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PLAYTESTING DIARY PUBLISHED
(3 April 2004, 23:58 | RoN) Dennis Stone, an employee at Big Huge Games (BHG), wrote a developer diary for 1Up.com on gameplay balance issues in Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots. T&P is the first expansion pack for RoN scheduled for commercial release later this month.
When adding to a game as large and complex as [this], balancing the new features of an expansion pack is definitely a team effort, he starts out. The process involves many people including teams of designers, developers, managers, and playtesters. Our playtest team, which I lead, is a four-person team filled with very talented real-time strategy gamers. We work closely with the design team to provide feedback and suggestions on design changes to units, nations, and other gameplay elements as the project progresses.
He points out that gameplay testing in an add-on differs from doing so on a base title. The fact that you have an existing community of people playing your game changes many things -- they have expectations [too]... Additionally, through months of playing with hundreds or thousands of other players, it is likely they have found balance flaws in the original game. One of BHG` highest priorities from the start to this end was with the Senate. [T]he designers decided to have two lines of governments that would become available in three separate ages -- an economy-based government, and a military-based government. The next focus was on units, particularly the economic aspects when rebalancing the units. One example described is the Helicopter vs. the Tank.
Lastly, nation-balancing was another challenge BHG faced during T&P`s development according to Stone. With 24 very unique nations... it`s unrealistic to assume they can all be made equal. Making that many nations balanced to the point that no nation is even the tiniest bit better than another is a futile task, and to even attempt that would send you down the path of slowly minimizing the differences between the nations, as the only perfectly balanced nations would be two nations with identical bonuses. That, of course, would be no fun.
The BHG staff member believes that their efforts have been rewarded with an expansion pack that is very fun to play and improves on an already great game, and says so. The article is two-pages in length and includes as many screenshots. It is the third such piece to appear on 1Up to date [see related stories]. - DanQ
THE LUCKY ONE HUNDRED
(3 April 2004, 23:39 | RoN) Full details have yet to be released, but "GameSpot Complete" subscribers who are also anticipating the Rise of Nations expansion pack Thrones and Patriots have more reason to be excited. GameSpot announced yesterday that they will be giving away one hundred copies of the title a week before retail release. It will be in the form of a `gold` disc, one that will not include standard packaging and documentation. Further, one of these winners will be randomly drawn to further obtain a signed copy of both T&P and the original RoN by members of the Big Huge Games development team.
Note that the contest is further limited to said subscribers residing in Canada and the United States. - DanQ
WEEKLY `T&P` SCREENSHOT UPDATED NO. 2
(3 April 2004, 23:34 | RoN) The weekly Rise of Nations: Thrones and Patriots screenshot feature being run and hosted by publisher Microsoft Game Studios has been updated once more. This edition depicts an ongoing sea battle involving the Dutch civilization as exemplifed by the inclusion of their unique units in action.
T&P is RoN`s first expansion pack, slated for commercial release later this month. - DanQ
TWO BRANCHES OF SAME TREE
(3 April 2004, 23:31 | RoN) As promised would be disclosed earlier [see related story], the Celctic Warrior Rise of Nations clan challenge for April, 2004 has been disclosed. Two branches make up the composition for this month: one that is military and the other that is economic in orientation. Both are to played with two or three players at high speed.
The first, on the most difficult stage setting, requires participates to control 90% of a given map`s territory with no attacking allowed within the first ten minutes of play. The second permits no attacking whatsoever and, at at the intermediary level, obtain an economic victory. - DanQ
PLAYTEST BUILD RELEASED
(3 April 2004, 17:57 | CtP2 | 502 comments) A new playtest build for the CtP2 Source Code Project has been released today. A playtest build is de facto an (early) beta of the to-be-released Apolyton patch. This file contains everything needed to run the latest version of the patch-under-construction and can be installed over either a vanilla or patched version of the game. The list of changes can be viewed here. It should be fairly playable but please remember that it`s intended for playtesting only: there may be serious bugs in it and it might theoretically break your game (or worse). It is strongly recommended you backup any data before installing. Use at your own risk.
You can find the file in the Source Code Project section of the Apolyton Directory and if you encounter any bugs, crashes or other problems, please do report them in the forum -- this will help bring the release of the final version of the patch closer. - Locutus
TO ERR IS TO PATCH
(2 April 2004, 21:51 | Civ3 | 66 comments) The release of the version 1.20 Civilization III: Conquests patch on Wednesday [see story] has now been met with a supplemental update from developer Firaxis Games. As was identified by a number of fans speaking through a number of fansites` forums, multiplayer capabilities malfunction in the 1.20 release. Several other minor issues were also documented. An interim addition patch, version 1.22, was published today with a promise by Firaxis to integrate both in yet another incarnation next week.
Please don`t deceive yourselves by thinking that we are incapable of making mistakes, C3C Producer Jesse Smith said earlier today in Apolyton Civilization Site`s forums.
The 9.18MB file can be downloaded from the company`s website or directly from ACS. - DanQ
