Why Myst?
Kevin Kwan
Hmmm.....
I'm just curious. Why is Myst such a big hit? I mean, It's just a series
of nice looking slides. I mean, there are games that look WAAAAY better
in terms of the game engine (Macromedia Director?) or the image quality.
Why did it became so big when games that look or play better in the same
catergory did the big splat, and why does Myst stay on top?
I mean, The Access/Under a Killing Moon series are good, BladeRunner is
great, 7th Guest/11th Hour is awesome, but yet Myst stays on top as if
it's glued there. Why? Did the game industry count the copies the OEMs
ship their computers with? And somebody tell me if Riven is going to
repeat Myst's success.
:)kev
Kalrithian
Kevin Kwan wrote in message ...
>Hmmm.....
>I'm just curious. Why is Myst such a big hit?
Being original helps. Notice that all the Wolf-alikes and DOOM-alikes were
nowhere near as successful as the originals, even though some of them
actually had some improvements.
>I mean, It's just a series
>of nice looking slides. I mean, there are games that look WAAAAY better
>in terms of the game engine (Macromedia Director?) or the image quality.
>Why did it became so big when games that look or play better in the same
>catergory did the big splat, and why does Myst stay on top?
Game programmers who want to be immensely successful should study Myst as a
case example. IMO, it's one of the few games that *average* people can
play -- the ones who just want some leisurely entertainment and a challenge
every once in awhile. Most commercial games today fit into the "Wow,
looky-what-I-can-do with a PII and a Voodoo2!" category. This is OK, except
that it only attracts computer-saavy people who get overly excited about
tech buzzwords.
Justin Heyes-Jones
On Tue, 17 Mar 1998 00:49:54 -0000, Kevin Kwan
<kk...@acsu.buffalo.edu> wrote:
Good game, better marketing.
>Hmmm.....
>I'm just curious. Why is Myst such a big hit? I mean, It's just a series
>of nice looking slides. I mean, there are games that look WAAAAY better
>in terms of the game engine (Macromedia Director?) or the image quality.
>Why did it became so big when games that look or play better in the same
>catergory did the big splat, and why does Myst stay on top?
Brandon Van Every
Kevin Kwan <kk...@acsu.buffalo.edu> wrote in article
<Pine.GSO.3.96.980316...@joxer.acsu.buffalo.edu>...
> Hmmm.....
> I'm just curious. Why is Myst such a big hit? I mean, It's just a
series
> of nice looking slides.
I mostly agree! In fact my personal ambition over the next 2 years is to
develop technologies that will "Make Myst Real" instead of simply being a
slideshow. But I do think Myst must be given credit in the creative
content dept. That 1st island came out of someone's head full-blown, as if
from a dream, expressing CAPABILITY without actually delivering it. When
you look at the box cover, doesn't it look like that island can do all
sorts of cool shit?
I don't think the rest of the islands appeared to be as CAPABLE as the 1st
island. They were still creative works of varying levels of quality, but
they couldn't quite perform the psychological illusion of action the way
that 1st island did. The other islands felt like add-ons, sequels, or "me
too almosts." The 1st island is the knockout punch which sells the game,
the first thing the user encounters psychologically, and the play begins
even before buying the game. Why? Because the play is entirely
conceptual!
I saw the box cover for some Myst clone called "Lighthouse" (?) It
duplicated the atmospheric effects of the software rendering and offered
some fantastic-looking world. But the box cover totally missed the mark
about what was cool about Myst. There's no psychological engagement to fog
on a bay, it's the appearance of conceptual machines that is startling and
evokes deep responses. (Or at least I think so. Tell me if you think I'm
full of hooey. :-)
> I mean, there are games that look WAAAAY better
> in terms of the game engine (Macromedia Director?) or the image quality.
> Why did it became so big when games that look or play better in the same
> catergory did the big splat,
Well we should remember that its technology was novel at the time the game
was made. Color Hypercard did not exist back then, it was specially coded
up.
> and why does Myst stay on top?
A lot of people say that non-gamers buy Myst. I think the non-violence of
the game has something to do with it, as well as the accessability of the
mental imagery.
> I mean, The Access/Under a Killing Moon series are good, BladeRunner is
> great,
Haven't played...
> 7th Guest/11th Hour is awesome,
Well I thought 11th Hour was crap. Some ok rendering, a bunch of puzzles,
a bit of video, and that GODDAMN IDIOT jeering at me when I couldn't get
past something! Never did figure out what's up with the cash register and
it ran slowly enough on my i486 that I said "screw this, I'm not wasting
any more of my time." I think having a narrator that calls you stupid has
got to be one of the stupidest marketing moves of all time, at least as far
as the general public is concerned. NO WAY you can achieve the notoriety
of Myst by calling everyone stupid.
> but yet Myst stays on top as if
> it's glued there. Why? Did the game industry count the copies the OEMs
> ship their computers with?
Well all other reasons aside, Myst has no competition in its genre. If the
games industry would get off its duff and start looking at non-violent
authorial devices, maybe the market shares would change?
> And somebody tell me if Riven is going to repeat Myst's success.
As far as box art goes, I don't think Riven does the pre-game psychology
nearly as well as Myst's 1st island did. The 1st island was a real
knock-out punch, whereas in Riven it's just some silly beetle and a few
nice paintings. The stuff inside the game is better, I do like the
electric carriage and the spider seat, but I also got bored of the slow
interface on my sister's 100 MHz PowerMac and gave up on the game quickly.
Riven enjoys Myst's reputation so maybe as long as there's no real
competition in the genre, Riven will do well.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Gregory A. Becerra
I believe there was an article in one of the game magazines (maybe Game
Developer, anybody know/remember) that briefly mentioned Myst and its
success (I believe the topic was on something like being ahead of the
market). I could be mistaken (it has been a while since I read it), but
they seem to attribute Myst's success to being released when CD-ROM drives
hit the market hard. People tend to forget how long Myst has been out.
People compare Myst to what just came out, for its time Myst had really neat
graphics. The gameplay was weak, but I have completed the entire thing (I
guess I kept saying, okay something's gotta happen now). I also think that
for joe-public Myst and computer games had become synonymous for a while.
Myst was one of those things that let the public use their state-of-the art
CD ROM drive, video card, and whatever. Find yourself an old game magazine
that came out at the time Myst was released and look at the competition.
As far as Riven, I doubt it will see much more success than an average
release that makes it to mass distribution. All the hard-core gamers (the
largest game buying power) who have played Myst, probably won't spend money
and time on Riven. The non-gamers who either received a copy of Myst with
their computer or chose this as one of the few games they own probably never
finished Myst in the first place. As stated on another line of this thread,
Myst appeals to those who only have a casual interest in games or uses a
game to kill some time. For these people, Riven may be a comfortable feel.
--
greg.
Gregory A. Becerra
Byt...@worldnet.att.net
Victor B. Putz
>Hmmm.....
>I'm just curious. Why is Myst such a big hit? I mean, It's just a series
>of nice looking slides. I mean, there are games that look WAAAAY better
>in terms of the game engine (Macromedia Director?) or the image quality.
>Why did it became so big when games that look or play better in the same
>catergory did the big splat, and why does Myst stay on top?
>I mean, The Access/Under a Killing Moon series are good, BladeRunner is
>great, 7th Guest/11th Hour is awesome, but yet Myst stays on top as if
>it's glued there. Why? Did the game industry count the copies the OEMs
>ship their computers with? And somebody tell me if Riven is going to
>repeat Myst's success.
On Myst: There are a few keys here. Myst is a game which also appeals
to non-gamers. It moves at the user's pace, it looks good, it's
atmospheric with an emphasis on exploration rather than confrontation,
and it does an excellent job of creating atmosphere-- and that's not
just the fact that the pictures are pretty, it's the whole
sound/pictures/"feel" of the piece. Being in the Myst world is
atmospheric and nonthreatening.
I haven't seen Blade Runner, but the UAKM series involves interacting
with characters, which can feel "threatening" to a new gamer (no, I'm
not joking!). The 7th Guest/11th Hour games, while providing
attractive graphics and challenging puzzles, are (1) too obviously
"this is a logic puzzle" games (the puzzles seem very obtrusive), and
(2) rather poor in terms of atmosphere. Many would disagree here, but
the acting is VERY hokey, the "horror" atmosphere is undermined by
some of the bad puzzles (and the hokey acting) and in general is less
interesting to many players. I played through 7th Guest and was not
particularly impressed; I saw the end movie sequence for 11th Hour and
was embarassed for the production team. While Myst and Riven have
their problems, overall they are stylistically superior.
Finally, Myst arrived at exactly the right time to be popular. It
provided remarkable graphics at a time when almost no one was
expecting SVGA quality graphics in a game, and its popularity crested
about the same time as computers began to gain popularity. It was a
game to show off the graphic capabilities of the computer, even though
the graphics were prerendered and mostly static. It was also easy to
remember and recommend to others, so after a while it became
self-perpetuating: people would buy it to see what the fuss was about.
So: design, atmosphere, timing. Riven will do well because it is the
sequel to Myst, and it does have good design and atmosphere, but the
timing is off-- people expect good graphics nowadays, and the
slideshow game has been done already. Riven won't be the same kind of
blockbuster as Myst. Still, both are fine games with a few glitches.
I've heard a lot of people condemning Myst as a horrible, boring
game... but to dismiss the #1 selling game of all time in such a
fashion is to misunderstand the industry badly.
-->VPutz
Acuity
Gee, that's funny. Riven will merely be an average title? It's in
the top 5 selling titles, and has been there since it came out.
Also, the 7th guest came out at the same time as Myst, and had nice
graphics too, and it wasn't highly sucessful, and it's sequel was a
complete flop. Why?
Gregory A. Becerra
>>As far as Riven, I doubt it will see much more success than an average
>>release that makes it to mass distribution.
oops, I guess I need to get away from the compiler more often--sorry.
>Also, the 7th guest came out at the same time as Myst, and had nice
>graphics too, and it wasn't highly successful, and it's sequel was a
>complete flop. Why?
I don't have a clue on this one. I can't take a guess since I haven't
played 7th guest. Anyone know the release dates on both (Myst & 7th guest)?
How many titles sold of each? Myst was prepackaged with quite a few PCs.
This was good marketing. Is anyone better qualified at hazarding the Myst
and 7th guest question?
Geoff Howland
I believe someone already answered this, but just to fill you in on what you
missed,7th Guest was not as complete a "feeling" as myst, it wasnt as detailed,
and
had lousy actors, acting lousy, which took away from the story.
It also had a murder/horror plot which takes away a lot of people who dont
care for that type og thing, plus it made the game more hoky.
11th hour, was full of annoying things, like an annoying actor who called you
stupid everytime you made a mistake and the puzzles were obviously
just puzzles stuck in a plot. The end was HORRIBLE and made you just
randomly choose between 3 doors just to call you an idiot for 2 of the
choices and laugh at you some. You feel like rushing out to buy it?
Neither did anyone else.
-G. Howland
Acuity
"Brandon Van Every" <vane...@blarg.net> wrote:
>I mostly agree! In fact my personal ambition over the next 2 years is to
>develop technologies that will "Make Myst Real" instead of simply being a
>slideshow.
If you make a game like Myst which is true 3D, even if you keep the
same quality of graphics, you'll make a crummy game.
The guys who made Riven were originally going to use a technology like
Quicktime VR, but they found that allowing the player to look anywhere
they wanted to made it so intead of examining things closely, they
just run through the world as quickly as possible.
I believe they are correct in that assumption. Also, it would be tto
complicated of an interface for the average Myst player. And I know I
certainly wouldn't want to use a Quake like interface while I'm
playing Riven.
>But I do think Myst must be given credit in the creative
>content dept. That 1st island came out of someone's head full-blown, as if
>from a dream, expressing CAPABILITY without actually delivering it. When
>you look at the box cover, doesn't it look like that island can do all
>sorts of cool shit?
It does do all sorts of cool shit. You can raise a ship out of the
water, you can go to the top of a tree and see the whole island, you
can rotate the tower. You can make the big gear turn so you can get at
a book...
>I don't think the rest of the islands appeared to be as CAPABLE as the 1st
>island. They were still creative works of varying levels of quality, but
>they couldn't quite perform the psychological illusion of action the way
>that 1st island did. The other islands felt like add-ons, sequels, or "me
>too almosts." The 1st island is the knockout punch which sells the game,
>the first thing the user encounters psychologically, and the play begins
>even before buying the game. Why? Because the play is entirely
>conceptual!
Yeah, I agree the other two islands are lackluster... But they fixed
that problem in Riven for the most part. I was dissapointed by the
other ages in Riven, how limited they were, and I was expecting the
game to be 3x as large as it was.
>I saw the box cover for some Myst clone called "Lighthouse" (?) It
>duplicated the atmospheric effects of the software rendering and offered
>some fantastic-looking world.
I didn't think it looked so fantastic. I thought it looked pretty
dull. I don't think it had nearly as interesting a setting as Myst
did.
>Well we should remember that its technology was novel at the time the game
>was made. Color Hypercard did not exist back then, it was specially coded
>up.
And the technology is no longer novel, and yet Riven is a large sucess
as well. How do you explain that?
>A lot of people say that non-gamers buy Myst. I think the non-violence of
>the game has something to do with it, as well as the accessability of the
>mental imagery.
"Non-gamers". I hate that term. Obviously Myst is a game, and they
bought it so they're playing games too. Does it ever occur to anyone
that Myst is sucesul because there's no other games out there which
appeal to that audience?
I mean, the majority of what we see are military games, games with
aliens, and games that feature cartoon charactars.
Did it ever occur to anyone that Myst is appealing because it has the
kind of setting it does? (Gothic? Jules Vern?)
>> I mean, The Access/Under a Killing Moon series are good, BladeRunner is
>> great,
I don't know much about the first one. Bladrunner has little appeal
to women.
>Well I thought 11th Hour was crap. Some ok rendering, a bunch of puzzles,
>a bit of video, and that GODDAMN IDIOT jeering at me when I couldn't get
>past something! Never did figure out what's up with the cash register and
>it ran slowly enough on my i486 that I said "screw this, I'm not wasting
>any more of my time." I think having a narrator that calls you stupid has
>got to be one of the stupidest marketing moves of all time, at least as far
>as the general public is concerned. NO WAY you can achieve the notoriety
>of Myst by calling everyone stupid.
Well my mother and aunt enjoyed the taunts. They thought they were
funny.
I thought the game was crap too. Oh, it has a great setting. And the
backstory of the 7th guest was excellent. The game itself sucked. I
wanted a game like Myst, and instead, I got a puzzle game. The acting
in the 11th hour was amateruish. It's as bad as a soap opera. Rather
than finish the game, I simply watched the movie from beginning to end
to see if it got any better, because I liked the acting and charactars
in the 7th guest so much. The charactars in the 11th hour weren't
even likeable. It was just horribly cheesy.
>Well all other reasons aside, Myst has no competition in its genre. If the
>games industry would get off its duff and start looking at non-violent
>authorial devices, maybe the market shares would change?
Yeah. For example, why isn't there a single game which is like a
romance novel? Personally, I'd never read that crap. But women love
it. You'd think someone would have thought of making a game based
around that.
Brandon Van Every
Acuity <ssw...@earthlink.net> wrote in article
<35130d12...@news.earthlink.net>...
> "Brandon Van Every" <vane...@blarg.net> wrote:
> >I mostly agree! In fact my personal ambition over the next 2 years is
to
> >develop technologies that will "Make Myst Real" instead of simply being
a
> >slideshow.
>
> If you make a game like Myst which is true 3D, even if you keep the
> same quality of graphics, you'll make a crummy game.
I'd be interested in any elaborations you have on that statement. I tend
to see everything in terms of tradeoffs and problems that need to be
solved: sure one *could* make a crummy game, but if one can specify what
the problem is, can't one do better? I ran a group called Seattle Vtalk
for a period of about 3 months, it was a coffee house discussion group
about the possibilities of "online virtual worlds" in the artistic,
technical, and business sense of the term. A lot of great ideas were had
all around and although the spectre of "that would suck" was often raised,
someone always had an idea to overcome the limitation.
> The guys who made Riven were originally going to use a technology like
> Quicktime VR, but they found that allowing the player to look anywhere
> they wanted to made it so intead of examining things closely, they
> just run through the world as quickly as possible.
Well, I personally am not interested in Quicktime VR, I see it as a
panoramic slideshow rather than a still slideshow. I think panoramic
slideshows are more immsersive than stills, but they still have the same
authorial problem that you can't really "do" anything with them, you can
only look at them.
> I believe they are correct in that assumption. Also, it would be tto
> complicated of an interface for the average Myst player.
A panorama is too complicated of an interface? Or do you mean that a fully
3d world would be too complicated of an interface? If so, what's the exact
interface you have in mind? Surely we can improve upon it....
> And I know I
> certainly wouldn't want to use a Quake like interface while I'm
> playing Riven.
Because...?
> >But I do think Myst must be given credit in the creative
> >content dept. That 1st island came out of someone's head full-blown, as
if
> >from a dream, expressing CAPABILITY without actually delivering it.
When
> >you look at the box cover, doesn't it look like that island can do all
> >sorts of cool shit?
>
> It does do all sorts of cool shit. You can raise a ship out of the
> water, you can go to the top of a tree and see the whole island, you
> can rotate the tower. You can make the big gear turn so you can get at
> a book...
Yeah, but at another level you're just pushing hypercard buttons to watch
different slideshows.
> "Non-gamers". I hate that term. Obviously Myst is a game, and they
> bought it so they're playing games too.
That's actually not an obvious statement. They could be 1st time computer
buyers who don't know whether or not they're interested in games, and they
may have bought MYST because "it's popular and supposedly cool." After
they play it for 10 minutes maybe it sits on the shelf and they get back to
accounting software. Or, maybe they are buying for some other family
member. My Dad doesn't play games, but he does buy games for my sister on
occasion.
> Does it ever occur to anyone
> that Myst is sucesul because there's no other games out there which
> appeal to that audience?
Yes. :-)
> Yeah. For example, why isn't there a single game which is like a
> romance novel? Personally, I'd never read that crap. But women love
> it. You'd think someone would have thought of making a game based
> around that.
Some have thought of it. As some older friends of mine pointed out the
other day, women are very competitive, just within different spheres. Need
a "fashion wars" game or some such (for a particular - and large - class of
women.) Dress better than her. My friend also observed that the emotional
gut-wrenching of having a fight with your husband, having an affair, and
getting caught are the female equivalent of the male cliff-hanger, blow the
enemy up with a grenade at close quarters kind of action schtick. Soap
operas know this and play/prey upon it.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Daniel Vishnick
In article <Pine.GSO.3.96.980316...@joxer.acsu.buffalo.
edu>, Kevin Kwan <kk...@acsu.buffalo.edu> writes
>Hmmm.....
>I'm just curious. Why is Myst such a big hit? I mean, It's just a series
>of nice looking slides. I mean, there are games that look WAAAAY better
>in terms of the game engine (Macromedia Director?) or the image quality.
>Why did it became so big when games that look or play better in the same
>catergory did the big splat, and why does Myst stay on top?
>it's glued there. Why? Did the game industry count the copies the OEMs
>ship their computers with? And somebody tell me if Riven is going to
>repeat Myst's success.
>
>
I totally agree with you, Kevin. I have a friend who is Myst crazy and
can't stop talking about it. I play Pandora Directive and Under a
Killing Moon which are far more superior in graphics and gameplay.
However, people who like Myst do argue that Myst's storyline makes up
for the limited gameplay.
In answer to your Riven question. I think recent sales figures has shown
Riven to be a flop, it has also had bad reviews from gaming mags like PC
Gamer.
--
Daniel Vishnick
Sean Timarco Baggaley
In article <01bd5196$f3b1c520$1183...@hammurabi.blarg.net>, Brandon Van
Every <vane...@blarg.net> writes
>I mostly agree! In fact my personal ambition over the next 2 years is to
>develop technologies that will "Make Myst Real" instead of simply being a
>slideshow.
Bad idea. Myst (and Riven) were designed *WITH* that user interface
specifically in mind.
Cyan chose to go for primarily static displays for a damned good reason:
it's not a game about walking around. It's a game about Containment,
Discovery and Escape -- those are the main themes of the game.
Themes are a basic concept in any creative process such as this. Movies
have them, novels, short stories -- even newspaper articles.
Take the infamous Quake. Themes? Freedom, Exploration and Violence. The
freedom is conveyed primarily by the user interface. the full motion 3D
offers a complete freedom of movement. Contrast this with the
restrictive, confining feel of Myst. And realise that that feel is
*intentional*. It's an inherent part of the game.
*
I can see a "linearity vs. freedom" argument coming a mile away, so let
me explain:
Linearity isn't the spawn of depraved, evil designers. It's an
acceptable design feature. But -- and this is *very* important -- it
*must* be used in context. Myst's themes make the choice of restricted
motion a damned good one. The point of the game isn't to spend hours
strolling around the pretty scenery. The point is to find out *why*
you're in it, and what you're going to do about it.
If Cyan had allowed the player a totally free range of motion, it would
have gone a fair way towards shattering the illusion of restriction.
*
After 15 years or so, even computer games have developed a subconscious
"language"; a short-hand way of conveying particular moods, themes or
modes. Animated features, such as 'Akira', have used similar short-hand
techniques, such as still photography to emphasise moods and themes in a
particular scene.
How often have you seen those bridging shots between scenes in the
average US sitcom? Notice how they *never* cut from location to location
without a brief view of a photo of the external view of said location
first? Remember Roseanne's house?
Same bloody photo *each* and *every* time.
The sitcom equivalent of: "Meanwhile, down in the BatCave..."
*
Back to Myst:
Myst uses still images because it conveys the right subconscious
messages. How many people have you seen complaining that it's
"restrictive" and doesn't allow much freedom? Of course it doesn't!
That's the whole damned *POINT!*
As for linearity: imagine an adventure game that starts with your
character locked up in prison. How do you get out?
Some might argue that placing the player in the cell is a stupid idea,
but why is this? Should the designer allow you to wander all around some
nondescript prison complex in order to find the key to the exit? A
prison complex that suffers from the visual equivalent of: "Yet another
grey-walled room. There is a bunk in the corner. There is nothing of
interest here. Exit is to the South."
Or should the designer allow you only to pace and chafe in your tiny,
claustrophobic room with those bare, concrete walls... that "leaking tap
on the sink that's dripping, dripping, endlessly DRIPPING!" Should the
designer not allow the player the *relevant*, mood-enhancing 'freedom'
[always an illusion anyway] to tear that offending tap from the wall...
and force a guard to enter the cell because water is flooding from the
ruined plumbing...?
*
Another aside, and one which may serve as an illustration:
I'm speaking from experience here. There are only so many man-hours
available for a game. And only so many synonyms. I had the fortune to
work on an unreleased game that, while sound in theory, fell apart in
practice.
I was fortunate because it taught me a lot of things; including proof
that even pros can get it wrong occasionally. (It wasn't my design -- I
was working mainly on subgames for it). The game was a point and click
adventure set in one office block. The Unique Selling Point? Each new
game would create a randomised office block by rearranging the offices
and the puzzles! Great! No two games would be the same.
But alas! We hit upon a major flaw. How many different descriptions of
an office can you think of? And how many of those would be found in the
*same* block? And how would you like to *draw* all of those? (Remember
to move the furniture around, too!)
Innovative concept. Loads of locations. Technically impressive.
Boring as fuck.
*
The reason I mention that is because it makes it clear that literal
translation of a concept isn't necessarily the *best* translation
possible.
By creating such an illusion of restrictiveness -- of imprisonment --
Cyan created a far better sense of immersion. It's a triumph of design
over technology.
Why bother with a real-time 3D engine (which wasn't feasible back then,
anyway)? Why bother allowing the player to visit each and every damned
co-ordinate on those islands, when the gameplay would be much tighter if
the player was restricted only to *important* aspects of the game?
*
Yes, to you and I, Myst looks primarily like the lowest form of
"Multimedia" scum. But you and I are in the position of the CGI gurus at
ILM who don't "see" films like "The Abyss", or "Independence Day". They
see only the mechanics and processes used to create them. They see only
the technology and think: "Whoa! Man, does that underwater alien
mothership suck when it rises to the surface! Should've used Softimage
and matted it in..."
But 99% of people know *nothing* about what a computer can do. All they
see is a magic box that lets them wiggle some tight-arsed virtual bint
around.
[...]
>I saw the box cover for some Myst clone called "Lighthouse" (?) It
>duplicated the atmospheric effects of the software rendering and offered
>some fantastic-looking world. But the box cover totally missed the mark
>about what was cool about Myst. There's no psychological engagement to fog
>on a bay, it's the appearance of conceptual machines that is startling and
>evokes deep responses. (Or at least I think so. Tell me if you think I'm
>full of hooey. :-)
The problem with a lot of Myst clones was their designers' inability to
grasp simple basics, such as 'continuity' and 'coherence'. A *lot* of
so-called "Myst-beaters" looked as if they'd been thrown together by a
bunch of artists who had no idea how to create a believable
*environment*.
Beautifully rendered scenes in 3D Studio aren't as important as creating
a believable *environment*. All too often, the 'competition' simply
resorted to slideshows of often wildly differing styles. Architecture
varied from scene; trees appeared to change species from shot to shot;
actors camped things up so badly that you actually expected to see Sid
James popping up at any moment.
Fundamental aspects of their environments would change arbitrarily --
there was no overall vision. No direction.
7th Guest and 11th Hour provide exemplary proof of this. 11th Hour's
attempt at goading the player may have worked if they'd used up about
9000% more CD space for the jibes. Instead, they ended up simply
annoying the player. *Exactly* the same mistake was made in the Atari
Jaguar's original flagship game: Cybermorph, where every time you
crashed into the landscape (i.e. almost every other minute) you were
rewarded with an incredibly patronisin "Avoid the ground!" sample.
That such a glaring flaw in the game could get through QA proves only
one thing: it hadn't yet been implemented when their QA teams started
playtesting the games. And by the time it *was* implemented, their QA
teams were already so adept at the game that the sample was barely
heard.
It's for this reason that a *good* QA department will have a high
turnover of testers. Letting local schoolkids loose on a game -- as
Bullfrog do -- is a great way of achieving this, since you can replace a
current batch with a new one every few weeks or so. (And you thought
Bullfrog did this out of the goodness of their own hearts! :)
[...]
>> and why does Myst stay on top?
>A lot of people say that non-gamers buy Myst. I think the non-violence of
>the game has something to do with it, as well as the accessability of the
>mental imagery.
Yup. That and the fact that it *works* as a game. Cyan are #1 in this
genre for a damned good reason: they're great at their job.
[...]
>Well all other reasons aside, Myst has no competition in its genre. If the
>games industry would get off its duff and start looking at non-violent
>authorial devices, maybe the market shares would change?
>> And somebody tell me if Riven is going to repeat Myst's success.
It appears likely that Cyan's owners will be "comfortably off" for quite
some time. :)
It's also worth pointing out that the Myst-style game clearly does not
lend itself to multiplayer gaming. It also appears to appeal to the same
people who would normally play games like "Solitaire" or "Mah-Jong".
This leads me to my final point...
Designers vary.
Their abilities vary.
Their tastes vary.
Their clothes vary.
Their knowledge varies.
Their experience varies.
Each is different.
Each will excel in some areas while failing dismally in others.
Expecting any old designer to be able to turn their hand from football
games to Quake clones to Myst clones is unreasonable and unrealistic.
The sooner certain managers and producers realise this (IMHO) rather
obvious point, the better.
--
Sean Timarco Baggaley
<mailto:stim...@cix.co.uk>
E&OE
[1] Utterly irrelevant aside: I think W. Gibson and N. Stephenson have created
the most ludicrous views of the future I have ever seen. "Cyberspace" is such a
stupid, utterly dense concept that I'm astonished to see so many people -- who
really should know better -- taking it up and applauding it as "the way
forward".
My reasoning? Simple: the best user interface is the one you're not aware of.
Cyberspace is the very antithesis of this well-known precept. There are other,
far better, and more likely, routes we can take.
How many people realise that there is a perfectly good computer in every
computer's keyboard?
Diana Gruber
Just my 2 cents worth...
The artwork in Myst is fabulous. Most of it was done by Chuck Carter.
Chuck is a great guy. He is very talented. I think a great deal of the
success of Myst can be attributed to him.
Chuck drew the cool starship on the Fastgraph home page at
http://www.fastgraph.com.
Diana
Acuity
>to see everything in terms of tradeoffs and problems that need to be
>solved: sure one *could* make a crummy game, but if one can specify what
>the problem is, can't one do better?
Well you *migtht* be able to make a good game like Myst that allows
complete freedom. But the chances of that are 1 in a million.
Chances are, you'll make some mistake along the way which turns it
into a dismal failure.
For example, if you require hardware renderers (at this point in time)
you'll cut out most of the people who'd play the game. And if you
require too much processor power, you'll cut out a large segement of
the market which Myst is probably selling to. Riven doesn't require
top-endd hardware. I played it perectly fine on my Cyrix P133, with a
4x CD-ROM. That's anchient technology these days. :)
And lets say you manage to make it run on most hardware well. Well,
you might do the graphics badly. Or you might choose an unappealing
setting. Or you might get a oublisher that doesn't advertise it
enough. Or you might make the interface too complicated...
Maybe the project will fail completely because it'll go way over
budget. In Myst, they could take shortcuts to render the scenes
faster. COnsidering that they can't even render an environment in
Riven in realtime when they can actually delete and modify geometry
beforehand on really powerful hardware, you're not gonne be sucessful
at duplicating it in realtime for at least 5 years. :)
>A panorama is too complicated of an interface? Or do you mean that a fully
>3d world would be too complicated of an interface? If so, what's the exact
>interface you have in mind? Surely we can improve upon it....
Perhaps you could have a mouse interface where you move toward the
point where you point the mouse and press down the button... But
still, I'm not sure about that. If you let them look up at ALL, then
they'll have a tough time getting it centered again, and that's really
irritating. Maybe if you made it so when they put the mouse up at the
top of the screen it bagan to scroll up (withvariable rates as you get
closer to the edge) and then it snapped back immediately to center
when you moved away from the top...
But with such an interface, how then do you allow the player to
"activate" something? Clicking is the most obvious way. But you're
already using thta for movement. If you use a double click, well,
I've heard that MS is gonna be getting rid of it in future versions of
Windows... So if they do that, then it might not be second nature to
people anymore, and it might lead to confusion.
But I'm stil not certain that a fully 3D world wouldn't give the
player too much information to digest.
>Because...?
Because a Quake like interface would suck for playing Riven. :)
Because it encourages me to run around fast, and it would be too
confusing for most people. I've tried to have my dad play Duke Nukem
before. He managed to walk into a wall and get stuck. See the
problem? :)
Robert Blum
[snip]
>Well, I personally am not interested in Quicktime VR, I see it as a
>panoramic slideshow rather than a still slideshow. I think panoramic
>slideshows are more immsersive than stills, but they still have the same
>authorial problem that you can't really "do" anything with them, you can
>only look at them.
functions/light fields, and *if* those can be made to run on the average PC,
the 'conventional' 3D gfx will look worse by far. It will probably end up as
light fields providing the scenery and 'conventional' (in lack of a better
word) 3D gfx will provide the interactive parts.
[snip]
>> It does do all sorts of cool shit. You can raise a ship out of the
>> water, you can go to the top of a tree and see the whole island, you
>> can rotate the tower. You can make the big gear turn so you can get at
>> a book...
>
>Yeah, but at another level you're just pushing hypercard buttons to watch
>different slideshows.
That's the whole problem. You're looking at it from the wrong level. That's
the level of the computer guru. The average user will *not* know what's
under the hood. He just sees you can do 'all sorts of cool shit'.
That's like watching a movie: Joe Average is entertained. Those of us who
are interested in the *art* of movie making will look at the points when
cuts are done, what music is used to achieve what effects, and so on.
As soon as you try understanding art you're loosing the emotional viewpoint.
And art is (IMHO) about emotions.
>> Yeah. For example, why isn't there a single game which is like a
>> romance novel? Personally, I'd never read that crap.
They're great if you want you subconscience to work on a hard problem. They
provide some sort of noise (definitely PINK noise :-) to keep the conscious
parts of your brain occupied.
Of course, reading all the advocacy in r.g.p helps too :-)
>>But women love
>> it. You'd think someone would have thought of making a game based
>> around that.
I have. But I'm still not content with what I've come up with so far.
Another problem is that computers are (at least here in Europe) mostly used
by males, so my audience would be quite small.
>Some have thought of it. As some older friends of mine pointed out the
>other day, women are very competitive, just within different spheres. Need
>a "fashion wars" game or some such (for a particular - and large - class of
>women.) Dress better than her.
May I guess that these friends are male? :-)
> My friend also observed that the emotional
>gut-wrenching of having a fight with your husband, having an affair, and
>getting caught are the female equivalent of the male cliff-hanger, blow the
>enemy up with a grenade at close quarters kind of action schtick. Soap
>operas know this and play/prey upon it.
Yep, that's getting close to it. But I really think that you (read: we all)
need female advice to get a 'for girls/women' game going. Most suggestions
I've seen from male designers to date are just repetitions of male
stereotypes. Well, we'll see if the female speakers at the CGDC will be
enlightning :-) (As a sidenote: Anybody else going there and interested in
meeting person-to-person?)
Bye,
Robert
Brandon Van Every
tend
> >to see everything in terms of tradeoffs and problems that need to be
> >solved: sure one *could* make a crummy game, but if one can specify what
> >the problem is, can't one do better?
>
> Well you *migtht* be able to make a good game like Myst that allows
> complete freedom. But the chances of that are 1 in a million.
> Chances are, you'll make some mistake along the way which turns it
> into a dismal failure.
Since when is excelling at anything about "chances?" It's not! It's about
putting a lot of effort into something and staying abreast of "where the
real world is going" as much as you can manage. If you take these kinds of
problems very seriously, you *will* have a measurable effect on the games
industry. I'm not saying Quake or Myst notoriety but you can certainly
produce a good game concept that greatly influences the work of others.
Now, if you aren't putting your full energy into the problem, and you don't
have time because stupid job matters keep pestering you, then indeed you're
leaving it to someone else's crapshoot.
In general I have the anti-authoritarian attitude that chances are things
to be weighed and considered. They are not to be controlled by. Sure your
chance of being the next Michael Jordan is small. But this belies the fact
that someone *is* Michael Jordan, and he got to where he is through HARD
WORK. More work than most athletes were/are willing to put in.
> For example, if you require hardware renderers (at this point in time)
> you'll cut out most of the people who'd play the game. And if you
> require too much processor power, you'll cut out a large segement of
> the market which Myst is probably selling to. Riven doesn't require
> top-endd hardware. I played it perectly fine on my Cyrix P133, with a
> 4x CD-ROM. That's anchient technology these days. :)
How do you figure this? Anybody with a Pentium PCI system can buy a decent
3d accelerator today for $200. And Pentiums are all but obsolete. Let's
say you started writing your game today and shipped it in 1 year. By then
the Pentiums will be completely obsolete, the 300 MHz Pentium II will be
shipping at consumer price points, and yesteryear's 3d accelerator will
cost $60. Probably could shove all this stuff into a sub-$1000 PC a year
from now.
3D rendering is "solved." That's not the issue.
>
> And lets say you manage to make it run on most hardware well. Well,
> you might do the graphics badly. Or you might choose an unappealing
> setting. Or you might get a oublisher that doesn't advertise it
> enough. Or you might make the interface too complicated...
Maybe maybe maybe. Your original assertion was that a "Make Myst Real"
project would fail because it's 3d. But what you've described above, are
the pitfalls of any gaming project in any genre! This doesn't stop people
from writing good games, they deal with the problems and overcome them.
Let me ask more clearly this time: what would be a pitfall specific to a
"Make Myst Real in 3D" project? I'm sure you can think of good specific
reasons (like some of the ones you mention below). And I'm equally sure
that the denizens of r.g.p can find equally good approaches to overcoming
the problems.
> beforehand on really powerful hardware, you're not gonne be sucessful
> at duplicating it in realtime for at least 5 years. :)
I'm not talking about duplicating the rendering quality of Riven right now,
but even 3d shooters are starting to look pretty decent with all the alpha
blends and so forth. I personally am not of the camp that something must
be full-fidelity to sell to average consumers. We can get close enough to
make the $$$$$$.
> >A panorama is too complicated of an interface? Or do you mean that a
fully
> >3d world would be too complicated of an interface? If so, what's the
exact
> >interface you have in mind? Surely we can improve upon it....
>
> Perhaps you could have a mouse interface where you move toward the
> point where you point the mouse and press down the button... But
> still, I'm not sure about that. If you let them look up at ALL, then
> they'll have a tough time getting it centered again, and that's really
> irritating.
Dark Forces et al solves this with a view centering key. In a Myst-like
game it's probably even easier because the centering doesn't have to have a
combat focus. You could just pre-ordain some logical points of centering,
and when the user hits "center" they are directed to the nearest centering
view. A more aggressive system could also physically relocate the player
so their view is good. This is a compromise with the "guided tour"
approach to virtual worlds: it's there if the user wants it.
If having the user make an explicit choice is too complicated, put them on
a time clock and re-set them after some interval. Set the option up for
newbies and allow more sophisticated users to turn it off. Or, ask the
user at the outset what "style" of navigation they'd prefer. Roam freely,
semi-guided, fully guided, etc.
Navigation is indeed an issue but it's hardly an unsolveable one. I'd be
much more worried about manipulation!
> But with such an interface, how then do you allow the player to
> "activate" something? Clicking is the most obvious way. But you're
> already using thta for movement. If you use a double click, well,
> I've heard that MS is gonna be getting rid of it in future versions of
> Windows... So if they do that, then it might not be second nature to
> people anymore, and it might lead to confusion.
Right mouse click. Have them hit the space bar. Make a bunch of things
automatically highlighted and have them alternate through them with the TAB
key, just like a form in their other apps. Have a sidebar of icons, one of
them is for MOVE mode, another is for USE mode. This isn't a fast-paced
combat game so the user has time to make a modal switch with simple mouse
clicks, yes? I don't think modal selection is a big issue in a Myst-like
game, some kind of butt-simple novice interface could be devised. You
could even have Quake-like speed elements in the game somewhere, as long as
it was geographically separate and the users were ready for it when it
came. Can't have everyone "armed and dangerous" all the time though,
that's not good for the average home consumer.
> Because a Quake like interface would suck for playing Riven. :)
> Because it encourages me to run around fast,
Hey presto, nobody's trying to kill you anymore. Do you still need to run
around fast?
Actually, I find what you say amusing even in DOOM-like games. I'm a big
fan of sneaking around veeery slowly, i.e. like someone in the real world
who's afraid of getting his head blown off.
> and it would be too
> confusing for most people. I've tried to have my dad play Duke Nukem
> before. He managed to walk into a wall and get stuck. See the
> problem? :)
So, bounce a stuck player off a wall. And automatically re-orient them.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Brandon Van Every
Robert Blum <r.b...@advertainment.remove_this.com> wrote in article
<6evrfq$7av$1...@news.seicom.net>...
> the 'conventional' 3D gfx will look worse by far. It will probably end up
as
> light fields providing the scenery and 'conventional' (in lack of a
better
> word) 3D gfx will provide the interactive parts.
There will always be tradeoffs between motion and visual fidelity. It's
just a series of authorial tradeoffs, nothing to lose sleep over. Canned
animations will provide better fidelity than any realtime technique,
they're appropriate when/if they're appropriate. Maybe the best system
would be one that could seamlessly integrate all the available techniques,
so that the illusion of virtual presence is sustained?
> >Yeah, but at another level you're just pushing hypercard buttons to
watch
> >different slideshows.
> That's the whole problem. You're looking at it from the wrong level.
That's
> the level of the computer guru.
I'd say it's also my perspective as an experienced adventure gamer.
> The average user will *not* know what's
> under the hood. He just sees you can do 'all sorts of cool shit'.
> That's like watching a movie: Joe Average is entertained. Those of us who
> are interested in the *art* of movie making will look at the points when
> cuts are done, what music is used to achieve what effects, and so on.
But a lot of Joe Averages aren't that docile. They want their socks
knocked off, and neither Myst nor Riven has the production values of
Jurassic Park. Last time I observed Joe Average playing Myst, it was my
next door neighbors. They didn't see the point of the game, got bored, and
put it down. Maybe because all the little hypercard buttons don't really
"do" anything and are too tedious to manipulate? The reward curve for a
user's trouble at clicking and dragging isn't sufficient? No filmmaker
abandons his/her knowledge of the medium....
> As soon as you try understanding art you're loosing the emotional
viewpoint.
> And art is (IMHO) about emotions.
As I said earlier, the box cover art of the 1st island had GREAT emotional
impact. But, then the rest of the game failed to live up to the promise
that the box cover art seemingly offered. Myst is more successful as a
pre-game psychological experience than as an actual game. As an IMAGINARY
game, Myst is at its greatest depth. Same reason a flat, non-moving
painting can be emotionally compelling. But once you really get into what
Myst does, it falls flat on its face.
I bet if you did a survey of people who bought Myst, people who *liked*
Myst, and people who *finished* Myst, you'd have this enormous downward
curve.
> >Some have thought of it. As some older friends of mine pointed out the
> >other day, women are very competitive, just within different spheres.
Need
> >a "fashion wars" game or some such (for a particular - and large - class
of
> >women.) Dress better than her.
> May I guess that these friends are male? :-)
The "dress to kill" idea was mine, you can fault me for it. I've had
plenty of female friends tell me about how women don't dress for guys, they
dress for each other and are very catty about it. This is 100% true of a
particular and very large class of women. I didn't say the product would
appeal to all women (assuming it could be successfully product-ized.)
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Robert Blum
Brandon Van Every wrote
>Robert Blum <r.b...@advertainment.remove_this.com> wrote in article
><6evrfq$7av$1...@news.seicom.net>...
>> the 'conventional' 3D gfx will look worse by far. It will probably end up
>as
>> light fields providing the scenery and 'conventional' (in lack of a
>better
>> word) 3D gfx will provide the interactive parts.
>
>There will always be tradeoffs between motion and visual fidelity. It's
>just a series of authorial tradeoffs, nothing to lose sleep over. Canned
>animations will provide better fidelity than any realtime technique,
>they're appropriate when/if they're appropriate.
I'm *not* talking about canned animations. A plenoptic function describes
the set of all possible environment maps for a given scene. IOW: A plenoptic
function completely describes a *static* scene. It's also known as 'image
based rendering'. The SigGraph 95 proceedings have a nice introduction to
it.
>Maybe the best system
>would be one that could seamlessly integrate all the available techniques,
>so that the illusion of virtual presence is sustained?
That's what I was getting at.
>> >Yeah, but at another level you're just pushing hypercard buttons to
>watch
>> >different slideshows.
>> That's the whole problem. You're looking at it from the wrong level.
>That's
>> the level of the computer guru.
>
>I'd say it's also my perspective as an experienced adventure gamer.
Well, Myst is more of a first-timer experience. No seasoned gamer has really
liked it :-)
>> The average user will *not* know what's
>> under the hood. He just sees you can do 'all sorts of cool shit'.
>> That's like watching a movie: Joe Average is entertained. Those of us who
>> are interested in the *art* of movie making will look at the points when
>> cuts are done, what music is used to achieve what effects, and so on.
>
>But a lot of Joe Averages aren't that docile. They want their socks
>knocked off, and neither Myst nor Riven has the production values of
>Jurassic Park.
Well, actually Jurassic Park is quite similar to Myst. It had *great* PR,
amazing pictures, and plain sucked. It was a boring and illogical movie. (JP
II being even worse...)
>Last time I observed Joe Average playing Myst, it was my
>next door neighbors. They didn't see the point of the game, got bored, and
>put it down.
This *is* a common effect of Myst. Yet, there is a *big* fan community. It
would be interesting to analyze the differences between the two groups.
>Maybe because all the little hypercard buttons don't really
>"do" anything and are too tedious to manipulate? The reward curve for a
>user's trouble at clicking and dragging isn't sufficient?
Depends. If you want to see nice pictures, Myst is rewarding. If you want
some kind of thrill or experience, a little dose of valium is more exciting
than Myst.
> No filmmaker
>abandons his/her knowledge of the medium....
Neither did the creators of Myst. They were artists and knew how to make
good pictures.
>> As soon as you try understanding art you're loosing the emotional
>viewpoint.
>> And art is (IMHO) about emotions.
>As I said earlier, the box cover art of the 1st island had GREAT emotional
>impact. But, then the rest of the game failed to live up to the promise
>that the box cover art seemingly offered.
If you see myst in the traditional light of games, yes. Myst was no _game_
in the sense you commonly used it. Myst was an experience. And the same
experience can be boring to one person, and ultimately fascinating to the
next.
Myst was the first game to cause _emotions_. IMHO, that's the whole point
about its success as to having a fan group. The commercial success largely
stems from bundeling and the 'look what my PC can do' symptom.
>Myst is more successful as a
>pre-game psychological experience than as an actual game. As an IMAGINARY
>game, Myst is at its greatest depth. Same reason a flat, non-moving
>painting can be emotionally compelling. But once you really get into what
>Myst does, it falls flat on its face.
Only if you view Myst as a _traditional_ game. It's not. It is something
completely different. And that is the reason why Myst is not applicable to
most games.
>I bet if you did a survey of people who bought Myst, people who *liked*
>Myst, and people who *finished* Myst, you'd have this enormous downward
>curve.
I'm not sure about that, but without having the data we all can imagine
every curve we like. Are there any figures like this? I don't think there's
much research going on as to what makes computer games successful.
>> >Some have thought of it. As some older friends of mine pointed out the
>> >other day, women are very competitive, just within different spheres.
>Need
>> >a "fashion wars" game or some such (for a particular - and large - class
>of
>> >women.) Dress better than her.
>> May I guess that these friends are male? :-)
>
>The "dress to kill" idea was mine, you can fault me for it.
I'm not going to fault you for it. I just was sure that it was a male idea
and wanted to know if I was right.
> I've had
>plenty of female friends tell me about how women don't dress for guys, they
>dress for each other and are very catty about it.
Well, last I asked, most of the women I knew dressed just for their own
pleasure, not for anybody else. Sure, they do want to look great. But they
do not want to look great to show it to the girl next door.
(After all, they already *are* more beautiful than that tart ;-)
>This is 100% true of a
>particular and very large class of women. I didn't say the product would
>appeal to all women (assuming it could be successfully product-ized.)
I would guess it wouldn't appeal to many women at all. Even if we accepted
the premise they dress competitively (which I consider debatable), it is too
much of an everyday task to be really appreciated. That would be like
simulating day-to-day office mobbing or highway traffic at 5pm for males.
And since games, after all, are just methods to escape from the real world,
this would not be much fun.
It could only be a part of a larger game. (To be completely stereotypical: A
game where a girl wants to impress the pirate who kidnapped here, but does
want to think him she dislikes him. Now what dress to choose :-)
Bye,
Robert
Nikolaus Strater
Hi!
I hit upon your discussion and would like to make a few observations.
>Linearity isn't the spawn of depraved, evil designers. It's an
>acceptable design feature. But -- and this is *very* important -- it
>*must* be used in context. Myst's themes make the choice of restricted
>motion a damned good one. The point of the game isn't to spend hours
>strolling around the pretty scenery. The point is to find out *why*
>you're in it, and what you're going to do about it.
>If Cyan had allowed the player a totally free range of motion, it would
>have gone a fair way towards shattering the illusion of restriction.
A very good point you are making here, that Restriction can be an
incredibly useful thing. I also realised this some time too, and I
believe the problem of *absolute overkill* in games, with *multimedia*
stuff and 3d-motion, is going to be an increasing problem. In fact,
many shoddy games now just throw millions of totally unrelated things
together, and producers are slowly (hopefully) realising that people
simply don't want that. They want things which are properly connected
with each other, things that *make sense*.
Of course, you can't do completely without nice graphics nowadays, but
the ideas behind the game, why you're in it and what you're supposed
to do, must, as you said, have a deeper sense to it. In Myst they did
both things right: beautifully designed locations PLUS this mysterious
idea of people being trapped in books, so that at first you didn't
know *what* the hell was going on, and then being overcome with the
wonder of it all.
But I don't agree with other things you say about Myst: the
controls/freedom of motion are to my mind utterly pathetic in Myst,
and not much better in the followup, Riven.
Also I think you're raising it far too high. The reason why it sold 4
million copies is because there just isn't anything on the market
which is even remotely well thought out. Ok, so there may be 2 or 3
other adventure games (I enjoyed Cryo's Atlantis quite a lot for
example), but not many. Most are just the usual type: throw together a
few graphic, sound and computer designers, let them work for a year,
and that's all it takes...
But it takes two little bits, two crucial bits more: a good storyline,
and a never-ceasing attention to detail, to keep connecting things up
with each other, so they make sense. As you said: when even the trees
change from one frame to the next - who's going to fall for that! A
little thing like that will instantly destroy the player's vision, his
or her fantasy of the place and the situation they're in - and Bingo!
another cd in the bin, another bomb for the producer...
Anyway, I'm beginning to ramble... :-)
Over and out.
kol
Brandon Van Every
Sean Timarco Baggaley <stbag...@hotmail.com> wrote in article
<S7ZWbJAR...@dial.pipex.com>...
> In article <01bd5196$f3b1c520$1183...@hammurabi.blarg.net>, Brandon Van
> Every <vane...@blarg.net> writes
>
> >I mostly agree! In fact my personal ambition over the next 2 years is
to
> >develop technologies that will "Make Myst Real" instead of simply being
a
> >slideshow.
>
> Bad idea. Myst (and Riven) were designed *WITH* that user interface
> specifically in mind.
Well I don't really think *any* idea can be "bad" in such an incomplete
state of abstraction. Although I agree with much of what you say, you have
a number of assumptions that I don't share. You see the problems but
you're not looking for the way forwards, you're saying that you already
have the answers and that there's nothing to solve.
> Take the infamous Quake. Themes? Freedom, Exploration and Violence. The
> freedom is conveyed primarily by the user interface. the full motion 3D
> offers a complete freedom of movement. Contrast this with the
> restrictive, confining feel of Myst. And realise that that feel is
> *intentional*. It's an inherent part of the game.
I always thought it was an artifact of the lock-and-key adventure game
genre. Sure you can find a good way to dress up and justify the
restrictions, it's an art. But that's where the restrictions are coming
from. If you want to see "theory" thrown at this problem, crank up
DejaNews and look for back-posts in rec.arts.int-fiction on the subject
"Nonlinearity."
> I can see a "linearity vs. freedom" argument coming a mile away, so let
> me explain:
Indeed. :-)
> If Cyan had allowed the player a totally free range of motion, it would
> have gone a fair way towards shattering the illusion of restriction.
You are making the mistake of assuming that plot development in a Myst-like
game has to be about exploring ever-expanding spatial areas via lock and
key problems. The fundamental nature of the game could instead be about
the physical manipulation of objects, for pleasure's sake. A goalless
game. I am not convinced that Joe Public even cares about "solving" games
like Myst. They are mainly concerned with enjoying them. Solving brain
puzzles is a gamer mentality.
> Or should the designer allow you only to pace and chafe in your tiny,
> claustrophobic room with those bare, concrete walls... that "leaking tap
> on the sink that's dripping, dripping, endlessly DRIPPING!" Should the
> designer not allow the player the *relevant*, mood-enhancing 'freedom'
> [always an illusion anyway] to tear that offending tap from the wall...
> and force a guard to enter the cell because water is flooding from the
> ruined plumbing...?
I would concentrate on the fascination value of ripping a faucet out of the
wall for its own sake. The whole world would be filled with such gizmos.
A crazy chaos of delightfully abstruse machines. A journey into the
surrealist subconscious.
> Why bother with a real-time 3D engine (which wasn't feasible back then,
> anyway)? Why bother allowing the player to visit each and every damned
> co-ordinate on those islands, when the gameplay would be much tighter if
> the player was restricted only to *important* aspects of the game?
Don't make the mistake of deciding for Joe Public what's "important." Joe
Public decides what's important to him. As far as revenue is concerned the
psychological satisfaction of Joe Public is key, nothing else. Joe Public
might be plenty happy to bounce beach balls off the Empire State Building,
just because it's an amusing thing to do.
Deciding a priori what the game "is about," is where traditional game
designers miss the potentials of the mass market. They're only tuned into
their tried-and-true notions of what they think is entertaining. To
outsiders, this looks suspiciously like a 10..35 year old male blood-fest.
> But 99% of people know *nothing* about what a computer can do. All they
> see is a magic box that lets them wiggle some tight-arsed virtual bint
> around.
I personally will buy a populist argument only to a point. Star Wars
changed the landscape of how special effects were done, even though people
were "pleased with" what came before.
> Beautifully rendered scenes in 3D Studio aren't as important as creating
> a believable *environment*. All too often, the 'competition' simply
> resorted to slideshows of often wildly differing styles. Architecture
> varied from scene; trees appeared to change species from shot to shot;
> actors camped things up so badly that you actually expected to see Sid
> James popping up at any moment.
Yes, Myst was a *good* slideshow.
> It's also worth pointing out that the Myst-style game clearly does not
> lend itself to multiplayer gaming.
I don't believe that at all. Someone has to return your serve from the
other side of the Empire State Building.
Get rid of all these ideas about goals and victories, just let your mind go
INSANE. DREAM. Then you will start to see how people can interact, and
why it could be compelling.
> [1] Utterly irrelevant aside: I think W. Gibson and N. Stephenson have
created
> the most ludicrous views of the future I have ever seen. "Cyberspace" is
such a
> stupid, utterly dense concept that I'm astonished to see so many people
-- who
> really should know better -- taking it up and applauding it as "the way
> forward".
>
> My reasoning? Simple: the best user interface is the one you're not aware
of.
> Cyberspace is the very antithesis of this well-known precept. There are
other,
> far better, and more likely, routes we can take.
Cyberspace appeals to the masses because it taps the surreal subconscious.
It is not a technology metaphor, it is a dream metaphor.
> How many people realise that there is a perfectly good computer in every
> computer's keyboard?
Perfectly good for what?
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Nikolaus Strater
>Don't make the mistake of deciding for Joe Public what's "important." Joe
>Public decides what's important to him.
"Joe Public" may yet surprise you!
kol
Brandon Van Every
>
> I'm *not* talking about canned animations. A plenoptic function describes
> the set of all possible environment maps for a given scene. IOW: A
plenoptic
> function completely describes a *static* scene. It's also known as 'image
> based rendering'. The SigGraph 95 proceedings have a nice introduction to
> it.
Ok, let me rephrase. From a given vantage point, canned animations will
provide better fidelity at a cheaper computational cost than any realtime
technique, including the image based rendering you mentioned. Which is
what I said before, or at least what I tried to imply. Image based
rendering is "neat" but you're paying a big cost to have data available
from every direction. Authorially, it is probably not necessary and maybe
not even desireable. But as we both said, integrate what you can. :-)
> >I'd say it's also my perspective as an experienced adventure gamer.
> Well, Myst is more of a first-timer experience. No seasoned gamer has
really
> liked it :-)
I liked aspects of it. I saw its potential to do more. Only part I
evaluated from a "pure gamer" standpoint was that horrible maze problem.
What an utter piece of shit!
> Well, actually Jurassic Park is quite similar to Myst. It had *great* PR,
> amazing pictures, and plain sucked. It was a boring and illogical movie.
(JP
> II being even worse...)
It wasn't boring, you just had to be willing to flow with the visceral
adrenaline of dinosaurs trying to eat you. If you couldn't flow with that
premise, well then yes you would probably be bored. Also depends on your
intrinsic fascination for dinosaurs and how impressed you were with the 3d
technology. At the time, I was impressed!
Two big plot holes piss me off to this day, though:
1) that kid could have grabbed the gun and shot the lizards when his sister
was doing the silly SGI navigator thing. Instead, he just stood by the
computer terminal watching his sister do stuff.
2) when the kid got the voltage on the electric fence, his hands should
have clamp-locked and he shoulda FRIED, mwuh-hah-hah-hah-hah-ha-ha-ha.....
> >Last time I observed Joe Average playing Myst, it was my
> >next door neighbors. They didn't see the point of the game, got bored,
and
> >put it down.
> This *is* a common effect of Myst. Yet, there is a *big* fan community.
It
> would be interesting to analyze the differences between the two groups.
Well, I knew some guys at Humongous Entertainment who opined that the
interface was a disaster. I'm tempted to concur. Since I grew up with
Macs before PCs, I had a nostalgia and appreciation for the improvements to
Hypercard that the general public surely doesn't share.
> Myst was the first game to cause _emotions_. IMHO, that's the whole point
> about its success as to having a fan group. The commercial success
largely
> stems from bundeling and the 'look what my PC can do' symptom.
The first? Was I just young and naive when I first did Zork I ? I was
*totally* sucked into the concept and the packaging, and what's more, the
game actually delivered.
Just to be sure we're not glossing over assumptions, what "emotions" are
you referring to anyways? Looking back, here's what I remember having a
deep response to:
0) falling into the crevice
1) the landscape of the 1st island, its apparent capability.
2) the classicism of the library building on the 1st island
3) the apparent potential of the rocket ship to take off.
4) the odd cultishness of the unintelligible speaking head in the treehouse
world,
and the crushing jaws. Sinister.
5) the secret chambers of the brothers under the lighthouse.
6) the Victorian/Turkish allusions to drug use and decadence.
7) the electric cage
8) the listening towers, as a sort of "last outpost"
9) the broken clock, possibly apocalyptic
10) the Jules Verne submarine
11) the inability to communicate through TV/radio screen fuzz.
12) imprisonment
And if I left it out, it probably didn't grab me so much. They had a lot
of good bits! But I guess like anything else, there's going to be the
crown jewels and the filler. Overall though, they were successful at
communicating a story through a landscape. They used the landscape as a
vehicle to transmit the IMAGINARY game, a game that occurs only within the
mind of the player and not with any buttons or interfaces.
It occurs to me now that text adventures had this property of working
directly upon a person's mind, rather than offering up an interactive
answer. Infocom even advertized it that way, "no computer has yet been
made that can make images as compelling as your brain," etc.
> >Myst is more successful as a
> >pre-game psychological experience than as an actual game. As an
IMAGINARY
> >game, Myst is at its greatest depth. Same reason a flat, non-moving
> >painting can be emotionally compelling. But once you really get into
what
> >Myst does, it falls flat on its face.
> Only if you view Myst as a _traditional_ game. It's not. It is something
> completely different. And that is the reason why Myst is not applicable
to
> most games.
Well, can you elaborate on how the traditions were broken?
> >The "dress to kill" idea was mine, you can fault me for it.
> I'm not going to fault you for it. I just was sure that it was a male
idea
> and wanted to know if I was right.
Well in a sense, no, you're not. It's a female competitive idea. It's
just a male thinking about putting it into a piece of software.
> > I've had
> >plenty of female friends tell me about how women don't dress for guys,
they
> >dress for each other and are very catty about it.
> Well, last I asked, most of the women I knew dressed just for their own
> pleasure, not for anybody else. Sure, they do want to look great. But
they
> do not want to look great to show it to the girl next door.
> (After all, they already *are* more beautiful than that tart ;-)
That's your friends. It's very naive to look at the overwhelming size of
the female fashion industry and not take it at face value for what it is.
> >This is 100% true of a
> >particular and very large class of women. I didn't say the product
would
> >appeal to all women (assuming it could be successfully product-ized.)
> I would guess it wouldn't appeal to many women at all. Even if we
accepted
> the premise they dress competitively (which I consider debatable), it is
too
> much of an everyday task to be really appreciated.
Are you kidding me??!? There are women who get dressed to go to the
grocery store, women who get dressed to do the laundry, women who get
dressed to get dressed....
> That would be like
> simulating day-to-day office mobbing or highway traffic at 5pm for males.
No, it isn't. You are a guy, and like most guys probably don't care about
clothes very much. Therefore you don't see the relevance. It's like a
woman not understanding why guys like to blow shit up.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Sean Timarco Baggaley
In article <01bd550b$4149d1c0$4483...@hammurabi.blarg.net>, Brandon Van
Every <vane...@blarg.net> writes
[...]
>> Bad idea. Myst (and Riven) were designed *WITH* that user interface
>> specifically in mind.
>Well I don't really think *any* idea can be "bad" in such an incomplete
>state of abstraction. Although I agree with much of what you say, you have
>a number of assumptions that I don't share. You see the problems but
>you're not looking for the way forwards, you're saying that you already
>have the answers and that there's nothing to solve.
I do see the answers. I just don't believe in eliminating *any* of the
options available to a designer. If restricted movement would improve
overall gameplay, I'll bloody well restrict it.
This is particularly applicable to 2D vs. 3D games: if I think a
particular game design will suck donkeys in 3D, but play like a dream in
2D, I'll go for 2D and hang the expense!
This thinking applies to *any* media. I see no reason why computer games
have the be an exception. Interactivity itself *is* a medium, so I'll
play and fiddle with that aspect as deeply as all the others.
Black-and-white graphics might provide a better atmosphere for a 'film
noir'-type adventure game. In the same vein, the removal of an input
requirement (eg. not requiring both keyboard *and* mouse) could also
enhance the gameplay.
Take that Action Supercross game that Glenn Corpes and others have been
going bananas about. Is that restriction to 2D a plus or a minus? Would
it have been as immediate a game -- as pick-up-and-playable a game in
3D?
Personally, I think not.
How you interface the game with the player is the most important part of
any game design.
[...]
>> Take the infamous Quake. Themes? Freedom, Exploration and Violence. The
>> freedom is conveyed primarily by the user interface. the full motion 3D
>> offers a complete freedom of movement. Contrast this with the
>> restrictive, confining feel of Myst. And realise that that feel is
>> *intentional*. It's an inherent part of the game.
>I always thought it was an artifact of the lock-and-key adventure game
>genre.
It hasn't been for some time. Even as far back as the early 1980s there
were fully animated adventure games. ("Valhalla", by Legend. ZX
Spectrum; ca. 1983.)
There's no reason why real-time 3D could not be used in an adventure
game today. System Shock did so to great effect some years ago.
But the problem with increasing freedom is the difficulty in providing
intuitive controls to access that freedom.
For instance, let's get back to Quake since bloody near everyone here
has probably played it at least once. How do you play it to best effect?
Most people appear to use keyboard and mouse together, with the keyboard
providing motion; mouse providing viewpoint.
Problem is, this is great for real-time action adventuring, but shite as
an interface to a logic puzzle: the simple fact that you have to use a
glorified 105-button joypad *AND* a mouse just to access *one* added
degree of freedom is a major obstacle.
There's also a trade-off with image quality. Even with the best 3D
accelerator cards available, we're not yet capable of creating real-time
visuals on a par with Myst or Riven's scenes. This leads to restrictions
for the game designer. Locations cannot have highly complex, varied
detailing and animations, for instance.
Quake's action-oriented nature allows it to get away with the relatively
poor image quality because it's nowhere near as important *what* the
doors and buttons look like, just so long as you can tell 'em apart. In
Myst, a machine can be tiny and intricately detailed, yet you can still
interface with it painlessly.
*
Game designers have to worry about the most fundamental aspect of any
media: effective communication of information. In a Quake-style game,
where the emphasis is on shooting things, you will eventually reach a
point of diminishing returns where render quality is concerned.
There's little advantage in creating photorealistic locations with
gorgeous carvings and intricate design worthy of a professional
architect, since the players aren't going to be hanging around to
decipher the individual hieroglyphics on that column over there. They'll
be too busy dodging the bullets.
Would the players really care if the engine was capable of rendering
bullets so accurately that their casings even show the rifling effects
of individual guns?
> Sure you can find a good way to dress up and justify the
>restrictions, it's an art.
Exactly.
> But that's where the restrictions are coming
>from. If you want to see "theory" thrown at this problem, crank up
>DejaNews and look for back-posts in rec.arts.int-fiction on the subject
>"Nonlinearity."
I'm not talking about "A -> B -> C ->D" I'm talking about linearity used
as one tool among many. I'm not going to advocate an adventure that has
only one, single, limiting path. But non-linearity in games is, by its
very nature, restricted to how well it can be simulated.
And in order to *effectively* simulate non-linearity, it often makes
sense to create linear sections to act as a contrast. (That old "You
cannot have Good without Evil" cliche is appropriate here.) And
linearity occurs in real life, so there's no point killing it off
completely.
If you got arrested and tossed into jail, the only way you could
progress physically, would be to get out of jail. You'd no longer be
free to go anywhere you like. You could only talk to the people in your
immediate vicinity.
Even in 'pure' environment simulations there's linearity. Take a game
like Elite or Frontier. How many modes of transport are there? Are you
free to invent your own?
And why is it only possible to achieve FTL travel with a single,
particular technology? Why aren't "hyperdrives" and "warp gates" *ever*
available in the same damned 'universe'? After all, we *already* have
the option of jets, internal combustion and electric propulsion...
These are classic examples of linearity masquerading as 'freedom'.
*
Going back to my earlier point about "communicating information", it's
worth reiterating my main point: you *can* have "too much information".
Data should *only* be communicated on a 'need to know' basis.
Don't add a feature just because you can. Add it because it *enhances*
the the gameplay.
>> I can see a "linearity vs. freedom" argument coming a mile away, so let
>> me explain:
>
>Indeed. :-)
>
>> If Cyan had allowed the player a totally free range of motion, it would
>> have gone a fair way towards shattering the illusion of restriction.
>
>You are making the mistake of assuming that plot development in a Myst-like
>game has to be about exploring ever-expanding spatial areas via lock and
>key problems.
You seem to have misunderstood me: I'm not talking about the meta-
gameplay, but the interface to that gameplay.
If a fly-on-the-wall documentary were shown uncut, don't you think you'd
eventually tire of seeing absolutely nothing of interest happening for
so long?
In Myst, the restricted interface has two, major advantages.
Firstly, it limits the physical interaction to a one-button mouse. The
fact that Myst was originated on Apple Macs certainly influenced this,
but there's also the fact that the player *never* has to resort to the
keyboard. Everything is accessible with the mouse. Movement, buttons,
levers, sliders and switches are controlled by one simple device.
Secondly, it *doesn't* rush you along. Scooting from place to place in
'headless chicken' mode is actively discouraged. There are no time
limits. It's got the same level of speed and adrenaline as "Solitaire".
Notice how those two points *automatically* make the game appeal to an
audience that does not want to be hurried along. The player isn't forced
into any particular pace; they've got all the time in the world.
Equally important: the player is *never* penalised for being a bit crap
with computing technology. If they make a wrong move with the mouse,
they can *always* correct the mistake.
This alone should make it obvious why Myst does so well outside the
hardcore games community.
> The fundamental nature of the game could instead be about
>the physical manipulation of objects, for pleasure's sake. A goalless
>game. I am not convinced that Joe Public even cares about "solving" games
>like Myst. They are mainly concerned with enjoying them. Solving brain
>puzzles is a gamer mentality.
Not strictly true IMHO.
Of all the people I know who actually played Myst from end to end,
*none* are members of the standard gaming clique. My sister played it
because she *enjoyed* the puzzle nature. Surprisingly, she didn't
actually classify it as a puzzle game. She considered it a game of
exploration; appealing the same mentality that likes to tinker with the
exhibits at the Science Museum.
The *process* of solving the puzzles is, apparently, as rewarding as
actually solving them. The means is as much fun as the end.
Sure, it's fairly linear, but many abstract games *are* fairly limited
in the choice they give a player. If I tried to move a rook diagonally
across a chessboard, I'd certainly be exploiting the freedom of the real
world... but it would still be an illegal move.
>> Or should the designer allow you only to pace and chafe in your tiny,
>> claustrophobic room with those bare, concrete walls... that "leaking tap
>> on the sink that's dripping, dripping, endlessly DRIPPING!" Should the
>> designer not allow the player the *relevant*, mood-enhancing 'freedom'
>> [always an illusion anyway] to tear that offending tap from the wall...
>> and force a guard to enter the cell because water is flooding from the
>> ruined plumbing...?
>I would concentrate on the fascination value of ripping a faucet out of the
>wall for its own sake. The whole world would be filled with such gizmos.
>A crazy chaos of delightfully abstruse machines. A journey into the
>surrealist subconscious.
Yup. That's certainly the main theme of Myst and Riven. "Discovery"
needn't be a physical process. Intellectual discovery is equally valid.
>> Why bother with a real-time 3D engine (which wasn't feasible back then,
>> anyway)? Why bother allowing the player to visit each and every damned
>> co-ordinate on those islands, when the gameplay would be much tighter if
>> the player was restricted only to *important* aspects of the game?
>Don't make the mistake of deciding for Joe Public what's "important."
Eh? When was the last time a good book was written using a democratic
process?
How often do cinematographers ask members of the public how they should
frame a shot?
Of course I should be deciding what's important: it's my *job!*
If Joe Public was any good at writing novels, composing music or
designing games, *everyone* would be writing best-sellers, outselling
Oasis and beating Romero at his own game.
> Joe
>Public decides what's important to him. As far as revenue is concerned the
>psychological satisfaction of Joe Public is key, nothing else. Joe Public
>might be plenty happy to bounce beach balls off the Empire State Building,
>just because it's an amusing thing to do.
That's marketing, not game design. It affects only my macro-level
decisions: "What genre shall I design for today? What's selling? *WHY*
is it selling?"
Micro-level decisions are mine and mine alone.
>Deciding a priori what the game "is about," is where traditional game
>designers miss the potentials of the mass market. They're only tuned into
>their tried-and-true notions of what they think is entertaining. To
>outsiders, this looks suspiciously like a 10..35 year old male blood-fest.
If Quake *clones* are actually selling in great numbers (which I
seriously doubt), then it makes sense for me to research the genre and
see if I can come up with a design for a Quake clone, as this is what
the publishers -- and Joe Public -- will be interested in.
If, on the other hand, I feel I have come up with the next Lemmings or
Populous, why *shouldn't* I try and turn concept into design?
How, exactly, does Joe Public *know* whether he wants a new genre if
they're never given the chance to try it out?
>> But 99% of people know *nothing* about what a computer can do. All they
>> see is a magic box that lets them wiggle some tight-arsed virtual bint
>> around.
>I personally will buy a populist argument only to a point. Star Wars
>changed the landscape of how special effects were done, even though people
>were "pleased with" what came before.
Yeah, but all the people *saw* were "cool spaceships". (Personally, I
thought Close Encounters and 2001 were far better, visually, than the
Star Wars movies. And 2001 predated Star Wars by almost a decade.)
[...]
>Yes, Myst was a *good* slideshow.
I do wish people would stop using that term. Myst was most emphatically
*not* a slideshow. How many slideshows have you seen where you could
manipulate the objects portrayed?
Sure Myst had bridging scenes to provide a visual continuity from
location to location, but those books and buttons and levers and gizmos
and gimcracks were *all* interactive.
If I press a photo of a button, I won't see a photo of a rotating
observatory.
From a programming perspective, it's a very simple game to write. But
technically advanced programming does not, of itself, lead to a hit
game. How else can you explain the continuing dearth of worthy rivals to
Myst after so many years?
Cyan's games *are* technically advanced; great design is an integral
part of great technology.
>> It's also worth pointing out that the Myst-style game clearly does not
>> lend itself to multiplayer gaming.
>I don't believe that at all. Someone has to return your serve from the
>other side of the Empire State Building.
>Get rid of all these ideas about goals and victories, just let your mind go
>INSANE. DREAM. Then you will start to see how people can interact, and
>why it could be compelling.
Different game.
My point was a Myst-style clone wouldn't lend itself to multiplayer
gaming. If you change the design as you suggest, it wouldn't *be* Myst-
style. :)
>> [1] Utterly irrelevant aside: I think W. Gibson and N. Stephenson have
>created
>> the most ludicrous views of the future I have ever seen. "Cyberspace" is
>such a
>> stupid, utterly dense concept that I'm astonished to see so many people
>-- who
>> really should know better -- taking it up and applauding it as "the way
>> forward".
>>
>> My reasoning? Simple: the best user interface is the one you're not aware
>of.
>> Cyberspace is the very antithesis of this well-known precept. There are
>other,
>> far better, and more likely, routes we can take.
>
>Cyberspace appeals to the masses because it taps the surreal subconscious.
>It is not a technology metaphor, it is a dream metaphor.
Nah. They like it because it sounds 'cool'. It's not science fiction,
it's science *fantasy*. There is a difference.
(And it probably explains why Star Trek is so popular: the populace at
large just can't tell the difference between plausible bullshit and 100%
pure bullshit.)
>> How many people realise that there is a perfectly good computer in every
>> computer's keyboard?
>Perfectly good for what?
Typing! Has your keyboard crashed yet? :)
--
Sean Timarco Baggaley
<mailto: whatever you damned well want @stimarco.cix.co.uk>
[Yup. Yet another email change. Using the older email address will still work,
but CIX 'strongly advise' putting my hostname after the '@'. My news headers
will be updated as soon as I can be arsed. "news@..." will do fine.]
E&OE
Acuity
"Robert Blum" <r.b...@advertainment.remove_this.com> wrote:
>Don't dispose it too early. Panoramic images are just the way to plenoptic
>functions/light fields, and *if* those can be made to run on the average PC,
>light fields providing the scenery and 'conventional' (in lack of a better
>word) 3D gfx will provide the interactive parts.
What the hell are you talking about? You went way over my head. :)
What is a plenoptic function/light feild? Do you mean something like
a hologram?
Acuity
"Brandon Van Every" <vane...@blarg.net> wrote:
>Dark Forces et al solves this with a view centering key. In a Myst-like
>game it's probably even easier because the centering doesn't have to have a
>combat focus. You could just pre-ordain some logical points of centering,
>and when the user hits "center" they are directed to the nearest centering
>view. A more aggressive system could also physically relocate the player
>so their view is good. This is a compromise with the "guided tour"
>approach to virtual worlds: it's there if the user wants it.
A CENTER key? Come on. In a game like Myst? You're crazy. It's too
complicated for the average person. They'd have to read a manual to
play.
>If having the user make an explicit choice is too complicated, put them on
>a time clock and re-set them after some interval.
That idea stinks!
>user at the outset what "style" of navigation they'd prefer. Roam freely,
>semi-guided, fully guided, etc.
If you used those words, I'd choose "Roam-freely" because I'd think
that if I chose one of the other ones it meant that the game would
"solve" part of itself. You'd have to put a good paragraph
description of each mode on the screen so that people wouldn't
misinterpret it.
>Right mouse click.
No, the right mouse button would be taken up allowing you to move
backwards...
>Have them hit the space bar.
I considered that as well, but using a mouse & keyboard interface
would be getting too complicated.
>Make a bunch of things automatically highlighted and have them alternate through them with the TAB
>key, just like a form in their other apps.
That idea sucks, it would ruin the immersiveness of the world if you
saw things like handles change color and stuff.
>Have a sidebar of icons, one of them is for MOVE mode, another is for USE mode.
Icon based interfaces also suck. Myst is good because it has an
extremely simple interface. You propose to make a game as good as
Myst in true 3D, but you want to make the interface much more
complicated. Like I said, my dad couldn't even handle moving Duke
Nukem around. People like him, which are a large portion of the
people you should be targetting, can't deal (or don't wish to deal)
with a complex interface.
>This isn't a fast-paced combat game so the user has time to make a modal switch with simple mouse
>clicks, yes?
Sure, but a "modal" interface destroys the immersiveness. You don't
see icons on the side of your vision when you walk through the real
world, why would you in Myst?
>Hey presto, nobody's trying to kill you anymore. Do you still need to run
>around fast?
It doesn't matter. It's been tested by the guys at Cyan. They found
it didn't work well. I beleive it. I can see that happening. I
don't walk around slowly in Quake 2 looking at anything even when I
have killed all the monsters.
You also have to remember that once you move to true 3D, you have no
control over what the world looks like from an art standpoint. In
Myst, they can choose views which look good. I'm sure there were lots
of views which looked really poor.
>Actually, I find what you say amusing even in DOOM-like games. I'm a big
>fan of sneaking around veeery slowly, i.e. like someone in the real world
>who's afraid of getting his head blown off.
You're not looking at anything while you're doing it. You're watching
for motion. And if you saw something interesting, you'd run right up
to it. Quake secrets are a real bitch to find, even when you're
looking for them. That little button's hidden behind a crate, or up
on the ceiling... Do you expect them to examine the ceiling closely
EVERYWHERE they go for clues?
>So, bounce a stuck player off a wall. And automatically re-orient them.
That would be jarring and unnatural.
Brandon Van Every
> In article <01bd550b$4149d1c0$4483...@hammurabi.blarg.net>, Brandon Van
> Every <vane...@blarg.net> writes
>
> gorgeous carvings and intricate design worthy of a professional
> architect, since the players aren't going to be hanging around to
> decipher the individual hieroglyphics on that column over there. They'll
> be too busy dodging the bullets.
Actually I don't quite agree. The occasional detail is indeed beautiful
and worthy. As the artists would say, the key is drawing a few grapes in
detail and the rest of the bunch as gesture.
> >You are making the mistake of assuming that plot development in a
Myst-like
> >game has to be about exploring ever-expanding spatial areas via lock and
> >key problems.
>
> You seem to have misunderstood me: I'm not talking about the meta-
> gameplay, but the interface to that gameplay.
Actually we've been talking at cross-purposes, no doubt because I was
somewhat cryptic in my earlier replies. When I'm worried about linearity
or not, I'm worried about narrative and story. I'm not worried about the
3d interface. There's nothing magical about a 3d interface that says you
have to let the person go everywhere or be totally in charge of all of
their actions. You can limit their interactions just as you can with any
other interface. Or expand their interactions. To me, linearity is a
narrative issue, not a 3d interface issue.
I do believe, however, that whimsical surrealist 3d machines are a
narrative device that's not been much explored, and there is much potential
here. To explore the potentials, it is helpful to think in terms of a
goalless game. People can bounce beach balls off of famous landmarks like
the Eiffel Tower because it's fun and they can relate to it. They don't
have to be competitive or keep score. It might be fun to press a button on
some crazy flying machine, watch it hurl itself into the air, and then
crash. Repeat ad nauseum until it's no longer a majestic experience.
Me personally, I don't think mouse issues are important. Sure, they're
important at the level of designing a reasonable interface. But they are
not important as far as what the product is or why it would be successful,
IMHO. I believe Myst was *psychologically* successful. It wasn't some
schtick having to do with lazy users wanting only easy mouse clicks. Other
multimedia slideshow mouse click games have come along and they have done
poorly.
> >Don't make the mistake of deciding for Joe Public what's "important."
>
> Eh? When was the last time a good book was written using a democratic
> process?
You're a snob. :-) "Good" and "popular" are often two different things,
but some populist artists manage to pull off both. Salvador Dali, for
example.
> How often do cinematographers ask members of the public how they should
> frame a shot?
Actually, the final movie is frequently pre-screened with different
audiences to find out if the endings are acceptable. Often the endings are
changed according to the feedback, to make a more successful product.
> Of course I should be deciding what's important: it's my *job!*
But as you make your decisions, don't limit yourself solely to your mental
box of what you personally consider fun. Other people's ideas about fun
are worth listening to as well, and they won't necessarily pollute your
creative self. I don't think most of the games industry is even bothering
to listen to what the general public might enjoy. They're too busy
cranking out the next Doom clone. There are good reasons why Myst/Riven
have no competition, nobody else is listening to or thinking about Joe/Jane
Public.
> If Joe Public was any good at writing novels, composing music or
> designing games, *everyone* would be writing best-sellers, outselling
> Oasis and beating Romero at his own game.
Who says gamers writing games by gamers for gamers are any damn good at
anything else?
> > Joe
> >Public decides what's important to him. As far as revenue is concerned
the
> >psychological satisfaction of Joe Public is key, nothing else. Joe
Public
> >might be plenty happy to bounce beach balls off the Empire State
Building,
> >just because it's an amusing thing to do.
>
> That's marketing, not game design.
Beachballs sound like game design to me.
> It affects only my macro-level
> decisions: "What genre shall I design for today? What's selling? *WHY*
> is it selling?"
>
> Micro-level decisions are mine and mine alone.
I believe in integrated products and processes, not macro-micro finger
pointing about who's the suit and who's the programmer. You have to decide
if you're serving your own inner artistic needs, but it is possible to do
that and make a product that impresses the hell out of Joe Public as well.
Just think a little, shut up the bean counters, and do what needs to be
done.
Let's put it this way. Let's say it's YOUR capital investment on the line.
You want to do your dream project, but you also want to make money. How
do you proceed?
> How, exactly, does Joe Public *know* whether he wants a new genre if
> they're never given the chance to try it out?
Well at this point I don't care because I see Myst/Riven as an almost
completely untapped genre that's totally compatible with my authorial
interests. I just want to take it one step further in the mind-blowing
dept.
> >I personally will buy a populist argument only to a point. Star Wars
> >changed the landscape of how special effects were done, even though
people
> >were "pleased with" what came before.
>
> Yeah, but all the people *saw* were "cool spaceships". (Personally, I
> thought Close Encounters and 2001 were far better, visually, than the
> Star Wars movies. And 2001 predated Star Wars by almost a decade.)
You're not just a snob, you're an intellectual snob. :-) Come on, the
realistic esoterica of 2001 is better than blowing up the fuckin' Death
Star??!? 2001 appeals to the cinematographer. Star Wars appeals to
everyone who ever gave a rip about spaceships, and did the job better than
any movie that came before it.
Look I don't have anything at all against snobbery, I have plenty high
standards for what I actually like and what I want to see in my own work.
But it is foolish to cut yourself off from mass tastes solely because they
are mass tastes. Sometimes those mass tastes are, well, based on quality.
Maybe not the kind of quality that personally turns you on, but a
legitimate deliverance of quality nonetheless. To say Star Wars or
Jurrassic Park were sucky movies is just foolish. Within their areas of
strength they were *unrivalled* movies.
> >Yes, Myst was a *good* slideshow.
>
> I do wish people would stop using that term. Myst was most emphatically
> *not* a slideshow. How many slideshows have you seen where you could
> manipulate the objects portrayed?
YOU COULDN'T DO A GODDAMNED THING with any of those objects! It was a
bloody Hypercard slideshow! Click here, get a picture. Click there, get
an animation. Click here again, get a superimposed picture. Slideshow
slideshow slideshow.
> Cyan's games *are* technically advanced; great design is an integral
> part of great technology.
Give me a break. They have advanced studio production processes. The
runtime itself is the butt-simplest stuff in the known universe, by
deliberate design. Off-the-shelf Macromedia.
> >> It's also worth pointing out that the Myst-style game clearly does not
> >> lend itself to multiplayer gaming.
>
> >I don't believe that at all. Someone has to return your serve from the
> >other side of the Empire State Building.
>
> >Get rid of all these ideas about goals and victories, just let your mind
go
> >INSANE. DREAM. Then you will start to see how people can interact, and
> >why it could be compelling.
>
> Different game.
>
> My point was a Myst-style clone wouldn't lend itself to multiplayer
> gaming. If you change the design as you suggest, it wouldn't *be* Myst-
> style. :)
And I still don't agree with you. State *why* it's a different game. I
say it is now Myst with people sharing the experience together.
> >Cyberspace appeals to the masses because it taps the surreal
subconscious.
> >It is not a technology metaphor, it is a dream metaphor.
>
> Nah. They like it because it sounds 'cool'.
Our 2 statements are not contradictory here.
> It's not science fiction, it's science *fantasy*. There is a difference.
Does science fiction have to be based on logical extensions of current
technologies? Or, can it instead be based upon logical extensions of some
arbitrary set of core assumptions? In the latter test, a work is "fantasy"
only if it is not self-consistent.
> >> How many people realise that there is a perfectly good computer in
every
> >> computer's keyboard?
>
> >Perfectly good for what?
>
> Typing!
My point exactly. If it can't be used for anything else, who cares?
> Has your keyboard crashed yet? :)
Actually, given sufficient lemonade...
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Robert Blum
Brandon Van Every wrote
>Robert Blum <r.b...@advertainment.remove_this.com> wrote in article
><6f05mm$kvd$1...@news.seicom.net>...
>>
>> I'm *not* talking about canned animations. A plenoptic function describes
>> the set of all possible environment maps for a given scene. IOW: A
>plenoptic
>> function completely describes a *static* scene. It's also known as 'image
>> based rendering'. The SigGraph 95 proceedings have a nice introduction to
>> it.
>
>Ok, let me rephrase. From a given vantage point, canned animations will
>provide better fidelity at a cheaper computational cost than any realtime
>technique, including the image based rendering you mentioned.
Agreed. But canned animations are more restricting than the rendering
approach.
> Which is
>what I said before, or at least what I tried to imply. Image based
>rendering is "neat" but you're paying a big cost to have data available
>from every direction.
This cost is only big if I do not exploit the data. If I wanted to have the
same amount of viewpoints/directions available as animation, I'd better buy
into games split over 5-6 DVD's :-)
>Authorially, it is probably not necessary and maybe
>not even desireable. But as we both said, integrate what you can. :-)
OIC. You're following the story telling approach. I (currently) want to give
as much freedom to the player as possible. Just having a hidden director
who's influencing the play.
To elaborate a bit on this: There was a SigGraph demo of a nice dog (Silas
T. Dog). You would wear a VR helmet and be part of the scenery. Now the
storyteller wants you to give your attention to the dog.
If you don't do nothing, the dog starts barking. Still no reaction? He comes
over to you, wagging his tail. Still nothing? Well, he'd lift his leg at
your leg. This would usually get your attention :-)
>> Well, actually Jurassic Park is quite similar to Myst. It had *great* PR,
>> amazing pictures, and plain sucked. It was a boring and illogical movie.
>(JP
>> II being even worse...)
>
>It wasn't boring, you just had to be willing to flow with the visceral
>adrenaline of dinosaurs trying to eat you.
I was willing, but
a) the story was purely illogical
b) Mr. Spielberg was clearly playing the horror/disgust card in every scene
of the movie.
>If you couldn't flow with that
>premise, well then yes you would probably be bored. Also depends on your
>intrinsic fascination for dinosaurs
High. That was why I wanted to see this film.
>and how impressed you were with the 3d technology. At the time, I was
impressed!
Well, sort of. First, some of it was wasted effort. I saw a 'Making of'
report where they proudly stated how they rendered that glass of water when
the dinosaurs were coming near. Laughable. Did it *ever* occur to them that
they could achieve the same effect cheaper and faster without rendering?
Technology for technologies sake is not worth a thing.
Second, the quality was wildly differing. The dinosaur stampede was great.
The scene where the scientist first get to see the dinosaurs was *bad*. At
least all the shadows should point in the same direction if I am to believe
a scene.
>> Myst was the first game to cause _emotions_. IMHO, that's the whole point
>> about its success as to having a fan group. The commercial success
>largely
>> stems from bundeling and the 'look what my PC can do' symptom.
>
>The first? Was I just young and naive when I first did Zork I ? I was
>*totally* sucked into the concept and the packaging, and what's more, the
>game actually delivered.
Forgive me. Zork and all the Infocom adventures, that's a different world by
now. I simply forgot about them.
>Just to be sure we're not glossing over assumptions, what "emotions" are
>you referring to anyways? Looking back, here's what I remember having a
>deep response to:
I'm not able to come up with a list, sorry. It was rather that the whole
game caused feelings. It was *believable*.
>And if I left it out, it probably didn't grab me so much. They had a lot
>of good bits! But I guess like anything else, there's going to be the
>crown jewels and the filler. Overall though, they were successful at
>communicating a story through a landscape. They used the landscape as a
>vehicle to transmit the IMAGINARY game, a game that occurs only within the
>mind of the player and not with any buttons or interfaces.
Thanks for expressing it for me. :-)
>It occurs to me now that text adventures had this property of working
>directly upon a person's mind, rather than offering up an interactive
>answer. Infocom even advertized it that way, "no computer has yet been
>made that can make images as compelling as your brain," etc.
Yes, and that probably was the point of Myst. It left room for your brain to
wonder and form its own thoughts and pictures.
>> Only if you view Myst as a _traditional_ game. It's not. It is something
>> completely different. And that is the reason why Myst is not applicable
>to
>> most games.
>
>Well, can you elaborate on how the traditions were broken?
Myst is not a game in the sense you can *win*. It is the thing that came
closest to an interactive story with the exception of some of the old
InfoCom games. It excelled the Infocom games in that it had great graphics
that still did not destroy the story.
>> Well, last I asked, most of the women I knew dressed just for their own
>> pleasure, not for anybody else. Sure, they do want to look great. But
>they
>> do not want to look great to show it to the girl next door.
>> (After all, they already *are* more beautiful than that tart ;-)
>
>That's your friends. It's very naive to look at the overwhelming size of
>the female fashion industry and not take it at face value for what it is.
Well, what is it about? Don't you think it's about personal beauty? Most of
the advertisment is of the kind 'You can look as good as that supermodel',
not 'You can outdress your friends'
>> I would guess it wouldn't appeal to many women at all. Even if we
>accepted
>> the premise they dress competitively (which I consider debatable), it is
>too
>> much of an everyday task to be really appreciated.
>
>Are you kidding me??!?
Not really :-)
>There are women who get dressed to go to the
>grocery store, women who get dressed to do the laundry, women who get
>dressed to get dressed....
Yes, and this is why it is not interesting as a game. Of course, if you
could simulate your personal dresses and try out combinations, this might be
another thing. But I even doubt that. Where would be the fun of standing in
fron of an overflowing wardrobe and complaining about having *nothing* to
wear?
>> That would be like
>> simulating day-to-day office mobbing or highway traffic at 5pm for males.
>
>No, it isn't. You are a guy, and like most guys probably don't care about
>clothes very much.
This _is_ close to insult for me :-) It takes me about 30 minutes to choose
my clothes, and some further 45-60 to get ready to leave the house.
>Therefore you don't see the relevance. It's like a
>woman not understanding why guys like to blow shit up.
I see the relevance of dressing, but I do not believe women would like it as
a game. But as we both are males, we can only guess at it. Where are the
women in this group when you need them? ;-)
Wow, I'm impressed. We're discussing about at least 4 topics simultaneously,
in a sensible way, and nobody has started namecalling yet. Is this really
r.g.p? :-)
Bye,
Robert
Robert Blum
Plenoptic functions are functions that completely describe a *static* scene.
The set of all views from all viewpoints. Apples QTVR implements plenoptic
functions for a fixed viewpoint, but it is possible to extend that concept.
Light fields are, well, a description of the light distribution in space.
Something closely related to plenoptic functions. Hard to explain it, since
I'm trying to understand the whole concept of them myself :-)
Hope this explains it at least a bit. Ask again if I was too vague :-)
Bye,
Robert
Sean Timarco Baggaley
In article <3517858a....@news.earthlink.net>, Acuity
<ssw...@earthlink.net> writes
>"Brandon Van Every" <vane...@blarg.net> wrote:
[...]
>>Right mouse click.
>No, the right mouse button would be taken up allowing you to move
>backwards...
No the right mouse button doesn't *exist*. Not on a Mac, anyway. Unless
you're only aiming at the PC (or RiscOS!) market, this sort of
portability issue has to be considered in such a game.
[...]
>I considered that as well, but using a mouse & keyboard interface
>would be getting too complicated.
My point exactly. The user interface is one of the most important
aspects of game design.
--
Sean Timarco Baggaley
<mailto: whatever you damned well wa...@stimarco.cix.co.uk>
E&OE
Acuity
"Robert Blum" <r.b...@advertainment.remove_this.com> wrote:
>Well, sort of. First, some of it was wasted effort. I saw a 'Making of'
>report where they proudly stated how they rendered that glass of water when
>the dinosaurs were coming near. Laughable. Did it *ever* occur to them that
>they could achieve the same effect cheaper and faster without rendering?
>Technology for technologies sake is not worth a thing.
They didn't render that! They attached a guitar string to the bottom
of the cup, and then they plucked it to get those concentric rings.
There was no CGI involved.
>This _is_ close to insult for me :-) It takes me about 30 minutes to choose
>my clothes, and some further 45-60 to get ready to leave the house.
30 Minutes to choose your clothes?! :)
Sean Timarco Baggaley
In article <01bd5572$5ebe3b80$3383...@hammurabi.blarg.net>, Brandon Van
Every <vane...@blarg.net> writes
>Sean Timarco Baggaley <stbag...@hotmail.com> wrote in article
><19g$KDAy6H...@dial.pipex.com>...
>> In article <01bd550b$4149d1c0$4483...@hammurabi.blarg.net>, Brandon Van
>> Every <vane...@blarg.net> writes
>>
>> There's little advantage in creating photorealistic locations with
>> gorgeous carvings and intricate design worthy of a professional
>> architect, since the players aren't going to be hanging around to
>> decipher the individual hieroglyphics on that column over there. They'll
>> be too busy dodging the bullets.
>Actually I don't quite agree. The occasional detail is indeed beautiful
>and worthy. As the artists would say, the key is drawing a few grapes in
>detail and the rest of the bunch as gesture.
The occasional detail, yes. But in a game like Myst, "occasional" ain't
enough. You need shitloads of detail. Even Titian didn't expect people
to stand there and stare at his work for *hours* on end, trying to
decipher a note pinned to a tree.
Games like Myst need to include loads of incidental detail -- and that
also means animations and sound effects (some 'slideshow', huh?) to keep
a location interesting enough for the player to continue playing.
You can get away with drawing only a few incidental details in Quake,
but you'll never get away with that cursory detailing in a game like
Myst.
>> >You are making the mistake of assuming that plot development in a
>Myst-like
>> >game has to be about exploring ever-expanding spatial areas via lock and
>> >key problems.
>> You seem to have misunderstood me: I'm not talking about the meta-
>> gameplay, but the interface to that gameplay.
(Ugh! "Meta-gameplay"!! I'm beginning to sound like the lowest form of
sociologist...)
>Actually we've been talking at cross-purposes, no doubt because I was
>somewhat cryptic in my earlier replies. When I'm worried about linearity
>or not, I'm worried about narrative and story. I'm not worried about the
>3d interface. There's nothing magical about a 3d interface that says you
>have to let the person go everywhere or be totally in charge of all of
>their actions. You can limit their interactions just as you can with any
>other interface. Or expand their interactions. To me, linearity is a
>narrative issue, not a 3d interface issue.
Great, that's that argument sorted... :)
>I do believe, however, that whimsical surrealist 3d machines are a
>narrative device that's not been much explored, and there is much potential
>here.
Damned right. Unfortunately, it's bloody hard to get this sort of thing
right. So much depends on suspending the player's disbelief. You can't
just throw loads of disparate elements together and hope they work.
You also have to create a viable back-plot to explain these machines.
Unless you intend to create a more abstract game based solely on the
machines. (A sort of mechanical, Heath Robinson-esque form of Solitaire
might be an interesting R&D experiment. A different take on The
Incredible Machine.)
It's the back-story that helps make Myst such a good game. Machines are
massively interlinked; each follows a logical pattern. And each machine
is rewarding *in and of itself*, not just at the end.
It's probably not going too far to say that what we're looking at is a
very advanced version of a Fisher-Price Activity Centre.
> To explore the potentials, it is helpful to think in terms of a
>goalless game. People can bounce beach balls off of famous landmarks like
>the Eiffel Tower because it's fun and they can relate to it. They don't
>have to be competitive or keep score. It might be fun to press a button on
>some crazy flying machine, watch it hurl itself into the air, and then
>crash. Repeat ad nauseum until it's no longer a majestic experience.
Same fundamental attraction as the devices in Myst.
>Me personally, I don't think mouse issues are important. Sure, they're
>important at the level of designing a reasonable interface. But they are
>not important as far as what the product is or why it would be successful,
>IMHO. I believe Myst was *psychologically* successful. It wasn't some
>schtick having to do with lazy users wanting only easy mouse clicks. Other
>multimedia slideshow mouse click games have come along and they have done
>poorly.
Because they missed other points.
It is not enough to get just one or two aspects right, you have to get
*ALL* aspects right. The more of these aspects you can get right, the
better.
Get all of them right and you have get a 'classic'.
Get none of them right and you end up with 'shite'.
There are plenty of levels in between those two, depending on exactly
which aspects you manage to get right. But remember that not even Quake
can honestly be considered a 'classic'. ('Good'? Yes. 'Great'? Maybe.
But it's definitely not a 'Classic'.)
>> >Don't make the mistake of deciding for Joe Public what's "important."
>> Eh? When was the last time a good book was written using a democratic
>> process?
>You're a snob. :-)
Agreed! But then I *am* British, by gad! :)
> "Good" and "popular" are often two different things,
>but some populist artists manage to pull off both. Salvador Dali, for
>example.
"Ah! Good evernin' mister Dali! 'Ow's yer missus?"
"Oh, you know, 'ow you say... comme çi, comme ça? But tell me, Señor
Publiç: what would you like me to draw this week?"
"Well now, me an' me friends, right, we woz finkin', um, finkin' about a
meltin' pocket-watch with some of them ellyfant fings walkin abaht on
stilts, like..."
[Long pause. Dali stares at Mr. Publiç, then pulls himself together.
Dali coughs.]
"Certainly señor! By ze way, could I trouble you for some of zat opium?"
*
Somehow, I don't think so.
The thing is, you're talking about marketing and meeting public demand.
I see no problem with that; in fact, I perceive it as a part of the
design process. But I see it as closer to the 'specification' part of
conventional "systems analysis".
In the case of Dali, it's far more likely that a patron would ask for "a
painting". Occasionally, they might go so far as to specify a particular
*type* of painting -- "a portrait". But artists would prefer *not* to be
told *how* to paint.
Sure, a client might ask me to create "a game like Quake" (or, more
precisely, "a game aimed at taking over Quake's market share"). But I
sure as hell don't expect to be told: "our marketing department says you
*have* to replace that bloke and put in some scantily-clad tart
instead."
And, of course, if that initial specification is flawed there's not a
whole lot *anyone* will be able to do, without changing the spec.
>> How often do cinematographers ask members of the public how they should
>> frame a shot?
>Actually, the final movie is frequently pre-screened with different
>audiences to find out if the endings are acceptable. Often the endings are
>changed according to the feedback, to make a more successful product.
Yes. So? I've seen perfectly good films *ruined* in this way. Just
because some illiterate morons with 2-second attention spans in L.A.
suffering from a chronic case of 'Disney-itis' think a happy ending is
required, doesn't mean that the rest of the world agrees.
History is littered with films, novels and other artistic endeavours
that failed miserably outside of the US.
"Mars Attacks" and "Independence Day" are a classic example of this; the
former actually did quite well over here, whereas "Independence Day" was
invariably considered a sack of jingoistic shite. At least Tim Burton
has the decency not to insult his audience.
Besides, this practice is usuallythe result of a flawed spec (the
original plot) or a dodgy design (=script).
>> Of course I should be deciding what's important: it's my *job!*
>But as you make your decisions, don't limit yourself solely to your mental
>box of what you personally consider fun.
-- Wouldn't dream of it!
> Other people's ideas about fun
>are worth listening to as well, and they won't necessarily pollute your
>creative self. I don't think most of the games industry is even bothering
>to listen to what the general public might enjoy. They're too busy
>cranking out the next Doom clone. There are good reasons why Myst/Riven
>have no competition, nobody else is listening to or thinking about Joe/Jane
>Public.
*Exactly*. Everyone in this industry seems to be designing and writing
only for everyone else in this industry. Reviewers go apeshit about
"Awesome multiplayer games" -- a market so niche as to be little more
than a crevice. And reviewers do this solely because they have networked
machines at their offices.
Too often I've seen the same tired old argument about writing for the
cutting edge. But it's a lousy, pointless *CIRCULAR* argument. *Of
course* people with top-of-the-range Pentium IIs are the only ones
buying your games: they're the only ones who can *afford* to!
How would you react if you heard the same bollocks coming from Ford?
Why do you think the world of opera went through such an immense sea-
change recently? Rossini got away with writing *ITALIAN* operas for
performance in Covent Garden *because* the only ones who could actually
afford to see an opera were expected to be able to understand it. (Back
then, learning foreign languages was very popular among the upper
classes. It's why we still see menus in French at our more expensive
restaurants...)
But even opera finally imploded: it could not support itself as the
'upper classes' were eroded away by people with working-class tastes and
attitudes. Alan M Sugar ("Amstrad") didn't get where he is by throwing
hundreds of pounds away to stare at a bunch of overacting men and women
through a pair of binoculars, as they sang in a language he couldn't
understand.
The simple fact is that games, at present, are too expensive. The
requirement to write for high-end machines at all costs is partly to
exascerbated by this; why nobody seems interested in bypassing the
current farce which sees data being carted around in trucks escapes me.
There's no justifiable reason for this, other than complacency.
(And no, there's no need for all that packaging either. If audio CDs,
VHS tapes and even books can be packaged in standard cases, I can see
*NO* reason why this cannot also be applied to games. All you'd need at
the sales end is a CD writer, and a printing-on-demand system for the
sleeves. Hell, you could shove it all into a vending machine...)
>> If Joe Public was any good at writing novels, composing music or
>> designing games, *everyone* would be writing best-sellers, outselling
>> Oasis and beating Romero at his own game.
>Who says gamers writing games by gamers for gamers are any damn good at
>anything else?
Nobody.
And I'm not one of them. The last time I went out every month and bought
a game or two was back in 1989. I've owned a PC now for three years...
and only have six games. The last one I bought was Dungeon Keeper.
Of the six games I own, the only ones I play with any frequency are
Transport Tycoon Deluxe, and Carmageddon. I write games because I enjoy
the creative process; I program for the same reason others play Quake.
It's fun.
>> > Joe
>> >Public decides what's important to him. As far as revenue is concerned
>the
>> >psychological satisfaction of Joe Public is key, nothing else. Joe
>Public
>> >might be plenty happy to bounce beach balls off the Empire State
>Building,
>> >just because it's an amusing thing to do.
>> That's marketing, not game design.
>Beachballs sound like game design to me.
Yes, but the decision to go for that design is a marketing one. If the
public *didn't* want to play a game with beachballs, the design would
still exist. It's just that the final game probably wouldn't sell.
That the public may not be interested in a particular design because of
its genre, has nothing to do with that design's quality.
Tetris would still be Tetris, even if *nobody* had bought it.
>> It affects only my macro-level
>> decisions: "What genre shall I design for today? What's selling? *WHY*
>> is it selling?"
>> Micro-level decisions are mine and mine alone.
>I believe in integrated products and processes, not macro-micro finger
>pointing about who's the suit and who's the programmer. You have to decide
>if you're serving your own inner artistic needs, but it is possible to do
>that and make a product that impresses the hell out of Joe Public as well.
>Just think a little, shut up the bean counters, and do what needs to be
>done.
(Oops! Just re-read my original post. Bit of a mess in places. Serves me
write for scribbling off the top of my head in the middle of the
night...)
I believe in a holistic -- control freak -- approach to computer games:
*everything* should be considered, from hardware, through software and
right up beyond marketing to the public. User interface to packaging
design. The lot.
But your point about creating for Joe Public that I find hard to take in
the current climate. Not because it's *wrong*, but because, well...
<MAJOR RANT>
...I believe in pushing the envelope. *NOT* merely a technological
envelope, however. I believe in pushing computer entertainment beyond
the narrow confines of its present market.
I'm fed up to the back teeth of hearing morons prate absolute gobshite
like - "Well... y'know... Myst isn't a *real* game... is it? Not like
Quake..."
OF COURSE IT FUCKING WELL IS!!
"But... it's just a poxy slideshow!!"
No it arseing well isn't, fuckwit! When was the last time you could pull
a photograph of a lever and watch a photograph of a device whirring into
action?
MYST. *IS*. A. GAME.
So was Tetris. So was Elite. So was Populous. So was Super Mario World.
So why the f*ck do companies *INSIST* that we only want to buy one or
two different genres a year?
And don't tell me that this all that Joe Public 'wants'. If this were
the case, Quake would have matched Myst. Even Ghostbusters -- an 8-bit
game that even predates Creative Labs' Soundblaster -- sold more than
fucking Quake. So did Lemmings and Populous - both *original* games.
What is important is that we start getting ourselves out of this rut
(and I mean no disrespect to those 'Few' who are already trying this).
We need to *stop* writing games that appeal only to that clique of games
reviewers who have gone well past their sell-by dates.
We need to stop jumping onto each passing bandwagon and hailing every
bloody bit of new technology as if it were God's Own Gift To Games.
Look at this multi-player/Internet bandwagon everyone's jumping onto.
LOOK AT IT! -- closely! Look at the confirmed usage figures for things
like "QuakeWorld".
*Five* measly figures!
And we call this a *market*??
At least let us practise what we preach and target technologies that are
stable and mature! The Internet is anything *but*. Where is all this
bandwidth? Where are the cable modems? Where's the cheap connectivity?
Where, in short, is the bloody infrastructure?
Wherever it is, it ain't *here*.
This isn't going to be a major market for *years*. It's not just a
matter of buying a faster PC, it's a matter of digging up roads;
replacing networks; stripping out copper cables and replacing them with
fibre-optics; restructuring telecomms companies; forcing down prices;
adapting international laws and treaties... none of these are going to
happen overnight.
And why are we trying to write multi-player games? Huh?
I'll tell you why -- *reviewers* like them. We're fulfilling the games
reviewers' ultimate wet dream: "kewl" games written to *their*
specifications. They all have fucking top-bollock machines to play games
on. They all have easy access to networks. They all want to play games
for a *living*.
I see a magazine on the shelves. A very plush, beautifully designed
magazine. The flagship of Future Publishing. It's called "Edge". (The
inspiration for "Next Generation" in the US.)
It's supposed to be about games.
It isn't.
It's about technology. It's about the fastest 3D engine. The best arcade
board. The flashiest console.
It's about gloss; superficial and shallow.
And guess what! It's got *fewer* readers than Amiga Format!
We're like an automobile market that only allows Ferraris and
Lamborghinis and Rolls-Royces.
We're making "Games for the boys." 'Muscle' games.
It's about time we stopped creating games for Edge/Next Generation and
started creating for Joe Public. And the only way to do this is to go
out on a limb and go for Myst's audience. Go for Solitaire's audience.
And, most importantly, create *NEW* audiences.
</RANT>
>Let's put it this way. Let's say it's YOUR capital investment on the line.
> You want to do your dream project, but you also want to make money. How
>do you proceed?
By researching the markets; doing a bit of R&D (maybe even a PD or
shareware release); checking what's out there and creating a viable,
commercial specification for the design as a result.
>> How, exactly, does Joe Public *know* whether he wants a new genre if
>> they're never given the chance to try it out?
>Well at this point I don't care because I see Myst/Riven as an almost
>completely untapped genre that's totally compatible with my authorial
>interests. I just want to take it one step further in the mind-blowing
>dept.
Yeah, but in this case, all you're doing is the game design equivalent
of code re-use. The "It's like Myst, only with 'X'" mentality. Granted,
it's a perfectly acceptable way of working, but this usually leads to
the "Quake Effect" -- loads of clones; none selling better than the
original.
It's possible to come up with a variation that's different enough from
the original to improve the sales, but the original "Cor! Wow!" factor
has gone.
You have to realise that to Joe Public, most clones are just the same
game with different graphics. Hardcore gamers are *not* representative
of Joe Public's tastes.
>> >I personally will buy a populist argument only to a point. Star Wars
>> >changed the landscape of how special effects were done, even though
>people
>> >were "pleased with" what came before.
>>
>> Yeah, but all the people *saw* were "cool spaceships". (Personally, I
>> thought Close Encounters and 2001 were far better, visually, than the
>> Star Wars movies. And 2001 predated Star Wars by almost a decade.)
>You're not just a snob, you're an intellectual snob. :-)
Not really. I just have no time for crap SF. And I'm afraid I thought
the muppets looked exactly like muppets. I was expecting Kermit the Frog
to turn up during the Mos Eisley sequence. (And Yoda and those bloody
Ewoks certainly didn't help.)
Also, while it's no secret that cinema is usually about 20-30 years
behind current SF writings, Star Wars' story was almost pre-historic by
literary SF standards.
The space effects were pretty good, but they'd been done before. Lucas'
crew simply did more of them, and worked out how techniques to make them
cheaper. There were black and white 1960s Doctor Who episodes with more
realistic effects.
Or, let me put it another way: 2001 hasn't been "touched up" or
"remastered" in any way, but it still looks a shitload better than Star
Wars. And it is, IMHO, a far better story.
(I was also wondering why lasers were visible and noisy, and explosions
were audible in Star Wars' space scenes. I was a picky little sod even
back then.)
>Come on, the
>realistic esoterica of 2001 is better than blowing up the fuckin' Death
>Star??!?
Lighting a firework and filming from below isn't exactly impressive or
new. Creating an entirely new form of animation ("Slit-scan
photography", used to create the 'stargate' effect) is. Doctor Who was
using an advanced form of slit-scan animation as a title sequence when
Star Wars came out and it even pioneered most of the effects used in
2001 *AND* Star Wars.
Star Wars cheated me. I was 8 years old. I expected to see free-fall,
just like I'd read about and seen on a low-budget TV SF series. I
expected to see that cold vacuum of space *behaving* like a cold hard
vacuum of space.
2001 did that in 1969.
Even Silent Running had silent explosions and 'cute droids' floating
about in space.
Star Wars bypassed the whole thing and gave me a Hans Christian Andersen
fairy story in some variation of 'space' which allows Tie Fighters(tm)
to scream.
> 2001 appeals to the cinematographer. Star Wars appeals to
>everyone who ever gave a rip about spaceships, and did the job better than
>any movie that came before it.
I'm sorry? "Better than any movie that came before it?" Like *ARSE*.
Silent Running -- apart from that dire song -- did a *MUCH better job.
And Star Trek had spaceships blowing each other up over 10 years before.
And what about George Pal's take on War Of The Worlds? A *much* better
film, based (very loosely) on a story that is now over 100 years old.
Not to mention Forbidden Planet...
>Look I don't have anything at all against snobbery, I have plenty high
>standards for what I actually like and what I want to see in my own work.
>But it is foolish to cut yourself off from mass tastes solely because they
>are mass tastes.
I don't, but that doesn't mean I have to blindly agree with it. My
primary beef against films like Star Wars (and Star Trek) is that I'm a
Hard SF fan -- I prefer SF that makes at least *some* pretence at
plausibility.
Apollo 13 proves that Hard SF *can* work. It just needs more care and
attention to detail to get it right. It's just harder. :)
> Sometimes those mass tastes are, well, based on quality.
>Maybe not the kind of quality that personally turns you on, but a
>legitimate deliverance of quality nonetheless. To say Star Wars or
>Jurrassic Park were sucky movies is just foolish. Within their areas of
>strength they were *unrivalled* movies.
<Snort> You've obviously never actually *read* a Michael Crichton novel
recently... :)
Jurassic Park was a technology led movie, but it also had a pretty good
story wrapped around it. (Though I do wish Hollywood would *STOP*
putting fucking 'cute kids' into films like this. What's wrong with
actually having a spoiled brat being *eaten* for a change?)
And while I dislike Star Wars *personally*, I'll grudgingly admit that
George Lucas knows how to tell a story. :)
>> >Yes, Myst was a *good* slideshow.
>>
>> I do wish people would stop using that term. Myst was most emphatically
>> *not* a slideshow. How many slideshows have you seen where you could
>> manipulate the objects portrayed?
>YOU COULDN'T DO A GODDAMNED THING with any of those objects! It was a
>bloody Hypercard slideshow! Click here, get a picture. Click there, get
>an animation. Click here again, get a superimposed picture. Slideshow
>slideshow slideshow.
Balls! Play it again! Click on a lever and it *moves*! Photos don't do
that. I'd say it's closer to a bunch of Windows dialog boxes with fancy
buttons and borders, but it *is* interactive.
(Unless I'm confusing it with Riven. I've not played Myst myself for at
least two years...)
>> Cyan's games *are* technically advanced; great design is an integral
>> part of great technology.
>Give me a break. They have advanced studio production processes. The
>runtime itself is the butt-simplest stuff in the known universe, by
>deliberate design. Off-the-shelf Macromedia.
So?
Programming != Game.
Game == Programming + Design + Graphics + Sound
You *can* have a million+ best-selling game with shite programming. I've
*seen* the source code for one and believe me: it was a miracle the
thing worked at all...
This is what most annoys me about these arguments: "Programming Is
Everything!" It's bullshit. Programming is just one aspect of a computer
game. And it is *NOT* the most important.
There is *NO* *SINGLE* *ASPECT* to computer games that is greater than
any other other than design. Whether that design is a conscious or
subconscious one is irrelevant: it's still the most important aspect of
*ANY* game.
>> >> It's also worth pointing out that the Myst-style game clearly does not
>> >> lend itself to multiplayer gaming.
>> >I don't believe that at all. Someone has to return your serve from the
>> >other side of the Empire State Building.
>> >Get rid of all these ideas about goals and victories, just let your mind
>go
>> >INSANE. DREAM. Then you will start to see how people can interact, and
>> >why it could be compelling.
>>
>> Different game.
>>
>> My point was a Myst-style clone wouldn't lend itself to multiplayer
>> gaming. If you change the design as you suggest, it wouldn't *be* Myst-
>> style. :)
>And I still don't agree with you. State *why* it's a different game. I
>say it is now Myst with people sharing the experience together.
Because Myst is a single-player game. It requires a different set of
design criteria. Making a multi-player game version of Myst isn't
possible without altering the underlying design.
This is why Quake sucks as a single-player game. It's been designed as
multi-player from the ground up. Single player was given only a
picosecond's thought. (And looks suspiciously like a bunch of levels
built to test the engine out while networking code was still being
written.)
>> >Cyberspace appeals to the masses because it taps the surreal
>subconscious.
>> >It is not a technology metaphor, it is a dream metaphor.
>> Nah. They like it because it sounds 'cool'.
>Our 2 statements are not contradictory here.
>> It's not science fiction, it's science *fantasy*. There is a difference.
>Does science fiction have to be based on logical extensions of current
>technologies?
Science Fiction does, yes.
Sci-Fi and Fantasy do not. ("Sci-Fi" is now used as a derisory term --
pronounced 'Skiffy' -- mainly for pseudo-SF such as Star Trek and Star
Wars.)
My terminology is a bit confused since my 'mother' tongue is Italian.
Italians only have the one term, 'Fantascienza' (=="Fantascience"), with
which to describe all of those combinations and it tends to blur the
distinction somewhat.
> Or, can it instead be based upon logical extensions of some
>arbitrary set of core assumptions? In the latter test, a work is "fantasy"
>only if it is not self-consistent.
Nope. Science Fiction *MUST* be based upon extrapolation of current
science. (That's why older pulp SF stories are often considered Fantasy
today; outstripped by new scientific discoveries. These are no
classified by most SF 'purists' as 'Sci-Fi'.)
In short: noises in space != SF.
>> >> How many people realise that there is a perfectly good computer in
>every
>> >> computer's keyboard?
>> >Perfectly good for what?
>> Typing!
>My point exactly. If it can't be used for anything else, who cares?
Well, a games console can't be used for anything *other* than playing
games. An arcade machine with a "Bubble Bobble" board in it isn't
exactly 'flexible', either...
My point was that UIs should be as transparent as possible, but you've
already agreed with that (I think.)
>> Has your keyboard crashed yet? :)
>Actually, given sufficient lemonade...
Try a large axe. Much more satisfying... :)
--
Sean Timarco Baggaley
<mailto: whatever you damned well wa...@stimarco.cix.co.uk>
E&OE
JEEEZZZUSS! I have *GOT* to get a life...
Brandon Van Every
> "Brandon Van Every" <vane...@blarg.net> wrote:
> >Dark Forces et al solves this with a view centering key. In a Myst-like
> >game it's probably even easier because the centering doesn't have to
have a
> >combat focus. You could just pre-ordain some logical points of
centering,
> >and when the user hits "center" they are directed to the nearest
centering
> >view. A more aggressive system could also physically relocate the
player
> >so their view is good. This is a compromise with the "guided tour"
> >approach to virtual worlds: it's there if the user wants it.
>
> complicated for the average person. They'd have to read a manual to
> play.
Gee and airships couldn't cross the Atlantic. How about tips, balloon
help, and context-sensitive audio prompts? Welcome to the spacebar, your
all-purpose bailout. You used Microsoft Word anytime recently?
> >If having the user make an explicit choice is too complicated, put them
on
> >a time clock and re-set them after some interval.
>
> That idea stinks!
If you say so. Care to justify WHY it stinks, or are we just to accept
your judgement without comment?
> >user at the outset what "style" of navigation they'd prefer. Roam
freely,
> >semi-guided, fully guided, etc.
>
> If you used those words, I'd choose "Roam-freely" because I'd think
> that if I chose one of the other ones it meant that the game would
> "solve" part of itself. You'd have to put a good paragraph
> description of each mode on the screen so that people wouldn't
> misinterpret it.
Pick better words then. It's not going to take a paragraph, just good word
choices. Even if it *did* take a paragraph, so what? It's an opening
dialog box or splash screen, who cares?
> >Right mouse click.
>
> No, the right mouse button would be taken up allowing you to move
> backwards...
And that's intuitive? And I need to do it?
> >Have them hit the space bar.
>
> I considered that as well, but using a mouse & keyboard interface
> would be getting too complicated.
You really think people are morons, don't you? Here's a design idea for
you: give multiple ways to do the same thing, so that people can bang on
the keyboard/mouse/icons and maybe they hit upon one of the ways.
> >Make a bunch of things automatically highlighted and have them alternate
through them with the TAB
> >key, just like a form in their other apps.
>
> That idea sucks, it would ruin the immersiveness of the world if you
> saw things like handles change color and stuff.
Just as it ruins the immersiveness to see slideshows and hypercard arrows
to the next frame, right? You may have a point but it's a question of
degree and how applied.
> >Have a sidebar of icons, one of them is for MOVE mode, another is for
USE mode.
>
> Icon based interfaces also suck.
Hell man, like, EVERYTHING sucks. When are you going to get over the use
of the word "sucks?" These are all design problems. The standard
engineering answer to a design problem is: it depends. How about we talk
about the possibilities and drop all this "it sucks" nonsense?
> Myst is good because it has an
> extremely simple interface. You propose to make a game as good as
> Myst in true 3D, but you want to make the interface much more
> complicated. Like I said, my dad couldn't even handle moving Duke
> Nukem around. People like him, which are a large portion of the
> people you should be targetting, can't deal (or don't wish to deal)
> with a complex interface.
3D != complex interface, in and of itself. Example: imagine a fully 3D
world in which you are only allowed to move forwards. No left turn, no
right turn, no other form of movement is possible. Simple interface,
right?
> >This isn't a fast-paced combat game so the user has time to make a modal
switch with simple mouse
> >clicks, yes?
>
> Sure, but a "modal" interface destroys the immersiveness. You don't
> see icons on the side of your vision when you walk through the real
> world, why would you in Myst?
Do you have a basis for asserting that immersiveness is destroyed, or is
that your conjecture? Why isn't the game *content* responsible for the
immersiveness? If nothing else these are surely 2 variables to consider,
not just one. Let's put it another way. There are tons of things in the
real 3d world that are damn boring to look at. Is this increasing
immersion, or boredom? Maybe all that's necessary, is for the icons to
look and act really really cool.
It also depends on how frequently you need modes X Y and Z. It's probably
not good to force mode switches all the time. But if you only need some
mode once in awhile, it's probably acceptable.
> >Hey presto, nobody's trying to kill you anymore. Do you still need to
run
> >around fast?
>
> It doesn't matter. It's been tested by the guys at Cyan. They found
> it didn't work well.
For them.
> I beleive it. I can see that happening. I
> don't walk around slowly in Quake 2 looking at anything even when I
> have killed all the monsters.
You're the impatient archetype. I'm the sneaky archetype. So, we need an
interface that can handle both types, yes? It's a legitimate issue, some
people want to breeze through a walkthrough and others want to savor
details slowly. The psychological impression of a 3d space will be very
different if you move through it quickly or slowly. Maybe this is an area
where applying arbitrary limitations is a good idea. Limit the speed.
Allow only 1 pace, be the cinematographer. Let the speed freaks play Quake
III.
> You also have to remember that once you move to true 3D, you have no
> control over what the world looks like from an art standpoint.
That's false because you can always limit a player's motion however you
want. And you haven't heard my more radical ideas about perspective theory
anyways. Who says game objects have to be 3d entities viewable from all
vantage points? They could be constructed based on the viewer's
perspective, surreal dream objects rather than tangible 3d ones. The
psychology of the object is key, not whether you can draw it in plan and
elevation views.
> In Myst, they can choose views which look good. I'm sure there were lots
> of views which looked really poor.
Architects and sculptors have been dealing with "in the round" problems for
millennia.
> >Actually, I find what you say amusing even in DOOM-like games. I'm a
big
> >fan of sneaking around veeery slowly, i.e. like someone in the real
world
> >who's afraid of getting his head blown off.
>
> You're not looking at anything while you're doing it. You're watching
> for motion.
Uuuh, what if the enemy is not moving...?
> And if you saw something interesting, you'd run right up to it.
No actually I'd launch a grenade at it. Blow it up first, ask questions
later. :-)
> Quake secrets are a real bitch to find, even when you're
> looking for them. That little button's hidden behind a crate, or up
> on the ceiling... Do you expect them to examine the ceiling closely
> EVERYWHERE they go for clues?
Who said in goalless "Make Myst Real in 3D" games that anyone's looking for
clues? Let alone in the manner you describe? You're describing the
problems of a specific genre and a specific implementation within the
genre. Clues don't have to be needle-in-the-haystack. The most vexxing
hidden object is the one hidden from you in plain sight, because it is
working against your psychology. Inscription over the entrance to Moria:
"SPEAK FRIEND AND ENTER."
> >So, bounce a stuck player off a wall. And automatically re-orient them.
>
> That would be jarring and unnatural.
Oh, like it's not natural to be jarred when you hit a wall in real life? I
don't think your metaphors to real life actions or suppositions about
immersiveness are helping you much. It's a medium and you have to deal
with the person's interaction with the medium, not what may/may not work in
real life.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Sean Timarco Baggaley
In article <01bd562a$b31bca40$0983...@hammurabi.blarg.net>, Brandon Van
Every <vane...@blarg.net> writes (replying to 'Acuity')
[...]
>> I considered that as well, but using a mouse & keyboard interface
>> would be getting too complicated.
>You really think people are morons, don't you?
Not morons, but *ignorant*. There is a difference.
Unless you've actually tried teaching people how to use computers, you
simply don't appreciate how much esoterica we normally file under
"But... EVERYONE knows *that*..."
I have had people asking me where the On/Off switch on an Apple Mac was
hidden, because they'd looked all over the case and couldn't find one.
(It's that button in the top-right corner of the keyboard. Not exactly a
coup for Apple's R&D.)
My own mother, after owning and using computers heavily for years, still
tends to double-click *everything*; even hyperlinks, menu items and
window titles (to bring 'em to the front).
This is why keyboard/mouse combinations put many non-gamers off: it can
take people *months* just to get comfortable with a mouse. Keyboard
prowess can take forever.
As soon as you start asking them to press "P" for 'right' and "O" for
'left', they get lost. My brother would sit there for ages with her
index finger hunting back and forth when he first started playing games
on our Spectrum.
> Here's a design idea for
>you: give multiple ways to do the same thing, so that people can bang on
>the keyboard/mouse/icons and maybe they hit upon one of the ways.
You're missing the point: the user interface is too important to be
dismissed so casually. Phrases like "give 'em a bunch of choices" isn't
very helpful. What should those choices *be*?
One of the primary reasons why Myst is often accused of being a
glorified slideshow is that it's *impossible* to use any other interface
for the game without resorting to mixed device usage.
The Mac (which Cyan originally created Myst for) only has the one mouse
button. There's *no* way to use, say, a real-time 3D engine for the
display without forcing the player to use both keyboard and mouse.
Keyboard alone would not be very intuitive as a way of selecting objects
-- especially since mouse Mac users are *already* used to using the
mouse for that purpose.
By just using the mouse, Myst allows players to sit back and relax while
playing. There's no need for the player to be hunched over the keyboard
as well. This creates a different atmosphere for the player. Less
confrontational. All of these 'little details' add up.
(And we all know that God is in the details. :)
>> >Make a bunch of things automatically highlighted and have them alternate
>through them with the TAB
>> >key, just like a form in their other apps.
>> That idea sucks, it would ruin the immersiveness of the world if you
>> saw things like handles change color and stuff.
>Just as it ruins the immersiveness to see slideshows and hypercard arrows
>to the next frame, right? You may have a point but it's a question of
>degree and how applied.
It's not merely a question of degree. It's the details that can make or
break a game. And there are a *lot* of details in a good game.
>> >Have a sidebar of icons, one of them is for MOVE mode, another is for
>USE mode.
>> Icon based interfaces also suck.
>Hell man, like, EVERYTHING sucks. When are you going to get over the use
>of the word "sucks?" These are all design problems. The standard
>engineering answer to a design problem is: it depends. How about we talk
>about the possibilities and drop all this "it sucks" nonsense?
He's right though.
Iconic interfaces were gradually phased out during the mid 1990s for a
very simple reason: they're obtrusive and fundamentally unnecessary. At
most, you need little more than a context-sensitive cursor and context-
sensitive pop-up menus. But there should be *nothing* on the screen that
does not need to be there.
Take a look at the SCUMM games released by LucasArts over the years. See
how they've mutated: from a display which had 2/3rds of the screen taken
up by the location and the final 3rd entirely taken up by menus and an
inventory, to a full-screen display of the game... and *nothing else*.
The cursor changed its appearance when it was moved over hotspots.
Otherwise, no other part of the interface is visible.
The interface keeps the hell out of the way -- as it should do.
When a user clicks on something that can be acted upon, one of two
things should happen: 1] If there's only one action possible, perform
that action automatically. 2] Otherwise provide a list of *applicable*
actions for the player to choose.
(This could be extended easily by allowing for things like double-
clicking. But that's a surprisingly difficult feat for some users to
accomplish, so make sure it's not too fiddly.)
>> Myst is good because it has an
>> extremely simple interface. You propose to make a game as good as
>> Myst in true 3D, but you want to make the interface much more
>> complicated. Like I said, my dad couldn't even handle moving Duke
>> Nukem around. People like him, which are a large portion of the
>> people you should be targetting, can't deal (or don't wish to deal)
>> with a complex interface.
>3D != complex interface, in and of itself. Example: imagine a fully 3D
>world in which you are only allowed to move forwards. No left turn, no
>right turn, no other form of movement is possible. Simple interface,
>right?
Right.
Except that would make for a *very* restrictive, overtly linear game.
(Which isn't intrinsically bad, but it doesn't exactly lend itself well
to a Myst-style game.)
>> >This isn't a fast-paced combat game so the user has time to make a modal
>switch with simple mouse
>> >clicks, yes?
>> Sure, but a "modal" interface destroys the immersiveness. You don't
>> see icons on the side of your vision when you walk through the real
>> world, why would you in Myst?
>Do you have a basis for asserting that immersiveness is destroyed, or is
>that your conjecture?
It's not conjecture: it's the result of independent and documented
research into user interfaces.
Command & Conquer, for instance, uses a somewhat cumbersome iconic
menuing system in a side panel. The only reason it's excuseable to have
one is because the designers needed somewhere to put the map view and
status lines anyway.
But there's no reason why the resource management couldn't have been
done by context-sensitive clicking on the relevant map elements. (Eg:
click-and-hold on the Barracks would pop up a [probably iconic] list of
available troop types. Drag the mouse cursor to the one you want, then
let go to execute the command. Exactly like using Win95 and MacOS 8
menus.)
> Why isn't the game *content* responsible for the
>immersiveness?
The user interface is an integral part of the game content. It's a
holistic thing: all those little details matter. Every single one.
> If nothing else these are surely 2 variables to consider,
>not just one. Let's put it another way. There are tons of things in the
>real 3d world that are damn boring to look at. Is this increasing
>immersion, or boredom? Maybe all that's necessary, is for the icons to
>look and act really really cool.
All that's necessary is for the icons to only appear when needed. Think
in terms of 'need to know'. If something isn't needed on screen at a
particular point, it *shouldn't be there*.
To move around, there's no reason why you cannot just have the cursor
change into a 'move-to' shape at the end of a path. (Just as Myst does,
in fact.) The longer the player holds down the button in 'move-to' mode,
the further the character moves in that direction.
To look side to side, just borrow from C&C and let the user force the
'head' to turn when the cursor reaches the screen's edges.
>It also depends on how frequently you need modes X Y and Z. It's probably
>not good to force mode switches all the time. But if you only need some
>mode once in awhile, it's probably acceptable.
Take a look at Monkey Island 3, Discworld 2, Command & Conquer, Age of
Empires and Myst. Take a very careful look at those interfaces and
you'll see why mode-switching mouse cursors are so popular. (I suggest
C&C because, while it does have a side-panel, it still has some very
good interface features.)
>> >Hey presto, nobody's trying to kill you anymore. Do you still need to
>run
>> >around fast?
>>
>> It doesn't matter. It's been tested by the guys at Cyan. They found
>> it didn't work well.
>For them.
For anybody.
Icons and side-panels *are* bad.
Aesthetics play a major part in a Myst-style game and icons and side-
panels don't improve a game's look. They're also unpopular because they
reduce the available play area.
>> I beleive it. I can see that happening. I
>> don't walk around slowly in Quake 2 looking at anything even when I
>> have killed all the monsters.
>You're the impatient archetype. I'm the sneaky archetype. So, we need an
>interface that can handle both types, yes? It's a legitimate issue, some
>people want to breeze through a walkthrough and others want to savor
>details slowly. The psychological impression of a 3d space will be very
>different if you move through it quickly or slowly. Maybe this is an area
>where applying arbitrary limitations is a good idea. Limit the speed.
>Allow only 1 pace, be the cinematographer. Let the speed freaks play Quake
>III.
It depends on the kind of experience you want the player to have. If
you're aiming at slow, methodical and thoughtful gameplay, then details
need to be ramped up. More attention needs to be lavished on sets and
incidental details. But these details can often be done using cheats and
tricks that don't actually require much change to the engine.
For instance, Raiders of The Lost Ark used sumptuous bridging shots to
link locations together. You'd get a postcard view of, say, Shanghai
before the action cuts to the (usually) studio-based sets.
A beautifully crafted cut-away to a vast spaceship hangar in a James
Bond movie is enough to make the viewer believe that those extruded
plastic sets are *real* Space Shuttles.
A piece of spray-painted glass becomes a stunningly gorgeous diamond
through the simple device of a close-up.
The trick was even used in "Another World" (aka "Out Of This World"),
where a nondescript lump of black pixels on the screen was revealed to
be a ray gun by cutting briefly to a close-up view of the character's
hand picking up the gun.
Myst uses these tricks to surprising effect. It also uses them to
provide a seamless interface for the player.
For example, how would you handle the player entering a library, walking
up to the bookshelf and pulling out individual books to see what's
inside?
In Myst, you just click on the picture of the library, click on the
bookshelf, click on the book you want and there it is. No keypresses
required. Seamless.
At no point was the player forcibly reminded of the fact that they're
moving around with an up-turned trackball.
At no point was the player forced to move to an icon panel, click on an
obscure hieroglyphic and then click on the door to get into the library.
If the door was unlocked, the player opens it automatically. Otherwise,
the player simply can't get in.
Neither is the player forced to go through a similarly unintuitive bout
of icon-clicking in order to pick up the book.
This technique is perfectly feasible in a real-time 3D engine, but is it
really worth putting up with all the trade-offs involved in order to
allow the player to look at things from a few more angles? Cyan didn't
seem to think so, and I can't say I disagree.
Real-time 3D would add little to the actual gameplay, and could serve to
disorient many players.
>> You also have to remember that once you move to true 3D, you have no
>> control over what the world looks like from an art standpoint.
>That's false because you can always limit a player's motion however you
>want.
Then what's the *point*? Why give him the freedom to move around
wherever he wants, only to arbitrarily *remove* that freedom to allow
you to show off your artists' work to best effect?
> And you haven't heard my more radical ideas about perspective theory
>anyways. Who says game objects have to be 3d entities viewable from all
>vantage points? They could be constructed based on the viewer's
>perspective, surreal dream objects rather than tangible 3d ones. The
>psychology of the object is key, not whether you can draw it in plan and
>elevation views.
Sounds interesting, but it's not very clear exactly what you're getting
at.
[...]
>> Quake secrets are a real bitch to find, even when you're
>> looking for them. That little button's hidden behind a crate, or up
>> on the ceiling... Do you expect them to examine the ceiling closely
>> EVERYWHERE they go for clues?
>Who said in goalless "Make Myst Real in 3D" games that anyone's looking for
>clues?
Myst does. If you want "Make Myst Real in 3D" games, you have to realise
that Myst *HAS* goals.
If you want a goalless game, it ain't even close to Myst; in which case,
drop 'Myst' from the name and call it a "Make Goalless Game Real in 3D".
> Let alone in the manner you describe? You're describing the
>problems of a specific genre and a specific implementation within the
>genre. Clues don't have to be needle-in-the-haystack. The most vexxing
>hidden object is the one hidden from you in plain sight, because it is
>working against your psychology. Inscription over the entrance to Moria:
> "SPEAK FRIEND AND ENTER."
:)
>> >So, bounce a stuck player off a wall. And automatically re-orient them.
>>
>> That would be jarring and unnatural.
>Oh, like it's not natural to be jarred when you hit a wall in real life?
He wasn't talking about 'hitting' a wall, but actually getting *stuck*
in one. It's a technical flaw that remains in a lot of 3D engines. The
effect is much like being suddenly and inexplicably finding yourself in
the same situation as the sailors at the end of "The Philadelphia
Experiment": half-embedded in solid concrete.
Getting 'stuck' in such a way in the first place is enough to put a lot
of newbie gamers off. Bouncing players off has been tried and I can
assure you, it does feel very unnatural. The player behaves like a ball
in a pinball table.
Acuity
Sean Timarco Baggaley <stbag...@stimarco.cix.co.uk> wrote:
>>> That would be jarring and unnatural.
>
>>Oh, like it's not natural to be jarred when you hit a wall in real life?
>
>He wasn't talking about 'hitting' a wall, but actually getting *stuck*
>in one. It's a technical flaw that remains in a lot of 3D engines. The
>effect is much like being suddenly and inexplicably finding yourself in
>the same situation as the sailors at the end of "The Philadelphia
>Experiment": half-embedded in solid concrete.
>
>Getting 'stuck' in such a way in the first place is enough to put a lot
>of newbie gamers off. Bouncing players off has been tried and I can
>assure you, it does feel very unnatural. The player behaves like a ball
>in a pinball table.
You got everything else I said right, but not this. I was indeed
talking about walking up to the wall and stopping. Even in that case,
it would be stupid to have them bounce off the wall. Terminal
Velocity bounced you off the ground, and roated you about 180 degrees
when it did so. It was jarring and unnatural. I'd rather my ship
blew up when I hit the ground or scraped along it damaging it
severely.
And at the rate that a player walks in a game like Myst, they're not
exactly going to bounce off a wall. It's not like they're running at
the thing.
Robert Blum
PMFJI, but this UI thread was *way* too interesting to stay off :-)
Sean Timarco Baggaley wrote
>In article <01bd562a$b31bca40$0983...@hammurabi.blarg.net>, Brandon Van
>Every <vane...@blarg.net> writes (replying to 'Acuity')
[...]
>I have had people asking me where the On/Off switch on an Apple Mac was
>hidden, because they'd looked all over the case and couldn't find one.
>(It's that button in the top-right corner of the keyboard. Not exactly a
>coup for Apple's R&D.)
Except you've got a Performa. And then there are a few other models that
hide the 'real' on/off button in really esoteric places. The top right
corner is no bad idea, if they'd stick to that model. In fact, I'd love an
'any key switches on' feature.
>My own mother, after owning and using computers heavily for years, still
>tends to double-click *everything*; even hyperlinks, menu items and
>window titles (to bring 'em to the front).
Hell, even I - using a computer 8-16 hours a day - tend to be confused as to
what has to be single/double/right clicked or whatever. MS doesn't help it
with the new idea to make the whole desktop browser like. IMHO, one of the
most important things about an user interface is the ability to reuse your
knowledge on later models of the same interface. If you give up on this
premise, you're causing a lot of trouble.
The most intuitive mouse-related UI to date is one that only operates with
single clicks and gives you balloon help/tool tips. At least that's what I
keep hearing from computer illiterates. They're more than occupied with
coordinating the hand movement to the mouse pointer movement.
>This is why keyboard/mouse combinations put many non-gamers off: it can
>take people *months* just to get comfortable with a mouse. Keyboard
>prowess can take forever.
Yip. Although I'd recommend adding short cuts for the more experienced
users. Those tend to be put off by mouse only control.
>As soon as you start asking them to press "P" for 'right' and "O" for
>'left', they get lost. My brother would sit there for ages with her
>index finger hunting back and forth when he first started playing games
>on our Spectrum.
I can't help it: I immediately thought about VI: H/L for up/down, J/K for
left/right. Now *that* takes coordinative skills to master a game with :-)
[snip]
>The Mac (which Cyan originally created Myst for) only has the one mouse
>button. There's *no* way to use, say, a real-time 3D engine for the
>display without forcing the player to use both keyboard and mouse.
I'm not sure about that...
How about the following: You move your head around using the mouse. No,
there's no tilt. (IMHO, tilt in 3D FPS has _no_ use. How often do *you* tilt
your head in normal life?)
Items of importance get highlighted if you get close to them. Maybe they
even work as attractors. Mouse clicking will either cause the appropriate
action, or, if there are multiple actions, display a choice list.
Mouse pressing on not highlighted items will simply move you in that
direction.
Come on, shred it to pieces. I know it's not optimal, but I think that such
an interface, or a similar one, _could_ work.
Another idea was speech. We tested it in our current game, butting using
speech for maneuvring around is too tedious. Even if you just use it for
game control like in a text adventure ('go north','take frog','kiss
frog'...) it can quickly get annoying.
The feedback of this is simply not immediate enough. I think speech will
only work in combination with some other device.
>Keyboard alone would not be very intuitive as a way of selecting objects
>-- especially since mouse Mac users are *already* used to using the
>mouse for that purpose.
Hmmm... Ultimately, this would mean you should use the mouse in a game in
the same way the underlying OS uses it.
>Iconic interfaces were gradually phased out during the mid 1990s for a
>very simple reason: they're obtrusive and fundamentally unnecessary. At
>most, you need little more than a context-sensitive cursor and context-
>sensitive pop-up menus. But there should be *nothing* on the screen that
>does not need to be there.
Exactly. It simply destroys the feeling. The problem is if you have to
provide the user with lots of information during the game..
[snip]
>(This could be extended easily by allowing for things like double-
>clicking. But that's a surprisingly difficult feat for some users to
>accomplish, so make sure it's not too fiddly.)
Another idea is pressing the mouse button for an extended period of time. I
use it to bring up the inventory, so you can really play the whole game
using the mouse only.
[snip]
>Icons and side-panels *are* bad.
Unless you *have* to provide the information in the side panels.
>Aesthetics play a major part in a Myst-style game and icons and side-
>panels don't improve a game's look. They're also unpopular because they
>reduce the available play area.
You can get away with it if you make them transparent overlays. This does
not really reduce the play area.
>Real-time 3D would add little to the actual gameplay, and could serve to
>disorient many players.
Real time 3D would add little to the gameplay of Myst. Because the designers
never *planned* to make it part of the game. I do believe that you could
build a game similar to Myst that takes advantage of a real time 3D
environment.
No, I do not have any concrete ideas at the moment. I let my subconscience
work at it :-)
>>> You also have to remember that once you move to true 3D, you have no
>>> control over what the world looks like from an art standpoint.
So your art is better done in a way that it is architectural art? After all,
architects don't tie people to wheelchairs to visit great buildings.
Bye,
Robert
Link
Any of you folks ever see "Freakshow"? It was pretty interesting. Like
Myst, it was pretty much a multimedia presentation. IMO, they handled the
flow better, because there was a rendered transition from one position to
the next. Also, like Myst, you weren't really in any danger, and you didn't
have to 'win'. In fact, it was less game oriented still, because there
weren't really any puzzles (other than finding slightly hidden entrances to
areas. The idea was that you had arrived at a strange little circus
freakshow. You could watch the show, but the real content began when you
snuck around behind the tent and started poking around inside these freak's
trailer homes. It also contained a lot of original music and films. The
point of the whole thing was simply to explore the world until you had seen
everything (or were bored). I liked it better that Myst because it really
seemed to have some deeper characterizations of these poor freaks of nature,
who worked in the circus. The little vignettes of the characters ranged
from funny to bizarre to somewhat sensitive.
If someone ever does a conversion for Quake as creative as that, I'd be very
interested in seeing it. I think it would be cool to see pre-recorded
animations in Quake in order to progress a story (not FMV --
motion-captured/keyframed played back in real time with sounds). It should
be done so that if you interfered with the object, the pre-recording would
stop and the AI would take over. Actually, Quake already does this, but the
animations are simply the monsters scratching their heads & stuff. I think
that could be taken to a more creative level, to the point where it becomes
a way to tell the story.
- Mike
John Miles
Acuity wrote:
>
> "Gregory A. Becerra" <Byt...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> >I believe there was an article in one of the game magazines (maybe Game
> >Developer, anybody know/remember) that briefly mentioned Myst and its
> >success (I believe the topic was on something like being ahead of the
> >market). I could be mistaken (it has been a while since I read it), but
> >they seem to attribute Myst's success to being released when CD-ROM drives
> >hit the market hard. People tend to forget how long Myst has been out.
> >People compare Myst to what just came out, for its time Myst had really neat
> >graphics. The gameplay was weak, but I have completed the entire thing (I
> >guess I kept saying, okay something's gotta happen now). I also think that
> >for joe-public Myst and computer games had become synonymous for a while.
> >Myst was one of those things that let the public use their state-of-the art
> >CD ROM drive, video card, and whatever. Find yourself an old game magazine
> >that came out at the time Myst was released and look at the competition.
> >
> >As far as Riven, I doubt it will see much more success than an average
> >release that makes it to mass distribution. All the hard-core gamers (the
> >largest game buying power) who have played Myst, probably won't spend money
> >and time on Riven. The non-gamers who either received a copy of Myst with
> >their computer or chose this as one of the few games they own probably never
> >finished Myst in the first place. As stated on another line of this thread,
> >Myst appeals to those who only have a casual interest in games or uses a
> >game to kill some time. For these people, Riven may be a comfortable feel.
>
> Gee, that's funny. Riven will merely be an average title? It's in
> the top 5 selling titles, and has been there since it came out.
>
> Also, the 7th guest came out at the same time as Myst, and had nice
> graphics too, and it wasn't highly sucessful, and it's sequel was a
> complete flop. Why?
The Seventh Guest did around 400K units, last I heard. Not all that
shabby at the time; quite sensational, actually, given the product's
budget. It was one of the first killer apps for cheap CD-ROM drives and
General MIDI sound cards. It's not unreasonable to say that it paved
the way for Myst.
On the other hand, The Eleventh Hour was sort of a disaster. After
straying far afield of its original release schedule and budget, the
final product ran like dog barf on the best PCs available at the time,
and didn't run at all on the rest. I'd be surprised if final
sell-through ever broke 100K units.
-- jm
------------------------------------------------------
Note: My E-mail address has been altered to avoid spam
------------------------------------------------------
Brandon Van Every
>
> >Ok, let me rephrase. From a given vantage point, canned animations will
> >provide better fidelity at a cheaper computational cost than any
realtime
> >technique, including the image based rendering you mentioned.
> Agreed. But canned animations are more restricting than the rendering
> approach.
But your choice of plot device might render such restrictions non-existent
in practice. Put another way, freedom of motion can be a form of
restriction in and of itself. Psychology is the only thing you're really
worried about, if it works use it. "It depends." :-)
> > Which is
> >what I said before, or at least what I tried to imply. Image based
> >rendering is "neat" but you're paying a big cost to have data available
> >from every direction.
> This cost is only big if I do not exploit the data. If I wanted to have
the
> same amount of viewpoints/directions available as animation, I'd better
buy
> into games split over 5-6 DVD's :-)
Agreed. Now, how do you propose to exploit the data?
> If you don't do nothing, the dog starts barking. Still no reaction? He
comes
> over to you, wagging his tail. Still nothing? Well, he'd lift his leg at
> your leg. This would usually get your attention :-)
Yeah I like the idea of "ringers," people or NPCs who come in and make
things happen. Imagine you're in Pompeii and the volcano blows up. You
sit there staring at it. Lava's coming down the street. You're still
staring at it like a clueless doe-eyed dumbfuck. Hercules comes running
down the street to save your ass, whisks you up, and drops you on a safe
island. [Hey what's that guy doing in Pompeii?] He tries to talk to you.
Then maybe you have an adventure with Hercules, or maybe you decide he's
boring and he goes away. Then little birdies shit on your head or
something.
> Second, the quality was wildly differing. The dinosaur stampede was
great.
> The scene where the scientist first get to see the dinosaurs was *bad*.
At
> least all the shadows should point in the same direction if I am to
believe
> a scene.
Ah, the sophistication of the audience is picking up. I haven't tended to
clue into shadows. However, I'm real quick to notice when something
doesn't move realistically. Part of the martial arts background. I
thought the brontasaurus sat up funny.
> >It occurs to me now that text adventures had this property of working
> >directly upon a person's mind, rather than offering up an interactive
> >answer. Infocom even advertized it that way, "no computer has yet been
> >made that can make images as compelling as your brain," etc.
> Yes, and that probably was the point of Myst. It left room for your brain
to
> wonder and form its own thoughts and pictures.
Surely this has got to be the Big Enchilada of the goalless game. In our
haste to increase the eye candy of our games, we have forgotten to leave
room for the mind to fill in its own details. In text it was an automatic
process, the mind had to complete something. Whereas with visuals, it's
much easier to be pedantic.
> >Well, can you elaborate on how the traditions were broken?
> Myst is not a game in the sense you can *win*.
Well if you finish the game without getting trapped in a book, you've won.
> It is the thing that came
> closest to an interactive story with the exception of some of the old
> InfoCom games. It excelled the Infocom games in that it had great
graphics
> that still did not destroy the story.
Yes that's very true.
> >That's your friends. It's very naive to look at the overwhelming size
of
> >the female fashion industry and not take it at face value for what it
is.
> Well, what is it about? Don't you think it's about personal beauty? Most
of
> the advertisment is of the kind 'You can look as good as that
supermodel',
> not 'You can outdress your friends'
Ask more women, not me. :-)
> >There are women who get dressed to go to the
> >grocery store, women who get dressed to do the laundry, women who get
> >dressed to get dressed....
> Yes, and this is why it is not interesting as a game. Of course, if you
> could simulate your personal dresses and try out combinations, this might
be
> another thing. But I even doubt that. Where would be the fun of standing
in
> fron of an overflowing wardrobe and complaining about having *nothing* to
> wear?
I don't think they do this stuff out of a sense of drudgery the way we do
our jobs!
But like you said, we'd have to ask the girls.
> Wow, I'm impressed. We're discussing about at least 4 topics
simultaneously,
> in a sensible way, and nobody has started namecalling yet. Is this really
> r.g.p? :-)
All towards a kinder, gentler Usenet. :-)
I see little peace doves now, so beautiful in the dewdrops of the morning
sun.
Being blown apart by a bazooka.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Brandon Van Every
Sean Timarco Baggaley <stbag...@stimarco.cix.co.uk> wrote in article
<LgGgtGAp...@dial.pipex.com>...
>
> You're missing the point: the user interface is too important to be
> dismissed so casually. Phrases like "give 'em a bunch of choices" isn't
> very helpful. What should those choices *be*?
Ok I'm beginning to see your point. If targetting Joe Average, one must be
aware of Joe Average's lack of skill with UIs. Makes sense for a mass
market game.
But I have to confess, I'm not fascinated by these issues. When I think
about what needs to be done to get really interesting stuff out into the
marketplace, wringing my hands about the interface is not one of the
stumbling blocks I'm going to put in my path. I think there's "a" solution
somewhere that will satisfy your design criteria. Worst-case, you can make
the entire universe path-based so that there's only some arrow to follow
and click on at any given time. Better case maybe arrows appear within the
3d game itself and you can click on them to move with 2D freedom across a
planar surface. Sorta like scooting yourself across a chessboard, looking
around your feet, and having little arrows to point you towards the next
square. Better case still, maybe you have "newbie" mode and "power user"
mode, and the latter is much more confusing than the former. Best case
maybe you hit upon an elegant combo of the spacebar, the single-button
mouse, and the 2d screen so that all of these complexities go away. But I
don't care what that best case is. I know that other cases will solve the
problem if need be.
> The Mac (which Cyan originally created Myst for) only has the one mouse
> button. There's *no* way to use, say, a real-time 3D engine for the
> display without forcing the player to use both keyboard and mouse.
3D interface != unrestricted movement in 3D
> By just using the mouse, Myst allows players to sit back and relax while
> playing. There's no need for the player to be hunched over the keyboard
> as well.
Not much hunching hitting the spacebar. You just slap it from afar.
> Iconic interfaces were gradually phased out during the mid 1990s for a
> very simple reason: they're obtrusive and fundamentally unnecessary.
For games with the functionality of the period!
> At
> most, you need little more than a context-sensitive cursor and context-
> sensitive pop-up menus. But there should be *nothing* on the screen that
> does not need to be there.
Ok fine use popup menus when you want to do something more complex like
building/warping an object. I dunno. Whatever. I never said this game
was supposed to be for morons, only that it should have a default moron
mode.
> Take a look at the SCUMM games released by LucasArts over the years. See
> how they've mutated: from a display which had 2/3rds of the screen taken
> up by the location and the final 3rd entirely taken up by menus and an
> inventory, to a full-screen display of the game... and *nothing else*.
> The cursor changed its appearance when it was moved over hotspots.
> Otherwise, no other part of the interface is visible.
Well let me offer a different thesis. The display size increased because
2D rendering became faster and CD-ROM storage became larger/cheaper.
Previously, they filled up the rest of the screen to make it look like they
weren't cheating the customer. Eye candy production values were recognized
as paramount and they merely rode the historical production curves.
> >3D != complex interface, in and of itself. Example: imagine a fully 3D
> >world in which you are only allowed to move forwards. No left turn, no
> >right turn, no other form of movement is possible. Simple interface,
> >right?
>
> Right.
>
> Except that would make for a *very* restrictive, overtly linear game.
> (Which isn't intrinsically bad, but it doesn't exactly lend itself well
> to a Myst-style game.)
So, add axes to taste. Now I'm going to let you move forwards and left, on
a sphere. You can see that it's merely a matter of mathematical scaling.
> >Do you have a basis for asserting that immersiveness is destroyed, or is
> >that your conjecture?
>
> It's not conjecture: it's the result of independent and documented
> research into user interfaces.
As far as I know the Virtual Reality people don't study the immersiveness
of "through the looking glass" VR. They're worried about HMDs, large
screen projectors, and fovial lenghts blah blah blah. If you say it
did/didn't work for Myst and they did research on it that's fine, but it's
only with 1 game. Not like an entire science of immersion in GUI games had
been developed. I've seen people plenty well immersed in a bloody
text-based MUD to know that it's more than just how many keystrokes or icon
switches.
> Command & Conquer, for instance, uses a somewhat cumbersome iconic
> menuing system in a side panel. The only reason it's excuseable to have
> one is because the designers needed somewhere to put the map view and
> status lines anyway.
Tell me why Command & Conquer needs to be immersive? It's a wargame.
> But there's no reason why the resource management couldn't have been
> done by context-sensitive clicking on the relevant map elements. (Eg:
> click-and-hold on the Barracks would pop up a [probably iconic] list of
> available troop types. Drag the mouse cursor to the one you want, then
> let go to execute the command. Exactly like using Win95 and MacOS 8
> menus.)
And why doesn't popping up menus also break the illusion of immersion? It
covers up part of the 2d screen, it requries mechanical labor.
> All that's necessary is for the icons to only appear when needed. Think
> in terms of 'need to know'. If something isn't needed on screen at a
> particular point, it *shouldn't be there*.
Think in terms of frequency of use. If something is used frequently, it is
less distracting to have it available all the time than to dig for it. "It
depends."
> >> It doesn't matter. It's been tested by the guys at Cyan. They found
> >> it didn't work well.
>
> >For them.
>
> For anybody.
>
> Icons and side-panels *are* bad.
Ok think what you want. I will stick by my assertion that "it depends."
> Aesthetics play a major part in a Myst-style game and icons and side-
> panels don't improve a game's look. They're also unpopular because they
> reduce the available play area.
Well what if icons look really good, do all sorts of amazingly cool things
when touched, and function as part of the surrealist psychological
meta-game? You draw this hard distinction between icon and game. Ths is
germane to the historical development of the application being divorced
from its interface. That's not a required development in UI, it's just
what's happened historically and it has proven very useful in many
circumstances.
> Real-time 3D would add little to the actual gameplay, and could serve to
> disorient many players.
Before you were doing fine with your points about UI. But here you're just
naysaying, you've stepped WAY beyond your argument that 3D complicates the
mouse interface. A game isn't just an interface.
> >> You also have to remember that once you move to true 3D, you have no
> >> control over what the world looks like from an art standpoint.
>
> >That's false because you can always limit a player's motion however you
> >want.
>
> Then what's the *point*? Why give him the freedom to move around
> wherever he wants, only to arbitrarily *remove* that freedom to allow
> you to show off your artists' work to best effect?
Why chisel a block of marble to form a sculpture?
>
> > And you haven't heard my more radical ideas about perspective theory
> >anyways. Who says game objects have to be 3d entities viewable from all
> >vantage points? They could be constructed based on the viewer's
> >perspective, surreal dream objects rather than tangible 3d ones. The
> >psychology of the object is key, not whether you can draw it in plan and
> >elevation views.
>
> Sounds interesting, but it's not very clear exactly what you're getting
> at.
Some other thread and some other time. They're not fully developed enough
for explanation right now. But the short answer is it's not important how
something is laid out, it's only important how it appears. When you worry
about all this unrestricted 3D stuff, you're worrying about engineering
layouts from all angles. You're not worrying about the psychology of how
things appear, which is merely a subset of the unrestricted 3D.
> >Who said in goalless "Make Myst Real in 3D" games that anyone's looking
for
> >clues?
>
> Myst does. If you want "Make Myst Real in 3D" games, you have to realise
> that Myst *HAS* goals.
I may only want the atmosphere of Myst, not its goals.
> He wasn't talking about 'hitting' a wall, but actually getting *stuck*
> in one. It's a technical flaw that remains in a lot of 3D engines.
Well fix the flaw then! What does this have to do with game design or even
UIs?
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Brandon Van Every
>
> You got everything else I said right, but not this. I was indeed
> talking about walking up to the wall and stopping. Even in that case,
> it would be stupid to have them bounce off the wall. Terminal
> Velocity bounced you off the ground, and roated you about 180 degrees
> when it did so. It was jarring and unnatural. I'd rather my ship
> blew up when I hit the ground or scraped along it damaging it
> severely.
I wouldn't do 180 degrees. I'd do slow transition backwards and re-orient
either left or right, pointing to some pre-ordained reference point like
the fountain they just walked past, or the path they moved off of, or some
other architectural feature which re-orients them. It would require a
database of beacons or focal points of interest, hand-specified by the
programmer. It could not be solved in general.
It is possible that even with careful scene planning, one could end up with
an unnatural result in the pit of some concave wall, oriented towards a
reference point that can't actually be seen. Maybe a LOS algorithm could
process the world to prevent this from occurring most of the time. You
could still have a nasty monster walk up and block your view or something,
though.
Since no algorithmic method is foolproof, I personally would put an
all-purpose Life Preserver Bailout icon in the corner of the screen,
tastefully rendered. If you're SNAFU, click it! It will bail you out
somehow, according to the current context. Anti-icon pundits will gainsay
me, but I don't think expecting people to hit F1 in a panic is a good idea.
Here's an idea about icons. Implement icons as large objects embodying an
idea, not little scrappy 2d things like we've got in Word Perfect and so
forth. Icons are psychological symbols. The naive user's mind can act
readily upon them. And as symbols, they can be interwoven with the
signifiers of the game, to express a deeper meaning. A round life
preserver is both the bailout device, and a clue that a sunken ship is
around here somewhere. Thematic continuity. Psychological linkage. The
icon is not something separate from the game, it only initially appears to
be that way. They float in space and merge with one another.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Brandon Van Every
> >Aesthetics play a major part in a Myst-style game and icons and side-
> >panels don't improve a game's look. They're also unpopular because they
> >reduce the available play area.
> You can get away with it if you make them transparent overlays. This does
> not really reduce the play area.
I like! I'm all for good looking icons, and transparency is thematically
appropriate in a surreal game.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Brandon Van Every
>
> You can get away with drawing only a few incidental details in Quake,
> but you'll never get away with that cursory detailing in a game like
> Myst.
On these hands, these games represent the extremes of 3d continuity and
production values. A game that lies between them might get away with more
detail than Quake, but less detail than Myst, because there's some other
way to interact in a pure 3d sense. I keep thinking about users performing
deformations upon 3d objects....
> >I do believe, however, that whimsical surrealist 3d machines are a
> >narrative device that's not been much explored, and there is much
potential
> >here.
>
> Damned right. Unfortunately, it's bloody hard to get this sort of thing
> right.
I wouldn't worry about getting it "right," I'd worry about making progress
within the genre. Preferably as a contractor in other people's games,
eventually in my own.
> So much depends on suspending the player's disbelief. You can't
> just throw loads of disparate elements together and hope they work.
That's true.
> You also have to create a viable back-plot to explain these machines.
> Unless you intend to create a more abstract game based solely on the
> machines. (A sort of mechanical, Heath Robinson-esque form of Solitaire
> might be an interesting R&D experiment. A different take on The
> Incredible Machine.)
Well I envision the machines as having a Surrealist explanation. That
means they have coherence, but you can't necessarily verbalize what the
coherence is. And hopefully this coherence is communicable to a broad
audience. I think this is just the problem of an artist who wants his work
to be understood by others.
> It's probably not going too far to say that what we're looking at is a
> very advanced version of a Fisher-Price Activity Centre.
Yes!
> It is not enough to get just one or two aspects right, you have to get
> *ALL* aspects right. The more of these aspects you can get right, the
> better.
>
> Get all of them right and you have get a 'classic'.
> Get none of them right and you end up with 'shite'.
Well I don't think Myst got all of them right, just a lot. To a lot of
people it's a game less exciting than vallium. And the maze problem
genuinely sucked. You can't please everybody.
> There are plenty of levels in between those two, depending on exactly
> which aspects you manage to get right. But remember that not even Quake
> can honestly be considered a 'classic'. ('Good'? Yes. 'Great'? Maybe.
> But it's definitely not a 'Classic'.)
Yet, DOOM was a classic. So that says the requirements increase over time.
Novelty is a big factor in whether something gets "classic" status. Sheer
popularity is another. Tetris is a classic.
> >You're a snob. :-)
>
> Agreed! But then I *am* British, by gad! :)
Oh you like East Enders then.
Just pointing out that your snobbishness has nothing to do with your
nationality. :-)
> "Well now, me an' me friends, right, we woz finkin', um, finkin' about a
> meltin' pocket-watch with some of them ellyfant fings walkin abaht on
> stilts, like..."
>
> [Long pause. Dali stares at Mr. Publiç, then pulls himself together.
> Dali coughs.]
>
> "Certainly señor! By ze way, could I trouble you for some of zat opium?"
>
> *
>
> Somehow, I don't think so.
Then actually you thought wrong. Dali knew his melting watches sold well,
he made them over and over again for mucho profit. Call it "branding" if
you like. Artists do it all the time. Sure they come up with the original
schtick, but if it sells well what's the difference as far as giving people
what they want?
> >> How often do cinematographers ask members of the public how they
should
> >> frame a shot?
>
> >Actually, the final movie is frequently pre-screened with different
> >audiences to find out if the endings are acceptable. Often the endings
are
> >changed according to the feedback, to make a more successful product.
>
> Yes. So? I've seen perfectly good films *ruined* in this way. Just
> because some illiterate morons with 2-second attention spans in L.A.
> suffering from a chronic case of 'Disney-itis' think a happy ending is
> required, doesn't mean that the rest of the world agrees.
It's up to you and the people with purse strings attached to decide who
gets paid attention to, and nobody guarantees good results. But the
original question was whether the art is a democratic process, and it is.
If you plan to make money. Plenty of movies picked more popular endings
and made more money for it.
> History is littered with films, novels and other artistic endeavours
> that failed miserably outside of the US.
Sure but a lot of that is lack of cultural translation. We don't even
think the same things are funny.
> "Mars Attacks" and "Independence Day" are a classic example of this; the
> former actually did quite well over here, whereas "Independence Day" was
> invariably considered a sack of jingoistic shite. At least Tim Burton
> has the decency not to insult his audience.
Well why in the earth would Brits care about the 4th of July? The movie is
heavily laden with Americana symbolism that you guys wouldn't appreciate.
Americans like it because it's exactly a schlock of their own history,
self-parodying. If the movie had been made about the Raj in India, maybe
with Taj Mahal spaceships or some other crap, maybe you guys would have
eaten it up? Whereas Americans would generally not care.
And besides, we threw in a few Brit fighter pilots for what was happening
in the Middle East, so what the hell are you complaining about??!? :-)
> The simple fact is that games, at present, are too expensive. The
> requirement to write for high-end machines at all costs is partly to
> exascerbated by this; why nobody seems interested in bypassing the
> current farce which sees data being carted around in trucks escapes me.
> There's no justifiable reason for this, other than complacency.
Well I wouldn't go *that* far. There's a very obvious justifiable reason,
the economics are working. ["Speak friend and enter," eh?] What you're
looking for is a different target market, with different economics. But I
think that market is coming anyways, the $1000 and $500 PCs are shipping in
force, and the 3d graphics is getting cheaper all the time.
> (And no, there's no need for all that packaging either. If audio CDs,
> VHS tapes and even books can be packaged in standard cases, I can see
> *NO* reason why this cannot also be applied to games. All you'd need at
> the sales end is a CD writer, and a printing-on-demand system for the
> sleeves. Hell, you could shove it all into a vending machine...)
Because it's about creating the perception of value. Not the reality.
Truely you're an engineer, not a marketer. :-)
> >Beachballs sound like game design to me.
>
> Yes, but the decision to go for that design is a marketing one. If the
> public *didn't* want to play a game with beachballs, the design would
> still exist. It's just that the final game probably wouldn't sell.
Sounds like a chicken-and-egg argument. On what do you base your certainty
that the public didn't want beachball games? Hindsight? Well, that means
someone designed the game and sold it.
> That the public may not be interested in a particular design because of
> its genre, has nothing to do with that design's quality.
>
> Tetris would still be Tetris, even if *nobody* had bought it.
You seem to be postulating that the public is unknowable. Confusing, yes.
Fickle, yes. But unknowable?
> No it arseing well isn't, fuckwit! When was the last time you could pull
> a photograph of a lever and watch a photograph of a device whirring into
> action?
Dr. Spelunx and the Caves of Mr. Pseudo. World Builder. A zillion
Hypercard stacks. I'm sorry, but even if you have some manipulation going
on the basic metaphor of Hypercard is the slideshow. If the shoe fits,
wear it. Call it a slideshow game if it makes you feel better. Slideshow
games have a long history, Myst was just the best effort to date.
> At least let us practise what we preach and target technologies that are
> stable and mature! The Internet is anything *but*. Where is all this
> bandwidth? Where are the cable modems? Where's the cheap connectivity?
> Where, in short, is the bloody infrastructure?
Network-wise we never needed additional infrastructure. (We did need cheap
3d rendering on the desktop.) We have needed intelligence to apply what we
have, and that intelligence has not been forthcoming from industry in
general. Doesn't mean it's impossible, just means you must work with
people who actually understand the implications of distributed virtual
worlds writ large. And, who have a vision for how to tackle the problems
incrementally. The industry has tried to leap directly from standalone
shrinkwrap to full-blown online virtual world services and IMHO that's not
the way to go. It is cheaper to let the users network themselves together
first, provide no centralized service. Let them keep buying shrinkwrap at
certain month intervals the way they always have. Don't try to invent a
new business model.
> Yeah, but in this case, all you're doing is the game design equivalent
> of code re-use. The "It's like Myst, only with 'X'" mentality.
If you say so. I would prefer to judge by the narrative impact of the end
product.
> Granted,
> it's a perfectly acceptable way of working, but this usually leads to
> the "Quake Effect" -- loads of clones; none selling better than the
> original.
I'm perfectly happy to write a good game that sets the tone, and watch
lotsa others do bad, unpopular knockoffs because they really don't know
what they're doing, or they don't have the focus.
> The space effects were pretty good, but they'd been done before. Lucas'
> crew simply did more of them, and worked out how techniques to make them
> cheaper. There were black and white 1960s Doctor Who episodes with more
> realistic effects.
OH COME ON do you expect us to take you seriously anymore? You're being a
total crumudgeon. :-) Dr. Who spaceships look like models hanging in a
black backdrop.
> I'm sorry? "Better than any movie that came before it?" Like *ARSE*.
> Silent Running -- apart from that dire song -- did a *MUCH better job.
> And Star Trek had spaceships blowing each other up over 10 years before.
Oh those ships that you could see the little rectangle around it from where
they superimposed stuff, right?
> Apollo 13 proves that Hard SF *can* work. It just needs more care and
> attention to detail to get it right. It's just harder. :)
Apollo 13 isn't science fiction, it's science fact!
> > Sometimes those mass tastes are, well, based on quality.
> >Maybe not the kind of quality that personally turns you on, but a
> >legitimate deliverance of quality nonetheless. To say Star Wars or
> >Jurrassic Park were sucky movies is just foolish. Within their areas of
> >strength they were *unrivalled* movies.
>
> <Snort> You've obviously never actually *read* a Michael Crichton novel
> recently... :)
I'm talking movies, you're talking books...?
> This is what most annoys me about these arguments: "Programming Is
> Everything!" It's bullshit. Programming is just one aspect of a computer
> game. And it is *NOT* the most important.
Who's been arguing about that? Not a single person in this thread. Me
personally, I've been trying to argue about 3D narrative devices. Other
people have been arguing about 3D user interfaces.
> >And I still don't agree with you. State *why* it's a different game. I
> >say it is now Myst with people sharing the experience together.
>
> Because Myst is a single-player game. It requires a different set of
> design criteria. Making a multi-player game version of Myst isn't
> possible without altering the underlying design.
You didn't state any why's here, you merely repeated your original claim.
Elaborate.
> This is why Quake sucks as a single-player game. It's been designed as
> multi-player from the ground up. Single player was given only a
> picosecond's thought. (And looks suspiciously like a bunch of levels
> built to test the engine out while networking code was still being
> written.)
Elaborate?
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Robert Blum
Brandon Van Every wrote
>Sean Timarco Baggaley <stbag...@stimarco.cix.co.uk> wrote in article
><LgGgtGAp...@dial.pipex.com>...
>>
>> You're missing the point: the user interface is too important to be
>> dismissed so casually. Phrases like "give 'em a bunch of choices" isn't
>> very helpful. What should those choices *be*?
>
>Ok I'm beginning to see your point. If targetting Joe Average, one must be
>aware of Joe Average's lack of skill with UIs. Makes sense for a mass
>market game.
>
>But I have to confess, I'm not fascinated by these issues. When I think
>about what needs to be done to get really interesting stuff out into the
>marketplace, wringing my hands about the interface is not one of the
>stumbling blocks I'm going to put in my path.
It better should be. A good UI is the difference between a mediocre and a
good product. After all that's the way the users access its content. What do
you think why companies like Apple/MS spend big budgets on 'usability labs'?
[snip]
>> By just using the mouse, Myst allows players to sit back and relax while
>> playing. There's no need for the player to be hunched over the keyboard
>> as well.
>
>Not much hunching hitting the spacebar. You just slap it from afar.
It's 100% more effort. Two hands instead of one.
[snip]
>Well let me offer a different thesis. The display size increased because
>2D rendering became faster and CD-ROM storage became larger/cheaper.
>Previously, they filled up the rest of the screen to make it look like they
>weren't cheating the customer. Eye candy production values were recognized
>as paramount and they merely rode the historical production curves.
Not really. I was able to do a fullscreen 2D adventure on a 286/12. Without
any CD-ROM support. It's simply that the people at Lucas Arts made the
interface simpler and simpler.
>Well what if icons look really good, do all sorts of amazingly cool things
>when touched, and function as part of the surrealist psychological
>meta-game? You draw this hard distinction between icon and game. Ths is
>germane to the historical development of the application being divorced
>from its interface. That's not a required development in UI, it's just
>what's happened historically and it has proven very useful in many
>circumstances.
I may just suggest looking at Kai Krause interfaces, where the Icons are
part of the application. This 'here icon - there application' view is
something we probably inherited from software engineering and nice things as
Model-View-Controller architectures.
>> Real-time 3D would add little to the actual gameplay, and could serve to
>> disorient many players.
>
>Before you were doing fine with your points about UI. But here you're just
>naysaying, you've stepped WAY beyond your argument that 3D complicates the
>mouse interface. A game isn't just an interface.
Well, yes and no. If the interface is good, you'll never notice it. But the
interface is the only way to access the games content, so it's a big part of
the game from start to end.
>Why chisel a block of marble to form a sculpture?
Because some pieces looked like an elephant.. (Sorry, couldn't resist :-)
Bye,
Robert
Brandon Van Every
>
> Brandon Van Every wrote
> >But I have to confess, I'm not fascinated by these issues. When I think
> >about what needs to be done to get really interesting stuff out into the
> >marketplace, wringing my hands about the interface is not one of the
> >stumbling blocks I'm going to put in my path.
> good product. After all that's the way the users access its content. What
do
> you think why companies like Apple/MS spend big budgets on 'usability
labs'?
Because they're working on boring software and mouse clicks per second is
more scientifically tractable than whether a game or an artwork is
interesting or not? You clipped my respones as to why the 3D UI is
inherently solveable in the abstract, we agree it is a fish to fry, but
there are much bigger fish to fry.
> >Well let me offer a different thesis. The display size increased
because
> >2D rendering became faster and CD-ROM storage became larger/cheaper.
> >Previously, they filled up the rest of the screen to make it look like
they
> >weren't cheating the customer. Eye candy production values were
recognized
> >as paramount and they merely rode the historical production curves.
>
> Not really. I was able to do a fullscreen 2D adventure on a 286/12.
At 640x480 rendered in 16-bit color with large animated sprites, let alone
MPEG? I don't think so. 2D bandwidth = length * width * depth * time.
Images were smaller to decrease the required bandwidth, until the 2D HW and
the CD-ROM storage allowed more.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Sean Timarco Baggaley
It appears I have some, er, time to kill. (*NEVER* try re-scaling a 46Mb
graphic file when you only have 32Mb of RAM! :)
In article <6f6aja$2br$1...@news.seicom.net>, Robert Blum <r.blum@advertain
ment.remove_this.com> writes
>PMFJI, but this UI thread was *way* too interesting to stay off :-)
PMFJI?
>Sean Timarco Baggaley wrote
>>In article <01bd562a$b31bca40$0983...@hammurabi.blarg.net>, Brandon Van
>>Every <vane...@blarg.net> writes (replying to 'Acuity')
>[...]
>>I have had people asking me where the On/Off switch on an Apple Mac was
>>hidden, because they'd looked all over the case and couldn't find one.
>>(It's that button in the top-right corner of the keyboard. Not exactly a
>>coup for Apple's R&D.)
>Except you've got a Performa. And then there are a few other models that
>hide the 'real' on/off button in really esoteric places. The top right
>corner is no bad idea, if they'd stick to that model. In fact, I'd love an
>'any key switches on' feature.
...or an LC III. (We've had a few as well. It's irritating that the
LCIII cannot use *both* systems -- especially since the key is still
there, and effectively useless.)
>>My own mother, after owning and using computers heavily for years, still
>>tends to double-click *everything*; even hyperlinks, menu items and
>>window titles (to bring 'em to the front).
>Hell, even I - using a computer 8-16 hours a day - tend to be confused as to
>what has to be single/double/right clicked or whatever. MS doesn't help it
>with the new idea to make the whole desktop browser like. IMHO, one of the
>most important things about an user interface is the ability to reuse your
>knowledge on later models of the same interface. If you give up on this
>premise, you're causing a lot of trouble.
Actually, the only two reasons I liked the IE4 upgrade were the new
Start Bar/toolbar features... and the single-click facility.
(In 12 years, I've only ever found one decent mouse I could ever use for
long periods: the 'original' Naksha mouse -- with the separate cable
adaptors for Amiga and Atari. All the others seem to give me cramps
after a couple of hours. Even the MS mouse is crap, IMHO.)
>The most intuitive mouse-related UI to date is one that only operates with
>single clicks and gives you balloon help/tool tips. At least that's what I
>keep hearing from computer illiterates. They're more than occupied with
>coordinating the hand movement to the mouse pointer movement.
Agreed. They *hate* that "WindowShade" feature on MacOS 8; I've had to
turn it off, even though I use it heavily myself.
>>This is why keyboard/mouse combinations put many non-gamers off: it can
>>take people *months* just to get comfortable with a mouse. Keyboard
>>prowess can take forever.
>Yip. Although I'd recommend adding short cuts for the more experienced
>users. Those tend to be put off by mouse only control.
(Hmmm... maybe that explains hardcore gamers' attitudes to Myst! :)
In fact, this is one area where Windows has always been superior to
MacOS: the entire system can be used with only a keyboard for company.
Shortcuts are everywhere, and even un-shortcutted(?) menu items can be
accessed via the "ALT+Menu Letter, Item Letter" sequences.
But I do wish they didn't call them 'accelerator keys'.
"Power" Apple users need to resort to ResEdit and physically hack into
their programs to insert the shortcuts they want. And 99% of users don't
even know this sort of thing is even possible.
>>As soon as you start asking them to press "P" for 'right' and "O" for
>>'left', they get lost. My brother would sit there for ages with her
>>index finger hunting back and forth when he first started playing games
>>on our Spectrum.
>I can't help it: I immediately thought about VI: H/L for up/down, J/K for
>left/right. Now *that* takes coordinative skills to master a game with :-)
(Remember those early Ultimate games? Q, W, E, R and T? Now that must
have taken 'em *years* to think up... :)
>[snip]
>>The Mac (which Cyan originally created Myst for) only has the one mouse
>>button. There's *no* way to use, say, a real-time 3D engine for the
>>display without forcing the player to use both keyboard and mouse.
>I'm not sure about that...
>How about the following: You move your head around using the mouse. No,
>there's no tilt. (IMHO, tilt in 3D FPS has _no_ use. How often do *you* tilt
>your head in normal life?)
>Items of importance get highlighted if you get close to them. Maybe they
>even work as attractors. Mouse clicking will either cause the appropriate
>action, or, if there are multiple actions, display a choice list.
>Mouse pressing on not highlighted items will simply move you in that
>direction.
>Come on, shred it to pieces. I know it's not optimal, but I think that such
>an interface, or a similar one, _could_ work.
Well, it'd be great for game designs with an emphasis towards fewer
hotpots. But I can see problems with Myst itself. Some of the devices --
the time machine springs to mind -- have a whole bunch of buttons,
readouts, levers and stuff. The user would have to be very precise with
their mouse movements, preventing it from (for instance) overshooting
the "+" and "-" button images for a date selector.
With your proposed system, I suspect it'd feel like manipulating a
complex dialog box with your nose. :)
>Another idea was speech. We tested it in our current game, butting using
>speech for maneuvring around is too tedious. Even if you just use it for
>game control like in a text adventure ('go north','take frog','kiss
>frog'...) it can quickly get annoying.
>The feedback of this is simply not immediate enough. I think speech will
>only work in combination with some other device.
Wish I had the facilities to try that out; I've got too much crud in my
PC as it is...
I think the problem with your attempt may be that you're trying to wrap
a new input device into an old UI that was designed for other forms of
input. Designing the game so that speech recognition is integrated
seamlessly as an input device may help.
Eg: instead of "There is an exit to the North, a passage to the East..."
etc., you could simply state "I can see a circus tent to the North; a
fortune teller to the East..." and so on. Then the user could choose to
say "Go to Circus Tent" *OR* "Go into the Circus", etc.
Adapt the UI to the hardware, not the other way round.
>>Keyboard alone would not be very intuitive as a way of selecting objects
>>-- especially since mouse Mac users are *already* used to using the
>>mouse for that purpose.
>Hmmm... Ultimately, this would mean you should use the mouse in a game in
>the same way the underlying OS uses it.
True. I believe Myst comes a lot closer to that ideal than Quake, which
would explain why the former is so popular outside the hardcore gaming
community.
>>Iconic interfaces were gradually phased out during the mid 1990s for a
>>very simple reason: they're obtrusive and fundamentally unnecessary. At
>>most, you need little more than a context-sensitive cursor and context-
>>sensitive pop-up menus. But there should be *nothing* on the screen that
>>does not need to be there.
>Exactly. It simply destroys the feeling. The problem is if you have to
>provide the user with lots of information during the game..
Well, my personal take on that is to stop giving out so much information
in the first place. Airplane cockpit designers think along these lines
too.
Information management is the more difficult part of UI design, since
it's all too easy to throw an entire database at someone who only wants
one field.
The usual solution is to place that information in context, so that
you're not forcing the user to translate raw numbers and graphs and have
to relate it all, consciously, to the gameplay.
The simplest example is showing progressive damage.
For instance: In C&C, many items go through varying levels of obvious,
unabstracted damage before finally exploding/dying. (Buildings and
trucks have more holes and spout smoke; troops get progressively slower
and less accurate.)
When they go 'critical', the player's attention is grabbed by a flashing
spanner superimposed on the object. (Or, in the case of troops, making
them *really* slow.)
This approach is a lot better than permanently displaying loads of tiny
bar charts beneath each item -- something you can get *when you need it*
by clicking on the item in question.
[...]
>>Icons and side-panels *are* bad.
>Unless you *have* to provide the information in the side panels.
Well, even then they need to be kept to an absolute minimum. Cluttering
up a panel with an overload of information is too easy.
>>Aesthetics play a major part in a Myst-style game and icons and side-
>>panels don't improve a game's look. They're also unpopular because they
>>reduce the available play area.
>You can get away with it if you make them transparent overlays. This does
>not really reduce the play area.
They're still distracting, though. (Roll on multiple-monitor games! 8).
I often feel that the designers (or programmers, depending on who's
responsible) are just copping out when they dump info on a panel that
could easily -- and more naturally -- have been represented in the game
area itself.
Even something as simple as a vertical scrolling shoot-em-up -- once a
prime offender in the side-panel stakes -- can be let down by lazy
design.
Why have a bar showing "Shield Remaining" when you could just have a
graphic round the ship itself cycling through a sequence of colours.
(Such as green->yellow->red->flashing red-> gone!) A bar in the side
panel simply means that the player has to take his/her eyes off the
action to check a very important detail.
Panels and/or overlays should be used only for details that simply
*cannot* be displayed in any other way. (Score, for instance. And lives,
although Moon Cresta managed to put that in the game arena as well.)
>>Real-time 3D would add little to the actual gameplay, and could serve to
>>disorient many players.
>Real time 3D would add little to the gameplay of Myst. Because the designers
>never *planned* to make it part of the game. I do believe that you could
>build a game similar to Myst that takes advantage of a real time 3D
>environment.
>No, I do not have any concrete ideas at the moment. I let my subconscience
>work at it :-)
2p (incl. VAT) says you can't! :)
Personally, I think the user interface in Myst is the main reason it's
so successful. Remember, non-gamers simply aren't interested in FM3D[1]
displays at the moment.
As the next few generations mature, this balance will probably change,
moving gradually towards acceptance of the hardcore gamer's staples. But
at the moment, we're aiming at a "transition" market: one that probably
didn't grow up with a Nintendo, Atari, Commodore, Sinclair or Apple
computer in front of the TV.
A market that doesn't know, want to know, or even *need* to know that
"Myst is just a bunch of interactive dialog boxes". All they care about
is a good game.
For designers, this is important. It matters not that it's not hi-tech;
all these people want is hi-game.
>>>> You also have to remember that once you move to true 3D, you have no
>>>> control over what the world looks like from an art standpoint.
>So your art is better done in a way that it is architectural art? After all,
>architects don't tie people to wheelchairs to visit great buildings.
No, but it does make it harder to do the 'riding off into the sunset'
scenes... :)
--
Sean Timarco Baggaley
<mailto: whatever you damned well wa...@stimarco.cix.co.uk>
E&OE
[1] "Full Motion 3D". (Hey! If video -- which is 'full motion' by definition --
can get away with it...)
David Matiskella
Acuity wrote:
> Sean Timarco Baggaley <stbag...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >No the right mouse button doesn't *exist*. Not on a Mac, anyway. Unless
> >you're only aiming at the PC (or RiscOS!) market, this sort of
> >portability issue has to be considered in such a game.
>
> Nobody in their right mind would bother taking the Mac into
> consideration these days for games. I don't hate macs, but one has to
> be realistic.
Depends how much work it is. You can still get 100k+ sellers one the mac (
I saw somewhere that Myth had sold 300k+ and approximately 1/3 of the sales
were on the mac) which would make it worth while if you can do it with only
a man month of effort. Not to mention since Myst was done in one of those
high level tools (Director? Hypercard?) it was most likely a very simple
port. The production cost in Myst/Riven was the art not the code.
Sean Timarco Baggaley
In article <01bd56c1$ca1e4460$3883...@hammurabi.blarg.net>, Brandon Van
Every <vane...@blarg.net> writes
[...]
>> By just using the mouse, Myst allows players to sit back and relax while
>> playing. There's no need for the player to be hunched over the keyboard
>> as well.
>Not much hunching hitting the spacebar. You just slap it from afar.
Try it sometime. I've seen a few games (and mainstream apps) that force
this on a user and, frankly, it seriously winds people up after a while.
(That 'while' varies greatly, but you'll find few people willing to put
up with it permanently.)
Admittedly, you're a bit limited with a Mac; it's a one-button mouse or
nowt. Joypads/sticks do exist, but they're nowhere near as widespread.
And there's no standard that I know of (unless GameSprockets has an API
for them.)
In hindsight, this may have been the primary influence for Myst's UI,
since the keyboard appears to be considered a necessary evil for most
Mac users.
*
Personally, I think the wheelie mouse used by MS and Logitech is the
'ideal' mouse format. The wheel is an excellent idea, and surprisingly
well implemented on both MS' and Logitech's efforts. Writing UIs to
these would be bliss! :)
>> Iconic interfaces were gradually phased out during the mid 1990s for a
>> very simple reason: they're obtrusive and fundamentally unnecessary.
>For games with the functionality of the period!
For games *period*.
Monkey Island 1 had the same 'functionality' as Monkey Island 3, but
MI3's interface is a major improvement on the one in MI1. It still uses
icons, but they're hidden from view until they're needed, and when they
*do* appear, only the pertinent options are there.
(Although I think it's a toss-up whether it's an improvement over the
context-cursor one in Sam & Max.)
>> At
>> most, you need little more than a context-sensitive cursor and context-
>> sensitive pop-up menus. But there should be *nothing* on the screen that
>> does not need to be there.
>Ok fine use popup menus when you want to do something more complex like
>building/warping an object. I dunno. Whatever. I never said this game
>was supposed to be for morons, only that it should have a default moron
>mode.
But... if you're trying to go for a Myst 'rival', you need to understand
*why* Myst is so successful. Even if you don't agree with my own, highly
personal, views, there must be *some* reason why so many non-gamers
actually play it.
I never occurred to me how influention a UI could be on sales until I
started asking people why the played games like Myst, but not Doom.
Even though Doom actually feels more simplistic to many of us, it turns
out that many non-gamers are put off by real-time games (and Myst
certainly isn't real-time) simply because they want something that
*isn't* in-yer-face all the time.
<"Seemed like a good idea at the time"-type ASIDE --- LONG.>
It makes sense now. Many people watch TV, or listen to radio because
both media stimulate their senses and minds *without* having to work at
it. Passivity is a plus. Sad, but true.
This is why I think the Internet and "Interactive TV" and all that jazz
are in for a major reality check. E-mail remains by far the most popular
use for the Internet, but it's more of a labour-saving device than
anything else. No need to buy envelopes; no more hunting around father's
room to find that elusive 1st Class stamp. It's the postal equivalent of
the washing-machine.
Websites are primarily another form of broadcasting -- no different to
radio or TV. It's just that it's a lot easier to set up your own
'station'.
How is filling in an online "Guestbook" any different to a Letter to The
Editor? "Dear Sir, I loved your Website/article..."
How is a Web-based chat system conceptually different to phoning up a
radio talk show?
Sure, you get online databases that look whizzo and impressive... but
they merely cut out the 'middle-man': the telephone operator who picks
up the handset when you dial Directory Enquiries. The concept is the
same, there's just a tier missing. Again: it's a labour-saving device,
just like the fax-machine.
The majority of the population -- home from a bloody hard day at the
office -- want to *unwind*. They want to see *others* do all the hard
work. Why *should* they have to read 100 page manuals and "Playing PC
Games... For Dummies!" in order to get their R&R?
This goes some way towards explaining why hardcore gaming is considered
a just a minor, faddish hobby -- as opposed to watching TV, a "hobby"
endorsed by countless *millions* of people *every day*.
There's a vast, *untapped* market out there that we don't even seem to
*want* to, er, penetrate. It's not a matter of 'beating' TV, it's a
matter of providing an alternative to TV in the first place.
But we're just not offering one. Myst came close. So did Tetris. Games
like Populous and Civilisation have also pushed the circle in that Venn
Diagram that is "The Set Of All Computer Games Players" out that bit
further.
*THIS* is where the game designers' real challenge lies; writing games
for 'us' is just wimping out in the face of this challenge.
The reason I'm emphasising this is because I recently dug up some old
mags; dating back to the mid-1980s. "Ghostbusters", a game released in
1984 (IIRC) sold *MORE* copies than Quake.
*MORE*.
An 8-bit [crap] game did *better* than the fruit of His Beatific
Worship, The Right Reverend John "Saint" Carmack's loins.
Our core market isn't expanding, it's been the same for *OVER A DECADE*.
All that's happened is that the 'real world' has legitimised it,
promoting it from "Something anorak-wearing deviants do" to "Official
Hobby(tm) Status".
History has repeatedly shown how it expands and contracts
catastrophically with depressing regularity, as the good Old Guard
developers get "promoted to the level of their own mediocrity" or simply
run out of fresh ideas. (This brings in New Guard developers who are
usually responsible for pulling the industry out the current
'recession'.)
Unfortunately, placing the games industry on the same level as stamp
collecting and gurning isn't enough.
It's an advance, certainly. It's better than where we *were*. But it's
not where we should remain.
We've pushed the industry up this far, but we cannot become complacent
and allow games like "Myst" and "Riven" to be dismissed as mere freaks
of nature. They should be considered signs pointing to the way
forward...
<\RANT -- (I think there was something in my tea. Sorry...)>
>> Take a look at the SCUMM games released by LucasArts over the years. See
>> how they've mutated: from a display which had 2/3rds of the screen taken
>> up by the location and the final 3rd entirely taken up by menus and an
>> inventory, to a full-screen display of the game... and *nothing else*.
>> The cursor changed its appearance when it was moved over hotspots.
>> Otherwise, no other part of the interface is visible.
>Well let me offer a different thesis. The display size increased because
>2D rendering became faster and CD-ROM storage became larger/cheaper.
I disagree vehemently. I was programming back then and SCUMM games were
hardly pushing technology to its limits. Even an EGA-based PC is capable
of moving two sprites around a screen without bursting into tears about
how unfairly it's being treated.
The last time I worked on a point-and-click adventure game was back when
a 486DX2/66 was considered a "BUGGER ME SIDEWAYS! That sod is *FAST!*"
machine.
Our engine ran so damned fast it could cope easily with refreshing a
256-colour 800x600 display far too quickly for the eye to follow. And
this was while interpreting scripted game logic on the fly. No pre-
compilation, just pre-tokenised bytecode.
(For the curious, even then we were already using 99% Watcom 9.5b-
compiled C code -- 80x86 was used for the sprite rendering. And yes, it
ran too fast on 386s as well. Frame-locking was necessary on all our
test machines, right down to the 16Mhz 386SX.)
>Previously, they filled up the rest of the screen to make it look like they
>weren't cheating the customer. Eye candy production values were recognized
>as paramount and they merely rode the historical production curves.
If that were the case, they must have had some unbelievably tossy
coders. Remember, these games ran fine on 68000-based Commodore Amigas
running at a piss-poor 7.14Mhz. (And Atari STs running at 8Mhz -- with
no hardware assistance.)
And both of those machines were perfectly capable of running arcade-
level games.
>> >3D != complex interface, in and of itself. Example: imagine a fully 3D
>> >world in which you are only allowed to move forwards. No left turn, no
>> >right turn, no other form of movement is possible. Simple interface,
>> >right?
>> Right.
>> Except that would make for a *very* restrictive, overtly linear game.
>> (Which isn't intrinsically bad, but it doesn't exactly lend itself well
>> to a Myst-style game.)
>So, add axes to taste.
(Only axes? No red peppers? ... can I add garlic? Or would that be to
European? :)
> Now I'm going to let you move forwards and left, on
>a sphere. You can see that it's merely a matter of mathematical scaling.
Is that like QuickTime VR?
>> >Do you have a basis for asserting that immersiveness is destroyed, or is
>> >that your conjecture?
>> It's not conjecture: it's the result of independent and documented
>> research into user interfaces.
>As far as I know the Virtual Reality people don't study the immersiveness
>of "through the looking glass" VR. They're worried about HMDs, large
>screen projectors, and fovial lenghts blah blah blah. If you say it
>did/didn't work for Myst and they did research on it that's fine, but it's
>only with 1 game. Not like an entire science of immersion in GUI games had
>been developed. I've seen people plenty well immersed in a bloody
>text-based MUD to know that it's more than just how many keystrokes or icon
>switches.
There's no "science in GUI games" required, just "science in GUI". What
did you think those folks at Xerox's PARC were doing while working on
Apple's future?
>> Command & Conquer, for instance, uses a somewhat cumbersome iconic
>> menuing system in a side panel. The only reason it's excuseable to have
>> one is because the designers needed somewhere to put the map view and
>> status lines anyway.
>Tell me why Command & Conquer needs to be immersive? It's a wargame.
And you don't get drawn into it? Just because it's an abstracted
viewpoint doesn't make it non-immersive. Convincing immersion is a
*requirement* for a successful game.
Christ, I remember playing the original, wire-frame "Elite" on a
Sinclair Spectrum for *hours*, fully believing I was flying spaceship in
space. The fact that planets looked suspiciously like white circles and
that the starfield moved at Warp 10 even at sub-light speeds didn't
affect the immersiveness at all. (Well, okay, that starfield nagged at
me a *little* bit, but I'm an exacting bastard when it comes to the
visual arts...)
You didn't find that parody of a commando in C&C great fun to play?
"HAHAHA! And that was *LEFT*-handed!!" (I thought he was far better than
that female version in Red Alert.)
And what about Grand Theft Auto? That's got a top-down view. Atari's
Super Sprint? You've never found yourself wrapped up in Spy Hunter or
Micro Machines?
Zelda?
>> But there's no reason why the resource management couldn't have been
>> done by context-sensitive clicking on the relevant map elements. (Eg:
>> click-and-hold on the Barracks would pop up a [probably iconic] list of
>> available troop types. Drag the mouse cursor to the one you want, then
>> let go to execute the command. Exactly like using Win95 and MacOS 8
>> menus.)
>And why doesn't popping up menus also break the illusion of immersion? It
>covers up part of the 2d screen, it requries mechanical labor.
But it's only there for few brief moments, as opposed to *all the time*.
It keeps the player focussed on the game itself, rather than presenting
them with the games equivalent of manufacturing a TV set with no cover,
and all the controls accessible only by twiddling potentiometers with a
screwdriver (supplied).
I, and others, feel that having *any* unnecessary clutter left lying
around is conceptually bad, but that's no excuse for saying "Fuck it!"
and leaving *everything* lying about in one messy heap.
[...]
>Well what if icons look really good, do all sorts of amazingly cool things
>when touched, and function as part of the surrealist psychological
>meta-game? You draw this hard distinction between icon and game. Ths is
>germane to the historical development of the application being divorced
>from its interface. That's not a required development in UI, it's just
>what's happened historically and it has proven very useful in many
>circumstances.
But Myst DOES have icons! What did you think those pictures of buttons
and levers were? It's just using icons *in context*.
See? Icons can and cannot be used! Simple!
You win... and I win!
Problem solved! Case closed! (Who's for a beer?)
>> Real-time 3D would add little to the actual gameplay, and could serve to
>> disorient many players.
>Before you were doing fine with your points about UI. But here you're just
>naysaying, you've stepped WAY beyond your argument that 3D complicates the
>mouse interface. A game isn't just an interface.
I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this: I consider the display
technology used (the feedback to the player) to be *part* of the UI.
It's the equivalent of deciding to use colour or black-and-white film
for a movie; deciding whether to tell a story using a first- or third-
person form.
How can the choice of form be 100% divorced from the content?
[...]
>> Then what's the *point*? Why give him the freedom to move around
>> wherever he wants, only to arbitrarily *remove* that freedom to allow
>> you to show off your artists' work to best effect?
(Q:)
>Why chisel a block of marble to form a sculpture?
(A: So you can see the sculpture that was trapped inside the block of
marble. Easy!)
Seriously. Do you advocate the use of arbitrary, inconsistent
restrictions on players? I'd find that sort of behaviour very annoying
in a game.
>> > And you haven't heard my more radical ideas about perspective theory
>> >anyways. Who says game objects have to be 3d entities viewable from all
>> >vantage points? They could be constructed based on the viewer's
>> >perspective, surreal dream objects rather than tangible 3d ones. The
>> >psychology of the object is key, not whether you can draw it in plan and
>> >elevation views.
>> Sounds interesting, but it's not very clear exactly what you're getting
>> at.
>Some other thread and some other time. They're not fully developed enough
>for explanation right now. But the short answer is it's not important how
>something is laid out, it's only important how it appears. When you worry
>about all this unrestricted 3D stuff, you're worrying about engineering
>layouts from all angles. You're not worrying about the psychology of how
>things appear, which is merely a subset of the unrestricted 3D.
(Does it have any connection with the technology used in QuickTime VR?)
I think we're posting past each other; I must be being a bit unclear
about this. I don't advocate abandoning FM3D, but I do advocate dropping
it in situations where it wouldn't add anything significant to a game.
The main premise in Myst is to *use* 'things' -- use the machines; read
the books; pull levers; rotate observatories...
How you *get* to those 'things' isn't relevant to Myst's gameplay.
Adding FM3D isn't going to make the gameplay any 'better' as the object
isn't to walk around and admire the scenery. It's to get the hell *away*
from the scenery.
When you're escaping from a prison, you rarely stop off to admire the
pretty architecture. By reinforcing this aspect in Myst and discouraging
casual tourism, the player is *forced* (Gasp! Accursed linearity!) to
transfer their attention where the designer wants them to.
Myst does this in a way that often looks "obvious and linear" to us, but
it's been very carefully designed not to be *intrusively* linear.
Provide just enough freedom as is necessary to serve the gameplay...
then *STOP*.
The pretty graphics, sound effects and other details are there mainly to
reinforce the atmosphere and immersive experience. The designer doesn't
*want* you wandering around at will, climbing the trees, fishing or
frolicking on the beach because it would dilute the atmosphere of
'confinement'.
(This is obvious when you consider that alternative would be to somehow
simulate 'Robinson Crusoe' without having the player spend most of his
time admiring the view or trying to catch fish. Realistic that may be,
but it's hardly the 'experience' the designers want to convey.)
>> >Who said in goalless "Make Myst Real in 3D" games that anyone's looking
>for
>> >clues?
>>
>> Myst does. If you want "Make Myst Real in 3D" games, you have to realise
>> that Myst *HAS* goals.
>
>I may only want the atmosphere of Myst, not its goals.
Then -- no offence -- please stop defining it in terms of Myst.
Pratchett doesn't call his novels "The Middle-Earth Novels" any more
than Professor Tolkein would have called referred to his magnum opii as
"Discworld without the jokes", yet both have dragons, humans, elves and
goblins in them.
Strike a new path![1] 8)
>> He wasn't talking about 'hitting' a wall, but actually getting *stuck*
>> in one. It's a technical flaw that remains in a lot of 3D engines.
>Well fix the flaw then! What does this have to do with game design or even
>UIs?
That one turns out to have been a misunderstanding on my part: usually
"getting stuck in walls" implies a common bug found in many a 3D engine
(even Tomb Raider has it). Turns out he was referring to someone simply
walking up to walls and, er, not being able to figure out what to do
next...
(Users, eh? Who'd have 'em. :)
--
Sean Timarco Baggaley
<mailto: whatever you damned well wa...@stimarco.cix.co.uk>
E&OE
[1] :)
Sorry, it's been "one of those days"...
Sean Timarco Baggaley
In article <01bd56ce$a5612220$3883...@hammurabi.blarg.net>, Brandon Van
Every <vane...@blarg.net> writes
>> You can get away with drawing only a few incidental details in Quake,
>> but you'll never get away with that cursory detailing in a game like
>> Myst.
>On these hands, these games represent the extremes of 3d continuity and
>production values. A game that lies between them might get away with more
>detail than Quake, but less detail than Myst, because there's some other
>way to interact in a pure 3d sense. I keep thinking about users performing
>deformations upon 3d objects....
Eeewwwwwww... -- oh! Sorry... mis-read that last line there... :)
Now that sounds intriguing. I suspect you'll actually find that the user
interface issues will be rather important though. Manipulating objects
is hard enough in 2D with current input devices, let alone deforming 3D
ones.
Bear in mind that "deforming 3D objects" is something 3D graphics
artists do on a regular basis, and 3D Studio is hardly a paragon of
simplicity. Making manipulating 3D objects easy is something the folks
at Alias|Wavefront and Softimage have been wrestling with for years.
(And believe me, you do *NOT* want to mess with AutoCAD... :)
[...]
>> Damned right. Unfortunately, it's bloody hard to get this sort of thing
>> right.
>I wouldn't worry about getting it "right," I'd worry about making progress
>within the genre. Preferably as a contractor in other people's games,
>eventually in my own.
Remember The Golden Rule: "If it ain't your money: SPEND IT!"
[Copyright (C) 73 BC, Messrs Sue, Grabbit & Runne. Attorneys at Law.
Gladiatorial Injury Litigation a speciality!]
[...]
>Well I envision the machines as having a Surrealist explanation. That
>means they have coherence, but you can't necessarily verbalize what the
>coherence is. And hopefully this coherence is communicable to a broad
>audience. I think this is just the problem of an artist who wants his work
>to be understood by others.
That's going to be *hard*. One man's Surrealism is another man's "Huh?"
>> It's probably not going too far to say that what we're looking at is a
>> very advanced version of a Fisher-Price Activity Centre.
>Yes!
:)
(Now... where did I put my design for a Virtual Jack-In-The-Box...)
>> It is not enough to get just one or two aspects right, you have to get
>> *ALL* aspects right. The more of these aspects you can get right, the
>> better.
>>
>> Get all of them right and you have get a 'classic'.
>> Get none of them right and you end up with 'shite'.
>Well I don't think Myst got all of them right, just a lot. To a lot of
>people it's a game less exciting than vallium. And the maze problem
>genuinely sucked. You can't please everybody.
Ah, but that "...lot of people..." you refer to aren't representative of
the majority. Most people don't play "hardcore" games --
-- but I've already addressed this point in a wildly rambling, tea-
influenced rant in another post.
>> There are plenty of levels in between those two, depending on exactly
>> which aspects you manage to get right. But remember that not even Quake
>> can honestly be considered a 'classic'. ('Good'? Yes. 'Great'? Maybe.
>> But it's definitely not a 'Classic'.)
>Yet, DOOM was a classic. So that says the requirements increase over time.
> Novelty is a big factor in whether something gets "classic" status. Sheer
>popularity is another. Tetris is a classic.
Tetris I'll grant. DOOM, I think, is borderline. It's not particularly
appealing to the majority of "softcore" gamers -- I got bored by the
sixth level myself, and preferred Descent (which had a ludicrous number
of keys! But then, I find the creative process far more rewarding than
99.99999% of games. So 'nerrrrr'.)
>> >You're a snob. :-)
>> Agreed! But then I *am* British, by gad! :)
>Oh you like East Enders then.
<Pffffttttttttttrrrrfffflllll... COFF!... wheeeeeeeze... COFF! COFF!
HACK! COFF... Splutter...>
.
.
.
.
(Fuck! Another blasted keyboard 'Tea-ed' to death... BASTARD!)
.
.
Excuuuuuuzzzzzeee me? *Like* EastEnders???? HOW DARE THEE, SIRRAH! Thou
art the vilest cur upon God's Earth!
Step outside!! NOW!!
<FX: THWACK! POW! PUMMEL! GLASGOW KISS!!! ASSORTED ONOMATOPEIA!!>
There... that'll learn yer.
*EastEnders!* I ask you!!
*
To clarify the problem: the British Bloody Corporation (BBC) transmit
this particular documentary before the 9-o'Clock watershed; they're not
allowed to have swearing before that time. So, what were originally
filmed as three-hour epics filled with proud, manly (and womanly)
displays of fulmination, malediction, cussing, cursing and downright
swearing end up being 'edited for family viewing' -- and reduced to a
mere thirty minutes.
*Real* East Londoners swear almost every other syllable, thus:
"Oi! What the fuckin' bleedin' arse do you fink yer doin, eh? I mean,
First Aid?? *JESUS FUCKING *KERRISTTT!!* It's only a fuckin' *BAY-BEE*!
Fuck me!! You'd fink it was im-bloody-portant, like football! It's not
like we can't make another one!! Just chuck it in the bin, for fuck's
sakes..."
(Note especially the true cuss-artist's trademark: deftly inserting a
profanity *inside* a word.)
Unfortunately, all that editing and cutting means that the only things
even remotely 'gritty' in EastEnders are the chimneys.
>Just pointing out that your snobbishness has nothing to do with your
>nationality. :-)
Of course not... it's all down to good breeding!
[..."The Dali Sketch"...]
>> *
>>
>> Somehow, I don't think so.
>
>Then actually you thought wrong. Dali knew his melting watches sold well,
>he made them over and over again for mucho profit.
But which came *first*? Publiç demand... or Dali's watch?
Answer: the watch.
He *created* the market -- had that original idea of the melting watch -
- in the first place. (Though Dali is probably a bad example. He's
hardly what we'd call the 'norm' for an artist...)
Whether he exploited the subsequent demand for superheated timepieces
isn't the point.
Even then, Señor Publiç merely gave Dali a 'specification': create a
product with a melted watch in it.
It was up to Dali to take that 'spec' and create an actual painting.
Even Shigeru Miyamoto has to do a bit more work than merely "create a
game with an Italian plumber in it."
God -- i.e., the *designer* -- *is* the details.
[...]
>> Yes. So? I've seen perfectly good films *ruined* in this way. Just
>> because some illiterate morons with 2-second attention spans in L.A.
>> suffering from a chronic case of 'Disney-itis' think a happy ending is
>> required, doesn't mean that the rest of the world agrees.
>It's up to you and the people with purse strings attached to decide who
>gets paid attention to, and nobody guarantees good results. But the
>original question was whether the art is a democratic process, and it is.
Eh? How is asking a tiny, unrepresentative, fraction of Hollywood
residents for their opinions "Democratic"?
>If you plan to make money. Plenty of movies picked more popular endings
>and made more money for it.
"Titanic."
>> History is littered with films, novels and other artistic endeavours
>> that failed miserably outside of the US.
>Sure but a lot of that is lack of cultural translation. We don't even
>think the same things are funny.
That's true. I've heard that there are people 'over there' who actually
laugh at Benny Hill.
Weird...
>> "Mars Attacks" and "Independence Day" are a classic example of this; the
>> former actually did quite well over here, whereas "Independence Day" was
>> invariably considered a sack of jingoistic shite. At least Tim Burton
>> has the decency not to insult his audience.
>Well why in the earth would Brits care about the 4th of July? The movie is
>heavily laden with Americana symbolism that you guys wouldn't appreciate.
Why set it on 4th July in the first place, then? I recall that it wasn't
originally planned that way, but "democracy" thought it would be a great
idea. Hollywood has to consider the rest of the world, if only because
otherwise, British movies may -- Heaven Forfend! -- make a comeback!
("Carry On Columbus"? ARRGHH!! PleasepleasepleasepleasePLEASEGODNOOOOOO!
*ANYTHING* but that...)
>Americans like it because it's exactly a schlock of their own history,
>self-parodying. If the movie had been made about the Raj in India, maybe
>with Taj Mahal spaceships or some other crap, maybe you guys would have
>eaten it up? Whereas Americans would generally not care.
I thought StarGate -- which had some vaguely original bits of SF in
there -- did quite well in the US? It's supposed to be how Emmerrich and
Devlin made their reputation, IIRC.
And that was basically "Pyramids In Space."
>And besides, we threw in a few Brit fighter pilots for what was happening
>in the Middle East, so what the hell are you complaining about??!? :-)
Their accents!
"Oh! I thay, Corporal Punithment! Lithten to thith! Thothe Yankth have
come up with a corker of an idea..."
"Oh! Well -- Gosh! -- it's abait time!"
Dammit! It's been nearly a century since ANYONE talked like that! Don't
you guys watch EastEnders? :)
"You want me to do *what*? Fly up that fucker's gun-barrel and twat it
one wiv me AMRAAMS at point-blank range? Yew takin' ther piss, or wot?"
>> The simple fact is that games, at present, are too expensive. The
>> requirement to write for high-end machines at all costs is partly to
>> exascerbated by this; why nobody seems interested in bypassing the
>> current farce which sees data being carted around in trucks escapes me.
>> There's no justifiable reason for this, other than complacency.
>Well I wouldn't go *that* far. There's a very obvious justifiable reason,
>the economics are working. ["Speak friend and enter," eh?] What you're
>looking for is a different target market, with different economics. But I
>think that market is coming anyways, the $1000 and $500 PCs are shipping in
>force, and the 3d graphics is getting cheaper all the time.
<EVIL SCIENTIST>
Heh heh heh! Juss wayte... juss wayte und zee... I'll show zem... zey
sought I voss mad! MAD! MWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA
[Strokes large, hairy cat...]
</EVIL SCIENTIST>
>> (And no, there's no need for all that packaging either. If audio CDs,
>> VHS tapes and even books can be packaged in standard cases, I can see
>> *NO* reason why this cannot also be applied to games. All you'd need at
>> the sales end is a CD writer, and a printing-on-demand system for the
>> sleeves. Hell, you could shove it all into a vending machine...)
>Because it's about creating the perception of value. Not the reality.
>Truely you're an engineer, not a marketer. :-)
It's about changing how that value is perceived!
Marketing techniques such as advertising and exposure (viz. Lara Croft)
can do a lot more to sell a game than packaging. Take a look at audio CD
advertising, and video advertising, and movie advertising, and...
If *all* the packaging is the same -- and I admit, that's going to be
the hardest thing to achieve -- how else is the buyer to perceive value?
(As for kick-starting it, there's nothing wrong with a good old-
fashioned eco-argument... "Make gameplay, not cardboard!")
>> >Beachballs sound like game design to me.
>> Yes, but the decision to go for that design is a marketing one. If the
>> public *didn't* want to play a game with beachballs, the design would
>> still exist. It's just that the final game probably wouldn't sell.
>Sounds like a chicken-and-egg argument. On what do you base your certainty
>that the public didn't want beachball games? Hindsight? Well, that means
>someone designed the game and sold it.
>> That the public may not be interested in a particular design because of
>> its genre, has nothing to do with that design's quality.
>> Tetris would still be Tetris, even if *nobody* had bought it.
>You seem to be postulating that the public is unknowable. Confusing, yes.
>Fickle, yes. But unknowable?
Essentially, yes. Otherwise, Hollywood wouldn't still be releasing so
many dud films every year.
They have, after all, had over 80 years to get it right.
Even TV production is essentially hit-and-miss. ("Sleepwalkers",
anyone?)
>> No it arseing well isn't, fuckwit! When was the last time you could pull
>> a photograph of a lever and watch a photograph of a device whirring into
>> action?
>Dr. Spelunx and the Caves of Mr. Pseudo. World Builder. A zillion
>Hypercard stacks. I'm sorry, but even if you have some manipulation going
>on the basic metaphor of Hypercard is the slideshow. If the shoe fits,
>wear it. Call it a slideshow game if it makes you feel better. Slideshow
>games have a long history, Myst was just the best effort to date.
<Sigh> Okay. Have it your way.
(I prefer "Dialog-box games". More accurate, IMHO.)
>> At least let us practise what we preach and target technologies that are
>> stable and mature! The Internet is anything *but*. Where is all this
>> bandwidth? Where are the cable modems? Where's the cheap connectivity?
>> Where, in short, is the bloody infrastructure?
>Network-wise we never needed additional infrastructure. (We did need cheap
>3d rendering on the desktop.) We have needed intelligence to apply what we
>have, and that intelligence has not been forthcoming from industry in
>general. Doesn't mean it's impossible, just means you must work with
>people who actually understand the implications of distributed virtual
>worlds writ large.
But that's only useful if virtual worlds is all that matters. How do you
get the texturing data for those virtual worlds from server to client,
for instance?
I realise that the US has something of an advantage over most other
countries; Britain is still considered the Cinderella of the Internet
Age because of our telcos. (£200, *JUST* to get an ISDN line installed.
And the backbones still aren't particularly rapid.)
Cable modems? "Never heard of them, sir," said the kind fellow at Cable
& Wireless.
I happen to have a true Set-Top Box on top of the TV in this room. It's
crap. Takes forever to download games that wouldn't be considered
review-worthy back in the early 1980s. The sound is, frankly, abysmal --
about equal to a Sinclair Spectum -- and visuals are of the 'Early
Commodore 64' variety.
If that's the "future", I don't want anything to do with it...
> And, who have a vision for how to tackle the problems
>incrementally. The industry has tried to leap directly from standalone
>shrinkwrap to full-blown online virtual world services and IMHO that's not
>the way to go. It is cheaper to let the users network themselves together
>first, provide no centralized service. Let them keep buying shrinkwrap at
>certain month intervals the way they always have. Don't try to invent a
>new business model.
...yet...
>> Yeah, but in this case, all you're doing is the game design equivalent
>> of code re-use. The "It's like Myst, only with 'X'" mentality.
>If you say so. I would prefer to judge by the narrative impact of the end
>product.
(Now that I understand the kind of design you're thinking of, I think my
"code re-use" argument isn't applicable.)
[...]
>> The space effects were pretty good, but they'd been done before. Lucas'
>> crew simply did more of them, and worked out how techniques to make them
>> cheaper. There were black and white 1960s Doctor Who episodes with more
>> realistic effects.
>OH COME ON do you expect us to take you seriously anymore? You're being a
>total crumudgeon. :-) Dr. Who spaceships look like models hanging in a
>black backdrop.
You've obviously never watched some of the better Patrick Troughton
stories... :) Some of the effects the BBC was doing shortly before Dr.
Who went colour (and hence, back about 15 years in the arena of FX
technology) were bloody impressive.
(The European "PAL" TV standard wasn't introduced in the UK until 1969,
and didn't go mainstream until 1970.)
>> I'm sorry? "Better than any movie that came before it?" Like *ARSE*.
>> Silent Running -- apart from that dire song -- did a *MUCH better job.
>> And Star Trek had spaceships blowing each other up over 10 years before.
>Oh those ships that you could see the little rectangle around it from where
>they superimposed stuff, right?
Er, yeah. Just like the overlay rectangles that are perfectly visible
in, er, Star Wars. (Take a look at the documentaries that come with the
Special Edition, CGI-ed versions. They even point out how you can see
*right through* the cockpits of the fighters during the AT-AT battle in
Empire Strikes Back.)
They tried to minimise it, yes, but so did others.
(Hell, look at Blade Runner if you want to see how to make a decent SF
film. Released within a couple of years of ESB, IIRC.)
>> Apollo 13 proves that Hard SF *can* work. It just needs more care and
>> attention to detail to get it right. It's just harder. :)
>Apollo 13 isn't science fiction, it's science fact!
...which is *stranger* than fiction!
>> > Sometimes those mass tastes are, well, based on quality.
>> >Maybe not the kind of quality that personally turns you on, but a
>> >legitimate deliverance of quality nonetheless. To say Star Wars or
>> >Jurrassic Park were sucky movies is just foolish. Within their areas of
>> >strength they were *unrivalled* movies.
>>
>> <Snort> You've obviously never actually *read* a Michael Crichton novel
>> recently... :)
>I'm talking movies, you're talking books...?
(Who do you think wrote Jurassic Park and The Lost World and Sphere
and...)
[...]
>> Because Myst is a single-player game. It requires a different set of
>> design criteria. Making a multi-player game version of Myst isn't
>> possible without altering the underlying design.
>You didn't state any why's here, you merely repeated your original claim.
>Elaborate.
Quake.
Good multi-player game.
Shite single-player game.
Why?
Design.
The single-player game *requires* immersion and motivation. The "Why Am
I Here?" factor.
Multi-player games don't need much of either; people will cheerfully
murder each other just to see the expression on their victims' faces.
A multi-player game requires major changes in the underlying structure -
- and usually the object -- of a game, often making the two only
distantly related.
A multi-player game also changes the *perceptions* of that game. People
playing multi-player Quake or DOOM *know* that they're fighting other
people. In a LAN environment, they can often *see* their opponents
playing on the PC in the next cubicle. They can jeer and shout! It's a
far more social experience.
Consider:
1-player DOOM was about killing the monsters, finding the hidey-holes,
collecting the pick-ups and working one's way through a tortuous level
to get to an exit. It gave the player a *reason* for his/her existence
in the game's "universe". It gave the player *motivation* for
progressing through the game and behave in a way consistent with the
designer's wishes.
Multi-player DOOM was about beating everyone else. Period.
No artificial motivation was necessary. No desires other than wilful,
malicious violence against one's fellow man is required -- and that
comes as standard in most available versions of Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
"Progress" through the levels becomes utterly irrelevant.
It's an arena-based game; gladiatorial combat. Mortal Kombat with more
guns and a 3D UI.
Multi-player DOOM was about beating else. Multi-player Super Sprint was
about beating everyone else. Multi-player Diddy Kong Racing was about
beating everyone else. (Do I see a pattern emerging here?)
Okay: what about team-based games?
Well... co-operative Quake is about teams of players beating everyone
else.
Acuity
Acuity
"Brandon Van Every" <vane...@blarg.net> wrote:
>Gee and airships couldn't cross the Atlantic. How about tips, balloon
>help, and context-sensitive audio prompts? Welcome to the spacebar, your
>all-purpose bailout. You used Microsoft Word anytime recently?
Baloon help?! You really have no clue about good game design. Let's
just wrench the user back to reality for a moment so we can tech him
our complicated control scheme. Oh *there's* a good idea.
Look, a game like Myst would NOT work if you walked around the world
in realtime like you do in Quake. It wouldn't feel right at all! And
how are you going to let the user know that some small detail is
important?
Let's say they walk into a room, and there's a guy standing there, and
he starts talking to you. Are you just gonna let them turn around and
walk away? What if what they said was important?
I still maintain that a free roaming interface is too complicated for
the average person who plays Myst.
>> >If having the user make an explicit choice is too complicated, put them
>on
>> >a time clock and re-set them after some interval.
>>
>> That idea stinks!
>
>If you say so. Care to justify WHY it stinks, or are we just to accept
>your judgement without comment?
Yes, I can justify why it stinks. Because I would hate it if the game
did that to me while I'm trying to look at something. What kind of
time interval are you gonna set? Are you gonna make it reset to
center every 10 seconds? That's much too long for some cases. Then
again, in other cases, that's far too short!
>Pick better words then. It's not going to take a paragraph, just good word
>choices. Even if it *did* take a paragraph, so what? It's an opening
>dialog box or splash screen, who cares?
I care. When I started myst, all I was presented with was a book. I
click on it, and I'mn in the world playing. That's great. I don't
want to have to set up my configuration before I play, and I'm sure
nobody else wants to either.
>And that's intuitive? And I need to do it?
What's unintutitive about left mouse button moving you in one
direction, and right mouse button moving you in the opposite?
However, since you have to deal with two buttons now, it's too
complicated. I wouldn't enjoy moving around in that manner.
Perhaps a better way would be to have an interface where if you move
the mouse towards the top of the screen, it scrolls up, to the left,
and it scrolls left, to the right, and it scrolls right, and down and
it scrolls down, and holding the button moves you towards your target.
Then maybe you don't need a backup button. Of course, it would get
really annoying if you got too close to something adn yuo had to turn
around 180 degrees, walk away from a bookshelf, and then turn around
again... And once you got close enought ot read the book binding you
wanted to look at, you'd have to do it again, and again...
And you still have the problem of not being able to select something
if your left mosue button is move forward, and right mouse button to
select something is counterintuitive.
>You really think people are morons, don't you?
I don't think they're morons, I *know* they're morons. I'm in the top
10% intelligence wise, (140 IQ) and probably everyone else reading
this newsgroup is too. Therefore 90% of the people out there are
dumber than we are. It's a proven fact. They test these things.
>Here's a design idea for
>you: give multiple ways to do the same thing, so that people can bang on
>the keyboard/mouse/icons and maybe they hit upon one of the ways.
Oh yeah, that's a wonderful idea. Then even I won't be able to figure
the interface out.
I have an even better idea. Lets make it so buttons only perform the
same function once!
(Press any key... hm... I don't see an any key...)
>Just as it ruins the immersiveness to see slideshows
It would be great if you could see the in between frames as you moved
from location to location everywhere in the game. But that's not
worth a severe drop in graphics quality, and it's not worth expending
the time on implementing. If they did that in Riven, it would have
taken them 20 years instead of 4 years to make the game.
>and hypercard arrows to the next frame, right?
I don't remember seeing any arrows in Myst. And there are definitely
none in Riven. I think there's a little hand Icon in Myst... You
gotta have a cursor, and if it changes shapes, that's fine.
But ideally everyone would have a touch screen and we can get rid of
the cursors.
>Hell man, like, EVERYTHING sucks. When are you going to get over the use
>of the word "sucks?"
When I feel that you're presnting an intelligent argument to the
contrary of one of my opinions. Otherwise why should I be the one to
expend all my energy thinking of intelligent arguments. Why DOESN'T a
3D interface with icons suck? What's good about it? Why is it GOOD
that the player can walk anywhere in the world that they want to? How
will that improve the gameplay?
>3D != complex interface, in and of itself. Example: imagine a fully 3D
>world in which you are only allowed to move forwards. No left turn, no
>right turn, no other form of movement is possible. Simple interface,
>right?
And you've entirely killed the point of making it 3D. The only reason
to make it 3D is to A) Save storage space and B) alow more freedom.
Tell me how either can be used to improve gameplay.
>Do you have a basis for asserting that immersiveness is destroyed, or is
>that your conjecture?
It's obvious. Anything which is on the screen other than the world is
bad. Some things like the cursor we MUST live with. Unless the
freedom 3D provides improves the gameplay in some significant way,
then adding an iconic interface is unforgiveable.
>Why isn't the game *content* responsible for the immersiveness?
It is. And what's onscreen is part of the content. Therefore the
icons must go, because they're not realistic. Besides, they slow you
down, and they require you to think about what you're gonna do rather
than just doing it.
>If nothing else these are surely 2 variables to consider,
>not just one. Let's put it another way. There are tons of things in the
>real 3d world that are damn boring to look at. Is this increasing
>immersion, or boredom? Maybe all that's necessary, is for the icons to
>look and act really really cool.
I don't think so. If you're even considering putting animated icons
in a Myst like game, I'll have to hurt you.
>> You also have to remember that once you move to true 3D, you have no
>> control over what the world looks like from an art standpoint.
>
>That's false because you can always limit a player's motion however you
>want.
And if you do, what's the point of using a 3D engine?
>And you haven't heard my more radical ideas about perspective theory
>anyways. Who says game objects have to be 3d entities viewable from all
>vantage points?
Ah yes, the Duke 3D engine with it's sprites. Perfect for a Myst like
game. Not!
>They could be constructed based on the viewer's perspective, surreal dream
>objects rather than tangible 3d ones. The psychology of the object is key,
>not whether you can draw it in plan and elevation views.
Huh?
>Architects and sculptors have been dealing with "in the round" problems for
>millennia.
Walk around your house. Walk around a building. Having any fun?
Probably not.
>Uuuh, what if the enemy is not moving...?
Than it's a very poorly designed enemy.
>Who said in goalless "Make Myst Real in 3D" games that anyone's looking for
>clues?
Goalless? Myst HAS a goal. The goal is to discover how you came to
be on the island.
***Don't read further if you don't want to ruin Myst and Riven for
youself***
The answer is that Cirrus trapped his father (who was suffering from a
god complex) in Riven by teleporting to Myst and letting the book fall
into the Star Fissure as he did so. The book lands in your world, and
you find it. You touch it and are teleported to Myst. You then find
two brothers trapped in books on Myst island. Each claims that the
other killed his father and trapped him in the book. Of course, you
get more information from the brothers as you find more pages. Before
you find the last page, you meet Cirrus, their father. He tells you
that they had god complexes, and that he put two books in the library
to trap anyone who might use the books for evil. So the brothers got
trapped. But they also set up a trap for him, and he's trapped in
Dunny with no Book to return to Myst. His wife Catherine is trapped
in Riven, because she destroyed the book that leads back to Myst so
that Cirrus's father could not escape. She was tricked into going
there to help the villagers.
So the goal of Myst and Riven is to figure out that the brothers are
both lying, and then find and rescue Cirrus by brigning him a missing
page to his teleportation book. Then you go to Riven to rescue
Catherine, but without a book so you can return, so that his father
can't escape. Cirrus gives you a trick book to trap his father in
before you escape. You then have to give Cirrus a signal so that he'll
go to Riven and pick you and Catherine up, but only after you've
trapped his father.
But I guess that's not a goal. A goal has to be something like...
make it through all the levels and then kill the final boss.
Yeah, right.
Acuity
Sean Timarco Baggaley <stbag...@stimarco.cix.co.uk> wrote:
>Personally, I think the wheelie mouse used by MS and Logitech is the
>'ideal' mouse format. The wheel is an excellent idea, and surprisingly
>well implemented on both MS' and Logitech's efforts. Writing UIs to
>these would be bliss! :)
What?!
The wheel sucks... You try to roll it, and it depresses, and clicks,
unless you are really really careful.
Now the idea of allowing you to hold the wheel and scroll the current
page is a cool idea, but most apps don't support it and that pisses me
off. I BOUGHT it for that reason, and that reason alone, and it
doesn't work in Netscape, Agent, Mirc, Wordpad, Notepad, etc...
And I certainly wouldn't wana try rolling the wheel to look up or
down.
Also, the wheel's too slippery.
But the MS mouse is still a great mouse, even if the wheel does suck.
I used to have a logitech, and while I liked the 3 buttons, they're
all shaped weird, and they don't have heavy balls, so they don't track
well at all.
>E-mail remains by far the most popular
>use for the Internet, but it's more of a labour-saving device than
>anything else. No need to buy envelopes; no more hunting around father's
>room to find that elusive 1st Class stamp. It's the postal equivalent of
>the washing-machine.
Exactly.
>You didn't find that parody of a commando in C&C great fun to play?
>"HAHAHA! And that was *LEFT*-handed!!" (I thought he was far better than
>that female version in Red Alert.)
Definitely. Tanya sucks.
Brandon Van Every
>
> But... if you're trying to go for a Myst 'rival', you need to understand
> *why* Myst is so successful. Even if you don't agree with my own, highly
> personal, views, there must be *some* reason why so many non-gamers
> actually play it.
And just as many reasons why people don't play the cheap knockoffs of Myst
that have the exact same interface. There's more to life than the UI. You
and others have made very good points about the necessity for a simple UI,
I concede those points. I wouldn't have thought about them myself,
although designer that I am, I doubt I would ever produce anything truly
cluttered. But now you need to look at the flip side of the equation. The
user is buying a game, not a mouse. 3D as an authoring medium must not be
dismissed as a one-dimensional function of the input device.
> This is why I think the Internet and "Interactive TV" and all that jazz
> are in for a major reality check. E-mail remains by far the most popular
> use for the Internet, but it's more of a labour-saving device than
> anything else. No need to buy envelopes; no more hunting around father's
> room to find that elusive 1st Class stamp. It's the postal equivalent of
> the washing-machine.
Delivery is also 1000 times faster, hence the term "snail mail."
> The majority of the population -- home from a bloody hard day at the
> office -- want to *unwind*. They want to see *others* do all the hard
> work. Why *should* they have to read 100 page manuals and "Playing PC
> Games... For Dummies!" in order to get their R&R?
>
> There's a vast, *untapped* market out there that we don't even seem to
> *want* to, er, penetrate. It's not a matter of 'beating' TV, it's a
> matter of providing an alternative to TV in the first place.
Well passive entertainment is often about providing drama. And the
dramatic mechanisms for TV are fairly mature. The same cannot be said of
CD-ROMs. As for career motives for programmers, they're active people.
They tend to build the things they want to have themselves. Maybe the
scriptwriters and filmmakers end up in Hollywood instead of becoming
programmers? Indeed, the "creative" one of the original 2 brothers is now
heading for Hollywood. The engineer one is continuing to head up Cyan.
> The reason I'm emphasising this is because I recently dug up some old
> mags; dating back to the mid-1980s. "Ghostbusters", a game released in
> 1984 (IIRC) sold *MORE* copies than Quake.
>
> *MORE*.
>
> An 8-bit [crap] game did *better* than the fruit of His Beatific
> Worship, The Right Reverend John "Saint" Carmack's loins.
>
> Our core market isn't expanding, it's been the same for *OVER A DECADE*.
> All that's happened is that the 'real world' has legitimised it,
> promoting it from "Something anorak-wearing deviants do" to "Official
> Hobby(tm) Status".
That's indeed an interesting statistic. A lot rides on the veracity of
your claim, do you have a URL for the info so we can double-check it? Or
can you post the original data for Ghostbusters and Quake as a matter of
"fair use?" I'm sure we'd all like to see the numbers ourselves, so that
we can judge the sources.
> >Well let me offer a different thesis. The display size increased
because
> >2D rendering became faster and CD-ROM storage became larger/cheaper.
>
> I disagree vehemently. I was programming back then and SCUMM games were
> hardly pushing technology to its limits. Even an EGA-based PC is capable
> of moving two sprites around a screen without bursting into tears about
> how unfairly it's being treated.
Storage space? The point is iconic simplification wasn't the only factor
at work.
> >As far as I know the Virtual Reality people don't study the
immersiveness
> >of "through the looking glass" VR. They're worried about HMDs, large
> >screen projectors, and fovial lenghts blah blah blah. If you say it
> >did/didn't work for Myst and they did research on it that's fine, but
it's
> >only with 1 game. Not like an entire science of immersion in GUI games
had
> >been developed. I've seen people plenty well immersed in a bloody
> >text-based MUD to know that it's more than just how many keystrokes or
icon
> >switches.
>
> There's no "science in GUI games" required, just "science in GUI".
If you really mean that, then we have very different ideas about what
constitutes immersion, and I'd say you have more the mind of an engineer
than an artist or dramatist.
> What
> did you think those folks at Xerox's PARC were doing while working on
> Apple's future?
And what relevance do you think Xerox PARC has to single clicks or double
clicks, using the mouse only or using mouse/keyboard, in particular to 3D
worlds? They didn't have those apps and that user base back then. It took
many years to come up with those observations. Anyways, this is a
digression.
> >And why doesn't popping up menus also break the illusion of immersion?
It
> >covers up part of the 2d screen, it requries mechanical labor.
>
> But it's only there for few brief moments, as opposed to *all the time*.
> It keeps the player focussed on the game itself, rather than presenting
> them with the games equivalent of manufacturing a TV set with no cover,
> and all the controls accessible only by twiddling potentiometers with a
> screwdriver (supplied).
If you say so. But here, I think you're inventing a mythology of who "the
gameplayer" is, and what they do/don't consider disruptive. From my more
anecdotal engineering standpoint, I say that all interruptions are modal
space/time tradeoffs. You seem to like your tradeoff better, perhaps
because it is yours? Case in point: there are no such popup menu devices
in Myst. So how can you possibly argue the case that Myst-like games will
be better served by sidebar iconic interruptions or popup menu
interruptions? There's no data on the latter, and any interruption breaks
your thesis that the interface should be seamless for Joe Average User.
Put another way, my "gut" level reaction to popup menus is that they'll
obscure the action and look ugly.
> >Well what if icons look really good, do all sorts of amazingly cool
things
> >when touched, and function as part of the surrealist psychological
> >meta-game? You draw this hard distinction between icon and game. Ths
is
> >germane to the historical development of the application being divorced
> >from its interface. That's not a required development in UI, it's just
> >what's happened historically and it has proven very useful in many
> >circumstances.
>
> But Myst DOES have icons! What did you think those pictures of buttons
> and levers were? It's just using icons *in context*.
I was under the impression that these were game elements with undocumented
purposes. Icons, by contrast, represent functionality known from the start
of the game. They are called "icons" because they embody a concept or
principle. Levers that you can pull on do not embody any principles, you
are trying to discover the principles. If I were to use your definition of
icons, then MS Word would contain a random series of boxes and drawings
with only an "artistic" or otherwise cryptic suggestion of purpose.
Actually, some wags would say that's what's happening anyways and it's
called bad UI design!
> It's the equivalent of deciding to use colour or black-and-white film
> for a movie; deciding whether to tell a story using a first- or third-
> person form.
>
> How can the choice of form be 100% divorced from the content?
It cannot. But you said "3D probably wouldn't add to the gameplay" which
is foolish. That's like saying a color movie can't be a masterpiece
because we usually film in black-and-white. Filmmakers who weren't
nay-sayers went on to exploit color as a device in their movies to great
artistic effect. And to be sure, those movies were not entirely about
color, just as Myst-like games are not entirely about their UIs.
> >> Then what's the *point*? Why give him the freedom to move around
> >> wherever he wants, only to arbitrarily *remove* that freedom to allow
> >> you to show off your artists' work to best effect?
>
> (Q:)
> >Why chisel a block of marble to form a sculpture?
>
> (A: So you can see the sculpture that was trapped inside the block of
> marble. Easy!)
>
> Seriously. Do you advocate the use of arbitrary, inconsistent
> restrictions on players? I'd find that sort of behaviour very annoying
> in a game.
Read your own 1st response and realize that you got it the 1st time.
> I think we're posting past each other; I must be being a bit unclear
> about this. I don't advocate abandoning FM3D, but I do advocate dropping
> it in situations where it wouldn't add anything significant to a game.
But since you as an author are creating the situations to begin with, why
would you operate in a dismissive mode? Only if you weren't that
interested in 3D as a medium to begin with.
> The main premise in Myst is to *use* 'things' -- use the machines; read
> the books; pull levers; rotate observatories...
>
> How you *get* to those 'things' isn't relevant to Myst's gameplay.
> Adding FM3D isn't going to make the gameplay any 'better' as the object
> isn't to walk around and admire the scenery. It's to get the hell *away*
> from the scenery.
Sez you. What if you pick up a magic telescope and the whole point is to
use it to dissect the scenery as it maps through the lens? Reality comes
in one end. Transformed object comes out the other, as a function of view.
See, because you do not wish to explore the possibilities, and you want to
limit yourself to tractable discussions of UIs and what's been done before,
you cut yourself off from the possibilities. The ultimate effect is you
insist 3D cannot be interesting because you think it would be boring
sticking it into games that weren't designed to use it. You're right, but
who cares?
Drop the pretense of a nicely object-oriented universe and you will go
farther. It is about combining and re-moulding reality, the dream logic.
> >> Myst does. If you want "Make Myst Real in 3D" games, you have to
realise
> >> that Myst *HAS* goals.
> >
> >I may only want the atmosphere of Myst, not its goals.
>
> Then -- no offence -- please stop defining it in terms of Myst.
Then - no offense - please stop assuming that you own any definitions of
Myst. If you cannot recognize the atmospherics of Myst as *THE* major
selling point of the game, the very essence of its visual and interactive
quality, then all I can say is you do not have an artistic eye and you do
not work with your senses.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Robert Blum
The Secretary of Internet Bandwidth: This posting has been heavily snipped
Sean Timarco Baggaley wrote
>PMFJI?
Pardon Me For Jumping In. :-)
>>Sean Timarco Baggaley wrote
>>>In article <01bd562a$b31bca40$0983...@hammurabi.blarg.net>, Brandon Van
>>>Every <vane...@blarg.net> writes (replying to 'Acuity')
>>[...]
>(In 12 years, I've only ever found one decent mouse I could ever use for
>long periods: the 'original' Naksha mouse -- with the separate cable
>adaptors for Amiga and Atari. All the others seem to give me cramps
>after a couple of hours. Even the MS mouse is crap, IMHO.)
Yup. I think we'll all suffer from RSI sooner or later. That's why I keep
typing instead :-)
>Agreed. They *hate* that "WindowShade" feature on MacOS 8; I've had to
>turn it off, even though I use it heavily myself.
WindowShade? What is this? I use MacOS8, but I can't imagine what you mean.
>readouts, levers and stuff. The user would have to be very precise with
>their mouse movements, preventing it from (for instance) overshooting
>the "+" and "-" button images for a date selector.
That's why I'd make the buttons some kind of attractors. Getting close to
them will pull the mouse even closer.
>With your proposed system, I suspect it'd feel like manipulating a
>complex dialog box with your nose. :)
Well, your nose would be tied to a string, so it's not that difficult :-)
[snip rant about speech]
>Wish I had the facilities to try that out; I've got too much crud in my
>PC as it is...
Huh? Dragon runs even on a humble P90 with 16 MB.
>I think the problem with your attempt may be that you're trying to wrap
>a new input device into an old UI that was designed for other forms of
>input. Designing the game so that speech recognition is integrated
>seamlessly as an input device may help.
>
>Eg: instead of "There is an exit to the North, a passage to the East..."
>etc., you could simply state "I can see a circus tent to the North; a
>fortune teller to the East..." and so on. Then the user could choose to
>say "Go to Circus Tent" *OR* "Go into the Circus", etc.
Well, you read all kinds of myth about speech recognition nowadays... It's
not that good. Currently, I've got a vocabulary of 180 word, 30-40 active at
most. And I'm happy if I get a decent recognition rate with that small set.
I don't even want to _think_ about the problems with your proposed IF.
>Adapt the UI to the hardware, not the other way round.
I do. Remember, it's a P90 I'm targetting.
>They're still distracting, though. (Roll on multiple-monitor games! 8).
I can't wait for the first game that requires multiple monitors. I'd expect
Ilyuma (sp?) or some other monitor vendor to sponsor this, like Intel did
:-)
>Why have a bar showing "Shield Remaining" when you could just have a
>graphic round the ship itself cycling through a sequence of colours.
>(Such as green->yellow->red->flashing red-> gone!) A bar in the side
>panel simply means that the player has to take his/her eyes off the
>action to check a very important detail.
Because that is not a terrible detailed info. The way _I_ play, I need to
know if the shield is at 10% or at 1%.
If I only want a rough guess, your approach is okay.
>Panels and/or overlays should be used only for details that simply
>*cannot* be displayed in any other way. (Score, for instance. And lives,
>although Moon Cresta managed to put that in the game arena as well.)
I'll dig it out....
>No, but it does make it harder to do the 'riding off into the sunset'
>scenes... :)
Well, nobody will notice if you move the sun just a little :-)
Bye,
Robert
Acuity
David Matiskella <dav...@netscape.com> wrote:
>I saw somewhere that Myth had sold 300k+ and approximately 1/3 of the sales
>were on the mac) which would make it worth while if you can do it with only
>a man month of effort. Not to mention since Myst was done in one of those
>high level tools (Director? Hypercard?) it was most likely a very simple
>port. The production cost in Myst/Riven was the art not the code.
Even so... I wouldn't bother tailoring the interface to the mac.
Make em' hit the space bar if they don't wanna buy a PC. :)
Nikolaus Strater
>>>You really think people are morons, don't you?
>>I don't think they're morons, I *know* they're morons. I'm in the top
>>You really think people are morons, don't you?
>I don't think they're morons, I *know* they're morons. I'm in the top
>10% intelligence wise, (140 IQ) and probably everyone else reading
>this newsgroup is too. Therefore 90% of the people out there are
>dumber than we are. It's a proven fact. They test these things.
Wow.
Anybody relying on 'them' or on numbers to prove his intelligence must
surely be the greatest moron of them all...
I was really beginning to think there were some intelligent people
here, but I think I'm going to unthink this now.
kol
Sean Timarco Baggaley
In article <3518980e...@news.earthlink.net>, Acuity
<ssw...@earthlink.net> writes
>Sean Timarco Baggaley <stbag...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>No the right mouse button doesn't *exist*. Not on a Mac, anyway. Unless
>>you're only aiming at the PC (or RiscOS!) market, this sort of
>>portability issue has to be considered in such a game.
>Nobody in their right mind would bother taking the Mac into
>consideration these days for games. I don't hate macs, but one has to
>be realistic.
Well how would you convert the game to the Playstation? (No mouse at
all. Unless you force people to buy that $40 add-on one...)
--
Sean Timarco Baggaley
-- "*Be* Different."
Sean Timarco Baggaley
In article <6fai5f$g84$1...@news.seicom.net>, Robert Blum <r.blum@advertain
ment.remove_this.com> writes
>The Secretary of Internet Bandwidth: This posting has been heavily snipped
The Under-secretary of Internet Bandwidth seconds the motion...
>Sean Timarco Baggaley wrote
[...]
>>Agreed. They *hate* that "WindowShade" feature on MacOS 8; I've had to
>>turn it off, even though I use it heavily myself.
>WindowShade? What is this? I use MacOS8, but I can't imagine what you mean.
When you double-click on the title bar of a window, it removes the
window itself, leaving just the title bar. It used to be a shareware
add-on thing for System 7, but Apple liked it so much, they bought the
company. (As they did with SuperClock).
(I think clicking on the '[-]' box in the top-right corner of a MacOS 8
window has the same effect.)
>>readouts, levers and stuff. The user would have to be very precise with
>>their mouse movements, preventing it from (for instance) overshooting
>>the "+" and "-" button images for a date selector.
>That's why I'd make the buttons some kind of attractors. Getting close to
>them will pull the mouse even closer.
>>With your proposed system, I suspect it'd feel like manipulating a
>>complex dialog box with your nose. :)
>Well, your nose would be tied to a string, so it's not that difficult :-)
>
>
>[snip rant about speech]
>>Wish I had the facilities to try that out; I've got too much crud in my
>>PC as it is...
>Huh? Dragon runs even on a humble P90 with 16 MB.
Sorry, I wasn't very clear: I do artwork, graphic design, forms, general
PR stuff, leaflets, music composition, Web design, Access database
maintenance, IT administration, creative writing, programming and
umpteen other tasks here.
That means I have *shitloads* of heavyweight programs running on my one
PC. It's got a scanner, graphics tablet, *two* sound cards, modem, SCSI
board, ZIP drive and seven children to support. I'm already getting
problems with DLL clashes, illegal exceptions and other crap, 'cos my PC
is just having to do so many different things.
(I'd like to get NT, but that'd mean spending even more money...)
To give you some idea of what that means: the original 1.6Gb drive has
100Mb free; the rest is *entirely* filled up with program installations.
Even my new 4.3Gb drive has only 2Gb left! And I only have one (21Mb)
game installed. 8/
>>I think the problem with your attempt may be that you're trying to wrap
>>a new input device into an old UI that was designed for other forms of
>>input. Designing the game so that speech recognition is integrated
>>seamlessly as an input device may help.
>>Eg: instead of "There is an exit to the North, a passage to the East..."
>>etc., you could simply state "I can see a circus tent to the North; a
>>fortune teller to the East..." and so on. Then the user could choose to
>>say "Go to Circus Tent" *OR* "Go into the Circus", etc.
>Well, you read all kinds of myth about speech recognition nowadays... It's
>not that good. Currently, I've got a vocabulary of 180 word, 30-40 active at
>most. And I'm happy if I get a decent recognition rate with that small set.
>I don't even want to _think_ about the problems with your proposed IF.
You're not thinking about Tolkein-esque Fantasy, are you? :) That'd be
pretty nasty to implement with a speech engine around...
"You see Myxtlyxpptl's Castle ahead..."
"Jeez!"
"Sorry?"
"Um, er, go to Mixtlo--"
"Huh?"
"Miztly--
"Pardon?"
"Myzak--"
"Eh?"
"Aah, fuck it!"
"Fuck who?"
"Look, --"
"You see Myxtlyxpptl's Castle ahead..."
"-- just go to the bloody Castle..."
"What bloody castle?"
<FX: THWACK!>
"Illegal Exception at SwearWord.DLL"
>>Adapt the UI to the hardware, not the other way round.
>I do. Remember, it's a P90 I'm targetting.
Ewwww! I remember those... :)
>>They're still distracting, though. (Roll on multiple-monitor games! 8).
>I can't wait for the first game that requires multiple monitors. I'd expect
>Ilyuma (sp?) or some other monitor vendor to sponsor this, like Intel did
>:-)
I'd certainly *look* kewl! I can see the boxes now:
"Minimum Requirements: PII 444, 99.2Gb hard drive space free, 24x DVD-
ROM drive, 9 14" monitors..."
>>Why have a bar showing "Shield Remaining" when you could just have a
>>graphic round the ship itself cycling through a sequence of colours.
>>(Such as green->yellow->red->flashing red-> gone!) A bar in the side
>>panel simply means that the player has to take his/her eyes off the
>>action to check a very important detail.
>Because that is not a terrible detailed info. The way _I_ play, I need to
>know if the shield is at 10% or at 1%.
>If I only want a rough guess, your approach is okay.
Well, you can easily add more cues to the force-field's animation.
Cycling through more colours, using different flash-rates, having a
circle around the ship that gets progressively thinner -- these options
certainly give you plenty of ways to present the data to the player.
>>Panels and/or overlays should be used only for details that simply
>>*cannot* be displayed in any other way. (Score, for instance. And lives,
>>although Moon Cresta managed to put that in the game arena as well.)
>I'll dig it out....
For 'younger' readers: Moon Cresta was one of the more original shoot-
em-ups, back in the 'Galaxians' era of the early 1980s. You had dockable
ships that sat on top of each other, like this:
|
| <^> | <--- Top ship
| <>< ><> | <--- Middle ship
<>< ><> <--- Bottom ship
(The '|' is where the bullets came out.)
While you had all three ships (= lives), you had plenty of firepower.
But losing one of the ships meant losing its firepower as well (a
double-strength penalty.)
I can't remember exactly how it played; it's been over 12 years since I
last saw it in an arcade. But I do recall that you started with only the
top ship, then got extra 'layers' which you had to dock with during
bonus sections.
--
Sean Timarco Baggaley
-- "*Be* Different."
<mailto: whatever you damned well wa...@stimarco.cix.co.uk>
E&OE
Lost Dragon
>>[snip rant about speech]
Anyone got the rant laying about? I'd like to see it. I am
interested in speech recognition devices and applications.
>>>input. Designing the game so that speech recognition is integrated
>>>seamlessly as an input device may help.
Software based speech recognition in games? Wouldn't that tend to
interfere with a game's sound effects? I assume a user would be
speaking into a microphone which would be plugged into the sound card.
Most sound cards say full duplex, but..
I wish I hadn't come in on the tail-end of this conversation.
/| .oo__. .-----.=- Lost Dragon -=.-----. U
{ \| ,-'' | _O_ |==- Dungeon Bane: A New Shareware CRPG -==| _O_ | D
`,_/'(_)\_ | | |===-- Web Page Temporarily Down! --===| | | I
<...{_)_)_''`-----`=====-- Currently in Development --====='-----' C
Brandon Van Every
> "Brandon Van Every" <vane...@blarg.net> wrote:
> >Gee and airships couldn't cross the Atlantic. How about tips, balloon
> >help, and context-sensitive audio prompts? Welcome to the spacebar,
your
> >all-purpose bailout. You used Microsoft Word anytime recently?
>
> Baloon help?! You really have no clue about good game design.
Acuity, I'm getting a little tired of your attitude. You habitually use
the phrase "it sucks" in response to anything you don't agree with, usually
without additional qualification about the engineering constraints and
tradeoffs of any given problem. You're a bright guy but you have the
diplomatic maturity of an 18-year-old.
> Let's
> just wrench the user back to reality for a moment so we can tech him
> our complicated control scheme. Oh *there's* a good idea.
Acuity, you're speaking in the abstract! What is the game SUPPOSED TO DO?
Balloon help might be helpful, it might not be. Depends on how
simple/complicated that part of the game is. Nobody said that the game has
to be simple all the way through, it just has to have a simple way of
playing it for those that want to deal with it that way.
> Look, a game like Myst would NOT work if you walked around the world
> in realtime like you do in Quake. It wouldn't feel right at all!
And how can you possibly make this judgement, not having played such a
game? You're speculating.
> And how are you going to let the user know that some small detail is
> important?
Put a big flashing neon arrow pointing at it? A RealAudio clip saying
"This trivial detail is really really important." I don't see what you're
driving at here. Whether you want people to notice something or not is a
narrative decision, not a 3d interface decision. Maybe some "detail" needs
to be bigger than it would have been in a 2d space, that's just scaling the
problem. It doesn't change the fundamental nature of the problem that it's
up to you as author to decide what is noticeable and what isn't.
> Let's say they walk into a room, and there's a guy standing there, and
> he starts talking to you. Are you just gonna let them turn around and
> walk away? What if what they said was important?
Nobody said you had to deal with an adventure game linearly. What do you
want, force the user down a 1-dimensional path so that they don't make any
mistakes and hence no choices? That's a movie with interrupts, not an
interactive adventure. Anyways, this has nothing to do with 3D.
> >> >If having the user make an explicit choice is too complicated, put
them
> >on
> >> >a time clock and re-set them after some interval.
> >>
> >> That idea stinks!
> >
> >If you say so. Care to justify WHY it stinks, or are we just to accept
> >your judgement without comment?
>
> Yes, I can justify why it stinks. Because I would hate it if the game
> did that to me while I'm trying to look at something.
Ok, so it stinks for you. Doesn't mean it stinks for anyone else.
> What kind of
> time interval are you gonna set? Are you gonna make it reset to
> center every 10 seconds? That's much too long for some cases. Then
> again, in other cases, that's far too short!
This is a valid issue, but experiments during playtesting could determine
reasonable values for a number of cases. Some of those cases will have
reasonable solutions. Others won't, and you'll have to use some other
interface method to bail out the user. At any rate, you'll find answers by
trying things out, not by dismissing things.
Worst case: I am confident you could establish a "lower bound" on the
interruption time for almost any problem. i.e. The amount of time needed
to keep the people from calling technical support and/or tossing your game
in the rubbish bin. If it gets the user back in the game, and trains the
user so that they do not experience further frustration, then it has
succeeded.
> >Pick better words then. It's not going to take a paragraph, just good
word
> >choices. Even if it *did* take a paragraph, so what? It's an opening
> >dialog box or splash screen, who cares?
>
> I care. When I started myst, all I was presented with was a book. I
> click on it, and I'mn in the world playing. That's great. I don't
> want to have to set up my configuration before I play, and I'm sure
> nobody else wants to either.
Well maybe you're too sure about imposing your own views on the rest of
humanity then. If you don't want an ugly dialog box then we can dress it
up as part of the story. Thobos the narrator in dark robes asks you a few
questions, you answer, boom you're on your way.
> >And that's intuitive? And I need to do it?
>
> What's unintutitive about left mouse button moving you in one
> direction, and right mouse button moving you in the opposite?
Really, Joe Average has some reason they're supposed to know to do that? I
don't think so.
> >You really think people are morons, don't you?
>
> I don't think they're morons, I *know* they're morons. I'm in the top
> 10% intelligence wise, (140 IQ) and probably everyone else reading
> this newsgroup is too. Therefore 90% of the people out there are
> dumber than we are. It's a proven fact. They test these things.
Really, who's "they?" You sure that so-called smart people just don't sit
around congratulating themselves on their cleverness? Wake up, there are
lotsa different kinds of intelligence, and many people are more adaptive
than you give them credit for. There are indeed a lot of idiots out there,
but assuming that you're smarter than everyone is... well, it's a sign of
the ways in which you're not that intelligent after all.
Let's put it this way. A guy like you (or myself, at your age probably)
would never have made it through the Cultural Revolution in China.
Loud-mouthed intelligensia were shot. It is often foolish to run one's
mouth about how much smarter you are than everyone else, because it makes
people dislike you, not want to do any favors for you, and compete with
you. Or in the worst case, kill you.
Have you played enough wargames to understand such principles?
> >Here's a design idea for
> >you: give multiple ways to do the same thing, so that people can bang on
> >the keyboard/mouse/icons and maybe they hit upon one of the ways.
>
> Oh yeah, that's a wonderful idea. Then even I won't be able to figure
> the interface out.
Ok it wasn't my strongest idea ever. It would rely on the existence of
several intuitively obvious ways to do things, and if there isn't even 1
way, then 3 ways isn't going to help.
> I have an even better idea. Lets make it so buttons only perform the
> same function once!
>
> (Press any key... hm... I don't see an any key...)
Let's just make one more point about so-called "stupid" people though, as
long as you brought this boner of a confusion point up. You only have to
sell them the game. They don't have to play it, they just have to buy it
and be dumb enough not to bring it back to the store. Can you keep them
going long enough to achieve this? If they're looking for the "any key,"
then maybe it's not so hard to sell the product.
> >and hypercard arrows to the next frame, right?
>
> I don't remember seeing any arrows in Myst.
The cursor changed to an arrow to indicate which way to go.
> And there are definitely
> none in Riven. I think there's a little hand Icon in Myst... You
> gotta have a cursor, and if it changes shapes, that's fine.
As above.
> >Hell man, like, EVERYTHING sucks. When are you going to get over the
use
> >of the word "sucks?"
>
> When I feel that you're presnting an intelligent argument to the
> contrary of one of my opinions. Otherwise why should I be the one to
> expend all my energy thinking of intelligent arguments.
The only reason you don't see an intelligent argument is that you spend
more time talking and shooting down than you spend listening and
contemplating.
> Why DOESN'T a
> 3D interface with icons suck? What's good about it?
You can keep a "bailout" icon handy, to save all those stupid users from
themselves. Hitchhiker's Guide, "Don't Panic!" :-)
You can keep a "toolbar" icon handy. It expands into a larger number of
icons of use to advanced game users. Newbies and the general public can
ignore it. The tools aren't required to play the game, they just enhance
the game for those that enjoy such things.
You can keep a "movement mode" icon handy. It cycles you through the
available modes of movement. First you're walking. Now you're flying.
Maybe jogging. Maybe bicycling. Whatever. It allows the novice user to
make easy choices about how to navigate. They don't have to hunt for what
the hell to do.
I never said you needed a lot of icons. Just a few.
> Why is it GOOD
> that the player can walk anywhere in the world that they want to? How
> will that improve the gameplay?
You're the one with the assumption that 3D interface == can walk
everywhere. Not me. Some places you let them walk everywhere, others you
don't. It's chipping a sculpture from the marble. Balancing freedom and
restraint is the nature of the medium.
> >3D != complex interface, in and of itself. Example: imagine a fully 3D
> >world in which you are only allowed to move forwards. No left turn, no
> >right turn, no other form of movement is possible. Simple interface,
> >right?
>
> And you've entirely killed the point of making it 3D. The only reason
> to make it 3D is to A) Save storage space and B) alow more freedom.
> Tell me how either can be used to improve gameplay.
C) recombine components. Can't do that so easily with image-based media.
Or more accurately you could, but the methods of recombination and the
aesthetic effects would be very different.
D) physics simulation.
E) tricks of perspective.
F) Just because the user moves simplistically, doesn't mean anything else
is. We're just trying to make it easy for the user, right?
> >Do you have a basis for asserting that immersiveness is destroyed, or is
> >that your conjecture?
>
> It's obvious.
To you.
> Anything which is on the screen other than the world is
> bad. Some things like the cursor we MUST live with. Unless the
> freedom 3D provides improves the gameplay in some significant way,
> then adding an iconic interface is unforgiveable.
Well, if "no icons" is your sacred cow, I can't really persuade you any
better than I've tried.
> >Why isn't the game *content* responsible for the immersiveness?
>
> It is. And what's onscreen is part of the content. Therefore the
> icons must go, because they're not realistic.
Are you hung up on the conceptual existence of icons, or the visual
fidelity of icons? There's nothing stopping an icon from being beautifully
rendered. Aesthetically any icon can be blended into the game.
Conceptually, no, they are separate units by design. But is the conceptual
separation a sufficient distraction if they're aesthetically unified? I
don't think it's a big problem, particularly if you're using icons
sparingly.
> Besides, they slow you down,
For many tasks they speed things up. Historically, that's why they were
invented. It depends on the task, and what the alternative is.
> and they require you to think about what you're gonna do rather
> than just doing it.
Clicking "Help!" doesn't take thought. Nor do I think switching between
walk\fly mode does either.
> I don't think so. If you're even considering putting animated icons
> in a Myst like game, I'll have to hurt you.
Actually, I think the life preserver should start to sway on the ocean
waves and maybe sparkle when the game senses that the user is probably
"stuck." The motion cue would remind them to hit it when they get stuck.
And I don't see why a flying icon could not also function as a guage of
your tiredness. The little wings beat slower, slower, ....
In design, the difference between "doing it all the time" and "doing it
when appropriate" is very important to consider. Most of the objections
you've raised to my points, are because you assume something will be done
all the time. Whereas I'm looking for when to do it appropriately. I
think if you spent more time looking for the latter, we'd agree more often.
> >And you haven't heard my more radical ideas about perspective theory
> >anyways. Who says game objects have to be 3d entities viewable from all
> >vantage points?
>
> Ah yes, the Duke 3D engine with it's sprites. Perfect for a Myst like
> game. Not!
Based upon user perspective != sprites.
> >They could be constructed based on the viewer's perspective, surreal
dream
> >objects rather than tangible 3d ones. The psychology of the object is
key,
> >not whether you can draw it in plan and elevation views.
>
> Huh?
What, I thought you had an I.Q. of 140 ?
> >Architects and sculptors have been dealing with "in the round" problems
for
> >millennia.
>
> Walk around your house. Walk around a building. Having any fun?
> Probably not.
Walk around Versailles. It's a lot of fun to watch people floating on the
different levels of the terraces due to visual tricks. Walk around Rodin's
sculpture of Balzac. You have to look at GOOD art and architecture, not my
apartment. :-)
> >Uuuh, what if the enemy is not moving...?
>
> Than it's a very poorly designed enemy.
You wouldn't last very long in the Persian Gulf, running pell-mell across a
sand dune so some Iraqi machine gun can pick you off easily. They loved
your kind in WW I. AMBUSH the bastards, duh!
> >Who said in goalless "Make Myst Real in 3D" games that anyone's looking
for
> >clues?
>
> Goalless? Myst HAS a goal. The goal is to discover how you came to
> be on the island.
Your comment and mine are not contradictory. We both agree that Myst had a
goal. This says nothing about whether "Make Myst Real in 3D" style games
have to have goals or not.
Just to head off another argument that's been covered in another thread,
the term "Myst-like game" can refer to the atmospherics and interface style
of the game. It does not have to refer to the plot of the game. And, vice
versa. I could refer to the plots of Myst-like games without referring to
their atmospherics or interfaces. Nobody ever said "Make Myst-like" or
"Make Myst Real" had to mean a complete ripoff! If you really thought that
was true, then the only game you could produce would be an exact
carbon-copy of Myst, since it would be the only game that could possibly
satisfy all simultaneous design criteria as to what constitutes Myst.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Sean Timarco Baggaley
In article <01bd57bf$bf083c80$4583...@hammurabi.blarg.net>, Brandon Van
Every <vane...@blarg.net> writes
>Sean Timarco Baggaley <stbag...@stimarco.cix.co.uk> wrote in article
><ZJlUhGAW...@dial.pipex.com>...
>> But... if you're trying to go for a Myst 'rival', you need to understand
>> *why* Myst is so successful. Even if you don't agree with my own, highly
>> personal, views, there must be *some* reason why so many non-gamers
>> actually play it.
>And just as many reasons why people don't play the cheap knockoffs of Myst
>that have the exact same interface.
I think there's a problem of semantics here. My definition of "User
Interface" is: "The method by which information is communicated between
player and program."
That encompasses *everything* from hardware through software. The
hardware includes things like the mouse, keyboard, monitor, audio
system. The software aspects of the UI consist of *anything* that
handles communication of information to and from the player... including
the graphics engine.
In fact, the graphics engine is clearly the primary means of getting
info about the game environment to the player -- and also the main
method of providing feedback to the player's actions. Given that, I find
I'm unable to divorce the graphics engine from the UI design, since the
two are heavily intertwined.
The game engine is the core of the game. It is this engine with which
the player comminicates. It is this engine which reacts to the
information sent to it, and sends information back to the user.
(This definition explains my attitude towards people like Carmack -- and
more importantly, my rather vitriolic attitude towards people who think
a Carmack is all you need to create a great game. By itself, all a 3D
engine provides is a basic form of 'virtual reality'. Add some items of
weaponry, and the code to handle them, into such an engine, and you have
the makings of multiplayer Quake. This is a somewhat simplified
description, but my point is that Quake, while technically accomplished,
is not exactly a ground-breaking *game*.)
> There's more to life than the UI. You
>and others have made very good points about the necessity for a simple UI,
>I concede those points. I wouldn't have thought about them myself,
>although designer that I am, I doubt I would ever produce anything truly
>cluttered. But now you need to look at the flip side of the equation. The
>user is buying a game, not a mouse. 3D as an authoring medium must not be
>dismissed as a one-dimensional function of the input device.
...except that's *exactly* what it is. A 3D engine is a two-way
communications medium. It *displays* feedback to the user in response to
the player's input. Note that choice of word: "displays". It does not
*create* said feedback in and of itself. Only the game engine can do
that.
I agree that UI isn't everything, but I do consider the graphics engine
a fundamental part of a game's UI.
>> This is why I think the Internet and "Interactive TV" and all that jazz
>> are in for a major reality check. E-mail remains by far the most popular
>> use for the Internet, but it's more of a labour-saving device than
>> anything else. No need to buy envelopes; no more hunting around father's
>> room to find that elusive 1st Class stamp. It's the postal equivalent of
>> the washing-machine.
>Delivery is also 1000 times faster, hence the term "snail mail."
So? Washing machines wash laundry a lot faster than I could do it by
hand, too.
[...]
>Well passive entertainment is often about providing drama. And the
>dramatic mechanisms for TV are fairly mature. The same cannot be said of
>CD-ROMs.
:) I still remember those "Interactive Movie" years with dread...
I do hope that nobody tries to revive that idea for DVD. CD-ROM attempts
were expensive enough.
> As for career motives for programmers, they're active people.
>They tend to build the things they want to have themselves. Maybe the
>scriptwriters and filmmakers end up in Hollywood instead of becoming
>programmers?
Possibly. I think that's mainly a cop-out choice, though. Games are far
more challenging and intellectually stimulating than linear media, IMHO.
And there's nothing to stop a good freelance author from authoring for
any media they like. Cross-fertilisation is a far better option than
isolation.
The only problem with the games industry it its emphasis of technology,
rather than creativity. A great designer still makes less (on average)
than a great programmer. And many devcos simply weld the production and
design aspects together, making a producer responsible for gameplay as
well. That can work, but it's hardly an ideal situation.
I'm going to nail my colours to the mast, here:
I believe that game design will eventually parallel that of the
screenplay writer and novelist: primarily freelance people, who send
designs to production houses. Producers then decide which one to
produce. Great designers will get the fame; lousy designers will learn
to love asking: "Do you want fries with that?"
Yes, I know game programmers and artists consider themselves creative,
and they are. But nobody would ever consider a movie's visual designers,
set-designers, art directors, cinematographers or directors 'uncreative'
either. They're just different *forms* of creativity.
Whether we want to equate, say, a graphics engine specialist with a
movie director (or cinematographer), or -- preferably -- to simply call
them "Graphics Engine Programmers" is irrelevant. They're creative.
Carmack's passion for creating new graphics engines is a creative
passion. But that doesn't automatically make him a great game designer.
> Indeed, the "creative" one of the original 2 brothers is now
>heading for Hollywood. The engineer one is continuing to head up Cyan.
So?
I have no problem with people working in multiple fields. Like travel,
it broadens the mind. More power to him.
It's a loss for Cyan, but since he's already been responsible for five
games (there were others before Myst), I can't blame him for wanting a
change of scene.
Hopefully, they'll find another designer capable of filling his shoes.
>> The reason I'm emphasising this is because I recently dug up some old
>> mags; dating back to the mid-1980s. "Ghostbusters", a game released in
>> 1984 (IIRC) sold *MORE* copies than Quake.
>>
>> *MORE*.
>>
>> An 8-bit [crap] game did *better* than the fruit of His Beatific
>> Worship, The Right Reverend John "Saint" Carmack's loins.
>>
>> Our core market isn't expanding, it's been the same for *OVER A DECADE*.
>> All that's happened is that the 'real world' has legitimised it,
>> promoting it from "Something anorak-wearing deviants do" to "Official
>> Hobby(tm) Status".
>That's indeed an interesting statistic. A lot rides on the veracity of
>your claim, do you have a URL for the info so we can double-check it?
I wish I could.
It was mentioned in one of the news sections of an old C64 magazine; the
headline was something like "'Ghostbusters' _still_ at #1!". I remember
thinking the (worldwide) figures a misprint.
I saw it during a clear-out of some old issues of "Crash", "Zzap! 64"
and "Your Sinclair". ("Crash" was a Spectrum mag.) My parents were
getting rather annoyed with having them cluttering up what little
storage space they have left, so out they went.
I wish I could remember where I saw it, but I think it was in an issue
of "Zzap! 64" with a bunch of readers' letters slagging off one of
Ultimate/Rare's more embarrassing Commodore 64 efforts.
On a related note: Ghostbusters isn't the only old game to have outsold
Quake. Its sales figures are impressive, but it's in no way the first
one to reach those levels. Look back at figures for the last 12-15 years
and you'll find Quake has plenty of company...
[...]
>> I disagree vehemently. I was programming back then and SCUMM games were
>> hardly pushing technology to its limits. Even an EGA-based PC is capable
>> of moving two sprites around a screen without bursting into tears about
>> how unfairly it's being treated.
>Storage space? The point is iconic simplification wasn't the only factor
>at work.
Er, I played Monkey Island on a Commodore Amiga with 500Mb RAM and one
800Kb disk drive. Hard drives never caught on in Europe until much later
than in the US.
There's no reason why a bunch of essentially static backdrops, a few
sprites and fairly simple music and sound effects (no 'talkie' games
back then) should tax any computer with decent enough video output. An
8086 with a VGA card and Soundblaster audio is perfectly capable of
running such a game.
Storage space? The whole of Monkey Island 1 fit on two, double-density,
3.5" floppy disks. A grand total of 2.0Mb of data.
(Hard disks? LUXURY! We were lucky to get two pieces of card wi' 'oles
in...)
[...]
>> There's no "science in GUI games" required, just "science in GUI".
>If you really mean that, then we have very different ideas about what
>constitutes immersion, and I'd say you have more the mind of an engineer
>than an artist or dramatist.
"I refer the Honorable Gentleman to the reply I made some kilobytes
ago..."
As for having the mind of an engineer... yes.
But so what? Are you implying that an engineer cannot be creative?
Some of the greatest writers of our time *are* engineers. (Isaac Asimov
is the most obvious example. Even Arthur C. Clarke spent a fair chunk of
his life being paid to be a scientist. During WWII, he worked on the
precursor to what pilots now refer to as an "ILS" -- a radar-guided
landing system.)
Hell, even Michael Crichton is a qualified MD. And he came up with "The
Andromeda Strain", "Jurassic Park" and a certain TV serial called "ER".
>> What
>> did you think those folks at Xerox's PARC were doing while working on
>> Apple's future?
>And what relevance do you think Xerox PARC has to single clicks or double
>clicks, using the mouse only or using mouse/keyboard, in particular to 3D
>worlds?
Plenty. Research into GUIs is nothing new. Take the guns out of Quake,
and you've got a crude form of "virtual reality" -- something that's
still the subject of much research at institutes such as MIT.
Games aren't anything special. They're not even all that new. Research
into the ergonomics of user interfaces is as applicable to games as to
Windows and MacOS.
In fact, games are just simulations. That's it. Nothing magical or
difficult to grasp.
Classic example: MS Flight Simulator 98 is a flight sim. So are those
huge boxes mounted on hydraulics at Boeing.
Another example: Carmageddon is a simulation of an utterly illegal,
imaginary, race.
Tetris is a simulation of Pentominoes. It's a fairly abstract game, but
the simulation aspect remains.
Even Asteroids and Space Invaders are simulations at heart.
Most of Bullfrog's games are economic simulations. (Even Dungeon Keeper
can be considered as such: 'Economics' as such isn't only applicable to
money.)
It's no coincidence that many 'classics' were inspired by scientific
models. (Tetris, Asteroids, Thrust/Oids, Lunar Lander...)
(It's a shame there's no university performing research into computer
games; it's something this industry could use. The TV and movie
industries have been doing such research for decades now.)
> They didn't have those apps and that user base back then. It took
>many years to come up with those observations. Anyways, this is a
>digression.
We've had user interfaces for centuries. UI research and ergonomics are
not specific to computers. Ask anyone involved in the design of, say, a
new train or car.
Successful non-computer games -- which have also existed for some
centuries -- invariably have excellent user interfaces. The fact that
you don't even notice them is why they're so good.
Why do you think Nintendo keeps psychologists on its payroll?
[..]
>If you say so. But here, I think you're inventing a mythology of who "the
>gameplayer" is, and what they do/don't consider disruptive.
Not really. There is plenty of documentation covering this sort of
thing. "Information Overload" is a major concern in many engineering
industries. And designing a game, while certainly creative, has to take
engineering aspects into account. Having
> From my more
>anecdotal engineering standpoint, I say that all interruptions are modal
>space/time tradeoffs. You seem to like your tradeoff better, perhaps
>because it is yours? Case in point: there are no such popup menu devices
>in Myst.
Neither does it use side-panels or an abstracted iconic interface. The
reason it doesn't use pop-up menus is because it doesn't *need* to.
> So how can you possibly argue the case that Myst-like games will
>be better served by sidebar iconic interruptions or popup menu
>interruptions?
Because there's a truckload of research into such aspects. Notice how
*both* Win95 and MacOS 8 have introduced pop-up menus. Both Apple and MS
have been funding serious research into UIs, so this alone is
suggestive.
A major reason is that having pop-up menus (or icons) saves the player
from having to drag a mouse pointer across the screen to an icon bar in
order to select an action. With a pop-up, the option is there, right
where the mouse pointer is.
Also, a pop-up menu shouldn't be brought up if there's only one action
possible; said action should be performed instead. (In Myst, this
happens 100% of the time, therefore: no pop-ups are required.)
*
I'm not saying that all games should be written for mouse input only.
Many action games, like Doom and Descent, are better with keyboard or
joystick. But the point is that you must consider the attributes
inherent in each input device. Mice have very different ergonomics and
psychological baggage to keyboards, joysticks, joypads -- even
trackballs.
Basically: try and avoid making the kind of mistakes that result in an
Operation Wolf clone recognising only the keyboard for input.
[...]
>Put another way, my "gut" level reaction to popup menus is that they'll
>obscure the action and look ugly.
Hmmm... sounds like personal taste here. Personally, I find myself
resenting icons and toolbars (in CorelDraw!) for taking up valuable
screen space. I'd far rather play a C&C clone that *didn't* throw away
nearly a third of the play area in order to show a side-panel.
Unfortunately, I'm being biased -- and grossly unfair to the designers -
- because the side-panel design is a *plus* for console players. In an
ideal world, they could have used a different, side-panel-less engine
for PC versions, but this is probably pushing things a bit too far! :)
This is where the designer's skill comes to the fore. If you plan on
porting a game, it's often the case that you *have* to design for the
lowest common denominator, if only to keep costs down.
[...]
>> But Myst DOES have icons! What did you think those pictures of buttons
>> and levers were? It's just using icons *in context*.
>I was under the impression that these were game elements with undocumented
>purposes. Icons, by contrast, represent functionality known from the start
>of the game.
So activating a slot-machine by dragging a coin into its slot, then
clicking on the lever isn't logical?
And bear in mind that most of the machines in Myst are *supposed* to be
cryptic and mysterious.
Personally, I'd much rather click on the image's buttons, than click on
a 'Use Item' icon at the side of the screen, then click on the picture
of the button.
> They are called "icons" because they embody a concept or
>principle. Levers that you can pull on do not embody any principles, you
>are trying to discover the principles.
I disagree. Levers embody the principle of a lever. If you clicked on a
lever, users wouldn't be surprised or disappointed to see it act like a
lever. (See my comment above about the slot-machine). If I see a picture
of a TV and click on its 'On/Off' switch, it makes sense to have the
TV's picture toggle on or off accordingly.
True, you can't apply this theory to *all* games, but you should apply
it wherever humanly possible. The ultimate aim is to prevent the player
from being reminded that they're only playing a computer game.
> If I were to use your definition of
>icons, then MS Word would contain a random series of boxes and drawings
>with only an "artistic" or otherwise cryptic suggestion of purpose.
>Actually, some wags would say that's what's happening anyways and it's
>called bad UI design!
:)
I think you're missing the point, here. You seem to be implying that
Myst should have an icon bar that *tells you* what each button actually
does, but that's not my point at all. Unfortunately, posting bitmapped
diagrams is <cough> "frowned upon" in RGP, so I'll have to paint those
'thousand words' manually...
My point is that the user interface in Myst is 100% contextual. They're
actually playing by the writer's Golden Rule: "Show, Don't Tell."
Imagine a CD Player program that consisted of a bland dialog box
displaying single row of buttons marked: "PLAY", "STOP", "FAST FORWARD",
"REWIND"... etc.
This is an abstracted CD Player. The programmer is making absolutely no
effort to hide the fact that this is a computer program. Only the
program's name in the title bar gives away the program's purpose. (After
all, you get much the same controls on a VCR or tape deck.)
In short: the user has to *work* at understanding what the program does.
It'll work. It's a perfectly adequate interface. But it's not a 100%
contextual one.
A 100% contextual interface would consist simply of a picture of a
standard CD player's front panel. The user can *see* that it's a CD
player; it's obvious. The buttons all carry the standard symbols which
are easier for the brain to work with, as it doesn't have to decode
symbol strings into meanings. It's effortless. Click the mouse on the
filled ">" button to play. Click the "_" button to eject (I hope that
one comes out okay).
^
Rewind? "<<".
Oddly enough, the "AudioRack" application that comes with most
Soundblasters and clones goes for a fully contextual UI.
The Win95 Volume Control uses loads of slider bars as on a mixing desk.
Why sliders, and not rotary knobs or [+] / [-] buttons? Well, they could
have gone for one of those options, but sliders have the advantage of
being very easy to manipulate quickly and accurately *with a mouse*.
(If Win95 had been keyboard-only, they might have gone for row of boxes
where you typed in numbers between 0-63, or some such thing.)
>> It's the equivalent of deciding to use colour or black-and-white film
>> for a movie; deciding whether to tell a story using a first- or third-
>> person form.
>> How can the choice of form be 100% divorced from the content?
>It cannot. But you said "3D probably wouldn't add to the gameplay" which
>is foolish. That's like saying a color movie can't be a masterpiece
>because we usually film in black-and-white. Filmmakers who weren't
>nay-sayers went on to exploit color as a device in their movies to great
>artistic effect. And to be sure, those movies were not entirely about
>color, just as Myst-like games are not entirely about their UIs.
"Who the hell wants to hear actors *speak*?"
Actually, it's surprising how often I hear this argument. Problem is
that it's not as simple as the colour vs. monochrome debate.
Imagine how often you hear about concepts like holographic TVs and such.
Problem with that is that you're handing over control of the camerawork
to the viewer. Great! The viewer can watch, say, soccer from any vantage
point they desire!! Whoopee!!!
Except, er, what if the viewer has a bunch of friends round to watch the
football match? Who gets to decide where to watch from? And wouldn't
they be more likely to want to have the camera following the ball,
anyway?
And then there's that very obvious problem: we only have one pair of
eyes each. I cannot watch a goal being scored from eight different
vantage points at once.
Holographic dramatisations? Why would this be any different to watching
a stage play? Would being able to watch the action from above really add
anything worthwhile to the experience? It's debateable.
[Incidentally: holographic displays are not the pipe-dream they used to
be; a researcher recently succeeded in getting a simple image projected
within a cube of glass using two lasers. (When the two beams cross, a
chemical in the glass glows.)]
The transition from black and white to colour is closer in conception to
the move from green-screen, text-only computer terminals to today's
1280x1024 pixel, 16 million colour, 3D-accelerated beasts. It's not in
the same league.
>> >> Then what's the *point*? Why give him the freedom to move around
>> >> wherever he wants, only to arbitrarily *remove* that freedom to allow
>> >> you to show off your artists' work to best effect?
>>
>> (Q:)
>> >Why chisel a block of marble to form a sculpture?
>>
>> (A: So you can see the sculpture that was trapped inside the block of
>> marble. Easy!)
>>
>> Seriously. Do you advocate the use of arbitrary, inconsistent
>> restrictions on players? I'd find that sort of behaviour very annoying
>> in a game.
>Read your own 1st response and realize that you got it the 1st time.
I'll have to disagree vehemently there. I consider the gameplay itself
to be the primary work of art... (but I would say that, wouldn't I?)
>> I think we're posting past each other; I must be being a bit unclear
>> about this. I don't advocate abandoning FM3D, but I do advocate dropping
>> it in situations where it wouldn't add anything significant to a game.
>But since you as an author are creating the situations to begin with, why
>would you operate in a dismissive mode? Only if you weren't that
>interested in 3D as a medium to begin with.
Touché! :)
I have a couple of FM3D games -- namely Dungeon Keeper and Carmageddon -
- but those both justified their use of it to me. My other 4 games are
both reliant on either 2D tilemaps, or tiled 3D isometric maps for
output.
The only other FM3D game I've played to any extent is Descent.
I don't mind FM3D in games where it makes sense, but I'd still rather
play Gauntlet over Quake any day of the week.
So, yes: I'm not fond of FM3D at the moment. I do have a few designs I'd
like to prototype at some point, but the technology is still at the C64
level, IMHO. It's still too restrictive and cumbersome.
My biggest gripe is that we need an input device capable of working
properly with an FM3D UI. Nothing presently available is any good for
this at the moment.
That said: now that I understand the concept you want implement a bit
better, I've revised my opinion to reflect this. FM3D is definitely a
far better option for the visual feedback than pre-rendered images.
[...]
>Drop the pretense of a nicely object-oriented universe and you will go
>farther. It is about combining and re-moulding reality, the dream logic.
Agreed. I didn't realise exactly what you were getting at until a couple
of posts ago, so it appears we've been posting each other in this area.
>> >> Myst does. If you want "Make Myst Real in 3D" games, you have to
>realise
>> >> that Myst *HAS* goals.
>> >
>> >I may only want the atmosphere of Myst, not its goals.
>>
>> Then -- no offence -- please stop defining it in terms of Myst.
>
>Then - no offense - please stop assuming that you own any definitions of
>Myst. If you cannot recognize the atmospherics of Myst as *THE* major
>selling point of the game, the very essence of its visual and interactive
>quality, then all I can say is you do not have an artistic eye and you do
>not work with your senses.
I do recognise the atmospherics of Myst as the major *OVERT* selling
point. But the underlying UI is, IMHO, what's *keeping* it selling. It's
precisely because you *don't* notice its UI that makes it so good.
Open those curtains and look outside. And now take a look at the window
-- the UI you just used without even realising it.
--
Sean Timarco Baggaley
-- "*Be* Different."
<mailto: whatever you damned well wa...@stimarco.cix.co.uk>
E&OE
Acuity
k...@strater.force9.co.uk (Nikolaus Strater) wrote:
>>>>You really think people are morons, don't you?
>
>>>I don't think they're morons, I *know* they're morons. I'm in the top
>>>You really think people are morons, don't you?
>
>>I don't think they're morons, I *know* they're morons. I'm in the top
>>10% intelligence wise, (140 IQ) and probably everyone else reading
>>this newsgroup is too. Therefore 90% of the people out there are
>>dumber than we are. It's a proven fact. They test these things.
>
>
>Anybody relying on 'them' or on numbers to prove his intelligence must
>surely be the greatest moron of them all...
I don't NEED to PROVE my intelligence to you, and I wasn't trying. I
was stating a fact. I guess we should throw all facts out the window,
and beleive nothing unless we've personally tested it ourselves.
Acuity
Sean Timarco Baggaley <stbag...@stimarco.cix.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <3518980e...@news.earthlink.net>, Acuity
><ssw...@earthlink.net> writes
>>Sean Timarco Baggaley <stbag...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>No the right mouse button doesn't *exist*. Not on a Mac, anyway. Unless
>>>you're only aiming at the PC (or RiscOS!) market, this sort of
>>>portability issue has to be considered in such a game.
>
>>Nobody in their right mind would bother taking the Mac into
>>consideration these days for games. I don't hate macs, but one has to
>>be realistic.
>
>Well how would you convert the game to the Playstation? (No mouse at
>all. Unless you force people to buy that $40 add-on one...)
You wouldn't! Or you'd make them use the joypad to move the cursor.
They ported Riven to the Playstation... or at least they are. I'm not
sure if they've done so yet.
Acuity
"Brandon Van Every" <vane...@blarg.net> wrote:
>Acuity, I'm getting a little tired of your attitude. You habitually use
>the phrase "it sucks" in response to anything you don't agree with, usually
>without additional qualification about the engineering constraints and
>tradeoffs of any given problem. You're a bright guy but you have the
>diplomatic maturity of an 18-year-old.
What if I am 18 years old? :)
(I'm not.)
>Acuity, you're speaking in the abstract!
And so are you! I can't make specific comments about whether a
feature will fit well or not if you don't specify EXACTLY how that
feature will be used and where.
However, I can not see a SINGLE instance in Myst where an iconic
interface would have improved play, AND, I cannot see a single
instance where full roaming 3D would have improved play, AND I cannot
see a single instance where baloon help popping up when you moved the
mouse over something wouldn't have jarred me back to reeality and made
me realize I was playing a computer game.
The 11th hour. Shitty game right? Well, they had an iconic
interface. They put this STUPID computer in the game which beeps
every 5 minutes, and you have to select it, and then read the text on
it, and you can press buttons to get hints, or go forward or back, or
view a video... It was absurd. It didn't belong there at all.
>What is the game SUPPOSED TO DO?
>Balloon help might be helpful, it might not be.
It would be helpful, but only if you've designed a poor interface. A
good interface should NEVER require balloon help.
>Depends on how simple/complicated that part of the game is. Nobody said that the game has
>to be simple all the way through, it just has to have a simple way of playing it for those
>that want to deal with it that way.
I beleive that a game should be as simple as possible. Yes, some
games are neccesarilly complex, but that doesn't mean they should be
didfficult to play. Sim City could have had a better interface than
it did. It had some really poor icons. My beleif is that a game
should not require a manual, unless you want to look up how much a
monster is worth or a list of the powers each spell or item in an RPG
has. Only in extremely rare cases should you have to look up
information about the game's interface.
>And how can you possibly make this judgement, not having played such a
>game? You're speculating.
Yes, I am. I'm speculating based on the years of game playing
experience I have. I've played games lik Myst, and I've played games
like Quake. It's not a big stretch of the imagionation to figure out
what a game that combines the two would be like.
I want to ask you something about your game idea. Do you, or do you
NOT want to allow the player complete freedom to walk around anywhere
in the world? If not, WHY do you need 3D?
>Put a big flashing neon arrow pointing at it?
That would su...
Nevermind.
>A RealAudio clip saying "This trivial detail is really really important."
That would also.
>I don't see what you're driving at here. Whether you want people to notice
>something or not is a narrative decision, not a 3d interface decision. Maybe
>some "detail" needs to be bigger than it would have been in a 2d space, that's
>just scaling the problem.
Yes it IS an interface decision. You just explained a way you could
get aroudn the problem. So you admit that it's a problem. Getting
around it is NOT an acceptable solution. The interface is flawed, and
that's where the problem should be fixed. You don't move to a new
interface when you have one that works fine.
I ask again. WHY move to 3d? Why make the interface more complicted
just for the sake of having a 3D world? Isn't it obvious that you
don't NEED to have a 3D world to have a good Myst like game that sells
well? Why would you want to spend 4 years developing this Uber-engine
before you start developing the actual gamne?
Name ONE thing that a 3D game can allow that a 2D one cannot that
improves gameplay for a Myst like game?
>It doesn't change the fundamental nature of the problem that it's
>up to you as author to decide what is noticeable and what isn't.
Making a small scrap of paper noticeable by making it a large pile of
paper with a large neon sign pointing to it is your idea of a solution
to a problem your interface has created?
>Nobody said you had to deal with an adventure game linearly. What do you
>want, force the user down a 1-dimensional path so that they don't make any
>mistakes and hence no choices? That's a movie with interrupts, not an
>interactive adventure. Anyways, this has nothing to do with 3D.
You didn't offer a solution to the problem I presented. And if you
want to allow complete freedom in your engine (which is the only
reason to bother making it 3d) then you have to have a solution to
this problem. So what do you do? You can't make a game where you
can't solve it 3 hours later because you walked away from a
conversation halfway into the game.
>Ok, so it stinks for you. Doesn't mean it stinks for anyone else.
Yes it does. The chances are infinitessimly slim that I'm the only
person that would be annoyed by that.
>This is a valid issue, but experiments during playtesting could determine
>reasonable values for a number of cases. Some of those cases will have
>reasonable solutions. Others won't, and you'll have to use some other
>interface method to bail out the user. At any rate, you'll find answers by
>trying things out, not by dismissing things.
Oh great solution... Player gets stuck on a wall so we either
automatically reset him, or tell the player on page 32 of the manual
that if they hit ctrl-alt-delete, they'll be reset if the game doesn't
do it automatically.
>Worst case: I am confident you could establish a "lower bound" on the
>interruption time for almost any problem. i.e. The amount of time needed
>to keep the people from calling technical support and/or tossing your game
>in the rubbish bin. If it gets the user back in the game, and trains the
>user so that they do not experience further frustration, then it has
>succeeded.
This is absurd. I can't beelive you're actually suggesting such a
thing!
>Well maybe you're too sure about imposing your own views on the rest of
>humanity then. If you don't want an ugly dialog box then we can dress it
>up as part of the story. Thobos the narrator in dark robes asks you a few
>questions, you answer, boom you're on your way.
"Art thou sure that thou wishest to install the game in C colon
backslash program space files backslash riven space clone backslash?"
"Woulds't thou wisheth that thy viewing portal woulds't be in 24bit
color mode, or wouls't thou liketh it to be in 16bit color mode?"
Better shut up right now. BIll gates might be reading it, and he
might actually implement it... Oh damn, wait, he already did!
MS-Bob!
>Really, Joe Average has some reason they're supposed to know to do that? I
>don't think so.
No, Joe Average probably wouldn't KNOW it, but he'd be likely to guess
it. There's only two buttons to choose from.
>Really, who's "they?" You sure that so-called smart people just don't sit
>around congratulating themselves on their cleverness? Wake up, there are
>lotsa different kinds of intelligence, and many people are more adaptive
>than you give them credit for. There are indeed a lot of idiots out there,
>but assuming that you're smarter than everyone is... well, it's a sign of
>the ways in which you're not that intelligent after all.
I'm not assuming. I took a test in school. It came back with my
scores in he top 10% of all the schools in the US. I also took two
IQ tests. One recently, and one when I was in 4th grade. The results
were the same. Since they were two entirely diffrent tests, I doubt
the results would be the same if they were innacurate in some manner.
I really don't want to talk about this. I'm not claiming I'm the
smartest person on the planet. That's why I said most of the people
reading this newsgroup are probably that smart too.
>Let's put it this way. A guy like you (or myself, at your age probably)
>would never have made it through the Cultural Revolution in China.
>Loud-mouthed intelligensia were shot.
I'm only "loud mothed" in newsgroups. I you actually met me, you'd
find I was the quiet shy type that doesn't argue with you with any
vigor.
>It is often foolish to run one's mouth about how much smarter you are than
>everyone else, because it makes people dislike you, not want to do any favors
>for you, and compete with you. Or in the worst case, kill you.
Who would have thought that I could piss people off by saying they
were among the smartest group of people. Go figure.
>Have you played enough wargames to understand such principles?
Gee, and what wargame would that be where they implement the plot of
the loud-mouthed smart guy being beaten up by the grunts?
>Let's just make one more point about so-called "stupid" people though, as
>long as you brought this boner of a confusion point up. You only have to
>sell them the game. They don't have to play it, they just have to buy it
>and be dumb enough not to bring it back to the store. Can you keep them
>going long enough to achieve this? If they're looking for the "any key,"
>then maybe it's not so hard to sell the product.
That's immoral. I'm not an immoral person. I'm not going to create a
game for the sole pupose of sellling hundreds of thousands of copies.
If I wanted to do that, I could capitalize on any one of the recent
tragedies. People would buy the game just because they heard about it
on the news and wanted to see what all the fuss was about.
>You can keep a "bailout" icon handy, to save all those stupid users from
>themselves. Hitchhiker's Guide, "Don't Panic!" :-)
>
>You can keep a "toolbar" icon handy. It expands into a larger number of
>icons of use to advanced game users. Newbies and the general public can
>ignore it. The tools aren't required to play the game, they just enhance
>the game for those that enjoy such things.
>
>You can keep a "movement mode" icon handy. It cycles you through the
>available modes of movement. First you're walking. Now you're flying.
>Maybe jogging. Maybe bicycling. Whatever. It allows the novice user to
>make easy choices about how to navigate. They don't have to hunt for what
>the hell to do.
Wait... You're saying an iconic interface is GOOD because you have
buttons?! That's got to be the most absurd argument I've heard.
What I want to know is WHY bother making Myst 3D? How does that
improve the game?
>You're the one with the assumption that 3D interface == can walk
>everywhere. Not me. Some places you let them walk everywhere, others you
>don't. It's chipping a sculpture from the marble. Balancing freedom and
>restraint is the nature of the medium.
>C) recombine components. Can't do that so easily with image-based media.
>Or more accurately you could, but the methods of recombination and the
>aesthetic effects would be very different.
First, this is a really abstract idea. I hope you're not seriously
proposing a concept like "find some spare parts, and make a radio",
where there's no specific radio you have to build, just one that
works, and you can use anyhting available. That's crazy. That would
be too complex to do. Not until we have full bodied VR where we can
manipulate things easily. Even then... That owuld really be
overkill, and it would take forever to code.
But for more simple things, image based media can do it prefectly
fine. You find the diffrent parts to the radio, and as you do, the
image of the radio gets built up. All you have to do is use layers to
draw the parts, so some occlude others. Then you can have a radio
with missing parts and parts that you can add and remove. It's EASY.
>D) physics simulation.
You can simulate physics in a game like Myst too. Have a scale? Need
to fill it with a certain number of gold peices to balance it out to
trigger something? Easy.
As for the physics of walking around, that's useless and pointless.
No need for sucha thing in a Myst game, it won't enhance the gameplay.
Any walking you can animate.
>E) tricks of perspective.
And how does this enhance gameplay?
>F) Just because the user moves simplistically, doesn't mean anything else
>is. We're just trying to make it easy for the user, right?
You're going from a game like Myst which has a carefull crafted story
into a game like an RPG where you can do pretty much anything and
anything can happen. Make up your mind. You're trying to design an
adventure game, not Myst!
>For many tasks they speed things up. Historically, that's why they were
>invented. It depends on the task, and what the alternative is.
I bet you can't come up with a task that I can't come up with a faster
way to do that doesn't require an icon.
>> >They could be constructed based on the viewer's perspective, surreal
>dream
>> >objects rather than tangible 3d ones. The psychology of the object is
>key,
>> >not whether you can draw it in plan and elevation views.
>>
>> Huh?
>
>What, I thought you had an I.Q. of 140 ?
That doesn't mean I can make sense of the incoherent ramblings of a
madman. For that I'd have to have a degree in psychology.
>Walk around Versailles. It's a lot of fun to watch people floating on the
>different levels of the terraces due to visual tricks. Walk around Rodin's
>sculpture of Balzac. You have to look at GOOD art and architecture, not my
>apartment. :-)
Sorry never seen those things. But I doubt that they'd have any place
in a Myst style game. One of the things which made Myst popular is
that it was fairly "normal". Get too weird and you'll scare people
off.
Robert Blum
>To give you some idea of what that means: the original 1.6Gb drive has
>100Mb free; the rest is *entirely* filled up with program installations.
>Even my new 4.3Gb drive has only 2Gb left! And I only have one (21Mb)
>game installed. 8/
>You're not thinking about Tolkein-esque Fantasy, are you? :) That'd be
>pretty nasty to implement with a speech engine around...
>
>"You see Myxtlyxpptl's Castle ahead..."
[snip]
>"You see Myxtlyxpptl's Castle ahead..."
>"-- just go to the bloody Castle..."
>"What bloody castle?"
>
><FX: THWACK!>
In fact, it is more like:
You: Go to window!
Computer: Yes master, I'll fetch the X-Ray diagrams
You: No, not the diagrams. The WINDOW!
Computer: You want to exit to windows?
You: No, I WANT TO OPEN THE WINDOW
Computer: Very well, I'll jump out of the window
Computer&You: Noooooooooooooo!
>"Illegal Exception at SwearWord.DLL"
Funny. The program in fact listens for swear words and reacts to them :-)
>I'd certainly *look* kewl! I can see the boxes now:
>"Minimum Requirements: PII 444, 99.2Gb hard drive space free, 24x DVD-
>ROM drive, 9 14" monitors..."
Given the fact that it's a sponsored game, it will probably be more like:
P75/4MB, Win95, 11 21" monitors (9 are sufficient, two will be rear mirrors
:-)
>>>although Moon Cresta managed to put that in the game arena as well.)
>>I'll dig it out....
>
>For 'younger' readers: Moon Cresta was one of the more original shoot-
>em-ups, back in the 'Galaxians' era of the early 1980s. You had dockable
>ships that sat on top of each other, like this:
Hey, I _know_ Moon Cresta. It cost me a fortune back then. I just wanted to
replay it :-)
>I can't remember exactly how it played; it's been over 12 years since I
>last saw it in an arcade.
If you've got a week or two to spare, try MAME. Those were the games....
Bye,
Robert
Robert Blum
Lost Dragon wrote:
>>>[snip rant about speech]
>
>Anyone got the rant laying about? I'd like to see it. I am
>interested in speech recognition devices and applications.
It was only about baisc features... If you've got any questions, feel free
to ask.
(This programme was brought to you by the 'Content In R.G.P Committee'
(CIRC) :-)
>>>>input. Designing the game so that speech recognition is integrated
>>>>seamlessly as an input device may help.
>
>Software based speech recognition in games? Wouldn't that tend to
>interfere with a game's sound effects?
You switch 'em off :-)
>I assume a user would be
>speaking into a microphone which would be plugged into the sound card.
>Most sound cards say full duplex, but..
Most cards are SB, thus (until a few months ago) half duplex. This means:
speech is off during sound fx
(And it means constantly creating and destroying the DirectSound object
because it interferes with the Speech Recog Software.Yay!)
Bye,
Robert
Acuity
"Robert Blum" <r.b...@advertainment.remove_this.com> wrote:
>>To give you some idea of what that means: the original 1.6Gb drive has
>>100Mb free; the rest is *entirely* filled up with program installations.
>>Even my new 4.3Gb drive has only 2Gb left! And I only have one (21Mb)
>>game installed. 8/
What could you possibly have filled that much space with?
Robert Blum
Acuity wrote:
>"Robert Blum" <r.b...@advertainment.remove_this.com> wrote:
>>Sounds similar to my PC... A total of 8GB, with a measly 200 MB left.
>
>What could you possibly have filled that much space with?
Roughly 4 GB raw data for the current game
1 GB processed data
650 MB for a CD image
VC++/MSDN/BoundsChecker/MSOffice/MSProject
Various smaller tools
Win95
That's about it. Oh yes, Shadow Warrior is eating another 60 MB :-)
Bye,
Robert
Sean Timarco Baggaley
In article <351ce86e...@news.ionet.net>, Lost Dragon
<lost...@ionet.net> writes
>>>[snip rant about speech]
>Anyone got the rant laying about? I'd like to see it. I am
>interested in speech recognition devices and applications.
Go to DejaNews and do a search on "Why Myst?", "speech" and
"Rec.Games.Programmer"
>>>>input. Designing the game so that speech recognition is integrated
>>>>seamlessly as an input device may help.
>Software based speech recognition in games? Wouldn't that tend to
>interfere with a game's sound effects? I assume a user would be
>speaking into a microphone which would be plugged into the sound card.
>Most sound cards say full duplex, but..
This could cause some problems in some games. But 99% of these can be
eliminated by specifying "Good Directional Microphone" as part of the
minimum requirements.
Noise cancellation technology has been around for some years now, it
just needs a decent DSP and a bit of code which eliminates any output
sounds from the input signal. (It's not quite that simple, since the
speed of sound becomes a factor, but the details are well-known.)
It's just an advanced form of the "Karaoke" modes available on many
newer sound systems.
Sean Timarco Baggaley
In article <351a5e1a....@news.earthlink.net>, Acuity
<ssw...@earthlink.net> writes
>"Robert Blum" <r.b...@advertainment.remove_this.com> wrote:
>>>To give you some idea of what that means: the original 1.6Gb drive has
>>>100Mb free; the rest is *entirely* filled up with program installations.
>>>Even my new 4.3Gb drive has only 2Gb left! And I only have one (21Mb)
>>>game installed. 8/
>
>What could you possibly have filled that much space with?
Graphics and video are the major culprits. Hell, Macromedia's XRes 2.0
has this wonderful habit of chewing up over 1Gb of my remaining 2Gb
space, just for its swap-file. Creating graphics for print is very
demanding of resources.
Once you start working with animations and video, you have to start
thinking in terms of 10+ Gb and the more expensive flavours of SCSI...
Brandon Van Every
Ok Acuity, I think you and I have attempted to discuss user interface
issues enough. Obviously we are not communicating very well. I don't
think it's worth me trying to explain further as I've already been trying
to explain as best I can. Maybe if we were talking in person it would be
easier to settle a few matters, but in e-mail it is clearly not working.
So for most of this stuff, I'm just going to quit while we're ahead. For a
handful of points I will try to give a last answer, but don't be too
surprised if these vanish in the next post as well. It's time to whittle
this down and cut our mutual losses, we're nearing an E.O.T. - Brandon
Acuity <ssw...@earthlink.net> wrote in article
<351cedec...@news.earthlink.net>...
> "Brandon Van Every" <vane...@blarg.net> wrote:
>
> >Worst case: I am confident you could establish a "lower bound" on the
> >interruption time for almost any problem. i.e. The amount of time
needed
> >to keep the people from calling technical support and/or tossing your
game
> >in the rubbish bin. If it gets the user back in the game, and trains
the
> >user so that they do not experience further frustration, then it has
> >succeeded.
>
> This is absurd. I can't beelive you're actually suggesting such a
> thing!
What is absurd about the idea of bailing out a complete novice when they're
tearing their hair out of their head? This is a method of last resort, to
keep them from blasting all over Usenet that your game sucks. If it gets
them back in the game, nay, if it has a PERCENTAGE CHANCE of getting them
back in the game, it's a win.
> I'm not assuming. I took a test in school. It came back with my
> scores in he top 10% of all the schools in the US. I also took two
> IQ tests. One recently, and one when I was in 4th grade. The results
> were the same. Since they were two entirely diffrent tests, I doubt
> the results would be the same if they were innacurate in some manner.
An older artist friend, critical of my intellectual ways, defined
intelligence as the ability to utilize other people. IMHO that's not the
only kind of intelligence but he certainly has a point.
> I really don't want to talk about this.
Well then DON'T BRING IT UP, duh!
> I'm not claiming I'm the
> smartest person on the planet. That's why I said most of the people
> reading this newsgroup are probably that smart too.
> >Have you played enough wargames to understand such principles?
>
> Gee, and what wargame would that be where they implement the plot of
> the loud-mouthed smart guy being beaten up by the grunts?
"Diplomacy," by Avalon Hill. Read some Sun-Tzu while you're at it.
> >Let's just make one more point about so-called "stupid" people though,
as
> >long as you brought this boner of a confusion point up. You only have
to
> >sell them the game. They don't have to play it, they just have to buy
it
> >and be dumb enough not to bring it back to the store. Can you keep them
> >going long enough to achieve this? If they're looking for the "any
key,"
> >then maybe it's not so hard to sell the product.
>
> That's immoral.
It's not immoral if they're THAT dumb. Morality says you make your best
effort to solve the user's interface problems and deliver a quality
experience. If the user is SO STUPID that they do things like use a CD-ROM
tray for a coffee holder, or they call tech support because they don't know
to turn the power on/off, or they use the mouse as a foot pedal, FUCK 'EM!
If you really care about people like that, you should produce a training
video in the basics of computerdom, not a game.
> >C) recombine components. Can't do that so easily with image-based
media.
> >Or more accurately you could, but the methods of recombination and the
> >aesthetic effects would be very different.
>
> First, this is a really abstract idea. I hope you're not seriously
> proposing a concept like "find some spare parts, and make a radio",
> where there's no specific radio you have to build, just one that
> works, and you can use anyhting available. That's crazy. That would
> be too complex to do.
Flat Earth Society, anyone?
> Not until we have full bodied VR where we can
> manipulate things easily. Even then... That owuld really be
> overkill, and it would take forever to code.
That's a totally orthogonal, irrelevant UI issue.
> But for more simple things, image based media can do it prefectly
> fine. You find the diffrent parts to the radio, and as you do, the
> image of the radio gets built up. All you have to do is use layers to
> draw the parts, so some occlude others. Then you can have a radio
> with missing parts and parts that you can add and remove. It's EASY.
The aesthetic effect is different, and the images do not have a physical
basis for structural interaction.
> >D) physics simulation.
>
> You can simulate physics in a game like Myst too. Have a scale? Need
> to fill it with a certain number of gold peices to balance it out to
> trigger something? Easy.
You might want something more global, for kicks.
> As for the physics of walking around, that's useless and pointless.
> No need for sucha thing in a Myst game, it won't enhance the gameplay.
Sez you. Anyways, you and I are not going to debate this further, we've
already gone way past the fruitfulness of the endeavor.
> >E) tricks of perspective.
>
> And how does this enhance gameplay?
How does interesting artwork enhance gameplay? The psychological dimension
of the game, remember?
> >F) Just because the user moves simplistically, doesn't mean anything
else
> >is. We're just trying to make it easy for the user, right?
>
> You're going from a game like Myst which has a carefull crafted story
> into a game like an RPG where you can do pretty much anything and
> anything can happen. Make up your mind. You're trying to design an
> adventure game, not Myst!
You're not addressing point (F) with this comment. Point (F) is that the
implementation of the universe may be easier with an omni-motional 3D
schema, even if the user interacts with it in a more limited fashion.
> >> >They could be constructed based on the viewer's perspective, surreal
> >dream
> >> >objects rather than tangible 3d ones. The psychology of the object
is
> >key,
> >> >not whether you can draw it in plan and elevation views.
> >>
> >> Huh?
> >
> >What, I thought you had an I.Q. of 140 ?
>
> That doesn't mean I can make sense of the incoherent ramblings of a
> madman. For that I'd have to have a degree in psychology.
Or a degree in art. Or maybe a passing familiarity with the subject, if
not an official piece of paper.
> >Walk around Versailles. It's a lot of fun to watch people floating on
the
> >different levels of the terraces due to visual tricks. Walk around
Rodin's
> >sculpture of Balzac. You have to look at GOOD art and architecture, not
my
> >apartment. :-)
>
> Sorry never seen those things.
It shows. Judging by the way you react to suggestions of the creative,
amorphous unknown, and your attitudes about science fiction, I'm going to
guess that you have very little background in either the visual arts or the
history of architecture.
> But I doubt that they'd have any place
> in a Myst style game. One of the things which made Myst popular is
> that it was fairly "normal". Get too weird and you'll scare people
> off.
In describing Myst, "normal" is not the adjective that springs to my mind.
In fact I think the press if not the game package itself bills the
experience as "Surreal." Maybe the public has a higher tolerance for
weirdness than one might at first guess? But as you said it may be a
question of degree.
Cheers,
Brandon Van Every
Russ Williams
Sean Timarco Baggaley wrote in message ...
>In article <351a5e1a....@news.earthlink.net>, Acuity
><ssw...@earthlink.net> writes
>>"Robert Blum" <r.b...@advertainment.remove_this.com>
>>wrote:
>>>>1.6Gb drive has 100Mb free; the rest is *entirely* filled
>>>>up with program installations. Even my new 4.3Gb drive
>>>>has only 2Gb left! And I only have one (21Mb) game
>>>>installed. 8/
>>>
>>>200 MB left.
>>
>>What could you possibly have filled that much space with?
>
>Graphics and video are the major culprits.
Yup.
>Hell, Macromedia's XRes 2.0 has this wonderful habit
>of chewing up over 1Gb of my remaining 2Gb space,
>just for its swap-file. Creating graphics for print is very
>demanding of resources.
Doing video/animations for multiple languages is another
great candidate: a CD full for English, French, German,
Spanish, Italian and Japanese won't give you much
change from 4 gigs.
>Once you start working with animations and video, you
>have to start thinking in terms of 10+ Gb and the more
>expensive flavours of SCSI...
More than 10Gb is easily possible with IDE.
UDMA drives are easily fast enough, IME, for MJPEG
video capture (circa 40mb/min).
Just to add another 'data point' about HD space: I've got
16Gb of drives, with just under 10% free. 6.4Gb of that is
raw video captures, there's a couple of CD images,
almost a gig of mp3 audio and the rest is downloads
and installed programs...
Parkinson's Law ("Data expands to fill the space available")
is most definitely true.
---
Russ
Acuity
"Brandon Van Every" <vane...@blarg.net> wrote:
>"Diplomacy," by Avalon Hill. Read some Sun-Tzu while you're at it.
Those aren't games.
>> That's immoral.
>
>It's not immoral if they're THAT dumb.
That's an odd definition of morality.
>Sez you. Anyways, you and I are not going to debate this further, we've
>already gone way past the fruitfulness of the endeavor.
At least we agree on something.
>You're not addressing point (F) with this comment. Point (F) is that the
>implementation of the universe may be easier with an omni-motional 3D
>schema, even if the user interacts with it in a more limited fashion.
I beg to differ. It much more difficult to make a 3D world which can
run in realtime than it is to render one you can throw absurd amounts
of detail at and havit it still render the scene. AND it will run on
a lot more PC's.
>> Sorry never seen those things.
>
>It shows. Judging by the way you react to suggestions of the creative,
>amorphous unknown, and your attitudes about science fiction, I'm going to
>guess that you have very little background in either the visual arts or the
>history of architecture.
What are my attitudes about Science Fiction?
>In describing Myst, "normal" is not the adjective that springs to my mind.
Myst has a graphical style which people can relate to which has been
used for a long time. I suspect that what you're proposing would be
completely abstract and weird, not much like anything that's come
before. Weirdness for the sake of being weird. Well it won't sell
well.
Myst has Jeuls-Verne style machinery, the charactars dress in
victorian style clothes... That's stuff people can relate to. Women
love Victorian settings. Guys love cool machines. The story has
love, betrayal, murder, the lust for power, greed...
Acuity
"Robert Blum" <r.b...@advertainment.remove_this.com> wrote:
>
>Acuity wrote:
>>"Robert Blum" <r.b...@advertainment.remove_this.com> wrote:
>>
>>What could you possibly have filled that much space with?
>1 GB processed data
>650 MB for a CD image
>VC++/MSDN/BoundsChecker/MSOffice/MSProject
>Various smaller tools
>Win95
>
>That's about it. Oh yes, Shadow Warrior is eating another 60 MB :-)
More FMV... How wonderful. :)
Robert Blum
Acuity wrote
>"Robert Blum" <r.b...@advertainment.remove_this.com> wrote:
>>Acuity wrote:
>>>"Robert Blum" <r.b...@advertainment.remove_this.com> wrote:
>>>>Sounds similar to my PC... A total of 8GB, with a measly 200 MB left.
>>>
>>>What could you possibly have filled that much space with?
>>Roughly 4 GB raw data for the current game
>>1 GB processed data
>>650 MB for a CD image
>>VC++/MSDN/BoundsChecker/MSOffice/MSProject
>>Various smaller tools
>>Win95
>>
>>That's about it. Oh yes, Shadow Warrior is eating another 60 MB :-)
>
>More FMV... How wonderful. :)
No insults, please. :-)
Actually, we have about 2:30 minutes of _rendered_ movies, that's it. If I'd
go for FMV, I'd probably have to have _at least_ 20GB if I were to store the
raw sources.
Those 4GB are almost only static images, small animations (like a fan, a
bush moving in the wind, whatever) & sounds. The images are stored with
24bpp, and since they are surround images, each scenery alone takes 6MB. All
sounds are stored as 44KHz 16 bit stereo.
Since I believe in version control, this quickly adds up. But it has the
benefit that I can restore _any_ previous test version in about a day. (30
minutes for extracting the files. The rest is compiling/preprocessing of
data)
I wish we had some more movies in the game, though :-)
Bye,
Robert
Robert Blum
>Parkinson's Law ("Data expands to fill the space available")
>is most definitely true.
What's even worse is the first corrolary to this:
The first 90% of every harddisk are filled within a week :-)
Bye,
Robert
Robert Blum
Acuity wrote <351b5204....@news.earthlink.net>...
>"Brandon Van Every" <vane...@blarg.net> wrote:
>>"Diplomacy," by Avalon Hill. Read some Sun-Tzu while you're at it.
>
>Those aren't games.
Actually, 'Diplomacy' is a game. One of the best, IMHO. (If you can afford
to loose a few friends <eg>)
And Sun Tsu is required reading. No matter what you're doing, as long as
you're planning anything, read Sun Tsu. (The Art Of War, in case you don't
know the title)
Bye,
Robert
Acuity
"Robert Blum" <r.b...@advertainment.remove_this.com> wrote:
>>More FMV... How wonderful. :)
>No insults, please. :-)
Actually, unlike a lot of people, I appreciate FMV. *If* it's done
well. I couldn't like Myst and hate FMV, could I? :)
>Those 4GB are almost only static images, small animations (like a fan, a
>bush moving in the wind, whatever) & sounds. The images are stored with
>24bpp, and since they are surround images, each scenery alone takes 6MB. All
>sounds are stored as 44KHz 16 bit stereo.
Why bother storing the sounds at such a high sampling rate? You can't
hear the diffrence between 22khz 16 bit stereo and 44khz 16 bit
stereo. Especially once you start playing multiple sounds at once.
>Since I believe in version control, this quickly adds up. But it has the
>benefit that I can restore _any_ previous test version in about a day. (30
>minutes for extracting the files. The rest is compiling/preprocessing of
>data)
>
>I wish we had some more movies in the game, though :-)
Well when I asked aobut the space, I assumed you were talking about a
home PC... One would expect a PC at a game company to fill up that
much space. I mean you have to have all the latest networkable games
installed.. that alone will take up huge amounts of space. :)
Now if someone manages to fill 8gb of space on a home PC, I'd like to
know what they filled it with that they couldn't possibly move
offline. I don't think a home PC user could actively use 8GB of data
daily...
Acuity
"Robert Blum" <r.b...@advertainment.remove_this.com> wrote:
>
>Acuity wrote <351b5204....@news.earthlink.net>...
>>"Brandon Van Every" <vane...@blarg.net> wrote:
>>>"Diplomacy," by Avalon Hill. Read some Sun-Tzu while you're at it.
>>
>Actually, 'Diplomacy' is a game. One of the best, IMHO. (If you can afford
>to loose a few friends <eg>)
>
>And Sun Tsu is required reading. No matter what you're doing, as long as
>you're planning anything, read Sun Tsu. (The Art Of War, in case you don't
>know the title)
Yes, I've heard of the book, a freind of mine used to have it.
Robert Blum
Acuity wrote:
>Why bother storing the sounds at such a high sampling rate? You can't
>hear the diffrence between 22khz 16 bit stereo and 44khz 16 bit
>stereo. Especially once you start playing multiple sounds at once.
Of course you can hear the differences. Apart from that, much of the sounds
are postprocessed, like extracting information for the lip synching, etc.
And as a rule of thumb, I remove accuracy at the latest stage possible.
Helps when you have to redo/postprocess things.
>Well when I asked aobut the space, I assumed you were talking about a
>home PC...
Well, it sort of is my home PC. It's just here as long as my replacement PC
gets to the office :-)
>One would expect a PC at a game company to fill up that
>much space. I mean you have to have all the latest networkable games
>installed.. that alone will take up huge amounts of space. :)
ROTFL. The _only_ networked game we have here is Shadow Warrior. Perhaps
we're a strange shop, but we don't spend much time playing. (Except for
_real_ analysis of hits, etc.) I prefer doing my job from 8 to 4. My
suspicion about all these people working long hours was always they play a
lot :-)
>Now if someone manages to fill 8gb of space on a home PC, I'd like to
>know what they filled it with that they couldn't possibly move
>offline.
MS Office is eating 2 GB or so alone... And since disk storage is cheap, I
don't bother tailoring configurations to my needs. It's just an 'Install
All'.
>I don't think a home PC user could actively use 8GB of data
>daily...
Well, depends. Many games eat disk space like there's no tomorrow. And I've
always at least 10-12 games installed at home. Playing only one would be
boring, and I don't like the tedious install process.
(Guess why I bought a PlayStation :-)
Bye,
Robert
Justin Heyes-Jones
On Fri, 27 Mar 1998 13:09:16 -0000, ssw...@earthlink.net (Acuity)
wrote:
>Actually, unlike a lot of people, I appreciate FMV. *If* it's done
>well. I couldn't like Myst and hate FMV, could I? :)
Every marketing person in video games wanted FMV and interactive
movies in particular to succeed for one reason : no dependance on
programmers.
But the fact is that it is the interactivity level that makes game
into games rather than movies. So they will always need programmers.
Acuity
"Robert Blum" <r.b...@advertainment.remove_this.com> wrote:
>
>Acuity wrote:
>>Why bother storing the sounds at such a high sampling rate? You can't
>>hear the diffrence between 22khz 16 bit stereo and 44khz 16 bit
>>stereo. Especially once you start playing multiple sounds at once.
>Of course you can hear the differences.
No actually I didn't. I did much of the sound design for Deer Hunter,
and I copied LOTS of professionally recorded sounds off of the CD's,
and when I downsampled them to 22khz, I didn't hear a bit of
diffrence. Not when they were 16 bit at least.
>Apart from that, much of the sounds
>are postprocessed, like extracting information for the lip synching, etc.
>And as a rule of thumb, I remove accuracy at the latest stage possible.
>Helps when you have to redo/postprocess things.
I don't see how using 22khz samples would in any way affect lip
synching.
>ROTFL. The _only_ networked game we have here is Shadow Warrior. Perhaps
>we're a strange shop, but we don't spend much time playing. (Except for
>_real_ analysis of hits, etc.) I prefer doing my job from 8 to 4. My
>suspicion about all these people working long hours was always they play a
>lot :-)
We did do our job from 10-6... And then we played games until 9-10 at
night...
If you gotta have only one networked game, Shadow Warrior's a good
choice. :) We played it all the time. That and Red Alert. No Quake!
>Well, depends. Many games eat disk space like there's no tomorrow. And I've
>always at least 10-12 games installed at home. Playing only one would be
>boring, and I don't like the tedious install process.
>
>(Guess why I bought a PlayStation :-)
To waste your money? :)
I don't like the Playstation. I mean, I like it, it's got a decent
amount of power, and a cool design, and a good sound system... but
there's hardly any games for it worth playing. At least, not after
you've gotten used to analog control. :)
I bought a Playstation for myself around Christmas, and I ended up
bringing it back after I bought Final Fantasy and brought it back, and
then bought Castlevania and brought that back too.
I didn't like FF at all... it was too linear, and it was just constant
fighting. I want to play an RPG for the story, not the fighting.
Besides that, I didn't like the pseudo-futuristic setting. I like my
RPG's set in medieval times.
I thought Castlevania was a decent game, but it wasn't worth $200.
The voice acting was horrible though. And I just think that the
series has never reached the high water mark that Simon's Quest set on
the NES.
At the time there was absolutely NOTHING else on it that I wanted that
was available. Had Metal Gear Solid been out at the time, I might
have kept it. But I'll be able to get that for the PC hopefully.
Konami has said they'll probably port it. And I can get Croc on the
PC, and Gex Enter the Gecko on the N64... And the graphics will look
better. So why own a Playstation? For Wipeout? Played my fill of
that years ago at my freind's house. There's at least 8 games on the
N64 that I think are excellent. Sure, it's got it's share of bad
titles, but the best are the best. :) On average I think Playstation
titles are only average, and I don't play that many average games for
very long.
Robert Blum
Acuity wrote
>"Robert Blum" <r.b...@advertainment.remove_this.com> wrote:
>>Acuity wrote:
>I don't see how using 22khz samples would in any way affect lip
>synching.
Since the lip-synching is _entirely_ done automatically and the algorithm
currently is a bit sensible :-), I prefer to feed it the highest quality
data I have. (Yes, I know 22 KHz is supposed to cover the speech range. The
point is that it covers it just so-so)
>We did do our job from 10-6... And then we played games until 9-10 at
>night...
Well, I've got a wife, I'm a competition dancer, and I'm singing. So I cut
down on the amount of games :-)
>If you gotta have only one networked game, Shadow Warrior's a good
>choice. :) We played it all the time. That and Red Alert. No Quake!
SW was much more fun than Quake. I love its comic style. There are a few
scenes that are forever engraved in my mind, because I fell off my chair and
couldn't stop laughing.
>To waste your money? :)
>
>I don't like the Playstation. I mean, I like it, it's got a decent
>amount of power, and a cool design, and a good sound system... but
>there's hardly any games for it worth playing.
Crash Bandicoot? Resident Evil?
>At least, not after
>you've gotten used to analog control. :)
Well, the N64 was out of the question back then. And still is. The games are
just too expensive.
>I bought a Playstation for myself around Christmas, and I ended up
>bringing it back after I bought Final Fantasy and brought it back, and
>then bought Castlevania and brought that back too.
Well, I'm still saving money for FF :-)
>Konami has said they'll probably port it. And I can get Croc on the
>PC,
Well, my PC is currently occupying my office, so if I want to play at
home... :-)
Besides, it's only a measly P100
>better. So why own a Playstation? For Wipeout?
Yawn. Racing games.. How boring!
>Played my fill of
>that years ago at my freind's house. There's at least 8 games on the
>N64 that I think are excellent.
Yes, I'm still thinking about getting one too. But that would be tooooo
geeky, having two consoles and a PC :-)
>On average I think Playstation
>titles are only average, and I don't play that many average games for
>very long.
Yes, but the good ones are quite good also. And I can rent the newest ones
quite cheap at our local video store, so I can check them out before I buy
one.
Bye,
Robert
Acuity
"Robert Blum" <r.b...@advertainment.remove_this.com> wrote:
>Well, I've got a wife, I'm a competition dancer, and I'm singing. So I cut
>down on the amount of games :-)
You're not allowed to have a life when you work in the game industry.
You'd better start developing applications for MS before the men in
black suits come knocking at your door.
>SW was much more fun than Quake. I love its comic style. There are a few
>scenes that are forever engraved in my mind, because I fell off my chair and
>couldn't stop laughing.
>
>>To waste your money? :)
>>
>>I don't like the Playstation. I mean, I like it, it's got a decent
>>amount of power, and a cool design, and a good sound system... but
>>there's hardly any games for it worth playing.
>Crash Bandicoot? Resident Evil?
Crash is shallow. It's just a completely generic pplatformer with
really nice graphics.
I haven't tried Resident Evil. It wasn't avilable when I bought the
system. I imagine it's a proetty good game. It looks it, and the
style of engine they use ought to allow for some really good games.
But I can play that on the PC if I want. Not worth getting a
Playstation just for it.
>Well, the N64 was out of the question back then. And still is. The games are
>just too expensive.
Gaming is an expensive hobby! I paid $300 to play Mario 64. Not to
own a N64... Getting the system with the game was a bonus. :)
Besides, I rent a lot. I own exactly two games. The second one is
Mario Kart. I didn't plan to buy a lot of games on the Playstation, I
palnned to rent a lot. But after looking at all the games available,
I didn't see a single one which screamed out "you MUST have me!". Not
like Mario 64, or Mario Kart, or Zelda 64... :)
I also like the graphics on the N64. They're "soft". I hate hard
edges. And the swimming polygons with cracks on the Playstation are
annoying too. I don't expect an important title like Wipout XL to
have cracks all over the place.
>Well, I'm still saving money for FF :-)
There's another one you can get for the PC... If I wanted it, I STILL
wouldn't need a Playstation. :)
>Well, my PC is currently occupying my office, so if I want to play at
>home... :-)
You know, you ought to complain about that. Or say "Well, I guess I
don't have to work this week cause my PC's busted." They ought to let
you work from home if they didn't have the foresight to buy an extra
PC for when one breaks. My PC stays at home... I use it too often,
even after I come home from a long day at work on a PC. :)
>Besides, it's only a measly P100
I got a Cyrix P166 chip lying around... Wanna buy it? :)
>>better. So why own a Playstation? For Wipeout?
>Yawn. Racing games.. How boring!
For the most part, I agree. I wouldn't buy Wipeout... it's not two
player. I'd rent it until the intereste wore off, which would
probably be after about two rentals. The only racing games I play are
the ones that play well in two player mode.
Waverace, MRC, Mario Kart 64, and soon, F-Zero 64. :)
If Zelda isn't my 3rd N64 game, F-Zero 64 will be. That is, if I have
someone who wants to play it all the time with me when it comes out.
Or better yet, 3 someones. :)
>Yes, I'm still thinking about getting one too. But that would be tooooo
>geeky, having two consoles and a PC :-)
Hey!
I have a SNES, Genesis, N64, and PC, I used to own a TurboGraphix-16.
I also have a Gameboy and a Commodore 128... :)
I guess I'm too geeky. But then that must be a good thing.
Oh wait, I forgot to mention that Playstation which I owned for
exactly two days. :)
Sean Timarco Baggaley
In article <351ca2ca....@news.earthlink.net>, Acuity
<ssw...@earthlink.net> writes
>"Robert Blum" <r.b...@advertainment.remove_this.com> wrote:
>>>More FMV... How wonderful. :)
>>No insults, please. :-)
>Actually, unlike a lot of people, I appreciate FMV. *If* it's done
>well. I couldn't like Myst and hate FMV, could I? :)
Same here. I think the biggest problem people have with FMV is that
*good* FMV is incredibly thin on the ground, so we associate the term
with bollocks like "Night Trap". It's a little unfair on games like C&C
and Red Alert, both of which had some impressive FMV.
(I also thought the mission briefings in Extreme Assault were *very*
well done. No pre-rendered scenes -- it used the game engine for the
imagery -- just damned fine sound engineering. Details like that can
make a hell of a difference to a game.)
>>Those 4GB are almost only static images, small animations (like a fan, a
>>bush moving in the wind, whatever) & sounds. The images are stored with
>>24bpp, and since they are surround images, each scenery alone takes 6MB. All
>>sounds are stored as 44KHz 16 bit stereo.
>
>Why bother storing the sounds at such a high sampling rate? You can't
>hear the diffrence between 22khz 16 bit stereo and 44khz 16 bit
>stereo.
I can. I know others who can as well. It depends on your hearing.
It is a relatively minor difference between, say, 11KHz and 22KHz, but
it is there nonetheless, and I'm a perfectionist when it comes to sound.
Part of the reason for this is because of inaccuracies introduced by the
post-processing involved in D/A conversion. Since the '100% digital'
loudspeaker doesn't actually exist, there's no way of getting digital
sound out of the current systems without losing information.
Most people can, theoretically, hear the difference, but many of those
simply don't realise it. I play the piano, so music, and sound quality,
play a major part in my life.
Others just listen to the Spice Girls. :)
> Especially once you start playing multiple sounds at once.
See above. Mixing sounds is very prone to inaccuracies and rounding
errors. This is why all studio-quality samplers and decent DSPs work in
at least 20 or more bits. (24 bits is common.)
>>Since I believe in version control, this quickly adds up. But it has the
>>benefit that I can restore _any_ previous test version in about a day. (30
>>minutes for extracting the files. The rest is compiling/preprocessing of
>>data)
>>I wish we had some more movies in the game, though :-)
>Well when I asked aobut the space, I assumed you were talking about a
>home PC... One would expect a PC at a game company to fill up that
>much space. I mean you have to have all the latest networkable games
>installed.. that alone will take up huge amounts of space. :)
>Now if someone manages to fill 8gb of space on a home PC, I'd like to
>know what they filled it with that they couldn't possibly move
>offline. I don't think a home PC user could actively use 8GB of data
>daily...
Hah! I *was* talking about my home PC. And a friend of mine who does
graphic design and music for a living (from home) uses a PowerMacintosh
8500 with a far more packed total of 6Gb of hard drive.
(Just say "no!" to multi-track digital recordings... :)
--
Sean Timarco Baggaley
-- "Be Different."
Sean Timarco Baggaley
In article <6ffs8r$ncd$1...@news.seicom.net>, Robert Blum <r.blum@advertain
ment.remove_this.com> writes
And Sturgeon's Law adds that 90% of everything is crap; and we're still
arguing about the other 10%... 8)
Sean Timarco Baggaley
In article <6ff56d$h74$1...@usenet44.supernews.com>, Russ Williams
<ru...@algorithm.demon.co.uk> writes
>Doing video/animations for multiple languages is another
>great candidate: a CD full for English, French, German,
>Spanish, Italian and Japanese won't give you much
>change from 4 gigs.
Do you have separate video sequences for different languages? Or do you
go for dubbing or sub-titles? I've often wondered about this.
I know that Italy, for instance, actually prefers dubbing over
subtitling; they're very good at it, too. But other countries, such as
Sweden, prefer subtitles over dubbing. Have you found these preferences
applicable to games as well?
[...]
>More than 10Gb is easily possible with IDE.
>UDMA drives are easily fast enough, IME, for MJPEG
>video capture (circa 40mb/min).
Really? UDMA makes that much difference?
I thought SCSI was better because of the total bandwidth available;
using two drives at the same time seems to work a lot better with SCSI
drives rather than EIDE, but the equipment I've been using is getting on
for over a year ("Gasp! That's *ANCIENT!!") old...
>Just to add another 'data point' about HD space: I've got
>16Gb of drives, with just under 10% free. 6.4Gb of that is
>raw video captures, there's a couple of CD images,
>almost a gig of mp3 audio and the rest is downloads
>and installed programs...
Sounds like an IT adminstrator's nightmare... does it actually get
backed-up often? :)
Russ Williams
Sean Timarco Baggaley wrote in message ...
><ru...@algorithm.demon.co.uk> writes
>>Doing video/animations for multiple languages is another
>>great candidate: a CD full for English, French, German,
>>Spanish, Italian and Japanese won't give you much
>>change from 4 gigs.
>
>Do you have separate video sequences for different
>languages? Or do you go for dubbing or sub-titles?
>I've often wondered about this.
It depends on the video, but mostly dubbing.
>I know that Italy, for instance, actually prefers dubbing
>over subtitling; they're very good at it, too. But other
>countries, such as Sweden, prefer subtitles over
>dubbing. Have you found these preferences
>applicable to games as well?
I've not heard of any games being converted to Swedish,
so I can't really compare for that.
The real problems are if a country needs the actual
content changing - the Japanese market for example.
They consider the Disney-style 4-fingered hands to be
a sign of failed Yacuza, so there can be a need for
some major re-rendering.
>[...]
>>More than 10Gb is easily possible with IDE.
>>UDMA drives are easily fast enough, IME, for MJPEG
>>video capture (circa 40mb/min).
>
>Really? UDMA makes that much difference?
Yup. 6Mb/s actual instead of 4Mb/s. It's not quite the
promised 33Mb/s, but it's more than enough...
>I thought SCSI was better because of the total bandwidth
>available;
If you need it. It's not as useful as *lots* of RAM (a 50mb
disk cache mostly makes up for HD speed).
>using two drives at the same time seems to work a lot better
>with SCSI drives rather than EIDE,
Yup. It's easier on the CPU, too.
>but the equipment I've been using is getting on for over a
>year ("Gasp! That's *ANCIENT!!") old...
A year's not too bad - it depends on how advanced
evertything was when you bought it, though.
>>Just to add another 'data point' about HD space: I've got
>>16Gb of drives, with just under 10% free. 6.4Gb of that is
>>raw video captures, there's a couple of CD images,
>>almost a gig of mp3 audio and the rest is downloads
>>and installed programs...
>
>Sounds like an IT adminstrator's nightmare...
Well, it's my home system, so the admin would be me...
>does it actually get backed-up often? :)
A couple of CD-Rs a month... (Mostly when I need more
space)
---
Russ
Matt Craighead
Brandon Van Every wrote:
> Nobody said you had to deal with an adventure game linearly. What do you
> want, force the user down a 1-dimensional path so that they don't make any
> mistakes and hence no choices? That's a movie with interrupts, not an
> interactive adventure.
No, it's called Wing Commander 3. :)
--
Matt Craighead
Utumno developer: http://www.citilink.com/~craighea/utumno/
br...@biomed.med.yale.edu
On 26 Mar 1998, Brandon Van Every wrote:
> You're a bright guy but you have the diplomatic maturity of an 18-year-old.
Hey! As an 18-year-old, I take offense with that statement! Let's not go
around sterotyping people here.
Nick