Single Player / Tutorial
Drown
Underwater Join Date: 2002-12-02 Member: 10392Members
Underwater Join Date: 2002-12-02 Member: 10392Members
<div class="IPBDescription">and storyline questions and thoughts</div>In a recent interview, with Blizzard's Starcraft II team by Giantbomb.com, I found this bit was particularly interesting:
<b><i>So we've gone away from one of the things we've done in the past and I think other developers have done as well, which is to pitch the solo campaign as a learning tool for online play. We are not doing that anymore. The feeling is that it's never been that successful. You can go ahead and beat the campaign, maybe all three campaigns, or beat the campaign on the hardest difficulty. Then you go online and you still get just destroyed by the first player you run into. It's just not the same kind of environment. There's a lot less pressure in the solo experience than there ever is in an online game against an aggressive opponent.
So we've definitely said these two parts of the game can live separately from one another. We can have a solo play experience with its own technology choices, its own options, and then for multiplayer it's a completely different rule set. Now there will be a lot of similarities between the two, but we'll definitely have units in the solo play we don't have in multi. In multiplayer everything's perfectly balanced, and we have to know that you can remember everything you need to do, and your opponent can be aware of everything you could do. But for solo play, if we want to have 16, 17, 18, 20 units for the Terrans, that's fine. If we want to have things that are out of balance in favor of the player, awesome. No problem. So we're looking at having a lot of units, especially for Raynor as a mercenary, he's getting access to and buying technologies that are apporpriate for the kind of down-and-out mercenary scumbag like he is. So he'll have access to things like Goliaths and Wraiths and Vultures, and all these old weapons that are not part of modern Dominion forces like we see in the multiplayer. Maybe some prototype stuff that would simply be way too powerful for any kind of multiplayer experience, but he can steal it and make use of it. So you'll definitely see not only new units, but lots and lots and lots of upgrades that simply would not be appropriate for multiplayer.</i></b>
What I find interesting is that they don't plan to use single player as a way to teach the player how to play the game anymore. I am certain this is a topic that has been discussed already, but I thought it might be relevant to both mention this change in design from the overminds at blizzard, a change that reflects what I feel to be a fairly accurate observation about single player vs online play, and also conclude with a question as to if NS2 will be prefaced by a single player tutorial of some sort, and/or what kind of role have you guys think a single player tutorial should play in the game in general, and in NS2.
And from there, I think it merits discussion on how best should a compelling story be introduced to the game, because as great as atmosphere is, we'd all love a good story too.
<b><i>So we've gone away from one of the things we've done in the past and I think other developers have done as well, which is to pitch the solo campaign as a learning tool for online play. We are not doing that anymore. The feeling is that it's never been that successful. You can go ahead and beat the campaign, maybe all three campaigns, or beat the campaign on the hardest difficulty. Then you go online and you still get just destroyed by the first player you run into. It's just not the same kind of environment. There's a lot less pressure in the solo experience than there ever is in an online game against an aggressive opponent.
So we've definitely said these two parts of the game can live separately from one another. We can have a solo play experience with its own technology choices, its own options, and then for multiplayer it's a completely different rule set. Now there will be a lot of similarities between the two, but we'll definitely have units in the solo play we don't have in multi. In multiplayer everything's perfectly balanced, and we have to know that you can remember everything you need to do, and your opponent can be aware of everything you could do. But for solo play, if we want to have 16, 17, 18, 20 units for the Terrans, that's fine. If we want to have things that are out of balance in favor of the player, awesome. No problem. So we're looking at having a lot of units, especially for Raynor as a mercenary, he's getting access to and buying technologies that are apporpriate for the kind of down-and-out mercenary scumbag like he is. So he'll have access to things like Goliaths and Wraiths and Vultures, and all these old weapons that are not part of modern Dominion forces like we see in the multiplayer. Maybe some prototype stuff that would simply be way too powerful for any kind of multiplayer experience, but he can steal it and make use of it. So you'll definitely see not only new units, but lots and lots and lots of upgrades that simply would not be appropriate for multiplayer.</i></b>
What I find interesting is that they don't plan to use single player as a way to teach the player how to play the game anymore. I am certain this is a topic that has been discussed already, but I thought it might be relevant to both mention this change in design from the overminds at blizzard, a change that reflects what I feel to be a fairly accurate observation about single player vs online play, and also conclude with a question as to if NS2 will be prefaced by a single player tutorial of some sort, and/or what kind of role have you guys think a single player tutorial should play in the game in general, and in NS2.
And from there, I think it merits discussion on how best should a compelling story be introduced to the game, because as great as atmosphere is, we'd all love a good story too.
Comments
That interview just made me want SC2 even more. Damn you time until it’s out, damn you!
Ahh I was just thinking the exact same thing after reading it
<a href="http://www.nsmod.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=12743" target="_blank">http://www.nsmod.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=12743</a>
<b>For the Devs:</b>
You spend all this time developing gameplay and you KNOW FOR A FACT there will be balance issues/bugs in the future... Spend some time with a 'fun' project that actually developes the game a little bit. Heard somewhere that NS2 is around 50% ... Not sure if its 50% until NS2:TR or actual game... But we will be waiting for the game regardless. This isn't a major release with over advertised with lack of features to push a release date... This is a project that you guys should also enjoy ;p
This is of course after you finish up game mechanics and models and such. The bigger details put aside. There will be A LOT of new people to NS and it would make a huge draw for a crowd with a new dark scary introduction like this to the game.
Plus I am interested in the story ... But Id rather have it narrated to me ;p
Example:
A tutorial for gorge just to show how to build things, and how the buildings influence the game.
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
</offtopic>
I think a tutorial, no matter how short / un-preparing it is in tactics/playstyle is still essential. We all know the pain of a first time player hopping into the command chair and it being gg in the opening 10 seconds (before vote eject was about). Likewise with bad chamber choicing etc.
I think the tutorial should include; intro to the NS universe (any storyline stuff they want to include), intro into the game style ("the key to success is resource management and team work..."), gallery (walk around with info) of alien types and marine tech.
Don't tutorial being alien/marine commander, or first server they hop on they'll try to do it.
^^