The Perfect Design

Amathe · November 2019

In my occupation, every time I finish a matter I am working on, I imagine how it could have been done if it was done perfectly.

Then, on my next project, I try to do that. But it's always the same. Not enough time, not enough money, perfection slows everything to a crawl.

That's kind of how I see Pantheon (as a non-Developer). I think Brad and others had a lifetime to envision the perfect mmorpg. Every detail gets thought though and analyzed. Past games are drawn upon for inspiration.

Trouble is, it's really hard to make something perfect. And somehow, as soon as you try, it's like your project starts fighting you.

I think a lot of Brad's great design ideas will make it into Pantheon. I look forward to that. But I also think a lot of imperfect changes will get made to speed up production, so that production actually becomes possible.

Kyleran · November 2019

DMKano said:

Omg - a new Pantheon post that is not by deleted?

What is going on here?

It's Monday, delete usually covers Fridays.

Sovrath · November 2019

Well, I think with any creative endeavor, there's the "idea in your head" and then the reality of making that idea, well "reality."

Also, there is the challenge of going from a more "macro" type of design where you have a very large scale picture of how the game will play, flow, etc. and then a more " micro" way of looking at things "what really happens in this section, how do the players really get from one place to another, what type of gear do they need, what rewards are reasonable given the challenges faced" etc.

And of course dealing with time, budgets, changing personnel.

not easy.

Hawkaya399 · November 2019

Pertaining to game design and the maturing of game designers, I sometimes think the earlier designs are better. Seems like game designers mellow as they age and do safer things. They focus more on balancing and order. But when I look at the first games they made, there's usually more chaos and risks. It's like older designers get staler, and their games get boring.

During development, ut also seems to me like chaos and back and forth with team members is good. Seems like the best movies and games have some instability in development, as opposed to always having high confidence and funding. I would point to Star Wars and Jaws. They were controlled chaos and nothing about it was certain. And maybe that's the c uase of all this. Maybe success is harder to create than we commonly believe, resulting in game designers who waste their efforts on the status quo.. And this is the real reason behind so many mediocre games and movies. They work themselves into a corner, rather than being humbler and more risky with their projects--like their younger selves would be.

delete5230 · November 2019

I just wish their were not two Visions, I was only expecting one.

Wish they would drop the REDESIGN 3D graphics vision, that's the one killing development time, possibly the entire game in the end.

It's like you order a new vehicle from a dealership and later on you find out their giving you gold rims..... problem is, you have to wait for the price of gold to come down.

centkin · November 2019

No game ever releases their highest graphics in the beta. This is mainly because things are not optimized yet (debug code is in etc).

Gdemami · November 2019

delete5230 said:

I just wish their were not two Visions, I was only expecting one.

...there are as many 'visions' as there are people working on the project.

Kyleran · November 2019

delete5230 said:

I just wish their were not two Visions, I was only expecting one.

Wish they would drop the REDESIGN 3D graphics vision, that's the one killing development time, possibly the entire game in the end.

It's like you order a new vehicle from a dealership and later on you find out their giving you gold rims..... problem is, you have to wait for the price of gold to come down.

Often times the vision has to evolve for practical reasons, features have to come together and actually be "fun", which is a somewhat esoteric target to hit.

This results in the need for more change & rework than the business software I have always worked on, we only have to be concerned with efficiency and function, fun never enters into consideration.

Amathe · November 2019

Kyleran said:

... fun never enters into consideration.

That's because you have not known the joy of typing quotes from The Sound of Music into other people's documents while they are at lunch or in the restroom.

Amathe [but using my real name]! What is this shit about whiskers on kittens!

Scot · November 2019

kelwein said:

Me too faced same issue. Thanks for the solution. myloweslife

Now the adbots are editing their own posts? It won't be long before they want to be staff writers I tell you.

Gdemami said:

delete5230 said:

I just wish their were not two Visions, I was only expecting one.

...there are as many 'visions' as there are people working on the project.

Gdemani is right here and it is too near Christmas for me to pretend he is not.

Hawkaya399 said:

Pertaining to game design and the maturing of game designers, I sometimes think the earlier designs are better. Seems like game designers mellow as they age and do safer things. They focus more on balancing and order. But when I look at the first games they made, there's usually more chaos and risks. It's like older designers get staler, and their games get boring.

During development, ut also seems to me like chaos and back and forth with team members is good. Seems like the best movies and games have some instability in development, as opposed to always having high confidence and funding. I would point to Star Wars and Jaws. They were controlled chaos and nothing about it was certain. And maybe that's the c uase of all this. Maybe success is harder to create than we commonly believe, resulting in game designers who waste their efforts on the status quo.. And this is the real reason behind so many mediocre games and movies. They work themselves into a corner, rather than being humbler and more risky with their projects--like their younger selves would be.

It also had a lot to do with the changing nature of the companies making them and deciding to bring gameplay elements from outside of MMOs into MMO's to appeal to non-MMO players and so on.

Mendel · November 2019

Hawkaya399 said:

Pertaining to game design and the maturing of game designers, I sometimes think the earlier designs are better. Seems like game designers mellow as they age and do safer things. They focus more on balancing and order. But when I look at the first games they made, there's usually more chaos and risks. It's like older designers get staler, and their games get boring.

During development, ut also seems to me like chaos and back and forth with team members is good. Seems like the best movies and games have some instability in development, as opposed to always having high confidence and funding. I would point to Star Wars and Jaws. They were controlled chaos and nothing about it was certain. And maybe that's the c uase of all this. Maybe success is harder to create than we commonly believe, resulting in game designers who waste their efforts on the status quo.. And this is the real reason behind so many mediocre games and movies. They work themselves into a corner, rather than being humbler and more risky with their projects--like their younger selves would be.

I'm not certain about the second point, that chaos in the development stage is an indicator of success. In my experience, it tends to be more of a detriment to progress.

As far as the first generation being better, I think that the early games were far more limited and that simplicity of design allowed them to implement their ideas cleanly. Modern game developers seem, to me, to think outside of the simplistic systems into far more complex than necessary mechanisms. These mechanisms frequently appear beyond the ability of the developers to deliver or the hardware to support. The more modern games feel more clunky than the earlier efforts because they are focusing on trying to expand things without understanding how to build on the MMORPG experience. They try to do more, but aren't successful.

I'm a strong advocate for the genre evolving and providing us more than the basic elements of MMORPG play. But it needs to evolve in achievable stages to be successful. It's tough to innovate, and most of the developers working to build games simply aren't capable of the challenge. So, we see more copies of older games using the old formulas with minor variations. This hesitancy is based in business, new ideas are tough to produce, difficult to market, or completely rejected by the customer. Remember New Coke? Money is risk-averse, innovation is risk.

Amathe · November 2019

Scot said:

Now the adbots are editing their own posts?

I think we call ad bots sponsored content nowadays.

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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

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The Perfect Design

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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV