Nameless Voice on 13/12/2015 at 02:15
Quote Posted by GMDX Dev
Good call, but I left it out because BS had the oil spills, wire traps, security systems and such, although they could be used more to the benefit of the player than the enemies.
That's not what I meant by environmental challenges, though.
I meant things like jumping, climbing, mantling, navigating moving terrain, navigating vertical terrain, avoiding dangerous terrain, things like lava, bottomless pits, etc. That may also have been what you meant by "platforming".
L4D is mainly noteworthy because it was one of the first really mainstream co-op only games. The gameplay itself is... fine, but not superbly amazing.
Quote Posted by GMDX Dev
Also, Dark Messiah was originally meant to be Arx Fatalis 2, so presumably a hardcore FP Immersive Sim (which I would have much preferred, love Arx), but it turned into an action RPG-lite as a result of publisher contract supposedly. Still a good game, but if it was earlier times maybe an Arx 2 would have been permitted. Probably not though as Arx was yet another Im Sim that sadly bombed, yet EA gave SS2 the go ahead...
I really must replay Arx Fatalis. I remember it having an interesting setting, some nice immersive mechanics (it was the first game I played with body awareness, which I am a fan of), but also being incredibly clunky and very short. It had a lot of nice things, but overall I don't recall the actual gameplay being particularly good.
Malf on 13/12/2015 at 02:19
So wait, now you're saying having the ability to turn that stuff off is good?
Quote Posted by GMDX Dev
It doesn't work that way. Games used to be designed around the use of no objective markers through intuition, subtle hints, journals, auto-fill maps and such.
Turning off objective markers in a lot of modern games simply doesn't work because the games aren't designed to this old standard.
GMDX Dev on 13/12/2015 at 02:23
Arx Fatalis is an exceptional game. It really doesn't get the credit it deserves. It isn't clunky, it just doesn't ease you into the complex controls very well and the learning process feels clunky as a result. Jumping feels very off too but other than that it is solid. It really nails the Looking Glass way.
Some things that set it apart as an Immersive Sim are: clever improvements to the "Use Mode" & general interactivity of SS2, hardcore puzzles, I love the innovative magic system, and the atmosphere perhaps trumps even Thief & SS2. The gameplay qualifies by my standards. Sadly though, yes, it is too short which is a damn shame.
Quote:
L4D is mainly noteworthy because it was one of the first really mainstream co-op only games
That doesn't make it noteworthy as anything except a product of business though ;)
There was a shitload of co-op games beforehand, but mostly console-exclusive. Halo was a very mainstream one although I don't give that any credit at all.
Edit: co-op ONLY. I see.
Quote Posted by Malf
So wait, now you're saying having the ability to turn that stuff off is good?
Optional loot we are talking about here. Loot that is scattered about
everywhere in relatively simplistic level design. You simply cannot get lost/not have a clue wtf you are meant to do...unless you turn off objective markers anyway, which I did not recommend doing.
In very big open world games objective markers are very reasonable, though still not a necessity if they were to be designed to the old standards. All optional loot and such marked on your map is not reasonable at all.
Dev_Anj on 13/12/2015 at 03:13
Froghawk, I know quite a few people who don't like the music of those three musicians you mentioned, so they aren't going to think it's art. Art is not as objective as you're appearing to treat it. Also the average music listener is not going to care that a person experiments with texture or uses all the keys, they're just going to note that it has a fresh sound and will try to find if the sound matches their tastes or not.
I never said that an artist shouldn't try to bring something new, they always should. However, I thought you kept insisting on innovation and innovation alone as important for art, when art is very complex and has many facades no matter which medium you choose. Innovation within the standards of a certain age is always possible and artists should aspire for it.
I also remind you that theoretical standards are not the be all of measuring art, be it games, music, film or what have you. They are merely theory that tries to condense art into facades to study what makes it appealing to people, and while they're useful they're neither fully accurate nor do they represent the taste of all human beings. So it's very much possible for people to like, nay love poorly made media, whether it's poorly composed music, poorly scripted/directed films, poorly written books or poorly designed games, and many such examples of theoretically poorly made media have become popular. Just look at the best selling games of today or the chartbusters of today to see proof of it.
froghawk on 13/12/2015 at 03:35
Err... what? Just because someone dislikes something doesn't mean they don't think it's art. What an odd statement. Nor does anyone's opinion of what constitutes art matter in the slightest - it's a meaningless debate. The opinions and tastes of non-artists are basically irrelevant to the creation of art aside from the effects on sales and the creators themselves. The rest of you what you said is self evident - theory is merely a descriptive tool rather than a set of prescriptive guidelines - but none of that changes anything. If something is poorly done in a number of objective ways, that isn't changed by people enjoying it. And there's nothing wrong with liking something poorly made. I enjoy plenty of poorly made things. So what is your point, exactly?
Dev_Anj on 13/12/2015 at 03:43
My point is you were acting like something being considered art is an objective factor. It's not, the factors behind something being highly popular or making a huge impact within a medium can be objective, but not something being art.
EvaUnit02 on 13/12/2015 at 03:51
Nope, the 1990s wasn't a golden age. It was a more like an industrial revolution as far as game development is concerned. Technology kept changing so rapidly, so nobody had time to write actual "rulebooks" on how to design games since goalposts for what you could do were changing pretty much annually.
A lot of "sacred cow" action games prior to say 2001 coming out of Western developers were rife with under-developed, amateurish game design. Eg massive, maze-like in FPSes were the norm, often to little to no visual indication on what to do at certain points given to the player by the map designers. "I've killed everything 30 minutes ago, now what?" Hexen is probably the epitome of this. You'd pull a switch and the game would say "a passage has opened..." and you'd spend the next 40 minutes backtracking through all of the levels of the mission hub to find out where.
Artificial difficulty was another thing that rife of games of that era. Hive-mind AI with bionic senses and aimbot skill that can spot you through several layers of foliage (this is precisely why stealth is utterly broken in the first couple Far Cry games). Higher difficulty settings than Normal usually just meaning that enemies are bigger bullet sponges and have higher damage output - no difference to AI's intelligence.
GMDX Dev on 13/12/2015 at 04:02
Sure, Hexen really is a "sacred cow"...
Either the '90s & early-mid 2000s was our golden age, or now is. Earlier timelines if you insist but I'd like to hear an argument for it. The rulebooks modern games follow is that of mindless gameplay and a lack of innovation & variety, as well as striving to be interactive movies more than games and the results are laughable. Today is far from notable except in multiplayer and non-games.
Hell the 90s was Looking Glass' period of activity, design far ahead of the curve and we've had nothing to rival them since Arx (maybe New Vegas as one exception), and a website dedicated in it's honor claims today's shit is superior...that's interesting.
froghawk on 13/12/2015 at 04:12
Quote Posted by Dev_Anj
My point is you were acting like something being considered art is an objective factor. It's not, the factors behind something being highly popular or making a huge impact within a medium can be objective, but not something being art.
Not at all - I was talking about distinctions between high.art and pop art. Whether something is considered art does not interest me in the slightest.
Jason Moyer on 13/12/2015 at 04:33
Music as art died when Zappa did. RIP music as art.
