Julian
07-03-2006, 14:15
Of course, avid readers of zee SEK updates knew about this already - IGN posted the third developer's diary online. This time Tom Langhanki's talking about basic gameplay rules, singleplayer and multiplayer and the three tribes among other things!
The three tribes have specific strengths and weaknesses and play quite differently. A big challenge in terms of game design we had to face: How different can they be? There's always a trade-off to be taken into account: variety vs. accessibility. One the one hand one tribe musn't play the very same way the other ones do. On the other way you have to avoid conceptual gaps so huge that the player is forced to basically learn the game again every time he gets to play a new faction. That's a lesson we learned. Earlier in the development the tribes' designs were actually too diverse. An example of that was the resource system. In addition to the standard resources there was a second set of resources only two tribes shared and another one that was unique for each tribe. The techtrees were laid out likewise and we noticed that it was way too confusing for people who weren't used to it.
Check out the rest of the article right here (http://pc.ign.com/articles/693/693555p1.html).
The three tribes have specific strengths and weaknesses and play quite differently. A big challenge in terms of game design we had to face: How different can they be? There's always a trade-off to be taken into account: variety vs. accessibility. One the one hand one tribe musn't play the very same way the other ones do. On the other way you have to avoid conceptual gaps so huge that the player is forced to basically learn the game again every time he gets to play a new faction. That's a lesson we learned. Earlier in the development the tribes' designs were actually too diverse. An example of that was the resource system. In addition to the standard resources there was a second set of resources only two tribes shared and another one that was unique for each tribe. The techtrees were laid out likewise and we noticed that it was way too confusing for people who weren't used to it.
Check out the rest of the article right here (http://pc.ign.com/articles/693/693555p1.html).