Original article here.
Amusing news from the BBC. Apparently UN development projects are to be mapped out in Minecraft. That way, those who are affected (and indeed anyone who is interested) can simply go on the game and walk around the proposed development, and get an idea of what completed projects will be like.
This may have the effect of making the simulation look butt ugly, as competent designers in real life don't necessarily make for competent ones using the limited materials of Minecraft. Still, if they ever want to hire, I and many others have bloated portfolios of our previous design work.
You want something that can resist lava, or a zombie invasion? You know who to call.
Monday 26 November 2012
Thursday 22 November 2012
Limbo
There's a spider scuttling among the ceiling. A completely normal spider, with eight legs and a face no mother could love. Except that it's ten times your size, and peckish.
Welcome to Limbo, where the world really isn't fair.
Having mentioned the return of games where deep thinking is key, it makes sense to go a little bit more into how this came about. And one of the ways that it seems to have happened is through the platformer genre attempting to reinvent itself.
Endless Mario repetitions get dull after a while, but for a time it seemed that the only platforming games to come out of the big developers were rehashes of old and established franchises; The Prince of Persia, or Tomb Raider. It seems almost odd that they would be so risk averse, and in retrospect they should have seen the way forward easily.
As is often the case, indie developers led the way. And services like Steam meant that if an indie game took off, everyone noticed it.
It started with Braid, which mixed traditional platforming with a variety of time-travelling puzzles practically guaranteed to twist your mind like wringing a wet cloth. Sooner or later you'd think of the solution, and feel like all those days of thinking you were smart may not have been completely untrue. There was immense payoff.
Other games followed: There was And Yet It Moves, where you can turn the game world upside down, only to die a lot. And then there was Limbo, which managed to make puzzles feel natural, brutal, and cruel.
Limbo succeeds because it is such an unrepentant work of art. The atmosphere is grey, steady, and often frightening. The gigantic head-munching spiders are iconic, but there are a host of other enemies ready to murder and brutalise the small child you play. And it's a helpless child too - it can survive only on wits and agility. There are no weapons to lessen the tension, as in Tomb Raider. You really are on your own.
In the days of the Steam Autumn sale then (whoop!), pick up Limbo for a dark night. It's not true horror, and it's not too challenging. But it was a step in the right direction for games, integrating satisfying mental challenges without killing the fun of making progress. And, indirectly at least, it helped turn the industry back towards puzzles that weren't just when to take cover.
(Aragog?)
Welcome to Limbo, where the world really isn't fair.
(Just chilling on the swing)
Having mentioned the return of games where deep thinking is key, it makes sense to go a little bit more into how this came about. And one of the ways that it seems to have happened is through the platformer genre attempting to reinvent itself.
Endless Mario repetitions get dull after a while, but for a time it seemed that the only platforming games to come out of the big developers were rehashes of old and established franchises; The Prince of Persia, or Tomb Raider. It seems almost odd that they would be so risk averse, and in retrospect they should have seen the way forward easily.
As is often the case, indie developers led the way. And services like Steam meant that if an indie game took off, everyone noticed it.
It started with Braid, which mixed traditional platforming with a variety of time-travelling puzzles practically guaranteed to twist your mind like wringing a wet cloth. Sooner or later you'd think of the solution, and feel like all those days of thinking you were smart may not have been completely untrue. There was immense payoff.
Other games followed: There was And Yet It Moves, where you can turn the game world upside down, only to die a lot. And then there was Limbo, which managed to make puzzles feel natural, brutal, and cruel.
Limbo succeeds because it is such an unrepentant work of art. The atmosphere is grey, steady, and often frightening. The gigantic head-munching spiders are iconic, but there are a host of other enemies ready to murder and brutalise the small child you play. And it's a helpless child too - it can survive only on wits and agility. There are no weapons to lessen the tension, as in Tomb Raider. You really are on your own.
(Well, there's him. The dead guy. Teddy?)
Wednesday 21 November 2012
Dreamfall Chapters
Late in October I did a series of posts on Funcom. In them, I talked about a possible sequel to The Longest Journey and Dreamfall, the brainchilds of Ragnar Tornquist. And, in my post on Dreamfall, I suggested that one way to fund such a sequel would be through using crowdfunding sites - in the same way that DoubleFine have found money for their own games.
So I'm feeling happy and psychic today, because a few days later that's precisely what was announced. And, should the Kickstarter fund take off, it'll be yet another victory for crowdfunding, particularly when it comes to adventure games.
I for one am all for the return of the genre - rather than shooters, which challenge your skill with a mouse, and quick thinking abilities, or RPGs which challenge your persistence and forward planning, adventure games (of the puzzle variety) encourage deep thought and experimentation. There aren't many other genres which accomodate that.
And, encouragingly, the developers have dropped the idea of 'episodes', along with the combat elements which damaged Dreamfall, but which were put in back in the day to broaden marketing appeal. It's a good sign then that developers feel that the niche for pure adventure games is sizable enough now - that's in no small part to services like Steam, which give indie games immediate and cheap marketing.
In short, it's a bright new future, because Funcom's hand is strongest when it deals in story, and that's precisely what the gaming world needs.
So I'm feeling happy and psychic today, because a few days later that's precisely what was announced. And, should the Kickstarter fund take off, it'll be yet another victory for crowdfunding, particularly when it comes to adventure games.
I for one am all for the return of the genre - rather than shooters, which challenge your skill with a mouse, and quick thinking abilities, or RPGs which challenge your persistence and forward planning, adventure games (of the puzzle variety) encourage deep thought and experimentation. There aren't many other genres which accomodate that.
And, encouragingly, the developers have dropped the idea of 'episodes', along with the combat elements which damaged Dreamfall, but which were put in back in the day to broaden marketing appeal. It's a good sign then that developers feel that the niche for pure adventure games is sizable enough now - that's in no small part to services like Steam, which give indie games immediate and cheap marketing.
In short, it's a bright new future, because Funcom's hand is strongest when it deals in story, and that's precisely what the gaming world needs.
Monday 19 November 2012
DLC
Apologies for the radio silence of late - NaNoWriMo is being a pain in the backside, and while my attempt at a novel is indeed flowing towards a conclusion, the 'flow' is consistent to the sort of stuff you'd find oozing out of a sewer pipe, or a horse's arse for that matter.
Still, there's time for a small and poorly researched rant about the merits of DLC. That's right - the merits.
A lot of people don't like the extra downloadable content that game developers occasionally market alongside their games. There are a number of reasons why, so let's break them down:
Now, I don't think that's true - more likely it's a way of keeping in-house developers occupied' during the periods that they aren't needed. Such periods (while rare), tend to be during the early stage of development of a new game. Most Oblivion DLC was produced while Fallout 3 was in the early stages, and programmers weren't hitting crunch time to finish the game off. It's simply a way for company's to keep on expertise during the slower days and not make a loss from doing so.
And once the game's out, the funding from publishers for that game is pretty much gone. So it's hard to justify getting programmers to work on completely free features and updates (Minecraft, being self-made, is an exception) because they should have been there - people cost a lot of money after all. So at least by charging for it, developers can get the content out there without making losses.
Still, there's time for a small and poorly researched rant about the merits of DLC. That's right - the merits.
A lot of people don't like the extra downloadable content that game developers occasionally market alongside their games. There are a number of reasons why, so let's break them down:
- It costs too much.
- It distracts from proper development.
Now, I don't think that's true - more likely it's a way of keeping in-house developers occupied' during the periods that they aren't needed. Such periods (while rare), tend to be during the early stage of development of a new game. Most Oblivion DLC was produced while Fallout 3 was in the early stages, and programmers weren't hitting crunch time to finish the game off. It's simply a way for company's to keep on expertise during the slower days and not make a loss from doing so.
- It's stuff that should have been in the original game.
And once the game's out, the funding from publishers for that game is pretty much gone. So it's hard to justify getting programmers to work on completely free features and updates (Minecraft, being self-made, is an exception) because they should have been there - people cost a lot of money after all. So at least by charging for it, developers can get the content out there without making losses.
Thursday 15 November 2012
Les Misérables
By no means a game, but certainly a very good musical, a film of Victor Hugo's massive work is due to hit cinemas this Christmas. And yes, it's in musical format, because anything about poor urchins from the past has to be musical. I mean, look at Annie, or Oliver!.
Check out the trailer here.
It's not all urchins of course. There's something of a love story, and plenty of tragic stories. Tales of redemption sought and lost, comic grotesques and a revolution. But the angle that this particular trailer has gone for has been the crushing of dreams, followed by the statement 'The Dream Lives'.
So the cynic in me has instantly made comparisons with the American Dream, and the slight fear over in the US that the best times are all gone, and that the new generation are to be the first to end up worse off than their parents. The American Dream is damaged, much like Fantine's. Yet, as at the end of the trailer, there's still some hope for a resurrection, that future prosperity (or at least, redemption) is still possible, if only through your children.
Is that accurate? I don't know, but the film is certain to do very well at the box office. Definitely one I'd recommend seeing, for even if the potency of the songs may be lost a little, the acting will be even better than that of the West End.
Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, Amanda Seyfried, Hugh Jackman and that amazing story...Mmm...
Check out the trailer here.
It's not all urchins of course. There's something of a love story, and plenty of tragic stories. Tales of redemption sought and lost, comic grotesques and a revolution. But the angle that this particular trailer has gone for has been the crushing of dreams, followed by the statement 'The Dream Lives'.
So the cynic in me has instantly made comparisons with the American Dream, and the slight fear over in the US that the best times are all gone, and that the new generation are to be the first to end up worse off than their parents. The American Dream is damaged, much like Fantine's. Yet, as at the end of the trailer, there's still some hope for a resurrection, that future prosperity (or at least, redemption) is still possible, if only through your children.
Is that accurate? I don't know, but the film is certain to do very well at the box office. Definitely one I'd recommend seeing, for even if the potency of the songs may be lost a little, the acting will be even better than that of the West End.
Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, Amanda Seyfried, Hugh Jackman and that amazing story...Mmm...
Tuesday 13 November 2012
From Daggerfall to Skyrim - How Bethesda Grew Up
First, a confession. I love The Elder Scrolls series. I love the RPG genre, and the open world format. Bethesda, for all its reputation for bugs, has a solid backer in me.
Still, when I saw in the PC Gamer magazine that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim had gained first place in a list of the best PC games of all time, I had to object. Because for all it's a great game, and it really is, it has some serious flaws.
Now, I'll admit that this sort of ratings table isn't entirely to be trusted. To some extent, the top game on the list always had to be a recent and popular one, because of PCGamer's readership. More people have played Skyrim than Deus Ex or any other of the usual contenders, so why upset them? To some extent, magazines pander to the readership - they have to.
Besides, Bethesda are almost certainly working on something new right now, something exciting. It may only be a subconscious thought for PCGamer's editor, but it's there. So naming a developer's game the best ever can only enhance prospects of getting that exclusive preview.
Still, it's as good an excuse as any to look at The Elder Scrolls series as a whole, to see how it started, how it developed, and what it learned on the way. Skyrim is a mess of influences - and developers took as much from the second installment (Daggerfall), as they did from Oblivion, the fourth. For obvious reasons, I'm only going to deal with the games I played, from Daggerfall onwards. Ready?
The Origin of the Western RPG:
I'm dangling from a steel wire, wrapped around my ankle. Below me is a very long drop, while above me the hulk of a vast airship is in flames. Welcome to the skies of Victorian London. This is an RPG, as they used to be: five friends around a table, pretending to be someone they're not.
My 'someone I'm not' is a very stupid character. After the first dice rolls to decide my base stats, I pumped additional numbers into strength and endurance, completely ignoring the fact that if my character sat GCSEs, he'd not only fail, but probably eat the paper. He's good in a fist fight, God awful at negotiations. He's a balanced character.
It's in pursuit of balanced characters that RPGs have a class system. Traditionally in videogames, that's been the trio of the thinker, the fighter, and the rogue. Each has strengths, and each has weaknesses, and in early RPGs like Daggerfall, we even have dice rolls, as if this was a roleplaying game acted out around the table. Class systems also open up different playstyles - you can pick locks or negotiate your way through a game. You can batter all goblins with an axe, or set them alight with magic.
Traditional RPGs established complex worlds and systems to deal with many different playstyles - if you could think of a solution to a problem, the Game Master would try to accommodate it. It all went towards deep worlds and rules that accommodate a number of different playstyles - and this translated into the videogame equivalent.
The world of The Elder Scrolls, with Argonians, Daedra, Orcs and all the rest of it, was all constructed over the course of several tabletop games between those who would go on to become videogame developers. And the entire genre owes much to Dungeons and Dragons, or Fighting Fantasy. It's all obvious stuff, but it's worth stressing, because it explains a lot, particularly about the second game in the series.
The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall
If you've only played Skyrim, and have the time, download Daggerfall for free from Bethesda. You can play it using DosBox. I guarantee that after half an hour of play, you'll hate it. You'll absolutely hate it. Perhaps, after a longer stint, you'll grow to adore the game, but it's likely that the sheer difference between Skyrim and Daggerfall will be enough to put you off.
Provided you look past the graphics, it seems quite cool and retro at first. You answer questions about your background - these all go to affect your stats and class, and your starting relationship with the game's many factions. You're free to add or subtract a few points to each stat if you wish (note the dice by the side as you do so?). It all adds to the feel of a more complicated character, a character with a history, one that you can truly roleplay.
That's fine. These are all features commonly found in a tabletop RPG. Take my guy, hanging from the airship. He's a pirate. A dumb pirate, sent on an undercover mission by a captain who doesn't expect or want him to return. And, roleplaying the dumb pirate, I decide to stop the enemy airship by setting fire to the balloon, while I'm on it. It's great fun.
Of course, the Game Master didn't really expect me to roleplay quite so well. So he swears at me a little, and has to invent a whole new scenario from scratch - where we crashland, who lives there, and so on. He could just kill us all, but we're buying rounds, and he's bought one more than the rest of us. So he sets about making a whole new neighbourhood, off the hoof. And he does it through the use of a randomiser, which creates entire areas from the roll of a dice.
You see, the world of the traditional tabletop RPG is infinite, and very flexible. And this was a feature that the developers of Daggerfall attempted to put into their game. Daggerfall is big, very big. It's roughly the size of Great Britain. The cities are large, and can take half an hour to walk across.
But they're also dull. Because by very nature of a randomiser, you can't put in particularly specific touches. Each dungeon is huge, randomly generated, and just a little dull. If you leave it, it resets, as if you never entered. Unlike more modern RPGs, you don't feel that you're making much of a mark on the world.
That's not to say that Daggerfall didn't get anything right. It still has a cult following, and if you can get past the issue of a large, random world, you might be able to see why - there's a certain depth to the gameplay, if not the world. But it's too much like a tabletop RPG to me, without the personal, humorous touches often added by the Game Master getting pissed off by your actions. So, after feedback from players, you can see why, with Morrowind, Bethesda went completely the other way.
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Of the ten playable races of Tamriel, only four are human. So it's odd that after five entries in the series, only one game has been set in a non-human province of the ruling Empire. But then, Morrowind is odd in many ways. It's almost as if the developers set out to be different - as if the best way to add a personal flavour is to create mushroom cities, and beetles the size of houses.
It was much smaller than Daggerfall of course. However, as with Skyrim, the developers found that the more mountainous you make a world, the larger it seems. It was a principle abandoned in Oblivion, where, set in a gigantic basin, you could always see how close you really were to the Imperial City.
What about the gameplay elements of Daggerfall? Well, Morrowind still has questions about your background, but these are optional. And factional relationships seem to have been done away entirely - these are something you develop through play, and joining various guilds.
Combat is still based on dice - you can fire an arrow at point blank range, and it will miss because the dice rolled behind the scenes exceeded your skill level. While Oblivion did do away with this system, it did so in a way that made arrows feel less lethal. Only Skyrim seems to have got it completely right.
Other similarities between Daggerfall and Morrowind are in how quests are treated. In Daggerfall, quests had time limits, and could be failed if the wrong choices were made. In Morrowind however, there is no time limit. It's also hard to fail a quest (bar dying). However, it is possible to kill characters needed to complete the quest. The game notifies you when this happens, warning you that you've effectively broken it, but you're free to continue if you wish.
In Oblivion of course, it's impossible to kill essential characters. With the leveling system creating some pretty lethal bad guys, that's probably fair enough, particularly in quests like the saving of Kvatch. Still, what Oblivion did wrong here was to come up with a message every time a character was low on health. Reading 'Martin is Unconscious' a dozen times kind of breaks immersion.
Back to Morrowind, and what the game does right. The answer is, quite a lot really. The world feels large enough, and different enough, to not be dull. There are more factions than you'll see in the more recent games - you can join different vampirics tribes, religions, the traditional Guilds, and the Great Houses of Morrowind. What's more, once you've chosen a Great House, you're stuck with it. In Oblivion however, you could play through every questline, regardless of how little sense it made to have a Arch Listening Gray Fox wandering around. Morrowind takes your choices seriously. It's good, in a way.
Other than that, Morrowind does lore exceptionally well. You get a really good feel for the game. This is partly due to the conversation system. There was no voice acting. In the case of Morrowind, this was a good thing. Sound files add to a game's space requirements dramatically, so if you have voice acting, you are necessarily going to have to cut down on the amount and variety of dialogue.
Morrowind didn't have that problem. So it's able to maintain what's effectively a fantasy Wikipedia. Conversation with characters can reveal a lot of genuinely interesting information, with a variety of topics, and a variety of opinions. And, unlike with Oblivion, you're unlikely to be jolted out of your geeky reverie by awkward or just plain bad voice acting.
And the lore of the world is interesting too, made better by the world. You don't discover caves or ruins by following a marker. You discover them by accident - they feel like your secrets. Nothing you find is ever marked on map, and fast travel is impossible. It makes for a more mysterious world, and you genuinely are interested in issues like what happened to the Dwemer, the secretive dwarven race that has apparently disappeared.
Finally, as the one who has been 'chosen', with dungeons that don't reset, you feel like you really can have an impact on the game. You can free all the slaves in the market, and they will stay free. Morrowind did a lot of things right. But then came Oblivion...
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Oblivion was a good game in its own right. Graphically, it appears more dated than Morrowind, but that's largely due to the faces of the characters - they are unappealing. In terms of size, the map is larger, and so are the dungeons. That was actually a problem though - the dungeons weren't different enough to justify the size. It grew too easy to get bored. Skyrim changed this a little, thankfully. Caves in Skyrim are often small, with little personal touches. You can dip in and out of them in twenty minutes.
I've mentioned the voice acting already, and this was one reason why the world didn't feel quite as deep - the lore couldn't be expanded upon properly by characters. It was left to the books, the majority of them having been copied over from Morrowind in any case. And when speaking to people, you zoomed in on them in a way that smashed immersion to pieces.
Regarding justice, guards knew that you had accidentally stolen a jug from a shop at the other end of the map, and weren't going to give you leeway. Levitation, present in previous games, had been axed, as cities were moved to cells separated from the main world. In fairness, that was necessary. Had the cities been open to the world, the frame rates would have been terrible. Still, the loss of levitation was a serious blow to player freedom. Meanwhile, dungeons didn't feel like your secret any more. Wander within a mile of them, and you'd see a marker on your map.
As a final damning blow, creatures leveled with you. This was likely an attempt to prevent new players from getting screwed over by something stronger earlier on, but it made matters worse. Not only did it make levelling feel pointless, but it also reduced the fear factor of meeting something that you know can two-hit you. I count among my fondest memories of gaming the time when I had to flee my first daedra in Morrowind, after a less-than-appropriately-cautious raid on a temple.
Still, Oblivion does have standout features that are worth commenting on. It was one of the few games that let you move each individual item around, making fireballs feel fun. The Radiant AI was a decent attempt at giving characters lives, routines and secrets. The Guilds, while fewer, still had long, engaging questlines. The main questline was still a bit crap, but that's practically a traditional feature of Elder Scrolls games. It doesn't matter - the main questline is not what you came for.
Oblivion wasn't bad, in the same way Deus Ex 2 wasn't bad. It just wasn't its predecessor. And neither, as it turns out, was it worthy of its successor.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Now, I've met people who prefer Oblivion, for various reasons. One prefers the main storyline of Oblivion, which is fine, because the main storyline in Skyrim (particularly in the case of Alduin) is uninspiring, made great by the characters (dragons!), rather than the plot.
Still, for the most part, Skyrim is excellent. It's not 'best game ever' excellent, but it has learned well from those that came before it.
From Daggerfall it takes a crime system that splits the realm up into different jurisdictions. A murderer in one hold will not be arrested in another.
From Morrowind it takes a mountainous terrain, making the world seem bigger. It takes small dungeons, ones you can pop in and out of, and not grow bored of.
From Oblivion it takes a combat system where you hit no matter what your level, making the dice seem less obvious. It takes voice acting and improves it. It adds more variety to the map. It adds creatures that don't all want to kill you, and adapts the levelling system so that you do occasionally encounter the weaker creatures that used to terrify you.
Other than that, it adds flying creatures (dragons most notably), and moves further away from the tabletop RPG tradition by removing class systems and backgrounds altogether, streamlining the combat. The result is a more fluid game experience, where immersion is rarely broken, and you can spend hours forgetting that it's a game at all.
It's not all perfect though. It's the first Elder Scrolls game where you can tell the User Interface was designed with console players as the priority. It feels much easier to use keys than a mouse to select what you want - and it doesn't gel so well on a PC. Certain questlines, in particular that of Winterhold College, are cut so short as to feel cheap. Compulsory fistfights (as in Markarth) are slow and dull. Cities are also still slightly too small (Riften and Winterhold in particular). But the move to a darker tone is very much to be welcomed, and overall Skyrim comes out very much in credit. It's come a long way from its RPG routes, but with the single player open world formula, it's unlikely the series will die anytime soon yet.
***
Further notes:
If you're a Morrowind fan, wander over to Tamriel Rebuilt. Whereas Morrowind is based only on the island of Vvardenfell, TR aim to build the rest of the province. They produce high quality work, and have made three fantastic releases so far.
You might also want to check out the trailer for the latest Skyrim expansion - it looks very much like Solstheim from Bloodmoon.
Oblivion fans should take a look at the modding community. Favourites of mine are The Lost Spires, which adds an Archaeology Guild, and Castle Ravenpride. But there are so many other gems out there.
***
FUTURE EDIT: Sorry for the wall of text. I will add screenshots. Morrowind required me to edit the game files. Oblivion and Skyrim seem to plainly disallow it. When it's not two in the morning, I'll have another go. I'll put the links in then too.
Still, when I saw in the PC Gamer magazine that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim had gained first place in a list of the best PC games of all time, I had to object. Because for all it's a great game, and it really is, it has some serious flaws.
Now, I'll admit that this sort of ratings table isn't entirely to be trusted. To some extent, the top game on the list always had to be a recent and popular one, because of PCGamer's readership. More people have played Skyrim than Deus Ex or any other of the usual contenders, so why upset them? To some extent, magazines pander to the readership - they have to.
Besides, Bethesda are almost certainly working on something new right now, something exciting. It may only be a subconscious thought for PCGamer's editor, but it's there. So naming a developer's game the best ever can only enhance prospects of getting that exclusive preview.
Still, it's as good an excuse as any to look at The Elder Scrolls series as a whole, to see how it started, how it developed, and what it learned on the way. Skyrim is a mess of influences - and developers took as much from the second installment (Daggerfall), as they did from Oblivion, the fourth. For obvious reasons, I'm only going to deal with the games I played, from Daggerfall onwards. Ready?
The Origin of the Western RPG:
I'm dangling from a steel wire, wrapped around my ankle. Below me is a very long drop, while above me the hulk of a vast airship is in flames. Welcome to the skies of Victorian London. This is an RPG, as they used to be: five friends around a table, pretending to be someone they're not.
My 'someone I'm not' is a very stupid character. After the first dice rolls to decide my base stats, I pumped additional numbers into strength and endurance, completely ignoring the fact that if my character sat GCSEs, he'd not only fail, but probably eat the paper. He's good in a fist fight, God awful at negotiations. He's a balanced character.
It's in pursuit of balanced characters that RPGs have a class system. Traditionally in videogames, that's been the trio of the thinker, the fighter, and the rogue. Each has strengths, and each has weaknesses, and in early RPGs like Daggerfall, we even have dice rolls, as if this was a roleplaying game acted out around the table. Class systems also open up different playstyles - you can pick locks or negotiate your way through a game. You can batter all goblins with an axe, or set them alight with magic.
Traditional RPGs established complex worlds and systems to deal with many different playstyles - if you could think of a solution to a problem, the Game Master would try to accommodate it. It all went towards deep worlds and rules that accommodate a number of different playstyles - and this translated into the videogame equivalent.
The world of The Elder Scrolls, with Argonians, Daedra, Orcs and all the rest of it, was all constructed over the course of several tabletop games between those who would go on to become videogame developers. And the entire genre owes much to Dungeons and Dragons, or Fighting Fantasy. It's all obvious stuff, but it's worth stressing, because it explains a lot, particularly about the second game in the series.
The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall
If you've only played Skyrim, and have the time, download Daggerfall for free from Bethesda. You can play it using DosBox. I guarantee that after half an hour of play, you'll hate it. You'll absolutely hate it. Perhaps, after a longer stint, you'll grow to adore the game, but it's likely that the sheer difference between Skyrim and Daggerfall will be enough to put you off.
Provided you look past the graphics, it seems quite cool and retro at first. You answer questions about your background - these all go to affect your stats and class, and your starting relationship with the game's many factions. You're free to add or subtract a few points to each stat if you wish (note the dice by the side as you do so?). It all adds to the feel of a more complicated character, a character with a history, one that you can truly roleplay.
That's fine. These are all features commonly found in a tabletop RPG. Take my guy, hanging from the airship. He's a pirate. A dumb pirate, sent on an undercover mission by a captain who doesn't expect or want him to return. And, roleplaying the dumb pirate, I decide to stop the enemy airship by setting fire to the balloon, while I'm on it. It's great fun.
Of course, the Game Master didn't really expect me to roleplay quite so well. So he swears at me a little, and has to invent a whole new scenario from scratch - where we crashland, who lives there, and so on. He could just kill us all, but we're buying rounds, and he's bought one more than the rest of us. So he sets about making a whole new neighbourhood, off the hoof. And he does it through the use of a randomiser, which creates entire areas from the roll of a dice.
You see, the world of the traditional tabletop RPG is infinite, and very flexible. And this was a feature that the developers of Daggerfall attempted to put into their game. Daggerfall is big, very big. It's roughly the size of Great Britain. The cities are large, and can take half an hour to walk across.
But they're also dull. Because by very nature of a randomiser, you can't put in particularly specific touches. Each dungeon is huge, randomly generated, and just a little dull. If you leave it, it resets, as if you never entered. Unlike more modern RPGs, you don't feel that you're making much of a mark on the world.
That's not to say that Daggerfall didn't get anything right. It still has a cult following, and if you can get past the issue of a large, random world, you might be able to see why - there's a certain depth to the gameplay, if not the world. But it's too much like a tabletop RPG to me, without the personal, humorous touches often added by the Game Master getting pissed off by your actions. So, after feedback from players, you can see why, with Morrowind, Bethesda went completely the other way.
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Of the ten playable races of Tamriel, only four are human. So it's odd that after five entries in the series, only one game has been set in a non-human province of the ruling Empire. But then, Morrowind is odd in many ways. It's almost as if the developers set out to be different - as if the best way to add a personal flavour is to create mushroom cities, and beetles the size of houses.
It was much smaller than Daggerfall of course. However, as with Skyrim, the developers found that the more mountainous you make a world, the larger it seems. It was a principle abandoned in Oblivion, where, set in a gigantic basin, you could always see how close you really were to the Imperial City.
What about the gameplay elements of Daggerfall? Well, Morrowind still has questions about your background, but these are optional. And factional relationships seem to have been done away entirely - these are something you develop through play, and joining various guilds.
Combat is still based on dice - you can fire an arrow at point blank range, and it will miss because the dice rolled behind the scenes exceeded your skill level. While Oblivion did do away with this system, it did so in a way that made arrows feel less lethal. Only Skyrim seems to have got it completely right.
Other similarities between Daggerfall and Morrowind are in how quests are treated. In Daggerfall, quests had time limits, and could be failed if the wrong choices were made. In Morrowind however, there is no time limit. It's also hard to fail a quest (bar dying). However, it is possible to kill characters needed to complete the quest. The game notifies you when this happens, warning you that you've effectively broken it, but you're free to continue if you wish.
In Oblivion of course, it's impossible to kill essential characters. With the leveling system creating some pretty lethal bad guys, that's probably fair enough, particularly in quests like the saving of Kvatch. Still, what Oblivion did wrong here was to come up with a message every time a character was low on health. Reading 'Martin is Unconscious' a dozen times kind of breaks immersion.
Back to Morrowind, and what the game does right. The answer is, quite a lot really. The world feels large enough, and different enough, to not be dull. There are more factions than you'll see in the more recent games - you can join different vampirics tribes, religions, the traditional Guilds, and the Great Houses of Morrowind. What's more, once you've chosen a Great House, you're stuck with it. In Oblivion however, you could play through every questline, regardless of how little sense it made to have a Arch Listening Gray Fox wandering around. Morrowind takes your choices seriously. It's good, in a way.
Other than that, Morrowind does lore exceptionally well. You get a really good feel for the game. This is partly due to the conversation system. There was no voice acting. In the case of Morrowind, this was a good thing. Sound files add to a game's space requirements dramatically, so if you have voice acting, you are necessarily going to have to cut down on the amount and variety of dialogue.
Morrowind didn't have that problem. So it's able to maintain what's effectively a fantasy Wikipedia. Conversation with characters can reveal a lot of genuinely interesting information, with a variety of topics, and a variety of opinions. And, unlike with Oblivion, you're unlikely to be jolted out of your geeky reverie by awkward or just plain bad voice acting.
And the lore of the world is interesting too, made better by the world. You don't discover caves or ruins by following a marker. You discover them by accident - they feel like your secrets. Nothing you find is ever marked on map, and fast travel is impossible. It makes for a more mysterious world, and you genuinely are interested in issues like what happened to the Dwemer, the secretive dwarven race that has apparently disappeared.
Finally, as the one who has been 'chosen', with dungeons that don't reset, you feel like you really can have an impact on the game. You can free all the slaves in the market, and they will stay free. Morrowind did a lot of things right. But then came Oblivion...
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Oblivion was a good game in its own right. Graphically, it appears more dated than Morrowind, but that's largely due to the faces of the characters - they are unappealing. In terms of size, the map is larger, and so are the dungeons. That was actually a problem though - the dungeons weren't different enough to justify the size. It grew too easy to get bored. Skyrim changed this a little, thankfully. Caves in Skyrim are often small, with little personal touches. You can dip in and out of them in twenty minutes.
I've mentioned the voice acting already, and this was one reason why the world didn't feel quite as deep - the lore couldn't be expanded upon properly by characters. It was left to the books, the majority of them having been copied over from Morrowind in any case. And when speaking to people, you zoomed in on them in a way that smashed immersion to pieces.
Regarding justice, guards knew that you had accidentally stolen a jug from a shop at the other end of the map, and weren't going to give you leeway. Levitation, present in previous games, had been axed, as cities were moved to cells separated from the main world. In fairness, that was necessary. Had the cities been open to the world, the frame rates would have been terrible. Still, the loss of levitation was a serious blow to player freedom. Meanwhile, dungeons didn't feel like your secret any more. Wander within a mile of them, and you'd see a marker on your map.
As a final damning blow, creatures leveled with you. This was likely an attempt to prevent new players from getting screwed over by something stronger earlier on, but it made matters worse. Not only did it make levelling feel pointless, but it also reduced the fear factor of meeting something that you know can two-hit you. I count among my fondest memories of gaming the time when I had to flee my first daedra in Morrowind, after a less-than-appropriately-cautious raid on a temple.
Still, Oblivion does have standout features that are worth commenting on. It was one of the few games that let you move each individual item around, making fireballs feel fun. The Radiant AI was a decent attempt at giving characters lives, routines and secrets. The Guilds, while fewer, still had long, engaging questlines. The main questline was still a bit crap, but that's practically a traditional feature of Elder Scrolls games. It doesn't matter - the main questline is not what you came for.
Oblivion wasn't bad, in the same way Deus Ex 2 wasn't bad. It just wasn't its predecessor. And neither, as it turns out, was it worthy of its successor.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Now, I've met people who prefer Oblivion, for various reasons. One prefers the main storyline of Oblivion, which is fine, because the main storyline in Skyrim (particularly in the case of Alduin) is uninspiring, made great by the characters (dragons!), rather than the plot.
Still, for the most part, Skyrim is excellent. It's not 'best game ever' excellent, but it has learned well from those that came before it.
From Daggerfall it takes a crime system that splits the realm up into different jurisdictions. A murderer in one hold will not be arrested in another.
From Morrowind it takes a mountainous terrain, making the world seem bigger. It takes small dungeons, ones you can pop in and out of, and not grow bored of.
From Oblivion it takes a combat system where you hit no matter what your level, making the dice seem less obvious. It takes voice acting and improves it. It adds more variety to the map. It adds creatures that don't all want to kill you, and adapts the levelling system so that you do occasionally encounter the weaker creatures that used to terrify you.
Other than that, it adds flying creatures (dragons most notably), and moves further away from the tabletop RPG tradition by removing class systems and backgrounds altogether, streamlining the combat. The result is a more fluid game experience, where immersion is rarely broken, and you can spend hours forgetting that it's a game at all.
It's not all perfect though. It's the first Elder Scrolls game where you can tell the User Interface was designed with console players as the priority. It feels much easier to use keys than a mouse to select what you want - and it doesn't gel so well on a PC. Certain questlines, in particular that of Winterhold College, are cut so short as to feel cheap. Compulsory fistfights (as in Markarth) are slow and dull. Cities are also still slightly too small (Riften and Winterhold in particular). But the move to a darker tone is very much to be welcomed, and overall Skyrim comes out very much in credit. It's come a long way from its RPG routes, but with the single player open world formula, it's unlikely the series will die anytime soon yet.
***
Further notes:
If you're a Morrowind fan, wander over to Tamriel Rebuilt. Whereas Morrowind is based only on the island of Vvardenfell, TR aim to build the rest of the province. They produce high quality work, and have made three fantastic releases so far.
You might also want to check out the trailer for the latest Skyrim expansion - it looks very much like Solstheim from Bloodmoon.
Oblivion fans should take a look at the modding community. Favourites of mine are The Lost Spires, which adds an Archaeology Guild, and Castle Ravenpride. But there are so many other gems out there.
***
FUTURE EDIT: Sorry for the wall of text. I will add screenshots. Morrowind required me to edit the game files. Oblivion and Skyrim seem to plainly disallow it. When it's not two in the morning, I'll have another go. I'll put the links in then too.
Sunday 11 November 2012
NicheWords-Half Life 2
I've got crabs, but in a worse way. They're jumping for my head and attempting to gnaw through my skull. They're headcrabs, some of Half Life 2's more intimate wildlife. They came through a portal, opened in the previous game, along with plenty other alien fauna obsessed with your noggin.
There are barnacles, which cling to the ceiling, snaring your much-abused scalp with a freakish long tongue, before drawing you up into their jaws. You will see the teeth champ in anticipation, as you spray bullets in an irresponsible, panicky fashion. It's great fun.
There are antlions, which spawn endlessly. The trick is not to rile them - don't go into the long sand! Sandy sand, whatever.
And then of course there are your alien overlords, who rule over you with the help of human minions, and advanced weaponry. The kind that has subjugated humanity, and destroyed all hope of salvation.
Welcome to Eastern Europe. Much like S.T.A.L.K.E.R, and Day Z, the game developers of Half Life 2 have decided that when the apocalypse comes, it'll look so much better with some Russian writing, and old style concrete blocks. Perhaps the unfamiliarity of the setting and letters (all Cyrillic) are meant to unnerve the player. Maybe the artist threw a strop. In any case, you're Gordon Freeman, renegade physicist, and for God only knows what reason you've decided to head to City 17, capital of the new administration. Because that seems like a sensible thing for the most wanted man alive to do.
It's fine, they all speak English. What's not fine is just how wanted you are, and how quickly you have to go on the run from all kinds of chopping and chomping critters, some of whom have extremely unpleasant weaponry.
After all, Half Life 2 is most definitely a shooter. It's predecessor practically pioneered the scripted sequence - so the next time you walk down a hallway, knowing that something is going to leap out of that grate whether you're ready or not - you know who to thank.
But Half Life is an educated shooter. Like many games with scientific/philosophical references in their titles (Bioshock, Mass Effect, Deus Ex), it pays attention to story, to atmosphere. You feel cleverer playing it. Possibly it's the fact that you're a physicist, not a super-soldier. For some reason, there are standards to live up to. Another possibility is the sheer range of guns - each of them feel distinct and different, and there are a range of tactical choices resulting from that.
Partly this is thanks to alien technology - so Valve has an excuse to shove in the most outlandish (and fun) weapons possible. Partly, I think, it's because Valve understands the importance of pacing. With every new scenario, and every new weapon, the pace is upped a bit, until you're blazing through government troops like a particularly pissy god.
Each weapon is linked to a setpiece too. When you pick up the rocket launcher on the coast, you'll find yourself with plenty of gunships to shoot down. The gravity gun, which lets you pick up and throw any object, is obtained just before Ravenholm, a town filled with very sharp things - and zombies. You learn as you go, without realise that you're learning - in this sense, teaching Half Life's tricks to players clearly prepared Valve for Portal, which mixes tutorial and game in a sublime, invisible fashion.
It all has the effect of revolutionising the gameplay every level or so. Elements of Half Life feel like a roadtrip, with an almost open ended exploration. Others are more claustrophobic battles through crowded alleys. Each new gun shines a fresh light on the situation, and helps keep the gameplay exciting. There are even a few puzzles - fairly simple things - but enough to help you pretend that you are that masterful physicist everyone so adores. You know, the one who'll save the world from its oppressors, with crowbar, pistol, and disturbing alien fecal matter.
I know I recommend a lot of games on this blog - it's because I haven't the will to load up Spore for screenshots. I'd be bored criticising it. But Half Life 2 really is worth a go, as it is a classic shooter, that hasn't aged too badly. Neither has its predecessor for that matter - though that's harder, and more graphically challenged.
Play Half Life 2 on hard. Finish it up, maybe download the sequels (Valve fell for the episodic gaming fad a few years back). It's a game with immense replayability, and you'll be able to make niche comments on gaming forums. That's worth the small Steam price alone.
And, once you're done with all that, have a look at the Dear Esther mod, for something more atmospheric than gamey - play it alone, without distractions. Garry's Mod is also famous, for the way you can play with the game's physics engine, though I've never tried that one. Peek through 'Concerned', a comic based on the events of Half Life 2. Buy a headcrab plushie for your girlfriend, or a headcrab hat for Hallowe'en.
In short have fun, because life is short. There are aliens coming, and it's time to train up.
(Small target = Frantic firing = Fun)
There are barnacles, which cling to the ceiling, snaring your much-abused scalp with a freakish long tongue, before drawing you up into their jaws. You will see the teeth champ in anticipation, as you spray bullets in an irresponsible, panicky fashion. It's great fun.
There are antlions, which spawn endlessly. The trick is not to rile them - don't go into the long sand! Sandy sand, whatever.
And then of course there are your alien overlords, who rule over you with the help of human minions, and advanced weaponry. The kind that has subjugated humanity, and destroyed all hope of salvation.
Welcome to Eastern Europe. Much like S.T.A.L.K.E.R, and Day Z, the game developers of Half Life 2 have decided that when the apocalypse comes, it'll look so much better with some Russian writing, and old style concrete blocks. Perhaps the unfamiliarity of the setting and letters (all Cyrillic) are meant to unnerve the player. Maybe the artist threw a strop. In any case, you're Gordon Freeman, renegade physicist, and for God only knows what reason you've decided to head to City 17, capital of the new administration. Because that seems like a sensible thing for the most wanted man alive to do.
(Desperate renegade - Waltzes straight into a security checkpoint)
It's fine, they all speak English. What's not fine is just how wanted you are, and how quickly you have to go on the run from all kinds of chopping and chomping critters, some of whom have extremely unpleasant weaponry.
After all, Half Life 2 is most definitely a shooter. It's predecessor practically pioneered the scripted sequence - so the next time you walk down a hallway, knowing that something is going to leap out of that grate whether you're ready or not - you know who to thank.
But Half Life is an educated shooter. Like many games with scientific/philosophical references in their titles (Bioshock, Mass Effect, Deus Ex), it pays attention to story, to atmosphere. You feel cleverer playing it. Possibly it's the fact that you're a physicist, not a super-soldier. For some reason, there are standards to live up to. Another possibility is the sheer range of guns - each of them feel distinct and different, and there are a range of tactical choices resulting from that.
Partly this is thanks to alien technology - so Valve has an excuse to shove in the most outlandish (and fun) weapons possible. Partly, I think, it's because Valve understands the importance of pacing. With every new scenario, and every new weapon, the pace is upped a bit, until you're blazing through government troops like a particularly pissy god.
Each weapon is linked to a setpiece too. When you pick up the rocket launcher on the coast, you'll find yourself with plenty of gunships to shoot down. The gravity gun, which lets you pick up and throw any object, is obtained just before Ravenholm, a town filled with very sharp things - and zombies. You learn as you go, without realise that you're learning - in this sense, teaching Half Life's tricks to players clearly prepared Valve for Portal, which mixes tutorial and game in a sublime, invisible fashion.
It all has the effect of revolutionising the gameplay every level or so. Elements of Half Life feel like a roadtrip, with an almost open ended exploration. Others are more claustrophobic battles through crowded alleys. Each new gun shines a fresh light on the situation, and helps keep the gameplay exciting. There are even a few puzzles - fairly simple things - but enough to help you pretend that you are that masterful physicist everyone so adores. You know, the one who'll save the world from its oppressors, with crowbar, pistol, and disturbing alien fecal matter.
I know I recommend a lot of games on this blog - it's because I haven't the will to load up Spore for screenshots. I'd be bored criticising it. But Half Life 2 really is worth a go, as it is a classic shooter, that hasn't aged too badly. Neither has its predecessor for that matter - though that's harder, and more graphically challenged.
Play Half Life 2 on hard. Finish it up, maybe download the sequels (Valve fell for the episodic gaming fad a few years back). It's a game with immense replayability, and you'll be able to make niche comments on gaming forums. That's worth the small Steam price alone.
And, once you're done with all that, have a look at the Dear Esther mod, for something more atmospheric than gamey - play it alone, without distractions. Garry's Mod is also famous, for the way you can play with the game's physics engine, though I've never tried that one. Peek through 'Concerned', a comic based on the events of Half Life 2. Buy a headcrab plushie for your girlfriend, or a headcrab hat for Hallowe'en.
In short have fun, because life is short. There are aliens coming, and it's time to train up.
Friday 9 November 2012
NicheWords-Cave Story
One day, I will be wealthy enough to visit Japan. Experiencing the forests of Aokigahara under Mt Fuji; the skyscrapers and Pokémon stores of Tokyo. Skiing in the Akaishi Mountains. I can take a stroll around the real life Kanto, Johto, and Hoenn. I will imprison small animals, subject them to Stockholm syndrome and make them fight for me. It will be beautiful.
Until then, the closest I and many others are likely to get to Japan is by playing the games that come from there. If you've been gaming for any length of time then you'll know that the industry owes so much to that small archipelago. From highly successful series like Persona, Mario, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil, Kingdom Hearts and The Legend of Zelda, to standalone offerings like Okami, Catherine, Demon's Souls, or Ico.
I'm a fan of Japanese culture to begin with, and that's largely thanks to their games. The vast majority of them place enormous emphasis on story, and self-development. The Japanese never really seem to have got into the FPS, instead preferring the more level-based confines of the RPG. Extra Credits does a great job of discussing this - check it out here for a bit of intellectual elevation!
Moving on however, today's blog post is about another independent game, but this time from Japan! Meet Cave Story, constructed by one guy, and considered something of an unknown classic.
(Download Cave Story here - it's free!)
Now, Cave Story is a platformer, another genre which originated in Japan. Beginning as a small, pixelated robot, you use a variety of weapons and very frantic jumping, in order to negotiate terrain that quite frankly wants you dead. And, as is the habit with these games, it becomes a lot more capable at killing you as you progress. The difficulty curve is just right, and, with a wealth of available weapons, the gameplay is fun, frantic, and tactical.
Graphically, it's uninspiring. But when your resources consist of one man, and the year 2004, then they were never going to be the best thing since toilet roll. It ages well all in all though, and the music is timeless. I actually discovered this game in 2011, and it's surprising just how much graphics don't matter after playing. The gameplay is fast and challenging enough, without ever feeling impossible (except perhaps for the end - more on that later). And the story, while simple enough, contains characters you can actually grow to care about, and who will die if you make the wrong decision.
Sadly, such decisions aren't obvious at the time. If you go the wrong way midway through the game for example, you will find yourself unable to save a character later on. This is similar to other games of a certain age - the second Prince of Persia for example, and it isn't particularly good design. After all, surely you want the player to feel guilty, that their failings led to the death of their friend rather than life being especially shitty.
Asides from that small gripe though, Cave Story is a gem, and a free one. Like many Japanese games of its ilk, it contains multiple endings. Whereas western game studios are often content in building just the one, Japanese developers often add in endings, and then an extra bit of story at the end, which most players might never reach. They cater both to people who just want to beat the Elite Four, and those who must desperately fill every inch of that bloody Pokédex.
So if you want the best ending to Cave Story, prepare to fight for it in a very hardcore fashion. If, on the other hand, you want an easier, yet still satisfying ending, you can finish earlier, with the challenge still at a manageable level. It's a feature that I wish was used in more games - you have the option of ending the story at a certain point, with the difficulty ramping up should you decide to continue to the next ending.
Cave Story is, in short, well worth the few hours or so that it takes to get through. So if you're a platformer fan, and can't quite justify spending money yet another Mario, this is certainly worth a look. It'll make a place in your heart in no time.
Wednesday 7 November 2012
Independent Games
I wasn't going to post today, but then one of my little dwarven minions felt thirsty, and strolled off a waterfall to get a drink.
I wouldn't mind (he was a fairly non-essential dwarf), but he was the fifth in the last half hour. There's a whole club of sad and lonely spirits down there in the deeps at the bottom of the canyon. I watch them occasionally, and every time another dwarf takes the dive, blood from the impact creeps along the water, like something out of Jurassic Park.
Part of the problem is my own understanding of the game. As I've mentioned before, Dwarf Fortress is incredibly complex. I've only just started to get my head around machinery - so telling my alcoholic pals exactly where to drink from is beyond me.
Still, a quick peek on the Wiki tells me that the problem happens because dwarves take account of how shallow the water is, but not the flow. Since water is quite shallow at the edge of a fall, they think that they can waltz right across it.
And that brings me to my main point. Since the game includes the capability to search for areas with waterfalls, it can clearly identify them. So it seems like a small step to simply insert a line of code to prevent my bearded buddies from trying to drink near such falls. But despite the apparent ease of fixing the issue, this is a longstanding problem. Granted, I don't know how messy the programming is at the developer's end - again, it's a complex game.
When it comes to development then, Dwarf Fortress falls prey a bit to Minecraft syndrome. Updates are piecemeal, and often slow to correct long-existing issues - whether due to lack of staff, lack of time, or lack of money. And while Dwarf Fortress is still in alpha, Minecraft no longer has that excuse. But for all that, the Mojang game still retains the feel of being constantly under development.
I bring this up just to highlight the odd development cycles that some indie game companies go through. Whether it's a lack of planning, or simply the challenges of juggling another job - for many indies, game-making can be something of a hobby.
But when independent games such as Braid, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, or Dear Esther are released, such bugs don't seem to occur. Of course, in the case of Braid, the developer is experienced, and I believe the other two use existing engines. Still, it points to a difference in development styles - and I'm curious as to whether the piecemeal approach owes more to money issues, or is it a matter of preference? Do people prefer a game to go through public alpha and betas, to never seemingly come out of development, or would they rather wait for something that they can see is definitely the finished product?
To be quite honest, I've no business complaining about Dwarf Fortress: it's free after all - and you get the feeling that it's a hobby of the developer's rather than a job. And that old argument if you don't like it, don't play it comes to mind.
Still, do these issues matter in the wider industry? Are companies under any obligation to fix bugs and problems in their games, before releasing new features? Look at the dragons of Skyrim flying backwards for example.
As I've written this, I've realised that I'm missing something. Most games are advertised and sold as final products. Dwarf Fortress isn't. Minecraft is, but the regular updates are more expansions maybe, than features that should have been in the final product from the beginning. That's a matter of opinion, but at least they're free.
I wouldn't mind (he was a fairly non-essential dwarf), but he was the fifth in the last half hour. There's a whole club of sad and lonely spirits down there in the deeps at the bottom of the canyon. I watch them occasionally, and every time another dwarf takes the dive, blood from the impact creeps along the water, like something out of Jurassic Park.
Part of the problem is my own understanding of the game. As I've mentioned before, Dwarf Fortress is incredibly complex. I've only just started to get my head around machinery - so telling my alcoholic pals exactly where to drink from is beyond me.
Still, a quick peek on the Wiki tells me that the problem happens because dwarves take account of how shallow the water is, but not the flow. Since water is quite shallow at the edge of a fall, they think that they can waltz right across it.
And that brings me to my main point. Since the game includes the capability to search for areas with waterfalls, it can clearly identify them. So it seems like a small step to simply insert a line of code to prevent my bearded buddies from trying to drink near such falls. But despite the apparent ease of fixing the issue, this is a longstanding problem. Granted, I don't know how messy the programming is at the developer's end - again, it's a complex game.
When it comes to development then, Dwarf Fortress falls prey a bit to Minecraft syndrome. Updates are piecemeal, and often slow to correct long-existing issues - whether due to lack of staff, lack of time, or lack of money. And while Dwarf Fortress is still in alpha, Minecraft no longer has that excuse. But for all that, the Mojang game still retains the feel of being constantly under development.
I bring this up just to highlight the odd development cycles that some indie game companies go through. Whether it's a lack of planning, or simply the challenges of juggling another job - for many indies, game-making can be something of a hobby.
But when independent games such as Braid, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, or Dear Esther are released, such bugs don't seem to occur. Of course, in the case of Braid, the developer is experienced, and I believe the other two use existing engines. Still, it points to a difference in development styles - and I'm curious as to whether the piecemeal approach owes more to money issues, or is it a matter of preference? Do people prefer a game to go through public alpha and betas, to never seemingly come out of development, or would they rather wait for something that they can see is definitely the finished product?
To be quite honest, I've no business complaining about Dwarf Fortress: it's free after all - and you get the feeling that it's a hobby of the developer's rather than a job. And that old argument if you don't like it, don't play it comes to mind.
Still, do these issues matter in the wider industry? Are companies under any obligation to fix bugs and problems in their games, before releasing new features? Look at the dragons of Skyrim flying backwards for example.
As I've written this, I've realised that I'm missing something. Most games are advertised and sold as final products. Dwarf Fortress isn't. Minecraft is, but the regular updates are more expansions maybe, than features that should have been in the final product from the beginning. That's a matter of opinion, but at least they're free.
Tuesday 6 November 2012
Another day, another application.
There's a stereotype applied to the regular blogger: they must be unemployed. Sadly, I fit that stereotype. However, it is a situation that I'm trying to rectify.
But, when jobs in games journalism are so highly sought after, how do you get yourself noticed? Well, sometimes, you just have to be a little bit more creative:
But, when jobs in games journalism are so highly sought after, how do you get yourself noticed? Well, sometimes, you just have to be a little bit more creative:
"Why hire me? The Gamers' Guide:
Through my experience as Chief Noble of my dwarven fortress,
I demonstrated considerable organisational skills. I ensured that there was plumbing for every
bedroom, that all dragons were working and operational, and that the death
chambers were working efficiently enough to ensure the enforcement of my some-dwarfs-left-behind
policy.
(Although, arguably this is what you get for building forts beneath rivers.)
Afterwards, as a Grove Street regular, I demonstrated my
ability to make contacts and establishing good relationships, befriending Asian
men with casinos, crazy rednecks with guns, and building a network of reliable homies
across San Andreas.
(See how reliable they look?)
And, as Head of Security at Sarif Industries, I have
considerable office experience, particularly with regards to breaking into them,
antagonising the men in IT, and visiting the ladies restroom with disturbing
regularity. I have also attended a press
conference on augmentations, although sadly I was not invited back.
(Smoking, and drinking. Because he doesn't have enough health problems)
Finally, I would not be applying to this position without
some experience of journalism. In my
previous job as an investigative reporter on the planet Hillys, I uncovered
major government conspiracies, wrote concise pieces with blurry photographs, and ran an orphanage at the same
time. I also worked as a woman,
alongside a pig, demonstrating the ease with which I can adapt to different roles.
(By the way Ubisoft, how's that sequel coming along?)
I hope I have demonstrated more than enough experience to
satisfy your role requirements, and look forward to hearing from you soon."
***
Sadly, I'm unlikely to be hearing from that employer anytime soon, as the first line had a spelling mistake in. Such is life.
In any case people, the lesson here is be original, but not too original! And always read something over thrice, just in case.
Monday 5 November 2012
Abuse in Videogames
It's old news by now, but the people behind the League of Legends have recently taken serious steps to combat the issue of abuse in multiplayer gaming. Hopefully these are steps that will be mimicked by all online games, because a lot of the chat online would have no place in the real world. And it's a particular issue for MMOs and any PvP game, and is one reason that I, and many others, avoid multiplayer like the plague.
Some players are stupid, violent, intolerant of new players, and lacking in social skills. In short, they're irritating. And sadly, they're also given a voice. It's a voice that is often used in all the wrong ways.
If you need examples of the things I'm talking about, head over to Fat, Ugly or Slutty, and check out the archives. The 'Death Threats' section is particularly revealing. In fact, I'll post one here. The following are messages received by a player, for no serious apparent reason.
Now, this isn't the norm of course. It's an extreme example. But it's not as rare as you might think - there are plenty of others on Fat, Ugly or Slutty, which does an excellent job of documenting at least a small percentage of abuse exhibited online.
Online abuse by itself is a problem. But it's made a bigger one than it needs to be because some people will defend that sort of behaviour, by claiming for example, that the culprit may have been provoked. Even if that's sometimes the case, messages like those above are hardly a rational, intelligent or appropriate response. What happened to 'stiff upper lip', or 'not stooping to their level'? If you receive abuse, report the player, don't hand abuse back.
It seems obvious, but death threats are genuinely horrible things to receive. My first (an anonymous phone call) lost me two or three days work and sleep, and the cost to victims can often be higher than that. Offline, it's not such a problem - while one-offs are not usually grounds for police action, on a second occurrence the coppers can and do track the culprit down.
This doesn't happen on the internet of course. This sort of thing is expected on the internet - and the second defense some people use for this sort of behaviour is exactly that - this is online, it happens all the time, get used to it or get out. Sometimes they will even add that men also get abuse, and that women are clearly whining too much - thus turning it into a gender issue.
This puts the blame squarely on the victim, which is monumentally dumb in a way that makes me want to bash my head against the desk. Oh, a mugging? You shouldn't have gone outside. Why, you've been burgled. If you didn't want to be burgled, you shouldn't have had stuff in the house. Oh, men get assaulted too, all the time. Why are you complaining? Stop bleeding on the pavement.
When people say rape is rape, other people say "but". Due to a perception that exists among many men that women are treated more fairly than they are, some seek to correct that imbalance by protesting that 'there wouldn't be this fuss if it was a man'. This detracts from the real issue. In short, a wrong has been committed. Yes, maybe people make more of a fuss when it's committed against females, but that doesn't make it any less wrong - so don't block the idea of any punishment of the offender, just to make things fair on male victims. Seek punishment for all offenders instead, regardless of their sex.
Now, gamer society is unlikely to move from the idea of equal amnesty to one of equal punishment anytime soon, but it is something that we're seeing more and more of in the industry. The game companies that produce highly profitable multiplayer games are realising that abuse in itself is putting off many potential customers, in particular the female half of the market. And they're looking into ways to prevent it: the good folk over at Extra Credits give a far more expert and comprehensive rundown of those ways than I ever could. And hopefully, some of these methods will take root. I might even pick up an MMO again some day.
But why does this behaviour occur in the first place?
Games do not encourage violence, or misfit behaviour. But they do sometimes attract individuals who already enjoy it. Games can make you feel like a winner, free from the troubles of the real world, and better than some people. Inevitably, you attract some very damaged people to whom those qualities are almost alien, to be treasured. You end up with the socially damaged, the resentful outcasts, or the just plain ignorant.
They're a tiny percentage of gamers, but they're often the most vocal. And the industry has to find some way of teaching them what real life hasn't - that their behaviour is wrong, repulsive, and disgusting. Sometimes they don't even realise. Sometimes they let the power of anonymity get to them, and feel free of all consequences. Sometimes they just don't quite understand that other people have feelings - they're too caught up in their own dramas and sadness.
Silencing these people may seem cruel. But maybe it's best to remember that people who set out to cause pain, deserve to be outcasts, no matter how much pain they're in themselves. It's a powerful lesson, and maybe it's the best one. Let them earn their place in gaming society, not through skill, level, or time played, because that's not how real people are measured. Let them earn it just by not being dicks. You can't go far wrong with that.
On another note - new Skyrim DLC!
Oh, and, regarding the 'videogames cause violence' issue, this is a historical thing. Entertainment mediums have always caused this sort of concern. Back in the Middle Ages, poetry was considered worryingly likely to incite lust. Theatre was the scapegoat of the 16th and 17th centuries, the novel was the corrupting devil of the 18th. Comics, opera, and film all had their time as the acid corroding respectable society. It's nonsense, based on a fear of the ideas each medium has conveyed. And even if there have been one or two cases where killers are inspired by videogames, believe you me, ten times as many have been inspired just by the news.
And even then, it isn't the fault of the news. I think Critical Miss sums it up best.
Some players are stupid, violent, intolerant of new players, and lacking in social skills. In short, they're irritating. And sadly, they're also given a voice. It's a voice that is often used in all the wrong ways.
If you need examples of the things I'm talking about, head over to Fat, Ugly or Slutty, and check out the archives. The 'Death Threats' section is particularly revealing. In fact, I'll post one here. The following are messages received by a player, for no serious apparent reason.
Now, this isn't the norm of course. It's an extreme example. But it's not as rare as you might think - there are plenty of others on Fat, Ugly or Slutty, which does an excellent job of documenting at least a small percentage of abuse exhibited online.
Online abuse by itself is a problem. But it's made a bigger one than it needs to be because some people will defend that sort of behaviour, by claiming for example, that the culprit may have been provoked. Even if that's sometimes the case, messages like those above are hardly a rational, intelligent or appropriate response. What happened to 'stiff upper lip', or 'not stooping to their level'? If you receive abuse, report the player, don't hand abuse back.
It seems obvious, but death threats are genuinely horrible things to receive. My first (an anonymous phone call) lost me two or three days work and sleep, and the cost to victims can often be higher than that. Offline, it's not such a problem - while one-offs are not usually grounds for police action, on a second occurrence the coppers can and do track the culprit down.
This doesn't happen on the internet of course. This sort of thing is expected on the internet - and the second defense some people use for this sort of behaviour is exactly that - this is online, it happens all the time, get used to it or get out. Sometimes they will even add that men also get abuse, and that women are clearly whining too much - thus turning it into a gender issue.
This puts the blame squarely on the victim, which is monumentally dumb in a way that makes me want to bash my head against the desk. Oh, a mugging? You shouldn't have gone outside. Why, you've been burgled. If you didn't want to be burgled, you shouldn't have had stuff in the house. Oh, men get assaulted too, all the time. Why are you complaining? Stop bleeding on the pavement.
When people say rape is rape, other people say "but". Due to a perception that exists among many men that women are treated more fairly than they are, some seek to correct that imbalance by protesting that 'there wouldn't be this fuss if it was a man'. This detracts from the real issue. In short, a wrong has been committed. Yes, maybe people make more of a fuss when it's committed against females, but that doesn't make it any less wrong - so don't block the idea of any punishment of the offender, just to make things fair on male victims. Seek punishment for all offenders instead, regardless of their sex.
Now, gamer society is unlikely to move from the idea of equal amnesty to one of equal punishment anytime soon, but it is something that we're seeing more and more of in the industry. The game companies that produce highly profitable multiplayer games are realising that abuse in itself is putting off many potential customers, in particular the female half of the market. And they're looking into ways to prevent it: the good folk over at Extra Credits give a far more expert and comprehensive rundown of those ways than I ever could. And hopefully, some of these methods will take root. I might even pick up an MMO again some day.
But why does this behaviour occur in the first place?
Games do not encourage violence, or misfit behaviour. But they do sometimes attract individuals who already enjoy it. Games can make you feel like a winner, free from the troubles of the real world, and better than some people. Inevitably, you attract some very damaged people to whom those qualities are almost alien, to be treasured. You end up with the socially damaged, the resentful outcasts, or the just plain ignorant.
They're a tiny percentage of gamers, but they're often the most vocal. And the industry has to find some way of teaching them what real life hasn't - that their behaviour is wrong, repulsive, and disgusting. Sometimes they don't even realise. Sometimes they let the power of anonymity get to them, and feel free of all consequences. Sometimes they just don't quite understand that other people have feelings - they're too caught up in their own dramas and sadness.
Silencing these people may seem cruel. But maybe it's best to remember that people who set out to cause pain, deserve to be outcasts, no matter how much pain they're in themselves. It's a powerful lesson, and maybe it's the best one. Let them earn their place in gaming society, not through skill, level, or time played, because that's not how real people are measured. Let them earn it just by not being dicks. You can't go far wrong with that.
On another note - new Skyrim DLC!
Oh, and, regarding the 'videogames cause violence' issue, this is a historical thing. Entertainment mediums have always caused this sort of concern. Back in the Middle Ages, poetry was considered worryingly likely to incite lust. Theatre was the scapegoat of the 16th and 17th centuries, the novel was the corrupting devil of the 18th. Comics, opera, and film all had their time as the acid corroding respectable society. It's nonsense, based on a fear of the ideas each medium has conveyed. And even if there have been one or two cases where killers are inspired by videogames, believe you me, ten times as many have been inspired just by the news.
And even then, it isn't the fault of the news. I think Critical Miss sums it up best.
Saturday 3 November 2012
NicheWords-Dwarf Fortress
Well, Dwarf Fortress and hobbit fever, because I've just come across this from Air New Zealand: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBlRbrB_Gnc&feature=g-logo-xit
I sometimes wonder if more advertisements took the story route to this extent, whether we'd get tired of it. Perhaps you'd run out of stories.
In any case, just as Air New Zealand took inspiration from Middle Earth, it's easy to see how Dwarf Fortress was inspired by it. Both feature brave, and curiously stupid dwarfs, digging down a little further than is generally considered advisable.
Of course, you can trace the idea of 'deeper is bad' to the idea of Hell being underground, which is why we have such delights as Diablo as well. But Dwarf Fortress is different from more or less any other game, and it's certainly inspired Paradox for one, with their suspiciously named A Game of Dwarves.
A cynical man might think that Paradox had taken notice of all that player comparison between Crusader Kings II and A Game of Thrones, and sneakily appropriated the GOT title, as well as the DF concept. But that would be a very cynical man.
Anyway! Dwarf Fortress is the game that swallowed up six or seven hours of my time last night, so I ended up in bed at half three in the morning. It's one of those games - you never notice the night passing, or if you do, you don't care. Think The Sims, mixed with Minecraft, mixed with masochism.
It's monstrously hard to learn - you will go through fortress after fortress, with each concept and tool only gradually becoming clear. And too often you'll pour five hours or so into the game, to discover that you've missed something, very, very important. Like, five hours constructing a complex system of moats, redirecting entire rivers and building retractable bridges. Only to find that goblins can actually swim.
The dwarves are your main enemy though, even if goblins try to kill you. Because if you can't keep your dwarves happy, they will tantrum, throwing your fortress into mindless chaos, defenceless to the outside world. And, sadly, dwarves become unhappy whenever a loved one dies.
And they die. They die a lot. Sometimes they can't understand the importance of being inside the walls when goblins attack. Sometimes when ordered to collapse the roof of a building, they do so while standing on it.
Plus they breed like rabbits, to the point where immigrants are distinctly unwelcome. The only thing that will rival the complexity of your plumbing and defenses will be your death chambers and cemetaries.
Still, it's the complexity and difficulty that make the game appealing. You feel that you're achieving something, just by surviving another year. And there's always more depth to uncover, with an almost ludicrous number of features packed in.
It's not a pretty game mind, though mods are out there to make it look at least passable. But if you like a challenge, and dream of digging up a pathway to Hell, it just might be for you.
I sometimes wonder if more advertisements took the story route to this extent, whether we'd get tired of it. Perhaps you'd run out of stories.
In any case, just as Air New Zealand took inspiration from Middle Earth, it's easy to see how Dwarf Fortress was inspired by it. Both feature brave, and curiously stupid dwarfs, digging down a little further than is generally considered advisable.
Of course, you can trace the idea of 'deeper is bad' to the idea of Hell being underground, which is why we have such delights as Diablo as well. But Dwarf Fortress is different from more or less any other game, and it's certainly inspired Paradox for one, with their suspiciously named A Game of Dwarves.
A cynical man might think that Paradox had taken notice of all that player comparison between Crusader Kings II and A Game of Thrones, and sneakily appropriated the GOT title, as well as the DF concept. But that would be a very cynical man.
Anyway! Dwarf Fortress is the game that swallowed up six or seven hours of my time last night, so I ended up in bed at half three in the morning. It's one of those games - you never notice the night passing, or if you do, you don't care. Think The Sims, mixed with Minecraft, mixed with masochism.
It's monstrously hard to learn - you will go through fortress after fortress, with each concept and tool only gradually becoming clear. And too often you'll pour five hours or so into the game, to discover that you've missed something, very, very important. Like, five hours constructing a complex system of moats, redirecting entire rivers and building retractable bridges. Only to find that goblins can actually swim.
The dwarves are your main enemy though, even if goblins try to kill you. Because if you can't keep your dwarves happy, they will tantrum, throwing your fortress into mindless chaos, defenceless to the outside world. And, sadly, dwarves become unhappy whenever a loved one dies.
And they die. They die a lot. Sometimes they can't understand the importance of being inside the walls when goblins attack. Sometimes when ordered to collapse the roof of a building, they do so while standing on it.
Plus they breed like rabbits, to the point where immigrants are distinctly unwelcome. The only thing that will rival the complexity of your plumbing and defenses will be your death chambers and cemetaries.
Still, it's the complexity and difficulty that make the game appealing. You feel that you're achieving something, just by surviving another year. And there's always more depth to uncover, with an almost ludicrous number of features packed in.
It's not a pretty game mind, though mods are out there to make it look at least passable. But if you like a challenge, and dream of digging up a pathway to Hell, it just might be for you.
Friday 2 November 2012
Integrity
Owing to a more or less chronic addiction to Dwarf Fortress, I'm going to keep this short and sweet.
There's recently been something of a furore about the links between some influential journalists and the PR people of games companies. More specifically, a writer named Robert Florence noted on Eurogamer that there were a few journalists who seemed not to understand 'conflict of interest' issues. They'd get a little too close to the PR people, and there were concerns that this affected the judgement of the journalists, and at the very least undermined the trust between journalist and reader.
Trust is actually quite a big issue. There are still plenty of people who harp on about the high scores given to Dragon Age 2, but as many in the industry point out, writers get shouted at more for bad scores than good (with the notable exception of dear Yahtzee, who exists in a cramped, bitter niche of his own).
Now, this doesn't mean that writers should automatically inflate review scores just to keep feedback positive - there are serious ethical issues in doing so - but if the aim is to keep readers, you can see why some are tempted. They are writing for the audience after all, and if the audience want positive reviews, if that's what keeps people coming back, then in a highly competitive world where your readership counts, some journalists are going to give readers what they ask for.
It doesn't have to be that way of course. One of the major features of games writing is how entertaining it is. Seriously, you don't get this stuff in film criticism. Games journalism is about, more often than not, making a story out of how you played the game. You can easily incorporate criticisms without offending people, because you're making them laugh at the same time.
Entertainment aside however, being a trusted source is important, and even if you're the most reliable and objective person in the world, some won't believe it. So it's important to avoid anything that might cast aspersions on your character and judgement. But at the same time, it's tricky to avoid conflicts of interest. So the PR people gave you a cookie. Is that wrong? It could be perceived as wrong after all. A new Playstation? Well, yes, that might be just a little suspect.
It's a fine line to walk. And at the end of the day, it's down to the writer. Many readers have a troubled relationship with reviewers, and some will always suspect you. You can't please everyone, though there's no harm in trying.
So keep your hands clean, as clean as possible. If they get a little dirty, through mistake or accident or whatever, just be careful how you write. If you're always objective, always writing well, then that's half the battle. Perception is important, but personal integrity has to come first.
I think it was a character in E.M.Forster's A Passage to India who once commented on bribery. He admired the British system over the Indian system. The Indians take a bribe, and bend the rules. The British take a bribe, and do nothing.
There are many perks in games journalism - the main one being that you get to write about games - and if you do once in a while find yourself with a gift it would be rude to refuse, you don't always have to refuse it (although more often than not, it probably is best to do so).
Regardless, present or no present, don't change a damn thing about what you write. Let them give gifts if they like. After all, true gifts have no strings attached.
There's recently been something of a furore about the links between some influential journalists and the PR people of games companies. More specifically, a writer named Robert Florence noted on Eurogamer that there were a few journalists who seemed not to understand 'conflict of interest' issues. They'd get a little too close to the PR people, and there were concerns that this affected the judgement of the journalists, and at the very least undermined the trust between journalist and reader.
Trust is actually quite a big issue. There are still plenty of people who harp on about the high scores given to Dragon Age 2, but as many in the industry point out, writers get shouted at more for bad scores than good (with the notable exception of dear Yahtzee, who exists in a cramped, bitter niche of his own).
Now, this doesn't mean that writers should automatically inflate review scores just to keep feedback positive - there are serious ethical issues in doing so - but if the aim is to keep readers, you can see why some are tempted. They are writing for the audience after all, and if the audience want positive reviews, if that's what keeps people coming back, then in a highly competitive world where your readership counts, some journalists are going to give readers what they ask for.
It doesn't have to be that way of course. One of the major features of games writing is how entertaining it is. Seriously, you don't get this stuff in film criticism. Games journalism is about, more often than not, making a story out of how you played the game. You can easily incorporate criticisms without offending people, because you're making them laugh at the same time.
Entertainment aside however, being a trusted source is important, and even if you're the most reliable and objective person in the world, some won't believe it. So it's important to avoid anything that might cast aspersions on your character and judgement. But at the same time, it's tricky to avoid conflicts of interest. So the PR people gave you a cookie. Is that wrong? It could be perceived as wrong after all. A new Playstation? Well, yes, that might be just a little suspect.
It's a fine line to walk. And at the end of the day, it's down to the writer. Many readers have a troubled relationship with reviewers, and some will always suspect you. You can't please everyone, though there's no harm in trying.
So keep your hands clean, as clean as possible. If they get a little dirty, through mistake or accident or whatever, just be careful how you write. If you're always objective, always writing well, then that's half the battle. Perception is important, but personal integrity has to come first.
I think it was a character in E.M.Forster's A Passage to India who once commented on bribery. He admired the British system over the Indian system. The Indians take a bribe, and bend the rules. The British take a bribe, and do nothing.
There are many perks in games journalism - the main one being that you get to write about games - and if you do once in a while find yourself with a gift it would be rude to refuse, you don't always have to refuse it (although more often than not, it probably is best to do so).
Regardless, present or no present, don't change a damn thing about what you write. Let them give gifts if they like. After all, true gifts have no strings attached.
Thursday 1 November 2012
NicheWords-Crusader Kings II
Crusader Kings II sees you take on the role of a landed noble. He breeds, lives, and dies. And then you play the next one. The simple goal of the game is to have your dynasty survive, without losing your land to better survivors.
And that would be a hell of a lot easier, if it wasn't for the nobles you play as.
You see, while you can change the legal systems of your land, join factions and pull all sorts of tricks to alter your relations with vassals and neighbours, you don't have as much control over Baron Nobhead as you'd like. For example, when you send him into battle, you'd better hope for the best, because there's a chance he'll come off all brave, and then come back catatonic. Or perhaps he'll drink just a little too much at his liege lord's feast, and spill the beans on that plot you carefully put together, to assassinate said liege lord.
Needless to say, a lot of the game can be spent in prison. Or in regency. Or at war. It's part of this grand strategy game that nearly every action has consequences with someone, yet the UI is surprisingly easy to pick up. All you have to do is set your own aims - much like in Minecraft, you set the projects, whether reconstructing the Roman Empire, unifying Spain, or fighting off the Mongols long enough to convert them to your own religion.
Faith plays an important role, as it did throughout the Medieval Era that is Crusader Kings II's setting. If you're Catholic, the Pope might excommunicate you at times, or call Crusades in which there's much glory to be won. If you belong to the Orthodox Faith however, prepare for the Patriarch to be completely under the control of the Byzantine Emperor.
The political situation you deal with entirely depends on where you decide to start. As a baron in Ireland, you can calmly exist on the fringe of things, waiting patiently for the day when you can snap up that small castle in Leinster, or, if Christmas is coming, perhaps even the Isle of Man. Oooh...
Or, play a vassal of the Holy Roman Empire, and secure your independence by picking your moment right. If you get it wrong, half the bearded sword-owning men of Europe will have a serious stabbing sesh.
It's this precise freedom that makes the game fun - and it's one reason why Paradox are still developing it - whereas their other grand strategy series such as Hearts of Iron are difficult to get into, Crusader Kings II manages to suck you in from the start. It's something to do with murderous family members, or pushing the King of England off a balcony. To me, it's a game of assassination, and intrigue. To others it's one of destabilisation, and alliances. The battles still often come down to which side has the larger numbers, but that's part of the fun, and if you pick your battlefield carefully, that alone can turn the tide.
I began as a minor lord ruling from the Grecian city of Corinth, at that time part of the Byzantine Empire. Taking advantage of strife between the Islamic rulers of Sicily and the Duke of Calabria, I conquered the island, bit by bit. By the time I had fabricated claims on Southern Italy (you need claims to declare war), the old emperor had died, and his 1 year-old-son had taken his place.
Declared regent, I debated whether to raise the boy as my own, or take the Empire myself. A greedy man, I went for the latter, and with an alliance of nobles I fabricated my own claim to the title of Emperor, and assumed power in a bloodless coup. I then set about recapturing the old Imperial seat of Rome, displacing the Catholic Pope and healing the Great Schism.
Sadly, in that time, the young boy-who-once-was-Emperor had grown into a rather resentful young man, whose lands I had forgotten to steal from him. Several attempts on my character's life aroused his suspicions, and as an excuse to arrest the upstart, he had the Ecumenical Patriarch excommunicate him. A quick castration of the lad, and my problem seemed to be solved - the claim would die with him. Or at least, so I thought, but his wife bore his child a few weeks later. A bribe to the maid, and the babe was quickly smothered, and I then embarked on a campaign of intrigue and assassination, in an attempt to remove all rival claimants.
At which point my mighty Emperor died of disease, and I realised that there had been an oversight. My carefully educated son had thrown caution to the wind, and married his cousin - and she'd brought an imbecilic, inbred baby into the world, just before the father and grandfather died. Guess who inherited?
Playing as Kiddy Drool, while rebellions rose all around me and my Empire crumbled, I reflected on the game.
It's very human you see. One oversight can ruin everything, but that's part of the fun. Is it worth the risk of arresting your son-in-law? Sure, he tried to kill you, but if he escapes the guards there'll be a full fledged rebellion. Do I declare war on these guys, or will France get involved? Murder? Slander? Snog? Marry? Avoid?
If it's your thing, you'll love it, and it will steal your hours. There's something very satisfying about rewriting history, whether it's England being ruled from Edinburgh, or a Shia conversion of France. Working out just what other leaders will get away with is part of the package, and you'll come to love or hate the characters you both work with and play as. There's Ned Stark, and there's Joffrey. Both come into play here.
Speaking of those eminent fellows, it's probably common knowledge by now, but CKII has a Game of Thrones mod. By all accounts too, it's very, very good, and should tide you over until that inevitable bloodbath next Spring.
Anyway, to round it up, I now consider myself a newly converted fan of Paradox - I see their games as more complex (and harder) versions of the Total War series. Medieval history is a great battleground to play around in - and it's a shame that only RPGs and strategy games ever seem to make much use of it.
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