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zombiescantfly · 6 years ago

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Words About Games - Unreal Tournament 2003 (Epic Games, 2002)

The phoenix is a mainstay of mythology. Its cycle of death and rebirth in explosive flame makes for a grandiose inspiration, symbolizing runaway success from catastrophic failure. Unreal Tournament 2004 was that stunning pillar of fire giving way to immortal majesty, but Unreal Tournament 2003 wasn’t really a horrible crash to death, or the agonizing crawl to the grave, it was more like if the metaphorical phoenix just kind of stumbled over a rock or something.

Unreal Tournament 2003 is a difficult game to talk about without also launching into a discussion of UT2004, but I'm going to do my best. Be aware, though, that as I want to save longer explanations of things for the UT2004 essay itself, this one might come off as a little meaner spirited than I truly feel, and certainly a bit abbreviated.

Unreal Tournament 2003, so named to evoke a parallel between sports games like Madden or NBA 2K, was the followup to the first Unreal Tournament. Released September 30, 2002, the game brought with it sweeping changes to the UT brand, some of which remain contentious to this day. Double jumping and wall jumping were in, the Ripper, Sniper Rifle, Enforcer, and Impact Hammer were out and the Assault Rifle and Lightning Gun were their replacements, weapons were nerfed across the board, AI was improved, the Tournament ladder itself was given a facelift and a bit of a metagame aspect, more lore was rampant, Domination was out, Double Domination was in, Bombing Run made its debut, and most heinously of all, Assault was out.

UT2003 is not a horrible product, nor was it even a bad one. It was divisive at the time, and the changes it made remain so, but it paved the way for UT2004’s unbelievably perfect followup, and so we must acknowledge its good points.

I probably spent just as much time online in UT2003 as I did 2004, and believe me, that is a considerable amount. Unreal Tournament 2003 was the new hotness - it looked great, it played both familiarly and unlike anything I'd played before, and it scratched every itch 10-year-old me wanted out of a sequel to what had instantly become my favorite game. It's just that UT2004 came around a year and a half later and scratched more itches than I knew I had.

But I said this would be the negative one, so let's talk about what it did wrong.

I'll address the most obvious thing first: yes, many UT99 fans hated double jumping and wall dodging. I did and do not, I think it adds a ton to the combat, and the real issue is that projectiles were nerfed along with its inclusion.

Double jumping is, as the name implies, the ability to jump again in midair, helpful for reaching slightly higher up or doing a minor bit of repositioning in midair. Wall dodging or wall jumping is the ability to double-tap a movement key while touching a wall in midair to dodge off of it the same you would if you were on the ground. You got a single “wall dodge charge,” if you want to think of it that way, per instance of being airborne, allowing you to jump, doublejump, walldodge; or jump, walldodge, doublejump, whichever you preferred. This allowed players to cover a fair bit of distance in midair, and was the leading factor in why the nerf to projectile weapons was so maligned.

Hitting a moving player with a rocket directly was already fairly challenging at anywhere past mid range, and UT99’s rocket launcher did a hefty chunk of splash damage to compensate. UT2003’s altered movement scheme with its new emphasis on midair movement and rapid direction changes made hitting someone with a rocket directly even more difficult, and damage was reduced for both a direct impact and splash. So on and so forth for the flak cannon and biorifle, but not the pulse gun - now called the Link Gun, but we'll talk about that change in the next one.

But projectile weapons weren't the only guns that felt the cushiony caress of the nerf bat, because hitscan weapons had their own slew of changes. See, in UT99, the shock rifle and sniple rifle awkwardly occupied a very similar role. Both could kill a player in two hits, but the shock rifle had a significant knockback effect (and the famous shock combo of course) while the sniper rifle had the ability to headshot for an instant kill.

UT2003 solved this in its own special way. The shock rifle’s primary fire damage was reduced from 60 to 45 per shot, necessitating three shots to take someone down. Its fire rate was also more than halved.

The sniper rifle, on the other hand, actually became slightly more deadly. Or should I say the Lightning Gun did. One of the things I mentioned in the UT99 essay was that the game went to great lengths to make weapon fire highly visible. Of course, the tiny particle of a sniper bullet impacting doesn't accomplish that. Sometimes gameplay health needs to come before proper theming, and the devs wanted something more visible that would make sitting in one spot with a sniper rifle less attractive of an option. Enter the Lightning Gun. It's a sniper rifle, for sure, but one that leaves a highly visible trail of electricity lingering in the air after each shot that points right back towards the shooter. And that wasn't the problem. The problem was that it took ALMOST TWO SECONDS to let you fire again! In an arena shooter! The shock rifle got off easy compared to the atrocities meted out upon our poor ranged precision weapon!

But it did 70 damage a shot so I guess that's okay. It wasn't, though. UT2004 increased its fire rate, spoilers for next essay.

Right, weapon nerfs. Ultimately I think they were mostly fine, and helped better define how personal the fights could get. Time-to-kill in games is a rough thing to balance, and it can end up feeling really not great if it's too far in either direction. You want every weapon in the arsenal to feel unique, so you reduce the damage overall to have a more varied spread, but then obvious better choices arise, like how over half of Quake’s arsenal is ignored. It's why games like the various Calls of Duty have moved into making the lethality of CoD 4’s Hardcore mode the new norm - they keep putting more and more weapons in, and the simplest way to balance them is just to make each and every single one kill someone in four shots. It's a matter of balance that will never be perfected, and it's why I have a hard time actually saying if UT99 or 2004 is my favorite. 2003 and 2004 are slower, if just by a little bit, but I think it better allows the weapon design to shine as well as letting people get creative with the way they move through the maps. But at the same time, I do think some nerfs were too harsh, and maybe, you know, the rocket launcher didn't need to lose almost 20 damage on a direct hit after all.

Turns out game design is complicated, who knew.

Another victim of these changes was our poor friend the Ripper. Oft ignored for its unpredictable demeanor, the ripper was ripped from the game without a true replacement, leaving other weapons to shuffle to the left one spot in the loadout order. 6 became 5, 7 became 6, and so on.

Also the Enforcer got axed and was replaced with the Assault Rifle, a decidedly boring and woefully underpowered substitute whose grenade-launching capabilities could not fill the void an actually viable starting weapon left.

Sadface emoji

More bad things, though. Domination and Assault were both removed, though Double Domination replaced the former. Double Domination is a terrible replacement and a worse gamemode. It's really, really bad. I'll save my full explanation of it for the next essay, but know now that it was aggravating, slow, obnoxious, and just plain boring. Bombing Run is essentially single-flag CTF, and was perfectly fine.

Also removed alongside Unreal Tournament’s most famous gamemode was its most famous map, Facing Worlds. Face in UT99 quickly became, well, the very face of the game in many regards. It offered a bit of every style of gunplay, had great music, and had a ridiculously inventive and impressive visual design. And it wasn't in UT2003. Instead they gave us Face 3, a perfectly good map on its own that kept the same gameplay and visual design philosophy, but was a bit bigger and had more going on. There's nothing wrong with Face 3, it just wasn't Face.

Coming along for the ride out of the series was the classic deathmatch map Deck 16, easily one of the best maps for the game. It had a strong focus on vertical space, a simple layout with generous sightlines, and made room for nearly every weapon. Deck was a great map for anywhere from 1v1s to even five or six players to a team. And it wasn't in UT2003. There is a pattern to this game, and it wasn't a good one.

So, with Assault gone, Domination gone, Face gone, Deck gone, the Ripper gone, what did UT2003 bring beyond new movement options and a modified CTF-alike?

Well, 37 brand-new maps to start. Fewer than UT99’s 50-strong launch, but arguably of a higher overall quality. Lots of UT99 maps were quirky experiments made by the devs to showcase this or that aspect of what their shiny new engine could do. It had a ton of incredibly memorable and inventive maps as a result, but nobody really puts Galleon or Pyramid on the same list of noteworthy Unreal Tournament maps as Facing Worlds, HiSpeed, or Deck 16.

By 2002, the general public had started to really understand this whole “3d gaming” fad, so maps didn't have to wow players with gimmicks and could focus on being, you know, well designed spaces that compliment the game's design.

Unfortunately, as I look over the list of maps in UT2003, even including the 16 added across two free bonus packs, I'm not seeing many that I'd actually consider my favorites. Granted, it's not as if none of the maps are good, and I actually think DM-Asbestos and CTF-Maul are quite strong maps. Series veteran DM-Curse does make a return, however, in its third iteration. It's a solid map, I'm glad they stuck with it.

Beyond that, there isn't much I want to say about the maps that I won't talk about more clearly in the UT2004 essay in March, so I'll leave you with a parting thought. Unreal Tournament 2003 came out ten months after Halo erupted onto the console scene, and had a full year before that game was released on PC. Halo brought with it a handful of things that got people very excited, and which UT2003 lacked. It sort of wallowed after its initial release as most people who preferred UT99 simply went back to their existing communities, some jumped ship to the upcoming Halo or Call of Duty 2. A dedicated community did arise, of course, but with UT2003 not being everything people wanted it to be and relatively lackluster overall, it prompted a familiarly grand response from Epic.

Sadly, though, with the combination of lukewarm reception and the sudden offering of other big name shooters with just as much clout, the genre was expanding, and the arena shooter was no longer the de facto experience. It would hang on for a good while, helped in large part by the upcoming Unreal Tournament 2004, but the times were inevitably changing.

Next time we'll take a close look at the immediate sequel to this pretty okay but not fantastic game, which itself is pretty fantastic at the worst of times and a perfect experience at the best. Lofty praise, certainly. Come back in two weeks and see if I mean it.

#words about games #videogame #game #review #unreal #Tournament #ut #ut2003 #fortnite #unreal retrospective

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greenwichgamedesign · 6 years ago

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Rules of Play - Salen & Zimmerman

Notes: Chapters One and Two

Iterative Design, play based design process

Designers must learn through the process of design. Training in game design involves creation of games.

Iterative design emphasizes playtesting and prototyping: a method in which design decisions are made based on the experience of playing a game while it is in development.

In iterative methodology, a rough version of the game is rapidly prototyped as early in the design process as possible. This prototype has none of the aesthetic trappings of the final game, but it begins to define its fundamental rules and core mechanics ---> interactive prototype, not a visual prototype.

The prototype played, evaluated, adjusted and played again allowing the design team to base decisions on the successive iterations or versions of the game. Iterative design is a cyclic process that alternates between prototyping, playtesting, evaluation and refinement.

The prototype should be playtested no later than 20% of the way into a project schedule. Early prototypes are not pretty, in fact they’re butt-ugly, and more of an interactive slide show.

- extensive storyboards, design documents etc

all of which become invariably obsolete before any actual game production begins. This is because the play pf a game will always surprise its creators, particularly if the game is unusual or experimental. It’s important to remain flexible and have fun.

Richard Garfield: Sibling Rivalry

Frank Lantz: Ironclad

Kira Snyder: Sneak

James Ernest: Caribbean Star

Board game designer Reiner Knizia

game exercises: game creation, modification and analysis

Programming is not the equivalent of game design. The computer can be used to make games that aren’t digital, a paper-based game design could be later implemented within a digital medium. It requires a fusion of skills and interests, as well as management of the balance between game design fundamentals and media production skills.

creation

Information Manipulation - Exquisite Corpse - Sensations of Play - Engendering the Metagame - Site-specific Resistance - Open Source Game Systems

“Choose design parameters wisely - these provide limitations that help focus, allowing a coherent deisgn idea. Beware of the little or no parameters, over ambition and under-organisation.”

Modification - further than the focus of parameters of a game, by using an existing game, design parameters are implemented to alter the game via design. This is with focus, careful selection and iterative design.

Types of Design Goals

Change the rules. Destabilization. A shift in scale. Transporting the core mechanic. New depictions. The rhetoric of the lottery.

Analysis

Play every type of game - cultivate awareness + critical sensibility. Analyse every single game - informally or formally written, with a conceptual focus not a descriptive movie review.

Cybernetic Analysis: Games as a Cybernetic Systems

The emphasis of this analysis is on identifying cybernetic feedback loops within the formal structure of a game. Select a game and find at least one feedback loop that contributes to the overall system of the game. Identify the censor, comparator and actuator in the loop and whether it is a positive or negative feedback loop. How does the feedback loop affect the overall game play experience?

What would happen if it were taken out of the game?

How could the rules be changed to exaggerate the effects of the feedback loop?

What is a different feedback loop that might further improve the game?

Narrative analysis:

Choose and study a game, as a system of narrative representation. Identify elements of embedded and emergent narratives, as well as discuss the different forms of narrative descriptors used by the game. For example, what role do setting, plot and character play?

What about the visual design, the title of the game, the spatial construction of the game world?

Social Interaction Analysis: Games as Social Play

Concepts from schema on social play to analyse a game. Identify social play phenomena and describe how these elements contribute to meaningful play; player roles, player community, core social mechanics, metagaming, forbidden play.

Cultural Environment Analysis

Select a game that blurs the boundaries of the magic circle to operate as a cultural environment. Address - what social, architectural, narrative, or other aspects of the game overlap with the world outside the magic circle? How does the blurring of the boundary support meaningful play? In what ways does the formal structure of the game keep the game contained? What cultural rhetoric are reflected or transformed by the play of the game?

Unit 1: Core Concepts

“He who hopes to learn the fine art of the game from books will soon learn that the opening and closing moves of the game admit of exhaustive systematic description; and that the endless variety of moves which develop from the opening defies description; the gap left in the instructions can only be filled in by zealous study of games fought out by master hands.” - E.M. Avedon. The Study of Games

Designs, systems and interactivity - Meaningful Play

*meaning

*designed choice

*action

*outcome

*discernability

*integration

“play is more than a mere physiological phenomenon or a psychological reflex: beyond confines of being purely physical or purely biological activity. It’s a significant function, transcending the immediate needs of life and imparts meaning to the action. All play means something.” - Johann Huizinga, Homo Ludens

Homo Ludens meaning Man, the player

According to Huizinga, play and games, which have been maligned in (recent) history as trivial and frivolous, are in fact at the very center of what makes us human.

“Play is older than culture” which makes it seem inherent with primal instincts. Play in Huizinga’s book is linked to the visceral, combative nature of contest directly to war, poetry, art, religion and other essential elements of culture.

Play ---> act of communication, a ‘sense’ or sensory trait in humans, in a constant state of transformation, spiritual, creating an artificial space beyond that of ordinary life, grows with meaning

Meaning in games ---> learning, creating, improvisation, shifting dynamically of identities,shifting dynamically of identities, developing from interaction, building relationships, storytelling

Meaningful play occurs when the relationships between actions and outcomes in a game are both discernable and integrated into the larger context of the game. Creating meaningful play is the goal of successful game design.

meaning - in the sense of the intention of the creation of the game. construction of narrative + purpose in the game.

- that is generated through playing by the user. the experience of inhabiting a well-designed system of play.

discernable + integrated ----> indication of how the whole game is affected by immediate action. Helps build a larger idea of what to aim for and identify the ‘big picture’.

discernable ----> indicates a meaning to actions and gives an omnipresence to the player: immediate significance immediate visceral feedback.

design ----> visual appearance, making something, changing something pre-existing for a preferred outcome, an experience, transformation, value and significance

Semiotics

Ferdinand de Saussure: Swiss linguist of the 20th Century

Originally ‘semiology’ study of how meanings are made.

example of a sign, smoke as a sign (to the concept of fire)

meaning results when a sign is interpreted ---> context shapes interpretation

#rules of play #zimmerman #game design #gaming #theory #programming #semiotics #semiology #designer

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