[MUD-Dev] Metrics for assessing game design

[Damion Schubert]

>From katie at stickydata.com
> [Adam M wrote:]

>> I agree quite strongly with one of this week's Gamasutra articles
>> which points out that the infamous "crunch time" on games dev
>> projects probably is the single greatest drain on creativity
>> within the industry - and it has no plus side.

[ snip ]

> Crunch time means that planning has been inadequate.  That's not
> to say that good or complete planning is easy - far from it, to
> such an extent that many companies, even very large ones, often
> weigh the work necessary to put together real and good planning
> and processes versus the cost of dealing with poor processes, and
> in the short term coping costs less.

Such vitriol against crunch!  Really!  The ironic thing, of course,
is that if it were not for crunch, and I mean serious, serious
crunch, there probably would not be a single major MMO on the market
today.  SWG, UO, EQ, AC, and Shadowbane all were shipped on the
backs of a ridiculous amount of crunch time.  Perhaps poor planning
is required to get an MMO out the door!

The Star Wars: Galaxies team probably did enough crunch to be
considered slavery in some countries, and yet it seems to have more
than its share of creative and innovative designs.

No manager should put his team in perpetual crunch.  However, the
project planner has to realize that 'crunch' is, in fact, a tool in
his toolbox.  The very nature of MMOs makes this tool more
necessary: the real-time demands of the audience makes it necessary,
and the highly varied pace of emergent tasks makes it necessary as
well.  The producer has a responsibility to (a) ensure that the
people that are brought into the project understand this, are
prepared for the sacrifice and can work under that pressure and (b)
ensure that this tool is not reached for too often.  Pacing is a key
management concern if you find yourself having to leverage crunch
time.

True story: I interviewed with and walked away from a job at a
company who 'didn't believe in crunch'.  They'd all come from game
company situations where crunch was abused, and swore that it
wouldn't happen on their watch.  My belief was the attitude sounded
more like a company that wasn't populated by 'finishers' - those
that had what it took to get the product out the door.  Sure enough,
less than six months later, I heard that the company had two of
their titles cancelled and were desperately clinging to life.

As a final thought - given the huge development cycles for these
games, the first few months are usually lighter on the crunch than
the rest of the project.  This happens when you want your designers
to be their freshest and most creative.  Usually by the time your
team is crunching hardcore, your programmers will stab any overly
creative designer through the heart with a number two pencil, since
excessive designer creativity means 'more crunch' to the programmer.

--d
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