more than “just a game”

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More Than “Just a Game”. Student’s Viewpoint. No homework! (It’s much much worse) We’re a small company doing contract programming Our customer knows next to nothing about software - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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More Than“Just a Game”

Student’s Viewpoint

No homework! (It’s much much worse) We’re a small company doing contract

programming Our customer knows next to nothing

about software We must interpret the customer’s

wants and needs and compromise when his desires are not feasible to implement

Instructor’s Viewpoint

Comp410 is designed to teach students How to be professional How to deal with a large software project How to work as a team How to use popular industry

technologies How to design enterprise class systems

Students’ Story

Giacomo Paul Justin Nick J.D. Eric

We came into the class with green thumbs and big smiles

Innocence

The warm-up project came and went We thought we:

Had learned all there was to know about working as a software development team

Wouldn’t repeat the mistakes we made

Still Innocent

The Deceit project started Still smiling =)

First Customer Meeting

We met with the customer, Dr. Nguyen

Got a sense for the degree of professionalism we were supposed to bring to the class

Still Innocent

We started developing Still smiling =)

Responsibility

We experienced working under deadlines Weekly journal progress reports Bi-weekly milestone reports Weekly customer meetings

Literature

Each journal and milestone ~800 words

6 people * 800 words * 15 journals = 72,000 words over the course of the

semester We could write a small book

Innocence Fading

We quickly stopped smiling

Our customer Didn’t care if half

the team was out for the week

Still demanded some visible measure of progress

Bad Practices

We pushed ourselves to develop something significant for every week

Under this pressure, we often had to

Compromise good

code by making hacks to have something to show at the customer meetings

Hacking Away

Weeks passed Then months Our “hack” base grew larger and

larger Due to our mountains of hacks and

sophomoric designs, we were making negative progress with every new line of code

Selective Hearing

Dr. Wong attempted to show us how to get back on the right track

We listened Sometimes

Good Practices

Heeding Dr. Wong’s advice, we got somewhat back on track by Critically analyzing our design Refactoring our code Revamping our team structure

Realities

The Customer’s Vision

Political satire “… war and

deceit…” Allies become foes Enemies

masquerade as friends

Online in real-time Essentially an

MMORPG Massively Multiplayer

Online Role Playing Game

Current MMOs

The Customer’s Vision (cont.) Blending gaming with reality

Google Maps in-game to help players navigate

Local weather is reflected by the in-game weather

Etc…

The Problem Specification

Turning His Vision into Reality:Formalizing Expectations

Documenting the Requirements

Potential names: Spy Games Unending War Specification Introduction Game World

Factions Players Objects Environment

Game Interactions Real-Time Interactions Faction Interactions Quests to improve player

Additional Constraints Introduction: Triangular conflict with bad translation and varying degrees of cheating, ranging from in-game botting and terms of use violations to federal offenses like credit card fraud.       The client would like a MMORPG that allows for continuous play, has no start or end, and engages the player’s character even when the player is not logged in. The game will have

multiple factions that the players will choose to join initially, and these factions will influence their style of gameplay by offering unique opportunities in the game world.       Most factions may be pitted against each other, although some may be aligned.  Players can either run free or join factions.  Once a player has joined a faction, there is some game

mechanism that prevents whimsical       Game should be a satirical reflection of today's political scene where enemies may not be as obvious as "the guys wearing the other color" and where friends are sometimes hard to

find. Game Play Player Objectives Survive.  This may require eliminating the opposition. End Game Conditions There is no "final level" or "boss" to defeat in order to win the game.  The player's goal should be to best all other players in comparative rankings. Starting Out When a player creates a new character, do they start off as an independent? Or can they choose from a list of already created factions?  Maybe we have two standard factions that have no

real abilities where people can start off? Game World Factions Factions are named groups of players that form a "team".  The game application never explicitly indicates to which faction a player belongs (e.g. there is no text label floating above a

player's avatar with the faction name in a graphical client or there is no mention of the player's faction in the description text in a text-based client).  A key element of gameplay is determining whether or not other players are friendly.

Faction Membership Players may be a member of exactly 1 faction or may not belong to a faction.  Players that are not members of factions are called Independents. How hard is it to change factions?  Is there time involved, like... you can't join another faction Membership Benefits Once a member of a faction, a process exists whereby the player can acquire (with varying amounts of effort and time) "abilities" from the faction's knowlege, e.g. learning "languages" or

how to use spells or weapons or mine for certain resources. Another key benefit of faction membership is protection.  Faction members can band together and help protect each other when outside of faction territory. Inter-faction Relations

More Documenting The factions may form allegiances.  Should we specify different types of allegiances?  Certainly there will be full-blown allegiances where "fully aligned" factions can enter each other's "territory" and utilize allies'

bases/towns/outposts and where killing friendly (belonging to a fully-aligned faction) players decreases the player score/elicits penalties.  But maybe there can be lesser alliances such as trade alliances.  Maybe in a trade alliance factions trade resources with each other or allow allies to move around on their land without attacking them.

Faction Merging Entire factions can be captured by rival factions or absorbed by larger friendly factions.  The old faction ceases to exist.  Collective knowledge should flow in both directions. Relative Power of Factions The strength of a faction can be measured by size of influence (number of members) and by wealth (amount of resources in store). Resources Factions gain some resources by gathering/mining them.  They can be found throughout the game world.  Factions can also steal resources from other factions.  The prizes of some quests

are resources.  Key to the City Each faction has a "treasure chest" of sorts that it wants to protect from enemy discovery.  The object or secret knowledge should be significant enough that should an enemy discover the

object and use it or learn the secret then the victim faction should be significantly affected, perhaps by being disbanded entirely, losing its collective knowledge, losing its leader (if there is such a game construct), or losing its resources.

It has been suggested that to find out the location of the treasure chest, maybe a faction member that wants to know the secret has to solve a puzzle or riddle. Leadership Should every faction have a single Faction Leader, initially the creator of the faction and then perhaps elected by vote?  Leader knows location of the treasure chest.  

Faction points vs loyalty points Resources – Quests achieve them Game masters release resources and quests for the players to go after Player Interactions Game Masters Game masters act as Gods: Influence levels of resources Quests Illnesses Objects: Environment The game world is persistent.  When the player is logged out, the world progresses around him. Time The game world cycles through periods of daylight (where visibility is normal) and nighttime (when players have difficulties seeing). Time-based events can be based on this cycle.  Quests and the like may require players to wait a certain number of days before progressing. Weather Weather can affect many things in the game world.  Flooding from rain can make rivers impassable.  Storms can reduce visibility even during the day. Static abilities Dynamic environment  

Notion of locality Resources Money, energy When you’re weak, you probably need to join a faction Interactions: Real-time

And Some More… Faction Interactions You change factions when you get captured Different languages Acquire new abilities at runtime (short term abilities) When you’re captured, Quests Additional Constraints Audience Tablet no xbox login from anywhere Application The game world is persistent.  Realtime Use standard libraries Don’t make anything new unless it’s new Mostly text-based is fine, no emphasis on graphics.  Extensible so that graphics can be added later. Run third party programs to alter data (e.g. find a text document and open it with external software)

Our Proposal

Factions Players Tags Quests Abilities

Factions

Named teams Players may be a member of up to

one faction Any player can create a faction and

invite others to join their faction Never explicitly revealed to other

players Can form political agreements Strength measured by number of

members, territory controlled, or resources collected

Factions (cont.)

Initially controlled by its creator Leadership can be changed

democratically Membership benefits

Faction’s knowledge▪ Use spells, weapons, or foreign languages

Ability to use faction resources Responsibility, including faction

management Protection

Players

Have an inventory Carry items More or less depending on size or weight

Resources Gathered or mined Awarded for completing quests Stolen

Players (cont.)

Map Players have a mini-map that shows

their position and immediate surroundings

Players can attack each other Use items and abilities to weaken the

others After incurring enough damage, a player

goes “unconscious”

Tags

Players can tag items in the game world Claimed faction of another player Location of hidden treasure

Players can view all their tags Players are notified when they come

across items they’ve tagged

Quests

Puzzles and tasks that players can complete

Once completed, help the player Can award resources or abilities to

player or player’s faction Quest journal

Players can check their progress completing quests

Abilities

Examples Move Pick up Speak Russian

Gaining abilities Learn from other players Complete quests Assigned by admin

Diagrams

Formal tools to help us understand our design Deployment diagrams System diagrams Subsystem diagrams

Example Diagrams

TODO

What You Have All Been Waiting For

THE DEMO

Future Development

We’ve created an extensible game engine

You’ve seen just a few examples of what it makes possible

Looking forward Additional game content Additional features Enhanced graphical user interface Extended use of tagging Non-player characters

Additional Game Content More quests

Player generated Auto-generated▪ Faction▪ Items (NPCs)▪ Time▪ Tag

Additional Game Content (cont.) More game worlds

Different game worlds for different genres▪ Western▪ Space Opera▪ Cyberpunk▪ Fantasy▪ Medieval▪ Etc.

Larger and more complex

Additional Features

In-game weather based on current local weather conditions

Game maps based on real-world maps via web services such as Google Maps

More player abilities Enhanced graphics

Better Menus

Enhanced Graphics

Heads Up Display (HUD)

Extended Use of Tagging

Currently tags just store text Share tags with faction members

Copy Share live

Potential to generate game content and events based on tags’ contents If many people tag a particular player as

a leader, that player’s status and abilities may change

Extended Use of Tagging (cont.) Potential to generate tags from

game events If two parties engage in combat,

witnesses can have tags generated for them identifying the parties as enemies

Tags can be used to represent incomplete knowledge that is still useful

Non-Player Characters (NPC) NPCs would add life to the game

world Characters without users to control

them would use default behavior scripts They keep interacting with the world

when the gamer is not online▪ Mining resources▪ Protecting the faction from enemies

Impact on Students

Introduced us to software engineering on a scale such that no individual has knowledge of the entire system

Forced to work together and rely on each other

We’ve learned how to be better communicators, programmers, and team members

Learning Experience

Contrary to our preconceived notions, we knew next to nothing when it came to software development

Nothing beats raw experience!

Learning Experience (cont.) We all have a much better

appreciation for Time management Tasking Communication skills Good design

Better appreciation! We still have room to improve

Individuals’ Remarks

What have I taken away? How has this course changed how I

learn? How has this course affected me

personally?

Q&A

Ask Away!

Thanks!

Thank You!

Thanks to

for listening

You

Thanks to

for all their hard work!

The teammembers

Thanks to

for giving guidance

The TA’s

Thanks to

for providing us with matching laptops

The CS department

Thanks to

for understanding when we were busy

All of our friendsand professors

Special Thanks to

for feeding us! =)

Schlumbergerand Microsoft

Extra Special Thanks to

for caring and putting up with us

Dr. Wong &Dr. Nguyen

Where do we go from here? Related Design Classes

Comp 415 Comp 460

Comp 415 Experience real customers, software, and

situations Class will be contracted by an industrial

customer to design build, and deliver a product

Negotiate to finalize specifications, updates, and delivery schedules

Encounter real-life issues such as team management, intellectual property, and vagueness and specification changes

Develop a state-of-the-art software application

Comp 460

Project-based class Teams of 2-4 CS and Visual Arts

students Design and build computer games

suitable for Xbox Live Arcade using C# and XNA

Comp 260 or Comp 360 is recommended as a prerequisite for CS students

Previous experience drawing in Photoshop is recommended for Visual Arts students

More Than“Just a Game”

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