A short time ago, at a computer terminal far, far, away, Tim Morten wrote:
>Hi Will!
Hi Tim - it's comforting to see you back on the newsgroups again, and as I said last year, there's nothing like having direct feedback to/from a game's development team.
>While I do agree with your comments on salvage, what you're not taking >into account is the amount of work involved in implementing the other >features in the game. > >When we design a game, we make a proposed feature list, and then we cut >things until we think we have an achievable design goal. If we kept in >all the features, we would have 5 year development cycles.
I guess my opinion is that you cut the wrong ones. :) Actually, I'd be curious to know if user-determined salvage and non-retirement were on that list.
>I don't say this to belittle your concern about salvage; rather I pose >the question of whether you would trade user-controlled salvage for, >say, the internet driver. Or perhaps the multiple light sources?
Actually, I would trade the _entire_ set of graphics enhancements for two things: (a) user-determined salvage, and (b) non-forced-retirement.
I thought the sim engine of Mech2 was entirely adequate - in fact I thought it was great. The Mercs sim engine is, of course, incredible, but I don't think the sim engine needed to be improved as much as the gameplay features did. That's, again, why I wrote earlier that I think the current market focus on improving graphics at the cost of gameplay is unfortunate, and I think, a poor decision.
Or perhaps the new mech lab? I'd definitely trade that away, since I think the re-design was unnecessary, not to mention a step backwards in usability.
Personally, I'd probably trade away the internet driver as well, but I recognize that I don't play 'net games nearly as much as others do. :)
>The point is that, sure, we can hold the game for one more feature. But > if we don't reign ourselves in at some point, we would never finish. >Sorry to hear that salvage is frustrating people.
I can't help but recall at this statement that last year you were also sorry to hear that the forced-joystick-centering was frustrating people, but we didn't see any changes or options for that available in Mercenaries. I _definitely_ would have traded something for this. It's too bad game development doesn't work like collectible card games, huh?
>Now that everyone understands the way it works, I think the concern >should be diminished. The frustrating part was not understanding that >the computer is in control rather than the user.
It's true, that aspect was frustrating, but I think the concern will still linger, even if as nothing more than an expression of our frustration with the lack of control, and in hopes that we can get the message across that gameplay and player-control are features that are truly important to gamers.
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Will Day