Azarkon

It's certainly interesting to imagine what would modern fantasy be like without Tolkien. Both the original Wizardry series and D&D are undoubtedly influenced by Tolkien. But I'm of the mind that inventions occur not so much as the result of singular genius but rather are the culmination of circumstantial forces upon an individual. If Edison did not invent the light bulb, someone else would have. If Tolkien did not invent high fantasy, someone else would have. That is not to say that historically, nothing can be changed, but it is to say that an equivalent to high fantasy would have been "discovered," though not, perhaps, exactly as it is present today - and that this discovery would have corresponded to the same appeals as high fantasy, if that appeal has indeed lasted to the modern day. I don't think people would've just settled for SF, Lovecraft, and Conan because Tolkien never wrote LOTR. The myths have always been there, and high fantasy offers a distinct atmosphere that the aforementioned genres never could have. Therefore, necessity and invention would have collided sooner or later.

There are no real, long term ramifications. Genetic diseases - at least those that manifest themselves physically or mentally - are normally unsavory to reproductive instincts. If medicine existed to counter their effects, the offspring of people with these genetic defects will become dependent on said medicine. Henceforth, if a catastrophe occurs and our technological infrastructure collapses, these people will die. But then for such a catastrophe to occur, many people will die anyways so essentially the gene pool will shrink and the "strong" will adapt while the "weak" will die off. If such a catastrophe does not occur, we'll just become more and more dependent on our technology as a species. However, given that a society capable of warding off genetic diseases en masse likely has access to direct genetic manipulation, the accumulation of genetic defects really aren't something I'm all that worried about.

Too many WW2 related games. Too few space related ones.

Deja vu... I've seen this thread before... They must've changed something.

Isn't it true, however, that most kids these days experiment with sex before they're 18? Romantic as it may be to imagine the innocence of childhood, it's been my experience that guys who hadn't "gotten it on" prior to, say, 21 are often seen as losers in the US.

If the genders were reversed, everyone on this board would likely be attacking the person. Food for thought. <_<

The real question in all this is: "why?" Certain moguls of the industry would argue that replayability is the key advantage of character freedom - that, if the vast majority of players played a game only once, then character freedom is wasted as non-linearity converges to higher value only as play-throughs -> infinity. Their counter-argument, and it does have a degree of merit, is that it's better to present one perspective well than to present several perspectives most players will not explore. They base this contention on the somewhat-flawed observation that gamers these days have short attention spans and will maximize their experience only the first time through (flawed because of the chicken-and-egg issue). What's your answer?

Insofar as writing can be considered visual art. Lest we forget, today's audience do not like to read anything longer than 1-2 lines. Hence the push, even in Obsidian, to find another way to present story... Half-Life's story (and Halo's), for example, is presented in a manner that do appeal to today's gamers - through the visual and the auditory, which is another reason why graphics, FX, and the like are paramount to a game's success - because they constitute the story in today's "cinematic" games.

The universal qualifier of "patently untrue and ludicrous" is what I take issue with. You're arguing that games can succeed without having great looking graphics (relative to the times and target platform, of course). I'm saying that it depends on your definition of success. I don't think that, at this particular junction of time, that a game without great looking graphics can "make it big." Small successes... Maybe possible (ie Jeff Vogel's games), but nothing that we'd have ten page threads about on these (or other, more popular) boards. My friends play games without great looking graphics all the time, but mostly for the sake of nostalgia and then typically only downloaded, free games. They wouldn't plunk down $50 for any game that isn't AAA quality on its platform, so to speak, and neither would the vast majority of gamers, especially the casual crowd that most companies target these days.

That's definitely possible. But in some sense it defeats some of the goals of iterative development for embryonic developers , which is that iterative development can replace Q&A to some degree (since if you didn't have to release a fully polished product but can afford to, ala sourceforge, continuously improve the releases, then enthusiast development can get away without the kind of polish demanded of professional products). It also doesn't fix the problem of graphical (and sound, and VO, etc.) production, though, which in my eyes is the critical separator between fan efforts and commercial efforts, with a few rare exceptions.

I don't know what he was suggesting either, considering that iterative development is the standard software development process for virtually anything these days (so in-house, everything is *already* developed iteratively) but the example he gave of: "By methodology, I mean that the aim should be to use an iterative process to refine a game, with copious honest feedback from the alpha testers, rather than publish The Next Big Thing

That's still what I'm saying. However, if you define iterative development as alpha testing via family and friends, then my point makes no sense, which is consequently why metaldigital's allusion to that is senseless. Yes, of course you can show iterations of your game to family and friends - but that's already being done at major companies so what's with the "moving towards iterative development" comment? To me, iterative development is the iterative model of software engineering - you draft a initial version, release it to your customers, have them critique it, and then make iterative improvements until it's more or less to their satisfaction. You can imagine doing this with most multiplayer games because there's nothing to hide - the replayability is the point, in these cases. Not so for single-player, narrative-driven games like RPGs and adventure. Customers simply won't play initial versions of your software, or they'll do so and not buy the final versions. You can't exactly comprehensively test the game's NPCs without also revealing their storylines, so in the end it's either spoil your entire storyline or test only isolated portions of the game that cannot constitute the experience of its entirety.

How exactly do you test NPC interaction and the environment without revealing the story? Don't think in the abstract. Think in the concrete. Think how you would've tested KOTOR's "environment" and "NPC interaction" in the sense of iterative development. You can't exactly show them every environment in the game - that'd be spoiling everything. Same thing with NPC interactions. How do you test NPCs, joinable party members, hirelings, and setting in an iterative manner without spoiling the content? Be concrete. But that's already being done (after all, the team itself constitutes a group of testers), so what is new about your suggestion? No I'm not, you're just choosing to interpret it as such. What I said was that a game needs flashy graphics and marketing alongside quality gameplay. Btw, Flash is hardly what I'd call a great engine for high quality graphics. And this shows why you don't really understand some of the roadblocks in game development. The engine isn't usually the problem because you can typically license one if you're commercial or download one if you're not (though the learning curve of Source SDK, which I've worked with, can be quite steep). The problem lies in producing the graphics *for* the engine. Do you know how many artist hours it takes to generate good-looking graphics and animation? It's not like you can build an engine and boom you suddenly have industry standard graphics. Development teams these days typically include a disproportionate number of artists compared to other branches of development - and for good reason, because the amount of graphical content you need to churn out for a typical 30-40 hour game requires anywhere from 20 to 30 artists working for years on ends. Consequently, this is also why a great many job openings these days in the game industry are for artists.

So what else is there to test? The engine? The vast majority of complaints about RPGs tend to lie squarely in the narrative content, which, as far as I can tell, is extremely difficult to test publicly since you'd essentially be spoiling everyone. Iterative development (at least those involving the customers) is simply not geared towards narrative content. There's a reason why novelists and film makers don't use it. You simply can't release a draft of the book/film, gauge everyone's reaction, go back and change it, re-release it, and repeat. RPGs, so long as we're talking about narrative-driven games, are the same. Industry standard graphics, FX, voice acting, FMV, etc. are all part of what most players would consider quality. See: Blizzard.

1. The Player Character 2. Deranged Homocidal Maniac 3. Throughout the Realms and across every monstrous species, none are feared more than the homocidal player character. With his/her trusty Hotkey of Reload, the player character is an immortal killer bent on cleansing the world of all that can be attacked. All attempts at communicating with him/her inevitably lead to violence, for the player character is the staunchest supporter of the statement, "with each life I take, I grow stronger" 4. "4. How about I just kill you."

If you count the number of lives a typical CRPG hero must take by the time he reaches the end of his journey and cast it in real life terms, he would not be a mere mass murderer - he would be a genocidal maniac. However, because combat is so important to these games, it becomes difficult to create a protagonist outside of the classic action hero. As refreshing as a a pseudo-pacifist game might very well be, I doubt it'd satisfy the bloodthirsty urges of most gamers. Still, I applaud games like Fallout for trying... Also music, FX, voice acting, packaging, UI, and so on to all the aspects of a game outside of pure gameplay and story. Now that's not to say that CRPGs must be the equivalent of "cinematic" experiences either in the linear or non-linear sense - but that certainly seems the trend these days. Possibly, but I think the experience one garners from a game like ADOM/Nethack and the experience one garners from a game like Baldur's Gate is vastly different. Roguelikes are not true RPGs in the sense defined today (though that's a matter of semantics) because they often lack the kind of character interaction and story that people praise when it comes to CRPGs. Regardless, action RPGs of this day and age seem to follow in the footsteps of roguelikes, though they often lack the intricacies and depths of gameplay. Indeed, game development, as with most forms of entertainment, began humbly. But "growth" in this industry has apparently been a progression towards more and more expensive graphics and sounds, while gameplay outside of a few important titles largely stayed the same. The developers are not really the ones to "blame" for this trend - they only did what the market desired, and therein lies why today's unpaid enthusiast finds it very difficult to attract any kind of attention when it comes to developing basement RPGs (and MMORPGs, which are a pipe dream for many enthusiasts). FPS modding can churn out some very good, near-professional results, but I've yet to see a truly excellent fan-developed RPG (and by this, I don't just mean the gameplay & story, but also the professional polish of graphics, FX, etc.) The graphics in FF have always been very good. I think you're intoning here the difference between "technologically advanced graphics" and "expensive graphics." The FF series may not have had the flashy rendered engines of their American FPS counterparts, but the kind of art they put into the modest engines they did have were excellent (and expensive, if we count the FMVs). Then again, I'm in the crowd that preferred Baldur's Gate graphics to NWN's - the move from 2D to 3D, though considered a big deal by the FPS market, is not necessarily a move from crappy graphics to great-looking ones, especially for RPGs. It's the graphics and the marketing that sell a game (or else roguelikes would sell by the buttloads). Quality freeform gameplay and story keeps the customer around, but it's the graphics (and marketing, and genre/brand-identification) that first and foremost attract the masses.

I believe the US wants to make Iraq another Japan, but somehow I doubt that's going to be possible unless the US puts in ALOT more money into the area and the actual population becomes less hostile as a result of improving living standards. As it is, the occupation is simply fanning the flames with incidents like these and giving more justification for the global jihad. I don't think the common man cares about the "ideals" of democracy, especially when that democracy precludes the ability to get rid of the occupation - even when the vast majority of the population votes for such. Well, depends on who leads the prosecution, I suppose. The military commits the equivalent of civilian crimes all the time - sometimes with good justification, sometimes without. The times with we ignore, the times without depends. I'm getting A Few Good Men vibes here, personally.

Which is part of the problem. Soldiers have the permit to harm and kill civilians if necessary in a war (such as if they suspect the civilians are terrorists), but where do you draw the limits of that permit? A different set of laws governing the military does not make what it commits any less atrocious in the eyes of the population. To them, it's only a matter of semantics, and at any case, demonstrates why the occupation is unwelcome.

I think you're trying too hard to exonerate the soldiers, Walsingham. If this had happened in the US, those soldiers would be jailed. At any case, this can only lead to worsening relations between the civilian populace of Iraq and the occupation. I tend to agree from their point of view: if we were there for the purpose of "liberation," why do we disobey the wants of the population?

Compare Square-Enix to US FPS companies, sure. Compare Square-Enix to US RPG makers and we have a different story altogether. I couldn't believe that V:tM used the same base engine as Half-Life 2 the first time I "experienced" it (granted, Troika licensed an early version of the engine).

There tends to be a huge gap between enthusiasts who get paid (with livable wages) for what they're doing and enthusiasts who do not. The difference of eight hours / day of work in a team with proven talent & dedication versus having to work a second job amidst a environment where people do or do not do as they please. I was speaking of the latter, in case the tone was ambiguous. You bring up the example of non-linear, free-form gameplay, but games of this genre tend to be even more time- and resource-consuming to create with any semblance of roleplaying beyond hack 'n slash. Sure, you can make the equivalent of Angband in your basement - look at Jeff Vogel's work - but such production can never reach the quality of what most people here envision as great RPGs. Consequently, even if they juggle with new ideas, they're unlikely to ever become the progenitors of some new wave in gaming. At best, they are pet projects known by a few, dedicated gamers like yourself - and even then, not generally taken seriously (which enthusiast game par excellence can *you* name?) Btw, Atlus and Square-Enix? Forgetting you mentioned Square-Enix for a moment (for you are the first one to accuse Square-Enix of being lacking in the graphics department), both are professional game companies with solid financing. They're not run by anything close to the part-time enthusiast you were referring to in pointing out the "inexpensive" nature of game development. Certainly, if you redefine enthusiast as the professional developer enthusiastic about his work, then my criticism would be irrelevant since they'd then be professionals, yes? Indie development does not refer to anything outside of the multi-million dollar corporations; insofar as level of professionalism is concerned, any profitable game company where its employees can survive off of wages alone can be conisdered a professional development house (but such companies, clearly, would have to pay hundreds of thousands in wage costs over the span of the years a game is in development). A straight up equivalence between profitable studios and the game development of enthusiasts whose sole noble purpose is to share ideas and learn about programming is frivolous, at best.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Maker Apparently there's 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. Raising games (both pornographic and non-pornographic) are fairly popular in Japan, or so I've heard.

The graphics are so next generation, you can see the anger in roshan's eyes!