PC Game Development 101 (and other arguments)

Yeah indeed! Or the micromanagement involved with Crusader Kings 2.Not to say those games are per se better than 7 days, of course.
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Quantum computers are on their way, just saying :)

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I wish people would stop asking for new stuff, i do not want anything else to delay Alpha 18 :smile-new:
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Well, welcome to the forums ;)

 
If MM thinks Cities Skylines is too complex, he better stay away from other Paradox games, hehe..
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Well he has a valid business decision to make... Have a complicated game with a loyal, solid but small fan base, or listen to his rust buddies and consultant (real things he has posted) and simplify the game to appeal to the casual but much larger fan base.

Both are valid. Neither is wrong.

Me, I'd go after the money. So I don't blame them. Moddability is what the small/loyal crowd is going to do anyway, and they're certainly supporting that.

Win/Win.

 
I wish people would stop asking for new stuff, i do not want anything else to delay Alpha 18 :smile-new:
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Pft, do you actually believe MM is going to hold up the release based off of them adding stuff that people asked for? :glee: :rofl:

 
Well he has a valid business decision to make... Have a complicated game with a loyal, solid but small fan base, or listen to his rust buddies and consultant (real things he has posted) and simplify the game to appeal to the casual but much larger fan base.
Both are valid. Neither is wrong.

Me, I'd go after the money. So I don't blame them. Moddability is what the small/loyal crowd is going to do anyway, and they're certainly supporting that.

Win/Win.
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What you said is true but the only reason Rust has a larger player base is because it's a PVP game. Once the Pimps shift focus to that area of the game (they said they would, so it's not me) I can see the player count going up substantially. Single player games live forever but PVP games die when the player count reaches a certain low so I'm glad we have the game we got.

 
I wish people would stop asking for new stuff, i do not want anything else to delay Alpha 18 :smile-new:
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But I was only going to ask for a few hundred other things. It shouldn't delay the next alpha for more than a few years. ;)

Walks away only to come back latter and see the storm this post started. lol

 
Pft, do you actually believe MM is going to hold up the release based off of them adding stuff that people asked for? :glee: :rofl:
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God damn, fortunately not.

Imagine the mess up between make an easier game and balanced difficulty for veterans + panzer, boat, submarine, reaper leviathan, jetpack, railgun, nuke bomb, Thu'um, Holy hand grenade, rocket-jump, tornadoes (with radiated sharks), earthquakes, mutant fish with legs and a ♥♥♥♥ing big Kraken.

There's something players can do to customize their own game but damn I can't remember the name...

 
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I mean... it is just THE most requested feature in the elderscrolls...
but I mean... that is you I guess :D If something isnt optimized, just scrap it and replace it with nothing instead of tweeking it so it is better.

(#sorrynotsorry for that snarky tone, but it is true that this is one of 7d2d biggest flaws in my opinion and reading your comment I think I can trace it back to you. Removing something that is absolutely unbalancable is rarely okay. But not replacing it with something else leaves unnatural holes in the product, especially, but not exclusively for people who already played it before.)
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Thats the difference between a good business move and a passionate fan. Most people play a game and enjoy it but don't get on forums to talk about it. So you can't listen to a few squeaky wheels on forums or even thousands of them because no matter what you think they do not represent the core audience.

Something difficult to understand and not really enjoyed by a majority of players isn't good for a game. Most people sword and board, and then to do this custom spell making there was one obscure altar in the game for it, I bet only 5% of the people who played 100 hours even knew about it, and only 1% of those 5% messed with it, because the vanilla stuff was fine.

We still fly by instincts and let fun guide us, and read feedback but want to get real telemetry on what players do so we don't have to consider polls or squeaky wheels when making decisions on cutting stuff because we'll know 2% of the people use a feature.

 
While I'd agree that complexity for the sake of complexity is a designer trap, I'd also argue that removing complexity that expands gameplay and adds depth because you want to widen your target audience/make it more user-friendly is also a trap. I think that in the end, complexity is only valuable when it adds something practical.
7D is already fairly complex and full of examples of that kind of complexity ranging from the forging/crafting process to player needs, so I can't imagine that you don't value it. Didn't spell making belong to that category of complexity though? It offered both practical value and was something to be coveted by players for various other reasons. They could have improved and build on it instead of throwing it away. Imo it was something worth salvaging. I read Todd's interview about it, but I think the real reasons it was thrown away were mostly technical.

Complexity is one of Skylines' selling points, in a way. It has sold excellently after all. But yes, there surely is a better way of teaching than throwing a ton of information at once at the player, as you have also said many times before.
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Making something user friendly is good design, period, not a trap lol. Complexity is only worth it if the reward is amazing and there is no other way. Look at GTA, it does what it does really well. They take a few mechanics that you learn in the first 10 minutes of the game and rinse and repeat them in various ways to where people never get bored. That is good design. All you can do is drive, reach quest objectives (compass), shoot guns and thats about it. The only other systems are dressing your character, pimping your ride which are handled by similar menu systems. They did those systems really well and use them over and over again.

One example where they lost me as a fan was when they took out the RPG elements San Andreas had. (get better with weapons, get fat or muscular, etc) They streamlined it in a way that well I still bought the game, and the next one, but I didn't play them hundreds of hours because I couldn't get better with my character at all. This was a game that was perfect for LBD and it did it well. I was outraged when they removed it and the game felt lacking afterwards. I don't know why they removed it, probably made it too hard to balance.

 
Thats the difference between a good business move and a passionate fan. Most people play a game and enjoy it but don't get on forums to talk about it. So you can't listen to a few squeaky wheels on forums or even thousands of them because no matter what you think they do not represent the core audience.
Something difficult to understand and not really enjoyed by a majority of players isn't good for a game. Most people sword and board, and then to do this custom spell making there was one obscure altar in the game for it, I bet only 5% of the people who played 100 hours even knew about it, and only 1% of those 5% messed with it, because the vanilla stuff was fine.

We still fly by instincts and let fun guide us, and read feedback but want to get real telemetry on what players do so we don't have to consider polls or squeaky wheels when making decisions on cutting stuff because we'll know 2% of the people use a feature.
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It's not great to base your arguments on numbers that are obviously made up. Just because you weren't interested in crafting spells doesn't mean that "only 5% of the people who played 100 hours even knew about it, and only 1% of those 5% messed with it". Where are the statistics for that? You can't listen to thousands of "squeaky wheels" on the forums because they don't represent the majority of the fanbase, but you can argue using numbers that don't represent anyone at all, since they're completely made up?

You have your own opinion of good design, which seems to be a simple loop repeated ad infinitum, without too much depth. That's fair, it's your (subjective) taste as a player and a developer. But that doesn't necessarily mean that this recipe is the absolute, undeniably best recipe, and it'd be good if you kept that in mind. Some players prefer some things, other players prefer other things. Maybe "most" players prefer something simple, but that doesn't mean that something complex is wrong or bad design. Variety is the spice of the universe, after all.

You should really think twice about posts like these before sending them, because, at least to me, they come across as pretty unprofessional and borderline dismissive of many players. What developer in their right mind calls the loyal part of their fanbase that takes the time to participate on forums "squeaky wheels"? :apathy:

EDIT: For reference, you have 141.224 members registered in your forum, of whom 5.225 are marked as "active users". According to Steam Charts, the average players in the past few months was about 6 to 13 thousand, depending on the month itself. It doesn't seem too far-fetched to say that the "squeaky wheels" make up maybe a third of your active player base.

 
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If MM thinks Cities Skylines is too complex, he better stay away from other Paradox games, hehe..
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I'm sure I can get into it, I just have to commit to a couple hours of learning something then once I get over the hump I can get into it. Now that I know its not super simple I can go in mentally prepared to learn it the next time.

 
It's not great to base your arguments on numbers that are obviously made up. Just because you weren't interested in crafting spells doesn't mean that "only 5% of the people who played 100 hours even knew about it, and only 1% of those 5% messed with it". Where are the statistics for that? You can't listen to thousands of "squeaky wheels" on the forums because they don't represent the majority of the fanbase, but you can argue using numbers that don't represent anyone at all, since they're completely made up?
You have your own opinion of good design, which seems to be a simple loop repeated ad infinitum, without too much depth. That's fair, it's your (subjective) taste as a player and a developer. But that doesn't necessarily mean that this recipe is the absolute, undeniably best recipe, and it'd be good if you kept that in mind. Some players prefer some things, other players prefer other things. Maybe "most" players prefer something simple, but that doesn't mean that something complex is wrong or bad design. Variety is the spice of the universe, after all.

You should really think twice about posts like these before sending them, because, at least to me, they come across as pretty unprofessional and borderline dismissive of many players. What developer in their right mind calls the loyal part of their fanbase that takes the time to participate on forums "squeaky wheels"? :apathy:

EDIT: For reference, you have 141.224 members registered in your forum, of whom 5.225 are marked as "active users". According to Steam Charts, the average players in the past few months was about 6 to 13 thousand, depending on the month itself. It doesn't seem too far-fetched to say that the "squeaky wheels" make up maybe a third of your active player base.
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Just like little communication, lots of communication does have pluses and minuses. However I really prefer the open and personal communication style. Try to remember it's not TFP putting official statements, but instead just a developer putting his thoughts out here.

And I didn't really read MM's post as calling the whole forum squeaky wheels, but more like a few people here as squeaky wheels. And I don't think he tried to insult anyone.

 
Just like little communication, lots of communication does have pluses and minuses. However I really prefer the open and personal communication style. Try to remember it's not TFP putting official statements, but instead just a developer putting his thoughts out here.
And I didn't really read MM's post as calling the whole forum squeaky wheels, but more like a few people here as squeaky wheels. And I don't think he tried to insult anyone.
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I get that, and I really appreciate his big involvement in the forums. It's great to see a developer putting in so much time to do that, especially one of the owners. But precisely because he is one of the owners, whatever he says has a certain weight. I think he really ought to think things twice before saying them, because it's not exactly the first time that it's caused issues for them.

 
When a game dev stops going by their gut feelings on what is fun, they're lost. They might make a game that's fun for someone, but it isn't them!

And guess how committed a person is, that's doing something that's sucks? So as much as I would like 7D2D to be everything I want, I need to accept the major things and change what XML allows.

 
Having a goal is certainly a heavy and bumpy way to ride on.

Not all will approve the way it goes on, most will want it in a perfect way or will laugh at you.

 
Making something user friendly is good design, period, not a trap lol...
...One example where they lost me as a fan was when they took out the RPG elements San Andreas had. (get better with weapons, get fat or muscular, etc) They streamlined it in a way that well I still bought the game, and the next one, but I didn't play them hundreds of hours because I couldn't get better with my character at all. This was a game that was perfect for LBD and it did it well. I was outraged when they removed it and the game felt lacking afterwards. I don't know why they removed it, probably made it too hard to balance.
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My point is that trying to make something user-friendly can sometimes be misguided, oversimplifying it and damaging gameplay and replayability as a result. My favorite example of misguided user-friendliness is D3 with the semi-automated skill system, reduced rng layers littered with pseudo-rng, etc. All these were, beyond the shadow of a doubt, done in the name of increased accessibility.

Now about GTA, I haven't the foggiest idea why they chose to remove them, but they might as well have been regarded as "unneeded complexity".

 
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