Jes Joe's blog~!

요즘 흥미롭게 생각중인게, 어떻게 게임의 감정을 표현하고, 플레이어의 감정을 유도 해볼까입니다.

일반적으로 게임속에 새로운 기능이 많아서 학습할 거리가 많으면, 강한 도전의식, 자극, 목표감, 보상들이 없으면 플레이어들이 진행을 중단하는 경우가 많습니다. 

우리는 이런 점을 게임은 즐기려고 하는 것이다고 표현하죠. 릴렉스하는 것을 즐기고, 이미 알고 있던 즐거움을 다시 느끼고 싶어하는, 편안한 즐거움을 찾는 유저라고 볼수 있습니다. 굳이 분류하자면 혹은 캐주얼 유저, 혹은 저(?) 같은 노땅(?)유저로 가능한 것 같습니다.

새로운 기능을 여러가지 익혀야 하는 상황속에서 플레이어는 그 과정을 즐거운 도전과제, 이 것을 해내면 나아진다는 믿음, 내 케릭터와 전적/history에 대한 사랑 보다는 이 기능을 익혀도 또 배울게 산더미 처럼 있을 거야. 여전히 나는 그 적을 이기기 힘들 거야. 익히려면 시간이 많이 걸리는데 괜찮을까? 라는 두려움과 의심이라는 감정을 자신도 모르게 느끼는 경우가 많습니다. 

단순히 학습량을 혹은 잠재적인 두려움, 의심의 요소를 적절하게 줄이는 것은 하드코어/케주얼 플레이어에 따라 접근 방법이 다르고 또 이에 따라 많은 개발 자원이 필요합니다.

결론을 이야기하자면, 학습할게 무~지 많고, 난이도도 어려운 게임을 접하는 플레이어의  부정적 감정을, 어떻게 긍정적 감정으로 바꿀까... 라는 원론적인 고민이 생깁니다.

무언가 도전해보고 싶은 장치는 어떻게 만들까요? 지금 생각은 그 장치의 내부는 사람의 마음, 믿음, 사랑을 기반으로 작동하지 않을까.. 라고 여겨집니다.

나중에 시간을 내어 좀더 고민을 해볼 요량입니다.

혹시 고민을 해보신 선배분이나, 더 좋은 방법이 있다면 어떤 것이 있을까요?

아래는 예전에 쓴 글인데,  제일 마지막 문장을 쓰면서 고민을 많이 했던 기억이 납니다. 오늘 윤희정님의 말씀으로 예전에 찾지 못했던 답을 좀더 명확히 이해 한것 같습니다.

예전 글중 일부>>

예전에 제가 함께 일한 한 친구는 능력이 정말 뛰어났었습니다. 남들보다 기술적 능력이 뛰어났었고, 짧은 시간에 많은 업무를 보다 뛰어나게 처리할 수 있는 능력을 가지고 있었습니다. 하지만 여러 가지 이유로 인해서 회사에서는 적절한 보상을 하지 못했고, 그 친구는 실망을 하고, 차츰 불성실 해지더니, 이윽고 새로운 곳을 찾아 떠났습니다. 얼마 후 다른 경쟁사로 들어간 그 친구의 소식을 들을 수 있었고, 그 곳에서도 적절한 보상이 주어 지지 않자, 다시 자리를 옮겼다는 소식을 들을 수 있었습니다.
 
우리는 지식 노동자입니다. 지식 노동자는 자신의 경험과 노하우를 조직에 제공하고, 그에 상응하는 대가를 지불 받습니다.
사람들은 내가 얼마를 지급 받는지 염려하고, 더 많은 보상을 받기를 원합니다. 일부 사람들은 현재 받는 보상이 스스로가 제공한 업적에 미치지 못하면 이는 적절하고 공평한 계약이 아니라고 생각합니다. 더 많은 보상을 요구 하기도 하며, 심지어 어떤 이들은 자신이 제공할 수 있는 경험과 노하우를 줄이기 까지 합니다.
가격보다 뛰어난 만족감을 주지 않는 제품은 팔리지 않습니다. 우리가 자신을 세우고, 광을 낼 수 있는 곳을 찾듯이, 조직 또한 자신의 가치를 올릴 수 있는 지식 노동자를 필요로 합니다.
인생에서 현재를 위한 노력과 미래를 위한 투자는 균형적으로 이루어져야 합니다. 하지만 이는 지금 이 순간에 스스로가 낼 수 있는 최고의 성과를 내지 않고 후일을 도모하는 것과는 다릅니다.

[In an essential design column, originally printed in Game Developer magazine, EA Maxis designer and programmer Soren Johnson (Spore, Civilization IV) shares four major insights from design legend Sid Meier on creating truly good games.]

Most game developers are familiar with Sid Meier's dictum that "a good game is a series of interesting choices."

In fact, my co-columnist Damion Schubert started his recent article on player choice (October 2008) by referencing this famous quote.

However, over the course of his career, Sid has developed a few other general rules of game design, which I heard him discuss many times during my seven years (2000-2007) at his studio, Firaxis Games. As these insights are quite practical lessons for designers, they are also worthy of discussion.

Double It Or Cut It By Half

Good games can rarely be created in a vacuum, which is why many designers advocate an iterative design process, during which a simple prototype of the game is built very early and then iterated on repeatedly until the game becomes a shippable product.

Sid called this process "finding the fun," and the probability of success is often directly related to the number of times a team can turn the crank on the loop of developing an idea, play-testing the results, and then adjusting based on feedback.

As the number of times a team can go through this cycle is finite, developers should not waste time with small changes. Instead, when making gameplay adjustments, developers should aim for significant changes that will provoke a tangible response.

If a unit seems too weak, don’t lower its cost by 5%; instead, double its strength. If players feel overwhelmed by too many upgrades, try removing half of them. In the original Civilization, the gameplay kept slowing down to a painful crawl, which Sid solved by shrinking the map in half. The point is not that the new values are likely to be correct - the goal is to stake out more design territory with each successive iteration.

Imagine the design space of a new game to be an undiscovered world. The designers may have a vague notion of what exists beyond the horizon, but without experimentation and testing, these assumptions remain purely theoretically. Thus, each radical change opens up a new piece of land for the team to consider before settling down for the final product.

One Good Game Is Better Than Two Great Ones

Sid liked to call this one the "Covert Action Rule," a reference to a not-altogether-successful spy game he made in the early ’90s:

The mistake I made was actually having two games competing with each other. There was an action game where you break into a building and do all sorts of picking up clues and things like that, and then there was the story which involved a plot where you had to figure out who the mastermind was and what cities they were in, and it was an involved mystery-type plot.

Individually, each part could have been a good game. Together, they fought with each other. You would have this mystery that you were trying to solve, then you would be facing this action sequence, and you’d do this cool action thing, and you’d get out of the building, and you’d say, "What was the mystery I was trying to solve?" Covert Action integrated a story and action poorly because the action was actually too intense - you’d spend ten minutes or so of real time in a mission, and by the time you got out, you had no idea of what was going on in the world.

In other words, even though both sections of the game were fun on their own, their co-existence ruined the experience because the player could not focus her attention on one or the other.

This rule points to a larger issue, which is that all design choices only have value in relation to one another, each coming with their own set of cost/benefit trade-offs. Choosing to make a strategic game also means choosing not to make a tactical one. Thus, an idea may be “fun” on its own but still not make the game better if it distracts the player from the target experience. Indeed, this rule is clearly the reason why the Civ franchise has never dabbled with in-depth, tactical battles every time combat occurs.

However, sometimes multiple games can co-exist in harmony with each other. Sid’s own Pirates! is an example of a successful game built out of a collection of fighting, sailing, and dancing mini-games. However, these experiences were always very short - a few minutes at the most - leaving the primary focus on the meta-game of role-playing a pirate. Each short challenge was a tiny step along a more important larger path, of plundering all Spanish cities or rescuing your long-lost relatives.

Another example of a successful mix of separate sub-games is X-Com, which combined a tactical, turn-based, squad-level combat game with a strategic, real-time, resource-management game. As with Pirates!, what makes X-Com work is that the game chose a focus - in this case, the compelling tactical battles between your marines and the invading aliens.

The high-level, strategic meta-game exists only to provide a loose framework in which these battles - which could take as long as a half hour each - actually matter. One doesn’t fight the aliens to get to manage resources later; instead, one manages resources to get to perform better - and have more fun - in future battles.

Do Your Research After The Game Is Done

Many of the most successful games of all time - SimCity, Grand Theft Auto, Civilization, Rollercoaster Tycoon, The Sims - have real-world themes, which broadens their potential audience by building the gameplay around concepts familiar to everyone.

However, creating a game about a real topic can lead to a natural but dangerous tendency to cram the product full of bits of trivia and obscure knowledge to show off the amount of research the designer has done. This tendency spoils the very reason why real-world themes are so valuable - that players come to the game with all the knowledge they already need.

Everybody knows that gunpowder is good for a strong military, that police stations reduce crime, and that carjacking is very illegal. As Sid puts it, "the player shouldn’t have to read the same books the designer has read in order to be able to play."

Games still have great potential to educate, just not in the ways that many educators expect. While designers should still be careful not to include anything factually incorrect, the value of an interactive experience is the interplay of simple concepts, not the inclusion of numerous facts and figures.

Many remember that the world’s earliest civilizations sprang up along river valleys -- the Nile, the Tigris/Euphrates, the Indus -- but nothing gets that concept across as effectively as a few simple rules in Civilization governing which tiles produce the most food during the early stages of agriculture. Furthermore, once the core work is done, research can be a very valuable way to flesh out a game’s depth, perhaps with historical scenarios, flavor text, or graphical details. Just remember that learning a new game is an intimidating experience, so don’t throw away the advantages of an approachable topic by expecting the player to already know all the details when the game starts.

The Player Should Have The Fun, Not The Designer Or The Computer

Creating story-based games can be an intoxicating experience for designers, many of whom go overboard with turgid back stories full of proper nouns, rarely-used consonants, and apostrophes. Furthermore, games based on complex, detailed simulations can be especially opaque if the mysterious inner workings of the algorithmic model remain hidden from view. As Sid liked to say, with these games, either the designer or the computer was the one having the fun, not the player.

For example, during the development of Civilization 4, we experimented with government types that gave significant productivity bonuses but also took away the player’s ability to pick which technologies were researched, what buildings were constructed, and which units were trained, relying instead on a hidden, internal model to simulate what the county’s people would choose on their own.

The algorithms were, of course, very fun to construct and interesting to discuss outside of the game. The players, however, felt left behind -- the computer was having all the fun -- so we cut the feature.

Further, games require not just meaningful choices but also meaningful communication to feel right. Giving players decisions that have consequence but which they cannot understand is no fun. Role-playing games commonly fail at making this connection, such as when players are required to choose classes or skills when "rolling" a character before experiencing even a few seconds of genuine gameplay.

How are players supposed to decide between being a Barbarian, a Fighter, or a Paladin before understanding how combat actually works and how each attribute performs in practice? Choice is only interesting when it is both impactful and informed.

Thus, in Sid’s words, the player must "always be the star." As designers, we need to be the player’s greatest advocate during a game’s development, always considering carefully how design decisions affect both the player’s agency in the world and his understanding of the underlying mechanics.

source:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23458

New China MMO stats April 9th, 2009 (Visited 465 times) Tags: china

• 63% growth in 2008
• $2.8b in revenue
• Six operators brought in more than $200m last year…
• …but each of them tended to have just one title that did it for them
• Social networking continues to grow there (55m users) and cross-pollinate with games

Top games in terms of concurrency:

• Netease’s Fantasy Westward Journey : 1,800,000 concurrent users.
• Giant’s Zhengtu Online : 1,500,000 (this is the one that’s controversial for its “gambling” nature)
• Tencent’s Dungeon and Fighter: 1,200,000 (see here, sidescroller)
• Blizzard’s World of Warcraft: 1,000,000

from China’s MMO market to hit $5.5b by 2012 // News.


출처: 라프코스터 홈페이지

플래그십 스튜디오에서 배운 ‘실패의 교훈’

전(前) 플래그십 비즈니스 디렉터의 GDC 2009 강연 정리

2007년 10월, 플래그십 스튜디오는 남부럽지 않은 개발사였다. 플래그십은 <디아블로> 시리즈를 만든 유능한 개발진과 오리지널 IP(헬게이트: 런던, 미소스)를 보유하고 있었다. 자신의 운명을 스스로 결정할 수 있었고, 기대작 <헬게이트: 런던>의 출시도 앞두고 있었다.

 

그로부터 8개월 후, 플래그십 스튜디오는 대부분의 직원을 해고했다. 이어서 그들의 게임에 대한 권리(IP)를 잃었고, 회사는 문을 닫았다.

 

지난 27일 막을 내린 게임개발자회의(GDC) 2009에서 눈에 띄는 세션이 하나 진행됐다. 전(前) 플래그십 스튜디오의 비즈니스 개발 디렉터 ‘스테판 골드스타인(Stephan Goldstein, 오른쪽 사진)’이 전하는 실패의 교훈이었다.

 

그는 지난 26일 GDC 연단에 올라 “내가 플래그십 스튜디오에서 배운 교훈(My Lessons Learned from Flagship Studios)’이라는 주제로 세션을 진행했다.

 

GDC에서 성공한 게임의 비결탐구와 실패한 게임의 원인분석(강평)은 쉽게 찾아 볼 수 있다. 하지만 “어떻게 회사가 망했는지” 냉정하게 돌아보는 세션은 극히 드물다.

 

해외 매체들이 보도한 스테판 골드스타인의 ‘아프게 돌아본 플래그십의 실수’를 요약해서 정리했다. 그는 이번 세션이 모든 독립 개발자들에게 적용되는 이야기라고 강조했다. 개발사를 시작하려고 하는, 신작을 런칭하려고 하는, 이미 신작을 런칭한 이들에게 들려 주고 싶다는 것이다.

 

 

■ 레슨 ① “대안이 없었다. 플랜A만 있었다”

 

스테판 골드스타인은 “플래그십을 설립했을 때 멤버들이 생각했던 것은 ‘플랜(plan)A’ 뿐이었다”고 밝혔다. 무언가 일이 벌어졌을 때 적용할 수 있는 ‘플랜B’가 없었다는 것이다.

 

그는 “플래그십의 핵심 멤버들은 유능한 개발자였지만, 정작 ‘용의주도한 비즈니스 플랜’이나 ‘재정 계획’은 갖고 있지 않았다”고 말했다. 결과적으로 플랜A는 계획대로 실행되지 않았고, 플래그십은 자금난에 직면하면서 순식간에 무너졌다.

 

 

 

■ 레슨 ② “기회가 있을 때 투자를 받지 않았다”

 

스테판 골드스타인은 <헬게이트: 런던> 발매 전에는 투자회사들의 제안이 꽤 많았다고 회상했다. 당시 플래그십은 ‘투자를 받지 않아도 잘 할 수 있다’는 장밋빛 전망에 빠져 있었다고 한다. 그는 “그때 투자를 받았다면 우리는 <헬게이트: 런던>의 발매를 늦출 수 있었을 것이다”라고 말했다.

 

게임의 완성도를 높이고, 비즈니스 모델을 좀더 고려할 시간이 필요했다는 것이다. 스테판 골드스타인은 “완성도를 높이려면 우리에겐 최소 4개월~5개월이 더 필요했다. 그러나 우리는 그러지 못 했다”며 아쉬워했다.

 

 

■ 레슨 ③ “애매한 과금체계에 문제가 있었다”

 

스테판 골드스타인에 따르면 플래그십의 비즈니스 모델은 온라인 게임의 방식을 활용해 월정액 요금을 받는 것이었다. 그들은<헬게이트: 런던>이 출시된 후에는 월정액 수익으로 회사를 꾸려 나갈 계획이었다. 그것이 바로 ‘플랜A’였던 셈이다.

 

그는 <헬게이트: 런던>의 과금체계에 문제가 있었다고 말했다. 북미와 유럽에서 <헬게이트: 런던>은 박스에 담긴 ‘PC 패키지 게임’으로 판매됐다. 그런데 싱글플레이 모드는 공짜, 기본적인 멀티플레이도 공짜, 그리고 유료 멀티플레이가 따로 있었다. “일반 게이머들이 이해하기 복잡한 과금체계”였다는 것이다.

 

스테판 골드스타인은 <헬게이트: 런던>의 패키지가 약 50만 장 팔렸다고 밝혔다. 문제는 그렇게 팔린 패키지에서 월정액 수익이 나오지 않았다는 데 있었다. 월정액 매출은 예상치를 크게 밑돌았다. ‘플랜A’에 차질이 생긴 것이다. ‘플랜A’가 무너진 플래그십의 상황은 순식간에 악화됐다.

 

그는 “만일 <헬게이트: 런던>이 월정액 전용 게임이었다면, 25만 장이 팔렸어도 플래그십을 유지할 수 있었을 것”이라는 입장도 밝혀 눈길을 끌었다.

 

민감하지만 결정적인 문제 제기도 나왔다. 스테판 골드스타인은 “(플래그십 직원들은)발매 전부터 과금체계가 혹평 받는 것을 알면서도, 몸을 사리기 위해 회의에서 그 이야기를 꺼내지 않았다”고 말했다. 그는 “만일 외부 컨설턴트나 애널리스트를 초빙해서 플래그십의 계획을 검토했으면 좋았을 것”이라고 아쉬워했다.

 

플래그십 멤버들에겐 ‘처음인 것들’도 너무 많았다. ‘첫 FPS 스타일의 게임’이었고, ‘첫 3D 게임’였고, ‘첫 월정액 기반 게임’이었다는 것이다.

 

해외 매체들은 스테판 골드스타인의 세션이 다소 무겁게 느껴질 정도로 진지한 분위기 속에 진행됐다고 전했다.

 

끝으로 그는 “불황으로 게임업계도 어려워지는 것 같지만, 큰 성공의 기회도 있다. 여기 있는 모든 개발자 분들은, 투자자나 퍼블리셔에 휘둘리지 않고, 새로운 비즈니스의 방식을 찾아내기 바란다”라고 말했다.

 

스테판 골드스타인은 플래그십을 떠난 뒤 현재 보안·IP 전문 로펌에서 카운셀러로 일하고 있다.

출처: http://www.thisisgame.com/board/view.php?id=226903&category=102&subcategory=

 

물체들 사이에 작용하는 만유인력의 방향은 어디에서나 지구의 중심을 향한다. 다양한 사회와 급변하는 조직의 리더십에서도 변치 않은 원칙은 존재한다. 그것은 바로 리더의 품성이다.

아미국의 국왕은 자신의 대를 이을 후계자가 없자 시합을 거쳐 차기 왕을 뽑기로 했다. 지원자들을 대상으로 며칠동안의 복잡한 선발과정과 문무를 겸비한 수많은 대결을 거쳐 ‘담덕’과 ‘호개’가 마지막 후보로 뽑혔다. 마지막 시합은 왕국에서 가장 가파른 절벽과 늪지대로 둘러쌓여 수많은 맹수들이 우글거리는 화염산 정상에 다녀오는 것이었으며, 이 시합이 끝나면 왕은 그 동안의 시험 결과로 후계자를 결정하게 된다.

출발신호가 울리자 담덕과 호개는 힘차게 화염산을 오르기 시작했다. 평소 산악지대에 익숙한 호개는 순식간에 담덕을 앞질러 갔다. 한참을 앞서가던 호개의 눈에 가파른 절벽에 아슬아슬 매달려 있는 노인의 모습이 보였다. 아마도 약초를 캐다 굴러 떨어진것 같았다. 

호개는 ‘사람 살려’를 연발하는 노인을 보구선, 자신의 뒤를 돌아보았다. 담덕이 뒤에서 바짝 쫓아오고 있었다. 호개는 멈칫하더니 그냥 정상을 향해 내달리기 시작했다. 담덕은 ‘사람살려’를 외치는 소리에 망설임 없이 절벽을 기어 올라 능숙하게 노인을 구해냈다. 노인은 다리를 삐어 걸을 수 없는 상태였다. 이미 호개의 모습은 보이지 않았다. 담덕은 어차피 늦은 셈치고 노인을 엎고서, 다시 달리기 시작했다. 늪지대를 헤치고, 휘청거리는 낡은 구름다리를 겨우 건너 거처로 노인을 옮겼다. 연신 고맙다는 노인을 뒤로하고 담덕은 또다시 달렸다. 화염산 정상에서 내려왔을 때, 담덕은 호개보다 반나절 이상 늦어 있었다.

다음날 두 사람은 왕궁에 있는 선택의 방으로 들어갔다. 담덕은 자신이 졌다고 체념했으나 마지막 판결을 기다릴 수 밖에 없었다. 왕이 나타나자 담덕과 호개는 무릎을 꿇었다. 판결을 알리는 종이 울리면서 최종 결과가 적힌 문서가 왕에게 바쳐졌다. 순간 담덕과 호개는 놀라지 않을 수 없었다. 병약해 보이지만 기품 있어 보이는 왕은, 틀림없이 어제 지옥의 산에서 마주쳤던 노인이었기 때문이다. 왕은 결과가 적힌 문서를 읽어 내려갔다.

이 우화에서 결과가 적힌 문서를 요약하지 않더라도 후계자가 누구일지 짐작이 갈 것이다. 왕이 자신의 후계자를 정하는 기준은 무엇이었을까?

“호개는 문무를 겸비한데다 지략과 용맹이 뛰어나다. 그러나 왕국을 다스리는 데 이것만으로는 부족하다. 백성들이 따를 수 있는 믿음이 필요하다. 호개는 자신의 이익을 위해 백성들의 믿음을 저버릴 수 있다. 담덕은 능력면에서는 호개에 모자랄 수 있으나, 자신의 이익을 버리면서도 백성을 위해 자신을 희생하는 덕망을 갖추었다. 그래서 담덕을 아미국의 후계자로 뽑는 바이다.”

재능이나 기술적 역량은 훌륭한 리더가 되기 위한 필수 조건이다. 그러나 한 개인이 자신의 능력만으로 조직을 성장시키고 유지시키는 데는 한계가 있으며, 조직의 정상까지 올라가는 경우는 드물다. 그 한계에서 한 단계 더 높이 성장하려면 주위 사람들의 믿고 따름이 있어야 한다. 

사람이건 조직이건 성공에 필요한 전문기술이 15퍼센트이면 인간관계와 품성에 관련한 것은 85퍼센트다. 화려한 경력과 뛰어난 기술을 소유한 리더일지라도 구성원들의 자발적인 협력이 있지 않은 한 최고의 성과를 낼 수 없으며, 리더와 조직의 성장은 일정수준에서 정체되고 만다.

 ‘리더십에 대한 토론은 능력과 경쟁에 대한 이야기로 시작되지만, 반드시 한 개인의 인격과 성실성에 대한 이야기를 하는 것으로 끝이 난다’는 말이 있다. 리더들이 도덕적으로 훌륭한 성품을 가지고 있어야 하는 이유도 바로 여기에 있다. 리더들의 도덕적인 결함은 팀과 조직원들의 신뢰를 떨어뜨린다.

일상적인 신뢰감이 리더십을 형성한다

총탄이 빗발치는 전장에선 매 순간 리더는 '명령'이라는 의사결정을 내려야 한다. 이 ‘명령’엔 부하들의 목숨을 담보로 승리를 쟁취해야만 하는 사명이 있다. 부하들은 리더에게 자신의 인생 일부를 맡기고, 리더 또한 부하들에게 자신의 삶 일부를 맡긴다. 서로의 삶에 대한 책임! 신뢰란 바로 이것이다.

모든 조직구조는 문서상의 조직도와 구성원간의 일상적 관계로 되어 있다. 일상적 관계에서 리더는 자신이 신뢰를 받을 만한 사람임을 끊임없이 확인시켜 주어야 한다. 리더에 대한 신뢰도가 높으면 높을수록 조직원들에게 영향력을 행사할 수 있는 특권을 갖게 되고,신뢰도가 낮으면 낮을수록 조직원들에게 영향을 끼칠 수 있는 입지를 잃게 된다. 애써 자신의 윤리적 가치관과 확고한 신념을 강조하더라도 언행이 일치하지 않는 경우, 구성원들은 리더는 물론 조직에 대해서도 신뢰하지 못하게 된다. 리더에게 느끼는 배신감은 곧 주위 동료들에게까지 확산된다. 구성원들에게 조직에 대한 애착이나 미션에 대한 열정을 기대할 수 없다면 리더의 어떠한 의사결정도 의미가 없으며,조직원들의 행동에 영향을 미치지 못하게 된다.

신뢰는 곧 리더의 가치관과 신념에 대한 조직원들의 확신이자 존경이다. 리더에 대한 신뢰감 없이 성공하는 조직은 없다. 어떠한 상황에서든 리더는 일관된 신뢰감을 확보해야만 할 뿐 아니라 그것을 계속 유지할 수 있어야 한다. 리더에게서 최상의 자질이란 말할 것도 없이 신뢰이다.

대중연설가인 캐빈 로버츠(Cavett Roberts)는 말했다. “사람들이 나를 이해한다면 나는 그들의 관심을 이끌어낼 수 있다. 그러나 나를 신뢰한다면 나는 그들의 행동을 이끌어 낼 수 있다.”

리더에게 있어 신뢰감의 크기는 곧 리더십의 크기이다. 리더이고자 한다면 먼저 일상적인 관계에서 조직원들과 자신에 대한 신뢰감의 크기를 재어보라.

리더십은 감성으로 마음을 움직이는 능력이다.

리더십은 마음을 얻는 것이다. 조직의 위계질서에 의해서는 사람의 마음을 얻을 수 없다. 이상적인 리더십은 권한을 사용하지 않고서도 조직원들의 마음을 움직일 수 있다.

 

강원도 고성에 있는 부대에 전라도 장흥 출신의 문이병이 전입해 왔다. 고향이 먼데다 농번기가 겹쳐 부모는 면회를 올 수 없었고 주말마다 문이병은 내무반을 지켜야 했다. 그러던 토요일 오후, 위병소에서 누군가가 그를 면회 왔다. 기대 반, 설렘 반 문이병은 면회실로 달려갔다. 그런데 면회실엔 소대장이 사복차림으로 기다리고 있는게 아닌가. 면회오는 사람이 없는 문이병을 위해 소대장은 퇴근 후 면회를 와 준 것이다. 그날 소대장은 문이병의 형이 되어주었다.

 

리더십은 조직구조와 일상적인 관계 속에서 존재한다. 즉, ‘부하’가 있어야 ‘리더’가 있고, ‘부하’가 없으면 ‘리더’도 없다. 성공적인 리더가 되기 위해서는 조직의 가장 중요한 자산인 구성원들을 존중하고 그들의 감성적 웰빙(Well-Being)에 대해 진심으로 관심을 갖고 배려하는 것을 우선 가치로 삼아야 한다. 문이병의 마음을 읽어준 소대장의 배려가 바로 리더십인 것이다.

리더십은 테크닉이 아닌 관심과 배려로 상대방의 마음을 헤아려 주는 것에서 출발한다. 다른 사람을 최우선시 함으로써 리더는 최상의 팀을 만들 수 있으며, 맨 앞에 설 자격을 얻는다. 이것을 할 수 있는 사람은 조직을 성공적으로 이끌 수 있지만, 이것을 못하는 사람은 조직 내 단 한 사람도 이끌어나갈 수 없다.
리더십은 영향력이다. 구성원들은 리더의 행동보다 태도에 더 큰 영향을 받는다. 감기에 걸린 사람과 가까이 있으면 감기가 옮는 것처럼 리더의 태도는 구성원들에게 옮아, 그들의 태도를 결정짓는다. 기업체에서 임원들을 선발할 때 후보자들의 태도를 중시하는 이유이기도 하다. 조직원들의 마음을 읽고, 그들을 고무시키고, 그들과 끈끈한 유대관계를 가진 리더라면 비록 가슴이 뛸만한 비전제시를 하지 않았더라도 부하가 자신에게 이런 고백을 할 수 있을지 자문해 보자.

"저는 이번에 부임한 상사에 의해 인생이 바꼈습니다. 미션 수행이 이렇게 재미있다는 것을 처음 느낍니다. 지금 최고의 만족을 느끼고 있으며 이것이 인생이구나 하는 생각이 듭니다."

지키고 성장시켜야 할 세계가 명확한 리더

성공하는 리더는 일상적인 관계 속에서 자신의 가치관과 신념 뿐 아니라 자신이 지키고 성장시켜야 할 세계가 분명하다. 그 세계가 명확할수록 어떤 것이 그 세계를 성장시키고, 어떤 것이 그 세계를 해치는지를 알게 된다. 그 세계가 조직이라고 한다면 자신의 능력뿐만 아니라 조직의 위한 삶의 자세를 먼저 살핀다. 조직을 지키고 키워 나갈 수 있는 안목을 갖추고, 그 조직의 안녕과 번영을 위해 자신을 희생하는 일이 있더라도 기꺼이 감내하며 목표 달성에 더욱 헌신한다.

나무가 깊게 뿌리를 내린 후 가지를 뻗어 무성한 잎과 꽃을 피워내면 열매 또한 풍성해지기 마련이다. 리더 역시 자신의 역량을 바탕으로 지켜 나가야 할 세계를 명확히 알고, 구성원간의 일상적인 관계를 조화롭게 이루어내면 그 조직은 소리없이 강한 조직으로 성장할 것이며 나아가 구성원들과 국가 발전에 이바지할 것이다.

내가 가지고 있는 않는 것은 남에게 보여 줄 수 없다. 또한 리더십을 갖추지 못한 리더가 남에게 리더십을 강요하거나 자신의 리더십을 보여 줄 수 없다.

이제 ‘당신은 왜 리더가 되기를 꿈꾸고 갈망하고 있는가’를 생각해 보라. 그리고 진정한 리더로서 성장하고자 한다면 매일 자신에게 이렇게 묻기를 주저하지 말아야 한다. 나는 지금 무엇을 위해 뛰고 있는가? 그리고 내가 지켜야 할 세계는 무엇인가?

[How do you make a great third-person brawler? THQ's Smith cross-examines titles from God Of War to Ninja Gaiden and beyond to analyze the hot genre, in an article originally published in Game Developer magazine late last year.]

Often the hardest part of game development is taking the time to pause, reflect, and determine what is and isn't working. One of the best tools for this analysis is looking at what other similar games are doing.


Too many games are developed with blinders on, and the developers only look briefly and casually at previous titles in the genre. There are countless lessons sitting out there, waiting to be learned.

I'm a creative manager at THQ, so it's my job to help external developers make their games more fun. CMs work with project managers who make sure things get done on time and manage everything else-we creative managers are pure quality control. I recently worked on the next-gen third-person swords-and-sorcery Conan game with the talented folks at Nihilistic.

Let me take you back to about a year before launch. Development has been going well: The controls are fun and easy to pick up, there are plans for lots of unique content, there's a first playable that people enjoy, and everyone's excited about the promise of this title.

But around the time of the first playable (aka vertical slice, aka razor edge), I'm becoming more and more aware that our AI is not really there yet. This is no big surprise, since it's early, AI is hard, and these things take time, but I wanted to give Nihilistic some clear, detailed feedback on what they could be doing to make it better.

I wanted to be very certain that the changes I suggested would be actual practical needs, not just theoretically good things. For example, I'd been asking for good gating - different ways to keep the player from running past enemies without fighting them.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that many games do fine without good gating. I flew through the last half of Halo 2 without firing more than a few shots. I wanted to find out which things really matter. And luckily, I had a little bit of free time, so I went to the source to do a little research.

Methodology

I picked out some of the top games in our genre, and loaded them up. Title selection was somewhat erratic, based on what I had lying around, but I made sure to include a few well-reviewed commercial failures like Mark of Kri. Those games often have the best ideas to steal. Most - but not all - were games I'd played previously.

A few games that I tried were too far out of my genre to apply. For example, the fights in Spartan: Total Warrior were just too big, with dozens on each side. Heavenly Sword came out after the analysis for Conan, but was added after the fact.

In each case, I would get to the first significant combat encounter that had at least three enemies active at once. I would play this encounter repeatedly, spending most of my time doing nothing but holding down block so I could just watch the enemies and how they acted.

For a few of the specific questions, I needed to move around or attack or otherwise break from block. And with some games, I would go a few more encounters in, especially if I knew major new combat concepts were added fairly soon.

Yes, this is not how most players play. But I wanted to distill the AI down to its simplest, most repeatable state. To balance the block-focused bias, I made sure to also spend some time using normal blocking and attack strategies to see if the AI changed radically.

In a game without block, I'd suggest finding another repeatable strategy that lets the AI (or whatever is the subject of testing) do its thing without the interference of constantly being damaged or killed.

I came into the tests with a list of questions based on my previous experience and my concerns on my current title. As I played, I developed a few new questions and had to go back to previously played games to see how they handled those situations. All process is iterative.

Attack Groups

Questions: How many enemies fight the player at once? How do they organize themselves around the player?

God of War (PS2): Enemies fall into clearly two separate groupings-a close group within a weapon's reach of the player character, and a far group a few meters away. All attacks come from the close group. With zombies and harpies, the close group is limited to three enemies at a time. I sometimes can get four near, but it corrects itself quickly in that case. The far group contains 12-15 enemies.

Enemies cycle from close to far fairly regularly, possibly on a timer, possibly just as a side effect of natural movement-hard to tell. Enemies in the far group pretty much just stand there, only switching to the close group if a gap appears.

Mark of Kri (PS2): Two groups, a near group and a far group similar to God of War, but the near group is only one enemy at a time. The far group contains about three enemies in these early encounters.

The near enemy stays near for a while (up to a minute) and makes multiple attacks with time gaps between. Then he goes back to the far group and someone else takes his place. This change of guard normally feels organic, because players tend to move and thus approach enemies in the far rank, giving that enemy an opportunity to switch. But even without movement, the change still happens, just in a less organic manner.

Occasionally, one enemy from the far group makes a charging attack even while someone else is in the near group-this is just a single attack, after which he returns to the far group. This charge can also be used as a way to enter the near group when the near group is empty, settling into the normal pattern after the charge ends.

Genji (PS2): There's just one far mass of enemies, relatively far from the player. Not too many enemies in this group (3-5), at least at the start of the game. One enemy chooses to approach from that group, and then he walks slowly towards the player character. Once he is near the player, he makes one attack (multiple attacks for special enemies), then walks back to the far group.

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones (Xbox): There is just one group of enemies fairly near the player. One enemy chooses to attack, makes a single attack or a combo, and then goes back to the group. Enemies usually come in fairly small groups; about three enemies at a time.

Ninja Gaiden (Xbox): There is one group of enemies, usually three or fewer at a time. One enemy chooses to attack, makes a single attack or a combo, and then goes back to the group.

Heavenly Sword (PS3): There are more enemies than most games-up to 20 at a time-but still grouped in a near set and a far set like many of the other games. The near group is at most four enemies, and enemies in the far groups can still attack.

The positioning, especially in the far group, is widely varied, with enemies appearing more like a jumbled mass than a clean circle. This variety feels good and makes the grouping less obvious without confusing the player, since the near group is usually clearly defined.

A screenshot is taken from the old build of Conan, showing the inner and outer rings where the AI position themselves. In later builds, enemy position on each ring was more varied.

Conclusions: The solutions used here are more varied than I expected. All the games group their enemies into one or two groups around the player character, but how the enemies attack from their groups varies a lot from game to game.

Prince of Persia and Ninja Gaiden both keep enemies in a single group, with one enemy breaking from the group to make a single attack. This works well with smaller groups, but for our game, we want over a dozen enemies at once, so we need to spread them out more if we're going to fit everyone.

Mark of Kri and Genji felt a bit artificial, because one enemy from the group would call the player character out for multiple attacks while the others watched. Genji could at least argue that the pattern fit the dueling style of the game. I did like the surprise attacks that Mark of Kri added from the far group-it made those distant enemies much more meaningful. The player has to keep half an eye on the outer ring at all times.

But overall, God of War and Heavenly Sword had the best feel. Having multiple enemies near you keeps things on edge and makes it harder for the player to tell what to expect next-which was reassuring, since that was the basic direction we were already considering.

Questions: How often does the player get attacked? Is attack timing decided individually by each enemy, or controlled centrally for the whole group? Do multiple enemies attack at the same time?

Every designer should keep a stopwatch handy for times like this. You never know when you will need precise measurement to turn vague impressions into meaningful data.


God of War: When just blocking, the player gets attacked about every two seconds. Enemies appear to be attacking independently-they aren't really coordinating their timing apart from some basic spacing of attacks. If there are fewer than three in the close group, the attacks are less frequent. The two-second pattern is just a result of each enemy attacking about every six seconds, and there usually being three enemies attacking at a time.

Mark of Kri: Timing varies widely. The primary attacker usually attacks every 3-6 seconds, but sometimes there is a gap of up to 20 seconds. It feels like there is some pattern-a long pause followed by a short series of attacks-but it's not consistent enough to say that for sure (my brain may just be looking for patterns that don't exist). The attacks from the far group are less frequent-every 5-30 seconds-and it seems like distant enemies are more likely to attack immediately after the near enemy does.

Some of the wide variation in far attack timing comes from the time it takes the far enemy to find a valid attack position-the enemy in the inner ring often gets in the way, especially in more narrow areas. So a far enemy may decide to attack in conjunction with the near enemy, but if it takes him an extra 20 seconds to find an attack slot, his timing ends up out of sync.

Genji: There's an average of six seconds between attacks, which is much longer than the other games. Because only one enemy is near and attacking at a time, there's no need for a group timer.

Prince of Persia: The player is attacked about every four seconds. Attack timing is controlled completely from the group level. There is very consistently someone attacking every four seconds, but individuals may go a long time between attacks depending on who is chosen at the group level.

AI attacks often fail to collide with the character even with no player input beyond blocking to avoid them (not moving, not dodging, not attacking), which feels odd. Not sure why this is happening-it seems like a bug. My best guess is it's a sync issue with the block animation-block makes the player character crouch down a bit, and the attacks appear to go over his head.

Ninja Gaiden: This game seems to vary more than most-2-5 seconds between attacks. Attack timing seems to be controlled at the group level, similar to Prince of Persia.

Heavenly Sword: There's usually a four-second gap between attacks, but about two of those seconds are the attack itself, as even early enemies regularly use combos. In some cases, it could go much longer between attacks, especially in the first couple of battles, where AI helpers can distract AI enemies. Attack timing seems to be controlled at the group level: Overall timing is consistent, but timing for individual AI varied wildly.

Conclusions: There were generally about 2-5 seconds between attacks, but more variation than I expected, especially in real-world conditions when the character is moving around and causing chaos. This seems to be a real 'flavor' element-games that take longer between enemy attacks feel more strategic, and games that take less time feel more intense.

And predictability of this timing seems to be a meaningful difficulty factor-enemies that attack at fairly regular intervals are easier to predict, and thus encourage blocking and help the player learn patterns. The games that are less predictable are the ones that are generally considered more hardcore games.

Combos

Question: Do enemies attack with one action or multiple?

Sony's God of War

God of War: Zombies use a two-hit combo. Harpies have one big charge attack instead of a combo, due to their unusual flying movement style that doesn't lend itself as well to stationary combos.

Mark of Kri: Combos vary by enemy type, with the very first enemies doing only single attacks, but quickly introducing bigger enemies who have a consistent three-hit combo.

Genji: Most enemies do a single attack, but many encounters have one enemy who is a bit more powerful-I'll call him a captain. When the captain attacks, he makes three unrelated attacks before heading back to the group. It's not a traditional combo in that the animations don't really link up, but in the context of this grouping method, it acts like a combo.

Prince of Persia: The early enemies have a few three-hit combos, but also use a one-hit attack sometimes. The attacks seem to be determined by random chance.

Ninja Gaiden: Enemies use combos even very early on. Player blocking is very important to the gameplay, so this make sense. Combo patterns encourage blocking, especially when the player can block in response to the first hit in order to avoid later hits.

Heavenly Sword: Single attacks dominate the first couple of fights, probably because the AI helpers in these fights change things up a lot. Three-hit combos are consistent by the third fight.

Conclusions: These games use more combos in the early stages than I expected, and with more irregularity than I expected. The early appearance of combos appears to be a stylistic difference-if a game uses combos for most of the enemies over the course of the game, then it is worth introducing that concept early on to get the player comfortable with them.

Irregularity felt awkward to me. Personally, I believe that combos should be an either/or thing, consistent for each type of enemy. If you have enemies with a percent chance of doing a combo, it becomes hard for the player to recognize any pattern and react to it-unless the goal is to make it really hard to predict and react, which plunges the game into hardcore territory very quickly. I think the games that randomized this were weaker for it-but that's me interpreting the results, not an empirical finding.

Looking Stupid

Questions: What do enemies do when they're not attacking? What do enemies do to avoid looking like they are uninvolved in the combat?

God of War: Enemies in the far group just stand around and look relatively uninvolved. But they're zombies, so it looks OK. (Personally, I believe the popularity of zombie-killing games is partially fuelled by the lower AI expectations-they're supposed to be mindless, so game development is easier. That, and zombies are the only thing as fun to kill as Nazis.)


Enemies in the far group would occasionally play a yell/cheer animation that seemed more involved, but it was fairly infrequent. I get the feeling that they noticed this problem near the end of development and made this animation to fix it, but it turned out to be just a bandage.

Mark of Kri: Enemies in the far group are constantly moving, mostly just sidestepping in a ring around the player. This makes them feel active without really affecting gameplay, especially since the motion is centered on the player character. The close enemy stands still a lot, but his animation and facing make him seem to be watching the player character and waiting for an opportunity, so it feels appropriate.

Genji: Enemies are always moving in a slow, pacing, stalking motion. It does a good job of making them appear involved in a samurai-appropriate way. But they tend to get stuck on environmental objects and appear to moonwalk, which ruins the illusion. If their pathfinding had been able to better account for obstructions, it would look a lot better.

Prince of Persia: Enemies are always moving, which makes them feel involved, but the animation looks twitchy when changing between AI states, which ruins some of the effect. If it were smoother, it would feel even better.

Ninja Gaiden: Enemies mix side-step movement with standing in a fencing pose. The fencing pose does a good job of appearing involved even when they're not moving. My expectations may change a bit for ninjas, as I expect them to be controlled and cautious in their motion. A stiff animation makes sense for a ninja.

Heavenly Sword: Enemies use a circle strafe walking motion to appear to be doing something. But there are times when this behavior falls apart, and enemies strafe in a circle, or stand in place, or run to get to a seemingly random position. There are no occasional cheering animations.

Conclusions: Having enemies pace and sidestep when awaiting combat feels good. It makes the character feel active and also masks small positional changes without having to pop out of a standing animation. Occasional animations like the yell in God of War don't really help much, since there are still long periods of just the base animations.

Getting the right feel for the base animation helps a lot-characters who appear to be focusing on the combat instead of just using a generic standing animation feel much better. And tweaking one animation is a much simpler solution to execute than trying to fix this with complex AI changes.

It was interesting to note how many little bugs ruined otherwise good animation. That may partially be an artifact of my methods breaking the system or my overly analytical approach to the situation, but I think a bit more playtesting and review of content once it's actually in the game code would have helped many of these games.

Tells

Questions: How does the player know an attack is coming? Is the attack animation built with a clear indicator at the start, before the attack is active?

God of War: There's a small setup time in the animation, but nothing huge to telegraph the moves. It's enough time for a quick reflex reaction, but not enough for thought. Tells get more significant with later enemies where player avoidance is more necessary, but within the context of this test, there were no tells.

Sony's The Mark of Kri

Mark of Kri: Most attacks have a significant animation portion before they're active, which acts as a tell. They appear to be built specifically to fulfill this role.

Genji: Since each enemy approaches from the far group before attacking, the approach phase movement acts as a tell, allowing the player to prepare his reaction. Each attack also has a small animation tell.

Prince of Persia: Travel time from the far group to an attack position works as a tell. Unlike in Genji, these enemies don't really walk up, pause, then attack-the approach is part of the attack-but it still leaves enough time for a quick block.

Ninja Gaiden: The time required to run up to the player character acts as a tell, since enemies start a fair distance away.

Heavenly Sword: A big colored flash and glowing streak occurs before every enemy attack. Later in the game, the color lets the player know what type of attack is incoming, which affects how the player should block.

It certainly solves the problem, but it breaks the otherwise detailed, realistic look of the game. Having multiple defense types based on incoming enemy attacks sounds like a good idea, but if a big colored streak is the only way that players will really understand it, I'm not sure the benefits are worth the cost.

Conclusions: Most of these games don't use explicit tells, at least for smaller human-sized enemies. Many of the enemy attacks use forward motion as a tell, which works best if enemies are attacking from a far group.

The lack of tells doesn't surprise me, as my expectation for this genre is that tells are more important with boss or sub-boss enemies with huge, exaggerated motions. With Conan, we want to have more of a back and forth feel to our combat, so tells are critical to give the player a chance to block. Our tells are more pronounced than those of most of the other games I considered.

Enemy Defenses

Questions: What does the enemy do to stop player attacks? Do enemies block? Dodge? What types of attacks or combos are blocked?

God of War: There are no defenses at this point. Later enemies do use some defenses, but even later in the game defenses are more the exception than the rule.


Mark of Kri: The first enemies are defenseless, but blocking enemies show up within the first few encounters. They don't block terribly consistently, though. It seems to be a random chance per attack, so the player can just mash through them and land attacks pretty often.

And once the player hits, subsequent hits connect before the enemy gets out of his hit reaction, so the player can really lay it on. A bit later in the game, combo counter enemies are added; enemies attack when the player initiates the light hit combo, so the player takes some damage if he mindlessly mashes buttons.

Genji: There are no defenses on the first groups of enemies.

Prince of Persia: There are no clearly defensive actions. The interrupt attack (described as part of the next question) is similar to a defense, but it is more of a reaction than a block, so I didn't consider it here.

Ninja Gaiden: Enemies block. A lot. It doesn't really surprise me, as this game is generally considered to be very hard, partially due to difficult enemy defenses.

Heavenly Sword: By the third fight, there are a few enemies with shields. The shields completely block all basic attacks, but are vulnerable to anything else. There is a fairly wide variety of alternatives in the player's combat system (finishing moves, heavy attacks, grabs, etc.), so it's a good guidance to encourage the player to not just jam the same button all the time.

Conclusions: Little to no defenses at the start seemed to be the norm, but most of these games introduce some form of defensive action fairly early in the mission progression. This makes sense-enemy defenses are a great way to guide the player to use certain attacks, but the first few encounters should be as easy as possible to aid the player's learning curve.

I was happy to see that in some games, enemy defenses are used early on specifically to discourage button mashing strategies-this is something we'd been considering for Conan, so this gave me validation to push harder on that point.

Interrupts

Questions: Do the enemies interrupt player attacks with their own attacks? Are certain moves immune to interruption?

God of War: Enemies sometimes interrupt player attacks, but it doesn't happen very often. Enemies often trigger attacks during player attacks, but rarely actually hit with these attacks. The reason for this is that the forward motion on most player attacks is enough to get the player out of range of most zombie attacks.

So interrupts are discouraged as a side effect of other decisions, but not actively prevented. Later on in the game, enemy interrupts become more effective. But even then, certain special moves like the grab make the player character invulnerable, so even later on special moves cannot be interrupted. But this is seen as an exploit by some players, so it might not be something to replicate.

Mark of Kri: Enemies can interrupt player attacks, but it doesn't happen terribly often. Only having one enemy on the player character at a time reduces the chance of interruption, especially since that one enemy is often going through hit reactions instead of attacking. Distant enemies can interrupt, but those attacks have a long tell. Interrupts don't stop the player during certain special moves like the finishing move.

Genji: Enemies are very willing to stick to their normal attack patterns and timing when the player attacks, which means interrupts happen fairly often.

Prince of Persia: When the player attacks, it appears to consistently trigger someone other than the target to initiate an attack on the player character. It appears to be deliberately triggered beyond just the normal attack timing, but it's hard to say for sure.

The timing of this attack relative to the player attack (and space between the two) means that this enemy usually won't hit the character until just after the player's three-hit combo ends. Player motion sometimes takes the player away from the counterattack, but not usually.

This dynamic tends to encourage the player to use an attack-attack-attack-block pattern to prevent this counterattack from hitting. I find it odd that a game that supposedly is more acrobatics-focused would encourage such a specific pattern this early in the game. Strong patterning like this seems more hardcore than I would expect from this series.

Microsoft/Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden

Ninja Gaiden: There are lots of interrupts, and the player's block triggers relatively slowly, so the player has to really predict in order to block them.

Heavenly Sword: There are lots of interrupts. Even with some forward motion, it's still fairly easy to get hit by a third party if the player is not watching out for everyone.

Conclusions: Enemies were much more willing to interrupt than I expected. Most of these games allow random "no fault of the player" interrupts even very early into the game. But in most cases the mechanics and timing are set up so that interrupts don't happen too often. I expected to see more games explicitly prevent these interrupts.

This gave me reason to change my feedback to not worry about this so much. I still discourage it, as I still believe it's potentially frustrating to casual players, but I didn't spend as much time or effort ensuring it was completely eliminated in all cases.

Player Motion

Questions: What do enemies do when the player runs around instead of standing still? What do enemies do if the player tries to leave the fight?

God of War: Man, they're quick. Zombies can get back to their preferred position with very little delay when Kratos moves away. And that's what they do, even if it requires somewhat artificial motion to get to the spot they want. Again, the expectations for zombies make the erratic motion not look so bad. They don't attack until they get into position again, but it's quick enough to keep things moving.


Mark of Kri: The one enemy in close consistently attacks and hits if the player character tries to run away. If the player character gets a little bit further away, that enemy will move in very quickly to keep up. Running around is punished enough that it is not something players can really get away with once a fight starts.

Genji: Enemies stick to their normal attack pattern even when the player character is running around. One enemy is "blessed," and he'll pursue to attack while the other enemies attempt to maintain their distant position. The player can walk right up to enemies in the distant group, and they won't even consider attacking unless they get "blessed." This can create some very awkward AI situations, especially with a player looking to exploit the system rather than to play naturally.

Prince of Persia: When the player is running away, enemies still use the group attack timer, but the player can't get away without passing right next to an enemy from the far group. The enemies in the far group can attack very quickly-the danger of the quick attack animation is normally mitigated by the time it takes for the enemy to approach.

If the player runs up to an enemy, the tell is effectively removed, and the enemy can attack before the player has time to react. This is an interesting, natural way to discourage the player from bolting from a combat.

Ninja Gaiden: Even when the player character moves, enemies use the normal attack sequence. The enemy who is currently attacking runs extremely fast to keep up with the player, making it hard to get away for more than a moment.

Sony/Ninja Theory's Heavenly Sword

Heavenly Sword: The mass of enemies slowly follows the player character, but there are occasional attacks which have strong forward motion that often allows them to catch up. Most of the levels in the game are made up of relatively small arenas, so the enemies never have very far to travel to catch up.

Conclusions: Most enemies maintain their previous behaviors, moving to follow once a certain distance is reached. A few games use harsh denial methods and/or sudden speed bursts to ensure that the player doesn't go anywhere once combat starts.

In my opinion, these methods are overcompensating - if the player wants to reposition or change opponents without leaving the fight, these systems can interrupt player intent in an awkward way. The goal of discouraging players from completely breaking off during fights is a reasonable goal, but these methods create more problems than they solve.

Gating

Question: Can the player avoid enemies by running past them?

God of War: Almost all the early encounters don't offer a path out until the player kills lots of zombies. If the player tries to open a door or activate an object before killing everyone, the player character will usually get hit before he can finish, which is something we'd been discussing for Conan. Later in the game, some battles add magical walls to make this even more obvious.

Mark of Kri: Movement during combat is tightly controlled, given the way the enemies attack if the player character tries to run. If the player can't get away, there's no need for additional gating. If he does manage to get away, activating an object interaction (such as climbing a ladder or ledge) doesn't appear to trigger enemy attacks.

Genji: Lots of invisible walls prevent moving away from combat. Each combat basically creates its own artificial space, and the player character is stuck there until the combat is finished.

Prince of Persia: There's no gating on these first encounters-it's pretty easy to run past and jump away, especially given all the movement abilities the Prince has. The previous game, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, would teleport enemies to positions around the player character if he ran past, but I wasn't seeing it in these early encounters.

Ninja Gaiden: I didn't see any gating-I could run to the next platforming bit and get away without much trouble. Big fights or boss fights, like the horse enemy, did lock me in, but only for these big moments.

Heavenly Sword: There's no gating, but most early battles are in smaller enclosed arenas, so there's nowhere to go. Later in the game, arenas get a touch bigger and players can create unexpected clumps or other problems by running to a hallway when a fight is supposed to be in a big area.

Conclusions: Apart from God of War, there was very little gating in the first few encounters. Most of these games add more gating later, but they were more willing than I'd expected to allow gating to lapse fairly regularly.

This was definitely useful in guiding my feedback, as I was able to shift attention away from gating and onto more fundamental questions. I do think God of War is right to gate for many early encounters, to build player expectation that gating will be there, but it's not as much of a must-have for every little encounter as I'd first thought.

Enemy Zones

Questions: What do enemies do if the player runs far away from the enemy's starting point? Do they go back to their start, or follow indefinitely?

God of War: Within these first encounters, this was not really an issue, since hard gating kept the player close at all times.


Mark of Kri: Enemies won't leave their home area. They'll just stop pursuing and head back to where they started. This can be exploited by players, if they can avoid the within-combat punishments for movement.

Genji: The question doesn't really come up, since strong invisible wall gating prevents the player character from moving too far away.

Prince of Persia: With the amount of platforming gameplay in this game, it's rare that enemies have a big area to run around in before the player can escape. So usually the player takes to the rooftops or otherwise becomes inaccessible to the enemies before the AI has to turn around.

Ninja Gaiden: There are enough platforming bits between combat that this usually doesn't come up. Enemies can't chase because they can't do super-climb-jump motions like the player character can.

Heavenly Sword: Early fights are in small enclosed arenas, so this isn't really a problem. Even later fights are relatively enclosed, so distance isn't really an issue.

Conclusions: With most games, this issue didn't even come up, since gating or alternate routes (such as platforming areas) prevent enemies from even considering chasing the player character for too long. Mark of Kri is the only game which really had an issue with this, and it just sent the enemies back when it happened.

In this case, comparative product didn't really answer the questions I had, due to the differences between Conan and other games.

Hits to Kill

Question: How many hits does it take to kill a single enemy?

God of War: One good combo (3-6 hits) kills most enemies.

Mark of Kri: The first enemies take about three normal hits to kill, with a few ways to do it in fewer.

Sony/Game Republic's Genji: Dawn of the Samurai

Genji: One combo (3-4 hits) kills basic enemies, with two combos (eight hits) for basic captains.

Prince of Persia: It takes three quick three-hit combos-nine hits total.

Ninja Gaiden: Lots. Did I mention that this game is hard?

Heavenly Sword: It takes four three-hit combos in the first two fights, and two three-hit combos in the third to kill an enemy, but it's very easy to use a finishing move to skip through most of that. This is actually fairly similar to our approach in Conan-make basic moves a bit weaker than other games to encourage players to try out the special moves.

Conclusions: One combo or so to kill the basic enemies seems to feel right, especially since normal players aren't necessarily going to connect with every hit of their combos.

This is another one that seems to vary wildly based on the specific goals and flavor of combat in each game. But even the games with tougher enemies would drop them after three combos, so that suggests a reasonable estimate of the upper limit.

The Takeaway

As expected, there are some clear similarities and some wild differences in how these games handle combat AI.

Some of the variation I attribute to positive differences that make each game feel different. Hits to kill, timing, and enemy defenses vary for good reasons to enhance the specific goals of that game's combat system.

When designing a combat system, the AI should fit within the world and themes of the overall game. Is combat quick and deadly, or is each fight an epic sequence? Should the player block, or charge boldly into every fight? Enemy AI is a good way to define this style.

Some of the variation is difficulty-based. Beyond just stacking the stats against the player, some games use unpredictable AI patterns or give the AI denial strategies that make life hard for the player.

Ninja Gaiden was the exception in a number of categories, and it's generally seen the hardest game in the genre. Prince of Persia was simpler in many ways, which makes sense since it has whole layers of platforming and acrobatic gameplay to provide depth outside of the combat system.

There are some cases where the variation does seem to affect quality. Some of the games did not have very satisfying solutions for looking stupid, and finding the right balance for tells was awkward for some. This is where learning from the past can be the most useful. The places where previous games in the genre show some flaws are usually the best places to make a new game shine. But it takes time and research to find those opportunities.

Any case where God of War is the exception is intriguing to me. God of War managed to succeed both commercially and critically, so it stands to reason that it did some things differently and better than others in the genre.

Solid gating for key encounters, clear grouping rules, and zombies seem like they're the way the genre should go in the future. The lack of tells in the zombie enemies could be likely a sampling error - I know later enemies like cyclopes have clear tells, so I think my general conclusion still works in light of that exception.

One final disclaimer: Just because this is how previous games have done it, that doesn't mean future games need to do it this way. There are other ways to organize and pace groups of enemies for combat encounters. I'm sure someone will come up with a great way to set up combat without grouping enemies into clear near and far groups.

Breaking from the norm can be a great feature for a game, creating surprise and excitement. But novel solutions are still going to need to solve the basic problems addressed by the features discussed above. Any new solution still needs to create a fun pace to combat and avoid any glaring AI flaws that break the player's immersion in the game world.

Overall, I felt this was a useful exercise and gave me additional insight that I passed along to the developer. It helped me avoid making some requests that would have sidetracked development effort into unnecessary pathways, allowing us to spend more time on the things that really matter.

Since I did this, THQ product development has been working on some even better forms of internal research, vastly improving my feeble attempts with video integration of reference gameplay and a variety of other improvements.

I would recommend this sort of comparative analysis for anyone who has a specific issue that they know is going to be the focus of much detailed discussion. It can take time away from actually designing the game, but in the end it is worth it if it helps you make the right decisions early. Distractions are good if they help you design smarter.

Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3931/intelligent_brawling.php?page=6

February 19th, 2009 by Juuso Hietalahti
Posted in Game Development, Productivity & Motivation
From what I’ve experienced in my own game development, and from what I’ve seen in different boards, finishing a game can prove to be pretty difficult. Here’s my 21 recipes to aid if you want to finish your game (I’ve used all of them earlier, and currently using many of these. They do seem to work).

#1 - Get the tools you need
This might sound really basic, but I think it’s really important and worth mentioning. In order to finish your game, you gotta have the right tools. If you need some libraries, then get them. If you need to get some new software, get it. If you need a better mouse or drawing board, get them. If you need a better monitor, or new video cards, get them.

Get everything that you really need. (Reading How to create your first game might be useful too).

#2 - Simplify your design
This one is a big deal. Read carefully. I believe that we all have massive amount of ideas about what our game could be. In fact, I think there might not be a limit to all the features we might want to add. It’s easy to become a feature creep and keep adding and polishing new stuff over and over. (Don’t get me wrong: it’s okay to polish your game)

…but at some point you gotta think what is really important. What features are really worth developing.

If this means cutting some features or simplifying your design, then don’t be afraid to do that.

#3 - Have a deadline
Some companies publish games on basis ‘when it’s done’ and I presume that’s okay if you have unlimited funds. The rest of the world might need to think a bit about the financials too. If this means putting a deadline, then don’t be afraid to do so. I aim for a certain (unannounced) deadline in my own game development, and I might move it a bit to get some features (we’ll see) but still I have one.

It helps you to focus, when you have some sort of idea about the deadline. I’m not saying that it would necessarily need to be written in stone: you can always become more specific as the time passes and as you see how the development goes (for example, you could start your development by saying “comes out in year 2009″, then in March you could say “comes out Q3/2009″ and in July you can say “will be released on September 2009″).

#4 - Have several smaller milestones/deadlines
This one is a big thing too. It’s an excellent motivator to have smaller deadlines. In my own development I’ve used “a new release every couple of months (on average)” and while there’s certain problems with public development, I’ve noticed that it’s good way for motivation to have clear smaller milestones & deadlines, and not just one big deadline.

#5 - Stop fooling around
Okay, many developers do stupid stuff that has nothing to do with game project progress (been there, done that… and will probably do so in the future). That stuff won’t help you finish your game.

If you wanna finish your game, you gotta stop (or at least reduce) all sorts of unnecessary crap that you’ve piled for yourself.

I let you ponder more what I mean by this tip.

#6 - Get rid of the unimportant
If there’s some unimportant tasks, assignments, or “stuff” that’s blocking your development… then like get rid of it.

Okay?

#7- Figure out what’s taking loads of your time
Somebody or something is stealing your time.

I don’t know who or what it is (my blog perhaps?) but I’m certain you have something that steals your time. You probably already know where you waste time. It might be simple as email or tv.

Whatever it is, figure it out… and eliminate it (okay, don’t like kill anybody - just stay away from people who take your time).

Don’t forget to check out 100 ways to be more productive.

#8 - Stay in motion
This one is a biggie again - especially for those who do their game part time or as a hobby. You gotta stay in motion.

When you stop working on your game “for a moment”, you’ve stopped the motion. Getting back to moving will be harder. If you keep on working your game day after day (every day), you can rest assured that at some day it will be finished.

If on the other hand you take couple of weeks break from the game… you’ll lost your motivation and will find it much more difficult to continue on your project.

Keep taking steps - even small steps - forward all the time. That’s a crucial for finishing your game project.

#9 - Take screenshots
Taking screenshots and sharing them can be really motivating. By taking shots you can see your own progress and show them around. By having screenshots, you have visible stuff about your progress.

It’s important motivator, so take those shots (It’s also fun to watch afterward how your game looked some months ago).

10 - Use your screenshot as your desktop wallpaper
This one helps you focus on the main goal: if you see your game every day, you’ll remember to work on it. Feel free to change that wallpaper too every now and then (it’s bit dull to watch the same background for too long…)

#11 - Create a video
Another good way to motivate yourself. Create a video and put it online (here’s beginners guide to editing your game videos that’ll explain step-by-step what to do).

Similar to screenshots, it’s a great motivator to see your a video about your game.

#12 - Fix nasty bugs
Nasty bugs will grow bigger if you don’t squash them early. You will be more motivated to continue when you know that your code is good and has all the major bugs killed.

Code filled with bugs is a killer for motivation.

#13 - Don’t squash unimportant bugs
Some bugs are unimportant and might just disappear when you remove features or replace modules.

There’s no need to fix everything.

#14 - Stop having unimportant meetings
If there’s more than 1 people in your project, then you gotta listen to me.

Read these two blog posts: 7 golden guidelines for having meetings and 3 mistakes to avoid when you arrange meetings.

The best way is to avoid them. Yeh, it might be nice to have chit chat with other people, but very often you’ll be better off without the meetings.

Meetings are bit like nuclear power.

Use it, but wisely.

#15 - Have breaks
Finishing games require your energy, so take some breaks too. Some people think that they can work around 27 hours a day and still have time for family, friends, kids and other hobbies.

You need to relax. You need to have breaks.

You just kill yourself if you don’t have breaks.

#16 - Finish bit by bit
And I don’t mean those bits and bytes. I mean that you gotta finish in small pieces. You need to be able to split your work in parts and finish them one by one. There’s an old Chinese saying that I cannot remember right now, but I can assure you it was something about not trying leap too far, but rather take one step at a time.

#17 - Create a cool feature
I created a small feature in my Dead Wake game: when you reload your gun, the flashlight will move just like it was attached to the gun (well, it is attached to the gun). It’s an awesome feature (stole the idea from Left 4 Dead by the way). It has close to zero gameplay value but I’m so freaking proud of that feature.

Creating something cool (if you think it’s cool, and at least somebody agrees then you should be fine) can motivate you and help you finish your game. Just make sure you won’t end up creating useless features over and over…

#18 - Keep coding, building and testing your game
This one is a big thing. You actually need to code and create builds. You need to see that you are progressing. If you don’t see your own progress, if you never build your game and never test your game… you don’t know what’s going on.

Make sure you code, build and test your game. It’s one major thing that helps finishing your game project.

#19 - Ask feedback
It’s amazing how motivating it is to hear people saying “This is great, the first real playable game I’ve seen using this engine.” or “Great work! I love these types of games.”. Sure, there’s people who will say what’s wrong, bad, ugly and whatnot, but hey - we were given ear holes so that we could put our fingers in them.

It’s not like we need to accept everything that others are saying. If there’s positive feedback, be proud of it. It’s a good sign. It helps you finish your game.

#20 - Visualize your goal
I think it’s a good motivator to think and visualize how your game will look like in the end. Thinking the end result can help you motivate yourself, but also help you finish your game.

#21 - Just finish it…
Or ‘just do it’ like they say.

Hey, that’s the thing you just need to do.

Just finish it.

It’ll feel really cool after you’ve done that.

How will you feel after your game is finished?

Just think about it.

Source:
http://www.gameproducer.net/2009/02/19/21-things-that-will-help-you-finish-your-game/