Valve is in Your Head

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[br]Straight out of a med journal, Gabe Newell writes to Edge that at Valve they want to use EEG machines to monitor playtesters with. This will allow them to "know for sure of something is actually frightening the player" as they monitor heart rate and breathing levels during a person's experience with the game...

Direct measurement of players' arousal states and responses to the things we're doing is super exciting. It just will allow us to be much more analytical about the decisions that we?re making and the roller coaster ride we're trying to create for the player.

In this article, Gabe explains core elements of how they put their project Left 4 Dead together. It's a very interesting read and shows just how intricate and detailed Valve really is compared to some of those other developers.

 

[Mutley]

This is very cool. I wonder if they'll use it for Episode 3.

 

[Au-heppa]

Ahahahaha, nice.

 

[PriNcE oF SpAcE]

your little blurb makes it sound like that they've been doing the EEG. testing for left4dead which they haven't...he's talking about how they want to do it in the future.

if you have to quote then quote the whole thing:

Right now we have to filter our observations of players by simply by watching them and then we have to guess as to how certain things are affecting the player. But there are new technologies where we can wire players up with EEGs and actually have direct exposure to their physical reactions to the games.

We can know for sure of something is actually frightening the player - their heart rate is going up, their respiration stats are peaking, appropriate parts of their brains are being activated. Direct measurement of players’ arousal states and responses to the things we’re doing is super exciting. It just will allow us to be much more analytical about the decisions that we’re making and the roller coaster ride we’re trying to create for the player.

 

[highlander]

ooo interesting read

 

[nurizeko]

L4D isn't very frightning because A ) its a computer game and B ) the simple act of surviving takes your entire attention, but with the soft airbag of not-really-dying.




But its pretty bloody fun, and looks good, so thats okay, I don't want to be scared in a computer game, just challenged.

 

[Pesmerga]

I don't think L4D was really intended to be genuinely scary. Valve is just trying to gauge player's emotional responses based on different situations in the game because they believe that all good roller coasters have ups and downs- slow points and fast points.

 

[Hobopro]

L4D could be scary, but with all the action taking place on your screen, its more of an action game.

 

[Marler]

Very interesting!!

 

[Unfocused]

L4D could be scary, but with all the action taking place on your screen, its more of an action game.

How could it be scary then? L4D won't leave the boundaries of the screen.

 

[ríomhaire]

Very interesting article. I wonder if they'll be using the AI director in EP3 or any future SP titles? Could be very interesting.

 

[jondy]

How could it be scary then? L4D won't leave the boundaries of the screen.

I think he meant that the amount of action means there's not a lot of room for terror.

 

[Lobster]

Its all about emotional pacing, by using a dynamic system like the director, they can tune action directly to the behavior of the player, hes simply saying they wanna expand on this, so they can use it to create more intense and personal experiences in all their games.

 

[liPillON]

ok, NOW they're starting to scare me

 

[Epsi]

It's interesting how they're trying to turn game design into an exact science, and apparently succeeding.

The scary thing is that no doubt L4D is generating huge amounts of statistical data that Valve is using to monitor how the game is actually playing out there in the real world.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if they started using real-world play as an experiment, using each game session to test slightly different game parameters, and using that data to globally tweak the game.

 

[Lobster]

Well they have done things like that in TF2, they used the global death maps to identify choke points, and each patch has braught small alterations, most recently, I discovered badwater had mysteriously mutated in certain rooms.

 

[Mess]

who remembers that Tetris game for the N64 that came with a heart-rate monitor and changed the gameplay, depending on how stressed you were?

 

[Eejit]

Awww Gabe says 'super' a lot. So cute.

 

[Dr.Freeman]

WoooooW, this something that you don't see it every day.

 

[herbster]

Oddly enough I was wondering about this the other day. I wonder how long it is until we can hook our EEG dongles up to give the director (or whatever pacing system they have at that point) a more scientifically accurate idea of our tension levels.

And then any generated stats can be used as a platform to ridicule certain players. Because multiplayer games aren't fun unless someone is being flamed as a 'noob'. Or so it would seem.

 

[Dr_Crowbar]

My imagination scares me, i.e. things i cannot see, but merely KNOW that they are out there to get me. That's why turning around when you hear a creepy sound behind you and not finding anybody - works the best.

IMO, the scariest moment in Half Life saga was the tentacle silo in HL1, because you could hear the damn thing all the freaking time and you just knew that you couldnt kill it in any conventional way. Nihilanth was just pathetic compared to it.

 

[WacK]

This is very cool. I wonder if they'll use it for Episode 3.

I sure hope they do so though if they do i would hope that they will add some more scary aliens n' such. Antlions doesn't really scare me all that much.

 

[Dr.Freeman]

I sure hope they do so though if they do i would hope that they will add some more scary aliens n' such. Antlions doesn't really scare me all that much.

Antlions? LOOOOOOL i can see them every day in real life too.