EAW Holiday celebration

[Ghostly_Substance]

Something out of the ordinary really But something that might make the players play longer BTW whats the chances of this being in game ? Slim to none. Even if this is chosen didn't want to ruin the suprise so I posted here.

 

During Halloween at certain time of day have a ghost pop up on screen with a loud bang to scare the user In EAW. Maybe have Obi-Wan be the ghost and have a big loud explosion coming from the game.

 

During Christmas time have the units dress up in christmas cloths and see these winter stuff in it. Have vehicles painted christmas colors (whole day)

 

For April 1st have a cut scene (random time) of the units you own surrender or something along that line but not actually doing that to prank the gamer.

 

For Valentines day have both sides liking each other for the day only thing you can do is control 2 units stuck together and explore the galaxy in a ship or vehicle like speeder and only get attacked by pirates

 

Canada and America day (or gamers playing the game in their country flag) have a cutscene of units holding a flag or marked with the flag

[Katarn]

I honestly think that all games should have this type of content generation system. Did you ever play Animal Crossing for the GameCube? It was a cute Nintendo game that I normally hate but they had the most brilliant time based content system. They had all of the events you described plus all of seasons (spring, summer, fall, winter) where the world would change based on the seasons. Some people, creatures, events would only happened during a particular, holliday, season, day or time. The result was that you felt that there was a living breathing world inside your GameCube. I found myself waking up at 3:00 in the morning just to see who is in my town or what event was occurring. And they did all of this content generation without relying on downloads.

If someone were to implement this system into an RTS game it would have infinite replayability and would somewhat minimize the need for downloadable content. Someone should tell the EAW producer about this idea Seriously it's a great idea but to do it right would take a substantial amount of development time. (but I think it would be worth the effort in the long run)

 

-Katarn

[Ghostly_Substance]

rofl. I remember when I played Pokemon Gold and Silver with the new content of time. There were contents such as these:

 

-radio contests

-Weekly pokemon trainer numbers (Kids way of playing lotteries)

-Certain ingame Radio events

-Day and night

-During day time you can only catch day time creatures and night time mostly Owl looking creatures and such.

-If you used a N64 with the Gameboy version you can gain new items for your gameboy version and see how they look in the N64 version and can gain 1 item per day.

 

Haven't played it for like 3 years now I only own a PS2 Slim so I can only "test" out other games if I get the chance.

 

I "could" tell a dev about that but wouldn't that scare them away and even if I do it might not be implemented ? Maybe I should hint at it maybe have Cain give access to them here

[Katarn]

It's too late to implement for EAW but not for EAW II or Petroglyph's next project. It's not a new idea but rather one that very few developers have yet to latch onto. the concept has huge potential and makes a lot of sense for PC games and even more for console game where downloadable content and updating the code is very difficult to do postrelease. Don't worry I'll do my part to support this design concept on the games I'm currently working on.

 

-Katarn

[Ghostly_Substance]

(console topic)

Forgot to answer the Gamecube mention.

As I said before I own 2 PS2's and gave one to my friend.

I heard of Animal crossing or whatever it was and I only played Smash Bros on the Gamecube and thats about it. As for the Xbox I hate it very much.

 

(reply message)

Nice well it was a nice feature and gives games more depth or gameplay value Getting and winning new items makes a game great but I doubt this will fit in with EAW. EAW 2 ? Sweeeet. Well then glad to know Petro has a bright future I dont know if your allowed to tell me but is Lucasarts actually making a new online multiplayer world to replace SWG ? If you cant answer then I understand. Cant believe SWG got all hammered into pieces

 

(Other)

Read my furtune Cookie and this is what I got

-A friend asks only for your time and not your money (true since a friend gave me 40 bucks for a F1 game and he asked me to go to his concert but I'm watchin anime tv tonight )

-You will be awarded some great honor (Great honor ? )

[Cain]

I wonder if I can add this on games for mobiles?!

[Katarn]

I think you could. The main problem/limitation you have is the small size of the programs. But in theory mobile gamming seems to be the perfect media for this idea. I can envision mobile users becoming quickly addicted to any game with evolving content. The Tamiguchi (misspelled?) games where you fed, exercised, played and disciplined your little pet on a daily basis was a huge hit 4 years ago. I'm not suggesting making another game like that one but rather using a simular gameplay mechanic to encourage people to play the game on a daily basis.

 

Ghostly, Do you have any examples of games that did what you suggested? The only ones I can think of were Animal Crossing and some of the Sim City games.

 

> Read my furtune Cookie and this is what I got...

Lol. Ghostly uses fortune cookies and Cain uses the force. Maybe these two methods are different permentaitons of the same thing

 

-Katarn

[Ghostly_Substance]

I just wanted to somehow prank other users but came up with this in the process, it aint breaking news but its something Pokemon as I said later made me think. Well what game in the future realisticly could use this feature ?

KOTOR 3

- Weapons (As our EU expands so does the weapon ideas)

- More worlds to interact in (Map downloads)

- Win more credits in Star Wars lotteries

 

RC 2

- New weapons (Same weapons but maybe upgrades ?)

- New missions (Need a new map possibly and it might be Imperial times)

Thats about it I think for them 2 games.

 

Maybe for newer games they could add a place where the character stays and have an option to get a new item. When the game ends maybe you can search for new missions or new maps to go on. Get new items for collection and bragging rights.

[Cain]

Katarn as soon as I will arrive at work monday I will disscus this with the Lead Programmer.

 

This games are so small ... let's hope it will work.

[Katarn]

You can hold back existing content and reveal it based on the day/time/event. Another easy thing to do would be to temparary change some of the tuning/balacing/rules on these special occasions. (for example everything is produced at double the normal rate for both sides. Or you can purchase things at half price. Or the scoring method is modified in some way) The tuning changes would require very little code and the size required for these changes would be tiny. Of course doing something with the artwork would allow you to do even more. Adding new weapons, changing from day to night, new levels, etc... Obviously any additions on the art side would require a bit more space so you would need to think of creative ways to reuse existing artwork whenever possible. For example if there was a small monkey in your game on special occasions you might scale his size up, give him more hitpoints and when killed he would drop a bannana worth 10,000 points instead of the normal 100. (that would require about two lines of code)

 

Good luck

 

-Katarn

[Ghostly_Substance]

Ya I deleted my old message and resent it for record purposes.

 

Well during halloween week (22-30, even if its couple days more) is sure a nice event.

Well you get all these rare quests and items that some even disappear. Well you trick or treat the Inn keeper and get these nice treats or turned into a animal or some random form. Theres all these nice decorations its very halloween like no matter what part of the city or village you go in

[Cain]

I am kind of missing the discuttions here - Katarn do you have any updates for us ?! How is your project going Can we give you some new unofficial feedback ?!

[Katarn]

Hi guys!

 

Sorry for the long silence. I've been swamped with work stuff and preparing for my April wedding. Things are going great with the two projects I'm working on. And it looks like we will be showing some new footage very soon. But that's unofficial and confidential at this point. Wish I could say more but you guys know that I can't... I did speak to Mike a few weeks ago and he said that the EAW development was progressing nicley and they were only fixing bugs and tuning the game at this stage. Talking to him really made me miss working on the project and with the Petro team. I enjoyed working with those guys and EAW was my baby! Oh well... I have no regrets about leaving LEC other than leaving the EAW team.

 

-Katarn

[Ghostly_Substance]

Hey look whos back

 

swamped with lot of work? Wow even my co-op placement is getting swamped with boxes with products in them

 

Two projects? Well if they're going great then thats sweet and good luck with your wedding (thumbs up) Of course I know and I think Delphi-PG is trying to stay away from me so he or she doesn't give out any information or doesn't like a fan being an admin Seriously I had 4 questions out in the open and other fans did also and no comment for me but for them yes....maybe I know to much already lol Well I wont make the situation worse so I wont say anything else about it.

 

EAW is sweet I nearly got blown away at how flippin sweet it is, i'm near shocked !!! Well if there was some other sweet things to see I would of fallen out of my chair which I haven't yet but it was close Well good luck with everything your doing and especially have fun

[Cain]

Well hello Katarn !

 

We have been missing you a lot. And I see you have been busy - a wedding ?! Nice - who is she ?! - Can we see some pictures ?

 

Mike also wanted to phone you theyu work so hard this days

 

Two projects ?! Ohhh comme one say something just general stuff that can be guessed anyway or edit you could my post here:

 

I'm guessing that the two projects ... :

 

Also how are the new teams how is the life there ? What you guys do for fun etc.

[Ismael]

Welcome back Brett Yes EAW is your baby and we still need your feedback from time to time I hope to see more of you in the forums.

[Katarn]

Ok, I'm back for good now. My DSL connection went down for a week and my ISP provider refused to fix promptly it so I switched to cable modem. It took awhile but I'm back online now and much happier! Anyway my bride to be's name is Denise. Not sure if she'd want me posting her photo to this site but I'll ask. I'll try to get one with both me and her. Hey if you guys want to attend the wedding in April your more than welcome... Anyway I'll be here regularly to talk about EAW or anything else that we decide is worth discussing. Cain I miss our game development conversations. And Ismael I hope to see more of you as well...And of course it's always good to see Ghostly around and still going strong.

 

talk to ya soon

-Katarn

[Cain]

So when is the picture coming ?! We really want to see her

 

Is she a SW fan ? What games is she playing ?

 

Its nice to have you back How are your projects going ?

 

I'm still at work and I avoid the GM to see me on the forum So I'm a bit short now.

[Ghostly_Substance]

wow Cain you sure are pushy or needy Good thing I waited for Katarns editing Nice to know your back and hope things are going well.

 

edited since Cain got confused: Well one thing I really need to ask which has been bugging me ever since August, what are the things you do as a Game tester (everything)? Like do you just game test and say what you find wrong with the game or what?

 

 

Read at your own will: Rant up ahead:

 

Damn EA games making Red Alert 3 (They need to fix Black and White 2 first!!!!!!!!!. Thats supposed to be Petroglyphs job to make C&C and good thing more developers left to join Petro and Blizzard. Well sorry for that small or medium rant but i'm getting sick and tired with EAs good games going rotten.

[Cain]

wow Cain you sure are pushy or needy Good thing I waited for Katarns editing Nice to know your back and hope things are going well. Well one thing I really need to ask which has been bugging me ever since August, what are the things you do as a Game tester (everything)?

 

 

Who's the game tester here ? i'm confused - if you are talking to me then look at my sig.

 

Yeah I asked many questions since I was in a hurry. My PC is next to the General Manager's .... so

 

Anyway its cool to have us back here and restart talking about our subjects.

 

Btw we need a good XML editor - does anyone of you has one ?

[Ghostly_Substance]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_tester

 

I need a college degree? For what? From what I gathered you just play the game over and over again and just find bugs College degree for that? Common If its fixing the bug yourself then I can understand.

 

Anyways i'll leave it up to you guys if oyu want to respond to this or not just that source could be unreliable since it all depends on the game maker right? Not all game makers are the same or have the same rule.

[Katarn]

I was a tester during my first three years at LucasArts and I've worked closely with QA for all of my 13 years in the game development so I think I can give you a few pointers.

 

1) A degree isn't "required". A degree's real value is to show a company that you have the ability to learn new things and that you finish what you start. If you don't have a degree you'll just have to work a bit harder convincing them that you have what it takes.

 

2) The most important skill for a tester is communication. Both written and verbal. After all what use is it to find problems if you can't communicate what the problem is

 

3) This leads to the second most important skill. The ability to analyze what is happening, why it's happening and what is not causing it to happen. Your job is to make it easy for the person responsible for fixing the problem to identify the root cause of the bug. Any problem discovered should be retested again and again until you can repeat the problem consistently. Then you need to eliminate one factor from the test to see if it still occurs. And then one more and then one more until you know exactly what circumstance caused the problem. 90% of all testers simply write up a bug without doing the research on what was really causing the problem. If you research the issue and make life easier for the programmers, & designers they will love you. And it's a good way to get a promotion. Trust me on this one.

 

4) You need to have good attention to details.

 

5) You need to be systematic in your testing approach. Meaning that no matter how bored you are, because you've been testing the same level for one month, you still have the ability to systematically test ever single component. Again most testers get bored and become sloppy in their testing procedures.

 

Hope this helps

 

-Katarn

[Ghostly_Substance]

Wow I got lots of snow out here Well if the maps are the same but slightly change each time then it should be good since theres barely any variety in RTS except in EAW so far and maybe Rise of Legends and uh Civ 4?

 

Well got to experience it then make opinions but thought being a game tester was a good job to chose even tho the pay is somewhat bad.

 

Oh and you posted during my game of Stratego which I lost but could have won I lost stupidly.........Star Wars Stratego.

 

edit: Just edited out a request for a game online play Wasn't thinking since I made this a bad week.

[Cain]

 

5) You need to be systematic in your testing approach. Meaning that no matter how bored you are, because you've been testing the same level for one month, you still have the ability to systematically test ever single component. Again most testers get bored and become sloppy in their testing procedures.

 

Hope this helps

 

-Katarn

 

Btw - My GM was a QA Lead at Activision.

 

Its late in the night and Ihave decided to watch over the night shift. I have a QA lead and 5 testers they are all pretty sleepy.

 

I'm interested to know how I can increase their productivity ?

 

Ghostly - we have an office in Montreal (Canada) - if you are near there and want to try it - let me know

[Katarn]

> I'm interested to know how I can increase their productivity

 

Give them specific and indivigual responsibities. If they haven'et started their test plan yet have them start on the sections that are ready for the test plan. People are more motivated when there is a stated purpose to the testing and if they feel like they own a particular section of the game. When I was a QA lead I use to assign parts of the game to each tester and then tell them " This is your part of the game. When anyone else is testing that part of the game you are the boss" It worked out great because I always had one person I could go to that would know everything about that portion of the game. And it gave them pride that they were trusted to own a section of the game. I also game them assignments like "Ok, Guys let's try to find out why the game is running so slow. tester #1 check the weapons and explosions, tester #2 check the enemy AI, tester #3 find out which level is running the fastest and slowest, tester #4 try different config settings, etc...

 

-Katarn