I just want players to save money, but I was made the richest man - Chapter 198

c193 Practice your skills by making an open world game!

December, early winter day.

Although it has not snowed in Jianglin, through the solid floor-to-ceiling glass on the right side of the No. 1 Player conference room, one can still see the desolate street scene, as well as the people hurriedly walking on the street wrapped in thick winter clothes, and the sky also appears foggy. of a piece.

“What I want to explain to you today is about the meaning of beauty in the game.” Ke Jin looked at the number one player and the senior executives who came from the Oasis branch, and said slowly: “What do you think is beauty?”

Game understanding symposiums held by the chief designer of Ready Player One are held from time to time.

The main function is to provide one-way output of game understanding to the employees under Kejin.

As the company grows larger, so does the scale of game production.

Ke Jin gradually discovered.

Even relying on detailed planning documents alone, it is difficult for employees to design large-scale games to perfection.

This point was repeatedly frustrated during the production of “Extinction”.

Although Kejin and Dongzhi have discussed a cooperation plan for offline panoramic demo.

But that was ultimately just a bold, forward-thinking idea.

It is naturally unrealistic to expect players to be able to perfectly experience the entire game process offline.

First of all, the area of ​​the venue does not allow it at all.

Therefore, the main body of “Extinction” will still be sold in the most traditional online mode.

As a 3D game with high image quality and a relatively high degree of freedom.

During the production, Kejin discovered whether it was Ready Player One or Oasis.

A large part of the workforce has entered a strange phase – speaking from experience.

After they received their respective responsible content, they still designed the game based on their experience in developing traditional 2D or linear 3D.

Although in terms of content, it has indeed almost restored the original work.

But after Ke Jin experienced the first few minutes of development draft of “Extinction” that had not yet been rendered, he always felt that there was a big gap between this game and the original work.

in other words.

It’s like a person is perfectly replicated 1:1 to create another independent individual.

The details of their appearance, behavioral characteristics, and way of speaking are all exactly the same.

But as his old friend, he can tell which one is his real buddy in just a few sentences.

Because what is missing is the soul with past memories.

The same is true now.

If you still design open world games with the mindset of developing traditional 2D or traditional 3D.

Even if the same skin is made, it cannot achieve the same soul as the original.

And many times, the reason why a game is a classic is often a combination of many aspects.

Once certain parts are missing, let alone the Earth in the previous life, it may not be possible to become popular on a blue star that has never seen this type of thing before.

Therefore, Kejin felt that it was necessary to hold a symposium with his employees.

Open world gameplay and linear world are two completely opposite propositions.

A linear game, as the name suggests.

All the player’s actions follow an open or hidden line.

The bright line on the surface is the main line that guides the players.

Let players continue to be attracted by the main line, follow the route developed by the game designer, and move forward to defeat powerful enemies one after another.

The ultimate driving force for players is always to push the main line.

Initially, this kind of game design idea will be strongly bound to the game plot text.

In other words, once the game plot is not exciting enough, the game will immediately become eclipsed.

If players are not even interested in your biggest main plot, how do you expect them to follow a route you designed?

But games that are strongly tied to the plot will have another drawback.

The playability of the game itself seems to be less important.

On Earth, over a long period of time.

There was a period in the gaming industry where ‘I don’t want to kill people, I just want to see the plot, please show me more plot’.

Most designers find it difficult to choose the balance between gameplay and game plot in linear games.

Later, many designers and practitioners came up with various solutions.

The first is to add many branches to a linear game.

It not only enriches the world view setting, but also allows players to postpone the progress of the main storyline to learn more, thus bringing a stronger sense of immersion.

But the move soon failed.

Because many designers have discovered.

Unless you are a fan of this game, you will want to collect every detail and easter egg.

Otherwise, they have no interest in touching those damn side quests.

I am about to save the princess I miss so much. She has brought me so many beautiful memories. My princess, I can’t wait to fly into the castle and rescue you right away.

At this time, the designer next to me gave me a task of ‘help Wang Mazi drive away the goblins’. Are you sure I will be interested?

When that didn’t work, designers started trying.

Make the rewards of side tasks more generous.

Since you are not interested in just showing you the side plot, setting, or my rich world view.

The dragon-slaying sword will be given as a gift after completing the branch plot. Are you interested?

Actual testing shows that there is interest, but not much.

The branch rewards are too weak, and players are still unmoved. Anyway, if I clear the main plot, I will get better ones.

The side-line rewards are too strong, and may even take over the main line, which will make players lose motivation to explore the subsequent main line.

Under various constraints that are difficult to balance, there are many masterpieces of linear games.

It’s just that there is too little room for development, which is very detrimental to the entire game industry’s ability to tap into more new content.

Then, some game designers realized it.

Since linear games bring so much guidance to players that it is difficult for designers to choose content.

Can we simply step outside this framework?

Can we get players to stop caring about the damn plot.

Directly experience the content of the game itself.

Let the player dominate the game and define what he wants to play.

It’s not about what content the designer can let him play.

At this point, the initial concept of the open world was born.

Open world does not mean a large map where players can run around and it is considered an open world.

No matter how big the map of a game is, if players still follow the designer’s design and move forward step by step, first go to point A, then go to point B, fight this BOSS first, and then fight that BOSS.

This would still be locked within the framework of a linear game.

Only games that focus on the word “open” and allow players to go wherever they want, do whatever tasks they want, and be able to freely arrange their own actions can be called “open world games”

With the birth of the open world concept, the problem of “strong main plot or strong gameplay” that has been troubling designers has been gradually solved.

Game designers can design a game through a weakly attractive main line or through some fragmented and hazy plots.

What’s more, you can make the players not know what your main plot is about after completing the game, they don’t even remember the name of the BOSS, and they don’t remember the appearance of any passerby NPC. They only know that they have a great time playing and feel free. ,very happy.

This was unthinkable in the original linear world.

Now, designers have a lot more room to play.

But the open world is not without its flaws.

Due to weak mainline pull, players will lose a large drive towards the ultimate goal.

In a linear world, a large amount of text or plot or foreshadowing will be used to make players fall in love with the character of the princess and then rescue her.

In the open world, I don’t know the name of the princess, I don’t know what she looks like, and the players only know a little about her personality and what she has done.

You want me to save her just for this? You’re telling me this is my ultimate goal as a player?

Sorry, I’m really not interested.

Therefore, the best immersion in the online linear world is even more important in the open world.

Immersion will even replace the main line and become the biggest driving force for players to continue exploring an open world game.

“What do you think is beauty in games?” Kejin asked again.

“Exquisite painting style or beautiful architecture?” an employee replied after thinking for a moment.

“The beauty of human nature is integrated into the story. I feel that some stories are very attractive to me when they are filled with the glory of human nature. This has a macroscopic beauty in a broad sense.” Cheng Bage immediately answered.

“I think coolness is also a manifestation of beauty. This game makes me have a lot of fun playing it, it’s cool, and I’m in a beautiful mood… I don’t know if this counts?” Secretary Qiao Yuan also participated in the meeting and was brave enough to express her opinions. road.

In the top-level meetings of Ready Player One, Kejin always encourages any employee to speak out his or her ideas boldly.

It doesn’t matter if you say it wrong.

Maybe the answer itself is wrong, but it will inspire other people to think divergently.

“I think there is another kind of beauty…”

“Oh, yes, does this count? My opinion is…”

Many department heads have expressed their thoughts one after another.

After listening for a while, Ke Jin nodded slightly.

“What you said is correct, but there is a kind of beauty that is above all these, and it is also the top priority of our innovative open world design concept.”

Hearing this, everyone looked towards Ke Jin with curiosity in their eyes.

After scanning the crowd, Ke Jin spoke slowly.

“The beauty of intuition.”

As soon as he finished speaking, there were a lot of surprised voices in the conference room.

“ah?”

“Well……?”

“This definition… is so abstract.”

“Mr. Ke, please make it clearer… Our talents are limited and we really can’t get this…”

“I know about intuition, but why does intuition produce beauty?”

Faced with the confused scene of everyone, Ke Jin was not surprised.

If you could easily access the wisdom summed up by so many outstanding designers in the past life based on their lifetime experience, then Blue Star’s game development would not be as bad as it is now.

After thinking about where to start, Ke Jin walked towards the window again.

“It’s winter now, the temperature outside should be very cold.”

Not understanding what he wanted to say, the employees could only nod and said in unison: “Yeah.”

“Then how do you judge this ‘cold’?”

“Uh… because the temperature is low.” Cheng Bage touched his head, which immediately caused a burst of laughter in the conference room.

Some employees also said: “The main reason is that it’s not just today that is cold. It has been cooling down since last week. When I go out to the company, I can clearly feel the seasonal changes.”

“And there are weather forecast reminders on your phone.”

“On the contrary, I was reminded by my mother that it was getting cold, so wear more clothes when going out.”

Everyone was talking in a hurry, and then listened to Ke Jin’s analysis on the next level.

“Suppose you are now locked in a room with a constant temperature. You are not allowed to use mobile phones, and there are no relatives to tell you. How can you know the temperature information of the outside world just by looking out the window.”

“Look at how thick their clothes are.” Bao Jingbi glanced out the window.

The bleak street scene, people hurriedly walking on the street wrapped in thick winter clothes, and the sky also appeared foggy.

You can tell at a glance that the temperature has dropped sharply.

And just when Bao Jingbi finished speaking, his eyes suddenly widened, as if he had figured something out.

Under Bao Jingbi’s surprised reaction, the top brass of Ready Player One made subtle exclamations of ‘fuck’, ‘hiss…’, ‘that’s it’, etc. one after another.

Those who are qualified to hold senior positions in Ready Player One are a group of talented young people.

In terms of understanding, although it is not possible to explain it in just a few words.

But now that Ke Jin has spoken up to this point, he just has to pierce the window paper.

There is no truth that is not yet understood.

Seeing the change in everyone’s expressions, Ke Jin nodded with satisfaction and smiled.

“Yes, this is what I want to express to you, the beauty of intuition.”

“When you don’t directly feel the temperature information from the outside world, you can understand the outside temperature by ‘seeing’ it. This is because your intuition tells you that people wear more clothes when it’s cold.”

“So if it is reflected in the game, the player will not be able to feel the virtual world through the screen. But if the NPCs he encounters are wearing thick clothes, his intuition will tell him that this is a cold place.”

“This is just the most superficial example. There are many ways to express through intuition, and sometimes you don’t even need to look at it.”

“For example, in a dark scene, you tighten a screw into the screw slot along the thread. During this process, you do not intuitively see the movement of the screw inside, but you can clearly feel it. Whether the screw is tightened or not tightened correctly comes from your intuition, because you have experienced the feeling of a tightened screw.”

“The soul of an open world lies in immersion. The best way to express immersion is to integrate the intuitive beauty of each piece into the game. Let players be immersed in this world.”

“Wear more clothes when it’s cold, and let NPCs wear more clothes to resist the cold. Raw food is not popular in our current society, so the game also allows the characters to roast the food before eating it. In the real world, you are confused. At that time, no one would suddenly come over and give you the main mission. At most, there would only be one or two people who had come over to give you a few words. So if you want to bring a sense of immersion in the game, it is best to do the same. The beauty of intuition is a kind of moisturizing The subtle and silent expression allows players to indulge in it inadvertently.”

As soon as Ke Jin finished speaking, a young supervisor from the art department said in shock.

“Hiss… I remember it! I always felt that there was something wrong with the color processing of the sky in “Matting”, but after repeated debugging for a long time, I couldn’t figure out where the problem was. When Mr. Ke said this, I finally realized that the problem was Where is it!”

“I created the evening in the world of “Extinction” based on the evening in the real world. Although there is a sunset, I also designed it according to the “sunset is like blood” environment mentioned in the planning book, but no matter how I choose the color palette, it is not quite right. taste.”

“Now think about it, if you use your intuition and you are in a world full of zombies, what kind of sunset intuitively fits the scene better? Not just blood, but also the color of despair, that kind of fog It’s hazy, with a dull and suffocating feeling as if no light can penetrate. This is in line with people’s intuition when facing desperate things. If the sun is shining brightly and the sky is blue, it will be difficult for players to feel immersed in it, because it is counter-intuitive.”

Soon, the supervisor of the dubbing department that Ready Player One had trained himself also realized the problem.

Because after getting the plan for “Extinction”, he thought it was a game about fighting zombies + upgrading.

Therefore, in terms of dubbing, he focused on dubbing with a sense of power and impact.

But according to Mr. Ke’s interpretation of the open world, the beauty of immersion and intuition is very important.

Then, the protagonist’s appropriate breathing when escaping from the zombies, and the voice expression of panic and desire for survival when breaking away from the zombies will be even more fascinating.

“The voice should be more hoarse and low, with a slight sense of exhaustion, rather than a voice that always seems to have endless strength and energy… I understand, thank you for your guidance, I will take further steps in this regard. Modified!”

Soon, senior executives from various major departments responded one after another, and began to recall the aspects of retrieval that they were responsible for, and in which aspects subtle problems had arisen.

Faced with this situation, Ke Jin nodded with satisfaction.

Such small details in game design, once added up, will ruin the entire game experience, especially the open world that emphasizes immersion.

When he tried out the first few minutes of “Extinction”, he could clearly feel that the game looked just like the original game on Earth, but there were subtle differences.

It would be time-consuming to let Kejin carefully find out where the problem lies, and it might not be possible to find it all.

After all, for this kind of game developed by hundreds of people, it is far better to tell everyone how to find the problem and let everyone find the problem together than to rely on one person to find the problem.

“I feel like it has to be Mr. Ke… Mr. Ke, how did you discover such a meticulous thing? It’s even invisible and colorless, and it’s very hidden. If I were to be the person in charge, I’d probably not be able to see it until the game is released. I can’t feel anything is wrong…”

“If you can find out, your name also needs to be followed by a sum.”

“I’m convinced, now I’m really convinced about the situation!” said a young supervisor who had recently switched jobs from another manufacturer. When he first came here, he was a little arrogant, and he was a little bit arrogant about his previous experience. The director was not satisfied with being a small supervisor when he came here. It was not until he followed up on a meeting with the number one player today that he was completely shocked. He couldn’t help but look at Ke Jin with admiration in his eyes.

“I really can’t do it if it’s me… This whole company will have to break up soon!”

“Wow, wow, Mr. Ke is so fierce! Not only the players are your fans, but our employees are almost becoming your fans!”

Facing the crowd’s chirping, both flattering and sincere praise and comments, Ke Jin remained unmoved and smiled lightly.

“Now that everyone has initially understood the core concept of making an open world, there is no need to rush the development progress of “Extinction”. Just follow the construction progress of Dongzhi’s offline panoramic park slowly. There will be a bigger opening later. The world game needs you to treat it with all your strength, and I will tell you more open world related design techniques at that time.”

“But before that, let’s play a little game to practice your skills.”

As he finished speaking, he received enthusiastic echoes in the conference room.

“good!”

“What kind of little game? I like playing little games the most! Hehe!”

“The works for practicing should be relatively simple, right?”

“Everything is for a larger open world!”

“Mr. Ke, tell me quickly! We are ready!”

Facing the expectant looks of all the employees, Ke Jin smiled.

“”Elden Ring”, I will send you a copy of the plan later.”

“Since everyone thinks it’s easy, let’s complete it within two months. Come on, everyone.”