Hi there!

First off I'd like to apologise if this topic found the wrong forum to be posted upon - I wasn't entirely sure where would it fit, but since I'm a begginer developer, I figured it would find it's place here

My question is - Is constantly developing a game Fun? For example - A game has been finished - a multiplayer coop one. The content of the game is varied and interesting, forcing the players and community to speculate about the creatures and lore within. From the player side, it is entertaining (at least to some) to be capable of exploring first hand and being the first ones to discover something new in a game and post it. Can developers have that same kind of fun from their end? Is it fun to constantly dabble in the game, changing behavioral patterns of enemies, altering sublte gameplay mechanics (such as gravity or day-night cycle) and seeing the players react? I imagine it like a Player-Developer Pong match - the developers strike the ball at an angle, the players strike it back, yet the creators strike it again under a harder angle, making the community act different.

From my point of view (writer and content designer) it is fun to keep changing things, thinking up new stuff or altering the old to make it fresh. I'd like to know the opinion of artists and progammers about such an idea. Would it be monotnous and boring, if not irksome? Or would it be a way to keep the game (and it's design team) healthy and alive for years to come? Of course I'm allowing for said artists and programmers to present their own unique ideas concerning the world that would be refined by writers or made even better with collaborative effort of the whole group.

I'm aware that in the most part it is determined by character and devotion to the project - still, would such an idea catch on, as it did in (for example) WoW Cataclysm? Or is it just a fancy for big boys that actually have monetary means to have such fun?

I think as a developer, if I had a game world that was composed of several subsystems, I'd find it very fun to tweak one of them and see the butterfly effect playout through the others.




And as much as I think that'd be fun as a developer, that'd be horribly annoying as a player. Finding that a mechanic that I had previously studied and understood was suddenly reacting differently than yesterday wouldn't provide much enjoyment for me. (as an example, I'd say would you feel more excited about every day of your life if you didn't know if today when you turned on the water if it'd go down towards your hands like yesterday or fly upwards towards your face? As another, would you find it fun to be preparing dinner but not know if your skillet was going to preheat to 375 degrees in 5 seconds, 3 minutes or 45 minutes?)




Now, by the last paragraph, you reference WoW which I would not characterize like that. I'd say they do two separate things in this "realm" of ideas. They add totally new mechanics (the arena system, a well-honed lfg tool, vehicles, phasing). And they attempt to balance existing mechanics (but not in a behind the scenes, don't mention it to you and let you discover what has actually changed way).




If I knew what I was signing up for with a game where things were going to subtly change in the world, I guess I could find some enjoyment in that. But I don't really know what would keep me playing that game over a 'longer' period of time since I'd feel like any thing that I may like about the game could be gone tomorrow. It does sound like an interesting idea/concept, but for me I think it'd be one I engaged with for a very short amount of time.

From my point of view (writer and content designer) it is fun to keep changing things, thinking up new stuff or altering the old to make it fresh. I'd like to know the opinion of artists and progammers about such an idea. Would it be monotnous and boring, if not irksome? Or would it be a way to keep the game (and it's design team) healthy and alive for years to come? Of course I'm allowing for said artists and programmers to present their own unique ideas concerning the world that would be refined by writers or made even better with collaborative effort of the whole group.

What if you blurred the line between player and developer. Make development tools in the form of game mechanics. Then players could go off on their own and explore other player's content.The only problem with that is that you could end up with a wild land of poor or meaningless content.

Thanks for the input!

The reason I asked is due to my project of the game The Wild Boundaries - a sci-fi TD/FPS game. It is in the initial stages, but I want to think way ahead where this is going, so we don't get stuck with a bad idea and have to backtrack a few versions.

The changing in the game world would be non player related - j-locke had a point in saying that some things might be irksome if they are vital for the player to feel a comfort zone in the game he/she plays. Still, I think that at least some part of the gaming society likes to feel like pioneers - thats the reason guides are being written by players, custom maps and whatever else. You might be right that too big changes that are brought without letting the players know would ruin the play experience and discourage new members. I think I'll take the evolution approach then - an alien has the right to change it's behavioral pattern and the players would be informed that "there is something different".

Kelly G has a good idea too, but I'm not sure how would that fit into my game - still, it could be doable to some degree. If the players keep using flame turrets on enemies, they might evolve to counter that, or even heal themselves in the flame. Or player guilds could develop toally new technology, implemented in the game. All for the sake of ballance mind you - too many games have this one "I win button" and don't do anyhing about it. This brings me to the next issue, that being ballancing and forcing the player to use his skills instead of exploiting some, let's call it, development flaw. I think that alone encourages constant development, given the project didn't die due to lack of interest (be it player or developer).

That form of evolution does sound like it'd be cool. Then it would just be a matter of notifying that something has changed. Which could be as simple as a color change (red hue is stronger against fire or something simple like that). Or something more subtle if it can be expressed well.

Since you mentioned aliens, that sparked another thought I had on the topic. Some scenarios are very good at informing someone that things might be different like going to a different planet. Or maybe even just a different land mass. On a remote land mass or different planet, even a creature that looks similar to what I've seen before could act and react very differently than the ones I've encountered.

Yap, you kinda grasped the core of the whole idea for this game

You see, from my view of games, aliens tend to be too human like for my taste. They are predictable and quite obvious, and thus not as scary as they could trully be. The true potential of delivering entertainment lies in unpredictability. Their human form allows us to tell how to kill them - unless they can do without their heads, which scared the holy cr*p out of me the first time around in Dead Space 1. That was good. That delivered tension to each battle - is that bastard really dead, or just faking it? Waste the remains of my ammo on making sure, or take the risk? In Dead Space 2 they spoiled it by making the death of a creature obvious - they coughed up credits or ammo. They could also allow some creatures to drop loot and still be alive - surprise the player, make him vulnerable despite having a big gun. That is the point of horror games.

This lenghty side track leads me to saying - yes, variety is a good carrot to keep the attention of the player. Just cause you encountered an organism on one planet doesn't mean that it will be the same on the other. Paradoxically tho, variety in every single aspect can be predictable and thus boring. It's something I learned on this forum also, the tension and relief moments - those I didn't consider in the initial project, focusing on making the players stand on their toes by throwing all sorts of disaster to them Relief can be something you know well and can rest while doing it - even if it is mowing a whole bunch of aliens down with your honed-by-years technique that still works. Tension can be for example lack of any organisms... Until you realise that your clock in the corner of the screen stopped at 14:51:01 and you hear the terrible screech of alien predator's bloodlust!

So, here we are, back at the topic question - how much fun is constant coding and recoding stuff, making new models and enlarging the database of content? Is it creative and produces a bond with players while looking up forums that give advice on the game, screw around with the code and look at the community freak out? Or will it be an "omg he got another one of his ideas, screw this..." kind of job?

My personal feeling to that is excitement. Seeing how people react to one situation, then observing how they cope with something different. Listening to the player's whispers and using the knowledge in an unpredictable way. Bonding with the community to make a live, immersive game - produce that feeling that you in fact are in space, on an alien world, make you breathe and nearly feel the smell of another planet's air (I had that kind of feeling while playing Morrowind for the first time - it was something undescribable, but best suited by the word Epic).