landisaurus

Join Date 06/2008

+154

All the little things that make a game good, but often forgotten

I'm namely talking about MoM here, but feel free to mention others

So, this is an important topic I wondered if it should go into Ideas just because it will likely spawn new concepts, but since its just talking about Elemental's prequel in spirit, Master of Magic, I figure it should be fine for general.

Master of Magic is a Great game. Its a game so great that it often gets on best-of lists for its excelent mechanics and extreme depth. However, one thing that is not usually discussed that should still be addressed, and that is the minor aspects of the game that still help to put it on the map. Not just MoM, but other games as well.

One thing that is strange about MoM in that it is a quality not carried to other TBS games is that MoM is extremely fun to watch. Thats right, to sit there and watch another person play it. For a TBS game that is very rare.

After obverving a night of some people doing exactly that, I figured out what I think one of the main components is. It is the animations. MoM is full of little bits-o-flaver in animations.

When you do something, it zooms to the town and you watch the building materialize. When you cast a spell you watch a spinning vortex of chaos or a summoning circle or something similar do whatever that spell is supposed to do. It really makes you feel like something you are doing matters and is epic. A spell as lame as 'wall of fire' still feel exciting when you see a wall raise up around your city, rather than the city just gaining a little marker that says "wall of fire" to indicate status.

When you've finished researching a spell, the screen zooms to your wizard standing over his/her spellbook and the power flows into/out of the spellbook. Then it goes to the actual page of the spellbook itself where the spell burns itself into the pages. The animation and everything takes less than 10 seconds, but is really exciting. And everytime it happens, even though you did nothing but press 'end turn' for the last 60 turns, it still feels satisfying.

Now the next closest two titles I think of that also have similar things are Civ 4 and the Total War series. Civ 4 definatly utilized the same thing. (In case you didn't know I missed much of Civ 2 and 3, so they may have good examples too but I am not as familar.) When you finish researching something a really awesome voice says a pretty awesome and related quote to the technology on hand. (the voice was not as awesome for the sword expansion, but the quotes were funnier). And if you complete a world project or world wonder it would show a quick maybe 5 second long video of them building the wonder in question. It again was very satisfying. Civ 4 also has a lot of little animations like when you have a special person add to a city, they do a little animation appropriate to what they do. Not as good as the spell effects of MoM, but still worth noting.

Another game that tried using mini videos it was Shogun Total War, however these videos are much longer and slower paced (over 10 seconds) and as a result they actually get boring. Rapid quick animations really create high enery and excitement. The battles for the most part are not very flashy, and the most exciting part is either watching archer and gunners rain fire upon enemies or a cavalry charge. This aspect is actually reall good though with the music and other parts of the battle adding to it. I'd rather my War of Magic be more flashy than the Total War games, I wanted to bring it up as a contrast perspective vs. MoM.

In terms of battle, another game I think was even made by the same people as MoM is cave wars. For the most part Cave wars was really good. You could watch as cities went from small to large, and all the units were viable in a very nice UI for production and other stutus desires. However its combat was horrable, everything was random and the guys just moved back and forth without any realy intesity. Guys recieved a bloody slash of some sort to represent damage but it was really low-key. Again, mostly added as a bit of perspective.

I bring it up because such little animations are generally the first to be cut from production, since they don't actually really serve a purpose in a way that couldn't also be done with a pop-up box or head-up UI notification of some sort for less production time. And for any 1 animation, that is true. However it is the combination of all of them that make it really fun and interesting, and it is in a way that is rare for critics or players really to notice even though that is half the battle to why the game is so fun.

In E:WoM, Stardock has to deal with creating a user-content system which may make it hard to generate animations. For this I post a few questions.

Are players going to create custom animations, or fit things to a template, or both? Is there consideration for these little animations or videos that really make TBS games shine?

Templates are great because if you are going to have a 'huminoid race' riding a '4-legged creature' then you could model them to match the skeleton and benifit from a great line of animations without having to actuall go and create a big slew of animations. However, it will then limit certain aspects of the game so that we can be sure that the templates will look good on most models to which they might be applied as well as the skeletons might just not fit certain creatures (a whale does not swim like a shark for example, and a cat does not walk like a dog)

Having users create all their own animations is great because then players can do really bizzar stuff, like having spider people riding on the boar deamon from 'Princess Mononoke". (here, obviously, anything but custom animations would look bad), However it means that some realy great models may never be created with enough animations to really fill the game up to a good standard.

Are there going to be little mini-cutscenes that have plug-play units? For example, in MoM it shows a bunch of generic figures pile into a wizard's room. The another wizard is sometimes or sometimes not included, and then its a plug in sprite of the wizard so that all of the wizards will go there. Are custom models going to be able to be placed in such scenes (if they exist)? Are they going to be able to conform or something so that if you are playing a giant race, they might normall fill up the video window or block something. You could still have giants burst into a room with enemy channeler and banish him or something, but the camura would have to be angeled or a giant would not to be not-placed so that we could see between them.

Could/would the video scale for it to be appropriate? I can see a 'victory' or 'retreat' video where it shows the army of 1 fleeing from the other. Show them pouring over a hill or out of a forest screaming for help, then the other army following behind them killing guys as they run. For this, simply scaling the video from a frame that would fit whatever 1st army's model is to one that fits the 2nd army's model might work well. So it could have halflings running, then scale out in time for the giants to break the treeline.

Lastly, are we going to be able to make custom land things that have to purpose. Doo-dats. I liked in Age of Mythology (I think it was that game anyway) how you could see whales and stuff that you couldn't harvest swimming around in the ocean over many tiles. It made the world seem alive, and I'd want to create things like giant squid and things that maybe just exist in the world but never actually come into play.

elemental

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Having an easy to use and intuitive UI is probably the most important "small thing" that makes a game better.

Another thing is to have an opening tutorial that not only teaches you the basics of how to play the game, but is intriguing enough to play through it and have fun while doing it.

The second point goes on to the third, which is to have the campaign slowly introduce you to all elements of the game, allowing you to learn how to play the game while you are having fun playing. The campaign should double as a fun way to learn all the ins and outs of the game mechanics for the multiplayer / sandbox experience.

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Another thing is to have an opening tutorial that not only teaches you the basics of how to play the game, but is intriguing enough to play through it and have fun while doing it.

also, if for any reason you are playing through again, you should have a "look, I did this before. Bugger off" feature that will let you at least not have constant forced help. Not skip the first level, because the first level should be too important to skip, not skip this branch of tutorial, because maybe you want to just review the 2nd half of that particulary section... but not have to sit and listen or deal with something when you already know how to say... move guys or select a building.

How about... Beta test the tutorial, I'm sure that beta testers could point out many ways to make a tutorial intuitive and fun while still teaching how to play. (I know I could).

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I agree that the sum of lots of little animations for most of the things you do is a great way to make TBS games more engaging and fun. And not necessarily cutscenes; in fact I think having the animations occur on the strategic or tactical map (whichever is relevant) is even better than having a window pop up where a scene plays out (like when you complete wonders in Civ IV). There are exceptions, though - like if there's an animation for channelers casting spells, a cutscene might be more appropriate.

But I agree, it's always better to have an appropriate visual cue to effects and actions in addition to a list of them. I want to see my spells. If I cast pestilence, or if I'm turning a barren wasteland into grassland, or if I'm dropping meteors on somebody, or if I cast a magic dome of protection over my lands - whatever spells I cast should have a visible effect; and if the spell is persistent then the effects should be, too.

RE tutorials: I think the best way to do tutorials is to have them represent events that occur simultaneously with the beginning of the actual campaign, but 'behind the scenes.' For example, in Lord of the Rings we follow the members of the Fellowship - they are the center of the story because they are the center of the events themselves. But there are nonetheless plenty of events that happen in the same period of time that are not really mentioned in the book. For example Lorien is besieged by the forces of Dol Goldur, but are driven back. Celeborn leads his troops in conquering Dol Goldur and Galadriel herself "threw down its walls and laid bare its pits." This example wouldn't be so good for a tutorial because it's so major, but that's what I mean by 'parallel events.' They should come up with a small-scale conflict that occurs simultaneously with the beginning of the campaign and treat that as the tutorial. That way it isn't totally irrelevant, but it also isn't necessary for the story meaning it is very skippable for those playing a second time or who don't want to bother with a tutorial.

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And not necessarily cutscenes; in fact I think having the animations occur on the strategic or tactical map (whichever is relevant) is even better than having a window pop up where a scene plays out (like when you complete wonders in Civ IV).

yeah, well a small window is not needed, but I DO want to see things like the "you have summoned... WAR BEARS!" (or whatever is appropriate), "you have cast... Just cause", "Bob-da'wizard has cast... armagedon". The fact that it took up all or most of the screen really made it epic in the original MoM. In more modern games because we can't assume its going to be perfect resolution we get those videos. In Civ 4, the video is pretty big provide that you are on a low resolution, only on a high resolution is it a 'small window'

That being said, I'd hope it is something that could be scaled or similar so that we don't have the small window. In theory: provided you had 3D on (I don't know if there is going to be a cloth-only setting) we should be able to get a video that shows our channeler casting spells like you and I want.

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Animations and design are very important indeed, more than some think I'd say. When well done, they add to replayability and create more sympathy towards the game from the player. I commented about that in a Demigod topic and also at Sins, in which the Strike Crafts general animation and AI was what added much replayability to me; I simply enjoy seeing them in action and how they play in the game too. And be clear that it isn't the same as graphical quality. I never had the chance to play MoM.

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