When will we learn?
polycounter lvl 18
http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/games/manifesto.html
20 things gamers want from the seventh generation of game consoles.
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In the desolate economic climate of post-apocalyptic 2006, I'm thinking that's going to be a lot of money. Now, it's true that at E3 Sony was boasting the Playstation 3 could crank out 1.8 TFLOPS, or 1.8 trillion FLOPS. If that many FLOPS were piled together they would fill the Grand Canyon, assuming each FLOP were the size of a muskrat. So what do gamers want from all that money and FLOP? Just ask them.
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20 things gamers want from the seventh generation of game consoles.
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In the desolate economic climate of post-apocalyptic 2006, I'm thinking that's going to be a lot of money. Now, it's true that at E3 Sony was boasting the Playstation 3 could crank out 1.8 TFLOPS, or 1.8 trillion FLOPS. If that many FLOPS were piled together they would fill the Grand Canyon, assuming each FLOP were the size of a muskrat. So what do gamers want from all that money and FLOP? Just ask them.
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Replies
I think it was PCZone magazine ran an article on crates in FPS games a while back. Quake 2 lost on the "Time to First Visible Crate" test.
Some of us actually like art style and gameplay over super-realism. Shit, if I could only jump a foot in Halo, and wouldn't be able to crouch before I hit the ground to avoid fall damage, that would ruin some of the fun, no matter how unrealistic it is.
r.
kinda reminds me of the "bad designer, no twinkie" articles over at gamasutra.
twinkie 1
twinkie 2
twinkie 3
twinkie 4
twinkie 5
r.
sonic: did you even read the article? you don't need photorealistic graphics to push immersion.
Example:
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Have you guys ever met a woman? Then why don't you try making just a few games that don't play off of a 14 year-old male's idea of womanhood on the apparent hope that he'll play the game one-handed?
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Everyone just wants money so damn soon, why can't they DNF their stuff that way we'll get innovative blockbusters when they're released! SMASHING IDEAS SON
The same thing pretty much happened in the SNES/NES days. We've got sub-standard platformers like Mr. Nutz, Mohawk and headphone jack, Plok (but plok is badass
though some of it I dont agree. He does make some good points that should be looked at versus called "BS" on our end.
Example:
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Have you guys ever met a woman? Then why don't you try making just a few games that don't play off of a 14 year-old male's idea of womanhood on the apparent hope that he'll play the game one-handed?
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Whats wrong with fantasy? Did hell open up and spew forth the spawn of Satin recently? Has the One Ring been found? If not then why is it so bad to want fantasy woman in a fantasy game?
I thought I played games because they werent real, because its not something Im likely to experience. If I wanted to see a plain woman, or a fat woman, or an ugly woman Id go outside (that's not meant as an insult, it's just kind of the way it is - I'm no movie star either).
And when did the average guy get a six pack, perfect pecs and a toned body? Yet I hear nothing of that.
Movies - same thing.
Anyway, someone posted this on another forum I visit and this was my reserved take on it:
A lot of what he complains about are necessary design/production choices and decisions.
- Poor AI? Not enough money to hire additional AI/better AI programmers.
- Hand of God? Not enough time/money to fill in all the blanks and/or not worth the time/money.
- Objectified Woman? Mass market appeal to primary demographic/not enough female gamers to make it worth projecting specifically to female demographic.
- New Genres? Risky.
- Adult Games? Risky unless they are ONLY adult games, its not worth being close out of major markets for some tits and ass.
- Better voiceovers? Again, more money.
On and on.
Unfortunately - for the most part - there are reasons why things like this happen. Simply put, most of the time, its about money and using it as wisely as possible.
Im not saying the concerns arent valid, they just arent real helpful.
Many of the points near the end are solid though.
m3rl1n pretty much just summed up what I had to say. Well put sir. Most of what this guy says is pretty standard stuff. He's hardly the first person to bring up the videogame crate phenomenon!
As m3rl1n says, there are very obvious answers as to why a lot of these things are the way they are.
Quick, let me forward this to Larry Probst and the rest of ea exec. Im sure they will listen and stop making Madden games immediately.
When will we learn? We have learnt. We know the score. But unfortunately we're not in control. I find the whole thing all a bit patronising to be honest. Like he's the only person that figured this stuff out.
And when did the average guy get a six pack, perfect pecs and a toned body? Yet I hear nothing of that.
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Because people like you love fantasy, like you said. Gamers aren't seen as fit. But where as men enhance their looks for games, they degrade women's. Take all the Unreal hunks, add 12 inch adrenaline enhanced penises, and see how you react. Now take a women, and ask her how she would love her fantasy body to look in a game. In fact, I'll ask my girlfriend. Beat that, I don't have to go outside. I gotta admit, I was impressed with Alyx. Valve done good.
Since when does Mario have a toned body? Dude's a plumber.
Yeah, why is it that The fucking Sims doesn't exist? Why are MMORPGs just an illusion created by drugs? Why didn't Nintendo announce they're bringing Nintendogs over here?
"You're playing Solitaire at work because you don't want to wait through the startup times"
No, because you can't just install random stuff on work machines. At home I've got an entire folder full of games that start in less than three seconds. Sure, none of them were on store shelves, they are FREE. When I want to waste five minutes I start Crimsonland, not Solitaire.
"No more invisible walls! Place actual walls there!"
Did you ever think that through? Would you really love to play only in narrow canyons? I certainly don't.
"Make AI smarter than humans!"
Yeah and make completely autonomous combat bots while we're at it. AI is a HUGE problem because you CAN'T do proper AI in a game. The human brain is more complex than your average gaming machine by a large number of magnitudes. All you can do is develop scripts for any situation you can think of and hope it combines well.
"Gimme new genre! An attorney game or something!"
Hell, can't you think of anything new? Attorney games have been done. Capcom has a pretty successful series of attorney games, even.
Not every idea you can think of is a new game or even fun to play. Getting money for a sex change? That's a plotline, not a game.
"Don't give me unbreakable wooden doors or crap like that!"
What age are you stuck in? Any D&D game allows you to force locks, for example. Just play games that have a more interactive world if you're annoyed by FPSes. Or do you secretly just want to blow up lots of enemies?
"Don't write stuff on the screen!"
Yeah, because we know how the player loves guessing his health and ammo, right?
The camera got WORSE from SM64 to SMS? Hell, I've cursed at the camera in SM64 at least twice as often as the one in SMS.
"Stop the short-sighted business bullshit!"
Except those moves aren't shortsighted. Unfortunately they aren't going to kill their parent companies, as much as we'd love that.
"Don't let other features distract from gaming!" "Put more effort into gameplay instead of graphics!"
Yeah, like the groups working on those features overlap... Right, everybody, drop the Wacom and start coding AI, the gamer demands it!
As for his rhetoric question on point 5: They'd feel cheated out of 50 bucks because that game has an average rating lower than Enter the Matrix. Women, like any other gamers, hate bad games. He should have used DoA there, at least the critics liked that.
if i want a realistic game, i play one like delta force: black hawk down. if i want a silly gun-blazing fun-fest, i play UT2004 or serious sam. there's always choices...
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And when did the average guy get a six pack, perfect pecs and a toned body? Yet I hear nothing of that.
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Because people like you love fantasy, like you said. Gamers aren't seen as fit. But where as men enhance their looks for games, they degrade women's. Take all the Unreal hunks, add 12 inch adrenaline enhanced penises, and see how you react. Now take a women, and ask her how she would love her fantasy body to look in a game. In fact, I'll ask my girlfriend. Beat that, I don't have to go outside. I gotta admit, I was impressed with Alyx. Valve done good.
Since when does Mario have a toned body? Dude's a plumber.
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I get the feeling that was supposed to sting a little - I think you might want to sharpen that rapier wit of yours, friend.
I didnt get the feeling, however, that the article was addressing games like Mario, it was referring to modern games, but since you brought it up: since when is the Princess sexy or outlandish? They were both portrayed as equally unremarkable individuals.
Its not about degrading woman, at least thats not what I assumed, its about creating woman that men find appealing i.e. sexy. I have yet to see a game degrade women, and my idea of a fantasy woman is not of a degrading nature.
I recall a conversation I was having in which someone pointed out that the female on the cover of Icewind Dale 2 was scantly clad, at which point I pointed out so was the male (riveting, I know).
Both characters were portrayed equally in a fantasy style which is what Ive seen in most - if not all - games.
Additionally I was not referring to the likes or dislikes of female gamers (Ive already made my point on the subject of why games are not geared toward the fairer sex - in mass, anyway) I was responding to the assumption that those who like fantasy woman (beautiful, fit, reveling cloths are examples of how they might be portrayed) in their games are automatically a 14 year old or a pervert, and how its hypocritical to make that assumption when we are playing fantasy games, and the males are being portrayed on equal ground.
And honestly I couldnt give a rats ass if my character was portrayed with a 12 inch dick or wore feathers in his ass; I play the game to play the game.
Ive played and enjoyed Tomb Raider and Im certainty not scarred for life because of it.
By the way: Thanks, Daz. My reaction was very much the same.
What did people like about Lara Croft, anyway? She's butt ugly!
Just my uninformed opinion.
As far as how women are portrayed in game, i understand that there aren't enough lady gamers to have much of an influence on the industry. My personal preference would be to see myself as a toned woman with six pack abs and a personality, instead of a waifer thin chick with DD breasts and an oozie. I'm not saying that i don't want my characters to have breasts. They are women after all. Sometimes there's no reason for them to be that large in game other than for them to be eye candy to guys. Similar to if you textured a codpiece to the front of the guys UT2004 uniforms. It would only draw attention, which is fine, but it has nothing to do with the game and therefore it's not necessary.
Is he correct about loading times and patents. That's unbelievable.
You know what I love. The bouncing boobs in SoulCaliburII. They spent time perfecting that, rather than hair animations and texture stretching. Kinda hard to play when you're laughing so hard.
Take all the Unreal hunks, add 12 inch adrenaline enhanced penises, and see how you react.
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I'll react by pulling my pants down and wanking off. Oh, dear lord, 12 inch cocks. Mmm.
Scott
-R
http://penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2005-05-30&res=l
All I can say is that Playboy: The Mansion was made by a female game designer.
[/ QUOTE ]You don't find many RL female players in SWG complaining about women-degradation either..
In fact, most of them are even more scantily clad than the "fake" women!
People just like being sexy and stylin' - GuildWars is a perfect example hereof...
Playboy: The Mansion was made by a female game designer.
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I'm led to believe no one actually "buys" that game. :P
I think too many people are taking that article way too seriously. Cant you guys just read something and laugh?
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NO!!! THERE IS NO HUMOR ON THE INTARWEB IT IS ALL NEWS AND POLEMICSS!!! CEASE YOUR WEAKNESS IN MY SIGHT!!! KILLALL ENEMIES!!!
Scott