Goodnight and goodbye
Even though I have never been consistent about posting stuff to my blog, I have enjoyed having this outlet to talk about things that are on my mind. With this in mind, I am sad to say that I am pulling the plug on sharing my thoughts in this medium. I reached this decision when I saw the Google blogsearch beta today. I typed in a couple of pieces information and up came my blog. There is something very creepy and Orwellian about Google getting their paws on my personal thoughts, but so is life in the internet days. The collection and aggregation of data by super corporations with unknown agendas (sorry, but I do not buy into Google's do no evil mantra for one second) is just not agreeable to me, and I don't feel the need to provide them with more fuel for the fire. So, with that said, it has been fun, this is me signing off for the last time. Goodnight and goodbye internet blogging world.
One stage for all the players
In my last post I talked about leveling in gaming that forces new players and veteran players into two different versions of the same game. I think the best way to illustrate this problem is to look at that large MMORPG that I play. In this game you start at level 1 and end at level 60. A level 1 player in this game would have ZERO chance of doing any harm to a level 60 player. In fact a hundred level 1 players could not bring down a level 60 player (or do any damage for that matter). Is this rewarding of levels with super human attributes and abilities realistic? I know, you are saying that it is a game realism does not matter, but I think it does to an extent. When making comparisons between two objects (say in our case two human warriors), baseline attributes should be better apportioned. Going into combat a couple hundred times might make you slightly stronger warrior (say +100% tops), but what is really gained from doing so? I think the most obvious answer to this question is experience. But this experience should not translate into enhanced attributes, but the ability to perform actions. A warrior with years of experience is not going to beat the green warrior with brute strength, he will win because of his ability to wield a blade. This brings up another interesting question to me, should this skill be reflected as a stat (i.e. 135 sword rating)? Or should it be a hand eye coordination skill that is imbued in the player?
Level Fever
MMORPGs represent one of the bright spots of the game industry. The have brought a real epic feel to gaming, and have engaged people into a person to person style that has never been seen in games before. The game we are building is something of an RPG hybrid that will develop into full RPG game with time. So I am forever trying to figure out what would make a better mouse trap in regards to online RPG games. I think the first major weakness that has to be addressed is the gap between high level players and low level players. I think this is a silly concept and to me it turns the game into work and sucks the fun out of it. You get sucked into an obsession to level up your character. Thankfully the concept of level caps has appeared in a few games, but the difference between a starting player and high level player can amount to hundreds of hours. So as a game developer you are left with the choice of making the game fun for everyone that plays and appealing to the "hard core" people that are not afraid to spend two to three waking months of their life leveling up a character. And if you remove this level driven style, what keeps people coming back?
From the Earth to the Moon to Wherever
Starflight by today's standards would not look like much, but it packs a punch that is missing from most modern games. Starflight had an amazing plot that would see you struggling for survival in the beginning and would lead to the liberation of the galaxy in the end. There was nothing linear about how this happened, the story could take hundreds of twists and turns along the way, and you were free to roam and find this way. You had the ability to customize your flag ship and the fleet of ships that followed along. It had hundreds of star systems, and this universe actually felt like it was grand in scale. In minutes you could easily play this game, but you could spend many hours mastering it. Everytime I pick up some silver in the large nameless MMORGP, or mindlessly waste covenant soldiers in Halo, I find myself missing this game play. Where did this style of game go? Are graphics killing the plot? Have big companies taken the fun out of gaming? Or have gamers been so dumbed down by 1st person shooters, that a game like this would never sell?
Retro Gaming
After a long break from working on projects on side (most of this break was spent playing a very popular MMORPG), I am back to the drawing board of what to work on. I have spent the last couple of days digging up old code and taking stock of what we have to work with. So far the team consists of one jack of all trades developer, a math guy and a 3d graphics artist in training, so we can assume that the next GTA will not be coming out of this lab. We have kicked around various ideas of what to build over the last couple of weeks / months and I will talk about them in future posts. But before I do this, I think it is useful to understand what is driving my thinking, and I feel that I should elaborate about my feelings on the game industry (This will not be the first or last time I go off on this topic). Over the years I have watched the gaming industry evolve and grow and then stagnate. In the beginning I had a pong game with the two wheel controllers and it was good. I played pitfall on the Atari 2600 (I can still hear the theme song when I think about it). I played the first 3d polygon arcade tank games, with the green outlines for objects and the periscope view port. This was the age of innocence of in this business; everything had a "project" feel to it. Developers were making hardware do things that challenged both the equipment and every byte of memory it had to offer. But this time could not last, the wheels of industry took hold and money would become the driving factor behind development, soon the market would see its future in the form of Nintendo. I think this is when my disconnect with the game industry began. Oh yes, there was other machines out there, but the Nintendo was first spawn of what has saturated the entire market these days. This is when game development became a "team" effort and the focus was no longer on making games but making graphics and building a game to suit them. My interest would move away from console games when my family got our first PC and I installed a game called Starflight.
Smart move
I so often complain about things I feel the government does wrong that it seems rare to credit them on a good move. But California is making an excellent one.
California is pushing a bill through the legislature that would ban the use of RFID chips in state identity documents. I am glad to see that there are people in government that still value individual liberty and privacy.
Changing gears
Blogger lost the 2nd half of my last post (that I of course don't have a copy of) so I am just saying screw it. That piece was even boring me. I want to stop bitching about things I almost no control over and work on things that I do have some control over. Most of you who know me know that I have wanted to develop a computer game since I first started using computers. This has been the passion that I have dabbled in over the years, but to this date have never invested the time into making it happen. I want this to change. I plan on using my blog as a kind of day to day journal of my ideas, progress and challenges. My hope is that this keeps me on track and the project moving forward. We shall see.
The ugly weed
I have looked at the free market as both a defender and a critic, so I don’t wish the following post to be viewed as an outright attack on free market economics. A couple of minutes ago I mentioned to a friend that I though of economic markets like a garden. I felt like I needed to explain my reasons having this opinion.
To have a successful garden you have to do a couple of important things: pick the right plants, have good soil, provide the right light, provide the right amount of water and remove weeds. Notice that the word “right” is used a lot in the last sentence. Plants don’t respond well to being overdone. Many plants have certain light and moisture levels that stimulate growth. If you over water a plant its roots will rot. Some plants respond well to being trimmed back, cut too much and they will suffer, not enough and they grow wild. But understanding how plants are tended is both an art and science; this is what separates your neighbor’s normal size pumpkin from the prize winning ones that can fill the bed of a truck. Growing a successful garden is not only about growing plants, it is about growing the right plants and protecting the soil for sustainability.
Anybody can let nature take its course on a piece of empty soil, you just leave it alone and the plants will just show up. No only will plants show up, but they will thrive. Various weeds will grow and spread; they will cover the ground and provide both control for erosion and food for insect life. In many cases trees will replace this ground cover and block out the light for weeds creating the clear forest floor. This natural cycle is both wondrous and elegant, but it is self serving for all the organisms in it. Any living thing that can’t cope with its surroundings dies in favor of the stronger plant or animal.
continued later...
