Where do Game Designers draw the line?

Are you a game designer or developer? Do you have creative input into the content of the games you or your company produce? If so, then this discussion is meant for you. There are a series of questions I want you to think about and answer for yourself:

Where do you draw the line between appropriate and inappropriate game content in a game meant for the common market?

Where do you draw the line between “edgy” and “too far”?

Where do you draw the line between “artistic freedom” and “inflammatory content”?

In other words: where do you draw the line that says “I am responsible for this content” and “Buyer beware”?

I regularly see articles, blog posts, and discussion about how designers need to “push the innovative envelope” or tackle societal issues in their games. There can be no question that games can have a powerful influence and even help to solve problems we face in the real world on a daily basis, but where do we draw the line? Is there a point where we say “I can, but I won’t” in a design and not do it purely out of production limitations?

We all know that in most cases the deciding factor is about marketing. Is an idea acceptable to the desired target audience? If yes, go for it! However, the unspoken reality is that when it comes to games the target audience/market is not always who is playing the game. Case in point, I recently overheard a group of pre-teens discussing how much they enjoyed Saints Row: The Third. In the event you live under a rock I’ll clarify that this is a game rated “M for Mature” by the ESRB. That means that this group of kids enjoying it was a good 5 years or more under the recommended age to be playing.

Now, I will be the first to defend the retailers, publishers and developers by asking “Where are the parents and why are they letting these kids play this game”, but let us face facts folks: this is the norm, not the exception. We as designers cannot bury our heads in the sand and pretend that what we make doesn’t end up in the hands of those we don’t intend it to. So, in facing that reality are we still absolved of any responsibility in curtailing our content to remain within certain boundaries?

There are a dozen arguments to be made on both sides of this issue. A designer shouldn’t have to consider societal responsibility when designing content; the designer’s only concern should be the appropriateness of the content to the game being produced. Right? Perhaps, but does that argument hold up when a 12 year old is running around the game world committing wanton acts of violence with an over-sized sex toy? Is this really a message we as designers want to be sending when we produce a game?

I’m not going to make any moral judgments or claim I have the answers to this issue. I will be the first to admit that my “line” weaves back and forth more than a drunk during a sobriety test. There isn’t an easy answer, but I it’s important that the question be asked anyway. This is something I believe every designer should keep in the back of their mind as they work.

The games we make and the content we put in them are our legacy, our contribution to society’s evolution and progress. It might sound dramatic, but really stop and think of the impact some games have already had. Now, consider that for the first time society is progressing toward a stage where the majority not only play video games, but have grown up their entire lives playing them. This is becoming the norm – the fact of life. Our reach, as designers, is staggering and is only going to grow. As such, we have an obligation to ourselves to ask not only “Can we get away with this” or “Is this appropriate”, but to ask “would I let my kid play this” and “is this what I want my game/company remembered for”?

Week 1 of Level Design 1 has gone well so far. We did level mockups this week for original Far Cry 2 mission designs. Mine’s pretty rough, but I think it will work well as a decent starting place. Check it out!

The week 1 assignment involved two parts: the mockup and the level documentation. I designed a mission called “The Medicine Man’s Lullaby” which would fit into the normal Far Cry 2 storyline as an optional mission early in Act 2. I wanted a level that I felt made sense in the context of the game, primarily utilized existing assets, but added a little extra depth to a story element I felt was glossed over. While there still isn’t a whole lot in the way of dialog or story revealed (as is pretty much the M.O. for Far Cry 2) I felt it did complete the “cure” story concept pretty well.

Level Mockup: Medicine Man's Lullaby - Click to Enlarge!

The documentation rounded out at 3 pages for this first submission, but I believe it will easily hit 4 or 5 in the final version.

“Medicine Man’s Lullaby” Level Design Document v1

Ghostcrawler outlines the issue of Item Inflation fairly succinctly when he states:

If you look at everything from the Strength on a weapon to the damage being done by a Fireball crit or the amount of health the Morchok boss has, they look downright absurd compared to the numbers for level 60 characters in the original shipping version of World of Warcraft. It’s not exactly a surprise that we were going to end up here, and we knew where we were going every step of the way, yet regardless, here we are.

Item Inflation, or rather Item STAT Inflation is a problem many players, and obviously the Devs, have seen coming since the first WoW Expansion several years ago. However, as Street points out later in his article, “The numbers grew so much primarily because we wanted rewards to be compelling. Upgrading from a chestpiece that has 50 Strength into one that has 51 Strength is undeniably a DPS increase for the appropriate user, but it’s not a very exciting reward. Such negligible increases can drive players to do some weird things, such as skipping over tiers of gear or entire levels of content.”

The two solutions Ghostcrawler outlines to the problem basically boil down to “nerf the gear” via a “squishing” or compressing of ALL stats in the game at the key points (60, 70, 80, 85) or simply changing the way the system displays damage and health. Since the article was posted a great deal of feedback has already been provided from the players on both sides of the fence. No one wants to feel nerfed, but not too many are up for “Mega Damage” messaging either.

So what’s another solution? How could the WoW Developer’s manage to eat their cake and have it too? Well, as a designer this is an intriguing challenge so I decided to try my hand at tackling it. My solution is actually a two-part answer.

The first part of my solution introduces the Adept Gear level. Starting at item level 400, gear will no longer improve in Stats. A base level of gear stats will be established and all gear in the series (400-500 Mists of Pandaria) gear will have those stats. The gear will be flagged as “Adept”, however, and will have specific bonuses much like what we see as set bonuses today. More on this in a moment.

The second part involves an upgrade to the Reforging and Gemming mechanics. First, by improving Reforging to allow changes to the Primary Stats on any Adept-level item you allow for stat variety based on player needs/wants. Second, by making the new tier of Gems effect-based you halt inflationary concerns for the profession and further enhance player customization options.

So now, here’s an example of what I mean.

These are two items I put together for level 90 Warriors. In this example I’ve set the base Armor value for all level 90 Plat Chest items at 4000, the Strength to 500, Stamina 700, Hit at 280 and Dodge at 280. Like today, items will have an assortment of stats on them, but the values of those stats would be static. Where the differential comes in is a) what stats appear on the item, b) what Adept (Equip) value is on the item, and how can I reforge it?

Let’s look at the Chestplate of the Jade Tiger for a moment. This appears like it could be a good item for a Fury Warrior, but our hypothetical warrior is already “hit capped”. Under the new Reforging system an Adept item may reforge its primary stats so let’s reforge Hit to Strength. Now, imagine the item had a slot for a Red Gem. Rather than slotting a simple + Strength gem or something similar the player may want to put a “+2% Rage Generation” gem in the slot.

The question becomes, would upgrades like this be compelling? Is seeing a change or upgrade to an ability as or more exciting than seeing your Strength go up by 20-30 points? I would say that the answer is both yes and no. The compelling nature of the upgrade shifts from excitement over bigger numbers to interest in customizing gear to fit the way the player enjoys playing. The focus is no longer on stats so much as it is on “I love spamming execute and that new Adept value is AWESOME for that!” In this regard, I would say that “upgrades” would be as much or more compelling. Likewise, there’s nothing to say that the stat values can’t increase in small amounts between Tiers (i.e. intro Tier is 500 strength, next tier goes up to 520).

Is this idea perfect? Not by a long shot. I can tell you it would be a bear to properly balance. However, by locking in player stat values to a very specific range per-expansion going forward it also gives them some breathing space. Mobs and bosses don’t have to scale to insane values (beyond what they are already), but more interestingly they too can share in quirky Adept gear values. This idea is only about an hour old; imagine what the Devs could do with it in a couple days or weeks.

Reference:

Dev Watercooler – The Great Item Squish (or Not) of Pandaria – World of Warcraft. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3885585/Dev_Watercooler_-_The_Great_Item_Squish_or_Not_of_Pandaria-11_4_2011

I know what you’re thinking.

“How can you possibly do an analysis of something when it was only just announced yesterday at BlizzCon and hasn’t even been developed yet??”

That is, perhaps, the most brilliant element of this new proposal from Blizzard and the WoW Dev Team. I can tell you, on a basic gameplay level, right now how it’ll work. This is because there is nothing special about the actual minute-by-minute gameplay of Scenarios; it’s still exactly what you’ve been doing for six years now. What is different about the Scenarios system isn’t what you’re doing, but how you’re doing it. That’s what I’m analyzing here – the potential of the Scenarios themselves, not the mechanics.

I warn you, this is a long post.

First, let’s take a look at the official word on Scenarios.

Scenarios

Scenarios will allow small groups of players to adventure together in short instances, with progressive objectives and a story arc. Scenarios are completely role-less, meaning tanks or healers aren’t necessary to succeed — any class combinations can work. Queues will be fast! Smaller scenarios will play similar to group quests and will help players earn faction reputation, while larger scenarios will play out like epic PvE battlegrounds with major objectives and plenty of scripted events.

On the surface this seems fairly straight forward: short, group-oriented quests packaged in their own instance. However, that analysis is woefully simplified. The true brilliance of this new feature is that it is completely limitless and opens up an entirely new angle of day-to-day play. There is no telling what scenarios may pop up, and by not tying those to any particular larger story arc or event there will also be nothing stopping quick, continuous development. More importantly, however, is that the focus of the scenarios can build on any existing (at the time of its “release”) game system.

At BlizzCon they provided a Scenario example of an event in the town of Goldshire: Kobolds attacked. You and two others kill the Kobolds, free the kidnapped kids, and take out the Kobold leader. This was a great simple, straightforward example to get the point across. However, in a way I feel like Blizzard did themselves a disservice with this. Frankly, of all the new feature announcements for Mists of Pandaria I think this should have been the #2 focus after Talents (excluding of course the new race & class). What do I mean by that? Well, let’s take a closer look at WoW’s existing systems and how they might work with Scenarios.

Let’s start with the second example Blizzard already gave: PvE Battlegrounds. Now, most people will automatically jump to the thought of existing battlegrounds. Perhaps the in-battleground quests of old could be reintroduced and made the focus in a PvE Battleground (see old school Alterac Valley quests for an example). New missions that “supplement” the main battles could also be introduced. There are a ton of options that could be quick and fun for players. Yet, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I’ll come back to this in a moment.

Professions currently feel a little lack-luster in the endgame with a few exceptions. The WoW Developers have done a lot to fix that with daily quests, achievements, and useful endgame items (such as feasts from cooking). However, they’re still very much a secondary game system that can be totally ignored. Well, let’s look at them in light of the new Scenarios system. Gameplay options explode! Looking at the Goldshire example from BlizzCon consider this new chain of “Scenario Events”.

The town is under attack by Kobolds, but the guards and militia are holding them back. However, since the town has mustered most able-bodied folks to its defense problems are arising. The defenses are faltering because new supplies aren’t reaching the town. Goldshire needs a Blacksmith of considerable talent to repair weapons and armor. A cook is needed to feed cook up meals for the guard and militia while an Alchemist brews up a few healing and mana potions. Now, add in a time challenge, the need to gather and use local resources that are out amid the conflict zone and you’ve got a short, fun scenario focused on three professions!

Each class in WoW has a unique background and niche in the world. Scenarios could allow for those rarely seen aspects of a player’s class to shine! Rogues could get assignments from SI: 7 to rob a Nobleman’s home for hidden documents after suspicions of treason arise. They could even assassinate said Nobleman if necessary. Shaman could be dispatched by the Earthen Ring to quell Elemental Spirits Rampaging through a region. Now, consider that you can also tailor a scenario to need each of the various Specializations within a class and you’ve got a ton of gameplay options.

Now, earlier I said that PvE Battlegrounds were just the tip of the iceberg in regards to the existing battlegrounds. I’ve also mentioned that most scenarios will utilize existing in-game elements to facilitate both rapid development and story elements. However, the Scenario system does not have to be limited to existing areas…or existing areas as they are today. Folks, take a moment to consider the Scenarios system in the context of the Caverns of Time.

Your mind blown yet?

It’s easy to go nuts thinking about the possibilities that the Caverns of Time introduce, but don’t get lost on the big stuff! Think about it in terms of Scenarios: smaller, quicker, more personal experiences. Think about “temporal skirmishes” with the Infinite Dragonflight to keep them away from the more important events nearby. Now, toss in the profession or class-based scenarios and there is literally no end to what can be done.

Now, Scenarios have been pitched as a PvE element, but why can’t there be PvP versions at no extra cost? Have a scenario to save a town from a rogue pack of Scourge? Why not add a second version of the scenario that says if you want that reward your Alliance team will have to save the town before that Horde team does. It might be best if you knocked off a member…or four…of their team. Is your scenario calling for an Alchemist to brew up a rare caldron? Those ingredients might be harder to get when an opposing Alchemist wants them too. Once again I have to say it: So many options!

The beautiful part of this new system, to me as a Game Designer, is that you can go absolutely nuts in your designs. You’re using (for the most part) 100% recycled goods in your designs so there’s no “that’d take a lot to develop” or “we’d need new animations to do that” or other such setbacks. Want to make that scenario in Goldshire? Snag the village’s assets, copy a few Kobolds, write a bit of script and bake on an instance server (<—-gross over-simplification). Walla, a new tasty scenario in about a tenth of the time!

This is a system I can absolutely get behind both as a player and a designer. I can’t wait to see what the WoW Dev team does with it!

References:

World of Warcraft Preview Panel: Mists of Pandaria – BlizzCon. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://us.battle.net/blizzcon/en/blog/3768753/World_of_Warcraft_Preview_Panel_Mists_of_Pandaria-10_21_2011#blog

The first order of business pertains to Era of Havoc: Mythos Sector. I had the opportunity to speak with Chris Keeling (our teacher for Design Project 1) at the conference and he gave some advice on our desire to continue developing the game. After thinking about what he said my brain started popping out all sorts of ideas. Time to talk to the other guys and get things moving again for EoH!

Next up on my list is actually a revamp of my website and this blog. While I really just finished a revamp I’m not the sort of person who ignores good advice – especially not when it comes from multiple industry veterans who look at these things regularly. So, the website and this blog are going to get adjusted a bit to include an actual portfolio section. I’ve already got a basic outline for the revisions put together, but it will most likely take me a little time to actually implement the changes.

Aside from those two major issues, my To-Do list is now filled with a million smaller things I won’t bore everyone with. Needless to say, I’ve got a full schedule ahead of me. Time to get started!

I’m going to start this post by simply stating that I had an absolute blast and enjoyed every moment my time at GDCO. As a student that still has roughly a year and a half of school left I went into this conference primarily looking to simply network, learn a little where I could, and get a “feel for the lay of the land” as they say. When I left Austin on Wednesday evening I did so having far, far, surpassed those expectations.

First, the networking was absolute amazing. I’m not going to name-drop in this blog (the Bots-that-lurk love that sort of thing), but I will say that the industry professionals I had the opportunity to meet and hold real conversations with blows my mind. However, as awesome as that side of the networking was, the more substantial and long-term networking actually came in meeting the other volunteers.

Let me just state this plainly: some very cool people are volunteers at GDC Online. They come from all sorts of backgrounds, specialties, locations, and places in the industry. While the work as volunteers does making it hard to get to know all your fellow volunteers if you make the time it’s well worth it. As one of the other volunteers said to me, “We are the next up-and-coming names, the next generation, in the industry,” and he was absolutely right. When you factor in that a decent number of the volunteers are already in the industry… why wouldn’t you want to get to know these people? I’m sad to say that I didn’t get to know many of the volunteers better, but I hope to rectify that next year.

One thing I knew going into GDCO was that it was going to be an excellent chance to learn. Insights by industry pros are not the sort of thing you let pass by. Primarily, I’d been thinking in terms of the actual sessions, keynotes, and tutorials; oh how shortsighted I was. While I certainly learned a ton by listening to the various sessions I also struck gold by simply listening when meeting people.

I don’t want to slight anyone, but I was absolutely floored by the number of people who would ask an industry vet a question and then barely let him or her answer before trying to add their own 2 cents. These people are Veterans in the industry for a reason for crying out loud! LEARN FROM THEM!! Don’t talk over them, or try to redirect the conversation to yourself, or cut directly to the “Can I have a job” question or one of its analogs.

All conversations have a cadence and structure to them whether you realize it or not. When you’re talking to someone trying to “jump tracks” from one topic to another without the right transition is will break that cadence and disrupt the structure. In many cases this break can be seen as incredibly rude or signal to the other person(s) that you don’t really care about what they’ve been saying. Is that the sort of impression you want to make?

Getting back on topic, however, by listening to what other people were asking and the answers they were receiving I was able to learn as much, or more, than I did from the various seminars. I really feel like I was able to walk away from GDCO having learned some very valuable lessons about the craft I’m taking up. More importantly, they were lessons spanning not just the actual craft of making games, but the more personal side of the industry as well; general “do’s and don’ts” and tips on how to market yourself are equally as valuable (if not more so) as any other.

So, to summarize, 20 hours of volunteer work in exchange for:

• Off the hook networking opportunities
• “All Access” to the entire conference
• Meeting awesome people (see: Off the hook networking opportunities)
• Listening to industry veterans share their hard-won experience
• Working with great people (see: Off the hook networking opportunities)
• Swag equaling the weight of the bag you packed to go to GDCO in the first place. (Or in one volunteer’s case a bean bag chair she had to ship home b/c it was too big to fly with – Grats to her on that win again!)
• 3 nights of awesome mixers and parties

Yeah…best 20 hours of “work” I was ever smart enough to sign up for and will do it again in a heartbeat next year.

More news to come as I blog each day about what’s happening at the conference!

• I learned my ABCs on an Apple II.
• I played my first computer game on that same Apple II.
• I rediscovered computer gaming years later on a Macintosh Quadra 660AV.
• I developed my first computer game on a Mac using Macromedia Authorware and a desire to make a Star Trek: TNG game.
• I discovered the internet and everything that comes with it on a Macintosh.
• I designed my first website and learned HTML on a Macintosh.
• I played my first online game and gained a passion for both playing and designing them on a Macintosh.
• I got my first job ever at CompUSA because I knew Macs and the new iMac was close to release.
• I burned my first CD and DVD on Macs.
• I began my current progress toward being a Game Designer on a Mac

Thank you Steve Jobs for playing such a big, if indirect, role in my life through your work and passion.

As of this week I’m now into Programming Foundations aka “Welcome to Unity and Coding Sucker”. Now, just to clear up any confusion I will admit right now that I seem to be incapable of remembering the name of this class. I’ve called it Programming Fundamentals, Fundamentals of Programming, and about half a dozen other variations of combining “Programming” with words starting with “F”. I’ll let you figure out some of the more colorful ones. Luckily, despite class name issues I feel like I’ve got a good grasp of the material so far.

Famous last words…

Unity3D has me very excited now that I have a clue what I’m doing with it. The only problem I have so far is that I’m trying to launch to the moon before I’ve even gotten a handle on crawling in Unity. This is where my prior experience in programming (I won’t mention just how outdated this particular skill-set really is) is more of a hindrance than a boon. I’m able to see, on a conceptual level, what I need to do to accomplish my desired outcome. The problem comes in actually doing it. Since this Blog is rated PG for the most part I’ll avoid recalling my attempts to make a “flashlight” that follows the mouse and turns on and off with a right mouse-click. Let us just say I I’m still learning and leave it at that.

On other fronts, but actually still peripherally related to the joys of Unity, I’ve managed to get some work done on all three of my original game designs. So far FLR has gotten the short end of the stick, but frankly I’m okay with that. It is absolutely more of an exercise in theory than a design I think will actually see the light of a sales-shelf some day. With my introduction to the world of Unity my attention has mostly been shifted back toward Flashlight Marauders. Many of the Labs for class have direct (or close to) applications for FM so naturally it’s gotten me thinking. So far, I’ve started to put together a very rough level 1 and it’s turning into a useful testbed. Trials is actually more on my mind the last day or so that the other two because I think I can actually use Unity for it as well. It’s going to take some thought and a lot more videos/tutorials first, but I think it’s doable. It would certainly be great if I could.

On the GDC front I finally got some business cards ordered. Now, I’m working to polish up this Blog and flesh out the website I started over on Wix.Com. I like the flash-based nature of the Wix sites as they allow for some pretty fun customization. I’m going to use it for a while as the primary spot for The Workshop and see how it goes. It won’t be too much longer before I need to put together an actual Portfolio and I want to know from experience where/how will work best for me. I’m cheap so spending the cash on a domain name and “better than free” hosting isn’t going to happen until I need to and can be sure I’m getting the best deal for what I need.