I dont know about you, but I am becoming increasingly worried about what seems to be a gradual but perceptable descent into simplicity, linearity and predictability in most gaming genres.
When I say simplicity I could refine that to mean in this context, a lack of unecessary diversity and realistically implausible options. Stuff you find that you dont use, stuff you can do even though it serves no purpose in the game.
So you already think Im babbling ?? and maybe I am, but bear with me.
I started gaming at home, for real, on a VIC20 so I have been at this for a while. Like most of you nodding over 40's I also did the usual arcade antics etc, but I always regarded myself as ending up gaming on what we now call PC's, because I found that "home computer" based games always had a degree of complexity and detail that attracted me.
So while I spent too many hours at things like Elite on a BBC Micro or later Masters of Orion on my 286, I would dream about the days when I could enjoy near photo realistic graphics and real time performance on a home computer and not just at the studios of Industrial Light and Magic. Much to the dismay and dissapointment of most of my adult friends and my ex wife, I have not only continued to enjoy my passion for computer gaming into my mid 40's, my interest is actually growing because the technology is now just reaching the level I always imagined it would.
Lately though (and it could be me) I seem to have been percieving a reduction in the very levels of detail and complexity that I crave to maintain interest in a game. Here are some examples of both ends of the scale that had me thinking enough to bother to type all this waffle. I will no doubt leave out games that I hope others of you will remind me of in my examples. My prefered genre is RPG/MMORPG in case you dont work it out
The Good End :
System Shock - so many items, options and events that you never knew what to expect, or when. You invariably had a dozen items on you that you had no idea whatsoever what to do with or what function they performed. Everytime you played, you saw something you hadnt seen before.
UFO early series as above
Fallout 1 and 2 - as above
Ultima Online - As above to the power of 10
Baldurs Gate and its associates same to a lesser extent
Jagged Aliance series - highly detailed and option rich
Deus Ex/Theif - scrapes in as probably the last of the games from developers with the mindset needed to make such games
The Ok :
Everquest 1 and 2 (but mostly 1) - lots of areas, lots of items, lots of stuff to do, play it for 3 years... you wont see it all
Sims and its associates - enough there to keep even a moderately intelligent person occupied for some time
EVE - lets not go into why, but it is sufficiently detailed to qualify in the context of this post - happy to explain in responses
Dark Age of Camelot - came very close to being the perfect model for an MMO at the time. Still has more content than most
GTA3 was ground breaking in terms of its free world with atention to detail. The sequels got porgressively simpler and are a great example of the degeneration Im talking about highlighted acorss a number of years in one game. I mean why not add all the stuff from each game instead of removing things like they did ? Ehy no character development in GTA4 like there was in Vice City ? Or the taking over the neighborhoods ? Why less each time and not more ?
Mount and Blade - at least someone is trying to make a game where there is some exploration and discovery, nice try, worth your time to check out.
Soldiers of Anarchy, Men of War - no one makes detailed combat sims like the Eastern Europeans. Both games, detailed, complex in terms of options and strategies, full of discovery and choices.
Mass Effect... nearly did it... 12 months more work on the content and Id probably still be playing it now.
The Bad :
Spore - are you haivng a laugh Will ? could you have raved on any more about the magnitude and complexity of something that was actually so simplistic and linear its mind numbing..... I really wanted Spore to be what it was promoted as, the reviews told a story of most people being taken by surprise at the diminutive nature of the end product. What happened ?
Fallout 3 - The main reason for this post is a clip I saw for the upcoming expansion Pint Lookout, which on the face of it (and I am prepared to admit I am pre-judging and may be wrong) appears to be a zombie shooter. Again, why take a franchise based on a game that was so highly detailed, complex, option rich and had so many hours of pure exploration play in it and reduce it to an FPS. I really enjoyed FA3, right up to the point I ended the storyline about 8 or 10 hours into my first play session ( I was not timing but it was day one of owning the PC version). Go google "how fast can you finish fallout 3" because I was so shocked that I had done it, I wanted to see what others thought. I admit I was even a bit surprised that so many other people felt the same sense of dissapointment with this aspect of the game. The developers seemed (after much rhetoric about retaining the franchise's soul) to comletely miss the flavour of FA1 and 2 in respect to the magnitude of the adventure required to be a sequel to those 2 games. Instead large numbers of players accidentally stumble on the ending 5 minutes into the game, relatively speaking.
GTA4 - From one of my favorite games, to not even bothering to finish it, it was so deeply underwhelming. I just dont understand why something has to be stripped back to the bare minumum so shamelessly. Why doesnt anyone want to be applauded for over achieving or taking a risk anymore ?
So without listing any more examples let me throw some thoughts at you that come to me when I am stuck in traffic or doing the dishes.
Almost without exception (WoW and I will come to it), the MMO's since EQ2 have been shamefull attempts to cash in on the sucess of World of Warcraft while the market is "hot", I dont think anyone with an IQ larger than their ram size in gigabytes needs to be told that. I will make special mention of Tabula Rasa (the rest dont deserve it for being so uterly mediocre) which stood out as the shining example of the old joke "what is a camel ?", "a horse designed by a comittee". It was without doubt the worst product to disgrace the market since SWG/NGE, which itself transitioned from a complex item and exploration rich game of potential, to console shooter almost overnight. I played TR for 20 minutes, posted a prediction on MMORPG.com that the game wouldnt make 12 months and that Richard Garriot would need to leave the planet to escape the shame. I was wrong on both, it lasted 18 months and Richard came back from space.
So I think I have defined the problem. Now let me offer some hope.
I have a dream that in the not too distant future, games of increasing depth, complexity, maturity and exploration rich opportunity will begin to re-emerge. Can I get an Amen ?
Why you ask ?, Maths I tell you...
There are over 10 million people playing the most excellent MMO, World of Warcraft. A game which, after reading this rant you might think I would regard as the antichristic (is that a word ?) equivalent of MMO gaming. I regard WoW, having played it for about 2 years, as an unapolagetic and natural progrssion from the Warcraft license that Blizzard stayed totally true to, throughout the development, and there in lies the diamond of hope.
Blizzard did not have WoW to model WoW on when they made it. Like the designers of the games I listed in "The good" and the ones you guys will tell me or remind me about, Blizzard had a plan and they stuck to it!! Sure they knew the MMO genre from seeing other examples, they didnt invent MMO's, but they invented the first and most successful franchise based MMO (that I can think of) and they did it by sticking to their plan. They stayed true to the Warcraft graphics, which some still seem to regard as "cartoonish" or "poor quality", but I dont understand that because if you ever played Warcraft, you would know they couldnt look any other way. The plan... The plan...
My hope is, that as these 10 million gamers, who may have started with a simple but captivating product like WoW, will soon emerge from their mental slumber and begin to desire greater complexity. We will see the re-emergence of detailed and open ended games that provide many hundreds of hours of single and multiplayer enjoyment again. Because a massive new emerging market will demand it.
I dont regard myself as a glass half full person, I actually think that the direction games seem to be headed in right now may indeed me irreversible and that Street Fighter 15 with 2 new backgrounds and a new character will be a reality in 2012 and will sell a record amount of copies. I guess on the brightside that would mean that attention spans had obviously deteriorated to the point where commercials on TV would only be 3 seconds long.... hey Yahtzee gets away with it
So tell me, oh gaming public. Do you desire more ? or are you finding the deep sense of satisfaction in current games that you got from escaping from a PK in the first 12 months of UO ? or from getting that last piece of armour from Guk at the end of 36 hours of straight camping with no sleep....hmmm ?
When I say simplicity I could refine that to mean in this context, a lack of unecessary diversity and realistically implausible options. Stuff you find that you dont use, stuff you can do even though it serves no purpose in the game.
So you already think Im babbling ?? and maybe I am, but bear with me.
I started gaming at home, for real, on a VIC20 so I have been at this for a while. Like most of you nodding over 40's I also did the usual arcade antics etc, but I always regarded myself as ending up gaming on what we now call PC's, because I found that "home computer" based games always had a degree of complexity and detail that attracted me.
So while I spent too many hours at things like Elite on a BBC Micro or later Masters of Orion on my 286, I would dream about the days when I could enjoy near photo realistic graphics and real time performance on a home computer and not just at the studios of Industrial Light and Magic. Much to the dismay and dissapointment of most of my adult friends and my ex wife, I have not only continued to enjoy my passion for computer gaming into my mid 40's, my interest is actually growing because the technology is now just reaching the level I always imagined it would.
Lately though (and it could be me) I seem to have been percieving a reduction in the very levels of detail and complexity that I crave to maintain interest in a game. Here are some examples of both ends of the scale that had me thinking enough to bother to type all this waffle. I will no doubt leave out games that I hope others of you will remind me of in my examples. My prefered genre is RPG/MMORPG in case you dont work it out
The Good End :
System Shock - so many items, options and events that you never knew what to expect, or when. You invariably had a dozen items on you that you had no idea whatsoever what to do with or what function they performed. Everytime you played, you saw something you hadnt seen before.
UFO early series as above
Fallout 1 and 2 - as above
Ultima Online - As above to the power of 10
Baldurs Gate and its associates same to a lesser extent
Jagged Aliance series - highly detailed and option rich
Deus Ex/Theif - scrapes in as probably the last of the games from developers with the mindset needed to make such games
The Ok :
Everquest 1 and 2 (but mostly 1) - lots of areas, lots of items, lots of stuff to do, play it for 3 years... you wont see it all
Sims and its associates - enough there to keep even a moderately intelligent person occupied for some time
EVE - lets not go into why, but it is sufficiently detailed to qualify in the context of this post - happy to explain in responses
Dark Age of Camelot - came very close to being the perfect model for an MMO at the time. Still has more content than most
GTA3 was ground breaking in terms of its free world with atention to detail. The sequels got porgressively simpler and are a great example of the degeneration Im talking about highlighted acorss a number of years in one game. I mean why not add all the stuff from each game instead of removing things like they did ? Ehy no character development in GTA4 like there was in Vice City ? Or the taking over the neighborhoods ? Why less each time and not more ?
Mount and Blade - at least someone is trying to make a game where there is some exploration and discovery, nice try, worth your time to check out.
Soldiers of Anarchy, Men of War - no one makes detailed combat sims like the Eastern Europeans. Both games, detailed, complex in terms of options and strategies, full of discovery and choices.
Mass Effect... nearly did it... 12 months more work on the content and Id probably still be playing it now.
The Bad :
Spore - are you haivng a laugh Will ? could you have raved on any more about the magnitude and complexity of something that was actually so simplistic and linear its mind numbing..... I really wanted Spore to be what it was promoted as, the reviews told a story of most people being taken by surprise at the diminutive nature of the end product. What happened ?
Fallout 3 - The main reason for this post is a clip I saw for the upcoming expansion Pint Lookout, which on the face of it (and I am prepared to admit I am pre-judging and may be wrong) appears to be a zombie shooter. Again, why take a franchise based on a game that was so highly detailed, complex, option rich and had so many hours of pure exploration play in it and reduce it to an FPS. I really enjoyed FA3, right up to the point I ended the storyline about 8 or 10 hours into my first play session ( I was not timing but it was day one of owning the PC version). Go google "how fast can you finish fallout 3" because I was so shocked that I had done it, I wanted to see what others thought. I admit I was even a bit surprised that so many other people felt the same sense of dissapointment with this aspect of the game. The developers seemed (after much rhetoric about retaining the franchise's soul) to comletely miss the flavour of FA1 and 2 in respect to the magnitude of the adventure required to be a sequel to those 2 games. Instead large numbers of players accidentally stumble on the ending 5 minutes into the game, relatively speaking.
GTA4 - From one of my favorite games, to not even bothering to finish it, it was so deeply underwhelming. I just dont understand why something has to be stripped back to the bare minumum so shamelessly. Why doesnt anyone want to be applauded for over achieving or taking a risk anymore ?
So without listing any more examples let me throw some thoughts at you that come to me when I am stuck in traffic or doing the dishes.
Almost without exception (WoW and I will come to it), the MMO's since EQ2 have been shamefull attempts to cash in on the sucess of World of Warcraft while the market is "hot", I dont think anyone with an IQ larger than their ram size in gigabytes needs to be told that. I will make special mention of Tabula Rasa (the rest dont deserve it for being so uterly mediocre) which stood out as the shining example of the old joke "what is a camel ?", "a horse designed by a comittee". It was without doubt the worst product to disgrace the market since SWG/NGE, which itself transitioned from a complex item and exploration rich game of potential, to console shooter almost overnight. I played TR for 20 minutes, posted a prediction on MMORPG.com that the game wouldnt make 12 months and that Richard Garriot would need to leave the planet to escape the shame. I was wrong on both, it lasted 18 months and Richard came back from space.
So I think I have defined the problem. Now let me offer some hope.
I have a dream that in the not too distant future, games of increasing depth, complexity, maturity and exploration rich opportunity will begin to re-emerge. Can I get an Amen ?
Why you ask ?, Maths I tell you...
There are over 10 million people playing the most excellent MMO, World of Warcraft. A game which, after reading this rant you might think I would regard as the antichristic (is that a word ?) equivalent of MMO gaming. I regard WoW, having played it for about 2 years, as an unapolagetic and natural progrssion from the Warcraft license that Blizzard stayed totally true to, throughout the development, and there in lies the diamond of hope.
Blizzard did not have WoW to model WoW on when they made it. Like the designers of the games I listed in "The good" and the ones you guys will tell me or remind me about, Blizzard had a plan and they stuck to it!! Sure they knew the MMO genre from seeing other examples, they didnt invent MMO's, but they invented the first and most successful franchise based MMO (that I can think of) and they did it by sticking to their plan. They stayed true to the Warcraft graphics, which some still seem to regard as "cartoonish" or "poor quality", but I dont understand that because if you ever played Warcraft, you would know they couldnt look any other way. The plan... The plan...
My hope is, that as these 10 million gamers, who may have started with a simple but captivating product like WoW, will soon emerge from their mental slumber and begin to desire greater complexity. We will see the re-emergence of detailed and open ended games that provide many hundreds of hours of single and multiplayer enjoyment again. Because a massive new emerging market will demand it.
I dont regard myself as a glass half full person, I actually think that the direction games seem to be headed in right now may indeed me irreversible and that Street Fighter 15 with 2 new backgrounds and a new character will be a reality in 2012 and will sell a record amount of copies. I guess on the brightside that would mean that attention spans had obviously deteriorated to the point where commercials on TV would only be 3 seconds long.... hey Yahtzee gets away with it
So tell me, oh gaming public. Do you desire more ? or are you finding the deep sense of satisfaction in current games that you got from escaping from a PK in the first 12 months of UO ? or from getting that last piece of armour from Guk at the end of 36 hours of straight camping with no sleep....hmmm ?
