Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Neonivek]

Actually from what I understand Shadowrun actually has hard coded Railroading rules that can actually end the game and penelise the players.

[Firgof Umbra]

I am a game designer.
 
I find the mystical notion that game design is easy, fast, and simple, and that development cycles are endless when you're working to achieve a profit a sad and misinformed notion.  RPGs are without a doubt the most demanding genre to produce for.  You need high-grade actors, high-grade concept artists, high-grade writers, high-grade artists, high-grade designers, and high-grade programmers.  These do not come cheap.  Oh and you want 60+ hours of gameplay, and an open world, and a nonlinear quest, and endings which are totally separate from each other, and houses and villages which are down to the nuance detailed and appropriate, beyond all that we must cater to every last possible character you might be playing, or at the least a large majority of them, and to add to that we must also support fresh paths to scenarios based on exactly what class you are and the rest of your party is? 

Oh and the game has to be very balanced, the skills have to be fresh and responsive and useful, the AI has to kick ass, the game has to be lagless as possible, the UI needs to be sleek and unobtrusive while information rich, the game should probably be very modable, and the game has a booming multi-faceted orchestral soundtrack that is film-worthy with a large assortment of tracks, themes, subthemes, and moods?

Well, if you want these things we require a simple thing: Time.  The more of those things you want, the more time we need to spend.  If we don't have enough time, then we hire more people to make up for it.  The more people there are involved, the more money it takes to make the game.  Simply put, AAA games are not a cut-and-dry thing.  I can understand being dissapointed by some of the shortcuts we take to ship a game out on schedule, with as few as bugs as possible, but damn it do we try to make 'the best game ever' every few years and we just can't do a lot of those things because, in as simple as words as I can put it, we are not gods but pithy mortals who are affected by such needs as hunger, sleep, thirst, taxes, and rent.

I find it very depressing that some of the people in this thread believe that their proposals are 'quick and easy' to implement or that we're on the whole 'lazy' or 'money-grubbing'.  Especially when it comes to terms of adding additional sorts of content into games, and declaring not adding in those contents 'lazy'.  I am confused and, admittedly, feeling a bit betrayed here.

You want the best RPG ever.  We want to give it to you.  But we both know it isn't ever going to happen unless the stars align, we get a development dream-team, our engine is coded flawlessly and seemlessly integrates everything we wanted, we have an unlimited schedule of development, we have money enough to hire exactly who we need and not who we can afford, and we have guaranteed sales that we can bank on (literally, as in we could go to the bank and say 'but, sir, I'm working on RPG X, the best RPG ever' and they would respond 'oh I see, well that's plenty collateral Mr. Smith; just sign here').

Development is hard.  Making games is hard.  I am not saying that a lot of what has been said in this thread is unfounded or not something to legitimately complain about but I will remind you that there are thousands of hours of work, buckets of money, and lots of favors and promises called, many wives and husbands who had to be put 'to the side' so the game could be bug-free and done by launch-day, many 'sleep-at-work-day's, and many cases of arthritis, to create many of the games you're bashing.  So please, take a step back when you say things like 'this RPG didn't have intricate details like spoons in bowls where there was stuff they could've eaten with a bowl, but it did have chopsticks where there was rice.  what laziness.'  because these sorts of complaints drive us mad because if we didn't have the chopsticks either people would also complain that the world was vacant and to do both would have meant us losing possibly our mortgages and food -- we already sacrifice a lot of sleep and hair.  (and to clarify on that point, the chopsticks and spoons analogy are simply a metaphor; we could be talking about things as drastic as 'adding jumping to the game' and 'a fun blocking system for shield users')

[Jay]

Words

If only we had you in that damned cheese thread.

[Neonivek]

I find it very depressing that some of the people in this thread believe that their proposals are 'quick and easy' to implement or that we're on the whole 'lazy' or 'money-grubbing'

I don't think it is towards you in particular but rather the people who pay you.

Though that isn't true either.

The problem is still money but people are entirely unfair when they mention it. People want original fun games that push the envelope... However the fact of the matter is that people's buying patterns say otherwise. It ISN'T JUST that they will make less money off of innovative games, it is that they can LOSE money off of innovative games.

It is one of the reasons why Point and Click Adventure games died. It became soo costly to make that unless it was a hit it wouldn't sell.

So basically the gaming industry is messed up all over and the players are shrugging too much off the blame onto "Not themselves"

The one game I ENTIRELY forgive for being bad is Black and White 2... I've never seen a game go through so much "Development hell" and still come out. I am not exactly happy about the videos they released afterwords but I guess they were either obligated by contract or desperate.

[Firgof Umbra]

Neon:  You should look into "The Dark Knight" game.  Heard of it?  I wouldn't blame you if you hadn't even heard it being announced.

Didn't it seem curious to you that one was never made?  Well, they tried to.  But then, as sometimes happens in development studios working on 'the best X ever', everything went not only to Hell, but stayed there for quite some time, boiling in misery.

That is something that is not entirely routine but certainly not uncommon to hear about in the gaming industry.  This is one of those 'difficulties' that studios have to overcome to produce games; technical challenges.

I agree with you on the money bit in places.  We do not have much choice but to follow whatever precedents people set.  Occasionally we get enough 'credit' with those who employ us to try something new and dangerous but companies that go full force into the new and dangerous territory and even make one mis-step often immediately cease to exist.  Especially when borrowed money is involved, which it almost always is.

If you want to change the industry, vote with your dollars.  We cannot easily do battle with marketing executives who tell us we don't know what you want and are mad when they've got the hard data to 'prove' it.

Regardless, the money has to come from somewhere.  Toady is blessed to have you kind folks helping him produce this game and I hope you support him all the way to the end.  Dwarf Fortress will truly be a gem of a game when complete.  Sadly, so many of us are so unknown that even if we reached out into our fledgling community we would not be able to find enough money to keep us afloat in most cases.  Games require either money or time.  And time is a very precious, and hard-earned, resource.

[Footkerchief]

Firgof -- without actual quotes, it's very hard to tell who you're responding to, and whether your paraphrases are distorting their positions.  I don't have any clear recollection of anyone saying that the improvements they suggested were easy or quick.

I searched through the thread and was able to find only one insult directed at developers (Shades' post above), and not even a specific developer.  Why are you taking this so personally?  Again, please quote examples of what frustrated you.

What games have you worked on?  This is important if you're going to base your post on your professional experience.

You want the best RPG ever.  We want to give it to you.  But we both know it isn't ever going to happen [...]

What makes it worthwhile to you, then?  You almost seem resigned to making unoriginal games.

[Neonivek]

Ohh if developers only got into the buisness to make their ultimate game there would hardly be any.

[Jay]

I don't have any clear recollection of anyone saying that the improvements they suggested were easy or quick.

The guy in the cheese thread did.
A few dozen times.

[Firgof Umbra]

When you have made a game and you see someone playing your game and having a great time playing it: that's what makes it worthwhile, the fact that you have given them fun and that they are enjoying in part your work.  Also, it's challenging work and some of us like the challenge involved.  To respond to your edit:  As long as you're having fun it's worth it, though it is a little dissapointing when you've got in the back of your head "but that section he/she just went through would've been so much sweeter if we just had had enough time to implement X feature ... oh well"

I was mostly drawing from the thick vein of 'Why Dragon Age: Origins sucks and many RPGs are lazy/uninspired/cliche' present at the beginning of the thread (and, admittedly, some lingering resent from the cheese thread).  I didn't have the fortitude to go much past page five before I typed the above.

I have spent a lot of time with developers in the industry, helping to improve their games through focus testing, and I am currently employed at Blind Mind Studios, but I have done prior work as QA on several indie games (all of which died or flopped due to a variety of reasons; but most of which involved money).  I know quite a few folks in the industry who work for companies like Id and Gearbox and have chatted with a plethora of people who work in studios from Epic Games to Acclaim.  I do not speak on their behalf but I know from our collective experience how much of the industry works, both in big-name companies, and in small-time independents.

[Footkerchief]

I was mostly drawing from the thick vein of 'Why Dragon Age: Origins sucks and many RPGs are lazy/uninspired/cliche' present at the beginning of the thread (and, admittedly, some lingering resent from the cheese thread).  I didn't have the fortitude to go much past page five before I typed the above.

This impression of yours -- did you get it from actually reading what people in this thread said, or did you just see people talking about Dragon Age and assume their criticisms were... mean or unfair or traitorous?

What I got from your long post here is "Making big-budget games is hard, even if the result sucks."  I think everyone here would agree with that.  But why should they care if it's hard?  Does that make their criticisms invalid?  I think you're trying to get the critics here to show some empathy, but why should they have more empathy for joe shmoe game developer than for anyone else who works on an underfunded project that they love?  I don't subscribe to any notion of a gaming industry brotherhood (siblinghood?).

[Firgof Umbra]

but why should they have more empathy for joe shmoe game developer

Because they don't charge as much and because where you spend your money is vital to where the industry (or rather where the people who fund the developers in the industry) go.

As for the rest of your post:  I refer you to the posts I made above.  I already addressed your question of whether their criticisms were invalid.  And that's not exactly what I meant people to come away with.

The point of it was actually: "Making games is hard.  Calling hard-working people lazy hurts their feelings and is especially awkward when those same people wish only to give you entertainment."  And I suppose: "We are often not the people who tell us what we can and cannot make; when we can't make something it often isn't laziness preventing us, it's marketing data and budgetary allotments (in part due to massive advertisement overhead costs in the case of AAA games)."

I don't subscribe to any notion of a gaming industry brotherhood (siblinghood?).

You might be surprised how tightly knit the industry is if you ever went to work in it.  Developers are often in communication with other developers.  There is not much of a vacuum on the development end of things.  We are rather proud and inquisitive creatures after all, and we do like to show off our work to other professionals in our field for acknowledgment.  (Even if a lot of that communication is 'under the table').  Beyond that, people often spread information back and forth about team members -- there are lots of ongoing dialogues about prior employees all the time and lots of verbal promises being made (and lots of things said about companies that people work for, including warnings or praises).  It's competitive, yes, but generally friendly.

[Neonivek]

There was actually an Episode of Pepper Ann based on EXACTLY that premise Footkerchief

Pepper Ann criticises a really bad movie soo much that the dirrector, who is randomly reading school newspapers like he does everyday on his private jet, goes to Pepper Ann and asks her to do better

She tried but basically everything goes wrong. The Actors, Producers, and even random events are all against her and want to change her movie.

In the end she takes it back

MIND you I think the REAL fault we were supposed to see was that Pepper Ann was blaming the dirrector as if he had absolute control when in truth he was just one part of what it took to make a movie.

[Footkerchief]

Because they don't charge as much and because where you spend your money is vital to where the industry (or rather where the people who fund the developers in the industry) go.

I don't get it, who doesn't charge as much, and what does spending money have to do with empathy?

The point of it was actually: "Making games is hard.  Calling hard-working people lazy hurts their feelings and is especially strange when those same people wish only to give you entertainment."  And I suppose: "We are often not the people who tell us what we can and cannot make; when we can't make something it often isn't laziness preventing us, it's marketing data and budgetary allotments (in part due to massive advertisement overhead costs in the case of AAA games)."

Say a defense contractor designs a missile that I deem crappy and overpriced.  Would you tell me that they just want to help me protect myself, and that I'm hurting the engineers' feelings, and that it's not the engineers' fault that the specifications made no sense and the budget was handled badly, and that I should go make my own missiles if I'm so good at it?  If not, why not?  The defense contractor has all the qualities that you identified as being deserving of empathy.

[Firgof Umbra]

Quote from: Firgof Umbra on Today at 08:56:20 PM

    Because they don't charge as much and because where you spend your money is vital to where the industry (or rather where the people who fund the developers in the industry) go.


I don't get it, who doesn't charge as much, and what does spending money have to do with empathy?

Quote from: Firgof Umbra on Today at 08:56:20 PM

    The point of it was actually: "Making games is hard.  Calling hard-working people lazy hurts their feelings and is especially strange when those same people wish only to give you entertainment."  And I suppose: "We are often not the people who tell us what we can and cannot make; when we can't make something it often isn't laziness preventing us, it's marketing data and budgetary allotments (in part due to massive advertisement overhead costs in the case of AAA games)."


Say a defense contractor designs a missile that I deem crappy and overpriced.  Would you tell me that they just want to help me protect myself, and that I'm hurting the engineers' feelings, and that it's not the engineers' fault that the specifications made no sense and the budget was handled badly, and that I should go make my own missiles if I'm so good at it?  If not, why not?  The defense contractor has all the qualities that you identified as being deserving of empathy.

:| What.  Re-examine what I said because I fear you've gotten somehow utterly confused on my argument?

Also, I will try and respond to further responses but my boss is hounding me to get to work already lol.  So I will respond, but it may take me a while.  Gotta make some particle systems.

[Footkerchief]

:| What.  Re-examine what I said because I fear you've gotten somehow utterly confused on my argument?

I've re-examined it several times and failed to find anything more coherent than "Don't be so mean," which I took as a plea for empathy.  Were you or weren't you asking for more empathy?  And if so, how does this...

"Making games is hard.  Calling hard-working people lazy hurts their feelings and is especially awkward when those same people wish only to give you entertainment."  And I suppose: "We are often not the people who tell us what we can and cannot make; when we can't make something it often isn't laziness preventing us, it's marketing data and budgetary allotments (in part due to massive advertisement overhead costs in the case of AAA games)."

... justify that empathy, especially in light of the defense contractor analogy I posted?

Also, when I mentioned a "gaming industry brotherhood," it was a poorly chosen term.  The notion I don't subscribe to is a brotherhood inclusive of both developers and players.