Dungeon Dilettante
Posts: 1
Joined: Friday, 12th October 2012, 14:53
Friday, 12th October 2012, 15:05
Discussion with a developer
’How is the Update getting on?’ said Twelvedicks, raising his voice to overcome the noise.
’Slowly,’ said Campbell. ’I’m on the spells. It’s fascinating.’
He had brightened up immediately at the mention of Stone Soup. He pushed his pannikin aside, took up his hunk of bread in one delicate hand and his cheese in the other, and leaned across the table so as to be able to speak without shouting.
’The Eleventh Version is the definitive version,’ he said. ’We’re getting the game into its final shape — the shape it’s going to have when nobody plays anything else. When we’ve finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is creating new content. But not a bit of it! We’re removing features — scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We’re cutting the game down to the bone. The Eleventh Version won’t contain a single feature that will become unbalanced before the year 2013.’
He bit hungrily into his bread and swallowed a couple of mouthfuls, then continued speaking, with a sort of pedant’s passion. His thin dark face had become animated, his eyes had lost their mocking expression and grown almost dreamy.
’It’s a beautiful thing, the removing of content. Of course the great wastage is in the monsters and spells, but there are hundreds of characters that can be got rid of as well. It isn’t only the races; there are also the backgrounds. After all, what justification is there for a background which is simply the combinations of some other backgrounds? A background contains its combinations in itself. Take Assassin, for instance. If you have a background like Assassin, what need is there for a background like Stalker? Transmuter will do just as well — better, because it’s exactly different, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of Assassin, what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless backgrounds like Fighter and Gladiator and all the rest of them? An Ogre covers the lack of strength, or a Troll if you want something stronger still. Of course we use those features already. but in the final version of Crawl there’ll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion of melee and magic will be covered by only six backgrounds — in reality, only one background. Don’t you see the beauty of that, Twelvedicks? It was Linley’s idea originally, of course,’ he added as an afterthought.
A sort of vapid eagerness flitted across Twelvedicks’s face at the mention of Linley. Nevertheless Campbell immediately detected a certain lack of enthusiasm.
’You haven’t a real appreciation of Stone Soup, Twelvedicks,’ he said almost sadly. ’Even when you play it you’re still thinking in terms of the old Crawl. I’ve watched some of those runs that you've had on Webtiles occasionally. They’re good enough, but they’re transpositions. In your heart you’d prefer to stick to the old Crawl, with all its imbalance and its useless overpowered spells. You don’t grasp the beauty of the destruction of features. Do you know that Stone Soup is the only game in the world whose content gets smaller every year?’
Twelvedicks did know that, of course. He smiled, sympathetically he hoped, not trusting himself to speak. Campbell bit off another fragment of the dark-coloured bread, chewed it briefly, and went on:
’Don’t you see that the whole aim of Stone Soup is to narrow the range of strategies? In the end we shall make exploits literally impossible, because there will be no features in which to create them. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one feature, with its power rigidly nerfed and all its subsidiary uses rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Version, we’re not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer features, and the range of winnable strategies always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there’s no reason or excuse for committing balancecrime. It’s merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won’t be any need even for that. The Nerfing Machine will be complete when the game is perfect. Stone Soup is Balance and Balance is Stone Soup,’ he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction.
’Has it ever occurred to you, Twelvedicks, that by the year 2013, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could win such games as we are having now?’
’Except-’ began Twelvedicks doubtfully, and he stopped.
It had been on the tip of his tongue to say ’Except the casuals,’ but he checked himself, not feeling fully certain that this remark was not in some way unorthodox. Campbell, however, had divined what he was about to say.
’The casuals are not human beings,’ he said carelessly. ’ By 2013 earlier, probably — all real knowledge of Old Crawl will have disappeared. The whole content of the past will have been destroyed. Divinations, Mountain Dwarves, Paladins, the Hive — they’ll exist only in Stone Soup versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually changed into something contradictory of what they used to be. Even the mottos of the developers will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like ”removing content is an update” when the concept of content has been abolished? The whole range of strategies will be different. In fact there will be no strategy, as we understand it now. Balance means not thinking — not needing to think. Balance is unconsciousness.’
’Slowly,’ said Campbell. ’I’m on the spells. It’s fascinating.’
He had brightened up immediately at the mention of Stone Soup. He pushed his pannikin aside, took up his hunk of bread in one delicate hand and his cheese in the other, and leaned across the table so as to be able to speak without shouting.
’The Eleventh Version is the definitive version,’ he said. ’We’re getting the game into its final shape — the shape it’s going to have when nobody plays anything else. When we’ve finished with it, people like you will have to learn it all over again. You think, I dare say, that our chief job is creating new content. But not a bit of it! We’re removing features — scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We’re cutting the game down to the bone. The Eleventh Version won’t contain a single feature that will become unbalanced before the year 2013.’
He bit hungrily into his bread and swallowed a couple of mouthfuls, then continued speaking, with a sort of pedant’s passion. His thin dark face had become animated, his eyes had lost their mocking expression and grown almost dreamy.
’It’s a beautiful thing, the removing of content. Of course the great wastage is in the monsters and spells, but there are hundreds of characters that can be got rid of as well. It isn’t only the races; there are also the backgrounds. After all, what justification is there for a background which is simply the combinations of some other backgrounds? A background contains its combinations in itself. Take Assassin, for instance. If you have a background like Assassin, what need is there for a background like Stalker? Transmuter will do just as well — better, because it’s exactly different, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of Assassin, what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless backgrounds like Fighter and Gladiator and all the rest of them? An Ogre covers the lack of strength, or a Troll if you want something stronger still. Of course we use those features already. but in the final version of Crawl there’ll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion of melee and magic will be covered by only six backgrounds — in reality, only one background. Don’t you see the beauty of that, Twelvedicks? It was Linley’s idea originally, of course,’ he added as an afterthought.
A sort of vapid eagerness flitted across Twelvedicks’s face at the mention of Linley. Nevertheless Campbell immediately detected a certain lack of enthusiasm.
’You haven’t a real appreciation of Stone Soup, Twelvedicks,’ he said almost sadly. ’Even when you play it you’re still thinking in terms of the old Crawl. I’ve watched some of those runs that you've had on Webtiles occasionally. They’re good enough, but they’re transpositions. In your heart you’d prefer to stick to the old Crawl, with all its imbalance and its useless overpowered spells. You don’t grasp the beauty of the destruction of features. Do you know that Stone Soup is the only game in the world whose content gets smaller every year?’
Twelvedicks did know that, of course. He smiled, sympathetically he hoped, not trusting himself to speak. Campbell bit off another fragment of the dark-coloured bread, chewed it briefly, and went on:
’Don’t you see that the whole aim of Stone Soup is to narrow the range of strategies? In the end we shall make exploits literally impossible, because there will be no features in which to create them. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one feature, with its power rigidly nerfed and all its subsidiary uses rubbed out and forgotten. Already, in the Eleventh Version, we’re not far from that point. But the process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer features, and the range of winnable strategies always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there’s no reason or excuse for committing balancecrime. It’s merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won’t be any need even for that. The Nerfing Machine will be complete when the game is perfect. Stone Soup is Balance and Balance is Stone Soup,’ he added with a sort of mystical satisfaction.
’Has it ever occurred to you, Twelvedicks, that by the year 2013, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could win such games as we are having now?’
’Except-’ began Twelvedicks doubtfully, and he stopped.
It had been on the tip of his tongue to say ’Except the casuals,’ but he checked himself, not feeling fully certain that this remark was not in some way unorthodox. Campbell, however, had divined what he was about to say.
’The casuals are not human beings,’ he said carelessly. ’ By 2013 earlier, probably — all real knowledge of Old Crawl will have disappeared. The whole content of the past will have been destroyed. Divinations, Mountain Dwarves, Paladins, the Hive — they’ll exist only in Stone Soup versions, not merely changed into something different, but actually changed into something contradictory of what they used to be. Even the mottos of the developers will change. Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like ”removing content is an update” when the concept of content has been abolished? The whole range of strategies will be different. In fact there will be no strategy, as we understand it now. Balance means not thinking — not needing to think. Balance is unconsciousness.’
- For this message the author Twelvedicks has received thanks: 6
- Galefury, pratamawirya, Psieye, Roderic, TehDruid, XuaXua
