Now available: TMI

[or at least, a more severe case of TMI than this tumblr already has]

I have this thing about keeping track of what I’ve seen/read/played/listened to. It helps to find new things I might like, too - Last.fm is a prime example. It keeps track of music I play, then puts together a list of similar stuff. For my own benefit, I’ve started using a site that does similar recommendations for anime and manga, and another for books in general. Conveniently, this also lets me share this information with anyone who cares to know what I’m interested in. And if you don’t, that’s ok too! You don’t have to keep track of every book I’ve ever read. But maybe you’d like to know what books I haven’t read and might like to read, so now you can do that. Then you’ll be able to shower me with gifts that won’t make me say “oh, you didn’t have to get me anything!”

I’m linking to them on my main tumblr page now, but I’ll put some links below as well. I guess there’s sort of a creepy aspect to having all this information available, but I’m not terribly worried. I figure that if someone arrives at my tumblr from any of my other profiles, they’re volunteering to sift through far more information about me than they really need. We probably already have some interests in common anyway, and this lets me share more information about that thing. So let’s talk about Dune, or the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, or whatever article I read the other day through Read It Later. Seriously! I’d much rather talk about my favourite nerdy stuff than my latest assignments or whatever else.

• AnimePlanet profile: Tracks anime and manga, from stuff I’ve watched to stuff I want to watch. Yes, I watched all 220 episodes of the original run of Naruto in junior high (but I never started on Shippuuden!). Along with 130 episodes of Bleach. Apparently, I’ve spent two weeks straight on ridiculous shonen anime.
• Goodreads profile: Books! I’ve got four different “shelves”: What I’m currently reading, what I’ve read, what I own and plan to read, and what I’d like to read but don’t own yet. I’ll probably never rate most of the books listed there, because I read them so long ago. I’m undecided on whether I’m going to rate things at all, honestly, but I thought I’d start with some 5-star ratings for a few series I really enjoy.
• Last.fm profile: It’s been set up for a while, and I posted about it before, but I may as well link to it. It’s mainly meant to be a catalogue of all the different music I like, since I usually listen to my entire library on random, making the listening frequencies useless. But you can also see that I’ve listened to nothing but the soundtrack to Nier for the past few weeks. I’ll be writing about that soon, but let’s just say there’s a reason I had never <3’d any songs on my profile before.
• Read It Later archive: An RSS feed of articles I’ve read recently. Yes, it’s inelegant and nowhere near as useful as the other services. But I’ve moved away from posting things I thought were interesting in favour of just talking to people about things I know they’d be interested in (which doesn’t mean I think nobody else is interested, but maybe you would be and I never knew!). In reality, it’s going to be fairly useless - nobody’s going to keep track of all the junk I read just to find the occasional gem. There’s way too much information with no organization or context. But it takes zero effort for me to promote, since I’m already using the service (which I highly recommend), and you never know.

Also, I’m considering changing the layout of my tumblr page to ideally give a better first impression. I’m pretty sure no more than two or three people every actually see it, and one of those people is me when I want to access my tagged posts. So uh… Yeah. If you didn’t know, my main tumblr page has a tag cloud on the left side! Which is useful if you don’t share all of my interests.

#AltDev Design links

Just a couple of links to share today as I try to clean out my bookmarks a bit. They’re #AltDevBlog posts about the practical parts of actually being a game designer, and not just a programmer who kind of designs or a designer who just throws things together. They also have a number of great comments by industry folk; Mike Birkhead in particular has some great comments, so at least read his if you choose to ignore the rest of the comments.

Respecting Design tackles the issue of everyone thinking they know how to design a game. You don’t know how to design a game just because you’ve played a few games. “No one in their right mind opens up the code depot, alters files at random, and then, when rightfully questioned on their sanity, say in defense, "Hey, everyone’s code is valid man”. So why is it ok for game design?“ Reading this made me realize that, yeah, I don’t know shit about being a game designer. I can read all the blog posts I want, but that doesn’t mean I know anything useful. Not that I thought I was a game designer, mind you, just that I thought I was learning about it. It would probably be more accurate to say that I was learning around it, if that makes any sense. Circling the perimeter without ever entering it.

Design Docs Debate is less of a debate and more a collection of interesting links in the comment thread and a few good comments - specifically, Slone’s and Mike Birkhead’s. It sounds to me like the original poster is in a program where they got really anal about the requirements - but then I remember hating essay outlines in tenth grade, too. From the sounds of things, it seems like a good design document is pretty similar to a good outline (for an essay, or a short story, or even a novel) - you can go without to a certain degree, if you’re ok ending up with a lesser result because of it. Being able to create a good one is one of the things you just end up doing when you want to produce better results, because if you sit down without a plan, your final product will be nothing like what you envisioned.

Random thought - ever notice how the "blog post” has supplanted the essay? Two hundred years ago you could be an “essayist,” someone who writes essays. Now you’re just a blogger, and your wonderful essays are just “posts” like any other. I’m going to use the term essay, so there. Lead by example, right?

Massive Collection of Links

I’ve been holding off on a link-based post for a while because I’ve had more interesting things to post, but now I really need to clear out my bookmarks, so here’s a giant pile of awesome stuff for you!

Anime:

• The English dub of Durarara!! is not only airing on Adult Swim for people who dislike subbed anime, it will also be available for streaming online

Assorted Lifehacker stuff:

• How Self-Control Works, and How To Boost Your Willpower
• How to Cook Pasta Correctly
• Showhopping Finds Upcoming Shows Around You for Your Favourite Bands
• Quixey Finds the Software You Need (you search by function, not by name - far better than using alternativeto.net and then going looking for a feature list)

Gaming:

• What Does Your Game Believe In? (highly recommend it, speaks to how games can be designed to convey a specific meaning - but only if it’s planned from the start)
• Games Wii Forgot: Little King’s Story (I might actually pick this up, because it sounds both fascinating and fun)
• The Many Meanings of Difficulty in Games (this is actually a real academic study, but it’s not so long or awfully written that you won’t get anything out of it - I’d recommend reading it!)
• The Good Grind (perfectly captures my thoughts about FF XIII and Demon’s Souls)
• We Need to Aim Higher (if Mike Acton is any indication of the people Insomniac hires, my love for them is justified a thousand times over)
• Everything Good Old Is New Again (Good Old Games :D you are gentlemen and scholars)
• Infinity Blade Review (this is pretty neat in terms of writing and web design, you’ll see why when you “begin bloodline 2”)
• What Game Developers Do (the last bit about pillars is pretty interesting, and I’d say that kind of “include only things that support your main points” philosophy applies everywhere)

It’s Sunday, and I have Some Things for you! First, some good news: PSN is back up in the US and Canada, coming with a firmware update that does nothing but inform you that you should change your password.

        Next up is FromWhereToWhere, a firefox extension that “threads” your history, showing you how you got to a specific page. As in, if you were on your dashboard and click on the link for the extension, then go to wikipedia, then go through a bunch of articles, it would show each of the steps along the way. I used to use TreeStyleTabs in a similar way, but this is far more useful. I highly recommend it. If you’re worried about security, they say it just uses firefox’s existing history tracking. Theoretically, you should be able to use it on older history as soon as you install it.

        On a much more niche note is AVALANCHE, a fan-made brawler based on Final Fantasy VII and starring Tifa for no real reason. This game actually introduced me to OCRemix, as it uses music from the stellar FF VII remix album, Voices of the Lifestream. It’s a decent game, and if you actually want to try it out, there’s a recent beta available on the creator’s website. You may also want to download the font changing mod here.

        Back to general interests, I’d like you to watch the Extra Credits video from last week, Gamifying Education. If there are any teachers you particularly like, you should share it with them. If there are any teachers you dislike, you should definitely share it with them! I doubt one video on the internet is enough to reform the education system. However, it’s more than enough to help individual teachers, and that’s better than no progress at all.

        Also on The Escapist is an older Extra Considerations article about console gaming. Extra Considerations has Yahtzee, the writer(?) behind Extra Credits, and another smart guy called Movie Bob discussing various topics in gaming. Guest writers come in sometimes, too. Anyway, this particular article is all about how little innovation there is in the industry, and how the Wii came and went without many games actually using its controller for anything interesting. Also, how video games shouldn’t be limited by what the player can physically do in real life. Could you play Final Fantasy VII with Kinect? Of course not, because you can’t jump fifty feet in the air or use a sword as tall as your body.

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        Wrapping things up, I’ve got an anime recommendation: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica, aka Madoka Magica. I don’t want to say a lot about it, because it’s best left as a surprise, but check it out and don’t be fooled by the cute and cuddly exterior. It’s not on crunchyroll, sadly, so you’ll have to find it yourself. This tiny paragraph doesn’t do it justice, but I liked it a lot and I think it’s worth your time.

Ramblings about video games

Before it stops being topical, I’m going to post a couple of Ars Technica articles rather than make one of the posts I have floating around in the back of my head. I’m not sure how much I want to say about this, because it’s all information I’ve cultivated from intelligent people writing blog posts I couldn’t hope to source now. At any rate, here’s the first link:

• How Publishers Punish Us For Buying New Games

        Or, in plain English, more properly called “Self-Entitled Whining, Lack of Industry Knowledge, and Free Bonus Stuff Isn’t Good Enough For Me.” I’m going to look at his points in order, because the fact is, these things don’t happen just to piss you off and keep you from playing the game you bought. Not only that, but none of these things even have anything to do with “new” games! Buying a game used doesn’t solve any of these issues, except perhaps that you don’t get the free DLC codes that the previous owner probably used.

        Or worse, you DO get the codes, and they’ve already been used. Jerks.

I don’t want to install the game, or an update.

        A) Installing a game is one thing developers use to make the game perform better. You know how load times are practically a thing of the past? That’s because we don’t have to load every new area off of the disk when you move across some arbitrary boundary point. A lot of games will make installs optional on PS3, which is nice, but it’s probably easier for them to force you to do it. Go make lunch or something.

        B) The code sent to the manufacturer who makes the physical discs you buy (or to the publisher who controls the digital platform you’re downloading on) is likely months old, in order to give enough time for the discs to be made (or the content to be reviewed by Sony/Microsoft/Steam). Is the development team supposed to twiddle their thumbs until release, or start working on DLC expansions (or the sequel)? Not only that, but patches cost a lot of time and money to push through Sony/Microsoft on consoles. That’s why they don’t release patches to fix every little problem, because it’s just not worth it. For example, a problem people had with Costume Quest was fixed if you bought the DLC for it, because it just wasn’t worth the money to patch it.

        So there’s two things at work here: it’s more economical, and that’s important when you’re spending millions of dollars on developing a game. And the second thing is that you get a better product after the patch, and the game can be released six months sooner, so why complain about it? Unless you have a dial-up connection, it’s going to take you two minutes to get the patch. Go to the bathroom while you wait.

I don’t want to input a stack of codes.

        Gosh, getting free stuff is just awful. It’s hard to say for sure if the content you’re getting would have been on the disc if it weren’t DLC, because that really depends on the individual game. Aside from that, I guess this is the only one that’s relevant to buying new vs used. The goal is to reward people who buy new, and/or punish those who buy used, and packing in DLC is a perfectly fine way to do that. Assuming the content really isn’t on the disc, you are getting free stuff. Now, if these codes were abolished, one of two things would happen: the game a few months later to add some DLC, or you’d have to fork over five bucks for it the day of launch. DLC codes don’t seem so bad now, do they?

I don’t want to watch an unskippable trailer for your next game.

        I don’t know about this. Does this actually happen? I’ve never experienced it. This is a good point, I guess. Why anyone would do it is beyond me, so I’m glad I haven’t played a game that does this.

I don’t want to make a new account for your online service.

        There aren’t that many services to sign up for anymore. You’ve got an EA account for BioWare and (Dark)Spore and Dead Space, and you’ve got a Uplay account for Ubisoft, and maybe on PC you have an old GameSpy account… I’m sure I’m missing some, but for the most part these kinds of accounts are from publishers or something and not game-specific. Most of them come with free stuff, too, so why not use them? Having an EA account lets you get free Dragon Age stuff, having a Uplay account lets you get free Assassin’s Creed stuff and upload your save data to their servers. It’s really not that bad, and it’s great for them because they can track your stuff more accurately, pimp their brand a bit, and if they’re doing it right give you some sort of reward for using the service. Alternatively, if it’s to sign into their servers or whatever, that kind of sucks. But it’s not different from making an account for an MMO.

        The one legitimate argument against this is when the Terms of Service basically say that you don’t own your game, as has happened with Dragon Age II (turns out that was an error, allegedly) and Dragon Age: Origins (server problem) recently.

Boy that was way too much. Well, onto the next link!

• Truth of game length in the modern gaming industry

This is a long one, but it can be basically summed up by two graphs later in the article:

• Average completion rate of game campaigns

• Average time spent playing games

        Mass Effect 2 is a kind of oddity among the group, considering it’s very story driven and a lot of players were probably coming in from the first game. Red Dead Redemption, Super Meat Boy, and Shank, all of which were very well reviewed, have abysmal completion rates. Essentially, most of the people who played those games probably didn’t see the last half of the games. If you’d released the game with half as much content, 30% of the people (a very vocal minority) would have complained, while everyone else would have finished it and been perfectly satisfied.

        I don’t know what the solution to all of this is. I know I don’t finish the vast majority of the games I buy. Yet I do like to have more content in the good ones. I really don’t mind the multiple almost-endings in Persona 4, because any extra time spent with that game was just great. On the other hand, I feel kind of cheated that I spent so much time on Final Fantasy XIII, considering I didn’t enjoy it that much and just felt obligated to finish it.

        What would be really interesting is if some data like this was available for older games. I’d love to see how many people made it through older, 40+ hour RPGs (western and eastern) and how many managed to finish shorter titles. We know players don’t see most of the content in a  game, yet demand that it exists, but we don’t know how things used to be either. Could be that just as many games were going unfinished.

        I don’t think we’ll ever see 100% completion rates, no matter how perfect the fit between length and quality becomes. But then a class average of 70% is considered phenomenal in a large first year university class (more people take the course than there are people who care about doing well), and considering the even larger sample of people who play a given game, you could probably expect something a bit lower on any game longer than two hours.

        ok that’s enough I’m going to go have lunch now, too bad I don’t have a game to install

QUICK HITS

I’ve got a bunch of things I want to say, but not a whole lot to say about them. Not enough to make individual posts, but too much to say in a facebook status update. So I’m shamelessly stealing the term ‘quick hits’ from The Electric Hydra podcast (or internet radio show) and presenting a bunch of stuff to you, with shiny bullet points for your reading pleasure.

• I want to make a game about peace keeping space marines. Non-lethal weapons only. You have to save people from violence and help them and build intergalactic wells or something. Why not?
• Procedural content is probably the way of the future, and there’s a great quote in there about games like modern Call of Duty being “the pinnacle of effort-based development.” What that says to me is this: there is also a limit to what we can produce through sheer effort, simply because anything beyond that is too expensive, or takes too much effort, or just isn’t viable for whatever particular reason. No one is going to make a game with a $100 MILLION dollar budget, unless they’re absolutely guaranteed to make money on it, which means selling an absolutely astounding amount of copies. Procedural content generation means a whole lot of different things, but primarily, it means making a game like Assassin’s Creed II for the cost of whatever tools you use to generate the cities and assassination targets.
• Slightly related to the above point, and mentioned in the second article (on the word content - yes there’s a slight space in the hyperlinks, you should notice this stuff, but I shouldn’t do it in the first place) is user generated content, sometimes called “procedural gameplay.” Stuff like Far Cry 2 perma-death runs, or the stories people make out of MineCraft, in which awesome play experiences are had by the players simply by making use of the systems a game makes available. This is also cheap, but slightly different from generation of procedural content.
• Ubisoft is hiring someone to help write an encyclopedia for Assassin’s Creed, and I REALLY SERIOUSLY WANT TO APPLY but I’m nervous, afraid of using resources like the Assassin’s Creed wikia and wikipedia itself, etc. etc. Being an adult is haaaaaaaaaaaaaaard.
• There exists a NES rip-off of Final Fantasy VII.
• A NES version, with the complete story and most of the features (Vincent and Yuffie missing, for example) of the PS1 game Final Fantasy VII.
• FF VII for the NES was originally available only in Chinese. So a bunch of Chinese programmers converted FF VII into Assembly and 8-bit sprites.
• A translation for this game exists. I’m too lazy to dig through the internet and find a ROM of it, but you can play it through this forum and if you REALLY WANT you can post a bunch on the forum and download it.
• The game probably sucks and playing it on that forum’s arcade thing is probably terrible, but you can play FF VII as a NES game.
• Bad games exist, and they probably shouldn’t, but some people just want to make money, not good games
• Why should your game exist?
• A Carleton graduate posted an article on AltDevBlogADay. I kinda want to say something, but I really can’t think of any good reason for doing that except that he went to the same university I’m attending. Along with like 20,000 other people. I’m definitely mentioning it to Jim Davies at the last meeting with his lab on monday though.
• I actually really like reading reasonably short post-mortems, and here’s an interesting one.

The moral of the story is you should probably read AltDevBlogADay. I love the idea of “GDC all year round” because there are a ton of awesome people with great stuff to say who wouldn’t get a spot to speak at a conference because they aren’t famous. And they sure as hell wouldn’t be given an hour to talk about best comment coding practices or the glory of “scripting languages” that don’t need to be compiled for ten minutes in order to test minute changes.