Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

rangoth said:

This was compounded by many other issues including a boss that everyday he came in would bring with him a new feature he thought of while taking a shit the night before and now 2 people who would switch full throttle to implement it....at least to 50% before it was determined it won"t work or the customer doesn"t want it and the entire idea is scrapped, but it was a perfect way to waste 2 developers for a few days and fall behind schedule

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I so could have been that guy...

I was early on, before it mattered, I think. Oh it hasn"t stopped me from bringing in what I think are grand ideas and really neat design philosophies, but it certainly changed both who I talk to, and how far along an idea I have needs to be, before presenting. Not to mention I do it, at least try to, like everyone else is asked to do it when I can.

The saying "what you think is cool, is, until you actually see it in action" is so damn true. I"ve thought of so many "cool ideas" that became blatantly pathetic and potential disasters so fast when they get explained by someone that is a pro.

What do you mean trash mobs aren"t cool? Fuck it, let"s put in two hundred of them between each boss on a 30 minute respawn. It takes 25 minutes to kill each one.

Holla.

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An actual day in the life at <strike>VerantBlizzard</strike> 38 Studios.

Tyen said:

I"m glad that you got a good head on your shoulders when it comes to that.

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Ass kisser.

I do enjoy when I read Penny Arcade and you"ll have people whining about games being released before they"re ready and the same people will also bitch when a game gets delayed because it isn"t ready for release yet.

Anyways...

Pro-tip, when you"re nearing the end of your project and running out of money and you cave and say "Fuck it" and release 3 weeks early thinking we"ll loyally stay tuned long enough for you to get the cash to fix the game, but it isn"t working so you panic...instead just do what the big software companies like Sony do and form some secret subsidiary company nobody knows about and start churning out hentai rape dating fantasy games to keep your company afloat until you can put out a quality finished product.

I pray that you become ridiculously successful with your release so that for your next project you can do what we"ve all been waiting for and buyout the rights to both franchises so you can make both a shadowrunner and mechwarrior MMO so I can finally sell my legs to science and use the proceeds to never leave my computer again.

Zehn - Vhex said:

Ass kisser.

I do enjoy when I read Penny Arcade and you"ll have people whining about games being released before they"re ready and the same people will also bitch when a game gets delayed because it isn"t ready for release yet.

Anyways...

Pro-tip, when you"re nearing the end of your project and running out of money and you cave and say "Fuck it" and release 3 weeks early thinking we"ll loyally stay tuned long enough for you to get the cash to fix the game, but it isn"t working so you panic...instead just do what the big software companies like Sony do and form some secret subsidiary company nobody knows about and start churning out hentai rape dating fantasy games to keep your company afloat until you can put out a quality finished product.

I pray that you become ridiculously successful with your release so that for your next project you can do what we"ve all been waiting for and buyout the rights to both franchises so you can make both a shadowrunner and mechwarrior MMO so I can finally sell my legs to science and use the proceeds to never leave my computer again.

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that is fucking funny.

etchazz said:

that is fucking funny.

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All lengthy posts by Zehn deliver. Every single time.

So Moor/Ngruk when"s the first actual info/or next art update for Copernicus? In three months it"ll be a year since the 3 art shots.

/BradMcQuaid

It"s going really good, we"re really excited about the things we"ve got going on, we think you"ll love them as well. It"s pretty awesome. We"ve got a really great team pumping out some really amazing stuff here.

/endBradMcQuaid

That"ll about wrap up all you"ll hear from them until they announce public Beta. 8(

You ~might~ get some snuff pages about elves and dwarves and a cleric or a monk and some random ass giants or some shit though.

Oh, and some screenshot of some huts. For some goddamn reason it"s always huts.

Zehn - Vhex said:

Oh, and some screenshot of some huts. For some goddamn reason it"s always huts.

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It was 5 concept art shots not 3 my bad. And we already got huts. Or is the treehut not hutty enough to meet the cliche?

Zehn - Vhex said:

/BradMcQuaid

It"s going really good, we"re really excited about the things we"ve got going on, we think you"ll love them as well. It"s pretty awesome. We"ve got a really great team pumping out some really amazing stuff here.

/endBradMcQuaid

That"ll about wrap up all you"ll hear from them until they announce public Beta. 8(

You ~might~ get some snuff pages about elves and dwarves and a cleric or a monk and some random ass giants or some shit though.

Oh, and some screenshot of some huts. For some goddamn reason it"s always huts.

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Okay now I remember my point in moving this thread to the front page -- with Free Realms having an attached in-game CCG and with Chronicle of Spellborn apparently having a weak CCG-like ability wheel (I got this leet CoS infrom from a penny-arcade comic so don"t ask me about the actual game), I was curious if 38 Studios was going to take the next logical step and add a CCG into the game as part of the combat system. That"s always been my dream game and my solution to the DPS/Tank/Healer/CC trinity (yes I realize I"ve listed 4 things not 3 - it"s a joke - nevermind) - a combat HUD where you"ve got 8-10 buttons of class related abilities on one-side and on the other your "hand" of actual in-game cards/deck/etc.

Combat consists of mashing abilities + choosing appropriate cards to cast based on the situation.

I"m sure I"ll only hear crickets or marketing propaganda -- as Zehn suggests -- but thought I"d ask in the spirit of bringing something new to the genre.

tad10 said:

Okay now I remember my point in moving this thread to the front page -- with Free Realms having an attached in-game CCG and with Chronicle of Spellborn apparently having a weak CCG-like ability wheel (I got this leet CoS infrom from a penny-arcade comic so don"t ask me about the actual game), I was curious if 38 Studios was going to take the next logical step and add a CCG into the game as part of the combat system. That"s always been my dream game and my solution to the DPS/Tank/Healer/CC trinity (yes I realize I"ve listed 4 things not 3 - it"s a joke - nevermind) - a combat HUD where you"ve got 8-10 buttons of class related abilities on one-side and on the other your "hand" of actual in-game cards/deck/etc.

Combat consists of mashing abilities + choosing appropriate cards to cast based on the situation.

I"m sure I"ll only hear crickets or marketing propaganda -- as Zehn suggests -- but thought I"d ask in the spirit of bringing something new to the genre.

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I doubt they are going to do something that drastic. That"s a huge risk/tiny reward mechanic. It could ruin the game for 90% of the player base at its worst, and maybe add 10% more players at its best. Would not be a wise decision IMO.

That said, I love CCG"s. Having one built into the game as a casual meta-game or casino type thing would be awesome.

Lonin said:

I doubt they are going to do something that drastic. That"s a huge risk/tiny reward mechanic. It could ruin the game for 90% of the player base at its worst, and maybe add 10% more players at its best. Would not be a wise decision IMO.

That said, I love CCG"s. Having one built into the game as a casual meta-game or casino type thing would be awesome.

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Agreed. That would never appeal to the mainstream.

I"m not sure I"d want the randomness it brought to combat either. It"s alright in a slow-paced game like MTG where you can sit and think about what to do when faced with a bad situation and a terrible hand of cards, but in an MMO it would just be frustrating unless the combat was turn-based, in which case Wizard 101 has already done it and it wouldn"t really be that innovative.

As for the Spellborn ability bar, the combat in that game just ends up not being very fun. It"s a perfect example of worrying too much about being original and forgetting to ask "but is it fun?" The combat mechanics just try to be different for the sake of being different, and it doesn"t really add anything to the game. It"s annoying more than anything.

I think if you want to bring in a CCG element to an MMO it should not be in the randomness of what you draw, but in the freedom of building a deck. To draw a comparison to M:TG, imagine starting a character by picking one color of mana, but as you level you can add any other colors and that would determine your abilities/stats/playstyle. If you spread out you"re more versatile, but not as strong at one particular thing as someone who mostly stuck to Red mana, for example. Ultimately it wouldn"t be much different than UO or possibly Asheron"s Call, but if you put it in a prettier package like that it might end up being more fun, who knows.

Grave said:

I think if you want to bring in a CCG element to an MMO it should not be in the randomness of what you draw, but in the freedom of building a deck. To draw a comparison to M:TG, imagine starting a character by picking one color of mana, but as you level you can add any other colors and that would determine your abilities/stats/playstyle. If you spread out you"re more versatile, but not as strong at one particular thing as someone who mostly stuck to Red mana, for example. Ultimately it wouldn"t be much different than UO or possibly Asheron"s Call, but if you put it in a prettier package like that it might end up being more fun, who knows.

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Guild Wars, and to a lesser extent, the original Everquest, have a very rudimentary system of "deck building." I agree though, I"d like to see that system expanded upon.

Grave said:

I"m not sure I"d want the randomness it brought to combat either.

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Why randomness? You can have a CCG mechanism without the randomness.

The following is a design I had for a kind of on-line MMOish version of NetRunner (which is/was a real CCG). You, the runner, have a cyber-deck, and a set of software. Your cyberdeck has a memory size, which opens N slots for abilities (beginner cyberdecks have like 4, HL cyberdecks have 7 or 8 or more). You have a queue of software (abilities). You load the first N in your deck, and can use them. Once used, they go on cooldown (various values of cooldown used there, from the 5s common ones to the 1mn rare ones). You can "swap" any software on your deck: the card goes back at the end of your queue, and the next in queue loads.

See? No randomness. Of course, you must design your software queue prior to start your run - no reordering your queue mid-run so that you load all your specialized Icebreakers just as you"re going to face a Hell Hound Black Ice, so you can disable it in 3s (that"s the Guildwars model, in case you wonder).

I think it"s evolved pretty much as far as it"s going to in an action-rpg. It"s just a matter of how limited you go. Whether it"s EQ where you select 8 out of 30ish unique abilities or WoW where you have your default 40ish abilities but only use 8 anyways and then can get 2~5 more based on talent spec.

I mean, where else would you take it? It doesn"t really add strategy because you either can use all the abilities you need to beat an encounter or the encounter designers are dicks and there"s a 10% chance it will require an ability you didn"t prepare. In which case there"s about as much strategy involved as playing rock, paper, scissors against a machine.

Besides, you"re already making these decisions. You"re building a deck everytime you put a raid together. Granted your card selection typically sucks and you have to take that 1/1 shaman that costs 8 mana to play just because he"s the only card that fucking has bloodlust.

Obviously it"s not exactly the same thing, but card game mechanics are about as translated into action-RPG"s as they"re going to be.

Eventually some company that isn"t made up entirely of marketing departments will make a MTG style game online that isn"t based off micro-transactions so those of us who aren"t stupid enough to drop 800 bucks on a card game we could make with 20 bucks worth of ink, 5 bucks worth of paper and a laminating machine can play along too.**

Eventually some company will introduce a MTG:O style game for 10 bucks a month and be done with it. I"d murder my family for the WoW CCG to be ported right into WoW and unlocked for an additional 5 bucks a month on my subscription to be able to play.

**It was only 500 bucks worth of cards before I realized what I was doing and got out. Seriously, coke seemed like a more reasonable habit.

Zehn - Vhex said:

That"ll about wrap up all you"ll hear from them until they announce public Beta. 8(

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I got 20 bucks says they don"t have a beta process resembling anything like that which we are used to. The whole "Beta" thing just has so many drawbacks and not much good going for it.


The interesting thing is going to be the release schedule. There"s no major MMO due out in the next year then I have five penciled in (just my guesswork) for Fall 2010, including this one, each of which I am very much looking forward to. Oh, and Diablo 3, unless that makes it out this fall.

Beta is fine, when it"s used as an actual beta. The problem is that far too many companies, especially MMO companies, have been using beta as an alpha phase and then the first 3 months of release are the actual beta.

Zehn - Vhex said:

Beta is fine, when it"s used as an actual beta. The problem is that far too many companies, especially MMO companies, have been using beta as an alpha phase and then the first 3 months of release are the actual beta.

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Well said.

The other problem is that the vast majority of players and fans either do not understand what a beta should be or do not approach it the right way. Its all about getting an advanced preview, playing for free and gaining competitive advantage.


All said and done, yes, games need proper, phased testing, in the sense you describe, but it can"t possibly be called "beta" from now on without setting false expectations. Also, the size and scope of a lot of betas up to now have been counter productive.


If a "beta" test is efficient, scheduled times working on known problems and on development are going to produce masses of discontent and negative PR from anyone who doesn"t understand and commit to what testing should be. A lot of education and reinforcing of those issues has to happen among any testers from the general public, if it is even worth using any testers from the general public.

Zehn - Vhex said:

Beta is fine, when it"s used as an actual beta. The problem is that far too many companies, especially MMO companies, have been using beta as an alpha phase and then the first 3 months of release are the actual beta.

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There is no possible way to use a public beta as it was originally intended. Beta is an alpha release whether you want it to be or not. The process of testing MMO"s in the public space no longer resembles anything like what it used to be. The blame can go both ways, but mainly resides on companies lack of recognition that players viewed it as an "early release" far in advance of companies seeing they did.

When you go "public" with ANY game play, you better be sure that product is ready to play and as bug free as you can make it, because a MASSIVE portion of your audience will make the decision to buy your game (and their friends will as well) based on the "version" they play, be it an alpha or beta.

Ngruk said:

There is no possible way to use a public beta as it was originally intended. Beta is an alpha release whether you want it to be or not. The process of testing MMO"s in the public space no longer resembles anything like what it used to be. The blame can go both ways, but mainly resides on companies lack of recognition that players viewed it as an "early release" far in advance of companies seeing they did.

When you go "public" with ANY game play, you better be sure that product is ready to play and as bug free as you can make it, because a MASSIVE portion of your audience will make the decision to buy your game (and their friends will as well) based on the "version" they play, be it an alpha or beta.

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Pretty much what I do. After doing the good boy beta tester a few times and seeing no effects at all in the final release, I said to myself "why bother?". I use betas as free previews now, which is basically what they are.