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Randomness: A Seed of Doubt
April 22nd 2002, 14:22 CEST by m0nty The new 1.21f patch for Civilization 3 introduces a new option to the world-building screen to incorporate more randomness into the game mechanics, which raises issues about game design and customer feedback in patches. Previous versions of the Civ3 executable generated a single "random seed", a string of numbers which is referred to by the in-game random number generator, and used it for all battles and other events within the Civ3 game which required an unpredictable element. The random number is usually entered into an equation with a number extrapolated from the PC's internal clock to generate the random number, although in the case of Civ3 it seems the random seed is the only external element introduced into the equation. What this meant in game terms pre-1.21f was that the "random" events would stay predictable after they happened, so that if your Musketeer lost a fight with a Rifleman, when you loaded a savegame back up again and went through the same movements, you would lose that fight in exactly the same way. The new patch allows the option for the program to regenerate a new random seed every time a game is loaded, so that quickload-freaks who want their Spearman to beat that Tank can conceivably keep reloading and reloading until the random numbers fall their way. Personally, I thought the original design to maintain the original random seed was a good one, because it forced savegame whores like me to come up with clever strategies to win battles and achieve in-game goals, rather than just hitting reload every time they lost a unit. Playing with the new patch with the option to change the seed at every reload makes it feel like a different game - one which took the requests of players too far. Some of the fans even complained that the options couldn't be changed for old saved games. There are some times as a developer, I would contend, when you have to disregard the bleating of the hardcore fans for their pet gameplay change and stick to your design principles. Do you agree, or is the customer always right? Should developers cave in to pressure from gamers to let them win with less effort by, in effect, breaking their game? Are savegame whores playing the game wrong? How often do you hit reload just because you lost one hit point or 5% stamina, or spent more than the minimum amount of ammo to kill the umpteenth Skaarj, shambler or Stormtrooper? |
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Topic: Randomness: A Seed of Doubt
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My point is that while it looks like they're adding more randomness into the game, they're actually taking more diversity of playstyles out by encouraging lazy gameplay. Meier has always done this - hell, there was a whole Cheat menu in Civ2 - so it's not entirely surprising, just disappointing. I mean, what sort of game would chess be if suddenly they changed the rules so that rooks could suddenly move diagonally as well? You could say that people could ignore the new rule, but it would be hurtful to the game, nonetheless. Is there a Quickload-Whore Anonymous that I can join to start a 12-step program? |
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I'd say put in a control-z and see how the hardcore right wingers struggle not to cheat. This sounds like a perfectly acceptable idea to me. Why bother with all that tedious re-loading? If you're going to cheat, may as well face up to it and go whole hog. Just as long as there's a way to turn it off, no problem. It's a single-player game, the more options for enjoyment, the better. Something else that would be good, just a toggle that says "never, ever, ever lose a battle." I assume this is something that would be disabled by default, yeah; but as stupid as I think the average person is, I can't see them being so stupid as to turn that on, and then get tired of the game too early because of it. Hell, put the information about it in the readme.txt, almost no one reads that anymore. So losing is more fun to you then? Well, without the possibility of "loss," to "win" becomes meaningless. If someone wants to reduce the experience of Civ3 to the level of The Sims, uh, sure, go right ahead and let them. "Hrrrm. I think the Pyramids would look really nice next to these Hanging Gardens. I'll just spawn 60 Caravans, bling-bling!" I mean, the ultimate goal of a game is to beat it...to win. Per-user setting. I suppose thinking goes, if one just gets to "the end" of the game without putting in the normally required effort, nothing has been "won" at all, thus utterly cheapening the experience... but it's a single player game. So it doesn't matter. At all. I'll admit to wishing that I didn't share atmosphere with these ghits who are of the opinion that cheating = fun, even at solitaire, but, hey; as long as it isn't multi-player, it's all good with me. It ought to be for just about everyone, imho. You just don't like being told what to do. Admit it.
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Did anyone here NOT use the God Mode cheat in DOOM? I didn't think so, you bunch of damn cheaters. You ruined the integrity of the game! |
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jafd Well, without the possibility of "loss," to "win" becomes meaningless. I'd have to concur, strongly. I used to love playing CounterStrike, since beta 2 up until about beta 5. By the end, a friend and I who played together constantly could pretty much take down a team of 8 on our own. Something to be proud of, in a geeky way. But one day on de_dust, I got a kill/death ratio of 30/1. What do you do after that? You can't lose anymore without handicapping yourself. Same deal happened with games like Rune, JK2, after a certain point, when you have the reactions, the knowledge, the ping, the system, you'll win almost every time. At which point, all the fun drains out of the game. What would Jesus warez?
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Time to join the professional gaming league for BIG MONEY PRIZES! Or just sell your blood for more beer money. |
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BobJustBob: Sure, just to play around with it. Did I use it to beat the game? I don't think I did. However, in Unreal I used the god mode to finish the game because I wanted to see all the levels but the game was getting too tedious to have to play through. Greg
-Swallow it all and be glad, for a shilling I've paid and a shilling's worth I'll be having! |
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A totally off topic.. None related post.. Tell me.. WTf happened to Apache? The last 3 posts from him have all dealt with his addiction to Daoc. As the Head editor to VoodooExtreme.. You would think he would have opinions on all the big releases for the pc in the last month or so. He hasn't played Dungeon Siege.. or Jedi Knight2.. and Freedom force.. 3 of the biggest releases of the last month. He kept mentioning that he would be going to purchase Jk2.. and then the words Daoc kept creeping into his posts. He said he was quitting after he hit.. LEvel 50.. like 5 days after he hit that "milestone" There he was posting about playing DAoc again. Now here is my question? WTF happened to him? This was a guy that a year ago.. played everything. Now he is becoming a poster child for Evercrack addicts. And while this addiction is going.. His employees have been the one who have had to carry the weight. On 2002-04-18 04:47:00 Some Sick fool said this.
"awww yeah, buzz baby, buzzzzz just for me." |
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I think you answered your own question. =) -chris |
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Go here and grab the BIOS Wizard program. If that doesn't work you'll have to used the BIOS Id string, if your lucky the company will acctauly have an entry at motherboards.org or one of the other id string searches (try google to find them), if not it's probably not worth the effort anyway. Well mine seems to be a phoenix bios which the site says can't be used to identify teh mobo, whatever that means. Thanks anyway. Any other suggestions? Warez is naughty, saving your game is a personal choice and the coffee was just too damn hot.
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Funny stuff --jmc
ICQ-121684 AIM-jmcdavel U=FAG0T |
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People need to stop using quicktime. :P -chris |
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devttys0 Time to join the professional gaming league for BIG MONEY PRIZES! Clans are great for teenagers, but they don't work for me. The only people I play with on a regular basis are those who don't make me wish team damage was on. And there's not enough of those in the world to form a clan. What would Jesus warez?
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Love the quicktime. Well, compared to realplayer at least. Warez is naughty, saving your game is a personal choice and the coffee was just too damn hot.
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There's been a few interviews about GTA3 PC (or rather one interview cloned three times) and it was announced that there will be no multiplayer, and apparently no first-person mode. Suck. But one feature that has me excited is a replay mode with saveable replay movies. I love replays. I still have a batch of replay movies from Carmageddon 2 that I sometimes watch. But anyway, they say that the replay movies are limited to the last 30 seconds. I was wondering: is there a technical reason for this? It seems that the replay length should depend on the memory available; that's how the the Carmageddon games handled it. My digital camera does that too -- only 60 seconds, no matter how big the Flash card is. Can anyone who knows more about this than me explain it? |
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GTA3 without MP isn't even worth warezing. Get creative or get the hell of my internet. What would Jesus warez?
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GTA3 without MP is still the best game released last year. If you don't have a PS2, and you're avoiding the PC release because of a lack of MP, then more's the pity for you. -chris |
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I finished the PS2 version, so what the hell does the PC version have to offer? Oh, right, jack all. Pass. What would Jesus warez?
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It's called a port. What did you expect? --jmc
ICQ-121684 AIM-jmcdavel U=FAG0T |
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I bet you think Halo will have all sorts of PC only special features too right? --jmc
ICQ-121684 AIM-jmcdavel U=FAG0T |
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So pass. =) If it comes down to a question of time/money, and Rockstar decides that they won't make enough of the latter to justify the former, then they're not going to add multiplayer. I don't think they're expecting anyone who played through and finished the PS2 version to buy the PC version. That's not why companies make ports. -chris |
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Quicktime sucks. Although I have it installed on my system, all I can see of a Quicktime movie in IE is a tiny white rectangle with coloured geometric figures inside. <sob> Kittens fucking burn.
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JMCDaveL The point is, anyone who wanted to play/see Halo or GTA3, probably has by now ... how many sales can possibly await these games on the PC platform? Halo may do alright with proper multiplayer support, but GTA3 ... no multiplayer? What's the incentive to buy it? I don't get their logic. I'd bet money they won't even up the res on the textures ... it'll end up like the MGS PC port ... a straight, direct port. Blah. WoT?
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JMC I bet you think Halo will have all sorts of PC only special features too right? I'd lay odds it's going to have net multiplayer, and that's enough reason to at least take a look at it. crash So pass. =) I assure you, I'm passing water all over Rockstar's formerly good name. What would Jesus warez?
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I'll buy Halo for the PC because I won't be buying an xbox anytime soon. As for GTA3, you all might shun me for the leper I am but I thought it was just o.k. Maybe I'm too used to PC games but I played it for a couple of days and haven't touched it since. Warez is naughty, saving your game is a personal choice and the coffee was just too damn hot.
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I just figure I'll buy GTA3 for my PC if a decent mod scene springs up around it. I'd love to see new car/skin/weapons, even new cities and missions. All of which could be done if Rockstar is smart about it. Florida is the New Nazi FuckMonkeys.
-LPMiller (warzed quote, used without permission) |
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I have a PC but no PS2 so that would be reason for me to buy GTA3. -- Martin
Business as usual. |
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You can rent a PS2 and GTA3 for a week, and it'll cost less than buying the PC version. What would Jesus warez?
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I don't have the time to finish it in a week. And my PC really sucks so I can't play GTA3 on it anyhow. Just arguing. -- Martin
Business as usual. |
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Your argument is receiving the same treatment as Rockstar Games' formerly good name. What would Jesus warez?
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You all brought up points I made in my topic submission. Luckily I made them first ;) I'm still buying the game. I just hate getting Developer Excuse A : "We don't do things half-assed". |
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So you'd rather developers threw together some sloppy multiplayer gameplay and a half-hearted attempt at decent splitscreen code or whatever, just to get another selling point. That wouldn't piss you off at all? professional philosophical level design monkey.
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You mean they don't already? "If it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic." -- Lewis Carroll
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I have never played GTA3, but due to many endorsements (some of which were written here) I am buying this game for my PC. No Multi is a let-down, but since I have never played this game, I am glad that Rockstar is porting this over for PC users like me...the ones that hate consoles. According to IGN, Rockstar has increased the texture resolution to utilize the capabilities of the PC...so my 128MB of video ram will be very content. They have also allowed mouse/keyboard combo along with the console key pad style control. "Good health" is merely the slowest rate at which one can die.
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From what I've read, they are going to increase texture resolution for the PC version. For what it's worth. "I want you to remember me just as I am...filled with murderous rage!" --Homer Simpson
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Damned lightning-fast posters!!! "I want you to remember me just as I am...filled with murderous rage!" --Homer Simpson
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#91 But will you use a gamepad? I just can't play racing games without at least a gamepad or, better yet, a wheel. I rented GTA3 on the PS2, played it for awhile, haven't gotten around to buying it... so many good PC games that come before my console obession. My name comes up in conversation when you mention teh spelin.
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#94 Wizard I don't know if I will use a gamepad...it's unlikely given the fact you are on foot at times. Some racing games are ok on gamepads...but I usually just use the keyboard. Gamepads seems to have been relegated to NHL 2002 and MAME sessions. "Good health" is merely the slowest rate at which one can die.
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Also, I spoke with Rockstar's Dan Houser over the phone today and it really just came down to the fact that the multiplayer component had a very "tacked on" feel to it and they didn't feel right releasing it in that state. from gouranga.com. Are we to believe that they had functioning multiplayer and then removed it? |
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Might want to think about a joystick. The game was designed with analog controllers in mind, your keyboard's going to be saying "hard right" each time you try to change lanes. What would Jesus warez?
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#95 Then you don't deserve the goodness of GTA3... Your buying power shall be taken from you until you realize the need for the gamepad!!! or something. Caryn, can I have a free copy of Bridge Commander?
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#96 by BobJustBob I spoke with Rockstar's Dan Houser over the phone today and it really just came down to the fact that the multiplayer component had a very "tacked on" feel to it and they didn't feel right releasing it in that state. from gouranga.com. Are we to believe that they had functioning multiplayer and then removed it? Ugh I hope that's not the case. Granted they're in the area of damned if they do, damned if they don't. If they had implemented it as a "tacked on" portion many people would be thrilled; in the same token many people would complain that it feels "tacked on". So damn. Personally, even if the mp portion of GTA3 PC had sucked, at least I could have seen for myself that it sucked. Now we'll never know if it would have been semi-fun or not. Obviously that is up to the developers to decide what is best for their game. But as a consumer I'd much rather be given the option of trying it instead of having that decision made for me. The other possibility <pulling straight out of my ass> is perhaps they're working on an expansion pack that will be more suited for MP play on the PC... One can dream, can't he? ... These aren't the craps you're looking for ...
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Are we to believe that they had functioning multiplayer and then removed it? Would that be the first time that ever happened? I remember reading something about that happening before, and I want to say it was Deus Ex, that a game had MP in but it was pulled because they could not get it to work right. Again, I could be wrong about the exact game, but I do remember that happening. |
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off topic: halo port to PC #77 by JMCDaveL 2002-04-23 08:09:04 I bet you think Halo will have all sorts of PC only special features too right? reply: JMCDaveL, I am certain that the Halo port will have at least one special PC feature that the XBox version doesn't: Mouse and Keyboard support. I might just play it. -Demo_Boy |
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on topic: cheating in single player games Remember that winning the game is only part of the fun the player recieves. The other part of the fun is just playing with the toys and looking at the graphics/etc... A previous poster said it best when he wrote that he used the godmade cheat to zip though Unreal levels that he did not have time to beat otherwise. For example the winning movie in Unreal1 is really cool and fun to watch, or to show off to friends. There is no reason that a player who paid his 30 bucks shouldnt get to see the whole game, then he can play for the "win" on the second pass. |
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Warren: The point is, anyone who wanted to play/see Halo or GTA3, probably has by now ... how many sales can possibly await these games on the PC platform? Halo may do alright with proper multiplayer support, but GTA3 ... no multiplayer? What's the incentive to buy it? i wouldn't mind playing halo or gta3; kind of want to. not bad enough to bother renting a console and spending a weekend doing it, though; i kind of enjoy playing games at my own pace. and lack of multi is hardly a deterrent, at least to me. so they've got a market of at least one. not enough to pad those spreadsheets, but hey, there is an audience. - if you can laugh at it, you can live with it.
- "Hey, how 'bout this: fuck you." -LPMiller |
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I hate the idea that I should pay $50 for a game and then be told that I'm not good enough to finish it and I will not purchase or play games like that. It's a problem I have with a lot of console games, I'm not going to spend even more money to buy a lame game shark or whatever to finish your stupid platformer because you wanted to make it insanely difficult and not allow me the option of saving or cheating. Screw that. Let people have the options and if you're too weak willed to go with the challanging-but-possible way for you to complete the game then that's your problem. They're cute, they're cuddly and jam shoots out their heads. I want 'em all!
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#104 Oh no! You pressed the button! Here comes jafd!!! "I want you to remember me just as I am...filled with murderous rage!" --Homer Simpson
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I wish I could have precision mouse aiming with GTA3-PS2. I'm stuck on that one mission where 8ball plants the explosives on the boat and you have to take out all of the guards. I simply cannot aim for shit with the dpad or analog stick. And it bothers me that I can't just cheat my way through it, say taking the Rhino over to the boat and crushing everyone. And then that moron 8ball has to go run up right away, why not wait for me to shoot them all? That makes much more sense to me. You're the new nazis.
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Eh? What button. I agree completely. Er, except for this part, maybe: then be told that I'm not good enough to finish it I'm not sure if I understand what FB is trying to say here, but people can only say the above to themselves. You just don't like being told what to do. Admit it.
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You're right not to buy games that are too hard for you to finish. If you don't enjoy a challenging game, a challenging game is not for you. Try not to sound like it makes the game bad, though. A game is NOT a movie. Not being able to win a game is NOT the equivalent of being thrown out of a movie theatre half way through the performance. They're different mediums, and incomparable in those terms. The trait of being too difficult to finish is a strength for some, and a weakness for others. As said before, without a conflict, there can be no resolution. Some play games to earn victory. Others, just to finish the game. That's not to say that PacMan is bad because it's nigh in impossible to see all 99 levels, or that FF7 is stupid because it's impossible not to (eventually) complete. It's all personal taste. As far as general randomness in games goes, the rule of thumb is that any randomness that assumes the player's skill for them, or gives them random rewards makes the game's scoring/contingancy system a less accurate portrail of skill in the game. Randomness, ofcourse, can be cancelled out by drawing the game out along a long enough time line, but sometimes it's better to have a game that can ascertain skills of players in as short a time as possible (again, this is personal preference. Some like to pick up and play. Others prefer a more drawn out game, full of surpise and lucky or unlucky scoring). Chris Crawford: Inasmuch as all games have the potential for being played in an overly competitive way, some people who are especially sensitive to the social risks of game-as-conflict refuse to play games, for they do not perceive the games to be safe. If they do play, they prefer to play games of pure chance, not so much to disable or discourage the shark as to create a situation in which winning is patently unrelated to prowess. If winning is arbitrary, social risk is eliminated and safety is restored. Which is why I'm often irritated by people who claim they are "skillful" at CounterStrike... a game with much inherant randomness (No offense Bailey/others: It's not ALL luck, but there are far better tests of raw FPS skill). Victory in a game not suited to competitive play is not victory at all. It's an inevitability, eventually. Such games do not annoy me, only those players that would claim feats of skill where lady luck was the true protagonist. Sick and tired and not impressed with shoehorning art into a profitable industry.
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