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| Re: So you guys want specifics on game design eh.. | |
| Posted By: Narcogen <narcogen@rampancy.net> | Date: 11/13/09 3:17 a.m. |
In Response To: So you guys want specifics on game design eh... (Hawaiian Pig) : Let's get what "Fun" is out of the way. : Everyone "against" us "damned ivory tower pros" keep
: This discussion at this point has strayed into quantifying "whose fun is
I think I'd also agree that it is more difficult, but I'm just not sure what that's relevant to. I think it's a normal Yankee prejudice to assume that hard work pays off and generates better things. However I'm also inclined to agree with Brecht: virtue is not bound up with misery. Just because something is hard to achieve does not make it better, more worthy, or more desireable. In short, just because Bungie would have to work harder to make a Halo game that would satisfy your segment of the market does not make it a better thing for Bungie to have done so. Especially so since I seriously doubt the statement that such a game would automatically be better for everyone else also. This doesn't mean that one's satisfaction is
Yes, I think some of us did think that was silly, or perhaps more appropriately, both wrong and presumptuous. : I could derive fun from taking a hammer to my own balls (some here seem to
No, I don't think we think that. I don't think that. What I think is that if I tried your approach to my games, that is what it would feel like to me. So I would be wary of a game that is designed to cater to your approach, as opposed to mine, and I am suspicious of the promise that a game designed to cater to your tastes would also be better for me and for everyone else-- just because. : Who do you design for? : That said, I feel certain design imperatives can benefit one side and be
I think this assumption is, in nearly every important respect, wrong. Just about every analogy that has attempted to explain it, usually using pro sports metaphors, is also wrong, because they mischaracterize, either accidentally or perhaps intentionally, the nature of the suggested changes and the relative effects on different audiences. If the requirements of the competitive gamer require core game mechanics that are that different, then make a separate game for it. It seems to me that the core mechanics of Halo, by and large, work just fine. A large number of people find it fun. They have bought the games, they subscribe to the service, they play it fairly often-- more often than any other game on the service. The idea that this can easily be 'tweaked' in a way that seems so fundamentally wrong to me, in terms of the approach of the designer to the player, so that you will be immensely pleased and the rest of us either won't notice or will also enjoy it seems to me a foolish one. I think my major
You just keep saying the same things. You admit that as the audience becomes larger, the things you care about become less important to the broader audience in comparison to other elements, yet you frustratingly continue to insist that you can have your cake and Bungie can eat it too, because you can get what you want without anyone else being affected. : Let's be sure about one thing though, accessibility is great , most great
: "Sufficient complexity" is always something I stress when it comes
Is it your assertion then that Halo, or perhaps merely ODST, is insufficiently complex and designed for idiots? Or are we speaking of some other games? : So why design for this seemingly smaller niche of players? Why not just make
The movie industry is making interactive movies? News to me. I thought that went out with Smell-O-Vision. Honestly, beyond this point I had extreme difficulty in extracting what it is that you concretely wanted to say about what makes Halo or other games good or bad and how they can be improved, so I'm going to snip on down to the tldr version. : tl;dr version: : - Blah blah blah, everyone has fun in different ways. Your (ahem) 'casual' dismissal speaks volumes. : - I feel that designing with the "hardcore" in mind is less about
I think where the accusations come in is where it is assumed that better players know better what depth and replayability are, and the way they assume that what is true for them is automatically true for others... and if not, so what? : - For multiplayer games, adding this depth usually means raising the skill
I've railed against this in the past but I think it is self-evident that, striving to create a fun and social experience with multiplayer, Bungie intentionally narrowed the skill ceiling when moving from H1 to H2. You think they're right, I think they're right. : - To do this I think there are three things to consider: strategy, execution
Okay. : - Strategy has to do with options available to the player Okay. : - Execution has to do with being able to perform options described above Okay. : - Available (in game) information directly affects how you make decisions for
Okay. : - These three variables operate within a game's "Sandbox" which
Okay. : - Making adjustments at the level of the sandbox has great implications on
Okay. : - These adjustments ultimately have the ability to increase the skill
Yes, because looking at the top titles on live, it's evident that Halo is clearly lacking in longevity. ODST might, but let's consider-- it's an abbreviated campaign with a single new multiplayer mode. The 2nd disc is basically Halo 3 again. : - I think that's pretty important You're entitled :) : - goatrope is a cool guy, hi goatrope (hey cow, fine, you can get a namedrop
Still need to define your terms :) : tl;dr version of the tl;dr version: I feel that designing for higher level
Let's put it this way. With regards to multiplayer, replayability for some people lasts as long as it takes them to hit their personal skill ceiling. This is something rapture said over at hushed casket in a thread about MW2. If this is the case, increasing the skill ceiling only increases the granularity of distinctions between people, leads to people hitting their skill ceiling (when they are losing as often as they are winning) sooner, because the better people are performing better against lower-skilled players than they do currently. This is exactly what I mean when I say the benefits of such changes are not symmetrical. They are very, very asymmetrical, and they benefit only those at the top in any meaningful and measureable way. All the other benefits are intangible, unsupported by any evidence, and ultimately all the arguments for it boil down to "but this is how the game should be played according to those who are best at it", which I reject. This is where nearly all the pro sports metaphors break down, and there's a reason why they break down: because the underlying presumption is false.
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