Why do you do what you do in your project?

[Khaikaa]

Hi everyone,

 

I was thinking about a conversation I had with some people here and a question came to my mind:

 

Why do you do what you do in your game/project?

 

 

Do you do what you do because everyone else do it? Do you do what you do because you have reasons to think that it is the way to go?

 

Are you being original/disruptive? Or are you doing things different with no more reason than 'being different'?

 

 

Lets talk about this in a good way, with no bad words and respecting each others. Have you ever played any intersect-made game where you didn't understand why the creators did something in particular? Point that thing here and tag their developers so they can clarify why they did that

 

 

[Beast Boyz]

I've played lot of games, intersect-made : 4, But each one had their specificity.

 

In my game design i'm trying to walk outside of the walked way, i try to put a lot of original content but i know that if you don't give "roots" to players, you can lost them, so i balance the original & the "standard" content to keep up some attended features.

 

I'm reading a book  "The art of game design" and so far i've learned a lot from it, i couldn't recommand it enough !

 

For the mapping i've setted up different ambiance and tiles and i try to stay close of it i do a "premapping" :

 

 

Yellow point for quest zone blue way is an "expected" travelling of the player, but for the mapping itself, It must stick with the general atmosphere.

Details such as small flower, small patch of greenery must bring "life". Skipping them is not an option since even if this world is a fiction, players need to get the feel it could exist.

 

That's what i tend to, and i think it's a correct approach of world building, everything have rules, even magic, if there's no rules for anything, players will never feel invested in the universe nor believe it.

 

I build my own set of rules  for everything : Balancing spell design, balancing map ressources, items cost, items stats, xp, etc...

Those rules give consistency to the game, the global result will be more harmonious (Or i hope so) 

 

Here's an example of my many many board (Sorry for the french lol )

 

Also as Paper Roleplaying Game master i've created a lot of universe and experience proved me that having a good set of global rules is sometimes more important than having the best scenario, because even if your history is great, if everything else is crap, it's lost.

 

So if i had one advice : Make rules, Balance them and stick to them, and you will (eventually) succeed ! 

[Khaikaa]

45 minutes ago, Beast Boyz said:

In my game design i'm trying to walk outside of the walked way, i try to put a lot of original content but i know that if you don't give "roots" to players, you can lost them, so i balance the original & the "standard" content to keep up some attended features.

 

45 minutes ago, Beast Boyz said:

Yellow point for quest zone blue way is an "expected" travelling of the player, but for the mapping itself, It must stick with the general atmosphere.

Details such as small flower, small patch of greenery must bring "life". Skipping them is not an option since even if this world is a fiction, players need to get the feel it could exist.

 

I would like to point this

 

Why would the player go outside the walked way? what is out there that is interesting enough to make him/her spend time walking the world instead of going from A quest point to B quest point directly? Is there any reason to make a world as big as yours more than how cool is making a giant world?

[Blinkuz]

4 hours ago, Beast Boyz said:

Yellow point for quest zone blue way is an "expected" travelling of the player, but for the mapping itself, It must stick with the general atmosphere.

Details such as small flower, small patch of greenery must bring "life". Skipping them is not an option since even if this world is a fiction, players need to get the feel it could exist.

 

1000% agree with this, many times you have to take into account the details and as it is also my case it is not feasible to ignore them just to "save time", in many games I have seen myself appreciating a simple detail of the environment that was made just to To have the certainty that what is there represents something, it could be something completely random or something placed there specifically, but seeing how such a simple detail outside of what is the main alignment of everything is something that I feel very important.

 

Another important point is that in my case, having a fairly large world and by the nature of the game itself (open world based on exploration and with a bit of rolplay to give diversity to the way of playing) requires that although an area of the map it is not recurring enough or there is no mission or something that in some way takes the player directly there because I must make it look exactly good and detailed as the main areas do, since I can not ensure that nobody will go to play in those areas with a friend or behind some role within the game itself, therefore the interest of having everything pending and giving it its respective importance.

[Beast Boyz]

Yes, 

2 hours ago, Khaikaa said:

 

 

I would like to point this

 

Why would the player go outside the walked way? what is out there that is interesting enough to make him/her spend time walking the world instead of going from A quest point to B quest point directly? Is there any reason to make a world as big as yours more than how cool is making a giant world?

 

Of course :

1) Ressources. they have a long cooldown in my game, and ressources are core features since no equipement drop directly from ennemies.

2)There is an harvest job "Archeology" and there is runic pillar and enigma to discover and pieces of them are everywhere.

3) Special monster and different kind of secret.

 

Also my world won't be "this big" considering some other game, also each content is released at a particular pace.

[Khaikaa]

1 hour ago, Blinkuz said:

 

1000% agree with this, many times you have to take into account the details and as it is also my case it is not feasible to ignore them just to "save time", in many games I have seen myself appreciating a simple detail of the environment that was made just to To have the certainty that what is there represents something, it could be something completely random or something placed there specifically, but seeing how such a simple detail outside of what is the main alignment of everything is something that I feel very important.

 

Another important point is that in my case, having a fairly large world and by the nature of the game itself (open world based on exploration and with a bit of rolplay to give diversity to the way of playing) requires that although an area of the map it is not recurring enough or there is no mission or something that in some way takes the player directly there because I must make it look exactly good and detailed as the main areas do, since I can not ensure that nobody will go to play in those areas with a friend or behind some role within the game itself, therefore the interest of having everything pending and giving it its respective importance.

I believe we missunderstood each other. What I understood from your words is that some minimal details, such as flowers, would be better if randomized because your maps don't follow any predefined aesthetic and your team spend too much time filling the space. If this is not what you meant please let me know before we keep talking about this.

 

 

1 hour ago, Beast Boyz said:

1) Ressources. they have a long cooldown in my game, and ressources are core features since no equipement drop directly from ennemies.

2)There is an harvest job "Archeology" and there is runic pillar and enigma to discover and pieces of them are everywhere.

3) Special monster and different kind of secret.

So the main reason anyone should go out the walked way is 1), right? I mean, I assume not everyone will be archeologist(tell me if I'm wrong) and only explorer player roles are interested in finding secrets exploring the world, so what everyone will have in common is the need of gathering resources, right?

 

If this is the case, whats the reason behind that decision? Is that because the game's story? Because it's a easy way to keep players busy so they always have things to do and don't complete the game too soon? Because you think it is funnier than just making enemies drop everything?

 

[Beast Boyz]

48 minutes ago, Khaikaa said:

So the main reason anyone should go out the walked way is 1), right? I mean, I assume not everyone will be archeologist(tell me if I'm wrong) and only explorer player roles are interested in finding secrets exploring the world, so what everyone will have in common is the need of gathering resources, right?

 

If this is the case, whats the reason behind that decision? Is that because the game's story? Because it's a easy way to keep players busy so they always have things to do and don't complete the game too soon? Because you think it is funnier than just making enemies drop everything?

 

-> Also different kind of monster, donjon, etc...

 

Player can take all the jobs, but they choose to do it or not. (So it concerns everybody; also story of the game force the player to it in a way) and since you need a special ressources to learn more crafting/harvesting mastery, every mean to gain it is good (and secret /archeology is one)

 

I didn't make it that way because it's easy,  but because i wanted to value the "work" of the player and letting the player have more control on  how to fulfill their needs. Having to farm toward an objective and being sure to have it because of your dedicment is far more rewarding than having an instant joy of "looting the thing". 

 Also i use more random elements in secondary equipment and stuff to encourage players to trade a lot, Since each realms have boons in the production of their own ressources, it's easier for them to trade them with other peoples.

 

It's way easier to make the monsters drop everything, cause a balanced crafting system need methods, calculation, and a lot of math/board. Monster drop instead rely on pure luck and unending farming.

 

And also it's a personnal conviction but, i don't find it fair for people to drop an item on their first or second try when someone is just having several bad day farming the same thing again and again, you have to frustrate the player, but not too much otherwise it become painfull and not funny.

 

Also if you make monster drop anything, craft become near useless. I've seen it in tons of game, bad bad crafting. Some do it better by allowing the craft to make a superior version or alternative of the dropped item, but still, they always tend to let the monsters give the better stuff anyways.

 

 

 

[Khaikaa]

I believe that what you say is very important @Beast Boyz. I'm not an expert, and I don't play too many intersect engine projects, but I do look at what everyone share on different threads, such as Today I did this on my project... and many times it seems like some people just do things with no reason. For example, I've seen projects with giant worlds where you actually can't do much. In my opinion this happens because many people think "well, most of the games have X, I should add X as well" but they don't actually know why those games have X and how to implement X properly.

 

I recommend this video a lot to anyone who is making a videogame:

 

 

 

It is in spanish but it has english subtitles. In this video, Alva Majo(an indie developer) explains why most of our ideas for a game are crap

 

 

[Beast Boyz]

Interresting video, he's doing a good brush up of several genre, i strongly advice everyone who want to do professionnal Game design to read "The Art of Game Design" The knowledge about the player exeperience and all the questions you have to ask yourself is invaluable.

 

When building game design rules you have to think why you did them. Sometimes something simple is not as simple as it look.

As an exemple :

I was working on the idea of "public mine" for each realms in my game, but it turns out it's far more complicated for severals reasons : 

-If the access of the public mine is permanent for their members, that means that someone could make a bot or stay inside the whole day, and since ressources have a longer cooldown he would take everything, also ressources are very close to each other and it's a very powerfull accelerator, it would work against the exploration of the world theme that i've setted up.

-If i do a time/day limit it's interresting but player could feel to restricted by it.

-Instead of public mine i could do a "Helper Npc" that the player pay with "quest point" or something similar to get ressources after a time, it would save me time to make the map, but it would allow player to gain things without "working" on it, still he earned the point before so it could be a solution.

-I can mix these two solutions too, making the access of the mine depending of point (Ex : 15 mn, 10 points) but if the player gain more point later he would benefict from it too much...

 

 

There's solutions, but which one is the best ? Well it's different for each of us and our vision of our game.

Working on the intent and vision is important.

[Patriciapica]

I've played many games, and there are a lot of things I would change. But I would not start repairing something. I would better do a new product myself while achieving the best results. I also got caught up in the idea of even starting online coding classes for kids. I think that it would be a better investment for the future. I think we all agree that the future is for IT and AI, so investing in a kid from a young age can bring you the best results in the future. What do you think?

[Richy]

I've seen some pretty cool things in all of the intersect games I've tried. It's not a matter of (Oh another game is doing it), because most games have already done it and many have mastered it and profited from it.

 

So what makes an Intersect game stand out? Retrofitting. That certain type of nostalgic, which is our demographic audience. Gamers who love the games of the early 90s/2ks. Not complex with 1000 hotkeys and 100 huds.

So feel free to take that idea from a popular game that you like, twist it and fit it inside your project, it's gotta be fun for the developers first imo, because what would the developer think when they begin to implement it? *Oh I don't like this idea but I'm gonna add it anyway?* Who would do that LOL?
 
Bottom line, most players will like any items that are + their current items, any spells that are + their current spells, any maps (even the blank ones with 1b gold spawn on it), generally they'll love any story that give OP rewards, cause who actually reads? Engine updates that are convenient towards their overall gameplay experience.

Oh and quick tip: They want all of it at ease. Players don't want to spend days farming something that another could get in an hour just because of random. They don't want to spend months getting a level, because botters/macros can do it in days. They don't want to PvP because level 100s hard camp zones. They want end-game ASAP, and if you don't have an end-game - Where's that new update? Negative review and uninstall.

 

I'm kinda trolling but actually, low key not too far from the truth either LOL.

 

TL:DR Devs - Make the world you want to live in, because you're the one truly living in it. Developing a game is not easy, even if you have a team. A lot of time and dedication is required. You will burn out, you will take long *** breaks. You will not answer every players question. You will enjoy sleep and playing other games more. If players join you, then it's a great world to them, be proud of that which you've created and the fact that people have seen it and tried it.

If not, then you'll have to find that negative review and see what went wrong and change it.