gdc-2009
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Mega64 punches people, makes out at IGF Awards
If you thoroughly enjoyed Mega64's video shenanigans at last year's Independent Games Festival Awards show, brace yourselves for round two. This year's IGF Awards featured a pair of clips from the comedic quartet, both of which you can find posted after the jump.The first video is aptly titled IF YOU'RE NOT INDIE, F**K YOU, and features a bunch of people getting punched in the face, except The Behemoth co-founder Dan Paladin, who is, as legend tells us, unpunchable. The second video, Topher Great Payens: "The GDC" (an homage to the equally unsettling Shine on Me by renowned musician Chris Dane Owens) is, well, extremely bizarre. Or extremely arousing. We haven't decided yet.
GDC09 interview: OnLive founder Steve Perlman, continued
You didn't think that was it, right? Following up on part 1 of our interview with sounds-too-good-to-be-true cloud gaming platform OnLive's Steve Perlman from yesterday comes ... part 2! In our final installment, we ask about bandwidth caps, cable box integration, DLC, server cost, privacy concerns, second-hand sales, classic games, and more! Don't believe us? We know, Steve Perlman wants you to be skeptical, but read on!Joystiq: So you're working with developers. Say you're working with Ubisoft on Prince of Persia, is that Prince of Persia the same exact Prince of Persia that would be on the PC? Are they changing parts of the game and if so what are they changing? What are the differences?Steve Perlman: It's the exact same Prince of Persia and the only things that are being changed are really externalities like, you know, if you pick up a controller we've got to recognize the buttons the right away. For example, you can't change the resolution to anything other than HD, but even if OnLive figures out that your speed or your connection is too low and they've got to make it small screen, it still runs in HD and anybody who's spectated you sees you in HD; or if you do a Brag clip it saves in HD. So, we don't want you to changing the resolution. So, there's a couple of switches to turn off. We don't want you to bring up the Windows dialogue box for saving games. I don't know about that particular game, but some games, it actually shows the Windows so that you can navigate through the hierarchy for saving games. You know, we've to disable those kinds of things. The actual gameplay is the same.Then you were talking about something like FIOS for example, that really improves the experience?It doesn't improve the experience; it just lets you go further away from the service center.%Gallery-48395%
GDC09: Spending time with the cruise director of Azeroth
At GDC09, we got to talk with many people and listened to a variety of panels on all aspects of game design. But there was little doubt as to which panel attracted loads of attention -- the Jeff Kaplan panel on quest design in World of Warcraft.Warcraft has come extremely far in terms of their UI design and quest implementation since the game launched back in 2004. Just between 2007 and 2009, Kaplan revealed that over 8,570,222,436 quests have been completed, while the daily average was 16,641,409. With those numbers in place, it's safe to say that World of Warcraft players are driven by their questing.Kaplan's panel revealed a few tricks of the trade, as well as his beliefs regarding questing, so without further adieu let's get into the meat of his panel.%Gallery-49071%
GDC09: Spending time with the cruise director of Azeroth pt. 2
Mistakes of World of Warcraft Kaplan was quick to note that Warcraft was far from perfect, and he wanted to highlight some of his own mistakes inside of the design. The first mistake was the idea of the "Christmas tree effect," otherwise known as having so many quests in a quest hub that the minimap lights up with exclamation points like a Christmas tree. While players enjoy this, Kaplan wanted to say that the developer loses call control over the player at these points, as the player will not read any quest text in their clicking frenzy. There's no control over what quest leads into what or which order the player will do the quests in. The second was the internet adage of "too long, didn't read." Quest designers don't need to write a book to get their point across with the quests. He brought up that video games had a type of "medium envy," where sometimes they get too preachy with their topics. Games should be fun first, story second. Mystery also falls in this category. The story can provide mystery, but the quest log should never have any mystery to it. The quest log should always point where to go and what to do, but the overall story of those quests may provide some solution to some mystery. Also avoid poorly placed quest chains, like the Chains of Myzrael questline in Arathi Highlands. The Myzrael line was hard to find, ended up spanning 14 levels, and ended with killing an elite mob that was level 44. This quest line was a "brick wall" according to Kaplan, because most players never stuck with it. It's good to have quest chains that span content, but quest chains like this break down trust the player has with the developer. When the player runs into a chain that he can't finish with a monster he can't kill, the player loses trust in the developer's sense of guiding them to fun. He also emphasized to avoid inserting "gimmick quests." His example here was part of the Oculus dungeon where players ride on dragons. These types of quests center around doing something the client may not be able to properly handle. Warcraft was not designed to accommodate vehicles. When developers resort to putting in parts of the game that center around a gimmick, it can detract from the fun of the rest of the game. The horror of collection quests Kaplan's speech ended with an analysis of why people hate collection quests so much, and a few tips on how to make collection quests into a better experience. His problems with the quests stemmed from three areas -- dense creature population, too few of a creature to kill, and having a wide variety of items required for the quest. Having a dense creature population can put off people, especially when there's a lack of the monster required for the quest. If someone has to kill four lions for every one raptor required for the quest, then there's a problem. His other point was that collection quests shouldn't require an insane amount of items. To everyone's amusement, he brought up the Green Hills of Stranglethorn quest chain (a chain he wrote) as the exact thing a designer should never do. Collection quests should be an easily obtainable number of items, and not such a long grind fest with the hope that your required item might drop. Lastly, never have the player question why they're collecting the item required -- it should be clear from the onset. Kaplan brought up the infamous gnoll paw collecting quests, in which gnolls may or may not drop paws upon death, where obviously a gnoll has four paws and not a number between 0 and 1 (which everyone applauded at loudly). Quests should make sense and not become a gimmick in their own right. This causes the player to once again, lose trust. Most of these points that Kaplan has brought up pertain to Warcraft, but can easily be applied to any game on the market. With all of this in mind, perhaps we'll get to see some better design in our MMOs from other developers, now that we're all on the same page... of the Green Hills of Stranglethorn.
Reggie: No plans to reveal DSi-enhanced software until after launch
NOA president Reggie Fils-Aime spoke with MTV Multiplayer about the DSi and the GDC announcement of DSi-exclusive and DSi-enhanced software. Though Nintendo isn't making specific announcements about hybrid games until after the system is in stores -- "It would be reasonable to talk about that after we've launched" -- Reggie believes that the majority of DS software will either not take advantage of the DSi's features or be hybrid. "Why? One hundred-million installed base of DS. Developers are going to want to leverage that installed base and yet they'll want to provide extra content via the features of the DSi, like the camera. That's my expectation as to how it will play out."Reggie also offered impressions of his hands-on time with The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, providing a slight gameplay detail: "You do more in tracking and outlining. We showed it in the trailer. You move [an extra] character to a spot in order to unlock puzzles. I really like that." He responded only "Wouldn't that be nice?" when asked if Spirit Tracks would be DSi-enhanced.%Gallery-48535%
Take-Two files trademark for 'Irrational Boston'
The clues have been building up and it appears that 2K Boston may be changing its name to Irrational Boston, the original name of the development studio (albeit now with a location tacked on to the name). The information comes by way of a trademark registration (via superannuation) filed by parent company and publisher Take-Two Interactive, not to mention shirts we spotted 2K Boston employees wearing at GDC last week.Little is known about how the name change will affect the development studio but we are prone to wild speculation. So let's begin! Is it a sister studio inside 2K Boston? Is it to spin off 2K development studios under the "Irrational" name? And what does this mean for the other half of the original Irrational Games that's now named "2K Australia?" The official word from 2K Boston as of this morning was, "No comment," but we should expect to hear something "very soon." We'll update this post as news comes in.[Via superannuation]
Industry professionals having trouble finding work
Things are tough all over, and after months of industry cutbacks and studio closures, a number of video game professionals have been left holding the bag in one hand and a pink slip in the other. While last week's Game Developers Conference gave many jobless developers the opportunity to hand out resumes, a new report from the LA Times writes that many are still having a difficult time finding work.One issue is that with so many industry professionals pounding the streets, studios have their pick of talent. According to the Times, Ray Miller, an exec at Crackdown dev Realtime Words, collected a shopping bag full of resumes from job seekers at GDC, commenting, "We've been so busy talking to people that we haven't even touched our lunches." Still, as ECA blog GameCulture points out, all is not doom and gloom for those still on the outside, and with game sales in the US showing a steady increase so far in 2009 there is reason to hope that the recently unemployed will be able to find work soon. Then again, they could just start up their own company instead. That's working out alright for some of the downturn's victims so far.[Via GameCulture] [Image]
GDC09 interview: OnLive founder Steve Perlman wants you to be skeptical
Early last week, a new gaming startup was announced, kicking off GDC with an immense focus on "cloud computing" and, specifically, "cloud gaming." Everywhere you turned, people were talking about OnLive. "Can it be done?" or "Sounds too good to be true." You may have heard some of this debate on our podcast or in the comments on our announcement post. We gathered up a lot of that skepticism and barged into Steve Perlman's office (read: the OnLive booth) and demanded answers. The interview was quite long, so we'll be bringing it to you over three days, beginning ... now: Joystiq: So OnLive ...Steve Perlman: Yeah!First, congrats on the launch ...Thank you.Everybody's asking, "What's going on at GDC? What's the thing this year?" You know, it's not LittleBigPlanet this year and it's not Gears of War 2. I think the biggest thing at the show, in terms of buzz, in terms of coverage, has to be OnLive. So, congratulations on that. Thanks.But there's a second side to that buzz story. Everyone's talking about it, but they're all saying the same thing: "Yeah, it sounds really good, but ... it also sounds like magic."Uh-huh.%Gallery-48489%
More than 17,000 people attended GDC 2009
How much did limiting the number of press invites affect the total attendance of the 2009 Game Developers Conference? By about 1,000 people, according to a press release from organizer Think Services. This year's GDC hosted "more than 17,000 game industry professionals," down from last year's 18,000. Ask any of the Joystiq GDC 2009 Squad, and we're sure they'll tell you that 17,000 people feels like plenty.Next year's GDC will again take place in San Francisco's Moscone Center, from March 9 to March 13.
GDC09: WAR interview with Paul Barnett and Jeff Skalski
Massively's very own Shawn Schuster had a chance to catch up with Warhammer Online Creative Director Paul Barnett and RvR Producer Jeff Skalski at GDC 2009. They chatted about the recent player (re)acquisition campaign, server merges, Land of the Dead, and much more.There has been a strong push to attract new and ex-players to Warhammer recently. Are we witnessing the rebirth of WAR?Skalski: The title of our live expansion arc is Call to Arms and this has meaning both inside and outside the game. Outside, we have the recruit-a-friend program, free trial, and retrial. We are trying to make potential players aware of all the improvements we have made to performance, game mechanics, bugs, etc.. We are heavily focused on this free live expansion and have no immediate desire to release a boxed expansion.
GDC09: Paul Barnett and Jeff Skalski interview (part 3)
Massively's very own Shawn Schuster had a chance to catch up with Warhammer Online Creative Director Paul Barnett and RvR Producer Jeff Skalski at GDC 2009. They chatted about the recent player (re)acquisition campaign, server merges, Land of the Dead, and much more.What can we expect to see with the new Tomb Kings content? Barnett: Crazy egyptians Warhammer style! It's like the Powerslave album cover by Iron Maiden has come to life in the Warhammer world. Tomb Kings are the dry undead, unlike the wet undead you get in the Empire like ghouls, zombies, and vampires. These are the dry undead, like mummies, skeletons, dusty bone giants, and liches. They're bringing their casket of souls and lots of sand with them. Players will see new developments on how PQs are done and an excellent system for how you get armor sets. We will have phenominal big dungeons in the same vein of Lost Vale (same team). End-level baddies like you wouldn't believe. They're doing things people haven't seen in these sort of games. Sequences where you go down corridors and encounter traps you will have to disable. You can then re-enable them to work against your enemies. Skalski: This is our successor to Darkness Falls. We're pretty excited about it. You really seem to support your fansites by interacting with them in interesting ways (e.g., sending them exclusive images on memory sticks or DVDs with cryptic timestamps). How did this idea come about and will it continue? Barnett: There's definitely more to come and it has nothing to do with evil marketing either. All the efforts have been self-generated by our production team coming up with cooky and crazy ideas all by themselves. That said, marketing is great at knowing a good thing when they see it. They have jumped in on the new one we're about to do. It's an example of our internal love affair with the game and showing that to the players. What we're doing for Land of the Dead is going to be just as fun and silly. It one might have a bit of a marketing flavor because we've been given more leeway and support from them, but it's still coming from fanatical people in the company who are huge fans of the game. << Part two
GDC09: Paul Barnett and Jeff Skalski interview (part 2)
Massively's very own Shawn Schuster had a chance to catch up with Warhammer Online Creative Director Paul Barnett and RvR Producer Jeff Skalski at GDC 2009. They chatted about the recent player (re)acquisition campaign, server merges, Land of the Dead, and much more. How have the server splits and now merges worked out for you? Barnett: It has been good because the game is based around RvR - it's a critical mass game. WAR flourishes and blossoms when the game does things players want it to do, which is mainly group RvR combat. A decision was made early on to limit server queues by opening additional servers. It was right in the short term but caused caustic harm to critical mass over time. Servers with high populations had stronger retention and player enjoyment was much higher. In hindsight, we should have had less servers to start with. Why do you think fans enjoy your Live Events so much? Barnett: The live arcs are there to show that the game is alive and well, that we've got a dedicated team working on it, that we continue to make iterative improvements based on player feedback, and that we're willing to add new features at no extra cost. They just make the game feel better. In some cases it's us meeting past promises, and in other cases we're trying to develop and blossom the game's possibilities. We wrap them up in story arcs to give them a tone, feel, and texture.What kind of feedback are you getting on the Slayer and Choppa? Skalski: Everyone was extremely excited to see the Slayer. The best feedback came from people who enjoy playing simple roles in RvR - people who like to go into a fight with two axes and do lots of damage without worrying too much about a complex mechanic. Barnett: Most people are going through the usual dial face of player response. Some people think they're underpowered. Some people think they're overpowered. Some people don't think they were ever tested in the first place. Some think they were tested well. The choppa is more powerful than the slayer. The slayer is more powerful than the choppa. All that kind of stuff! << Part one Part three >>
GDC09: Tinkering around with Neo Steam and Atlus Online
The World of Gatheryn isn't the only steampunk MMO on the block this year at GDC09. While Gatheryn certainly appeals to the Victorian steampunk crowd, Atlus Online's upcoming MMO Neo Steam will be bringing in those who like more fantasy mixed in with their brass and gear-driven inventions.Atlus may be a newcomer to the world of MMOs, but they're proving that they're no newbies with their initial offering. Our look into Neo Steam was quite informative and surprising, especially considering that this will be the second time Neo Steam will be releasing in North America. Atlus is putting a large amount of effort into making Neo Steam resonate with North American audiences, and not just putting out a rehash of the same game you've already seen.
GDC09: How HeroEngine revolutionizes MMORPG game design
Let's be frank, MMOs are a pain in the rear to design. You have large teams working collaboratively to build huge expanses of terrain, hundreds upon thousands of objects in the world that players can interact with, server architecture to worry about, and even more in-depth things that the standard player may not even notice or consider.But if you've been on the site recently and have been checking out our coverage of the GDC, then you may have heard us and developers talking excitedly about HeroEngine, the new MMO developing tool from Simutronics. HeroEngine is powering games like The World of Gatheryn and this funny Star Wars game from those BioWare people, as well as other companies that haven't announced their new projects as of yet.So why is HeroEngine so amazing? Well, we got the inside scoop straight from Simutronics as we visited their booth at the GDC.
GDC09: G.I. Joe impressions
click to enlarge It's always troubling when you're not allowed to actually play a game due out within a couple months. Such was the case with our GDC demo of EA's G.I. Joe: the Game. Sure, we could pretty much gather everything we needed to know about the canonical sequel to the film (yep, we guess COBRA isn't defeated) from watching two people play it, but, c'mon.So, here's what we saw while being fed dozens of bullet points. Two Joes (out of a total 12) run forward through (in this case) desert and snow-covered environments. The play mechanics actually weren't as brutally simple as we'd expected -- there's a melee attack and charged melee attack that add to the "fire" button. Players can strafe, concentrating fire on the same enemy as your partner kills them faster (oh really?) ... and it looks like an up-rezzed PS2 or Xbox game. Still, there were bits that should please G.I. Joe diehards -- but those couldn't get us over the fact that this isn't a PSN/XBLA title and is, in fact, a (likely much more expensive) retail release on PS3 and Xbox 360. (It's coming out for everything, by the way.)%Gallery-47599%
GDC09: Boom Blox Bash Party hands-on
click to enlarge A couple of years back, Steven Spielberg picked up the phone and called EA. After absolutely no time on hold, he told (insert random executive here) all about his idea for a Wii game about throwing blocks at other blocks. Although it had received similar proposals in the past -- mostly from third-graders -- the mega-publisher immediately drafted up a contract and made Steve a bona-fide game designer. That, dear readers, is how the original -- and now classic -- Boom Blox came to be. Well, more or less.Mr. Spielberg is once again credited on the sequel, Boom Blox Bash Party, though we're pretty sure he didn't have to go to similar extremes to get it made. Anyway, for whatever reason, the dev team decided to build a new level editor -- the same one that's in the game for players to use -- and design all its levels with the thing. Oh, and set it underwater and in outer space, for starters.%Gallery-43419%
GDC09: Gameloft's DSiWare plans include popstar, soccer simulators
Even though Nintendo has been tight-lipped about its DSiWare plans, Gameloft showed us a couple titles it has coming to the system during GDC last week.Although Gameloft wouldn't show us Assassin's Creed or its other iPhone titles, it did showcase two titles currently underway for Nintendo's new DS revision. Wannabe pop stars will have a chance to climb the social ladder in the adventure/mini-game American Popstar: Road to Celebrity, while footy fans will get to flex their sports-sim muscle in Real Soccer 2009. The ESRB also lists both titles as rated for the Nintendo DS, which either means the pair will see a retail release for non-DSi adopters or that it's an overlap measure on the ESRB's side. Either way, mobile pop stars and cellular soccer players are coming to the DS ... um, yay?
Dead Rising 2 multiplayer not confirmed, Capcom says
Just like every other year, GDC in 2009 brought with it a bevy of new information (and the ubiquitous Pat Benatar rumor). And unfortunately, during the rush to post information, it's easy for publishing outlets (including ourselves) to mishear something, misconstrue a piece of information and/or not have time to follow up with the information source. So when Jeff Haynes of IGN heard Laura Scholl of middleware developer mental mill on a Dead Rising 2 panel speaking about "6000 characters onscreen during multiplayer sessions," he reported on the piece of information just as he heard it.Unfortunately for Mr. Haynes though, Laura Scholl apparently misspoke. We contacted mental mill this morning for comment on the quote -- a quote that would ostensibly confirm an unnannounced mode for Dead Rising 2, mind you -- and Loretta Stevens told us that she was present at the panel when Ms. Scholl misspoke, saying, "She meant multiplatform." And so we went one step further and contacted Chris Kramer at Capcom to find out what he had to say about all of this: "Here's how it is: I believe what one person says about this project, Inafune-san. I don't know anything about this middleware provider." When we asked him straight up if the game will have multiplayer or not, he had this to say, "We have not announced much about the game at this point," remaining clandestine on the subject altogether. So while Dead Rising 2 may contain some form of multiplayer, as of right now, it's officially not confirmed.UPDATE: Laura Scholl has contacted us with further clarification of her statement, writing, "In my 'Making of Dead Rising 2' presentation at GDC this past Friday, while I was describing how Blue Castle is using mental mill technology in character development, I mistakenly referred to the game as multiplayer instead of multiplatform. I apologize for the confusion. The game is indeed multiplatform, and Blue Castle has done an amazing job creating incredibly photorealistic characters – from their skin tone to their clothing – in heavily populated and complex levels throughout the game. Gamers are going to be thrilled with how the game feels, looks and plays."
GDC09: Dexter hands-on (iPhone)
A light drama about a heroic serial killer may not seem like the most natural fit for a game adaptation, but Marc Ecko VP Marc Fernandez couldn't ignore the opportunity as he watched Dexter.Fernandez told us at GDC that he felt like the show was almost set up like a game, with the titular murderer researching each kill, setting them up and finally executing on the mission. It's madness, sure. But, as in any good game, there are rules.%Gallery-46227%
GDC09: Wolfenstein hands-on
During our Activision GDC preview, we got a closer looks at id Sofware's Wolfenstein reboot and the game's supernatural aspect, "the Veil" -- or as we like to call it, "turning on the HUD." This new Wolfenstein features mystical powers that are learned during the course of the game and activated through the d-pad or button combos. It's an element that's fairly common in many games today, but it's still the only feature of Wolfenstein that makes it anything more than a ho-hum World War II shooter.The drawbacks we noted in our Comic Con preview are still present in the current build, especially the poor enemy AI. There were times when enemies were clearly looking at us and tracking our movements, yet weren't firing their guns. It was almost as if they were saying, "Just go ahead and shoot us. We're Nazis. We deserve it."%Gallery-48833%
