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Artists and Engineers vs. Beancounters and MBAs: The Saga

By Arclayn on January 17th, 2010 under General, Mac, PC, Technology,

Cross posted to Arclayn's Livejournal.

I present an epic tale of conflict and sorrow where great men and women do battle against their misguided rulers for freedom and principles!

Sounds like a cheesy pitch to promote the latest RPG, eh? Hehehe... read on.

A buddy of mine who lives in California USA was recently telling me about a new game called Torchlight, which is made in the tradition of Diablo. For me, this is intriguing as the Diablo series has been and continues to be (despite its ancientness) the best hack-and-slash video games ever. What's even more intriguing is that this new game is made by "ex-Blizzard employees". As the Diablo series was created by Blizzard's subsidiary studio, Blizzard North, that note caught my attention.

A few weeks later, I download a demo of Torchlight just to see if it lives up to all the fuss. The short and simple is: no it doesn't. Before I move on, I want to make one thing absolutely clear: Torchlight is a decent game, despite my upcoming scathing summary. That scathe starts out noting Torchlight's complete lack of originality. Torchlight would be borderline plagiarism of the Diablo series if not for the key fact that the development team is largely comprised of people who did work for Blizzard North, and thusly had created Diablo! Despite the developers' best recycling efforts, the game is lacking a few things. It lacks originality (can't stress this enough!), it lacks multiplayer, it lacks some polish, and except for veteran voice actress Lani Minella -- it lacks good voice acting. Torchlight is very lacking in comparison to what placed the Diablo series at the pinnacle of awesomeness. But with all its flaws, Torchlight is not a bad game. It is not awesome, but it is competent. I suspect that Torchlight's mere competent outcome was held back by lack of project funding and time, not lack of talent. I'll get back to this soon.

But this epic tale or cheesy pitch isn't really about Torchlight. Rather, Torchlight intrigued me to read about where this story has its beginnings -- the "ex-Blizzard" employees. Seems at around the year 2003, key people within Blizzard North (a subsidiary studio of Blizzard Entertainment) had a difference of opinion with the beancounters and MBA stiff-suits within Blizzard's parent company, Vivendi.

The nature of this disagreement eludes me, but it is clear that the differences were significant and the two parties couldn't find enough common ground in whatever the dispute was. My significant other suspects it was some labor contract dispute. I suspect the disagreement stems from the philosophical differences and cultural divide common between workers and business managers in the USA. Or perhaps both. Regardless, that is all speculation. What is not speculation is that many people who were key to Blizzard's success resigned and went different ways.

At my time providing IT tech support at a General Electric manufacturing plant, one thing I observed about American business culture is that the stiff-suit managers often fail to understand that workers are the lifeblood of the company. No workers equals no product. No product equals no business. It is a pretty simple concept, really. In the case of Blizzard, that paradigm gets even worse as video game developers (the workers) are highly educated and talented people. They are visual artists, musicians, writers, mathematicians, computer scientists and engineers, etc. These are not your "warm-body" work-drones. No no! Video game developers are a unique and rare breed! Angering this kind of workforce is a potentially bad idea!

I have read that the numerous resignations forced the cancellation of a "Blizzard North kind of game" and the closure of the entire Blizzard North studio. Here we have proof of what I just said: "No workers equals no product. No product equals no business." Therefore, Blizzard North becomes defunct. But where did all those people go?

Some of the people who left Blizzard North wound up forming ArenaNet and created a new game called Guild Wars. My buddy in California played this game for some time, but I felt the game amounted to very shiny rubbish. Technologically speaking, the game was marvelous. As for game design, I had no use for it. It is a clear case that "shiny" alone does not make a good game. Despite my negative opinion, Guild Wars became a popular phenomenon known for large scale multiplayer play without subscription fees. Seems today, though, that most of the bluster surrounding Guild Wars has died off, and although a Guild Wars sequel was announced two years ago... it is still missing in action.

I list Bill Roper among my most favorite video game developers ever. He is the man responsible for the success of Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo, and he was among the "key people" who left Blizzard North. After leaving Blizzard North, Mr. Roper founded Flagship Studios and created Hellgate London. I haven't played Hellgate so I cannot comment on how good or bad the game is. I have read that Hellgate has a metacritic average of 70%. That's not great, but that's not bad. Unfortunately, Hellgate ended up a commercial failure and as a result, Flagship Studios dissolved and the Hellgate intellectual property now lies in the hands of Korean game publisher, Hanbitsoft.

These days, Mr. Roper works for Cryptic Studios. He is overseeing the production of Champions Online, an upcoming MMO game based on the Champions paper-and-pencil hobby game. Supposedly, Bill Roper loved playing Champions as a child, so in the end he winds up doing what is likely a really nice job for him. Kudos!

And now we come to Torchlight's origins. Other "key people" who left Blizzard North helped to found Runic Games. Runic Games is also, in part, a studio built upon the ashes of Flagship Studios, although without Bill Roper. Runic Games was founded in 2008, and a year later they published Torchlight. A single year is pretty quick development time! And considering that Torchlight is a decent game, it says something about the talent of these developers: They know what they are doing. Given more time and funding, I expect that Torchlight would have climbed to the summit of Mount Awesome. However, considering the development tools they used, it becomes obvious that funding and time were not on their side.

Torchlight is built on a kludge variety of free-and-open-source technologes (OGRE 3D and CEGUI) and inexpensively licensed technologies (Particle Universe and FMOD). Certainly this selection of tools is not state-of-the-art like Unreal Engine 3 or Blizzard's own custom in-house development suite. The end result is a lightweight game that would have been very impressive maybe four or five years ago. However, for what Runic Games had, Torchlight does play slick and smooth and the visuals are good enough. To start with something substantially less and still come out with something competent is the work of true talent, and Torchlight is existing proof, when one looks deep down, that these guys have talent.

As for Blizzard Entertainment, the loss of Blizzard North means they are lacking many of the original talents that made them awesome in the first place. I can't say, but I want to think that the stiff-suits in Vivendi learned something from this experience as they had a lot of talented and experienced people to replace in order to keep Blizzard Entertainment successful. Afterall, game developers can't be plucked from a tree. Even so, Blizzard's main office managed to keep their momentum in the realm of awesome. Since the collapse of Blizzard North, World of Warcraft became an instant success the following year. Plus, Blizzard now has two more games on the horizon: Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3. Despite not being backed by the original talents, both games still look like they will be outstanding when they go gold!

For the fans who love Blizzard games (such as myself), things are looking up. For Bill Roper, things were shaky for a while but it looks to me that he's got a good gig now. I hope that Torchlight, despite its complete lack of originality, does well enough so that Runic Games can properly fund a real project and show the world just how good they really are. And finally, time will tell if this cheesy, epic tale has a happy ending for all.

Arclayn MoonSword

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Introducing Arclayn's Tech Bench

By Arclayn on October 30th, 2009 under General, Technology,

Cross posted to Arclayn's Live Journal.

I have a college degree in computer science. I sought the degree because of my interest in video games. All video games are run on computers and the games themselves are built by engineers as well as artists.

I really don't know how interested LTTP readers are in actual technology, but I do know that most video game periodicals, both in print and online, are full of misinformation about technology. Many publishers enjoy kicking up speculation to get their audiences excited. That helps get readership numbers up. However, no matter how "authentic" an article within such periodicals seems "true" one must remember that most of these periodicals are written by English majors, not computer experts. Often times, the information is half-correct which only makes matters even more confusing.

It doesn't help that some video game manufacturers love to play what I call the "tech spec" game. It's a marketing strategy where PR reps will talk meaningless statistics to the press in an (usually successful) attempt to excite the crowd to buy a game system. Every game system manufacturer does this to some extent. Sometimes, a marketing team will invent a cool sounding, but ultimately meaningless technology "buzz phrase" to promote their product (*cough* "Blast Processing!" *cough*).

If there is something that anyone has read about video game technology, and would like expert clarification on, let me know. I can write an article here on LTTP or make a post on my Livejournal. As I do not see direct feedback messages (that's Joshie's domain), I guess the best way for anyone to leave me a request is to leave a comment on my latest LTTP article, or leave a comment on my Livejournal.

I'm not going to make some ridiculous claim of being "truly unbiased". The irony is that kind of talk is all matter of opinion, anyway. What I will do is try to give as fair an assessment as I can. Despite my best intentions, I expect that these topics will eventually hit some fanboy/fangirl's nerve. I am not doing this to "get at" anybody. I'm simply tired of the rumor-mill driving gamers' senses for years upon years. For that, I remind everyone that ultimately it's the games that are truly important! It is why we are gamers! But for the record, I do play games on nearly every major platform, except for those that are financially out of my reach... No thanks to this global recession and my shrinking income! Also, I am a rare breed of gamer who willingly (and enjoyingly!) crosses cultural boundries to play games on both consoles and PCs! (GASP!)

In summary, I do have a professional computer technology background, so what I will do is try to have my information straight, instead of regurgitating popular opinion.

Arclayn MoonSword

P.S. Just a little fun trivia... Can anyone name from what video game devices that the two pictures are from? I admit the 2nd pic is really vague and certainly the more difficult of the two.

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A grab bag of thoughts

By Arclayn on September 15th, 2009 under General, RPG, X360, PS3, Mac, PC, Online,

Cross Posted to Arclayn's Livejournal.

I have not posted in some time, and I am not inspired to discuss any one topic in length. So today, I offer a bunch of unrelated thoughts...

Recently, the Dungeons and Dragons official MMO was relaunched as a free to play game in North America. Those in Europe, who still have to purchase subscriptions, are not missing much. I sampled the game for a few hours and concluded it is quite terrible. Why is my elf swinging a rapier like a baton? Why doesn't the dungeon master actually say something other than what is already obvious? Oh I can go on and on about what's wrong with this game, but I'd rather not. Did the guys at Turbine get anything right? The writing is good, which is a rarity among free to play MMO games. The 3D modelling and textures are good too, when not animated (q.v. rapier/baton reference). Beyond that, not much else. The boys and girls at Turbine could take more than a few lessons from Bioware and Blizzard.

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The wine project is an attempt to create a work environment within Linux/Unix that can run Windows software, including DirectX video games! While wine is not perfect, it is improving over time. I recently learned that this project is (supposedly) now working well with Mac OS X Leopard (that's Mac OS v10.5 for the Mac-uninitiated).

The notes on WineHQ's wiki regarding Macs are quite ambiguous. It doesn't help that there isn't a distributed binary for Mac, which means you have to download the source code and build it yourself. That is certainly NOT a task for just anyone, even someone who is "computer saavy". Even IT specialists (like myself) cringe at this prospect. All is not lost, however. Macports does make the build, install, and management process a bit easier, but you still have to be comfortable with the Terminal bash shell. You also need to read the online documentation very carefully.

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I'm really looking forward to Dragon Age: Origins. Bioware is to Western style RPGs as Square-Enix is to Japanese style RPGs: Win and awesome! Last May, Bioware announced that they won't be using Securom with Dragon Age!  I guess Electronic Arts (Bioware's owner/publisher) did learn a thing or three about how to properly treat a paying customer!

Arclayn MoonSword

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An Art For All Ages

By Arclayn on June 18th, 2009 under General,

How many of you, when growing up, were heavily criticized for playing video games? I mean beyond the usual, "You've been playing that game all day, go outside and get some sun!"

For me, I got it from all sides. My father thought it was a waste of money. My mother forced a two hour limit on playing games per day, even on vacations. Nearly all my schoolmates publicly ostracized me as one of them weirdos known as "geeks". One of my uncles thought that video games were a fad and should be outlawed. One of my aunts still gives me childish crap over "playing Nintendo" even though over a five year period, I spend less money on video games than she does in cable television!

Ok, ok... I'll take a pill to stop the belly-aching. {GULP} Yummy! Artificial fruit-flavored chalk!

What I'm getting at is that gamers, in many places, do not get much respect. However, for those gamers, there is vindication! A couple years ago, my dearest significant other, also a gamer, had to write a college-English research essay as a persuasive argument on one controversial topic. One of the topics available was "Are video games bad for children?" Her assignment was to take one side or the other and defend it with research attributions. After a couple months of blood (papercuts), sweat (AC didn't work) and tears (eye strain), she had enough research material to not only defend that video games are beneficial, but also show those benefits have artistic, intellectual, and cultural value!

Joshie is kind enough to allow a PDF of the research to be hosted on Late to the Party (thank you!). I invite everyone to read the paper, which can be found here, and also a link exists on my personal blog.

Arclayn

P.S. Given the blood, sweat, and tears shed, my dearest significant other humbly asks that her work not be plagiarized. Thank you.

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When is it time to call it a series?

By Brian on May 27th, 2009 under General,

I'm reminded of this particular question in recent days, having seen and/or played to completion two games for PS3: Metal Gear Solid 4 and Resident Evil 5; the latest installments in their respective series. Both of these series have been long established in the timeline of console games--Metal Gear began over twenty years ago, while Resident Evil got its start in the early days of the first PlayStation, back in 1996. Capcom and Konami have done, by and large, an amazing job with each new installment of these games, and have successfully done what can be a very hard feat in the gaming world: continue along the same story over many games, and in these cases, also over many years. Certainly with the advent of new consoles and new technologies, each successive game aspires to be better than the previous title. And almost certainly, if you've been a fan of a continuous series--ANY continuous series-- since game one, it can be difficult when it finally comes time to end the series.

I feel that, as a fan of a long series like Metal Gear or Resident Evil, once the questions and plot holes raised in the earliest games finally get resolved--once, really, all (or nearly all) the major questions and plot holes come to resolution--the series should end--no more games should be made for the series. I'm sure I'm not the only fan who thinks this--I mean, while it's nice to have more games and keep the story going, there comes a point where it becomes overkill, or the series goes in a direction that's so above and beyond what's been established that you lose fans--Dino Crisis and Mortal Kombat are a couple that spring to mind, examples of series that went to overkill. Final Fantasy, despite spitting out a new game every so often, re-invents itself with each numbered game. Every single game in the numerical series (save for FFX and X-2) are unrelated. Each game has its own unique plot; otherwise, I'm sure I'd be sick of the series by now. By inventing a new story with each game, I continue playing the series.

Most who know me as a gamer know that I value the plot of a game over any other facet. Game play, music, mechanics, graphics are all important, I admit, but for me…how good of a story does the adventure provide? Does it grip me? Move me emotionally? Does it leave me with an urge to not put the controller down? Or does it make me want to toss the game five minutes into it, like Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass? I can put up with horrible game play and horrible controls if the story's good--I'm looking right at you, Xenosaga Episode II--but, if the story sucks, all bets are off. And this is why I'm hoping that Resident Evil and Metal Gear end right here. In the latest installment of Resident Evil and MGS, the story as we know it comes to its end. Everything finally comes to its resolution in a coherent and well-presented way. The endings left me quite satisfied, with hardly anything lingering. The stories were amazing. And this is why I hope that no more games are made with these plotlines--where else can they possibly go? Everything's resolved.

Unfortunately, we know the reality of the situation. Series and franchises like these are cash cows for their respective developers, and they will be milked for every penny they can get. Final Fantasy VII, for starters, keeps getting wrung. I just hope that future games don't destroy the great stories that have kept us playing over the years and across consoles. But we'll see.

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Hello stranger. What're ya buyin'?

By Joshie on May 18th, 2009 under General,

It is with great pleasure that I welcome one and all to the best online video games blog in Saudi Arabia. In these ye ol' parts you won't find much in the way of breaking news and it's highly unlikely that we will actually put a review score on something (honest to God, it's not because we're lazy, it's just that we couldn't agree if our scale should go up to eleven). Instead we brush away the politics and fanboy arguments to concentrate on the only thing that truly matters; the pornography games.

Unfortunately, renting a beached oil tanker in the middle east as your head quarters isn't nearly as cheap as certain newspaper ads would have you believe, and as such we wouldn't quite describe our situation in the horrors of an economic downturn as "rollin' in bling". So you'll forgive us if we are a little behind the times, and don't be surprised if we discover an incredible retro game some decades after its original release. Secretly some of us might just suck at completing games in a timely manner, but whatever the reason for being a little "late to the party", it doesn't stop meaningful discussion being any less relevant.

You might even learn something. Unlikely, but it's nice to want things.

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