Dvorak says computer gaming is dead

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Jim Strathmeyer wrote:
> motivation is to make a game that sells well, as opposed to making
good
> games.

The game can be good and sell a lot.

> Dvorak describes how FPS haven't really changed, and that they
> have nowhere to go once the graphics reach photorealism.

They never went anywhere. FPS is about shooting anything
Some people will always think that a game is "missing" something,
some better and sophisticated features. I guess that kind of
people never really enjoy playing games.

> Though statements such as 'gaming is dead' and 'nowhere to go'
> are inheritently false, it an interesting opinion.

It's interesting to see what happens to Xbox 2 and PS3 which both
are going to be expensive to produce because of the high tech,
not to forget that making games for them is going to be more
expensive too.
One way to get the $ is from online games. I guess they have
planned it that way, at least M$

> I feel that RPGs are the future of gaming, and don't think that
> graphics make a good game.

The people that buy games don't neccessarily share that opinion

 

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In article <1114784765.993553.60210@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
mail@guildgame.com says...
> Jim Strathmeyer wrote:

> > There's an article by John Dvorak about how computer gaming is dead:

It's dead for him, because he has grown bored with computer games. He
projects his own disenchantment onto the world at large.

- Gerry Quinn

 

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Krice wrote:
> Jim Strathmeyer wrote:

>>I feel that RPGs are the future of gaming, and don't think that
>>graphics make a good game.
>
>
> The people that buy games don't neccessarily share that opinion

I wonder how much of the current focus on hyperrealistic
graphics is driven by deals with hardware manufacturers.

I'm not really a paranoid conspiracy theorist; it's just
that no matter how cynical I get, I can't keep up with
the facts. 🙂

Lemmings was a *good* game. And those little guys were
what, five or six pixels tall? With solid colors, no
shading, and animation that consisted of about fifteen
different poses?

Sim City was a *good* game. It was a good game with
sixteen-color graphics and very little animation beyond
cars moving around on roads, sprite fires, and some
really cheezy and not-very-interactive monster-stomping.

There are more innovative, good games in our future; they
just won't be produced by the companies who want to repeat
the formulas instead of innovating.

And there are "classic" games already; Last night, I
played simulated klondike solitaire for an hour, and I
estimate that some folks will still be playing simulated
klondike solitaire, with graphics barely better than
those I used, fifty years from now.

The question is not whether gaming is dead; gaming will
go on forever, because people are people and people play
games. The question is whether the companies now producing
games can make money the way they've chosen to make money.

Bear

 

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Kornel Kisielewicz wrote:
> Raymond Martineau wrote:
> > I haven't used it personally, only peeked at some expansion books.

>
> ... if so, then how can you state the following:
> >
> > As with most point-based RPG systems, it's easy to tell which
combinatiosn
> > generally result in an ultra-powerful character, based on the ones
that say
> > that they should only be used with the GM's consent.
>
> ?

I'd presume he peeked at the expansion books and saw some comments
saying: "If you are doing this combination, make sure you talk with
your GM because he might consider it overpowered"

Having played GURPS systems, I wouldn't say his opinion is wrong. You
really need maturity and/or a good GM to make point based systems not
fall prey to hopeless metagaming and munchkinism.

> > Naturally, the GM
> > will create a combat munchkin that fights against "regular"
characters.
>
> Of course players will find ways to munchkin, but it's the GM's job
to
> keep them in line. And that's every system's rule. No P&P RPG system
is
> a self-player. But when the players are mature enough there is such
> problems. And it doesn't pose such stupid powerlevelling rules as DND
does.

When you write the computerized GM that can prevent players munchkining
in GenRogue, we can revisit this topic. For now, with the stupid
computer GMs that the likes of me write, we are better off with
stricter systems which explicitly prevent munchkinism (Or, channel it,
as in the case of D&D), rather than assuming the computer will have the
good sense to say: "I think that combination is overpowered..."
--
Jeff Lait
(POWDER: http://www.zincland.com/powder)

 

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On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 17:19:46 +0100, David Damerell wrote:

> Quoting Kornel Kisielewicz <kisielewicz@gazeta.pl>:
>>recall. Nothing changes in MMORPGs -- it's just the experience points
>>and level of your character.
>
> Apart from MMOs like Planetside and Puzzle Pirates that don't have
> levelling.
>
> The term "RPG" is particularly pernicious here. It was bad enough for
> single-player games that got called RPGs because they had sub-D&D
> mechanics; but then people decided to make MMO versions of those games,
> called them MMORPGs, and deduced from that that they must graft sub-D&D
> mechanics onto them.

I don't think the problem is in the mechanics themselves, it's that
visible game mechanics have become synonymous with "role-playing game"
[sic] for a number of people.

Diablo and its sequels/expansions/imitations are basically mouse-driven
action games with an element of resource management. Then there are
the genre-labelled FPS games in which the only "RPG" elements are a
half-bred fantasy theme and that you get bigger guns as you go on. From
what I hear, typical MMORPGs fall in somewhere between those two (to be
honest, I haven't tried any so I could very well be mistaken).

Not that you couldn't munchkinise any given CRPG, and people do, but the
trend seems to be to discourage role playing almost completely. Why does
there have to be visible, numeric stats for everything in the first place?
Why do the games so often progress so that the only way to keep up is to
keep optimising and re-optimising your equipment? Why impersonal, generic
dialogue? And so on... many similar problems are present even in what are
usually toted as the greatest achievements of the genre.

 

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Twisted One wrote:
> There's also time-period differentiation: futuristic (quake, doom);
> urban/present/near-future (half-life and half-life 2, far cry, james
> bond FPS games, others); fantasy medieval (heretic, hexen, etc.); WW II
> (Wolfenstein series)...

The only two recent FPS I realy enjoyed are Jedi Knight: Academy (but
this one doesn't count, I just like StarWars) and DeusEx (which was
great IMHO, but it had some RPG elements too). I wonder wether DeusEx II
is worth a try...
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl) [http://chaos.magma-net.pl]
"Invalid thought detected. Close all mental processes and
restart body."

 

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On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 09:04:35 -0500,
strathWHATEVERIGETENOUGHSPAMANYWAYS@ipass.net (Jim Strathmeyer) wrote:

>I find his opinion interesting (though he has nothing to do with the
>game industry) and agree with him on many points. I have a lot of
>problems with the current state of the game industry and feel that their
>motivation is to make a game that sells well, as opposed to making good
>games.

Hence "game industry" rather than "game-development hobby". It is
hardly the industry's fault if the way to improve sales is not to
create a better game. If the public begins to favor gameplay over the
latest graphics development, then game publishers will shift their
focus.

R. Dan Henry
danhenry@inreach.com
Idiot boy, when are you going to post something useful?
Or better yet, get a job and stop being a welfare bum?

 

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Twisted One wrote:
> Kornel Kisielewicz wrote:
>
>> I don't like DnD even as a tabletop game. I hate those leveling
>> mechanics that make one 50th level warrior take on hordes of 1st level
>> warriors, and be able to take an artillery shot "on the brest". I
>> think that such mechanics actually destroy roleplaying. I far much
>> prefere more balanced systems as GURPS...
>
> GURPS?
Generic Universal Roleplaying System -- entirely pint-driven, no levels.
And if reasonable, no powerlevelling. My system of choice for my P&P RPG
World of Shadows sessions...
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl) [http://chaos.magma-net.pl]
"Well, the philosophy of the World of Shadows is based on most of the
degenerate, immoral and foremost amoral philosophical beliefs of our
world exagarated to the maximum." --Anubis

 

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Kornel Kisielewicz wrote:

> Generic Universal Roleplaying System -- entirely pint-driven

LOL! Pint-driven? As in, it's a drinking game? ;-)

sherm--

--
Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net
Hire me! My resume: http://www.dot-app.org

 

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Raymond Martineau wrote:
> I haven't used it personally, only peeked at some expansion books.

.... if so, then how can you state the following:
>
> As with most point-based RPG systems, it's easy to tell which combinatiosn
> generally result in an ultra-powerful character, based on the ones that say
> that they should only be used with the GM's consent.

?

> Naturally, the GM
> will create a combat munchkin that fights against "regular" characters.

Of course players will find ways to munchkin, but it's the GM's job to
keep them in line. And that's every system's rule. No P&P RPG system is
a self-player. But when the players are mature enough there is such
problems. And it doesn't pose such stupid powerlevelling rules as DND does.
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl) [http://chaos.magma-net.pl]
"Well, the philosophy of the World of Shadows is based on most of the
degenerate, immoral and foremost amoral philosophical beliefs of our
world exagarated to the maximum." --Anubis

 

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On Sat, 30 Apr 2005 17:14:31 +0300, Aki Rossi <aki.rossi@iki.fi> wrote:

>
>
>Not that you couldn't munchkinise any given CRPG, and people do, but the
>trend seems to be to discourage role playing almost completely.

This is most likely because CRPGs focus on combat/tactical aspects rather
than roleplay aspects. I've noticed something very similar in the very
early Gold box games (Forgotten Realms series), where there was very little
roleplaying going on buy plenty of plotline elements.

This isn't too much of a problem for Roguelikes, which focus around combat.

>Why does
>there have to be visible, numeric stats for everything in the first place?

Most likely, it is out of tradition. In any case, it's not too much of a
problem unless you want to throw away stats entirely.

>Why do the games so often progress so that the only way to keep up is to
>keep optimising and re-optimising your equipment?

This is a problem with some roguelikes as well. In any case, the
optimization of equipment is based around the fact that there are only a
limited number of party memebers in the group. Either that, or there's an
Angband style of magical item generation (quantity).

But in any case, sticking with the ultra-best weaponry can easily have
disadvanages in a properly designed CRPG. For example, Arcanum chooses the
reputation route - if you max out your technological abilities, you will
have trouble buying magical items (as necessairy). There might also be a
problem with a primary objective in the late-game (having to do a side
quest or something special), but I'm not sure on that.

>Why impersonal, generic dialogue?

I suspect that it may take an excessive amount of writing to create
anything more. For something on the scale of Arcanum, the best you can get
is personalized generic messages that are used all over the place.

 

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Sherm Pendley wrote:
> Kornel Kisielewicz wrote:
>
>> Generic Universal Roleplaying System -- entirely pint-driven
>
>
> LOL! Pint-driven? As in, it's a drinking game? ;-)

"Point" of course, but the typo funny, indeed ;-)
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl) [http://chaos.magma-net.pl]
"Gott weiss, Ich will kein Engel sein..." -- Rammstein /Engel/

 

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Kornel Kisielewicz wrote:
> Generic Universal Roleplaying System -- entirely pint-driven, no levels.
> And if reasonable, no powerlevelling. My system of choice for my P&P RPG
> World of Shadows sessions...

Pint-driven? Do you mean skills and stats driven?

--
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Palladium? Trusted Computing? DRM? Microsoft? Sauron.
"One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them
One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them."

 

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R. Dan Henry wrote:
> On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 09:04:35 -0500,
> strathWHATEVERIGETENOUGHSPAMANYWAYS@ipass.net (Jim Strathmeyer) wrote:
>
>>I find his opinion interesting (though he has nothing to do with the
>>game industry) and agree with him on many points. I have a lot of
>>problems with the current state of the game industry and feel that their
>>motivation is to make a game that sells well, as opposed to making good
>>games.
>
> Hence "game industry" rather than "game-development hobby". It is
> hardly the industry's fault if the way to improve sales is not to
> create a better game. If the public begins to favor gameplay over the
> latest graphics development, then game publishers will shift their
> focus.

And then he attacked me without provocation.
How childish.

Will you stop with the random, senseless, and inflammatory insults already?!

--
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Palladium? Trusted Computing? DRM? Microsoft? Sauron.
"One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them
One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them."

 

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In article <d515dt$rod$1@inews.gazeta.pl>, kisielewicz@gazeta.pl
says...
> Sherm Pendley wrote:
> > Kornel Kisielewicz wrote:
> >
> >> Generic Universal Roleplaying System -- entirely pint-driven
> >
> >
> > LOL! Pint-driven? As in, it's a drinking game? ;-)
>
> "Point" of course, but the typo funny, indeed ;-)

I like it. You could use it for balancing in PvP - if you go up a
level or get good loot you have to take a drink...

- Gerry Quinn

 

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Jeff Lait wrote:
>>a self-player. But when the players are mature enough there is such
>>problems. And it doesn't pose such stupid powerlevelling rules as DND does.
>
> When you write the computerized GM that can prevent players munchkining
> in GenRogue, we can revisit this topic.

Okay, see you in a decade ;-).
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl) [http://chaos.magma-net.pl]
"Gott weiss, Ich will kein Engel sein..." -- Rammstein /Engel/

 

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Dnia Sat, 30 Apr 2005 16:28:39 GMT,
Ray Dillinger napisal(a):

> Krice wrote:
>> Jim Strathmeyer wrote:

>>>I feel that RPGs are the future of gaming, and don't think that
>>>graphics make a good game.
>> The people that buy games don't neccessarily share that opinion

> I wonder how much of the current focus on hyperrealistic
> graphics is driven by deals with hardware manufacturers.

You can have very good graphics without fotorealism.
You can have nice graphics without fotorealism.
You can have very good graphics without them being nice.

I personally prefer games with good _and_ nice graphics.
Photorealism is boring. Good graphics can take your breath away
but will quickly make you tired when it's not nice to look at
(well, not 'nice' as in 'sweet and colorful', Giger quilifies as 'nice'
too 😉 ). I personally don't like photorealistic graphics at all.

--
Radomir @**@_ Bee! .**._ .**._ .**._ .**._ zZ
`The Sheep' ('') 3 (..) 3 (..) 3 (..) 3 (--) 3
Dopieralski .vvVvVVVVVvVVVvVVVvVvVVvVvvVvVVVVVVvvVVvvVvvvvVVvVVvv.v.

 

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Gerry Quinn wrote:
> In article <d515dt$rod$1@inews.gazeta.pl>, kisielewicz@gazeta.pl
> says...
>
>>Sherm Pendley wrote:
>>
>>>Kornel Kisielewicz wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Generic Universal Roleplaying System -- entirely pint-driven
>>>
>>>
>>>LOL! Pint-driven? As in, it's a drinking game? ;-)
>>
>>"Point" of course, but the typo funny, indeed ;-)
>
>
> I like it. You could use it for balancing in PvP - if you go up a
> level or get good loot you have to take a drink...

This is like our special student's chess version -- which allows for
begginers to have fair chances against masters:

Each chess piece type is represented by a different 40ml glass. The
black pieces are filled with vodka and a drop of strong
cranberry-essence juice, the white ones are plain vodka. Each time a
player takes the piece of the opponent, he must drink it.

The master rule is also that if you spill any piece (the moved one or
one on the board -- you loose).

The funny thing is that master's of student's chess have sometimes
severe differently tactics then chess masters -- sometimes it's a good
tactical decision to let the opposing player take a couple of your pawns
right at the beginning.
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl) [http://chaos.magma-net.pl]
"Gott weiss, Ich will kein Engel sein..." -- Rammstein /Engel/

 

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Kornel Kisielewicz wrote:
> This is like our special student's chess version -- which allows for
> begginers to have fair chances against masters:
>
> Each chess piece type is represented by a different 40ml glass. The
> black pieces are filled with vodka and a drop of strong
> cranberry-essence juice, the white ones are plain vodka. Each time a
> player takes the piece of the opponent, he must drink it.
>
> The master rule is also that if you spill any piece (the moved one or
> one on the board -- you loose).
>
> The funny thing is that master's of student's chess have sometimes
> severe differently tactics then chess masters -- sometimes it's a good
> tactical decision to let the opposing player take a couple of your pawns
> right at the beginning.

Hrm.
Why not have different size glasses -- 5ml for a pawn, 60 for a queen,
and in between for the others.

--
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Palladium? Trusted Computing? DRM? Microsoft? Sauron.
"One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them
One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them."

 

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Twisted One wrote:
> Hrm.
> Why not have different size glasses -- 5ml for a pawn, 60 for a queen,
> and in between for the others.

Yeah, but that destroys the strategy -- you can sacrifice pawns for a
greater effect -- sacrificing anything other would be non-wise. Also, we
don't have different sized glasses

--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl) [http://chaos.magma-net.pl]
"Invalid thought detected. Close all mental processes and
restart body."

 

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R. Dan Henry wrote:
> On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 09:04:35 -0500,
> strathWHATEVERIGETENOUGHSPAMANYWAYS@ipass.net (Jim Strathmeyer) wrote:
>
>>I find his opinion interesting (though he has nothing to do with the
>>game industry) and agree with him on many points. I have a lot of
>>problems with the current state of the game industry and feel that their
>>motivation is to make a game that sells well, as opposed to making good
>>games.
>
> Hence "game industry" rather than "game-development hobby". It is
> hardly the industry's fault if the way to improve sales is not to
> create a better game. If the public begins to favor gameplay over the
> latest graphics development, then game publishers will shift their
> focus.

Yes and Dvorak softens to just predict a downturn in
the industry which is not an astounding leap and
could be said about any industry given enough time.
It also fails to acknowledge the growth of the video
game industry versus the film and music industries.

The article is hyped up to gather more attention,
which has worked, and quite honestly demonstrates
Dvorak has no real love of modern computer games
anyway - this contributes to a lack of insight but
perhaps allows more objectivity. Something that
cannot be said about the 3D-Realms forum!

He also uses that stale bug-bear of "when we reach
total realism" which has been used since the 1990s!
Perhaps earlier...

--
ABCGi ---- (abcgi@yahoo.com) ---- http://codemonkey.sunsite.dk
Fun RLs in rgrd that I have tested recently!
DoomRL - DwellerMobile - HWorld - AburaTan - DiabloBand
Heroic Adventure - Tower of Doom - Tendrils - TheTombs

 

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On 2005-05-01, ABCGi <abcgi@yahoo.com> wrote:
> He also uses that stale bug-bear of "when we reach
> total realism" which has been used since the 1990s!
> Perhaps earlier...

Games probably won't reach total photorealism anytime soon. Instead,
efforts to make games look even more realistic will face increasingly
diminishing returns. The effect of doubling the amount of visual assets
in the game will diminish the closer games get to real photorealism, and
at some point it will simply be too expensive to improve the visuals.

A more tricky problem is that graphics that are almost but not quite
photorealistic can actually be worse than clearly stylized graphics. It
never bothered me in the original Doom that all the sprites were
identical, but when I saw a screenshot of Doom 3 with two fat zombies,
it struck me as quite odd that these two creatures had completely
identical claw marks on their chests. When the game looks more like the
real world, you also start expecting it is more like the real world, and
the severe limits every game has become more annoying.

--
Risto Saarelma

 

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Risto Saarelma wrote:
> On 2005-05-01, ABCGi <abcgi@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>He also uses that stale bug-bear of "when we reach
>>total realism" which has been used since the 1990s!
>>Perhaps earlier...
>
>
> Games probably won't reach total photorealism anytime soon. Instead,
> efforts to make games look even more realistic will face increasingly
> diminishing returns. The effect of doubling the amount of visual assets
> in the game will diminish the closer games get to real photorealism, and
> at some point it will simply be too expensive to improve the visuals.
>
> A more tricky problem is that graphics that are almost but not quite
> photorealistic can actually be worse than clearly stylized graphics. It
> never bothered me in the original Doom that all the sprites were
> identical, but when I saw a screenshot of Doom 3 with two fat zombies,
> it struck me as quite odd that these two creatures had completely
> identical claw marks on their chests. When the game looks more like the
> real world, you also start expecting it is more like the real world, and
> the severe limits every game has become more annoying.
>

Not to mention the "Uncanny Valley" (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley ) that appears when
photorealism is sufficiently approached. Of course, this effect applies
mostly to real-world entities such as robots, but game and movie
graphics are also affected by it to some degree.

 

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Elethiomel (kkkk@lllllll.mmmm) wrote:
> Risto Saarelma wrote:

> > A more tricky problem is that graphics that are almost but not quite
> > photorealistic can actually be worse than clearly stylized graphics. It
> > never bothered me in the original Doom that all the sprites were
> > identical, but when I saw a screenshot of Doom 3 with two fat zombies,
> > it struck me as quite odd that these two creatures had completely
> > identical claw marks on their chests. When the game looks more like the
> > real world, you also start expecting it is more like the real world, and
> > the severe limits every game has become more annoying.
> >
>
> Not to mention the "Uncanny Valley" (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley ) that appears when
> photorealism is sufficiently approached. Of course, this effect applies
> mostly to real-world entities such as robots, but game and movie
> graphics are also affected by it to some degree.

I'd say the (unproven) theory applies more to computer graphics than
real-world robots, considering the almost total lack of real-world
robots it could apply to.

--
JTJ | http://www.kolumbus.fi/j.julkunen/
"As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the
demand."
--Josh Billings

 

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The Sheep wrote:
> You can have very good graphics without fotorealism.
> You can have nice graphics without fotorealism.
> You can have very good graphics without them being nice.

IMHO the best graphics in a game are in Frontier: First Encounters. Of
course most modern game-players would disagree with me. But no game
shocked me so much graphics-wise as Frontier did.
--
At your service,
Kornel Kisielewicz (charonATmagma-net.pl) [http://chaos.magma-net.pl]
"Well, the philosophy of the World of Shadows is based on most of the
degenerate, immoral and foremost amoral philosophical beliefs of our
world exagarated to the maximum." --Anubis