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| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=16406 |  xts (26) Jul 10, 2007 - 05:53 pm
| » Here here! Your comment should be added to the article, if not have its own article.
I couldn't have said it better myself, game development is running up against their crudeness of their tools. Publishers really need to sock their profits into tool research and development. The tools to make modern games are pretty crude, cumbersome and enormously time consuming.
At some point (in the far off future) AI like alogorithms will be able to generate content and at that point things will change drastically. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=16406 | xts (26) Jul 10, 2007 - 05:14 pm
| » Ideas aren't hard to come up with? I call BS...
Nonsense, good idea's are hard to come up with, it's the lack of SPECIFICS in a persons idea that cause the people translating them to go off course (assuming you didn't hire a bunch of unskilled idiots). The fact is game development has real constraints.
The biggest problems for developers is that gasme development became too expensive too fast and the market of game buyers (generally speaking) hasn't increased for original works. Original works do not have the same chance to be "seeded" with astronomical costs, the cost of success is being able to tolerate failure. Failure should be a planned part of the business cycle of games its just that the costs are out of control. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=14901 | xts (26) Apr 03, 2007 - 02:52 pm
| » Man... iD has lost touch with gamers everywhere.
The Quake series has to be the worst series to base a game around. Quake 1 sucked, Quake 2 was better but still sucked compared to any other FPS , the only saving grace was its multiplayer... Quake 3... They finally realize quake is about the multiplayer. Quake 4 - Return to the land of FPS gayness, with a hybrid between Doom 3 and the Quake universes, the game felt strangely weird.
Finally Quake wars... if we hadn't had enough "QUAKE(TM)" already shoved down are throats the corporate asshats wonder why we don't buy their games. Quake singleplayer = The suck!!! Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/19453/317 | xts (26) Apr 03, 2007 - 02:24 pm
| » Allegiance .... is nothing compared to Freespace 2
There are many reasons why allegiance failed but one of them is the inherent complexity and also inherent nerdyness of space games.
Freespace 1 and 2 are probably the best space games ever made in existence, the rest don't understand the action oriented gameplay mechanics necessary for a space game.
Things like Navigation and trade are boring as hell in most space games. You need to find activities that are actually fun for the end user and implement them. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/18766/355 | xts (26) Mar 23, 2007 - 12:49 pm
| » Powerful words but...
Firingsquad is a gaming site, what does this have to do with gaming or hardware? Forgive me for saying so, It's a good piece but it seems out of place. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61942/277 | xts (26) Mar 16, 2007 - 09:39 pm
| » Poorly chosen games to test...
You need to pick games with the largest load times... by far these are:
Far Cry
Doom 3
and some others I can't name right now. But doom 3 has to take the cake. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Shout Box Link » /matrix/user.asp/61804 | xts (26) Mar 16, 2007 - 09:27 pm
| » Dear dave....
I was being serious, I made a comment on her MMO article and she thought it was a good idea! I just haven't been around a lot, and see if she still remembered and was interested... haha. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=14677 | xts (26) Mar 16, 2007 - 07:42 pm
| » Don't excuse a crappy product...
Man it's a sad day when you find yourself defending a companies product for it's flaws when you are PAYING MONEY FOR THE DAMN THING.
Look, as a TV TUNER and TV replacement device it should behave like a TV would with all devices connected to it. Anything less means that ATI and other tuner companies are not serious about satisfying their customers. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=14681 | xts (26) Mar 15, 2007 - 10:38 pm
| » Uhh foggy memory?
A 1.6Ghz gateway computer in 1995? What are you kidding me? The pentium 90mhz or 100mhz was released about that time. Man your memory must be really horrible. Hell the voodoo 3 only came out around end of 98-99, and that was when P2's and P3's were all the rage. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Shout Box Link » /matrix/user.asp/61804 | xts (26) Mar 15, 2007 - 10:20 pm » Edited on Mar 20, 2007 - 10:19 pm
| » Yo kess...
If interested, let me know so then we can chat and see if we can't talk about putting together an article on why games are fun and what elements are. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=14677 | xts (26) Mar 15, 2007 - 08:15 pm
| » This product is crap.... there is LAG delay on audio and video
Note: I own this product.
The review does not mention that there is SEVERE lag time on audio and video data in real time. Try hooking up a gamecube or PS2 to the wonder and watch in disbelief at the enormous amount of lag using ATI's crapware multimedia center. This product could have been amazing, but the image delay-lag kills it. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/29529/230 | xts (26) Mar 06, 2007 - 06:10 pm » Edited on Mar 06, 2007 - 06:27 pm
| » Hey...
Well thet certainly aren't paying you enough, this site needs major work. Way too much flash adds and other garbage. Not to mention the enormous page load times. Thanks for the 10% lol. I was wondering when someone from FS would notice.
Next of course is the god awful interface for the contest, it's not TOO convoluted or anything. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61804/153 | xts (26) Mar 03, 2007 - 08:15 pm
| » And while we're at it..
We'll do a full page satire on the horrible interface of FS and the whole contest... my god... I feel less human every time I come here, lol. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61942/132 | xts (26) Mar 03, 2007 - 06:17 pm
| » Thanks for the courteous response!
Well its nice to see you saw my post as reactionary (smart guy)... but
"2) You've invested enormous amounts of time into learning the controls. Nice job - happy for ya. :) "
This is the whole point, take a game like Street fighter 2, soul calibur or Hell even super smash brothers melee at some point its not "gaming" (you controlling the character and "being in" the game). It's you watching a robotically programmed avatar walk around the map while you navigate and type "omg look at how awesome I am!"
Seriously, check out classics and under-rated games like Gradius V or Ikaruga, they are quick but immensely challenging. If you tried to dumb down those games the would CEASE being games and become passive animated crap.
I play games to BE INVOLVED, not be taken away back to passive movie land. Games are like roller coaster rides, making them less and less like that and turning them into movies is what is wrong with RPG's currently like FF12, I felt like I wasn't playing a game but merely navigating and letting the 'computer play for me' no skill, no choice involved, just select the rules you want and the computer will do it for you. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61804/153 | xts (26) Mar 03, 2007 - 09:58 am
| » Actually... some comments and an idea!
I know I am right in regard to the engineering nightmare I'm talking about, I do programming. And no its not all kept on your computer.
You said:
"As for WoW becoming boring... Well, after doing the same type of quest and killing essentially the same creature for 60 (I say 60 because 60-70 is actually fun) levels."
Well, I have a great idea, I always loved trying to decompose what parts of games are fun for different people and then try to come up with a table and understand why those things are fun, like an explanation of fun. Most people don't have the introspective power to describe the how's and why's beyond "it just is" but from speaking to you might want to give it a try, I think it would make a great article. Maybe join together with some people in other clusters. I know I'd write it together with you about what elements are fun for me in games. Doing a comparison to better understand one another as gamers would be pretty cool. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61942/132 | xts (26) Mar 02, 2007 - 07:03 pm
| » A problem with your time, not games.
I'll have to say that I don't think the problem has ever really been with the gaming interface, sure interfaces can get better, but gaming is, in its own way fundamentally deep down... A SPORT, with a wheel, gamepad, the Wii controller, or what have you.
If you really want to play "old man games" that have no skill or twitch component, go play the plethora of MMO's, they are MADE JUST FOR YOU. The fool who has no skill to save his life and says "make games so unchallenging and pathetically simple that they are not games anymore"
Sorry but game companies have been BUTCHERING gameplay left right in center in some genre's like RPG's (Final fantasy 9,10, 10-2, 11 and 12 all come to mind).
Lastly I don't think you deserve to be called a gamer, if you can only get one hour a week in and want to play "serious" games, sorry, but go back to playing Puzzle penguin or indy games. You have an issue with game design, go make your own FPS or invest in a game dev company.
I would hate to see beautiful masterpieces like Tales of symphonia dumbed down for the common idiotic fodther (get it? :P).
The truth is as an adult just either 1) Make more time for games or 2) Find simpler games. It's not anyones place to give you more time to play games. You married the wife, you had the kids... you sacrificed your time. Don't take the fun away from what makes games great.
The choices you have to make, and the challenges that arise from them. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/62486/138 | xts (26) Mar 02, 2007 - 06:49 pm » Edited on Mar 02, 2007 - 06:51 pm
| » Interesting read but nowhere near a serious treatment...
You make valid points but you have no clue how complicated computer design is, next the market for PC's is one of the stingiest of all from a cost standpoint and the costs of scientific instrumentation and fabs to design these computational monsters with "victorian era tech" for computational godhood are enormous.
You can't have both a desire for more speed and power to process data and at the same time want a smaller PC case, less heat and noise. The cutting edge will always be "encaged" in the box until the scientific tools and fundamental research is there to make the next leap in cost reduction and manufacturing efficiency beyond the grey box.
Its fundamentally a very complicated scientific issue and you mock the thousands of PHD's that spend every waking moment designing this so you can play faster games and pwn noobs.
It's one thing to criticize PC design, its another to do it from an educated angle. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61804/153 | xts (26) Mar 02, 2007 - 06:38 pm
| » Valid points but your article...
... shows a misunderstanding of just how complicated it is to make games on current technology. Especially MMO games that have to deal with network latencies. It is an enormous engineering undertaking to make these "simple games" the reason they are kept simple is simply due to cost and limits on computational power. I can only imagine the bandwidth, computational, and patch nightmare if they ever had truly "compelling" sentient computer controlled NPC's that are at least socially intelligent enough and engaging as some real people.
Next, ANY activity performed for a prolonged period of time is going to wear you thin. Imagine going swimming everyday at the beach for years on end or clubbing every other night, or whatever. Any leisure activity can become boring. It's called the law of diminishing returns.
Lastly you expect too much from games not knowing the vast engineering involved, if games are boring you, find better ways to use your time. Or find smaller more self contained games that do not require an enormous time commitment, there are lots of great "small" games out there that we haven't discovered yet. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61679/105 | xts (26) Mar 02, 2007 - 06:22 pm
| » Good point...
You make a point but I think you missed that I wasn't meaning to use zelda as a specific example, I just pulled it out of the hat. I could have used Final fantasy 1 or any number of established games (like Doom) etc, that at some point had to START off not being "huge success", many early games were "huge successes" because the cost to develop them were not astronomical.
Game console manufacturers and game developers are to blame, not gamers. I've bought as many games as possible that I deem worthy of supporting the industry. I have roughly 10 or so gamecube games. I bought FZero GX on the first day of release, and many others like Ikaruga, Tales of Symphonia, etc to show my support that I'm behind the games because I know as an adult they will fade away if someone doesn't keep the money flowing and show them that the market does exist, just not the size to sustain hugely inflated development budgest that the game industry created for itself, it's their problem, they put themselves there.
Gamers do not control what goes on in these companies, the people and their vision do. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61831/198 | xts (26) Mar 02, 2007 - 05:21 pm
| » A little bit of Hypocrisy... I sense here.
The truth is game developers design competitive games and they know how male ego's and adrenaline work because THEY TOO are GUYS. If they want a "competitive" game that wont foster such behaviour they have to award points for things other then kills and dominating the opponent. The truth is what a player is rewarded for doing and scores him "the winning points" he will do. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61679/105 | xts (26) Feb 14, 2007 - 10:53 am » Edited on Feb 14, 2007 - 11:01 am
| » It's not gamers... It's the industries desire for growth that is the problem
It is not gamers that are the problem, it's the industry itself. The industry broke the development financial model by increasing the hardware specs too often, in short console makers are really to blame unfortunately, and developers are too for not thumbing their noses at new consoles and developing for old ones.
Games like God of War and God of war 2 on the PS2 still rule, you can't tell me those game's aren't fun.
Next the high game development costs the industry brought on themselves, gamers had nothing to do with it. They are the ones that said "game must be X and have super X graphics". Not us, we don't control the money of these companies or their spending.
Lastly the hardcore gaming demographic hasn't expanded. To be a hardcore gamer you have to commit a lot of time. There are just too many factors.. like 1) Too many games, and other industry bullshit. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61679/105 | xts (26) Feb 14, 2007 - 10:49 am » Edited on Feb 14, 2007 - 10:56 am
| » Good article... but misses the point
It's a good article but just because people BUY these games in huge numbers doesn't mean a lot really other then the fact that the industry has made their own development costs so high they can no longer SEED and slowly grow a franchise, think about Zelda for a minute, at some point Zelda had to be created from scratch and GROWN into the franchise it is today.
The big problem is not that original games CAN'T sell, it's that they can't make enough money for the publishers due to the COST of game development versus smaller (initial) sales numbers while seeding the franchise (i.e. beginning it small).
People forget all these franchises started off REALLY small, they were not all instant hits. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61594/81 | xts (26) Feb 09, 2007 - 04:24 pm
| » The problem is rehashes without redesigning gameplay
The truth is gamers have stopped buying games that innovate, and what is now produced is mass market crap, basically. Games are becoming too geared towards non-gamers in an attempt to maximimize profits, and hence they spend enormous amounts on graphics.
Lastly its way too expensive to experiment with gameplay innovation from a publisher standpoint because games cost way too much to make now...
But game developers and publishers, let console makers let the quest for high fidelity graphics get out of control.
It's like when you eat way too much candy or chocolate, at first it tastes good, but as you keep eating you get sick of it.
I think the real truth is, when you played with gamers, you played with other people who truly had a passion for what gaming is --- YOU and the GAME...
There are games with pure gameplay like Gradius V, Ikaruga, no one buys and then there are other pure games like Quake, Descent, etc... there was little between you and the game, and that is what made it such an enormously visceral experience.
I think a lot has been lost on game devs focusing too much on graphics and not enough on intense feelings and gameplay flow that sucked as all in as we got sucked into that Zen like world, where hours and days would pass before you knew it. Flag this | Edit this post |
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