Design Blog

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Standard Practices, and Lack Thereof

Well it looks like I'm officially unemployed now. I've been looking for a job for a little while now, but things have now escalated a bit.

In that vein I've been taking many different design tests in these past months, so far I haven't had too much luck with them, but I'm always hopeful that I will do better on the next one.

However it's brought to my attention an interesting problem with the game industry.

"There are no standards."

Now I don't necessarily mean standards as in pricing or genre, as those things are somewhat established. I refer more to standards when it comes to hiring and best production practices. This is partly the fault of the type of work that is done in the industry and partly a result of the young age of the industry.

The fact of the matter is that every single company I have ever applied to has had radically different design tests, procedures for their interviews (and in the ones that I've visited) significantly different working practices and environments. Naturally you would expect different companies to use the interview procedures based on factors such as size and the nature of the work, but even within similar companies you get very inconsistent results. Similarly when you get a design test, it can range anywhere from six hours in one block to several weeks to complete a level, and the content varies as well, sometimes its a questionnaire, sometimes it's a paper level, other times it's a level built in an editor, and occasionally you get a test that asks for just about all of them at once.

Now I want to be clear that I'm not blaming the companies for this, as they each have developed their own way of doing things. What I am concerned about however is the isolation that has resulted in these types of differences and the results on people interested in getting jobs.

When every company does creates their own special way to create games the result is that workers become incredibly specialized to a certain way of working. If company A has their own procedure for creating a game of a certain genre that involves specialized job descriptions and certain procedures, then it becomes difficult for the company to find new workers and it becomes difficult for workers at that company to find new jobs should they want/need to move on.

For example, say company A has designers wear multiple hats and design levels, script scenarios and write the dialouge, while another company B has a separate jobs for designing, scripting and writing that are fulfilled by specialists. Designers from company A will not be specialized enough to work at company B and workers from company B will not be experienced enough in the other job aspects to handle work at company A.

This is probably more of a designer issue than an artist or programmer issue however, since designer jobs seem to be the ones that differ most significantly from one company to another. However the testing procedure for hiring new workers is something that seems inconsistent for all development disciplines.

While I understand the value of testing potential applicants and I don't think it should stop, I simultaneously question why the transitions between companies is so jarring. I can be working on a week long written exam for one week and then follow it the next week with an intense 3 day design work in specific level editor. With jumps in productivity like this I think it only makes it more likely that the odd pacing will result in lower quality work overall in the long run. Additionally because of the length of time some tests take it makes it difficult to apply for multiple jobs at a time, this again, can result in a lower quality of results. Finally because the content of an employment test can vary significantly from test to test it's impossible for a job seeker to practice or prepare himself, which means the test will not necessarily be an accurate measure of his abilities.

Personally I'd like it if there was some kind of standardized way to test for certain qualities of design in a way that did not result in the guessing game that seems to happen from both sides when an employment test is issued. Of course, I realize that it's not likely to happen for a while, since part of what makes this industry so vibrant and changing is the spontaneity that pushes the limits of gameplay and design.

In the end, game design ability isn't easily measured because it's not like building a house or fixing plumbing; it's creating fun experiences from nothing but imagination.

Which unfortunately can't really be measured with a ruler.

Labels: game industry, job

posted by Saikyo at 11:03 PM

Sunday, May 10, 2009

10 Pitfalls of Game Design

Normally I don't like to post something so small and trivial as a link to a new article since I feel that when you make a blog post it should be something meaningful.

However, I'll make an exception this time and post to this article about the 10 Game Design Process Pitfalls.

It's a really good read. Even though I think a lot of the things he talks about should be obvious to most designers, I think they are also the things that tend to get caught up and missed in the design process and deadline crunches.

In short the pitfalls are:
1. Not playing games
2. Overemphasizing paper designs
3. Not using peer review
4. Choosing leads for production skills and not content creation skills
5. Not using placeholders
6. Letting the story control the design
7. Restricting designer tools
8. Building before you find "fun"
9. Out of date documentation
10. Not using outside playtesting

I'm not going to go over these here though, since the author does a much better job. But these are things I definitely will take to heart and try and remember so that I won't fall into the same pitfalls.

Labels: design philosophy

posted by Saikyo at 4:34 PM

Friday, May 8, 2009

Hard Times

Seems like pretty difficult times for the game industry. Not that I wasn't aware of this from being laid off, but I recently read an interesting article that estimates the number of layoffs to be around 8450 since last July. It's a pretty staggering number when I think about it, and it only makes me realize how much harder I need to work to find a new job.

The interesting thing about that article is that the author also talks about a Gaming Renaissance movement that is taking place. It's an interesting read, and makes me a little concerned about the my future in this industry. Although at the same time I suppose I am also cautiously optimistic about the changes and the new studios that are springing up...

...though I'm not so optimistic as to stop applying for jobs and make my own company just yet. I'd like to get more experience in this industry before I can do something that radical, but it's definitely something to consider in the future.

Gonna be putting of the next BlazBlue installment for a little while since I have yet another design test I need to work on. I'm hoping to finish that set of blogs before the game actually comes out on 6/25. Well assuming it comes out on the same date in the US...

Labels: blazblue, game industry, job

posted by Saikyo at 10:25 PM

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Guild Wars and Design Mechanics

Instead of continuing with the BlazBlue stuff today I thought I'd take a break and talk a little about some issues going on in a game that I play frequently, Guild Wars.

Guild Wars established itself as an online RPG without monthly fees, which at the time was pretty much unheard of in the MMORPG market. In fact, there really haven't been too many other games that have followed the Guild Wars model an been successful (at least not that I know of), moreso, I'm not even sure if there are any that tried to follow it. Guild Wars strikes me as kind of different from tradtionl MMORPG structure anyhow and I hesitate to affix that label to it since the game is fully instanced and is focused more on skills than on leveling which sets it appart at the base mechanic level.

Background asside, the game has been around for four years so far and recently had it's 4th Anniversary. The fact that the game still has an audience after four years is pretty impressive for one thing, but for this event they added a host of new features and game elements in an attempt to liven up the game and get people to play it.

And yet as I browsed the forums I found this amazing sense of entitlement from a lot of the playerbase which even got hostile at some of the updates that the developers worked hard to bring to this event. Obviously, not everyone is like that and I recognize that the percentage of people who complain on online forum postings tend to represent only a small portion of the audience (the people who like it tend to go and PLAY THE GAME instead), but I wanted to talk about some of the new features and my thoughs on them from a design perspective.

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Pet Management
An entire new area was introduced that allows players to store their captured pets and pet evolutions. As you level up pets you can unlock them permanently in this area, called the menagerie and summon them back at any time. It's useful for players who want to use different types of pets on their rangers and ranger secondaries, since it allows to you experiment with different pet evolutions. Further it provides a sink for certain resources both old and new in order to unlock pets that would otherwise be too troublesome to find or level up. As a final option players can purchase an unlock pack to unlock everything for about $10. This type of thing isn't new with Guild Wars, since they also provided a PvP skill unlock pack for about the same amount.

What is interesting about this, is that I always felt that pets were a very small part of the game. Your character has to be ranger primary or secondary to even use a pet, and for the most part, it's fairly uncommon to see pets in PvP and PvE. There is a clear expenditure of resources for this new area, but at the same time I wonder how big of an impact it ends up having, since the actual use for pets is limited to a small part of the game.

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Extra Storage Tabs
More storage is always a useful thing especially for people who like to save everything they pick up like me. ArenaNet has always been warry about giving more storage though since they claim it has an associated cost. Many people will tell you that server space can be bought relatively cheaply ($100 per TB was one such number I've heard), so the logic is that it should be realatively easy to add without a huge cost to the consumer. In fact this update did add a large quanity of storage to the game without any cost to the player. There is a free promotion for 20 extra storage slots on the website and new 5 slot equipment bags can be purchased for a resonable cost in game.

Oh but here is where the entitlement comes in. If you want more than the 20 free slots with the promotion which oddly enough people actually DISLIKE because it requires you to make an NCSoft account (it's STILL FREE), you need to pay $10 per 20 slot tab, up to 4 tabs. Now the thing is that storage tabs are more convienient since they can be accessed on all characters on your account, but the thing is another character slot cost $10, and characters can hold over twice that amount in their normal inventories. So it becomes a matter of cost vs convenience. I'm not going to argue one way or the other, I think the sales numbers will influence any further changes to the price, and I'm not privy to those things, but some of the complaints call charging for storage a scam because it costs a disproportionate amount.

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Extra Storage Bags
The equipment bags are another can of worms. Anyone can by a 5 slot bag for a modest fee but 10, 15 and 20 slot bags come at a much higher cost. You need to trade in special coins for them, coins that can only be aquired through questing. Additionally the price for the larger bags increases exponentially. The 20 slot bags cost FIFTEEN TIMES more than the 10 slots. Which is a large commitment in gameplay time, since you have to earn the coins and cannot trade them with other players.

I'm not sure how I feel about this type of incentive, and certainly there are many complaints about having to grind coins for storage, but in general the tasks required for gaining coins feels fairly entertaining for me most of the time. The notion though that players should be entitled to the 20 slot bags though is something I can't agree with. Certainly everyone CAN get them, but like most things in Guild Wars, it's a goal with clear steps to reaching it. I don't want to say this is the perfect solution (since the cost is truly does feel steep) but think people exagerate the magnitude of the issue. It's actually fairly common to set up grind for players in MMOs for more storage, you tend to earn more as you level up, so I don't see this as that ridiculous. If anything it's just a way for players to advance their characters after level 20. I find that the general design behind most MMOs is to develop a character you really like and get them all sorts of cool things. Since you can't progress past level 20 in Guild Wars, the team has made many other (optional) things players can do to advance their characters, and this doesn't seem any different.

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Daily Quest
This is kind of an odd little thing in my opinion. Daily quests are common to other games like World of Warcraft already, and the idea is that every day some new quests are available for some kind of reward. In the case of Guild Wars, that reward tends to be the coins I mentioned earlier as well as cash and sometimes faction (another type of currency really). The only wait to get the coins required for the equipement bags is to do these quests (there are other rewards for turning in the coins). There are three types, two for PvE and one for PvP that cycle every day, and players are limited to having three of each type in their log at a time.

This is an interesting strategy, but one that so far seems to be working well. The problem that occured after four years of being online is that certain areas of the game were basically empty and nobody except new players would be there. Older players would rarely go back to old content, and unless you had a guild or group of friends, it was unlikely for you to find many people to play these areas with.

The daily quests encourage people to go back and re-do old stuff for new rewards. So far this has revitalized areas of the game as they daily quests change every day. Certainly some of them have been far more challenging than others, but if one quest is too hard, you just have to wait a day until a new one replaces it. This seems to be an amazing way to revitalize mission towns and areas of the game that the designers feel are lacking, without actually creating new content for the areas. I'm a big fan of this part of the update myself.

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Wow, I talked a lot about that, so I guess I'll stop for now. There's certainly a lot more to it, but I don't want to make these blog entires so long that nobody will read them.

Labels: design philosophy, entitlement, game mechanics, guild wars

posted by Saikyo at 6:05 PM