scumble on 17/6/2016 at 20:52
That said, we seem to be seeing a resurgence of low budget games due to the availability of something like Unity engine. I don't think something like Beseige or Subnautica would have emerged without it. Railing against AAA games these days seems silly really, because there are alternatives.
GMDX Dev on 18/6/2016 at 12:37
Quote Posted by scumble
That said, we seem to be seeing a resurgence of low budget games due to the availability of something like Unity engine. I don't think something like Beseige or Subnautica would have emerged without it. Railing against AAA games these days seems silly really, because there are alternatives.
You said it yourself: low budget. That's why the vast majority of indie games are 2D. I don't have a problem with that, I like 2D games, but it's hardly covering all bases. Oftentimes the indie games that are 3D are walking sims, menial task simulators or slenderman clones. Or "Non-games" as they are known as.
Quote Posted by "scumble"
Also I watched Hannah of Yogscast play Uncharted 4
Through the Looking Glass I see my fanbase being the home of dedicated consumers of overly-commercialized braindead AAA, and lets play enthusiasts.
How's that for obnoxious truth?
Quote Posted by heywood
There was demand, but it was just for Thief sequels. Towards the end, Looking Glass was losing money on everything else they made. If they hadn't gotten themselves buried in debt due to other ventures, they could have kept going based on their success with Thief.
That those other ventures were ignored despite being more progressive than Thief is the problem, not because Looking Glass didn't go to extreme lengths to milk Thief.
An alternate reality where all Looking Glass are known for is Thief sounds awfully dull.
Quote:
Invisible War and Deadly Shadows were also allocated AAA budgets and streamlined for consoles.
Correction: Streamlined for money they desperately needed for growth due to being ignored by the PC market for a decade. If either were streamlined for consoles, the console version would have been streamlined and the PC version would not have. They streamlined the game because that was generally the demand, on both PC and consoles. Otherwise Doom and Half Life wouldn't have been wildly successful while Deus Ex and System Shock 2 moderately successful or put the company in the red respectively. Thief: DS and Invisible War sold more than their predecessors, though I don't put that down to the streamlining because they weren't very enjoyable despite the fact they were streamlined.
Quote:
I don't think the demand for these games ever declined. What happened was that the convergence of PCs and consoles made the whole market so much bigger. Budgets and sales expectations for AAA titles grew accordingly. Thief 1 sold something like 500k copies in its first years, which was more than enough for a AAA PC title in the last 1990s. But it was not enough for a AAA title in 2005. So even if there was still a potential market of 500k, that would not be enough to get the project funded. And suppose LGS was still around by then and didn't care about huge sales and wanted to make a new game that could turn a nice profit on 500k sales. If they did, it would have a budget of no more than a few million and would not meet gamer's expectations for graphics and production quality. So that wouldn't be a viable proposal either
It's funny many don't see the original Thief as streamlining and a compromise of their principles. I quote "Thief was meant to be less broad in scope to fund Ultima Underworld 3". Note that doesn't mean it was a bad game, but it was considerably streamlined (for the PC market, if you will) as far as the rest of their games go, and that's widely perceived to be why it was more successful.
Starker on 18/6/2016 at 12:54
Quote Posted by GMDX Dev
How's that for obnoxious?
If that's your goal, you're succeeding pretty well. Just the right amount of judgmental condescension with very low entertainment value.
Sulphur on 18/6/2016 at 13:05
I'm not a fan of cherry-picking quotes or divorcing them from context to push a random agenda. Here's the rest of that paragraph from the quote.
(
https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=6971.msg76449#msg76449) 'In our minds, Underworld 3 was the risky project to do, because it was going to be huge in scope. At the time we started the Dark Project, we were looking at ourselves and looking at Id and it was pretty clear that Id was kicking our butts on the bottom line. We were looking for something closer to the Id model: something that was more about building out the next gen of tech and doing the simplest game that could use that tech. But we didn't want to just do a shooter and dive into the red ocean alongside id. We wanted our own angle. Unfortunately it took us a really long time to find that angle, and by the time it was Thief it wasn't really a simple game anymore.'
faetal on 18/6/2016 at 13:11
For anyone else bored of GMDX's rolling algorithmic responses, don't forget that handy TTLG ignore list function. Works wonders for the signal:noise ratio.
GMDX Dev on 18/6/2016 at 13:12
Well, just don't take it personally. I am aware I'm being a totally unlikable knob, and may also upset some people, but I don't want that. At the end of the day despite what anyone else says, do whatever it is you truly desire to do whether that be watching Hannah of Yogscast play Uncharted 4 or personally enjoying Tomb Raider 2013 and not taking much an issue with it. The games both do have their merits, as sparse as they may be.
"Here's the rest of that paragraph from the quote."
It wasn't a simple game in general, but it was simple compared to their others.
Dev_Anj on 18/6/2016 at 13:21
GMDX Dev, it's interesting that you consider Deus Ex and System Shock 2 as examples of well designed games which didn't suffer from streamlining, even though quite a few RPG enthusiasts think both games have really stripped down RPG systems compared to RPGs from the late 80s/early 90s. Hell, even LGS' first game, Ultima Underworld, was simplified compared to older RPGs. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, personally I think the streamlining was for the better as it allowed for a decent level of player control while making the overall underlying systems easier to grasp and thus utilize effectively, instead of being forced to track lots of numbers which often didn't matter anyway.
Also I don't think Thief was really all that streamlined. Sure it's not as mechanically complex as Ultima Underworld or System Shock 2, but the fine tuned stealth mechanics make up for it, and also allow the level design to take full advantage of testing the player's skills rather than having to account for several types of characters and not doing it well.
Sulphur on 18/6/2016 at 13:22
Funny that, interpretations. I read it as LGS wanted to do something closer to id, but LGS being LGS, couldn't reduce themselves to creating a shallow experience even when their existence depended upon it.
Also, your link is about Spector's (appropriate) frustration at T1's forced combat, which was addressed in T2. I don't think Spector's ever gone on record to say he was frustrated with Thief's design. If anything, there's a difference between scope and design, and Thief's scope was limited because, mechanically, it focused exactly on what it had to when it came to stealth, which is arguably something Deus Ex wasn't great at.
If your complaint is you wanted Thief to be a postmodern pastiche that didn't have a laser focus on doing only a few things (and doing them well) -- well, play Deus Ex instead.
GMDX Dev on 18/6/2016 at 13:31
I edited that out before you'd finished your response because it was a poor reinforcement of my argument. Everything you just said is true.
Quote Posted by Dev_Anj
GMDX Dev, it's interesting that you consider Deus Ex and System Shock 2 as examples of well designed games which didn't suffer from streamlining,
I think Thief is a well designed game despite being less broad in scope. I don't think it was more deserving of success than the likes of Ultima Underworld or System Shock 2 though. And I wasn't talking about the streamlining of RPG systems in particular, Thief isn't even an RPG and doesn't need to be, but as that developer quote indicated it was less broad in scope precisely because they needed an angle. If they had the stability and fame it probably wouldn't have even been made, we'd have Ultima Underworld 3 instead.
Starker on 18/6/2016 at 13:53
Quote Posted by GMDX Dev
Correction: Streamlined for money they desperately needed for growth due to being ignored by the PC market for a decade. If either were streamlined for consoles, the console version would have been streamlined and the PC version would not have. They streamlined the game because that was generally the demand, on both PC and consoles.
1:46-2:02 (
https://youtu.be/N7acH17oak0?t=1m45s)
