Yeah, I'll post here when I'm ready to play. I'm still trying to get my shit together after GDC. It really takes a chunk out of my life every year. :)Originally Posted by Eric Majkut
Probably in a week or so.
Chris
SpyParty sounds fun, and I'll check it out for sure when it's released.
But right now I'm interested in playing The Ship. I haven't played it since after the first couple months of it's release (commercial version), but it was such a fun game and this thread makes me want to play it again.
my steam nick is delirium266
Last edited by delirium; 04-04-2010 at 09:43 PM.
Yes, me too! From the videos on youtube it looks absolutely nothing like my game, or like anything similar at all, but I think they're all videos of the deathmatch style play. It will be great to play with a server full of people motivated to play well.
Chris
The bumps for this thread really are such a tease :(
The original definitely had the thing of people acting like the AI in order to blend in. It was something the developers talked about in every interview with them I saw.
Can anyone tell me if I'm mad for thinking that the commercial version got rid of the AI passengers? Am I just remembering that wrong?
No, you're right.
I must have only played the original, loved the AI aspects.
I'm up for playing some Ship, steam name is the same as forum.
Wait, what? There are no AIs in the commercial version? That sucks. Should we play it, or try to play the mod version? Or, I guess another way of asking this is, does it matter that there are no AIs in it? If there are a bunch of people playing, do people still try to blend in? You know who you're trying to kill, right? So, you can look at a room, see the person, and then kind if tail them without them knowing, and that's where the blending comes in?
Sorry! I was going to apologize when you posted that, but I figured that would just make it worse, so I waited until I was posting something else. :)
Oh, and in non-press non-Ship content news: and I started this thread to do some design research on small player skill challenges, and I talk about how I'm thinking about using it in SpyParty in one of the posts.
Chris
Last edited by checker; 04-05-2010 at 10:45 AM. Reason: other thread add
I assume by AI passengers you mean passengers who co-exist alongside the real players, rather than AI bots?
I had read there were both at one point?
Chris
This is why competitive multiplayer games are at their best when you're playing against people you know. I never understood the appeal of fighting games until my brother and I started playing long sessions of 1v1 Smash Bros. Brawl. The mind games were half the fun.
With the heavy focus on random matchmaking against strangers these days, I feel like we lose a lot of that unique aspect of competitive games.
It's possible they were added in later, I played for the first month or two.
I agree that it's awesome to play with people you know, especially in the same room. A lot of the dynamics you read about in these SpyParty articles happened because the people playing knew each other and were sitting right there. I really have to figure out how to get some of that metagaming stuff going across the wire, especially since there's no way to play with both people on the couch given the nature of the game, unless I figure something crazy out. :)
However, I played a bunch of L4D pickup games when it first came out, and I came to really like the mentoring aspect of trying to teach newer players how to play ("no, boomer comes from the front, not the back, he's too slow"), and it gave me a bunch of ideas about how to do that better. I know a lot of people here hated playing with random pubbies, but I think some in-game tools could really help here. I also look at the awesome handicapping system of a game like Go, where people with very different skill levels can still have a fun time playing each other, and I want to try to get some of that in there as well if I can. One good thing about the Spy fiction is that I can add a bunch of gadgets in for handicapping..."ok, I'll give you the infrared scope this game, see if you can spot me", that sort of thing.
Chris
I thought the "decoy screen" suggestion was clever, especially if you consider that the spy player can also use the sniper's view to guide themselves. The trick would be allowing the spy to cycle the contents of the real/decoy windows on command, maybe even to hide his/her actions completely from view.
Metagaming over the wire is trickier. Voice comms are probably the minimum, for trash talking. I suppose you could even have an indicator show up when the spy player is actively doing something (but without specifying exactly what). Then there's the issue of encouraging players to stick around and maybe even deconstruct the session (watching an opponent's camera walkthrough?).
Really though, my impression is that metagaming is enabled by persistence, e.g. the ability to play against someone repeatedly and use that knowledge during play. It would be like having a dossier showing the other player's previous successes and failures. Of course, I'm not sure what data makes sense to present, especially regarding the sniper players.
- Alan
Anybody have a copy of PC Gamer UK issue 214 and a scanner? According to this, it's got a SpyParty preview in it, and I'm dying to see it. I assume it's a small mention, but still, I think this might be the first dead-tree mention of the game...exciting!
Thanks,
Chris
Unfortunately I'm no help to you there checker, although I could feasibly go and find the issue in a shop somewhere tomorrow if no-one else ponies up.
Have you considered emailing any of the PC gamer lads? I'm sure they'd be happy to send you a copy of the article.
Yeah, I was hoping the lazyweb could give me instant gratification! :)
Chris
Because there was discussion about "The Ship" in here, I thought I'd let people who still want to play (or "test" ;) ) that there is a steam group that gets together and plays. http://steamcommunity.com/groups/shipalive
I just found it and look forward to playing again.
Cool, thanks, I just joined. There's actually a reddit thread about it right now. I wonder if it was spawned by the reddit SpyParty thread...they talked about The Ship in that thread a lot. That would be kinda cool if the recent SpyParty press reanimated The Ship for a while.
Chris
It's been a while since I've updated folks in this thread, but I figure Kieron's RPS post was a good enough reason, keepin' it family and all:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010...ith-spy-party/
Let's see, the other thing people might be interested in is I did a bit of "competitive analysis" (sounds very grown up) while I was at E3 and wrote about it:
http://spyparty.com/2010/07/14/spypa...tive-analysis/
I talk about Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Guilty Party, The Agency, and a few others.
Chris
This would be the best game mode in history.(I’m actually going to playtest drop-in/drop-out without notifying the existing players for maximal hilarity)
I was about to bump with the RPS article, very interesting read and what is shaping up to be a great game.
Thanks! Yeah, I'm not sure how often it's appropriate for me to bump the thread, so I'm erring on the conservative side. Anybody else, feel free to bump daily! :)
We had a good playtest tonight. I added some code that changed the way conversations flow, and how characters act when they're interrupted by another character starting to talk, and the players didn't notice, which is a good outcome for something like this. People seem to naturally adjust to NPC changes, which is a good sign.
Yeah, I'm thinking it will either be that, or a complete and utter disaster. Hopefully which one it actually is will come out in playtest, and not after I ship!
Chris
I was such an addict for The Ship, and SpyParty looks even better. I'm a sucker for these social experiments that blend game play and psychology together. Can't wait for further updates, checker! There's definitely something special about this brand of gaming.
The unfortunate thing about The Ship was that it required a lot of people playing at the same time. Rarely did I find servers that were fully populated, and more often than not there'd be a ton of AI opponents around. SpyParty seems to fix this quite elegantly.
Yeah, I wish more people explored this space, it's lonely out here. The code I wrote today was about characters getting pissed if they were interrupted, and leaving the conversation, and you can count the number of games that have done stuff like that on one hand (if you don't use fingers for all the Sims expansion packs :).
Yeah, I'm also starting to think about what the single player experience is going to be, and if there's something more there than just a tutorial and practice mode. I have a hunch there is, but have nothing concrete yet.The unfortunate thing about The Ship was that it required a lot of people playing at the same time. Rarely did I find servers that were fully populated, and more often than not there'd be a ton of AI opponents around. SpyParty seems to fix this quite elegantly.
Chris
People still play the ship. Join a ship steamgroup... I forget which one, Copet got me to try it.. they meet up for a game pretty often.
I think you're referring to this one?
doh, yes, it was already mentioned in this thread, too. My fault for posting from a smartphone.
This game is looking more and more interesting to me every time I check this thread. I still need to get back into the Ship. Had a blast on that one and I never really played with a group of people over a couple.
Thanks!
Yeah, I also haven't played The Ship "as it's supposed to be played". I joined that Steam group a while back, but haven't played much since I picked up the game (I'm dying to know if it was the SpyParty thread on reddit which renewed the interest in The Ship; it's a bunch of the people who posted in that thread that started the steam group shortly after, I think :).I still need to get back into the Ship. Had a blast on that one and I never really played with a group of people over a couple.
Similarly (in the video-game-versions-of-Assassin vein), I'm really interested to see what happens with AC: Brotherhood in the wild. As I say in the post I linked above, I think they have a bunch of mechanics that are working against subtlety in the game itself, but I wonder what's going to happen when the hoard of kids on Live get ahold of it.
Chris
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