Dvorak says computer gaming is dead
Jim Strathmeyer
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1784975,00.asp
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/29/1145204
http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=othergames&Number=829228&page=0&fpart=all
I find his opinion interesting (though he has nothing to do with the
game industry) and agree with him on many points. I have a lot of
problems with the current state of the game industry and feel that their
motivation is to make a game that sells well, as opposed to making good
games. Dvorak describes how FPS haven't really changed, and that they
have nowhere to go once the graphics reach photorealism. Though
statements such as 'gaming is dead' and 'nowhere to go' are inheritently
false, it an interesting opinion.
I started coding a roguelike because to me it was basically an RPG, and
I feel that RPGs are the future of gaming, and don't think that graphics
make a good game.
--
Jim Strathmeyer
Antoine
I see Dvorak's point. Although I think he's saying that the industry is
going to be dying in a few years, rather than that it is dead now.
I think he's missing the big development of the last few years, though:
massively multiplayer online games [with good graphics]. Very
successful, very addictive, and I think they have a great deal of
mileage in them. Not that I personally find them interesting, but.
A.
P.S. I went into a computer game store yesterday and felt quite lost.
All the games looked the same, none of them looked interesting, I
couldn't figure out if I should buy any of them, or if so, which.
Anyone else feel this way?
Kornel Kisielewicz
> P.S. I went into a computer game store yesterday and felt quite lost.
> All the games looked the same, none of them looked interesting, I
> couldn't figure out if I should buy any of them, or if so, which.
> Anyone else feel this way?
Yup. No roguelikes on the shelves ;-)
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl) [http://chaos.magma-net.pl]
"Come on, Kornel. 11 years and no binary? And it's not
vapourware?" -- Mike Blackney
Kornel Kisielewicz
> I think he's missing the big development of the last few years, though:
> massively multiplayer online games [with good graphics]. Very
> successful, very addictive, and I think they have a great deal of
> mileage in them. Not that I personally find them interesting, but.
No. MMORPGs may be addictive but they *are* stupid. When I play them I
feel addicted, but afterwards I've got a terrible hangover, for I feel
I've wasted a lot of time, and there isn't anything interesting I can
recall. Nothing changes in MMORPGs -- it's just the experience points
and level of your character. Oh, you mean there are other people there?
Well, I far more like to chat face-to-face... Especialy that the amount
of roleplaying in MMORPGS is almost non-existent (and what kind of
role-playingg is that, when you know this guy has 20 more levels then
you and could pulverize you in a second... -- and if it's a nonkiling
game, then it's even more pointless...)
Kornel Kisielewicz
I don't have to read it to agree with it ;). That's why I'm developing
roguelike's after all -- cause they are the essence. Anyway, you might
be also interested in this:
http://www.the-underdogs.org/scratch.php
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl) [http://chaos.magma-net.pl]
"11 years and no binary. And it's not vapourware" -- Igor Savin
David Damerell
>recall. Nothing changes in MMORPGs -- it's just the experience points
>and level of your character.
Apart from MMOs like Planetside and Puzzle Pirates that don't have
levelling.
The term "RPG" is particularly pernicious here. It was bad enough for
single-player games that got called RPGs because they had sub-D&D
mechanics; but then people decided to make MMO versions of those games,
called them MMORPGs, and deduced from that that they must graft sub-D&D
mechanics onto them.
Don't get me wrong; I like D&D fine as a tabletop game, but only when the
type of play is appropriate for those mechanics, not simply when those
mechanics are used blindly; and levelling, particularly, is very damaging
to an MMO where it ensures that the vast majority of the player base can't
actually play together.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?
Today is Aponoia, May.
Ray Dillinger
> Quoting Kornel Kisielewicz <kisie...@gazeta.pl>:
>
>
> Don't get me wrong; I like D&D fine as a tabletop game, but only when the
> type of play is appropriate for those mechanics, not simply when those
> mechanics are used blindly; and levelling, particularly, is very damaging
> to an MMO where it ensures that the vast majority of the player base can't
> actually play together.
I sort-of liked the way Hero games did it (and some
further restrictions my group put on the rules...).
Basically, in the hero system, you got normal stats
for free, built a character on 50-150 points depending
on the campaign style (50 or 75 for "agent or
adventurer" types, 100 for semi-gritty superhero
games, 150 for more powerful superheros).
And then you played, taking experience *slowly*.
you got another 1 or 2 character points as experience
every session, and after a 9-month campaign with
weekly meetings, your character was more powerful;
but not in a way that broke the campaign or made
beginning characters completely useless, as in
other games exemplified by D&D.
My particular group had an "active point limit" that
meant you couldn't abuse the character generation
rules to put more than N "active points" in a
particular attack, defense, or movement power. This
meant that experience, mostly, had to go into skills,
maneuvers, knowledge areas and enhanced statistics
and buying off starting disadvantages, etc, that made
your character cooler and more flexible, rather than
just packing a bigger punch.
It worked. There was enough accumulation of power
to keep the characters fresh and developing and
give players goals to work toward, but not so much
that the progression from beginning to experienced
character was a course of repeated exclusion.
Bear
Kornel Kisielewicz
> Quoting Kornel Kisielewicz <kisie...@gazeta.pl>:
>
>>recall. Nothing changes in MMORPGs -- it's just the experience points
>>and level of your character.
>
> Apart from MMOs like Planetside and Puzzle Pirates that don't have
> levelling.
Well, so why didn't I ever hear about them?
> The term "RPG" is particularly pernicious here. It was bad enough for
> single-player games that got called RPGs because they had sub-D&D
> mechanics; but then people decided to make MMO versions of those games,
> called them MMORPGs, and deduced from that that they must graft sub-D&D
> mechanics onto them.
Very, *very* true.
> Don't get me wrong; I like D&D fine as a tabletop game, but only when the
> type of play is appropriate for those mechanics, not simply when those
> mechanics are used blindly; and levelling, particularly, is very damaging
> to an MMO where it ensures that the vast majority of the player base can't
> actually play together.
I don't like DnD even as a tabletop game. I hate those leveling
mechanics that make one 50th level warrior take on hordes of 1st level
warriors, and be able to take an artillery shot "on the brest". I think
that such mechanics actually destroy roleplaying. I far much prefere
more balanced systems as GURPS...
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl) [http://chaos.magma-net.pl]
My opinions are my own. Share them at your own risk.
Jim Strathmeyer
> I don't like DnD even as a tabletop game. I hate those leveling
> mechanics that make one 50th level warrior take on hordes of 1st level
> warriors, and be able to take an artillery shot "on the brest". I
> think that such mechanics actually destroy roleplaying. I far much
> prefere more balanced systems as GURPS...
D&D became popular because of their role playing mechanics. It's a shame
that everyone copies their combat mechanics.
In my opinion, coming up with a new reasonable combat system is not that
difficult. Balancing it, on the other hand...
--
Jim Strathmeyer
Twisted One
> FPS haven't really changed, and that they
> have nowhere to go once the graphics reach photorealism. Though
> statements such as 'gaming is dead' and 'nowhere to go' are inheritently
> false, it an interesting opinion.
Inherently false indeed -- once the graphics reach photorealism, and the
physics is fairly realistic too, the engine will stabilize and all
they'll have left to compete on is gameplay and price.
As it is, we're seeing some differentiation in FPS games. There's at
least four big subgenres (more than one implemented in some games, but
most games are only excellent in one of them):
1. Multiplayer, teamplay-oriented -- enemy territory etc.
2. Multiplayer, tournament-oriented and free for all -- Quake 3 etc.
3. Single player, kill stuff and get the next key -- quake, doom, etc.
4. Single player, more immersive story and more puzzle elements --
half-life and half-life 2.
Of course there's more games in each category, and some games (e.g.
Quake 1) belong to more than one (categories 2 and 3 in that instance).
There's also time-period differentiation: futuristic (quake, doom);
urban/present/near-future (half-life and half-life 2, far cry, james
bond FPS games, others); fantasy medieval (heretic, hexen, etc.); WW II
(Wolfenstein series)...
--
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Palladium? Trusted Computing? DRM? Microsoft? Sauron.
"One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them
One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them."
Twisted One
> I don't like DnD even as a tabletop game. I hate those leveling
> mechanics that make one 50th level warrior take on hordes of 1st level
> warriors, and be able to take an artillery shot "on the brest". I think
> that such mechanics actually destroy roleplaying. I far much prefere
> more balanced systems as GURPS...
GURPS?
Sherm Pendley
> Kornel Kisielewicz wrote:
>
>> think that such mechanics actually destroy roleplaying. I far much
>> prefere more balanced systems as GURPS...
>
> GURPS?
<http://www.google.com/search?q=gurps>
sherm--
--
Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net
Hire me! My resume: http://www.dot-app.org
Twisted One
[snip]
Did anyone ever tell you that you're an asshole?
Yeah?
OK, then, nevermind. :P
Sherm Pendley
> Sherm Pendley wrote:
>
>> Paul Derbyshire wrote:
>>
>>> GURPS?
>>
>> <http://www.google.com/search?q=gurps>
> Did anyone ever tell you that you're an asshole?
No, generally when I give people a simple answer to their question they
say "thank you". What is your problem, Paul?
Twisted One
>> Did anyone ever tell you that you're an asshole?
>
> No, generally when I give people a simple answer to their question they
> say "thank you". What is your problem, Paul?
You didn't give me an answer. You said "Go look it up" instead of
"<insert answer here>". In other words, not only did you refuse to give
an answer, but you also took the time to write a post saying that you
refuse. If you had that time to spare, why not use it to give a brief
synopsis of what "GURPS" is? (A task too demanding of intelligence for
any computer, even Google's clusters, to do, by the way. But now that I
think about it, that means it's WAY too demanding of intelligence for
*you*. But then I didn't ask *you* did I? I asked the original poster,
who surely knows what it means and can give a quick precis, but you just
have to get in your two pesos worth, don't you, whenever you see an
opportunity to attack or annoy me!)
Sherm Pendley
> You didn't give me an answer. You said "Go look it up" instead of
> "<insert answer here>".
I pointed you to the answer. Seriously - what's your beef? GURPS is an
absurdly popular gaming system. Tons of stuff has been written about it
- what's the point in repeating it?
> But then I didn't ask *you* did I? I asked the original poster
Not so. You didn't communicate to one person by way of a private media.
You asked a public question of this group.
> have to get in your two pesos worth, don't you, whenever you see an
> opportunity to attack or annoy me!
I saw an opportunity to post a helpful answer to your question. If
helpful answers annoy you, there's not much I can do about that.
Twisted One
> Paul Derbyshire wrote:
>
>> You didn't give me an answer. You said "Go look it up" instead of
>> "<insert answer here>".
>
> I pointed you to the answer. Seriously - what's your beef? GURPS is an
> absurdly popular gaming system. Tons of stuff has been written about it
> - what's the point in repeating it?
To give a quick synopsis? Google can't do that; it can just point
someone to a bunch of sites that might be tangential, might be a quick
synopsos, and might be some highly technical, jump-in-the-deep-end
stuff. How does one know where to begin? Humans are smart enough to
construct a quick synopsis of a subject. Computers, including Google,
are not.
>> But then I didn't ask *you* did I? I asked the original poster
>
> Not so. You didn't communicate to one person by way of a private media.
> You asked a public question of this group.
I followed up to the original poster asking them to elaborate on
something they said. Like asking someone to clarify something in a
conversation, it's assumed you're talking to that person, not
generically to the group, although someone else the group can chime in
-- IF they have anything helpful to contribute, which you clearly do not.
> I saw an opportunity to post a helpful answer to your question. If
> helpful answers annoy you, there's not much I can do about that.
Your problem is your definition of the word "helpful", which is,
apparently, "an answer that leaves someone knowing no more than they did
before". :P
Sherm Pendley
> Your problem is your definition of the word "helpful", which is,
> apparently, "an answer that leaves someone knowing no more than they did
> before". :P
Whatever. I answered your question. If you read it you'll learn more
about GURPS, if you ignore it you won't. No skin off my nose either way.
Chris Reuter
Jim Strathmeyer <strathWHATEVERIGE...@ipass.net> wrote:
>There's an article by John Dvorak about how computer gaming is dead:
>
>http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1784975,00.asp
>http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/29/1145204
>http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=othergames&Number=829228&page=0&fpart=all
You know, that's a really, truly terrible article. It's an opinion
piece with very little insight or research. Basically, he's saying:
1) The only difference he sees between todays games and
yesterday's games, aside from some "stupid tweaks", is that today's
games have better graphics.
2) Therefore, as soon as graphics get a bit better, there will be
nowhere else to go and nobody will want to buy new games anymore.
He then relates how he talked to someone from Nintendo about it.
He does not:
1) Give any details of what he means when he says "stupid tweaks".
2) Tell us what games he looked at.
3) Interview any actual hardcore gamers and ask _them_ if and why
they liked new games better than old ones.
Indeed, I can't find any evidence of research at all beyond that
conversation with the guy from Nintendo. Yeah, there are problems in
the current high-end commercial games industry but I've heard the
discussion before, better done and by more knowledgeable people.
Personally, I think he's out to lunch on both counts.
I sincerely doubt that adequate realism will reach us any time soon.
Yeah, we may get photorealistic graphics in the next five years, but
after that it'll be physics and following that, who knows? Body
language, maybe?
There's a lot more to photorealism than textures and polygons. If you
don't believe me, watch the movie _Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within_.
That one has amazing graphics but they keep screwing up little things
(e.g. a person not breathing except when talking, little tics, etc.)
in a way that would jar me out of my suspension of disbelief just
because something looked wrong. They won't have a perfect game engine
until they can fix _that_.
But suppose it turns out that the Doom 4 engine is the be-all and
end-all of video game engines and that nothing can improve upon it,
ever. All that means is that the game companies will have to make
creativity and innovation a priority again. It will certainly shake
things up, but I think that's a good thing.
It will also reduce the price of game development, since everyone will
only need to license an old game engine to get top-notch
graphics. That means it'll be possible for independant developers to
compete head to head with the conglomerates which will, once again,
encourage innovative game design.
Dvorak seems to assume that the (debatable) lack of innovation in
modern games is because we as a civilization have reached the apex of
game design.
Uh huh.
--Chris
--
Chris Reuter http://www.blit.ca
"You think we live in pretty desperate times when people want to go
back to 1975"
--Lard, _70's Rock Must Die_
Jeff Lait
> There's an article by John Dvorak about how computer gaming is dead:
>
> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1784975,00.asp
> http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/29/1145204
>
http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=othergames&Number=829228&page=0&fpart=all
>
> I find his opinion interesting (though he has nothing to do with the
> game industry) and agree with him on many points. I have a lot of
> problems with the current state of the game industry and feel that
their
> motivation is to make a game that sells well, as opposed to making
good
> games. Dvorak describes how FPS haven't really changed, and that they
> have nowhere to go once the graphics reach photorealism. Though
> statements such as 'gaming is dead' and 'nowhere to go' are
inheritently
> false, it an interesting opinion.
"Photo-realism" isn't a proper target for game design. Some small
subset of games will work well with photorealism.
I'm looking forward to us hitting photo-realism (whatever that means
anyways!) so people can step back and start making the *look* that they
want. A good and consistent look beats realism any day. We should
know this best: Ascii letters are very much a choice of Look over
Realism.
I think Nintendo's strategy is most interesting. They seem well aware
of the futility of chasing the per-pixel global illuminated scene.
Now, if only they made it possible for micro developers to release on
their platform, I'd be happy.
> I started coding a roguelike because to me it was basically an RPG,
and
> I feel that RPGs are the future of gaming, and don't think that
graphics
> make a good game.
Graphics do make a good game. Photo-Realisitic graphics don't.
Roguelike developers are very much in the "Graphics" camp. If we
weren't, we'd be doing interactive fiction! We largely pick a
simplistic, iconic, look, but that doesn't stop it from being
graphical. Don't forget that the font you use has been carefully
worked over by an artist to make it look good!
--
Jeff Lait
(POWDER: http://www.zincland.com/powder)
Twisted One
Quit misattributing me. It's "Twisted One".
Raymond Martineau
strathWHATEVERIGE...@ipass.net (Jim Strathmeyer) wrote:
>There's an article by John Dvorak about how computer gaming is dead:
>
>http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1784975,00.asp
>http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/29/1145204
>http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=othergames&Number=829228&page=0&fpart=all
>
>I find his opinion interesting (though he has nothing to do with the
>game industry) and agree with him on many points. I have a lot of
>problems with the current state of the game industry and feel that their
>motivation is to make a game that sells well, as opposed to making good
>games.
Actually, I've just seen that occurr in large businesses like EA (among
others.) They generally drive known quality games into the ground,
resulting in stagnation.
The smaller development companies can release fun games, but won't have the
depth that could be made by larger companies. (snort)
> Dvorak describes how FPS haven't really changed, and that they
>have nowhere to go once the graphics reach photorealism.
That may be true, but there are only so many ways to write an FPS. How
many variations of forward-firing weapons can you create before they look
obviously similar? In any case, FPS games can still be considred well-done
when they are properly written: Team Fortress is one example, where maps
can be made to simulate any objective system used in another game. (e.g.
capture and hold command points as in Firearms, classic CTF and a few
variants, VIP protection, etc.)
The RTS genre, on the other hand, has already stagnated. You can tell if
you note common interface flaws that get copied from game to game.
Raymond Martineau
>David Damerell wrote:
[...]
>
>And then you played, taking experience *slowly*.
>you got another 1 or 2 character points as experience
>every session, and after a 9-month campaign with
>weekly meetings, your character was more powerful;
>but not in a way that broke the campaign or made
>beginning characters completely useless, as in
>other games exemplified by D&D.
The D&D game system had useless beginning characters because they gained
experience slowly - either by collecting treasures or killing monsters.
(3rd edition does change this slightly, but 1st and 2nd seem to revolve
around this.)
This could be worked around by allowing forms of training - a wealthy
beginning character could easily hire trainers and become 5th or 6th level
without dangerous combat. This might unbalance the game, but shifts the
weakness of beginning characters over to "green" characters.
Raymond Martineau
wrote:
>Kornel Kisielewicz wrote:
>> I don't like DnD even as a tabletop game. I hate those leveling
>> mechanics that make one 50th level warrior take on hordes of 1st level
>> warriors, and be able to take an artillery shot "on the brest". I think
>> that such mechanics actually destroy roleplaying. I far much prefere
>> more balanced systems as GURPS...
>
>GURPS?
Generic Universal Role Playing System. From my knowledge of it, it's
inteded to create fairly detailed universes in a specific campaign (a base
ruleset, combined with an expansion), with characters created using a point
based system. I think there might be attributes involved, but I'm not
sure.
I haven't used it personally, only peeked at some expansion books.
As with most point-based RPG systems, it's easy to tell which combinatiosn
generally result in an ultra-powerful character, based on the ones that say
that they should only be used with the GM's consent. Naturally, the GM
will create a combat munchkin that fights against "regular" characters.
Leon Torres
experience. However, I would add emphasis on _component_ because there
are many other things that make for a great game experience, such as
responsiveness, control setup, challenge and story. Heck, I'm playing
Sentinel Worlds right now--the graphics are ancient and the interface
clumsy, but it's such a fun game because it is so well written and
immersive.
Back to the article, I think Dvorak completely misses a huge and
blindingly obvious issue: That games nowadays are funded and created
mainly by huge media conglomerates that like formulas and are adverse
to taking risks. Having worked at Activision as a game tester (as a bid
to become a game programmer), I saw firsthand the resources required to
bring modern games to market. They aren't trivial; You need tons of
support. Testing, marketing, publishing, you name it. The creative
studios may be independent on the surface, but in the end they have to
make a sales pitch to get the backing of corps like Activision that
will do the grunt work for them.
Does this mean the PC game industry is doomed to failure? Only if they
have a total stranglehold on the market and disallow underdogs from
getting a foot in. I don't think that's the case (yet). And this is
what I think Dvorak misses: The next PC game renaissance will come from
an underdog that manages to get enough funding to put an innovative and
fun title in the ring. He's focusing too much on the stagnant players
that won't budge.
- Leon Torres
Twisted One
> On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 18:36:32 -0400, Twisted One <twist...@gmail.invalid>
> wrote:
>
>>Kornel Kisielewicz wrote:
>>
>>>I don't like DnD even as a tabletop game. I hate those leveling
>>>mechanics that make one 50th level warrior take on hordes of 1st level
>>>warriors, and be able to take an artillery shot "on the brest". I think
>>>that such mechanics actually destroy roleplaying. I far much prefere
>>>more balanced systems as GURPS...
>>
>>GURPS?
>
> Generic Universal Role Playing System. From my knowledge of it, it's
> inteded to create fairly detailed universes in a specific campaign (a base
> ruleset, combined with an expansion), with characters created using a point
> based system. I think there might be attributes involved, but I'm not
> sure.
Thanks. How is it more balanced than D&D though?
Twisted One
> The next PC game renaissance will come from
> an underdog that manages to get enough funding to put an innovative and
> fun title in the ring. He's focusing too much on the stagnant players
> that won't budge.
Previous ones did, too -- in one case, the underdog was named "id
Software" ... ;)
Chipacabra
news:cbadnRSu0Yb...@rogers.com:
> Raymond Martineau wrote:
>> On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 18:36:32 -0400, Twisted One
>> <twist...@gmail.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>>Kornel Kisielewicz wrote:
>>>
>>>>I don't like DnD even as a tabletop game. I hate those leveling
>>>>mechanics that make one 50th level warrior take on hordes of 1st
>>>>level warriors, and be able to take an artillery shot "on the
>>>>brest". I think that such mechanics actually destroy roleplaying. I
>>>>far much prefere more balanced systems as GURPS...
>>>
>>>GURPS?
>>
>> Generic Universal Role Playing System. From my knowledge of it, it's
>> inteded to create fairly detailed universes in a specific campaign (a
>> base ruleset, combined with an expansion), with characters created
>> using a point based system. I think there might be attributes
>> involved, but I'm not sure.
>
> Thanks. How is it more balanced than D&D though?
>
Well, it's almost impossible NOT be more balanced than 2e D&D. On the
other hand, GURPS isn't terrible balanced on its own merits, although the
newest version is a sizable improvement.
Krice
> motivation is to make a game that sells well, as opposed to making
good
> games.
The game can be good and sell a lot.
> Dvorak describes how FPS haven't really changed, and that they
> have nowhere to go once the graphics reach photorealism.
They never went anywhere. FPS is about shooting anything:)
Some people will always think that a game is "missing" something,
some better and sophisticated features. I guess that kind of
people never really enjoy playing games.
> Though statements such as 'gaming is dead' and 'nowhere to go'
> are inheritently false, it an interesting opinion.
It's interesting to see what happens to Xbox 2 and PS3 which both
are going to be expensive to produce because of the high tech,
not to forget that making games for them is going to be more
expensive too.
One way to get the $ is from online games. I guess they have
planned it that way, at least M$:)
> I feel that RPGs are the future of gaming, and don't think that
> graphics make a good game.
The people that buy games don't neccessarily share that opinion:)
Gerry Quinn
ma...@guildgame.com says...
> Jim Strathmeyer wrote:
> > There's an article by John Dvorak about how computer gaming is dead:
It's dead for him, because he has grown bored with computer games. He
projects his own disenchantment onto the world at large.
- Gerry Quinn
Aki Rossi
> Quoting Kornel Kisielewicz <kisie...@gazeta.pl>:
>>recall. Nothing changes in MMORPGs -- it's just the experience points
>>and level of your character.
>
> Apart from MMOs like Planetside and Puzzle Pirates that don't have
> levelling.
>
> The term "RPG" is particularly pernicious here. It was bad enough for
> single-player games that got called RPGs because they had sub-D&D
> mechanics; but then people decided to make MMO versions of those games,
> called them MMORPGs, and deduced from that that they must graft sub-D&D
> mechanics onto them.
I don't think the problem is in the mechanics themselves, it's that
visible game mechanics have become synonymous with "role-playing game"
[sic] for a number of people.
Diablo and its sequels/expansions/imitations are basically mouse-driven
action games with an element of resource management. Then there are
the genre-labelled FPS games in which the only "RPG" elements are a
half-bred fantasy theme and that you get bigger guns as you go on. From
what I hear, typical MMORPGs fall in somewhere between those two (to be
honest, I haven't tried any so I could very well be mistaken).
Not that you couldn't munchkinise any given CRPG, and people do, but the
trend seems to be to discourage role playing almost completely. Why does
there have to be visible, numeric stats for everything in the first place?
Why do the games so often progress so that the only way to keep up is to
keep optimising and re-optimising your equipment? Why impersonal, generic
dialogue? And so on... many similar problems are present even in what are
usually toted as the greatest achievements of the genre.
Kornel Kisielewicz
> There's also time-period differentiation: futuristic (quake, doom);
> urban/present/near-future (half-life and half-life 2, far cry, james
> bond FPS games, others); fantasy medieval (heretic, hexen, etc.); WW II
> (Wolfenstein series)...
The only two recent FPS I realy enjoyed are Jedi Knight: Academy (but
this one doesn't count, I just like StarWars) and DeusEx (which was
great IMHO, but it had some RPG elements too). I wonder wether DeusEx II
is worth a try...
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl) [http://chaos.magma-net.pl]
"Invalid thought detected. Close all mental processes and
restart body."
Ray Dillinger
> Jim Strathmeyer wrote:
>>I feel that RPGs are the future of gaming, and don't think that
>>graphics make a good game.
>
>
> The people that buy games don't neccessarily share that opinion:)
I wonder how much of the current focus on hyperrealistic
graphics is driven by deals with hardware manufacturers.
I'm not really a paranoid conspiracy theorist; it's just
that no matter how cynical I get, I can't keep up with
the facts. :-)
Lemmings was a *good* game. And those little guys were
what, five or six pixels tall? With solid colors, no
shading, and animation that consisted of about fifteen
different poses?
Sim City was a *good* game. It was a good game with
sixteen-color graphics and very little animation beyond
cars moving around on roads, sprite fires, and some
really cheezy and not-very-interactive monster-stomping.
There are more innovative, good games in our future; they
just won't be produced by the companies who want to repeat
the formulas instead of innovating.
And there are "classic" games already; Last night, I
played simulated klondike solitaire for an hour, and I
estimate that some folks will still be playing simulated
klondike solitaire, with graphics barely better than
those I used, fifty years from now.
The question is not whether gaming is dead; gaming will
go on forever, because people are people and people play
games. The question is whether the companies now producing
games can make money the way they've chosen to make money.
Bear
Kornel Kisielewicz
> Kornel Kisielewicz wrote:
>
>> I don't like DnD even as a tabletop game. I hate those leveling
>> mechanics that make one 50th level warrior take on hordes of 1st level
>> warriors, and be able to take an artillery shot "on the brest". I
>> think that such mechanics actually destroy roleplaying. I far much
>> prefere more balanced systems as GURPS...
>
> GURPS?
And if reasonable, no powerlevelling. My system of choice for my P&P RPG
World of Shadows sessions..."Well, the philosophy of the World of Shadows is based on most of the
degenerate, immoral and foremost amoral philosophical beliefs of our
world exagarated to the maximum." --Anubis
Kornel Kisielewicz
> I haven't used it personally, only peeked at some expansion books.
... if so, then how can you state the following:
>
> As with most point-based RPG systems, it's easy to tell which combinatiosn
> generally result in an ultra-powerful character, based on the ones that say
> that they should only be used with the GM's consent.
?
> Naturally, the GM
> will create a combat munchkin that fights against "regular" characters.
Of course players will find ways to munchkin, but it's the GM's job to
keep them in line. And that's every system's rule. No P&P RPG system is
a self-player. But when the players are mature enough there is such
problems. And it doesn't pose such stupid powerlevelling rules as DND does.
Sherm Pendley
> Generic Universal Roleplaying System -- entirely pint-driven
LOL! Pint-driven? As in, it's a drinking game? ;-)
Kornel Kisielewicz
> Kornel Kisielewicz wrote:
>
>> Generic Universal Roleplaying System -- entirely pint-driven
>
>
> LOL! Pint-driven? As in, it's a drinking game? ;-)
"Point" of course, but the typo funny, indeed ;-)
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl) [http://chaos.magma-net.pl]
"Gott weiss, Ich will kein Engel sein..." -- Rammstein /Engel/
Jeff Lait
Kornel Kisielewicz wrote:
> Raymond Martineau wrote:
> > I haven't used it personally, only peeked at some expansion books.
>
> ... if so, then how can you state the following:
> >
> > As with most point-based RPG systems, it's easy to tell which
combinatiosn
> > generally result in an ultra-powerful character, based on the ones
that say
> > that they should only be used with the GM's consent.
>
> ?
I'd presume he peeked at the expansion books and saw some comments
saying: "If you are doing this combination, make sure you talk with
your GM because he might consider it overpowered"
Having played GURPS systems, I wouldn't say his opinion is wrong. You
really need maturity and/or a good GM to make point based systems not
fall prey to hopeless metagaming and munchkinism.
> > Naturally, the GM
> > will create a combat munchkin that fights against "regular"
characters.
>
> Of course players will find ways to munchkin, but it's the GM's job
to
> keep them in line. And that's every system's rule. No P&P RPG system
is
> a self-player. But when the players are mature enough there is such
> problems. And it doesn't pose such stupid powerlevelling rules as DND
does.
When you write the computerized GM that can prevent players munchkining
in GenRogue, we can revisit this topic. For now, with the stupid
computer GMs that the likes of me write, we are better off with
stricter systems which explicitly prevent munchkinism (Or, channel it,
as in the case of D&D), rather than assuming the computer will have the
good sense to say: "I think that combination is overpowered..."
R. Dan Henry
strathWHATEVERIGE...@ipass.net (Jim Strathmeyer) wrote:
>I find his opinion interesting (though he has nothing to do with the
>game industry) and agree with him on many points. I have a lot of
>problems with the current state of the game industry and feel that their
>motivation is to make a game that sells well, as opposed to making good
>games.
Hence "game industry" rather than "game-development hobby". It is
hardly the industry's fault if the way to improve sales is not to
create a better game. If the public begins to favor gameplay over the
latest graphics development, then game publishers will shift their
focus.
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
Idiot boy, when are you going to post something useful?
Or better yet, get a job and stop being a welfare bum?
Timothy Pruett
> On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 09:04:35 -0500,
> strathWHATEVERIGE...@ipass.net (Jim Strathmeyer) wrote:
>
>
>>I find his opinion interesting (though he has nothing to do with the
>>game industry) and agree with him on many points. I have a lot of
>>problems with the current state of the game industry and feel that their
>>motivation is to make a game that sells well, as opposed to making good
>>games.
>
>
> Hence "game industry" rather than "game-development hobby". It is
> hardly the industry's fault if the way to improve sales is not to
> create a better game. If the public begins to favor gameplay over the
> latest graphics development, then game publishers will shift their
> focus.
Well said. People love to whine about the corporations ruining
games/music/movies/whatever, but if people didn't buy it, they
wouldn't make it. Blame the public for the crap that some of these
game publishing giants spew out. Industry will only produce what's in
demand. No more, no less.
--
"There are of course many problems connected with life, of
which some of the most popular are `Why are people born?'
`Why do they die?' `Why do they spend so much of the
intervening time wearing digital watches?'"
-- The Book.
Raymond Martineau
>
>
>Not that you couldn't munchkinise any given CRPG, and people do, but the
>trend seems to be to discourage role playing almost completely.
This is most likely because CRPGs focus on combat/tactical aspects rather
than roleplay aspects. I've noticed something very similar in the very
early Gold box games (Forgotten Realms series), where there was very little
roleplaying going on buy plenty of plotline elements.
This isn't too much of a problem for Roguelikes, which focus around combat.
>Why does
>there have to be visible, numeric stats for everything in the first place?
Most likely, it is out of tradition. In any case, it's not too much of a
problem unless you want to throw away stats entirely.
>Why do the games so often progress so that the only way to keep up is to
>keep optimising and re-optimising your equipment?
This is a problem with some roguelikes as well. In any case, the
optimization of equipment is based around the fact that there are only a
limited number of party memebers in the group. Either that, or there's an
Angband style of magical item generation (quantity).
But in any case, sticking with the ultra-best weaponry can easily have
disadvanages in a properly designed CRPG. For example, Arcanum chooses the
reputation route - if you max out your technological abilities, you will
have trouble buying magical items (as necessairy). There might also be a
problem with a primary objective in the late-game (having to do a side
quest or something special), but I'm not sure on that.
>Why impersonal, generic dialogue?
I suspect that it may take an excessive amount of writing to create
anything more. For something on the scale of Arcanum, the best you can get
is personalized generic messages that are used all over the place.
ABCGi
> On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 09:04:35 -0500,
> strathWHATEVERIGE...@ipass.net (Jim Strathmeyer) wrote:
>
>>I find his opinion interesting (though he has nothing to do with the
>>game industry) and agree with him on many points. I have a lot of
>>problems with the current state of the game industry and feel that their
>>motivation is to make a game that sells well, as opposed to making good
>>games.
>
> Hence "game industry" rather than "game-development hobby". It is
> hardly the industry's fault if the way to improve sales is not to
> create a better game. If the public begins to favor gameplay over the
> latest graphics development, then game publishers will shift their
> focus.
Yes and Dvorak softens to just predict a downturn in
the industry which is not an astounding leap and
could be said about any industry given enough time.
It also fails to acknowledge the growth of the video
game industry versus the film and music industries.
The article is hyped up to gather more attention,
which has worked, and quite honestly demonstrates
Dvorak has no real love of modern computer games
anyway - this contributes to a lack of insight but
perhaps allows more objectivity. Something that
cannot be said about the 3D-Realms forum!
He also uses that stale bug-bear of "when we reach
total realism" which has been used since the 1990s!
Perhaps earlier...
--
ABCGi ---- (ab...@yahoo.com) ---- http://codemonkey.sunsite.dk
Fun RLs in rgrd that I have tested recently!
DoomRL - DwellerMobile - HWorld - AburaTan - DiabloBand
Heroic Adventure - Tower of Doom - Tendrils - TheTombs
Twisted One
> Generic Universal Roleplaying System -- entirely pint-driven, no levels.
> And if reasonable, no powerlevelling. My system of choice for my P&P RPG
> World of Shadows sessions...
Pint-driven? Do you mean skills and stats driven?
Twisted One
> On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 09:04:35 -0500,
> strathWHATEVERIGE...@ipass.net (Jim Strathmeyer) wrote:
>
>>I find his opinion interesting (though he has nothing to do with the
>>game industry) and agree with him on many points. I have a lot of
>>problems with the current state of the game industry and feel that their
>>motivation is to make a game that sells well, as opposed to making good
>>games.
>
> Hence "game industry" rather than "game-development hobby". It is
> hardly the industry's fault if the way to improve sales is not to
> create a better game. If the public begins to favor gameplay over the
> latest graphics development, then game publishers will shift their
> focus.
And then he attacked me without provocation.
How childish.
Will you stop with the random, senseless, and inflammatory insults already?!
Risto Saarelma
> He also uses that stale bug-bear of "when we reach
> total realism" which has been used since the 1990s!
> Perhaps earlier...
Games probably won't reach total photorealism anytime soon. Instead,
efforts to make games look even more realistic will face increasingly
diminishing returns. The effect of doubling the amount of visual assets
in the game will diminish the closer games get to real photorealism, and
at some point it will simply be too expensive to improve the visuals.
A more tricky problem is that graphics that are almost but not quite
photorealistic can actually be worse than clearly stylized graphics. It
never bothered me in the original Doom that all the sprites were
identical, but when I saw a screenshot of Doom 3 with two fat zombies,
it struck me as quite odd that these two creatures had completely
identical claw marks on their chests. When the game looks more like the
real world, you also start expecting it is more like the real world, and
the severe limits every game has become more annoying.
--
Risto Saarelma
Elethiomel
Not to mention the "Uncanny Valley" (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley ) that appears when
photorealism is sufficiently approached. Of course, this effect applies
mostly to real-world entities such as robots, but game and movie
graphics are also affected by it to some degree.
Gerry Quinn
says...
> Sherm Pendley wrote:
> > Kornel Kisielewicz wrote:
> >
> >> Generic Universal Roleplaying System -- entirely pint-driven
> >
> >
> > LOL! Pint-driven? As in, it's a drinking game? ;-)
>
> "Point" of course, but the typo funny, indeed ;-)
I like it. You could use it for balancing in PvP - if you go up a
level or get good loot you have to take a drink...
- Gerry Quinn
Juho Julkunen
> Risto Saarelma wrote:
> > A more tricky problem is that graphics that are almost but not quite
> > photorealistic can actually be worse than clearly stylized graphics. It
> > never bothered me in the original Doom that all the sprites were
> > identical, but when I saw a screenshot of Doom 3 with two fat zombies,
> > it struck me as quite odd that these two creatures had completely
> > identical claw marks on their chests. When the game looks more like the
> > real world, you also start expecting it is more like the real world, and
> > the severe limits every game has become more annoying.
> >
>
> Not to mention the "Uncanny Valley" (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley ) that appears when
> photorealism is sufficiently approached. Of course, this effect applies
> mostly to real-world entities such as robots, but game and movie
> graphics are also affected by it to some degree.
I'd say the (unproven) theory applies more to computer graphics than
real-world robots, considering the almost total lack of real-world
robots it could apply to.
--
JTJ | http://www.kolumbus.fi/j.julkunen/
"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the
demand."
--Josh Billings
Kornel Kisielewicz
>>a self-player. But when the players are mature enough there is such
>>problems. And it doesn't pose such stupid powerlevelling rules as DND does.
>
> When you write the computerized GM that can prevent players munchkining
> in GenRogue, we can revisit this topic.
Okay, see you in a decade ;-).
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl) [http://chaos.magma-net.pl]
Kornel Kisielewicz
This is like our special student's chess version -- which allows for
begginers to have fair chances against masters:
Each chess piece type is represented by a different 40ml glass. The
black pieces are filled with vodka and a drop of strong
cranberry-essence juice, the white ones are plain vodka. Each time a
player takes the piece of the opponent, he must drink it.
The master rule is also that if you spill any piece (the moved one or
one on the board -- you loose).
The funny thing is that master's of student's chess have sometimes
severe differently tactics then chess masters -- sometimes it's a good
tactical decision to let the opposing player take a couple of your pawns
right at the beginning.
Twisted One
> This is like our special student's chess version -- which allows for
> begginers to have fair chances against masters:
>
> Each chess piece type is represented by a different 40ml glass. The
> black pieces are filled with vodka and a drop of strong
> cranberry-essence juice, the white ones are plain vodka. Each time a
> player takes the piece of the opponent, he must drink it.
>
> The master rule is also that if you spill any piece (the moved one or
> one on the board -- you loose).
>
> The funny thing is that master's of student's chess have sometimes
> severe differently tactics then chess masters -- sometimes it's a good
> tactical decision to let the opposing player take a couple of your pawns
> right at the beginning.
Hrm.
Why not have different size glasses -- 5ml for a pawn, 60 for a queen,
and in between for the others. :)
Kornel Kisielewicz
> Hrm.
> Why not have different size glasses -- 5ml for a pawn, 60 for a queen,
> and in between for the others. :)
Yeah, but that destroys the strategy -- you can sacrifice pawns for a
greater effect -- sacrificing anything other would be non-wise. Also, we
don't have different sized glasses :)
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl) [http://chaos.magma-net.pl]
The Sheep
Ray Dillinger napisal(a):
> Krice wrote:
>> Jim Strathmeyer wrote:
>>>I feel that RPGs are the future of gaming, and don't think that
>>>graphics make a good game.
>> The people that buy games don't neccessarily share that opinion:)
> I wonder how much of the current focus on hyperrealistic
> graphics is driven by deals with hardware manufacturers.
You can have very good graphics without fotorealism.
You can have nice graphics without fotorealism.
You can have very good graphics without them being nice.
I personally prefer games with good _and_ nice graphics.
Photorealism is boring. Good graphics can take your breath away
but will quickly make you tired when it's not nice to look at
(well, not 'nice' as in 'sweet and colorful', Giger quilifies as 'nice'
too ;) ). I personally don't like photorealistic graphics at all.
--
Radomir @**@_ Bee! .**._ .**._ .**._ .**._ zZ
`The Sheep' ('') 3 (..) 3 (..) 3 (..) 3 (--) 3
Dopieralski .vvVvVVVVVvVVVvVVVvVvVVvVvvVvVVVVVVvvVVvvVvvvvVVvVVvv.v.
Kornel Kisielewicz
> You can have very good graphics without fotorealism.
> You can have nice graphics without fotorealism.
> You can have very good graphics without them being nice.
IMHO the best graphics in a game are in Frontier: First Encounters. Of
course most modern game-players would disagree with me. But no game
shocked me so much graphics-wise as Frontier did.
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl) [http://chaos.magma-net.pl]
The Sheep
Kornel Kisielewicz napisal(a):
> The Sheep wrote:
>> You can have very good graphics without fotorealism.
>> You can have nice graphics without fotorealism.
>> You can have very good graphics without them being nice.
> IMHO the best graphics in a game are in Frontier: First Encounters. Of
> course most modern game-players would disagree with me. But no game
> shocked me so much graphics-wise as Frontier did.
Well, there are several games that have good graphics.
Somebody mentioned Lemmings.
Prince of Persia have nice graphics too.
There was a tennis game on Atari ST, forgot the name, where the character
were just 3d `stick people', but this was very good graphics (especially
because the way it was animated).
Worms series (not counting the 3D ones) have acceptable graphics.
The Day of the Tentacle has pretty good graphics.
Secret of Mana 2 (Seiken Densetsu 3) has awesome graphics.
That's only a few examples of games with good graphics -- in my opinion
offcourse. And, offcourse, the games still _have_ it's graphics, so is
using past tense appropriate? Maybe it would be if it was de[pended on
technology. But graphics can be good or bad no matter what technology it
actually uses. All this IMHO, offcourse.
Kornel Kisielewicz
>>IMHO the best graphics in a game are in Frontier: First Encounters. Of
>>course most modern game-players would disagree with me. But no game
>>shocked me so much graphics-wise as Frontier did.
>
>
> Well, there are several games that have good graphics.
>
> Somebody mentioned Lemmings.
Yeah, they were so cute! (except the 3D versions -- it destroyed the
feel IMHO).
> Prince of Persia have nice graphics too.
Yes. And the animations were so beautiful -- another comes into mind --
Another World -- the cinematics don't look bad for todays standards! Add
line anti-aliasing, and you would have something that would look like
right out of a Flash game :-).
> The Day of the Tentacle has pretty good graphics.
Yeah ;-). I liked the style. But personally I enjoyed Full Throttle
better :-).
> That's only a few examples of games with good graphics -- in my opinion
> offcourse.
I agree.
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl) [http://chaos.magma-net.pl]
The Sheep
Kornel Kisielewicz napisal(a):
> The Sheep wrote:
> Another World -- the cinematics don't look bad for todays standards! Add
> line anti-aliasing, and you would have something that would look like
> right out of a Flash game :-).
Hmmm...
It shoudn't be very difficult to do. And icreasing resolution would be
pretty trivial too.
If Infogrames would make a refreshed version, I'd definitely buy it,
even if there were no extra add-ons.
I wonder what'd they think about doing it or selling the rights to some
small company?
Or maybe it'd be possible to do what many linux game ports do -- the
binary is free and open, but you need the original to actually play the
game.
Kornel Kisielewicz
> Dnia Sun, 01 May 2005 16:20:31 +0200,
> Kornel Kisielewicz napisal(a):
>
>
>>The Sheep wrote:
>>Another World -- the cinematics don't look bad for todays standards! Add
>>line anti-aliasing, and you would have something that would look like
>>right out of a Flash game :-).
>
> Hmmm...
> It shoudn't be very difficult to do. And icreasing resolution would be
> pretty trivial too.
Without source-code remaking all the animations... oh hell. Unless
somebody hacked AnotherWorld?
> If Infogrames would make a refreshed version, I'd definitely buy it,
> even if there were no extra add-ons.
True ;-). Maybe we should write them, that we would be willing to do
such a thing? ;-D
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl) [http://chaos.magma-net.pl]
"If hackers will ever use virtual reality, it would show a bunch
of text terminals floating around them..." -- The Sheep
The Sheep
Kornel Kisielewicz napisal(a):
> The Sheep wrote:
>> Dnia Sun, 01 May 2005 16:20:31 +0200,
>> Kornel Kisielewicz napisal(a):
>>>The Sheep wrote:
>>>Another World -- the cinematics don't look bad for todays standards! Add
>>>line anti-aliasing, and you would have something that would look like
>>>right out of a Flash game :-).
>> Hmmm...
>> It shoudn't be very difficult to do. And icreasing resolution would be
>> pretty trivial too.
> Without source-code remaking all the animations... oh hell. Unless
> somebody hacked AnotherWorld?
You'd only have to remake the drawing code. You know, use your
debugger/disassembler to locate all those set_graphic_mode, draw_line,
draw_polygon, etc. functions, and inserts jumps to your own code :)
>> If Infogrames would make a refreshed version, I'd definitely buy it,
>> even if there were no extra add-ons.
> True ;-). Maybe we should write them, that we would be willing to do
> such a thing? ;-D
I doubt. Remaking the game might be not much work, and not very expensive, but
releasing it is another thing.
Kornel Kisielewicz
>>Without source-code remaking all the animations... oh hell. Unless
>>somebody hacked AnotherWorld?
>
> You'd only have to remake the drawing code. You know, use your
> debugger/disassembler to locate all those set_graphic_mode, draw_line,
> draw_polygon, etc. functions, and inserts jumps to your own code :)
Ouch. But how would you merge Flash and assembler?
>>>If Infogrames would make a refreshed version, I'd definitely buy it,
>>>even if there were no extra add-ons.
>
>>True ;-). Maybe we should write them, that we would be willing to do
>>such a thing? ;-D
>
> I doubt. Remaking the game might be not much work, and not very expensive, but
> releasing it is another thing.
Kheh ;-), I was kiddin' anyway...
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl) [http://chaos.magma-net.pl]
The Sheep
Kornel Kisielewicz napisal(a):
> The Sheep wrote:
>>>Without source-code remaking all the animations... oh hell. Unless
>>>somebody hacked AnotherWorld?
>> You'd only have to remake the drawing code. You know, use your
>> debugger/disassembler to locate all those set_graphic_mode, draw_line,
>> draw_polygon, etc. functions, and inserts jumps to your own code :)
> Ouch. But how would you merge Flash and assembler?
Well, not flash. I was rather thinking OpenGl ;)
Plus, in linux version you'd probably need to embed it in some kind of dos
emulator.
The agme was ported to very many platforms, so I imagine the engine is
separated from the data pretty well (at least it became separated during
porting?).
Kornel Kisielewicz
> Dnia Sun, 01 May 2005 17:06:23 +0200,
> Kornel Kisielewicz napisal(a):
>
> Well, not flash. I was rather thinking OpenGl ;)
Hell! ;-)
> Plus, in linux version you'd probably need to embed it in some kind of dos
> emulator.
True.
> The agme was ported to very many platforms, so I imagine the engine is
> separated from the data pretty well (at least it became separated during
> porting?).
So maybe it would be possible to make a executable that would just use
the datafiles?
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl) [http://chaos.magma-net.pl]
My opinions are my own. Share them at your own risk.
Twisted One
> The Sheep wrote:
>
>>> Without source-code remaking all the animations... oh hell. Unless
>>> somebody hacked AnotherWorld?
>>
>> You'd only have to remake the drawing code. You know, use your
>> debugger/disassembler to locate all those set_graphic_mode, draw_line,
>> draw_polygon, etc. functions, and inserts jumps to your own code :)
>
> Ouch. But how would you merge Flash and assembler?
[cue Rosemary's Baby type visions]
Oh god -- that is NOT an image I needed in my head just before lunch!
You horrible, horrible person!
Twisted One
Hey Gerry -- over here! Now here is a good example of why old, obsolete,
no longer commercially viable stuff remaining in copyright stifles the
progress of science and the useful arts!
The Sheep
Twisted One napisal(a):
> Hey Gerry -- over here! Now here is a good example of why old, obsolete,
> no longer commercially viable stuff remaining in copyright stifles the
> progress of science and the useful arts!
I can't see how it would give any progress, both techniques used (science)
and artwork (art) stays the same.
R. Alan Monroe
>Another World -- the cinematics don't look bad for todays standards! Add
>line anti-aliasing, and you would have something that would look like
>right out of a Flash game :-).
Someone REALLY needs to do this!
Alan
ABCGi
Nice article. Of course were the gaming industry to
reach photorealism it would then move on to target
the next level of realism. The whole article was just
a beat up - and wasn't the stuff about Starship Troopers
just out and out wrong? AFAIK It's based on a book
(RH circa 1950s), the computer game came after.
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> Antoine wrote:
>
>> I think he's missing the big development of the last few years, though:
>> massively multiplayer online games [with good graphics]. Very
>> successful, very addictive, and I think they have a great deal of
>> mileage in them. Not that I personally find them interesting, but.
>
> No. MMORPGs may be addictive but they *are* stupid. When I play them I
> feel addicted, but afterwards I've got a terrible hangover, for I feel
> I've wasted a lot of time, and there isn't anything interesting I can
> recall.
Isn't the point of playing games to waste time in a fun way?
The only reward you get from playing is fun. If it's not fun, you either
play the wrong game, or you better should look for another hobby.
I play Diablo II/LOD a lot lately. It's not precisely an MMORPG, but
it's multiplayer and online. I recall a lot of funny occasions, some
tragic moments, alot of nice and helpful coplayers and unfortunately
some people who only seem to live in order to insult others and bring
them down.
You know, I was into programming before, but looking back I think the
time I spend on my programs was even a bigger waste of time - waste
because in large parts it wasn't fun, but just work.
Currently I think online games are a good way to turn time into a fun
experience. (Of course offline games are so, too :) )
> Nothing changes in MMORPGs -- it's just the experience points
> and level of your character.
I'm not sure. I could swear that I didn't play two identical sessions
yet, each one was different. Not only that D2 includes a lot of
randomized elements, you often play with different groups of players and
even if the games world is mostly static, no two sessions are the same.
> Oh, you mean there are other people there?
Yes, otherwise it wouldn't be a multiplayer game ;)
To a large extend the players determine if a game session will be fun or
not. And I must sy I met quite some players who also want to play in a
sensible fun way, so it's quite possible to have good gaming sessions.
> Well, I far more like to chat face-to-face...
Then just do that, but don't tell the people that like online games that
they are doing something wrong :)
OTOH the lack of communication is a big drawback in D2, yet in such a
fast paced game, there is just no way to type messages and control the
game - too many players died while trying.
Voice based systems can help.
Sometimes I'd like more character animations, like waving, and emoticons
to show if you you are happy or not.
> Especialy that the amount
> of roleplaying in MMORPGS is almost non-existent (and what kind of
> role-playingg is that, when you know this guy has 20 more levels then
> you and could pulverize you in a second... -- and if it's a nonkiling
> game, then it's even more pointless...)
IMO role-playing is beyond the technical aspects. You can still play
your chosen role regardless of you level. OTOH this means role is
something else than "I'm the demi-god warrior who can kill everything in
one hit". Try to make your role orthogonal to the power of the
character, at lest less dependand, then it's not so much of a problem
anymore.
But I agree, what's currently sold as MMORPGs are IMO bad platforms for
roleplaying.
--
c.u. Hajo
Glen Wheeler
"ABCGi" <ab...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:4275d057$0$79456$1472...@news.sunsite.dk...
Call me naive, but Starship Troopers always seemed very much like
StarCraft. Of course they may both be based on the same thing, I don't
know...
--
Glen
L:Pyt E+++ T-- R+ P+++ D+ G+ F:*band !RL RLA-
W:AF Q+++ AI++ GFX++ SFX-- RN++++ PO--- !Hp Re-- S+
Gerry Quinn
@gmail.invalid says...
> [snip]
>
> Hey Gerry -- over here! Now here is a good example of why old, obsolete,
> no longer commercially viable stuff remaining in copyright stifles the
> progress of science and the useful arts!
On the contrary, it shows how nostalgia distorts perception of games
that people would find very disappointing for the most part if they
actually played them again.
But in any case, surely replacing these games with better ones counts
as progress?
(I do think it odd that nobody seems to do games inspired by Lemmings
or Populous as shareware.)
- Gerry Quinn
Aki Rossi
> On Sat, 30 Apr 2005 17:14:31 +0300, Aki Rossi <aki....@iki.fi> wrote:
>
>
>>
>>Not that you couldn't munchkinise any given CRPG, and people do, but the
>>trend seems to be to discourage role playing almost completely.
>
> This is most likely because CRPGs focus on combat/tactical aspects rather
> than roleplay aspects. I've noticed something very similar in the very
> early Gold box games (Forgotten Realms series), where there was very little
> roleplaying going on buy plenty of plotline elements.
Yeah, at worst the combat can feel like an annoying series of blockades
in the way of the plot - this is a feeling I most often seem to get with
the Japanese console CRPG genre of games, where the game part is pretty
much just optimising firepower and hitting the right attack button
repeatedly.
>>Why does
>>there have to be visible, numeric stats for everything in the first place?
>
> Most likely, it is out of tradition. In any case, it's not too much of a
> problem unless you want to throw away stats entirely.
What I meant is that you could at least put most of that stuff behind
the scenes and turn the numbers into more vague descriptions, or just
indirect influences. Most computer games have no trouble with this at
all, but do it to a CRPG and the pocket calculator munchkins start to
complain.
>>Why do the games so often progress so that the only way to keep up is to
>>keep optimising and re-optimising your equipment?
>
>
> This is a problem with some roguelikes as well. In any case, the
> optimization of equipment is based around the fact that there are only a
> limited number of party memebers in the group. Either that, or there's an
> Angband style of magical item generation (quantity).
I think it's one of the bigger annoyances with party-driven adventures.
With each party member there's new equipment limitations and optimums
and the time you spend out of the adventure and in the backpack
increases continuously.
> But in any case, sticking with the ultra-best weaponry can easily have
> disadvanages in a properly designed CRPG. For example, Arcanum chooses the
> reputation route - if you max out your technological abilities, you will
> have trouble buying magical items (as necessairy). There might also be a
> problem with a primary objective in the late-game (having to do a side
> quest or something special), but I'm not sure on that.
I haven't played Arcanum, but that sounds like a bit of a two-edged
sword - it could either bring variety or just divide the optimisation
into three routes (tech, magic, balanced). You could say that in D&D
there's also a division into physical and magical traits, only the
choice making process is different.
>>Why impersonal, generic dialogue?
>
> I suspect that it may take an excessive amount of writing to create
> anything more. For something on the scale of Arcanum, the best you can get
> is personalized generic messages that are used all over the place.
I don't mean that you should be able to tell your life story to each and
every random bypasser (unless perhaps the game's premise includes a
simple solution for that, á la Torment or Fallouts). The traditional
three-state good/neutral/evil dialogue, where the outcomes are
predictable several miles away, is just getting a wee bit old.
--
"For a mechanic you seem to do an excessive amount of thinking."
-- C-3P0
Kornel Kisielewicz
> Kornel Kisielewicz wrote::
>
>> Antoine wrote:
>>
>>> I think he's missing the big development of the last few years, though:
>>> massively multiplayer online games [with good graphics]. Very
>>> successful, very addictive, and I think they have a great deal of
>>> mileage in them. Not that I personally find them interesting, but.
>>
>>
>> No. MMORPGs may be addictive but they *are* stupid. When I play them I
>> feel addicted, but afterwards I've got a terrible hangover, for I feel
>> I've wasted a lot of time, and there isn't anything interesting I can
>> recall.
>
> Isn't the point of playing games to waste time in a fun way?
I don't know how to put that in words. But one waste of time isn't equal
another. One leaves good memories, the other just eats your time. One
provokes creativeness, the other one makes you feel completely lazy
afterwards. I don't know -- maybe it's just me -- but I feel completely
differently after playing for example Frontier, Tie Fighter, ADOM,
DeusEx, Might and Magic, then I feel after playing Diablo II, an online
mmorpg, or KOTOR...
> The only reward you get from playing is fun. If it's not fun, you either
> play the wrong game, or you better should look for another hobby.
It is fun and addicting while I play it -- but I feel completely lazy,
and not entertained afterwards. There's nothing deep that keeps me
remembering the experience.
> You know, I was into programming before, but looking back I think the
> time I spend on my programs was even a bigger waste of time - waste
> because in large parts it wasn't fun, but just work.
Oh, come on Hajo!
> I'm not sure. I could swear that I didn't play two identical sessions
> yet, each one was different. Not only that D2 includes a lot of
> randomized elements, you often play with different groups of players and
> even if the games world is mostly static, no two sessions are the same.
I played MUD's for four years. I couldn't find anything new in Diablo
II. On the other hand, I played something called AmberMUSH for a short
while... it then was closed... but... I still have very fond memories of
it.... I still wish I could be part of that again...
OTOH tough, all my RLDev work would probably be closed then ;-).
AmberMUSH was addicting, brilliant and made me feel like a part
something great... And it required from me using other parts of the
brain then the brain-hand connection.
>> Oh, you mean there are other people there?
>
> Yes, otherwise it wouldn't be a multiplayer game ;)
It was ironical ;-). Most of the chatting on MMORPG is "Wanna group?",
"Help u?", "1000 exp!", etc... Makes me wanna kill them for using the
term RPG...
>> Well, I far more like to chat face-to-face...
>
> Then just do that, but don't tell the people that like online games that
> they are doing something wrong :)
I just wanted to state that for me there's no point -- There's no
difference for me between chatting in a MMORPG then a Chatroom.
> Sometimes I'd like more character animations, like waving, and emoticons
> to show if you you are happy or not.
StarWars Galaxies. But such systems are useless anyway.
> IMO role-playing is beyond the technical aspects. You can still play
> your chosen role regardless of you level. OTOH this means role is
> something else than "I'm the demi-god warrior who can kill everything in
> one hit". Try to make your role orthogonal to the power of the
> character, at lest less dependand, then it's not so much of a problem
> anymore.
>
> But I agree, what's currently sold as MMORPGs are IMO bad platforms for
> roleplaying.
This is my dream actually -- GenRogue MMORPG, where Roleplaying would be
enforced. And joining would be by application (like AmberMUSH).
AmberMUSH was solely about roleplaying - there were stats, but actually
nobody cared about them...
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl) [http://chaos.magma-net.pl]
"It's much easier to make an army of dumb good people than to
make one single smart good guy..." -- DarkGod
Risto Saarelma
> afterwards. I don't know -- maybe it's just me -- but I feel completely
> differently after playing for example Frontier, Tie Fighter, ADOM,
> DeusEx, Might and Magic, then I feel after playing Diablo II, an online
> mmorpg, or KOTOR...
I think you're on to something here. For example, just about everyone
who picks up World of Warcraft seems to become addicted to it. I haven't
played it myself, but I've gotten the feeling that WoW is a game that
gets people addicted, and not a good game in the sense that you don't
feel you've wasted time after playing.
I've got two ideas about what the qualities of the better games might
be. One is that the game makes you actually accomplish something. Diablo
and most MMORPGs are just grind games where you don't really need to
think up a good strategy, you just hit things till they die and get
resurrected if you die yourself. In Diablo, you can end up with a
suboptimal character, but you can always kill Diablo just by grinding
away long enough. Needing to make irreversible choices that can mean
success or failure in the game makes things more interesting than a
flashy clickfest.
The other idea is that a good game's world doesn't feel like it exists
only for the player's entertainment. If the world and plot are
interesting enough, I won't feel that at least the first play-through
was a waste of time (I think this is the case with KOTOR). Of course
for a more lasting appeal, the interesting and challenging gameplay is
still needed, as once the world and plot are known, there's no longer a
reason to play the game just for their sake.
--
Risto Saarelma
Raghar
wrote in news:8eadncA41ct...@adelphia.com:
> There's an article by John Dvorak about how computer gaming is
> dead:
>
> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1784975,00.asp
He is ba ka.
The Sheep
Raghar napisal(a):
That's rude.
He's very intelligent man, he just happens to be mistaken (and even that's
still to be seen).
Twisted One
He is what? I'm sorry, your message got mangled in transmission. What
arrived at my news server is as quoted above: monosyllabic babble that
bears no resemblance whatsoever to written English.
The Sheep
Twisted One napisal(a):
> Raghar wrote:
>> strathWHATEVERIGE...@ipass.net (Jim Strathmeyer)
>> wrote in news:8eadncA41ct...@adelphia.com:
> He is what? I'm sorry, your message got mangled in transmission. What
> arrived at my news server is as quoted above: monosyllabic babble that
> bears no resemblance whatsoever to written English.
Oh, that's because it's Japanese, baka! ^___^
Twisted One
> Dnia Mon, 02 May 2005 17:50:20 -0400,
> Twisted One napisal(a):
>
>>Raghar wrote:
>>
>>>strathWHATEVERIGE...@ipass.net (Jim Strathmeyer)
>>>wrote in news:8eadncA41ct...@adelphia.com:
>
>>He is what? I'm sorry, your message got mangled in transmission. What
>>arrived at my news server is as quoted above: monosyllabic babble that
>>bears no resemblance whatsoever to written English.
>
> Oh, that's because it's Japanese, baka! ^___^
What? It was clearly an English sentence, since it started with the
words "He is", which are English. Besides, English is the de facto
lingua franca of this newsgroup.
Glen Wheeler
"Twisted One" <twist...@gmail.invalid> wrote in message
news:G8OdnYNHqfB...@rogers.com...
> The Sheep wrote:
>> Dnia Mon, 02 May 2005 17:50:20 -0400,
>> Twisted One napisal(a):
>>
>>>Raghar wrote:
>>>
>>>>strathWHATEVERIGE...@ipass.net (Jim Strathmeyer)
>>>>wrote in news:8eadncA41ct...@adelphia.com:
>>
>>>He is what? I'm sorry, your message got mangled in transmission. What
>>>arrived at my news server is as quoted above: monosyllabic babble that
>>>bears no resemblance whatsoever to written English.
>>
>> Oh, that's because it's Japanese, baka! ^___^
>
> What? It was clearly an English sentence, since it started with the words
> "He is", which are English. Besides, English is the de facto lingua franca
> of this newsgroup.
>
For all you know, society has adopted the word baka into English. It
wouldn't be the first time a word from another language has become part of
English.
Twisted One
> For all you know, society has adopted the word baka into English. It
> wouldn't be the first time a word from another language has become part of
> English.
I know that it hasn't, since if it were an English word I wouldn't have
commented on it. It looks like baby talk more than anything else. It's
definitely not a (reasonably common and non-archaic) English word nor a
common net acronym.
Raymond Martineau
wrote:
>Kornel Kisielewicz wrote:
>>
>> Each chess piece type is represented by a different 40ml glass. The
>> black pieces are filled with vodka and a drop of strong
>> cranberry-essence juice, the white ones are plain vodka. Each time a
>> player takes the piece of the opponent, he must drink it.
>>
>> The master rule is also that if you spill any piece (the moved one or
>> one on the board -- you loose).
>>
>> The funny thing is that master's of student's chess have sometimes
>> severe differently tactics then chess masters -- sometimes it's a good
>> tactical decision to let the opposing player take a couple of your pawns
>> right at the beginning.
>
>Why not have different size glasses -- 5ml for a pawn, 60 for a queen,
>and in between for the others. :)
That would lead to ramming the queen right against the enemy king for the
sole purpose to get an opponent to drink the 60Ml. (e.g. ramming the queen
down to the frontline at d2, e2, f2, d7, e7, or f7.)
Also, it becomes a problem when pawns get promoted.
Chipacabra
> Glen Wheeler wrote:
>> For all you know, society has adopted the word baka into English.
>> It
>> wouldn't be the first time a word from another language has become
>> part of English.
>
> I know that it hasn't, since if it were an English word I wouldn't
> have commented on it. It looks like baby talk more than anything else.
> It's definitely not a (reasonably common and non-archaic) English word
> nor a common net acronym.
>
It's a common slang term used by American anime fans, okay? Although I
rarely see it spaced out 'ba ka' instead of 'baka' when used by an English
speaker.
The thing about American English is that it's a vibrantly living language,
and is constantly borrowing words from other languages. Often imported by
geeks and fanboys, but that's beside the point.
Hansjoerg Malthaner
> I've got two ideas about what the qualities of the better games might
> be. One is that the game makes you actually accomplish something. Diablo
> and most MMORPGs are just grind games where you don't really need to
> think up a good strategy, you just hit things till they die and get
> resurrected if you die yourself. In Diablo, you can end up with a
> suboptimal character, but you can always kill Diablo just by grinding
> away long enough. Needing to make irreversible choices that can mean
> success or failure in the game makes things more interesting than a
> flashy clickfest.
In Diablo II/LOD there are three difficulty levels, normal, nightmare
and hell. While I agree with you for normal and nightmare, I think hell
needs a very well planned character to survive. Just Hack&Slash will
kill you in seconds there. It's really a big step from each difficulty
tzo the next, and the problem is you approach with a fairly high level
character in hell, and all basiscs are set - if you did something wrong,
you're stuck.
I say this because I have a few characters in hell difficulty, and only
one seems to have potential to actually win the game (kill hell Baal
solo, that is for me, not partied)
OTOH you can tell about Diablo II what you want. I like the game. I got
it 2003 and I'm still playing. The online variant is addicting, more
than single player, but I see nothing bad in that fact.
Just curious, did you kill hell difficulty Ball once in a solo game? I'm
asking, becuase I seriously doubt that your writing comes from your own
experience, and my experience is definitely different.
--
c.u. Hajo
Twisted One
> It's a common slang term used by American anime fans, okay?
It is not a "common slang term" -- if it were I'd have heard of it. It's
an extremely obscure one at best, and utter nonsense at worst. What the
fuck's it supposed to mean, anyway?
The Sheep
Twisted One napisal(a):
> The Sheep wrote:
>> Dnia Mon, 02 May 2005 17:50:20 -0400,
>> Twisted One napisal(a):
>>>He is what? I'm sorry, your message got mangled in transmission. What
>>>arrived at my news server is as quoted above: monosyllabic babble that
>>>bears no resemblance whatsoever to written English.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> Oh, that's because it's Japanese, baka! ^___^
> What? It was clearly an English sentence, since it started with the
> words "He is", which are English. Besides, English is the de facto
> lingua franca of this newsgroup.
DON'T CONTRADICT ME!
Hell.
DON'T CONTRADICT YOURSELF!
ABCGi
>
> On Mon, 2 May 2005, Glen Wheeler wrote:
>
>> "ABCGi" <ab...@yahoo.com> wrote...
>>
>>> Elethiomel wrote:
>>>
>>>> Not to mention the "Uncanny Valley" (
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley )
>
> not only to graphics (of humans or otherwise), but also to just about
> every kind of creative endeavor that tries to mimic everyday things.
> Including monster AI and user-interface design (on topic! ;) The
> better your technique gets, the more the little bugs stand out and
> make the (user/player/viewer) uncomfortable.
Might be related to the instinct that drives racism.
>>> Nice article. Of course were the gaming industry to
>>> reach photorealism it would then move on to target
>>> the next level of realism. The whole article was just
>>> a beat up - and wasn't the stuff about Starship Troopers
>>> just out and out wrong? AFAIK It's based on a book
>>> (RH circa 1950s), the computer game came after.
>
> The article was talking about the 1997 movie, not the 1959 book.
Yeah I know but he seems to infer the movie is based
on video games and not the book (which I have read and
enjoyed - I was impressed by the time it was written but
I guess there is a lot of great sci-fi from the past I
have not experienced).
> The two have very different plots and themes, from what I remember of
> each of them (I'm pretty sure I turned off the movie in the middle,
> and the last time I read the book was a couple of years ago).
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers_(movie)
> has a really good description of the controversies over the movie.
Interesting article and viewpoint.
Not from where I'm standing - they both had boot camps,
were a military campaign against aliens and so forth.
The major difference in the book (which is fixed by the
ST cartoon) is that they wore powered battle suits into
battle that could leap them around the combat zone.
What they did do with the script is meld ideas from the
book with the hackneyed WWII movie story line; boy-girl,
some main characters die, big victory at the end. Still
it worked for me, not as any great cinema but I enjoyed
it - and it did remind me of the story for Quake - so
maybe JD has a point.
> I didn't think there was a "Starship Troopers" video game. Dvorak
> just says that the movie plays as if they took a video game and made
> a movie out of it (episodic, ultraviolent, boss monsters).
Yeah there was a video game /after/ the movie came out.
An okish RTS on my PC.
*SNIP*
--
ABCGi ---- (ab...@yahoo.com) ---- http://codemonkey.sunsite.dk
Fun RLs in rgrd that I have tested recently!
DoomRL - DwellerMobile - HWorld - AburaTan - DiabloRL
Heroic Adventure - Tower of Doom - Shuruppak - TheTombs
David Damerell
>David Damerell wrote:
>>Quoting Kornel Kisielewicz <kisie...@gazeta.pl>:
>>>recall. Nothing changes in MMORPGs -- it's just the experience points
>>levelling.
>Well, so why didn't I ever hear about them?
Because it's almost universal that MMO*s have these stupid levelling
mechanics grafted on. :-(
I _hear_ that GuildWars, which is new, aims to emphasise tactical skill
over level grinding. Roguelikes already emphasise tactical ability - well,
the good ones do...
>>Don't get me wrong; I like D&D fine as a tabletop game, but only when the
>>type of play is appropriate for those mechanics, not simply when those
>>mechanics are used blindly; and levelling, particularly, is very damaging
>>to an MMO where it ensures that the vast majority of the player base can't
>>actually play together.
>I don't like DnD even as a tabletop game. I hate those leveling
>mechanics that make one 50th level warrior take on hordes of 1st level
>warriors, and be able to take an artillery shot "on the brest".
Let's be clear here; even a 20th level warrior cannot take a catapult shot
to the chest. It's just that, as long as he has hitpoints left, you'll
never hit him with a catapult. The mechanic's a "hit" that does "damage",
but what happens in the game world is that he barely escapes it, gets
scratched up by debris, tires, pulls muscles...
50th level, of course, is well into epic levels; if you do play up to
that level, your characters are demigods, and shouldn't be thought of in
human terms.
As for the hordes of grunts, Miyamoto Musashi tackles a couple of dozen
guys in Yoshikawa's novelisation, and that's not even epic fantasy;
consider the Amber books. No-one would dispute that Benedict could fight a
hundred or a thousand ordinary men and win; it's appropriate to the genre.
[But, generally speaking, your umpteenth level characters shouldn't be
fighting hordes of no-challenge beasties. There needs to be a sense that
your old opponents are still out there and now no match for you, to get a
sense of progression and growth - another mistake that MMO*s are prone to
is that being a 2nd level character fighting 1st level beasties is not
very different to being a 50th level character fighting 49th level
beasties. City of Heroes is especially bad here, because the power system
tends to mean your character will have essentially the same combat
abilities at 10th level as at 21st.]
>I think
>that such mechanics actually destroy roleplaying. I far much prefere
>more balanced systems as GURPS...
But you _can't_ do epic fantasy with GURPS, not without a set of patches
that make it akin to D&D, because it does have a "realistic" treatment of
combat and injury. Sir Lancelot might be killed by Mordred or by a giant,
but he's _never_ going to be brought down by a random arrow. This is the
old "realism" fallacy; the mechanics want to be appropriate to the genre.
If you don't like the genre, that's fine, but don't blame the mechanics
for doing their job.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Distortion Field!
Today is First Tuesday, May.
David Damerell
>Of course players will find ways to munchkin, but it's the GM's job to
>keep them in line. And that's every system's rule. No P&P RPG system is
>a self-player. But when the players are mature enough there is such
>problems. And it doesn't pose such stupid powerlevelling rules as DND does.
On the contrary; a level-based system is less prone to this sort of abuse
than a points-picking system. When levels determine a lot of your ability,
and the GM controls access to levels (ie, you can't decide to get
experience points in the way you can decide what spells to use), character
power is effectively constrained.
One of the ways that levelling _does_ serve most MMOs well is that level
is made a much bigger determinant of character ability than any other
factor; this lets the very limited GM oversight available per-player be
used effectively to look for abusive ways of gaining XP.
David Damerell
>On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 17:19:46 +0100, David Damerell wrote:
>>The term "RPG" is particularly pernicious here. It was bad enough for
>>single-player games that got called RPGs because they had sub-D&D
>>mechanics; but then people decided to make MMO versions of those games,
>>called them MMORPGs, and deduced from that that they must graft sub-D&D
>>mechanics onto them.
>I don't think the problem is in the mechanics themselves,
Well, those mechanics can work fine. NetHack, and some other roguelikes,
have fairly obviously D&D derived mechanics, and they work fine.
My problem is with the unthinking use of them; for example, the emphasis
on character progression is fine for a single-player game where you get
the nice feel of being able to steamroller your old adversaries, but it's
terrible for an MMO where at one fell swoop it ensures that only 1/20 or
so of the playerbase can possibly group together.
Twisted One
> Quoting Kornel Kisielewicz <kisie...@gazeta.pl>:
>
>>Of course players will find ways to munchkin, but it's the GM's job to
>>keep them in line. And that's every system's rule. No P&P RPG system is
>>a self-player. But when the players are mature enough there is such
>>problems. And it doesn't pose such stupid powerlevelling rules as DND does.
>
> On the contrary; a level-based system is less prone to this sort of abuse
> than a points-picking system. When levels determine a lot of your ability,
> and the GM controls access to levels (ie, you can't decide to get
> experience points in the way you can decide what spells to use), character
> power is effectively constrained.
What about a point system where you have to earn experience points to
then use to add or enhance skills? I.e., something like Sangband, ToME,
or Crawl in terms of skill development. Then it can be a point system
(if it's like Sangband, up to lacking levelling entirely) and still have
character power constrained to grow via getting experience.
Glen Wheeler
"Hansjoerg Malthaner" <hansjoerg...@nurfuerspam.de> wrote in message
news:d57897$tkt$1...@domitilla.aioe.org...
I would agree with you here, Hajo. I played D2 to death when it first
came out, but soon realised (after beating Diablo on the three difficulty
levels, and continuing with friends multiplayer for a time) that it was
merely a less complex, prettier, shorter Angband. At least that was my
opinion.
Along came LOD and I still figured it was a shaved down glossy *band, but
then came the recent patch. It's now a lot more difficult (at least on the
difficulties that matter) and the game has a much greater depth (depth in
the classic sense of looting). I still don't enjoy it as much, but many of
my previous serious complaints are now vastly reduced.
I guess what I'm trying to say here, is that as long as you can understand
me playing *band, I can understand you enjoying D2/LOD :). To answer your
(public) question: yes, I have a character from each class (or had rather,
have not played in some time) that beat Baal on Hell to get the final title.
Hardcore multiplayer was the best, but I could never find enough friends
willing to ``waste'' their time :).
Glen Wheeler
"Arthur J. O'Dwyer" <a...@nospam.andrew.cmu.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.60-041....@unix40.andrew.cmu.edu...
> On Mon, 2 May 2005, Glen Wheeler wrote:
>> StarCraft. Of course they may both be based on the same thing, I don't
>> know...
>
> "Starship Troopers" the movie. So besides the humans-fighting-bugs plot
> that they both took from the book, I dunno. And the bugs part isn't
> unique to "Starship Troopers" the book, either:
> [...]
However there was a huge amount of graphics released, hype produced,
history pieces written and pretty much everything (at least, superficially)
about the Zerg, Protoss and Terran races were known. I can't recall exactly
when, but sometime in 1994 I saw the first screenshot of the in-production
StarCraft.
There were another series of books exploring the various histories of the
three races (and others) in StarCraft; has anyone read them? Perhaps
another adaption...
Worst adaption ever IMO: Street Fighter (the movie), the game based on
the movie based on the game.
Glen Wheeler
"Twisted One" <twist...@gmail.invalid> wrote in message
news:kvCdnaJ-0tq...@rogers.com...
> Chipacabra wrote:
>> It's a common slang term used by American anime fans, okay?
>
> It is not a "common slang term" -- if it were I'd have heard of it. It's
> an extremely obscure one at best, and utter nonsense at worst. What the
> fuck's it supposed to mean, anyway?
>
It's common where I live. I know what it means. My friends know what it
means. A lot of people here know what it means. Our language evolves, deal
with it.
Twisted One
> It's common where I live. I know what it means. My friends know what it
> means. A lot of people here know what it means. Our language evolves, deal
> with it.
It's not common where I live. I don't know what it means. Nobody I know
knows what it means. Nobody here knows what it means. Deal with it.
So, what the fuck DOES it mean? It's like pulling teeth getting a
straight answer out of anyone in this fucking froup!
Paul Murray
> Glen Wheeler wrote:
>> It's common where I live. I know what it means. My friends know what it
>> means. A lot of people here know what it means. Our language evolves, deal
>> with it.
> It's not common where I live. I don't know what it means. Nobody I know
> knows what it means. Nobody here knows what it means. Deal with it.
> So, what the fuck DOES it mean? It's like pulling teeth getting a
> straight answer out of anyone in this fucking froup!
(adj-na,exp,n) fool; idiot; trivial matter; folly
Risto Saarelma
> OTOH you can tell about Diablo II what you want. I like the game. I got
> it 2003 and I'm still playing. The online variant is addicting, more
> than single player, but I see nothing bad in that fact.
>
> Just curious, did you kill hell difficulty Ball once in a solo game? I'm
> asking, becuase I seriously doubt that your writing comes from your own
> experience, and my experience is definitely different.
No, I haven't. I haven't played it through in normal difficulty either,
I played up to the jungle land with a sorceress and then got bored. And
I couldn't beat Baal anyway as I don't have the expansion. It does seem
that I should complete the game at least once just so that I could have
even a bit better Diablo criticization crendentials. Actually I should
complete it with several characters, because character classes seems to
be something Diablo 2 has done really well and I should get a better
feel for how the different characters play.
I assume you're right, though. From what I've read, hell difficulty
really is something nasty, and probably will really require you to plan
very well to survive. When you play D2 as a more or less mindless
click-click-die-respawn game like I did, it doesn't seem like much, but
when you start to really get into character build and gear optimization,
maybe it starts to turn into a more interesting game.
I've got an idea why I didn't warm up to Diablo 2. I've lost count on
how many times I've started Baldur's Gate 2 with different character
combinations, but playing Diablo 2 seems more like a chore even though
it has more randomization. I think that important thing is how Baldur's
Gate 2 gives you a wide range of quests to go after. Even though the
quests are always the same, playing a new game feels fresh when you can
decide the course yourself. On Diablo 2, it is always graveyard chick,
steroid zombie, monastery chick, crypt critters, escher guy, goddamn
slug thing that kills my sorceress over and over again and whatever you
get in act 3 and onwards. Somehow the game seems much more like work
once you have to do all the quests in the same order every time you
play.
The tactical versus action rpg angle in Baldur's Gate probably isn't
significant. I think the very linearly plotted Icewind Dale games done
in Baldur's Gate's engine don't have much replay value, but I really
liked the action rpg Divine Divinity which basically had a really big
overworld where you could go almost anywhere you want right from the
start.
--
Risto Saarelma
Ray Dillinger
> Quoting Aki Rossi <aki....@iki.fi>:
>>I don't think the problem is in the mechanics themselves,
>
>
> Well, those mechanics can work fine. NetHack, and some other roguelikes,
> have fairly obviously D&D derived mechanics, and they work fine.
>
> My problem is with the unthinking use of them; for example, the emphasis
> on character progression is fine for a single-player game where you get
> the nice feel of being able to steamroller your old adversaries, but it's
> terrible for an MMO where at one fell swoop it ensures that only 1/20 or
> so of the playerbase can possibly group together.
If I were to be placed in charge of an MMO universe, I think that
the players would start out being about what they call 5th level,
and take experience quite slowly, with a maximum experience award
per 3-day period that would absolutely prevent rising to sixth
level in less than two weeks. (subsequent levels would take
progressively longer....) If people wanted to start characters
of higher initial power with a lower experience award limit, that
would be okay too.
I might cap the numbers of characters of each level, so that
when a 10th level character is killed or quits, the most
experienced 9th level character moves up, vacating a space for
the most experienced 8th level character to move up, etc....
but the percentage of the total population at each level
would remain constant.
20th level player characters should simply not appear within the
first year, and maybe not during the first 2 years. They should be
as rare as players who've had the commitment to stick with a character
and play that character consistently for a long time and the skill to
do so without getting killed.
Bear
Raymond Martineau
As an adjective, "Baka" is Japanese for absurd or crazy.
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/B/Ba/Baka.htm