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AI War / Re: Ai War/AVWW Players survey for research paper
« on: March 08, 2013, 06:26:23 AM »
Yeah, PMs would be best I suppose.
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AI War / Ai War/AVWW Players survey for research paper
« on: March 08, 2013, 05:35:08 AM »
Hello everyone, I am currently preparing an academical paper as part of my PhD courses concerning Agile Project Management and Open Innovation, which I am hoping to present at one of upcoming conferences. Ai War and AVWW, in my opinion, represent both of these concepts exceptionally well. First let me roughly define these terms for those, who haven't encountered them yet:
Agile Project Management basically means, that instead of providing the customer with the finished product at a specified date, you have them take a look and try new versions as you develop them. This allows you to get feedback and incorporate it into your project. It also allows for things like user interface to be agreed upon early.
Open Innovation is a concept, that looks for innovation outside of a company. Often the users of a product have great ideas on how to improve it. Open Innovation tries to get those ideas from these leading edge consumers and utilize them to innovate the product for everyone.
In AI War and AVWW, Agile PM is manifested in the patch schedule (lots of little patches allowing for steady feedback and prompt corrections). Open Innovation happens every time one of your ideas gets implemented - be it new ships, new features, balance changes, anything that originates in the community basically.
I would like to show that these two concepts greatly enhance customer experience and are the way of doing things the industry in general should adopt. To do that, I would like to ask players of AI War or AVWW the following questions:
1) How long have you been playing AI War? (optional)
2) How long have you been playing AVWW (optional)
3) Do you prefer a few big patches with large variety of content or a lot of small patches that add content incrementally but can also contain new bugs?
4) Do you feel more inclined to spend money on expansions or future games by the same developer after a patch with desirable features comes out?
5a) Do you have ideas that would, in your opinion, benefit AI War or AVWW?
5b) If so, have you suggested them?
6a) Have any of your suggestions (or suggestions where you positively voiced your opinion) been adopted?
6b) If so, do you afterwards feel more inclined to spend money on expansions or future games by the same developer?
7) Do you feel communication between the developer and the community is important?
Does adequate communication between the developer and the community make you feel more inclined to buy expansions or future games by the same developer?
9) If you bought both games at different times, did you buy the second one because you liked its features (gameplay/graphics/longetivity/etc.) or because you liked its background (patch support, communication, listening to feedback) or both?
If you could please reply with your answers to at least questions 3-9, it would help me, and I hope Arcen Games in general, greatly. Feel free to discuss your answers too, of course! Thank you and have fun both in game and out!
P.S. I am posting a similar survey in other game forums to accurately judge people's opinions, since results from just one game are bound to be skewed. Also excuse my English, as it is not at an academical level =)
Agile Project Management basically means, that instead of providing the customer with the finished product at a specified date, you have them take a look and try new versions as you develop them. This allows you to get feedback and incorporate it into your project. It also allows for things like user interface to be agreed upon early.
Open Innovation is a concept, that looks for innovation outside of a company. Often the users of a product have great ideas on how to improve it. Open Innovation tries to get those ideas from these leading edge consumers and utilize them to innovate the product for everyone.
In AI War and AVWW, Agile PM is manifested in the patch schedule (lots of little patches allowing for steady feedback and prompt corrections). Open Innovation happens every time one of your ideas gets implemented - be it new ships, new features, balance changes, anything that originates in the community basically.
I would like to show that these two concepts greatly enhance customer experience and are the way of doing things the industry in general should adopt. To do that, I would like to ask players of AI War or AVWW the following questions:
1) How long have you been playing AI War? (optional)
2) How long have you been playing AVWW (optional)
3) Do you prefer a few big patches with large variety of content or a lot of small patches that add content incrementally but can also contain new bugs?
4) Do you feel more inclined to spend money on expansions or future games by the same developer after a patch with desirable features comes out?
5a) Do you have ideas that would, in your opinion, benefit AI War or AVWW?
5b) If so, have you suggested them?
6a) Have any of your suggestions (or suggestions where you positively voiced your opinion) been adopted?
6b) If so, do you afterwards feel more inclined to spend money on expansions or future games by the same developer?
7) Do you feel communication between the developer and the community is important?
Does adequate communication between the developer and the community make you feel more inclined to buy expansions or future games by the same developer?9) If you bought both games at different times, did you buy the second one because you liked its features (gameplay/graphics/longetivity/etc.) or because you liked its background (patch support, communication, listening to feedback) or both?
If you could please reply with your answers to at least questions 3-9, it would help me, and I hope Arcen Games in general, greatly. Feel free to discuss your answers too, of course! Thank you and have fun both in game and out!
P.S. I am posting a similar survey in other game forums to accurately judge people's opinions, since results from just one game are bound to be skewed. Also excuse my English, as it is not at an academical level =)
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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: [FILLED] Looking for artist(s) to develop new style for A Valley Without Wind.
« on: July 06, 2012, 05:44:07 AM »Okay, so here's a couple of pieces that Studio G is working on. More cartoony than I'd like for the characters, but there are some interesting new techniques in here that I think we can make work from a technical standpoint. Having some depth to the ground layer is pretty cool, although it would require introducing some new rules to the actual procedural generation to prevent grounds that are too small, etc. That's a substantial amount of technical work, but it would just really be a layer over top of what we already have, so that's not the end of the world.
This. Is. Gorgeous.
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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Where's the Valley?
« on: May 12, 2012, 04:23:52 AM »
As I have brought up in another thread, I feel like the game does need to end (in a way that it tells the player). First 5 (or other number) continents contain little bits of story with the last one having a final boss. You could even design a new kind of one-time-per-game mission so that the final boss trully feels unique and final. After that, the lackeys of the final boss run away and spread out throughout the world and you get a You Win! message with a simple epilogue. You can then choose to continue your game, hunting down the lackeys as overlords on other continents, thus making the game feel as a traditional game with an infinite post-game rather than a game with no end like now.
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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Musings: Alternate progression mechanics.
« on: May 12, 2012, 04:18:56 AM »
I support pretty much everything suggested in this thread but mainly these 3 points:
1) The OP. Gives a reason for the difficulty spike, allows you to take as long as you want, improves pacing and in general makes sense.
2) Different lieutenant behaviour. Everything that adds to diversity is great. One could even summon all the ghosts left on the continent by you. Would need to be balanced in some way though. Perhaps that may be better suited for the Overlord.
3) Unique spells as rewards for defeating lieutenants ARS style. I feel like AI War proved the concept enough to be used here. You start with your basic spells (more than the triangle in AI War) and get to unlock unique ones (that you can't get elsewhere) by defeating lieutenants. These would of course need to be not only somewhat stronger than the basic ones (as in AI War, 30 or per cent seems nice) but also somewhat situational so that you still can't replace the basic ones with the unlocked unique completely. You may or may not give the player a choice of color for the unlocked spell.
1) The OP. Gives a reason for the difficulty spike, allows you to take as long as you want, improves pacing and in general makes sense.
2) Different lieutenant behaviour. Everything that adds to diversity is great. One could even summon all the ghosts left on the continent by you. Would need to be balanced in some way though. Perhaps that may be better suited for the Overlord.
3) Unique spells as rewards for defeating lieutenants ARS style. I feel like AI War proved the concept enough to be used here. You start with your basic spells (more than the triangle in AI War) and get to unlock unique ones (that you can't get elsewhere) by defeating lieutenants. These would of course need to be not only somewhat stronger than the basic ones (as in AI War, 30 or per cent seems nice) but also somewhat situational so that you still can't replace the basic ones with the unlocked unique completely. You may or may not give the player a choice of color for the unlocked spell.
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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: New spell ideas? Let us hear them.
« on: May 09, 2012, 04:52:53 PM »
1) Quick, somewhat weak (perhaps with a very-small-duration stun effect), rays of light (or other elements) eminating like a star in 8 direction from your body. Useable in a pinch when surrounded by enemies to give yourself a little breathing room.
2) Same as above, only charged. Either hold the button to charge and then release for more damage.
3) Pull effect spell that grabs the creature and pulls it towards you slamming into a spike that appears in front of you - powerful but with the drawback of having an enemy close to you afterwards.
4) Gravitational effect spell that lasts as long as you hold the button, damaging and heavily slowing down all enemies in a big radius but draining your mana immensely with every second of sustained usage.
5) Mana-expensive spell that turns a regular enemy against its friends to fight alongside you for a few secs.
6) Mana-expensive spell that makes a copy of a regular enemy to fight alongside you for a few secs.
7) In general, spells that cost health to sustain.
Spell that grabs two enemies (one at each side), pulls them towards you as it propels you upwards, ending with an energy burst downwards at the pulled enemies. Obvious downside of falling down on the enemies immediately after.
9) Stealth. Makes you invisible to enemies but steadily drains health.
Will edit when I think of more.
2) Same as above, only charged. Either hold the button to charge and then release for more damage.
3) Pull effect spell that grabs the creature and pulls it towards you slamming into a spike that appears in front of you - powerful but with the drawback of having an enemy close to you afterwards.
4) Gravitational effect spell that lasts as long as you hold the button, damaging and heavily slowing down all enemies in a big radius but draining your mana immensely with every second of sustained usage.
5) Mana-expensive spell that turns a regular enemy against its friends to fight alongside you for a few secs.
6) Mana-expensive spell that makes a copy of a regular enemy to fight alongside you for a few secs.
7) In general, spells that cost health to sustain.
Spell that grabs two enemies (one at each side), pulls them towards you as it propels you upwards, ending with an energy burst downwards at the pulled enemies. Obvious downside of falling down on the enemies immediately after.9) Stealth. Makes you invisible to enemies but steadily drains health.
Will edit when I think of more.
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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Selling back to the store?
« on: May 09, 2012, 04:17:38 AM »
The exchange rate needs to be such, that you will never touch it in normal circumstance. You will just go: "Who in their right mind would do that?" Then, as you complete missions and get increasingly frustrated about not getting the reward you needed, you start to contemplate the trade, start persuading yourself that you don't really need that other stuff anyway and eventually after another few hours, you will just succumb to the temptation and do it.
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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: New AVWW Reviews and GGTL's Livestream Event
« on: May 06, 2012, 10:25:50 AM »
That's a great point. Even though there are checkpoints - killing an overlord, they don't feel distinct enough.
I think it would be better for the game to have a dedicated story lasting say 5 continents. At the end of the fifth continent there is the final boss. Beat him and you wrap the story up but open the post game of infinite continents still needing to be fixed (ruled by lackeys of the final boss that refuse to give up). You can still have a story even with a proceduraly generated game it just has to happen in a different way since no locations are set. What is set though is the settlement so perhaps the story could unfold there based on how many missions you did, locations you discovered or NPC's (randomly thrown into locations) met.
I think it would be better for the game to have a dedicated story lasting say 5 continents. At the end of the fifth continent there is the final boss. Beat him and you wrap the story up but open the post game of infinite continents still needing to be fixed (ruled by lackeys of the final boss that refuse to give up). You can still have a story even with a proceduraly generated game it just has to happen in a different way since no locations are set. What is set though is the settlement so perhaps the story could unfold there based on how many missions you did, locations you discovered or NPC's (randomly thrown into locations) met.
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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: New AVWW Reviews and GGTL's Livestream Event
« on: May 06, 2012, 10:17:38 AM »
Lot of reviews describe the combat as very shallow and it is hard to disagree with. You could argue that combat is not the main point of this game but you still spend a lot of time doing it that it should be interesting and fun. I wonder if going for Melee attacks wouldnt be an interesting idea. It would give the combat some additional depth, it would give the players more things to find (since you would need all sorts of equipment and weapons) and it would allow for more varied enemies - magic extremely resistant/immune, melee extremely resistant/immune, magic immune with devastating super-short ranged attack making you need a spear to kill it and so on. It may however be too big a change to implement/against design philosophy.
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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: New AVWW Reviews and GGTL's Livestream Event
« on: May 05, 2012, 06:08:10 PM »
IGN said that the music while interesting was too repetitive. Which I tend to agree with but I also think it goes well with the tone of the game (which may actually be a bad thing in this case).
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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Room Generation Improvements
« on: May 05, 2012, 06:02:56 PM »
Very common technique used mainly in JRPGs are simple palette swaps of monsters/objects.
You have a cave, brownish-darkish cave. Good.
Palette swap to bluish-lightish tones and you have an ice cave without much trouble.
Palette swap to reddish tones and you have a volcano cave.
Same for enemies.
Very simple and very efficient way of distinguishing areas and enemies from each other. However it still doesn't solve the problem of every ice cave looking the same.
EDIT: Platforming challenges are somewhat difficult to imagine when you can place wooden platforms anywhere you can. Perhaps a sort of dedicated platforming mission with turned off wooden stuff?
You have a cave, brownish-darkish cave. Good.
Palette swap to bluish-lightish tones and you have an ice cave without much trouble.
Palette swap to reddish tones and you have a volcano cave.
Same for enemies.
Very simple and very efficient way of distinguishing areas and enemies from each other. However it still doesn't solve the problem of every ice cave looking the same.
EDIT: Platforming challenges are somewhat difficult to imagine when you can place wooden platforms anywhere you can. Perhaps a sort of dedicated platforming mission with turned off wooden stuff?
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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: New AVWW Reviews and GGTL's Livestream Event
« on: May 05, 2012, 05:33:12 PM »
I distinctly remember reading a review on either Gamespot/IGN that began with a paragraph on how the game got either a free DLC or a patch (cant remember) after launch addressing the most glaring issues. No idea what game that was though.
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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: New AVWW Reviews and GGTL's Livestream Event
« on: May 05, 2012, 05:20:38 PM »No, I don't use it because the site gives an incorrect impression of the quality (or lack thereof) in the game. And sure, a lot of people use it. Not disputing that here. But really, there isn't much we can do about IGN/Gamespot giving poor reviews. Which was really what I was getting at when Huaojozu posted. So worrying about it is a waste of effort.
King
While I do not work in the gaming industry and thus have zero relevant experience, I refuse to believe that there is literally nothing that could have been done to improve those scores. A lot, of course, may have been done by Arcen and just didn't work. From the top of my head, I would try to get them to re-review the game after a few weeks/months, since just the loot drops in the latest release changed the game significantly. It's not like that didn't happen before.
EDIT: The point is that all these patches could get the score bumped to say 7,5 or higher after a while. A year from now, a casual player will search for games released in the last year, see AVWW (which he already saw after release, but dismissed and thus forgot), see it's reasonable score and give it a try.
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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: New AVWW Reviews and GGTL's Livestream Event
« on: May 05, 2012, 04:43:33 PM »
That may be true but they are still one of the (if not the) most visited sites for game reviews in general. Having a high score on those pretty much guarantees you a lot of initial sales, especially with such a low price. It's great that AVWW scores high on so many review sites but to be honest, I have never even heard of most of them - and I spend a lot of time gaming. The casual crowd will look at Gamespot/IGN couple it with the somewhat weird graphics and ignore the game altogether.
I'm just saying that if I were a game developer, I would worry about Gamespot/IGN scores from a marketing standpoint a lot. I may not care about what the big sites say, since the smaller sites have better reviews, but they definitely influence way more potential buyers than the smaller ones.
I'm just saying that if I were a game developer, I would worry about Gamespot/IGN scores from a marketing standpoint a lot. I may not care about what the big sites say, since the smaller sites have better reviews, but they definitely influence way more potential buyers than the smaller ones.
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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: What's with the hate on the visuals?
« on: May 02, 2012, 02:05:30 AM »
In this day and age, graphics grow exceedingly important. Not because they inherently are (since they aren't) but because most people will glance at screenshots when deciding whether they will like the game or not. I know a lot of my friends first google the game to find out some gameplay pictures and only then read a review (if they aren't put off immediately). While this is quite sad, it's also the reality of modern gaming. We can argue at length about how graphics shouldn't matter, but they do, and none of us will ever change that. The simple fact remains, that better looking game will always sell better than an uglier one despite worse gameplay.
As for the actual graphics in this game, many thready have already discussed it. For me, it's a combination of several things:
- Saturation and other parameters (now fixed thanks to the unofficial (mod)pack. The original causes way too much eye strain for reasons better explained in other threads (subjective though).
- Lack of coherence. I am kind of used to it that when a game takes you to a volcano, everything will look like the insides/outsides of a volcano, enemies will be tailored to that area as will the vegetation. When I show you an enemy, you should be able to put it into a game-zone based on it's appearence.
- Too much stuff. Again subjective but it detracts from what is really important. I always thought that 2D sidescrollers required a minimalist touch since you only have two dimensions to play with.
Look at Outland. That is a 2d sidescrollers action platformer as well and yet it's visual style is much more coherent and alltogether prettier to look at.
As for the actual graphics in this game, many thready have already discussed it. For me, it's a combination of several things:
- Saturation and other parameters (now fixed thanks to the unofficial (mod)pack. The original causes way too much eye strain for reasons better explained in other threads (subjective though).
- Lack of coherence. I am kind of used to it that when a game takes you to a volcano, everything will look like the insides/outsides of a volcano, enemies will be tailored to that area as will the vegetation. When I show you an enemy, you should be able to put it into a game-zone based on it's appearence.
- Too much stuff. Again subjective but it detracts from what is really important. I always thought that 2D sidescrollers required a minimalist touch since you only have two dimensions to play with.
Look at Outland. That is a 2d sidescrollers action platformer as well and yet it's visual style is much more coherent and alltogether prettier to look at.