Yakoob on 12/12/2015 at 22:25
Agreed, very interesting discussion in this thread even if my own contributions are lacking :p Speaking of which, sorry for the wall-o-texts below.
Quote Posted by driver
But by that definition, Michelangelo's David wouldn't be art because holy fuck how many goddamn statues were there around back then? Art doesn't have to be about innovation, refinement has its place too. Many artists recreate many of their works over and over again before they're happy with them.
And that was my disagreement with my friend as well, since we clearly had different definitions. But to play devil's advocate, I think there is some kernel of turth to what she argued. In Michaelangelo's case, if there are equally good statues made before couldn't you argue that indeed was not an artist in the purest form, just the lucky guy who got discovered in liue of others? Tying this back to the thread, how many ground-breaking and artistic games get completely ignored solely because they get lost in the endless stream of indies? Is a mobile app that flips an old artistic idea but manages to skyrocket in popularity actually art, or just a shameless derivation?
Quote Posted by driver
Though thinking about it, you might even be able to drop the word 'creative' from my definition of artist. A complex mathematical equation or even a well designed plumbing system could be considered a work of art.
And that's the problem, interpretation of art depends on your definition. But lets not get into that (in this thread at least), since its a whole different can of worms that's been argued and never settled for thousands of years.
Quote Posted by faetal
Gaming hasn't had that moment yet, because it has only recently been considered a ubiquitous and non-niche form of entertainment and a lot of people still regard it as a stupid pastime, or somehow juvenile - how many people here have downplayed their interest in gaming in social situations?
Actually, half of my group of friends are avid gamers and routinely meet on weekends to play together, none of us feel jouvenile about it ;p But in general I know what you mean.
As for games having "That moment" - hmmm, I think I am biased because we are (lucky to be) in the very definining years of the medium, but I feel like it's less of a moment and more of a gradual process. There is no single Citizen Kane, but many titles that provide different Citizen Kane-y elements. Deus Ex is probably the finest example of emergent gameplay, 30 Flights of Loving thought us how to make story jumpcuts without a break the flow of gameplay, and even Quake/CS/LOL/DoTA showed gaming can be a respectable and challenging competitive endeavor.
You could argue we are haven't had "That one game that ties it all together" but my point is - I don't think we ever will. Personally, I don't even believe that Citizen Kane was that for movies - yea it mastered a lot of filming aspects, but it hardly exhausted the list and various films have done similar things before.
Quote Posted by froghawk
I agree entirely that game writing needs to be in service of the gameplay and never argued otherwise, but that doesn't mean the writing itself has to be so damn cringeworthy and bad most of the time. You can have unremarkable writing that isn't downright awful, delivered by good voice actors, and that's probably enough - but the industry standard is way below that. It's actually insulting.
Touche, I see and agree with your point. I think most gamers (myself included) just have a much lower standard when it comes to game writing due to it's already low-quality level and writing often being secondary to gameplay. Not that we shouldn't work on improving it, and it's something I have been working towards on my own games.
BUT after making 2 games so far, one thing I realized is that beautiful writing really IS secondary in a game given its nature (going back to faetals point about interactivity). You could say "why not have superb gameplay AND writing" but I would argue that, while it is always important to strive for, in the end it's not essential especially considering time/money/skill constraints of gamedev. I think "good enough" writing is oftentimes sufficient to make a good game.
Quote Posted by froghawk
I have a pretty wide network of musicians of all ages and many genres, and none of the ones my age are making a living from recording and gigging alone unless they're just pursuing cover bands and wedding bands. It's just not possible anymore - the times have changed too much for newer musicians to break into it and make money that way. Even the bands I know who are quite successful are barely taking anything home after it's divided among the whole crew, label, etc. Everyone has to have a day job or a patron.
There's an(
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/forums/showthread.php?25033-A-discussion-on-how-to-save-music-and-musicians-in-the-age-of-streaming) interesting thread on RockPaperShotgun about this actually, taking the stance that online streaming has destroyed music profits due to the basically non-existent distribution cost devaluating the medium. Sadly, games are not far behind and arguably just as bad on the mobile market. Seems like you mostly either make a crapton of money or barely any at all.
Quote Posted by Nameless Voice
The first I will agree to somewhat. As others have said, it's because games are more of a business now, and they like to "play it safe" and try to appeal to the broadest range of people as possible, so they make the games accessible to the level of insulting players' intelligence. But those are the hugely hyped, big-budget games, so a lot of people try them out.
Aye, that is sad but sort of unavoidable. I made numerous changes on Karaski in order to make it more accessible, though I always tried not to have it compromise the vision. For example, I added the quest arrow, but instead of making it an immersion breaking HUD element, I instead made it a simple gyroscope inventory item you can equip. Yea it's still a flimsy excuse, but at least it fits in the game world (and is completely optional too).
GMDX Dev on 12/12/2015 at 22:53
I shall elaborate in objective terms on the mindlessness and the destruction of gameplay conventions using Bioshock as the prime example:
Orienteering/navigation of the game world: since I already went into this there's no need to say more. Bioshock's insulting yellow arrow removed the need to navigate the game world beyond our search for loot in each individual area.
Platforming: Bioshock had none. Platforming used to be a staple of FP games (and most real time games in general).
Consequence for death and the removal of strategy: with consequences for death, choices have meaning. Gameplay in almost all games is typically centered around the need to not die, but to survive and win. Strategy and skill is irrelevant if vita chambers spawn us around the corner with no consequences. Of course PC games already had trouble with this simple concept because quicksaving/unrestricted saving, yet loading a quicksave reset the game state and the challenges with it, vita chambers did not. Adding to that, resource management was also even further solidified as irrelevant as there was no inventory and health and ammo was littered throughout the levels at every turn.
The simplification or removal of pretty much everything else that was a staple in FP games or present in System Shock 2: RPG systems, door codes, puzzles (SS2 may not have had many but they were still relevant), alt fire modes and so on.
Malf on 12/12/2015 at 23:03
Quote Posted by GMDX Dev
Platforming: Bioshock had none. Platforming used to be a staple of FP games (and most real time games in general).
Wait, you're bemoaning the death of platforming in first person games, something that has been pretty universally decried as typically being absolutely fuck-awful, with VERY few exceptions?
GMDX Dev on 12/12/2015 at 23:17
Absolutely. Duke Nukem 3D, Half-Life, Deus Ex, Thief and loads of other classics are remembered very fondly in part due to their platforming and verticality. Without platforming there is no meaningful verticality.
It isn't universal. The whiners regarding FP platforming do not speak for everyone. It's a game of skill, nothing more, and they clearly lacked any. Did you take issue with jumping & blinking around in Dishonored's very vertical levels? Unlikely. Dishonored is one of few modern FP games with platforming and that's a shame.
Nameless Voice on 13/12/2015 at 00:04
Bioshock isn't exactly a fair example, because I'll freely agree with you that it was a prime example of bad game design, and you've only touched the surface of the reasons why. I never said that games like Bioshock aren't awful, or that the fact that they are popular and well-regarded isn't scary; but rather, that games are still being made which aren't Bioshock.
All right, let's talk about your points.
Orienteering/navigation of the game world: It's certainly true that more and more games include direction arrows and quest markers. My personal opinion on this is that it's okay if the game provides you with information if you want it, so long as it doesn't force it on you. Being able to look to see a hint for where to go next is fine. Directional arrows are not too bad if they can be turned off in the options, or need to be enabled. On the other hand, for huge open-world games where you have a lot of points of interest, I don't have any problem with the game keeping track of where those points of interest are on my map (e.g. that I need to go to X location for Y quest.) What I take exception to is when it tells you exactly what to do next without you asking it. That's a difference between older games (which often had a journal or hint screen you could access for advice on what to do next) and more modern games that either pop up a message, directional arrow, or talking NPC telling you exactly what to do next.
Anyway, recent games that haven't told you exactly where to go include Dark Messiah of Might and Magic from 2006 (is 2006 included or not?) through to the Dark Souls series (which have huge open worlds and barely even tell you what to do at all.
More in between examples are Dishonoured (optional goal arrows) or Left 4 Dead (carefully designed maps where the direction to go next is always obvious.)
You're probably going to argue that things like Dishonoured's special vision mode that lets you see nearby items through walls is somehow reducing the merits of exploring the world, but I don't think I agree with that one. I don't find hunting for that last piece of loot in a Thief mission to be interesting. Others might, I don't.
Platforming: I'm going to choose to redefine this one as "games where the environment itself is a challenge", as opposed to only platforming. Obviously, games where you can't even go near dangerous areas (such as Bioshock's aversion to accessible water or The Witcher's limited-accessibility maps) are examples where this aspect of games has slipped. On the other hand, we still have a lot of other games with interesting and dangerous environments to traverse, such as Dark Messiah, Mirror's Edge, Dark Souls, Dishonoured, and Trine.
Consequence for death and the removal of strategy: Most normal games still have this, at least as much as having to save and reload is a consequence for death. Dark Souls comes up again as an example of a far more extreme consequence for death.
As for removal of strategy - there's certainly a trend away from games where you are forced to make hard, permanent choices. Bethesda's games are always more a choice of "what first? The rest later!", and other games (Bioshock, DX:IW, etc.) often allow you to go back and change your previous decisions for little cost, making the choices much less meaningful.
Heavy RPGs such as Divinity: Original Sin still have a heavy element of meaningful strategic choices, though.
GMDX Dev on 13/12/2015 at 00:16
Quote Posted by Nameless Voice
Platforming: I'm going to choose to redefine this one as "games where the environment itself is a challenge", as opposed to only platforming.
Good call, but I left it out because BS had the oil spills, wire traps, security systems and such, although they could be used more to the benefit of the player than the enemies.
Dark souls is some damn fine game design, but it really is a very rare exception of modern games, as are some of the other examples you gave.
I don't like L4D by the way. Whist it isn't totally mindless it doesn't really have much of the above, it's more a mini game the likes of which you'd find in older FPS games (Timesplitters). It's just shoot straightforward enemies (4 or so types of zombies), and then set up shop somewhere and hold the fort. Oh, and team cooperation of course. That doesn't make it bad per se, this one is more a matter of taste because it WAS a mini game of sorts (it was half the usual retail price IIRC).
Also, Dark Messiah was originally meant to be Arx Fatalis 2, so presumably a hardcore FP Immersive Sim (which I would have much preferred, love Arx), but it turned into an action RPG-lite as a result of publisher contract supposedly. Still a good game, but if it was earlier times maybe an Arx 2 would have been permitted. Probably not though as Arx was yet another Im Sim that sadly bombed, yet EA gave SS2 the go ahead...
Malf on 13/12/2015 at 00:55
I don't think you can call Dishonored's Blink platforming. It bears superficial similarities, but the instantaneous, straight-line movement removes the parabolic movement one associates with traditional platforming.
Now the Quake 3 mod DeFrag has excellent first-person platforming, but it's almost entirely off-limits to the lower tier, general playerbase. It requires intimate familiarity with Quake 3's movement physics, and an in-depth knowledge of projectile speeds in order to succeed. In my opinion, it's the best, purest example of skill-based platforming in first person gaming. Hell, watching someone good play DeFrag is to watch one of the best displays of gaming skill, period. As far as I'm concerned, nothing else comes close, except maybe that crazy guy playing Ikaruga co-op on his own.
THIS is first-person platforming:
[video=youtube;RUCtMIjL-Z4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUCtMIjL-Z4[/video]
You probably have no idea what you just watched, and similarly have no idea just how much joy I get out of watching the sheer skill on display in that video. I mean, that genuinely makes me smile every time I watch it and makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, it's so damn good.
GMDX Dev on 13/12/2015 at 01:24
Blink is similar in principle. It does hamper the challenge of traditional platforming some, yet also deepens it in some ways. Either way, fucking up can lead to falling to your death, it's frequently used for vertical movement, and it is often used in combination with a jump for extra initial distance covered. For a stealth player it is often just a crutch, but for combat running, jumping & blinking around like a madman can lead to your demise if you're not careful.
"sheer skill"
Exactly! What happened to universally decried and fuck-awful? Shit's fun...although hardcore platforming to the extreme in your vid is definitely not for everyone, but the platforming in Half-Life or Duke 3D should be, and judging by HL's popularity it is.
Malf on 13/12/2015 at 01:49
But not for everyone. You have to be exceptionally dedicated and talented to get to that level, and most people simply don't have the time to develop the skill necessary to enjoy the game that way. Which is why it's a niche mod with a small yet hardcore audience.
Now obviously, the degree of skill required to played an immersive sim is significantly less than that on show in the above video, but if you are wasting the audience's time making them retread ground to find the one thing they missed in order to progress the story, purely in the name of being authentic, you're limiting audience appeal. Surprise, surprise, not everyone wants to waste their free time repeating content over and over because it's too hard, or the puzzle they're trying to solve in order to progress the story is too obtuse. And like it or not, online services make it possible these days to see exactly what percentage of players complete games, and if they don't, where precisely they lose interest. Rightly or wrongly, the end result of this is going to be a certain degree of streamlining.
Personally, I'm happy with a certain degree of streamlining and hand-holding (The Witcher 3 for example), but I draw the line at the Ubisoft model, where everything is laid out and specifically identified on the map with no sense of mystery.
You may say "What's the difference between the two?", and it's simply that The Witcher 3 highlights potential points of interest without explicitly telling you what they are.
The Witcher 3's already an incredibly long game, and making it harder to navigate the world through making the player rely on orienteering would just drive people to stop playing because the time investment required would be too high.
GMDX Dev on 13/12/2015 at 02:05
"But not for everyone. You have to be exceptionally dedicated and talented to get to that level, and most people simply don't have the time to develop the skill necessary to enjoy the game that way. Which is why it's a niche mod with a small yet hardcore audience."
I had edited presumably while you were responding which addresses this.
Quote:
where everything is laid out and specifically identified on the map with no sense of mystery.
Far Cry 4 is notable for letting you turn off elements of/all of the mini map. I played my first playthrough with it off having played FC3 beforehand and found the experience to be far more enjoyable. Highly recommended, but leave objective markers on otherwise you won't have a damn clue where you are meant to be going. But for the optional loot and stuff? Reward for exploration and using your senses returns rather than mindlessly running to all icons on the minimap, and as a bonus enemies aren't shown on it either.
