I want to build things

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
What about wood, hammer, nails, and saw?

You can build quite a few neat things using those.

That game's sdk pack sucks. Setting your module up isn't bad, but you're in real trouble if you want to edit it after the fact. It would be nice if the components snapped to the grid, but it seems like you can never quite get them placed properly and it all looks "tacked in place". Plus, the documentation usually is nonexistent.

Originally Posted by Ubereil
Well, it's still installed… You don't happen to know of a 3D graphic mod?

If only.

There aren't all that many mods, because the game itself evolves so fast. There is a 3D visualizer for it, though -- you can use it to produce 3D views of your fortress.

The Presentation Arc is somewhere in the future, though. It'll happen, eventually. Having a scalable window is already a big improvement IMO.

The next release is going to be pretty amazing -- we'll have health care, tissue layers, grooming, underground cave systems with ecologies that span world-map size areas, that sort of thing.

Just your thing: Lego Creative Builder.

In a more serious note, then Firefly's Stronghold is a great castle building sim. I've built a lot of castles/mini societies in that game.

Oh, I'm not slamming Dungeon Keeper in particular. (Hehe, I remember I was living in an apartment when playing DK2. I had to turn the sound down when the mistresses started their work!) It's just that it's OOOOOOLLLD!! 12 years old. That's 12 years of technology advancements and 12 years of advancements in the art of game design. Why miss out on all that?

yes it is old, but never has there been released such a game like that anymore.

I wouldn't care less for those graphics. Where is Dungeon Keeper 3?

Originally Posted by Zloth
Oh, I'm not slamming Dungeon Keeper in particular. (Hehe, I remember I was living in an apartment when playing DK2. I had to turn the sound down when the mistresses started their work!) It's just that it's OOOOOOLLLD!! 12 years old. That's 12 years of technology advancements and 12 years of advancements in the art of game design. Why miss out on all that?

I started DK2 a few months ago and found that it had aged pretty well, perfectly fine and playable. Totally recommended.

The pro point in not-too-old games is that they can run fine with maxed details & such on current PCs.

Pff, I run current games maxed out…

Übereil

Originally Posted by Zloth
Oh, I'm not slamming Dungeon Keeper in particular. (Hehe, I remember I was living in an apartment when playing DK2. I had to turn the sound down when the mistresses started their work!) It's just that it's OOOOOOLLLD!! 12 years old. That's 12 years of technology advancements and 12 years of advancements in the art of game design. Why miss out on all that?

Why overlook a great game if it is fun?

That's 12 years of technology advancements

Yes, today we have better graphic, that is all. But is the graphic that very important to miss great games without "enough bloom", as they say?

12 years of advancements in the art of game design.

I failed to see this advancements. Some games just have a great game desing and graphic can be called an "art" (though it is very subjective)but just very few and I don't think today there is more games like that than some years ago.

That's all!?!? Uhh, no. Not even close.

* Better sound. Surround sound with a lot more 3D to it. The music can be more complex, too.

* Stronger CPUs. More CPU power means the game can run faster, which means the game can do more things. You can have more objects with good AI or you can have few objects with far better AI. More complex math can be done without killing the PC, too.

* Better physics. FAR better. (And CUDA is going to help it get even better yet.)

* More memory. RAM, hard drives, and the disks the game come on. That, again, means more stuff that can be in a game. Bigger levels, more stuff in the levels, higher quality save games (possibly even including a small screenshot to jog your memory), stuff with greater detail.

* Better game-making tools. Even if you had a modern PC 10 years ago, making a modern game with it would have been hell. Devs these days have better programming languages, better modelling tools, better defect tracking software, better OS calls to make (DirectX and OpenGL), and so on.

* History. The devs that make today's games have played those old games and can learn from them.

* And last but definitely not least - WAY better graphics. We're not just talking bloom. We're talking 3D, number of polygons, number of colors, anti-aliasing, resolution, bumpmapping, and all sorts of other fancy things. Better graphics give better immersion. Better immersion gives more fun.

So, in the end, you are just not playing old games because of graphic.

* Better sound. Surround sound with a lot more 3D to it. The music can be more complex, too.

I agree, although is it so important? Sure, today games have better music but I don't think games with worse audio sound are bad, no matter what they are.

* Stronger CPUs. More CPU power means the game can run faster, which means the game can do more things. You can have more objects with good AI or you can have few objects with far better AI. More complex math can be done without killing the PC, too.

Good AI? Don't make me laught, I haven't seen game with much better AI than 10 years ago. It's still similiar! OK, today in FPS games enemies know how to hide but I can't find anything else…

* Better physics. FAR better. (And CUDA is going to help it get even better yet.)

Oh, yes, because playing in a games without using newest technology sucks.

* Better game-making tools. Even if you had a modern PC 10 years ago, making a modern game with it would have been hell. Devs these days have better programming languages, better modelling tools, better defect tracking software, better OS calls to make (DirectX and OpenGL), and so on.

With that I agree, but playing a game and modding a game is two totally different things. I buy most of games to play them, if I'd like to mod something I would probably use only two series for it (NWN and TES).

* History. The devs that make today's games have played those old games and can learn from them.

They can learn but unfortunately in my opinion they don't.

* And last but definitely not least - WAY better graphics. We're not just talking bloom. We're talking 3D, number of polygons, number of colors, anti-aliasing, resolution, bumpmapping, and all sorts of other fancy things. Better graphics give better immersion. Better immersion gives more fun.

This is what I was talking about when I sain "enough bloom". As I said before - game without newest technology sucks, no matter how great the plot or characters are. Is it what you want to say?

Originally Posted by Konjad
Yes, today we have better graphic, that is all. But is the graphic that very important to miss great games without "enough bloom", as they say?

Oh give me a break! Do you seriously believe that 12 years of technological and design evolution only amounts to "better graphics?" If so, you're either completely ignorant or delusional.

Off the top of my head, we have:

* Much better physics.
* Much better sound.
* Much better algorithmic generation of all kinds of stuff. (Dwarf Fortress!)
* Much better real-time AI.
* Much more robust data models for handling much more complex content.
* Content streaming.
* Much better and more standardized user interfaces.

Back in the '90's, every first-person shoot-em-up had its own set of key mappings, that you either had to learn or re-map to whatever you already knew. Now it's standard. Games used to come with big, thick manuals simply because they were not playable without them; nowadays they don't, largely because you don't need them -- the UI's are intuitive enough that you can just jump in and start playing with a light tutorial to get you started.

Compare Civilization IV to the original Civilization. It's way, way richer and more complex in content, execution, and gameplay experience; yet it's easier to learn while being harder to master. Not to mention that it responds faster, looks and sounds better, and *plays* better.

You may not like the choices many or most game designers have made in *using* this technological evolution, but that's another question altogether. (I don't either, for what it's worth.) But saying that it's all just fluff and we might as well go back to the way games were made in 1999 is just ridiculous and childish.

Originally Posted by Konjad
Good AI? Don't make me laught, I haven't seen game with much better AI than 10 years ago. It's still similiar! OK, today in FPS games enemies know how to hide but I can't find anything else…

Oh, PLEASE! Take Crysis, for example: we have AI's doing complex, reactive, collaborative action with, for example, one group attempting to pin you down while the other group outflanks you; similarly, it reacts "intelligently" to being shot at (attempting to take cover) while trying gain a tactical advantage over you. Which FPS did anything *remotely* like this in 1999?

Or, if you like, take Civilization IV. The strategic AI in it is way, way better than in any comparable world-domination game from around that time.

Oh, yes, because playing in a games without using newest technology sucks.

Another strawman. You always seem to resort to this when you don't have something else to say.

(snip)

This is what I was talking about when I sain "enough bloom". As I said before - game without newest technology sucks, no matter how great the plot or characters are. Is it what you want to say?

See?

As an aside, do you think there's something wrong with liking beautiful graphics or sound? I take it you have an old 14 inch CRT TV with a crappy antenna, and only watch movies off VHS tapes, right? And think music sounds the best off a well-worn compact cassette listened on a never-cleaned Sports Walkman with the original button earphones?

Guys keep it cool.
I have to admit konjad: there has been more than just graphics. But I do understand your point.
better graphics, better sounds ,better this and that don't make a better game.
And on that I think most must agree with me. I mean we are maybe one of the most critical ones in calling a game good and usually it has nothing to do with technology but with the story and gameplay.

That is a part where konjad is right. They have such a rich history to learn from, but not many companies do.

Still - dont talk crap about DK

Youre liable to find the Horned Reaper knockin on your door!

Not him, I will rather lay down on the mistress her table or have a billow sittign on me then him. NOOOO NOOOOOOOO NOOOOOOOOOOOO

Originally Posted by titus
And on that I think most must agree with me. I mean we are maybe one of the most critical ones in calling a game good and usually it has nothing to do with technology but with the story and gameplay.

Agreed. A lot of designers seem to have lost track of this.

Übereil

better graphics, better sounds ,better this and that don't make a better game.

That's for sure. A real artist can paint a better picture with a child's watercolor set than I can make with all the lastest gizmos. But for best results, make all the latest gizmos aviailable to the real artist.

Originally Posted by Zloth
A real artist can paint a better picture with a child's watercolor set than I can make with all the lastest gizmos.

A different thought I just had:

A real artist can paint better pictures with his paint colours than a child can do with its water colours.

But there is a difference between both pictures:

If you look at pictures painted by children, there is something more in it.

To say the artists' pictures are "more professional" and "more streamlined" doesn't hit it.

It's rather that pictures painted by children contain more life than pictures painted by "real artists".

And with "more life" I mean something you just have to see … It's the mixture of all things into a unique composition … Colours, shapes, emotions …

I know an artist from another forum. she paints like a child. Her pictures look as if her "inner child" was painting, not she herself.

She has won two scholarships (is that the right word ?) for her works, and she recently sold her pictures at one of Germany's most renowed and exclusive galleries … But her pictures still look to me as if they had been painted by a child.

She is unique in any way. I have never ever in my whoile life seen such a person, a person like her, where her inner child and her inner adult are in perfect balance … all of her creativity comes from her inner child, so it seems to me, but when speaking to her, she shows an unexpected depth of wisdom.

What she does is not what most people would call "art". What she does might look to most people as "childish".

But there is something in her words and in her paintings, that is: "More life".