Already I have had to make milestones for projects I've worked on. And a few times, I've attempted to work on projects without them. WITHOUT them, I found myself scrambling to get the project in on time and meet deadlines. On personal projects, without a plan, they get pushed aside and ignored.
The same is undoubtably tried on the business end of things. Not only does the game have to be finished by a certain day, but it has to be budgeted and planned so that the studios don’t run out of money. A game that is properly planned will likely result in a better end product, because things will be on schedule, and running smoothly.
Would I make our game more kid friendly or more mature?
The concept is not my own, and I cannot take credit for the idea. That being said, I feel it could be done either way. A cartoony game about voodoo and slaves could work so long as you make it PC.
For our purposes though, I believe the game needs to be more mature. With realize, creepiness and gore, the idea can be more brutally expressed.
I prefer the kids market personally. Parents will buy anything with an E rating on it. When they see M on the box, they'll want to do research, and when they realize the game is about a slave using voodoo to kill his masters, they might not spend the money. Regardless, I think it would sell just fine in the teen to late twenties market.
En Masse is a new company attempting to specialize in MMOs that are designed with the western market in mind.
I LOVE MMOS! I don't know exactly why, but if the game looks cool enough, I'll put up with a grindfest to play the game. I don't, however, love grinding, and staring at the UI in games like WoW or FFXI.
En Masse is supposedly taking those concerns of the western market into account, and attempting to gear future games towards the Americas and Europe.
"... In Tera you swing your sword, cast your spell, or aim your arrow, and that action has impact on whether you successfully make contact or do damage to your target. You can also jump out of the way, or roll out of the way, or block an attack, where other games this is reduced to a roll of the dice. The vision for this game is to concentrate on the action in the centre of the screen, rather than on the UI."
Terra is a new MMORPG that En Masse is working on that will still implement grinding to an extent, BUT they have tried to make the game more visually interesting and get rid of the annoying unit frames of old games.
It’s been said that MMOs are dying, and maybe they are. I personally hope that this new strategy taken by En Masse to re-enthrall the western market with social networks wrapped in game play succeeds. If so, game companies might have found a good way to stick out the hard times by riding on their MMO's monthly subscriptions.
Do I consider myself a leader or a follower and why do I think that?
I consider myself a leader. I've always had a problem with watching people waste time. It drives me crazy when I see someone screw around for a week, and then claim they had no time for their work when it comes down to the deadlines. I figure if I want things to get done, I have to take control and direct things.
That being said, when working with competent people, I enjoy being able to sit back and take a support role. I typically know my stuff, and if I don’t, give me a few hours and I'll find out. I'll let a more qualified and better informed leader take control and sit back and do my thing.
Already, I coach, and have to teach and lead. I have no problem shouldering the responsibility; however I believe that my methods for motivating might be a little under developed.
I know software, I know process, and I know the fun stuff. I DONT know the psychology.
What genres of games do I think will be big this year? And why do I think that?
Since I've been in school, I haven’t been paying much attention to the games that are selling, and I know that that is terrible, and I SHOULD be paying attention, but it’s hard to find time to play games right now.
I've recently been getting into FPSs, especially the Battlefield games. RPGs have always been my personal favorite, but I haven’t played one in a while that I thought was that great.
I believe that with the release of Final Fantasy 13, RPGs might be coming back. Dragon Age was a decent attempt, but still short of an amazing immersive world that helps us forget about our real life worries. A good RPG that we can all loose ourselves in is just what we need right now to help us forget about the economy and all the crazy natural disasters.
If RPGs DONT top the charts again, I'll put my money on Flash games. I spend hours on tower defense games, Flash shooters, and other little games that are all of 2 levels, but all unique in some way. The fact that people have less time to spend on actual games will help the addicting games industry. People need to work more to pay their bills, and spend less to keep their house. So free quick games online is a nice quick fix.
I found this article on EDGE-Online, about a little conference held between audio directors from both the gaming industry and the movie industry. The discussions back and forth seemed to focus on the budgets and the technologies that are available, and not so much on what they accomplish.
At one point they do mention a quick bit about how movies direct their sound for emotional delivery instead of realism, and that in movies; environment background music doesn’t usually have to be looped 20 times. But I think that that is the more important issue here.
Yeah games tend to have really cool music as of late, but what about the emotional delivery? I won’t pretend to understand how audio experts in the movie industry actually achieve their magic, but if a game could build excitement in a scene before even showing the player anything, the experience could be intensified 100 fold.
A few games have good audio, but compared to what? Other games? What about in comparison to movies? I know games are interactive, and for that reason they can never be the same as movies, but the two industries are the biggest grossing industries in the world. I'm sure that they can learn from each other.
In what ways will planning help a game project?
ReplyDeleteAlready I have had to make milestones for projects I've worked on. And a few times, I've attempted to work on projects without them. WITHOUT them, I found myself scrambling to get the project in on time and meet deadlines. On personal projects, without a plan, they get pushed aside and ignored.
The same is undoubtably tried on the business end of things. Not only does the game have to be finished by a certain day, but it has to be budgeted and planned so that the studios don’t run out of money. A game that is properly planned will likely result in a better end product, because things will be on schedule, and running smoothly.
Would I make our game more kid friendly or more mature?
ReplyDeleteThe concept is not my own, and I cannot take credit for the idea. That being said, I feel it could be done either way. A cartoony game about voodoo and slaves could work so long as you make it PC.
For our purposes though, I believe the game needs to be more mature. With realize, creepiness and gore, the idea can be more brutally expressed.
I prefer the kids market personally. Parents will buy anything with an E rating on it. When they see M on the box, they'll want to do research, and when they realize the game is about a slave using voodoo to kill his masters, they might not spend the money. Regardless, I think it would sell just fine in the teen to late twenties market.
En Masse
ReplyDeleteEn Masse is a new company attempting to specialize in MMOs that are designed with the western market in mind.
I LOVE MMOS! I don't know exactly why, but if the game looks cool enough, I'll put up with a grindfest to play the game. I don't, however, love grinding, and staring at the UI in games like WoW or FFXI.
En Masse is supposedly taking those concerns of the western market into account, and attempting to gear future games towards the Americas and Europe.
"... In Tera you swing your sword, cast your spell, or aim your arrow, and that action has impact on whether you successfully make contact or do damage to your target. You can also jump out of the way, or roll out of the way, or block an attack, where other games this is reduced to a roll of the dice. The vision for this game is to concentrate on the action in the centre of the screen, rather than on the UI."
Terra is a new MMORPG that En Masse is working on that will still implement grinding to an extent, BUT they have tried to make the game more visually interesting and get rid of the annoying unit frames of old games.
It’s been said that MMOs are dying, and maybe they are. I personally hope that this new strategy taken by En Masse to re-enthrall the western market with social networks wrapped in game play succeeds. If so, game companies might have found a good way to stick out the hard times by riding on their MMO's monthly subscriptions.
http://www.edge-online.com/features/entering-the-mmog-en-masse
Do I consider myself a leader or a follower and why do I think that?
ReplyDeleteI consider myself a leader. I've always had a problem with watching people waste time. It drives me crazy when I see someone screw around for a week, and then claim they had no time for their work when it comes down to the deadlines. I figure if I want things to get done, I have to take control and direct things.
That being said, when working with competent people, I enjoy being able to sit back and take a support role. I typically know my stuff, and if I don’t, give me a few hours and I'll find out. I'll let a more qualified and better informed leader take control and sit back and do my thing.
Already, I coach, and have to teach and lead. I have no problem shouldering the responsibility; however I believe that my methods for motivating might be a little under developed.
I know software, I know process, and I know the fun stuff. I DONT know the psychology.
What genres of games do I think will be big this year? And why do I think that?
ReplyDeleteSince I've been in school, I haven’t been paying much attention to the games that are selling, and I know that that is terrible, and I SHOULD be paying attention, but it’s hard to find time to play games right now.
I've recently been getting into FPSs, especially the Battlefield games. RPGs have always been my personal favorite, but I haven’t played one in a while that I thought was that great.
I believe that with the release of Final Fantasy 13, RPGs might be coming back. Dragon Age was a decent attempt, but still short of an amazing immersive world that helps us forget about our real life worries. A good RPG that we can all loose ourselves in is just what we need right now to help us forget about the economy and all the crazy natural disasters.
If RPGs DONT top the charts again, I'll put my money on Flash games. I spend hours on tower defense games, Flash shooters, and other little games that are all of 2 levels, but all unique in some way. The fact that people have less time to spend on actual games will help the addicting games industry. People need to work more to pay their bills, and spend less to keep their house. So free quick games online is a nice quick fix.
Games Meet Film!!
ReplyDeleteI found this article on EDGE-Online, about a little conference held between audio directors from both the gaming industry and the movie industry. The discussions back and forth seemed to focus on the budgets and the technologies that are available, and not so much on what they accomplish.
At one point they do mention a quick bit about how movies direct their sound for emotional delivery instead of realism, and that in movies; environment background music doesn’t usually have to be looped 20 times. But I think that that is the more important issue here.
Yeah games tend to have really cool music as of late, but what about the emotional delivery? I won’t pretend to understand how audio experts in the movie industry actually achieve their magic, but if a game could build excitement in a scene before even showing the player anything, the experience could be intensified 100 fold.
A few games have good audio, but compared to what? Other games? What about in comparison to movies? I know games are interactive, and for that reason they can never be the same as movies, but the two industries are the biggest grossing industries in the world. I'm sure that they can learn from each other.
http://www.edge-online.com/features/games-meet-film?page=0%2C0