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Nuovo aggiornamento video dedicato a Frozen Synapse 2 dagli sviluppatori.
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00:10Hello and welcome to Frozen Synapse 2 Developer Diary No. 15. I'm Ian Hardingham designer and lead programmer on Frozen
00:18Synapse 2 and today we are going to talk about City Multiplayer and answer your questions from last video in
00:25the mailbag. Let's get to it.
00:29Now, the last three and a half weeks I have been working on making the whole city game multiplayer. I
00:36woke up a month ago and realised that it was a feature that I really wanted to have. It's helped
00:43me get through the last year of making this game as fully featured as it is, thinking that I was
00:49not going to have to make it multiplayer, but by this stage where most of the features are pretty much
00:55in,
00:55a good probably 80% I would say, I was able to take an objective look, work out how hard
01:01it was going to be and just go for it. So that's what I've been spending the last month doing
01:06and we're actually pretty much playable at this point.
01:10I budgeted two months for doing this properly, one month for implementing the actual mechanics of being able to start
01:17a multiplayer game and play it and one month for making it good, working out what different things need to
01:23be done to make it a really, really good experience.
01:25So I'm just going to start off by talking about the mechanics of exactly how a multiplayer city game of
01:32Frozen Swaps 2 works and then I will get on to explaining some of the things that will be able
01:37to happen and I'll be asking for your feedback on all of this. So listen up.
01:44So yeah, again, Frozen Swaps 2 city game is a really exciting grand strategy game where a lot of factions
01:51vie for control of this procedurally generated city. Of course, it's going to be awesome if you and some friends
01:57can play as different factions using all of the features and competition in the game.
02:03And that's just going to be really, really fun. So I'm really excited to have got here. The first thing
02:09to say is that anything you can do in single player city match, you'll be able to play to be
02:14able to do in multiplayer.
02:17All of your other playing partners will be just like other factions. When they join your game, they'll either be
02:25able to start a new faction somewhere on the city map or you will also be able to get them
02:30to take over an existing faction.
02:32If you so desire. Let's take a look at how multiplayer actually works on the nuts and bolts side of
02:40things. So if you've been playing a single player game, doesn't matter how long you've been playing for and you
02:45decide you want to bring some other people in on it, you click on the assistant icon down here and
02:50you click on activate for multiplayer and it tells you you must be connected to the server to activate for
02:55multiplayer.
02:55So I'm going to go and do that. Now, log on to the server and you can either then continue
03:06your city game or start a new one. I'm going to start a new one here.
03:12Wait for it to load.
03:21And here we are. So once again, we click on the assistant icon and we click activate for multiplayer and
03:27we get a little token down here saying the game is now multiplayer.
03:31Others may join you by searching for your username in the city multiplayer tab of the main menu.
03:36So I'm just going to go and pretend that we're joining a game to show you guys how that works.
03:42Here we are at the very exciting advanced screen and just I don't know why I'm showing this really, but
03:48I am.
03:48So you can click on the join city game hosted by player and you type in Ian and you press
03:53OK.
03:53Now it's not going to work now because I'm actually recording in my office at home.
03:57So I don't have two computers here to host, but you get the idea.
04:00Basically, it's very easy to convert an existing city game into multiplayer and it's very easy to join one of
04:06your friends who is currently playing.
04:10Now here we are back at the city screen and we've made our game multiplayer.
04:14And for the purposes of this video, let's pretend that we also have someone else playing with us.
04:19Let's call him Bin.
04:21Now, one of the reasons I'm taking this rather boring method to explain this stuff to you is because I
04:28want a bit of feedback in case I'm doing anything fundamentally wrong in terms of interface.
04:33With a game like this, basically a grand strategy game, it takes quite a long time to play.
04:38It's kind of a bit of a different proposition to basic Frozen Synapse.
04:42Frozen Synapse was designed to be a multiplayer game that you could dip in and out of, play at your
04:47own convenience, very quick matches.
04:49Don't have to be online at the same time as your opponent.
04:52And it goes quite a long way away from that with the city game, because as I said, this is
04:57a grand strategy game.
04:58You need to be online at the same time as the other players in order to play it.
05:03That already is a big difference in Frozen Synapse.
05:05And of course, it's the kind of game that can last for hours.
05:10So really important to me is you take those limitations for granted.
05:15You say, well, people are going to want to play this game and people are happy to play big long
05:20form strategy games online.
05:22They like doing that.
05:23So people are going to be cool with that.
05:24How can I make that as good as possible?
05:27So you do have to be online at the same time as other people to play the game.
05:33You can't really get around that.
05:35The core of the game is advancing the clock, lots of things happening and you're responding to different events.
05:40And those are just going to require everyone to be online at once.
05:43The biggest way in which I'm trying to mitigate that is hot joining and hot dropping.
05:50So hot joining means that people can join the city game at any time.
05:53You and your friend Bob can play for a couple of hours and then your friend Tristan can join in
05:58as well.
05:59And hot dropping is pretty cool as well, because if Bob then has to go to dinner or go away
06:04on work to the Cayman Islands for three days,
06:07he can leave the game and he can leave his faction in control of the AI.
06:12And actually he will be able to tell the AI to do either nothing at all or to follow the
06:17contracts that he's created for his own faction
06:20or basically to continue operating as a normal AI faction.
06:24And you'll be able to set your attitudes towards other players if you actually want to have the AI make
06:28decisions with your feelings in mind.
06:32So, again, it seems like a really strange place to start with such an exciting feature as multiplayer is this
06:37kind of stuff.
06:38But I think it's really important to talk about what I'm planning, what I've put in so you guys can
06:42tell me if anything sounds wrong.
06:44So, basically, you've got all these features. I've spent hours at this point showing you guys all the different things
06:52you can do in Photoslaps 2 so far.
06:54There's a lot of other stuff to show you.
06:56And you can imagine that you will be organizing your squads, you'll be getting money, doing contracts, dealing with incursions,
07:02You'll be trying to control the city by sending your squads to different areas.
07:06And you and the other players will be competing for incursions, especially.
07:11And I'm sure there'll be a lot of foul play going on.
07:16So, when it comes to these games, the closest thing that I've been able to think of in terms of
07:21a comp for the city multiplayer is probably something like Total War.
07:26And the reason I say that is because Total War has a big strategic overworld level.
07:32And, of course, it has the big tactical matches as well.
07:36So, when I was looking at doing this, the first thing that flagged up to me, what are all the
07:41players going to do while one or two players are doing a mission that doesn't involve the other players?
07:47So, if I have a mission against Blue Sunlight, the AI, that may take 15 minutes to half an hour
07:54to play out.
07:56If I'm playing against one of the other players, that also may take 15 to 30 minutes to play out.
08:01And the other players are going to have to wait around.
08:04So, again, I do understand that that's just part and parcel of these kind of games.
08:07There's a limitation to a certain extent how you can ever mitigate that.
08:10I think it's overcome by how exciting it is to have such an interesting, deep game to be able to
08:15play multiplayer.
08:17When it comes down to it, you have the option of simulating any AI matches.
08:22So, if you don't want to keep everyone waiting around, you can just press simulate when you start a mission
08:30and it can have an outcome.
08:32We'll see how people respond to that.
08:34People may like that.
08:34People might not.
08:35Obviously, you'll be able to set up city games which actually don't have AI factions doing very much.
08:40So, they're less likely to get in the way.
08:42Because people will definitely want to play two or four or eight player of this without the AI factions being
08:47annoyances.
08:48Although, I'd expect that to be a less likely option.
08:52And the game will, as I think is fairly usual for these kind of games, be somewhat optimized for two
08:58players.
08:59Because that's the most likely scenario.
09:02And that's also the scenario which is easiest to optimize for.
09:06So, if you and Bob are playing a game, you can have Bob play as the AI in a U
09:15versus AI match.
09:16You can have Bob play as a couple of your units to make it less boring.
09:21So, he can always be involved in your missions if you so desire.
09:25And once you get to three or four or five or six players, this is just going to be part
09:30of the game.
09:31I'm going to see how this plays out in closed beta.
09:33Quite a lot of you guys have got in touch to sign up for the closed beta.
09:36I really appreciate that.
09:38We're starting to get a decent, small, but hopefully dedicated list.
09:42I think it's going to really help me iron out these bugs.
09:44So, the headline things are, multiplayer should be really awesome.
09:48We've got the hot join, the hot drop.
09:50You do have to be online at the same time as other guys to play.
09:53There is a certain scenario if you and your mission opponents are the only people who are online.
10:00You can finish your mission without the other players being online.
10:04But again, without seeing this in the wild with you guys with the closed beta testers actually playing,
10:10I won't be able to see where the stress points are.
10:13So, that's the stuff that's going on.
10:15I really have to say I'm really, really, really super excited about this.
10:19And I really hope you guys are too.
10:21You've seen what the city has to offer and what kind of stuff is going on here.
10:24I think that having all of that with other players on the city map and then playing these actual missions,
10:30which end up being very different and sort of quite a lot bigger with new options than existing FS matches
10:37will be really cool.
10:38But as usual, give me all your feedback and I will listen to it and I will answer it where
10:44that's pertinent.
10:45Talking of which, let's move on from this picture of the city and let's put your questions on the left
10:50hand side of the screen and I will attempt to answer them.
10:54Okay, here we have the YouTube comments up and I'm going to start off with a couple of negative comments
10:59from last week,
11:00which is really, really helpful.
11:01So, let's start out.
11:03Quite a lot of you weren't huge fans of what the new ignore slash focus area interface looks like.
11:10Basically, clicking boxes didn't sound like it would be very good to you guys.
11:15So, I'm going to keep looking at that.
11:17I'm going to go back to the drawing board.
11:18I think the idea of having it sort of contained within the order is really good.
11:22But maybe I do have to allow you to move arbitrary shaped boxes around,
11:28sort of somewhat similar to FS's system.
11:31I could definitely understand that.
11:33So, I need more play testing of that.
11:34You've definitely been heard on that one.
11:36Second, I got quite a lot of feedback on the minigun flamethrower issue.
11:40You guys definitely want those two weapons to be significantly different and I can understand that.
11:45The idea of a minigun, the idea of a flamethrower,
11:47they do feel like really different weapons.
11:49So, I actually have a different design for the flamethrower that I played around with in the past
11:53that I'm going to implement based on the strength of your guys' responses.
11:57I'm looking at the flamethrower as being a weapon that you can fire into a room
12:03and that it will sort of fill up the room with flame.
12:05So, I'm going to look at that when I get time.
12:07No idea when that will be.
12:08So, thank you for those comments.
12:11Some guy says he wants to rebind, control, so pause and rewind and other things.
12:16That sounds very reasonable.
12:17I have put that on the long term list.
12:19So, hopefully I'll be able to do that.
12:23Jean Michael Villancourt asks,
12:25So, aside from perhaps simply murdering every single faction,
12:29how does one win Frozen Slaps 2?
12:31Hindi talks about how Civ and other 4X games have different win conditions for research, diplomacy, etc, etc, etc.
12:41Now, I think I talked a bit about this in the past.
12:44The actual win conditions for FS2 are to do with the other major factions
12:49and their approach to the incursioning force Sonata.
12:54One of them wants to sort of worship Sonata and have them come and take over.
13:00One of them wants to research it properly.
13:03One of them wants to harness it for military gain and one of them just wants to destroy it.
13:09Now, those are basically the end conditions that you can choose one of those
13:13and either with or without the help of that faction that represents that belief, go for that one.
13:20As I've said before, I personally don't find the end game of these particular kind of games particularly interesting,
13:27but it's something that you've got to have in there.
13:29And as with this game, this kind of game usually has a lot of different types
13:34or at least several different kinds of win conditions.
13:36So we will have that.
13:37So I hope that answers that question.
13:40Now, let's keep on looking.
13:50Okay.
13:51XBON1 asks, will Frozen Slaps 2 launch with the free copy for a friend system?
13:57I actually don't know the answer to this question.
13:59That's about 50-50 right now.
14:01We do have to look into whether Steam still allows it.
14:05And we also have to look into it whether it's something that we still want to do.
14:08I loved doing that for FS and for Cortex.
14:10It was something that was really good and worked out really well.
14:13I just don't know the answer to that yet.
14:15But thank you very much for asking the question.
14:19EdboxLP asks, is the I Feel Lucky button going to be back?
14:22Yes, definitely the I Feel Lucky button will be back.
14:25It's very important.
14:27Aaron gives some aesthetic feedback.
14:28I believe he's saying that some of the guns icons,
14:32which you actually see here in this image with a pistol and a sniper rifle,
14:37that some of the guns icons are a little bit too representative
14:40and not as nicely abstract as the old FS ones.
14:45I will forward that on to our art director.
14:48I think that's a decent point.
14:50Christopher Budden, who, judging by his avatar,
14:53is someone that I talk to on Twitter quite a lot.
14:55So hi.
14:56He asks if shotguns have gone.
14:58No, shotguns have not gone.
14:59Shotguns are really important.
15:00I don't know why he doesn't like shotguns so much.
15:04SlideDrum asks, any comments on mod support?
15:07Yes, I have lots of comments on mod support.
15:08One of the nice things about Frozen Synapse 2 is that the City game is almost entirely made using TalkScript.
15:16I've really gone very high level with the implementation of this.
15:21And most of the logic and the definition of data is done in script,
15:26apart from a couple of things that need to be low level, like the pathfinding.
15:30And we will be making the scripts completely open to you guys, possibly at launch, possibly just after launch.
15:38We'll do whatever we need to do to make it Steam Workshop compatible as well.
15:42So I can definitely confirm right now the City game will be highly moddable.
15:46And that includes making your own units within the abilities that we have with the unit data blocks,
15:52which is actually pretty in-depth.
15:54You can do an awful lot.
15:55So we never really got any kind of modding into FS1.
15:58I was a bit too scared to expose the script files to FS1 for various reasons.
16:04And I don't feel that way at all about FS2 and especially the City game stuff.
16:07So it will be strongly moddable.
16:09I'm really hoping you guys can take that and run with it.
16:11And I'll be really intrigued to see what you guys do.
16:14A quick comment on the UI.
16:16I talked about the UI quite a lot last week and got some really good ideas from you guys.
16:21Now, one thing I'm definitely going to try is being able to collapse specific waypoints.
16:25So if you have a waypoint with a bunch of orders and loads of wait orders on there,
16:29I'm definitely wanting to put a little sort of minus slash plus thing that allows you to collapse that.
16:34So you can just get rid of some of the clutter on the screen.
16:37I've had a lot of other good ideas.
16:39I'm not going to add a huge number of different things, I think, but that's definitely an idea I liked.
16:44And there's also some stuff about selecting other units that I like as well.
16:49Now, let's keep on going down here.
16:55Let's keep on going. What else have we got?
16:57So, yes.
17:00Okay, my voice is getting tired, so I'm going to call and enter soon.
17:02But I do have a few things to respond to.
17:05Debated Nothing asks if smoke grenades will hide units standing in it from the player's eye's view in the light
17:12mode.
17:13The answer to that is no.
17:14You will still be able to see the units as the commander.
17:17He also asks if you'll be able to tell your units to fire blindly into the smoke.
17:21The answer to that is no.
17:23It's an interesting idea, but that doesn't really work as a mechanic, just an FS.
17:27But thank you.
17:30Subriel has a really interesting point that maybe toxic smoke grenades could only kill units that stop in there.
17:37I think that's really interesting.
17:38It's something I could see vaguely trying, but I don't think that's an actual improvement.
17:43But I really do like the idea.
17:48Iranin113 asks for some multiplayer information.
17:50Now, I will do another video that's solely based on what's new in multiplayer.
17:55The big features are one turns, which I think it was our first couple of videos I talked about a
18:01lot.
18:01And obviously, city multiplayer is big as well.
18:03I'll talk about any other stuff that you could see.
18:05He's asked for some pre-created maps.
18:09Definitely something that I could go with.
18:13And a mode where you choose your own units.
18:16You know, that might just be one which I don't have time to do.
18:20We had quite a lot of that in Frozen Cortex and it was fine.
18:24But I do only have limited time.
18:27So I probably...
18:28That's just not something I'm particularly excited about putting in myself.
18:32So it may not end up getting put in.
18:35But thank you for that question.
18:38Okay, and now for three final questions.
18:40Oh, which I've just managed to destroy by pressing the wrong button on my computer.
18:43I could just stop recording, but actually I think it's more exciting to keep it here.
18:47Right.
18:48These guys at the bottom.
18:50Sorry, SKLD that mailing this form doesn't work.
18:52I have informed the appropriate authorities.
18:55Right.
18:56LemonCell asks, how does the story of FS2 compare to the story from FS1?
18:59It is set after FS1.
19:02There will be some of the same characters.
19:03The lore is continuous and well defined by Paul, who is head of writing and law.
19:13DMS Clemens has a really good question slash idea about contracts having more detailed elements.
19:19Stuff like you must not destroy the terrain or a package must be taken without the use of a vehicle
19:26or with use of a vehicle or use a single knife mercenary.
19:29Really interesting stuff.
19:30I can definitely see where you're going with that.
19:31That's something I could see investigating in the next six months if I think there's something missing or beyond that
19:37otherwise.
19:39And very finally, Immortal Sonar asks, how long would it take the player to get to the end game of
19:46FS2?
19:47I don't know the answer to that yet.
19:50Balancing how quickly things happen, how quickly you can upgrade, how quickly stuff moves on to the end game.
19:56And what would cause stuff to move on to the end game is stuff that will happen much nearer the
20:01very end of development.
20:02To try and work out what kind of experience I want to give people.
20:07I mean, just to sort of spitball on that for a minute, it's the kind of thing where a lot
20:11of people don't ever want to be forced to get to the end game.
20:15And that they would much rather it was a thing that they triggered themselves when they wanted to.
20:20And I'm kind of in that camp myself.
20:22But it's also understandable that you want the game to be progressing as you play as well.
20:27That's important as well.
20:28So trying to get that right is hard.
20:29If anyone has any useful input on that, that would be much appreciated.
20:33So there you go.
20:35I stumbled a bit during this week's episode, but thank you very much for listening.
20:39As always, just completely blown away by how great all the feedback has been.
20:43I had a couple people saying that they appreciated the open nature of FS2 development.
20:48Well, it is hard sometimes to show stuff that's not finished in a bad state.
20:54Sometimes show ideas that people don't like.
20:56But it's just been the most useful thing in the world to me.
20:58And I just plan on keeping on doing it.
21:00It's just a great experience to get real feedback every single week.
21:04So thank you again.
21:05And I will be back next week with some more words.
21:08Goodbye.
21:08Bye.
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