gdc-2013
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Halo 4 as a love story: The personal origins of Cortana's breakdown
The Halo universe's sentient artificial intelligence programs – smart AIs – have a limited lifespan. After seven years, they begin to break down, acting irrationally and eventually thinking themselves to death. This process is known as Rampancy and closely resembles humanity's own end-of-life conditions such as dementia. In Halo 4, the rampancy of Master Chief's personal AI, Cortana, serves as a central element of the story, putting the Chief in a desperate bid to save the life of his longtime companion.Speaking during a Halo 4 postmortem at GDC, 343 Industries franchise creative director, Josh Holmes, revealed that telling such an emotional story within the confines of a first-person shooter was no easy task. "At the beginning of our campaign in Halo 4, Cortana is 8 years old, and she's struggling to keep hold of her mental faculties," said Holmes, "and the Chief is faced for the first time with an obstacle that he may not be able to overcome." He's charged not only with saving the galaxy, but with saving his best friend. It was a radically different direction for a Halo game, and one that was difficult for the team. "There was a lot of skepticism from members of the team [about] whether this was something we should even take on.""Early on, [senior writer Chris Schlerf] was having a crisis of confidence. He was literally tearing his hair out, because he didn't know how to tell this story," said Holmes. "There were times when he came to me, and he said, 'Maybe we shouldn't do it. Maybe we should just focus on the A story and put this story aside, because I don't see how we're going to be able to tell it.'" But for Holmes, telling the story of the relationship between Chief and Cortana was very important. It was "the human heart of Halo 4's campaign." And, as Holmes soon revealed, some of the inspiration for Cortana's breakdown came from a very personal place.%Gallery-184626%
Raph Koster is open to making another 'worldy MMO'
On his personal blog, Raph Koster announced that he has left Disney to become an unemployed game developer. The big question is, of course, what's next for the driving force behind Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies. The answer is... he doesn't know. However, Koster does indicate that he is open to working on another traditional MMO, but not one born of Kickstarter. "I suspect that those of you who want this all want me to make a worldy MMO," he writes. "I may yet make one of those in the future, but I don't think that you can raise enough money on Kickstarter to do it justice." Koster says that he might be doing some consulting, writing, and speaking, but what he wants to do most is to "simply start making games." He claims that GDC inspired him to get back into the game-making business, big-time. He also says contrary to some rumors, he is not working with Richard Garriott on Shroud of the Avatar.
Tank Tactics: The prototype that almost ruined Halfbrick
After Fruit Ninja was finished, the guys at Halfbrick spent almost two years shipping updates. Finally ready to do something new, Halfbrick started doing prototypes. It would be a simple game that everyone at Halfbrick could play competitively.This is when Tank Tactics was conceived. Halfbrick chief creative officer Luke Muscat showed off the first version, made of graph paper and little paper squares, at GDC. He quietly set up the game in a corner of the Halfbrick offices, gave everyone an action point and went back to his desk. Three hours later, commotion ensued – the entire game board was a graveyard.
Graeme Devine takes off with Rocket Patrol
Graeme Devine is a veteran game developer (he created The 7th Guest and then worked on Quake 3 and Halo Wars) who's turned his attention to iOS recently, putting together touch-based games meant for gamers of all ages. His latest title, which I got to see at GDC 2013 last week, is a board/card game called Rocket Patrol that runs on Apple's touchscreens. The game involves two players (you can play against the computer or asynchronously online), and has you running a rocket ship across the galaxy, trying to complete your journey before your opponent does. During each turn of the game, you get access to a hand of cards that you can play one from. Distance cards are how you win the game: Each player has a little chart of cards with various distances on them that you need to fill up, so you need to play eight cards of five light years, four of 15 and so on. As you play those cards, the chart fills up, and the first person to fill up their chart sends a rocket all the way across the screen and wins the game. Just racing would be a bit too simple, so Rocket Patrol also has red and green cards of various types. Red cards attack the other player (perhaps by sending them through a warp hole or causing some engine trouble), and then they need to play a green card to fix whatever problem you've given them. Certain green cards match up with certain red cards, so if there's a problem card on your ship, you need exactly the right green card to fix it. That's how the game goes back and forth, with the two players trying to play distance cards in between attacking each other and solving problems they've been attacked with. Devine says he got the idea for a game from an old 1906 automobile board game called Touring, but of course he's translated it to a journey across the stars. Rocket Patrol seems like some good clean fun -- and it's due out sometime this month. It'll be free to play, with some freemium elements in there for in-app purchase. Devine is also working on his very popular Full Deck Solitaire game -- he says the title "by and large is our number one platform," and that the game has reached a whopping 750,000 daily active users so far (with about four million downloads total). He's working on an Android version, thinking about bringing the game to Kindle Fire, and says players have asked for a PC version as well. Devine originally built that game just for his own family to play, so it's fascinating to hear that it's grown so big since its release a while ago.
GDC 2013: World of Warplanes keeps flying toward the horizon
World of Warplanes is still in testing, but it's been playable at a few events now and has staked its claim as a distinct entity from World of Tanks. Wargaming.net's CEO Victor Kislyi and global operations director Vlad Beloserov were at GDC recently showing off more highlights from the game, which promises to deliver exactly the sort of high-energy dogfights you would hope for. As it stands now, the game has about 10 maps and 100 planes. Each of the planes can be fully customized, while each map is meant to play differently rather than just being different background scenery -- some maps are foggy, some have skyscrapers or mountains, some are set at different times of day, and so forth. Actual gameplay has continued to receive polish tweaks; the game retains both easy and expert control modes, with the latter playing more like a flight simulator and the former allowing you to simply point your mouse in the direction you want to fly. Enemy planes and your own can be riddled with holes that show the sky through your shredded wings, and the UI allows you to track your plane's optimal speed and altitude to maximize performance in combat. One extra tidbit revealed on the show floor was that players of both World of Tanks and World of Warplanes can reap extra benefits from both games, as experience earned in the former can be used to improve in the latter. While there's no set release date for the game at this time, the game continues to impress and will be flying into more open testing as soon as Wargaming.net's teams are happy with its performance in smaller test venues. %Gallery-130862% Massively sent its ace reporters to San Francisco to bring you back the biggest MMO news from this year's GDC, the largest pro-only gaming industry con in the world! Whether it's EVE Online or Star Wars: The Old Republic or that shiny new toy you've got your eye on, we're on the case, so stay tuned for all the highlights from the show!
GDC 2013 breaks attendance record, GDC 2014 starts March 17
You might still be exhausted from GDC 2013 (or asleep!), but don't forget to mark your calendar for March 17-21 next year just as soon as you can summon the energy to drag your mouse all the way to that browser tab. That's the date for GDC 2014. The call for submissions happens this summer, so you still have time to come up with your talk, or work on the game you want to show off.Chances are, you'll be able to rant and/or demonstrate to more people than ever. This year's GDC broke an attendance record with approximately 23,000 "industry professionals," up 500 from GDC 2012's record-breaking attendance.
Deepworld now available on the Mac App Store
Deepworld is a game that I've been covering since last year's GDC, when the three guys running the game came to tell me that they were putting together a 2D, multiplayer online sandbox title, in the same vein as Minecraft but with a steampunk twist. Last year, the game launched on Mac, and then it arrived on iOS. The latest news, as relayed to me by Bytebin at last week's GDC, is that the game is now out on the Mac App Store for free. Obviously, as the game was already available on the Mac, this isn't necessarily a big thing for current owners of the title. But being on the Mac App Store will provide some more exposure for the team, and make it easier for them to put out updates, of which there have been plenty. During our quick talk at GDC, Bytebin showed me one of their latest features, a "butler bot" you can build in the game that will dig out part of the game world for you, and perform various other commands (provided you can collect the resources to design and build it). There are lots of other systems and items they've included as well, and being on the Mac App Store will let them push any future updates out quickly and easily. Next up, they're working on building in even more functionality, including player-run guilds and even some player-vs.-player features. The team also wants to build out more goals and quests to chase after in the game, so we can look for that kind of thing coming soon. Bytebin also shared with me that they've got about 1,000 daily active users these days, which isn't a huge number but does mean that there's a solid player base there. In total, the game has about 40,000 players, and being available through the Mac App Store should help them find some more fans. Deepworld continues to be a very impressive title, and the team is clearly working hard on keeping it running and filled with new content.
Overheard@GDC: 'Thanks for your question.'
Speaking at a Halo 4 GDC panel (there were a lot of them), 343 Industries franchise creative director Josh Holmes spent some time discussing the game's story, specifically that of the relationship between Master Chief and Cortana. We asked a question during the Q&A period – the only question, really. Head past the break to find out what it was, and how Holmes responded, but be warned that it involves a major spoiler.
Leaderboard: Which convention reveal excited you the most?
So March's gaming convention madness is in our rearview mirror (although some coverage is still trickling in during the early part of this week). There were plenty of big reveals and plenty of smaller details, too, and chances are there was something that caught your eye from our GDC and PAX East coverage over the past two weeks. For today's Leaderboard, let's pit a few of the noteworthy reveals against one another to see which game excited the Massively commentariat the most. Vote after the cut. Ever wish that you could put to rest a long-standing MMO debate once and for all? Then welcome to the battle royal of Massively's Leaderboard, where two sides enter the pit o' judgment -- and only one leaves. Vote to make your opinion known, and see whether your choice tops the Leaderboard!
GDC 2013: How APB exploded into a franchise
By now, pretty much everyone knows the story of how GamersFirst swept in to save the DOA All Points Bulletin by relaunching it as APB: Reloaded. Since then, the title's done immensely well for the company and has prompted Reloaded Games to look into turning APB into a bona fide franchise. How this happened was explained to us by PR Manager Darek Connole at GDC. Connole said that the devs are constantly taking suggestions from the community and sorting them into different buckets. While some of the buckets represent doable ideas, one bucket is full of great ideas that are impossible to implement in the current game. "We're taking the NPCs from APB: Reloaded and bringing them into their own game," Connole said. "It's going to be a traditional first-person shooter, but it's also going to have non-traditional elements." Read on to discover how APB's world is going to get a lot more crazy with APB: Vendetta -- and how the team is even thinking about future games in the same world.
GDC 2013: Catching up with Gas Powered Games' Chris Taylor
Hey, is that CEO Chris Taylor from Gas Powered Games? By jove, it is! At GDC this past week we had the opportunity to catch up with Taylor and see how his studio is doing following its acquisition by Wargaming.net. He said that the synergy between his studio and Wargaming.net is powerful: "Our overlap is enormous between what we believe in as a company and what Wargaming believes in." We were most curious about the "mystery MMO" that Taylor and his team is constructing. "We are doing research and prototyping on our first Wargaming game," Taylor said, "which will be a huge PvP, free-to-play MMO. It's going to take a little while to get it rolling, and we'll talk about it more once we know it is exactly. We'll announce it down the road." Is there anything else that he was willing to share about it? Taylor paused and said, "It's going to be the biggest game we've ever made." Massively sent its ace reporters to San Francisco to bring you back the biggest MMO news from this year's GDC, the largest pro-only gaming industry con in the world! Whether it's EVE Online or Star Wars: The Old Republic or that shiny new toy you've got your eye on, we're on the case, so stay tuned for all the highlights from the show!
This GDC 2013 CryEngine 3 video is eclectic
Crytek is showcasing the latest version of its CryEngine 3 technology at GDC and has produced this video highlighting various games built using the engine. Games run the gamut from the expected shooters to racing and even some hack-and-slash action stuff. Also, a golf game.
NPD: Digital game sales growing year-over-year 33 percent
Digital games and downloadable content sales are growing at a rate of 33 percent year over year in the US and Europe, according to data presented by NPD, iResearch and Digi-Capital analysts at GDC. The speakers at the digital games sales talk noted that sales in China are expected to grow over 10 percent every year for the next three years.According to GamesIndustry International, NPD analyst Liam Callahan told attendees that digital game content sales in 2012 reached $5.9 billion in the United States. Sales in the UK reached $1.7 billion, followed by Germany with $1.4 billion and France with $1 billion. Callahan also said that digital content composes 40 percent of the United States' total spend on games, an increase from 28 percent in 2010.NPD estimated that 48 percent ($7.1 billion) of the $14.8 billion spent on games in the US in 2012 came from purchases on brand new games at retail. The other 51 percent was from digital games and downloadable content ($2.22 billion), mobile game sales ($2.11 billion), used game sales ($1.59 billion), subscriptions ($1.05 billion), social network gaming ($544 million) and rentals ($198 million). The NPD also reported a drop in used game sales from 2011 by 17.1 percent.
Path of Exile version 1.0 is six months away, one expansion per year after
The free-to-play action RPG Path of Exile went into open beta this past January, and the next step is putting together a version 1.0, Grinding Gear Games co-founder Chris Wilson told us this week at GDC 2013. Starting with about 250,000 registered players, the game has since grown up to around 2 million, with the devs fixing bugs and providing weekly patches since then.The weekly patches, which have been adding new skills and items to the game, will continue to roll out. But version 1.0 is going to be the game's full release, when the "open beta" tag comes off, and the game "will be reviewable," according to Wilson. The update will add a full story to the game's Act 3, including lots of new monsters and items, and "do the stuff we had to cut corners on" throughout the game's development, Wilson said.After that, "we intend to do expansions over the next five to ten years," Wilson told us. The team has no set plans for releases, and if they can put a major feature together in less time, then Wilson says they'll do it. The game already had a lot of success with "races," which are special events that challenge players to speedrun the game under special conditions. But in general, he said, given the current player base, "adding a new act to the game is probably a once a year thing."
Seen@GDC: Playground games
Die Gute Fabrik lead designer Douglas Wilson is comfortable asking people to make fools of themselves, as he demonstrated during his panel at GDC on Friday, "Three Folk Games To Inspire Radical New Video Games." Wilson emphasized the impact that physical, playground games can have on modern video game development, bringing players together outside of the screen. They certainly influenced Wilson's convention-famous motion game, Johann Sebastian Joust.Wilson asked for volunteers from the audience to step on stage and play three games that influenced Joust: Standoff, Listelanse and the Danish Clapping Game. See a handful of eager audience members hitting themselves and dueling with wooden spoons in the gallery below, and read more about each game after the break.%Gallery-184408%
Diablo 3's missing runestones found at GDC
If you've followed Diablo 3's development for a long time, you might remember the idea of Runestones. They were meant to be actual in-game items that could supplement character abilities in various ways, such as adding a fire attack to a melee hit, or doubling the power of a spell for free. When the game arrived last year, the Runestone system was nowhere to be seen, replaced by the controversial Skill Rune system. So where did those Runestones go? Diablo 3's technical designer Wyatt Cheng said during a talk at GDC that they're still around, in one form or another.The Runestone system was originally created to add flexibility to character skills, and to give players a chance to experiment and play around with new abilities after they had gained them through leveling up. The original idea had ten different effects that could be added to various abilities, including striking, lethality, efficiency, life-stealing, poison, slowing and so on. But ten was too many, Blizzard decided, and they opted to boil them down into five different stone types (Crimson, Obsidian, Indigo, Golden and Alabaster) that would each affect skills in a few different ways.Cheng said having actual stones in the inventory worked in a few different ways. It gave the system a sense of discovery, as players enjoyed seeing which stones granted certain effects, and it accomplished the original goal of allowing players to experiment with customization. Managing the stones in the game's inventory was a "nightmare," according to Cheng, and player expectations didn't always match what the stones actually provided.In the end, the team went with the existing Skill Rune system, which allowed Blizzard to give specific skill and stone combinations more "flavorful names," and let the team make sure that the added effects were appropriate for the skills they matched. But Cheng said the effects were still in there: Some runes still slow opponents or add more damage to attacks, and those were the effects originally conferred by the stones of Indigo and Crimson.
GDC 2013: Chris Roberts expounds on Star Citizen's crafting, economy
This week we have a special GDC edition of Some Assembly Required. I had the opportunity to sit down with Chris Roberts and talk about his highly anticipated space sim sandbox, Star Citizen. We talked lore, the game's PvP/PvE sliders and living universe concepts, guilds, and when players can expect to get in some dogfighting. Roberts also delved deeply into the crafting and economic aspects of the game. If you miss the days of carving out a name for yourself and your wares and/or cornering the market and building an economic empire, you'll definitely want to keep an eye on Star Citizen.
Anomaly 2 preview: Tug o' war
Anomaly 2 presents multiplayer for the first time in the series, pitting human-attacking convoys against stationary alien emplacements. The deciding factor in victory is points – the alien side must defend its generators and build harvesters to mine points away from the human side, while the humans aim to simply destroy every alien present.It's a frantic tug of war as each side desperately scans the battlefield for vulnerability in the others' ranks. As the humans, ignoring harvesters, purchasing the wrong units or failing to sell and swap out units at integral times will easily spell death. The aliens have an arguably tougher job and lack the resources to build up defenses across the entire map, so it's more about predicting where the humans will go and taking care to build harvesters at the right time.%Gallery-180155%
X-COM could've had bunny monsters, Chryssalid was a happy accident
X-COM's cast of alien characters could have looked vastly different. During a postmortem at GDC, X-COM creator Julian Gollop showed some of the alien design mock-ups that were created by one of the game's artists, John Reitze. "This is the visual piece de la resistance of my entire presentation, because it is the only surviving concept work from the whole game," said Gollop. Many of the aliens are variations on the familiar X-COM enemies we all know today. There are different takes on Sectoids and Ethereals, for example. And then there's the giant bunny monster, which you can see in the first row of the image above. Probably for the best that one didn't make the cut. Another interesting tidbit is that Chryssalids, one of the toughest enemies in X-COM, was something of an accident. "You'll notice that the Chrysallid is right next to the zombie character," said Gollop (third row, far left). "John didn't really imagine them to be connected in any way, but I very quickly had this idea that a Chryssalid would infect your soldiers, and this would turn them into zombies, which would then sprout new Chryssalids, and probably created the most annoying monster in the entire game." We're not sure "annoying" is really the right word – we'd probably go with "terrifying." During the same panel, Gollop also revealed that X-COM was briefly canceled in 1993, when publisher Microprose was acquired by Spectrum Holobyte. See a larger version of the menagerie in the gallery below.%Gallery-184409%
Unreal Engine 4 not designed to work on Wii U [Update]
Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4 won't support the Wii U, Epic VP Mark Rein said during GDC. During a theater presentation of the Infiltrator demo, Rein laughed and said "no" when asked if UE4 would run on Wii U."Our goal for Unreal Engine 4 console-wise is next-gen consoles," he explained to Kotaku. "That's really what our energies are focused on. If you want to make a Wii U game, we have Unreal Engine 3, and it's powering some of the best games on the Wii U already."Battlefield series executive producer Patrick Bach told Eurogamer this week that not only is Battlefield 4 not coming to Wii U, the new Frostbite 3 engine on which it runs is also not designed for Wii U. "We right now don't have support for the Wii U in the Frostbite engine," he said. "The reason for that is it takes development time."Update: Rein spoke with Engadget and clarified his comment from the presentation, noting that it's totally possible to run Unreal Engine 4 games on Wii U. "You heard the stupid gaffe yesterday about the Wii U," he said. "If someone wants to take Unreal Engine 4 and ship a game on Wii U, they can! If they wanna ship an Unreal Engine 4 game on Xbox 360, they could make it happen."
