(Helping GGG in) Creating a unique item: a breakdown of the breakdown

How very disappointing and disturbing, both Charan's as well as Lyralei's account of their experience.

I for one am ever-loving tired of the whole "meta" bullshit. It seems at times they forget there is an actual game here we want to play and lose sight of that, lost in their "meta" wilderness.

Thanks for sharing, Charan. I miss reading your posts. The forums, and community, are diminished with the loss.

A rather interesting read, to say the least. It's nice to have a little bit of insight as to how many balls GGG is trying to keep in the air, and which ones they seem willing to drop to ensure the others stay up.

I'm not surprised.

GGG keeps making their game more complex, and not in a good way. Too many mechanics are being coupled to each other (a design no-no) and it makes it increasingly difficult to balance things.

I don´t know what you guys/lads have, back in the dark ages we used to torture the guys we don´t liked, that was entertaining! you have to keep in mind there was no television.

Yes, their 4month complete metaswitches are faster than i can levelup a char to level30.
Yes, their economy is based on a bunch of cheating kids that bypass the lootgrinder.
Yes, their bots are likely to have had more fun playing D2 than themselves.
Yes, "Programmers" are notorious No-sayers, despite their "Job" requires them to find workarounds.

and Yes, if you cant put your name under the finished unique then you can throw a nuclear rocket at it and force them to dismiss several years of work.

A great read, thanks Charan.


I'll hold back on posting my experiences until the job is done (and it is a job). However, my immediate feedback is on GGG's entire process... it needs improvement and structure like any business process.

1st) Designers should be given a proper "Process Intro" document outlining the process, basic high level guide and timing expectations.

2nd) If there is some in-house GGG "balance check" spreadsheet or document used as a mod check for the suggestions make this a public tool. Imagine if designers had a "Unique Design Tool" that allowed them to mock up their own unique: that listed all available mods/triggers/mechanics supported, utilised any "balance" spreadsheet, informed creators how balanced the item was etc... not only would it be useful for setting designer expectations, but it would be a great play tool for the entire community.

3rd) Email correspondence is so 1990s. GGG should arrange for at least an initial VoIP conference calls, or better video, with the unique creator, GGG unique designer (Nick, Rory etc) and a GGG dev. Run through the basic theme, mods, possibilities, art, flavour and at the end of the meeting(say 60 minute limit) come out with some confirmed "action items". So much time is wasted via emails, all parties are limited in the depth they can go to, conversation isn't organic and readers/writers are probably distracted by other RL matters around them. It is broken, spasmodic communication and work that is highly inefficient. A 60 min video-conference would easily be worth 6 months of email comms and time spent considering the content.

4th) GGG priorities... please finish what you've started/promised before adding new "surprise" content. SotV was an unexpected bonus, but it annoyed me that they prioritised this extra content, features, skills etc when so many other promises are left incomplete: unique items, trade interface, Cut Throat, PvP tournaments, PvP Life Time rewards, Guild Challenges, more Guild functions. I know GGG love their new toys, but sometimes they seem like the Dad who keeps promising to take you to the football, but unexpectedly takes you fishing instead because they bought a boat and it was too hard to find football tickets. You try to enjoy the fishing, because it is still an adventure, but you had you heart set on the football. This isn't meant to be a complaint, but just honest constructive feedback.

It's late and I need sleep.
Cheers

Makes me glad I chose to do a map.

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Antnee wrote:

Makes me glad I chose to do a map.

Maps have the drawback of ever being used by less than 5% of the players.

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Shagsbeard wrote:

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Antnee wrote:

Makes me glad I chose to do a map.

Maps have the drawback of ever being used by less than 5% of the players.

I would think that maps get used by more players compared to high level uniques...

Unique maps are pretty cheap

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Shagsbeard wrote:

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Antnee wrote:

Makes me glad I chose to do a map.

Maps have the drawback of ever being used by less than 5% of the players.

While this is certainly true, I would say that some of the rarer unique items (shavs, etc) are used by even fewer than that. If your metric is #of potential users, then a lot of the game falls under that drawback.

I chose to do a map because (like charan pointed out) they don't get swept up in the ebb and flow of balance and flavor-of-the-month metastuff. Also, it's my favorite part of the game. Also, I've always been a level designer at heart. Doom, Unreal, SMW, NSMBW, Quake, a myriad of other games that I've fallen in and out of love with... I had a passion for making playable content.

Maps actually get run often, seeing how even piety can drop them. Some maps are not particularly rare compared to other uniques.