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How to write Fallout: New Vegas DLC
In a narrative-focused presentation at GDC Online, Obsidian Entertainment creative director Chris Avellone outlined the considerations that went into the development of the four Fallout: New Vegas DLC packs. For one thing, "We had the rare opportunity to know we were actually going to do four of these," unlike most game projects where sequels are not guaranteed, he said.However, they couldn't carry storylines over. "Each one was a very self-contained short experience" by design; each storyline and setting had to exist in isolation from one another, because the team could not assume that any player would own all four packs. That "short experience" adds up to just 10,000 lines of dialogue across all four, Avellone said – a hard maximum. As a result, Avellone and Obsidian had to pad out the dialogue with "trickery" including mute characters who spoke in hand gestures. "We were only able to get away with that for so long," he added.
GDC Online coming to LA, rebranded as App Developers Conference
For the past few years, the Game Developers Conference has held a satellite show in Austin, Texas called GDC Online (and I went there a few years back for TUAW to cover the mobile gaming track). But GDC has announced that this year is the last year it'll do GDC Online in Austin. Starting next year, the conference (which has mostly been about online gaming) is moving to Los Angeles, and will be renamed the App Developers Conference. The event will be co-located with another show called GDC Next (which will apparently feature everything outside of standard mobile app gaming), and both will share an open expo floor. The two events will take place on November 5-7, 2013. Essentially, this all means that GDC is changing its focus for this satellite show, from the originally very popular market of MMOs and online games to the currently very hot market of mobile apps and tablet/smartphone gaming. For the last few years, even the original GDC conference in San Francisco has had a growing focus on mobile gaming (first adding a mobile gaming track and then filling it out to be almost half of the show's content), but this is the biggest change to the conference's lineup yet. Since I am based in LA, we'll plan to have coverage straight from the show next year; no matter what direction this new show takes, you'll be sure to hear about it.
Schubert to dissect Meridian 59 at GDC Online [Updated]
Those darn GDC organizers! They're still using the term postmortem for games that are very much alive. In this case it's Meridian 59, and former lead designer Damion Schubert will take the stage at GDC Online 2012 for a special Classic Game Postmortem lecture focused on the 1996 title. A GDC press release says that Meridian 59 was the first MMO to charge a monthly fee and use 3-D graphics and that it "began an era that set the stage for the MMORPG genre as we know it." Schubert went on to work on titles including Shadowbane, The Sims Online, and Star Wars: The Old Republic. [Source: GDC press release] [Update: Reader Scotty also tipped us off to the fact that M59 is slated to go open source.]
GDC Next coming to LA in 2013
Game Developers Conference organizers have announced that this October's GDC Online will soon be replaced by a new event: GDC Next. The conference will debut alongside the newly created App Developers Conference (ADC) to take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center from November 5-7, 2013. GDC Next focuses on gaming development related to smartphones and tablets as well as social and cloud gaming. The new ADC is dedicated to app technology and development. Attendees will be able to sign up for the individual conferences or take advantage of a special price to attend both. More information can be found on the official sites.
Koster, Blizzard to be honored at GDC Online event
Raph Koster and Blizzard may be polar opposites in terms of design philosophy, but both will take home awards at this year's GDC Online convention. Koster, instrumental in the development of sandbox worlds like Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies, will take home the Online Game Legend Award. Blizzard, which turned the MMO space on its ear via World of Warcraft's resounding financial success, will see its flagship title inducted into the Choice Online Awards Hall of Fame. The ceremonies take place on October 10th in Austin, Texas. Don't forget to cast your vote for the GDC Audience Award prior to September 14th! [Source: GDC press release]
Help your favorite game win the GDC Online Audience Award
GDC Online is coming up fast, and now's your chance to get in on the voting action for the conference's annual Audience Award. Starting today and running through September 14th, fans can vote for their favorite persistent online game and cheer for it as the winner is announced at the show in Austin, Texas on October 10th. Past winners have included League of Legends and Wizard101, and voters may pick from "any currently operating persistent online game, whether it be a subscription MMO, free-to-play web game, social network game, or anything else," according to a GDC press release. More info on the contest, potential nominees, and the voting process is available via the official GDC Online website. [Source: GDC Online press release]
Koster, Vogel, Long headline GDC Online Ultima panel
The 2012 edition of GDC Online is filling out its schedule, and one of the more interesting dev panels is a "classic game postmortem" concerning Ultima Online. While the term postmortem is a bit of a misnomer since the game is still very much alive, the panel features an eclectic mix of dev personalities who helped shape both UO and the industry itself. Original UO team members Starr Long, Rich Vogel, and Raph Koster will discuss how a "combination of insane ambition and idealistic cluelessness can sometimes result in creating something that changes people's lives and the course of an industry," according to the GDC website. If you'll be in Austin, Texas, from October 9th through the 11th, stop by and learn a thing or two about MMOs and the folks who make them.
SWTOR dominates GDC Online Awards nominations
The nominations for the Third Annual GDC Online Awards are up, and Star Wars: The Old Republic is represented across the board. BioWare's sci-fi MMO netted six nominations, including one for Online Innovation. That's not to say that SWTOR is the only MMO in the running; quite the contrary. Glitch is up for Best Online Game Design, World of Warcraft has a shot at Best Community Relations, RIFT is a strong contender for Best Live Game, and TERA might snag Best Online Visual Arts -- and that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's also a broader Audience Award that encompasses an even wider field. 2012's Game Developers Conference Online is taking place from October 9th through 11th and will be keynoted by John Smedley.
GDC Online announces John Smedley for keynote
John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, has been named for the Game Developers' Conference Online's business and marketing track keynote. In light of SOE's recent paradigm shift to focus on the free-to-play model, Smedley will be talking about how F2P is the future of online gaming. He'll run through how SOE managed to transition its games, how that transition has led to record highs in numbers of players and revenue growth, and what's in store for the future of F2P design. Other track's keynote speakers have yet to be announced, but details of other talks are slowly but surely being filled in. More details, including a schedule builder and an up-to-date list of speakers, are available on the GDC Online website.
Enter At Your Own Rift: The big takeaways from GDC
After dining on enough beef brisket to feed an army of hungry cowboys, I returned from Austin's GDC Online to chip away at the Ashes of History world event quests. RIFT had a nice showing at the GDC Online Awards ceremony, walking away with awards for Best Online Technology and Best New Online Game. In addition, Trion CCO and RIFT Executive Producer Scott Hartsman gave a talk about RIFT's pre-launch preparations and post-launch plans. GDC was dominated by a handful of common topics, like free-to-play, metrics, monetization, and technology. In this week's Enter at Your Own Rift, we'll take a look at a few of these to see how they apply to RIFT, and then we'll look at the big takeaways from GDC overall.
The Tattered Notebook: Why EverQuest is a Hall of Fame game
Earlier this week, at GDC Online, EverQuest was inducted into the Hall of Fame. There, up on stage, were about a dozen of the original members of the team. It's remarkable to consider how many games these developers have been a part of since their work on EQ. But in 1999, these were pioneers, scrambling to answer daily questions about what exactly the MMO genre should be. There are a lot of factors that make EverQuest worthy of being inducted to the Hall of Fame, and in this week's Tattered Notebook, we'll look at a few as well as take a larger look at the state of the industry from GDC Online.
GDC Online 2011 hits record attendance
This week's Game Developers Conference Online in Austin, TX finished on a high note yesterday, as it saw record numbers this year: 3,350. This marks a 12% bump over 2010, which is good news for the conference organizers as they start to lay plans for 2012. GDC Online 2011 held over 145 panels, keynotes and discussions and culminated with the Game Developers Choice Online Awards that, among other honors handed out, inducted EverQuest into the Hall of Fame. We've had Massively reporters on the scene at GDC Online 2011 all week long, so if you missed it, it's never too late to catch up on all of the design theory and frank developer talk. GDC Online will be returning to Austin on October 8th, 2012.
GDC Online 2011: A nostalgia trip with the original EverQuest team
This year, GDC Online presented the Hall of Fame award to SOE's classic EverQuest. The game is currently 12 years old, and as legendary presenter Richard Garriott put it, "It perfected the commercial genre" of MMO games. Several members of the original team attended the awards ceremony, and Massively was honored to have a chance to sit and speak with them. Even if you aren't an old school vet, you'll enjoy this trip down memory lane with Brad McQuaid, John Smedley, and the rest of the team. Read on for highlights from the interview.
GDC Online 2011: Raph Koster speaks on the gamification of real life
Raph Koster spoke at the recently concluded GDC Online 2011, and if the summary on Gamasutra is any indication, his message was somewhat mixed. Unsurprisingly, the former sandbox maestro (and current social gaming evangelist) had a lot of positive things to say about Facebook. On the other hand, he said that going too far down the accessibility road can lead to "bad art." He also opined that "design is about constraining people," but that games still have the potential for player creativity, and that Facebook has more user-generated content than games or virtual worlds. If you're confused yet, you're not alone, as Koster also mentioned something about wizards, magic circles, and his belief that the world is becoming more game-like (and thus there's no one better to shape it than game developers). "Let's watch out not to let the pointsification and rulesification, quantification, and reductionism that we have always loved about what we do -- let's not let that change who we are," Koster said. Check out his notes and slides from the talk via his blog, linked below.
GDC Online 2011: RIFT's Scott Hartsman on surviving and thriving in today's MMO climate
Recently, we took time to look back on the past six months of RIFT's milestones, and this year at GDC Online, Trion CCO and RIFT Executive Producer Scott Hartsman sat down for a question-and-answer session to do the same thing. While we've seen the results of Trion's post-launch efforts, Hartsman gave a candid glimpse at what was going on behind the scenes as the team finished up beta and moved toward launch day. He took questions from N'Gai Croal, as well as from the audience, and highlights from the interview follow after the break.
GDC Online 2011: SWTOR's Georg Zoeller on analyzing in-game feedback
Star Wars the Old Republic is rapidly approaching its launch date, and questions constantly pop up about what the game will be like. Some longtime MMO veterans are even a bit skeptical about whether BioWare will be able to release a game of this scope in a finished state. At this year's GDC Online Principal Lead Combat Designer Georg Zoeller demonstrated some of the tools that the team uses to analyze player feedback and data, and then he explained how, through sophisticated technology, the team can make appropriate adjustments to the game as it wraps up beta testing and prepares for launch.
GDC Online 2011: CCP talks community management
As we all know, every MMO has its share of crises. They can range from an unpopular game nerf to bugged content to full-out server meltdown. Ironically, CCP Community Manager Valerie Massey submitted her plans for a GDC Online talk the day before, as she put it, "all hell broke loose at CCP." From that point on, the devs "were out of the frying pan and into the fire" over and over. In all, Monoclegate and the Incarna problems were two months of one PR disaster after another. When it comes to crisis management, she stressed that it's not an exact science, that it's hard to pick apart post-analyses, and that one CM's experience is very different from another. She chose to use Tylenol as a key example of correct response to crisis. Back in 1982, a killer inserted cyanide into Tylenol bottles, thus murdering several people. Tylenol wasn't at fault, but the company reacted correctly by pulling all bottles from the shelves, recalling the product, adding tamper-resistant packaging, and discounting prices after the fact. The company's quick action restored the trust of the consumers. Who did it wrong? BP. That company shirked responsibility, waited two days before making a statement, lied about the extent of the damage, and failed to execute a clear clean-up plan fast enough. In a crisis, whether it's in game or in real life, the key is to prepare in advance.
GDC Online 2011: BioWare's Damion Schubert takes a wrecking ball to the casual vs. hardcore model
"I'm trying to finish a product, Star Wars: The Old Republic, which I am not going to talk about today." Thus began BioWare's Damion Schubert's seminar, Double Coding: Making Online Games for Both the Casual and the Hardcore, at this year's GDC Online. "This is more of a weary man, sort of stream-of-consciousness design theory talk." Schubert wanted to call the talk "Moving Beyond Double Coding," which is a term that comes from cartoons, of all places. Double coding is content that reaches two different groups of people at the same time. Looney Tunes, for example, would entertain both adults and kids because the writers and animators designed it so. With MMOs, Schubert says that devs are often trying to double code the games for both casual and hardcore players. This is where the well-known slogan "easy to play, hard to master" originates. He held up Blizzard as a primary example of this model. Blizzard's "donut," as Schubert calls it, has a casual outer ring and a hardcore center for both types of players. By double coding, Blizzard ensures that casual players can invite their hardcore friends to experience the game and vice-versa. However, this model is faltering, and Schubert pinpoints why after the jump!
GDC Online 2011: KingsIsle's Sara Jensen Schubert talks RPG math
I'm sure many of us have wondered how game developers decide upon item stats, experience amounts, damage per second, and all of the other numbers that we come across in our favorite games. Actually, it might sound more like, "Why the heck is my uber sword of uberness only doing X amount of damage?!" At GDC Online this week, Sara Jensen Schubert gave a rare glimpse into the math behind MMORPGs. She has worked on games like Shadowbane and DC Universe Online and is now a lead designer at KingsIsle Entertainment. Her background and focus is a traditional RPG viewpoint, and she builds from there to go through the process of designing and building stats, character attributes, experience rewards, the leveling curve, and itemization. While her talk is aimed at those in the industry, it offers a unique perspective into what goes into those stats behind our gear and why it takes us so long to level up. Read on for highlights from the presentation.
GDC Online 2011: Riot Games' Travis S. George talks game production
Gamasutra has its hands on a new interview with Riot Games' lead producer Travis S. George, straight from GDC Online 2011. In the interview, George goes into the finer points of game production and outlines five habits into which producers can find themselves falling if they aren't careful. These habits are things like writing down tasks and documentation or resolving all conflicts; in sum, they're all things that sound harmless, or even benevolent. George warns that the true danger comes when the five habits are combined, like some kind of bizarro-game-production-Captain-Planet. It's a truly interesting piece for anyone interested in game production or design, and let's be honest: There are worse people to learn from than the lead producer of Riot Games. For the full technical details, click on over to the full article.
