EPTOn February 21 2017 02:12 -Archangel- wrote:
Good thing Dawn of War 3 is coming out soon :D
Good thing Dawn of War 3 is coming out soon :D
Hell yeah, I can't wait!!!
"Light your way in the darkness with the pyres of burning heretics!!"
Guardians of Atlas - Page 62
| Forum Index > General Games |
Development ended, game appears to be dead. https://forums.artillery.com/discussion/911/end-of-development -Jinro | ||
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thePunGun
598 Posts
Hell yeah, I can't wait!!! "Light your way in the darkness with the pyres of burning heretics!!" | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16457 Posts
On February 21 2017 02:12 Plansix wrote: That is every type creative work, not just games. There is a reason authors have editors and peer readers. At some point you end up working on something for so long that you lose all perspective or ability to assess your own creation. Every single game developer talks about that problem and the need for "fresh eyes" to look at their game in development. i'll go extreme to make my point. making Zork, Pacman, and Galaxian is creative work. in 1980 1 guy coded the whole thing and play-tested it himself and no infrastructure existed. now with games having 3+ year development cycles you need massive #s of rotating teams of testers. based on their entirely volunteer testing team its clear they didn't have the cash to have employees do this. that's a mistake. On February 21 2017 01:58 The_Red_Viper wrote: I still would be interested in the day9 story tbh. The whole situation was so weird. over the 3+ years it existed the scope of this project varied wildly. i believe the story of the failure of this project is to be told by those 1 or 2 management layers above Day9. IMO, Day9 was just an orphan in the storm and the people above him fucked up large. it is Day9's responsibility to figure out if the people above him are incompetent and bolt from the situation ASAP though. i wonder why Day9 stuck with it so long. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16457 Posts
On February 21 2017 03:48 Plansix wrote: There are exceptions to every rule. Peer and outside review and critique are helpful in any medium. That isn't going to change. yep, and it was exception for 10+ years in video game design. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On February 21 2017 04:00 JimmyJRaynor wrote: yep, and it was exception for 10+ years in video game design. Sure Jimmy, whatever you say. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16457 Posts
apology accepted.  remember this https://dotesports.com/league-of-legends/project-atlas-artillery-games-day-nine-esports-ankur-pansari-5 it appears Day9's first impression was correct. it was impossible. guy shoulda went with his instincts and avoided this train wreck. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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xDaunt
United States17988 Posts
On February 21 2017 03:01 The_Red_Viper wrote: Was it unfun because the whole core was bad or because it didn't have enough fine tuning? I argue for the latter I thought that the core mechanics were just terrible. The game was a chore to play. It was needlessly complicated in a lot of unfun ways (the macro game was a disaster), yet too simple in some others (unit composition in particular). End of Nations (another game that got its plugged pulled during development) was infinitely better executed and more fun than Atlas. | ||
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Spyridon
United States997 Posts
On February 21 2017 01:58 The_Red_Viper wrote: I still would be interested in the day9 story tbh. The whole situation was so weird. I also do not think that the game was a design failure at the core. Different maps and more work on unit design would have made the game quite good actually. Yes it was no hardcore rts game, but the (sad) truth is that a future successful rts game will be more like guardians of atlas than sc2. (less/no macro, all about unit control, no big need to multitask, etc) Honestly, I feel they went a bit too far in the direction of moba and not enough RTS. I completely understand simplifying macro. But as time went on GoA shifted away from bases all together, and during alpha fighting over bases was one of the funnest aspects. It's more than just macro - its also shaping the map in to something other than an arena. Ideally, you can keep all the important parts of macro (decision making , strategic choices, upgrades, even unit choice) and remove the annoyances (repetitive mechanics, unclear communication of what is going on, limited information/scouting issues). It started this way on Atlas, But they decided to go in a different direction as time went on. They strayed from the norm as time went on with economy as well. I in no way think the "booster" economy had an advantage over the old school RTS economy we have came to know. If anything, myself (and most of the alpha testers who contributed to writing the largest public feedback post I believe they received in Alpha) were completely behind the idea of removing levels all together. But instead, they gutted the economy, and made everything based around levels - unit tiers, abilities, everything. Also having creeps to level up made it a bit more moba-ish as well (the implementation was far closer to a moba than that of WC3). So it did some things right, but some things wrong as well. In the end, it really did beg the question, "why would someone play this over Dota 2?". Not enough RTS, and a bit too much moba. I will admit, as I got in to alpha, I went in expecting an RTS. But when I noticed I had to push thru towers and take out a nexus, had to level up my character on jungle creeps, it just felt more like I was playing a moba, with a full army on top of it. If they lost the "jungle creeps", went back to traditional economy, removed hero levels, and made owning bases a bit more integral to the overall strategy of the game, I believe they would have had a lot more success. Becuase those are core things any RTS gamer would have expected. This would have solved a major problem the game had as well - an indicator of who was in the lead. If you owned 75% of the map, you could clearly see who had the advantage. This could give an economic lead which would have been comfortable for RTS gamers, rather than having to push down silly premade towers. But also, this could encourage strategy. If you owned more of the map, you would need to spread thinner to defend it. Attackers could use this strategically as you can not defend the whole map at once. This would encourage and require multitasking or else they would lose the lead. I suggested this on Discord, but if there's enough interest in a revival, why not revive as a dota2 custom game? This would give it a huge amount of exposure, the playerbase would be more open to the type of game, as well as the functionality of the engine would be perfect (dota2 customs even allow ELO ranking systems on dedicated servers). Just an idea =) | ||
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The_Red_Viper
19533 Posts
I don't think the way macro and the economy worked were necessarily bad tbh. It's not something for hardcore rts players, but at the same time i don't think hardcore rts design will ever be successful again. You need all the common rts concepts to be more approachable if you want more players i think. Almost no macro, economy through direct unit interactions and a minimum of multitasking. If you think there is enough of a hardcore rts audience this obviously doesn't apply | ||
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WolfintheSheep
Canada14127 Posts
On February 21 2017 04:00 JimmyJRaynor wrote: yep, and it was exception for 10+ years in video game design. You do remember that the entire video game market crashed in 1983 because of over-saturation of trash products and loss of platform control by the hardware manufacturers? Sure, there were still some good games during that period, but Sturgeon's Law and such. It was only Nintendo and its stamp of approval that managed to revitalize the market by guaranteeing some minimum standard of quality. Zork took a team of 4 about 3 years to develop, in an environment where people were playing each iteration, so not really a good example. Not sure why you even mention Pacman and Galaxian considering that those are Arcade games, which, you know, have to be pitched and approved by the Arcade manufacturer (much like a Publisher these days) before they go on the market. But really, you can skip past the peer review and play testing, and there will still be good games on the market. There will also be a lot of trash on the market, and the good games will still have some fun glitches and bugs. Of course, that doesn't specifically mean your game will be good. | ||
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Spyridon
United States997 Posts
On February 21 2017 05:59 The_Red_Viper wrote: I mean i agree largely with your post, i personally wasn't the biggest fan of the end result either. Especially the map was pretty mediocre imo. Change that to a more open map without clear lanes and it's already a lot better. Some form of base building, or at least the option to build some structures (more than the few things they had, with more hp, etc). I don't think the way macro and the economy worked were necessarily bad tbh. It's not something for hardcore rts players, but at the same time i don't think hardcore rts design will ever be successful again. You need all the common rts concepts to be more approachable if you want more players i think. Almost no macro, economy through direct unit interactions and a minimum of multitasking. If you think there is enough of a hardcore rts audience this obviously doesn't apply yea i think bases themselves are important to build. Maybe not "everywhere" - the idea of pre-placed base locations "can" work, but they need to NOT be locked to only 1 faction - both sides should be able to take any base at any time, assuming they can defend it. I'm mixed about the "towers" system - I would prefer manually built towers rather than pre-placed ones, but they can easily be spammed which I don't think is best for gameplay. It was so disappointing in Atlas when I took map control of the enemies base area, took out his base, and then attempted to build my own, and found that the base locations were locked to a certain faction... I said it many times and I will say it again - Even with bases not being a mecahnic that was the primary focus of the gameplay, by far the most fun I had in atlas was teh battles over bases. That was the most strategic aspect. I am not sure why they never went forward with that idea, and instead went so focused on MOBA-style gameplay. You aren't going to be able to compete with the moba genre, so while I think taking some influence from mobas is great (especially in the controls area) the design should not be similar. People would just play a real moba instead of RTS-lite MOBA-lite fusion. I think macro can easily be limited to those that have strategic value. For example, something built to unlock new units makes sense, but having to make lets say 4-6 barracks SC style I don't think would be well received. Having to do research for your build I think could still have a solid place. Regarding the economy, I think 2 material resources could work - like minerals and vespene or gold and gems, etc. But for awhile, Atlas was just wait too complex in this sense. Levels are their own resource, population are their own resource, etc. Shield batteries also managed another sub-resource. There's no need for a super advanced economy. I just think it needed to go one direction or another - either strategic or similar to a moba. If going strategic route, the economy would ideally be built on resources, upgrades, and map control. If going a moba route, levels and shield batteries. But combining both will do neither very well. And a solid, clear and easy to understand economy is required for a successful game these days. Anyway, I think they started on the right track, but got sidetracked in their attempts to follow feedback. Alpha was a bit too open. Rather than having a solid vision and move forward, most of Alpha was actually attempting things to see what worked and what did not. I had the most fun in the game before the major overhauls of the economy. It still had some issues, but was improving... and then they completely started over again. Seemed they went in to it "desiring to make the best RTS game", but by the time everything settled, the game was less RTS at it's core. Oh, and the map was FOR SURE a big part of the problem. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16457 Posts
On February 21 2017 06:44 WolfintheSheep wrote: You do remember that the entire video game market crashed in 1983 because of over-saturation of trash products and loss of platform control by the hardware manufacturers? Sure, there were still some good games during that period, but Sturgeon's Law and such. It was only Nintendo and its stamp of approval that managed to revitalize the market by guaranteeing some minimum standard of quality. Zork took a team of 4 about 3 years to develop, in an environment where people were playing each iteration, so not really a good example. Not sure why you even mention Pacman and Galaxian considering that those are Arcade games, which, you know, have to be pitched and approved by the Arcade manufacturer (much like a Publisher these days) before they go on the market. But really, you can skip past the peer review and play testing, and there will still be good games on the market. There will also be a lot of trash on the market, and the good games will still have some fun glitches and bugs. Of course, that doesn't specifically mean your game will be good. no, the video game market did not crash in 1983. in fact, more games were played, made, and sold than ever. What happened was Time-Warner , a giant media company, bought Atari and needed an excuse for big losses on the Atari balance sheet. The video game market did great in 1983. Atari did crap. this is what really happened + Show Spoiler + More video games were played in 1983 than in 1982 in both the Arcade and At home. and, The Arcade was pay-per-use. the Commodore 64 and the 1541 5.25" floppy Drive became the hardware platform of choice for the hardcore crowd that bought the Atari and Intellvision 4 years earlier. Piracy was rampant at levels never before seen in the cartridge only days of Atari and Intellvision and the C64 still outsold Intellivision's best years in 1983. 2 older relatives of mine still have 700 C64 games all pirated on 5.25" floppies. The C64 library fucking annihilated anything cartridge based because mass producing floppies was dirt cheap. Publishing a C64 game entailed very little risk. the overwhelming vast majority of C64 games were 1 man development from start to finish. we're talking hundreds of games and many that remain cult classics to this day. i mention Pacman because it generated billions and was made by 1 guy. Its best selling port was made by 1 guy in 6 weeks. The C64 abso-fucking-lutely kicked ass in 1983 and the Arcades had its biggest year ever in 1983.. smashing all the 1982 records. Time-Warner is 100% totally full of fucking bullshit. Time-Warner totally fucked the Atari 2600 into the ground with really stupid decisions and tried to blame everyone else but themselves for it. They tried to say there was a "video game crash" Everyone bought a C64 in 1983 and rightly labelled the Atari 5200 a total fucking piece of shit. a lie is a lie. just because they write it down and call it "history" doesn't make it the truth. you want to know why Atari got fucked? read my profile quote. Ray Kassar needs to take a look in the mirror. | ||
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porkRaven
United States953 Posts
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WolfintheSheep
Canada14127 Posts
On February 21 2017 09:32 JimmyJRaynor wrote: no, the video game market did not crash in 1983. in fact, more games were played, made, and sold than ever. What happened was Time-Warner , a giant media company, bought Atari and needed an excuse for big losses on the Atari balance sheet. The video game market did great in 1983. Atari did crap. this is what really happened + Show Spoiler + More video games were played in 1983 than in 1982 in both the Arcade and At home. and, The Arcade was pay-per-use. the Commodore 64 and the 1541 5.25" floppy Drive became the hardware platform of choice for the hardcore crowd that bought the Atari and Intellvision 4 years earlier. Piracy was rampant at levels never before seen in the cartridge only days of Atari and Intellvision and the C64 still outsold Intellivision's best years in 1983. 2 older relatives of mine still have 700 C64 games all pirated on 5.25" floppies. The C64 library fucking annihilated anything cartridge based because mass producing floppies was dirt cheap. Publishing a C64 game entailed very little risk. the overwhelming vast majority of C64 games were 1 man development from start to finish. we're talking hundreds of games and many that remain cult classics to this day. i mention Pacman because it generated billions and was made by 1 guy. Its best selling port was made by 1 guy in 6 weeks. The C64 abso-fucking-lutely kicked ass in 1983 and the Arcades had its biggest year ever in 1983.. smashing all the 1982 records. Time-Warner is 100% totally full of fucking bullshit. Time-Warner totally fucked the Atari 2600 into the ground with really stupid decisions and tried to blame everyone else but themselves for it. They tried to say there was a "video game crash" Everyone bought a C64 in 1983 and rightly labelled the Atari 5200 a total fucking piece of shit. a lie is a lie. just because they write it down and call it "history" doesn't make it the truth. you want to know why Atari got fucked? read my profile quote. Ray Kassar needs to take a look in the mirror. Lolwut? There wasn't a crash? You realize that the multibillion dollar console industry dropped to a couple hundred million dollars in the span of 3 years, right? Not sure what else you'd call that. Atari crashed because they over-manufactured games, and ended up with millions of dollars of junk on their hands. ET and (ironically, considering your message) their Pacman port were the most infamous examples, but not the only ones. That, and the glut of 3rd parties releasing games for their platform with no quality control basically flooded the market, in an environment where reviews were non-existent or barely accessible. Their bad hardware releases only added to the problem. (Also, assuming that the "best selling port" refers to the Atari version, it was also the worst version of the original game released to market, and still lost money because after 7 million sales, 5 million were still in stock) The C64 was a home computer, and one of the major reasons the console market took a nose dive. Arcades peaked in revenue in the early-to-mid 80's, but again, that's because companies actually had to mass product large pieces of hardware, and they would only do so for games they felt would be successes (or had success on limited markets). No one is saying that something on their own with no scrutiny can't create a masterpiece. That's just dumb. But you as an individual cannot say if you've created a hit that will make millions until you release it and it starts selling, and review and playtesting is to reduce the hiccups or let you know when to cut your losses short. Oh, and Toru Iwatani, the guy that made Pacman? He was working at Namco when he created it, a company well versed in making Arcade games. He also worked with a hardware engineer and a sound designer. I think you're grasping at straws if you think his eyes alone were the only ones on the game from start to mass production. | ||
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lestye
United States4135 Posts
On February 21 2017 03:01 The_Red_Viper wrote: Was it unfun because the whole core was bad or because it didn't have enough fine tuning? I argue for the latter I can't say because I didn't play, but it certainly did not look fun, and it had a TERRIBLE presentation. The art and animations looked like prealpha. If they were expecting to retain an actual playerbase with what they had, they have to have better presentation than what they had. Especially considering looking at it SCREAMS "MOBA", and thats going to be extremely polarizing. With how many years they had in development, I can forgive if ideas aren't fleshed out since they obviously radically changed the design over the years, but it needs to look good and presentable. | ||
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-Archangel-
Croatia7457 Posts
On February 21 2017 04:21 Plansix wrote: I am always sorry I respond to any of your posts, you are correct about that. I've grown to like Jimmy. He is our forum perfectionist. He is just looking for that one perfect RTS that he can play until end of time | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On February 21 2017 18:23 -Archangel- wrote: I've grown to like Jimmy. He is our forum perfectionist. He is just looking for that one perfect RTS that he can play until end of time The dream for us all. RTS is in a weird space. A friend and I were discussing them recently and there is so much focus on buildings, economy and units, but rich map design is neglected. It is an afterthought. But when I think of great board games and a well designed, nuanced board is like 50% of the game. At least DoW 3 looks fun. Games like Atlas had their heart in the right place, but everything fell sort of flat. Including that terrible map. | ||
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Logo
United States7542 Posts
On February 22 2017 00:51 Plansix wrote: The dream for us all. RTS is in a weird space. A friend and I were discussing them recently and there is so much focus on buildings, economy and units, but rich map design is neglected. It is an afterthought. But when I think of great board games and a well designed, nuanced board is like 50% of the game. At least DoW 3 looks fun. Games like Atlas had their heart in the right place, but everything fell sort of flat. Including that terrible map. It's a tough thing to get right. Explicit map features (like cover zones) hurt more than help a lot of the time I think. They restrict the strategic space to be focused around specific areas with specific interactions. This can often create flow-charty gameplay in how you handle what would ideally be a dynamic situation. If you compare something like DotA's trees or RTS highground/ramps they give way more mileage on how they strategically alter the game without prescribing specific solutions or narrowly focus the battlefield important to key areas. And they're mechanically less complex to boot! And that's sort of a big problem with the RTS genre in general, people have tended towards easy to explain mechanics over strategically deep mechanics. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On February 22 2017 01:45 Logo wrote: It's a tough thing to get right. Explicit map features (like cover zones) hurt more than help a lot of the time I think. They restrict the strategic space to be focused around specific areas with specific interactions. This can often create flow-charty gameplay in how you handle what would ideally be a dynamic situation. If you compare something like DotA's trees or RTS highground/ramps they give way more mileage on how they strategically alter the game without prescribing specific solutions or narrowly focus the battlefield important to key areas. And they're mechanically less complex to boot! And that's sort of a big problem with the RTS genre in general, people have tended towards easy to explain mechanics over strategically deep mechanics. But even dota’s map isn’t that complicated system wise. It has trees you can destroy and high ground. And towers. It is the LOS system, limited flying vision, and billion little places to hide that make that map interesting. That map isn’t about complex systems, but the creators spending hours thoughtfully designing it. Even the DoW and CoH maps don’t have that level of thoughtful gameplay design. SC2 doesn’t even. BW did, but that is only because it was the only aspect the community could dig into. It is an overlooked aspect of the game, even in discussions about design. Everyone focuses on units, control, abilities, but never why they fight over a section of a map. | ||
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