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[TL]Hanabi - US West 4
[TL]Ohana - US East 4
[TL] Destination East 4 |
On March 09 2013 02:27 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 02:20 mordk wrote:On March 09 2013 02:15 Jibba wrote:
Well, you're jumping ahead to features. Customers don't deal with features very well, they deal with needs/desires. It doesn't seem like it initially, but I think there's a number of ways companies could conduct customer research to figure out these things. The companies with the best product design systems don't just throw out features and see what sticks, they figure out what problems, opportunities or image concerns customers have and build features around that. That's what game development should eventually get to. The core of the game stays the same, but it helps you decide how many resources you should actually dedicate to X item, if it only gives you Y benefit.
And you're not going after everyone. That's a mistake. You choose key segments, and they don't have to be key because of numbers, they could be key because of longevity or because they're the most hardcore or because other gamers look up to them (as is the case for ESPORTS.) The problem with this is the mass of customers do not envision new things in games, only a small segment of the gamer base does. Going with this philosophy basically means Call of Duty for everyone. The same game rehashed over and over again, because publishers and developers know it's a sure sale. It means vanguard projects that push the industry forward actually stay at kickstarter area, which is actually a godsend, otherwise these projects would NEVER see light. No, you're stuck in features. Needs are underlying characteristics of features - the reason that feature is desired, what it provides, what it solves, what it makes you feel. CoD clones are everyone copying everyone else's features. You can extract needs from those features and find an entirely new way to deliver them. No one has done it yet in gaming so I can't really give you an example, but it's used in a lot of other product development circles. Like if you looked at WoW, some of the underlying needs would be in terms of social connections, gradual progression towards feeling more powerful, etc. Raids and boss loot and chat rooms are features that fulfill those needs, but there's other ways you could meet them. Likewise, it would be possible to implement raids and loot, yet fail to meet those needs. Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 02:25 Snotling wrote:
One easy pseudo-fix for the city size issue would be: dont make is a square, it feels so forced. Make it a shape that fits in to the landscape. Like a long but rahter narrow area along a river, or a valley inbetween mountains.
This is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. 4sqkm is your limitation, I believe, but there's probably other shapes/settings (still existing within 4sqkm) that better convey freedom than a 2x2 square.
Sure this kind of thing can be easily fixed in the future and still convey the creator's vision for the game. I think the problem is that, for example, I detect that players have X need that right now CoD is covering the standard CoD way. The thing is, I want to solve that need in a different way, but why would a publisher go with that? They know that doing it the CoD way is better, because it means record day-1 sales and beyond. So, my new vision for covering that need doesn't get the funds I require to make it happen, aaand it's dead. It's to be expected for games that follow the standard record selling line to sell a ton more than anything different, why would a publisher ever change the scheme? Players sure don't demand it, which brings me back to gamers not envisioning new things for gaming, at least in the majority, so there's no need to make new stuff. The AAA game industry is riddled with this, and it is successful, people keep buying it.
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On March 09 2013 02:10 FromShouri wrote:@SKC you must of missed the part where I said I found 99% accurate(or at least claiming to be) WOTLK/Cata servers too. Which cata is only 1 expansion behind MOP and if MOP was as successful as it claims to be  you can bet that by mid-way through MOP that people will have decently working MOP servers.
Claiming to be, and actually being, are very diferent things regarding private servers. My experiences with them have been a long time ago, but even then there were servers that claimed to be very close to the official servers and were a complete mess. I would be very skeptical of what they claim, you really need to see it for yourself.
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On March 09 2013 02:38 crbox wrote:
okay so I'm not familiar with the whole thread, but from what I see (just bought the game) I can't login for another 20 mins...
Is this happening often? Can't we just play offline, I'm pretty sure my computer can handle the "calculations"
Well, it's EA, don't expect much they already have your money. The company has the worst reputation somewhere down there with Capcom.
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United States22883 Posts
On March 09 2013 02:41 mordk wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2013 02:27 Jibba wrote:On March 09 2013 02:20 mordk wrote:On March 09 2013 02:15 Jibba wrote:
Well, you're jumping ahead to features. Customers don't deal with features very well, they deal with needs/desires. It doesn't seem like it initially, but I think there's a number of ways companies could conduct customer research to figure out these things. The companies with the best product design systems don't just throw out features and see what sticks, they figure out what problems, opportunities or image concerns customers have and build features around that. That's what game development should eventually get to. The core of the game stays the same, but it helps you decide how many resources you should actually dedicate to X item, if it only gives you Y benefit.
And you're not going after everyone. That's a mistake. You choose key segments, and they don't have to be key because of numbers, they could be key because of longevity or because they're the most hardcore or because other gamers look up to them (as is the case for ESPORTS.) The problem with this is the mass of customers do not envision new things in games, only a small segment of the gamer base does. Going with this philosophy basically means Call of Duty for everyone. The same game rehashed over and over again, because publishers and developers know it's a sure sale. It means vanguard projects that push the industry forward actually stay at kickstarter area, which is actually a godsend, otherwise these projects would NEVER see light. No, you're stuck in features. Needs are underlying characteristics of features - the reason that feature is desired, what it provides, what it solves, what it makes you feel. CoD clones are everyone copying everyone else's features. You can extract needs from those features and find an entirely new way to deliver them. No one has done it yet in gaming so I can't really give you an example, but it's used in a lot of other product development circles. Like if you looked at WoW, some of the underlying needs would be in terms of social connections, gradual progression towards feeling more powerful, etc. Raids and boss loot and chat rooms are features that fulfill those needs, but there's other ways you could meet them. Likewise, it would be possible to implement raids and loot, yet fail to meet those needs. On March 09 2013 02:25 Snotling wrote:
One easy pseudo-fix for the city size issue would be: dont make is a square, it feels so forced. Make it a shape that fits in to the landscape. Like a long but rahter narrow area along a river, or a valley inbetween mountains.
This is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. 4sqkm is your limitation, I believe, but there's probably other shapes/settings (still existing within 4sqkm) that better convey freedom than a 2x2 square. Sure this kind of thing can be easily fixed in the future and still convey the creator's vision for the game. I think the problem is that, for example, I detect that players have X need that right now CoD is covering the standard CoD way. The thing is, I want to solve that need in a different way, but why would a publisher go with that? They know that doing it the CoD way is better, because it means record day-1 sales and beyond. So, my new vision for covering that need doesn't get the funds I require to make it happen, aaand it's dead. It's to be expected for games that follow the standard record selling line to sell a ton more than anything different, why would a publisher ever change the scheme? Players sure don't demand it, which brings me back to gamers not envisioning new things for gaming, at least in the majority, so there's no need to make new stuff. The AAA game industry is riddled with this, and it is successful, people keep buying it.
It gets IW and Treyarch big sales, but I don't think anyone else has gotten big sales copying them. Brand recognition is part of the equation too, but if you can't win on that, then you have to find new or better ways to do things, and none of their competitors have. What I'm talking about is customer focused design, and I'd say CoD is entirely almost business focused design. They have a set business model and progression of MP features, and everything else is designed around ways to maximize those things, not maximize anything for the customer.
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On March 08 2013 17:01 Veldril wrote:Show nested quote +On March 08 2013 16:55 Arnstein wrote:
After Steam got popular, I don't know anyone who pirates games. I know it's happening, but majority still buy the game on Steam. This always online thing is just bullshit, and I hope it makes EA lose a lot of money. Say that in Thailand and you will get laughed off. I would say around 30% of gamers in Thailand (and I would argue in SE Asia countries) buy and use pirated copy DVD. You read it right, they "buy" a pirated copy manufactured in the country. Another 30-40% would torrent the games. There's a saying in Thailand that "only idiots buy a legit copy (of games, anime, movie, etc.)" since the price of pirated copy is like 3-10x lower than the legal ones. One story about gaming in Thailand that is related to EA is that piracy managed to drive EA out of business here. One of the reason that EA Thailand closed down was that the pirated copy sold a lot more than the actual copy to the point that operating a local business in Thailand was no longer profitable and EA closed down the office in Thailand.
They would still make a shitload of money, even if not a single person in Thailand bought it.
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United States22883 Posts
"playing" :D
He's on attempt #2 to get into his city.
Force quit game and Origin
Changed to European server, can't connect
Waiting on server connect
Got authenticated to server, then...
+ Show Spoiler +BLACK SCREEN
Server down alert
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On March 09 2013 03:23 Jibba wrote:"playing" :D He's on attempt #2 to get into his city. Force quit game and Origin Changed to European server, can't connect Waiting on server connect Got authenticated to server, then... + Show Spoiler +
Yeah, i was just gonna say! :D Seems like the servers aren't in a good mood.
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On March 09 2013 03:23 Jibba wrote:"playing" :D He's on attempt #2 to get into his city. Force quit game and Origin Changed to European server, can't connect Waiting on server connect Got authenticated to server, then... + Show Spoiler +BLACK SCREEN
Server down alert
As much as I love seeing the EA-fail, I actually kinda wish this game worked 
EDIT: and now day9 has gone insane after successfully getting in
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On March 09 2013 03:23 Jibba wrote:"playing" :D He's on attempt #2 to get into his city. Force quit game and Origin Changed to European server, can't connect Waiting on server connect Got authenticated to server, then... + Show Spoiler +BLACK SCREEN
Server down alert
And they refuse to give refunds...That is clearly a defective product, plain and simple. Even if Sim City was an MMO, people would be extremely upset, but the fact it's basically a single player game.....
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There's no such thing as bad publicity, right :D 10k viewers
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I guess I won't be playing today. I tried to contact EA to know what's up, but I needed to connect on origin which wasn't working (kept loading to connect).
This is the worst game launch I've seen in a while (and yes I played d3 at launch)
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United States22883 Posts
He got into the tutorial!
Let's hope he doesn't run into one of those tutorial bugs.
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Two quick points from the thread:
1) There is a difference between piracy prevention DRM and the glassbox / glasshouse engine being on a cloud server. The cloud server is meant to get information from everyone and move it back to the "box" of the player with information from other players. They aren't holding this information in the cloud because of pirates, they're doing it because they want to handle all the networking and metrics in a single location that can be modified later on, as I was mentioning earlier.
2) Jibba makes some really great points in his posts. I don't like quote trees, but I'll just say that I think he is probably mostly correct. This is speculation, but I doubt forecasting was a big part of the design process. I wasn't around here for early product conception, but I imagine that there was a pitch for the type of game that wanted to be made and it was accepted. I'd be surprised if anyone in the game industry does the type of market testing that you are describing.
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So sad, i was excited for this game, but with the server disaster, EA showing its ugly face again and the game having major design flaws i definitely won't waste my money here.
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United States22883 Posts
The sound/graphics people deserve huge, huge credit for their work. All the little animations and building sounds just sound... fulfilling, if that makes any sense. Like the opposite of the SC2 hydra/ultralisk sound effects. Just those little road building clicks draw you in a little bit more.
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While I've been waiting for this to come out on Mac, I decided to try Simcity 4. BIG MISTAKE. Holy time sink batman, my life means nothing if this city does not flourish! Now I just hope the servers are figured out in time for the Mac release.
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United States22883 Posts
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United States5162 Posts
On March 09 2013 04:05 Jibba wrote:
NAILED IT!
Day9 so good.
I just saw that too. I loled pretty hard.
It's a shame the city sizes and always-on shit. The game mechanics look pretty damn good.
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EPT
