Guild Wars 2: The Advantage of Pay-Once Games

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/08/31/wot-i-think-guild-wars-2/

‎"The absence of a monthly subscription seems to empower ArenaNet to concentrate on making the game as enjoyable as possible for however long each player chooses to invest."

This is the advantage of traditional pay-once games -- the developer's primary objective is to create a great experience for the player so that they'll pay for the game and tell their friends.

Whereas the primary objective of subscription and free-to-play games is retaining players for long periods of time so that they keep paying more and more small fees. Such games often prey upon frail human psychology and, while addictive, are often less fun, less interesting, and less enlightening experiences.

I'm not saying that the two objectives are mutually incompatible, but it *is* very challenging to create subscription and f2p games with both longevity and per-minute gameplay that is as fun, interesting, and enlightening as pay-once games.

We're still failing more than we're succeeding in the f2p space, but games like League of Legends, World of Tanks, and Team Fortress 2 show that it can definitely be done.

StarWright - Weapon Ammunition

As in the original prototype, weapons now require ammunition in order to fire. Each weapon can store a small amount of ammunition for itself, but once it runs out, additional ammunition must be delivered by the ship's crew. Individual crew hand-carry ammo bullets from a nearby ammo supply to the weapon.

Notice how in the above screenshot, some of the crew are carrying ammo to the weapons.

The purpose of this mechanic is to further emphasis the importance and role of the crew on the ship, and to make designing a ship for maximum crew efficiency a priority. If the closest ammo supply is too far from the weapon, then the weapon won't be able to fire as often. It will also be important to prevent narrow corridors from getting congested with too much foot traffic. Wider corridors and/or more ammo supplies may help if foot traffic becomes an issue.

The Conservative<->Liberal Programming Spectrum

Well-known programming blogger Steve Yegge just posted a long but interesting article about the spectrum of programming philosophies ranging from "conservative" to "liberal". Conservative programmers are typically risk/change-averse (often for good reason) and very performance-conscious, while liberal programmers typically favor flexible systems, concise/elegant expressions, and rapid iteration.

I'm definitely a "liberal" programmer (I don't think anyone would ever call me a risk-averse programmer), but I do favor some traditionally-conservative programming practices, though for decidedly liberal reasons. For example:

• I strongly favor static typing over dynamic typing, but I don't believe that static typing is really any "safer" than dynamic typing. The unquestionable advantage of static typing (which the article admits) is that the programming tools are far, far better. And great tools make me a faster programmer.
• I like compile-time checking and static analysis not so much because it makes my code safer (it probably doesn't), but because the more problems (or potential problems) that can be brought to my attention before even running my program, the more time I save.
• I like strong encapsulation, again not because it makes code safer, but because strong encapsulation *usually* simplifies mental models of programs, meaning its easier and quicker to think about the program as a whole. Plus breaking down problems into small, discrete, self-encapsulated parts is just a good problem-solving technique.

Google Fiber

http://fiber.google.com

Google's plan here is brilliant, ambitious, and simple.

Google understands that they can never win against Apple or Microsoft in either hardware or end-user software, so they're playing to their own great strength: online services.

Google really wants to move everyday computing entirely online, where they have the clear upper-hand. But modern broadband simply isn't fast enough to pull that off, and current ISPs have little incentive to make their current services any faster.

So Google has decided to attack the very heart of their problem, and become an ISP itself, providing internet 100x faster at essentially the same price. They're almost certainly taking a huge financial loss with this endeavor, but to them it's an investment. Google might very well become the dominant ISP in the USA, but they probably don't care as long as they spur other ISPs to upgrade their own services.

If Google can make gigabit internet ubiquitous, then they will make the home-and-office hardware and software industries, which are largely dominated by Apple and Microsoft, mostly irrelevant. Our desktops, laptops, and eventually even smartphones will become simple dumb terminals through which we access a plethora of online services, of which the dominant provider will be Google. (And possibly also Facebook.)

I find the prospect of this happening very exciting, and it would probably be the most important development in personal computing since the personal computer. I do however worry that Google, a company which I currently love, could become a big monopoly and use their power to stifle competition. That would be bad for everyone.

StarWright - Attacking

For a very long time it has been possible to command a ship to move to a particular destination by right-clicking into empty space, but there has been no way to command a ship to approach and attack another ship. That has now changed!

This screenshot probably requires a bit of explanation:

• In their simplest form, attack commands are very simple to use and work almost exactly like move commands. Simply left-click on one of your own ships, and then right-click on an enemy ship to command your own ship to fly to the enemy ship and attack it. The computer will automatically determine the ideal distance from the enemy ship as well as the ideal flank to attack from (that is, whether to fire from the bow, stern, port, or starboard sides of your ship). A red circle will display the distance from the enemy ship, and a red ghost of your ship will show you exactly where your ship will station itself relative to the enemy ship.
• As an advanced "power player" feature, it is also possible to right-click on an enemy ship and then, without releasing the right mouse button, drag away from the enemy ship. Doing so allows you to adjust both the attack distance and the direction to attack from. Thin red lines show which weapons can hit the enemy ship. The screenshot above shows an in-progress right-click-and-drag away from an enemy ship.

It is currently not possible to manually adjust which flank your ship will fire from. This feature is hopefully coming soon.

StarWright - Modeless Sandbox

This is just a quick update to show off a refinement I made to the sandbox user interface.

If you remember from my previous blog post about the sandbox, I lamented the separation between the two separate Build and Play modes -- one mode for modifying ships, the other for playing the game. As simple and as easy as it was to toggle between the two modes, it was still annoying to have to toggle between them, and the separation discouraged making very quick design iterations.

My refinement is to eliminate those two distinct modes and instead display the toolboxes for ship parts and asteroids on the screen at all times by default. (They can be hidden by clicking the X and re-shown from the Panels menu.) Ordinarily, if you have no part or asteroid selected, then you can select and command ships like normal. If you want to modify a ship, simply select your desired part on the left and add it to your ship. Likewise if you want to have fun with an asteroid, select it from the toolbox on the right. Once you're done either building ships or placing asteroids, simply right-click to get rid of whatever you had selected and you'll be able to command your ships again, just like normal.

The elimination of the two distinct modes is definitely less annoying and more intuitive too. The few people who I've had playtest the game seem to agree. My only real lament now is that the presence of both toolboxes on the left and right can crowd the screen. It's not too bad on large monitors, and you can hide either or both of them if you want, so it's not a big deal, but I still wish the user interface was less crowded.

I also recently made another important refinement to the sandbox, which is the elimination of "ship grids". Previously, in order to build a new ship, you first had to place an empty "grid" into space, and only then could you put parts and rooms on the grid. In this latest version I streamline the process by allowing you to place a part directly into empty space, without requiring a grid first. To further extend your new ship, simply select a new part and when the mouse cursor is near the ship, the selected part will snap into position.

WAY wins "Game of the Year" at Games For Change!

WAY has just won the award for "Game of the Year" at the Games For Change festival! We also won for "Most Innovative Game" and were nominated for "Best Gameplay". I'm incredibly proud of my whole team.

Source: http://www.gamesforchange.org/press_releases/games-for-change-awards-culminate-9th-annual-games-for-change-festival-in-nyc/