10 months later in America!

Welp.

I'm finally in America. Just one more semester to go! Seattle's pretty great so far. Everyone here is extremely friendly and nice to me. It's really cold though, and it's just going to get colder.

Yes, this is another revival post. Blogger has change so much since I last left. I hope they opened enough features for me to further customize the layout of this site. Thinking back then, adding pages and allowing users to scroll through years of blog posts is really difficult and annoying to implement. Hopefully all these have changed.

I have been setting my eyes on mobile and web game development recently, on top of trying to work on my portfolio. It's probably why I'm so keen on developing an Android game for my project this semester. The game development scene has really changed as compared to the last 2 years. Flash VS HTML5, Android getting stronger, iOS getting more fans, Steam getting crazier, Kickstarter kicking ass and people slowly getting tired of Farmville (I hope)...it seems as if there is going to be another shift in what people want in games and how they want to access them. Google web store looks incredible attractive the more I look at it, barring the restriction that you must have a chrome for most of their applications.

Ah let's talk about games themselves. As usual, lots of games, no time to play. Torchlight 2 was fun while I played it. I love the Engineer class. Somehow I love playing a zealot build, that is magic shields and beating the crap out of anyone before they can even scratch your hit points. It wasn't always successful though. Some stuff in veteran or elite just go through everything.

Other than that there's Dustforce. Very polished platforming game, really worth getting indie bundle for that. There's also Faster Than Light (FTL), an extremely cool rogue-like game where you control a spaceship and trying to get to one end of the universe to the other. Think of it like Star Trek or navigating the Normady in Mass Effect through space as well as controlling your crew members. It's great fun.

Obviously, there won't be any more posts anytime soon until I am free (I managed to rush out some of my assignments today), but it feels good blogging again.

Resuscitation?

Whoops! Wow. 6 months since last update? Unheard of! Well, I haven't given up yet, but work has been piling up on me especially for the last semester (which IMO is the worst semester of all). This semester, I have been re-prioritizing reorganizing misc stuff like sleeping hours, work, etc...so that I will hopefully breathe more.

Are there things I wish to talk about? Not particularly since there's facebook/twitter available for idle talk and comments. I haven't been thinking about non-school related stuff for quite some time and school-related stuff are definitely not blog-worthy. I still love arguing with myself though, and would love to put some of my thoughts about certain game topics here, but I barely have the time to think of such things.

Anyway, I am officially in my 6th semester now. 2 more semesters to graduation! (assuming all goes well). Take this as a resuscitation post. I'm not dead yet. And I won't forget this blog. But perhaps I should change the layout...I just realized that it might be a little narrow? However, it looks nice on mobile devices. Hmm.

Well, I won't be blogging probably until I reach America. And hopefully get a new phone.

Merry Christmas 2011

Feels like some 'forever alone' post, but nonetheless, Merry Christmas to everyone before the day ends =)

It has been a heck of a long and busy year. I haven't been actively playing games nor watching animes. To me, it felt like the "Disappearance of Haruhi" movie came out just recently when it has already been a year old. Time has passed extremely quickly with me already in my 5th semester! Just one more year to go! ^_^

That aside, I have been drowning myself with some animes I've missed out and those that are currently airing like Working 2, Eureka 7, Guilty Crown, Ben-to, Xam'd, Ika Musume 2, Haganai...just to name a few. Currently trying to catch up on Bakemonogatari as we speak. Game-wise I stole Rorona from my friend and have been playing it everyday since. I think I'll end up completing it faster than Skyrim. The Captain America build I wished for was no-go =(

I'm still trying to look for a cheap legal copy of Flash CS5 to work on some stuff. Meanwhile, I'll use the trial to whip something random while I'm not watching anime, playing games, going out with friends. Looks like it's gonna be a nice holiday =)

Skyrim Review, thoughts and rants.

Already, ten days has passed since Skyrim's release and people are either enjoying it fully while other are beginning to compare it with other games. At first with the previous 2 Elder Scrolls, namely Morrowind and Oblivion (I didn't play the first two) , I thought they were rich yet barren. If you compare Skyrim to old classics like Baldur's Gate, where you plan your party and your characters, go to the deepest dungeons, slay the big dragon and get epic loot, coupled with excellent storytelling, itemization and combat mechanics, Skyrim will automatically seem to pale in comparison. I can see where old school RPG players are coming from and what they yearn for. I am a huge fan of past Black Isle and Troika games and I am still waiting for an RPG that is like theirs

After like 3 iterations, Bethesda refuses to give proper itemization and interesting combat mechanics. You still left click 100 times to melee a monster to death. But people still love it. Recent games I personally enjoy like Witcher 2 got flushed into being a cult hit, sharing the same fate as previous Black Isle games. Yet games like Oblivion (which I personally dislike) are cheered by most gamers as a great RPG. Obviously amongst all the bad thing I found in Oblivion, Bethesda is doing something right which I did not notice and care much about back then because I believed that they were in the wrong.

So the question is, what are they doing right? Why do they choose to stick with mechanics I disagree with after every iteration? I have to stop comparing to the RPGs I know and essentially ask what are they trying to achieve. From the looks of it, Bethesda wants to create an immersive and realistic open world experience, to a certain extent because we know it is not fully possible, feasible and desirable. At the same time, they want to provide constant challenge for the players.

There are a few things below they implemented for this design I wish to discuss and examine. A quick recap and disclaimer though, I do not particularly like any of the mechanics they implemented, but just picking them out and see how is it possible that such mechanics appeal to their target audience, which I assume is just "as many people as possible".

'Blend' Combat Mechanics
In combat, you do not 'autoattack' or execute 'moves'. You simply slash/punch/cast spell. As boring as it sounds, it's actually quite close to what you do in real life. It is debatable whether this is a good or bad approach, but despite arguments, it is a strange undeniable fact that some people do enjoy left clicking 100 times repeatedly to kill a monster so long as he receives the proper feedback. Throughout the past 2 Elder Scrolls games, they did nothing but improve the feedback. Whether the feedback is enough is irrelevant in this discussion. The point is that it is an improvement. Skyrim makes it a little more logical with their new dual-wield mechanic.

This seems strange as it is the reverse of what game designers would want to do with their RPGs. Usually you would think "Let's have this mechanic where players can do combo A or do combo B and get different results!" Witcher 2 had some form of a combo system, Dragon Age was a hotkey-fest, Dark Souls have much focus in tactical maneuvering and usage of weapons. What if there are people who actually find all of them too difficult? Going through playtesting sessions for the games I make, it might not be far from the truth. Ultimately, clicking the left mouse button 100 times is not only logical to the common player, but also easy to adjust to. If you complain about your swings missing because the AI is moving around you, you obviously have not been in a fight.

Seriously, you either like this mechanic or you don't. It offers almost little to no depth, which may seemingly be a bad thing, but can be a good thing.

Scaling
Enemy and item scaling according to player level has been something in Morrowind, Oblivion and now Skyrim. This part is really tricky. For one, it theoretically gives constant challenge to the players. However, it does break immersion or 'suspension of disbelief'. For example, I should be able to defeat the same named monster easier when I level up. To make matters worse, itemization scales with level as well. The designers are probably hoping that most players do not notice this scaling mechanic and only see the challenge before them. This has improved over the past Elder Scrolls though. It is no longer possible to make a level 1 character and kill trash mobs until the end of the main quest.

On the other hand, without scaling, it would mean that designers have to separate areas into level ranges, just like what most MMOs are doing now. This could run into the risk of players not visiting certain areas because its 'level is too low'. Also, if not done right, players will feel that the world is deliberately crafted and that his path is determined from the start. It's like how in Everquest where players who start in Freeport and just go from Freeport -> East Commons -> West Commons -> etc. In the example of WoW, players who start as an Orc just go from Valley of Trials -> whatever the troll village is called -> Razor Hill -> Barrens.

Somehow they must empower players the freedom to explore where-ever they want without making it too boring or too difficult AND at the same time ensure that certain monsters are a dangerous threat to the new player. They want to provide a world where players can explore, yet they want players to survive most encounters so that they don't feel frustrated. This really feels like some tug-of-war relationship between immersion and the need to provide constant challenge.

I have mixed reviews about Skyrim's execution of this mechanic. Some people said the game scales badly (as in they are getting killed at later levels), some say that the game is too easy (they just kill everything with or without min/maxing). Most of them are still playing Skyrim despite this, so I assume that it is working fine. For me, I haven't encountered any problems yet.

Pitiful Quests
Lack of carrots at the end of most trash quests demotivates many players from playing. Most of the quests do not promise good rewards for the effort you put into it. Is it really a problem? Is it okay to be asked to clear a fort of bandits for nothing more than 100gp and no further progression afterwards? For good measure, 100gp in Skyrim is worth as much as looting 2 or 3 of said bandits you slay. Not to mention that it is possible for you to just travel to the destination without triggering the quest and kill the bandits yourself if you need the gold.

But what if that was not the point of the quests? Essentially, going by their design of having an open world, the main point of quests is probably to gives you a reason to explore. Maybe it allows the players feel that they are doing favors for the NPCs, as opposed to mindlessly walking around to kill monsters. Most of us veteran players know better, but will others know? I myself feel cheated when I was awarded the 100gp, I mean seriously they could really give me more. Then we talk about 'pointless' quests that don't even ask you to explore OR reward you with anything. Maybe the design was to let players feel that the game is more alive? I don't see it, but is the problem with players like me?

The quests does not work out for me, but I can appreciate what they are trying to do. Amazingly, non-hardcore-RPG players I know are able to talk about "the lady who sells potions in Solitude whose daughter was missing in action". For those who don't know (spoilers), there's this alchemist lady in Solitude who simply ask you to talk to a certain person, and return to her once you get information out of him. The reward was non-existent and it is really pretty pointless as a quest, but somehow, people who explore the area remember.

Immersion + Numbers?
I mentioned immersion, but yet there are numbers. What gives? Well, there is a limit to how far you can push the idea of immersion into the game. The hard fact is that for some things, players need to know its exact details. It won't help much if I were to

You can see how they evolved from Morrowind to Skyrim. Morrowind was very detailed as they gave me actual base stats and derived stats to try to min/max. In Morrowind, I can see my Strength, Willpower, Intelligence, Agility, etc. Skyrim is almost totally opaque. The only numbers I see are my gold pieces, the amount of stuff I got, my HP, MP, SP, my weight limit, my skill points, armor rating and . That's about it really. You can tell that they are pushing towards that direction of game play, where players should not need to worry about anything more than what is directly affecting them.

Is this a good thing? I prefer my game transparent, but honestly with their design, I can see why they just choose to hide everything from the players. It is mainly because of this Skyrim feels so mainstream, I believe.

Conclusion
These points are some of the gripes I have about the game (I might add more), which I think makes the game successful. Having written the points down allows me to appreciate the game more than I did before when I was just bashing. Despite this however, I stand by my feelings that Oblivion isn't a good game (Morrowind is better) because there are other points about that game which I totally don't agree with. Skyrim, however, is a huge improvement, enough for me to accept it as a 'good enough RPG'.

I can see how Besthesda's game designers are constantly pulling off a balancing act with all those implementations. They are always pursuing a white/black color but constantly end up somewhere in the grey area.

Finally, I am going to quickly label what I like and hate about Skyrim thus far aside from its game design philosophy.

First with the likes:
- Level Design. Not fantastic, but at least every dungeon I walk into isn't some direct copy of another. At least there are books (yes, I read them, some of them are quite interesting) as a lazy way to fill me in about the dungeon. Some dungeons are actually interesting enough to leave me wondering about it (I think there was one with a forge and ingots of moonstone outside a tomb).
- Graphics. God, I love the harsh snowstorms.
- Performance. Remember when Oblivion was lagging like crazy because it is compiling shaders and scripts on runtime? Skyrim's performance is awesome. I only managed to crash it once by running other games behind and alt-tabbing Skyrim like crazy.
- Shouts. Seriously, I didn't see this coming. Although some are useless, they are quite interesting to have.
- Dragons done right. Last dragon I saw was Dragon Age which isn't really interesting to fight with given its predictable behavior and small arena. I think I saw my friend fight a dragon in Dark Souls which was quite impressive, but it is scripted in an area. Dragons in Skyrim can appear anywhere and they kind of manage to get its AI working for every area they are in (i.e. they have to dynamically allow the dragon to access its surroundings). There are rare bugs of course but I don't really expect them to get it perfectly right even with tons of testing .

And what I didn't like:
- Talents. Firstly, they are badly designed. Secondly, I think they do not fit the design philosophy of their game. They could execute it more elegantly by letting NPCs teach you certain talents, maybe make you get talents by doing something (block 100 hits to get 20% better a blocking perk!). They could do some Fallout 3 thing where they give you perks based on the random things you do (kill 100 rats = 25% better at killing rats). I strongly believe that will fit in much better than what they have now.
- Spellcrafting. It was there in Morrowind and Oblivions. Where has it gone? It was easily one of the more unforgettable mechanic they implemented. I suspect it's because of the new implementation of the dual-casting mechanic which could cause problems for the spellcrafting system.
- Horses. Goddamit just get it right already!
- Riding horses. Why is it not in first person?
- Interface. I suspect that they are catering more towards console. In fact, it is quite obvious. The mouse input is occasionally buggy.
- Ugly interface. It's just looks really primitive to the point I think that they are placeholder art.
- Fast Travel. I should really have a whole rant dedicated to this topic. I hate the concept of Fast Travel, especially in the game like Skyrim. The carriages that transport you to main cities are actually good enough and it works just like how subways work. I'll probably talk more of this another time.

I think Skyrim is a pretty good game and an improvement from its predecessors. It is great in its own way and I really shouldn't compare it with conventional RPGs. It is different. It is a game catered more for Explorers than Achievers, almost just like how there are people who like Minecraft and those who don't. I can see how Achievers can easily get bored with its content, but for Explorers, this game is a friggin' gold mine.

I will definitely keep playing the game with my 'Captain America' unarmed cat build. I'm honestly not that much of an "Explorer" type player (I actually prefer to 'explore' different builds and play-styles) but I would love to see this build being viable in the game at Master level. Once I reach near end-game, I will try to post a guide on my build =)

Wow, time flies!

I can't believe it has been a month since my last post. Everything just got more hectic and with upcoming games lined up, updating this blog regularly with reviews does not seem likely, feasible and even worth the effort considering the hits they are getting and considering how unlikely I am to look back at the reviews. Also, considering my time constraint for now and perhaps the future, I will cease cooking up reviews and talk more about what's going on around me. When I do post otherwise, I will aim them to be useful posts and guides: About game design, guides to certain games (I actually have a newbie 3rd-edition DND guide coming up), and some help regarding different game development problems based on what I have learned.


The help I want to provide is mostly because I see a lack of help for aspiring game devs. Most google searches online results in something technical enough that might be beyond the understanding of newcomers. There is also lack of animation/interactive diagrams, which helped me a lot during trying to understand what is going on (http://www.metanetsoftware.com/ is a nice website with interactive diagrams, for example). This doubles up as a place for me to dump my knowledge in case I forget how to implement them and also helps me better understand them. Teaching a subject is one of the best ways to reinforce your understanding of it.

Ideally, I plan to get out of blogspot and move to a nicer web-host, although I do not know how likely that will be. For now, I will just start here and generate more content like I always do.

So yes, it is time for a change. I am not free as I once was and probably won't be for a long time. It does not help when I enjoy spending my spare time programming stuff. Plus, I think it'd be worth my time and effort to create something interactive that everyone could enjoy reading and playing around with. Besides, it is the same reason why I want to become a game designer: To create something others could enjoy and have fun with.

Don't expect stuff to appear soon though. I'm still rather busy, both playing games and making them =)

A little jaded

It's Fall, the second Fall I am having since I started school. Have you seen the upcoming games scheduled to release and those that already released recently? Even when I filter them only to games I am actually interested in, the list is still huge. Dead Island. Gears of War 3. Dark Souls. Arkham City. Battlefield 3. Skyrim. Space Marine. UMVC3. KOFXIII. I don't even want to mention the several indie games I want to try.

This is gonna be one heck of an expensive and busy vacation. It's the best time for me to catch up on what I have been left out for...possibly the entire year?  I also have to start saving up for a PSPVita for the next year.

Also have you seen the trailer for the upcoming Game of Thrones game? It's called 'A Game of Thrones: Genesis'. Currently, just watching it gives me goosebumps (it's the video above). I hope it's actually good.

I'm still alive!

Hi guys, just letting everyone who somehow visits this blog know that I am still alive. My 4th semester have started and so far it's been looking great as my maths-heavy modules are disappearing from my schedule, replaced by design and other non-core art modules. Allow me to ramble a bit...the workload feels just as much, but now we seem to be tackling more abstract problems. It is fun, yet difficult, but refreshing.

I'm trying my very best keeping this blog alive. I learned a buttload of things just by looking at my old reviews and rants and I am glad I am still getting page hits for some of them. However, time really have not been on my side and there are far more things to do and explore. I have definitely been playing less and less games recently, but Fall is coming and there will be tons of upcoming games I am eager to play.
I have tons of things to share, from random half-done articles in my iTouch, to things I learned in school that can help small time game developers start up their basic games (non-disclosure stuff aside, of course). There are still games I actively play like WoW TCG, but I have no idea what to type about it on a blogger level other than card reviews. At most I can give deck compositions, cards which are key in my friend's decks and the like. Unforunately, WoW (and Magic), works on blocks so whatever review I do will be outdated in a matter of months. I'll see how it goes.
Aside from that, DND is occasionally poking me now and then. I'm in the midst of typing out a newbie guide because I realize, to a great extent, how new players constantly not see and focus on what's REALLY important in a party and also in building their character. It is hard and tedious to actually pen down and try to explain to them how to plan their characters and how it would suit their party, but I'll try regardless.
Overall, I think it's gonna be a great semester for me =)
That doesn't mean I'm any more free than I was >_<