What the F*** Is wrong with the games industry?

It's a Microsoft product. What did you expect?

 

You're right. I don't know what I was thinking...a chunky black and green which wants to make you it's bitch. Why would anyone buy one?

 

It can be changed in your "Preferences". But I know your prob. If you enter the board without logging in and log in while posting, you cannot expect that it will be ticked on since you didn't log on. If you log on before posting, it will always be like you specified it in your preferences.

 

Something I think y'all are missing (yes tis me, Jureel Krix) Is the fact that the game industry hasn't put the EFFOR into making a good game for a long time. In the mid 90's we had quite a few innovations. Early 90's we saw true 3d FPS games with Dark Forces, Doom, etc. Doom was one of hte most popular and allowed for multiplayer. Dark forces was true 3d with multiple stories etc.

Then we had in the RTS area as gayspy recently covered Dune 2, and then CnC. A turn based game came out about the same time I think, you've probably heard of it. Jagged Alliance, turn based tactical war fare with some rpg elements in it. You've more than likely played its sequel, Jagged Alliance 2 and Unfinished Business. These games were pushing the envelope and were GOOD games. The Developers TOOK TIME to create these games and decided to make something worth while.

Lately its just been clone this game or that game, haven't seen anything original in a long time. FOT/Arcanum Included. Arcanum's story was cookie cutter and the graphics were worse than FOT's. FOT was just a clone of Fallout 2 with nicer graphics and real time thrown in. (WW2 mod is looking promising though)

The point of this long rant as you have probably figured out by now is this. The game developers don't give a shit about making a good game and so they are more interested in filling their pocket books. And the end result is this void of people not wanting to buy games. Which in turn makes them more desperate and put out more crap. Its just a cycle until they take the time to be original and make something good.

 

Krix,

I agree with your point about developers not taking the time anymore, Krix, but I gotta beg to differ on the "Arcanum has a cookie-cutter story" issue, simply because it has too many twists, turns, and tie-ins with the game world to be cookie-cutter. Sure, it is somewhat based on the premise of "chosen person dude goes against ancient evil", but the way Troika managed to tie in the world's history (and the diluted way in which the world's inhabitants know of this history) makes it anything but cookie-cutter, IMO. Compare it to the stuff the other developers are churning out, story-wise.

Of course, Arcanum has too many flaws and not enough technical innovation to be considered "pushing the envelope" in any way, but that hardly makes it an unoriginal game.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Calis on 2002-03-15 03:42 ]</font>

 

I probably should've defined what I meant more. Ah well the consequences of hating English class and skipping the homework. Arcanum to me has been just another Magical fight in the dungeons and destroy every monster in sight all the while training to fight the ultimate bad guy. Or become the ultimate bad guy, your choice really. Granted the number of quests is good and the plot depth is decent, On the surface I don't see much more than what I just said. The game is so unbalanced that its not funny. Try playing a techie, much much harder than a simple melee or even magic character. All you really need in arcanum is harm from the Dark Necromanic spell college and once your magical alignment hits 100 you'll be sweeping through everything that comes your way. (Note: Easy way to accomplish a kickarse mage is having it have Only Child, sure you take a hit to your charisma and haggle, but 14-15 willpower to start off with? Who can argue with that)

The techie however, is much much harder. Lets assume you're a gunslinging bandit. Took the bandit background and have a few points in the tech skills, gun smithy and then the herbs for the healing salve. Pretty standard right? If you were to pit the starting mage I described vs the starting techie the starting techie would get his ass handed to him/her in 30 seconds flat. The story line of arcanum is decent yes. But the technical aspects of it are HORRID. I'm sure Calis that you agree with me here, the combat system is severely flawed. And the graphics in certain place are so bad that they grind my machine (256 megs of ram) to a halt.

I guess in the end, you have to define original. Was the storyline original? I'm not too sure it is overall, but it has good parts. Gameplay? Not at all. And when I speak of originality, I am referring to the gameplay. Are the ideas pushing the envelope of the genre and raising the bar. Or are they the same old and copying previous games for whats "Tried and true". We all bashed FOT for being buggy and not being Falloutish... but y'know what? They actually did push the bounds abit in the RTS Genre. Wanna know how? CTB, By using this, it sets itself apart. Most RTS games have a standard rate of fire (ROF) Now this ROF is usually seconds or whatever, and once a unit fires or performs whatever action it cannot do it again. Now in FOT the difference is this, the ROF is removed to the point of as long as the character has enough action points to perform an action, he can do it several times in a row with only a milisecond between actions. You're probably saying, ok big woop, so what? So what is the point is this is something NEW in the RTS Genre. Granted the point system flopped, but the CTB system proved quite effective. And SP Before you come in and say "You cant do melee in CTB with FOT" Try playing FOT 1k with premades. Take kevin along for a ride and see how many chars he kills. FOT really was the first of its kind in some areas. Granted the custom char option really did make things a little less interesting but thats just experimenting. I'm not excusing MF's inability to put time into the game. I'm just saying that they did do some things that were worth while and I hope that someone somewhere will put time into making another game using a ctb system similar to FOT's. Again it all comes down to how do you define originality?

 

I agree with you about CTB - that rocked. If Fallout 3 had the CTB system, that would be great.

 

I think that the issue with games industry is not that developers don't care about the end product, it's that the marketing/business end people along with the fiscal/banker people just dominate the games, and impose imperatives that the creative people and the game design people have to follow...

As I understand it, for example, FO2 had to include the Temple of Trials, and Arcanum was late due to inclusion of some other elements demanded by Sierra that I forgot, probably MP (only played demo, yet...) due to marketing demands that hurt the end product. Arcanum could have been better had the product been polished for the last few months, rather than kitted out with feature for marketing purposes.

I'd like to see people move away from being dragged behind flavor of the month tech advances or game types, and go for making original, inventive games that blow the mind, not just build on a set type. Try and make a taste that will cause intense like and dislike, not a crap thing that no one likes much.

Much akin to the LOTR filmmakers getting a deal to make all three films of that series at once. A gamble from the studio, please.

So far, the LOTR film series is fantastic because it drips integrity, and portrays earnest characters, in a milieu that wears a kick-me sign for ironic treatment. And because it dares, it wins.

The market is king, but couldn't we let the mass-market consoles and FPS crap float the arguably arty, edgy meaningful stuff [read Fallout 3]?

 

Welcome to the forum!!!

 

I've got heaps of ideas for games, and they mostly involve interactive stuff - such as being able to modify nearly everything you have. Have a machine gun? Mount it on your car. Have a great big gun, but you want to make it more compact? If you've got the skill, cut it down to a pistol. I liked the idea in Arcanum how you could look at your character's sheet, and in FOT how you could tell squad members to do something...a nice balance between the two would be great for NPC's in a game. Of course, it would really only apply for combat and using skills that they have and you don't, and to certain degrees depending on how much they liked you, respected your leadership etc etc etc.

 

OId Days Returning (my long post).

When computers games first started becoming a mainstream "thing", well, not alot of people knew how to make them, then it slowly built up, and more and more knew how to make games, how to program and stuff.
Then, you get a sort of "Golden Age" with alot of "me-too" companies.

What was really significant in the early days of PC gaming, was that most of these developers were fascinated that they now had the ability to put these ideas, dreams, visions, stories, movies, and stuff into some kind of a game that people could play and "interact" with.
Alot of the early games were all about letting the player choose their own path. Everything from the Bard's Tale to CommandHQ to Starflight to Chuck Yeager's Air Combat to Castles to the first Ultima games and all around.
There were some "linear" games, but not nearly as many as their are now.
There were alot of games and developers making them with ideas like,"Hey, let's let the player roam around over here! Let's them to go do this! Let's let them go do that!" (you know, like the in stuff like Leisure Suit Larry, Hillsfar, or some strategy game, etc.).

As games got better looking, more emphasis was placed on graphics, and thus, started a long decline in quality of gameplay.
I blame this partly on Chris Roberts and Wing Commander.
Before Wing Commander, we had the Elite games.
Fly around, do what you want, make your own "story".
But Wing Commander was a game that made a real attempt and being a sort of a game/interactive-movie (alot compared it to being a sort of interactive-movie-type deal).
This was hot. People loved it.
So Wing Commander II comes out, and it's more then WCIII, until they actually were filming a movie with a linear story (actually, in WCIII, you had a some path choices, didn't affect the overall story, however, still on the same path), and putting in a butt-load of "scripted" events.

THE BIG FLAW THEY MADE:
People didn't want to follow the "scripts". They wanted to do what they wanted.
SO, as a result, this forced them to have "timed" missions and "do this or else the game is over"-missions.
I mean, in war, you WIN SOME/YOU LOSE SOME.
But Wing Commander, while pioneering "the losing path"-idea, still didn't figure it out, that just cuz you lose some small dogfight in some remote area, doesn't mean the whole war is over, and the whole Confederation are not going to go on some "losing path" just cuz you let some troop transport blow up in some mission half-way through the game!

This ruined everything for gaming, this mentality they developed to FORCE players to follow the "story path".
They were trying to FORCE the player to have fun.

What an incredibly stupid thing to do.
It defeats the whole point of playing a game for fun.
Remember, people stopped playing games for "points" or to get the "high score". People were steered into playing games to win, to kill the big foozle, the evil wizard, save the world, etc.

Rather than being allowed to do it their own way, we started getting games, copying the Wing Commander mentality, where they would try to FORCE the player to play it EXACTLY a certain way to win.

THEIR SECOND BIG FLAW.

But then they realized that when players focused on the paths, that they were able to beat the game easily. So they had to make the game "harder". So they started making AI that cheated, making the player have limitations that the computer AI did not (you know, like having enemies "spawn" and stuff), and our favorite: PUZZLES!

NOW, many of you may like puzzles. That's fine. Puzzles are good for non-linear RPG games or for "puzzle"-games, but for fast-paced action games?!
How many of you got tired of the action-stopping puzzles in Half-Life?
How many of you wanted to rip your own hair out at all the "jumping" puzzles in so many FPS games?!
How many of you hate try-and-fail-to-figure-it-out puzzles in your RTS games?

You see, they seriously fucked up forcing the player to "have fun" with scripted events and crap that are actually a chore, so they put in puzzles to "slow them down", otherwise, they'd beat their cheap-ass games, which the player would realize were pretty cheap.

What games have you played and beaten in the shortest amount of time? How many are newer games? How many are older games?

How would you like to play Arcanum, if there were no alternate paths, if you could not choose your weapons or specialties, if you could not create character stats, if you could not pick technology or magic, if you could not choose your own path in the main quest or side-quests; how would you like Arcanum if there was a "time-limit"? If you HAD to go where they told you to go?
Limits.
They suck.

What the industry has failed to understand, is that people like options, they want to be their own king, hero, adventurer, super-commando-guy.
Why else do you think games like the The Sims, SimCity, DeusEX, or Civilization have been so popular? Or RPGs, they've been in a big upswing since Baldur's Gate. And the more options and choices, the better.

Would you rather play Diablo II or Arcanum?
Of course, the majority went for Diablo II, they wanted to play an action/hybrid, plus, these shitty game developers KNOW their game is "weak" and "limited" in gameplay, so they want to go out and promote their game in manner to get the people to believe that their game will give them the best RPG ever.
Bullshit.
This is one of the most limiting RPG games ever.
I remember playing Nox, thinking it would be a great RPG.
You can't choose/create your own custom character, there is a linear story.
The same applies to Summoner. This is not an RPG game, this is another dumb-ass "story/this-way-only" game: you are Joseph, there is a "prophecy"--this should tell you right away a game is fairly linear.
Developers want you to believe games like MaxPayne or Rune or Medal of Honor, are "the best games" out there on the market, THAT THEY ARE THE BEST GAMES THAT CAN BE MADE.
BULLSHIT.

I think people know this or are starting to figure it out now. Unfortunately, so do they, so now they launch this big campaign to sway people over to shitty, limiting console games (don't you just love having to go out and buy memory cards? HAHAHAH!).

It's going to be mod-makers, 3rd party developers, and such who will save PC gaming (consoles are doomed--can't do this stuff for consoles! No multiplayer! ETC.! DUH!).

People WANTED some kind of a Rainbow Six/special ops-type mod for Half-Life, so they went out and made it (Counterstrike).
And people play that more than the lame shit that game with the original game!

Wanna know why TeamFortress 2 never came out?
Them assholes were too busy playing Counterstrike!
HAHAHAH!

People wanted to play their FPS game looking like a Warhammer Space Marine or Homer Simpson or a character from a different game, so they went out and made those models and skins.
People WANTED to play something like ST:Armada, but with Star Wars stuff, so they went out and made that mod.
People wanted to make their own "adventure" for Arcanum so they use the editor and make it.
People want to make their own war campaigns and stuff in Age of Wonders, Age of Empires, Empire Earth, Total Annihilation, Tzar, StarCraft, Earth2150, etc. so they get the editor and make it!
There is a big "imagination gap" in game development.
The players have gotten so fed up with the weak, boring shit the developers have been making, that they've gone out, learned how to use WorldEd and stuff, and are making their own imaginative stuff that they want to play, and alot of people are digging it.

I mean, alot of mainstream games, once you beat it, it's game over! No replayability!

The conclusion is that most of the good games in the future are going to come from the small developer(s) who actually still have their imagination and are still in love with the ability to be able to make a game that let's you do all sorts of things. THANKFULLY, there are "a few" somewhat established developers that will try and make something "new", "original", and freedom-giving to the player.

-The smaller/freedom-loving but poor developer, more interested in making a fun game than millions of dollars, they are the ones saying to themselves,"What can't I let the player do?"

-Whereas the big developer, more interested in running a business, is asking,"Where do we want to make the player go?"

Of the two, whose game would you prefer to play?

(example: Arcanum vs. Nox; or Daggerfall vs. any other FPS or 3rd person-RPG game; or Operation: Flashpoint vs. Rogue Spear)

 

Another example.

I you want, I can make a huge-ass list of examples, I'll have to do it later.
For space-sim, I forgot to mention this: Terminus. It's like Elite, made by small developer, you can play in open-ended Free-Flight mode, OR, you can play "The Story", but even in the story, the game LET'S YOU IGNORE IT AND GO OFF DOING WHAT YOU WANT! You will actually be "paged" in the game by your base or whoever yer with (if anyone at all) when some battle is going to happen and stuff. You can just blow them off if you want to do trading or whatever instead, the story actually plays out around you and you don't have to participate!
Compare that to Starlancer, Tachyon, or the crappy I-War games with it's stupid linear stories and crap.
(I would have mentioned Battlecruiser3000a.d. instead of Terminus, but I see they are still patching it)
X-Beyond the Frontier is another Elite-type game (not as deep as Terminus though), made by a small developer.

 

wow. i actually read all that. somebody smack me.

 

I just actually just read all through it too!

*sees his post, scratches his head*

UH.

*smacks the both of you*

 

i think we've just been tirelessly rebutted...