Game Design Backlash?

[Castle]

Mind if I chime in on this topic?

I have spoke with my coworkers MANY times about the idea of doing a retro style FPS and bring back the good old days. Its a topic that I believe pops up far too often to be ignored and I would surely jump in on the chance to do something like that.

Problem is with the idea is that I feel the concept is fairly simple but it might be too short sighted in a lot of respects. If I had the ability to read the future I would already have my own company by now lol...

In a Retro style FPS Single player would most likely go back to the find key open door style of game play which I think could easily work if done well enough and it has been a long time since that has been done in such a direct manor.

Success seemed to be most prevalent when Half Life made the find key open door game mechanic more lucid. It was still find key open door but now the key could be anything and the game had a ongoing story that made the tasks less monotonous.

We live in a new age of games where I seem to feel that MMOs are what has attracted and captured the majority of the hardcore players. In that respect I feel that WOW has taken the grind mechanic that was used in most other MMO games and made that one aspect more lucid. Questing for XP so now your goal and it involves story based tasks rather than "Find key and open door" game play so to speak. Sound familiar?

The problem is as with most things is that a retro style FPS would not be enough to appease the masses. In fact It might not be enough to appease even us, the very people who speak of working on such a project so often. I just cannot get into doom 1 or quake 3 in the same ways that I used to anymore.

this tells me that the past is not where the true answer can be found. A retro shooter is not the answer. Something far more grand and out of the box is possibly the answer. A game that looks really good but doesn't practically need a team of 80 people just to populate a level with static meshes might be a start. A first person shooter that has the depth and intricacy's of an MMO but with out actually being an MMO.. A game that takes the weakest points of previous tittles and makes them more lucid in some way.

Perhaps one of the things I am doing wrong right now with my UT3 level is that I am not trying harder to try something new..... But like I said if this was that easy... well it will never be easy right

[wattro]

If I had a $ for every FPS out there...

I interview aspiring or experienced designers from time to time. It's interesting to reflect on that as I read through this thread. A lot of the new guys don't have a clue what it makes to be a game, even though they just came from game design school. The experienced designers are usually pretty good. It's amazing what a difference actual experience makes. I think someone tried to list off the 14 principles of fun to me the other day...

My one piece of advice to anyone looking to do something new or retro. Keep things simple - it lets you experiment, throw things out, and start over easily. Get good at one thing and build off it.

(World of Warcraft has a story??? Maybe only in so far as social networking goes... yes yes, I know, Azeroth and all that - most people who play the game don't know/care shit about that).

[ix-ir]

An interesting design concept that could work for you guys (as I said I am interested in the project but too busy to help) that maximizes asset use for play time is an RTS/FPS combination.

One player controls the aliens/monsters/whatever from an isometric 3rd person view in a standard RTS manner, you click, monsters go there, attack whatever and have simple AI of their own. The other team has players as a team of marines to beat the monsters and complete an objective or objectives. Basically it's cooperative monster bashing with the monsters under human control, adding considerably to the replay value and more easily supporting varied player numbers and skill levels as you can scale the reinforcement rate of the monster controller's forces (rather than constructing a set of repetitive scenarios by hand).

Edit: and for the love of god DON'T fuck over the interesting Q3 physics, if you don't force players to need it then it doesn't matter if newbies don't know about it. This kind of dumbing down is why games have become so shit. Don't.

[Silicone_Milk]

I've actually been seeing a lot of RTS/FPS combo games lately. Check out http://www.isotx.com

As for the Quake 3 physics, I wouldn't be "fucking them over" but replacing them with Quake 2 physics. The reason is this: I feel the Quake 2 physics were much more suited for single player gameplay. Q3 is much too fast for it in my opinion.

Hmm, nothing is set in stone. I still have my own stuff to take care of before I can even begin to get started doing anything on this "project".

[a13n]

As for the Quake 3 physics, I wouldn't be "fucking them over" but replacing them with Quake 2 physics.

Agreed.
Plus q2 bob & pitch?

[Silicone_Milk]

Another thing I would like to make note of is a graphics related one:
"realism" adds too much visual clutter on the screen.
In the old games there was very plain areas then places that stood out with different geometry, odd textures, or more detail (like a reactor room or something).
This gave the game "landmarks" that were easily found.

Keeping general environment simple would help to add more umph to those unique rooms that have a higher visual interest. With newer games there doesnt seem to be any "background environment". When I say this think of ambient sound. It's just there. You shouldn't really notice it stick out but it should alter the feeling the area has when you're in it. The same goes for the actual environment itself. Things like buildings off to the side that don't have anything worth checking out should blend into the background.

So in a nutshell:
Background Environent -
Simple geometry. Simple textures.

Visual Focal Points -
A unique piece of geometry w/ unique textures or
simple geometry with unique textures or
unique geometry with simple textures.

Traps also help make a particular area stand out. Lava in only one or two rooms in the entire level, ceiling that comes down to squash everybody in the room, etc...

I will be scribbling stuff down over the next few weeks. I may actually start something over the holiday.

[wattro]

all good points. that's one of the things that stands out about TF2 - all the characters are unique looking. makes it easy to identify what is happening and also makes it easier for new gamers to get involved.

also, apparently blue sky makes a game sell better and/or be more well received by the masses.

[zZCastleZz]

Mistake post

[Castle]

hehe...
for some reason force of habbit I suppose.. I posted this in my other account..

I am going to experiment this week with the idea of making a UT3 level that goes more along the lines of Team fortress or WOW.

Something stylized that looks good and is easy to look at, isn't over a gig, and last but not least doesn't make me feel like I have to have a small army of artists just to populate a level lol...

Maybe a start to this whole backlash to modern gaming starts with the community. As standards continue to increase a lot of people will still desire something that looks good but doesn't require a huge amount of developer bandwidth just to work on it. After all what is a community if nobody can do anything with it?

I have slowly become more and more distraught at the idea of the ever increasing standards that are part of video games these days. Sure I like new technology to appear I like to read about the ever changing art of game design. But I feel it is starting to reach a point where it is too expensive to keep up and the community is suffering too much as a result.

Think about it like this... If you are going to spend 12 million bucks to do something don't you think it makes sense that the 12 million is spent on something that is NOT subjective in the end? However isn't it always in the end that art in a game is subjective? If something looks good it looks good damn it. And everyone and their grandmother will have something different to say either way.

The idea of constantly keeping up with the curve or staying with todays standards as being a normal thing doesn't it strike anyone else as gross masochism? And in the end, all of that extra work, all of that extra money spent by companies both large and small, are competing with each other for what? Subjective results? Thats a huge amount of money for some emperors new cloths don't you think?

Does UT3 REALLY look better than UT2004?
I mean really. Movement is the same, game play is, but what about public opinion?
Better screen shots == better end result? Possibly, but does UT3 really look better than WOW? Does it look better than Team fortress 2 or Half life 2? One could EASILY have an opinion either way... Does it justify spending about 2 or 3 grand to upgrade your computer to be able to really work on levels for the game? This bothers me deeply... Doesn't it bother you too?

When Dinner dash out sells every game known to man... Does it make sense for us to kill ourselves with higher standards that produce subjective results in the end? I think not, I think our standards should reflect our resources and strategy only. It should be situational. Small teams should not be trying to match EA's standards...

Ok I know I am preaching to the quire right..

So I am going to discontinue my current UT3 level and change my strategy. I am not going to let my personal projects carry the burden of the technology and engines arms race that started so many years ago. Its silly and its masochistic and in the end only subjective what ends up looking the best Like art should be...

Hey its been awhile since the castle has ranted huh?

[Silicone_Milk]

Awesome. One of my threads got Castle to rant

What you have to say has actually changed the way I'm thinking about things a little bit.

Perhaps, instead of focusing on using old engine technology I should focus on newer technology using the KISS way of working.

[pjw]

focus on newer technology using the KISS way of working.

This.

Look at Portal as a recent (SP) example. They took one clever mechanic (the portal technology) and milked that thing like a giant boob, and got incredible mileage and gameplay out of it. Pretty much all other aspects of the game (e.g. the turrets, the environmental challenges, the backstory, the AI, the challenge modes) were relatively minimal and, at the same time, very elegant and focused. There's not any wasted energy there, or any excess fluff to distract from the game, which is making portals and going through them. One of the best games I've played in years.

"realism" adds too much visual clutter on the screen.

There's a very important distinction between "realism" and "visual clutter"; the former does not necessarily produce the latter. They're very different things, and it's all about good design. Portal is, again, a good illustration of that distinction.

[wattro]

focus on newer technology using the KISS way of working.

This.

Look at Portal as a recent (SP) example. They took one clever mechanic (the portal technology) and milked that thing like a giant boob, and got incredible mileage and gameplay out of it. Pretty much all other aspects of the game (e.g. the turrets, the environmental challenges, the backstory, the AI, the challenge modes) were relatively minimal and, at the same time, very elegant and focused. There's not any wasted energy there, or any excess fluff to distract from the game, which is making portals and going through them. One of the best games I've played in years.

That's what i said earlier... if you shoot for the stars, you're gonna get burned. Too many features and feature sets means you have to worry about waaaay too much stuff and how it works together. Old and good gameplay usually had simple mechanics or simple rules which allowed complex gameplay to come about.

"realism" adds too much visual clutter on the screen.

There's a very important distinction between "realism" and "visual clutter"; the former does not necessarily produce the latter. They're very different things, and it's all about good design. Portal is, again, a good illustration of that distinction.

Too true. One of the things I always didn't like about realism affected my dearly-loved sports games - particularly during the PS1 days when graphics became much more realistic because of CD space... but the physics didn't keep up. As soon as you have one element of realism in a game, people expect all elements to be realistic. It was no longer about creating a fun game, but creating an accurate representation.

stuff

Lots of truth in there. WoW is a perfect example. It looks good. 9 bazillion subscribers can't be wrong. And it looks like a game. The lower quality (but still fun) looking graphics allow more leeway in what developers and designers can get away with. It also removes expectations of realistic behavior - not entirely, but allows people to forgive idiosyncrasies and what-not.

If you put the same amount of time into making WoW assets versus UT3 assets, how much more could you do? Same with your modellers and animators?

The other thing I wanted to talk about which has become more popular in the industry is agile and lean development. It basically breaks down game development into building 'blocks'. For example, someone builds a basic world, someone renders it, someone puts a basic model in it, someone gives the model some actions, someone builds some network code behind it so a second player can join, someone gives the model some attributes. Boom you have a game. It's all likely throw-away, it's all quick, it's all expendable, but it lets you see your game really quick and feedback on it ASAP.

ps: My game just won an award at the Spike TV Video Game Awards! Go skate. And, if anyone is in the know... Big Black was fucking hilarious!

[Castle]

If you put the same amount of time into making WoW assets versus UT3 assets, how much more could you do? Same with your modellers and animators?

A lot I imagine.
The trade off is that its tough to lock down a good art style and keep it consistent.

But man I imagine once you get a good pipeline in place making assets would be a lot faster. As it stands right now the average high poly character is upwards of 12 million polys.. And its not uncommon to have some important set pieces or things of that nature that can occupy an artist for 2 or 3 weeks at least.

I have yet to work on a project such as team fortress 2 or WOW. I would love to see first hand what that is like.

[wattro]

If you put the same amount of time into making WoW assets versus UT3 assets, how much more could you do? Same with your modellers and animators?

A lot I imagine.
The trade off is that its tough to lock down a good art style and keep it consistent.

But man I imagine once you get a good pipeline in place making assets would be a lot faster. As it stands right now the average high poly character is upwards of 12 million polys.. And its not uncommon to have some important set pieces or things of that nature that can occupy an artist for 2 or 3 weeks at least.

I have yet to work on a project such as team fortress 2 or WOW. I would love to see first hand what that is like.

But that's just the point you were making earlier. Does it really matter to have a 12 million poly model when a 500 poly model potentially allows you to be just as artistic, especially when couple with colorful textures (that also aren't highly detailed, but emphasize the main details?). I see the masochistic approach to doing as much as you can think of with new technology every day... and in the long run, is it really worth it?

If anybody here in this thread is thinking of working on a side project of sorts, I'm game to lend my design experience and help along the way.

btw, there was an article valve posted a few days ago about their organizational structure... though i don't fully believe it... damned if i could find the link right now. if anyone is interested, i'll hunt it down.

[Castle]

But that's just the point you were making earlier. Does it really matter to have a 12 million poly model when a 500 poly model potentially allows you to be just as artistic, especially when couple with colorful textures (that also aren't highly detailed, but emphasize the main details?). I see the masochistic approach to doing as much as you can think of with new technology every day... and in the long run, is it really worth it?

Yes
Sorry if my last response was confusing before.

What you said is exactly how I feel on this topic. My last response was to recap though that there does appear to be a trade off, however small it may or may not be, it is still something to keep in mind. Not to say I think it is a cake walk to go with a WOW or TF2 look. It is much more likely to be easier to go that rout provided you have good art direction. See what I am saying?

Yeah you avoid the whole debacle of 12 million poly characters and massive teams. Asset creation would then be easier in general that much I can say. I personally feel that the pitfalls of doing realistic or over the top 12 million poly characters and high poly to low poly projections does suffer when compared to sitting down and situationally figuring out an art pipeline/direction that best suits the current team during preproduction.

That to except one standard for all developers teams and individuals is one of the biggest mistakes going these days. That it is masochistic to expect 10 people to make a game that follows the same art pipeline as gears of war and produce results that look similar or the same. Anyway I think I am talking in circles now. Sorry.. I am trying to over explain something that was made fairly clear from my first post. I am not trying to pull a 180 or anything.

1. Yes I think it is time to start backlashing a bit and being more apt to adopt different methods.
2. And yes I am personally unaware exactly what hurdles one must overcome to be successful with such methods for I have never really tried to do it myself. For example the stylized facial animations in TF2 might have actually been harder to pull off correctly than the ones found in Gears of war. So I do apologize that I must bite my tung before saying its ALL pie in the sky to do it this way rather than that way. The grass definitely looks greener in so many ways but I have yet to ever cross that fence.

Do you see what I am saying?
I hope I am explaining this correctly.

[Silicone_Milk]

Since we're talking about a stylized art direction now Im going to write about an art style I've had in mind for a while now.

I've been thinking about making a map in a noir style for quite a while now and I think the art style could be used for a side project.

Im thinking along the lines of:
http://lastscionz.deviantart.com/art/De ... n-56284529 - big gun. Stylized.
http://mary-chan.deviantart.com/art/Noir-2-56963689 - interesting art style. Slightly skewed architecture (lampost). Lots of smoke/steam/whatever you want to think it is.
http://ming85.deviantart.com/art/Lady-G ... c-69249991 - neat art for clothing.
http://damalia.deviantart.com/art/Film- ... y-39168193 - I like the lighting on this one. Cobblestones are nice too.
http://dtaranto.deviantart.com/art/film-noir-34522017 - again, more clothing.
http://fleshfetish.deviantart.com/art/f ... v-47258688 - accessories, hairstyle, makeup, clothing.

However, I want to avoid being like Max Payne which is what I think of when I think of film noir.
Despite that one thing, I think film noir could be stylized much how TF2 stylized their art style. (pseudo-realistic stylized art)

I'll work on writing down some ideas on lighting, coloring, architecture, costumes, and accessories as well as minor things like facial features and such. I think stylizing film noir in a certain way will give the project a unique feel while staying away from Max Payne-ism.

[wattro]

i think you might be jumping the gun, silicone. of course, I don't know what you have in mind... but thinking of the art style before the game is not the way to go.

castle, i totally agree and i wasn't confused by your response.

i have a total mmo game in mind, based on not pushing the technological art envelope and getting more bang for buck. if anyone wants details, let's talk somewhere. btw, i'm a big believer in right people for the right job... so if i am exclusive... that's why.

[ix-ir]

I'd agree with wattro, you're jumping the gun getting into discussions of style. Choose an engine, get a coder for the AI and single player support features you'll need then, preferrably do this as open source so there's a well-made and publically available setup for making single player for whatever engine (Q3 has significant benefits). Once you have the basics you're free to develop maps in styles that suits mappers (if you try to force one proscriptive style people will often get bored) and assets that are useful for all involved.

[Silicone_Milk]

I have already been brainstorming the game quite a bit since I've had a lot of free time lately.

Art style is again, another brainstorm that I had a whim to write here. As I thought about it last night I came to the conclusion that the art style couldnt fit the gameplay in the way I would want since things like physics wouldn't match up. Also there's a MP aspect to think about. The clothing in this particular artstyle would be hard to assign teams with without looking a little odd.

As for the game I'm seriously considering the Quake 3 engine though I am a little hesitant to create another q3 engine game (There's hundreds of them out there o_o)

If I seem a little all over the place in my latest posts it's because I'm a huge multitasker. I can't work on one thing at once. Usually I'll have several things I'm working on.

[ix-ir]

Well if you choose Q3 and at least support a baseq3 physics and perhaps CPM physics option we may be able to offer some level of CPMA feature support.

A good Q3 single player (and, frankly more importantly the tools for people to make their own levels) is sorely lacking. If you make one it'd easily be portable to Q0 as well.

[Castle]

You know one of the things I was joking about with my UT3 level was that I could save tons of space by making all of my textures black and white.

Though I don't know exactly how that would work with normal maps. Not only would they need to remain high res with intact color but I am not 100% sure how it would look on a black and white diffuse. Would be interesting to mess around with that a little.

[Silicone_Milk]

i have a total mmo game in mind, based on not pushing the technological art envelope and getting more bang for buck. if anyone wants details, let's talk somewhere. btw, i'm a big believer in right people for the right job... so if i am exclusive... that's why.

I want details

[wattro]

jump on IRC, q3wptm channel

[Eraser]

To be honest, sounds like a problem that mostly occurs with current day and scifi shooters. Play a game like Legend of Zelda (Twilight Princess) and you get a very distinct looking game. Same with the Metroid Prime games (even though they are scifi shooters). I do think there are plenty of unique looking games out there (Team Fortress 2 anyone?), but there's a tendency to make games that are built off a Tom Clancy or Quakeish Space Marine kind of template.

[seremtan]

lol @ all the people unwittingly tripped up by the word filter - "pirates of the southern chinese", "aliens" etc.

i agree with the point someone made about games not seeming like games. today i took delivery of an 8800GT so decided to give the farcry demo another go with the fx cranked up, and while it looked amazingly realistic, it really felt more like an interactive movie than a game, complete with cut-scenes and bendy ragdoll foliage. you can kinda see why no one will map/mod for it, same way no one mapped/modded for farcry: there's no 'imaginative space' left over for the mapper to play with as there is in, say, Q3, UT franchise up to UT2K4, TF2 or any of the HL2 franchise. that lack of space has 'MADE FOR CONSOLE TARDS' written all over it, and marks out games as unit-shifters rather than the focus for a community to build on

i don't have a problem with 'run around environment shooting bad guys with guns, since there's nothing wrong with the basic FPS premise, but it's amazing how such relatively modern innovations like full-blooded physics and giant outdoor areas are strangely underused. only the HL2 games make any serious use of physics as a gameplay feature, and non-linear outdoor environments haven't progressed since farcry (i mean in SP specifically)

on the gripe front: i'm sick and tired of games that try to use 'playing in semi darkness with only a flashlight' as a shortcut to awesome. yes, you made an engine that does dynamic lighting, well done