Finally, a column from this dude without the word "Why" in it. This genre needs answers, brother, not more questions.
I hate being anything other than neutral on forums, but I feel compelled to speak my mind.
I don't quite get the point of this column other than to display your "original gamer status" or working knowledge of terminology and ludicrous jargon. I get that you're "in the biz," so to speak, so surely you can do better than this. This belongs on a facebook wall or personal blog, not a column on a site like this.
Interesting article, and I can definitely relate to this Cow Tools phenomenon. Nothing I hate more than the game equivalent of banging my nose into a door that I expected to open for me. Fallout 3 is a good recent example for me. Lots of unopenable doors in that world, and that's really bad in an RPG. An unopenable door is not easily ignored in an RPG. Questions arise: What's in there? Could there be money or weapons or food in there? Why can't I use my security skill to pick the lock on the door, or blast it open with my Rock-It Launcher? In an action game, it's no big deal. There, doors are just obstacles getting in the way of more action. But in an RPG, the expectation is that doors can be opened to reveal fabulous prizes.
...it just made me hold down the tab key so I could grab them quickly and be on my way...
Generally one aspect I prefer is what Bethesda does with most environmental objects. Makes it so you can grab them, move them about, and do just about what you please with it. There's certain aspects I think needs work (placing/arranging objects, range of interactivity, method of construction, etc), but it's a basis that so far has been the only method to make me actually stop and examine everything in a room or dungeon without defaulting to "does it highlight? Does it interact? Yes/No? Moving on."
Honestly, I agree with the cow tools concept, and the fact that people take it for granted that games are just commonly done that way is just another drop in the bucket for me as far as how stuck in a ditch game design remains at large.
I think a lot of it has to do with your audience. If your goal is to make a game that entertains the largest number of people, you'll find that Blizzards World of Warcraft has plenty "doors to no where".
It really has little or no effect on keeping people subscribing to their game.
In Dalaran they have at least one achievement that is purely based on a person interacting with certain books that occasionally respawn in various static locations. All this did was create hotspots where people stand and stare waiting for it to respawn.
What would happen if they made these books spawn in random locations anywhere in Dalaran? Then make similar achievements for ever major city where these books always respawn in random locations in that city? All of a sudden you've made all those empty rooms, and vacant buildings come alive with explorers and scavengers looking for these items.
Now imagine they didn't spawn an object, but an object becomes interactive that already existed in these zones.
Example of Cow Tools influencing the way players interact in your world? Imagine how much deeper you could go using this as a feature instead of a bug.
And imagine how much deeper it could go beyond that if you created a set of mechanics that allows the creation of such objects in a simple manner, that the developers could then populate and replace all static objects with a series of hundreds of cloned sets in addition to quickly generating one off unique collectibles, that can then get seeded anywhere amongst the many other available options.
Give them the same option of seeking out and collecting the unique books, then watch as players scour libraries and make collections, possibly even making their own if the tools were allowed for players, and see just how much more can be done and how much more time can be killed by something so mundane.
Imagine how much deeper you could go by nixing that bug and making things right from the get-go.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
And imagine how much deeper it could go beyond that if you created a set of mechanics that allows the creation of such objects in a simple manner, that the developers could then populate and replace all static objects with a series of hundreds of cloned sets in addition to quickly generating one off unique collectibles, that can then get seeded anywhere amongst the many other available options.
Give them the same option of seeking out and collecting the unique books, then watch as players scour libraries and make collections, possibly even making their own if the tools were allowed for players, and see just how much more can be done and how much more time can be killed by something so mundane.
Imagine how much deeper you could go by nixing that bug and making things right from the get-go.
Right for your game or mine?
We all can't be design geniuses like blizzard. Some of us have to fill in the "niches" when our perceived "rights" turn out to be unpopular.
Rules create boundaries, boundaries limit imagination, imagination is the seed of innovation. I was just giving a different perspective to the "this is bad as a rule".
Nothing excites jaded Grandmasters more than a theoretical novelty
It's bad as a rule because it's a fault in how it is implemented that makes it a one off option that has no ability to change.
My point was that you could design the principles and mechanics of how it's made to not only accommodate the needs of how the developer wishes to implement it, but to allow anyone with access to the tools that make such things to easily apply it to setting up to fulfill any conceivable option that involves that asset rather than having to reinvent things each time you want to do something different.
"Rules create boundaries, boundaries limit imagination, imagination is the seed of innovation."
Existence is rules, what we perceive is the interpolation of such.
You're argument only serves to tinker within a very finite field, mine is to create new data points that not only serve the desired output, but also able to be mixed with other variables within the system to do so much more than it's basic intent.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Maybe he was referring to a library somewhere called google?
EDIT: Please don't mindlessly bash google like that.
You know what I get when I bing for a banana? an acronym
You know what I get when I google for a banana? a banana
I'd say that one off shows google at least knows the obvious well enough where bing automatically jumps to trying to be smarter than the average rock, and consequently fails at it's task.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
My first thought on reading this (even as a Gary Larson fanatic) was: it's annoying when essential elements of your cultural library are someone else's intellectual property? This article doesn't even make sense to the uninitiated without breaking copyright. Pop culture references to elements of MMOs are going to be even more difficult to communicate for the next generation.
But on the subject of cow tools themselves, there are positives and negatives.
In a recent beta, I encountered masses of doors that were non-functional. People didn't go "oh, those doors are decorative". Instead we spent hours and hours trying to find what quest we needed to understake or unlock to be allowed access - to the point that it raised our expectations of an entire subgame based around what content lay beyond those doors. Even at the end of beta, after all the doors had been converted to match our expectations, we were still anxiously waiting for that last patch that would add the "beyond the door" content and affected our opinion of the readiness of the game for release when it didn't appear.
On the other hand, you need to enigmas that get people talking. Some of the best community discussions I've ever seen have grown out of the question "is this a bug or a feature?" MMOs have a risk of there being a point where you feel you know too much - you too clearly see the design and your imagination just abstracts out all the graphics leaving you looking (matrix-like) at the raw code. It can actually improve immersion to have a few cow tools to frustrate and inspire bored people with something to puzzle over.
Many of you misunderstand the point of the post. The problem doesn't lay with a non-functioning tool or door. The problem comes from a well designed and polished tutorial (Tortage anyone?) that doesn't have the same functionality as the rest of the game. When you learn from the tutorial that doors can be opened and items interacted with, then move on to later areas and the doors are fake and the items don't do anything, this causes grief. If in the beginning, a telescope shows the far off coast where loot can be gained, later don't put in telescopes just for scenery. He probably could of made his point more clearly if he didn't bring up wizards as they don't have alot to do with the beginning of his post except that if the first robed, bearded man you come across is a scholar or a wizard, don't later make them ninjas.
Kalathwyr, you remember the killer rabbit in Asheron's Call? The one with 1000 hit points that bit you for 100 or so and always hit? THAT was a Cow Tool, intentionally added to get players to inspect everything.
Remember hunting ground spawns? Or did you do any crafting at all? Lots of spawn that was not...
Remember the Tame Drudge? You COULDN'T kill it....protected Cow Tool. Also intentional.
It's been a long time since I played AC...my favorite was an Alchemist Archer. Never did like the whole Life magic thing. I always thought Life magic was too powerful and it unbalanced the game. Besides, shooting fire arrows over a distance always looked so cool....even in AC's graphics.
How about apples in the apple orchard? You couldn't pick an apple out of a tree, even if it were in your face, but you could pick them up off the ground.
Congratulations, Mr. Webb, I so rarely post. This one hit a nerve. I especially hate icons that look alike, and they are worse when you need several similar varieties.
I remember that particular Larson frame from a Far Side collection book (it also appeared on a desk calendar). In the book he explained it (rather well), but it DID look rather...saturnine...without the explanation.
Originally posted by SnarlingWolf Talk about misplaced anger. It's just a game.
Marbles is just a game. Wack a mole, is just a game. Mmos are experiences. At least, that was the concept. Some things don't bother you, congratulations you have low expectations and a high tolerance for shoddy work. People need to start holding developer's accountable.
10 years of letting them fix/add/patch things in later have taken us from nearly fully interactive and player driven worlds like Ultima Online to this developmental dead end of WoW clone spamming. Veteran Developer's are jumping ship from the mmo genre to make browser based games since that is where the money and innovation is for fucks sakes.
Browser based flash games use to be the kind of things -children- were doing in their free time between high school and soccer practice. Now it's moving to become the industry standard because basic ideas like cow tools are of no consequence. Not to the developers, and not to a large amount of "players".
Kalathwyr, you remember the killer rabbit in Asheron's Call? The one with 1000 hit points that bit you for 100 or so and always hit? THAT was a Cow Tool, intentionally added to get players to inspect everything. Remember hunting ground spawns? Or did you do any crafting at all? Lots of spawn that was not... Remember the Tame Drudge? You COULDN'T kill it....protected Cow Tool. Also intentional.
It's been a long time since I played AC...my favorite was an Alchemist Archer. Never did like the whole Life magic thing. I always thought Life magic was too powerful and it unbalanced the game. Besides, shooting fire arrows over a distance always looked so cool....even in AC's graphics.
How about apples in the apple orchard? You couldn't pick an apple out of a tree, even if it were in your face, but you could pick them up off the ground.
Congratulations, Mr. Webb, I so rarely post. This one hit a nerve. I especially hate icons that look alike, and they are worse when you need several similar varieties.
I remember that particular Larson frame from a Far Side collection book (it also appeared on a desk calendar). In the book he explained it (rather well), but it DID look rather...saturnine...without the explanation.
Aye, I remember the Vicious Rabbit as well as the tame Drudge and the apples. I'm of the opinion all of those brought a little more "something" that made the world special and certainly memorable.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Comments
Finally, a column from this dude without the word "Why" in it. This genre needs answers, brother, not more questions.
I hate being anything other than neutral on forums, but I feel compelled to speak my mind.
I don't quite get the point of this column other than to display your "original gamer status" or working knowledge of terminology and ludicrous jargon. I get that you're "in the biz," so to speak, so surely you can do better than this. This belongs on a facebook wall or personal blog, not a column on a site like this.
Two seconds of my life that will gladly donate ...
Interesting article, and I can definitely relate to this Cow Tools phenomenon. Nothing I hate more than the game equivalent of banging my nose into a door that I expected to open for me. Fallout 3 is a good recent example for me. Lots of unopenable doors in that world, and that's really bad in an RPG. An unopenable door is not easily ignored in an RPG. Questions arise: What's in there? Could there be money or weapons or food in there? Why can't I use my security skill to pick the lock on the door, or blast it open with my Rock-It Launcher? In an action game, it's no big deal. There, doors are just obstacles getting in the way of more action. But in an RPG, the expectation is that doors can be opened to reveal fabulous prizes.
I think a lot of it has to do with your audience. If your goal is to make a game that entertains the largest number of people, you'll find that Blizzards World of Warcraft has plenty "doors to no where".
It really has little or no effect on keeping people subscribing to their game.
In Dalaran they have at least one achievement that is purely based on a person interacting with certain books that occasionally respawn in various static locations. All this did was create hotspots where people stand and stare waiting for it to respawn.
What would happen if they made these books spawn in random locations anywhere in Dalaran? Then make similar achievements for ever major city where these books always respawn in random locations in that city? All of a sudden you've made all those empty rooms, and vacant buildings come alive with explorers and scavengers looking for these items.
Now imagine they didn't spawn an object, but an object becomes interactive that already existed in these zones.
Example of Cow Tools influencing the way players interact in your world? Imagine how much deeper you could go using this as a feature instead of a bug.
And imagine how much deeper it could go beyond that if you created a set of mechanics that allows the creation of such objects in a simple manner, that the developers could then populate and replace all static objects with a series of hundreds of cloned sets in addition to quickly generating one off unique collectibles, that can then get seeded anywhere amongst the many other available options.
Give them the same option of seeking out and collecting the unique books, then watch as players scour libraries and make collections, possibly even making their own if the tools were allowed for players, and see just how much more can be done and how much more time can be killed by something so mundane.
Imagine how much deeper you could go by nixing that bug and making things right from the get-go.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
And imagine how much deeper it could go beyond that if you created a set of mechanics that allows the creation of such objects in a simple manner, that the developers could then populate and replace all static objects with a series of hundreds of cloned sets in addition to quickly generating one off unique collectibles, that can then get seeded anywhere amongst the many other available options.
Give them the same option of seeking out and collecting the unique books, then watch as players scour libraries and make collections, possibly even making their own if the tools were allowed for players, and see just how much more can be done and how much more time can be killed by something so mundane.
Imagine how much deeper you could go by nixing that bug and making things right from the get-go.
Right for your game or mine?
We all can't be design geniuses like blizzard. Some of us have to fill in the "niches" when our perceived "rights" turn out to be unpopular.
Rules create boundaries, boundaries limit imagination, imagination is the seed of innovation. I was just giving a different perspective to the "this is bad as a rule".
Nothing excites jaded Grandmasters more than a theoretical novelty
Right for any and every game.
It's bad as a rule because it's a fault in how it is implemented that makes it a one off option that has no ability to change.
My point was that you could design the principles and mechanics of how it's made to not only accommodate the needs of how the developer wishes to implement it, but to allow anyone with access to the tools that make such things to easily apply it to setting up to fulfill any conceivable option that involves that asset rather than having to reinvent things each time you want to do something different.
"Rules create boundaries, boundaries limit imagination, imagination is the seed of innovation."
Existence is rules, what we perceive is the interpolation of such.
You're argument only serves to tinker within a very finite field, mine is to create new data points that not only serve the desired output, but also able to be mixed with other variables within the system to do so much more than it's basic intent.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Everquest following the idea about the weapons. See a weapon, you get it but not always with the armor.
Google sucks. With Bing I dont need Fu becuase they make it easy. This was the first image.
First image off google too.
Maybe he was referring to a library somewhere called google?
EDIT: Please don't mindlessly bash google like that.
You know what I get when I bing for a banana? an acronym
You know what I get when I google for a banana? a banana
I'd say that one off shows google at least knows the obvious well enough where bing automatically jumps to trying to be smarter than the average rock, and consequently fails at it's task.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
My first thought on reading this (even as a Gary Larson fanatic) was: it's annoying when essential elements of your cultural library are someone else's intellectual property? This article doesn't even make sense to the uninitiated without breaking copyright. Pop culture references to elements of MMOs are going to be even more difficult to communicate for the next generation.
But on the subject of cow tools themselves, there are positives and negatives.
In a recent beta, I encountered masses of doors that were non-functional. People didn't go "oh, those doors are decorative". Instead we spent hours and hours trying to find what quest we needed to understake or unlock to be allowed access - to the point that it raised our expectations of an entire subgame based around what content lay beyond those doors. Even at the end of beta, after all the doors had been converted to match our expectations, we were still anxiously waiting for that last patch that would add the "beyond the door" content and affected our opinion of the readiness of the game for release when it didn't appear.
On the other hand, you need to enigmas that get people talking. Some of the best community discussions I've ever seen have grown out of the question "is this a bug or a feature?" MMOs have a risk of there being a point where you feel you know too much - you too clearly see the design and your imagination just abstracts out all the graphics leaving you looking (matrix-like) at the raw code. It can actually improve immersion to have a few cow tools to frustrate and inspire bored people with something to puzzle over.
Many of you misunderstand the point of the post. The problem doesn't lay with a non-functioning tool or door. The problem comes from a well designed and polished tutorial (Tortage anyone?) that doesn't have the same functionality as the rest of the game. When you learn from the tutorial that doors can be opened and items interacted with, then move on to later areas and the doors are fake and the items don't do anything, this causes grief. If in the beginning, a telescope shows the far off coast where loot can be gained, later don't put in telescopes just for scenery. He probably could of made his point more clearly if he didn't bring up wizards as they don't have alot to do with the beginning of his post except that if the first robed, bearded man you come across is a scholar or a wizard, don't later make them ninjas.
Kalathwyr, you remember the killer rabbit in Asheron's Call? The one with 1000 hit points that bit you for 100 or so and always hit? THAT was a Cow Tool, intentionally added to get players to inspect everything.
Remember hunting ground spawns? Or did you do any crafting at all? Lots of spawn that was not...
Remember the Tame Drudge? You COULDN'T kill it....protected Cow Tool. Also intentional.
It's been a long time since I played AC...my favorite was an Alchemist Archer. Never did like the whole Life magic thing. I always thought Life magic was too powerful and it unbalanced the game. Besides, shooting fire arrows over a distance always looked so cool....even in AC's graphics.
How about apples in the apple orchard? You couldn't pick an apple out of a tree, even if it were in your face, but you could pick them up off the ground.
Congratulations, Mr. Webb, I so rarely post. This one hit a nerve. I especially hate icons that look alike, and they are worse when you need several similar varieties.
I remember that particular Larson frame from a Far Side collection book (it also appeared on a desk calendar). In the book he explained it (rather well), but it DID look rather...saturnine...without the explanation.
Marbles is just a game. Wack a mole, is just a game. Mmos are experiences. At least, that was the concept. Some things don't bother you, congratulations you have low expectations and a high tolerance for shoddy work. People need to start holding developer's accountable.
10 years of letting them fix/add/patch things in later have taken us from nearly fully interactive and player driven worlds like Ultima Online to this developmental dead end of WoW clone spamming. Veteran Developer's are jumping ship from the mmo genre to make browser based games since that is where the money and innovation is for fucks sakes.
Browser based flash games use to be the kind of things -children- were doing in their free time between high school and soccer practice. Now it's moving to become the industry standard because basic ideas like cow tools are of no consequence. Not to the developers, and not to a large amount of "players".
Aye, I remember the Vicious Rabbit as well as the tame Drudge and the apples. I'm of the opinion all of those brought a little more "something" that made the world special and certainly memorable.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez