Category: Uncategorized

Ordo Cartographicus – Map Sizes

Another quick info-dump of Relic’s map specifications. This time we’re tossing out the sizes for all maps as of There Is Only War. You’ll notice that there are two sets of sizes listed. The first is the size of the playable area, which is obviously the part of the map where HQs and resources can be located and the limits of where units are able to move. The terrain area (or whatever it’s called) is the actual size of all of the 3-d terrain that’s visible in-game; this has to be bigger than the playable area so that when you scroll to the edge of the map you aren’t looking off into the void.

You can use the sizes given to get a rough idea of just how big to make your map; if you want the time to get to the middle of the map to be about like it is in Angel Gate, for instance, make your map’s playable area 416×416. Note that map size is just a start; Calderis Refinery has one of the biggest playable areas in the game, but still feels cramped to me because of the way it vigorously funnels units around the map.

As a rough rule, I’d say pick a playable area size, then multiply that by 1.5 to get a usable terrain area size. You can go bigger with terrain area size if you want to put in a lot of details outside the playable area; see Argus Desert Gate or Angel Gate for some interesting examples. Seriously, does Angel Gate need all those burning buildings our in the city area past the gate? Can anyone even see those?

1v1 Maps Playable Area Terrain Area
Green Tooth Gorge 256×288 512×544
Siwal Frontier 256×256 384×384
Calderis Refinery 448×448 800×800
Legis High Stratum 320×384 672×768
Leviathan Hive 448×256 832×448
Outer Reaches 256×256 384×384
Green Tooth Jungle 352×320 512×512
 
2v2 Maps Playable Area Terrain Area
Calderis Refinery 448×448 800×800
Medean Cliff Mines 384×384 512×512
Golgotha Depths 320×320 576×576
Ruins of Argus 256×256 544×512
 
3v3 Maps Playable Area Terrain Area
Angel Gate 416×416 544×544
Typhon Arena 384×384 544×544
Argus Desert Gate 320×480 640×800
Calderis Refinery 448×448 800×800
Tiber Outpost 512×512 640×640
Capital Spire 256×416 384×544
Siccaris Plateau 416×448 768×800

Ante Carto, Nullum Mundus

Chat Box

FyreHaar: did you see me take a tank with my WB??
SonicRob: I did
SonicRob: Klaw!
FyreHaar: balls out!
SonicRob: yeah, you even left the shootas there
FyreHaar: I was like, fuck it! I’m killing this tank if it’s the last thing I do
SonicRob: haha
FyreHaar: I just targeted it with everything
SonicRob: now who’s making the geek act irrationally?
FyreHaar: I was raging
FyreHaar: I killed it and ran
SonicRob: yeah
SonicRob: “in your face!”
SonicRob: you gotta do that
FyreHaar: “Tanks!”
FyreHaar: ha
FyreHaar: man, watching those tanks run from the sight of my wagh was glorious

Once Again, Incomprehensible Developer Commentary Theater

Kotaku has an interview up with Capcom producer Jun Takeuchi, and while I appreciate that the man has to say things that will keep people buying the new games, he chose a really unfortunate tack to this:

“I think, while Resident Evil 4 is a great game, its appeal was limited somewhat to maniac players,” Takeuchi said. “With RE5, I wanted to bring the series to a larger audience. I think its important to do the same for the next RE.”

Ummmmmmmmm. What?

Resident Evil 4 has garnered significant critical acclaim, averaging a score of 96 on Metacritic.[12] It has received dozens of awards from various organizations and stellar reviews from various video game websites.[46] The game was considered by critics as a top contender for 2005’s Game of the Year. The game was a successful crossover hit as the new gameplay alterations and immersive style appealed to many not previously familiar with the Resident Evil series.[47] Nintendo Power named it their 2005 Game of the Year, and ranked it number 1 on their list of the “Top 20 Best GameCube Games of All Time” in their 20th anniversary issue.[39] Resident Evil 4 was ranked number 1 on IGN’s Top 99 Games of All Time list.[48] The Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine named it the Game of the Year for the PlayStation 2. Game Informer gave both editions of Resident Evil 4 a perfect score, and along ranking number one on their list of “Best GameCube Games of All Time” they named it their 2005 Game of the Year.[20] It tied with Kingdom Hearts II as Famitsu’s Game of the Year 2005.[49] Subsequently, Resident Evil 4 was named “Game of the Year” at the 2005 Spike TV Video Game Awards.[50] Also, the G4 TV show X-Play named it the greatest game since the beginning of the series in April 2003.[45]
The Nintendo GameCube version sold over 320,000 copies in North America during the first twenty days. The European release sold its entire 200,000 units during the first month. As of January 2006, over 3,000,000 copies of the GameCube and PlayStation 2 versions were shipped worldwide.[51] According to January 17, 2007 sales figures provided by Capcom, the GameCube version of Resident Evil 4 has sold a total of 1.6 million units worldwide, while the PS2 version has sold over 2 million units.[52]

I wouldn’t call myself an RE fanboy, particularly – I haven’t even played RE5 yet – but I like the games, and RE4 was great. It was a technically impressive and consistently enjoyable action title. I certainly wouldn’t call it a niche game by any means. I know that Mr. Takeuchi is just trying to hype RE5 and the surely-upcoming-at-some-point RE6. RE4 has probably sold about as many copies as it is likely to, so it makes sense to hype the newer titles in comparison. At the same time, what he saying is silly bullshit, and we shouldn’t let that slide when we see it. When developers say things like that, they are treating us like we are milling, dollar-fleeced sheep who gather to the exciting tone of their voices without pausing to listen to the content of their words.

-ssr

[h/t Destructoid]

Chat Box

FyreHaar: That anglo saxon hoard is awesome!!
Sonic Rob: tis
FyreHaar: Second Anglo Saxon hoard ever
FyreHaar: now we can compare Sutton Hoo
Sonic Rob: awesome
FyreHaar: it’s so awesome to imagine all the old english dudes
FyreHaar: so very excited!
FyreHaar: over their tea
Sonic Rob: “I say.”
Sonic Rob: /monocledrop
Sonic Rob: that’s the British version of shitting your pants
FyreHaar: for ril

Mass Effect 2: Form Follows Function

So it looks like BioWare are taking the easy way out. Rather than improving Mass Effect 2’s companion AI so that they don’t charge blindly into storms of enemy fire, cheefully shooting you in the back for getting between them and the enemy, they’ve decided to just write the companion characters as suicidal berzerkers. Time to buy stock in medi-gel. =P

It also looks like this “Subject Zero” tart is the new Vanguard party member, replacing Wrex. I absolutely loved Wrex in ME1; he had the best elevator chit chat and told great stories when you talked to him on the ship. There was none of this silly egotistical “badass biotic” posturing with Wrex; he handled his business with as little speaking as possible. Seeing him apparently replaced in the sequel makes me worry that the non-talky resolution to Wrex’ problem on Virmire has become canon. That would kinda suck; that scene was one of the parts of my Renegade playthrough that actually made me feel bad.

Finally, did anyone else see the trailer and think Subject Zero was Talitha at first? Sure, the personalities are completely different, but their histories and appearances seem similar, and you never know how people will change to get over their trauma. It seems pretty clear now that they’re actually not the same person, but it makes me wonder if maybe somone found Talitha’s little story interesting enough to bear futher exploration with a similar character.

-ssr

Is Kevin Martens Being Foolish, Or Just Bragging?

Gamasutra has an interview up with this Martens fellow from Blizzard, and they’ve pulled out one of the passages from it to entice us to read further. Let’s see what insight he has to offer:

Blizzard lead content designer Kevin Martens has told Gamasutra that the key to Blizzard games like Diablo III is simple enough: “endless iteration”.

Talking in an in-depth new Gamasutra interview, conducted as the Diablo III team begin public showcases of the long-awaited PC title, over 9 years after Diablo II‘s debut.

When asked whether “the development time has been extended to a surprising degree”, Martens made it clear that he thought this was an advantage, not a disadvantage:

“Here’s the secret to Blizzard games, and this is a secret that won’t help any of our competitors: endless iteration. We’ll take something, we’ll put it in the game.

Maybe we’ll like it when we put it in, maybe we won’t. We’ll leave it in there for a while, we’ll let it percolate. We’ll play it and play it and play it, and then we’ll come back. We might throw it all out, or we’ll throw half of that out and redo it.”

Martens believes in this constant iteration as a way to actually keep things fresh when making a game:

“It can be a long time, but it is fun to work on as well. That’s the thing that keeps you going. Multiplayer always works, and the builds are always playable. We’ve played them constantly, and it’s fun. You actually look forward to the weekly play session even though the game is still in progress. That’s what keeps us going, and that’s also why it takes so long. We’ll do it over and over again until it’s just right.”

That’s not a secret – everyone would do that if they could. Valve has said basically the same thing, for instance. I’ve worked on dozens of games by now, and they all change constantly in the course of development. Nobody I’ve worked with stopped iterating their design, trying to get closer to the ideal. They all just got too close to the set-in-stone ship date and had to lock the design down in a stable state. Iteration isn’t special; what’s special is actually having the luxury of doing it for a decade and having fans who willing to wait on you.

Even so, Blizz (and Relic, for another example) don’t try to iterate forever out of the public eye. Half the point of public betas is to put the game in front of the people who will eventually buy it and keep the hype and excitement going. Ideally the excitement will continue to percolate until it reaches a boil at public release.

If Kevin Martens honestly believes that Blizzard has stumbled onto some novel design methodology in “keep working on it until it is good”, he’s kidding himself. Given his little aside about the “secret” not helping any one else, it seems more likely that he’s just sort of swinging his dick around in print: “The secret to being as good as us? Have all the money in the world and never let anyone tell you when you have to go gold master. Suckas! Bwahahahahaha!”

This is the sort of fluff that I expect to read in a press release; it’s the gaming equivalent of a quarterback telling ESPN “We’re just going to take it one game at a time.” I don’t really want to read something this puerile in a Gamasutra interview, and I sure as hell don’t expect to see it pulled out as a featured passage in its own article.

-ssr

Ordo Cartographicus – A Humble Supplication

Are you there, Relic? It’s me, Rob.

I’ve started yet another DoW2 map, and I’m having some scale troubles. It’s hard to keep the map scale in mind while I’m placing things like requisition and power points. in the map editor it feels as though the place must be amazingly crowded, but when I open the map up in the game, it turns out that the whole thing is immense and everything is far apart.

This is actually affecting the entire map – I kinda didn’t mean for it to take so long to get from one side of it to the other. I suppose this is mostly me noobing it up with the world builder. And I guess I can always open the map up in-game and have a look. I could even take a stab at placing a couple of static soldier models around the map for scale reminders, or using the ruler splats you so thoughtfully included.

But to be honest, it’d be much cooler if you just had the world builder generate a little squad of scouts or something and had them run around the map so I could see how long it takes them from the nifty God’s-eye zoomed all the way out view.

Thanks,

-ssr