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Omnipresent omnicide

Maitrek · 2000-09-15T11:09:28

Wow - long time I''ve ever had something to actually post (bitch) about. Let''s start from the beginning (wow - what an idea) In many genres in computer games, I''ve noticed that there is something of a focus on destruction and pillaging. It''s not that I wasn''t a big fan of this when it first came out. Many hours I spent venting my frustration at being a lonely nerd by killing demons in Doom. In fact, without this I probably would''ve hurt my brother (more) due to lack of anything to do. First Person Perspective (and most evil First Person Shooter) has long been used for basically hurting things and trying to demolish anything and anyone, if I could''ve pasted some of my high school teachers faces into the game it was even better. This trend in usage of good technology (to average means) stemmed from the success of one game, made by one team of individuals, who knew what intense action gaming should consist of. Then came clone after clone of the same thing, by a bunch of individuals who thought the first one sold really well and wanted to be loved by a bunch of lonely frustrated geeks just as much, and also get a shatload of money. At first the gaming community hated and ignored this blatant crap, but soon we had bent under the weight of mass commercialism and a new breed of gamers (generation) had come in and started buying this and claiming they were the best games of all time. This annoyed me because not only were these people massively vocal about how much they liked killing things (very disturbing) but also it brought money to the industry, which I think was a big mistake. All you game producers out there, get stuffed -> you''ve crushed the creative breathe out of the industry and silenced the voice of many devoted game developers that have been there from the beginning -> good on ya (stupid bloody morons). Sorry - that was the Australian in me bursting out there. it won''t happen again. Role Playing Games were, at the base of it, hack-fests. Sure there were NPCs that you could talk to, and that''s about _all_ else you did other than kill stuff. It was kill this, then talk to this about having killed that and get something from it. It didn''t matter what you killed, be it human, beast or gerbil. Just as long as someone that was "good" wanted it dead. And there were plenty of things that needed to be dead, so many things, that a person could spend 24 hours killing things and occasionally talking to NPCs about it, or as in the ultima series, spend 20 hours talking and 4 hours killing, and then come to some kind of game conclusion. Basically, there was so much to be dead that a game could be based around it. Very original guys. If you rearrange the letters in "strategy" you get - "Get Artsy" which has nothing to do with anything (treasure that moment, it''s the only time I''ll smile in this post). Strategy games could be broken into two types. One was -> dominate everyone else just because it''s a violence based challenge (what a lifestyle to lead, I wish I was a destructive human and I could justify the wholesale slaughter of imaginary people because I thought I was right and they were wrong) and the other was -> dominate everyone else because it''s an econimical challenge (gee - not much difference here at all). The basic idea -> make something bigger than someone else and slap ''em with it. This is basically killing for those who like to justify their needs for credentials without looking either violent or petty. I''m not for a second bashing any players of these kind of games. We are all alike, and we''d be stupid to kid ourselves into thinking that we aren''t just doing this because of simple gratification of our imaginary lives (all you hardcore FPS players are equally as "sad" as the strategy gamers or the role-players that hang around the library and the physics lab in high school). It''s unfortunate that us game developers have made little or no effort to pull the industry out of it''s rut. Our game design idealogies haven''t changed for twenty years, we are still recommending books that were written ten fifteen years ago, not only bcause the people that wrote them at the time really knew what they were doing, but also because we haven''t managed to innovate at all due to the massive creativity leak that occured about 5 years ago. Think about it, have we done anything new in the past five years of making games? All we have done is make cosmetic changes to old framework. Making something look better than it is, when we could be making something better than it really looks. There''s been little in the realm of developing in the game industry compared to game making. We are all just talking alot of expensive, profitable, yet useless, hot-air. There is alot more to explore than violence and competition. RPGs, RTSs and FPP games all need a splash of water in the face. What about a first person game where the objective is to investigate some sort of disaster that has global implications - there is little hope for the RTS genre, this is from the basic sin of human greed and desire to conquer, there is nothing to be got from that (as a point of note, I dislike most strategy gamers in real life - this may be a reflection on their dominant personalities because I don''t like people trying to step on me and use me like a tool). RPGs have long supposed to be something interesting where you can explore fantasies and play out someone in a different world, these have always fallen short in assuming that the someone that u play wants to go out and kill things to achieve stuff -> not the case, if only I could bloody well play an RPG where I didn''t have to kill but I had to use some skill and intellect in order to solve some conflict of any sort, for instance, the impending doom of mankind due to it''s self-destructive nature. Erg - brainwave, RTS have always been RPGs on a larger scale, similar idea could apply. What about having to save humanity by succesfully colonising another planet and this time the success parameters will be based on how much you don''t have to resort to destroying everything around you. I say it''s time to look at the different types of conflict and experiement with other kinds, other than just external conflict with other beings. Looks an internal conflict and environmental cause I''ve f**king bored of the other one. We are only covering 1/3 of the possible types of fulfilling gameplay here as it''s something basic about human nature is to solve conflict and be the hero. This step forward needs alot more creativity from the game developers and it''s time that we justify our pay cheques, it''s getting rather ridiculous. Stuff what the publishers thinks, or what could be a viable product - make a viable game and think outside the violent loop. Man - this whole post seems to come across as one big load of bird crap which will eventually fossilise and be used to create super-phosphates to fertilise plants. I guess it takes some crap to get something to grow then!

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by Maitrek September 09, 2000 10:48 PM

24 comments, last by Maitrek 23 years, 9 months ago

Redleaf

219

September 11, 2000 10:03 AM

Whoah, was that Landfish up there implying that he''s Einstein?

Langman

122

September 11, 2000 05:31 PM

The use of violence in video games and especially FPS, has always just been about laziness. The game designers, if we can call them that, couldn''t see past Doom or Quake and just made their games more violent with more weaponry.

When I design my games, the violence side has always been the thing I think of last. I design the characters, the gameworld, the game mechanics, etc, beforehand. Killing things is unfortunately crowd pleasing and when dealing with publishers, it is hard to do anything outwith the norm.

In one of my (unimplemented) designs, the violence exists only in certain key sections and then only against people who are truly evil. You don''t even have to kill them, it is an open ended game. If you take a situation where a loved one is in danger, wouldn''t you be predisposed to violence to resolve the situation? It is this nature that I am trying to capture effectively. I want a game where I can be the perfect human or the most violent git I can but be rewarded and punished accordingly.

To know recursion, first you must know recursion.

Maitrek

122

Author

September 13, 2000 03:33 AM

Why not explore themes that are seen in films. I mean we are doing action films to death here in game design, but what about things like horror, or thirllers or something where the player is not exploring something of a hunter syndrome but where the suffer a hunted feeling, like more or less horrifying the player, or twisting the psychology of the character they play in order to make the player disgusted or something and then see how the player can control the character and make the character react.

I dunno.

Paul Cunningham

122

September 13, 2000 10:44 AM

Sorry Maitrek, i don''t want to mess up your thread here but in reply quickly to what was responded from my previous post... if you think about what i said you''ll understand better what people are really saying when they talk about working under "weak managment and/or direction"

I just had to finish this off

quote: By Maitrek
.Why not explore themes that are seen in films. I mean we are doing action films to death here in game design, but what about things like horror, or thirllers or something where the player is not exploring something of a hunter syndrome but where the suffer a hunted feeling, like more or less horrifying the player, or twisting the psychology of the character they play in order to make the player disgusted or something and then see how the player can control the character and make the character react.

Remember the old classic shows like "Get Smart" "Dr Who" "Time tunnel" "Lost in Space". Why not make theme''s for games like these old time tv shows had for theme and storyboard. That''d be great i think. I''d personally love to do a "Get Smart" type of rpg taken from a playability of games like "GTA" or "Quake".

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!

Maitrek

122

Author

September 13, 2000 09:14 PM

It''s not totally destroying the thread, it''s just we need to start raising the average imaginatative IQ of a game designer. Sure, we could add in scripts and hollywood writers to the game, but fundamentally that''s not going to change what the game''s action is based on.

Until we change the means in which a game entertains there is going to be no room for script improvement to have any effect. This is my fundamental problem, the term game has really become synonymous with "aggressive outlet", which I think leaves little room for a plot or storyline anyway (this is kinda off topic and concerning the threads lately about how imperitive it is we get writers in to make games better).

I''m sorry writers, you can''t fix it. At the moment we haven''t even got the GAME designing pipeline flexible enough to accomodate for addiotional elements to be put into the game. I''m also utterly appaled at what Blizzard have decided to do with Warcraft III. Instead of practically inventing a genre and creating something new for the gaming community, they have gone with the old tried and true method. Who here thinks that their new approach is going to allow for any advances in the game designing process, or even allow for as strong character based experience? It''s crap, it''s sad to see a big game developer get pushed around by marketing forces *AGAIN*.

I hope they get an even colder reception than Tiberian Sun, from reviewers and gamers alike.

Paul Cunningham

122

September 15, 2000 11:09 AM

I wouldn''t exactly call Dr Who a hollywood type of production. I think there a lot to be learnt from some of these show in relation to what you''re talking about.

I love Game Design and it loves me back.

Our Goal is "Fun"!