What Would Matt Do

The big orb in the sky you sometimes see at night? It has mother fucking water on it. That’s full of awesome. So now both Mars and the Moon have water on them, when both were thought to be barren rocks.

That’s pretty cool shit. Though why are we just finding out about this now? Why after we’ve visited the moon, done numerous scans, had unmanned and manned machinery on the moon are we just now finding this out? Because funding is low. Because we don’t take space exploration seriously. Because we, as a people, don’t look at space as anything more than a cute oddity. At least most of us.

Well fuck that. Really.

I don’t want to get off on a rant here (I still love you, Dennis), but damn me if we aren’t going about this all wrong. Here’s what we need to be doing. We need to have an already established base on the Moon with people living there, trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t. Spending their hours studying all kinds of things we don’t know about the Moon. Lets get people there, lets figure out what the problems are with living there, lets figure out how self sufficient we can make a colony on the Moon. Then lets start on figuring out how to colonize other planets.

Why isn’t the US funding space exploration something fierce? Why aren’t we already talking about creating better travel between the Moon and Earth. If we had people there, it would become a bigger priority. Why aren’t we already figuring out how to live on Mars? Why aren’t we spending more thought, research time and effort into real space travel? It needs to be a priority, a big one. Not just because it may provide a future where the Earth becomes unlivable, or because it may provide a way for our race to skip perishing (a long shot, but maybe), but because of what we can learn about our own planet and our own solar system by exploring it and figuring it out. There are 7 (stupid Pluto classification) other planets out there we know very little about. Lets start with the Moon, lets figure out what we can there, lets figure how how to live in harsh environments, how to handle solar interference/rays/etc in a low atmosphere, what kind of technology we can use to colonize and maybe gather natural resources from the Moon.

Why does no one else consider this a priority? Yeah, there are a lot of problems here that need to be solved. But let us not forget that we aren’t alone, even if that just means we aren’t alone in terms of other planets and solar systems and galaxies out there, alien life forms aside. We need to get out and figure those things out, unlock their secrets, to better understand and expand our race. If we don’t, we drastically limiting ourselves. Maybe dooming ourselves.

What Would Matt Do: I’d make getting a Moon base a priority as of yesterday and already be aiming towards Mars. With real funding.

That’s the question I keep asking myself as I play GTA4. Don’t get me wrong. I like it. I love it at points and hate it at others, but overall, I like it a lot. Were to pursue the oderous task of reviewing the game (I tried reviewing games once…while it seemed fun from the outside, it wasn’t. Reviewing games is pure work and ruins the game experience for me), I’d probably give it something like a 7.5/10 on a real 1-10 scale (not the normal 7-10 scales many places use).

I’m not the only one to feel that way. Look around the internet…along with all of the "OMG, THIS GAME IS PURE AWESOME!" you’ll see things like, "wtf, why do controls work that way" or "the missions are completely scripted and pretty much exercised from the rest of the game."

What does metacritic say about it? 98 out of 100. How far down do you have to scroll to see a review that doesn’t give it a 100 out of 100 (or the equivalent score)? How far down to do you have to look to find a review that doesn’t give a perfect score? 40+ reviews. The ones below that aren’t dropping off much. That makes GTA4 the highest rated game since metacritic started back in 2006 (I think). The highest rated game on any system of this generation.

This is what leads me wonder how this happens. How does a game that is even more scripted than previous iterations, sometimes corrupts save games (or refuses to load, etc), has controls that are anything but uniform through out the game and the awesome sandbox world doesn’t feel connected to the scripted missions at all get closer to a perfect score than any other game in the last 3 years? I didn’t even go back and look at other game review sites for a longer view on it, but I’m sure it’s not pretty.

(The following thoughts aren’t against any particular game reviewer or against game reviewers in general. I’m not hating the playa, but the system)

Here’s my guess. Game reviewers don’t review games like we play them. They are in a hurry (they have to meet deadlines, they have to get to the next game, etc). They are looking to beat the game, calculate the total hours played and see how frustrating it was for them. Oh, and how much fun. Then they use some archaic formulation to determine the rating of the game (hint: it involves drinking and random guessing). Once rated, they go on to the next game. Did they see how long the tutorial (i.e. – the first island) took to beat? Nope, because they were past that in the first night, didn’t seem like that long at all. Did they notice that missions were so scripted that often times they felt like chores and less engaging than most of the sandbox stuff you can do in the city? No, because they were trying to blow through the mission. The missions, which have handy guidelines how to beat them, and as long as you follow the rules and do every step in order, you’ll do just fine and mindlessly complete them. You don’t have time to think outside the box and see what happens if you try blow a guy up at the start of the mission instead of following the scripting. You don’t see that guys are impervious to damage until the exact point the game wants you to kill him.

Basically, you don’t see all of the stuff us gamers that aren’t in a hurry to complete it see. Is that game reviewers fault? Yes and no. I say yes because they should be trying to keep perspective, but really it’s no. No because they don’t have the luxury of that kind of time. Just like most of the rest of us, they have a job and they want to keep it. So they keep with the formula, they play the game as fast as they can, make a score and go on to the next one. That’s the nature of the industry.

The point of this article is to say, I don’t like the system. We aren’t even talking about peer pressure ("Gamespot gave it a 100, how can we give it an 80?") That’s a whole other issue. The question is though, what to do about it.

I have no idea. How can you fix a system where people want to know as soon as the game is released the website/magazine/etc opinion of it? Would it do any good to have a process that reviewed the game and released the review two months after the game was released? Would anyone pay to have a reviewer play a game for two or three months to get a real for it? That’s a big nay to all of those questions.

I don’t like pointing out problems and offering no potential solutions, but I’m just not seeing them here. On a personal level, I won’t be listening to the reviews so much. I didn’t get burned this time, but I have in the past (Black and White). I’m just going to have to show some constraint and not buy day one on games that are questionable. Let the internet get their meaty paws on it and see what the man on the street man says no matter what the reviewers say.

Any have any other suggestions? Maybe a way to fix the system overall?

What Would Matt Do: I think I’ll jack a car, drive over some citizens and then maybe play some GTA4. And if I do play some GTA4, I will not try to kill the bad guys in advance. Why? Because the game doesn’t allow me to.

Updates at the bottom.

Why do PC gamers amuse me? Because they get so cranky, so easily. Or maybe I’m just getting to old to get caught up in all of the drama. Let me start at the beginning.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yeah, that’s right, City of Heroes/Villians is working on this potentially awesome new feature so I’ll come back…me specifically. Well, maybe for one other guy too. The idea is just too cool for it to be for one guy:

"Similar in concept to our character creator, it allows you, the players, to create missions and story arcs for your characters and others to participate in. You’ll be able to pick the map, villain group, and objectives, as well as write the dialogue and any clues needed for the missions.

"When you are satisfied with it, you can upload it and have other players across all servers play it and rate it. Fame will come to the players whose stories rate the best overall. It is features like these that we never dreamed of including when we first shipped, but are excited to be able to offer players very soon," added Miller.

Yeah, they just said that. And yeah, it has serious potential. But now I have to ask, what are they really saying. Developers claim all kinds of features all the time and often they either don’t deliver or at best exaggerate the features.

Here’s what I worry they are saying. You can pick a zone, pick a baddie type, and pick a baddie boss and add some dialog. And that’s it.

Here’s what I want them to be saying. You can pick a zone, pick a place in that zone, pick a time of day (if you want), pick what gang, how many, how many are strong and weak, how the quest starts, what zone it starts in (see, not just tied to one zone), full dialog options, what kind of quest it is (gather, kill x of x, kill boss, rescue, etc), what levels can do it, can the quests be linked (i.e. – you have to complete task x before you can try task y), can good rewards be picked, etc.

I want real quest creating capabilities. I want a world I can create content in and share it with others and have that be fun and easy. Whether that’s what they are talking about or not, I’ll give them this, it’s a good step. A right step.

I just hope they pull it off enough so that other MMO developers feel the need to put in their system.

Why, you ask? Because wouldn’t it be fucking wicked if you didn’t run out of good quests and you never had farm again? Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t have to do the oft lame quests the MMO came with, but could instead search a database of quests, all rated by millions of other users, so the cream of the crop would pop to the top.

Wouldn’t it be great if MMOs had fun quests.

One last thing…I’m not saying MMO developers can’t create good quests. They obviously can. I’ve seen it. But they get so wrapped up in other things I don’t care about (pvp in a pve game, battlegrounds type shit, etc), it would be great if players take up the slack.

What Would Matt Do: If the quest creating system is even half decent in CoX, I’ll resub.

I stole the title from Tom Chick’s column, here, because I think column was too generic and not edgy enough. And because I have no idea how they thought having Chick cover RTSes was a good thing. Don’t get me wrong, I really like reading Tom’s columns, reviews and so on, but I rarely agree with his opinions. RARELY. For instance, he really liked C&C 3. I thought it was just silly shit.

All of that said, I liked the idea of his column. I don’t think his suggestions we’re really that much help though and I’m going to offer my own. Because that’s just how effing crazy I am.

Things to include (or not) in my RTS.

1) DO include strategy. I know that seems pretty straightforward in an RTS, but it’s not always the case. Look at C&C 3 again. It’s a tank rush game. Again. Then look at SupCom. It’s a tank rush game…unless it’s an air rush game, or it’s an expansion game, or it’s a tech rush, etc, etc. I don’t remember where, but I think I re-branded C&C 3 as an RTA (Real Time Action) game. Or think of Company of Heroes. That game just oozes strategy, though in this case it’s more map strategy and unit strategy.

2) DO NOT make me build my base every single time! This isn’t a requirement, but since most every RTS requires it at this point, I’m going to lean strongly in this direction. And no, this isn’t the single player campaign missions where they give you 10 guys and send you through a maze. Give me something different. Give me a points buy system like Warhammer or the general idea Myth worked with. I’m incredibly tired of each new map in the single player campaign being either the aforementioned maze or a build up your base before the AI destroys you missions. Why can’t I start with fully functioning bases? Why do I need bases at all? They don’t make logical sense and they being held over from RTS to RTS because that’s the way it’s always done. As a buddy put it awhile back, your guys shouldn’t get to next place and go, "Well damn if I haven’t forgot how to farm. Someone build a research building and figure out how to do that all over again!" Basically, I’m tired of playing the economy game EVERY SINGLE TIME.

3) DO include build a helpful interface. For instance, SupCom? Almost any building you build near another will get a visible line of power/energy running from it to the other. Does it actually do anything? Maybe. It could be now costing you less power to run that extraction facility, but it could just a pretty line that glows. That’s incredibly unhelpful. Give me information. Allow me to customize how much and what information I see (SupCom does a lot better on that aspect, especially with their newer interfaces). Are my guys being attacked? Tell me about it. I really like Starcraft for that. A little picture would pop up and guy in a tank would be hollering at me that’s under attack. If I’m the virtual commander of said virtual forces, I need as much information at my finger tips as I can possible manage at all times. Even more so than now. Give me something like GRAW where my interface is always telling me what’s going with arrows and sounds and more.

4) DO NOT drastically change your game with patches after release. I know that’s kind of a harsh one, but lets talk Dawn of War for a moment. When that game first came out, each race felt very distinctive, everyone with their own play style and their own end units (kinda like Age of Mythology’s Titans expansion) and so on. Now, with about 30 drastic play-style patches, the races all feel too similar, the top tier guys are easy to get, but limited in supply (literal limits on numbers of different types of units you can have on the field at once…KLUDGE) and so on. DoW lost a lot with it’s patches and expansions. So much I don’t even really like multiplayer anymore. I kinda feel like they are doing the same thing with CoH, though not in the same way. The game I played when I first bought it and the game I play now if I load it up and patch it for twenty hours definitely isn’t the same. To be fair to them, a lot of that feels like balance patches, but if you pay attention to the patch notes for each change, they’ve gone back and forth more than a few times and left unit bugs in so long that strategies are build around them. I don’t want to have to relearn how to play the game every time a patch is released. These aren’t MMOs and they shouldn’t be patching like they are.

5) DO give me reasons to be attached to my units. In both single player and multiplayer. Let me units gain experience, show me visually that they have and make them better for it. Sure, it’s not appropriate for every single game, but it gives me reason to protect some units, to build strategies around units that are veterans and hence more effective. And if this a single player game, let me carry units from one combat to another.

6) DO NOT include extremely early rush tactics. I know some people really like that, but all it really does it make so people just getting into the game get pwned over and over until they catch on. That’s not a good reason to include…as a matter of fact, that’s a good reason not to include it. SupCom is a good example of a way to handle it (your commander will easily destroy early rushes if used properly).

7) DO pay attention to what other RTS games are doing. I’m not saying make copies, but so many RTS duds are released that I can’t but figure they are trying to reinvent the wheel each time. Play other RTS games, take what you like from there, improve upon it and include it. Think of Blizzard. They hardly ever take really big chances in their RTS games, but what they do really well is take a bunch of features that have been designed in the past, polish them, tie them all together well (usually…lets just leave WC3 out of this) and make them sing.

8) DO NOT have crappy AI and expect me to be fine with it cheating. This is two part. One, in single player campaigns or skirmish, give me AI that is challenging, but not overpowering (with multiple difficulty levels of course). Make them play like playing another person, as much as possible. Two, give me units that are smart. Have them figure out things on their own. Pathfinding is a big way that most RTSes could be improved. Able to take complex orders and simple orders is another. Having units respond and take tactical actions when attacked or other units are sensed is another. Yes, I’m the virtual commander, but that doesn’t mean my units should be so daft they just stand around when I haven’t given them explicit orders for the given situation.

9) DO make our demo interesting and fun to play. You’re trying to impress me, the gamer that is interested enough in your game to download a demo. Don’t give me tier one (assuming you have tiers) tech and a simple map and hope I’m interested when I’m done. Don’t give me a half working, half implemented game based off a build 6 months old and expect to me to just take your word when you tell me that the full game fixes all of the problems the demo had. Sell me on your game. Convince me I really want to play it, convince me I can’t live without it, and tell me it’s better than most anything else anyone else has ever made. What’s the point of creating a demo otherwise?

To be fair, not all of that will apply to every game, but damn me if more than a few game developers couldn’t use take some of these to heart. I really want more RTS games that include global research (I hear Sins does this well). I want games that are easy to learn and hard to master. I want games that value their AI over their graphics. I want be able to have different viable strategies. And I really don’t want to play yet another tank rush RTS.

What Would Matt Do: First, I’d get out of my armchair and make some damn cool RTS games of my own…except well, this chair is pretty comfortable!