I heard the same story, except it was Willie Bloomquist with the helpful advice.Ngruk said:
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Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling
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I think the games being made these days are standing on the shoulders of giants. EQ1, and it"s other first gen compatriots set a good example of what NOT to do... WoW, EQ2 and the rest of the second gen games will get to skip a lot of the trial and error. I think Vanguard, which has the next 5 years mapped out already, will probably still end up being a second gen MMO... a very complex 2nd-genner, but 2nd gen nonetheless. Think for sure people will be playing WoW, EQ2, VG etc 5 years from now. And with the foreplanning that is possible with what is already known about how these games tend to evolve I wouldn"t be surprised to see their subscribers become more and more steadfast as the games get deeper and deeper.
I think someone starting out right now to make a game for 5 years from now is going to need a completely out of the box approach from the get-go to hit that 3rd gen mark... and without it they are just going to be another noob 2nd-genner in a sea of similar products.
I definitely think people will be playing WoW/EQ2 etc 5 years from now, and I wouldn"t be surprised to see their bases increase in size by that time as well.
I agree. But I don"t think there will be anything "new" about a game developed using the most current methodologies. It"s just going to the same rehashed game as another with different colored dark elves.
Lots of different things Curt could have meant with that comment, but my take... as a developer, one of the single biggest wastes of my time (and thus by extension, my company"s time and money), is having a designer/user/manager type on a project who has little-to-no knowledge of the technical aspects of how software is built. It"s obscenely frustrating to continually have to explain why you "just can"t do that". And unfortunately, the vast majority of these types truly believe they "get it" and know what"s best. (Kind of like on these forums =P).
Ideasand theimplementation of ideasare completely different beasts. Ideally, you have designers with good technical knowledge, and developers with good design ideas. Put them and a few go-betweens in a room together, and you get workable ideas, sometimes. =P
More than different people who take care of that, I think that should be just different phases of a process.
This is often done even in other disciplines distant from game development (like TV shows). You start from pure brainstorming, where even the more savage ideas are thrown together, and then you start prune them progressively till you arrive at something that makes sense and that is doable.
What I mean is that I think it"s actually useful to keep those moments separated, instead of trying to make everything work from the very beginning.
This is often done even in other disciplines distant from game development (like TV shows). You start from pure brainstorming, where even the more savage ideas are thrown together, and then you start prune them progressively till you arrive at something that makes sense and that is doable.
What I mean is that I think it"s actually useful to keep those moments separated, instead of trying to make everything work from the very beginning.
I would agree. One of the issues is that we are far past the "pure brainstorming" part of this, where a lot of would be designers see themselves fitting into the mix.Abalieno said:
At this point having designers with technical know how is a pretty big deal, not 100% required but certainly something we pay attention to.
While I am not in the industry (and frankly unless the pay is around 6 figures a year, I"m not interested) in order to be a Designer- and to get hired BY a company to do design, you need to have a resume of product for them review.
sure you love mmo"s, great, Now show what you Can do to impress your potential employer
go grab that multiverse mmo kit( ) or something similar and MAKE a zone or 5 to show what you can do.
include all your notes as well to show the purpose of the zone, potential scripts/actions for the npc"s to do, quests, poi"s etc- imo there should be a minimum of probably 20 pages of notes about a single zone/dungeon.
sure you love mmo"s, great, Now show what you Can do to impress your potential employer
go grab that multiverse mmo kit( ) or something similar and MAKE a zone or 5 to show what you can do.
include all your notes as well to show the purpose of the zone, potential scripts/actions for the npc"s to do, quests, poi"s etc- imo there should be a minimum of probably 20 pages of notes about a single zone/dungeon.
Ideally, yes... they"re done separately.
But in reality, at least in my experience, you never have a 100% complete and perfect design plan coming out of the design stages, even though both the design and development teams may have signed off on it.
When you get into development, things change. Hopefully not too much, but things that looked great on paper don"t always turn out that way. That"s fine for smaller things, you can solve or work around them... but inevitably you run into problems with ripple effects. PartA needs to be altered, which forces PartB to change as well. Then, if Parts C, D and E interact with PartB, they also need to change. And then PartF, that relies on PartC... and so on.
The crux here is time. Obviously, the more time you take, the better your design will be, which helps avoid too many "ripple" problems when you get into actual development. But as deadlines approach, shortcuts end up being taken, usually with a "slap a bandaid on it now, we"ll do it properly later" mentality.
You also have to consider... designers and developers build and tune GameMechanic1 with the assumption that it will be be used a certain way. Then the game goes live and players figure out entirely unanticipated ways of using GameMechanic1. All of a sudden, all the design work for that mechanic, and everything it affects, has to be rethought and potentially redesigned.
I dunno, I guess my point is... there"s so much involved in designing and coding anything big like an MMO. For every detail that "armchair designers" bring up, there are hundreds or thousands of factors involved to actually implement it. Not saying they aren"t valid points, but that suggesting the idea is often only 0.0001% of the work involved.
But in reality, at least in my experience, you never have a 100% complete and perfect design plan coming out of the design stages, even though both the design and development teams may have signed off on it.
When you get into development, things change. Hopefully not too much, but things that looked great on paper don"t always turn out that way. That"s fine for smaller things, you can solve or work around them... but inevitably you run into problems with ripple effects. PartA needs to be altered, which forces PartB to change as well. Then, if Parts C, D and E interact with PartB, they also need to change. And then PartF, that relies on PartC... and so on.
The crux here is time. Obviously, the more time you take, the better your design will be, which helps avoid too many "ripple" problems when you get into actual development. But as deadlines approach, shortcuts end up being taken, usually with a "slap a bandaid on it now, we"ll do it properly later" mentality.
You also have to consider... designers and developers build and tune GameMechanic1 with the assumption that it will be be used a certain way. Then the game goes live and players figure out entirely unanticipated ways of using GameMechanic1. All of a sudden, all the design work for that mechanic, and everything it affects, has to be rethought and potentially redesigned.
I dunno, I guess my point is... there"s so much involved in designing and coding anything big like an MMO. For every detail that "armchair designers" bring up, there are hundreds or thousands of factors involved to actually implement it. Not saying they aren"t valid points, but that suggesting the idea is often only 0.0001% of the work involved.
Actually I was describing a process from the point of view of an established company with an established game.Ngruk said:
I mean, it"s not like you hire designers for six months, then get their design doc and fire them all because they completed their job and now things pass in the hands of the tech guys.
For a MMO game design, as well programming, never stop. They do only when a world is left dying.
Technical know-how, well... It"s ALWAYS indispensable. That"s the first premise to make things happen.
The key for a good production is very well known by people in the industry: reiteration.
Take two great companies who always made great games: Squaresoft and Blizzard. Their success is also the outcome of the processes they have during development.
Someone with some insight can tell you of Blizzard"s "strike teams". And Squaresoft always had different teams working on only one part of the game at the same time.
The key in those processes is that no phase ever ends. Instead you keep switching teams to see things from different perspectives, adjust things continuously till everything works great. Designers should always work side by side with the programmers.
"Prototyping" is also another word often thrown in. The point is that you mix those processes, you keep reiterating them because it"s from that reiteration that the worth comes. Nothing is perfect from the get go. And I doubt that a good game made to release without significant changes to the original design doc.
So what you need to do is that the process is flexible so that you can integrate what you are discovering and learning along the way.
Idea creation, brainstorming, project path are all things to be layed out and cut and trimmed and polished and tweaked until you have a game plan to follow. Then tech says they can"t do something without doing something else new, then something conflicts with something else, then an issue you didn"t forsee causes a revamp of idea80109a which cascades into all the surrounding ideas AND 2 cute little oddball things which won"t show up until 3 months down the road at which point no one knows where in the hell it came from. Things you thought you could do you can"t, things you didn"t think would work out do, both of which can make things more than interesting.
Once you get past all the "fun" stuff (brainstorming, creation, etc.) your trying to drive the project management bus to the finish line. Your juggling, dancing, putting out fires, creating fires, creating a new definition for flexibility and thinking on your toes, all the while attempting to maintain the integrity and soul of the product you envisioned in the first place.
In most ways, thats just business. But with the size and complexity of todays online games it is sometimes amazing the whole thing doesn"t just burst into flame.
Once you get past all the "fun" stuff (brainstorming, creation, etc.) your trying to drive the project management bus to the finish line. Your juggling, dancing, putting out fires, creating fires, creating a new definition for flexibility and thinking on your toes, all the while attempting to maintain the integrity and soul of the product you envisioned in the first place.
In most ways, thats just business. But with the size and complexity of todays online games it is sometimes amazing the whole thing doesn"t just burst into flame.
Sounds like an exciting challenge to me. I do a lot of that post "fun" stuff now in my current job. The only difference is I don"t get to design/code anything I personally find interesting. I"ve been known to daydream and create pages of game design docs while I compile.Gaereth said:
I compile a lot.
QFE.MorinkhanMT said:
You can do all the planning and theoretical design in the universe, but trust me: when it comes down to actually populating a zone, implementing the quests inside it, creating the loot that drops there, and making sure it all ties together in a cohesive way that makes it feel like part of a living game world, all the armchair design stuff flies out the window.
It"s a totally different beast, and it"s really hard to appreciate the challenge of it until you"re actually tasked with doing it.
James
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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So like...why the MMO route first? Aren"t you guys at least a little worried that not having your company name out there as a strong game maker will hurt hype and/or sales? I mean, don"t get me wrong, dropping bombs like Todd McFarlane and R.A. Salvatore will certainly help with the right kind of crowd -- but with all the hopeful releases that have fallen oh so short of what they could be (Age of Conan, *LOTR Online* (<-- who is actually going to play that?), etc, etc), you"d think they"d be getting a little jaded by now.
I dunno. It would be a concern to me, at least. Especially since the core gamers are typically the kind of guys that only have time for one MMO at a time, and Blizzard is a mighty big name to top.
I dunno. It would be a concern to me, at least. Especially since the core gamers are typically the kind of guys that only have time for one MMO at a time, and Blizzard is a mighty big name to top.
And populating a zone, implementing the quests and creating loot lists is a very, very, very narrow point of view on what game design is and its scope and meaning.Moorgard Mobhunter said:
Even the fact that THERE IS a zone, that the zone is populated by quests and there areloot listsis already not a proven truth. That"s only ONE of the models possible, and one that today is particularly STALE.
So even your experience at SOE, which is absolutely unquestionable, is still a VERY limited point of view of what game design IS and the way you can portray a game. Your experience on EQ2, because of the derivative nature of that game, is very narrow.
If anything your experience can be a very good reason why the game you will build will look exactly like every other. Where what a designer do is solely about populating a zone, write quests and scripts and build loot tables as he was taught to do.
At this point things may sound as the other clueless guys that jumped between a bunch of projects before landing at Bioware to bring their TOTAL lack of ideas and inspiration there:
And when you ask them how they found the magic recipe for Endless Stream of Quality Content and No Grind Ever what they say?
That they hired NINE writers and will use instancing. OMFG!
See, this is to say that those guys, and I use those guys just as the today"s example, just cannot see things from another perspective. Despite THEIRS experience is ALSO absolutely unquestionable and to which your own pales in comparison, they have absolutely nothing to bring to the table if not a green monster envy of WoW.
So, is the experience useful to think of something new or just to fall in the mold of uninspired mediocrity?
Of course I hope it will be not the case.
I don"t think it is. I think this aspect of design is HUGE, in both workload and concept implementation. I LOVE to play in a zone that has been populated with intent, quest lines that make me WANT to do them and layout and appearance that begs for screenshots. These things are, imo, being done well less and less. I was stunned playing my first MMO that re-used content, I couldn"t FATHOM who would ok something like that.Abalieno said:
I am not real sure what some of the intent was here. What I did get from this is the view that an SOE Designer who participates in designing and implementing a design in a zone for SOE has a very narrow and limited view.Abalieno said:
THat to me makes the MASSIVE assumption that the zone in question was the sole and complete responsibility of one person. While I know that DOES happen, I think it"s a rarer occurence.
So by saying Ryan Shwayders work on EQ2 defines him as a designer would be a horrifically(sp?) mistaken point of view. I think you can see how and why some designers are the way they are, until you truly talk to them ftf you can"t know what"s at the center of their creative passion.
I have yet to find a designer who looks at his work and says "That"s exactly what we/I intended that to be". Most, if not all times, they are critiquing and wondering why or how things could have been different.
He is talking about how most games are currently going with the "zone" as a box to be filled with precious things type of design. Each zone is its own creation, its own world, its alive!!!
The point being is that it is the accepted path for game creation right now but not the only one. Its reminiscent of the old saying "There is more than one way to skin a cat". What Abal was saying is that the "zone is a box" idea is like bragging that your the best lover in the world and the ONLY thing you have ever done is missionary.
The point being is that it is the accepted path for game creation right now but not the only one. Its reminiscent of the old saying "There is more than one way to skin a cat". What Abal was saying is that the "zone is a box" idea is like bragging that your the best lover in the world and the ONLY thing you have ever done is missionary.
No, I"m just saying that scripting quests, creating spawn points and loot lists is just a very little part of "game design". Game design is a discipline that goes far beyond that tiny classification and competence.
Designing an UI is game design as well. You can have ALL the experience in the world writing quests, but this doesn"t mean that you may be a good designer working on an UI. Bioware now hired those nine writers. But writing, again, is just a part of game design.
So from PvP, economic systems, UI, class creation and balance, worldbuilding, character development and more. These are all parts that tie together, each requiring its own competence. If you think about a designer as one who just writes quests and populates zones you have a very narrow point of view.
Take CCP last patch. There"s the contract system, rigs, inventions, the new seamless map, new character creation, new scanning system, combat reorganization and more. This required a HUGE "design" work. And yet almost nothing of it is about populating a system, create loot lists and build missions.
The more games develop, the more roles will specialize. This is why Bioware hired nine writers. I doubt they touch other parts of the game beside high-level content creation. But that"s one of a myriad of aspects, each requiring its own specialization.
In the same way an "artist" can be one who does concept art, texturing, animations, modeling, icons and so on.
Designing an UI is game design as well. You can have ALL the experience in the world writing quests, but this doesn"t mean that you may be a good designer working on an UI. Bioware now hired those nine writers. But writing, again, is just a part of game design.
So from PvP, economic systems, UI, class creation and balance, worldbuilding, character development and more. These are all parts that tie together, each requiring its own competence. If you think about a designer as one who just writes quests and populates zones you have a very narrow point of view.
Take CCP last patch. There"s the contract system, rigs, inventions, the new seamless map, new character creation, new scanning system, combat reorganization and more. This required a HUGE "design" work. And yet almost nothing of it is about populating a system, create loot lists and build missions.
The more games develop, the more roles will specialize. This is why Bioware hired nine writers. I doubt they touch other parts of the game beside high-level content creation. But that"s one of a myriad of aspects, each requiring its own specialization.
In the same way an "artist" can be one who does concept art, texturing, animations, modeling, icons and so on.