I hate to say it, but you dropped the ball.
Okay, I really, *really* was looking forward to PN2.
But I can't help but be really disappointed by this game. In short, Telltale phoned it in.
It is difficult to script, animate, etc., all the different interactions. I get that.
But unfortunately, this is an inartful sequel, that suffers from problems that you had three years to fix.
Problem 1: Poker
Despite three years since the last Poker Night, you didn't actually fix what were serious flaws in the poker engine. Misreading hands, illegal moves by characters (such as re-opening betting when a re-open isn't allowed) - these are basic mistakes in the hard and fast rules of poker. Certainly, there are strategic mistakes as well, such as offering No Limit Omaha instead of Pot Limit, only offering 25 big blind tournaments, etc, but honestly, the poker engine has to be the easiest part of the game to playtest, fix, and improve.
Problem 2: Dialogue
The game is like a Skinner box with the laughs. 97% of the game is repeated dialogue, and I'll go three or four tournaments without hearing something new. But the fact is, there is new dialogue, it's just doled out randomly. Additionally, many of the animations are annoying as hell. Like Claptrap's bbbbbbbbbb stuttering, which is only funny the first time, AND prevents the player from taking actions in the hand.
A simple algorithm which weights material which hasn't been played recently heavier than material which has would have fixed this problem immensely, and would have been relatively easy to implement. But you guys didn't do that either.
Problem 3: Scripting.
While you guys did an okay job, I'm not sure that you got the character's scripting right. Glados being the notable example - Glados was ironic and playful, teasing, and subtle. Glados the dealer hits you with a brick with the "kill yourself" remarks.
Problem 4: AI
This may improve with further play, but honestly, at least in the beginning, the aggressive AI of Ash AND the 25 big blind structure makes the game into a crapshoot. You can't wait for good cards, either, because the blinds go up every five hands. They're not as fun to play against, strategically, as the original Poker Night players. Considering how bad those guys were at poker, I think that's saying something.
Conclusion: You phoned it in.
I hate to say it, but you really phoned this one in. Maybe it was considered a throw-away title, but anything worth doing is worth doing well, and you just didn't do this well. I'm not saying that I'm angry or anything, I'm not demanding a refund - hell, I'll keep playing the game, but I am saying that I'm very disappointed in this game. Instead of being the first to preorder PN3, when that comes out, I'm going to hold off and wait for the reviews.
This could have been a knockout. But, it's just not very good.
But I can't help but be really disappointed by this game. In short, Telltale phoned it in.
It is difficult to script, animate, etc., all the different interactions. I get that.
But unfortunately, this is an inartful sequel, that suffers from problems that you had three years to fix.
Problem 1: Poker
Despite three years since the last Poker Night, you didn't actually fix what were serious flaws in the poker engine. Misreading hands, illegal moves by characters (such as re-opening betting when a re-open isn't allowed) - these are basic mistakes in the hard and fast rules of poker. Certainly, there are strategic mistakes as well, such as offering No Limit Omaha instead of Pot Limit, only offering 25 big blind tournaments, etc, but honestly, the poker engine has to be the easiest part of the game to playtest, fix, and improve.
Problem 2: Dialogue
The game is like a Skinner box with the laughs. 97% of the game is repeated dialogue, and I'll go three or four tournaments without hearing something new. But the fact is, there is new dialogue, it's just doled out randomly. Additionally, many of the animations are annoying as hell. Like Claptrap's bbbbbbbbbb stuttering, which is only funny the first time, AND prevents the player from taking actions in the hand.
A simple algorithm which weights material which hasn't been played recently heavier than material which has would have fixed this problem immensely, and would have been relatively easy to implement. But you guys didn't do that either.
Problem 3: Scripting.
While you guys did an okay job, I'm not sure that you got the character's scripting right. Glados being the notable example - Glados was ironic and playful, teasing, and subtle. Glados the dealer hits you with a brick with the "kill yourself" remarks.
Problem 4: AI
This may improve with further play, but honestly, at least in the beginning, the aggressive AI of Ash AND the 25 big blind structure makes the game into a crapshoot. You can't wait for good cards, either, because the blinds go up every five hands. They're not as fun to play against, strategically, as the original Poker Night players. Considering how bad those guys were at poker, I think that's saying something.
Conclusion: You phoned it in.
I hate to say it, but you really phoned this one in. Maybe it was considered a throw-away title, but anything worth doing is worth doing well, and you just didn't do this well. I'm not saying that I'm angry or anything, I'm not demanding a refund - hell, I'll keep playing the game, but I am saying that I'm very disappointed in this game. Instead of being the first to preorder PN3, when that comes out, I'm going to hold off and wait for the reviews.
This could have been a knockout. But, it's just not very good.
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Comments
No she wasn't. Ever.
She constantly called Chell fat and and mocked her parents' deaths.
... No offense, Brian, but there is no way I can respond to this without being condescending. You monster.
Just please give us a dialogue skip option.
Please.
Please.
In my first game I got repeated dialogue from Brock. My FIRST game! It's too bad that they didn't implement the "random" function of most mp3 shuffles, where songs are doled out randomly but not repeated until exhausted.
It's too bad because I like the dialogue, but it certainly loses its appeal when you hear the same jokes over and over.
I wouldn't say I'd want to have no repetition whatsoever, because there ARE a few jokes I wouldn't mind hearing again (or ones I missed by accident/never finished due to the hand ending). But some kind of "lower priority" system for dialogues already played would certainly be welcome, or just a skip function period.
I'm biased since I was a semi-pro poker player, though, so I have rather higher standards for what makes a good poker game than most people. Still, following the rules of poker correctly is where I draw the line, especially considering there are probably lots of open-source engines that do that already. Even if they couldn't use that code directly for some reason (maybe it wouldn't work with Telltale's tools), they could at least study it and make sure their own poker engine handles all the special cases.
I know a lot of people (including Telltale themselves) excused the AI in Poker Night 1 by saying it's not meant to be the strongest poker AI ever, but it should at least have a proper understanding of pot odds -- the #1, most fundamental aspect of poker strategy, and the first thing any serious player learns -- and PN1 didn't seem to. There is a happy middle ground between "ignorant of poker" and "Phil Ivey", y'know. I can't judge Poker Night 2 on this because, again, I don't have it.
Telltale's attitude seems to be something like, "Well, 90% of our customers aren't going to have played a serious game of poker, so we don't have to fully understand poker either". To be fair, they appear to be right. Players like you and me just aren't on their radar.
I have to be fair and say they did a better job than some other poker games I've played. Most poker video games before the poker boom of the mid-2000s only had five-card draw or seven-card stud, even though hold'em was already well established as the 'default' casino poker game, and five-card draw in particular was played virtually nowhere outside of Gardena. Even if you were lucky enough to get stud instead of draw, you'd probably play no-limit or spread-limit instead of the standard fixed-limit, and stud doesn't really play well with either. They would do things like make antes way too high and with some of them I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't even know A2345 is a straight. These games weren't designed by people who understand poker and they probably assumed that little details like these don't matter. Well, they do. If the details didn't matter, nobody would have thought of them.
I also made it a sort of hobby of mine to download strip poker games and run circles around the AI just for the hell of it (not for the nekkid girls, 'cause those are only a click away on the internets these days). It's usually pretty darn easy to do.
Yes. The system that has an absurdly high number of scenario possibilities and combinations is the "easiest part" to playtest, fix and improve. Especially with a small dedicated team of people.
And, no, they did NOT have 3 years to work on this as the majority of the 3 years between Poker Night 1 and 2 had the people assigned to work on the various games they released between the 2. In fact, I am pretty sure not all the people that was working on PN1 in some shape and form was working on PN2. At least in regards to the stage where them working on the game would show up Steam Friends Notifications.
I think what he meant is that normally GLaDOS tries (and fails) to be subtle. She really wants you to think she's sane, professional, and on your side, even when it's plain as day that she's not. Most of the time in this game GLaDOS out-and-out insults you.
And while for the most part I consider this game an improvement over the first, the unskippable dialogue is really a pain. Some lines get played a lot more than they should ("WELL, THAT WAS A WELL-PLANNED MOVE THAT WON'T COME BACK TO BITE YOU ON YOUR AMPLE POSTERIOR."), and worst of all there are long sequences that put the game on hold when they play, like Claptrap talking about logical paradoxes. Meanwhile, in the first game you could pretty much always play normally no matter what the characters were saying at the time (might have been one or two exceptions), and you could skip most dialogue by pressing Enter/right-clicking too.
To make it extra-infuriating, not only are there lines I've heard way too much, there are apparently quite a few I haven't heard at all. If Telltale ever does a Poker Night 3, maybe they could have an option so unheard dialogue always plays when possible, or at least make already-heard dialogue less likely to come up.
Finding and using someone else's engine isn't usually the best course of action. Because not only would they have to pay the people that made it (if they are still around) but that would also mean trying to figure out all the intricacies of their coding and taking the time to try to make it mesh with their own unique systems, including the bounties/items unlocks and the banter, rendering, and animation systems.
It'd be quicker, easier, and cheaper to make their own. Not to mention Telltale likes to work using their own engines and systems rather than use someone else's.
And from the sound of it, they haven't gotten it right yet.
Generally to get a license to use something, they have to pay for it.
Actually, from the sound of it, the people that have a problem with the poker engine are the people more deeply embroiled in the minutiae of poker rules (ie the minority) or the people who charged in and don't understand the rules at all (like Omaha) (ie the people who are just wanting the TF2 Items and believe probability is just another word for "The computer cheats!"). Most of the others seem just fine and dandy with it.
I suspect that the "minutiae" have a broader effect than is immediately apparent. Nobody likes be on the receiving end of a very large surprise all-in when the betting is reopened when it shouldn't have been, even if they don't realize that this is an illegal move.
Here's a few examples from the people who wrote GLaDOS' dialogue in Portal 2.
"You never considered that maybe I tested you to give the endless hours of your pointless existence some structure and meaning. Maybe to help you concentrate, so just maybe you’d think of something more worthwhile to do with your sorry life."
"Wait. Why DID you trundle over here? You're not HUNGRY, are you? It's hard to see, what's that in your hand? Knowing you it's a deep fat fryer."
"Good news. I figured out what to do with all the money I save recycling your one roomful of air. When you die, I'm going to laminate your skeleton and pose you in the lobby. That way future generations can learn from you how not to have your unfortunate bone structure."
"Oh come on... If it makes you feel any better, they abandoned you at birth, so I very seriously doubt they'd even want to see you."
"Uh oh. You're stranded. Let's see if the cube will try to help you escape. Actually, so that we're not here all day, I'll just cut to the chase: It won't. Any feelings you think it has for you are simply byproducts of your sad, empty life."
"Oops. You trapped yourself. I guess that's it then. Thanks for testing. You may as well lie down and get acclimated to the being dead position."
"Well done. Here come the test results: You are a horrible person. I'm serious, that's what it says: A horrible person. We weren't even testing for that."
"You're the type of show-off who only shows off really stupid things."
So, no, I don't think she's particularly subtle in the slightest. I actually think Telltale has gotten her personality quite well - everything she says in PN2 is something I'd expect from the "real" GLaDOS as well.
Why, YES. The system that has an high BUT FINITE number of KNOWN scenario possibilities SHOULD be easy to playtest, fix, and improve.
www.pokerth.net/ - the open source texas holdem poker engine.
Okay, since you obviously know so much about game programming and testing I am looking forward to your poker video game.
So is arguing about a game's system when you have no background nor history mentioned on any coding of any kind, and arguing about a game's system that you, as part of a team that you know well and that has years of game coding experience, designed and released.
Of course, years of experience doesn't keep me from being a moron, but that applies equally to Telltale coders too. :P (I'm not saying they are, mind...)
This.
And in game programming time is indeed money. Programmers actually get paid in money and so do playtesters. The more time spent programming and playtesting one thing means they can't work on/test other things or get moved to other jobs that need their attention. And whether they get paid by salary or hourly, the more time spent on a particular thing means the more money is spent on someone working on just that thing.
Also, I am not say that Telltale is perfect, only that they are human. Humans make mistakes and only have so much time and energy to work on things. They did as much programming and playtesting as they possibly could to get the game out and during an internal scheduling period they deemed to get the game out as perfect and as done as they could without spending so much money that it would be unprofitable.
I'm pointing this out to you not because I disagree with you or with the thread's creator--in fact I do somewhat agree about a few of the things, especially the unskippable and overly repetitive dialogue(but then everyone agrees with that one, I think)--but because you're not helping your argument by making claims like that without evidence. Said claims are too easy to dismiss and too many people will look at that rather than at what you're actually trying to say.
Or in other words: if you're going to argue, argue effectively. Don't include things that make it easy to dismiss the totality of your argument over one little part.
Also, somebody who would "dismiss the totality of [an] argument over one little part" is probably not very interested in the facts in the first place.
I've been programming for over eight years and it's common sense to anyone that's coded something more than a double or barely triple digit line single file code that changing the core engine is about as simple as going back and changing the shape of a house's foundation after the basement and above ground framework are finished. Just because he didn't supply any background doesn't mean he was pulling this out of nowhere.
One thing to bear in mind here is Poker Night has had a horrible history of implementing the rules of poker correctly. In the unpatched version of Poker Night 1, players could raise almost any amount they wanted, even if it was much too small to be a legal raise. Then they patched that -- incorrectly, so the minimum bet on every round was the size of the last bet or raise on the previous round. Somewhere around this time it was noticed that the blinds were backwards when it was heads up -- the button was the big blind when he should have been the small blind. Then this was patched, but somehow raising got messed up so that raising put more money in the pot than it should, which has never been patched in Poker Night 1 and still exists in the console versions of Poker Night 2. If it's $1000 to call and you raise $3000, it will put $5000 in the pot instead of $4000. Then there's the bug of raises less than the minimum (due to going all-in) are reopening the betting when they shouldn't.
All this could have been avoided if they'd simply used or adapted a poker engine that already works from the outset. That might well have taken them more time, but I think the result would also be much more likely to be bug-free. After all, somebody else has already taken the time to get the bugs out of the engine. They could also reuse any AIs written for the engine, saving time there, and they might well have been better AIs.
Now, can I state with 100% confidence that Telltale took the wrong approach? No, not really. I don't know how Telltale's code and tools work. But if I were to have designed their tools then I would have done my best to allow them to be flexible enough to do something such as this.
Poker Night promised two things:
* Play poker
* Listen to funny stories.
The poker rules are incorrectly implemented, and the repetition makes the funny stories not so funny.
So even if it would have required more time and more work, I think it would have been worth it to work on those two things, if you're going to charge money for it.
I mean, you had the money to pay Patrick Warburton...