The title is not serious. Not only because of what I wrote here but also because now I see ideas stolen even if noone could possibly have read them since I haven’t explained them here or somewhere else. Still, it curious because it actually happens.

Around Monday I wrote a lenghty e-mail to Psychochild to ask opinions about an idea, with this small piece:

[…]
– Realistic inventory (players will need to dress properly to not die if it’s cold, stictly limited space, so without bringing along various sets of armors and weapons). The players will be able to have mounts and charts to transfer the resources between a village and the other.

Those are the main points. All about the abstract level of the ruleset. In my mind this could still be delivered with a simplistic 2D client. The movement and combat should be capped by time to not allow the players with the faster connections to have an advantage, so moving the game toward a fast-paced, turn-based gameplay. Moving on different tilesets will slow down or speed up the movement. The limited inventory and the resource system between the conquerable regions should encourage the players to move around with carts. But the carts can then be attacked in PvP. A single objects can be pillaged and destroyed and so on.

See? Between my plans there’s this idea of conquering regions and build a resource system around them. These resources must be transported and while the “duty” can be carried over by NPCs the system is still open, factional PvP. So the caravans can get attacked and some of the PvP gameplay systems I was planning revolve around this simulation of a realistic behaviour within the world.

I write this because I actually have Brian as “witness”. Yesterday Mythic put up on the website the idea for NPC caravans moving between keeps as an hot spot to offer focus on the PvP. Hey, it’s exactly my idea! And I never shared it with anyone before writing that mail to Brian!

So it makes me smile, because it happens often. Again today I read a thread on Vanguard’s boards that says:

This, to me, would seem like a throw-back to many older MUDs and even Dungeons & Dragons – and that is not a bad thing. If you are fighting a dragon who breathes acid, you wouldn’t wear armor that protects against fire. It would be useless. Instead, you would wear gear that protects you against acid-based attacks. This only makes sense, right?

Of course, all this gear will be quite heavy, and you can’t exactly just wear layers. Unless, of course, you don’t mind not moving. This is where vehicles come in. A pack mule to carry your extra armor, with a wagon along for all the loot you’ll be getting while you go and dungeon crawl. Or if you have traveled a long way from home, your boat will most likely also serve as a place for gear and loot storage.

All of this means one other thing: gone are the days of 10 backpacks which hold 10 items each, leaving for 100 items that each weigh 5 lbs in your inventory. Inventory space and weight limits actually mean something in Vanguard, and this only serves to reinforce the need for storage space that comes with you.

But hey! It’s the other idea!

Actually this isn’t absolutely new because I already discussed Vanguard in the past. And I already underlined that this “spirit of adventure” that the game is supposed to develop is one of the concepts that also built my ideas. I’d actually to go further. It’s not just about the resource system (that I suggested in April, one year ago on Q23 boards), the caravans between the towns, the limited “realistic” inventory. There’s a lot more. It defines a general approach. A meaningful role for the night (and not just pissing off players because they cannot see) with different behaviour for the creatures, a concrete role for “fire”, with a required use of torches or other light sources. The need to bring around an horse, and maybe a chart, when planning a travel. And so on. A fantasy world, as I often repeat, isn’t just slashing monsters. It’s a lot, a lot more. And it’s not just roleplay stuff. I believe there’s really an infinite stack of gameplay possibilities to discover. If just you think to it as a world and not just as a killing spree. There’s a whole culture to discover and study to see where are the points that can be used as fun gameplay.

Another case where my ideas got magically copied was when Blizzard released informations about the quest system. It was exactly the copy of the design schema I posted on the old Waterthread (concise text, clear objectives, visible rewards, visible levels, travel time and fetch duties reduced at minimum, valuable and desirable rewards, sharing between the party and more). In this case I have also to say that I stole them ideas in the first place from Warcraft 3, for example the marks for quest givers that Blizzard carried over. Still there are two elements that I described and that Blizzard still misses. The first was about an UI that archives everything and organizes completed quests into branches (so that you can really follow the ties and “read” your personal story, like an album of your virtual life), the second was about delivering more precise informations about where to go. The idea was to display directly precise marks on the map or a sort of “treasure marks” where the zone in which to search is not precise, so marking the borders of an area where the objective is supposed to be or “pirates” marks and writings pasted directly on the player map that need to be interpreted :)

Anyway it feels strange when you read your own ideas explained by someone else. If anything, I tell to myself that those ideas were actually not bad if they finished on big games implemented in a similar way to how I was portraying them in my mind.

Often people bumping into what I write on a forum or on this website point at me as an idiot. They define me as an arrogant, egocentric and superficial stupid who believes to know everything. With the right to criticize and attack people from a self granted podium. well, I can easily understand why it happens but the truth is that my behaviour is the consequence of opposite feelings.

I do not believe “talent” exists. Or, better, it exists in extremely rare cases but with two characteristics. The first is that it isn’t easy to spot. Never. Often you need another talent to find the other. The second point is also related. “Talents” do not make the history (after they die, maybe). The true talent is always a strongly personal attitude and sensibility that rarely has the quality of being popular and evident. The talent isn’t a bold line, it’s something thin that requires a dedicated and sincere observation. It’s hard to understand because it’s so personal. What makes the history and what is way more easy to recognize is the commitment and dedication.

If you go read what people in the game industry write to who asks for advices about how to find a way in this world the answer will always be similar: “demonstrate that you can finish the work”.

That’s it. That’s the main skill you are required to have. It’s not about having fancy ideas or approaches. It’s just about the practical sense. The reality. Concreteness. The ability to take compromises. The possibility to get the work done even in a terrible situation that is clearly going wrong. This because working and making games is real. There’s a definite line between perfection and ideas from a side and compromises and restless work from the other. Even the best games do not come out as ideals. They come out of “labor”. And a lot of “wrong” compromises.

For sure noone tries to do something wrong deliberately and, without ideas, you do not go far away. But the practice is always filled with walls that you can easily shatter only if you are staring while sitting on a chair, spitting words. Everyone is able to see the mistakes of someone else or simply pick carefully that 1% of the total work done that didn’t go as expected. It’s always a “granted” position. You are completely safe with the luxury to choose exactly that single element you feel like criticizing. Dismissing all the rest.

All this to explain and support my idea about “talent”. I do not believe you can trust “talent” to make games. I also do not believe to have it, personally. Nor it’s the reason why I like to be the “armchair designer”. I know that what makes someone valuable is the dedication, the passion. The endless struggle to move forward, learn new things, accept the critics ans still gather the strengths to understand how to move. The best and successful games come from people who are “workers”. I know that often they lose track of what they are doing. They swallow stuff they do not understand and do not accept. The competence is hard and slow to acquire.

The result isn’t that “fun”. The reality doesn’t look good. It’s a type of world where who accepts more compromises and knows how to behave wins. Experienced developers have their hard and slowly acquired competence as the only strength because there are youngsters out there with fresher minds and without ties like a family to keep care of. They are easily “seduced” by the system and used. But from the other side they know nothing about how to get the work done and how to deal with endless compromises.

Horrible, cloned games will continue to be made. Clueless managers will continue to lead projects and promote all the worst ideas. The design mistakes will reamain glaring. It’s the world of the compromise. The best people are those who are able to look at this with some sense of humor. Those who can keep finding and valorize the little nuggets. Those who enjoy the ride. As opposed to people like me that keep looking things wrongly, that are always dissatisfied, discontent and jaded. Those who find so easily plenty of very good excuses to not move a finger :)