08-25-2017, 03:21 PM
Status Update - Aug 25, 2017
Last week I had suggested that we’d have the full gamut of character and agents actions up and running for this release. Sadly, we did not achieve that goal. We did get much of it done, but the covert operations did not make it into this release. We did however get a remarkable pile of work done and I expect that everybody is going to be very pleased with the new features that are available for Alpha Test 7.
Over the past few weeks I have met with a number of the alpha testers. I gave them a chance to play the game, ask questions and give us feedback on the state of the game. I’m happy to say that there were plenty of positive comments, but we also got some very solid critiques and suggestions as well.
The biggest (and most consistent) complaint is that the game is complicated and players need more real-time help to give them an idea of what they should be doing. On the good side, for those testers that said they didn’t know what to do, also said that once they understood what they should be doing, they found the game was well designed to help them play.
Delivering an interactive help-system is no trivial task. I am also concerned about trying to implement something like that before the entire User Interface (UI) is finished. So, as a compromise, we will be releasing some game videos that show how to use the UI and to show what features are available. I am also planning to release either a number of small videos or a few longer videos with an index to tell you where to find specific information in the video.
The suggestion that I liked the best was to provide a mechanism for players to be awarded badges (or something similar) for achievements like, killing off 50 different types of monsters, achieving a level 31 character, achieving an effective level of 50+ in any skill, etc. My plan is to develop an online leaderboard that will track all of these achievements so that players can compete for who can meet the achievement and who can meet the achievement in the shortest number of turns.
Lastly, I am sad to say that Trevor, one of my co-op students, is going back to school today and I won’t get to have him around to give me constant feedback on my design choices. Trevor has been our lead tester and co-designer on Veil of Entropy module. Hopefully he will be able to carve out some time to continue on the project over the next four months, but I suspect his work-load at school might prevent that.
As always, if anybody has any questions, comments or concerns – I am available at your convenience.
Cheers,
Paul
Last week I had suggested that we’d have the full gamut of character and agents actions up and running for this release. Sadly, we did not achieve that goal. We did get much of it done, but the covert operations did not make it into this release. We did however get a remarkable pile of work done and I expect that everybody is going to be very pleased with the new features that are available for Alpha Test 7.
Over the past few weeks I have met with a number of the alpha testers. I gave them a chance to play the game, ask questions and give us feedback on the state of the game. I’m happy to say that there were plenty of positive comments, but we also got some very solid critiques and suggestions as well.
The biggest (and most consistent) complaint is that the game is complicated and players need more real-time help to give them an idea of what they should be doing. On the good side, for those testers that said they didn’t know what to do, also said that once they understood what they should be doing, they found the game was well designed to help them play.
Delivering an interactive help-system is no trivial task. I am also concerned about trying to implement something like that before the entire User Interface (UI) is finished. So, as a compromise, we will be releasing some game videos that show how to use the UI and to show what features are available. I am also planning to release either a number of small videos or a few longer videos with an index to tell you where to find specific information in the video.
The suggestion that I liked the best was to provide a mechanism for players to be awarded badges (or something similar) for achievements like, killing off 50 different types of monsters, achieving a level 31 character, achieving an effective level of 50+ in any skill, etc. My plan is to develop an online leaderboard that will track all of these achievements so that players can compete for who can meet the achievement and who can meet the achievement in the shortest number of turns.
Lastly, I am sad to say that Trevor, one of my co-op students, is going back to school today and I won’t get to have him around to give me constant feedback on my design choices. Trevor has been our lead tester and co-designer on Veil of Entropy module. Hopefully he will be able to carve out some time to continue on the project over the next four months, but I suspect his work-load at school might prevent that.
As always, if anybody has any questions, comments or concerns – I am available at your convenience.
Cheers,
Paul