What Would Matt Do

Dear Mr. President,

I’m going to ask you to do something now. Listen. Not because I’m smarter than anyone else or because I’m more important. But because I’m not those things. I’m just a guy. Who thinks you might want be a better president than you have been so far. I’m sharing because as song goes, this land is your land, this land is my land.

First, please take over the BP operation right now. I don’t mean stop BP and bring in your own people, I mean use your executive power and take over the corporation, at least temporarily. Use the fact they are criminals and have committed crimes here and now. Or however you need to phrase it. If you can do it with banks, you can do it with oil companies. Use their resources properly, aimed to stem the damage and clean it honestly, not white wash it with chemicals that may be worse than the original spill. Make them start giving you the truth. Then form a council. Invite not CEOs of oil companies, but the most experienced engineers in the field, experts of oil rigs and plugging of leaks underwater, long time navy guys who know about deep pressure, environmentalists who’ve worked with oil spills before, and more. Don’t just talk to other countries, ask them to send their topmost experts. Then have them come up with solutions. All you have to do is ask, people will come help, again, at least temporarily. And the longer you wait, the more BP destroys livelihoods, environments and people.

Second, please start being serious about fixing our oil/coal addiction. I know big corporations with lots of money and power are aligned against that idea AND have funded your presidency. So what. Fight the power. There are many ways to approach this. I’m not an expert in these things. But you know what? Some people are. There are scientists that have great ideas to completely change the way our country runs and the energy it uses. Maybe you could form a council here too. A longer term bigger thing. A scientific council established for the betterment of the country. Hire them. Hire the best people in academics and in the industry. Pay them richly. You could hire then guys, pay them a couple of million each and it would cost less to have them for your whole presidency than it would to build one fighter plane. While you’re forming dream teams, the Ring of Fire guys would be great.

Third, and this ties into the above one, please employ the country. Yeah, politicians will complain. So what? If you use the council created above and get a plan to overall the entire energy grid and power our country off say the deserts in the south because the grid can now transfer energy anywhere…guess who can build that? Our people. You can train them, you can employ them, you can enable them. Not give a handout, put them to work for the betterment of all. People will come in droves. You will educate them in a field and empower them to provide for themselves. And they will love you for it. You’ll be fixing the country and helping the people. That’s just one way. There are so many different ways you could take the 10% of population of who a large amount actually want work and put them to working to change how our country works. With a real energy grid (not a magical one, other countries have done this), we could be off oil and coal and nuclear in 20 years maybe.

That’s not all, but that’s a start. Start thinking of the people. If you start acting from that place, from the place of what’s the best thing for the people, not for the other politicians or for just your voter base or for anything but the people, you’ll start making decisions that will make us love you…instead of just being happy your not as bad as the last guy. In less that’s all your looking to be, not as bad.

I hope this finds you and yours well, and I truly hope you listened. I voted for you. I didn’t believe your words, but I knew you’d be better than the alternatives. But a part of me was really hoping you were the man you gave speeches like. You can still be that man.

Thank you,

Matt

Yeah, the site is going slow these days. Maybe it’s because a giant dragon ate the staff. Maybe.

In more interesting news, Valve is looking at changing TF2 again:

Team Fortress 2 lead Robin Walker says that Valve is not entirely happy with its new method of random weapon drops, and could eliminate the unlock system entirely. "I think we’ve learned that the random drop system is only good for some types of things, like the rare cosmetic hats," said Walker to CommunityFortress

Valve’s contiinual work TF2 is highly interesting to me. No other game has its metrics, its player habits and so on tracked in such detail. I really wonder what their tech is like on the other side. Are they parsing massive text files so queries aren’t easy to run or is everything being put into a sql database and queries are done on a regular basis on the gathered information to figure what features work and what doesn’t?

Is there a massive database of every turn ever taken in every game Valve has made since HL2? Could you track it by player ID, see what turns specific players made as specific points? Can you see how often people actually save and reload? Can you we aggregate data of everyone that ever reach a specific point in the map and make design decisions based on the reaction?

If any of that is possible, Valve is way ahead of the game. MMOs can do that, I imagine. But they are already pushing and storing so much data I’m betting they don’t. Heck, I’m betting they don’t based on the ability of the average MMO to find and fix bugs.

Here’s what I’d love to see Valve do. Put up a website that shows all of the info they’ve collected on the likes of HL2. Or EP1 or whatever. Just a site where you can create simple queries by map and location and see what players actually did and how they reacted to things. Of course, Valve probably isn’t sharing that info, if they have it, any time soon. It sure would be fun to peruse though.

What Would Matt Do: I guess I’ll continue to be a data geek wishing I could run queries on real life objects. Or at least that the language to do so was simplier.

That title probably means something really deep, but I’m just not getting it. Maybe I should talk to my title writing guy and see if he can’t dumb down a bit for me so I can understand it. Maybe we should have gone with something like "If we give more options to allow more customization, do we lose fun in the process?". Though that’s just not as catchy…

We’re here today to discuss a fun one today chaps. The Stardock guys, Wardell in this case, have posted a design question online for us to mull over and I think it’s a pretty good one. It talks about a few different things I hold dear in my armchair designer heart. 1) Simplicity 2) When and how do we create complex systems that are still fun and not tedious and 3) Just how damn awesome is Elemental going to be?

Before we go any further, here’s the options presented to us:

 

Camp #1: “Sophisticated”

1. Everything in Elemental is a resource. Food, metal, swords, armor, horses, you  name it. 

2. Resources can be processed into other resources.  Iron Ore into a Sword.

3. Part of the fun of the game would be running a proper empire (or letting AI governors take care of it). 

Example:

A mine is built on an iron resource. The mine produces 10 units of iron ore per turn. That iron ore is then directed to go to the city of Torgeto where a blacksmith is able to produce 5 swords per turn. The unused iron ore is stored in a warehouse that can store up to 100 units of iron ore.

Those swords can be directed to be shipped to various other places (with sliders or other UI  means to determine what ratio goes where). 

In some of those places, the swords are issued to soldiers. In other places, the swords are sent to an alchemist workshop who, taking potions that have been shippped in from Wellford which in turn had taken Aeoronic crystal mined in another town to turn into those potions.  The resulting magical swords are then shipped out to various places with the player (or governor) able to control the ratio in which they are shipped.

Caravans appear on the map to show the items being shipped. If those caravans are attacked, the items are lost.

Camp #1 Map example here.

Camp #2: “Simple and Fun”

1. There are only natural resources (food, iron, crystal, horses, etc.).

2. When a natural resource is controlled, the player assigns that resource to a specific town.

3. Only that town can make use of it. Towns that don’t have a resource assigned it cannot build units that require those resources.

Example:

Unlike camp 1, there are no ratio sliders to mess with. A resource is assigned to a particular town. That makes certain towns more strategic than others and a lot less micro management.  On the other hand, it means that there will be many towns that can only build weaker units.   Players can research technologies that increase the base (weaker) unit that cities can build over time but some cities will simply be more important than others.

Caravans would still flow from the natural resource to the target town and if those caravans are attacked, the enemy player gains a bonus and the victim player would get a penalty to their production until the next caravan arrives.

Camp #2 Map example here.

I’ll call it for Camp #3 and we can all go home. Man, that sure was easy… Wait a second, there is no camp #3? Well shit, lets make it up then. Or in other words, here’s my proposal instead of the two given options.

Camp #3 "Keep it mostly simple stupid."

Ok, there are some things we don’t know before we go into this that could drastically change the shape of this feature. We don’t know what else you can do in a given turn (so we don’t know how much player time we should be worried about), we don’t how easy caravans are to interrrupt nor if the are a firm feature, and last but not least, we don’t know anything about the politics of the map (meaning, will we have to deal with things like some resources not being directly connected and so on).

Those things aside (and the twenty other things we don’t know), we do know that we have resources. Those simple resources are used to create other resources in the game that can themselves be simplish (regular sword) or complex (+2 magical sword when we combine multiple resources). We know that the simple resources are found in specific locations and that we have to at least construct a building or object to mine them. Ok, ground work somewhat established.

Now, option one and two both have their advantages. Personally, as a lover of complexity and min maxing I’d probably pull most for Camp #1. That allows me as the player the most choices and interesting scenarios. The example that was offered is with just one or two kind of simple materials. What if they full system allowed for all kinds of fancy shmancy options to create super soldiers, or maybe Pegasuses riding soldiers with magical wands. The possibilities seem limitless. Camp #2 on the other hand, is MUCH simplier. I’m still allowed to create nifty magical things, but it basically becomes if I discover it, I assign it and that’s it. 

So back to Camp #3. I see this as an inbetween option. It allows to have some complexity, but also allows to not have to spend so much time getting everything working together as in Camp #1:

Camp #3: “KIMSS” (Keep It Mostly Simple Stupid)

1. Everything in Elemental is a resource. Food, metal, swords, armor, horses, you  name it. 

2. Resources can be processed into other resources.  Iron Ore into a Sword.

3. Part of the fun of the game would be to be able to have a ‘direct hand’ in creating the items whilst not having to micromanage your empire quite so much.. 

Example:

A mine is built on an ore resource. That mine produces X units of ore per turn. That ore is now made available to all cities within a certain radius. Any city within that radius can either a) use that ore automatically (when you build swordsmen, you now have an option to build regular swordsmen or new and improved Iron Swordsmen) b) Or they can specifically say in the city options, "Share resources with nearby towns" or something to that affect. If that option is turned on, a new radius is created that can use that ore.

So now the next city can further push that ore on or use it self. If a city selects to push that ore on, expanding the available resources further across your empire, they can also use it. If they do use it, then less ore is available on the next turn for other cities in the given radius of that city.

The bigger the city, the bigger the resource radius would be. So if a small city is near a ore mine and it shares resources which includes a bit city in it’s radius, that big city is now pushing ore to everyone in it’s influence.

With this theory, cities would be still be strategically important, but they wouldn’t be the end all be all either.

The map could show Ore overlays, along with other resource overlay, like a big, brightly colored Venn diagram. Of course, you’d want an option to show/hide the resource overlays and show specific resource overlays at a time.

There a couple of potential problems with that idea in that I don’t know much about Elemental and have no idea if a radius would even work. Maybe instead of a radius, the affected area is the country. Or something along those lines.

The main idea is to have resources be either easily shared both among your cities (and potentially with your allies or traded with your neighbors) without doing like civilization does in that once you have a resource, your entire empire has it. Also, this removes the need to say transport ore to this specific city. Instead we just turn on an option, share this resource. And we still have strategically important cities, and now actual locals (the north is the ore mining local and the south is where we get magical slug essence, etc).

Plus, personally, I don’t like idea of caravans being out willy nilly. I’ve never liked that idea in any game. Unless I can upgrade them and put guards on them, it doesn’t make any logical sense. As a developing nation, I’m not going to send around my valuable resources on unguarded routes. To boot, it’s not fun gameplay wise. *shrugs* That last bit is just personal preference really.

The whole idea behind Camp #3 is allow for strategically important cities, without their being only one strategically important city. And the use of resources to be shared through your nation, with the circle of influence around a city being determined based on it’s size (and maybe trade ability/power?). I’d love to know more about Elemental to really see what idea would fit here.

What Would Matt Do: Were it up to me, I’d be right there in the thick of the Elemental design offering up opinions and learning a mess about game design. Since that’s not likely to happen, I’ll stick to Armchair Design and hope that at the very least Camp #2 is selected, though I do think it’s too simple in it’s approach. I think that Camp #1 will just be too complex for most people, no matter how awesome I think it might be. And the best, something along the lines of Camp #3 is selected, where resources still have to be strategically used, but they aren’t quite so tedious to do so.

I’m sure Cryptic Studios HAD to think about the potential problems of adding user generated content (quests that the players create) to their system.

But I’m betting they didn’t put enough thought  in when we start getting things like this happening:

When City of Heroes released its user-created mission generator, it was mere hours before highly exploitative missions existed. Players quickly found the way to min-max the system, and started making quests that gave huge rewards for little effort. These are by far the most popular missions. Actually, from what I can tell, they are nearly the only missions that get used. Aside from a few “developer’s favorite” quests, it’s very hard to find the “fun but not exploitative” missions, because they get rated poorly by users and disappear into the miasma of mediocrity.

None of that is surprising, or it shouldn’t be if you’ve played any online game recently. I can’t speak for the majority of players, but enough players to make it a problem will always try to exploit your system. Especially in something like City of Heroes where leveling is SLOW. Why would I, as a player, play the game the normal way when I could load up one of the user generated missions and get some serious experience from doing it?

I hate to break this to MMO developers, but most of your quests are extremely boring. Most people will do a few or more and then try to figure out the fastest way to level within the given system. MMOs require you to put time into the game to succeed, so as a player your obviously going to be looking to lessen the hit to your time. Whether we’re talking cheating or not is basically left up the readiness of cheats and the specific person.

So when you add user generated content, especially user generated content that is allowed to have an experience reward, you’re going to have people that will make levels to be exploited and people that will play those levels. More than enough to make it a big blip in your leveling curve. Guaranteed.

There are possible solutions, but almost nothing is going to work long term unless you don’t allow any kind of reward from the user generated quests. Or you have a guy examining every single quest that goes through and if it doesn’t meet public posted guidelines, then it’s rejected. Of course, you’re going to get a guy to do that and you’re going to need publicly posted guidelines:

Bingo. You don’t know if you’re breaking the rules until you get punished. So the developers are creating a chilling effect on their own content generator. Now it’s risky for players to even use user-created quests. What if some customer service rep decides the quest is exploitative? You’d retroactively lose your XP. It’s best to just to stick to the old dev-made quests, the ones you know won’t get you punished.

I haven’t got confirmation that they actually removing XP from players at this point, but I have heard from players that they are rejecting missions/quests and potentially not giving back a slot to make another/more.

I’m pulling for Cryptic for no other reason than I hope more games will try to do this. I’d love to log into an MMO and be able to pick from a list of quests created and reviewed by fellow players. Because every single MMO existence is lacking in good content, especially if we aren’t talking about the same four or five multiplayer components being played over and over…

What Would Matt Do: I’d try to do a few things. One, just set an arbitrary experience limit on user generated content based on the level required to play it (as one potential solution for the immediate problem). Two, start thinking outside the box for the next MMO on how to allow user generated quests AND content from the start, instead of adding onto an already existing system that it wasn’t really intended to be in the first place. Three, hope for the best…and prepare for the worst. Meaning, hope your players are going to create incredible, awesome, amazing quests and prepare for them to exploit every little thing they can. Because they will do both of those.

I’ll admit it, I played the shit out of Dawn of War 1. I played the single player most of the way through (even though it was often boring in parts) in OC and two of the expansions. I also played more multiplayer online with random internet assholes more than I’d care to admit.

I stopped playing though…because Relic really sucked at balancing the multiplayer. Really, really sucked at it. The game you’d play now and the game that shipped, multiplayer wise, are two completely different things. That’s not a joke. They changed everything except the artwork.

But whatever, this is the next one. The beta open to those that own Soulstorm (the last, sucky expansion to DoW1…thankfully you aren’t required to play it to get into the beta). I bought it on the cheap because I’m impatient. Definitely worth the $7 I paid to get into it…but will I buy full game? I’m not so sure.

You see, I LOVE the game as it stands now. It needs a bit of tweaking for balance and a mess of bug fixes in the matchmaking and UI and it needs about two to three times as many maps. The core game is love though. They cut out everything except tactics and strategy. No more base building, managing an economy or zerg rushing your opponent. A 1vs1 game lasts anywhere from 10m to 30m (depending on the player levels…usually less than 15m). Cover exists and can be destroyed. Suppression exists and can be countered. Retreating is often key to winning the war. Micro managing is an absolute must and it’s bad ass.

Yeah, that’s right, I said Micro Management of your units is bad ass. You’re essentially playing with 2-5 squads at a time. And your Hero. Almost all of them have special abilities that are devastating when used at the correct time and place. Facing the correct direction for your heavy gunner squads can often be the difference between winning and losing the current battle. Does all of this seem involved and intricate? It very much is. And it’s hard.

The first few times you play (maybe more than that) online, you’re going to get your ass handed to you. Much like when you start playing Chess or some other strategy heavy game, you’re going to lose a lot to the better players. But if you adapt and watch, you can easily get better. The game is very deep, but very simple too.

In other words, it’s hard and beatiful and made of awesome. And that’s where the problem comes in. See, already Relic wants to nerf the entire game. They have decided it’s too brutal and fast. Also that vehicles aren’t strong enough. Oh and that most of the races are just too strong now.

Ok, so maybe they have a different vision than I do… Well, no, I don’t believe that. I believe they have no idea how to balance multiplayer games (see CoH and DoW1). I believe they are going to fuck it up even worse in the name of balance. My hope springs eternal that they aren’t…

Ok, then, what about maybe them having lots of maps and content on the multiplayer side of things? Hmmm, maybe not:

Jonny Ebbert: and figure out what makes an awesome map
Jonny Ebbert: we learned a lot watching the beta
Jonny Ebbert: and the two maps you’re getting at launch will definitely be improvements
Jonny Ebbert: and the maps we release after that should be even better
Jonny Ebbert: in the past we’d make 20 maps
Jonny Ebbert: 3 of which wouldn’t suck by sheer chance

I can’t tell if this is a bad or a good thing. The maps they’ve released so far aren’t the best ever, but they are decent. But if we only have 3 1vs1 maps at the launch of the game…is that going to be enough to have it not get stale?

Don’t get me wrong, I love the sound of DLC, both free and otherwise. But I’ve been burned before and I don’t believe it when developers tell me they are going to support and upgrade and work with the game long term…without fucking it up. Some might call me jaded, some might call me rational.

I want to buy this game on 0 day and play the shit out of it for months to come…but other than Valve, who really does what Relic is claiming they are going to do? Burnout Paradise did I guess, but it took them so long I was bored of the game long before they released new stuff.

What I’m saying is this… if Relic can balance without completely changing the beautiful game they’ve stumbled upon now, and give us good updates, this might be a great game. But if they do balance changes like they have in the past and give us very few maps for this new, almost austere multiplayer mode (it need variety to have longevity), I can’t see it going well.

Please, Relic. Don’t patch like you did with DoW (dear god) or CoH (better here, but still has some big problems). Don’t leave the multiplayer side out in the dark. Help me help you. Help me want to buy your game. And then help me not to feel dumb doing so.

What Would Matt Do: First I’d get back on that horse again… then I’d probably listen to some Medium Troy.

subnote – Just so we’re clear, I’ll never question Relic’s devotion to their games. I’m not calling out the studio and it’s awesomeness. As a matter of fact, I’d rate Relic as maybe the top RTS developer out there right now. I just want their patching and balance process to be a bit better (at the very least). I demand improvement. Because the developers owe me everything.