posted 05-04-09 05:14 AM ET (US)
This first thread deals with classifying work and its importance
Ok I made this thread to discuss additional criteria that may be used when writing reviews. A better way to explain is clarifying or building on the original review template method of scoring out of 5 for a file. You could say I am reviewing the review guidelines.
Especially these days, standards are high which might contribute to the decline in age of empires heaven members and visitors being discouraged by poorly styled reviews, deterred from their efforts by a mediocre score that would have been a lot higher five years ago. This thread is specifically centre on bridging this time gap into trying to set a method that is more timeless and accurate so in the end everyone associated with designing for and playing age of empires will benefit. These thoughts are personal and not that of the ‘approved’ method although similar but more detailed. So feel free to disagree with me I am not trying to be popular. I am trying to stay true to ‘Narrative’ in all its media forms. Be it books, movies, or game scenarios.
A proper review by its nature (if it is to be competent and comprehensive) will reveal plot lines, game play mechanics of scenarios, the winning strategies (or failed ones), and other secrets that will detract from the experience of anyone who has first read the review and then played the campaign the review is about. So if you feel it appropriate a ‘spoiler warning’ should be included in all reviews that you would feel give too much of the game away and spoil it for potential downloaders.
Second, when reviewing a campaign or scenario, a review should note whether the file in question is either a historical, fantasy, or fiction based scenario. Because each of these genres has their own unique attributes the ‘standard method’ of reviewing doesn’t fully cover each type of work. It gives an excellent all around evaluation of a piece of work but it doesn’t allow enough freedom for a reviewer to give a specialised rating that each work would otherwise deserve. For example, in the ‘standard method’ under the instructions of reviewing storyline/instructions it stipulates that a when scoring said factor that to gain the highest score of 5 it is not necessarily required to include any writing in the ‘History’ section. For a fantasy scenario that would be fine. As a good detailed scenario instructions page that covers all the bases would suffice to get 5. For a historically accurate scenario and in some ways a fiction scenario this cannot be the case. You cannot, when explaining an event in history, just play the event by itself and simply ignore the factors that caused this event. The Who, What, When, Where, and is some ways most importantly Why, is CRITICAL in giving an account be it book, documentary, or game. That is the basic structure of all historical references in learning today. To arm the reader with all necessary information about what they are investigating. A fiction scenario, when deterring from the narrative that it is about, should at the very least mention this in the history section and note how the actual events played. Like as if Sauron got his ring back and plunged Middle Earth into darkness.(“The Lord of the Rings” by JRR Tolkien) That is how the scenario plays but the true end of the story is recorded in the history section. To say you can still score 5 without crucial background information is simply ridicules. That took to long to explain, so moving on…
I in general agree with the ‘standard method’ on its points on campaign/scenario length. If the campaign is 30 scenarios long (like mine will be when its finished) then it should in no way effect its score when reviewed. A proper review should rate every scenario independently on the 5 point scaling system and average the results to bring the final score. So it simply means that each scenario must be at a high standard if the author wishes to score highly. The higher the number of scenarios the more difficult it would be to retain a high average; each scenario would have to be a masterpiece in its own right! A campaign that can get a ‘5’ on 30 scenarios indeed must be quite the work! But on the length of the time played on each scenario is slightly different. Time playing should not affect scores, within reason. If a scenario only lasts 30 seconds and then you win then that would adversely affect it’s score. How can a reviewer accurately judge gameplay, creativity, and map design in 30 seconds? Likewise I once played a scenario that lasted 8 hours. (it happened to be mine) I expect no sane player (and only the most dedicated fans) would only play HALF that amount of time! I would say for a scenario to have balanced playability (including replay value) to be at the least 10 minutes and at the most perhaps 3 hours. Size of the map itself will influence this. A Gigantic map completed in 10 minutes would waste a huge amount of space and lower its score. Similarly, I would be surprised that a microscopic map would last 3 hours to play it.
The next point I would like to raise is that on the difficulty setting that a designer puts on his/her work. If it is set to ‘easy’ then that should be reflected in rating its balance. It might be THE AUTHOR’S INTENT for it to be so in the sense that the audience they want for their campaign is new or inexperienced players and to build their skills to make them less nooby. (And less likely to try to attack an Iron Age centurion with 50 clubmen simply because they think high numbers means success.) Also if the scenario or campaign is going to be part of a series then it may be that they intend for their successive campaigns/scenarios to having increasing difficulties in the fashion that many classic strategy games follow. It is up to the designer to mention why they have set this difficulty setting. If they don’t, then still review with the difficulty setting in mind but adhere to the general practice of evaluating balance.
Another factor to mention early when writing a review is the predominant playing style of the campaign (puzzle, quest, fixed-force etc) to allow the reader to judge the style to his tastes and make an informed judgement about whether he or she or it wants to download the file. All too often I have seen reviews that don’t cover this base so I have downloaded crap that was reviewed as gold simply on the 5 rating criteria. This is not an extra rating but simply a way of defining the review that is to be downloaded. (Although styles affect game play, I will discuss this latter.)
Before the actual review begins each piece of work needs to be classed:
*Fiction, Fantasy, or Historical scenario/campaign
*Its length
*Its difficulty
*Its dominant playing style
*A spoiler warning when dealing with game secrets
Every point is also the responsible to the author of the work themselves to mention in their beginning comments at the top of the download page. The last point is mainly concerned with the reviewer. If the designer fails to classify their work then it is then the responsibility of the reviewer to it.
The next Post deals with the 5 point rating system
Ok moving onto the 5 point rating system. As a guideline I totally agree with what is said but as mentioned before when dealing with different genres of scenario it doesn’t quite cover everything. For those of you who don’t know, the review rating system works 5 different categories and judges these categories on a scale between 1 and 5, 5 being perfect and 1 being … Something that would probably damage someone’s mental health after playing it. I am not sure if getting 0 is even possible but when I finish my excising campaign I might see if I can make the perfect – worst campaign ever. Anyway, the five categories used when rating a file is Playability, Balance, Creativity, Map Design, and Story/Instructions, Apparently these five categories cover the aspects of a campaign/scenario and from them its value can be judged. They have their strengths and weaknesses as I will now discuss.
First we have Playability. According to the ‘standard method’ this category pretty much covers whether the reviewer enjoyed playing the game or not. As stated in the guidelines, this is very subjective, one person might love to attack a centurion with 50 clubmen (and loss) while most people would probably find it frustrating, pointless, and just plain silly. They do warn, (if the designer marked the game’s style) that playing certain styles that you don’t like e.g. puzzles, fixed-force, would bias you against or for that particular scenario/campaign. I agree on this, a review should be fair and the reviewer should mention their style preferences when rating this category. However they are common grounds upon which people in general would rate a scenario. If there are obvious bugs with the game (and not your computer) that causes it to crash, corrupt files, or start sprouting profanities at you, then yes; that would have a low playability score as the game is not doing what its supposed to do and robbing you of time and enjoyment. If the scenario is designed in such away that people get confused or lost about how to achieve the goals to win (like as if, there are none) then that too, is a playability problem and would adversely affect its score. Perhaps while playing, you find an obscure back door (that was probably not the author’s intention) into the opponent’s base and allow you to win the scenario hours before you were supposed to? Well that would make you feel clever but that too counts as a Playability problem.
All these are covered in the ‘standard method’ but I am going to share some thoughts that highlight the limitations of rating Playability as well as extra problems you may encounter. First, sometimes Creativity and Playability don’t get along. Originality these days, with the huge amounts of files stored in the Granary, is prized as ‘creative’ - something not seen in the game before is highly sort after. While this of course is true and has merit it can actually have a negative affect on Playability. For example, if a puzzle was so genius, and so difficult to work out, people often give up trying to find the solution, (not enjoying the game) and this lowers the playability score. So in certain situations ‘Creativity’ can only be used so far as not to harm ‘Playability’. This is not fair, as a true work of art (in its purest form) has value not in whether people get or not; it’s in its uniqueness and specialty. Only one person can truly appreciate it and that is rare. This has its own value and whether the object can be truly measured one can still award praise to its ‘wow’ factor. Imagine a completely new playing style emerged in a scenario or somehow age of empires suddenly became a first-person-shooter, shooting away at gazelles and War Elephants alike with a sawn-off, nine inch, repeating assault composite bow! ‘Traditional’ playability might suck but it might make up a new playability for itself.
I have found that there is pressure to ‘mix styles’ – that you must conform to non-conformity. The only way to score highly in playability is to have a scenario that blends fixed-force, puzzle, and build-up-and-destroy and other styles otherwise its boring. That may be true in some cases but that is actually quite relative. I think people have forgotten what Age of Empires is, and what it was intended to be. True it has been a decade and a bit since the game has been released and tastes have changed but Ensemble Studios (if they were still running) would be surprised at what their game looks like now. The ‘top’ scenarios must ALWAYS contain a hidden BLP, a fishing village for trade, a angry town that you must tribute in order to pass, a hero you must free from jail, an area only accessible by raft, an enemy base that you must destroy without harming certain structures… the list goes on. If you look at the original campaigns that went with the game then you would find them to be simple but true to what the game was, not some clone of Warcraft 3. I am not saying that having a variety of styles is bad (I enjoy them), I am saying that when reviewing playability one must look past these things and not THROUGH them. A scenario’s Playability value is not in meeting some pre-structured checklist of what a ‘good’ scenario should have.
The final thing I would like to mention about playability is on genres, Historical, Fantasy, and Fiction. This part is tricky as it requires the reviewer to do some research themselves. Say in the historical battle in 332-331bc Alexander the Great is besieging the city of Tyre. Now Tyre is made up of two parts, a small island just off-shore contains the main city, and across a small patch of water at the shore is the ruin of the other part. Now Alexander had only just disbanded his fleet as it was quite inferior to its Persian counterpart. Alexander hoped to defeat the Persian fleet by capturing all the ports it used, starving it from supplies. Tyre was a neutral city but was sympathetic to the Persians. Alexander could not continue his campaign with a potential double threat from behind. So he spent the next 9 months building a mole that bridged the gap between the shore and the island using the ruins of the original city. He was under constant harassment from Tyre but eventually succeeded after serious casualties. He burnt the town and butchered its people, fulfilling a prophecy (I think by Daniel?) in the Old Testament in doing so. Now this Historical event has a lot of potential for use in making a scenario. The mole in particular would be a source of a lot of conflict. It would have been very difficult for the builders to continually work under constant enemy fire, a massive logistical problem. In-game you find most of your attention focussed on the mole, creating villagers to run off and try to build a bridge only to die in droves. It would take ages with a lot of casualties and might not be very enjoyable. Alexander’s sappers would probably agree. A lower playability score? Of course not, the author was staying true to the event. A long time (9 months), many causalities, frustration, all adds to the REALISIM of the event. When reviewing a historical scenario/campaign, its accurateness to true events needs to be considered when judging it’s playability. Similarly to a Fictional campaign, if in the story, there is a massive logistical problem, and the author stays true to this then he/she should not be penalized for trying to stay true to the original text. The reviewer just may need to do some background reading. Fantasy can be judged independently of this and only the story/instructions need to be considered when rating playability. If the Story says there were many deaths, and you had (in-game) many deaths that seemed pointless, well then, the author achieved the objective of making a scenario that was consistent. Sometimes the story itself (in Fantasy) must be considered a priority over the game.
Oh everyone complained so I will keep to this thread…
The next post deals with Balance
Too many people say far too much about Gumble. They also claim Gumble says far too much which isnt true.
One man's truth is another man's lie. Seek TRUTH to escape this moral mire.
'Experts' try to analyse human behaviour and the human condition and make grand conclusions. - Its the same as the guy who explains why a joke is funny and kills the joke.
Ok I made this thread to discuss additional criteria that may be used when writing reviews. A better way to explain is clarifying or building on the original review template method of scoring out of 5 for a file. You could say I am reviewing the review guidelines.
Especially these days, standards are high which might contribute to the decline in age of empires heaven members and visitors being discouraged by poorly styled reviews, deterred from their efforts by a mediocre score that would have been a lot higher five years ago. This thread is specifically centre on bridging this time gap into trying to set a method that is more timeless and accurate so in the end everyone associated with designing for and playing age of empires will benefit. These thoughts are personal and not that of the ‘approved’ method although similar but more detailed. So feel free to disagree with me I am not trying to be popular. I am trying to stay true to ‘Narrative’ in all its media forms. Be it books, movies, or game scenarios.
A proper review by its nature (if it is to be competent and comprehensive) will reveal plot lines, game play mechanics of scenarios, the winning strategies (or failed ones), and other secrets that will detract from the experience of anyone who has first read the review and then played the campaign the review is about. So if you feel it appropriate a ‘spoiler warning’ should be included in all reviews that you would feel give too much of the game away and spoil it for potential downloaders.
Second, when reviewing a campaign or scenario, a review should note whether the file in question is either a historical, fantasy, or fiction based scenario. Because each of these genres has their own unique attributes the ‘standard method’ of reviewing doesn’t fully cover each type of work. It gives an excellent all around evaluation of a piece of work but it doesn’t allow enough freedom for a reviewer to give a specialised rating that each work would otherwise deserve. For example, in the ‘standard method’ under the instructions of reviewing storyline/instructions it stipulates that a when scoring said factor that to gain the highest score of 5 it is not necessarily required to include any writing in the ‘History’ section. For a fantasy scenario that would be fine. As a good detailed scenario instructions page that covers all the bases would suffice to get 5. For a historically accurate scenario and in some ways a fiction scenario this cannot be the case. You cannot, when explaining an event in history, just play the event by itself and simply ignore the factors that caused this event. The Who, What, When, Where, and is some ways most importantly Why, is CRITICAL in giving an account be it book, documentary, or game. That is the basic structure of all historical references in learning today. To arm the reader with all necessary information about what they are investigating. A fiction scenario, when deterring from the narrative that it is about, should at the very least mention this in the history section and note how the actual events played. Like as if Sauron got his ring back and plunged Middle Earth into darkness.(“The Lord of the Rings” by JRR Tolkien) That is how the scenario plays but the true end of the story is recorded in the history section. To say you can still score 5 without crucial background information is simply ridicules. That took to long to explain, so moving on…
I in general agree with the ‘standard method’ on its points on campaign/scenario length. If the campaign is 30 scenarios long (like mine will be when its finished) then it should in no way effect its score when reviewed. A proper review should rate every scenario independently on the 5 point scaling system and average the results to bring the final score. So it simply means that each scenario must be at a high standard if the author wishes to score highly. The higher the number of scenarios the more difficult it would be to retain a high average; each scenario would have to be a masterpiece in its own right! A campaign that can get a ‘5’ on 30 scenarios indeed must be quite the work! But on the length of the time played on each scenario is slightly different. Time playing should not affect scores, within reason. If a scenario only lasts 30 seconds and then you win then that would adversely affect it’s score. How can a reviewer accurately judge gameplay, creativity, and map design in 30 seconds? Likewise I once played a scenario that lasted 8 hours. (it happened to be mine) I expect no sane player (and only the most dedicated fans) would only play HALF that amount of time! I would say for a scenario to have balanced playability (including replay value) to be at the least 10 minutes and at the most perhaps 3 hours. Size of the map itself will influence this. A Gigantic map completed in 10 minutes would waste a huge amount of space and lower its score. Similarly, I would be surprised that a microscopic map would last 3 hours to play it.
The next point I would like to raise is that on the difficulty setting that a designer puts on his/her work. If it is set to ‘easy’ then that should be reflected in rating its balance. It might be THE AUTHOR’S INTENT for it to be so in the sense that the audience they want for their campaign is new or inexperienced players and to build their skills to make them less nooby. (And less likely to try to attack an Iron Age centurion with 50 clubmen simply because they think high numbers means success.) Also if the scenario or campaign is going to be part of a series then it may be that they intend for their successive campaigns/scenarios to having increasing difficulties in the fashion that many classic strategy games follow. It is up to the designer to mention why they have set this difficulty setting. If they don’t, then still review with the difficulty setting in mind but adhere to the general practice of evaluating balance.
Another factor to mention early when writing a review is the predominant playing style of the campaign (puzzle, quest, fixed-force etc) to allow the reader to judge the style to his tastes and make an informed judgement about whether he or she or it wants to download the file. All too often I have seen reviews that don’t cover this base so I have downloaded crap that was reviewed as gold simply on the 5 rating criteria. This is not an extra rating but simply a way of defining the review that is to be downloaded. (Although styles affect game play, I will discuss this latter.)
Before the actual review begins each piece of work needs to be classed:
*Fiction, Fantasy, or Historical scenario/campaign
*Its length
*Its difficulty
*Its dominant playing style
*A spoiler warning when dealing with game secrets
Every point is also the responsible to the author of the work themselves to mention in their beginning comments at the top of the download page. The last point is mainly concerned with the reviewer. If the designer fails to classify their work then it is then the responsibility of the reviewer to it.
The next Post deals with the 5 point rating system
Ok moving onto the 5 point rating system. As a guideline I totally agree with what is said but as mentioned before when dealing with different genres of scenario it doesn’t quite cover everything. For those of you who don’t know, the review rating system works 5 different categories and judges these categories on a scale between 1 and 5, 5 being perfect and 1 being … Something that would probably damage someone’s mental health after playing it. I am not sure if getting 0 is even possible but when I finish my excising campaign I might see if I can make the perfect – worst campaign ever. Anyway, the five categories used when rating a file is Playability, Balance, Creativity, Map Design, and Story/Instructions, Apparently these five categories cover the aspects of a campaign/scenario and from them its value can be judged. They have their strengths and weaknesses as I will now discuss.
First we have Playability. According to the ‘standard method’ this category pretty much covers whether the reviewer enjoyed playing the game or not. As stated in the guidelines, this is very subjective, one person might love to attack a centurion with 50 clubmen (and loss) while most people would probably find it frustrating, pointless, and just plain silly. They do warn, (if the designer marked the game’s style) that playing certain styles that you don’t like e.g. puzzles, fixed-force, would bias you against or for that particular scenario/campaign. I agree on this, a review should be fair and the reviewer should mention their style preferences when rating this category. However they are common grounds upon which people in general would rate a scenario. If there are obvious bugs with the game (and not your computer) that causes it to crash, corrupt files, or start sprouting profanities at you, then yes; that would have a low playability score as the game is not doing what its supposed to do and robbing you of time and enjoyment. If the scenario is designed in such away that people get confused or lost about how to achieve the goals to win (like as if, there are none) then that too, is a playability problem and would adversely affect its score. Perhaps while playing, you find an obscure back door (that was probably not the author’s intention) into the opponent’s base and allow you to win the scenario hours before you were supposed to? Well that would make you feel clever but that too counts as a Playability problem.
All these are covered in the ‘standard method’ but I am going to share some thoughts that highlight the limitations of rating Playability as well as extra problems you may encounter. First, sometimes Creativity and Playability don’t get along. Originality these days, with the huge amounts of files stored in the Granary, is prized as ‘creative’ - something not seen in the game before is highly sort after. While this of course is true and has merit it can actually have a negative affect on Playability. For example, if a puzzle was so genius, and so difficult to work out, people often give up trying to find the solution, (not enjoying the game) and this lowers the playability score. So in certain situations ‘Creativity’ can only be used so far as not to harm ‘Playability’. This is not fair, as a true work of art (in its purest form) has value not in whether people get or not; it’s in its uniqueness and specialty. Only one person can truly appreciate it and that is rare. This has its own value and whether the object can be truly measured one can still award praise to its ‘wow’ factor. Imagine a completely new playing style emerged in a scenario or somehow age of empires suddenly became a first-person-shooter, shooting away at gazelles and War Elephants alike with a sawn-off, nine inch, repeating assault composite bow! ‘Traditional’ playability might suck but it might make up a new playability for itself.
I have found that there is pressure to ‘mix styles’ – that you must conform to non-conformity. The only way to score highly in playability is to have a scenario that blends fixed-force, puzzle, and build-up-and-destroy and other styles otherwise its boring. That may be true in some cases but that is actually quite relative. I think people have forgotten what Age of Empires is, and what it was intended to be. True it has been a decade and a bit since the game has been released and tastes have changed but Ensemble Studios (if they were still running) would be surprised at what their game looks like now. The ‘top’ scenarios must ALWAYS contain a hidden BLP, a fishing village for trade, a angry town that you must tribute in order to pass, a hero you must free from jail, an area only accessible by raft, an enemy base that you must destroy without harming certain structures… the list goes on. If you look at the original campaigns that went with the game then you would find them to be simple but true to what the game was, not some clone of Warcraft 3. I am not saying that having a variety of styles is bad (I enjoy them), I am saying that when reviewing playability one must look past these things and not THROUGH them. A scenario’s Playability value is not in meeting some pre-structured checklist of what a ‘good’ scenario should have.
The final thing I would like to mention about playability is on genres, Historical, Fantasy, and Fiction. This part is tricky as it requires the reviewer to do some research themselves. Say in the historical battle in 332-331bc Alexander the Great is besieging the city of Tyre. Now Tyre is made up of two parts, a small island just off-shore contains the main city, and across a small patch of water at the shore is the ruin of the other part. Now Alexander had only just disbanded his fleet as it was quite inferior to its Persian counterpart. Alexander hoped to defeat the Persian fleet by capturing all the ports it used, starving it from supplies. Tyre was a neutral city but was sympathetic to the Persians. Alexander could not continue his campaign with a potential double threat from behind. So he spent the next 9 months building a mole that bridged the gap between the shore and the island using the ruins of the original city. He was under constant harassment from Tyre but eventually succeeded after serious casualties. He burnt the town and butchered its people, fulfilling a prophecy (I think by Daniel?) in the Old Testament in doing so. Now this Historical event has a lot of potential for use in making a scenario. The mole in particular would be a source of a lot of conflict. It would have been very difficult for the builders to continually work under constant enemy fire, a massive logistical problem. In-game you find most of your attention focussed on the mole, creating villagers to run off and try to build a bridge only to die in droves. It would take ages with a lot of casualties and might not be very enjoyable. Alexander’s sappers would probably agree. A lower playability score? Of course not, the author was staying true to the event. A long time (9 months), many causalities, frustration, all adds to the REALISIM of the event. When reviewing a historical scenario/campaign, its accurateness to true events needs to be considered when judging it’s playability. Similarly to a Fictional campaign, if in the story, there is a massive logistical problem, and the author stays true to this then he/she should not be penalized for trying to stay true to the original text. The reviewer just may need to do some background reading. Fantasy can be judged independently of this and only the story/instructions need to be considered when rating playability. If the Story says there were many deaths, and you had (in-game) many deaths that seemed pointless, well then, the author achieved the objective of making a scenario that was consistent. Sometimes the story itself (in Fantasy) must be considered a priority over the game.
Oh everyone complained so I will keep to this thread…
The next post deals with Balance
Too many people say far too much about Gumble. They also claim Gumble says far too much which isnt true.
One man's truth is another man's lie. Seek TRUTH to escape this moral mire.
'Experts' try to analyse human behaviour and the human condition and make grand conclusions. - Its the same as the guy who explains why a joke is funny and kills the joke.
[This message has been edited by Gumble (edited 05-06-2009 @ 05:12 AM).]
A good campaign isn't simply a bunch of random scenarios lumped together. In my mind it wouldn't make sense to give a campaign made up of The Relay, Blood on the Sands and Fortress a 5 star rating just because all the scenarios that make it up are of a 5 star rating. Yes take into account what you would score each single scenario but don't use it as the be all and end all. A good campaign needs each scenario to build off the other, it needs each scenario to be playable but as a whole it needs to be playable. A story of a campaign shouldn't be judged by single scenarios alone as it is important that it flows and connects well or it will fail. And for balance a designer could start a campaign off very easy and ramp up the difficulty over the scenarios. As I said each scenario should go into the final rating but it is more important to look at the campaign as a whole rather then it's parts.
I guess I'll have to find something really different to throw into the scenarios that aren't too finished. It's amazing how you just described the bulk of the high-ranking scenarios like that. (Of course you must admit that it beats kill player/unit x.)
