Games I bought in the Steam Sale

This was originally going to be a tweet, but then I realised the volume of games I purchased.

Alice Madness Returns
Psychonauts
Sonic Generations
Atom Zombie Smasher
From Dust
Rock of Ages
E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
L.A. Noire
Solar 2
Universe Sandbox
Orcs Must Die!
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Fable: The Lost Chapters

Starting 2012 with a large backlog of amazing looking games. Horrah!

Where I think MMORPG's go wrong

Rather bold topic to cover, and no small task either, however having experienced a very wide range of these game I thought I would weigh in on this problematic genre. Now I say problematic simply because games on this scale have to sacrifice in order to actually be produced, well mostly (I think Guild Wars 2 will have that problem on a lesser scale but its besides the point). These sacrifices often come from the strangest of places where some games have their entire focus, others are a commonality shared with other genres and have yet to be solved. What I offer isn't always cold cut solutions but areas of focus I believe are lacking and need exploring to find a suitable middle ground in the fight between scale and quality.

Combat

Thud. Thwack. Bam. Crunch. Effects often missing from combat in MMORPG's. When I swing a sword I want to not only see my impact but feel it. If I swing a two handed mace into an Orc's face I want to have that collision knocking them back ten foot. More often than not this doesn't happen. I think the closest I've felt to satisfying combat in an MMORPG is Funcom's Age of Conan. In the game you could choose between swing directions of weapons, performing combo's to up the strength it was considerably more involved with the player. The animations worked well, the sound effects were top notch but there was still something not quite right. That missing element I attribute to the reactions NPC's often have on impact. In most MMORPG's NPC's will just stand there whilst you pound on them until they suddenly drop dead. Why? This is such an outdated game feature, like stock death animations of the early 3D games (I mean 3D as in N64 / PS1 Era not the crap glasses "3D"). I understand that it would be an awful drain to resources to have ragdolls but what about just more extensive or adaptive animation trees? Detection of where hits are coming from, how much force behind the blow. I'm sure there are some 'cost effective' solutions out there to reactionary combat, and I think they could be found by examining systems from sibling genres such as the hack'n'slash or action adventure.

More visual feedback

As much as I enjoy staring at a nicely laid out user interface panel this is another area I feel has been dated. Health Bars, Mana Bars, Energy Bars, Equipment Durability: what if all these things were displayed intuitively as well as classically. The more mana you have the more your weapon glows, the more damage you take over time the scrappier your gear looks. One minor thing I really liked about Rocksteady's Batman Arkham games is that during the course of the game Batman's armour slowly filled with rips, dents and scratches, why not have a similar system for MMORPG's? Well the answer may be kind of obvious with the hundreds of items that any good MMORPG will have. What if there was a way to procedurally handle that? When armour is fitted to multiple races quite often it will be scaled and shifted to match the character thus saving making 10 versions of the same item could the same be done with a damage model that procedurally adds dents and dirt? MMORPG's most frequently opt for the numbers, which favours the 'min-maxers' (like me!) but doesn't cater all that well for new players learning a new game.

Meaningful Character Choices

Having reached level cap in multiple titles across the genre I'm not sure I could tell you a single anecdote that is specific to a character. Most of my anecdotes from MMO's will relate to the players that I am playing with but not my character. Skyrim has this down to an artform in its side quests and multiple choice endings to them. If your character is an arsehole then you can play as that and be rude to NPC's during conversation arcs. I understand Bioware has featured this kind of thing in The Old Republic and it will be a pleasing sight to see at the least. My point relates not only to narrative interaction but the 'life choices' of your character, also known as choosing your friends. At the start of many character creation processes you will select what faction they belong to and even in some answer biographical questions however most of the time these are irrelevant to developing your character. In Skyrim I chose to be an unlawful character, falling in with the thieves guild early on, but I never joined the Dark Brotherhood as I saw that choice as a step too far: "Woah, I will steal people's stuff and forge ledgers but I'm not killing for money!". What if there were more choices to be made in game as to who your friends are and how that might affect role-playing styles. In fact it may even go some way to people actually role-playing in an mmoRPg.

Questing without the grind

Pretty self explanatory - see Warhammer Age of Reckoning and Guild Wars 2 for (slightly) improved quest systems. I think there is considerably more work to be done in this area but it is a difficult cycle to break from really.

Long Term Goals

Most long term or ongoing goals in MMORPG's are "reach level cap" "get phat loot". What if quests took longer to complete? What if an investigation took an entire game to get to the end of? What if players had emotional motivation to explore a certain section of lore? These are the types of questions that should be asked, that might ultimately create better investments for games and gamers.

User Generated Content

I can think of very few examples where an MMO has opened its gates to the public and allowed them participation in creating. This is a concept I would love to explore deeper as it could be a vast wealth of possibility. Player owned servers, player created buildings, player made sections that do not affect character stats but allow them to test skills, hone their tactics and train for the real thing.  Second life is an MMO with a huge amount of user generated content and I believe that it is an area MMORPG's are lacking and could prove to be innovative and profitable. With the introduction of real money markets in games how hard would it be to sell server space so that players can make their own content and share it with other within the confines of a separate entity? A question worth exploring.

Maybe I will come back to this subject a few years on and everything I have said will be irrelevant. I hope so. It is a genre well in need of a good shake up to modernise. 

Game Transfer Phenomenon

A recent controversy has caught my attentions and more importantly caused me to rage a little inside. The subject is something called 'Game Transfer Phenomenon' and it is a small scale study that looks at peoples reactions to real world situations and how in rare cases they want to perform game-like actions they are accustomed to.

The media, namely The Metro and The Mail have taken this in an incredibly negative format and chosen to run titles along the lines of 'Gamers unable to tell the difference between fantasy and reality'. What utter bull. Taking something like this study out of context is nothing new for sensationalist media but its all too common a pattern to demonise games.

So the effects from my point of view? Well I am affected by this study as it simply puts a name to something that has been happening to me for years anyway. I am clearly not alone in this situation, anyone who has played Mirrors Edge or Assassins Creed for long enough will start to see urban areas in a different context. I think the most prominent example that I have experienced is not actually game related but just technology as it is.

Growing up with technology surrounding me I have been subjected to a world where information is always present anywhere any-time. My reaction to thinking something funny? Hah, I should post that to twitter/facebook. A somewhat normal reaction for those of my generation and below. But this ease of access is not always present. When I was writing my dissertation on educational games there was a great amount of written literature in the library that covered the subject. I found myself reading a book a week on the subject and kept coming across the same issue: Keywords. Taking in this vast amount of information was not an easy task but my mind is constructed in a way that it takes in the context and the conclusion of something and not any finer details. When it came to a point where I needed a reference for something I remembered reading I became stuck in not remembering which section of the book I needed to look at. My reaction to this? I should use Ctrl + F.

What? As soon as the thought past my mind I realised that was stupid, Ctrl + F works fine when looking for information in a digital context but is absolutely irrelevant when dealing with physical books. It was by no means an isolated incident. The amount of times my brain wanted to use Ctrl + F when finding information in books became frustrating to the point where I was wishing there really was such as function.

So am I out of touch with reality? The answer is obvious, of course not. But I am a 'Victim' of conditioning. My thought patterns operate in a digital way, it is native for me to perform actions I would digitally. So the same goes for any other person that partakes in activities for long periods of time continually. It is called behaviourist learning, learning by associating actions with situations. Want to find someone in World of Warcraft you run a search for their avatar name. if you perform this action enough times it becomes normal to your brain and so when confronted with similar real world scenarios your brain reacts as it believes to be normal.

So is this behaviourism all bad? Not in the slightest. In many ways games can teach good reactions to scenarios. Most beneficial is probably efficiency. This is a subject for another blog post however.

In conclusion. If I ever see an Ork in real life, I will know exactly what to do.

Seeking Graduate 2D Animator

2-D animation commission work available working on the same project I am currently, Ad to follow:

"2-D animator required for online educational website aimed at 3-5 year olds. Will need to work with existing characters to produce a variety of animated songs and short stories as well as some short sequences for on-line games. 


To commence as soon as possible, for a period of around seven weeks, to produce an agreed number of animations. Opportunity for further work after this initial period.

Would suit recent graduate looking to increase portfolio with commissioned work. If you are interested please contact robert.sandy@sky.com for further details."

Rant: Origin vs Steam

So this blog post will be a little more than discussing games or game theory, this is my own perspective on the 'feud' between Valve and EA over digital distribution.

Back when EA announced their plans to release their own digital distribution service I was very pessimistic on the subject for the simple fact that if anyone could compete with Valve, it would be EA. I have invested a great deal into Steam ever since installing it to play my Christmas present of Half Life 2. At first admittedly I was a little confused why I had to be online to play my games, but as time when on I stopped thinking about it and just went with it. Over time once I had access to my own income I began a series of purchases for Steam games including the Orange Box. This at the time was a fantastic deal and left me with some great games. My library consisted only of Valve developed games. Over time this purchasing digital products became acceptable, the connection issue never even bothered me again. My library has since grown in size to be around 80 games from many developers and worth a great deal of money.

With such a great investment into one service that I have grown to trust, the subject of competition did make my heart sink. EA is one of the biggest games publishers out there with so many good games under their name. Right off the bat I knew troubled waters were ahead.

It first began with the pulling of Crysis 2 from Steam, according to EA this was done by Valve due to a breach of contract. It is of my opinion that this was a very clever and basterdly move by EA to make it seem like it was Valves fault. Now I am not saying that the Steam terms of Service are good, infact quite the opposite, but to knowingly breach terms of service that they had agreed to prior to this is far worse. The move to breach terms was timed with the beginning of marketing for Origin and so anything to make fans of Crysis be put off by Valve makes perfect business sense to me, but remains a dishonourable move. Oh and my theory on it being an intentional breach is all the more credible as EA announce Crysis 2 being 'Exclusive to Origin' so very shortly after. To summarise EA made Steam look bad by highlighting flaws in the ToS and blaming them for the pulling of EA products.

Not long ago Valve have responded in a PR move saying that they want EA back. This is PR ans pure as it comes really, making it seem as if EA are the unreasonable ones. It is of my opinion that the terms of service put forward by Valve for Steam are a little on the harsh side, with no transactions being able to take place outside of the service. So without making this a 'Balanced piece' we have two distinctly different 'dickish' moves from both sides.

Now EA have made the next move by selling Valves games on their service. What could be wrong with that? Well lets look a little closer at this move. If I were to put myself in EA's shoes I would say it comes as a move to get people to make purchases using Origin. Once people make their first purchase using a system and all goes well they are more likely to continue to buy more. This kind of cheap deal doesn't normally come as a surprise for a service just starting up, but what is curious is how they are selling Valve games. The cynic in me tells me its simple trickery, because this could be perceived as 'an act of good faith'. Selling games from your competitor who you recently screwed over. The games being sold are NOT digital copies. which makes no sense from a digital distribution service, unless you are trying to create the image of selling a wider variety of games from everyone and not just shovelling your own software.

I dislike all moves made on this front especially the move to get Crysis 2 and other EA titles pulled from Steam. I choose to use Steam, and if I can no longer buy EA products digitally through my ONLY digital distribution software, well then I choose not to buy those games. Which is a shame really when Battlefield 3 and SW:TOR are just around the corner. Maybe they could have waited to pull all this off once people chose to use their service, rather than trying to sabotage or hinder competition before any real investment is made from consumers. This has ruined my perception of Origin from the get-go and bought back to light the issues with the Steam terms of service.

The winner in all this? No-one, but the consumers sure as hell lose out.

Shift in opinion

The 'public' voice:

2003: N-Gage? what?! I don't want a phone AND gaming device, I want to keep them separate.
2004: DS! Yeah dedicated portable gaming, with TWO screens.

*Something strange happens*

2007: iPhone? YEAH it's a phone that plays games! Perfect.
2011: 3DS? Vita? Nah no room for dedicated hand-helds.

Upcoming Games of Interest!

As a current ticket-holder for the Eurogamer Expo 2011 in London I am looking forward to previewing and playing a large number of games. No doubt I will be writing about all of these in some great detail before the end of September however I thought I would touch on a few of them now, and a few others that I am really excited about.

First of all my most Anticipated game of all time: Guild Wars 2. The Guild Wars original game is what first bought in gently into the wide world of MMO playing and the second instalment promises to revolutionise the way MMO's are played. So how and why is it planning on doing this? Well the MMO market has become somewhat stale in recent years with wave after wave of games trying to cash-in becoming World of Warcraft clones. Guild Wars 2 doesn't imitate, from what demo's I have seen and how fluid the game looks I predict that it will be the new trend setter in years to come. So, why change what isn't 'broken', simple answer it is broken. We can see by the falling numbers of WoW players that people are becoming bored with what's out there, and whilst the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic calls to remedy that I don't believe that it will due to the sheer number of mechanics and styles it has copied stolen from existing franchises. Whilst not everything in GW2 will be completely new, there is enough there to distinguish itself more from existing games than any other MMO has to date.

Space Marine. I have recently started collecting Warhammer 40k once more, in no small part to my interest in the Dawn of War series and the hype built around this game. Space Marine is going to be an instant classic for me. I love the Action Adventure genre, and to have one based around one of my favourite brands/aesthetics/lore is just fantastic. Nothing about this game looks revolutionary, nothing too original, but it looks beautiful and master-crafted, something with a large amount of polish and shine to it. Shine is very important to an Action Adventure game as elements such as combat and play should be highly tuned to keep the player engaged and wanting more. I cannot wait to smash in some Ork faces at the expo.

One/Two words: FireFall. I have always wanted a large scale shooter game in a persistent world, and if all is to be believed then FireFall may well deliver. Not that long ago Realtime Worlds put out APB, it failed hard, but not because the game was poor. It is still not really certain what happened to cause the collapse of the game but that isn't really the issue, the game was for all intents and purposes a very large scale shooter (80+ players per district). This worked pretty well given the size of the map and the worlds when populated did feel like living breathing city environments, never a dull moment. Will FireFall be able to re-create this type of game? Will it really be persistent and how big? The trailers look amazing, if you haven't seen them then check them out as it makes the game look phenomenal, which whilst I am really hoping it will be I will take my default cynical position and say the game will be good, but not enough to win popularity comparable the vast population of games like WoW and CoD. 

Diablo 3. Well I can't say a huge amount on this game as not a great deal has been announced but from what I read it will be rather similar to Torchlight, which was an amazing game. With the recent announcements of the real currency marketplace and always on DRM, it has caused some controversy. My personal opinion actually lies directly in line with Blizzard on this one, my first thought about DRM was that it was for keeping online content balanced and hack-free, which is exactly what it does. The side-effect is that single player still requires internet, as someone who has a 90-strong Steam game collection this doesn't bother me. Try Steam Offline mode then you'll see why.

End of Nations. Well I don't know a huge amount about this game, nor how it plans to execute it's 'MMORTS' classification. If a game such as this is based around instanced gameplay with progression as a main element, then I wouldn't consider it an MMO. Massively Multiplayer Online games for me is all about the persistent worlds, yes you may have games of 50 players but even counterstrike had matches of up to 64 players does that mean it is an MMO?

Which brings me nicely to my last game Counter Strike: Global Offensive. No news on this other than its name and a rather bland concept image as a stand-in logo. Early reports suggest the game will be all about competitive play. As a person who thoroughly enjoyed the days of 1.6 and CSS I can safely say that this game will provide that and probably a very beautiful game too. Hopefully this will be the new standard of play for competitive shooters, much in the same way that Starcraft 2 is with Strategy. 

I also look forward to many other game being shown at the Eurogamer Expo and intend to play almost all of them. September through November will be good months for gaming. Very very good months.

Understanding the Optimal Learning Curves in Games

No matter what game we play there is always an element of learning involved. Every action a player takes in game, from input controls to complex combinations and tactics requires learning to take place. Whilst this is true on most cases of unique games we must recognise that many players will have outside skills acquired from other games or activities that make learning that particular game's skill set that much easier for them. Regardless of the pace of learning (irrespective of time) there must be an understanding of what challenges should be faced at what points.

When we delve into the world of 'Flow' we find optimal states represented by an area that balances high skill requirements with high challenges. However to reach that state we must assume the player has no skill to begin with and progress to that point. The following is a diagram re-created for my Dissertation.

Whilst this explains the optimal state, the game must reach that higher end. This is where the learning curve comes into play. Most games will have a simple model, that is when a player is assumed to have more skill, the challenge is increased relative to its growth. The result is a straight line drawn from start to finish. Note that the curve ends not when the game is complete, but when the most difficult challenge is faced, with (ideally) the peak skill level of a player.

The green area represents the traditional flow model, where challenges and skill are roughly equal the subject is motivated. Now this may be the case in many games, however it is not the optimal learning curve. The following is what could be perceived as optimal.

Optimal in this scenario refers to the most enjoyment from a game. This would be achieved through initial learning in a safe environment, where the player is free to test and be tested on their basic skills without dire consequences. Learning during this time is increasing, however the challenges compared are relatively low, gaining momentum ready for the next section. The player feel empowered by defeating these initial challenges with relative ease.

The player is consistently tested throughout the main game scenarios, with rapidly increasing difficulty, but still within the confines of their potential ability. The curve begins to slow at more-or-less over the half way mark of skill. This means that the challenges begin to become part of a rhythm and flow, which is what we as humans enjoy: repetition. If you don't believe me on the repetition thing, think how many times you have watched your favourite film or TV series. The curve towards its final destination comes to an almost stop, as we reach the players perceived peak skill level.

The final section, end-game if you will, challenges everything that the player has learnt throughout, culminating all the skills in one final and most difficult challenge. This is only little more difficult than what the player has already faced, but bring in new twists to push the player to their very limit. More often than not this will be the end of the game, however as mentioned before this curve does not relate to time, should the game continue past this point, it should remain at the same position on the graph.

And there you have it. The optimal learning curve, tailored to meet the needs of players, to empower them, to challenge them, for the most enjoyable experience.

Screenshots Start

So I am starting the Screenshot a day project today with a new game I recently purchased, BIT.TRIP Runner. I really enjoyed the BIT.TRIP Beat from the Potato Sack Pack (released pre-Portal2) and this game is very much in the same lines as before. Brilliant series I would recommend to any gamer, but maybe wait until it is out on 3DS. I know that is one release I look forward to.

Next Screenshot Coming tomorrow, however I won't be posting like this everyday for them. Maybe a weekly update...

Screenshot-A-Day

365 of them.

As of July 1st I am planning on starting a project called Screenshot a day. Simple concept based on  similar projects other media have, such as doodle a day or photo a day. Every day for 365 days I plan on uploading a screenshot of a videogame I am playing. This means that all screenshots will be my own, and NOT copied from any other source.

I would like to invite anyone else in the gaming community (or not) to join me in this endeavour and post their own unique screenshot a day. Personally I will be using a photobucket account to upload to and then link back to this blog, but any method of posting would be cool. If you plan on joining in, then let me know! I figure I am more likely to succeed in this with other people participating.

The screenshots will mostly come from PC games, as these are the easiest to get however I know that some games/services allow for posting of screenshots from other sources. In-game posed photos will also be posted from time to time.

Posting one every single day is somewhat of a challenge but it will help me make time for playing more games, as currently my schedule can leave me a little bit hectic and not have time for the very medium I strive to create.

I will create a dedicated page on this blog and post updates on this every now and again, maybe even regularly. 

Planetai 2 Update

Updated 22/06/11

Added: Sounds, Mute Button (Top right)
Fixed: Time Bug that was causing the sun cycle to run at normal game time at any game length.

Will be submitting this to the Stencyl Summer Games Jam rather soon.
For now visit the Games Page to play

Planned Future updates - Highscores, Scoreboard, Kongregate API /functionality.

The Living Dead

New Low Poly model created in the past few days. Mostly for fun but there was some motivation behind doing it. Added to the Low Poly section under Portfolio.

NEW GAME: Planetai 2

Playable here: http://bdennett.blogspot.com/p/games.html
or visit the games section above.

The plan is to improve the scoring system to include a high score board and also publish it on a few websites such as Kongregate. The game also lacks sound at the moment but that will be soon to change. This will hopefully take place over the next week, but that depends on if I am not busy on another project (maybe more on that soon). The entire project took about a week part-time, a few late nights but well worth it.
This is a remake in flash of the game produced at the global games jam 2011. So credit where credit is due: Thanks to all in team Orbit!

How to play is built into this version, with a 6 page instructional guide. Also included is the ability to change how fast the game plays and for how long: As a guide - short is 60 seconds, normal is 2 mins, long is 10. Enjoy!

Edit: Now also available here: http://www.stencyl.com/game/play/3387

E3 Press Conferences

So this year's E3 Press conferences have been interesting, predictable but interesting.

Microsoft pushed too hard with Kinect. Sony pushed too hard with Move. Nintendo...well I'll get back to Nintendo.

So my highlights from all the major conferences has to be the new 4 player co-op IP's. Overstrike from Insomniac games, a crazy spy shooter with some great comedy, and Furious Four from Ubisoft. Both did not reveal any gameplay, but provided some nice trailers, with some great aesthetics. The games have great potential and I will be watching them closely.

Microsoft seems to have forgotten their audience. Pushing Kinect to the Core gamer is in my opinion a big mistake. Quite possibly the funniest instance of this is with the Ghost Recon Demo. A guy in an awkward stance opening and closing his right hand like he is ordering 5 drinks, and holding an imaginary TF2 minigun like a heavy with his left hand. It is embarrassing enough for most to play motion controlled games, but how awkward do they want to make it to play core games? I cannot see anyone preferring that system over the standard controller.

Sony announced the NGP is called Vita, which was no surprise as it leaked a while back. Sony, having leaks, crazy I know. Vita looks intriguing but I am in no rush to get one. Sony apologised, and rather hard for the outages of PSN. As a non Playstation owner I couldn't care less, but it was nice to see that they care.

Nintendo, Where to begin. Let's review the precursive moments that lead to the Press conference. Me and my friend sat on the sofa, streaming the conference to a 32 inch TV, it's about 5 minutes before it is due to start . We begin joking about "So what do you think the new console will be called?" I ask "I bet it's something like the Nintendo Us" he says, "ooh even better, The Nintendo You, or better yet just the letter U". We managed to come to the same conclusions the Nintendo marketing team did in under 5 mins. We continue joking around, "Wouldn't it be great if Nintendo partnered with Steam?" I say secretly praying to whatever deity that would listen that it doesn't happen. "No, i've got it!" He remarks; "They partner with EA and Origin." Now this didn't actually happen however it was hinted at, throughout the whole 'close relationship' speech EA made I was verbally cringing that they might blurt it out at any moment.

So Nintendo actually pulled their finger out. They managed to get some 3rd party support for this new consoller (console + controller). What they showed of the line-up it seems Nintendo might be back in the game of appealing to the core.

Oh and the 3DS lineup seems pretty cool, no real surprises though. I will be buying quite a number of remakes this year.

Staffs Uni Bootcamp 2011

A couple of screenshots from a recent project I was involved in. For the last 2 years Staffordshire University has run a side project after term has finished called ‘Bootcamp’. Basically it’s an intense week of making a game from the ground up. This year we made a Side Scrolling Dino Shooter ‘Dino Dave’. Overall its a little bit silly but then projects like this are always great fun. After a complete week of 9-5 the project is at an ‘almost’ complete state, a few tweaks and it will be ready to put up and hopefully I will link it to my portfolio. So my contribution to this? Well last year I was put in charge of the environment props section and I asked to do the same again this year, but due to a number of level designers not being able to make it I was put in charge of that instead. Working with the Unreal Engine (UDK) is pretty interesting at times. It has turned out pretty well for just a single week’s work and we are rather proud. Will post more about this when it becomes available.