Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

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Ngruk_foh

shitlord
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Moorgard Mobhunter said:
No matter how great the content experienced by a player in isolation is, it doesn"t compare to memorable encounters with other players. And as with anything else in life, there is a point of diminishing returns where adding more players to the mix will not dramatically increase the odds that an experience will be memorable.
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We often talk about it, but it does go unmentioned in many conversations outside the studio, when talking about content creation. When you think of the man hours, and dollars spent, in creation of content it"s staggering to me people haven"t pushed harder towards reusable content.

It"s why I think Phasing is and has become a staple in game design that will only prosper.

I"m getting to watch this happen from concept to in game implementation and it really is amazing on both ends.

Not many people can say they"ve sat with and listened to RA Salvatore tell a story, and then months later watched that story, those characters and that world "open up" for you to log in to.

I continually worry about my lot in life, I mean seriously. I was blessed with God given talent to throw a ball and earn stupid amounts of money, so much more in experience than any one person deserves, and now this. I get to do something I am every bit as passionate and driven to, with some of the worlds best and brightest on a daily basis.
 
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FoghornDeadhorn_foh

shitlord
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I guess I won"t be satisfied if I don"t chime in again since I love the sound of my fingers purposefully striking the keyboard.

If you have good writers and give them good tools they will create memorable content. Unfortunately "good writers" means something very special here, apparently. I try not to fellate him too much because he has a universe-sized ego as-is, but I can always tell Furor"s quests in WoW because they are GOOD (and I have not been wrong yet). It was all over from the time I learned that he had written the Fordring line, which was the first truly memorable quest line in WoW for me and many others. Plenty of quests are not that good, which indicates to me that even Blizzard, who must attract pretty good talent, cannot fill their halls with quest writers who are all capable of making memorable content, regardless of how good they seem to be otherwise.

So I agree with MM that the multiplayer aspect is more likely to create memorable experiences than the content designer. However, I think that"s more of a matter of tools and talent than just a hard fact. Maybe I"m wrong though. Maybe at Blizzard they"re like "OK, this is going to be a shitty quest no one cares about, and this one is going to be OK. This one is going to be like pulling teeth and the pop culture references are going to make people roll their eyes. This one is going to be fucking great and folks will tell their friends who don"t play WoW about it. Get to work, team!"

But I doubt it.
 
Daezuel

Daezuel

Potato del Grande
23,408
50,211
^^ You definitely need great scripting tools imo, I was able to accomplish some pretty amazing things with the NWN script engine and not only did it not take long to put in cool quests with cut scenes, random events, and the like once you get more familiar with the tools it becomes second nature.

I also held competitions for my playerbase to include new area"s and quests from which we"d pick the top 3 and temporarily put them in game for people to vote on which they liked the best. (and then put the winner to work doing more design)

Maybe something like that could be done on a test server!
 
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Ngruk_foh

shitlord
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Daezuel said:
^^ You definitely need great scripting tools imo, ........
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Tools are the game. No matter how much I thought I knew at the outset, and I knew tools were important, I had no idea how much of an impact on every possible aspect of game design and actual product quality your tools and tool chains were/are/will be.

If it"s being done right tools themselves, especially in an MMO, are a 12-18 month development cycle and process.

Early on I can remember meeting artists and designers who had what I thought was an unhealthy man love for their tools guys/gals, until I realized how much of an impact tool designers, creators had on every person in every discipline on the team.
 
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Flight

Molten Core Raider
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Freaky - I spend all last night (while trying to get to sleep in bed, of all times) thinking about how much it sucks having to right click and loot mobs all the time, trying to think of possible solutions, go to the SoE thread this morning to find Zehn saying exactly the things I have been chewing over.

I mean it just TOTALLY sucks, solo its just a pain and in a party working through a dungeon its even worse.

Its the reward, the carrot - but it just gets in the way of the gameplay time and time again.



I don"t have any great ideas, at the moment, on how to deal with this. Maybe a box that pops up on screen with loot items in automatically when a mob is killed with auto close options ? WoW had this problem where some no drop trade patterns would only appear to anyone who could use it, so if the wrong person in a party looted that mob nobody knew it was there; that certainly shouldn"t be able to happen, though I don"t know if that"s been fixed.

On loot, I love to see as many item slots as possible on my avatar. More upgrade slots = more phat lewt to acquire = more loot that can drop in game = more carrots = happier bunnies playing the game. Again, AO was fantastic in this regard (), but I don"t see how you could do anything like that in a Fantasy setting.
 
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Ukerric_foh

shitlord
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Ngruk said:
Tools are the game. No matter how much I thought I knew at the outset, and I knew tools were important, I had no idea how much of an impact on every possible aspect of game design and actual product quality your tools and tool chains were/are/will be.
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It"s the pendant of the militaring saying:

"Amateurs talk of tactics. Professionals talk of logistics"

Until I got into a studio in 2000, tools were... well, tools. I mean, the stuff no one cares about. The lead 3D guy introduced me to the philosophy of tools, and why they made everything go from hard and long to easy and as fast as possible.
 
Zehnpai

Zehnpai

Molten Core Raider
399
1,245
Once you get multiple people together, the memories will create themselves. It"s getting people there in the first place that"s tricky. That"s why you can"t view solo content as throwaway content that you should underdevelop because players won"t remember it as vividly.

And honestly, we"re not really doing that alone either. It"s still a shared experience. You don"t need to see someone"s avatar to talk to them. Whether we"re grouped together or on other sides of the virtual continent, we"re still both sitting in our chairs at 3 AM eating cold pizza.

Here, let"s do this. Ask anybody who leveled up in Borean Tundra at WoTLK release who Shadowstalker Getry and why he and his quest can go fuck itself. Ask which is the most badass quest in Dragonblight (Hint: It ends with someone throwing himself off a cliff). Raise your hand everybody who was seriously ready to kill whoever made the Sparksprocket minefield?

As for TBC...well...jumpatron anybody?

If solo content isn"t memorable, it"s mostly the fault of the rut we"re in and the relative infancy of the quest system. It simply hasn"t evolved. 10~ish years later and we"re still looking at 90% of the quests being fedex and "Go forth and collect 10 bear asses mighty warrior!" quests. I don"t feel like a mighty hero, I feel like a thug being paid to go whack guys. I should be feeling like a Paladin, a warrior for the righteous buttkicking for goodness.

Instead I"m a hitman, given 10 gold to go whack some guys who are making too much noise for the old people to sleep at night.

Anyways...

This is getting too long and I"m not getting paid enough to solve the worlds problems. Suffice it to say find a way to cure the inevitable "But I"m not on that stage..." problem with multi-stage quests and more importantly, remove the requirement to go check in with HQ inbetween each step and you"re on your way already.

Secondly, as hard as it is, design your game so that quests aren"t just a stepping stone. They should be an integral part of the story, not just directed grinding. If I play your game and the first quest results in 200 xp, 10 copper and a cape that increases my strength by 2, I will cut your face.

Finally, DON"T MAKE ME RIGHT CLICK ON SHIT TO LOOT IT. I WILL END YOU.
 
Zehnpai

Zehnpai

Molten Core Raider
399
1,245
Flight said:
Freaky - I spend..
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It"s really simple honestly. You go into options, you click, "Auto-loot" and bam, you no longer have to right click on shit. If solo it goes right into your inventory. If in a group and it"s your turn to loot, it goes right into inventory. If group is set to FFA you can set either "Don"t loot" "Delay" or "RR" where your auto-loot will either wait until a few seconds after combat to start looting everything in sight or it will wait until at least X number of mobs has been looted before auto-looting where X is the number of people in your group.

If you want to get really fancy you can add filters for uncommon/rare/etc...only loot. A healthy modding community will take care of the rest (hai2u Autodestroy!)

Though ultimately, I could just be pissed off about this incident...
 
Azrayne

Azrayne

Irenicus did nothing wrong
2,161
786
Here, let"s do this. Ask anybody who leveled up in Borean Tundra at WoTLK release who Shadowstalker Getry and why he and his quest can go fuck itself. Ask which is the most badass quest in Dragonblight (Hint: It ends with someone throwing himself off a cliff). Raise your hand everybody who was seriously ready to kill whoever made the Sparksprocket minefield?
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I don"t recognize a single one of those.

Honestly Zehn, I don"t understand where your love of solo gameplay comes from. I definately think it needs to be a viable option, but I think grouping should always be preferable. I play these games because I like interacting online with other players, and I hate that in WoW that basically doesn"t happen for 90% of the time until you hit level cap. You could replace all the other players with bots that wander around randomly and spew gibberish in chat and I probably wouldn"t notice for a couple days of playing.

I definately think soloing has it"s place, and it should always be a viable levelling option for when you can"t find a group or have time constraints or just plain can"t be bothered, but it just seems kind of counterproductive to go build this massive online gameworld then not encourage people to play together.

I"m with you on looting and quests though. Normally I"m all for immersion, but there"s nothing immersive about hauling around a truckload of assorted junk in neatly compartmentalized bags anyway, so I"d rather just lose the tedium and be done with it.

DAoC had an autoloot system, though they needed it with how awful their loot system was. But I"d love to see something similar in any future MMO"s, kill a mob, gold/trash loot/quest items are automatically looted and divided among the group, equipment/rare drops can pop up in a box ala. WoW or WAR, which can then be rolled on or assigned by the raid/party leader.

Killing a group of mobs then looting them individually is just plain irritating.
 
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Flight

Molten Core Raider
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Zehn - Vhex said:
It"s really simple honestly. You go into options, you click, "Auto-loot" and bam, you no longer have to right click on shit. If solo it goes right into your inventory. If in a group and it"s your turn to loot, it goes right into inventory. If group is set to FFA you can set either "Don"t loot" "Delay" or "RR" where your auto-loot will either wait until a few seconds after combat to start looting everything in sight or it will wait until at least X number of mobs has been looted before auto-looting where X is the number of people in your group.
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Having auto-loot is a good option to have - one I"d certainly welcome - but its not a complete solution. You have to be able to actively choose what you loot, much of the time, with no amount of filtering solving the issue.

Another option I"d like to see is for the leader to be able to allocate all loot from trash up to specific party members - although I"m thinking especially about quest items. Nothing worse than a PUG, with the one loot ho determined to finish his quests before everyone else.



ps the one thing worse than right clicking for loot is right clicking for loot on a round robin basis.
 
Azrayne

Azrayne

Irenicus did nothing wrong
2,161
786
Another option I"d like to see is for the leader to be able to allocate all loot from trash up to specific party members - although I"m thinking especially about quest items. Nothing worse than a PUG, with the one loot ho determined to finish his quests before everyone else.
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I"m always that guy. Having a PUG wipe on the second boss and disband sucks enough as it is, I"ll be damned if I hearth out after 20 minutes of trying to find a new healer only to realise I"m 1 [Bear Testicle] short of finishing my quest as well.
 
Zehnpai

Zehnpai

Molten Core Raider
399
1,245
Azrayne said:
I don"t recognize a single one of those.
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Did you seriously skip that entire questline? Fuck man, you missed out. I was surprised when it picked back up in Icecrown too. Was freaking awesome.

Sparksprocket was just...the sight of like 30 people all trying to get through that thing, especially on a pvp server where you"d get like halfway through and then sniped in mid-air? God it was a thing of beauty.

Getry though...goddamn. You had to be there for that one though. First time in WoW I"ve ever seen a waiting list to complete a quest.

Anyways...

And if you"ll note, I"m not saying solo the exclusion of all else. I"m just saying that neglecting the content that your player will spend the first 2~3 days at least doing by himself on the premise that "Oh hey, he"ll only be there for a few hours, so why bother?" is just...silly.

It"s the first thing they"re going to experience in the game, so why not try to make it memorable? That"s where LOTRO succeeded. The first day or so of playing hooked me.

Where it failed is after a day, it stopped giving a shit and phoned it in. Once I left Bree I found myself doing 40 "Slay 20 orcs!" quests and it lost all flavor.

You can"t neglect that shit saying, "Ah they only spend 4 hours doing it" because if you do, then they"ll only spend 30 minutes doing it, say "Fuck this game" and go back to the game all their friends are still playing instead of convincing them to come play YOUR game for having an awesome 4 hour experience.

Ya feelin" me Jerome?

Anyways...

Yeah having a viable, entertaining end game is important, as is having engaging group/raid content. Of that there is no doubt. But if solo content is not worth the development hours, then what"s the point of low level dungeons? They see even less use yet often leave us with even more lasting memories.

It"s one of the things that really put me off about VG was when Brad said that developing low level content was a waste of time because players may only spend an hour or two of their gaming experience there. It just showcased how out of touch he was with gaming.

It might be different 2 years down the line. I"m not entirely sold on the necessity of solo leveling content in expansions at the expense of more dungeons and the like but meh, whatever. But for your initial release?

TL:DR version: Meh.
 
Azrayne

Azrayne

Irenicus did nothing wrong
2,161
786
Zehn - Vhex said:
Did you seriously skip that entire questline? Fuck man, you missed out. I was surprised when it picked back up in Icecrown too. Was freaking awesome.

Sparksprocket was just...the sight of like 30 people all trying to get through that thing, especially on a pvp server where you"d get like halfway through and then sniped in mid-air? God it was a thing of beauty.

Getry though...goddamn. You had to be there for that one though. First time in WoW I"ve ever seen a waiting list to complete a quest.

Anyways...

And if you"ll note, I"m not saying solo the exclusion of all else. I"m just saying that neglecting the content that your player will spend the first 2~3 days at least doing by himself on the premise that "Oh hey, he"ll only be there for a few hours, so why bother?" is just...silly.

It"s the first thing they"re going to experience in the game, so why not try to make it memorable? That"s where LOTRO succeeded. The first day or so of playing hooked me.

Where it failed is after a day, it stopped giving a shit and phoned it in. Once I left Bree I found myself doing 40 "Slay 20 orcs!" quests and it lost all flavor.

You can"t neglect that shit saying, "Ah they only spend 4 hours doing it" because if you do, then they"ll only spend 30 minutes doing it, say "Fuck this game" and go back to the game all their friends are still playing instead of convincing them to come play YOUR game for having an awesome 4 hour experience.

Ya feelin" me Jerome?

Anyways...

Yeah having a viable, entertaining end game is important, as is having engaging group/raid content. Of that there is no doubt. But if solo content is not worth the development hours, then what"s the point of low level dungeons? They see even less use yet often leave us with even more lasting memories.

It"s one of the things that really put me off about VG was when Brad said that developing low level content was a waste of time because players may only spend an hour or two of their gaming experience there. It just showcased how out of touch he was with gaming.

It might be different 2 years down the line. I"m not entirely sold on the necessity of solo leveling content in expansions at the expense of more dungeons and the like but meh, whatever. But for your initial release?

TLR version: Meh.
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Oh I agree entirely in that regard. One thing Blizzard did so well was make their low level content polished and accessable, it doesn"t matter how awesome your endgame is if everybody stops playing at level 7 and cancels their subscription.
 
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