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Author Topic: Good Old Games  (Read 38179 times)

Neonivek

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Re: Good Old Games
« Reply #105 on: March 26, 2009, 06:20:56 pm »

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Look at something like, say, WoW

WoW was made in 2004... Hardly old for what I am refering to a 20 year span and it is hardly in the Technical graphic department even to some games that are comming out now. (Namely MMORPGs...)

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Where are the cities with hundreds of thousands of unique inhabitants living their lives and interacting naturally with each other? Where is fluid dynamics, truly flowing rivers, real rain collecting in the gutters? Where are deformable objects made of realistic materials?

Already on its way and some of these are already here. Don't expect these to take more then 10 years.

Though your forgetting something. When you have Hundreds of NPCs interacting with eachother... The millionth doesn't matter. Which is what I am saying. At some point each improvement however dramatic is going to be meaningless.

Though I said "Technical Graphics".

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Graphics are irrelevant for lastability

Part and Whole huh? Though by Gems I wasn't refering so by Graphics.

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There is always going to be something to improve

and as I said it isn't that they cannot improve, it is that the significance of such improvement will become less meaningful.

Edit Addition: Hmm rereading this I am worried that I am speaking in an overly antagonising way. I do not mean to do so and I hope to keep this conversation civil and enjoyable.
« Last Edit: March 26, 2009, 06:55:29 pm by Neonivek »
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Sordid

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Re: Good Old Games
« Reply #106 on: March 27, 2009, 03:09:58 am »

WoW was made in 2004... Hardly old for what I am refering to a 20 year span and it is hardly in the Technical graphic department even to some games that are comming out now. (Namely MMORPGs...)

What other games do you know from 2004 that still sell? I have no idea what that second sentence even means.

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Already on its way and some of these are already here. Don't expect these to take more then 10 years.

Some examples? Because I kinda... can't quite think of any.

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Though your forgetting something. When you have Hundreds of NPCs interacting with eachother... The millionth doesn't matter. Which is what I am saying. At some point each improvement however dramatic is going to be meaningless.

Yeah, the difference between a million and a million and one NPCs doesn't matter. The difference between a million and two million, however, does.

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Though I said "Technical Graphics".

Yes, you did. But you forgot to explain what you mean by that, since it's not a term that is commonly used or understood.

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Part and Whole huh? Though by Gems I wasn't refering so by Graphics.

Yes, I know. Again, exactly my point.

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and as I said it isn't that they cannot improve, it is that the significance of such improvement will become less meaningful.

On the contrary, the changes that are about to come are going to have a huge impact, because unlike previous improvements they will affect the gameplay. The difference in gameplay between a recent installment of the Need for Speed series and the first or second one is non-existent. But a  world with a million of unique NPCs living their lives, for example, doesn't need predefined or randomly generated quests, the world will provide you with an infinite amount of stuff to do via the interactions of the NPCs in a completely natural way. You could have actual politics and allow players to maneuver themselves into positions of power, etc.

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Edit Addition: Hmm rereading this I am worried that I am speaking in an overly antagonising way. I do not mean to do so and I hope to keep this conversation civil and enjoyable.

Likewise. I've been told I often act in an antagonistic way, even though I don't mean to.
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Micro102

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Re: Good Old Games
« Reply #107 on: March 27, 2009, 03:24:32 am »

hmmmmmm....lot of the same games as gametap except for $50 a year i get to play all of them plus newer games. i think ive played around 60 games so far.....thats 300-600 dollars. and gametap brings out a new game every week


also the sooner they make a 0 NPC MMO with perfect physics (right down to molecular physics so stuff can dent, break, become magnitized!) the better, like real life without the consequnce of dieing. well, as far as real life goes into midevil times
« Last Edit: March 27, 2009, 03:36:53 am by Micro102 »
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Neonivek

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Re: Good Old Games
« Reply #108 on: March 27, 2009, 03:29:18 am »

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Yeah, the difference between a million and a million and one NPCs doesn't matter. The difference between a million and two million, however, does

Naw because the User is incapable of truely exploring even a million NPCs it could have an infinate amount and offer no significant advantages.
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Sean Mirrsen

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Re: Good Old Games
« Reply #109 on: March 27, 2009, 03:34:34 am »

Already on its way and some of these are already here. Don't expect these to take more then 10 years.

Some examples? Because I kinda... can't quite think of any.
Uh... Dwarf Fortress? Surely you must have heard of it.

And regarding the millions of NPC's.. surely the user will not be able to really interface with them all, but the mere fact that they are there will add depth to the game. There's difference between a million and two million unique NPC's, because if it's a game of that scale, you'll probably be killing some of those. ;)
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umiman

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Re: Good Old Games
« Reply #110 on: March 27, 2009, 03:45:57 am »

Sims 2 was released in 2004...

It still tops sales charts today.

Sordid

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Re: Good Old Games
« Reply #111 on: March 27, 2009, 04:21:00 am »

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Yeah, the difference between a million and a million and one NPCs doesn't matter. The difference between a million and two million, however, does

Naw because the User is incapable of truely exploring even a million NPCs it could have an infinate amount and offer no significant advantages.

Suuuure, and 640kB ought to be enough for everybody, eh? :D

Already on its way and some of these are already here. Don't expect these to take more then 10 years.

Some examples? Because I kinda... can't quite think of any.

Uh... Dwarf Fortress? Surely you must have heard of it.

I thought we were talking about graphics and its improvements. I don't see how DF enters in that. Like, at all. ;)

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And regarding the millions of NPC's.. surely the user will not be able to really interface with them all, but the mere fact that they are there will add depth to the game. There's difference between a million and two million unique NPC's, because if it's a game of that scale, you'll probably be killing some of those. ;)

Wouldn't that be a bit of a waste? I can think of far more interesting things to do with a million living NPCs than killing them. :P

Sims 2 was released in 2004...

It still tops sales charts today.

Only because until recently EA kept releasing expansion packs for it.
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Tormy

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Re: Good Old Games
« Reply #112 on: March 27, 2009, 10:05:06 am »

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Look at something like, say, WoW

WoW was made in 2004... Hardly old for what I am refering to a 20 year span and it is hardly in the Technical graphic department even to some games that are comming out now. (Namely MMORPGs...)

Huh, WoW was mentioned in this thread? I thought that we are talking about 10+ years old games here.  :D
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Sowelu

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Re: Good Old Games
« Reply #113 on: March 27, 2009, 12:27:24 pm »

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And regarding the millions of NPC's.. surely the user will not be able to really interface with them all, but the mere fact that they are there will add depth to the game. There's difference between a million and two million unique NPC's, because if it's a game of that scale, you'll probably be killing some of those. ;)

Wouldn't that be a bit of a waste? I can think of far more interesting things to do with a million living NPCs than killing them. :P

Best Civ or Populous game ever.  "You start with humanity consisting of tribe of a thousand people all alone in the world.  By the end of the game, the world's population will be over a million unique individuals...all existing in real time.  All thinking.  All living."  When the sequel bumps that up to ten million, yup, that's still an improvement!  How will the gameplay be really different from faking it?  I don't know, that remains to be seen.

Or imagine a city of a million, where you can go into any floor of any building in the whole city, and see evidence that unique, individual people live there, every one tracked in realtime.  Now expand that to a whole countryside, where people in different regions have different cultures...
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Micro102

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Re: Good Old Games
« Reply #114 on: March 27, 2009, 02:01:14 pm »

2 million NPCs would be nice....as it would mean even if you met 1000 NPCs everytime you played there would be trillions of different story lines to do. especially if the things you do/say with/for/to these NPCs effected the world and other NPCs

too bad we will have to wait a few hundred years
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KaelGotDwarves

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Re: Good Old Games
« Reply #115 on: March 27, 2009, 03:11:46 pm »

For the record, TES:2 Daggerfall is the RPG I know with the most depth and NPCs running around. I wish RPGs still had such a deep world. Fuck shiny 3d graphics and tiny games (fallout3) that take 20 hours to finish - I want 6 months of adventuring and getting lost in a world.

Sordid

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Re: Good Old Games
« Reply #116 on: March 27, 2009, 03:30:02 pm »

Nah-uh, I totally disagree. Daggerfall has breadth rather than depth. The world is huge but empty, with points of interest dotted around the vast bleak nothingness. There are thousands of NPCs, but apart from the plot-related ones they are carbon copies of one another. There's only a few different quests that are generated over and over again.
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KaelGotDwarves

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Re: Good Old Games
« Reply #117 on: March 27, 2009, 03:33:56 pm »

You don't think with today's technology a company like Betheda can't make a world as large as Daggerfall filled to the brim with interacting NPCs - considering they forgo shiny graphics?

They COULD, but won't.

Hence Toady :P

Sowelu

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Re: Good Old Games
« Reply #118 on: March 27, 2009, 03:52:30 pm »

See, here's the thing with graphics.

For the graphics engine, you keep your best-and-brightest up to date on industry developments and what the newest software techniques are, and you dump a load of time into making sure it works on as wide a variety of modern hardware as possible.  It's difficult, but the method behind managing a group to develop a good graphics engine is well-known.  It's kind of a solved technical issue.

For the actual art resources, you get some good artistic directors that can bring people together (very important), and then you throw manpower at them as hard as you can.  Good, skilled manpower, but still, once you have direction, it's shee number of skilled artists that determines how much you can put in there.

Actual design needs good designers--and GOOD designers are still incredibly rare in this world.  And to generate that much content, you need good writers--and I daresay it's WAY harder to manage writers than artists.  It's gotta be.  That's the only way to explain games like Fallout 2.  (Good art directors are just as hard to come by, really...which means you can have shiny graphics that still don't mesh or aren't attractive or are boring.)

I don't think anyone knows of a good, solid method of designing good games, or creating good writing.  Interactivity is really hard and it's a design challenge as much as a technical challenge.  Hey, I hate games with good graphics and poor gameplay as much as anyone else--but I think my point is that you can take any game, well-designed or badly designed, and give it awesome graphics and an awesome graphics engine by throwing money and people at the problem.  Designers and writers are still very limited.  You CAN'T take a poor design and make it better by throwing resources at it, but you can make it pretty.

It's not that they're focusing all their resources on graphics instead of design.  It's that there's not enough good designs to go around I think.
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Sordid

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Re: Good Old Games
« Reply #119 on: March 27, 2009, 04:08:04 pm »

You don't think with today's technology a company like Betheda can't make a world as large as Daggerfall filled to the brim with interacting NPCs - considering they forgo shiny graphics?

They COULD, but won't.

Hence Toady :P

I don't see why they should forgo shiny graphics for that. It was all procedurally generated and cobbled together from only a few different models and sprites. You could do the same with today's graphics, in principle (as opposed to what they did for MW and Oblivion, ie. design every city by hand). Granted, you'd need a supercomputer to run TESII sized cities in TESIV quality graphics, but hey, it's the way of the future.
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