A while since my last post...

...I know, I know...

But I'm in a quandry you see. I'm in the process of getting funding for a start-up... or at least putting the initial elements down on paper in order to build a business plan.

So things have been pretty busy.

Be back soon.

Name change!

This is fairly typical of me. But I was never happy with the name I chose for this blog when I first set it up. So I've now changed it. But for how long?

It's been a cutler-three days since I last posted. But coming today... a bunch of thoughts I had whilst playing Hellgate. Bet you can't wait.

What's the point of it all?

I'll be trying to achieve two things with this blog. Firstly, I'll be critiquing games I'm playing or have played, and as a result of that I will then be positing ideas for improvement.

I'll also be doing a third thing, which is talking generally about ideas I have for games.

So for my next post I'll be taking a closer look at Hellgate.

Bye for now.

Mission trees - cause & effect

I've been talking a lot about mission design recently. And I know I'm setting myself up for an example. Don't worry, it's coming. I'll post in the near future a whole mission tree showing how missions should lead on from one another, and how mission success and failure should present different possibilities to the player.

And I'll also illustrate how these mission trees can be generated with a degree of randomness, so that a whole army of mission scriptors need not be employed by games companies.

I'll reveal all, soon.

More on missions...

The thing is, with game design, the more you can create an atmosphere of interaction with the gameworld, the more enthralling the game will be. The more the players will feel like they are directly contributing to the greater outcome.

For MMOs I would say this is essential.

Hellgate doesn't really achieve this. The single player storyline is fairly typical, ultimately contrived, presents no real opportunity of failure and offers a railroaded principle mission stream.

The only vague surprise is Murmur's acquisition of dark power at the end. The game would have been so much more if the missions you achieved or failed altered the necessary direction you could take.

Imagine if one of the arrogant NPCs turned against you, because of your success? But wouldn't turn against you if you failed one of their missions? Just mocked you instead.

That would work well.

Essentially what I'm talking about here is greater degree of cause and effect in missions.

Something I wanted from the GTA3s, is a greater degree of public response to my actions within the gameworld. I'll give you an example. If I kill twenty or more of a particular type of citizen, it would be great to hear a news flash on the radio warning citizens of Liberty City that a serial killer is on the loose targeting whichever type you killed.

The technology is there already, the police radio says things like 'last seen driving eastbound in a blue...' whatever. And this works really well, giving the player an impression that they are interacting with a real living city. My message to Rockstar North: Do it more. Do it more.

Schizo...

Not sure quite how to entitle this post.

A feature of many of my P&P games, and also a number of computer game proposals I have produced revolves around the concept of either switching forms, acquiring new forms, or absorbing abilities.

The longest running P&P game I GMed revolved around the concept of an ancient race, and an ancient, once lost form of magick that involved summoning daemons, slaying said daemons and absorbing their souls in order to take on their powers. This blend of original race, stocked full of daemon souls forever changed the player and turned them into a new being, a creature I called Shafaerinhai. Which - roughly translated from their ancient tongue - meant 'daemons in the blood'.

In a much later game set in the same world a couple of Ages on, I reworked this theme. In this game I had a cult of sorcerers attempt to resurrect Shafaerinhai magick, but fundamentally misunderstanding it. They used spells to summon daemons, and then excommunicate their spirits so that the daemon's corporeal form (which the daemon grew to journey within the material plane) was left an empty shell. The sorcerer was then free to excommunicate his own spirit, ripping it from his body and binding it to the daemon's empty shape.

In this way, sorcerers were able to acquire powerful, monsterous forms. And it made for a great game, even if I do say so myself.

This body-swapping concept I translated into a couple of computer game proposals. In one, the players played a sentient blob of jelly genetically engineered from an organic sample taken from a meteorite. The blob of jelly had the unique ability to blend with carbon-based lifeforms via osmosis and take over the brain functions of the entity, thus controlling it.

In this way the player had free reign to blend with guards, scientists, dogs, rats, birds and even some mutations from the labs as they sought and fought for their freedom.

I used another version of the sentient blob of jelly idea, in a game I called Evolver (later finding a game of the same name already existed - although significantly different) I changed the name to Wild World. Wild World was designed as an MMO with a difference. A vast perpetual world consisting of all manner of flora and fauna. Players start as the blob of jelly and slither around until they come across a creature with powers they want to incorporate.

In this idea, the blog can absorb the DNA of creatures it consumes and then mutate, taking upon some of the characteristics of its victim. In this way, somewhat like the Homunculus Jar, a player can end up with a creature sporting a complex array of different features... bat wings, toxic spines, acid spit, retractable claws, gills and so forth.

The basic principle was to evolve your creature and do battle with other creatures in the environment, attempting to acquire new abilities. There was a secondary thread about evolving an opposable thumb which would enable players to use ancient artefacts from a long lost, technologically advanced civilization, whose ruins adorned the world.

I'm not sure why exactly this theme of changing or utilisng alternative forms fascinates me. But whenever I have used it in games it has gone down very well with players. It breaks the mold to some extent in terms of established genres, but for me it extends still further the concept of acquiring news skills and equipment, and opens up a realm of new possibilities.

Homunculus Jar...

This is an idea I came up with for a P&P role-playing game some years ago. I've used it in several games subsequently and it always provides players with some dark delight.

The idea basically works like this. A lot of games provide mages with the opportunity to summon a familiar (MMOs in particular have developed this idea further, and many classes have the ability to control 'pets').

The Homunculus Jar basically provides mages (in my games, but could be extended to be adopted by other character-classes) with a series of sideline missions or sub-agendas during which they attempt to find useful components for their Jar. Useful components are basically body parts of creatures. These are placed within the jar, and dependant upon the mages power and success in this, the mage can effectively create a 'frankenstein familiar' - magically stitching together components from other beasts to create a unique and multi-faceted entity.

I had one player who took bat wings, venomous fangs, toxic spines, multiple limbs and a goblin foetus to construct a tiny winged, six-limbed goblinoid which poisoned its victims with its fangs and spines.

There have been many and varied examples.

Obviously the freedom of P&P supports this concept wholeheartedly. But a stripped down version could be employed by MMOs.

MMO missions...

...and that's another thing MMOs and RPGs could learn from the GTA games. Variety of missions.

Much of the gaming experience can be enhanced simply by providing your players with more options.

Hellgate's mini-game is a great example of this. Although the realism is somewhat fractured when the reward of completing a mini-game simply showers your character with items which have suddenly sprung into existence. I'd be tempted to have opened a portal into a treasure realm, perhaps the antithesis of the hell rifts, where useful equipment is lying around. For me this helps supports the notion that higher powers exist which are aiding and rewarding your heroism in the defeat of darkness.

GTA fantasy blend...

Something I'd like to see is a console-based RPG using the lessons learnt from the seminal GTA3 series. When GTA went 3D they really blew the lid off the gaming experience. Free-roaming with a multitude of missions you could pick up in practically any order, MMOs and RPGs could learn a lot from an environment which attemps to mimic a living city and its surrounds.

Clearly GTA3: San Andreas was the pièce de résistance in this regard.

I would kill for the opportunity to develop a fantasy milieu RPG in such a setting. With a pseudo-medieval setting rather than a modern one. Crank up the stat improvements and add a diverse skill-tree and you'd have a fantastic single (or co-op online) RPG.

One fault I have with some, if not many of the GTA missions is their 'stepping stone' construction. Steal this car, go to this point, engage these enemies to get to your final objective. In a such a free-form game, allowing players to complete missions in a variety of ways would provide an improved gaming experience. Instead of stealing that car, how about stealing a plane and parachuting into the environment? Or steal a loader and using it as a mobile ramp to jump a fence otherwise securing the environment.

There are many ways to skin a cat and providing players with the freedom to plan their own execution of a mission is IMHO a definite advantage, adding an element of problem solving to the proceedings.

p.s. I'm not sure why the text of this post shrunk. Can't seem to fix it. Sorry!

Battlefield and the evolution of the FPS...

For me the FPS genre - which I love - has undergone significant evolution over the last few years. Tired of the myriad doom and quake clones, Tribes 2 for example, was a breath of fresh air.

For those of you who didn't know, gameplay-wise the Battlefield series owes a lot to Tribes. For me, always looking to push the envelope, and get ever closer to The Game, the inclusion of vehicles and control points was a cogent step in the right direction.

The control points certainly help induce tight gameplay on public servers, and the vehicles provide you with a far greater range of interactions with both the environment and the opposition.

Furthermore, with Battlefield 2142 Dice got the award system near perfect, providing players with a strong incentive to play and play again as they climb the ranks.

Including a similar aspect to MMOs would be useful, for a business model which relies on replayability.

A simple tweak to the standard FPS fair would be to include a third fighting force. The battlefield would indeed be an interesting place if there were three armies doing battle.

Another aspect I would include would be to develop the control point concept into 'areas of tactical advantage'. What I mean by this is, say for example a factory existed somewhere on the map, and by controlling it a team could produce jeeps, or tanks, or whatever. This would be a great way to steer what is often a chaotic experience on public servers to more refined team-orientated play. Which generally contributes towards a better gaming experience.