As a huge Diablo II fan, TQs release was a gift from the gods to me. Almost everything in this game felt right, you guys got rid of 80% of the annoyances present in D2 (TP scrolls, identifying items, extremely small inventory, lackluster bosses, etc.).
Here is a list of things I'll be looking forward in Grim Dawn:
Bosses that require you to dodge attacks and be prepared for the fight. Maybe make them a little less repetitive than in TQ (more like Hades than Typhoon)
Skills/Class system: this was a must in TQ, but the balance wasn't great and it hurt the game a lot in the end.
Items: I think TQ did a great job of making item's attributes interesting, varied and important. This lead to a lot of broken builds but was a big part of the fun in the game. I hope you guys don't just simplify everything to get rid of the broken-nes. I hate lazy design.
And here is a short list of the things I hope will get fixed, because you know, no game is perfect ;) :
Animations: seriously. Hire a qualified animator or two, they do a great job of making characters and environments come to life. I have friends that refused to play the game solely on the base of the lacking animations. It just made everything in the game feel so un-epic. Also, please get rid of the ragdoll bugs... Having a giant furry leg in your screen is funny, but it breaks the flow of the game pretty bad.
Optimisation: I hear you are reusing TQ's engine. That sure does save time, but this game has also suffered a LOT from bad optimisation and general compatibility issues. Effects that load several seconds after they should have, massive slow-downs, crashes and system incompatibilities were frequent problems that were never addressed.
Spells: get rid of the "every spell needs a cooldown" mindset. I found that the most annoying and limiting factor in TQ in regard to character builds was that about 90% of the skills/spells in the game had rather long cooldowns, making them generally useless (especially after IT, since 100% reduced cooldown builds became impossible). ARPGs really need to be action packed and a large part of D2's success lies in the fact that very few spells have cooldowns. I'm not saying cooldowns are always bad, but there needs to be a balance. Something like 50% of the spells have cooldowns/other limiting mechanics, the other 50% can be spammed much more.
Stash: if your game doesn't intend to go all-out multiplayer and have auction houses and such, then I think a VERY large (possibly infinite) stash should be considered. Part of the fun in ARPGs is the loot, and hoarding loot never gets old. Several mods/external software for TQ were aimed at giving you unlimited storage and such stuff would have been largely unnecessary had it been in the game from the start. Call me a dragon if you wish, but I like to pile up on the good stuff. On the other hand, a kind of "Hardcore" mode where you don't have access to a shared stash could be great too!
Enemies: TQ tried to bring some variety to the types of enemies you fought during the game, but that never quite panned out. Even in D2, this aspect of the game felt very bland. D3, on the other hand, really nailed it this time around and it makes the game SO much more active and entertaining. I think some thought should really go into questions like "how can we make every encounter feel different from the last?", "How can we push the player towards adapting his strategy to the type of creatures he's fighting?" and "How can we combine visual, story and gameplay elements so that the player goes "OMFG" every time you introduce a new monster?".
I think that's enough suggestion for now, I'm not on your dev team and this is starting to sound like I think I'm better at this than you are, which is most certainly not the case, seeing as you designed one of the games I played the most in my life. On to some questions!
What was it like going from AoE player to lead game designer in such a short time window? Do you think that kind of stuff is still possible nowadays?
In my personal experience, getting into the game industry can be a very long and hard quest, to say the least. Even here in Montreal where we have some of the biggest studios in the world, the task is daunting at best. Any advice for a junior designer trying to make his way into this jungle?
What is it like being a serious indie dev? How many hours a week do you work? What were your biggest challenges?
I've been on a couple of projects with friends were we had to work at home 99% of the time and communication proved to be a very hard obstacle to overcome. What do you think is the best way to approach this kind of project?
I think that's all, I wish you the best for Grim Dawn and all your future projects (an RTS sounds great, I loved Empire Earth, even tough it was a mess of a game if you didn't limit it heavily). I also wish you good luck at building an independent studio and most of all, I hope you will be able to achieve all this and still sleep 8 hours a day. Good luck!
BenZen8 karma
As a huge Diablo II fan, TQs release was a gift from the gods to me. Almost everything in this game felt right, you guys got rid of 80% of the annoyances present in D2 (TP scrolls, identifying items, extremely small inventory, lackluster bosses, etc.).
Here is a list of things I'll be looking forward in Grim Dawn:
Bosses that require you to dodge attacks and be prepared for the fight. Maybe make them a little less repetitive than in TQ (more like Hades than Typhoon)
Skills/Class system: this was a must in TQ, but the balance wasn't great and it hurt the game a lot in the end.
Items: I think TQ did a great job of making item's attributes interesting, varied and important. This lead to a lot of broken builds but was a big part of the fun in the game. I hope you guys don't just simplify everything to get rid of the broken-nes. I hate lazy design.
And here is a short list of the things I hope will get fixed, because you know, no game is perfect ;) :
Animations: seriously. Hire a qualified animator or two, they do a great job of making characters and environments come to life. I have friends that refused to play the game solely on the base of the lacking animations. It just made everything in the game feel so un-epic. Also, please get rid of the ragdoll bugs... Having a giant furry leg in your screen is funny, but it breaks the flow of the game pretty bad.
Optimisation: I hear you are reusing TQ's engine. That sure does save time, but this game has also suffered a LOT from bad optimisation and general compatibility issues. Effects that load several seconds after they should have, massive slow-downs, crashes and system incompatibilities were frequent problems that were never addressed.
Spells: get rid of the "every spell needs a cooldown" mindset. I found that the most annoying and limiting factor in TQ in regard to character builds was that about 90% of the skills/spells in the game had rather long cooldowns, making them generally useless (especially after IT, since 100% reduced cooldown builds became impossible). ARPGs really need to be action packed and a large part of D2's success lies in the fact that very few spells have cooldowns. I'm not saying cooldowns are always bad, but there needs to be a balance. Something like 50% of the spells have cooldowns/other limiting mechanics, the other 50% can be spammed much more.
Stash: if your game doesn't intend to go all-out multiplayer and have auction houses and such, then I think a VERY large (possibly infinite) stash should be considered. Part of the fun in ARPGs is the loot, and hoarding loot never gets old. Several mods/external software for TQ were aimed at giving you unlimited storage and such stuff would have been largely unnecessary had it been in the game from the start. Call me a dragon if you wish, but I like to pile up on the good stuff. On the other hand, a kind of "Hardcore" mode where you don't have access to a shared stash could be great too!
Enemies: TQ tried to bring some variety to the types of enemies you fought during the game, but that never quite panned out. Even in D2, this aspect of the game felt very bland. D3, on the other hand, really nailed it this time around and it makes the game SO much more active and entertaining. I think some thought should really go into questions like "how can we make every encounter feel different from the last?", "How can we push the player towards adapting his strategy to the type of creatures he's fighting?" and "How can we combine visual, story and gameplay elements so that the player goes "OMFG" every time you introduce a new monster?".
I think that's enough suggestion for now, I'm not on your dev team and this is starting to sound like I think I'm better at this than you are, which is most certainly not the case, seeing as you designed one of the games I played the most in my life. On to some questions!
What was it like going from AoE player to lead game designer in such a short time window? Do you think that kind of stuff is still possible nowadays?
In my personal experience, getting into the game industry can be a very long and hard quest, to say the least. Even here in Montreal where we have some of the biggest studios in the world, the task is daunting at best. Any advice for a junior designer trying to make his way into this jungle?
What is it like being a serious indie dev? How many hours a week do you work? What were your biggest challenges?
I've been on a couple of projects with friends were we had to work at home 99% of the time and communication proved to be a very hard obstacle to overcome. What do you think is the best way to approach this kind of project?
I think that's all, I wish you the best for Grim Dawn and all your future projects (an RTS sounds great, I loved Empire Earth, even tough it was a mess of a game if you didn't limit it heavily). I also wish you good luck at building an independent studio and most of all, I hope you will be able to achieve all this and still sleep 8 hours a day. Good luck!
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