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On September 23 2015 06:30 TheYango wrote:
The end goal of any decision made by a game designer to put something in a game--to enrich the game and make it more fun/meaningful to play.
Which means what I said is a given--something you create that doesn't reflect in the game in any way cannot enrich the game for anyone who doesn't go out of their way to find what you've created outside the game. Which represents the overwhelming minority of your playerbase--most people who play a game just play the game. You can create an entire world filled with deep compelling characters, but ultimately if this doesn't come out in the gameplay, people aren't going to see it.
I think is a bit oversimplistic. Game-crafting decisions also are directed towards things like ease/fun of development, future content planning, and of course money (marketability, merchandise production, etc.), all of which character work can contribute meaningfully to. Of course I agree with you to the extent that the enrichment of the in-game experience comes primarily from in-game experiences, though.
Also, contrast Overwatch's character spotlights with League's. There's a lot more focus on the personality of the characters (but not the world lore / stories), which is indicative of two things to me (1) that Overwatch is going to attempt to convey a lot of character work within the gameplay (more than you anticipate) and (2) that Blizzard is going to use their character work to aid production of out-of-game resources such as the character spotlights that are definitely relevant.
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United States47024 Posts
On September 23 2015 06:36 Requizen wrote:
I disagree. I think setting and universe building matters a lot to way more than 1% of the playerbase. I think you're overvaluing the number of tryhards who just play to win and not for enjoyment. People play shitty League champions because they like them, not everyone is Challenger and only playing meta characters.
People play those shitty League champions because they're fun to play. If they hopped online to read the wiki about those champs, it's more likely to read what their skills do than their background.
I don't know where you got the idea that I think the 99% are tryhards who only care about winning. My point is that when most people play a game, they just hop on, play the game, and that's it. Their gaming time is spent playing the game. The kind of people who would invest time outside the game to go read wikis or splurge on lore IS an overwhelming minority. So even though casual players aren't just playing meta champs and tryharding every game, they're picking the characters they play based on what they feel is fun, not the lore. If you're investing time outside the game to read that lore, you're already in a very small minority.
On September 23 2015 06:51 TheHumanSensation wrote:
Also, contrast Overwatch's character spotlights with League's. There's a lot more focus on the personality of the characters (but not the world lore / stories), which is indicative of two things to me (1) that Overwatch is going to attempt to convey a lot of character work within the gameplay (more than you anticipate) and (2) that Blizzard is going to use their character work to aid production of out-of-game resources such as the character spotlights that are definitely relevant.
(1) is potentially interesting, but again I find that hard to conceptualize in a game that's ostensibly a multiplayer-only competitive game. It's very hard to build a story-based experience that can comfortably flow in that kind of environment.
(2) I think is low-yield because again, I think the percentage of players that engage those out-of-game resources is overwhelmingly the minority. As I said, I think the desire to devote out-of-game time to seek out additional resources about your game of interest represents a gamer who's already "hardcore" and reached a certain level of engagement. The core casual audience for a game will just pick up a game, play it, and put it down.
Engaging large quantities of out-of-game resources for a game is just not something you do unless you are either a) already incredibly engaged with the game, or b) a hardcore gamer who does this habitually with every game you play.
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At the same time, this also goes into the "Why does Riot's system work when they can monetize players more?"
The playerbase is big enough so that even though it is a small minority that cares about the lore, it's still a lot of people. Didn't they recently hire a former WH40K writer full time onto their lore team?
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United States47024 Posts
I'm not sure how Riot's approach to lore-building an already-existing game with a large playerbase relates to a discussion on whether lore-building is the right approach to marketing a yet-unreleased Blizzard game with no playerbase to speak of yet. Especially when the lore does not appear to directly tie into the gameplay in any way yet since the game is a multiplayer-only competitive game.
When a gamer is exposed to a new game, the #1 question in anyone's mind is going to be "does this game look fun to play?"
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On September 23 2015 06:56 TheYango wrote:
(1) is potentially interesting, but again I find that hard to conceptualize in a game that's ostensibly a multiplayer-only competitive game. It's very hard to build a story-based experience that can comfortably flow in that kind of environment.
(2) I think is low-yield because again, I think the percentage of players that engage those out-of-game resources is overwhelmingly the minority. As I said, I think the desire to devote out-of-game time to seek out additional resources about your game of interest represents a gamer who's already "hardcore" and reached a certain level of engagement. The core casual audience for a game will just pick up a game, play it, and put it down.
Engaging large quantities of out-of-game resources for a game is just not something you do unless you are either a) already incredibly engaged with the game, or b) a hardcore gamer who does this habitually with every game you play.
I'd agree with you one the first and last points for sure, but do you really think character spotlights aren't consumed much? I mean, The Tahm Kench spotlight (most recent champion) has like 2.3 million views on youtube. The recently posted junkrat one has like 13k, but it's only been out for less than a day and the game isn't even out yet, to be fair.
Although, in other news, Tahm Kench's teaser trailer has nearly 5 million views, which surprises me a lot. Riot embeds videos into the client in a way that Blizzard doesn't though, so it kind of blurs the "in game / out of game" line in some way, I suppose.
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United States47024 Posts
Engaging large quantities of out-of-game resources for a game is just not something you do unless you are either a) already incredibly engaged with the game, or b) a hardcore gamer who does this habitually with every game you play.
LoL's playerbase is going to have a huge number of people who fit into category (a). For a yet unreleased game that only is in closed beta, that category of player doesn't exist yet in any meaningful amount.
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i'm interested to try out overwatch. willing to go in with an open mind and try to have some fun.
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On September 23 2015 07:18 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +Engaging large quantities of out-of-game resources for a game is just not something you do unless you are either a) already incredibly engaged with the game, or b) a hardcore gamer who does this habitually with every game you play. LoL's playerbase is going to have a huge number of people who fit into category (a). For a yet unreleased game that only is in closed beta, that category of player doesn't exist yet in any meaningful amount.
Well, sure, but that seems like a truism of many/most multiplayer-only competitive games. Obviously it's not yet for Overwatch for the reasons you said, but it surely will be the case eventually (ie when the game releases) at which point the out-of-game character work isn't wasted work.
edit: also gonna throw it out there that I probs will never play this game because fps games tend to give me motion sickness.
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On September 23 2015 04:52 TheYango wrote:
IDK, I really just don't have any hype for Overwatch. Blizzard has no track record making shooters so it's guaranteed they'll make design errors in a genre they have no experience in.
Blizzard has no track record making MMO's so it's guaranteed they'll make design errors in a genre they have no experience in.
Or they'll create the game that becomes syonymous with that genre, either or.
The alpha/beta is probably soon, I'm gonna be so butthurt when I don't get in the first wave  This is game is looking just perfect.
I think you're overvaluing the number of tryhards who just play to win and not for enjoyment.
Winning is enjoyable, you should try it.
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United States47024 Posts
WoW's actually a perfect example of what I described in a later post: where Blizzard got lucky and did something amazing initially, then proceeded to screw up and squander everything good about their game because they didn't have a solid grasp on WHY it was good.
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Winning may not be the only thing that matters, but its damn close to it.
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On September 23 2015 08:32 TheYango wrote:
WoW's actually a perfect example of what I described in a later post: where Blizzard got lucky and did something amazing initially, then proceeded to screw up and squander everything good about their game because they didn't have a solid grasp on WHY it was good.
Vanilla was great for hard core crowd, and people that where ignorant (compared to how people are today) and all the shitty parts of the game where not an issue because people sucked. Endgame (strongest part of vanilla) was baaaaaaaaad in so many ways but the sense of exploration made people forget/gloss over it.
If vanilla was released today it would have been seen as crap except for the hardcore fanatics that love 40 man.
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OK Asmo, I moved to Gilgamesh, Senah Pola`Ali is my name and I'll be online for another hour-ish, but I'll be online longer tomorrow/throughout the week.
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I have an 18 hour train ride through a potential conflict zone today.
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On September 23 2015 07:07 TheYango wrote:
I'm not sure how Riot's approach to lore-building an already-existing game with a large playerbase relates to a discussion on whether lore-building is the right approach to marketing a yet-unreleased Blizzard game with no playerbase to speak of yet. Especially when the lore does not appear to directly tie into the gameplay in any way yet since the game is a multiplayer-only competitive game.
When a gamer is exposed to a new game, the #1 question in anyone's mind is going to be "does this game look fun to play?"
Because people, including you, were discussing how people interact with a game that doesn't have any built in lore that effects the game and how it would be stupid to build lore when most people don't care. Fact is that League had lore, even if it was just a trumped up version of "kid playing with his toys" from Smash Bros when it was a small time game.
Fact is that it is a Blizzard game and even if it isn't this grand revolution that fuses a few genre together to produce the new video game wunderkind it will still have tons of people playing it regardless.
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United States47024 Posts
On September 23 2015 09:45 Gahlo wrote:
Because people, including you, were discussing how people interact with a game that doesn't have any built in lore that effects the game and how it would be stupid to build lore when most people don't care. Fact is that League had lore, even if it was just a trumped up version of "kid playing with his toys" from Smash Bros when it was a small time game.
Nobody was arguing that lore is "stupid to build". But in terms of how the game is marketed with respect to the information that Blizzard is currently making available and how it affects my interest level in the game, lore's importance is near-zero because for a game that I have yet to play, my first thought is whether the game is fun to play or not. Telling me the game's lore without telling me anything about what the game is like to play first has no real meaning to me, *especially* for a competitive multiplayer game.
For a single-player game, the story is directly an element of the gameplay so it contributes to how fun the game itself is to play so marketing the game on story elements over gameplay mechanics is more understandable.
Is strong, well-built lore critical to making the game a successful final product? Absolutely. Is it what I want to hear about if I know nothing about the game and want information to set my hype level for it? Not really. For initial hype, there's really one singular question that actually matters, which is "does this game look fun to play?" Everything else is fluff. I don't see why that's a weird or outrageous idea.
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First episode of the Muppets was only ok. Short, though, so I'll probably keep watching.
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United States15536 Posts
On September 23 2015 09:55 Requizen wrote:
First episode of the Muppets was only ok. Short, though, so I'll probably keep watching.
I giggled a few times, but I'm hoping for more coming up. Animal was great though. Actually the Electric Mayhem in general were pretty amusing. More Swedish Chef should also help matters.
"SO MANY WOMEN. SO MANY TOWNS."
On September 23 2015 09:27 Crusnik wrote:
OK Asmo, I moved to Gilgamesh, Senah Pola`Ali is my name and I'll be online for another hour-ish, but I'll be online longer tomorrow/throughout the week.
Gotcha. I'm not on often (mostly Sunday nights), but I'll let you know if I'm doing anything interesting. Right now I'm in fetch quest land so I'll probably be zoning out and running my lala butt around while listening to podcasts. Name is Asmodeus Sorrath.
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I know what your name is goober, I have TL+ 
I jsut cant add you because SE is pants on head when it comes to their search/add function. Both players need to be online -.-
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Question: anyone here seen Sense8 and can give me their review?
Been considering picking up Netflix to watch it but uh, not sure if wurf.
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EPT
