Warchief’s Treaty Games: The innovation of the Treaty Game, in which players are unable to attack each other for a set period of time, seems to be working very well. Players wanted to be free from early rushes and we forced that in the Treaty Game. We hear from our community team that over 10% of Warchiefs games use this mode. The only complaints we get now about rushing come from people playing the original Age of Empires III (Age 3 Vanilla) who can’t get other players to play correctly under agreed conventions like No Rush, No Blockade, No Towers, and Half Map. We are hoping that these irritations will subside when we publish custom multiplayer scenarios because the desired rule set can be hard coded into the scenario and prevent people cheating on their agreements.
Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties: This project keeps moving forward. Big Huge delivered a major milestone recently and testing is going on to confirm that what is supposed to be in and working is so. We are very actively involved in this project and want to be sure that it is a worthy addition to the series in every way. There is a constant flow of email back and forth between our studios and test teams, and occasional visits one way or the other.
Our test group played some head-on-head games with the testers at Big Huge and our guys won these first matches handily. Our team is very strong and has a lot more experience with the series. It was bolstered recently with the addition of Donnie Thompson, a world class player, who has supplanted Zeke Marks as our best (at least temporarily J).
Age of Empires Heaven Turns 10: Our friends at this site are celebrating the tenth anniversary of their launch by Mike “Archangel” McCart. Mike told us later that he had been working on a Civilization site but was looking around for something new when he spotted some screenshots from Age of Empires I and took the plunge. We were so impressed with AoE Heaven that we hired Mike to be our community relations representative, which he did very well for many years. Now Graham Somers does a lot of that work for us and he too is an AoE Heaven veteran.
There are now many, many sites around the world devoted to the Age series, but AoE Heaven remains one of the best. We continue to work with them and greatly appreciate all they do for us and fans of the series.
First RTS Game?: A conversation with Bill Jackson, one of our Assistant Producers, drifted to the topic of ground breaking games and he brought up an old favorite of his, Herzog Zwei, which he had heard was being called the first true real-time strategy game. He later sent me a Wikipedia link on RTS games that seems to back-up his position. Herzog Zwei (means Duke 2 in German) was a Sega Genesis game released in 1990. It’s very interesting to learn that a console game may have been the progenitor of a genre that found its greatest success on the PC. Now that RTS games are returning to consoles, including our own forthcoming Halo Wars, the circle is being completed.
Ian Fischer, Lead Designer on both Age of Empires II and Age of Mythology disagrees with this position, asserting instead that the Ancient Art of War is the first true RTS.
Check out what 1UP has to say about Herzog Zwei in their list of 50 essential games here: http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3134179
Shadowrun- Technology Changes: I have mentioned previously the rapid technology changes in our industry that create both challenges and headaches for developers and fans. Now here comes Shadowrun developed and published by our parent company, which for the first time allows players on both PCs and Xbox 360s to play together online. We don’t know how compelling this connectivity is going to be in this first iteration and we don’t know at this point how great a game Shadowrun is in its own right. But the technology of our industry shifts slightly once more with this capability and we expect to see more games support this functionality, especially those published by Microsoft, probably, because the company wants to increase the value to customers of Xbox Live. Congrats to our friends at FASA and Panorama for pulling this off.
Game Design Methods: Over most of my experience in this industry I have seen two principal methods for designing games. The most common was sort of an engineering problem where everything was planned and specified early on, and then it all came together near the end to be published. I respected this method for its organization but I felt it was almost a matter of luck if a good game resulted.
The method I learned first in board gaming and later at Microprose was the iterative method, or design by playing, where a game would be prototyped as quickly as possible and then the design would be shaped by testing and revising until our instincts told us it was fun. I have a lot of confidence in this method, which has been used for all of Ensemble Studios’ games. I believe it is the way Blizzard makes their games also.
Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo employs a third method in which he tries to create new experiences that are fun. I see this as an organic method that starts small and grows a game. He mentioned this recently in an interview with Geoff Keighley of Gamehead. He commented that he thought he could design a game like Halo but chooses not too. He said he never looks for what people want so that he can make that game for them. His method of creating experiences, moving a character and interacting with a world, has similarities with design by playing.
Considering these three methods, the degree of planning is highest in the first and decreases going toward the third. Probably budget and milestone constraints are highest and decline in the same order. It would be tempting to say that fun and entertainment probably increase going from one to three, but that would depend on who is actually doing the work (studio and lead designer). We certainly consider what gamers want and try to give it to them, and I would suggest that others like Blizzard do also.
My take is that our method, design by playing, is a reasonable compromise. We want to create games that are fun and successful within a limited development time and budgets. And maybe there are only a few Shigeru Miyamoto’s out there who have the ability and support to take their time creating experiences that are fun.
Bruce Shelley