What is "consolisation" and why does it exist? Or Simulated Skill v Player Skill - by SubJeff
faetal on 10/2/2011 at 15:10
Going slightly off piste here, but I saw this in a game preview which highlights the annoying way that games have been dumbed down to suit a broader demographic:
"he helpful conversation mechanic is neatly done; first providing us with the style of response but then the whole line that'll be delivered as well before we select it. It means we're never faced with the classic RPG challenge of having to guess exactly what the game means by a 'sympathetic' response."
Right, so rather than seeing the choice in responses and deciding which one is the tone you wish to take, the designers have cleverly bypassed it by calling them by their styles, in case anyone is a bit too thick to get the tone from the words alone.
Small bone of contention, sure, but I kind of hope that just once more in a game, I can be trusted to work things out for myself and not have my hand held through absolutely everything just so that the slow kids can keep up.
[EDIT] Just to clarify, I'd prefer just seeing the the line which will be delivered, not prefixed with [SYMPATHETIC], [HELPFUL], [USED CAR SALESMAN STYLE FLIRTATION] etc...
Sulphur on 10/2/2011 at 22:08
Quote Posted by Briareos H
Games where every player is expected to "experience" all the narrative has to offer or hell, even the true ending, is a trend which has been rising parallel to the last generations of consoles. Hence the understandable confusion and terms like "consolisation" when it is not.
When you look at Dead Space 2 credits, the list for QA testers is longer than the list for developers. Well I say fuck them. Developers should abide by a rule: if more than 80% of all QA testers see everything the game has to offer on their first run, something is wrong with the game.
That's the Warren Spector argument of forced linearity down a prescribed path being worse than open gameworlds with multiple paths and options, isn't it? I think there's space for both in the market, what with Half Life 2 and the like not suffering so much for all their forced linearity.
I think it's fair to say that the dumbing down aspect of consolitis here at TTLG is tied to very specific games built as multiplat titles -- namely Deadly Shadows, Invisible War, and latterly, Bioshock. These games changed quite a bit in comparison the their PC-only predecessors to suit the platforms and audiences they were going to be on, and people have been raging on about these changes for years - nerfed gameplay like unified ammo, climbing gloves, merged skills and augs, etc.
That's an intellectual dumbing down that wasn't seen in the original games, but it did come about with the advent of the multiplatform sequel. Was that coincidence three times in a row, or was it planned because of something else? I'm going with planned, because I think they wanted to appeal to a lower baseline (the built-in demographics guaranteed to be on the consoles) than the PC exclusive titles did.
Quote:
I think bioshock succeeded for some reasons, the world of rapture, and it's success in marketing and hitting just at the right moment, people can't critique the lack of gameplay they never knew existed anyway.
ss2 didn't succeed as much because it never had the marketing and back then the market wasn't as big as it was when bioshock hit.
Point, but is anyone arguing why Bioshock was a financial success? I thought we were talking about its gameplay design in comparison to SS2's.
@Faetal: Please tell me that's not Dragon Age 2. :erg:
faetal on 10/2/2011 at 22:15
Sulphur: Sequel to my favourite game of all time. It's in a preview for DX:HR. So yeah, I am fucking appalled. It's like....people should be ABLE to fuck up if they mis-judge the tone of a response or the character you are responding to. I hate that game designers think everyone is entitled to get everything spot on first time through.
Phatose on 11/2/2011 at 01:48
Quote Posted by faetal
"he helpful conversation mechanic is neatly done; first providing us with the style of response but then the whole line that'll be delivered as well before we select it. It means we're never faced with the classic RPG challenge of having to guess exactly what the game means by a 'sympathetic' response."
Wait, did he actually say that? 'Classic RPG Challenge'? What's the oldest game that's even uses that technique?
june gloom on 11/2/2011 at 04:49
How about the youngest: Alpha Protocol. One of my few issues with the game.
faetal on 11/2/2011 at 11:11
Yeah, it made me a big sad sigh. Obviously there'll never be text / language recognition that'd mesh with a game enough to just do the talking yourself, but at the least, I'D like to be the one figuring out the tone / style of available responses and using my brain to figure out which would be most appropriate to take the conversation in the direction I want. It's frustrating knowing that games with good production values will always cost so much to make that they'll be forced to cater to the lowest common denominator in order to be profitable.
gunsmoke on 11/2/2011 at 11:28
In Alpha Protocol's defense, they did it that way for the sake of keeping convos flowing in something resembling real time. There was only a couple seconds to choose a response. IRL people would look @ you like you were insane if you took a 60 seconds to ponder each line. Everyone I spoke to about the game actually quite liked the approach the game took.
faetal on 11/2/2011 at 12:23
I was fine with how it was done in AP, for the reason you say and also becuase I saw it as mainly a sneaky/action game with a veneer of RP elements. Deus Ex is a totally different cafetiére of herring though.
Thirith on 11/2/2011 at 14:43
Quote Posted by faetal
...at the least,
I'D like to be the one figuring out the tone / style of available responses and using my brain to figure out which would be most appropriate to take the conversation in the direction I want.
I'm afraid I don't really get your point here. IMO the full sentences vs. attitudes dialogue style is exactly that, two different styles - not one that's dumbed down and one that's intelligent. I see how people might dislike not knowing exactly what their character will say, but I simply don't understand your argument. Surely being given a choice of three sentences doesn't make it any harder to figure out what the tone of the responses is; it simply specifies the exact words with which this tone is delivered.
faetal on 11/2/2011 at 14:58
One relies on the player to deduce the tone, which means that the contents of a phrase or conversation could contain subtleties and undertones, and need not be obvious. The other tells the player what the tone is, requiring no inference and being immediately obvious. No interaction with the raw language, just category selection.
