Larian Studios - Educating Players

Long ago, when there just wasn't any podssibility to get great graphiucs - on the side of the developer -they were kind of damned to put as much as possible into gameplay and story in order to appeal to people … At least that's what I think.

I think you nailed it. All those gaming manuals that players used to love reading helped in two important ways. They provided a lot of additional story background and lore that couldn't be included within the game due to memory restrictions. Secondly, the manuals helped the player imagine the world free of the constraints of limited graphical visuals of the time.

Story and gameplay were everything and still should be. And clever prodding of the player's own imagination helped fill in the blanks. It was a great time to be gamer with that era of gaming - warts and all.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
2,897
Location
Oregon
A game with flashy graphics/sound sells a lot better than a game with gameplay. Most people aren't gamers (in the sense anyone here would use the word) but they don't mind taking place in an interactive movie via a console, on their TV screen. Look at stuff like Bioshock Infinite, the gameplay is almost literally zero.

Though obviously in the last few years, people/companies are starting to realize more and more that they can still make money by making much cheaper games that sell to smaller audiences. In some cases, they can make quite a bit of it - see stuff like Legend of Grimrock.
 
Joined
Sep 26, 2007
Messages
3,444
8/10 troll points. Not bad!

A lot of "gamers" just want a movie, not a game. They want something that looks pretty, isn't too complex to play, got full voice over so they don't have to read text and that they can finish fast. The "journalists" simply reflect that.

For sure, there are a lot of lazy people with ADD out there, but not all of us, so there's room for all kinds of games, they don't ALL have to be a small step away from watching TV.

Unfortunately with a lot of games, to get "wider appeal" and sell more units, they compromise gameplay, then they spend more on making the games, thus making selling a ton of units mandatory, and it's just a recurring/spiraling toilet of game design. Even to the point of alienating your original players.

I would say BioWare has sort of done this. They've totally got away from the types of games that got them successful in the first place, and have morphed into a walmart style design shop that designs mind candy for the masses, making games that aren't anywhere near as deep and interesting as their older games.

For some companies the point has become to sell lots of units rather than to design the best possible game, because for mass appeal the best design is often more about graphics and glitz than gameplay. Shiny stuff works well on those with limited intellectual firepower.
 
Joined
Apr 22, 2013
Messages
633
Location
Arizona
This is why we should have Oscars for games, voted by various sources with reputations for not palming kickbacks.
 
Joined
Feb 10, 2014
Messages
372
I recently fired up Hexen - Raven's sequel to Heretic and my FPS of choice back in my 486 days. I used the Jheretic engine to get it running at 1980x1020 resolution and a number of mods to supplement the graphics. It looked really good whilst being nowhere near the graphical fidelity that even small software developers have been able to achieve over the last five or so years. However, the interesting thing was that the graphics were exactly as I remembered them! of course, my imagination had filled in the blanks left by the limitations of my pre-historic PC and the 14" monitor which was roughly the size and weight of about 12 laptops stacked atop one another. This happened for so many games - the music and graphics of the Lucasarts adventures completely entranced me and the aesthetics of the original System Shock were dazzling (although I couldn't imagine my way beyond that horrendously clunky control system).

there were far fewer games and most of them were built to engage the buyer for substantial periods of time - games were long and journalists were expected to play them to completion before reviewing. In those days, reviews would often come out weeks and months before the games - the internet largely being still in its experimental stages and patches largely being obtained for the free discs that came with gaming magazines. The games had to be more challenging if value was to be obtained and also because they were largely labours of love. Once the gaming community grew to the point were inordinate profit could be made, then the sensibilities of development expanded and changed.

I have over 600 games on Steam alone - an unimaginable number back in the 90s. Games are often now something that need to be easily understandable and digestible - they are as much built for the sharing of experience, a communal internet water cooler talking point. they have to be relatively easy in part because people won't otherwise have time to play the a no move onto the next shared experience.

I loved learning the mechanics of some games, was happy to try again and again after consistent failure until eventually mastered a scenario or level. Nowadays If I was taking to long to complete a game or even a level it would eat into the time I might spend with other games. The simplicity of games is, to some degree, to do with scarcity of time as much as scarcity of attention.

Anyway, an interesting discussion and excellent blog by Swen.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Feb 12, 2014
Messages
8
It is not about PR or tutorials or wrong conclusions .
Turn based combat = game is shit , you barricaded yourselves together with a tiny minority of players who are still willing to play with fossils , have fun with that.

Fossils? I am going to hazard a guess and say you are a fan of games best played with a controller? Otherwise known as console games? These games have GUI’s that have not improved since the NES such as Skyrim or ESO. A list as the GUI for inventory items? Talk about fossils. Anyone who uses a controller to play a game is a monkey savage, no different from a caveman who hunts for his dinner in their homemade leather or grass skirts. Civilized people use games with civilized, modern interfaces. The future is here. The keyboard and mouse is clearly and definitively superior input devices. PCs are far superior than the consoles and tablets monkeys use these days to replace the fun they had flinging feces at passersby before these inferior devices became readily available to the monkeys.

TB combat, when done well with a good mechanics system, often requires thought and strategy. Like chess, fine wine, and sex, it will never be outdated.
 
Joined
Mar 7, 2014
Messages
119
With an awesome post like that, I have to assume you are the same Bubbles from the codex.
 
Joined
Sep 26, 2007
Messages
3,444
You're WAY too generous, TheSHEEP. I'd say 5/10, tries too hard.

@TheMadGamer: I don't necessarily disagree with your sentiments about the gaming press, but I think you severely overestimate their influence on the success of games. With people getting their information digitally, I feel like public forums and fansites are at least (if not more) important than games journalists.

Now I think you're giving gamers too much credit. The vast majority of the people who buy games know nothing about games and aren't well informed at all.
 
Joined
Oct 22, 2006
Messages
409
Ah, yes, that is the developper who made that comparison between testing games and having unprotected sex…

Seems he is again wrong in his views.

Why bother about the press?

Streamers might have an extremelly large viewership and provides so much larger exposure.

I looked at the new releases and noticed that The Walking Dead Season 2 episode 2 was out.

After playing the first season, I have no illusion about the quality of this game series. But benefit of the doubt, I decided to watch a lets play video on YT.

I found this player
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tilvxc1LPrM

He attracted over 4 millions of viewers. The Walking Dead is the perfect product for that kind of streamers, these products are devoid of any gameplay and let the streamer fully able to play his one person show.

Games including turn based sequences "UGOIGO" are easy of access so they lend ground for the same exhibition by actors.

This developper should not focus on the press but find an actor to broadcast his game. And more than anything, design his games to meet the demands by those actors.
This is becoming increasingly common. My own daughters kinda shocked me when they repeatedly watch "let's play" videos… they'd rather watch someone else have fun and comment on their experience than play it themselves.

That's not 100% the case - my daughters are gamers, too. But it seems like the newer generation of gamers are increasingly passive. It's "the thing." I don't get it. I feel like there's something key that I'm just not figuring out.

What is missed is that players make money off playing. This changes the deal. Players are no more passive today than they were yesterday. Games are more and more designed for players who make money off playing video games.
And those players make money by getting people to watch them. Therefore, games must be designed with a passive viewership in mind.

See the thread in the other section on Ryse.

I think you nailed it. All those gaming manuals that players used to love reading helped in two important ways. They provided a lot of additional story background and lore that couldn't be included within the game due to memory restrictions. Secondly, the manuals helped the player imagine the world free of the constraints of limited graphical visuals of the time.

Story and gameplay were everything and still should be. And clever prodding of the player's own imagination helped fill in the blanks. It was a great time to be gamer with that era of gaming - warts and all.

Manuals, as they used to be, wont get to be seen for ages, for two main reasons that I wont tell here.

Putting story and gameplay on the same line is deceiving.

Time ago, games were not about story. They were about gameplay. Story helped the creative process and was an enhancing feature for gamers.

The current situation results from players who kept pushing to see games no longer as an object of gameplay but as a medium to deliver a story.
Story was a massive sledgehammer to destroy gaming.

This stuff might even have started when developpers start to put more and more resources in story.

A game does not need a story to be good. It needs a good gameplay.
 
Joined
Mar 29, 2011
Messages
6,265
This is becoming increasingly common. My own daughters kinda shocked me when they repeatedly watch "let's play" videos… they'd rather watch someone else have fun and comment on their experience than play it themselves.

That's not 100% the case - my daughters are gamers, too. But it seems like the newer generation of gamers are increasingly passive. It's "the thing." I don't get it. I feel like there's something key that I'm just not figuring out.

In another thread - inspired by joxer - I came up with the thought of once TV channels emerging which have nothing but that - combined with players being paid for playing games and commenting them and them becoming celebrities … And in the end this would lead into the total reverse of what gaming is today :

Of a game let's say only 10 specimens would EVER be produced. The TV player of the game would play them, and people would watch him or her - knoing that they will NEVER EVER be in the place to get this game and never ever be able to play it themselves …
Those paid TV channel players would become an elite in their own right - celebrities loved and hated because they can play (and generously let everybody watch them ! - for a fee, of course …) what no-one else will be able to play …

It's like watching somone drive an Rolls Royce on TV nowadays …
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,908
Location
Old Europe
Joined
May 6, 2013
Messages
4,968
Location
Germany
Yeah, I agree. And gameplay is extremely subjective, so that line ("Good" gameplay) actually doesn't mean anything.

Indeed, it is subjective, for a player good gameplay means he likes the game mechanics and it contributes to his/her enjoyment of the game.

I would say that I need both too, although story could be just be lore/detailed setting and interesting NPCs and not necessarily quests.
 
Joined
Oct 13, 2007
Messages
7,313
I need some extrinsic motivation for my character to do stuff. In a pure sandbox game I have a hard time letting my character go on some self chosen, life-endangering adventure. That just wouldn't feel right to me. It would feel right letting him sit in a tavern, drink beer and flirt withe the barmaid. Blackjack and hookers. Then again I would get bored.

So to make it feel right, I need something to push my character into the adventure, be it an assignment or a personal matter.
 
Joined
May 6, 2013
Messages
4,968
Location
Germany
Time ago, games were not about story. They were about gameplay. Story helped the creative process and was an enhancing feature for gamers.

In the case of Ultima, your statement is incorrect. They included not only a manual but sometimes as many as two separate compendiums to supplement story and gameplay (such as spell casting). Not to mention cloth maps of the game world.

To a lesser extent, but still worth mentioning, early Wizardry games and the Bard's Tale series included quite a bit of story telling in their manuals. Even later games such as TES 1: Arena and TES 2: Daggerfall had quite extensive storytelling in their manuals.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
2,897
Location
Oregon
Indeed, it is subjective, for a player good gameplay means he likes the game mechanics and it contributes to his/her enjoyment of the game.

No. Mere rationalization to keep imposing a story as a necessity. A good gameplay is one based on mechanics that work.
Games and their associated gameplay are designed with objectives in mind and the result might or might not serve the purpose.

Like or not liking changes nothing.

You might not like a bridge but when it crosses a gap and sustain the expected weight, it is a good bridge.
I would say that I need both too, although story could be just be lore/detailed setting and interesting NPCs and not necessarily quests.

Hundreds of games come with no story. In the video game department, it is only recently that, under the pressure of players, that the perception of games is forced as a medium to deliver story.

Players want stories in their games and they buy them for that in the first play.

Story to Chess? Story to football? Story to Super Marios Bros? Story to Tetris?
And so more.

How many more for which story is just an enhancing element? Story to Zelda?

Story is absolutely non essential to games. But in the video games realm, players have pushed stories as the essential.

The lack of progress, or even the decrease in quality in gameplay is directed connected to that demand.
 
Joined
Mar 29, 2011
Messages
6,265
Hundreds of games come with no story. In the video game department, it is only recently that, under the pressure of players, that the perception of games is forced as a medium to deliver story.

Players want stories in their games and they buy them for that in the first play.

Story to Chess? Story to football? Story to Super Marios Bros? Story to Tetris?
And so more.

How many more for which story is just an enhancing element? Story to Zelda?

Story is absolutely non essential to games. But in the video games realm, players have pushed stories as the essential.

The lack of progress, or even the decrease in quality in gameplay is directed connected to that demand.

It is ? Has the quality declined because of the story in Indy 4 ß Because of the story in Monkey Island ?

You see only 1 genre as being everything in gaming : The Action Games as such.

But - Action is not everything.- Like in movies : You don't entirely have action movies, you have drama comedy, everything is possible.

In gaming, you have Action games, and you have storytelling games, like Adventure games.

Yes, a story in Indy Jones games is not essential at all. But what would be an Indy Action Movie without a story to be told ? What would be the original Monkey Island game without a story ? A mere search-and-click game. Like you have so many games noadays like "Farm Frenzy" or the "Wimmelbild" genre (don't know how this is called in English language).

What is a book without a story ?

Yes, in board games there is no story. There is only fun & gameplay. But a story can evolve out of that, if players want to, like the classic Talisman board game.
 
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
21,908
Location
Old Europe
… no story.
I play cards with friends. Chess. Whatever. No story. And it's fun I wouldn't change it a bit.

When I sit on my PC, I want a story.
A no story game? No buy. I already have it elsewhere, I don't need it here too. Oh, but the gameplay is awsome and the graphics looks ways better than on handdrawn cards and design is fantastic compared to dusty old chess figurines?
Yea… Sell that gameplay graphics no story stuff to your mother.
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
This is becoming increasingly common. My own daughters kinda shocked me when they repeatedly watch "let's play" videos… they'd rather watch someone else have fun and comment on their experience than play it themselves.

That's not 100% the case - my daughters are gamers, too. But it seems like the newer generation of gamers are increasingly passive.

Probably because nowadays kids hardly experience deep and satisfying gameplay. What they experience is mostly "movie quality" - they see a lot of cutscenes, superb graphics, flashy MC animations, "cool" looking characters, but they are not drawn to play it to the end, to master the game. In the old days players invested more time to learn basics, to master a game, to explore, to overcome obstacles. Nowadays there is no challenge, game is easy. More work goes into fancy or over the top animations than good and satisfying combat. Linearity… scripted sequences feeling like a movie with little interactivity like QTEs. Even open worlds are static, there is not much consequence of your actions, you usually do the same stuff again and again.

Back to the point - I think that kids are accustomed to a little different, less satisfying gameplay. It may happen that element they remember the best from a game is graphics. For them its more like watching what the hero do or what NPCs do in cutscenes. So watching "lets plays" is logical consequence.

———
BTW Im new in the forum. Hello to all and have a nice weekend.
 
Joined
Feb 23, 2014
Messages
1,524
Location
Ferdok in Aventuria (Europe)
This is becoming increasingly common. My own daughters kinda shocked me when they repeatedly watch "let's play" videos… they'd rather watch someone else have fun and comment on their experience than play it themselves.
They probably watch them for hilarious commentary, not for games. That can be an entertainment in its own right.



In general, though, all things always result in being watered down once they become popular. First there's development and golden age, then it gains ultra popularity and suddenly everybody wants to please an average person in their mind. Things become simplified in case some people might find them hard. Used and overused ideas abound, they've been proven to sell. That's how a "market chooses what to buy" idea works out.

P.S.

My own sibling is such an "average person", he plays action-games and says that RPGs are too complex. That said, I'd never play the games he plays, I find them boring. So it's not like he represents an average gamer, it's more like we represent two different gamer stratas. If you create an action game, my strata won't buy it anyway, so you still fail to please an average gamer.
 
Joined
Jan 2, 2013
Messages
574
Location
Russia
Back
Top Bottom