Jailbreak: The Reimplementation

March 31st, 2009 Zen

I got to talking with my good friend buddy Jon Manning yesterday about my previous blog post. Naturally, as we have before, we began talking about how much a mod would be properly implemented. Read the post below this one of you will remain baffled. The two keys to reimplimentation would be to enforce the line between unnecesary and neccesary killing of prisoners, and to give a proper objective to the prison wardens.

Determining the legitimacy of the kill could be based on an algorithm that combines all the circumstances of the kill into a single value, which is compared against a threshold. If the value is below the threshold, nearby players are asked to vote on the legitimacy of a kill. Determining a kill as unwarranted would result in a suitable punishment for the warden. The legitimacy value of the kill would increase in the following circumstances.

• Prisoner injuring a warden.
• Prisoner killing a warden.
• Prisoner swinging a knife within a certain distance of a warden.
• Prisoner holding a knife, facing a warden and moving within attacking distance of that warden.
• Prisoner holding a gun and aiming within a certain angle of a warden.
• Prisoner holding a gun for greater than a set amount of time.
• Prisoner holstering a gun for an excessive amount of time.
• Prisoner preparing a weapon attachment or switching firing modes.
• Prisoner priming a lethal grenade.
• Prisoner leaving containment area.
• Multiple prisoners surrounding a warden.

Note that these are situations that would raise the value, and not all would warrant an instant kill.

In terms of an objective for the wardens, it was agreed that the best solution was to provide an event that happens at a certain time in a certain location. Our example was a transport van arriving in the courtyard; The wardens would need to shepherd all prisoners to the courtyard and into the van. Of course, a minute or so after the van has arrived, all prisoners would be marked as disobedient for not jumping in the van and would be legitimate targets, thereby causing the round to end without excessive meandering.

The downside of this is that the prisoners have no incentive to get into the van. They lose if they comply, which will force a riot every single time. The best incentive is to offer a single point to those who comply, but two points for every prisoner who survives the round. This way, you have incentive for prisoners to give up when all is hopeless, but still reason to escape where possible.

Posted in Game Concepts, Game Mods, PC Gaming, Player Satisfaction | No Comments »

Self-Imposed Rules, Too Much To Ask?

March 30th, 2009 Zen

Everyone who has ever touched a computer game knows what Counter-Strike is. For those of you who haven’t touched a computer and are looking over your friend’s shoulder with a mixture of fear and curiosity, Counter-Strike is a team-based First Person Shooter that is played in rounds. Once you’re dead in a round, you need to wait for the next one. Your team wins the round by completing your set objective (or, in some cases, stopping the other team from achieving theirs) or eliminating the opposing team.

I have re-discovered a “mod” for this game that I used to play years ago. I say mod in parentheses because it’s just a set of custom maps designed to facilitate the rules, and a server that has the rules as the Message of the Day.

The game is called Jailbreak. The idea is, generally, that the Counter-Terrorists start with whatever guns they choose and the Terrorists start with only knives (you can’t carry any less) and spawn inside the jail cells. The Counter-Terrorists will have access to buttons and switches that open and close doors throughout the map, including the Terrorists’ cells (no pun intended). This is where the self-imposed limitations come in. For Terrorists, there are no rules. Find a weak wall, break out, kill who you can, steal the guns, rescue your team-mates and escape. For the Counter-Terrorists, there are rules.

• Every Counter-Terrorist must have a microphone. The server is set to ‘All-Speak’ which means everyone can hear everyone talking.
• Counter-Terrorists must warn Terrorists taking hostile or disobedient actions before killing or wounding a prisoner.
• Counter-Terrorists must give Terrorists an opportunity to disarm themselves.
• Counter-Terrorists may kill Terrorists who draw weapons and point them at Counter-Terrorists.

There are various smaller rules, but these are the core elements. It’s meant to be like a prison, and the Terrorists need to escape. Frequently, Counter-Terrorists will decide on a location to escort all the Terrorists to (such as, say, the courtyard outside) which usually involves taking them through a series of secure doors and making sure they have no guns. In general, escorting the Terrorists to another part of the level is a good way to encourage an escape attempt, thereby allowing Counter-Terrorists to kill within the rules. The game falls apart if even one Counter-Terrorist is a moron and shoots people.

Tactics I’ve seen used to best effect:

• A single prisoner zips back into a cell with a weak wall and waits. If the prison guards don’t count prisoners, they lead the rest on and forget about the lone prisoner, who could then break open the weak wall with his knife and run amok.
• A prisoner who spawns in a cell with a hidden pistol grabs it and remains in the middle of the prisoner mob being escorted to the courtyard, thereby hiding his holstered sidearm from view. Once outside, the prisoner with the pistol finds a dark corner and begins shooting prison guards on the walls, providing a distraction so that his team can boost each other over a low wall.
• A guard foolishly enters the room to retrieve a pistol that a prisoner has holstered. Once there, he moves out of line of sight of his fellow guards and is knife mobbed by the prisoners, who take his weapons and divide them up.
• A prisoner is caught outside of the containment area with a weapon, and is forced to drop it. The prison guard makes him back off around a corner, and upon following the prisoner, is shot by several hidden escapees.

I’m obsessed with this game mode, as long as the server is kept clean of rule-breakers.

Posted in Game Concepts, Game Mods, PC Gaming | No Comments »

Serious Macro: Starcraft II Easier For The Lazy Gamer

March 18th, 2009 Zen

I don’t know much about Starcraft II. To be honest, I wasn’t as much a fan of the original as everyone else was. For those of you who are as ignorant of the game as I am, and prefer some serious tactical macro as I might find in our epic “don’t attack before a whole hour is up” C&C Generals games, this post is for you.

I’m not saying you could become a pro with Starcraft 2 simply by using its improved control groups and attack orders, but you’ll do better than you did with the original, and here’s why.

• There are no terrain modifiers. Damage is not increased or decreased by where you are, which decreases confusion. However…
• Line of sight is blocked to higher levels. Get shot at from the upper ledge, and you can’t see them much less shoot back. Indirect artillery fire at that ledge would be needed.
• Various other LoS blockers allow ambushes, such as bushes, smoke, etc.
• Zerg can now tunnel and move around while burrowing. This means that not only can Zerg effectively ambush, but they can ambush from a point you thought was safe (If you favoured GLA in Generals, this is for you. And me. Watch out.)
• Unit types now do bonuses against certain other types of units. It’s about time (This was and still is my major complaint about former Blizzard strategies.)

And, while it may seem strange, these next and last two points in tandem are my favourite improvement.

• The tab key cycles between unit types in a selection (as per Company of Heroes.)
• Units with abilities will cast them smartly. If you have a selection of units and order an Area of Effect ability, only one will cast it. This saves you from wastage and lets you focus on the big picture (away with you, micro!)

All these abilities point to one thing. Starcraft II will be a real, albeit simplified, strategy game that will appeal even to those of us that disliked the original. Long live macro.

Posted in Game Concepts, PC Gaming | No Comments »

A Complaining-To-English Translation Guide For Valve Shooters

March 16th, 2009 Zen

Considering how many people I have seen online who whine constantly, I estimate that 70% of all players speak fluent Complainese, and have little knowledge of plain English. These players issue complicated statements, in which the subtle meanings are lost. Due to syntax errors in an English-speaker’s understanding of these players, I have decided to create a simple guide - a phrasebook, if you will - to help the few of us still acquainted with punctuation outside of Shift-1.

Complainese: “What a shit team” or “You guys all suck” or “Fail team”.  Translation: “I have played this game with teams that operate well together, and this is not one of them. However, rather than adapting my own tactics to suit the team, I continued doing what I usually do in the hopes that brute force would suffice, which it did not. In the future, every one of you should do something different in the hopes of all being as good as me.”

Complainese: “<Player> sucks” followed by “<Player> should have <performed tactic> at <specific time>”. Translation: “You should have performed my suggested tactic because all of my precisely calculated conditions were in effect. I find it unacceptable that you should have done anything that I wouldn’t have done were I in your position. This game would be so much better if played by dozens of clones of me.”

Complainese: “Damn closet campers” (Left4Dead). Translation: “I see that the opposing team has adopted a tactic the puts them in a highly defendable position, thereby rendering my attacks useless until they inevitably move on. I deem this to be unacceptable. The appropriate thing to do would be for this team to stand at a junction of corridors, allowing us multiple angles of attack, so that the playing fields be fair. In the event of a real zombie apocalypse, I expect that any survivors would do the same.”

Posted in Console Gaming, PC Gaming, Rant | No Comments »

Why You Should Never Read Game Guides

March 16th, 2009 Zen

I’ve recently become infatuated with Empire: Total War. I bought it three days ago and somehow I’ve played it for 22 hours already. To compare, I have played Team Fortress 2 for 72 hours and I’ve owned that for one and a half years. It is also one of my favouritiest games.

Today, in a bored moment, I asked myself “how can I improve my game?” and immediately dived for Google to find some game guides. Don’t do this. They will ruin your game. I found myself in a pit of exploits and bugs, surrounded not only by immersion-ruining tactics, but thirteen year olds asking for the “developer cheats”.

My eyes wandered to a short comment on the website telling me how to defeat an enemy in a naval battle with a single inferior ship using a shortcoming in the enemy AI. Why this person thought that any Total War fan could derive pleasure from winning in such a cheap way, I have no idea. But now that tactic is stuck in my brain - I can never get rid of it. The next time I find myself on the losing side of a naval engagement, it will cross my mind, and in the moment I consider using that tactic, all game immersion is lost.

These exploits range to other genres of games, too. Not even multiplayer games are exempt - there have been countless Team Fortress 2 guides on how to use small gaps in level design to snipe the other team before the round has started, or how to fall underneath the entire level and become a deadly landshark.

When I want to better my game, I don’t want to read about it online. Not anymore. The Internet has ruined my fun.

Posted in Console Gaming, Metagaming, PC Gaming, Player Satisfaction | No Comments »