Impressions

[James Sterrett]

Speaking as another Fearless Tester....


Your commentary on revealing the rules & balance issues drives, really, to the heart of a key design intent & philosophy in SAIS & WW:

Discovery of the rules is part of the game (and intended to be a *fun* part of the game).

When you start playing WW, you have little clue how good a Neptunium Railgun is. Over multiple playings, you'll start to find out what it can't do (and the special things it can).

Each new item is like a package delivery to your door with a brief marketing blurb. You've got some idea what it's meant to do - but only testing will tell the full story.

Thus the numerical breakdown at the end is useful, because it's part of the clue package.

This concept of exploration isn't for everybody; some people prefer to have everything up front and approach the game as a puzzle. WW gives you the puzzle of solving the rules first - and the randomization means you're never certain at the outset exactly which puzzle you're going to solve [kind of like playing Solitaire with 1/2 of the cards randomly removed.]


My favorite part of the testing process was getting a new build with new content - a new present to find, unwrap, and explore.

[MarkY]

Well, I think it's somewhat unfair to paint me as being unable to enjoy "the concept of exploration," although even if that were so, it would hardly explain why I like my games to be fair and frank.

Star Control was also a game of exploration, both in the accurate sense that it was about *exploring* and in your sense that it concealed details from the player -- you had no idea what each ship did until you piloted it -- but unlike WW, Star Control very quickly conveyed that information to you, because you fought battles frequently and the stakes were relatively low. You could afford to lose an Earthling cruiser here and there (or to take a few hits with your cruiser before getting the hang of it). In WW, the battles are almost always all-or-nothing affairs and you seldom get a chance to "try a gun" in anything short of an all-out slug-fest. The first time the enemy hits you, either you'll kill him or vice versa, whereas in SC battles had a great deal more give and take.

The larger problem with the opacity of the gun rules though (the smaller ones being fairness and inconsistency with other component parts) is that because I know how good a few guns are -- the Particle Vortex Cannon, the Multi-Missile Launcher -- and because I tend to be able to get those almost every game, I simply don't experiment with the guns as a player. That means the only benefit you're identifying ("discover as you go!") is illusory. The way the games are structured, there is almost no reason to engage enemy fleets until you have crushing superiority. Fast drives and scanners let you avoid enemies until you've picked clean the unoccupied systems, by which point you should have a couple of ships and heavy firepower. Then you train that firepower on the fleets left, in order of power, and you win. Or, you don't. (Or, you get a mirror, or a furies gong, or some other item that lets you defeat every foe without any struggle.) But either way, you don't go around seeing whether you can wipe out the massive Tan Ru fleet with a Micrometeorite Gun and a Sardonion Optimizer, since you know that you can find a better gun before you have to try it. As it stands, I'm never, ever, going to find out what the special things a Neptunium Railgun can do are, unless I stop playing the game for score and start playing the game with artificial restraints (like playing Freecell but handicapping yourself to only three cells). *But even if I were to play with such a handicap,* it's still not clear why the game shouldn't tell me that for *basic shooting* the Neptunian Railgun ranks a 2 and that short range guns are best for point defense while missiles are best for capships.

As I've said several times, the nuances -- the little tricks that each item hides -- can come out in the playing, but the gross plan of the rules should be evident to the player quickly. Obviously, that's the core design philosophy of WW, or else *every other component* would be just as vague and opaque in its worth as guns are. Drives would just give you fuzzy information, computers wouldn't tell you that they have the "optimum" ability, and shields wouldn't use obvious ranking language in their descriptions.

It strikes me that you're making a post hoc defense of the gun vagueness based on a philosophy that doesn't track with the rest of the game.

Anyway, I'm not going to return my copy, or not recommend the game, or anything else based on this issue (although I would mention it to everyone who asked me how the game played). It's a fairly minor point. But the refusal to hear legitimate complaints -- under the guise of having already considered, philosophically, the alternatives -- strikes me as a very poor form of customer support.

[Phoenix-D]

Point of order: you haven't recieved -any- customer support here, really; both people that replied are testers, not the game developers.

That said, I've not really noticed that issue with the weapons. The ranking isn't as clear, true, but the descriptions seem to be enough to give a general impression.

[MarkY]

Bizarrely, an edit I put in on the post didn't go through, where I addressed the customer support thing. I think it went:

"--EDIT--

I should probably clarify that I realize: (1) that some ideas clearly will be contrary to the WW philsophy -- like if I suggested that there should be a character-driven story, a save feature, or base building -- but when it's not immediately obvious that the philosophy excludes an idea, I think something more than a pro forma reference to philosophy is on order; (2) that informal beta tester comments don't consist of customer support, and the above paragraph should probably substitute "argumentation" for "customer support.""

Heh. Too bad that didn't go through last time.

[Arralen]

I must admit, your criticism is very well-worded, valid and applicable.

I had similar complains when doing the beta, but sadly, I wasn't able to make it clear to the devs. And then there remains the philosophy thingy .. AFAIK in SAIS information was as vague as well.

There is some sort of fix for your problems, though. Dig through the files and look for the weapons numbers. Make up your own table, and maybe post it somewhere as a spoiler (others may have the same problems as you).

While you're at it, you might half all weapon damages and reduce the 'radius' of the Vortex Cannon. Makes for more interesting combat, as it will last longer and the differences between the weapons are smaller. I did that when I got the very first test version, so it can't be that hard to do.

[James Sterrett]

I agree it's well-worded. ...

In the end, the approach isn't for everybody.

And, yes, SAIS was even more vague. It never gave you more than a mild clue to the value of any given item.

[Zogu]

i love the idea of items being vague. oh, and low value items being very useful. and high vale stuff being only useful in trade (some conograph music, anyone?)

would be cool to create a "trojan horse" item, that blows up a system (or a ship) a few months after it's been traded. lol.