Game Design

[Artifice Orisit]

Anything to do with game design you can put here, including criticism of current games and the design choices made in them (both positive and negative).

Any style of game is okay, from drinking games and LRPGs to computer games and mind games.

 

[Nevermind]

The things that annoy me the most in any game are limits.
I think the best game ever would be one exactly like real life, except without any of the negative consequences that your actions might bring down upon you. A place where you can be truly free. A place where you can act on your more socially unacceptable fantasies both without consequences and without harming another human being or animal. Think lucid dreams, but in a more controlled and easily accessible form.

Preferably in the form of a full immersion virtual reality game.

Obviously, this is something for the future and not for now, but if this dream-game concept is ever properly realized, I think it would be amazing. It would be a chance to create your own perfect world. There would be no more reason for violence, to fight each other, if we could just have anything we want in this virtual life.

 

[Nevermind]

On second thought, forget real life, the best game would be one where you get to be god. Where everything is under your control, and where you are free to experiment with the worlds you have created. Like Will Wright's "Spore", only more real, and more limitless.

 

[Artifice Orisit]

All you'll need is some sedatives, an hallucinogenic and and maybe an adult diaper.

 

[Nevermind]

Perhaps. Haha.

..but I don't think it would quite turn out that way, it wouldn't be as controlled as I would like, and experimentation within my own mind would not likely produce accurate results.

Also, I am currently lacking in drug contacts as I have severed ties with many of my more wild druggie friends. They were too stupid and obnoxious and eventually got on my nerves.

Naturally, I killed them. Muahahaha.

 

[Artifice Orisit]

Society thanks you.

 

[Nevermind]

Oh dear, I'm not very fond of society either. :P

 

[Cryss Winters]

This topic is T3H U83R W1N!

I agree with the virtual reality.

 

[Nevermind]

This topic is T3H U83R W1N!

I agree with the virtual reality.

ÜBER.

 

[Ogion]

Hehe, yea Über...

I'll just start with an example of some 'recent' (well not so recent, but i just played them now, so...). Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2. They have quite different controls, while the basic gameplay is motsly the same.
One difference is for example that in NWN1 there was a rightclick menu in form of a circle. So you clicked for example right on an object/creature, and up came a mousecentered circled menu, where you then can choose submenus (again in circle) and so, and by clicking in the middle emptyness you got back up one level (of submenus) or exited the menu when in uppermost level. I found that a very convenient, nice way of handling it. In NWN2 however they went back to a standard rightclick menu like you have it with most programs (for those with Windows, it's like you rightclick on sosmething in Explorer, or anything else). So it's a rectangular menu with entries with text.
The nice thing of the circled menu was, that you could remember the movement you made. And if you rightclick and hold the button, move the mouse to the apropriate button in the circle and let the mousebutton go you activate that button. This way you could memorize certain standard tasks 'in your hands muscles'. So in order to get detailed info on that object/creature, you rightclick, hold the mousebutton, go up, and let go. Very intuitive. (Btw, if you rightclicked something with the mouse being in the corner of the screen, the menu opened sufficiently away from the corner so it was fully visible, while the mouse being centered in the middle of the circle anyway. And after closing the menu again, the mouse got moved back to where it was before, very nice).

These are just little things, but they are very important in how easy and intuitively you can use something.

(Hope that was understandable )

Ogion

 

[inerTia]

To address, some extremely critical issues, I do think that the bugs, are extremely visible, in today's games, not only that, but a extremely focal point of mind on pure graphics, which does not even resemble, nor come close to that of reality it even looks fake.

With that in mind, of a extreme focal point on graphics, the creativity of new game play, is of non existent, it still seems we are piggy backing the old titles, of games. That is just terrible, in that sense, the game's receive a new label, new graphics engine, and than packaged to be sold at the price of 69.99 which is $20 dollars more than the old title.

Another issue is, controls, developers seem to rarely put any thought into controls, they either differentiate from standard awsd, or other means of customized controls. In other words, extremely awkward controls that are not efficient in execution when one uses the buttons. Example when using certain combination of buttons on a controller of various consoles, it will limit use of certain buttons, such as using dual analog sticks, will prevent you from pressing the buttons on the upper left portion of the controller, else you must lift your finger off the analog stick so that you could press them. Which leaves one in harms way, if one were to play a real time game.

Also keyboard and mice support in games on the console, should be researched, they are more precise if even cumbersome, but cost of time implementing is understandable, although playability raises a question, when one can not use the default controller to play, due to the construction. The alternative method is there, it just is not implemented!

Last but not least, download content and patches, to charge for such content is ridiculous, launching a title than charging for tiny fee's, make absolutely no sense, since they are just extremely small features that could have been included. But was either, rushed or added at a future date. The developers should take more time, to produce a error free, and fulfilled game. Such as Starlancer, the game was of error less, when launched no patches are needed even to this date. A game with high replayability instead of charged content should be considered, instead of just making small changes, for changes.

Edit

One last thing, developers should not favor one particular side of the console market, even leaving out the pc market(although understandable due to pirating). Exclusive titles limit's the amount of exposure to the player base, due to the amount of players who own a limited amount of machines, such favoritism leads to limited exposure, leaving gamers on the fence between certain games.

Levels designed by the developers are also limited in ways that disable you forcing you to play either linearly, or in limited ways. Example disabling walls so that you can not climb them or roof tops that make great sniping or ambush positions.

 

[del]

I used to advocate nonlinearity and sandbox style games as the future of gaming -- e.g. the GTA series, STALKER, etc.

I think that's been a little over done, though. At least for the time being.

I think the point is immersion, which does not necessarily require nonlinearity in the gameplay. It just requires the illusion of nonlinearity. For instance, Half-Life 2 was a deeply fun and immersive game and one of the highest rated games of all time, but when you think back, it was also extremely linear -- it was just that it was so well scripted that you never noticed.

Anyway, my predictions looking several years down the line:

+ I think you're going to see a HUGE surge in relatively simple albeit ridiculously ingenious Indie games. I'll point out World of Goo and Braid as examples. My understanding is that Guitar Hero was also an indie game like this before it was bought out by Activision.

+ There will furthermore be a big influx of "art" games that blend gameplay with ideas that are on the edge of science and technology. One game I'm thinking of like that is dyson, which is essentially a game built around the mathematical theory of dynamical systems, chaos, and evolutionary biology.

+ I also think there will be a movement towards more procedural generation of content as technology improves.

+ While a majority of the major innovations will happen in the indie scene, mainstream games are going to become more "movie-like," and the industry is going to move towards Hollywood-style multimillion dollar prodections (e.g. the Mass Effect series).

 

[inerTia]

There is another major issue I had forgot to address.
Multiplayer netcode, the multiplayer code is horrible, more research should be done. With the rise of multi player based games, current games have a huge problem with being able to target a person in a game, and than firing a weapon which does not hit the target dead on. Yet it just passes through the person, some games have done a decent job in latency based compensation, but many not so good. This is the reason why we keep wondering, why is it that, when you shoot the air or what not, the server registers the shot as a hit.

Examples of this can be found through various games such as Counter Strike Source, Team Fortress 2, the same could be said about the old Battlefield series, when the target is standing still, while firing the weapon, the bullets pass through the target.

Now if it was just purely a latency problem, as in you get a delay of 50ms, than you should expect exactly 50ms of latency, but its more than that, instead of the delayed time, what happens is the bullets pass through the targets, now that is a huge problem in games!

Also I have to agree with "del" he has a good point on immersion based game play, trying to create games in this sense changes the game style alot more than just adding little things to the game.

 

[Sirian]

About mmos, the major issue i have is the repetitivity, aka endless grind of xp, items and such. I tried a lot of those games and i was never satisfied, which led me to go back to solo games. One of the few exceptions is Eve Online, but i ended up leaving it too, because i didnt want to wait real life years to unlock a few skills, and also the travelling part was slow and boring, and the mining part was mostly boring too. Actually, the missions were also boring since it was always the same ones.

Most of these games are based on the same pattern : you start as a very weak lvl 1 adventurer, you fight some low level monsters and do some quests and you get easy lvl ups, then you move on to the next area, kill higher lvl monsters, get slower lvl ups, you upgrade your gear and skills, you move on to the next area, and it gets harder and harder to lvl up, to the point where you spend days repeating the same action over and over again (usually pulling mobs and AOEing them).

Now the solo games are usually more interesting, but once you finished them, there is usually not much more to do, so you have 1 day to 1 week of fun and then its over.

The funny thing is : the more free time i have for playing, the less i enjoy it, and the quicker i leave games.

I also found that I particularly enjoy immersive games with a lot of storytelling, maybe because i'm a big reader.

 

[INTPINFP]

The things that annoy me the most in any game are limits.
I think the best game ever would be one exactly like real life, except without any of the negative consequences that your actions might bring down upon you. A place where you can be truly free. A place where you can act on your more socially unacceptable fantasies both without consequences and without harming another human being or animal. Think lucid dreams, but in a more controlled and easily accessible form.

Preferably in the form of a full immersion virtual reality game.

Obviously, this is something for the future and not for now, but if this dream-game concept is ever properly realized, I think it would be amazing. It would be a chance to create your own perfect world. There would be no more reason for violence, to fight each other, if we could just have anything we want in this virtual life.

Sounds like a GTA clone to me.

Being a game designer, I think I can say the main things that bug me about modern games:

Graphics over gameplay: When you go up to that nice, shiny, bumpmapped, wet mapped, specular mapped, cell-shaded, depth mapped, lightmapped, SSOM, anti-aliased wall, and suddenly the framerate drops to 24. Or when the devs forgot to add the "if dead bodies exceed 9999" code.

Controls: Every damn game should be able to be played with one hand, whether it be for masterbatition, food and drink, or simple relaxation. Sure, to actually use special combos, special abilities, and be good at the game you might need two hands, but there shouldn't be anything preventing you from taking a leisure, half-assed stroll through the game.

Rigid or Piss Poor gameplay: Especially FPS these days. Every FPS is a copy of every other FPS, except the problem is, the FPS structure that is copied is downright pisspoor. Eventually, each copy of a copy will become more and more degraded with each copy. There's nothing wrong with emulating some of the good properties of a game. But, companies that fear to stray from the same old formula get a heavy demote from me.

Open World games: I hate games where there is no actual mission or objective. No, I don't mean non-linear games, I mean Open World, sandbox games. Even Oblivion had a purpose, save the kingdom. Games that lack any purpose have no purpose to be played.

Annoying sound: Whether it be terrible voice acting, crackly sound effects, or simply no volume options, Games that suffer with this will get a demote from me.

 

[Sirian]

Nah, actually i understand pretty well what Nevermind is talking about, 'cause i have the same fantasy, and of course you can relate that to GTA, but in GTA you can't open every door, the NPC don't have intelligent conversation, the map is not that big and your interaction with the environment is somewhat limited. The ultimate game would look a lot like the "Matrix", in the Matrix movies.

 

[INTPINFP]

Yes, I have a clear understanding what he is talking about, and so do the GTA devs. Problem is, it would be unfeasible to have every door fully functional, NPCs that act like a real person, and have maps as big as the world. Can you imagine how much lag that would cause?

Having realistic sensory input would be nice, but again, currently unfeasible. Like he said, maybe in a few years. By then everyone would have forgotten about GTA.