The Molyneux Shotgun Blast

"Do you think that you're a pathological liar?" 

It's been a while since I used this blog as a platform to get some thoughts across, but this time a simple Tweet or Facebook status will not cut it and some more detail is warranted. In general I have to say I do like and appreciate the work done by the hundreds of game journalists out there, three outlets in particular I deem to be oustanding; PC Gamer, Eurogamer and Develop Online.

One however; Rock, Paper, Shotgun, has slowly but surely been getting worse and I feel is on the verge of becoming the gutter press of the industry. Now, I am absolutely against this type of journalism in general. I feel that they prey on the detritus of the human psyche, and contribute very little to actual discussion and discourse which are so pivotal to our species' progression in general.

I'm pleased to see other developers taking a similar stance.

"Do you think that you're a pathological liar?" was the opening question from interviewer John Walker to game developer Peter Molyneux (Dungeon Keeper, Fable. Populous, Godus), and it very much set the tone for the rest of the interview. It started out blunt and rude and then descended into kicking a man when he's down.

RPS: I don’t think anyone who paid for the game cares.

Peter Molyneux: How many updates have we done on Steam?

RPS: I don’t think anyone who paid for the game cares. I think they want the game they paid for three years ago or their money back.

Peter Molyneux: We’re trying as hard as we possibly can.

RPS: I don’t think you are.

Note; I am not linking the Rock, Paper, Shotgun article here. If you are really interested go and google it, but I will not be the source of more views for this type of toxic journalism.

I should explain that Molyneux has developed a reputation for over promising features and generally getting really excited about game elements at conferences and to the press - and then being unable to deliver on them.

The Rock, Paper, Shotgun article came out in the wake of revelations that development of the kickstarted game, Godus, has not been going well. Most other review sites reported on the failings by the company behind it, 22Cans, and direct interviews with Molyneux.

As such Molyneux's popularity at the moment is extremely low, and I do feel that his promises do deserve investigation and critique - however this should never warrant personal attacks of this kind. Walker's whole article reeks of a witch-hunt for the sake of views and controversy - a topic common to gutter press journalism.

Freedom of Expression is, of course, extremely precious and despite my feelings towards them I would not want them to stop publishing the drivel that they do. On the other hand, I will stop reading their articles myself and would urge others to do the same. Should John Walker ever approach me and ask for an interview, I will politely, but firmly, tell him "no".  

Game of the Year, 2013

December at last, which means it is that time again. Here are my top games of 2013!

1.       Assassins Creed IV : Black Flag

2.       Crusader Kings II : The Old Gods

3.       Civilisation V : A Brave New World

4.       Fallen Enchantress : Legendary Heroes

5.       Europa Universalis IV

The Breakdown

Looking back on it, this has been the year of expansions finally making games become worthy of their promise. It’s been a fantastic year for strategy but rather mediocre shooters and RPGs.

Assassins Creed was the surprise hit for 2013, much like Crusader Kings II was last year.  Being such a console centric game, I had intended to give it a miss but thanks to getting it as a freebie with a new graphics card, I decided to give it a go – and I am so glad that I did! Fantastic graphics, good storyline, interesting mechanics, high level of polish and a good port to PC all combine to make a great game. It was marred only by a slightly repetitive nature (caused in no small part by the lack of different ship types to fight).

9/10

Crusader Kings II was already game of 2012, but The Old Gods added so much that it might as well have been an entirely new release. A new map, with all new factions, new raiding mechanics, new faiths (and mechanics to make them unique), the ability for Norse nations to sail up rivers all leant itself very well to an already deep game. The only downside is with the extended timeline, it can become a little too easy to become massively dominant in the latter years.

9/10

A Brave New World made Civilisation V into the game is really should have been from release, and finally made it a real addition to the excellent legacy left by Civilisation IV. Trade, new very interesting nations (Venice!), tourism, culture, widespread rebalance of the economy. I would have rated Civ V at about 4/10, but this expansion easily boosts it to the new score. It finally just makes the game feel complete and for the first time, actually fun.

8/10

After the travesty that was Elemental : War of Magic, Stardock finally got their act together with the 3^rd rendition of the game. Legendary Heroes added many things, including a far more intuitive hero skill line, far better balanced skills and powers, new units and technologies, massively improved AI, and most importantly virtually rebuilt the combat system from the ground up so that it became a real asset to the game rather than something to just autoplay through.  This game just edged EU4 and State of Decay to the spot because it is also an example of good business practice. Stardock gave all the subsequent updates to the awful core game (Fallen Enchantress and Legendary Heroes) to owners of Elemental for free. They acknowledged their mistake, rejigged the team behind it, appointed a new design lead, expended significant resources to improve it, and then rewarded those who had stood by the concept of the game. I can’t but help think that other developers would have just let it quietly die out.

8/10

The fifth in my chart clings to the spot rather tenuously, though I have great hope that with some future DLC (like Crusader Kings II and EU3 got) will really make its potential to shine. It does itself justice as a good successor to the loved EU3, especially with the emphasis on national identity (each nation now gets unique boni). It is marred in some areas though, most especially in the monarch points being so arbitrarily awarded and based entirely on a random number generator. Having more control over such a core mechanic would go a long way to improving it. There are also something of a shortage of national ideas with which to really flesh a nation out with, but these are things that should be easily added to. I am also really excited about the upcoming Conquest of Paradise expansion which adds a randomly generated New World – so the Player cannot just go directly for New York!

7/10

Notable Mention

This is a game I struggled to place, as it is a strong contender with EU4 and Fallen Enchantress for the 4^th / 5^th spot.

State of Decay kind of came out of no-where but it instantly impressed. With a higher focus on the actual survival of a Zombie incursion and the stresses it places on the community than most bland Zombie games really gave it an edge. Add into that emergent character development, GTA-style driving, and an interesting world to explore and exploit made it into a must-try. There are some downsides in that it is clearly made by quite a small studio and it does get repetitive. Zombies are not much of a threat (except the “specials”), and the AI can sometimes do really stupid things. Game also continues while you are not playing and this can kill off beloved characters which I really dislike (you have no power over this happening). Note, I have only played this on the console and not PC. I do own the PC version, but I’ve just not had the chance to try yet so cannot comment on how well it’s been ported.

7/10

Honourable Mentions

The honourable mentions go to games which I know to have great potential, and which I do own – i’ve just not had a chance to play them yet. It is quite possible that they get added to my top games list in hindsight as they were released this year.

X-Com : Enemy Within

Victoria II : Heart of Darkness

Skyrim : Dragonborn

Possible Contenders

These are games which I have heard rated very highly, but are either not out on PC, or that I do not own.

Grand Theft Auto V

Bioshock Infinite

Dishonoured

Saints Row IV

Wolf Among Us

Last of Us

Titles to look out for

These are games announced or otherwise showcased this year which could well be contenders for next year’s top spot. As always though, I am sure some surprises will come through and shine!

7 Days to Die – Minecraft meets hardcore Zombies. This is survival mode as it was meant to be; an actual challenge to survive. Locate and upgrade a base, scavenge for materials, and then cower in fear when night falls, and hope that all your spike traps hold the horde at bay.

ARMA III - Yes, it was released this year but it works in a similar way to Mount and Blade. They release a fantastic though rather barebones game, then rely on modders to really bring flesh to the very powerful foundation. We just need to wait for some mods to come through now!

Project Eternity + Wasteland 2 – Considering the lack of good RPGs this year, there will be a lot of pressure on these games to deliver!

Peace and quiet!

This is just a short one for today. You may have noticed that I missed my blog posting slot two weeks ago, sorry about that! It was for a good reason though, honest. A friend of mine offered his flat to me for the week so that I could get my head down and really thrash out some work on Vinland the book.

Although the manuscript was completed some time ago, I have been working on editing it so that it is polished enough to send off to an professional editor, then to agents and eventually a publisher – this of course takes time, and balanced between Starium and other duties it fell by the wayside a little.

So given a week of blissful quiet and space I was able to hammer out a significant amount of work, and got to roughly the book – probably a good 3-4 months worth under normal circumstances! 

So as you can see, sometimes a little peace and quiet, together with a change in environment can be all you need to get a shot in the arm, and get productive again!

The Dream Vision

Dare to dream - you never know when they will come true.

“You have to dream before your dreams can come true” – Abdul Kalam

School reports often labelled me as “a daydreamer”. To them, it was a bad thing, as it meant that I was not giving the teachers 100% of my focus, but to me it was to become a badge of pride. During these times, my mind was never blank – instead I was off creating worlds in my imagination, populating them with all kinds of weird and wonderful people and places.

Often, these worlds were related to the games I played, and there are countless examples on the internet of my dreams being made manifest as short stories on various forums. One of these dreams – a meeting between Leif Erikson and Christopher Columbus at sea was to become the basis for my earliest concepts for the Vinland books and games.

Dreams are I believe, one of the most important assets that a designer can have, and this is the philosophy that I embrace when creating new things. When I was young it was only fantastic worlds that sprang forth, but now it can be anything from game mechanics to mentally play-testing and discovering new nuances that I would perhaps have missed. I will lay awake at night, often for hours mentally going through my experiences of the day, filtering through anything valuable and locking it away. I always sleep with a notebook by the bed in case something very important or inspirational pops up, and write it down.

When working on Prophesy of Pendor and Vinland: Arctic Assault I used to lay out the “Dream Game”. For this I used to write out my plans on the development forum, purposefully ignoring all limitations of budget, manpower and resources. This was the very best design that I could come up with, and the sheer scope of this used to drive our programmers mad when they first read it.

Note the highlighted “I” there. My dreams are just that – mine, and while I may once have believed that I was some sort of genius, experience has taught me that the insight of others is often extremely valuable. I will frequently discuss my “Dream Visions” with friends at the pub, or post them in full on our development forums. I want, no need input from others – this is the only way to improve them.

This is where the evolution part of the design process comes in. With the initial concepts aired in public, I then encourage a discussion of the elements, including most importantly a reality check from more cynical members of the team. It is during this that the ideas are refined; the possible expanded upon, and the implausible rejected (or put aside). The dreams will evolve with each iteration, becoming less a vision and more a design, being polished and developed during each pass until it is in a form most suitable for implementation.

A great example of this process in action is in Prophesy of Pendor, when we were working on the Order of Dawn. At first there was a very black and white relationship between them and their arch rivals, the Eventide. One was good, one was evil. Very simple... very boring.

During discussions it was then questioned whether the very principles underpinning the Dawn could be corrupted in such a way as to make them possibly even more evil than the reviled Eventide – and if so, how to include the Eventide into this story. This is where the fanaticism of the Dawn came into play, their very dedication to good and justice to the exclusion of all else led them to becoming fanatics blind to any other outcomes.

A branch of the Order awoke to the danger and decried the zeal of their brethren, pushing for a more pragmatic approach – resulting in a massive schism and the formation of the Eventide. Unfortunately this very pragmatism would then go on to corrupt the Eventide in its own way, but the outcome for both orders was vastly more complex and interesting than the initial dream. The design evolution had done its job.

Ironically it was a programmer who called me out on this process, tired of the continual conceptualisation and evolution of the ideas. He demanded that we designers only present fully formed ideas, straight from our minds. While it is entirely possible to personally polish the vision I have; this was a problem I struggled with during work on Vinland: Arctic Assault, as the dreams I had underwent far less refinement than they do on say, Starium with its much larger team. I am under no illusions that it is the input of others that allow it to reach their full potential and thankfully the other designers on my team backed me on this and the programmer conceded on how things were developed over time.

I would encourage fellow designers, to post / air / discuss / debate their Dream Vision, and then collectively revise it until it shines. Restrictions of the internet, and the nature of much of my work being virtual means that much of this must be done online (though this means there is automatically a log of any suggestions), though some of the most fun discussions I have are with friends at the pub, hammering out the concepts over a beer. The more relaxed the environment, the better it is for this. There is never a “right” answer to this exercise, but the more angles it is explored from, the more refined the dream will become.

It can be useful to have a thick skin for this, because sometimes it behoves the project throw it out as impractical. Even then, it should never be deleted, as in my experience a rejected idea would become the basis for some of our most important and popular features.

So don’t stop dreaming, and never stop sharing them because you never know; it could be the next Big Thing.

Image courtesy of http://www.worth1000.com/entries/488412/fantasy-planet

Playing games to making them – how perspectives change

Once long, long ago, I was just a gamer and I simply consumed the digital entertainment provided by others. Explosions? Awesome. New guns? Sweet! At that time I put most of my energy into thinking about how great the experience was, and that I wanted more of it.

After a time I became curious though... was this the best that could be made? Those little areas that irritated me, could they be improved? If I had unlimited time and incredible skills, what could I make myself? What would be the perfect game?

The answer this would change on a daily basis depending on what I was doing at the time. Warcraft II made me convinced that the “perfect” game was a real time strategy. Shadowbane determined that the true path lay in an MMO. Mount and Blade led me to believing that the future lay in medieval simulations. Now I am sure that this is not an experience unique to me – I’ll bet that many other gamers will spend the rainy days at the office dreaming of their perfect game. Playing scenarios through their head of each awesome scene, shaped always by their own experiences.

My version of Warcraft II had no unit caps and a more expansive tech tree. Gareth’s Shadowbane, removed the money farming grind, and replaced it with automated farms and peasants who provided an hourly income. Battlefield 1943 introduced factories and an upgrade tree for unlocking new items and tanks.

I then started working as a game designer, first for the Mount and Blade mod, Prophesy of Pendor, and then later as the lead designer of my own studio, Zatobo, and now most recently as a freelance game design contractor.

This collective experience changed everything.

Just playing games changed my perspective of imagining my perfect game to analysing those products and working out precisely what I liked and disliked about them as I played. I took them to pieces in my mind, bemoaning bad design decisions (I cannot play Diablo III anymore, its core design simply ticks me off too much now), working out how they solved problems, and rarely getting excited by clever mechanics. Some games left me wondering about the future of the industry (the aforementioned Diablo III), and declaring its imminent demise, while others left me with a sense of wonder at what they had achieved (Mount and Blade).

Over the weekend I had something of a unique opportunity. I found myself playing “Game Dev Tycoon” by Greenheart Games, with some friends. While the game itself is good fun, it isn’t revolutionary, nor does it do much that is truly innovative but its subject matter is fascinating. A game about making games (with an achievement for making the game, in the game...).

This made my think about my own process of making games – how did I do it? Why did I do it this way? What had I learned during my three years as a part of the industry?

Well this is a subject for next time. Stay tuned! 

Image courtesy of; deborahtindle - http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/change%20perspective

Game Dev Tycoon - http://www.greenheartgames.com/

Pirating pirates pirating pirates... or something like that.

Yo ho ho... and a free game?

A couple of days ago, I saw Eurogamer running an article about a company, Greenheart Games,  which made pirates pirate their own games...

It actually makes a whole lot more sense than you would think. Game Dev Tycoon is a game about making games – a game development simulator, and the change they made was to introduce piracy in pirated copies of the game. Essentially this takes the form of a random event, whereby sales will begin to decline eventually making it impossible to run a profit.

Even more amusing is the fact that Greenheart Games have revealed forum posts of people asking how to combat the piracy in their games, with questions like "Guys I reached some point where if I make a decent game with score 9-10 it gets pirated and I can't make any profit”, and even asking if it is possible to research DRM with which to combat this piracy. While the irony here is of course amusing, more important is whether people understand that a mirror is being held up to their own actions, and start to realise that copying games (and other media) really is hurting the content creators out there, and small companies like Greenheat Games in particular.

Whether this will have any impact on piracy remains yet to be seen, however I fully applaud the attempts here, and I do not think that there could have been a better platform from which to do it. I can only wish I had come up with the idea first!

You can read the full article here; http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-04-29-game-dev-tycoon-forces-those-who-pirate-the-game-to-unwittingly-fail-from-piracy

And the company’s blog where they talk about it here; http://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/29/what-happens-when-pirates-play-a-game-development-simulator-and-then-go-bankrupt-because-of-piracy/

Hell, its about time!

One of my all time favourite game trailers ended with the line “Hell, it’s about time!” a phrase that I have come to rather appreciate. I realise that it has been a while since my last blog post, and this is something which has been playing on my mind for a while now, but it just kind of fell by the wayside as a number of other projects have engrossed me.

Initially this blog was set up to cover my work as a writer, but since embarking on this two and a bit years ago, I have dabbled in a number of different areas, and I struggled about whether to catalogue everything I do on here, or just focus on the writing articles.

Decision time; what do I use this space for? Answer; this is my blog, about my interests, my aspirations and dreams – brought down to earth from time to time with news about what is going on, and other random thoughts.

As such, I now find myself;

- Working as a writer on Vinland. The big news here is that my first full draft of the novel is DONE, I am currently working on editing ready to find a publisher. Leif has successfully traversed the North Atlantic and set foot for the first time in America. I’ve made some copies available to those who are interested in the project. Please do get in touch if you want to help provide feedback.

- Working as a writer / designer at my own company, Zatobo. The PC version of our debut title, Vinland: Arctic Assault was released last year, and we are working on an Android version to be released soon. Actually, its already available, it’s just not working on the google play store for some reason. Stay tuned!

- Working as a writer / designer with American company Gwythdarian on a new browser-based space strategy game called StariumXCV. It’s a really ambitious project, and I am responsible for much of the background lore. I cannot say much on it yet due to an active Non-Disclosure Agreement, however as and when I can, I will release more here.

So you can see things are moving quite quickly at the moment, and that I am involved in a number of different projects at the moment, so this blog is likely to cover articles from writing, to gaming, to design and everything in between.

P.S That trailer was the announcement for Starcraft II, Wings of Liberty. I didn’t actually end up getting the game, partly because it wasn’t available on Steam, and more recently because I’ve taken the painful decision to boycott Blizzard products after their repeated failure to secure my account from hackers. Still a nice piece of video though! You can find the full trailer here; http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=r7d5XheWiBk. All credit for the awesome video go of course, to Blizzard!