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独立开发者为何不宜创造多人模式游戏

发布时间:2014-05-21 11:12:59 Tags:,,,,

作者:Dan Marshall

自从《Gun Monkeys》诞生以来已经过了1年,因为我采取了一些创造性方法去保持它的活力,而现在我仍会遇到一些人请求我提供相关建议。

如果你是独立开发者,那就不要创造多人玩家游戏。当然也存在例外,但是你所获得的大多数消费者可能不会支持你这么做。

Gun Monkeys(from develop-online)

Gun Monkeys(from develop-online)

为了确保游戏能够轻松地进行设置,《Gun Monkeys》被设计成一款1对1游戏。你并不需要等待另外4个玩家的出现,你只需要一个对手。这是为了让玩家在好友间游戏而设计的—-你将向某些人发送信息说道:“嘿,要不要玩《Gun Monkeys》?”然后你们便会见面一起游戏。这便是一种有效的方法;这也是我为了避开拥有完整的服务器但却不能卖出更多游戏的事实。

很遗憾的是,这并不是人们对于多人游戏的期待。人们希望能够登录游戏,找到某些带有同样技能的人进行比赛。凌晨3点的时候我尽可能地去调整这些内容,但却未能做到这点。并不是只有我才遇到这种情况,独立多人玩家服务器真的快枯竭了。

以下是我在做这件事的过程中所学到的。如果你坚持要创造一款多人玩家游戏,那么这些建议将对你非常有帮助。

获得宣传。你可以发行一款出色的游戏,并且随着时间的发展它将创造出大量的宣传。但是这点并不适用于多人玩家游戏,因为在游戏发行的第一秒你便需要获得这样的支持。为了获得游戏的成功,你就需要看到无数人迫不及待想要开始游戏。准备好创造你的游戏,完成它,然后花一年左右的时间在展会上推广它,并在正式发行前吸引人们对其产生兴趣。

在正式发行前先面向媒体发布游戏。几乎关于《Gun Monkeys》的每一条评论都提到服务器没有什么意义(游戏邦注:因为与大多数人一样,评论中也不希望去管理自己的比赛),这成为了一种自我延续的神话。人们不愿意购买游戏是因为觉得服务器没什么意义,所以当人们做出评论时,服务器显得更加无意义了。

添加bot。你将需要大力投入人类般的AI去保持人们的乐趣。人们会抱怨AI,而创造AI也将消费一笔巨大的成本。作为独立开发者,你支付得起这笔费用吗?只是将多人玩家元素添加到一款单人玩家游戏中并不能解决这一问题。人们将登录去寻找一款游戏,然后退出而玩一款担任玩家游戏。它们可能也会是单机游戏,对吧?

使用广告。你将需要在任何地方呈现自己的游戏。如果你在发行的时候卖出了100万份游戏,那么在任何时候便都会有许多人想要玩你的游戏。人们拥有自己的工作和学校,并且会玩不同的游戏或在Netflix(游戏邦注:全球十大视频网站中唯一收费站点)观看不同的视频。卖出的游戏:在线玩家的比率非常荒谬。而花钱便能够帮助你解决这一问题。你是否拥有广告预算。大多数独立开发者并没有。

保持内容的简单。将《Gun Monkeys》制作成1对1游戏真的非常困难,更别说让4至8名玩家去维持比赛的进行。你应该围绕着服务器无多大意义这一理念去设计游戏。

在某种程度上始终支持它。这远比想象中困难得多。在几个月时间里我一直在修改漏洞并调整游戏玩法,但有时候你总说会突然意识到,为了维持公司的运行你必须投入于一款新游戏中。添加新的地图,角色和内容似乎是个明智的选择,但如果游戏并未获得一定的吸引力,它将如何做到这点?关于游戏的另外6个月的开发时间并未具有吸引力?这种支持对于带有繁荣的社区并渴望新内容的游戏来说非常苛刻,但是你必须准备好做这件事。

有钱。不管你是要参加商业展会,利用广告宣传还是在游戏发行后花1年时间去维持它,你都需要拥有足够的财政支持。

我并不想要呈现出完全的消极心态,我只是认为作为独立开发者,我们需要清除要想创造出一款不断有玩家在尝试的在线游戏,我们就需要像《泰坦陨落》那样卖出更多游戏。这是一个非常无聊的现实。当然也有例外。但我只是想让你知道我所经历过的情况。

所以对此我的建议仍然是:不要这么做。这是一个代价昂贵的挑战。《Gun Monkeys》卖得不错,赚回了成本,在10条评论中通常会获得7,,8条肯定的评论,并且只花了我几个月的时间去创造,所以从某种观点看来它是成功的。

但是《Gun Monkeys》也很快就被人们遗忘了。这对我来说是个不小的打击,因为我认为这是一款值得投入更多关注的小游戏。

本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,拒绝任何不保留版权的转载,如需转载请联系:游戏邦

Why indies probably shouldn’t make a multiplayer game

By Dan Marshall

Hello! So it’s been about a year since Gun Monkeys come out, and because I took some innovative steps to keep it alive, I still get a lot of people asking me for advice.

The TL;DR is really: if you’re an indie developer, don’t make multiplayer games. There are exceptions, naturally, but by-and-large the number of customers you’re ever likely to get simply isn’t there to support it.

Gun Monkeys was designed as a 1-on-1 game specifically to keep it easy to set up. There’s no waiting for 4 other players to turn up, you just need one opponent and you’re good to go. It was designed to be played among friends – you message someone and say “hey, quick game of GM?” and meet and play. That was the idea; that was my way of getting around the fact that it was never likely to sell enough copies to have full servers.

Sadly, that’s not what people expect from a multiplayer game. People expect to log in, and find someone of the exact same skill to play against. At 3am. I did everything I could to accommodate that, but it was never going to happen, was it? This is not just the case for me, indie multiplayer servers are dry all over.

Here’s what I’ve learned by doing this. If you’re adamant about making a multiplayer game, these suggestions are things you 100% should do.

Get hype. You can release a great game and it’ll build hype over time. That doesn’t work with multiplayer, because you need the support there from the very first second it launches. You need to have hundreds of thousands of people champing at the bit to play, if not millions, in order for the game to be successful. Be prepared to make your game, finish it, and then spenda year or so promoting it at shows and building interest before releasing it.

Release to the press WAY before launch. Pretty much every single review of GM says the servers are empty (because, like most people, the reviewers kind of didn’t expect to ever have to arrange their own matches), and it became a self-perpetuating myth. Less people bought it because the servers were empty, so the servers were more empty when people did reviews. And so on. Press need the game well in advance.

Add in bots. You’ll need to heavily invest in human-like AI to keep people happy. People will complain the AI is shit, and building AI is going to be massively expensive. As an indie, can you cover the cost of that? Simply adding multiplayer to a singleplayer game doesn’t solve the problem, either. People will still log in looking for a game, and log out to play singleplayer. They might as well be standalone games, right?

Buy advertising. You’re going to need to get your game EVERYWHERE. If you sell a million copies at launch, at any one time you’re likely to have a handful of people looking to play. People have jobs and school and are playing different games or watching Netflix. The Copies Sold : Players Online ratio is preposterous. Spending money will help that. Have you got an advertising budget? Because most don’t. Whatever it is, stick a 0 on the end.

Keep things simple. It’s hard enough getting a game of Gun Monkeys as 1-on-1, let alone if it needed 4-8 players to get a match going. Design your game around the entire concept of the severs being empty.

Keep supporting it, to a degree. This is harder than it seems. I kept fixing bugs and tweaking gameplay for a few months, because of course, but there comes a point where you’re aware you need to get on with a new game in order to keep your company afloat. Adding new maps and characters and stuff seems like a sensible thing to do, but if the game doesn’t have the numbers already, what is it really going to achieve? Another 6 months dev time on a game that doesn’t have the oomph? That kind of support is strictly for games with a thriving community and a big demand for new content, but you need to be prepared to do it.

Have money. I think that’s the long and short of it. Whether it’s for tradeshows, advertising, or a year of support after release, you need to have the finances in place to fund multiplayer games.

I don’t want to be completely negative, I just think as indies we need to be aware that the numbers TitanFall sells in order to be a constantly-playable online game eclipses anything we could possibly hope to achieve. It’s a case of being very very boringly realistic. And there are exceptions, of course there are! I’m just letting you know what my experience has been

In short? My advice remains: don’t. It’s an expensive gamble. Gun Monkeys sold well, covered its own costs, generally got 7-8 out of 10 reviews, and only took a few months to make, so from that point of view it was a success.

But Gun Monkeys immediately got forgotten about. And that’s the saddest bit for me, because it’s genuinely a brillo little game that deserved a lot more attention.(source:develop-online)

 


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