AtomicUs5000
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This is how outbreaks start.
PC Alpha 18 Dev Diary!!
- Thread starter madmole
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madmole
Fun Pimps Staff
I read an article about how people should try to reinvent themselves every 6 months. So the Ouch we knew 6 months ago is not the same as the Ouch we know today. To me that's a bit extreme, I did tend to shift careers every 10 years outside of gaming. Gaming has so many interesting problems there is never full mastery of it, so it never gets boring like other fields did.
Anthonydevidal
New member
Madmole will we finally see mixed martial arts books?
JamesKirk
New member
That's only partly correct. I think of games from Paradox Interactive (HOI4, CK2, EU4). Learning the basic mechanics takes a week, but to my mind every minute is worth it.
But I must admit I spent more hours on 7DTD (>1300) than on all Paradox games cumulated...
To be continued :cocksure:
DarlingCows
New member
I think people get triggered too much.
Demonoid74
New member
Anyone remember when Capcom released their April fools joke for the original Resident Evil 2? They posted a screen shot of Ryu from Street Fighter 3D uppercutting a zombies head off and said to unlock him , you had to beat the game , no saves , no healing sprays and only using the knife...
People tried to do it for YEARS...even after they admitted it was just a joke...
They really should do something like that again with the newly remade RE2...see if people pay attention or not...
People tried to do it for YEARS...even after they admitted it was just a joke...
They really should do something like that again with the newly remade RE2...see if people pay attention or not...
Xenophobed44
New member
How about... Just hear me out.... I know this sounds crazy. How about let the Devs actually make their game to the fullest potential it can be made instead of rushing it out a few weeks quicker full of bugs and gutted features.
Louie04k
New member
Yea and thats the problem nowadays, if it can’t be learned and figured out in 20min no one wants to play it. Sorry but i disagree with you, its the learning curve and slowly figuring out what works and what doesn't is awesome for me. Games that have no learning curve bore me after an hour. But like you have stated you are trying to cater to a broader audience which usually means dumbing down the game for the brainless masses
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FileMachete
New member
Don't disagree w you Louie, yet there is a bit of a sweet spot where just getting you hand held for the basics is pretty much mandatory. Like the starter quests here and in Empyrion. Empyrions' go further but they both make sure you're not forced to go to youtube just to figure out the most basic mechanics.Yea and thats the problem nowadays, if it can’t be learned and figured out in 20min no one wants to play it. Sorry but i disagree with you, its the learning curve and slowly figuring out what works and what doesn't is awesome for me. Games that have no learning curve bore me after an hour. But like you have stated you are trying to cater to a broader audience which usually means dumbing down the game for the brainless masses
The later/harder stuff is where I really agree figuring it out for yourself is most rewarding. There I don't want it just given to me. The most fun I've been having in a17 is having to do lots of testing of pathing & traps.
Simple things like only being able to shoot through one side of a trigger plate & not the other isn't in the journal, but knowing it increases the combos of working traps I can make.
So I guess in the end the more depth & complexity a game has, the more I tend to enjoy it. Suprise! heh
Weazelsun
New member
Indeed, I too like exploring on the other hand. I do miss exploring some POI's, like on the multiplayer server I play on. One of the seeds used had a hospital POI, but the current map we have now doesn't have it. So, I was thinking more in that the layout of the RWG could be modeled like Navesgane, BUT, whatever POI's that is generated is random.
madmole
Fun Pimps Staff
I have no problem with games having hard areas or get hard late game, but difficulty learning and if your spending 80% of your time scrounging for oxygen/life support when your advanced enough to have flying ships and can craft laser mining guns... then surely basics of survival wouldn't be such a chore. I mean make the game hard where it matters. Its like they wanted to hide their shallow worlds by making you scrounge for oxygen constantly. I'd rather explore and kill enemies then kill plants.
khzmusik
Well-known member
The mechanics themselves should be easy to learn, I agree with you completely. But there's this idea (scoffed at by Louie, not coming from you) that they should all be learned in the first 20 minutes of the game, and I don't like that idea.
I favor games that have multiple mechanics that you learn as you progress through the game. A basic example is the gravity gun in HL2. You were halfway through the game before you could get your hands one one.
Things like that are what keeps games interesting to me.
It's kind of hard to do that in something like 7D2D though, unless you deliberately set up the game to go through things like the "scavenger phase," "farming phase," "building phase," etc. where each "phase" is level-locked or something. That kills the variety of play styles, and I'm certain most players would hate it.
Roland
Moderator
This is a prime example of how people with 1000's of hours lose perspective of the early game and how difficult or easy of a barrier to entry the first day of the game is likely to be for brand new players. You have it all memorized and know exactly what to do and what not to do thanks to all your experience. Madmole isn't talking about dumbing down the entire game. He's talking about making the barrier to entry easier-- a part of the game that will take people like you and me about 10 minutes to advance beyond anyway.Yea and thats the problem nowadays, if it can’t be learned and figured out in 20min no one wants to play it. Sorry but i disagree with you, its the learning curve and slowly figuring out what works and what doesn't is awesome for me. Games that have no learning curve bore me after an hour. But like you have stated you are trying to cater to a broader audience which usually means dumbing down the game for the brainless masses
He never said he was going to make the whole game easy. He said that they wanted the first 20 - 30 hours for a brand new player to be polished and compelling and approachable so that they would become hobby players of 1000's of hours. You and everyone else's problem is that you are projecting what YOU can accomplish in 20-30 hours and forgetting that for a brand new player 20 - 30 hours might be comprised of several restarts and a maximum days alive of 2-3 weeks as they learn the ins and the outs of the game.
If the game has set them up well with accurate information regarding controls, UI, and how the world works and their deaths are seen as their own fault and not some bug that did them in then most of them will be spurred to challenge themselves to try and survive longer. What Madmole is saying is that they want the first exposure of the game to be highly polished with good performance and sufficient support for the new player to learn the basics so that they will go on to play for 1000's of hours.
Here is his original statement that bent everyone out of shape but I think it is because they all focused on the 20-30 hour part and glossed over the part I bolded and italicized. The devs do want the game to be fun for 1000's of hours and do plan to continue to add content after gold but until gold their focus is going to be on making the game an attention grabber from the beginning so that players will become those hobby players that put in 1000s of hours.
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