Warscale - Keeping it simple
by Guimo · 08/26/2009 (9:38 pm) · 5 comments
Hi everybody!!!
Guimo is back!!!!
I imagine some of you have been thinking I just dropped Warscale.
I havent post any blog for quite a long time but this doesnt mean I havent been working in Warscale at all, au contraire, I think the last month has been one of the busiest months Ive had even when I not even a single line of code has been written for Warscale.
So, how busy is that? Lets go in order.
First, Im working with a member of this community making a pack from the WSGUIObjectView. I plan to give this code pack as a resource. This pack will include the control and a step by step procedure to integrate this control to the TGE AFX 1.0.2. code. Of course everybody is more interested in using T3D right now but anyway I think somebody may like it.
Second, I have been writing a formal documentation for the game which includes a 30 page game concept document, a 30 page universe design document and a 60 page (and quickly growing) technical manual.
The game concept document covers the game, explaining the general concept, development and target platforms, the game objects, the game sequence and basic rules, rewards, the business model and expansions.
The universe document is a description of the world of Aymar when the game takes place and the universe around it. The document explains the races and their spheres of origin and how they came to the sphere of Aymar. It also explains th magical system and how magic affects the behaviour of all the living (and dead) beings. Michael Yatskar (SleepingPaint) has helped me a lot illustrating and making quick sketches of some of the universe concepts which you can see in this page.
The Technical manual explains all the game in a very detailed and (go figure) technical way. It provide references from networking, graphics, sound, the game sequence and internals for each screen and tool and describes all the game logic and creature design guidelines, even file location and m0odel requirements. Useful for artists and developers.
A nice side effect from this manual is that Im documenting the networking code in such way that I plan to release a second pack which I can call a networking pack. This pack will include details on how to create a master server and register your games and how to make a game updater using Java and SVN, even how to make a chat system. I plan to sell it for $10. TGE only and a promise to update it to TGEA and T3D for free in the future.
Another thing in the documentation to-do list is a description of the A* pathfinding used in Warscale. This is a pathfinding system which can be ued in 2D or 3D boardgames. Same thing, $10 for TGE and I will update to TGEA and T3D later.
And why all this documentation effort? Not just to release small packs. The most important thing is that there is a very very very almost ethereal opportunity (mostly like a whisp of smoke coming from an unlit match) that a company picks up the development of Warscale and turns it into a full AAA product. Fingers crossed... toes too... you on the back row... you too please... thanks...
A second side effect of this documentation is that is has helped me A LOT in defining my priorities. I have organized a lot of things in a cleane way and decided that I will drop lot of code from this release. More on this later.
Finally, Im planning to start pumping out good 3D model collections. The theme will be fantasy. The style will be heroic-comic very colorful. In other words, I will start selling all the assets produced for Warscale so you maybe retexture them and use them in your own games. So all objects, creatures, magic items and basically everything in warscale will be on sale. Please dont ask for skeletons and zombies because other sites like 3DRT already has those and in fact I was planning to use those.
So if the dream of publishing the game doesnt come true, I hope I can still count of the income from the code and model packs. All the income will turn into new models to be included into Warscale and will also be sold here... so if you want more and more models... just buy them.
Game modifications
As I said, a good point in documenting everything is that you can leave the programmer seat and see everything from a higher point. This is the best thing you can do for your project as it releases you from your paradigm which had become all your world. I think that's why we have managers, not just to keep poking a stick in your ribs when you fall asleep in your keyboard (I dont know why an image of Deborah Marshall, a stick and a lot of GG employees came to my mind).
Anyway, from this vantage point I have noticed that I have spent a lot of time trying to make the weapon system work and it is working fine and is a quite cool feature, but at the same time the weapon system was NOT in the original design and it is making everything more complicated.
The original idea was to have two wizards invoking creatures and spells to beat down each other. During the development, the idea of using equipment came and I thought IT WOULD BE REALLY COOL. And just at that moment the MACK pack just came out with all its mesh changing greatness and I thought... this is a sign of the Game Designer who plays Sims with us!!! And I bought the pack and started looking all its goodies and thought it has armor! and boots! We can make equipment for everything. And then I found this amazing book on weapons and equipment looked up... poped out a comic baloon and said Thanks!!!
So I started to design a lot of things about this feature and it slowly became cooler and cooler but at the same time more and more complex. If you have a sword then you can have a mace, and a morning star, and a staff, and a bow, and a crossbow, and throwing daggers, and shurikens and sais and daggers. But then a sword is not enough and then you need a Katana, a sabre, a falchion, a two handed sword. And then you need to scale those weapons for level 2, level 3, level 4... not many of them of course, just 11 for level 1, 10 for level 2, 9 for level 3 and so on. And of course each weapon requires its own animation system because you are not going to fight with a bow the same way you do with a sword.
And then you need clothing, and armor and there are so many armor like breastplates and leather armors, and then I had to make a large table of equipment which I stole from Diablo and set a table of materials, armor progression and lots and lots of things. And create armor for level 1 and 2 and 3. And then we need jewelry and maybe special magic items like a shrunken head. And more and more...
Do you see the problem? I still havent started with the real game yet!!! This was suposed to be a feature not the main game!
So, I have decided to cut everything. I will remove MACK from the game and replace the model with the fantasy wizard from Dexsoft. I will still leave the basic elements which allow me to mount a equipment in the hand or head, but the equipment will be limited to very simple things like staffs and I will grow from there with simple things, like hats, or other things. Just forget all the equipment madness.
The second change is the environment. In all the screenshots I have always used an open map. The problem with this is that I need to create an environment for each map. A forest map, a desert map, a colliseum, a town. All these maps require alot of work and they dont provide anything to the game other than being a map. So I have contracted a 3D modeller to make a complete game board. This board will be tileable so I can make any size of map on the fly and each tile will depict one of the elements of the game (air, water, life, death, fire and earth). There will be spells to change the tiles in the board to any element.
In other words... I'm taking the game to a more abstract level. The board will be the game area in the same idea of greek gods playin in a game table in the Olympus. That saves me a lot of scenery work and opens the way for more board altering spells in the future.
Of course this require some work on the code but on the end its code to simplify the game not make it more complex.
Finally, I will simplify the organization of the files. I had some complex schema where objects shared textures and models to save memory, but on the end I have decided just to make a single folder for each model with all the files for that model inside like a self contained pack. And I really hope the Torque resource manager is as good as it looks.
I really have to thank Frank Carney and his *Why did I fail at making a game using TGE?* blog. No, I didn't read the book at all but I tried to answer to the blog and my answer was going to be something like:
- you dont finish because you get into something which is too complicated and you keep complicating it so you never see the end-.
When I was going to post that I noticed It was me I was talking about. Again, thanks Frank, and if one day the Great Game Designer put MACK in my way now he is telling me to back up and KISS (KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID).
That's all, thanks for staying with me during this long post.
And you thought I was doing nothing.
Luck!
Guimo
Disclaimer 1: MACK is an awesome product. Even if just to learn how to organize your mesh is fantastic.
Disclaimer 2: I'm catholic and even when I used the words *Great Game Designer* as a way to make this long blog more amusing, I have nothing to do with any theories on Intelligent Design or all those ideologies. I hope at the slighlest suggestion of this Deborah will take her stick and poke the site manager so he/she promptly deletes any offending post.
Guimo is back!!!!
I imagine some of you have been thinking I just dropped Warscale.
I havent post any blog for quite a long time but this doesnt mean I havent been working in Warscale at all, au contraire, I think the last month has been one of the busiest months Ive had even when I not even a single line of code has been written for Warscale.
So, how busy is that? Lets go in order.
First, Im working with a member of this community making a pack from the WSGUIObjectView. I plan to give this code pack as a resource. This pack will include the control and a step by step procedure to integrate this control to the TGE AFX 1.0.2. code. Of course everybody is more interested in using T3D right now but anyway I think somebody may like it.
Second, I have been writing a formal documentation for the game which includes a 30 page game concept document, a 30 page universe design document and a 60 page (and quickly growing) technical manual.
The game concept document covers the game, explaining the general concept, development and target platforms, the game objects, the game sequence and basic rules, rewards, the business model and expansions.
The universe document is a description of the world of Aymar when the game takes place and the universe around it. The document explains the races and their spheres of origin and how they came to the sphere of Aymar. It also explains th magical system and how magic affects the behaviour of all the living (and dead) beings. Michael Yatskar (SleepingPaint) has helped me a lot illustrating and making quick sketches of some of the universe concepts which you can see in this page.
The Technical manual explains all the game in a very detailed and (go figure) technical way. It provide references from networking, graphics, sound, the game sequence and internals for each screen and tool and describes all the game logic and creature design guidelines, even file location and m0odel requirements. Useful for artists and developers.
A nice side effect from this manual is that Im documenting the networking code in such way that I plan to release a second pack which I can call a networking pack. This pack will include details on how to create a master server and register your games and how to make a game updater using Java and SVN, even how to make a chat system. I plan to sell it for $10. TGE only and a promise to update it to TGEA and T3D for free in the future.
Another thing in the documentation to-do list is a description of the A* pathfinding used in Warscale. This is a pathfinding system which can be ued in 2D or 3D boardgames. Same thing, $10 for TGE and I will update to TGEA and T3D later.
And why all this documentation effort? Not just to release small packs. The most important thing is that there is a very very very almost ethereal opportunity (mostly like a whisp of smoke coming from an unlit match) that a company picks up the development of Warscale and turns it into a full AAA product. Fingers crossed... toes too... you on the back row... you too please... thanks...
A second side effect of this documentation is that is has helped me A LOT in defining my priorities. I have organized a lot of things in a cleane way and decided that I will drop lot of code from this release. More on this later.
Finally, Im planning to start pumping out good 3D model collections. The theme will be fantasy. The style will be heroic-comic very colorful. In other words, I will start selling all the assets produced for Warscale so you maybe retexture them and use them in your own games. So all objects, creatures, magic items and basically everything in warscale will be on sale. Please dont ask for skeletons and zombies because other sites like 3DRT already has those and in fact I was planning to use those.
So if the dream of publishing the game doesnt come true, I hope I can still count of the income from the code and model packs. All the income will turn into new models to be included into Warscale and will also be sold here... so if you want more and more models... just buy them.
Game modifications
As I said, a good point in documenting everything is that you can leave the programmer seat and see everything from a higher point. This is the best thing you can do for your project as it releases you from your paradigm which had become all your world. I think that's why we have managers, not just to keep poking a stick in your ribs when you fall asleep in your keyboard (I dont know why an image of Deborah Marshall, a stick and a lot of GG employees came to my mind).
Anyway, from this vantage point I have noticed that I have spent a lot of time trying to make the weapon system work and it is working fine and is a quite cool feature, but at the same time the weapon system was NOT in the original design and it is making everything more complicated.
The original idea was to have two wizards invoking creatures and spells to beat down each other. During the development, the idea of using equipment came and I thought IT WOULD BE REALLY COOL. And just at that moment the MACK pack just came out with all its mesh changing greatness and I thought... this is a sign of the Game Designer who plays Sims with us!!! And I bought the pack and started looking all its goodies and thought it has armor! and boots! We can make equipment for everything. And then I found this amazing book on weapons and equipment looked up... poped out a comic baloon and said Thanks!!!
So I started to design a lot of things about this feature and it slowly became cooler and cooler but at the same time more and more complex. If you have a sword then you can have a mace, and a morning star, and a staff, and a bow, and a crossbow, and throwing daggers, and shurikens and sais and daggers. But then a sword is not enough and then you need a Katana, a sabre, a falchion, a two handed sword. And then you need to scale those weapons for level 2, level 3, level 4... not many of them of course, just 11 for level 1, 10 for level 2, 9 for level 3 and so on. And of course each weapon requires its own animation system because you are not going to fight with a bow the same way you do with a sword.
And then you need clothing, and armor and there are so many armor like breastplates and leather armors, and then I had to make a large table of equipment which I stole from Diablo and set a table of materials, armor progression and lots and lots of things. And create armor for level 1 and 2 and 3. And then we need jewelry and maybe special magic items like a shrunken head. And more and more...
Do you see the problem? I still havent started with the real game yet!!! This was suposed to be a feature not the main game!
So, I have decided to cut everything. I will remove MACK from the game and replace the model with the fantasy wizard from Dexsoft. I will still leave the basic elements which allow me to mount a equipment in the hand or head, but the equipment will be limited to very simple things like staffs and I will grow from there with simple things, like hats, or other things. Just forget all the equipment madness.
The second change is the environment. In all the screenshots I have always used an open map. The problem with this is that I need to create an environment for each map. A forest map, a desert map, a colliseum, a town. All these maps require alot of work and they dont provide anything to the game other than being a map. So I have contracted a 3D modeller to make a complete game board. This board will be tileable so I can make any size of map on the fly and each tile will depict one of the elements of the game (air, water, life, death, fire and earth). There will be spells to change the tiles in the board to any element.
In other words... I'm taking the game to a more abstract level. The board will be the game area in the same idea of greek gods playin in a game table in the Olympus. That saves me a lot of scenery work and opens the way for more board altering spells in the future.
Of course this require some work on the code but on the end its code to simplify the game not make it more complex.
Finally, I will simplify the organization of the files. I had some complex schema where objects shared textures and models to save memory, but on the end I have decided just to make a single folder for each model with all the files for that model inside like a self contained pack. And I really hope the Torque resource manager is as good as it looks.
I really have to thank Frank Carney and his *Why did I fail at making a game using TGE?* blog. No, I didn't read the book at all but I tried to answer to the blog and my answer was going to be something like:
- you dont finish because you get into something which is too complicated and you keep complicating it so you never see the end-.
When I was going to post that I noticed It was me I was talking about. Again, thanks Frank, and if one day the Great Game Designer put MACK in my way now he is telling me to back up and KISS (KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID).
That's all, thanks for staying with me during this long post.
And you thought I was doing nothing.
Luck!
Guimo
Disclaimer 1: MACK is an awesome product. Even if just to learn how to organize your mesh is fantastic.
Disclaimer 2: I'm catholic and even when I used the words *Great Game Designer* as a way to make this long blog more amusing, I have nothing to do with any theories on Intelligent Design or all those ideologies. I hope at the slighlest suggestion of this Deborah will take her stick and poke the site manager so he/she promptly deletes any offending post.
#2
If it better helps you realize your final goal and it helps keeps the gameplay fun/interesting without bogging down in the details, well... that's just what it takes -- welcome back indeed :)
08/27/2009 (12:24 pm)
Some times that long hard road requires stepping back for a moment, immersing yourself in another aspect of your project, and making decisions just as you described.If it better helps you realize your final goal and it helps keeps the gameplay fun/interesting without bogging down in the details, well... that's just what it takes -- welcome back indeed :)
#3
08/27/2009 (1:56 pm)
good reading, the docs are very important to prioritize and limit your game. 
#4
Good write-up, though, and glad to hear progress and planning is still in motion for Warscale. I was just wondering the other day what happened to you.
08/27/2009 (2:18 pm)
I thought I told Ken and co. never to tell an adult about the "the stick punishment." '_' Guess I'll have to revert to oranges in a sock.Good write-up, though, and glad to hear progress and planning is still in motion for Warscale. I was just wondering the other day what happened to you.
#5
I very much like the idea of environment per map. Variety is the spice of life, et al!
Not wanting to be poked by sticks, I shall now be quiet.
08/27/2009 (5:09 pm)
Design document .... yeah, I've got them ... they're called Post-It Notes!I very much like the idea of environment per map. Variety is the spice of life, et al!
Not wanting to be poked by sticks, I shall now be quiet.
Associate James Ford
Sickhead Games