Swords & Shaman of Sonnegard Project (also it has been awhile)

I'm reopening this blog after many many years because at last, something is happening.  I stopped blogging here because I was moving into a new position at GameStop Corporate at the time, where I thought I might be moving closer into the game community.

It was a wonderful experience, but during my time there, my friends reawakened my first love of gaming, the table top role playing game. I found that more than computer games, my passion lay in the table top rpg experience.

As time went on, I was asked to DM for the group and eventually I had a rather exhaustive stack of game world information and a couple of house rules to our campaign.  This never felt like enough though.  I felt that we would get bogged down in rules at times, or other times I had to explain why not everything published was allowed. In other words, why our game was different.

A very good friend of mine suggested that I write a new rpg. I was dismissive of the idea at first, but as time went on, it seemed inevitable. We wanted a game that had very light rules mechanics to keep focus on the gameplay, but very robust and crunchy characters to keep players invested. We also wanted something that showcased what the game world was really like, rather than attempting to bolt rules onto someone else's very nice system.

So one weekend, I sat down and compiled all of my notes and tried to carve out something that might be playable. On Sunday, September 17th of 2017 I showed the 187 page doc file to my wife Liz who was eager to play.

Liz was impressed but right away informed me of how badly written and confusing it all was. You see, she is a former publishing assistant. So we both went right to work on hammering things out. Liz has been the best partner one could ask for, and the game simply could not exist without her. She's a writer, designer, editor and layout and pretty much everything else that needs doing.

That was almost exactly two years ago, and we have come a long way.  We have since released an early test version of the game. Our test game, 'Swords & Shaman of Sonnegard' is available for download on drive thru rpg now! We have also demo'd the game for several conventions and the feedback has been very positive. We are so grateful to everyone who came to the table

At present, we are in the process of finalizing a massive edit of the entire Game Master's book now and very soon should have a much improved version of this online. We have been working closely with Juan Ochoa https://www.juanochoa.co/ , who is doing an amazing job of illustrating the Player's Book which we hope to have finalized for kickstarter in early 2020.

In the meantime, it is my intention to continue posting updates here as well as anything else that might be relevant.

Regards,
Brian

Wooo finals week!

Been crazy busy, and midterms due friday here's the damage so far. I think I could've done better if we were allowed to go for higher poly counts. These are both under 300k. The first was based on a photoshop piece by Wejun Lin named 'Lost Deer' the second character is from a digital drawing called 'Tranquil Waters' by Malachi Maloney. But the 3d below was all me.

Pirates and Zombies and the end of the world

Well I made it to 2011. For some reason the Mayans think this is the last year of everything. But I think the whole Mayan calendar thing is overrated.

For one thing, they wrote in the end of the world several times and kept having to move the date back when it didn't happen. If anything can be learned from the Mayan's about the end of things, its that when they fought wars they would poison each others wells with the bodies of the dead. Thus leaving that well and that city uninhabitable.

It seems they had already discovered the results of war in which the escalation never ends long before the nuclear age.

But enough of that particular ramble. I'm publishing here largely for myself because I'm unsure what 2011 holds. I'm feeling the near end of my corporate subsistence as more and more work is downsized, rightsized, exported, offshored or whatever you want to call it.

Admittedly this makes my other pursuits difficult to focus on. I do what I like because I like it, but survival tends to change things.

Last year had quite abit of disappointment. The agency rejected our Board Game. Interestingly I took that time to take it back to the drawing board and I just need to bring myself to finish the last tweaks of the rules. So my friends at least may soon be able to play 'Pirates of Port Royal' in its final (and coolest!) form.

Additionally, I keep getting prodded to take the concept of 'Super Poke Corpse' to the next level. This started as just a logo assignment in my flash class. But the concept seems a little fun so hopefully here in the next few weeks I can add some more animations to him and share.

On top of having 2 not quite completely cooked projects, my advanced zBrush class starts in 2 weeks and I'm trying to learn the UDE. I really enjoyed working in Hammer in my classes but I just felt like I was missing something and I think UDE might have more of it.

Ok deep breath.. I think I can, I think I can.

Carthage Proposal

CARTHAGE

Proposal for Game Design

High Concept: Historic Espionage of 'Assassins Creed'
meets the brutal world of 'Gladiator'.

Premise: A slave in Ancient Carthage,
your fate seems a certain death. That is until you are paid visit by a mysterious benefactor who buys your freedom. However, your benefactor has plans for you and freedom proves more perilous than the fighter's pit as you must sneak, steal, slash and vault your way through Carthage to uncover her secrets.

Synopsis: Our heroes consist of lower members of Carthaginian society. One, a Carthaginian pauper and convicted thief. A Celtic warrior, a last survivor sold for his(her) ferocious martial
valor. Lastly, a Berber mystic born into debt and servitude.

Our Heroes find their freedom bought by an unknown master. However, in return this master expects something which requires their special talents. They are to intercept something of value believed to be in the hands of pirates in a smaller nearby town. Furthermore, if they succeed they are promised enough wealth to begin a new life.

It isn't long before our heroes are approached by familiar people's who seek to guide them and outfit them with their traditional items and training but with the training comes warning to be mistrustful of the Aristocracy and foreign ways.

Eventually they find themselves embroiled in a web of political deceit pitting the two great superpowers of Carthage and Rome at odds. But not everyone is playing on the side they appear and the players must be careful for the consequences may well be the destruction of an empire.

CARTHAGE

USPS:

·
Unique Cooperative Action Playstyle

·
Historical Setting

Features:

·
Detailed Character
Customization

·
Fluid Real time Action Based combat

·
Beautiful Hi-def graphics

·
Multiple Fighting Styles

·
Player choice driven plot

·
Multiplayer

Genre: Action-Adventure

Target Platform: Playstation,
PC, other consoles secondarily

Target Customer: Male 18+, some female enthusiasts. Primarily interests 'action' console gamers as well as potential historical game and RPG buffs. Characters will be available in both genders and their roles as such are historically accurate and appropriate to the story.

Competitive Analysis: Contemporaries: Assassin's Creed II, God of War II

THE X = 'COOPERATIVE physical action challenges in a fantastic setting' (c) Brian McIntosh 2010

Game Design Concept for 'Carthage'

So I haven't posted much here in awhile, I've been pretty busy with work and school and frankly, what little time I have for gaming I've played some SC2 (great game btw, although I felt WC3 showed more innovation in gameplay).

I thought I'd share some concept documents I wrote in a previous semester for my game design class. I suppose most people would be concerned that the idea would be stolen. In my case, I don't have the possibility for producing this game in the near future and frankly I have so many ideas for games that having one 'stolen' really doesn't concern me that much.

The concept is centered around Carthage. Why Carthage? Well I love history, and I think to make a fun game you need to choose something you are absolutely passionate about. History has such amazing stories to tell and I think the thing I like about it the most is that once you read enough you begin to realize that everyone is from somewhere else that we all share history. That all of these cultures and people are somehow related, its really the best argument against the ignorance of racism.

What's significant about Carthage is that it represents a place and time that can only exist in that one place and time, things were uncertain for their multi-cultural city. They existed on the 'edge' so to speak. This huge hub of trade and communication that must eventually come to terms with the rise of an expanding Roman Republic.

First Left 4 Dead Level 'Zombie Farmers Must Die!'

So I'm just posting an overview of my Summer 1 final class project. We had 23 days to learn the Left 4 Dead Authoring Tools and then develop a small L4D campaign. This was pretty intense as I only had a little over 2 weeks to apply what I had learned and build.

Student work I know, but I did mention that I'm a 'Wannabe' designer right?

Our Back story:

In the not so distant future, online video games have warped and saturated the minds of virtually the entire population. You and your friends are the last holdouts from 'Farmertown', a game who's phenomenal popularity has reduced the world's entire population to mindless zombies.



This wouldn't be so bad if FarmerTown's poorly optimized code wasn't hogging virtually all of your bandwidth and you are continually harrassed by maurading zombies which will not accept that you have refused their Spacebook 'friend' request.
Your mission.. destroy the internet.


The plan is to infiltrate one of the physical site locations of a DNS backbone server and poison the server, disabling the world wide web. Theoretically it will domino, taking down every website while leaving the global network intact.
Unfortunately, the only other thing the zombies have time for besides fertilizing crops and trying to friend you is protecting the servers! It will be a hard fight and you will have to flee for your lives should you succeed.

The mission begins outside of the Intertrode company's headquarters. This place was mostly empty long ago as all the workers 'maintaining' the servers are residents of a small island who believe that we are gods and who are compensated with a weekly allowance of sea shells. The servers pretty much are running themselves at this point.

Welcome to Intertrode!

Basically, I knew I would be doing 'corporate' stuff that most people see everyday. But I thought some buildings have nice architecture.. and mine should be inviting. I actually used a great deal of real estate making the lobby area and trying to draw the player in from the start.
The inside Lobby

Here again, I'm trying to convey that feeling of inviting the player. At the same time I don't want them to rush through. Using few working light sources and low lights I think helped alot because you are forced to use the flashlight and it kind of makes sense as this place would be relatively abandoned by normal people.

I spent a decent deal of time on the kiosk and the skylights. There is actually a trigger on opening the door where a hunter zombie leaps through a skylight onto the players below. I didn't manage to get the screen cap of this however.

The reception desk was fun, but in retrospect I probably should have used a modeling app like softimage and just made an mdl file as all those cylinders created really long build times.




I felt like I had to address the 'elevator' issue of an office building to help to create atmosphere. In the absence of a great deal of time to build lots of props, I think this helps a little and gives the players alternate pathways to reach the 2nd floor. While I'm trying to guide the players by things such as locking the doors to the cube farm area on the 1st floor, I don't want players to feel their hand is 'forced' to go a certain way.


I'm pretty proud of the elevator actually for a first L4D project. It has interior and exterior sliding doors and can move between the two levels at the touch of a button.

I had added a custom sound file here but for whatever reason, the tutorial seems to be missing some information here. Basically I packed the file but it won't play. Will work on this. Was hoping to have an 'intermission' feel as you move between levels while listening to a midi version of 'Stayin Alive', complete with a midi flute ensemble.

The important thing here, is L4D uses what it calls a 'nav mesh'. This is a mesh that you can't see in game, but that must be tweaked and given instructions on how the AIs can interact with the map. Largely for AI pathing and spawning. So in this case, the AIs can and will follow you into and out of the elevator.

The other route up to the top floor is the Stairwell. Here again I tried to apply the philosophy that I should make the environment interesting to look at.

While the set in L4d is generally pretty mundane stuff we see everyday (except for zombies of course), I think that's no reason the spaces can't be interesting. So I created some nice crawlspaces under the stairs as well as a full wall window to open up the area visually and some ability to overlook and have gunplay between floors.

Here I had alot of fun, basically this is a large balcony on the top floor overlooking the lobby. It has alot of potential for gunplay as well as you can see the main hallways from either the north and south side of the building, you can shoot at windows looking into the south side of the lobby from the top floor and of course you can overlook the lobby to the west and the elevators to the right.





This brings us to the server room, Lots of zombies protecting their precious :). Basically this room triggers lots of boss spawns and a panic event when you poison the server. A panic event is basically a mass of zombies that more or less bum rush the players.





Now the players are ready to make their escape and must get back downstairs and across the building to the rear parking area.



The cubefarm area was fun because I got to take something that most of us hate seeing and then turn it into a destructive playground. The cubes are sprinkled with zombies who will attack as players move through the area.

For an added touch I decided to make the cubes destructible. Basically if you open up with the auto-shotgun here you will be showered with exploding shards of cubicles mixed with zombie blood spray.

The finale is admittedly a little underwhelming. Basically I was running out of time and I had to get the triggers working here. The finale can't be triggered until after the server is poisoned and the players make their way out the fire exit to the back alley next to the parking lot.



First I really like the dark here because when you trigger the radio to call for rescue.. lots of zombies come in the dark. Except its probably a little too dark. During reload times you have no flashlight so you have no visibility at all. I think at least one good flood here would have been nice.

Another thing I did was setup the area so that the infected can come from two general directions.. they will charge you in waves from the fire exit alley and from the far end of the dark parking garage.

Additionally, I threw in some nav areas on the top of the garage where they can pour off the side onto the unsuspecting players.

This finale has no minigun and is actually relatively hard compared to other L4D finales I have seen with the dark and the lack of high ground for the players. In fact, its just the opposite, the high ground is controlled by the horde.

The good news is they are still moving through relative choke points so the players have ample opportunity to thin them out until help arrives and the final credits roll.

Since I ran out of time, I really wasn't happy with just rolling the credits. Honestly I would have liked to have had an A-Team like van come busting through the gates but thats also more custom content and I feel pretty good about completing this first L4D level in a little over 2 weeks.

Multiplayer Cheating and What to do about It

Now Streaming PB Bans!

So I was recently playing a current favorite of mine online, Battlefield Bad Company 2. I say 'recently' although it was actually some weeks back. Regardless of time, the point is that there had been a recent update to the PunkBuster software at the time.

I chose a low ping server like always with PB enabled and logged in and basically just began my usual evening of mayhem and explosions and all the goodness that is a combat simulation game. About a minute into the game a message splashed across the screen, this server was streaming PBbans. Meaning the server had just kicked someone for having detected that their client was using a hack to gain an unfair advantage.

I sat back for a moment and chuckled to myself, the turkey deserved it and I was pleased that the message was splashed across the screen for all of the other players to see. Then, almost before I could refocus my attention on the task at hand of destroying objective alpha, another ban streamed across my screen. Wow, two cheaters caught within a minute. I thought that was pretty cool too. Twenty minutes and a dozen bans later and it wasn't so cool. In fact, it was detracting from the game itself because it was difficult to see and aim with a constant barrage of text across the view space.

Destroy the competition!! For the low price of..

This got me to thinking, how many people are there actually cheating out there? In a little under a half an hour I had watched nearly fully half of the players on one server banned for cheating. I wasn't gathering statistics so I thought to go look online for some. There just isn't that much documentation statistically on this problem. In fact when I googled Bad Company Cheats, instead of seeing a list of blogs or articles addressing the problem, I was actually introduced to pages of ecommerce sites SELLING the cheats.

Wow, really? an entire industry built on the concept of dishonest gaming? I tried to dig a little further, but most of my research ended in deadends simply stating that 'cheating' is difficult to prove. In large part because, every time someone develops a detection method, a new hack is engineered. Somewhat the way the virus writers go back and forth with the antivirus software developers. We do know that Blizzard recently banned 320,000 Battlenet accounts citing that these people were in violation of ToS and that includes using hacked client software or software intended to give those individuals an unfair advantage.

Why do people cheat? I don't know exactly. It seems to be for bragging rights, many of the games have online 'ladder' systems now. That and the anonymity of the internet and difficulty in proving a hack means that individual can gloat around a perceived dominance in a particular game. Surely its mostly about ego, and perhaps in some cases there might be prize money at stake.

So why do I care?

Ok, so why should a game designer care if people cheat? This is a tough one to answer. Personally I feel that every company is responsible to try to make a profit. Simply, a business can't take care of its employees or its customer if it is going broke. Well what if most of your customers want to cheat? Is that ok? My gut tells me 'no', but for reasons other than business. If the business is founded around people as a core resource then surely we want to engage people on a positive level? And maybe that's something that can't be measured.

In an article last month on GamaSutra, Ernest Adams refers to a presentation by Zhan Ye, the president of GameVision as he describes some of the factors driving the success of his MMOs.

"Let rich people organize family clans, hire poor people, lead them to fight with other clans, and reward them. Think about who those rich people are in the real world -- business owners and factory owners. They manage and lead hundreds of people in the real world and are used to the leadership role. In the F2P world, they still want that feeling. We just offer them that in the game, naturally. "

This hardly seems fun to me, however people are willing to pay for it. However, I think its fairly safe to assume that encouraging people to behave a certain way because they will pay you for it isn't necessarily a good business to be in. Hence the correlation between some of the early MMOs and 'crack'.

But its just a game, no harm no foul

So its just a game, who cares right? Well yes and no. You can tell great deal about a society by how they play their games. Consider ancient civilizations like the Romans or Mayans and some of the violence associated with their games and what those things meant. Surely they were symptoms of a problem, but more than that they were also a driving factor in the morality and human interaction that took place in those societies.

Games are very relevant to all aspects of society and human development in this way.

So what is a designer to do?

I don't have all the answers, but the idea comes to mind that the game designers need to be proactive in creating a community which is interested in PLAYING the games. Not unleashing automation to play the games for them. Punk Buster is a good tool and tools like it should be required and used for online ranking systems. But even PB can't be expected to keep up with everything.

Having done some research, it seems that many of the 'mods' break when new game versions are patched or updated simply because the server is attempting to validate the client files as legitimate. Can this be leveraged more? The day following the most recent patch of BC2 my K/D rating shot up to 18:1 and was consistent across a half dozen servers. Within a week that rating diminishes to 2:1. I can't help but think this wasn't an accident.

What if there was a daily client build process with quality control procedures and rollback/failover present and automated? Would this kind of thinking help? Instead of forcing ourselves to come up with new detection methods, force the people writing hacks to continually update their own software. I don't know.

If we take this 'high road', it means that as designers we are responsible on some level for attempting to create a positive or healthy sense of 'game', even if it just so happens the point is to gib each other beyond identification in a virtual world.

I think I'm ok with that.