The Door Problem (2014) | Hacker News Reader

The Door Problem (2014)

lizengland.com

140 pointsnickjj27 comments

I think the biggest issue in video games is the disconnect between how people perceive developers and what they do. Many people complain about QA teams and how they "aren't doing their job". The real issue is that making video games requires so much testing that they can't keep up with meeting deadlines and goals. Considering that someone has to hand test nearly all situations that the only way you can really test a game is to release a beta quality game and let your users tell you whats wrong. Warframe is the best at trying to manage peoples expectations. The creative director went on periscope during a big release which made people understand what is happening. The head liveops (community manager) allows them to walk on water (https://twitter.com/rebbford) due to her ability to manage the community. Warframe is the sole example of a game that treats its uses like adults.

I worked in QA on some AAA titles and I remember being told that the hours the team was putting in testing the game (nearly 300 people over several months of over time) would be matched by the players in the first 6 to 8 hours from the release. That and when the team is filling hundreds if not thousands of defects daily, how can the dev team keep up and "fix" everything?

I agree with your statement. They can't fix everything.

Why are developers reinventing the wheel for each release (seemingly)?

The fix in my experience is to build a baseline between the low level framework and the UI, like a business layer in most web applications or the HAL in Windows.

I'm not a game developer though, so just my stab in the dark :-)

They do this though its called a video driver and a video game engine.

Warframe has a lot of issues (still need 135k mutalist samples for the Hema), but even though it has a ton of bugs, I don't really care. The devs and managers treat the fanbase so much better than any other game, so I'm willing to look past all the bugs.

This is a fantastic example, and it applies to just about everything in life.

That which we only use or see is simple. That which we build, is not. Until you've had a custom home built, for example, you may think a home is a pretty simple thing. Likewise, until you've built any non-trivial piece of software, you might think it simple.

I suppose it's a human optimization to conceptualize and minimize things in our mind. It allows us to have enough of an idea to get on with whatever is more important to us. The problem is when we forget that we are naturally oversimplifying everything in life (except that one or two things we're actually doing/building).

It's like with all software.

On one project I have a whole design team that tells me how the doors should look and behave.

On the next project nobody really cares, so I paint them black, lock all of them and wait till someone complains abut a few that they want to open. ;)

And this is a pretty good way of going about things. Details of the doors don't matter until they matter.

And if some participants have specific desires/needs/opinions about doors, you can worry about those while leaving other unmentioned details painted black.

Yes.

Often people need more than they initially think of, but if you wake desires on stuff they don't need you just waste time for nothing.

It's always easier to put something out that the design area can say no to rather than trying to work collaboratively from the get go in the first place.

Most people have an idea of what they want, but can't see it until they can tell you all the things they don't want!

I liked this article because it relates to any form of development.

The next time a client says "that doesn't seem too hard, can you just add it to the app?", I'm sure you can think of a laundry list of things that need to happen to implement it.

It's just a button. This was the joke at my old job.

Another point that could be made is that all the questions in the first part are important and need to be answered, and all the answers in the second part are what the relevant people involved will actually do, but if you add up all the answers in the second part, you haven't actually answered most of the questions in the first part.

And I'd say I've definitely played games where major systems were done that way; someone up on high said the system needed to exist, and then people charged off and did concept art, and sound effects, and made assets, and setup scripting hooks, without ever really fleshing out the details of what the system was meant to do. Come to that, I've worked on some non-game projects that did the same thing. :)

All of the questions in the top are the Game Designer's job.

And the inevitable, "It shouldn't be that hard to add a door, you can do that in 30 minutes, right?"

It's just one line of code.

There have been movie and television shows about how movies and television shows are made. The same about newspapers and magazines. People don't really have a clue how games are made and what it entails. When I say I work in video games, people usually say: Really, do you program them?

Ahhhh... This article was so therapeutic.

The localization bit made me crack up.

Monetization Designer: “We could charge the player $.99 to open the door now, or wait 24 hours for it to open automatically.”

Good lord. Please kill me. Is this what game design has come to?

In terms of "AAA" game design, yes. There are still a few indie developers out there who actually want to produce good games. But capitalism means they don't win - the people who get the most money do.

Doesn't capitalism mean they could win, but not in this century?

No, that’s “monetization design.” ;-)

That example probably applies to 2/3 of the mobile games (and a number of web-based games).

Its actually a little worser now. It basically boils down to - Can we turn this door in a feel-good pachinko machine? If you invest 3 $ in a door card pack with a heigh chance of thief-skills- future doors will fly open for you...

Kind of. The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for opening different doors.

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