So war3 came out a few days ago, people are hailing that it once again has Blizzard''s Polish....I have the game, and played it and without starting a flame war I feel the game is pretty darn good again. But I am curious, what is exactly meant when people talk about polish? I mean what goes into "polishing" something up? Why is it only a handful of games or game companies are recognized for polishing their games. I mean how could one add polish to a game, say a tetris clone? This might be a dumb question, but I am curious to find out more about what exactly is meant by all this and why we dont see it in more games? -Shane

look at the install CD... notice how nice and shiney it is?

When someone says "polish" in reference to games, they mean a well-done addition that doesn''t affect gameplay, such as the cutscenes in "Warcraft III", or a refinement to gameplay that makes the game better, such as Lara automatically targeting her nearest opponent and visibly pointing her arms in "Tomb Raider."

Unforunately, you mostly hear about "polish" in the phrase "polishing a turd," which happens too much in the game industry. Polishing a turd is when you start caring about the extras more than you do about the gameplay. Sierra''s "Outpost" is a wonderful example of that. Everything in the game had nearly 100 stats related to it...of which, only about 5 really meant anything.

I give you "Extreme Paintbrawl" as an example of what you get without any polish anywhere. The game had semi-polished menu screens and character graphics, but shipped without a single-player game or a multi-player game (the entire game was made in 10 business days).

http://www.ugr.net/reviews/pc/paintbrl.htm



RomSteady - Able to leap off tall buildings in a single bound

My approximate definition would be: a game has polish when all of the media in the game is good, the animation is smooth, the interface is logical, and (most importantly) the game is entirely bug-free.

This article has a small blurb on polishing a game. It''s an older article but still relevent (perhaps even more than ever considering the size increase in the GDNet community since the time of its writing).

But that''s not the type of polish you''re asking about. As mentioned, Blizzard is renown for the polish on their games. It''s a well documented fact that Blizzard''s attitude towards releasing a game is: "It''s ready when it''s ready, and not a minute sooner."

This is a far-reaching and significant strategy. It''s also a mind-set that Blizzard can afford to take due to their position of power (multiple game-of-the-year awards will do that to you, especially when they''re all coupled with best-seller awards).

So then, what is polish? It''s hard to explain, but can you not detect that certain je ne sais quoi when you install a new Blizzard game? There''s just something about their products that seems to consistently put them ahead of the rest. Here''s a partial list:

-Strong storyline
-Consistent, intuitive, useable interface
-Relatively few bugs
-balanced gameplay
-Up-to-date companion web site
-Quick patch releases when necessary
-Multi-platform support
-Strong multiplayer gameplay (if applicable)
-Measures in place to curb cheating
-Seamlessly integrable expansion packs
-Well-executed public beta stage and modern quality assurance guarantees
-A realization that a game is not finished even after it has been released
-Packaged tools, e.g. map editor

I''m sure you can think of more. Not mentioned above are any internal considerations, things like reusable libraries and so on.

There are even stranger things that defy simple explanation, like how one can play StarCraft for hours even years after it has been released. This is the sign of a good game ... a game polished to perfection.

With reference to Blizzard- one thing that makes them so good is the community link- they listen to what people say.

For instance...I think UT is more polished than Q2(!)
UT has a much better UI.
Homeworld:Cataclysm is more polished than Homeworld- the gameplay is more standard.

JK2 is more polished than JK- its easier to navigate
the menus.
Note, however, that JKRadiant is a terrible tool to learn compared to UnrealEd or the user-made Jed for JK.

Polish...everything meshes smoothly.



Bugle4d

I tend to think of polish as being production value.

Po·lish
adj.
Of or relating to Poland, the Poles, their language, or their culture.
n.
The Slavic language of the Poles.

Hope this helps. :D

quote: Original post by Eight
Po·lish
adj.
Of or relating to Poland, the Poles, their language, or their culture.

For those of you who didn''t complete WarCraft 2, on the last level we discover that the dark portal from whence the orcs came is infact a doorway to Poland.

Very, very few games have this much polish.

quote: Original post by g
For those of you who didn''t complete WarCraft 2, on the last level we discover that the dark portal from whence the orcs came is infact a doorway to Poland.

I was wondering why the new tileset in Beyond the Dark Portal expansion looked familar.