Ask the Developers a question or two
- Thread starter Callum Rowley
- Start date
smars
in simple words, it's much easier to to pre define a large number of planets (with todays capacity of computers and media) than to generate a large scale of variations. right?
in simple words, it's much easier to to pre define a large number of planets (with todays capacity of computers and media) than to generate a large scale of variations. right?
I think DLC and in-game unlocks for new game purchases is a really positive and friendly way of getting people to purchase new versions of games, but it's harder to enforce on things like digital download services (XBLA, WiiWare etc.) so we need to find new methods to tackle piracy on these fronts.
I think Ubisoft's recently announced service for their PC games, whereby the user has to be connected to the internet in order to play is perhaps a little brash, but I'm supportive of what they're doing as someone needs to take the brave step forwards to combat piracy in games directly (without adding annoying programs to your computer to check the games legitimacy).
I think Ubisoft's recently announced service for their PC games, whereby the user has to be connected to the internet in order to play is perhaps a little brash, but I'm supportive of what they're doing as someone needs to take the brave step forwards to combat piracy in games directly (without adding annoying programs to your computer to check the games legitimacy).
Online activation is fine as long as it works (Bioshock 2 had some niggles when I first started it up yesterday, working now though, thankfully). Its also fine if you intend to use a game on an internet enabled device, not so good if you have to use a patchy mobile dongle or are just an offline player.
A little update, see my post (111) in this thread
http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1266
A little update, see my post (111) in this thread
http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1266
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It also means that I'm not buying any of their games ever again. My internet connection is very good but it's still not 100% reliable; and that doesn't account for hardware failures (like a modem breaking or the exchange going "off-line").
Anyway, I digress. I have a question, but first some background.
I've recently started coding/developing again in my spare time. Which is great; as this year marks the first year for about 8-9 years where I've actually been motivated to do so.
A decade ago I used to do a fair bit of coding/modding because it was fun, and completely different from the stuff I have to write at work. For reasons that I don't fully understand the desire to do anything code/development related simply went away. What was really odd is that the "day job" wasn't affected at all. I was just as enthusiastic and effective as ever.
My question is this, "What do the devs think might have triggered this?".
Given that there's probably a fair bit of blurring between coding for fun in the evening, and actually working; how do you ensure that a level of enthusiam to code "different stuff just for fun" is maintained?
Or do you guys actually go do completely different stuff in your evenings (assuming you are allowed out of the offices)?
Hmmm. There's more than one question there
@ EntropicLqd
Lots of things could have caused you to lose your motivation. You may have found other more interesting things to occupy your time with, or perhaps the modding you we're doing did not provide enough of an interesting challenge for you anymore. Sometimes without a purpose or a goal things are not as entertaining.
I'm a relatively new programmer and I'm fairly motivated to programme stuff in my spare time, ultimately to improve my skills, but usually, because there are lots of things I want to try - and there is usually some design problem which I'm trying to figure out. I think it is worth looking at what you want to get out of "doing stuff for fun" - having a goal to accomplish or working on a neat project.
A colleague here spends a lot of time working on his own home automation software, simultaneously really cool and really useful.
Finding something worthwhile to work on goes a long way to helping motivation.
When you used to program outside of work what sort of things did you work on and what sort of things are you working on now ?
Lots of things could have caused you to lose your motivation. You may have found other more interesting things to occupy your time with, or perhaps the modding you we're doing did not provide enough of an interesting challenge for you anymore. Sometimes without a purpose or a goal things are not as entertaining.
I'm a relatively new programmer and I'm fairly motivated to programme stuff in my spare time, ultimately to improve my skills, but usually, because there are lots of things I want to try - and there is usually some design problem which I'm trying to figure out. I think it is worth looking at what you want to get out of "doing stuff for fun" - having a goal to accomplish or working on a neat project.
A colleague here spends a lot of time working on his own home automation software, simultaneously really cool and really useful.
Finding something worthwhile to work on goes a long way to helping motivation.
When you used to program outside of work what sort of things did you work on and what sort of things are you working on now ?
All reasonable points. The weird thing about it is that I actually have no idea what I've spent all my time doing for the last few years. Well, not entirely true. The wife and kids have kept me busy, as has playing bass in a band.
Heh awesome. Cheaper than a wife although probably less cuddly.
Heh. This will date me.
I've been scouring my HD for any remnants of the stuff I used to do without much success. From memory, I did a bunch of levels for Doom, weapons and stuff for Quake (my favourite was combining 3-Wave CTF with the off-hand grapple with my tweaked weapons). I wrote an n-team CTF mod for UT (the coolest thing about it was the ability to combine 2, 3, and 4 flag maps in the same map rotation and it would automatically change the number of teams).
Mazes. It feels like I've written lots of maze generation code. As well as bits and pieces to solve puzzles I've been given (the sort where you have to ensure that all adjacent sides have the same (or not the same) picture on.
I even wrote a text adventure engine once. And there was other stuff in C++ that I can't remember now (I had a fully licensed copy of C++ Builder version 1; still have 3.0 somewhere I think).
Sadly I don't have any of the code for any of it any more as the HD it was on died in a spectacular fashion. And I haven't written a line of C (or C++) for a decade (probably a bit over thinking about it).
Edit:Having listed all that I now suspect that my 8-9 years is probably only 5-6. It just feels like 8-9 years.
I've currently got two projects on the go at the moment.
One is a save-game editor for Borderlands that I'm co-authoring with a friend (although to be fair, currently he's done most of the coding and I've done most of the file analysis).
The other is a UDK based game. My goal is to have a reasonably polished* game by 31st December this year. It's progressing OK although I've been really busy with real life stuff the last couple of weeks. My project manager head says, "The project is slipping. Get to it", and my developer head says, "It's still on track. It'll be fine".
I did take an evening out a couple of weeks ago to work out how to index data shaped in a triangle** in a flat array. That was a lot more interesting and fun that I thought it would be.
But the big difference is that I'm not loading up an IDE or looking at code and listessly scrolling it up and down before closing it to do something else. I am actually engaging with it.
(*)It has a decent user interface, and is stable, simple, fun with no game-breaking or obvious bugs or errors.
(**)row 0 has 1 column, row 1 has 2 columns, row 3 has 4 columns, etc.
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Here's a question. Completely unrelated to the other stuff.
Why are game UI's (generally) dreadful and/or bug ridden?
Normally, the game controls are OK, but when it comes to inventory, options, control settings, etc etc, it's a completely different story.
Why are game UI's (generally) dreadful and/or bug ridden?
Normally, the game controls are OK, but when it comes to inventory, options, control settings, etc etc, it's a completely different story.
Ive got a few questions.
Having read a gamespot article, attributed to David Braben, about the quality of HE Games courses in the uk (one to which i do not agree, so far in my first year have learnt everything from c, flash, xhtml, xml, ute3 and a lot more about logarithms, algebra, binary, matrices and the functioning of a pc than i care to know!) my question is, is there a future for games developing in britain or not? I cant believe there is a lack of talent.
Also what are the devs opinions on pc games suffering because of the popularity of the console market, meaning pc games are either dumbed down or straight console ports. Is that the future of pc gaming? Is that the approach Frontier will take with Outsider and Elite 4?
And finally will i see Elite 4 before i die?
Having read a gamespot article, attributed to David Braben, about the quality of HE Games courses in the uk (one to which i do not agree, so far in my first year have learnt everything from c, flash, xhtml, xml, ute3 and a lot more about logarithms, algebra, binary, matrices and the functioning of a pc than i care to know!) my question is, is there a future for games developing in britain or not? I cant believe there is a lack of talent.
Also what are the devs opinions on pc games suffering because of the popularity of the console market, meaning pc games are either dumbed down or straight console ports. Is that the future of pc gaming? Is that the approach Frontier will take with Outsider and Elite 4?
And finally will i see Elite 4 before i die?
Howdy,
Want to elaborate on that? It's all well and good saying they suck, but what exactly do you not like about them? Is this for PC games AND console games, or a specific platform?
Cheers,
The console market has definitely had an impact on PC gaming. However, over the past few years services such as Steam (which has something like 15million+ registered users) have really kept it afloat, stalling it's absolute submission to piracy.
I think we'll continue to see genres of games reflect whether they're developed for PC or consoles (or both). We'll continue to see MMO's dominate the sector, but also the booming rise of browser-based gaming (such as Facebook games) will propel the PC market into new, more casual focused directions.
So perhaps the availability of cross-platform games will decrease and the target markets between console and PC games will continue to broaden. That's my impression on the direction things are going, but that doesn't reflect what Frontier will do with future games
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Fair point. I must remember that this is a developer question thread rather than a marketeer question thread (developers like a properly defined question).
So, my question, "Why are game UI's (generally) dreadful and/or bug ridden?" should be placed in the context of PC Games. I'll give you some examples of things I've found irritating. It's not exhaustive because there will be plenty that I've forgotten. And then at the end I'll ask the question I probably should have asked at the beginning.
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter.
The gamespy registration page will only work if you TAB between the fields in the registration form. Entering a value and then using the mouse to move to the next field would cause the value to be ignored (although it wouldn't tell you that).
Borderlands.
In some parts of the UI you can use the mouse to scroll information up and down, in other parts you have to use page-up/page-down. The inconsistency is horrible.
Unreal Tournament 3.
Had loads of redundant screens. I think they patched it out in the end, but the first screen simply said "press enter to continue". I mean, talk about needless navigation. Something else they patched out was the ASCII ordering of servers by ping rather than value (oops).
Roller Coaster Tycoon 3
Not a bug as such but something that does annoy me everytime I come across it. You can't have the terrain editing options open alongside the coaster creation options.
FUEL
Some of the UI menus (forget which ones) wouldn't work properly with the mouse (couldn't select the options), and other options couldn't be selected without the mouse.
Mirror's Edge
Press (X) to disarm your opponent. What? I'm using a keyboard and mouse; and don't even have an X-Box controller plugged in.
If I routed through all the games I've got I'm sure I could come up with several more examples where things are broken. It just seems to me that the UI's in games (and maybe PC games in particular) seem to have the UI thrown together in a haphazard way at the last minute.
Now some of the issues I've described are just down to a lack of testing. Others are more about the interface design itself (like the RCT3 one). And I've not even got onto the even decreasing lack of settings available in PC Games (e.g. Bloom, Depth of Field, Motion Blur, etc).
Having said all that, I guess my question becomes, "What are the most challenging parts of designing a user interface for a game?".
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Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of the issues you have mentioned above stem from the developer basically doing a poor job on porting the game over from console to the PC. This could be down to time and resource limits, not enough testing or simply bad design.
When developing a game with consoles as the primary platform, it’s often difficult to have the foresight to design an interface that works perfectly for both. Often developers won’t actually know that they need to move the game over to the PC till late on in development – resulting in a lack of time to properly design and implement a really good solution. This is more than likely the case for a lot of the games you mentioned above.
Designing an interface for games is a tricky business. On console games you often have a large amount of information and functions that you want the player to be able to access and use, but console controllers only have a limited number of buttons. This isn’t so much of an issue for the front end and pause menu -- as typically you’ll only be moving up and down, forwards and backwards – but for the in-game interfaces you interact with its much more troublesome. E.g. complex inventory systems, upgrades, maps etc.
In addition to this, interface designers are often designing a lot of the interface blind and in some cases; core game mechanics might not even be nailed down until late on in development. Interface proposals need to be flexible enough so that if a feature is dropped, or an additional feature added, it can easily slot into the proposed design. This problem is exasperated on large, complex games with many, many features.
All this then needs to fit into the traditional UI design principles of consistency (both controls and look and feel), usability, functionality etc. Something else to consider, is while a lot of interfaces do need to look pretty and have some nice fancy animations; the core experience –in my opinion—really needs to be quick and responsive. The correct balance between a responsive UI and a pretty one can be difficult to achieve and is something that is always being looked at (among other things, like load times, memory budgets and all the technical stuff that needs to be considered when designing and implementing these things).
I could probably go on and on about user interface jargon, but I hope this has answered your question? At least a little bit anyways =P.
When developing a game with consoles as the primary platform, it’s often difficult to have the foresight to design an interface that works perfectly for both. Often developers won’t actually know that they need to move the game over to the PC till late on in development – resulting in a lack of time to properly design and implement a really good solution. This is more than likely the case for a lot of the games you mentioned above.
Designing an interface for games is a tricky business. On console games you often have a large amount of information and functions that you want the player to be able to access and use, but console controllers only have a limited number of buttons. This isn’t so much of an issue for the front end and pause menu -- as typically you’ll only be moving up and down, forwards and backwards – but for the in-game interfaces you interact with its much more troublesome. E.g. complex inventory systems, upgrades, maps etc.
In addition to this, interface designers are often designing a lot of the interface blind and in some cases; core game mechanics might not even be nailed down until late on in development. Interface proposals need to be flexible enough so that if a feature is dropped, or an additional feature added, it can easily slot into the proposed design. This problem is exasperated on large, complex games with many, many features
. All this then needs to fit into the traditional UI design principles of consistency (both controls and look and feel), usability, functionality etc. Something else to consider, is while a lot of interfaces do need to look pretty and have some nice fancy animations; the core experience –in my opinion—really needs to be quick and responsive. The correct balance between a responsive UI and a pretty one can be difficult to achieve and is something that is always being looked at (among other things, like load times, memory budgets and all the technical stuff that needs to be considered when designing and implementing these things).
I could probably go on and on about user interface jargon, but I hope this has answered your question? At least a little bit anyways =P.
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Hi guys. EntropicLqd mentioned he was creating a game using the Unreal Devlopment Kit (UDK). What do you guys think of that software? Is there a particular one that springs to mind that's good for someone who can do all the graphics (photshop, 3dsmax) but isn't too hot on the programming side of things.
I'd like to create a game, more as a hobby rather than anything commercial, but I don't want the game to look cheap. I used to love the Shoot 'Em Up Construction Kit on the Amiga, you could do some pretty nice things with that software.
I'd like to create a game, more as a hobby rather than anything commercial, but I don't want the game to look cheap. I used to love the Shoot 'Em Up Construction Kit on the Amiga, you could do some pretty nice things with that software.
This isn't something that I have tried myself (so I am not so much recommending it as I am pointing out its existence) but you might want to have a look at Kodu in such case - available on both PC and Xbox 360: http://community.research.microsoft.com/blogs/kodu/default.aspx
It was interesting reading. It hadn't occured to me that a UI designer wouldn't necessarily know about all of the target platforms initially. UI design is a non trivial problem judging by the weight of the books that have been written about it. I'll probably still blame most of the annoyances on the publisher though
You might want to give GameMaker a look. It seems suprisingly powerful. Good for 2D games I'm told but not so good for 3D stuff at the moment.
A few non-programmer types seem to be having great success building levels and rigging controls using Kismet (one of the tools in the Unreal Engine).
I'm not using Kismet, and for what I'm trying to do I'm finding UE3 quite unwieldy. It doesn't help that I really suck at the graphics, models, and level construction side of things. But to be fair I'm probably doing the equivalent of using a nuke to cook an ant.
I'm going to have a go at modelling thanks to potsmoke's thread
http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1534
But I'd like to ask, is age a barrier to learning something new like this,
or is it a case of the younger the better.
I won't reveal my age, but, I started secondary school the year Elite came out and we didn't have programming and computer stuff taught in school to the same level that schools have now, so I missed out there.
A second question (while I think of it), where did those of you of mine
(& DB's generation although he's slightly older than me) get taught PC Programming ?
or was it a case of "we taught ourselves as we went along" ?
http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1534
But I'd like to ask, is age a barrier to learning something new like this,
or is it a case of the younger the better.
I won't reveal my age, but, I started secondary school the year Elite came out and we didn't have programming and computer stuff taught in school to the same level that schools have now, so I missed out there.
A second question (while I think of it), where did those of you of mine
(& DB's generation although he's slightly older than me) get taught PC Programming ?
or was it a case of "we taught ourselves as we went along" ?
Age by itself isn't a factor, but I would suggest that "focus" is. And to some extent talent - I am a strong believer in that everyone can learn to be good at something, but to be great at it talent is needed. But it is never to late to start. And even if one doesn't become Rembrandt it can still be fun and rewarding.
I think we taught ourselves as we went along, driven by a fascination with the subject and what we could do with it. Today there are more options - you can learn it yourself - or you can attend a course at a university (or other educational organisation) but even in this case you will to some extent have to self-learn. Modern education within the engineering fields tend to focus on theory and not (so much) practice. You are expected to do the practice on your own or on your first job.
I used gamemaker at uni. Its ok bout found it fairley limited. I never got round to doing a 3d game but that was what ide heard too. Ut3 collectors edition comes with video tutorials which ive found very useful in teaching the basics. Comes with enough meshes to get you going.
And yes the vast majority of time spent at uni is theory. You are expected to go out and buy the books/software to teach yourself and supliment your studies.