Game Development Giant

In fact, whether it is the Mars Entertainment Carnival that Jester has organized for more than ten years now, or the Blizzard Carnival that he has recently experienced in the future.

The speeches at each opening ceremony are always the same.

It’s nothing more than recalling how successful we were this year, how popular the games were, and how much players supported us, and then announce the next games that will be available to players soon. Although this is the case every year, players Just eat this way.

In the past, Jester particularly admired Blizzard's method of organizing carnivals, because it is so useful for cultivating die-hard fans. Countless players, from all over the world, are like pilgrims across distances that may be tens of thousands of kilometers. Coming to a place just to attend a party and meet some like-minded people is not a pilgrimage.

No wonder when Jester was watching BlizzCon reports, the domestic media liked to use the word pilgrimage to describe it.

Now that I think about it carefully, it is still very appropriate.

In this carnival, the main stage was given to Jester's "Monster Hunter". It's not that "Brood War" didn't appear on the main stage, but the finale was Jester's game.

This time, there was no E3 show, and the shock of the video demonstration when "Monster Hunter" was first unveiled.

However, using this kind of big scene once is enough. Using it once when it first debuts will help enhance players’ confidence and expectations for the game. There is no need to do this the second time. Players will be more interested in this game. They already have enough expectations for this game, and now they want to know more about the content in this game, and Jester also knows that this is a request that players should meet.

Isn't that why they came to the carnival?

When a large amount of information about "Monster Hunter" was revealed, the players' emotions were also aroused. While Jester was explaining, he showed the use of the five universal weapons that had been prepared on the big screen behind him. During the animation, the scene was filled with screams.

the most important is. When Jester announced that version A of "Monster Hunter", which is one of the three versions based on European and American myths and legends, will undergo its first invitational test at the end of this year, the cheers at the scene were even louder. It has reached the highest and most passionate point, of course. This time the invitation test of "Monster Hunter" is somewhat different from the previous invitation test conducted by Mars Entertainment.

In the previous invitation tests, Mars Entertainment selected those die-hard players and invited them.

Invite them to the headquarters of Mars Entertainment to experience the game, because before, the test could only be done in this way, but now with the addition of a hard drive to Dreambox 3. Now they can take a completely different approach to testing.

That is to issue test invitations to some players with Mars Battle.net accounts, allowing them to directly download the test version of the game to their Dreambox 3 through the Internet for testing.

The biggest benefit of this can be to increase the number of testers several times or even ten times.

Special software can be used to monitor the player's experience and feelings during the game, collect various data, and make more changes that are beneficial to the game - this will be very convenient for the entire development process of the game, allowing We don't just discover problems through internal QA testing - of course, we must have conducted internal QA testing on number theory before inviting players.

Some bugs or loopholes that have too much affected players' gameplay have been corrected.

The reason why I say this is because. In the past, Mars Entertainment invited players to its headquarters to participate in testing, and all expenses were included. Even if Mars Entertainment was rich, it would not be able to invite too many people. At most, they only invited about 100 people during the test of "Heroes". Three hundred players came to the headquarters for testing, but all those participating in the testing signed a strict confidentiality agreement.

But this time, since Mars Entertainment conducts invitation testing through the Internet, does that mean that it will not sign a confidentiality agreement?

In fact, large-scale testing will only be adopted by most game companies more than ten years later. Many game companies like to test only a small part of the content to attract players. But when the game was officially announced, players found that the game was good to experience at first, but it was not playable.

The most typical example is Diablo 3.

When Diablo 3 BETA was being tested. We can only test some things like the feel of hitting, special effects, etc. These things are not a big deal for a company with excellent technical capabilities, but this time the most important equipment system can allow players to play again and again. The motivation to brush it off. But there is no way to reflect it in the short test content.

Through the feedback results obtained through BETA, Blizzard has seen countless enthusiastic players.

They feel that their game must be extremely well done.

Therefore, they were extremely confident when it was released, but the reality is that the second chief designer of the development team admitted in an interview that we had failed to live up to players' expectations.

Afterwards, the development team of Diablo 3 learned the hard way. Although there were many reasons for the failure of the first version of this game, there was a possibility of saving it. That is, if they could provide more content for players to experience during the BETA test, then The ending will definitely not be like this - so, before ROS goes online, Blizzard has put out almost all new ROS content for players to experience.

The feedback obtained through this 80% content is truly meaningful.

This also leads to one thing, that is, BETA testing of a large amount of game content is meaningful. Of course, the content here refers to the most important gameplay of the game. The testing of games like Diablo must be done What the players experience as a whole is what your equipment system is like, not how much content is announced.

For adventure action games like Uncharted, the most important thing is the level and scene design capabilities. This does not require much content, but it does require a complete and stunning level.

For example, in the reset version of the Uncharted trilogy, Sony used the classic hotel helicopter level in Uncharted 2 for players’ trial experience. This level can be said to be the most essential level in Uncharted 2. First, it is of course extremely appropriate to use this level to attract players.

The biggest problem with the original version of Diablo 3 is that it is not a game like Uncharted, and the gameplay of the two types of games is completely unrelated. The Diablo series is about equipment, but in BETA, the playability of the equipment system is not reflected at all - and players don't take it to heart because they never think that the equipment system will be difficult for Blizzard.

Because the perfect equipment system of Diablo 2 is there. Even if it can't be better, can it still be worse than Diablo 2?

Therefore, when players experience the unparalleled feel of Diablo 3, they feel that this game must be good.

But, this way. Players were completely deceived by their own "I thought", and Blizzard was also deceived by this false and prosperous feedback. The test information they received was not the feedback they wanted at all.

After the opening ceremony.

Two hours later, Jester was interacting with players on the stage in Area B. He was asked a lot of questions about the game. Someone asked why Battle.net accounts are universal, but only Dreambox 3 players can. Get the game "Monster Hunter" that their PC players can't? The same was true for the previous "Heroes".

PC players simply can’t play “The Heroes”!

"Because we develop games, it doesn't mean that we will determine the platform of a game at the beginning of development. Our process of developing games is like this. First we have a great idea, and then we do a brainstorming based on this idea. Storming, of course, may also involve one person having a lot of ideas first and then brainstorming. Both of these development methods are very common within us.”

“When we are considering a game, which platform it will be launched on is not something we will consider at the beginning, or even very early on. We will only focus on how to make it work in the beginning. It can make this game interesting and fun to play. As for which platform this game is suitable for, it depends on the gameplay design after the game is completed."

"A game is a game, and a platform is a platform. We will not castrate the game just to make it available on a certain platform. Because good games, the best games, are the guarantee of everything."

"For example, for RTS games like "StarCraft", its gameplay was created for PC, and it is not suitable for consoles - or we haven't found a way to bring such games to consoles, so. We won't His content was cut in order to make the game available on consoles because we felt all of his content was essential."

"And if we cut the content in order to get them on the console, the game won't be fun. Why would players buy a game that's not fun?"

"We need to be responsible for the money spent by players. When a game that costs 60 dollars comes into the hands of the player, we have to make the player feel that the 60 dollars spent is worth it, instead of finishing our game. After that, the player will have the idea that I might as well take this money and go have a Chinese meal.”

"Many people may mention FPS. When we completed the preliminary gameplay design of this game, we knew that it was a game prepared for PC. We had internal common sense to move it to the console, but Accurate aiming of the crosshair was too difficult, and we tried our best to solve it, but one day we came up with dual joysticks and aiming assist, and we were able to bring this classic game type to the console."

"The reason why we didn't do it before was because we felt that putting FPS games on consoles would have no fun in the game."

"The same is true now for "Monster Hunter". The entire game mode of this game is the most suitable for the console. After we completed the initial brainstorming and determined the gameplay, we also put this game as our first choice. On consoles, of course, that doesn’t mean it won’t happen on PC, but PC is definitely not the priority we will consider now.”

"Just like many console players asked me, why can't we play "StarCraft" on Dreambox 3?"

"Quite simply, inappropriate."

In fact, in the original history, Blizzard did release a console version of "StarCraft", but it was not successful. In fact, console manufacturers did not experience the fun of StarCraft, an RTS game, and RTS games like Games are indeed born for PC.

Because this interview is the interaction between players and the design team.

In addition to Jester who is responsible for explaining some things about the game system, there are also artists and people in charge of the technical engine.

The questions asked by players are also varied.

Not all questions will be asked to Jester. Jester will only answer when questions about the gameplay and system of the game are asked.

Soon a player asked a more difficult question.

"As we all know, an ACT game has very high latency requirements. I don't know what you mean by activating test qualifications through a member account. What I want to know is whether we also need time when playing the game. Make a network connection?"

When hearing this question, Jester nodded.

"This is a good question. Indeed, for ACT games, delays can become very scary, especially for our game. If you are not careful, you will be killed by the monster you are hunting, so , latency is our biggest natural enemy, you are right, during the test, you must be connected to our server at all times to play the game, because we need to collect all the data.”

“However, after the game is released, players can play the game without being connected to the Internet, but in this case they cannot perform ladders, challenge tasks, form teams, or even Do the most epic activities we have prepared for players in the game, but if you want to play the game, there is no problem at all.”

"Furthermore, what you are talking about is actually just a question of whether it belongs to the client or the server. I can tell you now with certainty that the judgment belongs to your client. In other words, you will have any judgments from the game. Latency in data communications.”

"The purpose of being online at all times during testing is to collect enough data, and after the release, it is to ensure that all players participating in the ladder are as fair as possible."

"That's it."

Jester did not hesitate to use his language and explained this issue in detail. (~^~)