Update on diplomacy stuff (back to the drawing board yet again).

[x4000]

Diplomacy isn't being scrapped!

[crazyroosterman]

Diplomacy isn't being scrapped!

nice to know that bit isn't being scrapped also holy shit balls that was a fast response!.

[Misery]

Hmm, some of that stuff sounds interesting, in the way you've described it.

I've been waiting to see what developments happen with the stuff that isnt citybuilding or combat related (there being not much to do other than that is why it isnt holding my attention at this point), so I'll jump back in when some of this is up and ready to go.  It sounds intriguing. 

Good luck on that, too... this aspect of 4X games seems to be the hardest one to get right.  Alot of them really just dont...

[x4000]

I'm trying to not think of this as a 4X, and in general trying to just look at my toolset of things here and do what I think will be fun for me personally.  Nothing fiddly, nothing in-depth complicated to crunch numbers in my head while playing.  Just let me DO it and have some fun, and give me reasons to care about what's going on.  Let me stay on the main map and let's have some interesting stories unfold.

The more I try to "tick all the checkboxes for a 4X game," the less fun I feel like I'm having.  I know the sort of experience that I want to have, and it's fluid and fun and gives me lots of interesting things to do.  I'm never stopping to do lots of mental math in AI War or KeeperRL or any of my other favorite games that have a flow along the lines of what I'm looking for.  There's plenty of complexity, but not the sort that makes me weary.

[crazyroosterman]

I'm trying to not think of this as a 4X, and in general trying to just look at my toolset of things here and do what I think will be fun for me personally.  Nothing fiddly, nothing in-depth complicated to crunch numbers in my head while playing.  Just let me DO it and have some fun, and give me reasons to care about what's going on.  Let me stay on the main map and let's have some interesting stories unfold.

The more I try to "tick all the checkboxes for a 4X game," the less fun I feel like I'm having.  I know the sort of experience that I want to have, and it's fluid and fun and gives me lots of interesting things to do.  I'm never stopping to do lots of mental math in AI War or KeeperRL or any of my other favorite games that have a flow along the lines of what I'm looking for.  There's plenty of complexity, but not the sort that makes me weary.

personally I think that having to put games into genera's is constrictive and I wish we could do away with the idea and just make games if what I'm saying makes any séance.

[x4000]

Yep, I think that's definitely a good point.

[Stilgar]

This looks good to me. It reminds me of Sorcerer King. There are these place (mainly tavern) where you have some random text story, with multiple choice (sometimes moral choice) and sometime lead to miniquest (like kill that monster or whatever). They have various outcome: increase or decrease some of your "traits", give resources, delay or speedup the game end... then base on your traits, you sometimes get random event such as 'a secret wizard society admire your wisness and choose to lend their help in your struggle'. I found that it create a nice random procedural story as well as give some personality and momentum to your leader. It is also the opportunity to add humor to the game. Those small story should be easy to expend and mod so its a bonus.

So for me you are on a good track, and I really hope to see you succeed.

[Misery]

I'm trying to not think of this as a 4X, and in general trying to just look at my toolset of things here and do what I think will be fun for me personally.  Nothing fiddly, nothing in-depth complicated to crunch numbers in my head while playing.  Just let me DO it and have some fun, and give me reasons to care about what's going on.  Let me stay on the main map and let's have some interesting stories unfold.

The more I try to "tick all the checkboxes for a 4X game," the less fun I feel like I'm having.  I know the sort of experience that I want to have, and it's fluid and fun and gives me lots of interesting things to do.  I'm never stopping to do lots of mental math in AI War or KeeperRL or any of my other favorite games that have a flow along the lines of what I'm looking for.  There's plenty of complexity, but not the sort that makes me weary.

personally I think that having to put games into genera's is constrictive and I wish we could do away with the idea and just make games if what I'm saying makes any séance.

I agree, though I mostly do it anyway because I'm too lazy to come up with a different way of putting it.

It is a convenient idea in some cases though.... what other sorts of games even HAVE diplomacy systems?  I have little else to compare the idea to, so.... there ya go.   Granted, "if it's got diplomacy and other stuff at the same time, it's a 4X" isnt the best definition ever, but dagnabit, I'm stubborn and lazy and it's the one I'm going with.

....though I think that if the idea of genres actually went away, alot of the bigger developers would just utterly fall apart.  After all, where else would they look for their usual generic ideas and implementation?  How could they make the next Call of Halos without those templates to fit things into?   Ugh.   In that case, yes, genres should go away.

[eRe4s3r]

I'm trying to not think of this as a 4X...

I also believe that it would be best when we forgo genre conventions entirely.... the only relevant thing should be whether something in the game has a reason of existence, is fun and relevant in gameplay. And is emergent, well written and unique enough that it doesn't bore the player to death.

A good 4x game is imo one that does not clone previous 4x games. (You can guess what I think of Endless Space 2 hehe ,p)

Genres are a way to classify games once done, by the audience, but they should never be used as a guideline to design a game. If all you do is reiterate genre conventions, then you made the opposite of a unique game. You made at best a game based on audience expectations..... (And that is how I like to think of every 4x ever, so far)

And let's face it, Diplomacy is not a thing that HAS to be in 4x games. It could just as easily be called "interracial interactions" and they could lead to all kinds of emergent situations, interesting writing, unique stories... the last thing I want to do is chat up a race to sign some trade agreement. That literally puts me off 4x games' entire diplomacy nowadays. The idea doesn't even have a basis in reality. When you look at "real world" trade agreements, these thing are HUGE controversial complex agreements that have far reaching consequences. In some ways a trade agreement like those in the real world might even hurt your economically, might be there to balance laws and taxes, might cause huge social problems... there is no precedent that a trade agreement is making you (the government) directly money like it does in nearly ALL 4x games ever made. And when you ask a dev why it's in there, they answer "because 4x games have it" ... urgh!

And that's just 1 item on Diplomacy 101 for 4x games... I could rant about each and every one of em for pages! Diplomacy is one of the weakest elements in all current so called "4x" games. So any attempt to divert from this genre convention of checklist diplomacy...  can only be a good thing ;P

[wwwhhattt]

So currently, when you make first contact with a race their opinion of you is affected by the way you choose to say 'Hi', with no guideline on how to choose (beyond personal knowledge of the races). Will there be stuff like that in the new version?

I love the idea that you'd have to think not just about what you're saying to the other races, but how you say it - without a little tooltip telling you exactly what's going to happen (although I can imagine that writing several different lines for each possible decision might be a time/soul destroyer).

[Histidine]

Heh, a different gaming Keith made a similar point on genres before:

Cheapness Requires Innovation

Most developers these days making doing one of the following things: a Dual Stick Shooter (i.e. Geometry Wars), a Puzzle Platformer (i.e. Fez), an Endless Runner, Tower Defense, a JRPG, etc.  Most people believe these to be “genres” and feel that they are operating inside a genre.

Well, one problem is that actually, Endless Runner isn’t really a genre.  Neither is Tower Defense, and neither is JRPG.  In actuality, these are each, more or less complete game designs.  For example, I will describe the complete rules to Tower Bonanza!, a hypothetical game I just made up.

Top down grid with a windy road that goes from point A to point B.  Monsters stream out from point A, and if they reach point B, you lose health, and if you reach 0 health, you lose.  You can put down towers alongside the road, which will kill monsters as they attempt to walk by.  Killing monsters gives you money, which can be used to purchase more towers.  There are several different kinds of towers, some that just deal damage, some that do area of effect damage, some that slow, etc.  There’s a sequence of levels, each harder than the last, that you have to beat.

This description fits 99% of “Tower Defense” games.  There’s very, very little difference between each one in terms of the actual gameplay mechanisms.

So this means that if you’re going to make a successful Tower Defense game, you actually have to “out-do” the other guys somehow.  Usually, this means you have to have more content (although sometimes, better production can do it – although that costs nearly as much as more content anyway).

In other words, if you’re cloning something, you have no way of standing out except by being “bigger”. Being Clone Plus One.  I mean, why would someone buy a straight up clone, even if you’ve re-themed it and scooted the deckchairs about a bit?  Your game has to be better somehow, and most people have the wrong idea that more is better.

This arms race of content isn’t remotely new, or unique to indies.  Since the beginning, the value of videogames has always been directly tied to the level of technological power associated with a given game.  I remember games in the SNES and N64 era bragging about how many megabytes (or megabit maybe, for some reason) their games took up on the cartridge.  This was because even in the 1990s, we were doing a lot of clone plus one.  More is Better both matches up with the technological spectacle attribute of videogame culture, and plus, it’s extremely easy to understand.

But with today’s hardware and audience – an audience who isn’t necessarily so concerned about technology – we have the best opportunity yet to escape this horrible, self-destructive loop.  So let’s do it!

[Captain Jack]

I'm inherently biased towards liking that article since it repeats a belief that I've held about limitations leading to good game design. Just listen to NES era programmers talk about the tricks they used to get things like Megaman 2's bosses working, or Mario 1-1.

[kasnavada]

I don't believe that technical limitation lead to good game design, actually quite the opposite. Technical limitation require tech-minded people to work the actual game.

Working tech properly requires some mindset. Breaktroughs will only be achieved by people with really original ideas, and having both a mind "technical enough" to bypass technical limitation AND a mind "artistic" enough to create really original, and fun ideas ? That's going to be rare.

Making games is becoming easier and easier, and that's a good thing, because it paradoxically leaves more room for "other" people than game dev to express their talent.

Second point, technical limitations... limit. Kind of sounds stupid when you say it, but there is stuff than you can't do with a computer and can only do with a tablet. With a mouse or a gamepad or a keyboard. Or with voice-control. Or Virtual Reality (whenever that becomes real).


That said, I see Keith's point, but there's a limit of how much things can be thought of. I'd agree we're far from finding them all though, but eventually... unless tech evolves... we will only have "re-runs" and "bad stuff" (some "genre" and concept just don't work).

[Shrugging Khan]

IMHO one limiting factor is that games keep starting from scratch.

Devs keep trying to cater to practically blank slate gamers in aiming for the greatest available demographics. Every game has to be accessible enough to someone who never read the manual and possibly never looked at the tutorial (if present) either. So everything has to be shallow enough to be understood at a glance. Shooters must be simple enough to appeal to the CoD-MP or e-sports crowd, strategy games constantly re-hash the same mechanics and interfaces so nobody has to learn anything new, and every new iteration of a game must be made simpler so that more new players can be gained. There's just an infinite plateau of ever-the-same-rehash where high-end, high-complexity games for players who'd actually invest some effort ought to be.

It's understandable of course, especially financially. But I also think that there's some things to be said for catering to niche audiences; provided that they are still large and generous enough to support the devs.

But where devs actually put in more content, and dare to allow greater complexity, while also keeping things somewhat balanced and working, the really memorable games pop up. The ones you can read stories about, that keep surprising and challenging players. Dwarf Fortress, EVE Online, AI War, ArmA, Kerbal Space Program, Jagged Alliance 2.1.13 - there's some of these in every genre. They're naturally rare, enjoyed by relatively small crowds, and development on them is always a huge effort - and development mistakes resulting in a lower game quality tend to be more than likely.
But they also grow old and keep being played, because there's so much content and complexity. They grow old and things keep being added; not taken away for future iterations.

I know this probably once again puts me into opposition to Kasnavada, but I'll stick to my point: Catering to niche audiences that can stomach a steep and prolonged learning curve will probably result in more interesting and memorable games than trying to make simple games for everybody.

PS: It may well be said that complex, content-rich games are the native domain of modders rather than financially insecure devs. Probably true.

[kasnavada]

I know this probably once again puts me into opposition to Kasnavada, but I'll stick to my point: Catering to niche audiences that can stomach a steep and prolonged learning curve will probably result in more interesting and memorable games than trying to make simple games for everybody.

Indeed, I simply can't believe that unless you're part of the maybe 10% of people that can and will stomach a steep and prolonged learning curve, you can't have interesting and memorable games. I know it's not exactly what you're saying but that is kind of what I understand when I read it.


What I believe is that for a game to be interesting and memorable, it must either "resonate" with you somehow (story, graphics, gameplay mechanics...) - which can happen to anyone and for possibly any reason - and / or have the possibility of having a "high skill level" of play, or "simply" just "higher". By which I mean like "go". A "go" Master will just not lose to 99,9% of other people when challenged. Despite that game being one of the simplest around. But, "anyone" can play and train in it and have fun.


So... that's why, when providing feedback, I focus on having the "broadest" entry point, enabling "high skill level" play and things unique enough to provide interest."My" definition of what "best games" are would be games where people explore most of the game, then find their own niche in it. Because you might have the "dream" game you're looking for somewhere, but if you don't ever get in it long enough to find it... there's no point.


Examples:
- If you're looking for "high level play with complex rules", for example let Kahuna play diff10 AI war. However diff 5 AI War (default difficulty last time I checked) barely requires deep knowledge of the game. Large entry point, niche for everyone. Actually with the amount of customization possible, it kinds of went overboard =). But we love it =).
- Eve online is the same, barely anything is required if you're staying casual in high-sec, even if the game will soon be boring, it does introduce you gradually to a lot of concepts before you start PVP. People wanting to start PVP from the start are in for a surprise though, as survival will require skills and knowledge you can't have, or people guiding and protecting you.
- Jagged alliance 2 I played, but not the modded version. From what I remember, the game mechanics are gradually applied which makes for a tutorial of sort, and the game was rather easy once appropriate precautions are applied. I guess that the mod is a more difficult game for people wanting their niche in it.

Other games in your list, I don't have - can't really tell.