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Software development
Articles about software development
Blizzard vs Valve – Dota 2
11 week ago
by Tasha
in Software development
If this one hasn’t passed you by on your favourite source of video game news, may I introduce the latest in legal wrangling that is Blizzard and Valve having a spat over Dota 2? I’m not really going to delve too deep into the history of Defence of the Ancients (or DotA), so feel free to familiarise yourself with what has happened in the saga so far.
The basis of the lawsuit comes down to trademarking. Whereas copyright protects the game code as a whole (as opposed to lines of code), trademarking is more about the brand around the game, protecting it such as not to confuse customers. Valve have applied for a trademark for Dota 2 to protect their logo and similar. (By the way, Valve have acknowledged the names are similar but have decided to call their game “Dota 2″ to distinguish it from “Defence of the Ancients” but acknowledge the continuation of the genre’s development.) Blizzard are attempting to block it by claiming ownership of the tools made to create the original mod from a game that was released a decade ago, amongst other things. They’re bothering to do this to “defend seven years of goodwill that Blizzard has developed”.
Excuse me while I choke on PR speak from both parties.
I think this entire scenario is unique in gaming history. I certainly can’t remember another example of where an entirely new genre has sprung from the world editor of another. It’s made extra complex by IceFrog, generally seen as the main caretaker for DotA for the last few years, not only being hired by Valve to work on Dota 2 but also having a hand in Heroes of Newerth and League of Legends. Yes, there were and are other people working on creating, developing and maintaining this incredibly popular competitive game, but IceFrog is seen as the incredibly lucky head honcho.
The bottom line is that Valve knew exactly what they were doing when they called their game Dota 2 and not “Mega Pwnies of Doom” or something. After that, all they did wrong was hiring lawyers to do the what that lawyers do to protect games (see Bethesda vs Mojang for more information). And the only reason Blizzard hasn’t packaged up DotA itself is probably due to the contract that was shipped with the World Editor, not for some reason of goodwill. We’re talking about the same company that has decided to make World of Warcraft Monopoly and Starcraft Risk. Oh and sold sparkly ponies for $25 a pop. Forgive me for being sceptical of their motives.
Rants aside, I see the success of Blizzard’s objections resting on the EULA and similar documents around the Warcraft 3 World Editor. I think for modders, it would be better if Blizzard were not successful. After all, if you happen to have a great idea that an entire community gets around, I would rather see you get rewarded than see a company which already has enough money swoop in and deny you the recognition that is deserved cos they happened to have the tools you needed to make it. It’d be like Microsoft swooping in to plant a flag in your awesome game made with XNA. Not cool.
Worst case scenario in all of this is that Valve have to change the name of their game. But seeing as how a beta version of Dota 2 was already the second highest paying eSport in 2011 I don’t see it being a big problem. The game has already won and Blizzard will be left trying to defend and monetise DotA without a significant member of the community, while competing with 3 successful and similar games in the market.
Should be an interesting legal battle to watch being smashed out.
Busy Bee
01 month ago
I’ve been a bit quiet the last few weeks, not just because of the holiday season. I’ve been a bit of a busy bee.
After the work I did on the Mystic Spiral [MYST] website, I realised that all of our old articles documenting various farming builds would be better in WordPress than in phpbb3. But I couldn’t find something that would display the various templates, and seeing as I’m anxious to learn and improve my web dev skills, I decided to dive right in.
It’s a little ways off being ready for release to the general populous, but I couldn’t resist giving a sneak peek to the new GW Template plugin. 
Skyrim: 12 Hours In
23 months ago
It’s raining and I’m waist deep in a river catching salmon while wearing heavy steel armor. I’m sure this is the kind of thing my mother told me would kill me. But there weren’t dragons about then. A muttering on the wind draws my attention and high above the river behind me there’s wooden bridge held in place by two stone towers. Bandits.
Signalling to Lydia, we draw our bows and make our way onto the river bank. Sneaking through the bushes up the hill to the nearest tower, I take aim at the unsuspecting sentry tending to a cooking pot and let the arrow fly…
Aaah Skyrim. It’s been a long time since an RPG has made my heart race while sneaking through some deep catacomb, and this game is worth the price just for that feeling alone.
So where to start. The combat is excellent. Archery especially, as you have to correct for wind and the flight of the arrow. My only complaint is that switching between weapons leaves your character out of the action for too long, but this may well have been a design decision to stop people switching every blow.
Levelling happens at a nice steady pace and it’s a nice touch that reading certain books gives a boost in a variety of skills. You’re guided through smithing, enchantment and alchemy, but cooking (not levellable but still very useful) is left for players to discover. Which meant my husband completely missed cooking until he was level 19. Ooops.
The highlight of the game so far is the dungeons. Not only are they suitably creepy, with weird noises and claustrophibia inducing tunnels, but the puzzles in them are excellent. The rewards for doing them are worth it too, although my packrat nature does mean I keep having to pass stuff off to Lydia to hold.
In fact I have only 2 complaints about the game. Firstly, did the path up to High Hrothgar have to be quite so long? Secondly, and most importantly, the UI navigation on the PC is horrible and does negatively impact on my enjoyment of the game. And it’s inconsistant (try cooking, pressing E to make a recipe and Enter to confirm. Enter doesn’t work). It’s very very clear that the game was designed for consoles and then made to work on PC, but the bare minimum was done to make the UI work. The result is you unintuitavely find yourself pressing the same 4 or 5 buttons repeatedly as the mouse doesn’t always do what you expect it to, and when there are around 100 keys on your keyboard it’s all just a bit silly. The entire experience could have been made a lot better by having the option to create weapon/skill sets. I also wonder how spellcasters on the console keep their sanity. I haven’t had any stability issues as yet, and aside from the occasional minor pathing problem with my NPC companion everything’s been remarkably smooth so far.
Overall, the game is great and a classic of the decade. If Guild Wars 2 ends up being half the RPG this one is (and I hope it will be more than that) then I’ll be a very happy lady.
8/10 (and the -2 is for the UI)
Edit: Found this comment while reading what some of the professional reviewers had written about Skyrim and the comments to their articles. It’s apt.
Imagine we build the best car in the world with lots of power, wide sticky tires, smoothest most responsive suspension, and a sweet smashing paint job, but then we fuck it all up by giving it the worst motherfucking steering and pedal controls ever invented. That’s Skyrim for you.
2000 Days
13 months ago
Mystic Spiral [MYST] hits another milestone today. It’s been years in the making but we’re finally getting rid of our current forum and making way for an actual website.
It’s almost like the 21st Century or something.
I’ve spent the last few weeks putting together a prototype site that combines WordPress and PhpBB3 to make a unified content management system and forum. Having spent most of that time re-skinning the site to create a seamless look, I can say 2 things: I know a lot more about CSS now than when I started and I’m no graphic designer. While I’m proud of what has come out of my swearing programming sessions I’m expecting cries of “it’s ugly” once it launches. I won’t disagree, but then there’s a reason why I’m a developer.
Functionality wise though, I’m in heaven. There are a million more directions to go in with the new site than the old. I explored some of them in a previous post, which will shape up to be phase 2 aka a dynamic guild roster. I also spied the Steam API a week or two ago which has got my pulse racing. For now though, the new site gets information like voice server details out of a buried thread in a forum and onto a separate page. Events have their own section and are Google calendar powered. If Guild Wars 2 launched tomorrow, we’d have something to work with and I’d spend less time maintaining a forum and more time with my guildies – ultimately the aim in changing format.
The next 2 weeks while we get everything migrated are likely to be hectic. Like all of this venture, it’s new territory for me which inevitably means long hours, lots of swearing and consumption of beverages that may not be healthy to me (coffee or vodka). I’m also celebrating my +1 day and have tickets to see Within Temptation in that time frame, so don’t expect to hear much from me on my blog. Twitter should be as active as ever though.
In one way it’s unfortunate everything’s conspired to happen at once, but I enjoy being busy. Since coming back from Gamescom I’ve had at least 3 viable community projects going through my head, and a blog post for Talk Tyria I must have revised at least 5 times. Its hard not to pick up one of these items and run with it, but I’m determined to get the site migrated. For once in my life, I will be a finisher.
You can take a look at the format we’ll be migrating to here. Our proper domain will be updated sometime before the 20th if all goes to plan.
Wish us luck!
PS: It’s also 2000 days since we were founded!
Jack Of All Trades, Master Of None
44 months ago
My love of rangers is no secret, and neither is my opinion that the essence of what I liked about them has been removed from the class in Guild Wars 2. In various other MMOs I’ve played, I usually try the equivalent ranger class (followed by their cleric class) and after trying to mentally dice up how the ranger can be sorted out, I’ve noticed something common to nearly all incarnations of bow wielders. They are plagued by imbalance and lack the epic feeling of their counterparts.
The original Guild Wars ranger isn’t a stranger to this. Nature rituals were to blame for a horrible meta in the early days of the game, then there was the bunny thumper causing havoc everywhere. Disrupting Shot was catapulted to the skill hall of fame, being picked by The Last Pride [EviL] to be made into a skill pin. Over the years, the nerf bat has chipped away at various aspects of the ranger so that the profession has relatively few teeth left in its mouth and little benefit to the team as a whole. Even playing solo in PvE, its hard to see the impact you have on a battle – mesmers interrupt better, necromancers apply conditions better and various classes deal more damage.
Rift has to be applauded for the flexible nature of its class construction, but it feels like the rogue gets a lot more sweeping changes than other classes. This could be related to Trion’s insistence on rolling out updates like it’s the morning newspaper but my rogue’s roles (which I tend to play as a Marksman) seem to get reset a lot more than my cleric’s do indicating significant changes were made. It’s a bit of a mystery really. The bow-wielding NPC rogues hit hard, but when I’m the one aiming the arrow it feels like my character is throwing a pebble. Maybe I’m a bad ranger, but the repeated skill changes make me think that maybe it’s not entirely my fault.
Age of Conan’s take on the class was enjoyable, but was lacking variety and the feeling of epicness, due in part to the overpowered nature of the class at the release of the game. Finishing moves are a big deal in that game and while my husband’s Bear Shaman was ripping off heads and smashing skulls, my Ranger was limited to crouching down with my bow and shooting my killer blow. Fierce…
Overall it feels like a very hard class concept to action. And looking at the the variety of concepts above, is it much wonder? Warriors, mages and clerics don’t change much from MMO to MMO, but that fourth archetype does. Perhaps it’s a symptom of being the fourth wheel in the holy trinity, trying desperately to be the Swiss army knife for all situations that ultimately it fails in all of them.
Oddly the incarnation I enjoyed the most was found in Aion. Rangers were given silences, stuns, poisons, stealth and traps to play with. I maintain that traps are pretty useless in a PvP(vE) world and never used them in my gameplay. Still, I felt like I was doing something in a team. If someone needed killing, I could combo a damaging chain. If we overaggroed, I could provide another stun or silence. If we needed to pressure a team, I could spread poison or unleash a range of shots. There were no pets, but you could shapeshift into various animal forms if you had enough DP. I really enjoyed playing Aion’s ranger, it’s just a shame about server balance and a number of other game problems that drove me away. Also those few months of alpha & beta I burnt out on the game.
I think part of the reason that I’m looking forward to Guild Wars 2 as much is because I like the concept of being able to switch up my gameplay as the situation requires it. Clearly it is possible to achieve but, if anything’s to be said for classes that do this in other games, it feels like a very very tall order to execute 8 times over.
If you’re expecting a great revelation or arrogant claim to have a solution, prepare to be disappointed. I don’t have one. It’s hard enough getting a group of rangers to define the class itself, let alone work out how to execute the profession.
So, who’s up for a bit of amateur game design? If you’ve noticed any patterns or have any insight, drop your thoughts below please!
Web Project pt. 2
310 months ago
In light of Charr week not providing much in the way of inspiration for writing (I’m no Tigerfeet after all), I figured it was time for another project update. I’m requesting reader help with an aspect of this project that I’m working on but that’ll come later in the post. Don’t get excited. The prizes are crappy.
Recently on the site I’ve been focussing on some basic functionality. In my last post I explained how forum software is going to provide the backbone for the site, and that involves using its methods for registration, signing in and signing out. As of now that’s what I have working across areas of the site. Users can log in on the web portion of the site and have the session carry across to the forum and visa versa, as well as register outside the forum environment. This is important as I want to allow applicants to fill in the application form and register for the site all in one go.
I’ve also had to migrate my testing site. I was using a virtual machine on my desktop, but after having sworn at it repeatedly for being tricky to use I’ve moved the development platform to my laptop. Much better.
In the not so distant future I’ll be switching attention to the next core item on my list – how to keep track of all our members across the various games we play. MYST currently has around 50 active members spread across a variety of games so being able to track who is playing what is pretty crucial for us going forward. At the moment this is done through forum threads which are poorly maintained. In addition every month or so a new game will come along that a few people start playing so the system needs to grow and change as people start playing new things – and users can’t wait on admins to configure the site for them (one of my golden rules for this website).
The outline for the solution I’m working on currently asks 3 main questions about a game
- Does the game act as a single or multiple servers?
Single server games include Heroes of Newerth and Guild Wars. You may actually be picking a different server for each game or be in a specific district, but you don’t choose your server on login. Multiple server games would be things like Minecraft or World of Warcraft. This question aims to highlight if we need to take server connection details (eg we play on server X). - Does the game allow players to have multiple permanent characters?
This differentiates games with account names (eg Minecraft or Heroes of Newerth) to those where the player has multiple characters (eg Guild Wars or World of Warcraft). - Does the game have multiple playable sides?
This is mostly there for those games that insist on splitting their player base by making them choose which side of the coin to sit on. World of Warcraft and Rift fit this bill but Guild Wars 2 does not.
There are a raft of other questions that hang under these depending on the responses and a couple of assumptions too. The main assumption is that if a game allows multiple permanent characters, the game has different professions or classes – otherwise why have 3 characters when you can have 1. There are also questions asking about terminology to word text in a more relevant manner, such as the use of legions or clans instead of guilds.
After this information is filled in, all site users can select the game as one they are playing in their profiles and will be prompted to fill in relevant information such as server details, character name and profession. This can then be used to generate a roster for each game in the database. It also powers additional features such as event organisation, but that’s quite a way away and a topic for another day.
Back to the plea for assistance at the top of this post – can you think of any multiplayer games that would break this model? So far I’ve been able to make the following games we play regularly fit: Guild Wars, Unreal Tournament, Heroes of Newerth, World of Warcraft, Rift, Minecraft, Steam (yes I know its not a game in itself, we play Left 4 Dead & Team Fortress 2 though). Are any of my assumptions way off base and need to be configurable? Comment below and if your post leads me to redesign the system I’ll credit you in the software.
See I said the prize was crappy.
Web Project Pt. 1
011 months ago
Of all the hobbies I undertake, leading Mystic Spiral [MYST] is the one I enjoy the most. Founded in 2006 in Guild Wars we’ve had our ups and downs, seen some great and not so great people join and leave. We’ve been the cause of several relationships, met each other in real life 4 times to date and now have a foothold in a small handful of games. What started out as 2 people looking for a different way to run a guild has ended up as a fully fledged gaming community. One thing that hasn’t changed in all that time is our space on the web – and it’s high time that it did.
In the last few months I’ve slowly been trying to make headway on learning php and mysql. I’m already a professional programmer, but my home is with c-based languages rather than web based ones. Sure I learnt HTML at 14 as my first foray into programming, but a hell of a lot has changed since then. Now I feel like I’ve got enough of a skill set, I’ve made my test environment and started work on our new platform.
The aim is to create a space that meets the needs of a community that spans multiple games and keeps up with its members. No small order then. For all its flaws, forums still provide the best and most familiar area for discussion, so it will still be the cornerstone of the site. Course, the choice of what to use isn’t straight forward – many seem to be loving Invision Power Board 3 whilst many are on phpBB3. IPB would be great for us as we’re on IPB 2 right now, but the price tag has driven me to phpBB3, at least for development purposes. Open source has its advantages.
Streamlining the system for organising events is high priority as this is a major hassle done on a forum. From a personal viewpoint as guild leader, I want to not only remove the barriers to people talking to each other but also better communicate what is happening in the various games to my friends. I also want to make the site as self sustaining as possible, so social networks get updated automatically (but responsibly), members wait on admins as little as possible and generally I and the officers spend less time organising and more time socialising. There is a lot of custom code to make this happen. Already I have to say thank you to one of my friends, Sevenforce, for his help and advice with mysql. Having a professional web developer in the mix helps a lot!
Longer term, I’d like to be able to release this as a package for other similar communities. I’m aiming to have the site out of alpha and up as a subdomain on this site for testing and working out the kinks within a few months, and up at least on our site before Guild Wars 2 is released.
There will be a few more posts outlining progress and features as we go along. I’m aware this may bore some of my readers, but it helps me stay focussed to put the ideas out there and bounce them off people. I’ll still be doing whatever it is I usually do (trolling? critiquing? raging? commenting?) on a similar basis.
Opinions Aren’t Bad, M’kay?
21 year ago
This blog post is an extended response to Massively’s Soapbox article of 11/1/11 comparing “game journalism” to “journalism”. You may wish to peruse the well written and articulated article before continuing.
Gaming journalism is a bit of a joke in the journalistic world. The bulk of actual gaming journalism is the rehashing of press releases, observation of a global phenomenon (e.g. WoW) or security issues. There are actually quite few dedicated pure gaming journalism sites – that is ones that don’t involve reviews or opinion pieces. The only one I read with any kind of regularity is the BBC’s technology section (I used to read another which was actually very good and had interviews with developers as well as documenting who was moving where, but I’ve lost the link) and that’s about as in depth and articulate as Forrest Gump.
The reason I exclude reviews as journalism is that games are an art form. Games combine several aspects of other recognised arts – story writing, art, music, movies – to give the user a compelling and immersing experience. Unless its Bejewelled or Freecell in which case its just designed to suck your life away. It has to be noted that any time someone reviews an album or a novel that they are lending a part of themselves to forming an opinion of whatever they are reviewing. Mathematically, some music appeals to some more than it does others. A novel won’t appeal if you’re not drawn to the subject matter. To review a game is to give your opinion on it – this is not journalism.
I don’t think there’s actually anything wrong with bringing opinion and emotion into the reporting of games. Most of us play games because we want to be actively engaged in a form of relaxation, and that makes the experience of the story set before us a powerful thing. We live lives we aren’t able to in our spare time. A good game will inspire passion in all its forms – constructive and destructive – and like the first hit of a drug, once we are touched by a game once we want that feeling again and again. If someone else is passionate about a game, that can inspire passion in others to try it out.
Reading rehashed press releases, what the biggest selling games of the week are and who’s going where actually isn’t that interesting to read. Think about why you’re reading the words I’ve written. Is it because you expect me to drop a knowledge bomb about your game of choice, or because you want to hear my thoughts on a subject? You wouldn’t pester a musician about the album they’re making before they’ve written the first song or judge a painting based on the first hour of work, so why condemn a game based on the initial concept?
(This is the point where everyone will bring up any criticism of Guild Wars 2 I’ve ever made. ArenaNet only divulges information about things which are developed and working as desired, so my criticism is based on information on the final product, not initial concept.)
On the subject of interviews, its quite hard to actually get an approved interview with a gaming studio that is relevant. On Relics of Orr we’ve tried quite a few times to get interviews with members of the development team at ArenaNet, but by the time the request for an interview is approved, questions formulated then approved and the date set for the interview to take place, the questions are out of date. The studios are very orientated in saying what they want to say and not what you want to know. Understandable, but frustrating.
I’ve already booked the hotel and flights for gamescom2011, and will be attempting to get media access to the event (*shuffles the cards and plays the radio presenter one*). I’m planning on getting interviews with developers and community leaders where I can and relaying the information to the wider world via all mediums available to me. As for exclusives though? Doubtful.
Impatience
11 year ago
Impatience must be a community manager’s dream. To have folks that you have little tangible connection with hungry for your product to release that they start making irrational demands for more information must be the sign of success.
Some say its a bad reflection of our community that ArenaNet needed to make their latest blog post. I say not – if no one is interested in a game’s release date or hungry for new information then the product isn’t worth it. Foot stomping is immature but a good sign.
I think its more a bad reflection of the state of the MMO industry that fans react badly when things are done properly. The vast majority of MMOs are made with money in mind – the people with the purse strings want a return on their investment at a set date, whether the creative process is mature or not. This means that as the crunch date approaches, harsh decisions are made to cut a feature, area, profession or race and the game releases in an unfinished state. This is a fatal mistake for most (Age of Conan is the only one I can think of that has recovered without a drastic change).
If nothing else came out of the blog post, we know that NCSoft believes in ArenaNet’s product. They are happy to keep digging their hands in their pockets as long as it takes to make the game which in turn allows ArenaNet to experiment with their game. This is how games should be made. Unfortunately it means that nothing is fixed – Profession number 5 won’t necessarily be ready on a deadline, nor will the game definitely release on a certain date.
I’m struggling to think of a game that was released on such a basis that wasn’t massively popular. Certainly all of Blizzard’s products have been. Valve’s too. So all bodes well for Guild Wars 2. It also gives me time to complete the crazy projects I seem to start and finish the games I’m behind on (aka Dragon Age:Origins, which I am loving). I still find it hard to believe that the game won’t release in 2011 but such eventuality seems more likely now. At least there’s more to look forward to between now and then in Tyria.
Year of the Dragon
2So I’m guessing you’ve heard the news, wooped some, pinched yourself and wanted to hug Mike O’Brien until his eyes pop. I’m right there with you. Although I had to hold in the excitement for 8 hours or so as I had demo’s of my own to give.
I could do what many commentators will do and speculate on what this means on where they are in the development schedule & what’s left, but really, there’s no point. Other than knowing we’re on the home straight and that Guild Wars 2 will be in our hands in 99 days at a minimum or 342 days at a maximum, there’s nothing else I wish to try to infer from this news.
I’m excited. I’m also looking at the checklist of stuff I wanted to do before launch and wincing. GW Templates is still in development, and I’m hoping to get it out of test in the next month. All the features are in, its a question of entering the masses of information about Guild Wars skills. Then there’s the additional features I want for the guild’s website. And then seeing what stuff can be offered for Guild Wars 2.
99 days is enough right?