Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling
- Thread starter Lord Thanos_foh
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Cybsled
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I heard a rumor that Curt was buffed during that almost no-hitter game. The main rumor is Manny secretly rerolled bard and was playing a haste song. I also heard Veritek was refreshing shaman buffs between pitches while the ump wasn"t paying attention.
It"s Varitek.Cybsled said:
And I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. I"m a huge nerd, obviously, since I"m on this board...but I think you just crossed some sort of line there :/
probably the best thing that"s been said here in awhile.TwiNCannoN said:
anyway, if mr. schilling is still reading, the most important thing he can take from this thread and all the others is that we as players want freedom and mechanics in the game that support this freedom. the two biggest ways you can do this is removal of a class based system and not having the raidgame dynamic. gut and fix these two problems (yes they"re fucking problems) and you have the start of what potentially could be the next generation mmo game.
Spoken like a man with NO kids
Hot elf chicks, ya let me utter that line on ESPN so I can get the "GEEK" and "Sexist" label to go along with "blowhard" and whatever else is out there already.
Hot elf chicks, ya let me utter that line on ESPN so I can get the "GEEK" and "Sexist" label to go along with "blowhard" and whatever else is out there already.
-steeples fingers- Yet....you did not deny the truth of his hot elf chick words.
Interesting.
Interesting.
Just put the womens in there place. The kitchen. That"ll solve everything if you ask me.Ngruk said:
That"s actually pretty funny. And I certainly wouldn"t suggest saying that in the Clubhouse ;pNgruk said:
At least you don"t cosplay a hot elf chick. Nowthatwould make for some headlines.Ngruk said:
And nightmares.
hmmm...true dat.
And you know the box will have some well endowed hot chick on the cover when it ships.
So you are already slated to be labeled as a geek and sexist...go with the flow man. Run with it.
And you know the box will have some well endowed hot chick on the cover when it ships.
So you are already slated to be labeled as a geek and sexist...go with the flow man. Run with it.
Well I for one would be interested in seeing a little more variety, personally. No, don"t get rid of the "hot elf chicks" completely, but perhaps make one option amongst many. And I don"t mean just the player avatar, I mean the whole pile. Armorkini"s are nifty and all, but I"d rather they be the exception, not the norm. Perhaps something like an option on vendor bought gear, so that people can play sexy if the want to, but aren"t forced to. The more options people have, the more different demographics play your game and the larger it is.
One thing I"m curious on, do you have any sort of solid opinions on user interfaces yet? Like, how much of one will you have? Will it be moddable? Will it be a carbon-copy of WoW"s? I"m personally of the opinion that the game world is, or should be, the primary user interface. A separate user interface overlay is really a distraction, and something that should be more along the lines of a necessary evil.
For example, what if you could tell, roughly, how much health someone had by their character animations? Like, if they"re at full health they"re standing tall, and if they"re hunched over swaying back and forth, dragging their weapon then they"re below one third life.
I don"t think it"d be that technically complex, though it would take art asset developement time. Set up three different combat idle animations. First is full health 66% health, second is 66%% to 33%% health, third is below 33%% health. Then, set up your combat action animations, spell casting or sword swinging or whatever. These combat action animations should be the attack itself, not the wind-up. Then, build the linking animations from each combat idle animation to the appropriate attack. This part is the actual wind up animation.
The point of all that work isn"t to make "a more realistic gameworld." It"s to move the data that healers, especially raid healers, need to know into the game world, and off of some immersion shattering secondary user interface. From there, I"d imagine you need some way to identify and select the targets you need to.
One thing I"m curious on, do you have any sort of solid opinions on user interfaces yet? Like, how much of one will you have? Will it be moddable? Will it be a carbon-copy of WoW"s? I"m personally of the opinion that the game world is, or should be, the primary user interface. A separate user interface overlay is really a distraction, and something that should be more along the lines of a necessary evil.
For example, what if you could tell, roughly, how much health someone had by their character animations? Like, if they"re at full health they"re standing tall, and if they"re hunched over swaying back and forth, dragging their weapon then they"re below one third life.
I don"t think it"d be that technically complex, though it would take art asset developement time. Set up three different combat idle animations. First is full health 66% health, second is 66%% to 33%% health, third is below 33%% health. Then, set up your combat action animations, spell casting or sword swinging or whatever. These combat action animations should be the attack itself, not the wind-up. Then, build the linking animations from each combat idle animation to the appropriate attack. This part is the actual wind up animation.
The point of all that work isn"t to make "a more realistic gameworld." It"s to move the data that healers, especially raid healers, need to know into the game world, and off of some immersion shattering secondary user interface. From there, I"d imagine you need some way to identify and select the targets you need to.
We do have some very cool things going on with regards to UI. It was an immensely in depth and detailed discussion over a lengthy period of time.
However when you talk about looking for variety, I think anyone taking that path needs to be very careful.
Look, for the most part everyone on this board is a hard core passionate gamer. We have "great ideas" and "cool things" we think will make any game 10x better than it is. What a lot of people don"t get or have at times is perspective.
I am the first person, and Danuser will tell you this, that starts the conversation off with "don"t tell me it can"t be done because so and so at so and so company couldn"t do it, or they did it and it sucked." Justify the shooting down of any outside the box idea with solid reasoning backed up by data or facts.
What we tend to do as gamers is look at our ideas in a vacuum, not contemplating how "uncool" that cool idea would be after playing it 4 hours a day for 2 years straight. What if WoW had this cool multi-button magic system for casting spells. While on the surface that may seem cool, 8 months into the game is it really cool to have to mix 2 herbs, click two buttons and target a mob body part to cast a magic missile? That get"s old and "uncool" if it"s a significant part of your action in every melee you encounter.
Not to mention this. How much is that "cool" idea going to cost in dev time, and money? And as important, if not moreso, what is the return on that investment? How many more subs is that bad ass tinkering trade skill going to bring to your game? It"s going to cost 900 man hours to create, times those man hour salaries, which will give it a tangible legitimate production value. Is it going to bring in that much or more in the way of customers?
You can"t "monetize" every aspect. At the core the basic gameplay, story, all of it, needs to be the draw and the thing that keeps a grip on your customers, that won"t ever change, but when you start talking "cool" and "unique" things, you cross over into the world of feature creep at some point and it"s the leads responsibility to stop it dead, regardless of whether it"s Curt Schilling the Founder, Todd McFarlane the Artistic Visionary, or R.A. Salvatore, the Creator of Worlds giving the input. Someone somewhere has to see it for what it is, and run with the new cool creative stuff, and put a kabosh on anything that isn"t.
One of our philosophies, well Brett"s to be exact, is rapid prototyping. We are in the midst of producing vertical slices, deep vertical slices, of game play, to allow us the largest amount of time possible to determine the fun factor. If you can get systems up and running years out of launch, and those systems are fun as hell day one, and still fun in year two, then it"s fun!
If that cool idea and concept is bland and boring 8 months later, don"t lie to yourself and think players will still be having fun with it, they won"t.
However when you talk about looking for variety, I think anyone taking that path needs to be very careful.
Look, for the most part everyone on this board is a hard core passionate gamer. We have "great ideas" and "cool things" we think will make any game 10x better than it is. What a lot of people don"t get or have at times is perspective.
I am the first person, and Danuser will tell you this, that starts the conversation off with "don"t tell me it can"t be done because so and so at so and so company couldn"t do it, or they did it and it sucked." Justify the shooting down of any outside the box idea with solid reasoning backed up by data or facts.
What we tend to do as gamers is look at our ideas in a vacuum, not contemplating how "uncool" that cool idea would be after playing it 4 hours a day for 2 years straight. What if WoW had this cool multi-button magic system for casting spells. While on the surface that may seem cool, 8 months into the game is it really cool to have to mix 2 herbs, click two buttons and target a mob body part to cast a magic missile? That get"s old and "uncool" if it"s a significant part of your action in every melee you encounter.
Not to mention this. How much is that "cool" idea going to cost in dev time, and money? And as important, if not moreso, what is the return on that investment? How many more subs is that bad ass tinkering trade skill going to bring to your game? It"s going to cost 900 man hours to create, times those man hour salaries, which will give it a tangible legitimate production value. Is it going to bring in that much or more in the way of customers?
You can"t "monetize" every aspect. At the core the basic gameplay, story, all of it, needs to be the draw and the thing that keeps a grip on your customers, that won"t ever change, but when you start talking "cool" and "unique" things, you cross over into the world of feature creep at some point and it"s the leads responsibility to stop it dead, regardless of whether it"s Curt Schilling the Founder, Todd McFarlane the Artistic Visionary, or R.A. Salvatore, the Creator of Worlds giving the input. Someone somewhere has to see it for what it is, and run with the new cool creative stuff, and put a kabosh on anything that isn"t.
One of our philosophies, well Brett"s to be exact, is rapid prototyping. We are in the midst of producing vertical slices, deep vertical slices, of game play, to allow us the largest amount of time possible to determine the fun factor. If you can get systems up and running years out of launch, and those systems are fun as hell day one, and still fun in year two, then it"s fun!
If that cool idea and concept is bland and boring 8 months later, don"t lie to yourself and think players will still be having fun with it, they won"t.
I agree with the dont tell me it cant be done. I remember EA sports used to say gang tackling couldnt be done on the current Gen consoles, then 2k sports went and did Gang tackling in 2k5. IF there is a will, it probably can get done.
I know i said VG is my last MMO but if 38 can come through, i will definately check it out. Just cause i am a baseball fan. lol
p.s you have 30 min until game time! lol joking of course
I know i said VG is my last MMO but if 38 can come through, i will definately check it out. Just cause i am a baseball fan. lol
p.s you have 30 min until game time! lol joking of course
Cybsled
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You"re spot on in regards to the "it can"t be done"...however, it does have to be done in a fashion that is intuitive. The best example of an anti-intuitive MMO was WW2 Online. There was like 3 separate actions you had to perform JUST to fire a bloody rifle.
faille
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I agree totally. Even just working a couple of months on our little practice project has illustrated many of your points.
Even the cool ideas that do work and look like they will be fun for the long term, have such far reaching ramifications in an MMO since every thing is so tightly linked together. Making a small change in 1 spot usually throws things out of whack in 4 other places.
Personally I"m trying to draw most of my inspiration from fps games such as BF, or CSS, which people seem to play over and over for years at a time because they like the core gameplay they get in those games. Making a game that is fun every time you log in should be the highest priority, not making a game chasing carrots on a treadmill.
Even the cool ideas that do work and look like they will be fun for the long term, have such far reaching ramifications in an MMO since every thing is so tightly linked together. Making a small change in 1 spot usually throws things out of whack in 4 other places.
Personally I"m trying to draw most of my inspiration from fps games such as BF, or CSS, which people seem to play over and over for years at a time because they like the core gameplay they get in those games. Making a game that is fun every time you log in should be the highest priority, not making a game chasing carrots on a treadmill.
Dammit man, pay attention! He"s on the DL. =(kcxiv said:
Normally I don"t cheer for teams to beat the Pads, but dammit, ever since I was a kid and met Jim Rice at the Pebble Beach Pro/Am, I"ve been a die-hard BoSox fan. So pass on a "good game" to Beckett for me Curt.
I"m still pissed the series sold out so quickly. Never had a chance to get tickets.
But to keep from diverging fully from the thread, I"ll say that feature creep is one of the big game-killers. Once it starts happening, less attention is paid to the core systems that really matter, in favor of working on people"s individual pet projects. It"s very much important for leads to have a handle on what"s going in, and what"s going to be fun for an extended period of time. It"s all about scope.