Dynamic World State
Posted by Jay | Filed under Game Industry, World of Warcraft
DISCLAIMER: Let’s leave Muds out of the equation. We know MMOs as a genre are catching up to MUD in tech.
DISCLAIMER: DK spoilers
Dynamic character state, or RPG, is easier then dynamic world state. Historically, looking at the amount of MMOs with dynamic character progression is par for the course. World events, that actually change the world, ala Final Fantasy 3, are extremely rare. In addition to rare, they almost never affect the game world in a permanent way.
Imagine my surprise, while firing up a Death Knight that the new phasing technology actually creates the impression of “affect” on the game world. Progressing through the story line began with a town being scouted byt he scourge. Continuing to the final conflict where the town is burned to the ground. This happened while I was playing. Yes, it happened LIVE!
This is fairly significant. And I also realise this happened COMPLETELY under the radar for the average player. No one knows and very few people are talking about it. I wanted to point out that Blizzard has some interesting technology that has the potential to put the player in control of their world.
With a new blizzard MMO around the corner(3-5 years), my hope is that they created a fully character and world dynamic MMO for all to enjoy. Maybe this once, they’ll lead the industry instead of borrowing innovation.
State of the Industry - Q3 2008
Posted by Jay | Filed under Game Industry
Over the past quarter there have been many news stories about studio closings.
Flagship Studios, developer of Hellgate:London and the acclaimed Mythos was recently closed over a year long fight. Emsemble Studios, developer of the critically accalimed Age of Empire series, was closed by Microsoft, with a new studio to form. THQ is also closing 5+ studios in the past quarter, due to fiscal reasons. And there are plenty more.
With all these closings, its a wonder that video game sales are up and projections look great! Ultimately, we’re asking the question; What does this mean?
What does it mean when a studio is closed? What products were they working on? Who was formally employed? Was it a necessary closing?
As the economy continues to correct due to global market corrections, it was only a matter of time before the video game industry felt a little pinch. And that’s what’s happening. We’re feeling a little pinch.
You see for the longest time many studios were putting out crap, and many studios continue to do so. Here’s a list of really questionable titles, released in the past 6 months. None of that list are over a metacritic score of 50. Here’s a number that many game players don’t ever see, there were more than 500 video games released in 2008 to date. That’s ALOT! Here’s a list of games that you may of heard of:
- World of Warcraft: WOTLK
- Fallout 3
- Fable 2
- Dead Space
- Standard EA sports license products # infinite
- Wizard 101
- Left 4 Dead
- Warhammer Online
That’s just a couple and I’ve missed many that actually deserve the recognition. But it doesn’t matter because 99% of the releases of this year are obscure and probably barely profitable.
Do we need this in the games industry? Do we want that in the games industry? Do we, as video game consumers, want sub-par video games to be published?
Heck NO! Trim the fat! Now, I’m not interested in nothing but WoW clones but those games that aren’t;
- Profitable or
- Reviewed well
They just take up space. I’m actually happy about the correction. It’ll make room for something worth buying!
Visceral Combat - Animation part 1
Posted by Jay | Filed under Game Industry
I have a hobby outside of video games. I know! Its strange… I study interactions, body language, dance, practice martial arts (Aikido) and teach dance. I’ve learned to describe what my body is doing and most importantly, be able to describe that motion to a group of people in order to re-create those motions. You may be asking what this has to do with visceral combat design?
One of the reasons why R.A. Salvatore writes some of the best combat stories is because he has practiced martial arts (unvalidated) and worked as a bouncer. He’s fought. He understands the mind set. He understands the frantic frenetic pace that takes place when two people fight. He is able to write excellent combat fiction because it exists within his realm of experience.
That is why experience with your own body is important. If you don’t believe me, watch two animators design a combat cycle, run cycle or idle pose. Many times they’ll reenact what they want to see. YMMV. I also suggest learning to draw stick figures. the Xiao Xiao stick figure movies are great for animation simply because they have no texture. Everything a stick figure it communicating is through pose and animation.
There’s an important concept that is touched on above but never defined. Good combat animation always make good use of silouhettes, that is the outline of an avatar to communicate motion, strength and weight. Strongs silhoettes are the key to visceral combat animation.
Let’s tie this back to my dancing analogy, more specifcally teaching. When breaking down a standard swing out for new dancers, I usually start with what your body looks like at beats 1, 3, 4, 5 and 8. Those beats create the positions for a new dancer. From there I let them figure out how to move to the new positions. For animation, this is the same as key frames. By using, and showing the silhouette, the players/dancers are able to capture and understand the motion involved. The main difference between dancing and combat animation other than one being IRL and the other being in game is that combat animation has to communicate, purely visual, in 30 frames what I communicate in 8 seconds, visual + audio.
More to come.
Visceral Combat - Intro
Posted by Jay | Filed under Game Industry
Ask yourself about visceral combat design? Which titles come to mind? How about movies? Here is a list of games, movies and books that feature visceral combat. This is from my personal recollection and from titles that I have read, watched or played.
- God of War (ps2)
- Dead or Alive 4 (360)
- F.E.A.R. (PC, 360)
- Fight Club (movie)
- R.A. Salvatore Books - Well known for good combat sequences
- Ninja Gaiden: Black (Xbox, 360)- Way too hard for the average user.
- Any Bruce Lee Movie - If anything, watch how he performs his combat for movies.
Some of you may have played, watched or read these titles. Some of you may not even know what they are. After reading this, I would suggest playing, watching or reading from this selection to get a better example of the content.
What makes combat visceral? There are a couple basic bullets points I’d like to cover.
- Animation
- Feedback
- Sound design
- Controls
In this series 4 part series, I will cover each of these aspects from a high level. Finally for my wow readers, I will review some of the changes to World of Warcraft that made it more visually compelling. Who knows, maybe by then I’ll post some screen shots!
Tank in Order, Heal if destruction, Rant if player
Posted by Jay | Filed under Game Industry
I just hit 14 on my swordmaster and 13 on my zealot. Going from tier to tier is a lot of fun except a few minor issues.
First, where are my flight paths? Seriously, there’s like 1 per region, what’s that shit about? What it does is penalize me the player for wanting to experience new content. Let me illustrate an example:
Last night, my guild wanted to get together for some early tier 2 PQ action. So, I flew out to Shadowlands in the dark elf territory to start gathering the troops. My guildies had the option of travelling to two points; (1) the first war camp which is a 10 minute run from the previous tier and (2) the mid point war camp in the Shadowlands which was again a 10 minute walk to the location. Royal pain in the butt. Total tiem to get the group together, 30 minutes! 30 minutes of travel time! Pitiful.
Second, is class disparity. DPS classes in War are REALLY fun. By their nature DPS is more fun than the support. Missing a healer means you can’t complete PQs at all. Missing a Tank means you can’t complete 50% of all PQs. That’s 50% of regular leveling content that cannot be experienced without a tank. That sucks. Mind you, I play a tank on the order side and I never have this problem.
Third, and this is more minor. Apparently alot of people queue into scenarios. I don’t buy it. I agree that many people do queue into them except that when I queue for an evening I will see the same names. So I imagine the overall population is roughly 100 folks queueing scenarios. Of course, Warhammer doesn’t show how many scenarios are actually running, so its impossible to tell.
Third and a half? Please for the love of gawd, add some randomness to the scenarios. Whatever the algorithm is, change it! I’m tired of Nordenwatch and I’m tired of Mourkain Temple. 60% of all scenario content is never experienced. Any company would find that poor practice.
I’m having a great time. I just wish it were easier. And don’t think that its any easier to have said good time in World of Warcraft. These same issues are even more excaserbated in WoW.
