Posts tagged StoryTeller

It’s episodic content in video games. Nobody wants to talk about it. Everyone wants to do it, but in the end what it winds up being is marketing fluff to sell in the short term, and disappoint in the long term.

Duke Nukem is a minor example of this trend. A more immediate example is Half Life. Gabe Newell gives interviews, and between the vagaries of Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress and Portal 2….the thing he wont talk about in any substantive way is Half Life2 Episode 3/Half Life 3.

The problem is bigger than just Valve. It affects smaller studios and indie devs too. I think the issue comes down to a rather simple thing: the line between episodic, sequel and DLC, and update/expansion is horribly horribly blurred. I think some studios do this deliberately, but I think a majority of them don’t get or have not defined “episodic” to be something in its own right in terms of their content. Thus, you wind up with people happy about Portal 2, but lamenting that they don’t know whats happening with Alyx and Gordon Freeman. I am putting this out there now, because…the lack of definition here is a wonderful opportunity for the underground and indie game studios.

Gabe mentioned that doing episodic content like Episode 1 and 2 would “speed” things along in terms of releases. But, to be honest it’s pretty clear they never ever defined what episodic meant in terms of half life. To be blunt: Gabe slapped a half ass label on something he did not, or would not define and the fans are honked. Rightfully so. I want to also say, I really don’t blame Gabe for this. I think game design and development…as well as game business in general often fosters a lot of short term thinking for the sake of expedience. Its a culture thing.

Nobody gets as upset about MMORPG expansion packs. They come when they come. There are usually always things to do while waiting. But the idea you have to wait several years for expansion is also very outdated as well.

DLC is a fine idea. But again, I think it means different things to different people. I recently bought Blade Kitten on steam. It was amazingly short. A bit shorter than I expected for a $17 price point. It’s frame capped at 30 fps, cell shaded…and while I did enjoy it, I cant begin to tell you the disappointment I felt when I reached the end of it…after much less than a day. I said to myself: this is what happens when you rush to market in the hopes of capitalizing on DLC later. While we here at Double Cluepon believe strongly that shipping is a feature, we also believe punching customers is wrong. I definitely felt a bit punched by Blade Kitten. That feeling influenced some of my later opinions about functionality as I went back through the game again. Developers, especially underground and indie houses need to be aware of that. They are not, either by choice or by mere ignorance. It’s a really sad thing.

But, let’s get to the point; episodic content means something very specific, at least for us. What it means for us is: episodes, content delivery, with expedience. Many MMORPG’s cant meet this demand, because of testing and debug cycles. C++ and other major languages just wont allow for it. Because often times the new content is bundled in with new functionality.

FPS’ like Half Life cant meet this burden, because again: debug and testing. Game Studios often times, again, bundle in new functionality with new content. Half Life: Lost Coast was released to gauge and sample player opinions about this. Since its release, there has been nothing but some matte painting concept art of HL3. What happened to short, controlled episodes?

Until someone sets up a modular system, that separates content from features, true episodic content cannot be a reality. Bold statement, I know. But let’s look at the best example of real episodic content: Television. Imagine if you had to wait three years between season 1 and 2 of LOST, or Law and Order. And the reason was, they had to internally test a new lens for a camera to make sure it would do exactly what they wanted it to do. Television would be markedly different in the US.

Using the word episode in your game title does not mean you have episodic content. The sooner everyone realizes this, the better gaming will be. I say this because true episodic content, at least how we define it is…

• Rapid Content Creation.  – You have to be able to develop story, and events rapidly.
• Rapid Content Delivery – You must be able to deliver your aforementioned content rapidly. bi weekly cycles would be great. 30 day cycles would be fine. Anything more than 3 months and your dawdling.
• On the Fly changes, while not regular, are possible – Simply put, you have to be able to change the world on a whim sometimes. Life is more fun with spontaneity.

To do the above three things absolutely eliminates beta testing because of new code, or features. Those things have their place. But when it comes to delivering the main piece of story driven games, the CONTENT…function and feature has to be separated. The time has come in game development to let the coders and the content creators: writers, artists and such…diverge a bit. Let the coders do what they do, but if a story teller has to bug a coder to put a new piece of content in…something is wrong.

Let me just close here by saying: Emerald Kingdom will be doing episodic content.

Smiles and Kisses,

Az.