Randy Smith interview posted at EvilAvatar...

demagogue on 18/6/2006 at 19:17

Part 2 is finally up: (http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14027) link.

It's a much more "philosophical" discussion about where gaming is going as a medium. Great reading. It makes me want to get back to modding to start playing out some of the ideas right now.

Quote:

Randy: [...] interactivity is the distinctive feature of games, and it fundamentally changes how players relate.

Suddenly you are not empathizing with a character you have no control over, you are connecting with a character that you DO control. Every success and failure, every correct and flawed value judgment is your OWN, not something to agonize about remotely.

Audiences LIKE to watch characters on screen struggle and fail, but when they are at the controls they are strictly driven to SUCCEED.

So far, anyway; there hasn't been a lot of success in making games where the player is supposed to role play to the point of playing along with deliberate failures.

So the tactic we should be taking, I believe, is not to force the player through agonizing decisions and failures and value judgments, but rather to allow to player to explore a range of possibility along various axes of values and express themselves in that space - to express CONCLUSIONS about how to live one's life, rather than watch someone else struggle with the issues.

Game designers fundamentally are there to create possibility spaces, and that's where our "message" comes through - not in a static story, but in how we set up the possibility space - what are the rules of this world?

Also, lol moment:

Quote:

Jonathan: Why EA?

Randy: What do you mean?

Jonathan: Of all the publishers, why Electronic Arts?

Randy: No comment.

Also: They were speculating about what game Randy might be working on with Spielberg ... and guessing something WW2 and stealth related (spying). My 2 cents is I think it may be more like Spielberg's alien encounter/monster side and Randy's horror side working together, or maybe terrorism related given Spielberg's last movie.

Jashin on 18/6/2006 at 20:16

Doug Church knows how to make emergent games, he just hasn't made one since woodstock. And he hasn't done anything particularly eyecatching at EA either.

With this project, I hope it's something groundbreaking.

Myagi on 18/6/2006 at 20:59

Trespasser 2 FTW ;)

simulated emergent gameplay, perfect for doug and randy
it's spielberg
just in time for the next jurassic park movie
jurassic park logos were spotted at E3 behind closed doors (taken from the GI post referenced in the SS3 rumor thread)

errm.. what the heck did they put into my water, back to reality :)

demagogue on 19/6/2006 at 19:43

Another possibility: Spielberg is currently working on Indiana Jones 4.
Maybe it's an Indy game to come out in the movie's wake.

Myagi on 19/6/2006 at 20:13

Quote Posted by demagogue

Maybe it's an Indy game to come out in the movie's wake.

I might be off here, but lucas owns that franchies, and haven't all those games been made by lucasarts (ports aside)?

Doc_Brown on 20/6/2006 at 23:42

Quote Posted by Myagi

Trespasser 2 FTW ;)

You just got my attention.

Of all the games I've ever looked forward to, Trespasser turned out to be the single greatest disappointment. Having said that, the idea still has potential, and the thought of someone actually doing it right is captivating.

ZylonBane on 21/6/2006 at 00:27

Eh, Bioshock sounds like it's doing all the interesting things Trespasser had planned. Just... not with dinosaurs.

jtr7 on 21/6/2006 at 01:10

Maybe this?

Quote:

...A Paramount flick, as yet untitled, dealing with physicist Kip Thorne's studies and theories into the field of relativity, specifically black holes and gravity waves. So, it's Science Fiction that boarders on Science Fact. Thorne wrote the treatment himself and Spielberg wants in. Sounds like fascinating stuff. Could this be Spielberg's 2001?

--Ain't It Cool News

Probably not.

Myagi on 22/6/2006 at 03:03

as much as I would have liked it, it ain't gonna happen. I must have been in denial. Came across an older news item, which I'm sure I've seen before, where they say that they're going to "create three new, original, game franchises", so nothing based on movies if I understand that correctly.

(http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/39071/)

linked to by the more recent:

(http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/42613)

(and spielberg already succeded, I'm crying.. over the realisation that there's no way it can be "trespasser 2:done right" ;) )

Tony on 22/6/2006 at 18:25

Quote Posted by Vigil

I'm happy to see the "Randy is a nice guy so he must have been against [my least favorite design decision] but got overruled" speculation nipped in the bud, as I was getting thoroughly sick of that in the other thread.

Regardless, it would be very good to know exactly who was responsible for the design decisions in Deadly Shadows which most of those who love the Looking Glass games disliked.

A good example is the replacement of rope arrows with wall climbing gloves. Who was it who said, "Hey, no one likes rope arrows anymore, they're old hat. Let's replace them with wall climbing gloves! They're a lot more Thiefy." I think it's safe to say that only a very small portion of the Thief community, almost certainly made up entirely of those who did not play the original Thief or Thief II or did not do so before playing Deadly Shadows, thinks that replacing rope arrows with wall climbing gloves was a good design decision. Do you think it was?

You Deadly Shadows fanboys can splutter indignantly about how Deadly Shadows had ever so much more vision than the Looking Glass games and how ungrateful we are about all those new "features" until you are blue in the face (just like the Ion Storm game's shadows), but it will not suffice to assuage the doubts of the majority of real Thief fanatics.