Bay 12 Games Forum

A man has a gun that may do many things, which helps him in his righteous task.

Games are mixed media. I don't know whether a game can ever be art based on its game mechanics alone. Sure, they might be marvelous game mechanics, most intricately crafted to be just sublimely entertaining, but they are still just engineering. The art-nature comes from the non-math parts. Like architecture. The cathedral of Notre Dame is art, but it is not art by its merit of not collapsing.

Of course, since people are playing the things on devices capable of displaying images and playing sounds, they don't really have to be. As for Mr. Ebert, if he doesn't play games, his opinion isn't really relevant. He's still free to have it, though. Future historians might even cite him as an example of how games weren't considered art in the early 21st century.

As for "Artistic Ambition", many great works of art have been created without it. Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel because the Pope made him do it. Shakespeare wrote plays to get some cash to support himself so he could write more sonnets. Kafka wrote all his stuff as therapy, and wanted it burned after his death.

A MMO-design guy here:

People hate it when you nulify their achievment. It is about perception: If it feels like developer taking away stuff from them, then it is not really fun to acquire new item; If player obtains "cool sword" and it will decay and he has to replace it with "less cool sword" or "cool sword, same grind again", well, he is going to be unhappy. Loosing few pieces of equipment at same time can be devastating as he realizes that "there is no point, i will have to regrind it over and over again."

Last thing you want to make player feel that he has to grind to just maintain status quo. There is nothing more demotivating than that.

You want player to feel he is getting something "extra" if you want to support crafting. Consumables, for example. Say, player has "cool sword" that will be his forever, but he can buy "sword ballance kit" made by swordsmith that will modify his sword with some extra properties for few hours.

Now, perception is shifted: he is not battling game system to keep his equipment in working order, instead he is getting something "extra" that he will want to replenish every so often and thus create market for such upgrades. Most players will pay this "crafter tax" and be happy.

Decay is always way cooler on paper than in subscription-killing reality.

You know what? I take back all praise about the update. Valve ruined the pyro.

 I can understand discouraging the W+M1 playstyle, but the pyro was made to be the king of close quarters combat. This is the only area his primary weapon can operate. The classes primary weapon should be just that: Their primary way of killing. When you have the choice of a main weapon that cannot kill the class your class is a counter to in the optimal range it was designed for, or a weapon with a higher DPS and the ability to fire at a range, you take the secondary.

 Pyros, your shotguns are better than your flamethrowers now. Everybody switch to Backburner.