Reinventing CRPG

[Squeek]

In a recent post I suggested CRPG should be reinvented, that it’s time to reconsider the whole approach and put more emphasis on Gary Gygax’ original idea for D&D. I’ll be posting ideas for that here. Contribute if you want, of course.

This is only about making CRPG more like RPG. If anyone actually reads this, please be kind with your responses. I’m hoping this gets other fans thinking out loud about the same idea.

I’ve thought about it for a couple of days, and here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

* Re-think game balance
* Put the Dungeon Master back in the game
* Radically change the story-line concept
* The interface: Decision making – not just moving

Game Balance: This is what’s wrong with CRPG right now, IMO. The games are being balanced poorly, and it’s only getting worse.

To be fun, games need to be challenging and rewarding. Great games are a challenge all the way through. CRPGs need that, but they need more than that, because RPGs are special games.

On the one hand, a role-playing game is like any other: Everyone wants to play their best to win. On the other hand, you have a role to play, and that role is bound to put limits on your ability to win (That’s why some players don’t like having to commit to a role in the beginning).

CRPGs today put too much emphasis on winning the game (or triumphing throughout the game) and not enough emphasis on role playing and its value, and that’s why they’re becoming more and more like arcade games. It’s as simple as that. CRPGs don’t even try to evaluate your effort at role-playing, so how can you be rewarded for doing it well? That has to change.

Dungeon Master: He was God, an audience, a critic, and a partner who collaborated with your efforts – or not. It was completely up to him. Back when RPG began, the DM seemed like a convention and, frankly, a flawed one—the only means we had. But the DM was more than that. Good DMs made for good games. Great DMs made for wonderful games. They were a full half of the equation, and CRPG needs that half.

The DM should be able to pause the game or refuse to pause it. He should ask you questions, ones you know you should answer well; because it could have a huge affect on your game. The DM should be able to “fudge,” to momentarily change the way the game is played. He should be an enigma of sorts with limitless power and a measure of personality.

Story-Line: (Linear story-lines are fine, so this suggestion pertains only to the non-linear approach).

Role-play gaming puts the player in the position of assuming a role of a character in a story. If Bilbo never gave up the ring, the story would have changed. If Cinderella never made it to the ball, the story would have changed. If the character you’re playing does something different, then his story should change too.

Anyone who’s ever studied writing knows there are only so many stories. There’s a trick to good writing, but coming up with story lines isn’t it. It’s time CRPG makers created huge stories with branching alternatives and constructed the game so the player’s decisions and style change the way the story unfolds.

The Interface: There’s too much emphasis on moving and not enough emphasis on what you’re actually doing when you move. I’m glad I’m able to move around so fluidly, to see and hear things so well…but it’s time to rethink the value of that too. I want decisions to make, and not just about which way I’m walking, which way I’m looking.

Well, that’s my first post. I have actual ideas about how to do some of this stuff, but I decided not to include them in the first post, because I was concerned about its length.

[Dhruin]

I don't so much see this as reinventing as embracing the best of the genre from the past. I broadly agree with you, although I'm not sure how you incorporate a DM into most CRPGs.

[Squeek]

Recently, many CRPG fans have demanded more choices, the kind that really matter. That’s a good idea, but I don’t think those choices are every really going to be enough. They’re never going to make the kind of difference those fans want.

That’s because there’s something else missing. The player can’t be the sole source of the decision making. That’s still too limiting. For the story to change in a meaningful and satisfying way, the game has to make some of those decisions on its own, and they should reflect the player’s chosen role and the style he exhibits as he plays his part.

In order to do that, the game would have to form an opinion, somehow. It would need to size up the player’s game in order to decide how best to unfold the story. That's one of the things the DM did in the original game.

[Corwin]

The only way a DM is really practical, is with MP games like NWN 1&2 which have that built in functionality!! I've DM'd a number of NWN sessions and they can be rollicking fun. I've played in a few too. We tried to host regular sessions with a team of available DM's back at the Dot on our NWN server, and despite advertising them and asking for input, hardly anyone ever showed up!!
If there was sufficient interest, we could probably line up people to host similar sessions, but nothing is more annoying and frustrating than to setup and prepare a mod and then people don't turn up, including those who promised they would be there!! My time is valuable, and when I say No to something I'd enjoy doing just so I can host a game and then wait, and wait, and wait....... I get rather annoyed!!
Bottom line, great theory, but the practical aspects make it difficult. Running a DM'd session is a MAJOR commitment and everyone involved needs to be equally committed for it to work.

[Ionstormsucks]

First, let me tell you that I have some problem with the sentence: "In a recent post I suggested CRPG should be reinvented, that it’s time to reconsider the whole approach and put more emphasis on Gary Gygax’ original idea for D&D." Honestly, I don't know what Gygax wanted, but if I think about D&D, especially in terms of PnP, I get a revolting feeling in my stomach.

Now to the real topic:

I always thought that the term CRPG is fairly misleading. CRPGs have in fact very little to do with true roleplaying. Class, race, and stats don't make up a role... and even choice doesn't really incorporate role playing to a full extent. Even if I give you 100 dialogue options in a single dialogue, it will still be my dialogue options - not yours. Same goes for any other choices really.
CRPGs cannot reward your effort at roleplaying because true roleplaying doesn't take place in a CRPG. Even if it took place, how could an artificial intelligence know if it's good roleplaying or not that is taking place? The problem is the AI that tries to emulate the human DM.

While I wish of course that CRPGs could be more like PnP I fear that will never be possible. So the question is if CRPGs should even try to achieve this or rather take another course. In my opinion the second choice is just the more realistic one. I think CRPGs should go more in the direction of world-simulation and feature more non-linear content. With world-simulation I do not necessarily mean a whole world, but detailed places that the player can visit with his character and where he has the highest possible amount of freedom. Fallout 1 and 2 did a rather nice job in that aspect. You could pretty much determine yourself in what order you visited the places in Fallout (with certain exceptions), and you did not have to visit them all. Still, the places you could visit were rather detailed, and all had a "story" of their own, they were not as lifeless as... let's say the places you could visit in the Elder Scrolls series. You were also quite free in your actions.
Fallout was far from perfect, but I think it was aiming in the right direction.

I'm sure a lot of things could be done better in modern CRPGs, many of them are quite combat heavy, hardly feature any riddles or decent dialogues. Some are to empty like Oblivion, others way too linear like the official NWN2 campaign. But I'm not sure if a true reinvention (in the sense that Sqeek is describing) of the genre is realistic. It seem to be the technical aspect that makes that impossible.

[bjon045]

I always thought that the term CRPG is fairly misleading. cRPGs have in fact very little to do with true roleplaying. Class, race, and stats don't make up a role... and even choice doesn't really incorporate role playing to a full extent.

Certainly true. cRPGs are defined not by the meaning of the words that comprise the phrase, but by the way various games have been called cRPGs in the past whether or not they are true "role-playing games".

Sadly it does seem that modern developers/publishers are bending the genre in a new direction, one which bares little resemblance to cRPGs of old. This leaves fans of the "old school" cRPGs feeling very disenchanted with the whole industry. While various indie development houses are trying to cash in (loosely speaking) on this, none have really successfully released a product that has attained a high level of product visibility in the market. When this happens, and I think it is becoming increasingly likely with games like 'The Broken Hourglass' on the horizon, perhaps we will see a return of "old school" cRPGs being released.

[Squeek]

One player might want to play a chaotic warrior and another might want to play a good cleric. Both will be playing the lead role in the same story. So will another player’s evil assassin and another’s neutral bard, and so will all the other character types every other player might want to choose. So the author writes a story where they all fit in as the main character.

But wouldn't the author have preferred to make specific changes for each? I'm saying he should do something just like that, and that those changes should be included in the game as potential story lines.

There’s more to consider than that, though. Doesn’t each player play his own part uniquely? So as the player plays, the game should form an opinion about his role and his style and decide which changes in the story line to select on the fly.

If you can do that, then you can make other changes on the fly too. It could get pretty interesting.

The easiest way for the game, or the DM (work with me here), to form an opinion is to simply stop and ask the player questions. “Did you just twist that knife…Did your eyes just linger on that farmer’s wife...Why didn’t you stand and fight?” Some games pause and ask you things like, “Are you sure you want to drop that?” If there were a DM, you could have a conversation.

Actors play off of each other, and their performances are better for it. It’s fun too (theater arts major here). In the original D&D games, the DM and the player(s) played off of each other, and that made it more fun and interesting.

Computer games will always be computer games. But computers keep changing. So does software. A lot of fans are concerned with the state of the genre right now. I think it’s an appropriate time to reconsider the basic idea and how it might be done differently.

[Zaleukos]

A dungeon master is really not feasible in a computer game, as it requires "common sense", which is something that we cant do with AIs:D Btw, am I too cynical if I say that often a good DM simply makes the players believe they are in control of a somewhat linear and pre-written story, making him more of a flexible and creative storyteller than anything else;)

I think more branching would be nice. Bend the storyline to fit the characteristics of the player. Either shape the players attributes and "class" (in a wide sense, I prefer classless system as I find the concept pretty artificial) from the playing style, or make the selected "class"/attributes impose restrictions and benefits that are unique to that configuration. If done right this would both add to immersion and replay value. It would be the opposite to the elder scrolls route with jack of all trades characters.

The downside is that the amount of writing and playtesting required would increase almost exponentially, unless one could figure out a way to solve the problem dynamically.

EDIT: One step in the right direction would be to have more mutually exclusive choices, making each character and game session have a different feel.

[Khass]

No offense to anybody, but I've seen many of these types of threads being written and commented and such, but I have never really seen them put into action. Does anybody try to make their opinions more public? Are the conclusions or the idea groups of one such conversation sent to game producers, or writers, or anybody in contact with the game production world? Is there a participant in the conversation who belongs to one such world, or one who reads this?

It all seems rather useless to me to think and write about this, saying that 'the old school gamers will be dissapointed of what will come', and not actually doing anything about it.

[roqua]

WHat can be done? Game developers will always try to make what sells, and if we don't like what sells, we're left in the cold. Its not like any of this is a secret, its just that the reverse is more popular. A lot of the indie devs are doing what squeek suggests, but no game with a budget is or will.

If anyone really wants to see the crpg genre head in the direction you'd like to see it take, start supporting the games, despite the graphics, that cater to your tastes.

AoD's main selling poit is choice and consiquence, like the DM thing Squeek talks about. There is supposed to be less, but more challenging combat, etc. So it looks like squeek has the game he is talking about being made for him. Also, Tugador and the Alliance with Rome (I spelled it wrong) has incorporated a lot of his ideas and is all ready released and selling.

If the indie games get to be as big as I think they are going to be in the future, I believe that will send a bigger message to the big game developers than a bunch of angry community memebrs who still buy the games they sell, even while complaining about them.

[Squeek]

A dungeon master is really not feasible in a computer game, as it requires "common sense", which is something that we cant do with AIs:D
You're right about common sense, of course. But isn’t that what you need in the real world? We’re talking about decision making in a game world, and that’s different. I think computers have what they need to act as the DM in a CRPG. To a certain extent they’re already doing that behind the scenes, aren’t they?

Giving the game an actual role opens the door for conversation. That takes the action beyond the game interface, establishing moments of direct collaboration between the player and the game. Through conversation, the player can make choices and distinctions he couldn’t make before, and the game can use that information to make choices of its own.

There are a whole slew of other ways for the game to act as DM too, of course, and not just branching story lines. It could get pretty clever, and it’s fun just to think about.

I started this thread after reading comments made in a couple of others, especially some by PatrickWeekes (apparently, he’s a game designer): From a design perspective, I think that there are two valuable questions to ask when you're making a game…How important is the story [and] what tools are you willing to use to convey the story? It was a great post where he concluded that there were three basic approaches to CRPG storytelling: Linear stories, sandboxes, and middle-ground games that sort of say, “The story will always be waiting for you when you’re ready to move along.”

I read that and wondered why we should settle for that and how that could be improved. The story should keep pace with you. This way the game is paying attention and changing in correspondence with the player.

[magerette]

I think a lot of developers do want to see this kind of reinvention, and you get a glimmering sometimes even from big houses like Bioware (where Patrick Weekes works)with Dragon Age that some people don't want to give up on the old genre, but the bottom line seems to be that whatever is done has to make money. (Not just some money, but lots and lots of money.)

One of the problems with the megacorporations who fund game develoment is their reluctance to produce anything that deviates from the safe and narrow.This is because there are too many different people to please when you are trying to please everyone.

Some gamers want combat, some want story with little combat, some love puzzles, some loathe them. Of those who want combat, some want TB, some want RT, some want simple mouse clicks, some want intricate dances. Some people want tons of npc interaction and romances, some just want to play a role freely and explore a limitless world. Some couldn't find a role with a ten man search party.

Putting this kind of variation in one game and making it effective has to be an enormous challenge on all levels. I'd love to play a game with the kind of intelligent, questioning DM you describe, Squeek.But some people hate too much text. I mean, where do you start pruning? :)

IMO, a lot of the ideas talked about here, and the kind of flexibility and variation that would only add to the game, are perfectly attainable if you let go of the imperative to make your game palatable to everyone. Instead make your idea of a great game and let it have its own integrity.

That's what the old crpgs were. Somebody had an idea they thought would be fun. They didn't do a fifteen-platform marketing survey to see how many people would buy it before they decided whether it wold be a good idea or not. Yes, a lot of them failed, but it wasn't from making great games, it was from making bad decisions. :)

[roqua]

So, magerrete, whats the answer?

"One of the problems with the megacorporations who fund game develoment is their reluctance to produce anything that deviates from the safe and narrow."

What about the developers that are publishers? Or the devs that have enough working capital to self-publish? And its not about deviating from the safe and narrow, its about safe returns. Would you let me borrow $1 million to bet on a long shot at the hourse races? No. And neither will a publisher who is financing a dev who is asking for $10 million to make a game.

But, at the end of the day, its the devs doing the picth and asking for the outragous budgets. Them asking for the huge budgets guarantess the type of game they are going to make. Its going to have fancy garphics and mass market appeal.

Don't blaim the publishers for not wanting to squander their money, blaim the devs for wanting to only make AAA titles that will increase their fame and rep within the game dev world.

Bio has to have enough working capital to fund every type of game you mentioned, if it had spiderweb graphics. With financing (debt) they could make them have much better graphics and a pretty safe return (I' guessing, unless graphic whoreness is a much bigger issue than even I assume).

With the mega teams, money, and resources poored into todays, over graphiced game, and the limited llifespan and use these graphic assets have, the developer has guaranteed that innovation is going to be stiffled.

The only place to turn is to niche market production. And if we made a graph of the last 20 years of how "streamlined" games are becoming in corrolation with how much awesomer graphics are, we can see the future of gaming being that of playing beatiful, action packed, screensavers. I don't know how much more like "slightly-interactive movies" games can get, but it will get worse. I can promise you the graphics will be mind blowing though.

If Trokia wanted to toee to be the best looking game ever, with the same mechanics, they wouldn't have been able to sell it. How do those rows of kids games get made? They have 1/100th the budget, but need 1/100th the sales to make a profit. But are still published by a publisher.

Publishers want to make a profit. Developers come up with the ideas and make the pitch to publishers for the debt. Look at the rows of all sorts of games that are published for the PC at Walmart, and you will see that Publishers finance lots of games. WHose more to blaim, the loaner, or the one who values graphics so much that the games they make have no gameplay value (the devs)?

Out of all three aspects of financing, developing, and buying the game, the one that is least to blaim in the circle for the state that crpgs are in is the publisher.

The consumer sets the expectations of what they want developed, the developers develope it, and the publishers finance it. If the crpg audience had better taste, we would get better games. And if devlopers like bioware were willing to make a better game, they sure could.

If the market for game 1 is x, and it costs y dollars to make, it needs a profit of +y.
If the market for game 2 is .2x, and it costs .2y dollars to make, it only needs a profit of .2y.
So if bioware made 5 games like game 2 for different, smaller markets, the could make as much money or more money as making one super graphic game. And risk is diversified so if one is a mega-hit in it's market, and one is a flop, they can eat it.

But, in reality graphics rule the day, and trump gameplay by a long shot. And God forbid a dev studio like bioware doesn't make a game that advances the video game graphic genre to new levels, their employees wouldn't be able to hold their heads up in public with the shame.

Lets lay the blame where it deserves to be laid, at our feet the most, then the devs, then publishers last.

[Dez]

I hope this age of great developers-gurus who are going to lead us to nirvana, will become reality soon! We need a revolution of some kind. Developers around the world brake the chains from evil publishers and rise the barricades to demand your rights! :biggrin:

[roqua]

What I said is kind of wrong now since we remembered that devs (I think for the most part) don't own their art/graphical assets. So publishers have more share of the blaim since they are the ones not reusing assets, etc.

But the core point is still true. PS:T 2 wasn't made because PS:T wasn't a financial success. But PS:T 2 would've been sold after part 1 had grew to a bigger following with word of mouth. And since the art assets were done, and the big things about PS:T was the setting (done also), and story and dialogue, you are left with just the story and dialogue (and implimenting them into the pre-existing game assets). I don't see how that wouldn't have been cost prohibative. Unless it was the opportunity cost of not making a more profitable game. But that opportunity cost is a given everytime you start anything. You all ready know what to expect in sales, and forecasting sales should be much easier. It seems like this would be a given, but I don't know. It makes sense in my head at least.

[Dez]

Yep you sort of nailed it. Devs themselves are demanding million euro budgets and they are partly causing the problem.

I think part of the problem lies in this ideology of making credits. If we look at the film industry, yes they are there to make money, but there are thousands of movies which have something to say. And directors and writers can get scholarsihips, stipends etc to make their somewhat artistic and crazy ideas to come true. Hollywood doesn't have that kind of monopoly like big publishers do Thus. things such as developing other forms of distribution chanels(steam) is a good step to right direction.

Also I don't think its customers fault that devs don't fancy risks. What if devs never had guts and balls to make fallout true. Rpg genre might have been completly different. How can we, an audience be responssible if devs don't have ambition and courrage to drive their crazy ideas?

[roqua]

I think the guts and balls will come back when there isn't $10 million plus at risk. STeam is a good example. McCarthy from Troika is making a squad TBS for steam, cutting out a box-publisher, and making a game he wants for a more specific audience. I pray he does well, I would love to see more devs move into this catagory of developing games. The other Troika guys (Leonard Bcan'tspellit and Tim Cain) could get together and make a spiritual successor to FO. Debt is a much better way to do business than contracts (my line of business was started with the theory of making money off of debt, so broke from accounting), so if they can fund themselves, and find alternate means to distribute, they are set for life making the games they say they want to make.

I know I dn't buy boxes any more when I have an alternative, like direct2drive or steam or the other sites where you can get CivGal 2, Space Rangers, and Gods, lands of Infinity

[JemyM]

Game Balance: This is what’s wrong with CRPG right now, IMO. The games are being balanced poorly, and it’s only getting worse.

One of the issues with this thinking is that the games are actually balanced for beginners. Hardcore roleplayers, who usually have more IQ than the rest of the population, can easily figure out what's best, pursue it and suceed, and thereby the game gets easier.

CRPGs today put too much emphasis on winning the game (or triumphing throughout the game) and not enough emphasis on role playing and its value, and that’s why they’re becoming more and more like arcade games. It’s as simple as that. CRPGs don’t even try to evaluate your effort at role-playing, so how can you be rewarded for doing it well? That has to change.

Hmmm. I would say that Black Isle, Obsidian and Bioware always tried to do this, and Oblivion/Morrowind, no matter what you feel about them, have tried to add some systems to support roleplayers. Some other companies such as Troika or Larius also had focus on roleplaying and choice.

The problem, I guess, is that it takes time to build such games, so they are uncommon, while cheap diabloclones are common.

Dungeon Master: He was God, an audience, a critic, and a partner who collaborated with your efforts – or not. It was completely up to him. Back when RPG began, the DM seemed like a convention and, frankly, a flawed one—the only means we had. But the DM was more than that. Good DMs made for good games. Great DMs made for wonderful games. They were a full half of the equation, and CRPG needs that half.

The DM should be able to pause the game or refuse to pause it. He should ask you questions, ones you know you should answer well; because it could have a huge affect on your game. The DM should be able to “fudge,” to momentarily change the way the game is played. He should be an enigma of sorts with limitless power and a measure of personality.

Isnt the whole point with CRPG's to have the Computer as DM?

Story-Line: (Linear story-lines are fine, so this suggestion pertains only to the non-linear approach).

Gothic 3 is my favorite structure up to date in which each city had it's own conclusion.

The Interface: There’s too much emphasis on moving and not enough emphasis on what you’re actually doing when you move. I’m glad I’m able to move around so fluidly, to see and hear things so well…but it’s time to rethink the value of that too. I want decisions to make, and not just about which way I’m walking, which way I’m looking.

Hmmm. I know many different RPG interfaces such as Oblivion, Gothic, KOTOR and NWN2 and they each had advantages in their own way. What's wrong with them?

[Ionstormsucks]

@Squeek

Could you be a bit more precise in explaining your ideas please? I have to admit that I have a bit of trouble to understand what you really mean. Very often your ideas seem to be quite abstract and it is hard to get how they would look like if brought into practice.
Just to give you an example what I mean: You're saying that the game could just be stopped and ask the player question why he acted the way he did. Now, apart from the fact that I think this would very much break the illusion of an invisible DM, I still think it's an interesting idea. But you are very abstract when it comes to telling us what that would actually mean for the rest of the game... I mean, in what way would the player's answers be used? What would it change? Would the game try to develop a "profile" of the player's character? If so wouldn't it be a problem if the player is portraying some kind of chiaroscuro character that doesn't fit into the categories of "good" and "evil?"

Especially the part where you're talking about the interface is kinda... blurry. Could you explain a bit more what you're exactely aiming at? To me the interface is a more technical aspect that is only indirectly connected to decision making. So I'm not quite sure what exactely you mean.

[Squeek]

Sometimes players decide they hate a new CRPG and then race through it just to see everything it has to offer. I’ve seen posts about it where they claim to have done it in a few short weeks. That shouldn’t be possible.

It happens because racing through the game achieves the same thing as taking your time. You only have to meet the same goals in order to achieve the same things. You can develop the same character, get the same benefits, and collect all the same stuff along the way.

Would the game try to develop a "profile" of the player's character?Yes. That’s exactly what I mean. I’m saying the software should create its own detailed and thorough profile, one that pertains to and evolves in relation with the player’s style as he establishes and develops his role throughout the game. I’m also saying the game should adjust in accordance with that profile.

That way simply racing through the game would result in something different.

A DM can help develop that profile, because the player can interact with him. He can ask you to elaborate, clarify or justify anything and everything you say or do.

The profile would be similar to the standard character profile and would assign numerical values to a set of characteristics. But instead of strength or intelligence, those would pertain to the nature of role-playing and style.

If that sounds difficult, then I don’t blame you. It’s a new concept. But consider this: Over 3,000 years ago Buddhists defined characteristics for every aspect of the nature of life. How hard could this be?

It would be up to the game designer to determine those characteristics and treat those numbers cleverly, but I’m imagining some deep thinking and a dose of Boolean logic (and our PCs contain plenty of that already).

Characters with different role-play and style profiles could receive different benefits. The story going on around them could change, enabling them to have different adventures, quests and even a different main quest. They would be unique, and there would never be a point where you could say you had experienced everything that character or the game had to offer.

[Stanza]

I am an embittered cynic, so take this for what little it's worth.

I really do not think niche games will ever be big or successful, beyond the "casual" games arena. RPGs will never be casual games, since there's too much complexity to them (the big manuals from days of yore). Even though many "casual" gamers do spend upwards of 2-3 hours a day playing, they do so in small bursts, and frequently on small hand-helds (phones, pdas, crackberries). Making an RPG that would appeal to the casual gamer would result in a game that I as a "hard-core" gamer would not care about (requires a device I do not own, or would play it a few times then lament the abbreviated experience).

As trite and sarcastic as it sounds, it is also true: big companies only care about the bottom line. Small games have to be cheap to make, low maintenance (preferably none at all), and have significant mass appeal. Big companies want big returns for their money. I cannot see any big company financing the kind of niche game people wish for in threads like this one -- FO/BG/Arcanum-level graphics, small team, lots of complexity. It makes for too niche of a product. Yes, I think such a game could be profitable (assuming necessary art-asset support, and higher quality coding than Troika ever delivered). Low cost, spread out over several years, resulting in a product that will have continued sales also spread out over several years. Make a successful product, and it's entirely possible that by the time you're finishing your second game (3-4 years in), the continued revenue from the first game will be paying for the ongoing development costs, and eventually covering the initial expenses as well.

But that kind of project is doomed before it ever gets started.

And that's not how the technology industry works. We build it now, obsolete it in 12 months, and replace it 12 months after that. Maybe sooner, maybe longer. Sure, there are exceptions, but they're... you know... exceptional. My company makes security systems. We're still shipping seven-year-old technology (but we'd really love you if you'd by our new stuff instead). That's not how most of the technology sector works.

Someone needs to invest the start-up capitol for the project. And they want returns with a year or two. A 3-4 year investment return does not excite venture capitolists unless really huge numbers are involved. Niche RPGs don't carry huge numbers.

Pulling the investment capitol from within an existing company (Bioware, for example) won't work if the company is public. Public companies are run by CEOs, CEOs need to keep a company profitable, and never look more than 1-2 quarters ahead. If the company has a significant seasonal sales cycle (significant sales at Xmas), the CEO will look up to year ahead. Beyond that, all bets are off. CEOs only hold their job as long as the company is doing well. If not, they get voted out, usually with a nice golden parachute.

In that environment (and I am speaking from painful experience), trying to fight to get sign-off on your project, when the project needs 18+ months of serious engineering development... Well, forget it. Yes, people understand the importance of the next-gen product. Yes, they want that tech advantage, they want to deliver that new product that crushes the competition. But they're only looking 6-12 months ahead. Their job depends upon company sales this fiscal year. So they hem and haw, and then 12 months later agree, but only give you 6 months to do the 18 months of development you could have already been working on. And maybe you deliver something good, and spend the next several years living with problems that would have been done better with a proper schedule.

Another problem with hoping that a big company will make a small project is that when you get down to the crunch time for their big projects, they pull everyone off of "non-essential" projects, and throw them at the projects with the big $$$ attached. A large company willing to commit several heads to a small project, and keep them there when there are more important projects going? I've never seen it done. You'll get pulled off of it, then after it's been effectively dead for 6 months while you've been crunchings someone else's bugs, you finally discover that management cancelled it without ever telling you.

I can't see large companies delivering the niche RPGs we want. There are too many factors working against it. They want big returns, and need mass market appeal for it to happen.

Another common wish is that "indies" will step up and fill the void. Vogel's name is forever being mentioned, though I doubt many people have actually played his games (I know I haven't). There's a handful of others who have actually delivered, but they all seem to have disappeared into the ether. Their games get almost no mention (aside from hard-core BBS like here or over in goatse land).

Why haven't the indies been successful? I'd like to join their ranks myself, but I've got a long way to get before I get there. I can think of a few reasons why small projects disappear.

I've been actively trying to be involved in a number of projects my college days, something like 15 years now. And every one of them has bombed. Mostly for the same reason: It takes too long.

Lots of people get into the mod community. Muck around with the latest game, then move onto the next one. Maybe come back if there's an expansion. They do it for fun (which is great, don't misread me here), then flitter off to the next game when something else fun comes along, or they get sick of the headaches involved in trying to make more serious mods (e.g., they run into NWN's brick YCSI wall... You Can Script It... if you're a programmer and know how to write code).

Then there's the more hard-core modders. Your Oscuros, Gulsiahs, or those crazy taffers who are still writing Thief missions almost a decade later. And even most of those guys are only doing mods, or tweaking rules, or writing small missions.

Very few of them get so far as to write long mods. I was absolutely delighted when they actually delivered T2X (http://www.thief2x.com/). And it looks like the Sith Restoration project may get finished in the next few months.

But those are incredibly rare.

Most people who get into modding will do so with a great deal of enthusiasm. Then get bored after a few months. Or get overwhelmed when they realize making a game (or a long, serious mod) takes years of free time (you could do one in a few months if you don't have a life, a job, kids, school, etc.). Very few people get involved understanding the time investment required. In my experience, most of those that are willing to commit are students. And they do commit to the time investment. But before they can finish (and some of them really want to), they graduate, get a girl/boy/furryfriend, job, marriage, little bouncing furry geeks, and somewhere along the way they stopped spending time on that game/mod/TC/etc. they were working on. Or the good ones get a job at a real game dev shop and never finish the indy work they were doing. *cough*Fauerby*cough*

So who are these mythical indies we keep hoping will rescue our poor, lamented RPG cravings with tasty niche games?

I can't see big companies doing it. It goes against all of the (unpleasant) experience I've had with corporate mentalities.

Students, weekend warriors, and their ilk can do some impressive work, but only when they focus small. When they aim for something huge, it never gets delivered. And they usually aim large, and crash big. Or disappear without a whimper. Sadly, if you're trying to pull together a group of people online to make a significant mod for your favorite game, these are your most prolific volunteers. Then they get scared off ("What, this actually takes work?!?") or lose interest over time. But I'm overly bitter from the scars of this kind of experience.

Who's left? Small companies? Garage game devs? This is the one I'd like to see, but that's just it -- I don't see many. Vogel, Darghul, maybe AoD (after they finish pimping it up to port over to the Xbox720). Unless you're financially independent, you can't afford to quit your job, hire a couple artists/modelers, and spend the next two years making a game. It's damned hard to do in your spare time, especially if you're going to rely upon volunteers online (you're inviting disaster if you do).

I don't suppose anyone knows any patron of the arts with a million bucks to spare and a love for RPGs?

As I said to begin this rambling rant: I don't think indies are likely to be successful. At least not making the kind of RPG we're wanting (large, deep, with meaningful consequences -- pick any one). At best, we're likely to keep seeing one or maybe two crop up each year.

Mix in the tendency of indies to be... er... "esoteric", and things get harder. Devil Whiskey was too old school for lots of people. Not everyone likes post-apoc or Planescape. Geneforging... unh, whazat? Elf boobies are always a safe bet, but is that what we want from indies? We say we want something different, but it helps when things are recognizable.

So what's left? Hope? Desperation?

I'd love to make some witty insight, say something philosophical.

Instead, I'm doing the only thing I can. I've got this whole week off from my day job, so as a computer geek and RPGaholic, I'm spending it trying to fix the rendering code in my game and get the conversation system working. This is pretty much the only thing I do in my spare time. And maybe, just maybe, in a few years I'll have another deep yet graphically challenged game filled with consequences, pointy ears, and probably more boobies to toss into the mix for everyone to ignore while we all keep lamenting the absense of good games to play.

[Pladio]

I think what you're suggesting would be great. I do believe however that it's more of a greater ideal than practical.
See... creating an RPG like that would take more than 20 years. At least the first one. Either that or someone creates a real interactive-intelligent AI which takes even more than that. The RPG would then still be limited, but have so many options that the limits would be far enough for 99.999% of the RPGers.
Now the cost for developing such a game would be far too high to be profitable.

So unless you manage to unite some kind of union for developers who are motivated to make such a game; This means, coders, programmers, AI specialists,...; You won't get a game like that.

I would like to see such a game, so prove me wrong ...

[HiddenX]

Choices and consequences are the backbone of a story made by my avatar.

In a pen & paper rpg the story branches are only limited by your power of imagination, the rules and the DM.

In a computer rpg we have limited memory and to make things worse every branch
needs to be visualized and speech have to be digitized nowadays.

This fact leeds to the inescapable design decision:
1) Only a few story branches can be programmed
2) More branches cost more money -> some branches of the decision tree must be
reunited later, to keep the maximum number of branches low. (You all know the story with the chessboard and the grains of rice)

So what would be my dream game ? I would say nothing that have not been done before:

Combat: Jagged Alliance 2 or Wizardry 7/8
Dialog: Planescape Torment / Vampire Bloodlines
World Interactivity & Schedule: Ultima 7 / Gothic 3
Story: Avernum / Albion
Fun: Fallout
Stats & Perks: Wizardry 8 & Fallout
Dungeons: Bards Tale 2, Dungeon Master
Rank System: Might & Magic 7

[Maylander]

I've been saying this all along, but Stanza said it better than me - we need to be realistic. I am a developer myself, and I know how much effort it takes to convince the people capable of funding development. Why is it so hard? Simple, because most projects fail miserably and the publishers lose money. The more projects going down the drain, the harder it will be to convince the publisher to fund new projects.

Personally I think we saw the best of what the genre has to offer back in Black Isles' glory days. Fallout, PS:T, Baldur's Gate, these games will forever be the greatest RPGs in my opinion, and even among these great games only Baldur's Gate was profitable within the 12 months Stanza is talking about.

I have lost faith in most big developers, but I still believe in Feargus and Obsidian Entertainment. Their first two games were good overall, but were obviously released before they should have been (the list of cut content in KotOR2 is huge). However, I am hoping that once their economy stabilizes they will produce more top notch RPGs.

Also, I think BioWare might develop more great RPGs, altho they have been fairly console oriented lately. Maybe Dragon Age will live up to its hype; it's been in development for quite a long time now.

Another source of good games are newly started developers such as Piranha Bytes a few years ago. More such developers might come along in the near future, as the gaming industry is having increased profits these days, so it's more attractive to work there.

[Zaleukos]

You're right about common sense, of course. But isn’t that what you need in the real world? We’re talking about decision making in a game world, and that’s different. I think computers have what they need to act as the DM in a CRPG. To a certain extent they’re already doing that behind the scenes, aren’t they?


I should have been more specific.:-) I was thinking of a DM's task as in making the world believable by creating consequences for the players behaviour, and making the player feel he affects the world in a sensible way.

When it comes to that a human DM can adapt to a near infinite number of unexpected situations, while an AI cannot as it produces a limited number of outcomes based upon a limited (and pre-defined) set of parameters. You'd either need scripting for a horrendous amount of alternative chains of event, or a dynamic system a la Gothic 3 (which also is a good example of the difficulties in such a system). The first option requires a lot of coding and testing, the second careful tuning and even more testing than the first.

[Squeek]

I'm thinking about a game world where everything is already in there, all the places, all the NPCs, all the quests and dialogue (including the DM's dialogue), all the mods and everything else, but it isn't all available to you, not all at the same time. What is available is established in the beginning in accordance with the character you create and the style you indicate. Then that changes as you develop and play your role.

It might cost too much to make a game that big. Maybe that model should change too.

Maybe you could purchase a basic game world in the beginning for about half the regular price and have the option to purchase downloadable content to fit your character and your style, generally or specifically. The game maker's Web site could use the game's profile to determine a fit. You might want to play that game several times with several completely different characters and sets of downloadable content. In the end, the costs might be lower and the profits higher.

Imagine a character you want to play and that you could describe him perfectly. Identify his every characteristic, his every nuance. Symbolize each one of those and imagine them floating in space in three dimensions. Put them in their proper perspective with each other. Some would loom larger and be positioned more prominently. Others would be smaller and be positioned further away from the center.

That's what Buddhists came up with over 3,000 years ago. That's how they imagined their own lives. They believed their karma was linked in direct proportion with that image. They wanted to improve their karma, so they set about changing their lives and that image. They imagined the world would respond in relation to those improvements.

That's what inspired my thinking. Those people thought the real world worked that way. I'm imagining a game world can work that way.

[Relayer]

I agree with Maylander - some of the best RPGs ever were released years ago. For me the pinnacle was Baldur's Gate 2. If ever a game was EPIC, that was it.

There WERE flaws with the game, it certainly wasn't perfect but for me it had everything a good RPG should have:

- Storytelling/Lore: Taken as a whole with all the sidequests, it was great - the main campaign was a little dissappointing but still wasn't bad and all the dialogue was decently written while the gameworld felt believable.

- Challenge: Difficulty was just right - I had my share of reloads but it wasn't a frustrating amount and the battles required strategy and thought.

- Presentation: Whether its graphics were dated at the time is questionable. It wasn't 3D but it certainly looked great from an artistic point of view, with great use of color and lush scenery. Also had good effects. Music was rousing, sound effects were fitting and there was ample speech (for the time).

- Gameplay: Take all of the above, add an intuitive easy to use interface, a large game world with lots to do, characters and places with personality and you get near perfection. Sure, it was linear to a point but there was also a degree of flexibility in the 2nd chapter and many side quests. It certainly didn't FEEL linear which is more important. And the game world felt believable.

I'm sorry if I turned this into a mini-review of BG 2 (hehe), but I just wanted to point out that the problem with newer games is that they usually do one of these well and completely forget about the rest. And most of the time the one thing done well is the Presentation - game developers need to realize that HOURS of voice acting or using the newest graphical effects do not help a game that is just plain dull to play.

Oblivion is the most perfect example of this. Amazing graphics, hours of voice-acting (although they dropped the ball on this part, if you've played it you know what I mean) but nothing about the game was even remotely fun. Dialogue options were nearly non-existent beyond "yes" and "no" and neither had any effect on the gameworld. The game was just too simplistic. It reminded me of one of the earlier Japanese RPGs but without any of the charm or difficulty.

Neverwinter Nights did a few things well. It had great characters, very reminiscent of BG2, very good writing, a decent story (so far, admittedly I'm not finished yet), but it fails as far as Challenge goes. On top of that the UI was somewhat intuitive but still a bit cumbersome and controlling your party was just a nightmare.

I'm currently playing KOTOR2 and was actually loving the game (as a big Star Wars fan) until I realized that even on HARD, none of the battles required much work. Obsidian needs to realize that there is really no point in playing a game if there is no challenge in it - the game then becomes nothing more than an interactive story and you're just rushing through it to see it to the end.

On top of that they need to realize that it makes little sense for the world to be littered with dozens of containers filled with with weapons and credits (money). Here you are in a refugee camp on a planet that has been just savagely torn apart by war and there are credits in most of the containers. You would think the refugees would have scavenged the goods by then and gotten some food or a way off the planet! We're not looking for reality in our beloved form of digital entertainment but a little logic would be nice.

So it's bad enough that both of these games are extremely linear but I really wanted to love them because of the things they got right (characterization, dialogue, influence system).

I wonder if developers are just afraid to alienate players with a little difficulty?

Or originality? Every game I've played lately plays out like some typical Hollywood action film where you know every step of the way what's going to happen, even if you're mildly entertained.

Fallout was original, so were Planescape: Torment, and Arcanum but these are the exceptions - and Arcanum had too many flaws, technical or otherwise. Knights Of The Old Republic gets a nod for it's "twist" and well written story (better than any of the prequel films) but aside from this the whole Sith/Jedi conflict is nothing new.

The Elder Scrolls series presented us with an extremely believable and unique game world - I had a lot of fun just reading all the books in Morrowind and coming across landmarks and ruins. But for some reason there was just nothing unique or exciting about many of the quests. Oblivion's main quest is completely devoid of originality.

And of course the whole idea of a large gameworld in which ANYTHING can happen is definitely intriguing but Bethesda has a LONG way to go since Oblivion was 1 step forward, 2 steps back. I would prefer a much smaller world with a more lively atmosphere, well-fleshed NPCs with true depth, a higher degree of spontaneity and the ability for every action you take, no matter how insignificant to affect the world around you.

It seems the biggest problem developers have these days is challenging AND stimulating us. We need thought provoking story telling that will stir emotions and linger in our minds; encounters that truly test our wit and our knowledge of abilities, terrain, weapons, foes; and we need new thematic shores from which to sail.

[roqua]

Stanza and Maylander,

We'll see what happens when Planewalker games releases BHG. BG also had a huge team. I don't work in programming, but I remember during some EA fiasco a few years back a programming/developer team manger came out with a lengthy article about how development teams are poorly managed.

From what it seems like its true. Granted, I don't work in programming, and I cannot talk from experience, but learning about how Deming changed management, and hearing from managers in that time's reactions to his ideas, and how those ideas changed the industry, I believe that things will change.

PWG, IronTower, Basilik, and other small studios now, might just turn the gaming world over.

Maylander, I played both Kotor2 and NWN 2, and I agree that Obsidian came make a good rpg when it comes to story and character interaction. But, as long as combat makes up the majority of their rpg, they need to stop leading the way in trying to make combat as challenge-free as possible if they want to make a lasting impression in anyones hearts and minds.

[roqua]

Relayer, I've never played Oblivion but the sales and reviews speak for themselves. The game appealed to a huge market, and the majority of players loved it. I'm sure your points are 100% valid, but Bethesda's model works. Let me ask you this, if you got hired as the CEO of Bethesda, would you have implemented your changes or came out with the game exactly as is?

Again, I agree with all your points, but I don't see anyway for games to improve and stay as high budget as they are.

This is exactly the issue, Bethesda's goal is one fancy game that captures as broad a market possible. We need more, and higher focused games made for more specific audiences. And developers trying to be innovative and trying new things again.

[Squeek]

Hmmm. I know many different RPG interfaces....and they each had advantages in their own way. What's wrong with them?
I imagine most people think most game interfaces do a pretty good job. They should. They’re designed to work the way the game is contrived. CRPGs need to be recontrived to allow for more decision making, and their interfaces should reflect that.

I might decide I want my character to enter a bar with an attitude. The wizard I’m playing might notice something unsettling about that particular bar. In that case, the DM should prompt me to consider carefully before I do that. That’s all about the game interface plus the DM as a means for making choices that go beyond the standard functionality of that interface.

You might want to posture during a negotiation or feint during a fight. You might decide you should be extra careful, looking for traps on your right and less on your left. You might want your victim to die a little more slowly so you can look into his eyes.

All of that is left to your imagination right now. The game makes its calculations, and announces the results. You succeed at the general idea or you don’t, and that’s about it. It could be a lot more fun than that.

[Pladio]

Like said before, it would cost too much to be profitable. At least for now, since the AI isn't advanced enough for that yet and no one is willing to invest several billions for it. If you have the money or are a developer then I suggest you start working on it, otherwise you might never see something in that genre.

[Squeek]

I guess I like dreaming. Well, if I ever become King of CRPG....

[Maylander]

Just get enough money so you can fund the greatest RPG ever made. I am sure that quite a few developers would love to make such a game if they were given the resources to do so.

[Ionstormsucks]

Relayer, I've never played Oblivion but the sales and reviews speak for themselves. The game appealed to a huge market, and the majority of players loved it. I'm sure your points are 100% valid, but Bethesda's model works. Let me ask you this, if you got hired as the CEO of Bethesda, would you have implemented your changes or came out with the game exactly as is?


Honestly, the more often I hear the "you have to develop for a mass market" argument the more superficial it sounds to me. I think it very much has been engrained into minds of the press, players, developers, and publishers alike... and no one seems to question it anymore. The causal chain of relations seems to be so simple and so logical that it must be the only successful way to create a game.
I'm tired of it. Games like Oblivion and Morrowind had a lot of advantages that other RPGs did NOT have in the past - so a lot speaks for interdependency rather than just causal relationship. They developed for more than one platform, they had a fairly strong graphical engine, and they had major press coverage. That does not mean that their concept does not also appeal to a mass market, but it is certainly not the sole reason why the Elder Scrolls series sells well. It is Bethesda's whole concept that seems to work well, and that does not only include gameplay, it also incldues technology, public relations, and advertisment.

The conclusion that from now on every RPG has to follow the "Oblivion pattern" is just erroneous. Take the Baldur's Gate series for example - these games were extremly heavy when it comes to dialogue, something that you usually would not consider something to be very appealing for a mass market. Still these games were extremly successful. For the time at which the games were released and for the fact that they were developed just for the PC their success seems to be almost unmatched.

Does Oblivion appeal to a mass market - of course it does. But not only because of its gameplay, but also because of the simple fact that the mass market has shifted from PC to console gaming a long time ago. Unfortunately complex RPGs are still developed almost exclusively for the PC. Fact however is that the console market is growing rapidly while the PC gaming market is stagnating, even slowly declining.

Now, I did not want to turn this into a thread which goes totally off-topic. But I think that complexity has very little to do when it comes to selling a game. Squeek has a few nice ideas - I admit many things he suggested seem to be impossible from a technical point of view, maybe even from an economic point of view (if you consider how much time it would take to develop a game with a multitude of branching storylines, etc.), but I don't think sales numbers would be a problem, IF you do it right.

[Squeek]

...I don't think sales numbers would be a problem, IF you do it right.Customers don't always know what they want till it's provided to them. That's hard to anticipate. But once it becomes clear that enough people will buy something, you might as well get out of the way. You couldn't stop people from selling it to them if you tried.

I worked in data when it was first being pitched to phone companies. The frustration can't be overstated. There was no clear demand for data back then, and their executives would laugh out loud at the idea. They would often launch into a speech, explaining their business and their numbers. Those numbers were astronomical, too -- dwarfing these by huge factors.

There are worthwhile markets other than the perceived mass-market. I'd like to see game makers take CRPG to the next level, making it even better for the genre's dedicated fans.

[Maylander]

Quality means very little; ease of use, availability and marketing means everything. Some of the best hardware producers and software developers we've ever had went down despite having superior products, simply because their products were not exposed enough to the public, or too difficult to use.

[Squeek]

Quality means very little; ease of use, availability and marketing means everything.I'm sure you must know your business, Maylander. If that's the way it is, then that's too bad.

As far as I can tell, kids want what's cool. They have their own sources, I think. In Orange County they all want a Black Jack (http://reviews.cnet.com/Samsung_BlackJack/4505-6452_7-32143267.html) (my wife's a teacher). Maybe it's me, but that doesn't look easy to use (it would help if I could see the buttons, I suppose).

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Another problem ist the customer itself. What does he or she want ? Why do people buy simple games in millions, but leave deeper, higher sophisticated games alone ?

It seems - or at least I have the impression that - companied decided to produce without (or with at least minimized) risk. And thus appeal to the majority of the customers.

Now, when customers rather like simple games, then it is just consequent for minimizing risk and maximizing profits to sell simple games.

Which could on the other hand mean that we - who want *really* sophisticated games, with a deep story and immersion - are a dying race. A minority.

[Corwin]

Alrik, just look at the rubbish force-fed to us on TV and you'll see that you are correct; it's simple games for the simple minded!! How else can you explain 90% of TV shows!!

[Ionstormsucks]

Alrik, just look at the rubbish force-fed to us on TV and you'll see that you are correct; it's simple games for the simple minded!! How else can you explain 90% of TV shows!!

Following the Skynet theory recently developped in another thread on these boards the actors in these TV shows are, of course, robots disguised as humans. Skynet is producing these shows to distruct us so we are entertained and chances get better to get through with his evil plot to take over the world...

[narpet]

It's interesting to consider the humble beginnings of PC gaming.

When it was in its infancy there was no such thing as the "casual" gamer. This is evident in the games that were being produced. In the early 1980's most games were either turn-based war games or CRPGs (both of which involved a lot of time and brain investment). Advertising and marketing were nearly non-existent (keep in mind that I'm not talking about console gaming here). Gamers went looking for the games. Word of mouth from one geek to the next spurred the purchasing of PC games. The only advertising you saw was in magazines like Dragon or Miniatures War Gaming magazines.

Games were created by people who knew their audience because they were part of the audience. The games were hard and unforgiving and that's the way we liked it. :) And these games took forever to finish. Sure the technology wasn't as high as it is now, but you still had games that took 40 to 100, or even 200 hours to finish. And the games were created by 2 to 10 man teams on basically no budget beyond their salary.

Then, slowly, the idea of marketing took the helm. As the years passed and computers became more common place, a new gamer type emerged... the "casual" gamer. This is the same person who goes to lots of mainstream movies, watches mainstream TV, and is basically a consummate consumer. So the game companies finally got the idea... treat a game like a mainstream movie... big budget, big names, easy to swallow, easy to play.

That brings us to where we are. The geek, who used to be the majority in the PC gaming market, is now the minority. And it's not going to change. The game companies are just like any other company now. Making big money is the goal. Why make a game that they can sell to 20,000 hardcore geeks when they can make one that they can sell to 2,000,000 casual gamers.

Sad, but true.

[Squeek]

Making big money is the goal. Why make a game that they can sell to 20,000 hardcore geeks when they can make one that they can sell to 2,000,000 casual gamers.There's competition to consider, and maybe that's good news for us. Maybe the mass-market will get so saturated that game makers will come back around to considering the original market they left behind -- the hardcore geeks.

[Zaleukos]

Good point about saturation of the mass market.

In "pc gaming is dying" threads I always bring up that niche developers and internet distribution (cutting distribution costs) bring hope for us "sophisticated" gamers. Even a niche market can be substantial if it is global, and competition is less fierce compared to if you are developing MMORPG #54 or RTS #2784. My favourite example of a developer working along these lines is Paradox Interactive, a strategy game developer that would have had a hard time before the internet came along. You could also limit piracy by measures such as forcing registration for patches.

Cranky old gaming geezers have to come to terms with the fact that gaming is becoming a mature entertainment industry, much like the movie industry. And like in the movie industry you wont see the big producers/publishers spend their time and money on anything but reasonably safe blockbusters. It doesnt mean there's no "quality" scene around, just that it has a smaller market share (which doesnt have to be a problem in gaming since the absolute size of the market still is growing)....

[Alrik Fassbauer]

The *real* Problem is that gaming has become an industry. As Will Wright once put it in an recent interview, the gaming genre itself is seemingly controlled by heads who are basically totally clueless about it !

They just treat it like they THINK an industry of this sorts should be treated.

The problem is, that gaming is simply treated like an industry of some sort, not like an art. If it was treated like an art (like films, for example), then the whole genre would revolve, imho. Then NOBODY would demanmd the delivery of bug-infested games anymore ! Because art - especially movies - aren't delivered without bugs as well !

(Hm, that brngs me to the idea of making a film according to the development of a game ... with all the bugs released ... ;) )

I call the "industrialization of gaming" the "loss of gaming's virginity".


Edit : By the way : In an today's interview of a local newspaper (Cologne area) someone (I forgot his name) actually proposed supporting game developement as art !

[Zaleukos]

Main stream movie (or TV series) production is as much of an industry as an art, and definitely see cases of quality being compromised and cuts being made due to deadlines.

And isnt "Plan 9 from outer space" supposed to be the perfect movie "on the bugs"?;)

[Squeek]

The *real* Problem is that gaming has become an industry. As Will Wright once put it in an recent interview, the gaming genre itself is seemingly controlled by heads who are basically totally clueless about it !That's a good point.

There are visionaries out there too, though. They come out of nowhere with ideas nobody ever thought of or reconsider old ideas everyone else regards as dead. Everybody understands mainstream thinking. But taking a different view, finding and recognizing value, and developing that into something that can actually work -- that's a good trick.

I can't think of a line of work that exhibits that rationale more than design engineering. It's just a matter of time, IMO, before a game maker provides the fans with what they really want.