how realistic is too realistic??
zakja...@bigassweb.com
I've thought long and hard on a general point, which is do gamers in
general want 'total realism' would an action game like this be
feasable, ie get shot in the head then you'll die rather than a health
bar. I've seen aporting games than go for realism ie grandprix legends
but it appears to put off all but the most commited
Main problem is I don't want to design a game that nobody will want
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Isaac Kuo
>I've thought long and hard on a general point, which is do gamers in
>general want 'total realism' would an action game like this be
>feasable, ie get shot in the head then you'll die rather than a health
>bar. I've seen aporting games than go for realism ie grandprix legends
>but it appears to put off all but the most commited
>Main problem is I don't want to design a game that nobody will want
A game is too realistic when realism gets in the way of fun.
It's as simple as that.
However, different people will find different things fun.
What's frustrating to one person can be a stimulating
challenge to another.
--
_____ Isaac Kuo mec...@yahoo.com ICQ 29055726
__|_)o(_|__
/___________\
\=\)-----(/=/
Brian Upton
>Thought that this forum would be the best place to put this,
>
>I've thought long and hard on a general point, which is do gamers in
>general want 'total realism' would an action game like this be
>feasable, ie get shot in the head then you'll die rather than a health
>bar. I've seen aporting games than go for realism ie grandprix legends
>but it appears to put off all but the most commited
>Main problem is I don't want to design a game that nobody will want
_Rainbow Six_ and _Rogue Spear_ both were best-selling titles and they
both have "one shot kill" gameplay. We consider realism to be one of
our main selling points.
--
"No live organism can continue for long to exist
sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even
larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream."
Brian Upton, Chief Game Designer
Red Storm Entertainment, Inc.
Eep²
Peter Knutsen
Rather than talk about injuries, I'll talk about ammunition
management.
To take three example games, all in the same genre:
Duke Nuken 3D
Half-Life
Deus Ex
In Duke, I never had any trouble with ammo. I completed the
demo game (IIRC 4 levels) many times, had a blast, blasted
away at the enemy with mostly the machine gun, occasionally
using the rocket launcher. Ammunition was never a concern
for me.
Then, some years later, I got the game Half-Life.
This was different. When I first played the Uplink Demo, I
found myself running low om ammo often. I needed lots of
practice before I could complete the game, and I was much
helped by the stationary machine gun with unlimited ammo.
Later I got the full version of the game. Trouble again.
I ran out of ammo from time to time, and *often* ran low.
But I practiced. I practiced tactics and maneuvers. I
started using the Glock (the singleshot pistol, rather
than the machine gun which wastes every second shot as
a non-damaging tracer). I began playing on Hard diffi-
culty level.
After much practice I could do it. I could keep my primary
ammonution stash topped out throughout most of the areas
of the game. I left ammo clips on the floor because I was
nearly full (and picking them up would be inefficient).
I could beat the game. That was neat.
Deus Ex is different. I've only played the demo, but still.
You start with maybe 8 or 12 shots ammo, and you run out
constantly. Your sniper rifle has like 5 shots. It's absurd.
Enemies are hard to kill and smart.
In short, it's annoying that you're so low on ammo.
In Half-Life, if you played it smart you could quickly top
up your primary ammo (for pistol and machine gun) to max
(250 rounds) and your secondary ammo (for shotgun) to IIRC
48. You had some margin of waste and inefficiency.
Deus Ex is so damn hard because of the ammo problem.
Of course one thing that made Half-Life easier was the quicksave
and quickload feature. I used that a lot. But I'm fairly sure
that even if it hadn't been there, I would still have been
able to get on top of the game, get to where I could whack the
AI enemies with minimum ammonution expenditure.
I suppose the health/injury issue is similar. Don't make the
game too hard.
I've played lots of tabletop roleplaying games, and my experience
is that realistic combat makes for the best type of game.
But realistic means that humans are tough to kill. Realistic
means armour that absorbs damage. Meaning that weak attacks
might cause no damage at all.
For a modern-day 3D shooter game, you could employ a piece
metal armour system. Let the player wear a helmet that covers
most of the surface area of his head (except the face). This
makes it impossible to injure the player at all by smallarms
fire to the head. AI snipers can still penetrate.
Note that some AI soldiers should also wear this type of helmet.
Later in the game it might be possible to find a helmet with
a visor of hard glass, so that the face is also protected by
a high armour rating which makes it invulnerable to smallrms
fire.
Body armour works too, but realistically it could cause the
player character to move slower, so that there is a tradeoff.
One thing that would improve realism would be if using a medikit
was not instant, but took a number of seconds.
Maybe it could work this way:
The player stops moving and chooses to activate a medikit with
80% supply left. The player is now unable to move. Each second
of gametime (should correspond to realtime) 1 damage point of
the player character is healed, and 1% of the medikit is
depleted.
That way you need to pay with both medikit ressource and *time*
in order to heal damage. Makes for more realism that way.
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
--
Peter Knutsen
Brian Upton
wrote:
>
>
>One thing that would improve realism would be if using a medikit
>was not instant, but took a number of seconds.
>
>Maybe it could work this way:
>
>The player stops moving and chooses to activate a medikit with
>80% supply left. The player is now unable to move. Each second
>of gametime (should correspond to realtime) 1 damage point of
>the player character is healed, and 1% of the medikit is
>depleted.
>
>That way you need to pay with both medikit ressource and *time*
>in order to heal damage. Makes for more realism that way.
If you really want realism don't have medikits at all. First-aid on
the modern battlefield is not about getting a wounded soldier on his
feet and fighting again, it's about getting him stabilized so he can
be evacuated to a field hospital.
MDK88
it does not help the gameplay at all, leave the function as an option or
leave it out completely.
Brian Upton <brian...@NOSPAMredstorm.com> wrote in message
news:3a2e5578...@news.redstorm.com...
David Cook
> general want 'total realism' would an action game like this be
> feasable, ie get shot in the head then you'll die rather than a health
> bar. I've seen aporting games than go for realism ie grandprix legends
> but it appears to put off all but the most commited
> Main problem is I don't want to design a game that nobody will want
>
they don't. They want fun and there's no single defintion for that.
Second, "realism" in games is a myth. There's no such thing.
Every game is a collection of choices (usually made by the designer) to
create a particular experience. Creating that experience means figuring out
what in the game environment/mechanics is distracting or inappropriate and
removing it while highlighting the stuff that makes the experience. Some
stuff fits in the box, a lot gets thrown out. If the game experience you
want is "your life is on the line" tension, then one shot kills (as in
Rainbow Six or some of the other military shooters) is appropriate. However,
don't think that makes a game realistic. (Save and reload, anybody?) I'm
sure Rainbow Six and Delta Force have both made choices about realistic
things not to include because they detract from the game experience.
Don't worry about realism, worry about whether your choices serve the game
you are trying to make.
David "Zeb" Cook
James Parker
game set in a fantasy world, racing games that allow you to crash and burn
yet still walk away and join back into the race... etc.
Surely your idea of a game that is totally based in reality is one where you
play Eep and spend most of your time renaming newsgroup threads and not
actually doing anything particularly interesting or game-y.
Do you really want games where your actions have realisitc consequences...
play Grand Theft Auto or Driver and instead of restarting when you're
caught, you're put on trial, put in prison, and made to wait 15 year (8 with
parole) in real time before you can continue...
There are limits to realism - where realism assists gameplay or adds to the
fun then sure it's cool, but where it's realism for realism's sake it can
prove downright counter productive
JP
"Eep²" <e...@tnlc.com> wrote in message news:3A2D6526...@tnlc.com...
> The more realism the better!
>
> zakja...@bigassweb.com wrote:
>
> > Thought that this forum would be the best place to put this,
> >
Tony Gowland
that game ever again. What about Trespasser, Eep? That wouldn't exist if
people only strived to make the most realistic games they could.
--
Tony Gowland
"Be young, be foolish, but be happy."
"James Parker" <jam...@spam.com> wrote in message
news:jPJX5.15756$bp4.2...@monolith.news.easynet.net...
Kasey Chang (use EXCITE.COM instead!)
A blanket statement? Sounds like flame bait!
The questions here is: does realism enhance GAMEPLAY? After all, these
are
GAMES we're designing. You could design a full simulator that requires
you to
do all X steps that a real pilot uses before taking off, but what fun
would that be?
If it doesn't enhance gameplay, leave it out!
Realism is a tool to help get the users into the game. They already know
some
of the "rules" so they don't have to spend time learning them, but it's
just a part
of the game. When it distracts from gameplay, realism has no place in
the game.
--KC
BMW
> The more realism the better!
NOT !
Henry
> I've thought long and hard on a general point, which is do gamers in
> general want 'total realism' would an action game like this be
> feasable, ie get shot in the head then you'll die rather than a health
> bar. I've seen aporting games than go for realism ie grandprix legends
> but it appears to put off all but the most commited
> Main problem is I don't want to design a game that nobody will want
There's a line between a realistic simulator, and an enjoyable action
game, and you've put your finger on it. The majority of players want
the odds stacked in their favour, and for their characters to be able to
do 'heroic' stuff. Neither of those are compatible with 'total realism'.
I can't see many sequels of 'Mission: Possible' being made - can you?
Leave 'total realism' to the hard-core sim freaks - fuzz it up a bit for
the rest of us.
Henry.
Brian Upton
>Remember this credo though, the game has to be more fun than realistic. If
>it does not help the gameplay at all, leave the function as an option or
>leave it out completely.
Oh, of course. I'm not suggesting that realistic combat first-aid
would add anything to most shooters. I'm just pointing out that any
sort of medikit that heals you so you can keep fighting is inherantly
unrealistic.
Peter Knutsen
David Cook wrote:
> Every game is a collection of choices (usually made by the designer) to
> create a particular experience. Creating that experience means figuring out
> what in the game environment/mechanics is distracting or inappropriate and
> removing it while highlighting the stuff that makes the experience. Some
> stuff fits in the box, a lot gets thrown out. If the game experience you
> want is "your life is on the line" tension, then one shot kills (as in
> Rainbow Six or some of the other military shooters) is appropriate. However,
> don't think that makes a game realistic. (Save and reload, anybody?) I'm
Even worse than save/reload is quicksave/quickload. That enables
the player to try playing through a difficult move 10 times in
one single minute, until he gets it just right.
IIRC my experience from playing Half-Life was that I quickly
became so good that I did not use to quickload often, but I
did quicksave a lot just in case.
One way to achieve realism could be to allow the player to only save
the game at certain points.
Three years ago, I was involved in the production of a freeware
computer RPG (attempting to make it like the experience of
playing a real RPG rather than a typical CRPG), and one of the
many ideas that I proposed was that the player character would
have a reserve of Luck Points.
Now, the game system was originally made for standard (tabletop)
roleplaying gaming, so each character would have a Luck Point
Pool, and could then spend Luck to force re-rolls of dice, to
avoid unwanted consequences. Instead of making Luck a seperate
(primary) attribute, I made it a function of the Faith attribute
of the character, plus bonus for smallness, furriness and
cuteness (thus an Ewok would get a huge bonus, a Hobbit a
medium bonus and a Wookie a small bonus).
But you can't re-roll dice in a computer game.
Then I had the idea that you could purchase the right to saving
your position by paying one Luck Point.
They would be regained at a rate determined by the difficulty
level chosen by the player. On the easy difficulty level, maybe
you regain 1 point per day. On the Hardest one, maybe one per
season (one in winter, one in spring, one in summer, i.e. one
per 3 months).
The computer RPG was never made, because the programming people
dropped out of the project, but I still think it's a good idea.
One reason is that it enables you to play different types of
characters. A religiously themed character (priest, monk,
warriorpriest) would, upon going on a difficult quest, have
many saving options, while a normal character would have few.
A seriously atheistic character would have very few saving
options. The system would also give added incentive to playing
a weak species like the hobbit.
Other computer games can use waypoints, where each time you reach
a waypoint the game is auto-saved. Or you are allowed to save if
you wish.
Note that sometimes it's bad for a game not to have a save feature.
Take X-Wing Alliance as an example.
First you have to go through some missions as a trader, these are
quite easy. But then you join the Rebellion and has to prove your
worth by doing a so-called Deep Space Strike Mission.
The problem here is that it's actually three missions in one, and
the first two are extremely easy. In fact they're routine. I always
complete those. But it takes time.
The third mission, however, is very difficult. In fact I've never
managed to complete it.
And the problem is, I can't practice this cenario, because every
time I want to play it I have to spend 5-10 minutes playing
through the first two mission sections.
That's a problem. Not that the mission is difficult, but that the
game forces you to go through time-consuming and boring maneuvers
before you get to the meat of the game.
Then, when you hit the meat, you die, and have to spend another
10 minutes before you get to try the hard part again.
Fortunately, the people who made the game included an option for
skipping missions, you can skip up to three missions throughout
the entire game (which has 50-or-so missions).
But it was simply *bad* mission design to structure the mission
like that, first two easy and boring ones, then a damn hard one
which you can't practically practice.
And in general, allowing the player to skip routine tasks is a
good thing.
In the tabletop roleplaying games that I GM, I never "roleplay"
the process of bargaining for goods. I just have the player roll
some dice versus the skill of his character, then I look at a
table to see what the final price is.
The reason for this is that bargaining is nothing more than two
people saying numbers to each other. Intensely boring.
The old roguelike computergames used to have a bargaining part,
every time you entered a shop you had to bargain for every single
item. Trying to guess how far down (or up for sales) you could
get the shopkeeper.
Now, in never versions of Angband, you can switch bargaining
off. Then you just get the average price based on your
Charisma. PLUS a 10% "sales tax" to penalize your laziness.
Back to tabletop gaming, if I've seen a player successfully
destroying eight skeletons, one at a time, by using basic
tactics (luring the skeleton into one-on-one fights), without
getting a scratch, then I'll let him auto-kill the last four,
without having to roll any dice. He proved, consistently,
that he could do it.
Because there's no actual excitement in a fight between this
character and one skeleton.
If he was surrounded by skeletons, it would be different. Or if
it was intelligent and skilled skeletons, rather than brainless
automatons.
But boring, routine, uninteresting tasks are skipped.
Computer games should do the same.
In some cases, computer game operation is fast, though. In angband,
it takes 10 milliseconds to kill a skeleton. There is no need to
skip through this routine part, because it does not "cost" a
significant amount of time.
In the tabletop RPG system I'm using, resolving fights takes
several seconds per blow.
In a 3D first-person shooter, moving through an area and attacking
somebody takes only 5-20 seconds. You can tolerate going through
that again and again until you master it.
X-Wing Alliance is a space sim, dealing with huge spatial
distances. Flying from the hyperspace exit point to the
mission goal takes several minutes (and there is no time
compression feature like in TIE Fighter). This is why it is
annoying.
So realism should never force the player to go through boring
and unchallenging events.
The best and most realistic solution is probably to force the
player to do X exactly 10 times, and then take the average of
his performance for those 10 times, and then from that point
on allow him to click "auto-perform" every time he needs to
do something in-game. Letting him skip the boring routine
stuff.
> sure Rainbow Six and Delta Force have both made choices about realistic
> things not to include because they detract from the game experience.
>
> Don't worry about realism, worry about whether your choices serve the game
> you are trying to make.
Yeah, games appeal to different audiences. But you can always have
good and bad design.
Auto-haggle in Angband is good design. Quicksave in Half-Life is
good design (because a few parts are *damn* hard). Lack of save
in X-Wing Alliance is bad design.
> David "Zeb" Cook
--
Peter Knutsen
Kasey Chang (use EXCITE.COM instead!)
"Peter James Cowderoy" <psy...@nottingham.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:3A30781B...@nottingham.ac.uk...
> "Kasey Chang (use EXCITE.COM instead!)" wrote:
> > "Eep²" <e...@tnlc.com> wrote in message
> > news:3A2D6526...@tnlc.com...
> > > The more realism the better!
> > A blanket statement? Sounds like flame bait!
> > The questions here is: does realism enhance GAMEPLAY?
> Not to Eep it isn't - he puts realism above gameplay.
Then he's not writing a game, is he? Perhaps he should work for a
defense contractor, not the games industry.
--KC
Allister Georgeson
camera position.
Allister
"Kasey Chang (use EXCITE.COM instead!)" <ksc...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:4dgY5.123$N46.1...@news.pacbell.net...
Eep²
Eep²
> Thus eliminating any chance for playing any game with a sci-fi setting, any
> game set in a fantasy world, racing games that allow you to crash and burn
> yet still walk away and join back into the race... etc.
> Surely your idea of a game that is totally based in reality is one where you
> play Eep and spend most of your time renaming newsgroup threads and not
> actually doing anything particularly interesting or game-y.
>
> Do you really want games where your actions have realisitc consequences...
> play Grand Theft Auto or Driver and instead of restarting when you're
> caught, you're put on trial, put in prison, and made to wait 15 year (8 with
> parole) in real time before you can continue...
Realism is relative. Just because one can restart a race after crashing doesn't mean reality is ABSOLUTELY destroyed. Putting the aliens in Half-Life pretty much killed my believability in it. Aliens/demons/whatever are SO overdone in games these days it hurts. They destroyed Tomb Raider's realism for me, too. It's especially annoying when developers throw this crap in mostly realistic games (HL and TR) which basically negates any realistic effect they may have been going for intially.
Games can still be designed in outlandish environments, but only if the realism is consistent with such environments. Having silly looking aliens appear in a downtown urban environment is NOT realistic to me, but being transported to an alien world would be MORE realistic, but I would be less interested as I am in HL's Xen world and TR's alien levels.
> There are limits to realism - where realism assists gameplay or adds to the
> fun then sure it's cool, but where it's realism for realism's sake it can
> prove downright counter productive
Productive in terms of simple gaming, perhaps. But reality in itself can be thought of as a game. We all play games every day with ourselves, other people, "the system", etc. It's all relative. Anything's up for grabs as being a game.
> "Eep²" <e...@tnlc.com> wrote in message news:3A2D6526...@tnlc.com...
> > The more realism the better!
> >
Eep²
Tony Gowland wrote:
> Or a FPS where the first time you get shot in the chest you die and can't play
> that game ever again. What about Trespasser, Eep? That wouldn't exist if
> people only strived to make the most realistic games they could.
>
> "James Parker" <jam...@spam.com> wrote in message
> news:jPJX5.15756$bp4.2...@monolith.news.easynet.net...
> > Thus eliminating any chance for playing any game with a sci-fi setting, any
> > game set in a fantasy world, racing games that allow you to crash and burn
> > yet still walk away and join back into the race... etc.
> >
> > Surely your idea of a game that is totally based in reality is one where you
> > play Eep and spend most of your time renaming newsgroup threads and not
> > actually doing anything particularly interesting or game-y.
> >
> > Do you really want games where your actions have realisitc consequences...
> > play Grand Theft Auto or Driver and instead of restarting when you're
> > caught, you're put on trial, put in prison, and made to wait 15 year (8 with
> > parole) in real time before you can continue...
> >
> > There are limits to realism - where realism assists gameplay or adds to the
> > fun then sure it's cool, but where it's realism for realism's sake it can
> > prove downright counter productive
> >
Eep²
"Kasey Chang (use EXCITE.COM instead!)" wrote:
> "Eep²" <e...@tnlc.com> wrote in message
> news:3A2D6526...@tnlc.com...
> > The more realism the better!
>
> A blanket statement? Sounds like flame bait!
>
Eep²
Allister Georgeson wrote:
> Eep doesn't need a game. He needs a 3d movie where all he can change is the
> camera position.
>
Peter James Cowderoy
> Then he's not writing a game, is he?
No, he's not. He's not a developer, and if he were he'd lack the
requisite clue to write Hello World.
Sorry, I left my obscure quote at home today...
Brandon M. Bost
promised in 2000! ;-)
Eep² <e...@tnlc.com> wrote in message news:3A32EAC1...@tnlc.com...
Kasey Chang (use EXCITE.COM instead!)
> Uh, ever heard of flight simulators? Some can be QUITE complex and
realism, and, guess what? They still sell well. Look at Microsoft Flight
Simulator and Combat Flight Simulator, for example. Gameplay is
relative. What's gameplay to YOU may not be to someone else.
Microsoft products are not typical. It's got the Microsoft name behind
it. To prove
your theory, you'll have to conduct double-blind tests with control
groups.
Most people agree that CFS1 is a dog. It's NOT realistic (when compared
to
WW2F or EAW), yet it sold more copies than either of them. What does
that
say about your theory?
Same could be said of FS2000 and Flight Unlimited 3.
--KC
Eep²
So 3D games are not only unifying genres, they are unifying them realisticall; the 3D holodeck is coming...
"Kasey Chang (use EXCITE.COM instead!)" wrote:
Eep²
gordon
> Save points are just a bad idea. They sucked in Tomb Raider and they suck
in other 3D games, too. Auto level saves can be annoying. I prefer being
able to save ANYWHERE and ANYTIME I want--PERIOD. I think you'll find most
gamers tend to agree.
odd, what you're advocating does allot of damage to both realism and
immersion..............
gordon
> Realism, whether people like it or not, is also where 3D games are headed.
there is a rather huge flaw in the logic here, think for a second how well a
game that people didn't like would sell and then answer the question of what
will happen to realism in games if people don't like it.
> So 3D games are not only unifying genres, they are unifying them
realisticall; the 3D holodeck is coming...
inventing words does not make you appear more intelligent, quite the
opposite actually
David Alex Lamb
=?iso-8859-1?Q?Eep=B2?= <e...@tnlc.com> wrote:
> Save points are just a bad idea. They sucked in Tomb Raider and they suck in
> other 3D games, too. Auto level saves can be annoying. I prefer being able
> to save ANYWHERE and ANYTIME I want--PERIOD. I think you'll find most gamers
> tend to agree.
I think the issue is a bit more complex. If I'm playing purely for fun and
entertainment (ie most of the time), I'd agree; I also want some kind of
automatic or easy save to protect against system crashes. But some kinds of
challenge are diminished if the crutch of save-before-trying-something-risky
is available; if saving is trivial, I find it hard to resist using it.
--
"Yo' ideas need to be thinked befo' they are say'd" - Ian Lamb, age 3.5
http://www.cs.queensu.ca/~dalamb/
Pxtl
(giant-robot behind view shooter, not even a so-called "sim" one like
Mechwarrior) and Ballblazer (1-on-1 soccer with hovertanks) so I could
honestly give a rats ass about realism. Still, I realise that some people
like you and my roomate dig realistic sims games. I think realism is a
hassle, it usually involves overcomplicating the controls, giving a game a
nasty learning curve (like all the bizarre controls in your average flight
sims). I like variety, so there's not many games I'll stick to long enough
to get really, really good at, and sims are, in general, the most
unforgiving to new players.
Still, if you want a realistic FPS, play Tom Clancy's Rogue Spear. Its a
realistic simulation of anti-terrorist commando action, often based on
famous battles from movies, novels, and history. Unfortunatly its a little
old and graphics weren't a priority, so you wont get those neato hitman
collision effects you keep creaming yourself over, or the wound dynamics of
SoF, which got it R rated in BC. The graphics are about on par with
Half-Life, in my opinion. Still, for realistic gameplay you can't top it.
I'll stick to Superhero Quake, thank you very much, I prefer fun to realism.
Btw, if you really want to see some holodeck-type fun, look into "Augmented
Reality". Its not perfect by a long shot, but its an interesting twist on
VR that looks like it should be able to produce a sort of live-action
Quake/laser tag hybrid in the future.
Eep² wrote in message <3A336B2F...@tnlc.com>...
Pxtl
on this one, I'll bite. Usually, the reason for having set save points
isn't a gameplay one, its a practical one. Save points are predominant in
games converted from consoles, where there is not a lot of space to store
memory (in Diablo, which had a full save feature, it took 10 blocks to save
your game, which is 2/3 of a memory card.... way too much). Its much
simpler to save data if there is a finite list of locations that a person
can save at. Also, the main map is easy to save on, because there is a set
x/y coordinate to place the player. This is why, say, in FF7 you can save
at (a) save points or (b) main map, and nowhere else. To do otherwise
would
mean having to make a complete location heirarchy and coordinate set for
all the wierd little places the player could save. Frankly, I think my
memory card is crowded enough, and the game designers are saving money by
not rewriting the save system for the computer port and just reusing the
memory card-style save points.
Jason Kozak
>Save points are just a bad idea. They sucked in Tomb Raider and they
>suck in other 3D games, too. Auto level saves can be annoying. I
>prefer being able to save ANYWHERE and ANYTIME I want--PERIOD. I think
>you'll find most gamers tend to agree.
Totally agree.
Another poster mentioned that being able to save anywhere and anytime
does damage to realism and immersion. I have one question... where can
I find a save point in real life? ;)
Really, saving is an out-game function much like menu screens... so
since it's already unrealistic and non-immersive, you might as well
make it as flexible as possible, no?
Jason Kozak
--
First rule of optimization:
Nothing is faster than doing nothing.
Brandon M. Bost
Jason Kozak <sec...@idirect.removeme.ca> wrote in message
news:3a341c4d...@n3.idirect.com...
> On Sun, 10 Dec 2000 03:42:26 -0800, Eep² <e...@tnlc.com> wrote:
>
> >Save points are just a bad idea. They sucked in Tomb Raider and they
> >suck in other 3D games, too. Auto level saves can be annoying. I
> >prefer being able to save ANYWHERE and ANYTIME I want--PERIOD. I think
> >you'll find most gamers tend to agree.
>
> Totally agree.
>
> Another poster mentioned that being able to save anywhere and anytime
> does damage to realism and immersion. I have one question... where can
> I find a save point in real life? ;)
>
> Really, saving is an out-game function much like menu screens... so
> since it's already unrealistic and non-immersive, you might as well
> make it as flexible as possible, no?
My thinking goes along the same lines, but I think the best way to avoid
saving and actually add realism in games is to make the autosave as seamless
as possible to not interfere with the game, that way you could avoid wasting
time in the heat of battle to either (a) find a save spot or (b) fiddle with
the keyboard (that is, if you're as excited as me sometimes :-). Does
anybody agree with this?
Overall, I think it is still better to have all-the-time saving instead of
save points just for the fact that power usually goes out at the wrong time.
Eep²
Eep²
> "Eep²" <e...@tnlc.com> wrote in message news:3A336B2F...@tnlc.com...
> > Realism, whether people like it or not, is also where 3D games are headed.
>
> there is a rather huge flaw in the logic here, think for a second how well a
> game that people didn't like would sell and then answer the question of what
> will happen to realism in games if people don't like it.
Uh...huh? Think about that yourself and reword it better.
> > So 3D games are not only unifying genres, they are unifying them
> realisticall; the 3D holodeck is coming...
>
> inventing words does not make you appear more intelligent, quite the
> opposite actually
Your grammar doesn't make you appear intelligent either. I forgot the "y" in "realistically"; sue me.
gordon
might say behind your back or something? or maybe your afraid it'll be the
truth?
"Eep²" <e...@tnlc.com> wrote in message news:3A34A8FE...@tnlc.com...
Eep²
> Honestly, Eep, I like unrealistic games. My fave games are Armored Core
> (giant-robot behind view shooter, not even a so-called "sim" one like
> Mechwarrior) and Ballblazer (1-on-1 soccer with hovertanks) so I could
> honestly give a rats ass about realism.
Oh? To what degree? You do realize that anything recognizable is relatively realistic, yes? Anything you can perceive and associate with something you're already aware of, is realistic. If you truly didn't give a rat's ass about realism, you wouldn't be playing ANY games at all since ALL games have SOME degree of realism to them.
> Still, I realise that some people
> like you and my roomate dig realistic sims games. I think realism is a
> hassle, it usually involves overcomplicating the controls, giving a game a
> nasty learning curve (like all the bizarre controls in your average flight
> sims). I like variety, so there's not many games I'll stick to long enough
> to get really, really good at, and sims are, in general, the most
> unforgiving to new players.
There's no reason controls can't be simplified yet keep the game relatively realistic and fun. Until such flight sims, for example, are actually taking place in lifesize cockpit VR simulators (or on a holdeck in a "real" plane), the controls WILL have to be dumbed down (especially if one doesn't even have a flightstick).
> Still, if you want a realistic FPS, play Tom Clancy's Rogue Spear. Its a
> realistic simulation of anti-terrorist commando action, often based on
> famous battles from movies, novels, and history. Unfortunatly its a little
> old and graphics weren't a priority, so you wont get those neato hitman
> collision effects you keep creaming yourself over, or the wound dynamics of
> SoF, which got it R rated in BC. The graphics are about on par with
> Half-Life, in my opinion. Still, for realistic gameplay you can't top it.
SWAT 3 tops it.
> I'll stick to Superhero Quake, thank you very much, I prefer fun to realism.
> Btw, if you really want to see some holodeck-type fun, look into "Augmented
> Reality". Its not perfect by a long shot, but its an interesting twist on
> VR that looks like it should be able to produce a sort of live-action
> Quake/laser tag hybrid in the future.
There's FAR more to VR than mindlessly shooting people. I'll pass until such things can actually evolve out of a prepubescant mentality.
gordon
news:3A336B2F...@tnlc.com...
> > > Realism, whether people like it or not, is also where 3D games are
headed.
> >
> > there is a rather huge flaw in the logic here, think for a second how
well a
> > game that people didn't like would sell and then answer the question of
what
> > will happen to realism in games if people don't like it.
>
> Uh...huh? Think about that yourself and reword it better.
sure ok....
if you pump games full of realism and people don't like it then they won't
sell.
if the realistic games don't sell then the people making them will lose
money.
if the people making them lose money then they'll stop making them.
if nobody makes realistic games then there won't be any realistic games.
so this statement
> > > Realism, whether people like it or not, is also where 3D games are
headed.
is logically flawed.
btw what didn't you like/understand about the first version?
> > > So 3D games are not only unifying genres, they are unifying them
> > realisticall; the 3D holodeck is coming...
> >
> > inventing words does not make you appear more intelligent, quite the
> > opposite actually
>
> Your grammar doesn't make you appear intelligent either. I forgot the "y"
in "realistically"; sue me.
fair enough I suppose, you might want to get a news reader with a
spellchecker, and word wrap on send for that matter.
Eep²
Dr. Richard Cranium
Cheers,
dracman
Tomb Raider: Shotgun City
http://www.smokeypoint.com/tr2code.htm
"Eep²" <e...@tnlc.com> wrote in message news:3A34ADD8...@tnlc.com...
Eep²
Eep²
> > > "Eep²" <e...@tnlc.com> wrote in message
> news:3A336B2F...@tnlc.com...
> > > > Realism, whether people like it or not, is also where 3D games are
> headed.
> > >
> > > there is a rather huge flaw in the logic here, think for a second how
> well a
> > > game that people didn't like would sell and then answer the question of
> what
> > > will happen to realism in games if people don't like it.
> >
> > Uh...huh? Think about that yourself and reword it better.
>
> sure ok....
> if you pump games full of realism and people don't like it then they won't
> sell.
> if the realistic games don't sell then the people making them will lose
> money.
> if the people making them lose money then they'll stop making them.
> if nobody makes realistic games then there won't be any realistic games.
> so this statement
> > > > Realism, whether people like it or not, is also where 3D games are
> headed.
> is logically flawed.
Not really. Some people seem to have a strange reaction to anything 3D, at least from what I've experienced in the newsgroups anyway. Such people are not indicative of the gaming population at large and are therefore expendable in terms of marketing. FAR more people will embrace 3D than won't, as is evidenced by the increasing number of 3D games continually being produced compared to 2D games. 3D IS the future of gaming, where gaming HAS been going for years, and where gaming is headed towards now.
> btw what didn't you like/understand about the first version?
Just wasn't worded very well; thanks for the clarification.
> > > > So 3D games are not only unifying genres, they are unifying them
> > > realisticall; the 3D holodeck is coming...
> > >
> > > inventing words does not make you appear more intelligent, quite the
> > > opposite actually
> >
> > Your grammar doesn't make you appear intelligent either. I forgot the "y"
> in "realistically"; sue me.
>
> fair enough I suppose, you might want to get a news reader with a
> spellchecker, and word wrap on send for that matter.
My spelling is better than most people online, let alone on Usenet. My wordwrap IS on, just very high because Messenger can't disable it. How many times do I have to explain this? Don't you people get tired of sounding like broken records? Get over it. I'm NOT changing it so just accept it.
Wayne Imlach
is lost nowadays due to the inclusion of the 'save anywhere - anytime'
feature of most games.
I'd actually say it hurts FPS's for example - I recently went back to Quake
II and decided to play it only saving at the end of each level - the tension
and excitement this generated was much higher than when I was saving at each
new juncture, knowing that I had to be on guard at every corner and with
every creature.
Many games nowadays need to ramp up the difficulty in response to the save
feature, knowing that most players will come up against a foe, die a few
times determining it's weakness, then die a few more times killing it in an
optimal fashion, before saving and moving on.
With a design that only allows infrequent saves, less excessive creatures
can be included, as the designers know that the player will be forced to
play on with the result of the battle, good or bad.
"Dr. Richard Cranium" <smo...@whidbey.net> wrote in message
news:t39d9f7...@corp.supernews.com...
> they added a save anywhere patch to Vampire - The Masquerade also.
>
> Cheers,
> dracman
> Tomb Raider: Shotgun City
> http://www.smokeypoint.com/tr2code.htm
.
> >
>
>
Isaac Kuo
"Wayne Imlach" <wayne....@net.ntl.com> wrote:
>Although useful, I think a lot of the adrenaline and satisfaction of
gaming
>is lost nowadays due to the inclusion of the 'save anywhere - anytime'
>feature of most games.
>I'd actually say it hurts FPS's for example - I recently went back to
Quake
>II and decided to play it only saving at the end of each level - the
tension
>and excitement this generated was much higher than when I was saving
at each
>new juncture, knowing that I had to be on guard at every corner and
with
>every creature.
>Many games nowadays need to ramp up the difficulty in response to the
save
>feature, knowing that most players will come up against a foe, die a
few
>times determining it's weakness, then die a few more times killing it
in an
>optimal fashion, before saving and moving on.
I agree with your assessment of "save anywhere anytime".
However, there's also the opposite problem of infrequent
savepoints which can make a game frustrating. The problem,
of course, is that a person could go through minutes of
tedium just to get to that one tough boss and get very
frustrated after repeating it a few times.
Thus, I propose a compromise--there are level saves, but
whenever you die you approximately half your progress
since your last savepoint. If you're good, then your
tension will build up since the further you go the more
you have to lose if you die. However, if you get stuck at
a particular point you get sent back only half as far
each time, so your frustration level should be limited.
The game should keep track of how many times you die
in each level, of course, to keep an incentive to do well.
There was an old arcade game which would make the level
you're on slightly easier if you died. That's another
approach worth considering.
--
_____ Isaac Kuo mec...@yahoo.com ICQ 29055726
__|_)o(_|__
/___________\
\=\)-----(/=/
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Eep²
I would have more tension and excitement if a game was designed well enough to not HAVE to resort to cheats to play it. Developers/designers need to focus more on story, plot, setting, environment, immersiveness, adventure, and exploration instead of the continually rehashed and reiterated mindless shooting and killing so prevalent in current games. Don't people tire of such games? I know I do.
SpammersDie
enjoys the
> mindless repetition required to dispatch most enemies in today's games
>(particularly mindless FPSes). Bosses are so passe I groan whenever
>encountering one. I routinly make use of "god" and "noclip" cheats to get
around
>these WAY overdone elements (and jumping puzzles with bad character
>control like in the Quake et al engine game).
Of course, I've said before - I'd love to force limited saves on playTESTERS
and developers (at least those who are testing game balance rather than
looking for bugs.)
If they're going to put mindless tedium in there that's only bearable if you
save and reload over and over, let them at least experience the pain in its
full glory.
Slash
<wayne....@net.ntl.com> scribbled:
>Although useful, I think a lot of the adrenaline and satisfaction of gaming
>is lost nowadays due to the inclusion of the 'save anywhere - anytime'
>feature of most games.
>
>I'd actually say it hurts FPS's for example - I recently went back to Quake
>II and decided to play it only saving at the end of each level - the tension
>and excitement this generated was much higher than when I was saving at each
>new juncture, knowing that I had to be on guard at every corner and with
>every creature.
See, now you're getting it! If you don't want to be a Save Weasel,
don't use the frickin' save funciton. It's not a hard concept to
grasp. :)
>Many games nowadays need to ramp up the difficulty in response to the save
>feature, knowing that most players will come up against a foe, die a few
>times determining it's weakness, then die a few more times killing it in an
>optimal fashion, before saving and moving on.
>
>With a design that only allows infrequent saves, less excessive creatures
>can be included, as the designers know that the player will be forced to
>play on with the result of the battle, good or bad.
While this can sometimes be true, it's more a sign of a weak developer
than anything else. If a game goes through a testing process, it
should be made perfectly clear whether or not a game relies too much
on the ability to save anywhere - or on the flipside, if a game is too
hard or frustrating to be without a save function.
-Slash
--
"Ebert Victorious" - The Onion
Lucian Wischik
>Of course, I've said before - I'd love to force limited saves on playTESTERS
>and developers (at least those who are testing game balance rather than
>looking for bugs.)
That sounds like releasing a game without unlimited saves, and then adding
it as a patch. (and is a good idea I reckon)
--
Lucian Wischik, Queens' College, Cambridge CB3 9ET. www.wischik.com/lu
SpammersDie
Lucian Wischik <ljw...@cus.cam.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:9141no$c83$1...@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk...
> SpammersDie <Spamm...@blah.com> wrote:
> >Of course, I've said before - I'd love to force limited saves on
playTESTERS
> >and developers (at least those who are testing game balance rather than
> >looking for bugs.)
>
> That sounds like releasing a game without unlimited saves, and then adding
> it as a patch. (and is a good idea I reckon)
Or as a cheat code, which is an idea a few people here seem open to. (Which
is a big change from the last time we had a thread on this...)
gordon
enjoys the mindless repetition required to dispatch most enemies in today's
games (particularly mindless FPSes). Bosses are so passe I groan whenever
encountering one. I routinly make use of "god" and "noclip" cheats to get
around these WAY overdone elements (and jumping puzzles with bad character
control like in the Quake et al engine game).
>
your unlimited saves make those bosses necessary, the designers know that if
the unlimited save function is there then it'll be used and abused, thus
they crank up the difficulty level to keep some form of challenge, I'm an
RTS fan personally and I think short levels with no saving during level is
the way to go, the key here is SHORT levels, if a level is an investment of
more than an hour then I want a save function. Another idea that's worth
investigating is a continuos save function so at any time you can exit and
or reset and come back exactly where you were, not earlier.
Loren Petrich
> That's still no reason to force limited saving on players. Not everyone
> enjoys the mindless repetition required to dispatch most enemies in today's
> games (particularly mindless FPSes). Bosses are so passe I groan whenever
> encountering one. I routinly make use of "god" and "noclip" cheats to get
> around these WAY overdone elements (and jumping puzzles with bad character
> control like in the Quake et al engine game).
Not only does His Eepianness pirate games, he cheats big-time.
> I would have more tension and excitement if a game was designed well enough
> to not HAVE to resort to cheats to play it. Developers/designers need to
> focus more on story, plot, setting, environment, immersiveness, adventure,
> and exploration instead of the continually rehashed and reiterated mindless
> shooting and killing so prevalent in current games. Don't people tire of such
> games? I know I do.
I think that His Eepianness ought to try out Bungie's Marathon
series; it's an oldie but goodie, and has IMO the best-done plot of any
first-person shooter. This plot is presented in computer-terminal
messages, some of which contain interesting background info. One's
player character's identity in the game is made into one of the game's
puzzles, with hints scattered here and there. Read
http://marathon.bungie.org/story for more.
And His Eepianness will not need a Macintosh to play the series;
there is now a cross-platform version of the later iterations available
at http://source.bungie.org -- and work is underway to make the first
iteration cross-platform.
Bungie has used various approaches to saving over the years:
Pathways into Darkness -- one can save only in sectors with Save Runes
on the floor
Marathon -- one can save only by using save terminals
Myth -- one can save anywhere
Oni -- automatic saving at checkpoint spots (not clear how one can get
multiple savegames)
--
Loren Petrich
pet...@netcom.com
Happiness is a fast Macintosh
And a fast train
Loren Petrich
spots; one may get unlimited saves at such spots, however. Bungie's
Pathways into Darkness (sort of like Wolfenstein meets Deus Ex) uses
that; one can only save at Save Runes. A variant of that is in Bungie's
Marathon series (sort of like Doom meets Half-Life) -- one can save
only at save terminals, and these can sometimes be hard to find.
There is also the possibility of save objects, such as in some of
the Playstation versions of the Tomb Raider series. I've had little
experience with those, however.
Gary Mitchell
> I would have more tension and excitement if a game was designed well enough to not HAVE to resort to cheats to play it. Developers/designers need to focus more on story, plot, setting, environment, immersiveness, adventure, and exploration instead of the continually rehashed and reiterated mindless shooting and killing so prevalent in current games. Don't people tire of such games? I know I do.
I agree, but you left out realism. It ruins for me if (when)
they have things too unbelievable. TR is good, but IMHO
would be much better if Core paid more attention to that.
-- G
Gary Mitchell
to leave the game to do something else and you aren't near
a save point? No matter what save scheme there is, you should
be able to save at any spot when you quit a playing session.
-- G
Eep²
So much destruction. Where's the CONstruction? That's why I like Active Worlds (http://activeworlds.com/). It's basically a multi-user level editor but needs gamelike features (jumping, inventory, better collision detection) and a bunch of other things I think it needs (http://tnlc.com/eep/aw/improve.html) before AW really catches on. I like The Sims (and just about every Maxis sim game) because of their creative abilities. It's nice to see "games" like LEGO Creator and the Matchbox Construction series (which I haven't tried yet) but they're oriented (and unfortunately dumbed down) more towards kids, unfortunately. I'm curious to see how Neverwinter Nights', Dawn's, and other online-only games' building will work.
I've tried many level editors over the past few years (since I really got into 3D games) but I find them all to be unintuitive and hard to use. I just don't think like that. Active Worlds (AW) has a LOT of potential I keep hoping its owners realize before it's too late. Because AW isn't developed as a game and instead an Internet chat program (with less emphasis on building), it continues to flounder as REAL games incorporate building. I guess I'll have to wait for one of them to get up to the level of AW...and then surpass it.
Eep²
> In article <3A356F21...@tnlc.com>, Eep² <e...@tnlc.com> wrote:
>
> > That's still no reason to force limited saving on players. Not everyone
> > enjoys the mindless repetition required to dispatch most enemies in today's
> > games (particularly mindless FPSes). Bosses are so passe I groan whenever
> > encountering one. I routinly make use of "god" and "noclip" cheats to get
> > around these WAY overdone elements (and jumping puzzles with bad character
> > control like in the Quake et al engine game).
>
> Not only does His Eepianness pirate games, he cheats big-time.
<yawn> Accusations of the former, but I have admitted the latter. <shrug>
> > I would have more tension and excitement if a game was designed well enough
> > to not HAVE to resort to cheats to play it. Developers/designers need to
> > focus more on story, plot, setting, environment, immersiveness, adventure,
> > and exploration instead of the continually rehashed and reiterated mindless
> > shooting and killing so prevalent in current games. Don't people tire of such
> > games? I know I do.
>
> I think that His Eepianness ought to try out Bungie's Marathon
> series; it's an oldie but goodie, and has IMO the best-done plot of any
> first-person shooter. This plot is presented in computer-terminal
> messages, some of which contain interesting background info. One's
> player character's identity in the game is made into one of the game's
> puzzles, with hints scattered here and there. Read
> http://marathon.bungie.org/story for more.
>
> And His Eepianness will not need a Macintosh to play the series;
> there is now a cross-platform version of the later iterations available
> at http://source.bungie.org -- and work is underway to make the first
> iteration cross-platform.
>
> Bungie has used various approaches to saving over the years:
>
> Pathways into Darkness -- one can save only in sectors with Save Runes
> on the floor
>
> Marathon -- one can save only by using save terminals
>
> Myth -- one can save anywhere
>
> Oni -- automatic saving at checkpoint spots (not clear how one can get
> multiple savegames)
You and your stupid pet developer Bungie and their lame games. <roll eyes>
Consider yourself filtered from this newsgroup too. Perhaps when you can lay off the personal attacks I MIGHT give you another chance.
Vic
"Loren Petrich" <pet...@netcom.com> wrote in message
news:121220000106402840%pet...@netcom.com...
> In article <3A356F21...@tnlc.com>, Eep² <e...@tnlc.com> wrote:
>
> > That's still no reason to force limited saving on players. Not everyone
> > enjoys the mindless repetition required to dispatch most enemies in
today's
> > games (particularly mindless FPSes). Bosses are so passe I groan
whenever
> > encountering one. I routinly make use of "god" and "noclip" cheats to
get
> > around these WAY overdone elements (and jumping puzzles with bad
character
> > control like in the Quake et al engine game).
>
> Not only does His Eepianness pirate games, he cheats big-time.
but no, you missed an even bigger point. He bypases large amounts of the
game this way. What's the point of playing the game?
David Seiler
Even worse; he cheats his way through the game, then bitches about how bad
the game is.
*plonk*
--David
gordon
>
> <yawn> Accusations of the former, but I have admitted the latter. <shrug>
I'm certian you've admitted both
gordon
those tend to focus on shooting, killing, or some other violent aspect.
>
> So much destruction. Where's the CONstruction?
violence sells, money drives this industry just like any other. reality
doesn't sell so well, all the customers all ready have the purest most
absolute form of reality, the genuine product so to say, they don't want
more of it, they want less, the want away from the reality, that's why we
have games.
Lucian Wischik
>Eep wrote:
>> So much destruction. Where's the CONstruction?
>violence sells, money drives this industry just like any other.
I reckon that non-violent construction sells better than violence. And
that's why Rollercoaster Tycoon has done so incredibly well in the charts.
And the Sims. And Myst. And so Eep's question still stands: how come we
have so much destruction? (my own suspicion is that it's caused by so many
game developers being adolescent males, in outlook if not chronology)
Eep²
I already stated why I tend to play with cheats: to bypass mindless deaths from way too much shooting and bypass annoying jumps. I also like to explore levels to see things in detail and to add to my 3D game comparison.
Eep²
Um, I tend to bitch more if I HAVE to use cheats to get through the game without feeling frustrated. <shrug>
Jason Shankel
> gordon <andrea_gordonDELETE_STUFF@IN_CAPSxtra.co.nz> wrote:
> I reckon that non-violent construction sells better than violence. And
> that's why Rollercoaster Tycoon has done so incredibly well in the charts.
> And the Sims. And Myst. And so Eep's question still stands: how come we
> have so much destruction? (my own suspicion is that it's caused by so many
> game developers being adolescent males, in outlook if not chronology)
>
I think you're spot on with your last observation. We are a group of
adolescent males trying to sell to other adolescent males. There's nothing
essentially wrong with that. After all, the comic book industry serves
their niche rather well, despite that fact that graphic novels almost never
rate best seller status.
But, until we reach out to a wider audience we run two substantial risks:
1) Our industry will not grow. Like the comic book industry, we will be
relegated to niche-market status. 2) Since our target audience (kids) is
both politically powerless *and* precious to their parents, we will be
subject to all manner of regulation. If this happens, we have no one to
blame but ourselves.
In the past, the question was "How can we extend our audience beyond
adolescent males?" There's no excuse for continuing to bemoan our piss-poor
audience share. Check out the sales at PC-Data. The Sims. SimCity.
Roller Coaster Tycoon. Millionaire. Deer Hunter. Hoyle Casino. These are
titles that not only make it into the top ten, but they stay there for
*years*. When you consider that they are typically less expensive to
produce than the average testosterthon and have longer shelf life, the
economic viability of targetting the wider market becomes clear.
So why don't we do it? Because we're stupid. We think our personal tastes
trump economic realities. We're not interested in serving the wider
audience. If it isn't men in tights or space marines, it's boring. For all
our pretenses to "art" "creatvity" and "cool gameplay", we're only
interested in higher and higher polygon counts for "Blow Shit Up IX: The
Combustining".
Again, this is not a knock on the "Blow Shit Up" series. I'm a fan. I
enjoy working on and playing games targetted to my inner (psychopathic)
child. I also enjoy action films. But not every film has to be "The
Matrix".
Time to evolve or die.
--
Jason Shankel
Maxis, Inc
s h a n k e l
at
p o b o x . c o m
Wayne Imlach
"Slash" <sla...@geocities.com> wrote in message
news:vp1b3tou48a3ng09l...@4ax.com...
> >I'd actually say it hurts FPS's for example - I recently went back to
Quake
> >II and decided to play it only saving at the end of each level - the
tension
> >and excitement this generated was much higher than when I was saving at
each
> >new juncture, knowing that I had to be on guard at every corner and with
> >every creature.
>
> See, now you're getting it! If you don't want to be a Save Weasel,
> don't use the frickin' save funciton. It's not a hard concept to
> grasp. :)
This would be fine - however, most of these games are balanced and
constructed around the fact that the player WILL save so the nastiness of
bosses and traps is ramped accordingly.
Though I can play something like Quake 2 without having to resort to many
saves, in a more recent title such as Half-Life saving is vital to
completing the game - there are just too many extremely harsh 'instant kill'
or massive damage scenarios in each level. The irony being that a game like
Half-life would have benefited from the tension created by a limited save
situation.
The games are designed for the save feature to be used in excess - and lose
in other areas because of it.
Fortunately at the moment I'm working on a strategy/theme types of game so I
don't have to worry about the problem. However, I would consider the
implications of an 'anytime/anywhere' save system very carefully if
designing anything fps.
gordon
> >violence sells, money drives this industry just like any other.
>
> I reckon that non-violent construction sells better than violence. And
> that's why Rollercoaster Tycoon has done so incredibly well in the charts.
> And the Sims. And Myst. And so Eep's question still stands: how come we
> have so much destruction? (my own suspicion is that it's caused by so many
> game developers being adolescent males, in outlook if not chronology)
I didn't say it sells better, it just sells, that why it will continue to be
there until human nature changes (unlikely) or one or more do good groups
convinces the government to intervene.
Myst and Rollercoaster Tycoon I'll give you, The Sims I doubt, I think the
Sims sell well for the same reason that talk back and real tv shows exist.
Reality isn't generally particularly fun, because of this and our heritage,
several trends show through in most entertainment's (especially those aimed
at mature audiences). One is violence, another sex, a third is the desire to
escape to something better. The forth is a desire to know that there are
others out there with worse problems than us and by extension a desire to
see them suffer. And the last is a desire to make more of what is around us,
the creation need. There is another element in here to do with the need to
think, but that's on odd one because many of the more popular things are
totally mindless.
Generally speaking.
Strategy - creation and killing
FPS - killing, sometimes sex as well (got a better explanation for Lara's
build?)
Construction Sims - creation
Non Construction Sims - escape
The Sims and other virtual pet games - creation and others suffering (bad
term but you know what I mean)
Adventure - escape, sometimes sex (Leisure Suit Larry anyone?)
gordon
"Jason Shankel" <see...@bottom.for.address> wrote in message
news:KCxZ5.991$1%2.4...@sjc-read.news.verio.net...
> Lucian Wischik <ljw...@cus.cam.ac.uk> wrote in message
> news:916743$3p6$1...@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk...
> > gordon <andrea_gordonDELETE_STUFF@IN_CAPSxtra.co.nz> wrote:
> > I reckon that non-violent construction sells better than violence. And
> > that's why Rollercoaster Tycoon has done so incredibly well in the
charts.
> > And the Sims. And Myst. And so Eep's question still stands: how come we
> > have so much destruction? (my own suspicion is that it's caused by so
many
> > game developers being adolescent males, in outlook if not chronology)
> >
>
> I think you're spot on with your last observation. We are a group of
> adolescent males trying to sell to other adolescent males. There's
nothing
> essentially wrong with that. After all, the comic book industry serves
> their niche rather well, despite that fact that graphic novels almost
never
> rate best seller status.
I agree with you here, and it highlights the other thing that drives the
games industry, programmers, and programmers arn't usually that money
orientated, they program games because they love creating and they create
the games they love, i.e. the bulk of the people writing games think like
adolescent males and hence the bulk of the games that get made are aimed at
adolescent males. One leads to the other and if you want to get games for
other groups then either you'll have to convince the programmers that the
money is more important and that these other games make more money, or start
training other people to be programmers. Good Luck.
gordon
I
> don't have to worry about the problem. However, I would consider the
> implications of an 'anytime/anywhere' save system very carefully if
> designing anything fps.
not just FPS, damn near any action based game, a friend and I used to play
xcom allot, I never liked the way he played though, granted he beat the game
without losing a single solider but he saved several thousand times (he
sequentially numbered save games, so do I for that matter), I've seen him
play one battle over and over until it went 'perfectly', it totally killed
the action suspense element and turned it into a complex puzzle.
SpammersDie
> Quake
> > >II and decided to play it only saving at the end of each level - the
> tension
> > >and excitement this generated was much higher than when I was saving at
> each
> > >new juncture, knowing that I had to be on guard at every corner and
with
> > >every creature.
> >
> > See, now you're getting it! If you don't want to be a Save Weasel,
> > don't use the frickin' save funciton. It's not a hard concept to
> > grasp. :)
>
> This would be fine - however, most of these games are balanced and
> constructed around the fact that the player WILL save so the nastiness of
> bosses and traps is ramped accordingly.
>
> Though I can play something like Quake 2 without having to resort to many
> saves,
Right. And the fact that you can go back to a title you've become real
familiar with and play through without being a Save Weasel doesn't mean that
the game is well-balanced for a non-Save-Weasel. It just means that you've
come to know the map well and are an unrealistically good player of it as a
result.
It's possible to complete System Shock 1 on combat 3 without ever getting
killed, regen'd or having to reload a saved game for anything other than
real-life breaks. I know because I've done it.
It's also possible to complete SS1 with all difficulty levels set to max in
less than 2:15 hours. I know because I've done it.
That doesn't mean SS1 without a save game function or a 2:30 hr time limit
would be a well-balanced game.
Slash
<andrea_gordonDELETE_STUFF@IN_CAPSxtra.co.nz> scribbled:
>not just FPS, damn near any action based game, a friend and I used to play
>xcom allot, I never liked the way he played though, granted he beat the game
>without losing a single solider but he saved several thousand times (he
>sequentially numbered save games, so do I for that matter), I've seen him
>play one battle over and over until it went 'perfectly', it totally killed
>the action suspense element and turned it into a complex puzzle.
Oh come now, who here *hasn't* done that with X-COM? :)
Loren Petrich
<wb6...@ix.nospam.netcom.com> wrote:
> An approach like this has it's down side... What if you have
> to leave the game to do something else and you aren't near
> a save point? ...
One way to do that is to pause the game and switch to another app
while leaving the game running; this is supported in some cases
(Pathways into Darkness: yes, Marathon: only recently).
Loren Petrich
> Loren Petrich wrote:
> > In article <3A356F21...@tnlc.com>, Eep² <e...@tnlc.com> wrote:
> > > I routinly make use of "god" and "noclip" cheats to get
> > > around these WAY overdone elements (and jumping puzzles with bad character
> > > control like in the Quake et al engine game).
Like someone who once griped that parts of Quake 2 were like Tomb
Raider?
> > Not only does His Eepianness pirate games, he cheats big-time.
> <yawn> Accusations of the former, but I have admitted the latter. <shrug>
Playing only warez copies is piracy, though I'm sure that His
Eepianness has some Clintonian defense of his actions.
> > I think that His Eepianness ought to try out Bungie's Marathon
> > series; it's an oldie but goodie, and has IMO the best-done plot of any
> > first-person shooter. ...
> You and your stupid pet developer Bungie and their lame games. <roll eyes>
I'm sure that His Eepianness has played Bungie's entire catalog,
just as he has played the entire Tomb Raider series. And that he's
played it all without paying a penny, as he has played the entire TR
series.
I'm sure that he knows what one's mission is in Pathways into
Darkness, who the Bobs are in the Marathon series, what is so
interesting about the dwarfs in the Myth series, etc.
And I'm also sure that he's played a leaked beta of Oni and an early
build of Halo.
Otherwise, he'd be in no position to call Bungie's games "lame".
> Consider yourself filtered from this newsgroup too. Perhaps when you can lay off the personal attacks I MIGHT give you another chance.
After you stop acting like such a weenie.
Carl Johnson
> Consider yourself filtered from this newsgroup too. Perhaps when you can
lay off the personal attacks I MIGHT give you another chance.
(Jumping in here...)
In another thread, you started with personal attacks on me, if you'd go and
check. So, you're a hypocrite, as well as an incompetent gamer. Oddly, I
think you're proud to be both.
-- Carl
Womb Raider
<pet...@netcom.com> wrote:
> Developers/designers need to
> > focus more on story, plot, setting, environment, immersiveness, adventure,
> > and exploration instead of the continually rehashed and reiterated mindless
> > shooting and killing so prevalent in current games. Don't people tire of
> > such
> > games? I know I do.
Heh, I actualy agree with something His Eepianness says. The world must
be coming to an end.
> Oni -- automatic saving at checkpoint spots (not clear how one can get
> multiple savegames)
I've been copying my saves into another folder so I have then at each
checkpoint.
wr
Carl Johnson
news:slrn93e8qa....@angui.sh...
> Hey, congratulations. You're the newest member of Eep's killfile.
Aw, shucks! You're embarassing me...
-- Carl
Chloe Emmott
wrote on 13/12/00 7:22 am:
> Carl Johnson <carl_j...@mindspring.com> banged on his keyboard and said:
>>> Consider yourself filtered from this newsgroup too. Perhaps when you can
>> lay off the personal attacks I MIGHT give you another chance.
>
>> In another thread, you started with personal attacks on me, if you'd go and
>> check. So, you're a hypocrite, as well as an incompetent gamer. Oddly, I
>> think you're proud to be both.
>
> Hey, congratulations. You're the newest member of Eep's killfile. (Or
> maybe you're not, I'm a bit fuzzy on who Eep is actually referring to
> since I have him killfiled and I only stumble across his junk on
> accident). Add a line to your .signature! It's fun!
i thought he wanted kill everyone?
Eep²
I only personally attacked you after you insulted me, Carl, if you're referring to the subject changing and quoting thread. But how does that make me an incompetent gamer? Oh and don't think--you might hurt yourself or someone close to you.
Mad Aardvark of Doom
<wb6...@ix.nospam.netcom.com> wrote:
>An approach like this has it's down side... What if you have
>to leave the game to do something else and you aren't near
>a save point? No matter what save scheme there is, you should
>be able to save at any spot when you quit a playing session.
>
This is especially important with hand-helds. While a PC or console
can be left running, you can't really do the same with Gameboy of Neo
Geo Pocket Color (alas, gone before its time.) The first Zelda GB game
handled this the best, IMHO. It auto-saved every time you went through
a front door.
--
______________________________________________________________________
Posted Via Uncensored-News.Com - Still Only $9.95 - http://www.uncensored-news.com
With Servers In California, Texas And Virginia - The Worlds Uncensored News Source
Werner Arend
On Tue, 12 Dec 2000, Jason Shankel wrote:
> > And the Sims. And Myst. And so Eep's question still stands: how come we
> > have so much destruction? (my own suspicion is that it's caused by so many
> > game developers being adolescent males, in outlook if not chronology)
>
> I think you're spot on with your last observation. We are a group of
> adolescent males trying to sell to other adolescent males. There's nothing
> essentially wrong with that. After all, the comic book industry serves
> their niche rather well, despite that fact that graphic novels almost never
> rate best seller status.
I think there's another reason: As any author will tell you, there is no
story without conflict, and you are drawn into a conflict within a story
the more it becomes personal. As a result, people who enjoy stories (and
games with stories) tend to focus on character-centered games where there
is a conflict.
There are mainly three strategies of resolving conflicts: force (not
necessarily deadly), avoidance or compromise. If conflict-resolving is to
be interesting, there has to be some of everything or everything becomes
boring. As a result, the best games have a good story and a mix of
violence, talking and sneaking.
Stories are also larger than life, even in their most banal expression
they tend to show extremes we almost never see in real life. Thus the
actions in story-based games tend to be extreme as well, and we have a
plethora of world-spanning conspiracies and alien invasions in books as
well as in games.
Written stories, and story-based games, take the place mythological
storytelling had in earlier times. And there has been a lock of hack and
slash in mythology all over the world. Testosterone high is only a small
part of it.
Construction is impersonal and appeals to people who don't want the kind
of empathy we feel towards characters in stories. Construction games and
strategy games easily become somewhat dry for me. And as for real life: I
have never understood the success of The Sims. Why would I want to
*simulate* something I could have better (and not to forget more real) in
real life? How could I even enjoy such things? Strange. Very strange...
BTW: Multiplayer games are completely different. The center around
competition, and can be made (and have been made) around nearly any
concept you can think of.
Werner
Eric VanHeest
> so do I for that matter), I've seen him play one battle over and
> over until it went 'perfectly', it totally killed the action
> suspense element and turned it into a complex puzzle.
Yes, but: So what?
If that's the way he wants to play, why not let him do it?
There are a lot of games (perhaps not so recently, but older ones
definitely) in which if you use up all of your resources (soldiers,
bandages, whatever) quickly, then you will be completely screwed at
the end of the game when you would need them. It's very difficult to
tell, as a starting player, whether this will be one of those games,
so I (and I suspect a lot of others) try very hard to make sure that
doesn't happen.
Yes, this often results in having obnoxious numbers of super-items at
the end of the game, but if the alternative is to have none and not
know that you should have saved some... I don't know. I like's Deus
Ex's limited item counts, not for their intrinsic annoyance (and it
was annoying until I thought about it for a while), but because I knew
that someone who designed the game knew that I wouldn't need more
than, say, 10 LAMs for any particular situation, so if I found extras,
I could feel free to use a few instead of just hoarding them all.
Honestly, who's played games like the Final Fantasy series and not had
thirty-seven super-mega-elixirs (or whatever they were called) when
fighting the last character? (And the FF series had location-limited
saves to boot.)
Lucian Wischik
>I think there's another reason: As any author will tell you, there is no
>story without conflict, and you are drawn into a conflict within a story
>the more it becomes personal. As a result, people who enjoy stories (and
>games with stories) tend to focus on character-centered games where there
>is a conflict.
I think that's only half the story. Conflict between ideals, or aspects of
an individual's personality, or between loyalty and valour, ...
>Construction is impersonal and appeals to people who don't want the kind
>of empathy we feel towards characters in stories.
Not if it's construction of a relationship or a personality.
Lucian Wischik
>Oh come now, who here *hasn't* done that with X-COM? :)
I haven't! Never did it with Laser Squad either. (although that was
because I played LS on a tape-based system and the tape was too tedious to
use.)
Edward Glamkowski
>
> FPSes. Luckily there are other genres, but, unfortunately, many games
> in those tend to focus on shooting, killing, or some other violent
> aspect.
Thief was really cool - a FPS that actually discouraged violence and
killing. Even where violence was inevitable, you could often just
knock out your opponent rather than kill them.
Dan Bateman
If you can save whenever you want, then it's up to you if and when
you save the game. If you want to play though the whole level or even
the whole game without saving, it's your choice (good luck). If you
"spoil" the game by saving too much, then it's your fault, your
decision. Personally I would rather reload the same fatal 15 second
battle 10 times than repeat the entire last 10 minutes of a level to
get back there even a couple times. That gets old really fast.
PC game developers (generally these days) don't force you to use a
certain sound card, video card, mouse, or type of CPU, so why should we
only be able to save the game when they allow us to?
-Dan Bateman
Dan Bateman
>Though I can play something like Quake 2 without having to resort to
>many saves, in a more recent title such as Half-Life saving is vital
>to completing the game - there are just too many extremely harsh
>'instant kill' or massive damage scenarios in each level. The irony
>being that a game like Half-life would have benefited from the
>tension created by a limited save situation.
>
successful if it didn't allow you to save whenever you wanted. If it
didn't ship with the save game anywhere feature, the developers would
have been deluged with requests for it, sort of like what happened with
Alien vs. Predator?
-Dan Bateman
Lucian Wischik
>I would venture to say that Half-Life would not have been as
>successful if it didn't allow you to save whenever you wanted.
I would say that Half-Life would have been more succesfull without the
frustrating jump puzzles. And, moreover, if the game had been designed
from the bottom up without saving, and saving wasn't available to the
playtesters, then it wouldn't have had any jump puzzles.
»Q«
can
> >lay off the personal attacks I MIGHT give you another chance.
>
and
> >check. So, you're a hypocrite, as well as an incompetent gamer. Oddly,
I
> >think you're proud to be both.
>
> maybe you're not, I'm a bit fuzzy on who Eep is actually referring to
> since I have him killfiled and I only stumble across his junk on
> accident). Add a line to your .signature! It's fun!
Man, I tried to get into his killfile, even asked him kinda nicely to put me
there and offered to return the favor, but he never responded. :( I think
maybe I was posting to the wrong NG, c.s.i.p.g.adventure. As part of his
quest to do away with categorization by genre, sometimes he adds that one to
his liberal crossposting, but I guess he doesn't read any posts there.
<sigh>
»Q«
--
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Carl Johnson
> I only personally attacked you after you insulted me, Carl, if you're
referring to the subject changing and quoting thread. But how does that make
me an incompetent gamer? Oh and don't think--you might hurt yourself or
someone close to you.
Aw, man! You must of conveniently "forgot" to go and check. You called me
a "newbie twit" first, dude. Please check yourself.
You're an incompetent gamer from what came out in this thread, not the
other. You said you cheated to skip the hard parts. Poor baby.
-- Carl
Eep²
Not strange at all if you understand basic psychology. Being able to play with a reproduction of one's life in a controlled simulation has MANY benefits. Things become even MORE interesting once you have a close facsimile of your known reality reproduced in the simulation...then you start tweaking it in ways you probably never could in reality. I find FAR more gameplay in construction and simulation games than other kinds of games.
> BTW: Multiplayer games are completely different. The center around
> competition, and can be made (and have been made) around nearly any
> concept you can think of.
So can single-player games.
Eep²
It's not a quest; it's just how *I* would categorize games (by alphabetical order) rather than impose what *I* thought a game's genre is.
And if you want to get into my filter THAT badly, simply insult me over and over again in each response to me and never have anything of value to say.
Eep²
> "Eep²" <e...@tnlc.com> wrote in message news:3A376F30...@tnlc.com...
> > I only personally attacked you after you insulted me, Carl, if you're
> referring to the subject changing and quoting thread. But how does that make
> me an incompetent gamer? Oh and don't think--you might hurt yourself or
> someone close to you.
>
> Aw, man! You must of conveniently "forgot" to go and check. You called me
> a "newbie twit" first, dude. Please check yourself.
First of all, initially I wasn't ONLY referring to use when I said "Yo, twit newbies, change the subject when you're no longer talking about it. Duh." In fact, I didn't even reply to YOUR post but Awidfla's. Hence, there was no personal attack directed specifically to you. However, you had to reply to my post, referencing my name incorrectly (Eep*Eep vs Eep) and claim you're a 15-year Usenet veteran. I later replied to another post NOT authored by you when someone ELSE commented on something newbish you'd done (not quoting): "Hey! Carl's a 15-year Usenet veteran! Surely he just convienently 'forgot' again...". Still no personal attack. However, you replied, changing the subject (you learn quick) and put "Jerks" in front, clearly implying me. THEN I replied back with an insult: "No, because you're incompetent. :) Drive through, newbie!" So, you see, you clearly insulted me first by getting my name wrong and implying I was a jerk.
Check YOURSELF, incompetent newbie twit.
> You're an incompetent gamer from what came out in this thread, not the
> other. You said you cheated to skip the hard parts. Poor baby.
It's not that the parts are HARD, per se, but, rather, annoying, frustrating, and mindless. I've had enough jumping in Tomb Raider and enough trying to stay alive from hoards of enemies in, oh, just about every game out there. I play games for exploration, adventure, immersion, simulation, realism, and to check out the effects. I don't play games for twitch-finger knee-jerk reactions and mindless violence.
Peter Knutsen
gordon wrote:
>
> "Eep²" <e...@tnlc.com> wrote in message news:3A336C22...@tnlc.com...
> > Save points are just a bad idea. They sucked in Tomb Raider and they suck
> in other 3D games, too. Auto level saves can be annoying. I prefer being
> able to save ANYWHERE and ANYTIME I want--PERIOD. I think you'll find most
> gamers tend to agree.
>
> odd, what you're advocating does allot of damage to both realism and
> immersion..............
And to character *differentiation*. The fact that you can play a
game (in this case a pseudo-RPG) with different character types
which means that you effectively gets several different games in
one package. Playing a character that can save often would be
different from playing a character that can save only rarely.
--
Peter Knutsen
Peter Knutsen
Lucian Wischik wrote:
>
> gordon <andrea_gordonDELETE_STUFF@IN_CAPSxtra.co.nz> wrote:
> >Eep wrote:
> >> So much destruction. Where's the CONstruction?
> >violence sells, money drives this industry just like any other.
>
> I reckon that non-violent construction sells better than violence. And
> that's why Rollercoaster Tycoon has done so incredibly well in the charts.
> And the Sims. And Myst. And so Eep's question still stands: how come we
> have so much destruction? (my own suspicion is that it's caused by so many
> game developers being adolescent males, in outlook if not chronology)
It's possible that the traditional computer gaming community,
which originated in the early-to-mid 80's, prefers violent games
(and please keep in mind violence is a neutral word. Violence
can be good or bad - for instance a doctor is violent against
a cancer tumor, in order to cure the patient) while the general
Western-world population prefers constructive/buildup games.
However, I think it's rather normal for the human psyche to want
to be able to definitively affect the fictional world of the game.
I found the Sim City series of games frustrating (and I've played
Sim City(1), Sim City 2000 and Sim City 3000 *extensively*)
because I would not "get at" the game. Everything I did seemed
to change very little.
Civilization were much more tangible. I did not, in fact, play
it in a very agressive fashion, preferring to build up my nation.
But it was wonderful to get tangible and highly visible benefits
from my decisions. Build a factory and production capacity goes
up by *50%*. If a tile gets polluted, all productivity is halved.
Tangible. The Sim City games were so frustratingly nebolous.
Violent acts are good because they leave a mark. You can very
easily tell the difference between the world-before and the
world-after you blew up the power plant.
Violence is definitive. You know you've made a difference. If
I build some Water Treatment plants in Sim City 3000, I will
always doubt if they ever helped. Also, I will wonder if I
have much in the way of free will. It seems that the game
forces me to always make the moves in a certain sequence as
the city grows.
Games such as Civilization (both I and II) and Age of Empires II
are much more tangible. My moves *matter*, and I feel that I
can choose between paths rather than being forced by the game
to react.
Is it a coincidence that both these games have a large component
of violence?
> --
> Lucian Wischik, Queens' College, Cambridge CB3 9ET. www.wischik.com/lu
--
Peter Knutsen
Peter Knutsen
Loren Petrich wrote:
>
> In article <3A3631D3...@ix.nospam.netcom.com>, Gary Mitchell
> <wb6...@ix.nospam.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> > An approach like this has it's down side... What if you have
> > to leave the game to do something else and you aren't near
> > a save point? ...
>
> One way to do that is to pause the game and switch to another app
> while leaving the game running; this is supported in some cases
> (Pathways into Darkness: yes, Marathon: only recently).
The game could save your position on exit. That's the way the
roguelike genre of games work.
I haven't done a 100% analysis of the savegame concept of the
pseudo-RPG I had in mind, the missing part is the implications
of saving on exit (meaning that the user can always suspend the
game). But my guess is that there could be only one such slow
which means it can't be abused.
> --
> Loren Petrich
--
Peter Knutsen
Peter Knutsen
Werner Arend wrote:
> Written stories, and story-based games, take the place mythological
> storytelling had in earlier times. And there has been a lock of hack and
> slash in mythology all over the world. Testosterone high is only a small
> part of it.
There's a third type of computergame that is neither story nor
testosterone: world. There would be no particular script but a
complex world for your created (RPG-style) character to explore.
> Werner
--
Peter Knutsen
Peter Knutsen
Dan Bateman wrote:
>
> If you can save whenever you want, then it's up to you if and when
> you save the game. If you want to play though the whole level or even
> the whole game without saving, it's your choice (good luck). If you
> "spoil" the game by saving too much, then it's your fault, your
> decision. Personally I would rather reload the same fatal 15 second
> battle 10 times than repeat the entire last 10 minutes of a level to
> get back there even a couple times. That gets old really fast.
The game should come prepackaged with a certain difficulty level.
I pay those guys for making a good game, dammit! Then they *should*
do it. Make a game that is appropriately difficult and that is fun
and non-frustrating to play.
Telling me that I can play without using a feature of the game
makes me frustrated and I pay for entertainment, *not* for
frustration.
> PC game developers (generally these days) don't force you to use a
> certain sound card, video card, mouse, or type of CPU, so why should we
> only be able to save the game when they allow us to?
I never suggested "geographical" save game points. I suggested
that the player would have a "pool" of savegame tokens that can
be used at will. You pay a token, any time you want, and in
return you get to save your position. The max amount of tokens
storable and the regain rate would depend upon characteristics
of the in-game character.
Now I realize that the word "point" has a bunch of different
meanings, and I was misunderstood. I hope I've clarified things
now.
> -Dan Bateman
--
Peter Knutsen
Peter Knutsen
Dan Bateman wrote:
>
> If you can save whenever you want, then it's up to you if and when
> you save the game. If you want to play though the whole level or even
> the whole game without saving, it's your choice (good luck). If you
> "spoil" the game by saving too much, then it's your fault, your
> decision. Personally I would rather reload the same fatal 15 second
> battle 10 times than repeat the entire last 10 minutes of a level to
> get back there even a couple times. That gets old really fast.
The game should come prepackaged with a certain difficulty level.
I pay those guys for making a good game, dammit! Then they *should*
do it. Make a game that is appropriately difficult and that is fun
and non-frustrating to play.
Telling me that I can play without using a feature of the game
makes me frustrated and I pay for entertainment, *not* for
frustration.
> PC game developers (generally these days) don't force you to use a
> certain sound card, video card, mouse, or type of CPU, so why should we
> only be able to save the game when they allow us to?
I never suggested "geographical" save game points. I suggested
Wayne Imlach
anywhere' fundamentally changes the design of the game (or should do, if
you're a designer of any ability), not necessarily for the better.
I'm personally in favour of predetermined save spots, whenever the player
has completed a particularly hazardous stage of the game. At it's most
granular this would be at the end of each level, though key points during a
level would be more appropriate for modern games. Note that the argument
that highlights the frustration of having to play through tedious areas
again if saves are spread apart isn't a fault of the save system, but of the
game design in general.
"Lucian Wischik" <ljw...@cus.cam.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:9185pf$foe$1...@pegasus.csx.cam.ac.uk...
Peter Knutsen
Eep² wrote:
>
> Save points are just a bad idea. They sucked in Tomb Raider and they suck in other 3D games, too. Auto level saves can be annoying. I prefer being able to save ANYWHERE and ANYTIME I want--PERIOD. I think you'll find most gamers tend to agree.
I don't mean that kind of save *points*. Try to get out of your
stupid and narrow action-gaming mindset and re-read my posting.
I think you'll find that many gamers would end up liking *my*
idea which you have so far failed to understand.
--
Peter Knutsen