Randomly Mine #6

Hour 1 Zzz 1

Having accidentally bought H1Z1 in a Humble Monthly package, I decided to boot it up and see what all the literal rage was about and why PUBG was considered such an upgrade.

And I’ve left rather surprised, because H1 honestly has elements that are more appealing to me than PUBG, mainly in its faster pace. It’s an arcade game where PUBG tries to strike an awkward balance between it and Arma.

This ain’t no Warframe, but compared to PUBG, it feels much smoother and doesn’t take a Titan XP to hit 60 FPS. However, there’s one enormous elephant in the room.

Queue times…

Not the time getting onto a server. I’m talking about how long it takes to finally get dropped into a match to fight it out.

You sit there for minutes on end, waiting as the player count slowly ticks up as high as it can go before the game arbitrarily starts the countdown where you’re dropped into a bad town with crap loot killed by someone with a Walmart connection.

What I’ve noticed with Battle Royale games, is that it’s not about the elegance of gameplay that matters right now, it’s the efficiency of getting into the game itself.

From the little of I’ve played of H1Z1, PUBG is only carrying a much larger playerbase, because it’s able to drop you into a lobby within 5-10 seconds.

Although, as Dr. Disrespect has raged about it in the past, there’s still lots of time wasted in PUBG, 50+ seconds listening to mic-spam, 20-100 seconds in the airplane, 20-40 seconds landing, etc.

I think Valve’s attempt with Counter Strike’s leaked mode, is going to focus more on reducing this time to get in, rather than enhancing the design of Battle Royale itself.

That’s understandable, and even some great things related to Matchmaking could come from this, but it’s going to be a while before there’s truly a game that lives up to this sub genre’s potential.

Call of Royale

Remember last time when I said there should be a Call of Duty Battle Royale game? Well, turns out China is way ahead of me. Its big difference is that the player-count only goes up to 18 players in total, which actually has potential to change the mode quite a bit.

With a small scale, it’s able to be more focused on combat and individual fire-fights, without the long stretches of dullness in-between. Although, the deaths in Call of Duty are so fast, I’ve got the feeling players will scream at their monitors like usual.

You can get the sense of its pacing and gameplay from this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_JnIOmWLik

China #1.

The Event

I remember when Telltale’s Walking Dead exploded onto the scene. It didn’t happen at launch, sweet time was taken for people to invest themselves fully in the plotline and characters, where by the end it had them in tears. It was one of those rare event games where friends would recommend it without explaining its strengths, genre, or design.

In all of entertainment, there are these events that occur, something you don’t get to experience very often, and with that, the enjoyment comes from not just the work itself, but the reaction and conversation that it generates.

For Youtube, its things like Content Cop. And in video games, its things like Grand Theft Auto.

Telltale’s The Walking Dead was one of these events.

Now, the majority of artists out there don’t get the opportunity to be a cultural event in their entire careers, so to have one is an accomplishment. Depending on the person or studio, they may be content with that and do something completely different in their next project, like with the original Ghost in the Shell film.

Or they may try to make lightning strike twice.

Regardless, I think it’s obvious that one of the key aspects to being an event is rarity. Lots of people got to see Star Wars change filmmaking in the 70’s, but lots also never will. There was only one Matrix, one Breaking Bad, one Thriller, one GTA3.

But there’s lots of Telltale games.

Quality of writing, pacing, and storytelling is also going to play a large factor into taking off, and that shouldn’t be diminished. But, even if each of Telltale’s projects were as equally moving as The Walking Dead, the sheer ubiquity and frequency of release ultimately undermines their own success.

I’m not excited for Wolf Among Us Season 2 because it’s a Telltale game. I’m excited because the original was one of the most unique worlds I got to experience in a game, and revisiting it years later, is something that won’t happen again soon.

The moment in time is just as significant as the work itself.

Licensing

I don’t know what to call myself, but I know analyst isn’t one of them. I’m more accurately a student or critical consumer. I’m always learning, and I use the channel to learn.

Lots of learning doesn’t really come from holding beliefs that get proven wrong, but stumbling upon information I never thought about.

This had to do with pitching.

I’m sure we’ve all had a good idea for a game with a certain license. I’ve been dreaming up Black Lagoon, Mass Effect, and Halo games in my head for ages. I’m sure there’s plenty of Star Trek fans that want something in the vein of Sins of a Solar Empire.

But there’s a good explanation for why so many licensed games seem so… uninspired.

Here, developers don't pitch a game, find someone willing to publish it, and then negotiate with the owner of the license required.

Negotiating for the license comes first, and while there’s no specifics, I doubt brands are cheap. Plus, you have to be seen as helping push their own interests. Rarely, is someone going to hand a property to you just to make a really good game.

When you think about how many things are pitched every day, and select few that get chosen, imagine the risk of entering this with a property you’ve had to negotiate and likely pay up for.

It not only explains why so many licensed games are played safe and follow conventions, as they’re likely pitched by the owner themselves, it also explains why certain games are direct copies of their inspirations.

It’s much easier to replicate the visuals from a movie, show, or comic you enjoy, without the characters or exact world details that may conflict with your game design.

But I think it’s ultimately sad.

To think that things like KOTOR, South Park: Stick of Truth, Chronicles of Riddick, are the exception rather than the rule, not just because of the challenges of making a great game, but the hurdles that must be overcome when your game is nothing more than prototypes and pen and paper.

I Am You

I’ve gotten responses from a few people in regards to Call of Duty WWII’s twist. I’m going to spoil it here but if you watched my video, you know that I think you’ve lost nothing for having it revealed to you.

Your character is responsible for their older Brother dying in the forest.

That’s very sad. I’m sure anyone would be traumatized by that, especially at the age our player character was at when it happened.

Yet the game reserves this information until the literal final minutes of the game. Now, the defense I hear from people is “it’s a good twist, I never saw that coming.”

That’s not why I think it doesn’t work.

The reason I think it fails is for one that’s specifically related to video games, and that’s being attached to the protagonist.

Especially in a first person game, while the character doesn’t need to be a blank slate, they need to have some relatability and shared emotions. When a character is angry, the player should be angry, because they are that character.

So when we learn information like Red being responsible for his brother’s death at the end, it completely shatters any relation had with our hero, because we’re supposed to be him.

We don’t need to know his grades, or resume, we just need information about him that relates to their story.

Twists like Bioshock, Spec Ops, and MGS2 work because their reveals are about information our heroes – and hopefully the player – never picked up on but was directly in-front of us. The character and player are in sync upon the reveal.

The success of their storytelling isn’t about LE TWIST! That’s just scratching the surface.

Holding a revelation for only the audience and not our player character is the cheapest of storytelling in Call of Duty WWII.