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Valve publications #181279
01/31/08 20:44
01/31/08 20:44
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,236
San Diego, CA
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Marco_Grubert Offline OP
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Marco_Grubert  Offline OP
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Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 3,236
San Diego, CA
Just stumbled upon this nice list of publications by Valve:
http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications.html

There is a paper on game design, but personally I found the TF2 lighting equations far more interesting.

Re: Valve publications [Re: Marco_Grubert] #181280
01/31/08 22:45
01/31/08 22:45
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 5,900
Bielefeld, Germany
Pappenheimer Offline
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Pappenheimer  Offline
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Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 5,900
Bielefeld, Germany
Thanks for this link!
It led me to a fantastic article that affirms my way of productivity in wonderful way!
Valve's Cabal Process

Re: Valve publications [Re: Pappenheimer] #181281
02/01/08 11:36
02/01/08 11:36
Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 980
Aue, Sachsen, Germany
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Wicht Offline
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Wicht  Offline
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Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 980
Aue, Sachsen, Germany
A very good idea.

Quote:


Toward the middle of the project, once the major elements were in place and the game could be played most of the way through, it became mostly a matter of fine-tuning. To do this, we added basic instrumentation to the game, automatically recording the player’s position, health, weapons, time, and any major activities such as saving the game, dying, being hurt, solving a puzzle, fighting a monster, and so on. We then took the results from a number of sessions and graphed them together to find any areas where there were problems. These included areas where the player spent too long without any encounters (boring), too long with too much health (too easy), too long with too little health (too hard), all of which gave us a good idea as to where they were likely to die and which positions would be best for adding goodies.





Re: Valve publications [Re: Wicht] #181282
02/01/08 13:56
02/01/08 13:56
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 7,121
Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany
Machinery_Frank Offline
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Machinery_Frank  Offline
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Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 7,121
Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany
Here is another important hint to all programmers out there (me included):

Quote:

During the Cabal process, we realized that although the level designers knew of the feature, they really had no clear idea of what it was for. The parameters were all very cryptic, and the wrong combinations would cause the beams to have very ugly-looking effects. There were no decent textures to apply to them, and setting them up was a bit of a mystery. It became very clear the technology itself was only a small part of the work and integration, training, and follow-through were absolutely necessary to make the technology useful to the game. Writing the code was typically less than half the problem.





Models, Textures and Games from Dexsoft
Re: Valve publications [Re: Machinery_Frank] #181283
02/01/08 14:56
02/01/08 14:56
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 4,305
Damocles Offline
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Damocles  Offline
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I experienced that with the programmers.

in Paraworld the Programmers created many triggers for the ingame editor,
but none of the programmers documented how the triggers work, and what they are for.

Most triggers where logical, but some not.

When I told them that i need a documentation, they agressively told me, that they
explained the trigger orally a while ago, and we should remember them.
And it would take too much time to make a document.
(The good thing about 3dgs is really the throughout documentation of the scriptcommands
in the help-tool)

If I would have known at least the sourcecode, I could have figured them out by myself.

This was a typical sign of Hackerfreaks, who do not know how to work in cooperation.

A feature is useless, if the user does not know how to use it.

Re: Valve publications [Re: Damocles] #181284
02/01/08 21:51
02/01/08 21:51
Joined: Mar 2003
Posts: 5,377
USofA
fastlane69 Offline
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fastlane69  Offline
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Posts: 5,377
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Quote:

When I told them that i need a documentation, they agressively told me, that they
explained the trigger orally a while ago, and we should remember them.




Ahhh, it's a shame we can't beat our workers anymore.
If anyone working with me said that, they would be off the team SO fast... especially in light of the perfectly logical and reasonable request you proposed.

Re: Valve publications [Re: fastlane69] #181285
02/02/08 09:39
02/02/08 09:39
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 5,900
Bielefeld, Germany
Pappenheimer Offline
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Pappenheimer  Offline
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Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 5,900
Bielefeld, Germany
In the following pdf you see a photograph of the actual authority within the valve team:

HL2DesignProcess.pdf

I guess there is no boss needed to beat anyone, because they see the strongest arguments whether they did a good or bad work right on the screen.

Re: Valve publications [Re: Pappenheimer] #181286
02/02/08 12:11
02/02/08 12:11
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 4,305
Damocles Offline
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Damocles  Offline
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One of the strong points they mentioned, was to have PlayTesters testing the game and new features
during development.
The Developers where not allowed to interact with the Testers, and only set up the game, and monitor
their Problems.

This of course is the most objective method to value new features, and resolve
personal opinions within the development.
But its also quite costly.

They also emphasized the need to concentrate on features, that actually enhance the gameplay,
and take the methods, that where enhanching the game, while beeing quick to develop.
(so no time is wasted on complex features that result in no better game)

Re: Valve publications [Re: Damocles] #181287
02/02/08 12:37
02/02/08 12:37
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 5,900
Bielefeld, Germany
Pappenheimer Offline
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Pappenheimer  Offline
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Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 5,900
Bielefeld, Germany
Quote:

One of the strong points they mentioned, was to have PlayTesters testing the game and new features
during development.
The Developers where not allowed to interact with the Testers, and only set up the game, and monitor
their Problems.

This of course is the most objective method to value new features, and resolve
personal opinions within the development.
But its also quite costly.




Although, I doubt that the tester feel comfortable while playing the game!

I don't think it is costly. We shouldn't mix up the job 'tester' who has to search for bugs and find reliable ways to repeat the bug with that testers that they mean: those are simply guys who like to play such a game, and I guess you find enough people who enjoy playing a game in development without getting anything payed.

The team of Crysis did such tests each second to fourth week, too.

Re: Valve publications [Re: Pappenheimer] #181288
02/03/08 12:41
02/03/08 12:41
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 4,305
Damocles Offline
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Damocles  Offline
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Posts: 4,305
Playing a game a few time as testperson might be fun,
but dont underestimate professional Playtesting. This is a really hard job, wich
I would not like to do.

Its not that they play polished and fun games, but mostly quite ugly and buggy -work in progress-
levels.

Playing a level 30 times, with every combination and unexpected movements, to find bug,
then marking down every little flaw ---- this is not Fun, but a hard job.

Then doing the same after the next bigger update...

Creating a game is more fun, than testing it in detail times and times again.

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