Tips on making games from Blizzard
locallyunscene
Feeder of Trolls Join Date: 2002-12-25 Member: 11528Members, Constellation
Feeder of Trolls Join Date: 2002-12-25 Member: 11528Members, Constellation
<div class="IPBDescription">11 "innovation techniques"</div>{<a href="http://innovation.freedomblogging.com/2008/04/04/11-innovation-lessons-from-creators-of-world-of-warcraft/" target="_blank">link</a>}
For those who think tl;dr here's the list w/o the text<ul>1. RELY ON CRITICS
2. USE YOUR OWN PRODUCT(play your own game)
3. MAKE CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENTS
4. GO BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD
5. DESIGN FOR DIFFERENT KINDS OF CUSTOMERS
6. THE IMPORTANCE OF FREQUENT FAILURES
7. MOVE QUICKLY, IN PIECES
8. STATISTICS BOLSTER EXPERIENCE
9. DEMAND EXCELLENCE OR YOU’LL GET MEDIOCRITY
10. CREATE A NEW TYPE OF PRODUCT
11. OFFER EMPLOYEES SOMETHING EXTRA</li></ul>It bolsters my attitude toward NS2 when I think UWE follows most(if not all) of these paradigms.
1. Devs read forums and provide podcasts
2. Devs often talk about the games they play
3. Many patches for NS1
4. NS2 has that fresh "new game" smell
5. Procedural textures to support other languages more easily
6. Don't know about this one
7. We always see new little bits coming out, tools, the NS2TR, DI prototyping
8. BUS/Nexus? Maybe this ties to 6 <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
9. I think this one is obvious
10. Yes
11. Based on the last podcast, you guys seem to have a great work environment.
For those who think tl;dr here's the list w/o the text<ul>1. RELY ON CRITICS
2. USE YOUR OWN PRODUCT(play your own game)
3. MAKE CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENTS
4. GO BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD
5. DESIGN FOR DIFFERENT KINDS OF CUSTOMERS
6. THE IMPORTANCE OF FREQUENT FAILURES
7. MOVE QUICKLY, IN PIECES
8. STATISTICS BOLSTER EXPERIENCE
9. DEMAND EXCELLENCE OR YOU’LL GET MEDIOCRITY
10. CREATE A NEW TYPE OF PRODUCT
11. OFFER EMPLOYEES SOMETHING EXTRA</li></ul>It bolsters my attitude toward NS2 when I think UWE follows most(if not all) of these paradigms.
1. Devs read forums and provide podcasts
2. Devs often talk about the games they play
3. Many patches for NS1
4. NS2 has that fresh "new game" smell
5. Procedural textures to support other languages more easily
6. Don't know about this one
7. We always see new little bits coming out, tools, the NS2TR, DI prototyping
8. BUS/Nexus? Maybe this ties to 6 <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
9. I think this one is obvious
10. Yes
11. Based on the last podcast, you guys seem to have a great work environment.
Comments
<a href="http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=59068" target="_blank">http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessag...?topic_id=59068</a>
lol
gotta agree with local, UWE seem to have the right mindset, for sure. let's all hope they deliver.
I avoid WoW because I don't like paying a company in order to gain the privilege of delivering pizza.
Blizzard has a wonderful business model, but I can't even begin to express how bad their game design is in this thread without starting a flame war.
Their business/innovation model is good, and companies should learn to follow it, but they -themselves- don't really follow it (at the moment).
Judging by the comments, anyway. (lol at number 10, and the journalist's update)
For those who think tl;dr here's the list w/o the text<ul>1. RELY ON CRITICS
2. USE YOUR OWN PRODUCT(play your own game)
3. MAKE CONTINUAL IMPROVEMENTS
4. GO BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD
5. DESIGN FOR DIFFERENT KINDS OF CUSTOMERS
6. THE IMPORTANCE OF FREQUENT FAILURES
7. MOVE QUICKLY, IN PIECES
8. STATISTICS BOLSTER EXPERIENCE
9. DEMAND EXCELLENCE OR YOU’LL GET MEDIOCRITY
10. CREATE A NEW TYPE OF PRODUCT
11. OFFER EMPLOYEES SOMETHING EXTRA</li></ul>It bolsters my attitude toward NS2 when I think UWE follows most(if not all) of these paradigms.
1. Devs read forums and provide podcasts
2. Devs often talk about the games they play
3. Many patches for NS1
4. NS2 has that fresh "new game" smell
5. Procedural textures to support other languages more easily
6. Don't know about this one
7. We always see new little bits coming out, tools, the NS2TR, DI prototyping
8. BUS/Nexus? Maybe this ties to 6 <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
9. I think this one is obvious
10. Yes
11. Based on the last podcast, you guys seem to have a great work environment.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
1. They are some of my favorite developers for this reason. Reminds me of the ol' Interplay (durring Descent and Descent II) tagline of "For gamers, by gamers." There's still room for improving and streamlining the feedback process. (actually this just gave me an idea I'll post in the private constellation forum when I'm done drafting it)
2. I've seen Charlie in-game a few times, never seen Max play it yet. You need to play more Max! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />
3. Yes definitely the <i>updates</i>. Patches aren't cool because patching the code tends to make it sloppy and unstable *cough* Microsoft OS's *cough*, the NS1 versions are total updates to the gameplay experience and actually edit the code instead of applying overlaying patches. You used the wrong term there Locallyunscene -- numerous patches are often the sign of releasing products that aren't finished.
4. Actually I'd say it's more that the have gone back to the drawing board. Literally. Why do you think they want artists and are involved in community feedback?
5. This reminds me of my this topic: <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=101442" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index....howtopic=101442</a> (I suggest you read it)
6. What are you smoking? There were plenty of failures! Just talk to any PT. Heck some people would argue certain things changed were failure too like the ns_bast door, flypaper fade's ladder-o-death, the lork on the clorf, etc.
7. Decoda? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
8. Weren't we #3 in the Steam most played (unique player hours) games ranking at one point?
9. Ya, obvious
10. Yep also.
11. Why don't we give something extra to the prosumers?!
(but yeah I know what you mean, hopefully UWE will be a bit more proficient with their use of time)
Let's pick Warcraft 3 for example: Everything is easy to select and almost every action has a customizable hotkey. Cooldowns, spell costs, unit hp and such are all easily accessible so that they don't block the visibility even for a second. Units are easy to recognise. The unit AI is simple and predictable, but yet effective enough. Most of the possible occasional troubles have an effective fix; you can adjust the color scheme so that you can clearly recognise the enemy from your color even if you happened to had starting colors next to each other.
I still play diablo 2 here and there, not because its that challenging, adrenaline filled or mindbogging, but because its fun to play with a few friends and there's very little frustating in it.
While I don't think Blizzard usually "walks the walk" with all of these points, particularly "GO BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD" and "CREATE A NEW TYPE OF PRODUCT", I think that they know what they're talking about. After reading the list I tend to think UWE is out-blizzarding blizzard.
Let's pick Warcraft 3 for example: Everything is easy to select and almost every action has a customizable hotkey. Cooldowns, spell costs, unit hp and such are all easily accessible so that they don't block the visibility even for a second. Units are easy to recognise. The unit AI is simple and predictable, but yet effective enough. Most of the possible occasional troubles have an effective fix; you can adjust the color scheme so that you can clearly recognise the enemy from your color even if you happened to had starting colors next to each other.
I still play diablo 2 here and there, not because its that challenging, adrenaline filled or mindbogging, but because its fun to play with a few friends and there's very little frustating in it.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
They well it's more than the interface. WCIII is well balanced in gameplay too. This is a throw-back to having very powerful tools and streamlined OOP design. (i.e.: the Warcraft World Editor)
As a matter of fact I have a custom multiplayer map that will be ready for live, public testing in a week that illustrates exactly that. I did a lot of work making it polished, down to every little detail.
I tweaked spell description, icons, value, made reg. abilities have 4 levels, items, new tech trees, etc.
I calculated real HP with evasion and armor factored in vs. damage per second when considering balance and have a sub-test map just to try out these abilities for balance
Made careful use of pathing and destructables to attribute to better traffic flow and persuasive architecture
Spent hours trying to exploit my own map, abusing red's flamestrike and purple's blink to no end
Built up triggers in gradual complexity until I had over 500 functions that would run optimally, no memory leaks. Some event had to be JASS-ed.
Created the opportunity to venture in different directions and thus raise many different ways to complete the objectives
Created classes that are distinctly unique and dependent on the others to promote teamwork
Fixed what has to be about a thousand bugs for everything from incorrect button icon position, to teleport regions causing accidental infinite loops (one was a teleport feedback when a group enters the cave, the other was when entering the Southern Base Defenses trigger and I forgot to add a turn off trigger command at the start of it: meaning 7 players vs 40 new bad guys every .01 seconds until the OS stops the program's gluttony of memory usage)
It's crazy how many hours I've put into making a map that a seven player team can knock out in only 45min to 75min. (but it's a lot of fun with plenty of non-linear entropy and even benefits for good-aligned actions to give it better replay value)
My point is that you will get more prosumers to make good custom content when you have easier to use tools and a streamline achitecture to your OOP in the game, just like Blizzard did.
<!--quoteo(post=1675788:date=Apr 14 2008, 11:01 AM:name=locallyunscene)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(locallyunscene @ Apr 14 2008, 11:01 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1675788"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yeah X5 I remember the "attracting female players" topic, I mean it dominated the forums for a while.
While I don't think Blizzard usually "walks the walk" with all of these points, particularly "GO BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD" and "CREATE A NEW TYPE OF PRODUCT", I think that they know what they're talking about. After reading the list I tend to think UWE is out-blizzarding blizzard.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Thanks, too bad nobody stickied it... <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" /> We really need a better way to organize the I&S sector of the forum so that good ideas won't be drowned out by repeat ideas and things which should really be in the General NS2 forum rather than the Ideas & Suggestions.
I tweaked spell description, icons, value, made reg. abilities have 4 levels, items, new tech trees, etc.
I calculated real HP with evasion and armor factored in vs. damage per second when considering balance and have a sub-test map just to try out these abilities for balance
Made careful use of pathing and destructables to attribute to better traffic flow and persuasive architecture
Spent hours trying to exploit my own map, abusing red's flamestrike and purple's blink to no end
Built up triggers in gradual complexity until I had over 500 functions that would run optimally, no memory leaks. Some event had to be JASS-ed.
Created the opportunity to venture in different directions and thus raise many different ways to complete the objectives
Created classes that are distinctly unique and dependent on the others to promote teamwork
Fixed what has to be about a thousand bugs for everything from incorrect button icon position, to teleport regions causing accidental infinite loops (one was a teleport feedback when a group enters the cave, the other was when entering the Southern Base Defenses trigger and I forgot to add a turn off trigger command at the start of it: meaning 7 players vs 40 new bad guys every .01 seconds until the OS stops the program's gluttony of memory usage)
It's crazy how many hours I've put into making a map that a seven player team can knock out in only 45min to 75min. (but it's a lot of fun with plenty of non-linear entropy and even benefits for good-aligned actions to give it better replay value)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So, how easy/quick was that?
...
Also, Blizzard aren't really "all that" when it comes to supporting "prosumers". Sure, they support *custom maps* - but for some strange reason, they don't want to support *mods*.
...
Also, Blizzard aren't really "all that" when it comes to supporting "prosumers". Sure, they support *custom maps* - but for some strange reason, they don't want to support *mods*.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Um it wasn't a matter of being easy, it was a just ton of work for one person.
Yeah Blizzard doesn't like mods. VALVe as a company is an entrepreneur in that way -- meaning they are trying something new in that they sell an engine platform and a content delivery system to developers like UWE to make the games.
It's probably going to be the future of the non-EA, non-console gaming industry right there:
<i><!--coloro:#00FFFF--><span style="color:#00FFFF"><!--/coloro-->game engine software engineers, content delivery system providers, and creative game developers<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></i>
They pretty much have to nowadays to stay competitive in the market when the costs of production continues to rise.
Polished gameplay and Warcraft III and WOW. Ick. If wow is so polishedl, why is it that everytime I log on I have a completly new character (skill/talent/patch changes) and why with a subscription service of a trillion people can't they afford at least 1 class representative. It is an undeniable fact that most of game balance was done by people who have never played.
Regarding WOW III, the game is obviously unbalanced if in the top 1000 players there was one 1 person using orc as his main class and he was like 300. (this is quite long ago). I use orcs and only mediocre at rts but nots the point. Any balanced rts should have a relativly even divide among top players. Starcraft brood war was perfectly balanced unless your playing unlimited money maps which zerg gain advantage which isnt the real game.
Well Starcraft goes through phases of which race is favored at the top. I'd say protoss is over represented these days, but in the boxer era there were a lot of terrans.
Uh, no. I meant how were the tools, how powerful/quick/easy to use were they? Because I've heard that most (decent) War3 maps are constructed with the help of third-party tools (in some cases, to 'hack' the game so that it does what you want it to do) <b>because</b> the original tools are inadequate.
<!--quoteo(post=1676584:date=Apr 23 2008, 07:37 AM:name=the_x5)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(the_x5 @ Apr 23 2008, 07:37 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1676584"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Yeah Blizzard doesn't like mods. VALVe as a company is an entrepreneur in that way -- meaning they are trying something new in that they sell an engine platform and a content delivery system to developers like UWE to make the games.
It's probably going to be the future of the non-EA, non-console gaming industry right there:
<i><!--coloro:#00FFFF--><span style="color:#00FFFF"><!--/coloro-->game engine software engineers, content delivery system providers, and creative game developers<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--></i>
They pretty much have to nowadays to stay competitive in the market when the costs of production continues to rise.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah but most (engine) developers outsource their engines, and encourage modification and licensing of their engine - these days. Blizzard is an <b>exception</b> in this era, as they don't support, and may in fact be against, modification of their games.
My point is that, because of this reason, what you said earlier was mostly not correct (in regards to using Blizzard as an example):
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->My point is that you will get more prosumers to make good custom content when you have easier to use tools and a streamline achitecture to your OOP in the game, just like Blizzard did.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->