Dev Diary Numero Seven

So,

That was a well needed break. Development slowed to a crawl, as predicted working from home for a group of 5 is not a terribly productive process. We had sicknesses, traveling, difficulty communicating and, of course, the holidays and family.

A comprehensive bug list has been made by yours truly while our PM works on fresh eyes work and PM duties. Our coder was tasked with refining the AI which is sorely needed (Due to our dismemberment feature, out AI cannot make use of the extremely useful and sorely missed Kismet AI) So, our coder is literally learning to make basic AI on the go. Something I am sure future employers will value. Our level designer has been battling the elements in an effort to get back to the UK to visit his family. He made it, but had no access to a computer Circa later than 2000 so...He couldn't do a whole lot of level design work. He got back to Canada early enough to do a bit of level tweaking, but not as much as we had all hoped. Our 3d Guy is simply AWOL. we're all assuming he just had an awesome restful break.

Anyways, this is my blog and my dev diary so, onto my tasks. As I mentioned above I compiled a comprehensive bug list. I concentrated, obviously, on larger game breaker bugs of which I found a fair share. In addition to that I've been writing up suggestions for enemy placement, level layout, gameplay flow and intuitive instructions. I have plans to make some changes to textures for several gameplay objects to emphasize (or in some cases de-emphasize them) I also have a nice list of sounds to create.

Now, on my first day back (tomorrow) I'll be making a prioritized list of these bugs and then I'll be handing them out to team members to get fixed. As anyone in QA can tell you. fix two bugs, switch on or create one. So, better to start now than in 2 weeks for QA. I hold no illusions given our time frame and inexperienced team that we will have our fair share of bugs, but it is my goal to showcase my QA talents and part of that will be starting early. I'll also be commandeering our 3d modeler for QA work. He's shown little interest in doing work aside from 3d but did express some interest in QA so that should work out nicely.

In addition to that work tomorrow I'll be creating the sounds I have discovered we will be needing after my test passes, I am sure the team will have some more sounds to add to my list as well. I am still counting myself lucky we had the foresight to prioritize our sound list and begin work on it with the collaborators early because they've been out of contact and have seemingly lost interest in the project. We've gone far and above out of our way to accommodate them, but they seem too busy and have little interest in completing the project they agreed to. Ah well, luckily we have all the stuff we need and I have a lot of interest in sound design in addition to game design so it will be fun to complete.

Speaking of sound, since I do not pro tools I had to get my hands on a copy of Reaper (great price for what is it by the way) to edit sounds in an effort to create music. I spent a day or two on my break learning the program and creating music for the game. I am just too used to pro tools now, even though I find the program...odious to say the least (buggy, buggy, BUGGY) I am still used to it, as such. I do not feel any of the music I created for the game over the break with Reaper will be used for the game. I'll be creating some more music for the game when I am back with the group and have a copy of the oh-so-finicky pro tools.

Approximately one month until industry night, man I need a job...

Warhammer Online and how I believe it could have been more succesful

                The game I’ve chosen to analyze today is Warhammer online (referred to as War from now on). A popular MMO from Mythic Entertainment and produced by EA. Based on the extremely popular games workshop table top models and games, War online brings the rich fantasy, brutal combat and extensive lore of Warhammer to fans in a complete package. So, why is it only moderately successful? I have several ideas as to some barriers that War online created for themselves which limited sales and bypassed fan demographics.

               The first barrier standing in the way of War online is its similarities with World of Warcraft (referred to as Wow from now on) People in the know, are aware that Warhammer thought of Orks, Goblins, Dwarves and Halflings long before Wow did...But, then again, J.R.R Tolkien thought of all those things long before either of the companies. The simple fact of the matter is Wow came out first, it was familiar and it had nearly all the races that War online planned to implement. Fans who are not particularly knowledgeable about the two games and their lore will see the races in Wow, compare them to the races in War and think...”well, I’ll go with the more established MMO of the two”

World of Warcraft Orc

Warhammer online orc

       
 

               How could this perceived barrier be fixed? I believe the Lore of Warhammer is about as deep and rich as it gets for fantasy settings. They have several races that could have taken the place of simple dwarves, humans, elves and so forth. Races such as the Skaven, giant, scheming rat man that live underneath the surface of the world plotting their ultimate revenge on the surface races. Or how about Lizardmen, who have an art style and history based on ancient Aztec and Mayan civilizations. Simple humans could have even been replaced by Bretonnians. Yes, they are human, but they are humans entrenched in a feudal knights and lords system which is significantly different than how humans are handled in Wow. Ultimately, War stands apart from Wow in gameplay, but the similarities between the two were too much for many newer players who simply went with the more established World of Warcraft. War needed to standout a lot more to get more new customers I believe.

               Another Barrier is a fairly simple one, price. At $15.99 per month in USD the subscription price is not only high, it’s a dollar more than Wow. Since Wow is their largest competitor and they are already firmly established, it only makes sense to use the simple method of offering a new game, new gameplay and all, for cheaper. This strikes me as a simple way to garner more new subscriptions. I think cutting the price down to 13.99 per month, 11.99 per month for the three month option and 10.00 flat for the yearly subscription would have been a smart move. To further cover overhead, War could have added micro transactions to supplement their income and make up for their cheaper subscription price. The price could have even undercut Wow by just a dollar and I think it would have brought in more new players. I understand this is likely a decision by EA rather than Mythic, but it was still a huge mistake in my opinion and one of their biggest barriers. Ironically enough I believe it would have also been the easiest to avoid.

             The final barrier I will discuss is likely a controversial one as it could really go either way. I believe War online could have garnered more players, what’s more, a different type of player than Wow, if they went with an M rating. While almost all the time, an M rating causes games to lose sales, there are clear and proven exceptions to the rule. I think given the time frame War came out in, it’s  lore (which is incredibly violent and dark) and the fact there were no other big MMO’s with an M rating at the time, War could have gotten away with it. With the Teen rating it received, even with the different art style than Wow, it was clumped into the same frame as Wow. I believe the game didn’t stand out enough if one were to put screenshots of the two together, the color palettes and world environments were just too similar. Yes, War was darker and a bit more refined art wise, but it wasn’t enough. I believe more War fans would have flocked to a Warhammer online universe truer to the lore, extremely violent and extremely dark with elements of very dark humour thrown in to boot. 

               So, where does this leave War?  Well, as a whole, the game was a success. In fact, it was one of only a handful of MMO’s to come out in the last several years to take away players from Wow. Sure, most trickled back to Wow, but it still did not stop the game from making a profit for the developers. I think they could have taken it further though, they knew standing out from Wow was a necessity, but I think they tackled the problem far too timidly. Switching up similarities by adding never before seen races would have been a huge boon I believe, especially if they were marketed properly, something which Mythic did quite well for the game. The subscription price was another fault, being the new guy, how can you expect to charge customers entrenched in Wow more money to switch over to your game? I imagine they thought they could get away with it because it was something fresh and new, but I think in the long run it hurt their subscription base. Finally, there is the controversial belief that the T rating hindered the game. While this is a matter of opinion, I believe I have backed it up with evidence that it may have been a good idea to go with an M rating. Warhammer is extremely dark, it’s always been that way. Making it a Teen game just helped to put it in the same frame as Wow to many players. Since Wow is was more established, cheaper and larger, I think Mythic needed not just some differences, they needed a lot of clear, drastic differences to really take a big chunk out of the MMO market dominated by Wow.

Amazon.com aint so bad. Red Dead Redemption

So,

When Red Dead Redemption was revealed some time ago I waited with anticipation like many other rockstar fanatics out there. When pre order bonuses came to light I was not terribly impressed (I admit it, I am biased and think pre order bonuses from specific companies are bs...) Anyways, I wasn't sold on a pre order until I saw Amazon.com offering the pre order bonus (in this case golden guns) along with 6 bucks off the msrp. So I think the total was bout $54.00. I pre ordered thinking I was very sneaky. Not only was it less than msrp, but I was informed Amazon has same day delivery on major game titles. Plus they offer free shipping on orders over $39.99...at least they did when I ordered.

Now we come to my dilemma. The game was released about a week ago and I got a shipping confirmation saying it would arrive on the 27th....so...definitely not the day it was released. Moreover I was charged for shipping, 9 bucks, and I was charged duty because it had to come across the border. Now, I admit the duty thing is my fault, I should have known, but they didn't mention it anywhere on their site or warn me. They also didn't give me the free shipping, I suppose because I am across the border (though I am positive I've received free shipping from them before on books...) so, with shipping and duty, I paid about 70 bucks for the game, which still hasn't arrived and did not get free shipping.

As you folks know I go to school for video game design, needless to say, the students at school were playing the game...it was taunting me, it looks so goddamn amazing. I did manage to see the upside though, I got all my assignments for this week done early and even some for next week...Still...I really want that damn game.

So, I brooded and my frustration with Amazon grew. I finally attempted to email them letting them know how frustrated I was with the lack of any of the info when I purchased the title...I got an email back apologizing and linking me to about 3 different locations on their site (the fine print) locations if you will that explain why I was charged shipping, why the title didn't get sent to me for the day of it's release and why i paid duties...all curiously missing from the actual page.

None the less, they apologized for the inconvenience and offered me a 20 dollar gift card. While that doesn't get the game to me any sooner it does show they actually care about customers opinions and so I am happy with the exchange and will grit my teeth and wait just a little bit longer for the game.

Anyways, anyone play it yet? I sat down with it for all of 3 or 4 minutes a couple days ago and from that alone I was blown away. I read a lot about random events occuring in the game as well. Bandits riding through town dragging a body, robberies in progress etc. Anyone have any good stories on that? please share, satiate my need for red dead while I wait for the game.

Get Some Indie Games, Name Your Price!

Alright,

Quick post for you guys pointing out this awesome link Indie Games package You get 5 amazing indie games and you get to name your price. Pay whatever you want, if you're a cheap bastard you can pay a penny if you want. If you are a decent person you'll throw down a few bucks for this quality material and rest easy knowing it goes to your choice of one of two charities, or to the devs or a even split, whatever you want.

A quick overview of the games for ya:

Penumbra Overture: One of the best horror games to come out in the last few years.
Aquaria: A beautifully animated 2d adventure game.
Gish: another great looking 2d platform game.
Lugaru: You play a rabbit that knows kung fu. 3rd person action game, great hit detection, very fun to pick up and play
World of Goo: You know damn well what this game is about, if you don't you're not a gamer.

All these games, name your price, choose where the cash goes and play the games to your hearts content. Check em out folks.

Buy em!

Dragon Age: Origins awakening

So,

I had 4 days off from school as it's the end of the term. Since it's term one, we didn't have any work to do over the break (enjoy it while it lasts rings in my ears) Anyways, I had a small library of games I wanted to get through and one of them was the Dragon Age expansion.

This expansion is basically explained by the fact that (dun dun duuun) the dark spawn are back, this time though they are smarter and some seem to be able to talk. You, as the commander of the Gray Wardens (I might point out, my character died saving humanity at the end of the original game so...I don't think they thought that through) must once again save humanity. The expansion has some cool features, you have the duty of rebuilding a keep owned by the wardens before the big end battle, to do so you must find metal deposits for the resident whining blacksmith Wade and his companion as well as finding a good stone deposit for rebuilding your walls.

You get some cool companions such as the surly dwarf Ogden, a smart ass mage (who is a very blatant rip off of Alistair in personality) a legion of the dead female dwarf, a possessed gray warden corpse named (Justice) a elf mage and Arl Eamon's son who is originally out for revenge but finds friendship with his fathers murderer...(you) I believe there may be a couple more, but you get the gist of it.

The quest are fun, though usually quite similar to the dragon age ones. Recover this item and return it to it's owner in the main city etc. The story is generally fun albeit a bit confusing at times. and you should get about 8 hours out of the game on normal with your imported dragon age character...who in my case is also some kind of undead super hero.

So, what's wrong with the expansion? well it was pushed out the door too early, play testing and QA are integral to a good game, and this one either was done incredibly half-assed or pushed out the door. I am inclined to believe the latter since origins was relatively bug free. Some of the issues I have come across are a door that was supposed to be blown open, not opening (dark spawn could run in, but I could not run out) after being trapped by it for several minutes I ran my character along the raised wall in an effort to make him fall off to the ground below where i needed to get...at one point he just clipped through the wall and fell to the ground. I believe this was their "fix" for the issue as everywhere else in the wall there was a barrier stopping the player from doing so...I find the fix almost as insulting as the bug.

Several times in cut scenes the screen would zoom in on a character so much that you have no idea who is talking or what's going on. Other times the screen would simply go blank as if your 360 crashed...but pressing the a button to "skip" that portion of the cut scene would return it to normal. I also had several cases where a audio line for a different character, or sometimes just a repeating audio line, would play when a character would reply to part of the conversation. Pretty Amateur bugs, definitely out of character for Bioware. I also had friends who played through this have even more significant bugs, one being the loss of all of their items during a particularly annoying quest where you are taken prisoner and must fight with your bare hands to get out without any of your shiny gear. The game glitched here for him and he never got his gear back. Now, I dunno if this quest was thought of as a good idea, or that it would be fun....it was neither. Taking away "the shinies" people worked many hours to acquire is not something people enjoy...or maybe it's just me?

In conclusion, the expansion is fun, albeit quite buggy. If you can pick it up for cheap on eBay or from a friend and you enjoyed the original Dragon Age I'd recommend it specifically on getting it cheap or free. Bioware is known for released amazing well polished games, this one is far from polished and screams cash grab. Let's hope this is not a regular thing.

Splinter Cell Conviction

So,

I played the demo of Splinter Cell Conviction and I must say, I enjoyed it more than previous Splinter Cell games. For me, Splinter Cell has always been a bit to slow paced and for someone with A.D.D well it's downright cruel at times. I simply jump the gun to much and end up screwing up my progress by trying to get in a gun fight with the enemies or simply jumping out of the shadows at the wrong time. I had a similar problem to a far lesser degree in Batman Arkham Asylum with the stealth sequences. What can I say, I am impatient at times.

Anyways, I only played the demo of the game, but I enjoyed it. I found it a lot more forgiving in regards to revealing your character to enemies and more importantly, sped up game play to an acceptable level in my eyes. The story, as usual these days was a bit of a joke. I know multiplayer has become a big factor in this series and hear the new one does not disappoint, but I could never get into the multiplayer personally.

I was thinking of giving the multiplayer a try on this one, but it was not included in the demo that I know of, which I was a bit bummed out about. More so, when considering to buy the game I realized the single player (so I am told) is all of 5 hours long. Un fucking acceptable. I dunno what is with this trend of releasing games with a decent multiplayer component and a piss poor amount of single player game play but I don't like it and personally I refuse to support the developers on games such as this. If games like bad company 2, grand theft auto, mount and blade, etc can include both and include 8+ hours of single player...or in GTA4's case significantly more...well I don't see the excuse.

Beyond that, the game looks beautiful as all the splinter cell games seem to. The character models are a bit stiff though and the faces on some of them leaves a bit to be desired. The decision to include indicators in the levels to show where you need to go in the forms of text on walls and whatnot is cool, albeit a bit out of place at times.

Overall, I'd say this game would be a buy if you are a die hard splinter cell fan that has found the series was getting a bit stale, this is not your old school splinter cell, some may adapt and like it, others will hate it. If you are looking for fulfilling single player...look elsewhere. I hear multiplayer is great if you are into that sort of thing. If you are willing to shell out 49 bucks for the game, just don't expect an epic single player campaign.

Avatar and Red Dead

So,

I dunno bout you folks but there are a few things coming out soon that I have really been looking forward to coming out in the next 3 weeks or so. One of them is of course, Avatar. Now, if you happen to be one of the 8 people that didn't see Avatar in 3d in theatres, well...here's your next opportunity to get it on DVD. It's not 3d, it's not on a massive screen, but you can watch it at home in 1080p at least.

Now, there are some people out there that say Avatar is Pocahontas in space, or it's dances with wolves in space....I'll admit it has similarities, but frankly name me a completely unique movie that was successful? This movie broke all the records and had people talking for a reason, if you have deprived yourself you owe it to yourself to check it out and see what the talk is all about.



Finally, I'd like to talk about red dead redemption. Now, they just released a new trailer today and have once again raised the bar, for me at least with anticipation for this game. Please take a second to check out the video here:

Red Dead Redemption

Not bad eh? I really like the innovation they are aiming for here and appreciate Rockstars ability to push the games industry forward, albeit at the suffering of their employees or so I've heard. Anyways, I've linked both the movie and the game in my sidebar if you haven't pre ordered or bought yet. I know you can buy em from anywhere, but well, I am a student and monetizing the site seems like a good idea. Gotta make some beer money somehow right? haha.

I'd love to hear some feedback on my blog, my discussion topics and your opinions on them if you have the time.

Cheers,

Z

Where I've been

Hey Folks,

I've been away from blogging for quite some time, I've acquired an art degree and am now at Vancouver Film School in the intensive video game design course. From this day on I'll be covering my assignments and giving some news and information in regards to my time at the school. I'm also hoping my blog will get people who may be interested in video games as a career to look into it more seriously. It's no walk in the park, but at the end of the day you're making video games for a living. You could be much worse off, I know I have been.

So, just to recap I'll be covering assignments and passing along information and advice I acquire here as well as covering new and upcoming games and technology. Hope you check back often and enjoy the site. Please don't hesitate to comment or ask questions I'll get to each and every one of them.

Cheers,

Z

Mount and Blade Warband is here!

Hey folks,

So, Taleworlds has been working diligently on their cult classic sequel to Mount and Blade called Mount and Blade Warband. It's essentially the original Mount and Blade with bug fixes, multi player and (slightly) higher res textures. First and foremost, I am gonna get this outta the way, it's not pretty, it's not pretty for 3 years ago, but it's passable. What it lacks in aesthetics it more than makes up for in game play.

For those that don't know it's essentially a medieval sandbox game with RPG and strategy elements. You travel around the map with your motley crew doing tasks for local lords, fighting bandits, robbing caravans, burning villages or helping them. You can even offer your sword in vassalage to one of 5 "kings" and hack and slash the enemy apart in their name. If you do good they may offer you keeps and villages for your efforts.

The combat is where the game really shines, it feels weighty and grounded. Not to mention the huge amount of weapons, armor and horses you can plunder or buy. With this remake of their original game, Taleworlds gave fans what they wanted, multi player. Though it's extremely rough around the edges and not balanced terribly well, it still manages to be a whole lot of fun, especially if you can find a server running in siege mode with up to 64 people.

I highly recommend Mount and blade, not only because it's by dedicated indie developers with a huge fan base (mods! i didn't mention mods, but the game has tonnes of em) but it's also a really fun game to pick up and play with friends online. As I mentioned it's not terribly well balanced and is rough around the edges and lacks the graphics of current or even last gen games, it truly makes up for it with the fun factor. I am interested to hear your thoughts on the game if you bought or have played it.

Cheers,

Z