Good screens of progressive generated interiors with objects.
http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=566

2 - Mostly chat about the game history:
http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=571

3 - Procedural cities. Code generated in a few weeks into the project....AMAZING! http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=586

4 - Using the same basic algoritrhms from street and river and building placement you can do interiors as well.
http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=600

5 - Chicken and the egg, need a dbase for the buildings before you can define the rules to build them...DOOM FTW!
http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=683

6 - The buildings and streets...
http://forums.introversion.co.uk/introversion/viewtopic.php?t=733

To turn a phrase...F. Me.

What a nice Tool

I leave the MMO Lessons to Ryan. He's got the web meme sown up at this point and they tend to be a good read. A very good thing to be writing down and mulling over whether you are planning your company's next project or if you are slogging away at the reality of the live support and ongoing design of an established MMO.

One thing he hasn't "lessoned" about yet is tools. Tools are it baby. Good tools are worth a gym locker crammed full of inspiring designers. A good tool is better than having John Carmak coding on your project every Sunday for a year for free! Good tools are better than getting asked "Hey dude want a pile of cash to make a Lego MMO?", having no idea why that would ever be compelling and in the end not caring cause it's just so damn cool (Hey MO!).

Tools, kids, are the key to life, the universe, and everything and these Crytek dudes have one impressive tool.

10 Minutes to Success!

Bloo sent me a link to an article up on Gamasutra that goes through a 10 minute process to determine the market potential of a title you might be thinking about making. Let's run BE through it real quick shall we?



1.Is the Game Distinctive?
I think so, let's tun through the test to find out.

1.1 Does it stand out viscerally?
I have to go fifty fifty on this one to be honest. Certainly nothing beats the feels of being in a massive combat arena when all the boom boom boom is going on. It is heart pumping adrenaline stuff. And while the trees and foliage are very nice the overall game world looks a little too sterile. The content needs an upgrade to be up to modern standards and that has to start with an upgrade to the game engine. Good news, we're on that. Redoing all the content is still a big hurdle.

1.2 Does the gameplay stand out?
I have to say yes here. Though I still think that the experience needs to be more directed for many people to "get it", however, the openness that it does have is compelling in many ways. Some design work here that still needs to be fully realized.

1.3 Does it involve the player socially in a unique way?
Looking at our community and the deep love they hold for this title I have to say yes.

2. Can the Game Reach a Large Market?
Ahh, the money shot.

2.1 Is the idea behind the game easy to communicate?
Fight World War II in real time on a half scale map of Europe with infantry, tanks, planes and ships from Allied and Axis players in a full on PvP virtual battlefield. Check.

2.2 Is the game based on something the market already knows and loves?
Let's see, WW2 first person shooters, tank and plane sims, RTS games, TV shows, movies, action figures, models, and about a billion books that largely contradict one another. The greatest conflict of any generation. Ahh, yeah, check.

2.3 Is the target market large?
Personally I'd say HUGE.

That’s it. The more questions you answer “Yes” to, the easier your game will be to sell.
Huh. Guess I better get cracking on that content and engine upgrade and go get my ass a publisher. Check.

Gamasutra.com - The 10 Minutes Game Sales Potential Test