The Fort 2

Fair Trade Software Development anyone?

Junta — 2010-05-18T17:43:44Z

Firstly, I've no wish to belittle the genuine work carried out by the Fair Trade Foundation, who are indeed trying to better the lives of genuinely poor working communities around the world. To paraphrase from the Fair Trade Foundation's description of their work: “Fair trade contributes to sustainable development for workers and their communities. The Fair trade movement empowers citizens to campaign for an international trade system based on justice and fairness”

Now, quickly to the point of this article. What happens to software companies that treat their development and creative / design teams badly?

I'd like to point out that this article is NOT trying to pretend that software developers / studios share the same plight as producers and manufacturers in 3rd world countries. There is merely a train of thought that can be taken from the concept of “fair trade” – knowing that in buying a product, some of the revenue goes back into the promotion of the original producer and enhancing their well being. Many could argue that this doesn't apply to large commercial ventures as there is a system of employment and minimum standards.

However, maybe one day games programmers will be based more in 3rd world countries? Maybe we wouldn't want to see exploitation of programmers any more than Coffee growers etc. There has already been a trend to move development “off shore” to locations producing IT development talent and where costs are already much lower [1]. Maybe the bad treatment of games development studios will see a slow death of this industry in the western world and this would be of grave concern for people like you and I (the people who pay and play for the games).

In recent months, we've seen negative news in respect to software developer Infinity Ward and the publisher Activision. For those in the know, Infinity Ward (IW) created the incredibly popular and successful game: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (MW2).
In creating this game, IW had allegedly signed-up for a considerable financial reward from the publisher, Activision. If internet stories are to be believed, the “reward” was tied in to a successful launch of the MW2 game on a given date. To all intents and purposes, it would seem that IW did deliver on (or prior to) the designated date.

So, what did IW get for their trouble? Well, again, subject to the usual caveat on internet reporting accuracy and scandal, news seemed to indicate that Activision withheld payment of the reward and started on a rather nasty campaign against IW staff [2]. Several internet forums and sites provided information about nasty tactics and intimidation, coupled with accusations of insubordination and the firing of some members of staff. I have no idea of the accuracy of the reports, but if some are to be believed, Activision allegedly placed staff in isolated rooms for interview, threatened other staff trying to console their work mates and confiscated personal electronic equipment for “evaluation”.

Where I going with this? Well, the treatment of IW (if true) doesn't sound good does it? Many would argue that the game would continue to sell regardless of how the developer was treated. This makes me rather sad, as buying something without regard to the wellbeing of who made the product is a bad thing. Surely Activision now cannot continue the Modern Warfare series as easily as they could before? Have they poisoned their own well in terms of the ability to attract new development studios for future work? Maybe the dollar is king and the developers will just line up for the money and hope they get paid what is owed. Ultimately, maybe IW just didn't read the small print in the contract.

I'm pleased to say that I've not heard negative news stories regarding Valve, the developer of TF2. They seem to be churning out new games and using the same development teams as before [3]. Anyone excitedly waiting on L4D2 last year would have read that the TF2 development team did indeed take part in the development of L4D2, and I suspect that this sort of continuity has several big benefits for Valve:

1) Familiarity with the software means quicker development and bug fixing
2) Such good knowledge of a product should also mean better quality overall
3) Sharing of best practice between teams and (a controversial one here) *learning from mistakes*
4) Ability to deliver new products and attract new developers as needed
5) Reputational benefit tied to good / fair treatment of staff

Think of any field of work where long term training is required for high quality professional work to be done. It makes sense to retain and look after the experienced staff, especially where the team has had great success.

What can the game playing community do about situations like IW and Activision? How would you know whether a developer had been treated fairly or not? Well, you wouldn't know and I think that most people just don't care. If I were a joking man I'd say that it is time for software to contain a statement like the one that fair-trade uses:
“The developer of this software has been treated fairly by the publisher”

Maybe at some point in the future, this will all be too necessary. In the meantime, I can salute Valve for at least giving the appearance of a dedicated, retained development team!

Further Links
http://kotaku.com/5485703/ousted-in...
http://www.computerandvideogames.co...
http://playstationlifestyle.net/201...
http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/7...

[1] Examples of places where IT talent is cheaper would be Eastern European Countries like Poland and Asian countries like India, China etc. Call centres have already moved to India and IT functions have also followed in recent years. These countries are also geared to producing the next generation of IT talent it is not inconceivable that games programming is immune from this trend in the longer term either.

[2] I must point out that there are probably also countless examples of the larger games distribution companies being let down or compromised by their game development teams. You don't have to look far to see cancelled projects, late projects and releases that don't meet expectations and sell poorly.

[3] Although Valve act as their own distributor as well as publisher.

The demo man – an excellent but much derided class

Junta — 2009-08-30T16:23:47Z

There are not many online computer games where you can play a psychotic Scottish explosives expert with one eye (and of African descent). However, it's lucky for me that TF2 is such a game.

The demo man offers a unique playing experience of any first person shooter that I have come across. I've played my fair share of FPS, and the theme is always about being able to lob a grenade and shoot directly at the enemy. The demo man changes this older, proven, tried and tested approach. I honestly think that Valve had a stroke of genius when they introduced the weapons for the class. Let's be clear: the demo man has no weapon that fires in a straight line (like the soldier or the sniper). You have to aim in a specific direction and adjust for the fact that the projectiles have a parabolic trajectory. At no time do you ever place the cross hair on a target and pull the trigger for a kill.

The nature of the demo man's weapons means that he is a very difficult class to master. It takes time to adjust to the fact that you can't just point and shoot. Given time you quickly learn how to aim ahead of targets to get pipes and sticky bombs to drop into the right place. It can be a very rewarding class once you know its strengths and weaknesses and how these play out on specific maps. To do the demo man and his weapons justice, I probably have to document the main points about the class (as well as the pros and cons).

1) He can sticky jump.
Master this and you can gain massive advantage in terms of covering distance and gaining access to some unique vantage points on a map. You can get to the enemy battlements easily in 2Fort and can jump from the defensive spawn point to the final capture point in Gravel pit. More practiced demo men can “glide” by moving the mouse and keys – allowing you to sail round corners (useful in stage one of Gold rush to take on some pesky snipers near their spawn). Most important of all, sticky jumping is real fun especially if you're fool hardy enough to use more than one sticky bomb!

2) He's great at area denial.
The demo man (for me) has his use as a holder of territory and a denier of ground. This can be achieved through careful placement of sticky bombs and attack with the pipes. Get a Kritzkreig and you're really in business (counter to what some of people say I like to use pipes first with a kritz, they bounce round more especially with corners of maps).

3) He can also disrupt an enemy uber charge.
I note that most players assume that the Pyro is the only class for disrupting an enemy uber (i.e. using the Pyro air blast). Whilst I tend to agree that the Pyro is the best class for the disruption of enemy uber, I also find the demo man is also very good too. You need to shoot sticky bombs at the feet of the ubered enemy, and detonate to lift and separate the medic from his partner. This works a treat in high places and bridges, and if you time it right, it can lift an enemy in sight of a sentry gun (causing the target to fly up and backwards if hit square on by the SG).

4) He can perform one hit, mid air takedowns.
I love doing air detonations of sticky bombs when scouts are around. You aim the sticky where you think the enemy is going, and then you also have the option of when to detonate the bomb using the secondary mouse button. This is epic as if you get it right then you have a large explosion in mid air. The fun is multiplied when you fire a critical sticky bomb (for those not knowing it shines brighter) – the result is instant death for lighter classes like medic or scout. It also has to be said that pipe bombs are very effective too at mid air takedowns. Often scouts can disintegrate when they run into one (careful aim needed with those little buggers running around).

5) He's better than a spy at sentry takedowns.
Get an uber and you can *really* destroy a nest of sentry guns if you do it right. With the help of a skilful medic I've sometimes been able to take as many as 3 sentry guns in an area (admittedly 2 is normally the max for me, but 3 is possible if engineers are careless in their placement next to other sentries). There you go budding engineers – don't put all your eggs in one basket!!

6) He has unique weapons and aiming systems.
Put simply, it's a refreshing change to pointing and shooting straight at everything. You can attack from round the corner and your weapons and ordinance bounce (I love this especially when taking a sniper position). Sticky bombs can be placed on walls as well as ceilings and floors. There are hundreds of options when creating sticky bomb traps. With sticky bombs, I love being able to chose the TIME of detonation as well - this is particularly rewarding if you fire a sticky bomb ahead of a target and detonate before it hits the ground (see “one hit, mid air takedowns” above).

7) He causes a serious amount of damage.
The demo man has one of the highest damage rates of any class in the game. Clustering sticky bombs can murder whole teams if they prove to be careless enough. Pipe bombs are devastating in enclosed areas – and detonate on impact if they touch an enemy before hitting the ground.

1) He has no real close defence.
It's hard to defend yourself against enemies up close. If you find that you're doing this often, then my opinion is that you're playing demo man the wrong way. The class is very much about positioning, which for me makes it better suited for defence rather than offence. Controversial I know, there are plenty of people who make demo man work on offence as well as defence (but I am not that player sadly). The bottle is nice as a close range tool – but is only good on a damaged enemy or one that isn't really paying attention (good for spies though).

2) He is vulnerable to pyro, scout and heavy.
Especially if you're caught unawares. If you're out in the open then a heavy can make mincemeat of you. A pyro can set fire and rush you (but sticky the floor as you run back and you can sometimes make it). Scouts are even trickier if they get the drop on you – pipe bombs or mid air detonations can help but the odds are mostly against it without help from your team mates.

3) He's often accused of being a simple spam class.
This is true one some maps where the demo man's role is reduced to launching as much ordinance in a specific direction without actually seeing an enemy or the enemy team. On some maps it is hard not to do it (a map sort of cries out for the air to be filled with pipes). Don't confuse spam with a lack of skill though – and most other classes can spam if they want to (heavy and soldier come to mind).

4) He's a much overpowered class.
This old argument - where do I start? This debate has been raging since way before I first played the class. I can see some part of the argument but I don't think he is overpowered. Lots of demo men can make a map difficult to play. The result is that the opposition team needs to think “out of the box” a bit more to deal with it. I would point out that I personally believe the demo to be the most “nerfed” (or “adjusted”) class in TF2. We had a drop in ammo, changes to the power and detonation time, allowing stickies to be shot and destroyed. I agree that too much ammunition led to total spam play by most players. I didn't agree at the time, but I do now. I also don't see the new adjustments causing me *that* much pain when I play the class. I also agree that sticky bombs can be shot – it's wrong to have a weapon that could be seen and not destroyed (although you could previously air blast or roll the stickies away with the heavy's machine gun or the soldier's spade / rockets). There is proof about the demo being overpowered though. I have (in all honesty) to point out that competitive 6 v 6 matches limit the demo man to 1 per team. This is obviously for the reason that he packs too much punch and the matches could be very negative with lots of sticky bomb coverage.

: Teatime: Did I miss a nerf somewhere along the way?

5) He's very frustrating for new players.
The class is difficult to learn and master given the requirement for positional play and awareness. This is primarily because new players put the demo into positions he shouldn't be in. In my opinion, you can't rush around the map playing the demo like a heavy or a soldier. The most successful demo men will come forward when the time is right, with support from their team if possible. Putting a demo man in front of a direct enemy charge often doesn't work, but it is a mistake that lots of new players make. They also don't have a fall back plan – but this is often due to poor map knowledge than anything else. This now leads me onto my next point...

6) He requires decent map knowledge.
Good demo men know the ground, where they can go and where the best places are to be able to fire on the enemy team with the least risk. As with all classes, it's about risk and reward – the demo man has to be doubly careful not to get caught in a 1 on 1 situation particularly when he has low ammunition or has low health.

7) He requires a little more planning than other classes.
It is often necessary to prepare “fall back” zones for yourself if you suspect that you're going to be pushed back by the enemy. Whilst I don't do this all the time, I will lay a carpet of sticky bombs down in an area behind me if I think there is a chance I'll need to fall back in a hurry. You can then retreat over the stickies and force the enemy to either halt their pursuit or go over the carpet of bombs to get you. Obviously bombs don't have to be on the floor only. You also have to balance the potential requirements of the team over your own personal protection. Sometimes the wall of (self protective) stickies are not as important as covering a capture point (particularly if it is nearly taken or a cart that is close to its next capture point).

8 ) He takes ages to reload.
The demo man has to make time to keep his weapons loaded and has to work out where his next ammo supply is coming from.

9) It takes time to become a good offensive demo man.
This is so true. My advice is start off playing the class in a more defensive role. Once you master his weapons and his movements, you can consider being more Rambo (if ever Scotland and Rambo should be mentioned in the same paragraph). Defensive demo men support their team, use cover and take down enemies without trying to put themselves in the front line. Offensive demo men (and these players are simply awesome) can switch between team support and direct offensive attacks in the front line. It is truly a skill I admire and aspire to.

So, there we have it, a brain dump of all that is good and bad about the demo man. The fact is that the demo takes time and investment to get good at. Well, most classes in TF2 do, but I think that the demo takes longer to reward you than other classes. He will reward you though, and once you master him he'll stay near the top of your preferred class list. What more can I say. The class is unique and it rocks [1].

Additional Information:
TF2 Wiki entry detailing the Demoman
TF2 Blog entry about the development of the Demoman

[1] Subject to any dodgy new achievements and unlockable weapons Valve will bestow upon him of course!!!!

KOTH – The "halfway house" game mode

Junta — 2009-08-24T23:42:47Z

KOTH or “King of the hill” is proving to be rather popular on TF2 servers these days. It's a strange mixture of the previous TF2 Arena and the current TF2 point capture style of play. It is neither an all out death match nor a fully fledged regular TF2 experience. The key concept is as follows:

• Either team can capture the centralised control point on the map
• Once a team captures the point, they must hold it for 3 minutes to win. Each team has their own 3 minute timer that must count down for a victory to occur
• Control of the capture point can flip between red and blue team. The 3 minute timer stops when your own team loses control of the point.
• You have to be on the point to win – sitting back and losing control also loses you the game.

This sounds interesting in paper, but I find the mode of play leads to excessive spamming and little chance at team co-ordination. This may be in part to the starting maps being quite compact and the central capture point focusing both teams onto one small area. Maybe I'm just being simplistic here, but because I'm talking public play (not matches) the teams tend to be quite large (12 instead of 6 per team). These larger teams make the maps feel more like a huge meat grinder.

The capture time is set to 3 minutes – lending some urgency to the attack to regain the capture point. This is a good thing as it helps focus the team and reduce some negative aspects of camping and not completing the set objective. I like this feature as you genuinely do feel some anxiety towards getting control back from the enemy.

The same 3 minute counter reduces the ability for some people to plan and execute even simple tactics (again, I mention that I'm talking about public play - not matches). People rush headlong to block the enemy from capturing without consideration for enemy numbers or defence. This is I feel, a bad thing.

So, the 3 minute counter is both a good and a bad thing. I wonder if we should be able to change the capture time as we can do with other TF2 server settings. Would a longer capture time help or would it reduce the focus on re-taking the control point? Pity we can't test it - by all means let me know if I have missed a server setting or if there is an admin plug-in that can change this.

Spawn waves – I wonder if this mode of play might suffer on servers with “fast re-spawn” enabled. This mode of operation reduces the time that a player will wait before being spawned into the game after death. Faster re-spawns can lead to more bodies flying around the map and the increased bottleneck seen on some KOTH maps (Viaduct comes to mind).

Map distances – the KOTH maps seem quite compact to me. This is probably due to the 3 minute timer. Maybe some alternative maps will be larger (not too large I hope), but in any event a bigger map would need a longer timer to make things fair. If the 3 minute timer were kept then we'd see the control point get taken and no follow up challenge from the losing side due to lack of time. I can't help but feel that a bigger map could relax the spam nature of the KOTH mode – but I would probably be proven very wrong.

Vertical challenges – I would like to see KOTH maps use the “Badlands spire” kind of layout. I don't think that these new maps have much of a hill after all (despite what the game name says).

KOTH no doubt exists off the back of Arena mode. Arena was definitely a stab at appealing to the Counter Strike Source (CSS) audience. CSS attracted the kind of players who liked to prove how elite they are, with the noobs spend more time sitting out than fragging people. I've played CSS, and I think that some of the more negative aspects of the game come from the fact that people have to sit out and watch others play. The CSS “forced spectator” death camera mode was taken well by some players (“I deserved to die and the other guy did well”) and badly by others (“Cheat, luckor” or some other abuse). TF2 didn't really see this because if you died you had a short wait and could re-join the action. The TF2 round re-spawn also meant that players could afford to be more selfless in their actions, knowing that sometimes a suicide could help the team achieve a goal. I think KOTH was a modification to Arena mode because arena isn't as successful as Valve wanted it to be. KOTH allows re-spawns and matches more in keeping with the original aspects of TF2. Its more team oriented than Arena mode will ever be.

So what can Valve do to make KOTH more appealing to me? Well, I'd like to see an adjustable capture time to support a slightly bigger map. I'd also like to see maps with bigger hills in – and this also means some neater map designs with fewer choke points. Ultimately, KOTH doesn't support fewer choke points as the players don't have the option to hold back and there is only one real objective. Maybe the final answer would be to enforce a smaller team size on this kind of map – but then we're into the Arena mode team allocation territory and I'm sure that many players hate being rotated out of the action in order to support 3 teams (like arena mode does natively).

To bring this article to a close (because all ramblings must have an end), I conclude that KOTH is a nice distraction when the team sizes aren't too huge. It's a nice stab at a new style of play, and a slight improvement over what I consider to be a heavily flawed arena death-match mode of play. Of all the things Valve could have added, I myself never saw KOTH coming. It's a good job I don't work for Valve really... the creativity would have been stunted some time ago!

HIGHLANDER

Junta — 2009-06-14T13:25:15Z

An alternative TF2 match format ... (and a kilt is optional )

Many people (like me) enjoy their game of TF2 in a relaxed and fun way. There is no extreme pressure to win the round, capture the flag or to push the little cart. Some people also find enjoyment and challenge in a proper organised TF2 match, either in an official competition or a friendly match. In either case, I wanted to discuss an interesting match format that I first came across a few months ago. The format is known as “The Highlander”.

So what is a Highlander then? This originally prompted me to scratch my head (and maybe other body parts) until somebody reminded me of that terrible film with the same name (starring Christopher Lambert and his dodgy Scottish accent). I was then of course directed to remember the very cheesy line “there can be only one!” – and the match format began to make sense!

Even though the idea isn't very new itself, a limit of one of each class sounded very interesting to me. I wondered if it would be any good and if people would be p*ssed off at not playing their favourite class. A friendly match was soon organised and we kicked off with a 9 vs.9 line-up. Each team had only one of each class and we kicked off what I thought was one of the most dynamic and well matched fights that I have seen in TF2. The map was Goldrush, and the usually difficult first stage came and went with a good tough battle. This (to be clear) wasn't what I considered to be the normal Goldrush grind of running into a sea of sentry guns, sticky bombs and sniper dots. The map was actually very fluid and the team's tactics seemed to work very well with one of each class in the frame.

When attacking I noticed that the team was more cohesive and we relied on each other a bit more than I'd seen in other friendly matches. The defending enemy team looked after their engineer very well knowing that once he'd been taken out there was no second engineer to bail them out quickly. There was no wall of demo man spam preventing access to key areas and I note the more skilful tactics needed to deny ground or to capture it. The lack of “negative” tactics like sitting back behind huge sentry gun nests or group sniping (always a favourite tactic on some servers) did free up the team to try different routes or points of attack. You'd have thought that a match team would always have a plan but I liked the opportunity to think on my feet in this match. Teams couldn't cover every angle with snipers or engineers so it lent a very fluid feel to the game. That's not to say that you couldn't lock down areas of the map, it just meant that better co-ordination was needed than I usually saw with teams consisting of the same classes. The proof was some very tough and desperate attacks at the various choke points on the map. Breakthroughs did happen when key enemy classes were taken down at specific times (i.e. maybe a heavy or a demo were killed or the medic burned to death before using his ubercharge). This felt very rewarding with victory feeling well earned. The losing team also didn't feel that robbed, knowing that the fight was quite even and a real challenge for all. On this occasion, the teams were very even and I'm sure that this helped make the match what it was.

I also know that the purists out there (the professionals too) know that a proper match team with different class limits can be highly effective, challenging and fun. What I am saying is that for the more casual gamer the Highlander format can give a good competitive challenge whilst removing some of the drudgery normally seen in spam fest / engineer heavy maps and tactics. There may be more than one way to have a match, but for me “there can be only one” Highlander. I'll be giving it another go at the first opportunity.