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阐述游戏玩法测试的作用与要求(2)

发布时间:2014-08-15 15:38:00 Tags:,,,

作者:Pascal Luban

近似性,响应性,关联性……这些都是有效玩法测试的关键词。

在本系列文章的第1篇中,我已经探讨了玩法测试在游戏开发过程中不断增长的重要性。

在这样一个游戏发行商财政风险不断增长的行业中,玩法测试可以作为高质量玩法的一个强大保障。我将在此与各位分享自己准备和执行玩法测试的方法和经验。

留心客户需求:设计团队

最根本的一点是,你必须清楚一个基本说法:玩没测试的角色并非代替设计团队重做设计,而是用于帮助后者改进设计。

首先,我们必须尊重设计团队的劳动成果。鉴于我自己在游戏和关卡设计方面的职责,我知道制作一款“好游戏”究竟有多难。我们必须尊重这些全身心投入开发好游戏的人,我们绝不可以蔑视或低估他们的成果。

其次,玩法测试必须适应设计团队的需求。地图或玩法机制的良好调整通常是一个试错的结果。设计师应该认识到这一点并要求进行试验。玩法测试有助于他们检测自己的假设,并因此适应其中出现的特殊需求。

最后,玩法测试必须尽早让相关团体参与,因为它在游戏开发中所分配的时间总是很少。

playtest(from halowars.com)

playtest(from halowars.com)

准备玩法测试活动

玩法测试通常需要一个月左右的准备时间。我们必须确定它的目标,因为它们将决定我们应该招募哪种类型的测试者,以及测试的规模(比如1、2、4、8或12名玩家参与),以及持续时长(从半天到一整周)。

我们将还参与后勤和法律框架(非公开协议,以及测试持续超过半天时给予测试者的金钱补偿等方面)。我们当然还必须准备好让设计团队有效利用测试。

没有人可以在干涸的土地上种出好庄稼来,玩法测试的有效性扎根于测试者本身。有效进行玩法测试活动有一半应归结于明智地选择测试者,这需要时间、精力以及一点金钱和耐心的投入。

招聘测试者需要时间:我们绝不可只是引进更多候选者(以便获得较可靠的测试样本)。我们还必须对其进行评估。评估的目的显然就是判断候选者的游戏能力,以及他们分格和自我表达的能力。

评估可能会采取数种形式。最初的筛选可以是发放调查问卷让候选者完成,但真正的评估则必须是在测试阶段完成,而我们在这一阶段要观察候选者的游戏情况。

我们必须确立一个尽量保留最为一致性结果的协议。这里并不存在所谓的“用于所有目的”的评估协议,我们必须能够情况变化适应特定环境。

当我在Bucarest育碧办公室创建一个玩法测试框架时,我遇到了一个有趣的问题:我们需要为主机游戏进行玩法测试,但我们所找到的本地玩家都是纯PC游戏玩家。我不得不设置了一个特定协议来评估我们这些罗马尼亚候选者适应主机游戏的可能性。

该协议包括简要地解释复杂游戏的玩法控制系统(《Splinter Cell:Chaos Theory》多人模式),之后任由他们体验游戏,以便检测他们适应玩法的速度。结果证明这种筛选方法极为有效。

候选者筛选必须根据特定玩法测试活动的目标来完成。我们可能需要那些已经精通这种游戏题材的高技能玩家,但如果目标是测试游戏易用性的话,也可能只需要新手。

与玩法测试相关的沟通也需要时间。在候选者执行测试之前,必须确保他们清楚你的需求。从我的经验来看,通过一般分类广告途径可以招聘到较高数量的候选者,其中许多人年纪都太小了(这时候就要注意劳动法),多数只是休闲游戏玩家。

招聘经验丰富玩家的一个好方法就是通过论坛,游戏公会或专门商店。它需要更多时间,但我总能通过这个方法找到出色的测试者。在玩法测试中,质量总比数量更重要!

组织测试

我应该解释一下组织玩法测试的三个方面:团队构成,测试协议准备,以及后勤。

招募必须至少在测试前四五天就开始。在这个阶段,测试管理人员已经掌握了已被评估过的候选者数据库。他可以根据测试主题来挑选测试者,并通过电子邮件向对方发送邀请。

此时我们已经认识到拥有相当数量候选者的重要性,因为多数人未必能够到场。因此我们必须投放大量邮件以确保当天会有足够的测试者到场。

最好邀请比实际所需更多的测试者,因为也有不少人会在最后关头临时取消计划。另外也最好要求测试者通过邮件确认自己能否出席。

协议设置是这个准备过程中的重要环节。有些测试者会被安排在将近开发周期末尾,以便调整地图或游戏系统。这种类型的测试协议通常都很直接:我们允许测试者玩游戏的最长时间,注明游戏参数,并组织公开的问答环节。

测试最管用的时候是在开发早期阶段,当时的游戏系统和地图仍然处于萌芽状态。不要忘了我们越早发现问题,就越易于纠正问题。

在多人模式版本的《Splinter Cell:Chaos Theory》的地图开发过程中,我组织了玩法测试来评估这个当时仍处于早期阶段的地图结构。

我对Aquarius地图印象尤其深刻:通过经验丰富的玩家测试,我们(包括创建了地图的关卡设计师在内)很快意识到这个地图太大了。

注意到这个问题后,他立即重建了地图,这花不了多少时间,因为当时的地图还只是一个原型。他经过数次迭代将地图缩小到理想大小,最终Aquarius才能成游戏最受欢迎的地图之一。

玩法测试有助于我们发现许多问题,并确认(或作废)由设计团队提出的假设。在《Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow》多人模式版本的开发过程中,我们也出于调整特定装备(如烟雾弹)的目的而进行了一些特定的测试。

烟雾弹是间谍最常用的配件之一,因为它的烟雾可以拖延竞争对手(雇佣兵),如果时间够长的话甚至还会导致后者晕睡。

调整烟雾弹参数并不容易——它的射程太广泛了,对于攻击者来说它可能成为一种势不可挡的武器(他们只需要在走廊中使用一颗烟、雾弹就能阻止任何对手靠近)。

另一方面,如果烟雾弹的影响面区域太小,这项武器就会毫无用处(防御者拥有可让他们在烟雾中具有部分可视性的视觉模式)。所以寻找正确值耗费了我们大量时间。

最后,协议必须根据之前测试所遇到的问题,以及设计团队所提出的测试需求作出调整。另外,开发团队的需求也是成功测试的标志之一。我会在之后说明这一点。

现在来谈谈后勤。良好的玩法测试要有一个稳定的游戏构造,其中不可有太多漏洞。在开发周期的中间阶段执行测试时,这可能是说得容易做得难。尽管如此,游戏还是必须尽可能满足这一条件,地图也不能有太致命的漏洞(游戏邦注:例如无法攀爬梯子)。

游戏交付协议必须与开发团队一起设置。后者必须向内部调试团队交付一个已经可用于测试的游戏版本,调试团队会快速审核游戏以确保该版本具有可测试性。

当问题出现时,调试和开发团队的合作有助于快速更正问题,并为测试提供一个稳定的版本。

这种组织性技巧需要所有团队多个学科人员的参与。另一个好方法就是为关卡和图像设计师准备一个清单,以便他们确保自己的地图已经没有障碍性的漏洞。最后,测试管理人员本人必须确保该版本的确具有可玩性。

测试过程

当设计团队人员参与时,玩法测试尤其具有指导性。的确,游戏或关卡设计师会根据自己观察到的玩家行为所得的想法来执行工作。

但是,玩家并不总会出现预期的反应,我们必须考虑到他们的多样性。

设计师通过亲眼看到真正玩家如何使用装备或导航地图布局,通过询问后者某种行为的理由,就可以快速进行优化调整——事实总是胜于雄辩!因此我强烈推荐团队鼓励开发团队参与玩法测试。

这正是我为何强烈建议在开发工作室本身的假设上执行测试的原因。远程测试对于调整地图和系统设置来说很有价值,但对于尚于处萌芽期的游戏来说却不甚管用。

显然,玩法测试观察者必须遵从一定的规则:他们不可发表自己的评论,或者进行询问,直到自己获得测试管理人员的授权为止,以免影响游戏测试或测试者的判断。

原因如下:早期测试的测试者数量通常很有限,并且可能出现大量问题。事实上这可能会影响到所收获反馈的关联性,最好的情况就是结果不一致,最糟的情况就结果自相矛盾。管理人员必须考虑到这一切,自己评估反馈的关联性。

但要注意,测试管理人员的参与可能就是这一争论点的成因。在某些情况下,管理人员只能作为一个纯粹的观察者。事实上,这是开发过程末期,即准备微调游戏系统设置时执行测试的最佳态度。

这个要点的目标是从大量测试人员收集最大化的统计数据。

相反,在评估初期地图或游戏系统的强弱这一早期测试过程中,相对低质量和更多差异性的数据则需要管理人员更为积极而直接的参与。

此时,他必须“埋头苦干”与不完整的数据打交道。虽然这里存在错误风险,但我的经验表明这一阶段的测试结果实际上更准确,也更有用处。

我在法国最棒的开发工作室之一的经历告诉我,玩法测试管理人员必须完整投入游戏的最终质量,不可满足于仅仅充当一名观察者。

这个结论再次表明了测试与开发团队之间的亲密关系。

询问

我们因此可得到测试的最终结果。一般看法是将测试结论尽快交付到最需要的人手中——通常是指设计师和项目领导。询问可以有多种形式。

首先,观察测试的设计团队成员可能向测试者提出自己最紧迫或直接的问题。他们通常会带着一些强烈的想法离开测试间。

playtest report(from panzerleader)

playtest report(from panzerleader)

然后就是出报告,它必须与事实(如统计资料)、测试者的观点,以及管理人员自己的观察和结论具有明显区别。必须提供原始数据以便设计师了解管理人员的结论来源。

将全部数据摊牌是一个让报告读者产生信任感的好方法。不要忘了测试的目的是提升游戏,而不是拿学分。

完整的报告要花上一定的编写时间,所以如果需要获得重要反馈时就有必要进行一些更为简短而中立的询问。

最后值得一提的是,我曾经在米兰育碧工作室用一个允许远程办公室(在另一座城市或另一个国家)的协议进行试验,以便获得关于一个地图测试的报告。

这个协议简称D3(远程动态询问),包括快速确立一个主要公开问题的列表,组织相关设计师(在开发办公室)和测试管理人员(在测试办公室)可登录的在线会议。

他们之后就可以探索地图,而测试团队则更准确地说明问题,大家可以一起研究解决方案。而测试者也可能参与其中,提供自己的观点促进交流。(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

The Silent Revolution of Playtests, Part 2

by Pascal Luban

[Continuing his series on playtesting, ex-Ubisoft veteran Pascal Luban (Splinter Cell series) examines the practicalities of getting consumer feedback on your game.]

Proximity, responsiveness, relevance… these are the watchwords of efficient playtests.

In the previous installment of this article, I had explored the reasons for the rising importance of playtests in game development.

In an industry where games represent increasingly high financial risks for publishers, playtests have come to function as a strong guarantee for quality gameplay. I will share with you today my experience regarding the methodology employed in preparing and conducting them.

Heeding the Clients: The Design Teams

Foremost, one must be aware of a fundamental say: the role of playtests is not to redo the design in place of the design teams — for either game or level design. They are instead conducted to help them. This observation is crucial, because it drives the entire approach to playtests.

Firstly, we must respect the hard work of the design teams. Having had my own responsibilities in game and level design, I know how difficult it is to make “a good game”. We must respect those who put their whole hearts into building the best game possible; we must not scorn or undervalue their work.

Secondly, playtests must adapt to the needs of the design teams. Good tuning for maps or gameplay mechanics is often the result of trial and error. Knowing this, designers should require experimentation; playtests can afford them the opportunity to test out their hypotheses regarding design issues, and must therefore adapt to particular needs as they arise.

Lastly, playtest results must be made available to the concerned parties as soon as possible, as time allotted for game development is always short.

Preparing a Playtest Campaign

A playtest campaign generally requires around one month of preparation. We must first define its objectives, because they will determine what types of playtesters we shall have to recruit, the scale of the sessions (1, 2, 4, 8, 12 players), and their duration (from half a day to a full week).

We will also have to attend to the logistics as well as the legal framework (non-disclosure agreement, eventual monetary compensation for playtesters when sessions last over a half-day, etc.) And we must, of course, prepare the design teams to effectively utilize the playtests.

One does not grow the best crops in dry land; a playtest’s effectiveness is rooted in the playtesters themselves. Half the battle in running an effective playtest campaign lies in wisely choosing playtesters, which requires investment of time, energy, and perhaps a bit of money and patience.

Recruiting takes time: we must not only hire as many candidates as possible (in order to have a solid pool of playtesters). We must also evaluate them. The purpose of evaluation is obviously to judge the candidate’s gaming competence, but also his ability for analysis and self-expression.

Evaluation may take several forms. An initial selection can be done through a more or less thorough questionnaire, to be completed by the candidate. The true evaluation, however, must be done during the sessions themselves, where we can observe the candidates at play.

We must establish a protocol for obtaining the most consistent results possible. There is no “all-purpose” evaluation protocol; we must also be able to adapt to specific circumstances as the situation mandates.

When I built a playtest structure at the Bucarest Ubisoft office, I encountered an interesting problem: we needed playtests for console games, but all the players we could find locally were exclusively PC gamers. I had to set up a specific protocol to evaluate the ease with which our Romanian candidates could adapt to console gaming.

Ubisoft’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory

The protocol consisted of briefly explaining the gameplay controls of a complex game (the multi-player mode in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory), and then setting them loose in the game in order to gauge the speed at which they adapted to the gameplay. This selection method proved to be quite efficient.

Candidate selection must therefore be done according to a given playtest campaign’s objectives. We may have need of only extremely skilled players who have already mastered the genre, or we may require novices, if the objective is to playtest the accessibility of the game.

Communication regarding playtests also takes time. Before candidates can turn up on your doorstep, they must first be made aware of your need. In my experience, while recruiting through generic classified ads will yield a high number of candidates, many will be too young (careful of those labor laws!), and most will be only casual gamers.

A good way to recruit experienced players is to make use of forums, gaming clans or specialized stores. It takes much more time but I always got great playtesters this way. In playtesting, quality matters more than quantity!

Organizing the Sessions

I shall address three aspects of playtest organization: the composition of the team, the preparation of the playtest protocol, and its logistics.

Recruiting must start at least four or five days before the session itself. At this stage, the playtest manager already has access to a database of candidates that have already been evaluated or, at least, identified. He can thereby choose his playtesters according to the session’s theme. Invites are sent by e-mail.

At this point, we realize the importance of having a great number of candidates, since most are not available at will. We must therefore engage in mass-mailing to ensure sufficient availability of playtesters come session day.

It is also best to invite at least one more playtester than necessary, since last minute withdrawals are commonplace. It is also usually a good idea to ask playtesters to confirm their presence via e-mail.

Protocol setup is an important part of session preparation. Some playtests are organized near the end of the development cycle, to tune up maps or the game system. The protocol for this type of playtest is often straightforward: we must allow the playtesters to play for a maximum of time, note game statistics, and organize open Q&A sessions.

The time when playtests are most useful, however, is during earlier stages of the development cycle, when the game system and maps are still in gestation. Let us not forget that the earlier we detect any issues, the easier and cheaper it will be to correct them.

During the development of maps for the multiplayer version of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, I had organized playtests to evaluate the structure of the then still-embryonic maps.

I specifically remember the Aquarius map: By having it tested by highly experienced playtesters, we — including the level designer who had built the map — quickly realized that the map was far too large.

Having noticed this problem, he immediately rebuilt his map, which took little time as the map was still just a prototype. It took him a few iterations to downsize his map to the optimal size. In the end, Aquarius became one of the game’s most popular maps.

Ubisoft’s Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow

Playtests allow us to shed light on many problems and to validate (or invalidate) hypotheses set by the design team. During the development of the multiplayer version of Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, specific playtests were undertaken with the purpose of tweaking the characteristics of certain pieces of equipment, such as the smoke grenade.

The latter is one of the most-used accessories by the spies, since its cloud slows down the spy’s opponents (the mercenaries), and it can even put them to sleep if they stay too long in its area of effect.

Tuning the smoke grenade’s parameters was not so simple — if its range was too wide, it would be an unstoppable weapon for the attackers (they would simply need to employ a single grenade in a corridor to block any access by their opponents).

On the other hand, if the grenade’s effect zone were too small, the weapon would be completely useless (defenders have vision modes allowing them partial visibility through the cloud). Finding the right values took us a lot of time.

Lastly, to be relevant, protocols must adapt to problems encountered in previous sessions as well as to the test requests put forth by the design team. This commensurability with the development team’s needs is one of the hallmarks of a successful playtest. I shall address this point later on.

Let us now talk about logistics. Good playtests require a stable build of the game without too many bugs. When directing playtests in the middle of the development cycle, this may be easier said than done. Regardless, the game must be sufficiently stable, and maps must be rid of the most detrimental bugs (such as the inability to climb a ladder, for example).

A game delivery protocol must be set up with the development team. The latter must deliver a playtest-ready version of the game to the internal debug team, which will rapidly review the game to ensure that the version is playtestable.

When issues arise, cooperation between the debug and development teams will allow for swift corrections of issues, and subsequently the production of a stable version suitable for playtests.

Such organizational finesse requires a lot of discipline from all of the teams involved. Another good practice is to prepare a checklist for the level and graphic designers, so that they can make sure that their own maps are free of blocker bugs. Finally, the playtest session manager himself must make sure that the version is indeed playable.

Playtest Sessions

Playtests are especially instructive when design team personnel attend the sessions; indeed, a game or level designer will base his work on ideas he will formulate upon observing the behavior of the players.

However, players do not always react as expected, and we must take their diversity into account.

By seeing with his own eyes how real players use equipment or navigate a map’s topology, and by asking them the reasons for their behavior at the end of the session, the designer can rapidly make optimizing adjustments — a demonstration is always more efficient than a long speech! It is thus highly recommended to encourage the designers to attend the playtests.

That’s why I strongly recommend that playtests should be conducted on the premises of the development studio itself. Remote playtests are valuable for tweaking map and system settings, but less so for playtests on an embryonic game.

Obviously, playtest observers must follow certain rules: they must not voice their comments or ask any questions until they are authorized by the playtest session manager, in order to preclude influencing the game session or the playtesters’ judgement.

If it is desirable for designers to attend the playtests, it is simply essential that the playtest session manager does so. He must not simply organize the session and ask his questions at the end; he must actually watch the playtesters at play.

The reason is as follows: early playtests often have a limited number of playtesters, and the problems found are liable to be numerous. This fact is likely to affect the relevancy of feedback received, rendering it inconsistent at best and flat-out contradictory at worst. The manager must take all of this into account, evaluating the relevance of the feedback himself.

Note, however, that the involvement of the playtest manager can be cause for controversy. In some cases, a playtest manager must simply behave as a mere observer; in fact, this is generally the best attitude to have during playtests occurring later in the game development, when it is time to fine-tune game system settings.

The objective at this point is to collect a maximum of statistical data from a high number of playtesters.

By contrast, during early playtesting meant to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of embryonic maps or game systems, the comparatively low quantity and greater heterogeneity of the collected data require a more aggressive, reactive, and direct involvement on the part of the manager.

At this point, he must necessarily “get his hands dirty”, as he’ll be working with incomplete data. While there is a risk of error here, my experience has shown me that playtest results are actually more concrete at this stage, and thus more useful.

My experience amidst one of the best development studios in France has taught me that the playtest manager must be wholly invested in the final quality of the game, and must not be content with being a mere observer.

This conclusion once again indicates the need for a close relationship between the playtest and the development teams.

Debriefing

We thus arrive at the final result of a playtest session. The general idea is to bring the playtest conclusions as quickly as possible to those who most need it — generally the designers and project leaders. Debriefing may take several forms.

First, design team members who observed the playtests may put their most pressing or immediate questions to the playtesters. They often leave the playtesting room with some strong ideas burning in their mind.

Then comes the report, which must make a clear distinction between the facts (statistics etc.), opinions from the playtesters, and the manager’s own observations and conclusions. Raw data must be provided so that the designers know on which bases the manager drew his conclusions.

Putting all the cards on the table is a good way to establish trust with the ones who will read the report. Let us not forget that the purpose of playtests is to improve the game, and not to settle scores.

A full-fledged report takes time to compile and to write so a shorter, intermediary debriefing might be needed if the needs for crucial feedbacks is urgent.

As a final note, I’ll mention that I had begun to experiment at the Milan Ubisoft studio with a protocol allowing a remote office (in another city or even another country) to obtain a hot report on a map playtest.

Named D3 for “Debrief Dynamique à Distance” (Remote Dynamic Debrief), this protocol consists in quickly establishing a list of the main open issues, and organizing an online session where the concerned designers (at the development office) and the playtest session managers (at the playtest office) can log on.

They can then explore the maps while the playtest team explains the issues with much precision, and all can work together in developing possible solutions. A playtester may even join them, contributing further to the dialogue.(source:gamasutra


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