Slashdot Mirror
Interview with Tom Sloper, Veteran Game Designer
Giles writes: "Listen to veteran game designer and producer Tom Sloper talk about what it was like to make games for the Vectrex, discuss the addictiveness of current MMORPGS and some game development disaster stories. And why is the voice acting in games so bad, anyway? An interesting inside look at the game industry from an old-timer."
They avoid the fact that whether they expected 10 or 100,000 users, a bug is a bug and not being able to register your cd key or log on isn't a scaling issue. It's a code issue from the get go, making me wonder if they EVER tested their live server before it was fully deployed.
They also contradict themselves by stating that the number of users is overwhelming and they are straining to accomodate everyone. Yet in their marketing for months they had been claiming they were going to become the most popular and most populated MMORPG in existance. They claim that the 40,000 users was more than double what they expected though but i doubt they could even support those 20,000 that they counted on.
I'm one of those who wasted by $65 on the game and am tired of sitting around waiting for it to be finished. Why didn't they just charge us the $65 four years ago and say "some day we'll have this cool game and you'll be able to play it.. for now, you can just pay us the money and we'll use it to write the program and debug it... kay?".
You can bet your ass Ford wouldn't get away with selling you the shell of a car for $30,000 and promising that in a few weeks or months, they'll get around to putting the engine and interior in it so you can actually use it.
Legally I don't think price enters into it. Would a $5 paperback missing a few pages be worth returning to the store? Maybe, if you really wanted to read those pages, or the store is on your way to someplace.
The book Bad Software had a pretty good description of how to return bad software. Unfortunately I think the UCITA may have made it obsolete, at least in places like VA that signed the dread thing into law. It had good advice on how to return things that had a shrinkwrap license, or things like DVDs or CDs to best buy where they have a policy of not allowing refunds, only exchanges on things like that.
It relies on UCC case law, and UCC regulations about things like the consumer having a short time to test the item. If you can't play a CD you can't test it...Same for software. If you return it right away (say the same day, or the day after) there pretty much isn't anything legal they can do (er, except the UCITA can or could change that). It's time consuming to find someone in Best Buy who will stand still while you quote law, but they do give in. For me, it ain't worth it for low cost items, unless they are just so bad that I can't stand the though of the makers getting any money for the item.
It takes a lot of work to get the voice parts correct...
For some examples of this, and some good laughs,
listen to some out-takes from the script recording for Black and White:
http://main.bwgame.com/bwouttakesdownload.shtml
Get some low mass mirrors - go down to a craft store (like Craftmart), and purchase some small (1/2 inch) square or round mirrors.
Use epoxy or superglue, and glue them onto small speakers (buy some at rat shack, or pull some out of old radios). You will need two speaker/mirror combos.
Now, the hard part: arrange the speakers at orthogonal 45 degree angles, such that one speaker deflects the beam horizontally, and the second speaker deflects that beam vertically (note, you may need a bigger mirror on the second speaker, to make up for deflection).
A third speaker could be rigged to act as a "shutter" deflector, that would deflect the final beam into a "black box", or cut it off somehow.
Hook these speakers up to the stereo channels of your sound card, and have fun!
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
New and exciting games...
Ok, maybe what I have to say won't be new - but why isn't it exciting?
Have you noticed how many people read? I mean, bookstores aren't going down the tubes, most all of us read, many other individuals read - just the other day I went with my SO to a book signing for one of her favorite authors (Janet Evanovich) - it was a standing room only crowd - over 450 people showed up. This is a typical showing at her book signings, from what I understand.
I am sure for other "celebrity" authors, it is the same way - in short, a ton of people read.
So why is it text adventures are looked upon as "stale" gaming experiences?
I know all about the z-engine games that are made by adventure game designers and such - the contests, etc - that have a following. What I wonder is why there is not a clammoring from people worldwide to play these style games?
Is it too much to ask for to type commands - or to read? Have game players become too enamored with glitzy graphics? Is it too much to ask for them to actually think, and not just point and shoot?
Don't get me wrong - I like 3D games and shooters as much as anyone - in fact, there is a lot of promise in making very interactive and immersive style games with this format...
I just wonder why we don't see text adventure game authors (and I mean this in it's utmost sense - the authorship being paramount - the game should read like a book, like many of Infocom's games did) today?
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Yes - many. My favorites being from Infocom and Scott Adams.
Infocom especially - I love the Zork series.
A well designed adventure is not only entertaining, but thorougly logical. If you got to such a point in an adventure, as you describe, then:
a) You missed the key somewhere, or maybe there is a different way to open the door (a lever in the basement, perhaps?) or,
b) (rarely happens) Something is wrong with the code, allowing you to get to a point without the key or whatever, and no way of going back.
I have played text adventures enough to know that when the answer appears, it is like "Duh!" - and a revelation occurs - causing me to descend deeper into the game. All adventure games should be mapped as they are explored (nothing beats making a map with pencil and paper, notes jotted down only to be smeared, etc) - sometimes you can study the map, and figure out where something may be, and why - and usually - it is there!
I enjoy adventure games because they give me situations to think in - they are more on the level of chess than other games. I think other games could come to this level, and some have, but they are rare - and for some reason, tend to bomb on the shelves...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Seeing as your "script" is not likely from a typical game, what you might see is:
>Look
You are in the living room of the house. To the east is a closed, locked door. Next to the door is a painting. To the north is a hallway leading to the kitchen. A mouse runs across the floor by your foot.
>Look floor
You watch the mouse. He scurries away into a hole in the baseboard next to the locked door.
>Look hole
You put your finger into the hole, and are bit by the mouse - OUCH!
At this point, one would realize "Maybe I can find some cheese" to lure the mouse out. Once you have baited the mouse (or, maybe you need the cheese, and a trap - which might be located in the shed outside! Hehe) from the hole, you can then reach in, feel for a key (or a button, or switch, or lever) to open the door (which of course leads to the basement).
A perfectly logical chain of events - one that might leave some scratching their heads (or banging them on the wall - you might even have the mouse run up a clock just for the hell of it!), but is perfectly obvious given some thought!
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Yup, but your brother is crazy :)
(Jedi)
-- Pure FTP server - Upgrade your FTP server to something simple and secure.
{{.sig}}
Je capte pas, pourquoi tu aurais le droit de faire ça avec des vinyls alors que c'est interdit pour des cd ?
-- Pure FTP server - Upgrade your FTP server to something simple and secure.
{{.sig}}
Did he ever come up with hypnotic displays and laser shows to tempt small badly drawn kids into returning to the Plane'arium time and time again?
I'm not convinced. I was looking at the raft of games that have come out in the last year, or so and I'm quite impressed with the innovation in them. Consider;
The Sims
Black and White
The Longest Journey (yeah, not too innovative but brilliant and at least not another FPS)
Thief (which sadly didn't sell as well as it should have)
And now I see something called "The Sting" that looks promising and maybe even innovative.
There's always _some_ room for innovation in compuer gaming, although maybe not enough.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Actually, the main use is interpolation. I mean, cartoon animated games have been around for a long time, as have vector, and vector games always look more smooth. Interpolating when everything is vertices and points is easy as heck. So, unless you're working in full 3d (which assumes we're talking full boxen here, which isn't necessary - think palm, or cheapie, or disposable)... plus, as suggested in a previous post - vector based graphics could be linked to a laser projection system, which could be entertaining.
On another note, unlike many other commercially abandoned consoles, all Vectrex games have been released for public, non-commercial, use.
The Mame and XMame packages now include Mess, so a general emulator is readilly available to run the old classics, and the new one that you just need to make. (Go ahead, get coding!)
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
...or, you can build your own. WorldForge has fairly complex and differing rule sets, differnt UIs, and high-quality art work. Already, the starter game Acorn has some interesting game concepts and on the development side Python scripting and it's own game compiler/protocol engine named Atlas-C++.
Best of all...it's in active development!
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Yes, I would really like to know what he meant by "voice acting doesn`t work in computer games."
Voice acting is just telling a tale and using enough intonation and emotion in you voice, adding a mindset to the graphical context, building a plot in the viewer`s mind. What CAN go wrong is the synching with the digital actors, and I`m sure back in the days there wasn`t much room for synching or modelling phonemes on a mouth. If you look at Final Fantasy, voice acting can definately be made realistic. What gets in the way is plastic skin.. maybe.. look at the 'The Banana Queen' video by Zita Swoon.. some great art there.
Maybe what he meant is that the character and the guy impersonating the character`s voice do not have the same featureset, that somehow his voice doesn`t sound convincing because the kind of stress he puts in his voice doesn`t exactly match the character`s movement. But I think this stems from the fact that cartoon or computer graphics generated models are generally animated without much regard to the emotional content they might or should or must contain. Or they are overemphasised to make them look very Disney. Something in our mind says that synthetic being is not real, and the voice therefore is not real either. On the other hand, Homer Simpson has a great voice, so it`s definately possible to give a cartoon the voice he needs. But then again The Simpsons are so absurdly normal that their absurdly normal voices stick good with them. Usually, toons are animated like this or that, because the moves look realistic or hot, and because usually there isn`t much room for including 'slips and defects of the skin' or movements that are non functional but preserve the integrity of the character, or 'believability', to use an obscene word.
Atleast I believe that lipsynching and facial animation based on naration and voice can be convincing. It just takes a tremendous amount of effort to make it realistic. Between the lines you can see Tom saying that when a production is to be finished, the voicepacks are usually the last thing studio`s do, and in order to get the game out of the door, things get rushed. But that doesn`t mean things can`t be done better.
At least, that`s what I think..
cheers,
ignace
With great power comes great electricity bills.
I read until i came to this in the first paragraph, then my attention dropped.
"Can you tell me specifically what the dev system was like for Vectrex?"
Well, I'm not a programmer, so I never actually used a Vectrex dev system myself.
wtf ? I thought it was about developing games on a vectrex ? Back in these days there was hardly a lot to do for so called 'game-designers'.
That is why there are demos, reviews etc, to give you a chance to verify if you like the product or not.
In order to refund things, it often has to be something else then "consumable goods". I think anything below like $100 is "consumable goods", you buy it on your own risk, and it is hardly worth the trouble to return it.
Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
Aristotele
Have you ever not *seen* but *played* with a Vectrex ? : :
I still enjoy playing Armor Attack in 2-player mode.
A friend of mine once said... "these were the times when ergonomy was still a concept"
I don't agree anymore
Now, ergonomy has become a concept, at these time, it was a necessity
How else would you have made a game running on a so pathetically-powerless console entertaining ?
Really, get yourself an emulator and just discover what gaming meant at these times so that you'll end this troll on the right side.
--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
My brother used to work in a Planetarium, in France, where they had a vector-based hemispheric display device. :-)
While the engineer was still taking some classes to understand the way it basically worked, he just read the doc and started to code some games on it, like an asteroids-clone...
On a 20meter-diameter ceiling, this was excellent
--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
The only things I can thing of that might work: 1) you make the DM pay for stuff with real money...maybe as more people who play his scenario, he gets credits to create more stuff. 2) The game restricts how much stuff (treasure, etc) can be awarded for a given amount of monsters that must be slain. But it seems like it would be nearly impossible for the game to effectively enforce such a policy.
However, developing the story seems to be Funcoms smallest problem right now. They are having serious connection and server uptime issues, which is pissing off all the players. From what I hear, the game only uses TCP/IP and no UDP like most other online games. This means that every packet has to be confirmed, which is not always needed.
Apparently the game is very addictive (I think my friend will lose his job, if he doesn't quit playing during work).
-Kraft
-Kraft
Live and let live
An avid Ultima Online player, I can tell you that MMORPGs have the potential to be HUGE! But there are a few shortcomings to MMORPGs that are obvious to anyone who has ever played one that pose an equally huge threat to the market:
Connection Speed -- Not everyone has cable or a T1 line to connect with. The simple fact that your ability to enjoy a game can be jeaprodized by a telephone line poses a major problem for most users.
Play Styles -- Not everyone can play nicely together. Player Killers (PK's) and Roleplayers despise one another. Plain and simple. Need proof? Look at UO again. For the longest time you only had one "realm" to play on. Complaints by people to Game Counselors and support staff grew to such magnitude, OSI (aka, minion of the hellspawn known as EA) had to double their servers capacity so that there were now 2 realms for every shard: This worked out to be at least 10 new servers at that time that had to be maintained on the prexisting budget. Imagine the hit R&D took!(That would explain why UO3D sucked my dogs balls) And once the non-pking shard was opened, 2/3 of the client base went to the new "Non-Pking" facet known as Trammel, leaving the former facet nearly desolate.
Content-Control -- Individual users have little to no say about what they want the game to become despite the fact that they pay for it. Only massive quantities of emails and posts agreeing on a new aspect get implemented (and some that are NOT agreed on). Take UO yet again. Once player housing was allowed, everyone wanted a house. This lead to servers being jam-packed with new data from all the subsequent houses. To solve this problem, OSI imposed housing placement limitations (some of which in my mind were LUDICROUS! You can't place a house within a few steps of a certain type of grass for example)that caused a tremndous outcry from players. They had lost control of an aspect of a gaming world they pay for. Piss off too many players, and you loose money.
These are just 3 of the major aspects that stick out in my mind that the article didn't mention when they said online games were "The Next Big Thing". Although I have to agree MMORPG'S are really awsome.. I'm drooling over Shadowbane right now.
"Every computer Crashes, cause Every OS Sucks.. Everything since Apple/DOS..Just a bunch of crap"
Actually, this is funny, not OT - unless you're a technically illiterate goober, that is.
Hey, I've got karma to burn and I'm tired of being modded down by ignorant bitches. Do your worst, bitches.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Reading this, I was reminded of the producers/designers I've met in the games business over the years.
They have all been, without exception, soulless, talentless, buzzword compliant corporate cocksuckers with an "enthusiasm span" of about two weeks and all the loyalty and team spirit of a rattlesnake with a migraine.
The big giggle is that they grab the credit for great games (check the credits list in your favourite game), but shit never sticks to them. No matter how tits up the game goes, producers/designers always manage to pin the blame on development and stagger on to the next project, usually with a better package, because, hey, they gained valuable experience, right?
Here's a typical conversation between a producer and a developer.
Think I'm joking? I only wish.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I remember last year I had the opportunity to ask Tom Sloper a few questions on a newsgroup, I forget which one, a games design one I think.
Anyways, he gave really good answers to my questions and was generally very helpful. Take a look at his website aimed at giving advice to budding games designers-->> Sloperama.com
This is of course a bit offtopic I think, have mercy on me!!Anyone know if there are any modern Vector-based game systems available? I've not seen any, either arcade games or console - but then I do live in Europe!
Is there a solid technical reason why vector systems are not made any more, maybe?
http://www.themeparks.ie