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Diodor · 2002-09-06T14:16:48

Feedback is essential for making good complete polished games. Unfortunately, good feedback is hard to get. The best beta-testers are generally veteran gamers, so their point of view is somewhat flawed. Casual gamers may not give very good reports, but are generally the target market for a game, and their first contact with a game is decisive (at least for shareware games). Making a game that can record all the player''s actions could help. It shouldn''t be very hard to code either. Just record all the input events in the main game loop (keyboard, mouse, network messages, etc.), then run the game in a different game loop that reads the events from the log file. This makes things a lot easier for the beta-testers: all they need to do is play the game and send the log file. Another useful tool could be automatic reports generated by the game, resuming game actions in a number of easy to read statistics. So, what would make good interesting statistics? - average number of mouse clicks per action - frequency of different actions - usage ratio of different game items (objects bought / units build / time spent in different game areas / quests accepted / ...) - player power growth rate - learning curve - after how many games the "player power growth rate" goes to a maximum How can these statistics be put to good use? - putting most used UI elements in more accessible places - balancing game items - real-time finding of game cheats / exploits in MMO games: if a player''s power grows too fast, raise an alarm. In what form can game statistics be best displayed?

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by Diodor September 03, 2002 08:50 AM

10 comments, last by Diodor 21 years, 7 months ago

Fidelio_

122

September 05, 2002 05:01 PM

quote:Original post by NicolasX
"The best beta-testers are veteran gamers...their views are flawed"? What do u mean exactly? If they''re the best beta-testers then how do u mean their views are flawed?

Probably that a gamer would take things for granted he has seen in previous games, assuming this is just the way things are. A beginner would mention things you never even thought about. Great gamers make bad beta testers because they just play and work around the limitations, beginners tell you the limitations as problems.

NicolasX

108

September 06, 2002 01:42 PM

Yeah, i never thought of it that way.

Those aren't bugs...they're added features

[edited by - NicolasX on September 6, 2002 3:16:48 PM]

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