Developer’s Journal – Entry 1, The Project

We are a group of college students who are working on a new game project, a 2D MMORPG.

What we’re currently working on;

-Building a simple 2D tile based game engine

Building the game engine is going to be one of the most time consuming and challenging steps in the project.

-Creating basic concept art

Designing the physical appearance for each of the playable races in the game, designing items such as weapons and armor styles, and environment samples.

-Gameplay Mechanics

Designing the combat system; we are currently planning an innovative magic/spell casting system and an improved melee combat system that allows players to take advantage of their particular weapon type.

-Storyline, history, cultures, characters, and character dialogue

The game will feature a very original storyline and an impressive variety of characters, races, and cultures for players to interact with.

Random – The Only Rap Song I Like

I have some friends who listen to rap music, and they know I just can’t stand it. I’m more into death metal/melodic death metal; bands like Arch Enemy, Children of Bodom, In Flames, Amon Amarth, and Hypocrisy.

I once told a friend that there has to be some kind of checklist of topics that every rap song must include, because I keep hearing the same themes in different rap songs over and over again.

My list sample;

1. I’m so rich
2. I’m so great
3. I’m tough
4. I get all the women
5. I shoot people
6. I sell drugs

I think there might be some more that I’m leaving out…but you get the idea.

Well, I’m not the only one who noticed this trend and the video below is great. Super Content Warning – Foul/Sexual Language (Nothing you wouldn’t find in a real Rap song though)

The High Concept – Puzzled

How long does it take for someone to use the bathroom in the mansion of Resident Evil 1? I imagine its going to involve first needing to move statues, and locate a series of crests and place them in the correct wall slots….just to get the key. So you’ll be lucky to make it to the bathroom in time….

How long does it take for the Raccoon City Police Department to book someone they’ve arrested? You need a key, but its in some statue, but you need a pendent first, and you need to light a fireplace to get a hidden gem from a painting. Its amazing any work gets done there….

So is there some eccentric architect running around the world designing off the wall mansions and police stations?

No these are puzzles and they can be both a useful and innovative way to enhance gameplay.

The Concept

Puzzles can be a fun way to exercise our minds, but they can also serve many other clever functions during gameplay.

The Benefits

Puzzles can be an important form of covert control over a player’s actions. Designers can effectively guide players where they want them to go by placing the appropriate items to solve puzzles at certain places in levels. For example, you can guide the player to a cutscene trigger or a scripted scene to advance the story.

Also, imagine Resident Evil 1 or Resident Evil 2 without puzzles for a moment. How quickly could you beat the games without them? The puzzles make the games feel longer than they really are, and create more game content in relatively small levels. Finally, there is the feeling of accomplishment that comes when a puzzle is completed, which can make it an important part of a game’s reward and punishment system.

Gaming – Command and Conquer 4′s Changing Gameplay

All right let me preface this rant by stating that I feel odd criticizing developers at one of the biggest game studios in the world, as I am a student on the lowest rung of the ladder who is just trying to make it, but I’m too much of a fan of the Command and Conquer series that I need to vent.

There will be no base building in Command and Conquer 4, all units will be produced by one massive mobile structure named The Crawler. There will be no harvesting resources on maps, and you will be fighting to capture and hold control points instead of wiping your enemy off the map. If you your Crawler gets destroyed you simply respawn and continue to battle. That’s not the end of it, there will also be a maximum unit cap.

And no this is serious, it’s not an early April Fool’s joke.

EA producer Jim Vessella said this concerning the radical idea

“I think in terms of serving the hardcore market, that we usually call the classic base-on-base RTS gameplay, we’ve served them pretty well. I think Red Alert 3 was a great game for that type of audience, Starcraft 2 is going to a great example of a game for that type of audience.

But what we found was that it’s really tough for new players to come in and play a game like RA3, especially those who didn’t grow up in the generation of that style, who didn’t go through the days of C&C, Starcraft and Warcraft II. So what you’ve seen is that the market’s just shrunk a little bit and shrunk a little bit and shrunk a little bit…

So what we want to do is try and open it up to a new generation of gamers who want to try strategy but are too intimidated to go and play online in a Starcraft II match, cos they’re gonna get Zerged rushed. So I wouldn’t say that the genre’s failed – I’d say that it needs a bit of a kickstart to bring in new players. It just needs to evolve a little bit. I think we’ve seen that happen in other genres as well, over the years.”

So to translate what Vessella said, they are changing the gameplay, so that casual gamers don’t have to think too much about building structures or managing map resources.

Casual gamers have not been the core audience/fan base whose dollars have kept the series they love so much going for over a decade now. If they want to play a game where they don’t have to think/plan/strategize too much, let them go find another game. There is a reason why fans go to internet forums and endlessly debate strategies…because its fun!

Base building and resource collecting/management are core gameplay mechanics of Command and Conquer and many other popular RTS games. They have served the genre well for a long time and they also play an integral role in player strategy, without them you really only have half a game.

Having no unit cap, allows players who harvest and control more resources to create more units than their opponent, which is realistic. If you don’t want to be simply overwhelmed by your opponent than you better develop map control skills.

Unless the developers of Command and Conquer 4 can pull off something really new and spectacular with the combat units, I don’t think the game will be as good as its predecessors.

Lastly, Command and Conquer 4 will be the final installment in the Tiberian storyline, so this is how it’s going to end.

The majority of fans aren’t liking it ……WOW WHAT A SURPRISE……..and it looks like the game is too far into production for there to be any changes. So if you hate what is being done you are not alone, here are some quotes from angry fans on forums and other blogs.

-“I won’t be getting C&C4 as it seems its soul has been removed.”

-‘When i read; ‘Mobile base, no base building.’ I felt my anticipation to this sequel drop from 100 to 0.1 – 0.05”

-“no base building in the upcoming C&C4 (WHAT?! WHY? That’s crazy)”

-“What the ****? No bases? Thats the stupidest thing I’ve heard.”

-“I know I have always been the one that was like “so what if it deviates from the old CNC, these changes made the game better!” but this is just going too far. This is just not a command and conquer game anymore. Mobile bases, tiberium no longer a resource, your freaking base respawns after being destroyed, etc. etc. I don’t care if CNC4 gameplay turns out to be ****ing amazing, I just cannot accept this game as the finale of the great CNC legacy.”

EA gets a ton of criticism for the quality of its games, and I used to defend them by pointing to the outstanding game Command and Conquer: Generals and its expansion Zero Hour. I hope the critics and myself are wrong and that this somehow turns out to be the best game in the series.

/END RANT

Random – Traffic

People who know me know that I have had normal sight for slightly over a year now. My vision for around eight years prior to this was 20/800, 20/200 is the minimum to be considered legally blind. So, I’m now exploring new things in my life, things I would never even conceived I’d ever be able to do. Well, I’m preparing to go for my driver’s test soon. I have been practice driving with a learners permit for around four months. I spent my first afternoon stuck in traffic, and it’s a horrible experience. There was road construction that backed up the road for miles, and this road was fine the day before.

However, I found this and it made me laugh.

Gaming – Freeman’s Mind

Possible Resonance Cascade Scenario in the making………

Throughout the Half-Life series Gordon Freeman never says a word, but what was he thinking with all the craziness going on around him?

When you combine the Black Mesa research facility, an experiment gone horribly wrong, hostile aliens, and a disgruntled MIT graduate in Theoretical Physics, you get one hilarious youtube series. Ross Scott gives voice to the inner thoughts of Gordon Freeman in Freeman’s Mind. If you’re a fan of Half-Life then you are going to love this.