Having good music makes the game a lot better. Not only is having high quality important, having the music that matches the game is quiet important as well.
I've played some Chinese MMORPGs where they put rock-style music in there, which is not very fitting, since MMORPGs are usually quiet story-ish and lots of quests and thinkings, rock music is more suitable for Arcade games or action games.
World of Warcraft has excellent music and it's also very fitting, when you go to a grassland, you hear some drums, sounds of water and strings, where as when you go to a mystical place, the music would have earie sounds, or soothing tones.
November 08, 2010
November 07, 2010
Game Design Philosophy - Anti-Liasing
Anti-aliasing is a important aspect of computer graphics. We must see it on graphics card frame rate per second tests, to see how much anti-aliasing one could afford to not sacrifice too much performance for visual quality.
Anti-aliasing is basically how ragged the border of an object is. High anti-aliasing means the object's border is rendered more, to look more realistic, where as 0 anti-aliasing means the object's border is ugly, and very pixel-ly.
Because of the fact that anti-aliasing costs so much of graphics card process power, it is important to design the game such that it doens't look horrible at 0 anti-aliasing. Not everyone has the best 1000$ graphics cards.
Real life objects will look like 3 pixels, or 5 pixels, if the field of view is high, so it is important to not make those objects bigger, and simpler in shape, so it is easier to see, and not so pixel-ly.
World of Warcraft has done a great job of not adding too much detail that would be totally eat up by 0 anti-aliasing.
Anti-aliasing is basically how ragged the border of an object is. High anti-aliasing means the object's border is rendered more, to look more realistic, where as 0 anti-aliasing means the object's border is ugly, and very pixel-ly.
Because of the fact that anti-aliasing costs so much of graphics card process power, it is important to design the game such that it doens't look horrible at 0 anti-aliasing. Not everyone has the best 1000$ graphics cards.
Real life objects will look like 3 pixels, or 5 pixels, if the field of view is high, so it is important to not make those objects bigger, and simpler in shape, so it is easier to see, and not so pixel-ly.
World of Warcraft has done a great job of not adding too much detail that would be totally eat up by 0 anti-aliasing.
November 06, 2010
Game Design Philosophy - Sound
Sound is such a huge part of games. Visual is like the frame work of the game, and sound is the decorations of the game. Good sounds often make action games look more realistic and easier to time the button pressings. Shooting games all need great sound design, and having better sounds, would make the game much greater.
There are tons of technical tricks in making good gun sounds and how the system should run it. Medal of Honor's gun sound design is not proper, it is the same sound file played each time u start shooting, and once u let go of the trigger, it will stop. This causes the sound to be really unrealistic if u burst fire, which is a common thing to occur. Modern Warfare 2 has decent gun sounds, but it's all crispy, on purpose I think, to make it sound real nice if those shots received hit markers. The hit markers make this small thud sound, in combination of most assault rifle and sub-machine gun sounds it sounds nice.
For MMORPG games, it can be difficult to get good sounds for all spells, espeically the ones that have small fragmentations that flies around. Some poorly made MMORPG games, relatively, has incorrect programming. There is suppose to be a sound played when target is hit by something, depending what, and te sound for the launch of an attack. I've encountered some MMORPG games where they pre-rendered that and put it into a single file.
Voice in game is something that makes newer games better than the previous ones. Now that we no longer use 8 bit speaker to play our games, it's time to stop the ancient way of making game, which is to have a 8 bit music on loop throughout a scene or boss level. When players are playing games, they are often in front of a computer, using the crap out of their eyes and fingers, to unstress those loads, it'd be nice to have good voices in game to help them, to relieve the stress on those areas. Warcraft III and Starcraft II have that, in both games, when your town is under attack, you'd hear a voice saying "We are under attack!", which is good, and players enjoy hearing those well made voices.
I see many korean or asian games lacking in sound design, I hope they change that, as having good sound is so important.
There are tons of technical tricks in making good gun sounds and how the system should run it. Medal of Honor's gun sound design is not proper, it is the same sound file played each time u start shooting, and once u let go of the trigger, it will stop. This causes the sound to be really unrealistic if u burst fire, which is a common thing to occur. Modern Warfare 2 has decent gun sounds, but it's all crispy, on purpose I think, to make it sound real nice if those shots received hit markers. The hit markers make this small thud sound, in combination of most assault rifle and sub-machine gun sounds it sounds nice.
For MMORPG games, it can be difficult to get good sounds for all spells, espeically the ones that have small fragmentations that flies around. Some poorly made MMORPG games, relatively, has incorrect programming. There is suppose to be a sound played when target is hit by something, depending what, and te sound for the launch of an attack. I've encountered some MMORPG games where they pre-rendered that and put it into a single file.
Voice in game is something that makes newer games better than the previous ones. Now that we no longer use 8 bit speaker to play our games, it's time to stop the ancient way of making game, which is to have a 8 bit music on loop throughout a scene or boss level. When players are playing games, they are often in front of a computer, using the crap out of their eyes and fingers, to unstress those loads, it'd be nice to have good voices in game to help them, to relieve the stress on those areas. Warcraft III and Starcraft II have that, in both games, when your town is under attack, you'd hear a voice saying "We are under attack!", which is good, and players enjoy hearing those well made voices.
I see many korean or asian games lacking in sound design, I hope they change that, as having good sound is so important.
Game Design Philosophy - Game Names
Having a good game name is important. World of Warcraft is an example of an excellent game name. It is direct, understandable, attractive, it lures the players right in. - "Whoa, it is a world!" - "And it is about craft of war! How cool!"
Maplestory is also a good name. Stories are often friendly and childish, may I say. Maple is warm and calm. This all matches the actual game play of the game - Maplestory. A terrible name of a game would be Devil May Cry 4. I know it is a Japanese game, and the translation may I have gone wrong, but seriously, the point of translation, is to translate, not to cut the title into 3 sections, and translate those individually then piece them together. That's like cooking milk, flour, sugar, and then add them together to make it into bread.
Red Alert is also a good game name, it fits what the game is, and it gives player this initial burst of emotion, which will make them want to play and give them an easier time talking about the game or thinking about it on their own.
Maplestory is also a good name. Stories are often friendly and childish, may I say. Maple is warm and calm. This all matches the actual game play of the game - Maplestory. A terrible name of a game would be Devil May Cry 4. I know it is a Japanese game, and the translation may I have gone wrong, but seriously, the point of translation, is to translate, not to cut the title into 3 sections, and translate those individually then piece them together. That's like cooking milk, flour, sugar, and then add them together to make it into bread.
Red Alert is also a good game name, it fits what the game is, and it gives player this initial burst of emotion, which will make them want to play and give them an easier time talking about the game or thinking about it on their own.
Game Design Philosophy - Marketing
This will be the beginning of a new set of blog posts, it will focus on game design philosophy. The way to achieve good game design, tips and tricks in game design and analysis of current gaming, and much more.
Marketing, is an important part of any game, but is often forgotten or ignored. Seems to me that most game designers are too stuck in the work they do, they fail to step back and really look at what they do. Sure making a great game is important, but only doing it blindly is not the goal at all. Good marketing brings revenue, spreads your games, but great marketing may shatter the world apart. Marketing is kinda like telling people words, if you tell the right words, you get things in return, sometimes, great great things. It has a huge wide range of awards. You may get a few hundred bucks and their appreciation, but great marketting could sometimes bring their faith and soul into your game. Imagine that!
The current great marketing method World of Warcraft uses include recrut-a-friend-and-I-will-reward-you, Facebook ads, Google ads, YouTube ads, which are all excellent excellent marketing methods.
I know the word marketing is close to advertising sometimes, but whatever.
Marketing, is an important part of any game, but is often forgotten or ignored. Seems to me that most game designers are too stuck in the work they do, they fail to step back and really look at what they do. Sure making a great game is important, but only doing it blindly is not the goal at all. Good marketing brings revenue, spreads your games, but great marketing may shatter the world apart. Marketing is kinda like telling people words, if you tell the right words, you get things in return, sometimes, great great things. It has a huge wide range of awards. You may get a few hundred bucks and their appreciation, but great marketting could sometimes bring their faith and soul into your game. Imagine that!
The current great marketing method World of Warcraft uses include recrut-a-friend-and-I-will-reward-you, Facebook ads, Google ads, YouTube ads, which are all excellent excellent marketing methods.
I know the word marketing is close to advertising sometimes, but whatever.
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