Next Gen - Top 10 Design Innovations of 2007

Dhruin

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Ah, Christmas. A time of family, friends, good cheer and and Top XX articles at game sites. You can't win, so you have to join them. BioWare is pointing out Next Gen's Top 10 Game Design Innovations for 2007 because Mass Effect's dialogue wheel gets a nod:
3. Reinventing the Wheel – Mass Effect
I can’t remember the last time I saw a dialogue tree in a major release game...but you know what I can remember? I can remember having a conversation with a group of game designers who said that dialogue trees were dead, that a modern audience wouldn’t sit through that amount of reading. Bioware blew this line of reasoning out of the water with the dialogue wheel in Mass Effect.
Puzzle Quest actually grabs No. 2, interestingly.
More information.
 
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Incidentally, you are pointing to page 2, instead of the start of the article.

The decision I'm most behind is with #1 --- Portal was the most fascinating and innovative game of the year, on multiple levels.

The one I have the biggest issue with is Warhawk ... but I may be biased (I was one of the developers on the ... ahem... REAL Warhawk, for the PS1...) By my understanding, the decision to go multiplayer-only was one of desperation (to salvage the project), not inspiration. But I could be wrong... I didn't follow the development of Warhawk PS3 that closely.
 
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I thought most of Page 1 was foolish, so I didn't mind he linked to the stuff that didn't make the article look stupid :D

I really like #2 and #1. Make great sense.

As for Warhawk, the 'innovation' was not multiplayer only, but rather that it was available for a while as 'digital download only'. Not a global innovation, but imagine - a serious game as 'download only' ... for a CONSOLE!
 
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Nothing foolish about 10, 8, and 6. My picks:

Bioshock's Big Daddies: scripted boss battles where you write the script. You pick the time, the place and the tools, leading the poor guy through the most entertaining gauntlet of traps and ambushes you can devise. Then you scramble to improvise an ending when your turrets explode before you've finished.

Mario Galaxy's tiny planets. Also: Mario Galaxy's everything else. Someday, maybe, videogames will let you do anything you can imagine. Did that idea ever excite anyone else? I mean, back before games were all clones of each other, and another genre became uneconomical every year. I hadn't felt that thrill at the endless possibilities of games in years. In fact, I'd forgotten it completely until the day I took a running jump and landed on the other side of the world.
 
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Whether Puzzle Crack is great or not I fail to see how its innovative. Its simply a combination of a very low end jrpg and a puzzle game.

*starts playing it intravenously* ahhhhhhhhh

-----

Is Line Rider really a game or an interesting idea in computing? the Game of Life went on to spawn Utopia and Simcity but I'd hardly consider it a real game.

Line Rider is definitely innovative, unless you count Roller Coaster Tycoon as its predecessor.
 
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Nothing foolish about 10, 8, and 6. My picks:

Bioshock's Big Daddies: scripted boss battles where you write the script. You pick the time, the place and the tools, leading the poor guy through the most entertaining gauntlet of traps and ambushes you can devise. Then you scramble to improvise an ending when your turrets explode before you've finished.

How is that innovative when when i was given the same type of quests in wow. Where I would be told to kill someone who was guarded be a followers, on a scripted path. I would also scout out ahead to find the best way to attack to, (a less populated mob area) sneak in (with my rogue) sap one, blind another and go crazy on the quest target, then vanish out. The list comes off (to me anyway) as someone who hasn't played a wide range of games over the years and is exaggerating other examples.
 
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How is that innovative when when i was given the same type of quests in wow.
I haven't played nearly enough WoW to speak authoritatively, but it sounds like difference lies in the things which I described and you didn't.
 
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I haven't played nearly enough WoW to speak authoritatively, but it sounds like difference lies in the things which I described and you didn't.

Maybe I misunderstood what you were saying but it sounded like what you were saying that the innovative was the preparation to fight, (with the big daddies) and in using skills and the environment to you advantage in a creative way. But I'm saying I've done that before in wow, like setting traps in the path of a quest target and setting you're pet to attack and using items like the mind control device(on a enemy) to vicariously kill the target. Now, it's not exactly like bioshock but as far as setting up a elaborate trap (using various classes, skills and items) to finishing objectives it is.
 
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I don't understand how #3 is innovative. What do they mean by dialog wheel? Is it the same as a dialog tree or somehow different? I don't own an X-Box 360 so I won't be able to play Mass but isn't the conversation in Mass like KOTOR?

I would of thought that The Witcher's dialog system and how it affects your whole game a bit more innovative.
 
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cuthbert:
In that case, you're right. WoW did it earlier. Bioshock deserves credit for successfully introducing the idea to the FPS, but that's not quite the same thing as innovating.
 
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I don't know about this "dialog wheel" at all.
Maybe that's just because I don't follow that Mass Effect hype. :p
 
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It's very funny to read the very negative comments about the article, they show how most choice are wrong, no innovation here.

Anyway, one problem in our modern world isn't to value more the "new" than the "good"? Sure only new really moves stuff onward but is this that major? Too much focus on this make us lost the sense of what is good.

I don't say I'm agree with this but you can try apply this on many fields including music, art in general, entertainments, games and son on and even human living. :biggrin:
 
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