[Troy - worst garbage ever]

I understand that Troy was about making human history out of what was a classical tale about gods and destiny, but for such a tale to resonate you have to have believable, sympathetic characters. The only sympathetic character I found in Troy was Hector. Here was a man who for once is not so steeped in Virtue that he'd put honor above his brother's life, and yet at the same time he had the courage to fight and die for his country. In this respect he was human. Unlike Achilles, who I felt not a hint of sympathy for even to his death at the end of the film. And unlike Agamemnon, who was the very caricature of the mustache-twirling villains of old - and had not a hint of reedeeming qualities.

[Gaming industy <--> Movie Industry]

Now the big question - could/is the gameing industry moving towards a similar way as the movie industry?

 

I'd like to hear the answer to this question from some game devs as well, but I think you should specify what you mean by "moving towads a similar way." Do you mean that games would have big budgets? MMORPGS already do; in fact it might be argued that a MMORPG can have *MORE* of a budge than movies, since its development occurs even after release - and in particular, is exactly that that attracts people.

 

Or do you mean that gams would become more "cinematic" or "mainstream"? These questions, I think, would depend on socio-economic and cultural circumstances much more than the industry itself. What's the value of a $50 game in the minds of most people compared to a $10 movie? Do people actually have the free time to play games, given work and family responsibilities in America? What about traditional Protestant work ethics and the fact that games haven't exactly the best press amidst circles of "making it" in life?

 

Will we have screen play writers / directors + individual crews type of development, with other companies supplying the engines and similar tools?

 

This already happens to a degree with the licensing of engines. PS:T used Bioware's IE engine, and the Unreal engine has also seen some use. In fact I'd even say that the beauty of the Unreal franchise is not the Unreal line of games themselves but the continued development of that awesome engine.

 

'Course there are some difficulties with licensing other engines, as BIS saw with the LithTech engine. Still, if in the ideal case games are such that a game development studio becomes a collection of artists, writers, musicians, and designers, then I'd think that all those programmers hoping to get into the game industry via that route would be hugely disappointed...

 

Will Games ever reach a similar acceptance as an "art form" as movies managed?

 

I call upon the power of Gromnir to respond to this quote!

 

Will there ever be publically funded games, as part of the cultural establishment?

 

The answer to your questions seems to all rest on whether games will ever become mainstream enough for people to see it as a medium of communication rather than merely a instrument for the sake of entertainment. This is a fascinating question and I hope that someone in the industry can provide us with a good answer.

[Ok, let's settle it once and for all: ROMANCES.]

This thread makes me think that pure story-driven romance games popularized in Japan may actually have a place in America.

 

Now if companies would only stop importing only the p0rno romance games. And maybe use an art style other than anime.

[Ok, let's settle it once and for all: ROMANCES.]

Doesn't matter to me. Romance, when done correctly, can vastly improve roleplaying opportunities. However, KOTOR's romances aren't done that well, which prevents me from supporting it overmuch.

[I have a bad feeling about KOTOR 2.....]

the fact that you notes other games which you thinks was good and fun and popular should be making apparent the fatal flaw of ps:t... but that ain't happening, and we admit to being baffled as to how to proceed.

 

I think what I'm saying is that PS:T was indeed a failure, but that it shouldn't discourage developers from making games that are meaningful and deep, so to speak. The fact that PS:T had a interesting story and well-written characters is not the reason it failed, and successful games need not be fun only in the most superficially gratifying sense of the word.

 

But I think the devs of Obsidian are already well aware of that.

[I have a bad feeling about KOTOR 2.....]

but if they is only appreciated by some very small segment of folks, how can you say that they is successful... 'especially since the reason why they ain't successful is the fact that they is patently un-fun to so many other folks.

 

PS:T wasn't successful in the sense of being a blockbuster, but nowadays I see it mentioned all the time by CRPG critics and fanatics alike. When people talk about BIS, they talk PS:T, one of the "greatest games ever." When people talk about story-based CRPGs, they often compare it to PS:T, or if someone makes a game that tries to be deep, that at times gets associated as well. So in terms of success, I think that PS:T was in fact successful - not in the commercial sense, but in garnering a very dedicated fanbase for whom it has been virtually deified.

 

Now of course, in the capitalist world that we live in, this amounts to very little in the greater sense of being a successful development studio.

 

to be appreciated years down the road by folks who finally understand the genius of a work and recognize that it gives people a new, if painful, perspective on the human condition

 

Yes, I think that games should be fun, but fun, like I said, isn't just about having a good time blowing things to bits or watching eye candy. Fun is also about partaking in a meaningful storyline (talking CRPGs here) and interacting with interesting, perhaps deep, characters, and in that respect it's entirely possible to write a game that explicates the nature of human condition that is, at the same time, fun. After all, if great works of literature can be popularly appreciated, why can't the same apply to games? I certainly have a great time reading Milton and Dante. I can't see why games can't create fun through meaning in the same way.

 

ask fergie whether he would rather have had more or less people enjoy ps:t. the goal was obviously not to be making a cult classic

[I have a bad feeling about KOTOR 2.....]

But I maintain that there is a distinction between being merely influenced by nationality, race, class, etc., and using those factors as your primary criteria for judgment. Nobody seriously believes that the Nobel is about artistic merit, so what's the point of calling it a "literature" prize?

 

The Nobel Literature prize, and I quote, is given to individuals who:

 

"shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind" and "shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction."

 

Source: http://www.nobel.se/literature/index.html

 

Of course, that's the ideal. Any deviations from this ideal must be laid on the shoulders of those who are hired to implement it, and they're only human.

 

EDIT: I advise you to read http://www.nobel.se/literature/articles/espmark/index.html for some perspective on the very confusion over what is considered Nobel material over the years.

[I have a bad feeling about KOTOR 2.....]

Actually, a lot of people didn't think that PS:T was as much fun as Diablo. Obviously.

 

And alot of people did. Some people on this board, in particular, would so swear by PS:T that it kinda gets down to the point of being ridiculous, but I digress.

 

I mean really when it all comes down to it it's your opinion against someone else's, and what maybe a masterpiece to one group of people might be complete trash to another. I think there's something to be admired from PS:T, and that people who love it, do indeed love it because it's fun, and that's the bottomline. Masterpieces of gaming are not some kind of "high art" that can only be appreciated from a impersonal, distantly objective perspective. They too can be loved, cherished, and appreciated for being "fun."

[I have a bad feeling about KOTOR 2.....]

Isn't that inevitable? I mean it's not like literary works can be judged from a purely objective standpoint. Subjective values and influence are hard to measure among the arts, and if you were sitting there in the Nobel commitee, I've no doubt that your decisions would be in part biased as well.

 

We can only judge, after all, from what we know, and people don't know everything there is to know about anything.

[I have a bad feeling about KOTOR 2.....]

Yep, you're right. Though that makes the Nobel system come off even worse. At least an elitist is trying to judge the book's merits.

 

The two are not exclusive. Nobel prizes are typically given to authors who wrote multiple award-winning books or at least critically-acclaimed books. However, as Gromnir said, there is a politicized process involved here, which tends to award authors whose books are socially or politically significant than otherwise.

[I have a bad feeling about KOTOR 2.....]

popularity does not preclude quality.

 

Okay. That's what I was saying. Don't take every reponse as an argument. I genuinely wanted to know whether Harry Potter sold better than "one hundred years of solitude."

 

for chrissakes... you does realize that we is talking 'bout games, right? just say the word, "Games." does we even have to acknowledge that a "game" should be fun? creating a masterpiece or a work of art has to be a secondary or tertiary concern at best. if a majority of folks not find a game to be fun, then we suspect that there is something wrong with it, don't you agree?

 

How hard is it to understand that "fun" is crafted on multiple levels? You talk of "fun" as if it were some kind of universal interpretation. Neither in literature nor in games is that true. A masterpiece of gaming *IS* "fun", but it's fun on a different level than mindlessly hacking through a legion of monsters and collecting phat lewts in the process. The latter is "fun", too, but it's shallow fun, just as reading Salvatore is shallow enjoyment - but it's still enjoyment. Don't know 'bout how you separate literary masterpieces from hack writing, but to me they operate on different levels of appreciation, as do games. Companies nowadays seem to believe that shallow fun is all that players want, and so they give it to them in troves. Just look at all the Diablo clones - and for every one of those, how many new BG's, PS:T's, and Fallouts? Are those games not as "fun" as Diablo? What about a game like Civilization? It's popular, fun, original, a classic, and great game design all bundled up in one package. Being a "masterpiece" of gaming is really about being fun - on a higher level.

 

ridiculous. the notion that literature must be elitist to be good is ridiculous. if a work of literature must be dismissed just 'cause it is popular, then we think you might be surprised by just how many Great Works of lit actually was very popular when released. should popularity be the only measure for lit? no, of course not, but popularity not preclude quality neither.

 

I was more arguing along the lines that great literature has to be elitist in the sense that they must not be dumbed down, and as a result might be inaccessible to the masses. The phrasing of my argument, however, seems faulty, so I'll just make it simple and say that I agree with what you're generally saying.

[I have a bad feeling about KOTOR 2.....]

admit what? dragonlance does not sell more than gabriel garcia marquez books. try to find out how many copies of "one hundred years of solitude," has been sold over the years. recognized good lit does not mean it is poor selling.

 

But did Harry Potter?

 

good games can be popular... the thing is that developers, unlike authors of lit, cannot dedicate themselves to making games w/o concern for whether their work will be commercially viable. is just a reality of the industry... and truth to tell, it ain't that much of a burden.

 

It seems to me that it'd be a real burden if your manager or market analyst thought he or she knew what people wanted and then forced you to make a game based on those (often wrong) assumptions. Like many things in real life, it's not so much the cold hard facts, but what people perceive those cold hard facts to be, that create obstacles between commercial interest and artistic license.

 

But then again I'm often reminded of one of Emerson's quotes (at least I think it was Emerson): "Genius is always sufficiently the enemy of genius by over-influence." It's not so much that the market analysts have the wrong ideas, but that they have the right ones and can exactly pinpoint what people want, and in the process, defeats the very drive for originality underlying true masterpieces.

 

Actually, books that win the Nobel Prize are typically elitist crap and don't stand the test of time.

 

Part of what makes a book stand the test of time are its awards and its perceived value among literary circles, actually, but I strongly disagree with the notion that works of literary value must stand the test of time in order to be masterpieces. Frankly put, most people nowadays don't read books, and many of those who do only read junk that grants them instant gratification. To judge a book by its reception by these people simply defeats the whole purpose of writing literature, so in a way good literature *has* to be exclusive, *has* to be elitist, because otherwise the best literature would be something like Stephen King's horror novels (not his "greats", but his "horrors"), and American society would become truly shallow, indeed.

[One thing I hated about the LS/DS issues in KOTOR]

Tyrell, part of what you say makes good sense, and part of it is bad logic. Let me attempt to separate the part that makes sense from the part that doesn't.

 

Your basic point, as I understand it, is that you want your past choices to matter. After all, what's the point of making choices, if those choices all lead up to the same thing and you can basically undo them with a single choice 3/4th of the way into the game? The answer is that they don't, and that's why Bioware failed in this aspect of the game. This is the part that makes good sense.

 

The part that doesn't make good sense is that in order to achieve this, you advocate taking choices away from players. Your idea is to make it so that players must deal with their choices by no longer choosing. This is ridiculous, because it's contradictory. You should always be allowed the option of choices in a game where choices matter, and those choices should include, ultimately, the choice to choose against what you've previously chosen.

 

Given this, I should say that it *is* possible to advance the part that makes good sense without falling back on the part that doesn't.

 

Imagine, for instance, that you were allowed to choose LS for yourself in KOTOR at the very end, but that the outcome of that choice differed based on your actions in the past. If you were a pure and good LS, that choice would have made you a celebrated hero, the ultimate champion of Jedi principles, and a respected, even worshipped, figure at the end of the story. All of your LS-aligned group members would have praised and respected you for your seemingly unshakeable virtue, and all traces of your past actions as Revan would've been forgotten.

 

If you were, on the other hand, a DS who chose to go LS at the final, deciding moment, you would get a different ending. Instead of being the ultimate hero and champion of Jedi principles, you would've been the one who was "redeemed" at the very end, who demonstrated that the nature of a man can be changed. You would not be worshipped or held up as a great hero, but as a troubled, tragic anit-hero whose deeds few noticed, but all felt. Your group members, and others in the know, would remain dubious of your decision; some would attempt to, and maybe even succeed in, seeing your true goodness. Others might feel that you are nothing but a liar, and that you will always be a turncoat who could never be trusted. The universe would not see you as a completely changed man who had no links with the Revan of the past, but a continuation of that persona who must always be watched, lest the DS takes him again.

 

Now imagine the same kind of dynamics with the DS option at the end, and you will have essentially achieved your goal of making choices made in the past matter, without denying players of that final, game-changing choice.

 

Personally, I think that is what developers should be striving for: to give the player choices, and to make those choices matter through imbuing each choice, however small, with a consequence.

[Just say 'no' to Johnny Quest villains!]

Irenicus could've easily been made a more tragic/sympathetic character, simply by playing on his past a bit more, and the details of his fall. Same thing with Sarevok and his indignity at being abandoned by Gorion and having to fend for himself while the PC happily dwelt in Candlekeep (just one cutscene would've done tons for this). Heck, they had all the makings of a tragic love story for Sarevok, as well, but it simply wasn't developed.

 

I'm starting to wonder why this is. Is Bio really clueless (which I doubt), or is there some kind of twisted logic at work that makes them believe that villain development isn't a good idea?

[Just say 'no' to Johnny Quest villains!]

The trouble with Bioware is they are truly clueless when it comes to shades of off good and basically make good and bad discrete.

 

One can argue that Sarevok and Irenicus were not simple villains. Sure they were *evil*, but they had reasons other than the desire to dominate the world. One was snared by the trappings of his blood, the other twisted by his fall.

 

Overall, though, I'd agree that Bioware's games aren't the best in offering shades of grey, but then, as we saw with DX:IW, simply offering shades of grey doesn't really work, either.

 

In the end, I continue to believe that it's the presentation of the villain, and not who he is exactly, that matters.

[recommended schools for programming]

For a school like Digipen, the focus is on the technical aspects (at least for programmers). The difference between somewhere like Digipen and a UC, is that Digipen will provide you with a foundation that is more specific to game development, rather than just a general purpose CS degree.

 

Agreed. As a CS Major at UCB, I can pretty much tell you that what you learn in most CS classes have nothing to do with programming games or programming anything, for that matter. It's highly theoretical, and prepares you for more of a scholarly than commercial job (graduate school, in particular). However, with that said, if you're good enough to survive CS at one of the top universities like MIT, Berkeley, or Stanford, you'll probably have a far broader range of options. The market recognizes university names, much like consumers recognize brand names, and when push comes to shove (as is the case in today's programming market), the guy (or gal) with the higher, more prestigious degree will win out.

 

Always good to have a back-up option, in other words, if game programming doesn't work out

[Best way to start an "Adventure"]

Anybody up to writing a game, where you start out as a newly built android without a history ? Wouldn't be amnesia, as there wasn't anything to forget. Come on people, use a little imagination here.

 

Actually that would defeat the whole purpose of the Amnesiac storyline

 

The point of the amnesia is that eventually you *will* have to deal with your past. Look at how it was done in PS:T and KOTOR - your past does come back to haunt you. If it didn't, there'd be no point to use an amnesiac and certainly no advantage gained in the area of exploiting player background for plot line purposes.

 

BTW, what you suggested also does offer a degree of control on part of the devs because they'd know, for instance, that the player must be an android, must have been built recently, etc. An analogy in fantasy games (aside from switching android with golem ) would be saying that the player was an Orc who just recently came of age, and then let the player take it from there. Similar effect.

[Best way to start an "Adventure"]

Look Zant, I don't want to get between you and Gromnir here, but with the amount of time you spend answering their posts you could've already written the story - or maybe you couldn't have, but at least then you'll know. Either way, I have a feeling that it's the best way to end this argument or at least give it some more fuel. As it is, all that I see is "everyone has their own opinions and I won't budge from mine" - which is typically how most internet arguments end up, but still.

 

It's a bit pointless arguing only on theoretical grounds since, after all, game development is not theory.

[Best way to start an "Adventure"]

If you could determine the player's background/past actions, I'd say there's a nigh endless amount of ways you can start him/her off.

 

If you can't, the options are pretty limited. This thread has covered most of the popular ones - and they're popular for a reason, because they tend to work and mesh well without requiring much overhead on the PC's background.

 

Although I should say that the way Shadow Paladin has them listed, they're broad enough to be categorized as "archetypes" rather than specific beginnings - and there are only so many archetypes.

[KotOR2 confirmed at 1Up.com]

If OE make SWKotOR2, then makes a NwN expansion and then makes Fallout 3 what publishers will see on OE is a company that makes RPG sequels and add ons and not a company that makes new RPGs.

Or... OE can make SWKotor2, make it a smashing success, prove that they're a capable group of developers, and with the profits they earn from Kotor2 create their own IP.

 

Assumptions are great aren't they?

 

Another thing, games are best developed by the people that created the IP, the best Star Wars games were done back when LucasArts had deveopment teams (TIE Fighter for example).

 

So we should get TSR - o wait, they don't exist anymore - I mean WoTC to create all the D&D CRPGs in the future? We should get Ed Greenwood to design every new FR game?

 

Yeah. Right.

 

if JE fails you can bet BioWare will be not in the top of the list of a publisher looking for a RPG game, after all BioWare did made Shattered Steel and I dont seen MS giving BioWare a MechWarrior game to be developed by then.

 

Even if JE fails Bioware still has a damn respectable resume behind them, and really that's part of the point here. KOTOR2 is much less likely to fail financially than an IP simply by virtue of its brand name, and being a new company OE really can't afford to fail. In the unlikely event that KOTOR2 is a dud, then OE will burn. But if KOTOR2 is a success, then OE is in a much better position to pursue their own IP both financially and reputationally - after all, they'd at least have one good game on their resume then.

 

Not to mention the prestige of being trusted with one of the most successful RPGs ever.

 

As for Troika:

 

They made Arcanum.

 

It flopped.

 

They then tried to develop ToEE in a short period of time to make up for Arcanum.

 

It was crap.

 

Now they're working on someone else's IP.

 

'Nuff said.

[A KOTOR 2 romour]

Considering how ridiculous it would be to add some form of resurrection to the Star Wars universe I can't say that I disliked the unconscious system.

[LOSE THE F^_^ING CUT SCENES]

CRPGs are an extension of D&D roleplaying. Not much guesswork involved here unless you want to nit-pick to the nth degree?

 

I said RPG, not CRPG, and yet even CRPGs (by which I assume you mean computer RPGs) are not all extensions of D&D roleplaying. Earlier CRPGs like Bard's Tale and Ultima had no "roleplaying", were not D&D, and was almost all combat with very little character development. Even the Gold Box games like Pools of Radiance are nothing like today's CRPGs except for possibly ToEE. Fallout and Arcanum are not D&D. BG/BG2 maybe D&D games but they are nothing like the earlier Gold Box D&D games, and their implementation of dialogue choices and NPC interactions make them into a different class of CRPGs, as does Torment. Daggerfall/Morrowind is on a level of their own, and so is Diablo, really.

 

These are all labeled as RPGs as far as gaming is concerned. Is there any game here that maybe called more of RPG than another? If so, then my previous post applies to you.

[LOSE THE F^_^ING CUT SCENES]

In modern CRPGs the story is part of the gameplay, IMHO.

 

But then again, the very term "RPG" has so many different interpretations from so many different people that invoking it for the sake of making an argument is simply futile. Sure, you can answer every argument by saying: "It's a ROLEPLAYING game. If you don't roleplay, then it's not a RPG!" But that doesn't say much other than your personal opinion on what a RPG is. Or, if we stretch it, it becomes a criticism of the blurring of language in the modern world. Either way, the gaming industry, as far as I can tell, doesn't care for that particular view. In fact, it would be quite reasonable to call most CRPGs "interactive action-adventure games" and the definition would still hold quite well.

 

So please, no more arguments based on the so-called definition of a RPG. Since the industry doesn't follow it, there's no reason why the rest of us should. Discuss games for their own merits, not whether they fit into some preconceived mold.

[Hi...and at the risk of sounding DUH!]

Suiing people for pirating games is effective to a degree. The RIAA lawsuits on sharers in P2P networks have made many people queasy, and that's a good sign, because as long as people judge that the risks of getting caught are higher than the profits to be gained through piracy, they won't do it.

 

The problem, though, is that it's basically impossible to monitor every avenue of sharing out there. You can hit the most popular ones like Kazaa, but for every Kazaa there's a IMesh, for every Napster there's a Bittorrent, and this is not mentioning the traditional methods of pirating involving mIRC (fat chance of regulating that) and FTP. And then there's AIM and CD-burning. Can't really monitor that without getting your fingers deep into right of privacy laws.

 

So yes, making piracy a criminal offense is a good prevention mechanism and probably will do alot to deter piracy in the long run, but it's not a solution. Laws are worthless if they can't be upheld, and with a system as dynamic as the Internet, it'd pretty damn hard - and expensive - to uphold a piracy law even partially. You may catch a few thousand and prevent a few tens of thousands, but as long as you miss the hundreds of thousands out there perfectly willing to dodge and disappear at the first sign of trouble, only to appear a few days later on a different network, you can never really win.

 

But maybe they won't have to win. Making people pay sizable reparation fees to the companies for being caught is a good idea. After all, that's the bottomline isn't it? Giving the gaming industry enough money so that it can grow and expand instead of shrivel. There are many ways of doing that.