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Game Developers On Game Criticism: Spector & Church
Milktoast writes "Warren Spector and Doug Church, the developers of Deus Ex and Thief hosted a session where they critiqued each other's videogames apart at the game developer's conference. You can see the coverage here."
Saving. A real problem in both Thief and Deus Ex. I can't believe anyone can finish them off without saving every 10 seconds or so. In both games, being detected can have huge consequences for which there is litterally no escape. Or if you do escape, you will be so near death only a miracle can save you.
:-)
Basically, these two games are so life-like and high in quality that you cannot beat them without saving all the time. The only other real option is the really be a hero, and have no life (no thanks). Personally, I think that destroys the fun out of it and makes completing the game more of an obsession than real fun.
Why should you be able to save the game so often? Why can't they balance it for the need to stay alive for longer periods? This way, hoarding may get less of a problem since a gamer won't do a longer "hell" again for just a few extra health-kits.
Oh and btw, the inventory strategy for Thief is completely necessary to balance each level. Otherwise it would be entirely a different game. (Hmm, no rope-arrows. What to do???!
I don't believe that /. is responsible for making sure that each item they link to is mirrored somewhere else. If nothing else, some of the ISP's that host these sites may finally decided to increase server capability/bandwidth.
The Geocities sites on the other had are just a pain, no matter what.
In 1996 I worked with Warren Spector at the Austin office of Looking Glass Technologies on an online game project. That project got cancelled, but it was interesting to watch Warren gradually evolve (without, I'm ashamed to admit, any constructive input from me) the ideas that later led to DEUS EX:
1. Warren's holy grail is immersion in the game world. The simulation must be rich enough that the world's response to your actions reasonably matches your expectations, so that you can make a coherent plan. Toward this end, for a time Warren had the hope of making game levels laid out like actual real-world structures. But in playtesting early in the development of DX, the designers found that this led to boring gameplay, so they jettisoned that idea. (Warren is no ideologue. If an idea doesn't work, he tosses it.)
2. For Warren, your choices as player must affect your experience of the game. Here Warren differs somewhat from Doug Church, who says the player's choices should literally affect the world or the narrative. In DEUS EX your choices don't really affect much of the actual narrative, until the endgame, but those choices pivotally determine how you experience the game -- as a stealthy thief, or a gadgeteer, or a combat monster.
3. I don't know if Warren regards player individuality as always to be desired, but for DEUS EX one of his guiding principles was that by the end, every player's version of the main character, J.C. Denton, should be different from every other version. That's where DX really shines, in the skill and augmentation systems that force you to make hard choices about your play style. The great response to DX indicates that he was right to pursue this. Although in some kinds of games individualized player characters are probably unnecessary or even gratuitous, this goal is very appropriate to an immersive first-person simulation of the kind Warren cherishes.
Warren has a film degree from the University of Texas, and he talks often about the parallels between computer games today and the very earliest days of cinema. He strongly believes this is a new artform a-borning, and I know he'd like to play his part in birthing it.
Since you seem to like FPSs that require the player to actually think before pulling the trigger, I'd bet you'd love System Shock 2. I liked both Deus Ex and Half Life, but System Shock, which is a weird combo of FPS and RPG, puts them both to shame when it comes to the immersiveness of its enviroments. Also scary as hell. I can't recommend it enough.
what really makes deus ex different from thief:
In thief, the choices you make in early missions really don't matter at all in later missions, whereas the plot changes (slightly, but VERY noticiable and having friends npc's die because you didnt investigate suspicious guy near the chopper makes you feel bad) in deus ex, depending on if you chose to follow orders or play mr nice guy.. this is why deus ex is one of the few games i've played through more than once(fallout 1&2 are others.. for the same reason too). and you really have to play those place's more than once to get the full feeling of how 'free' it actually is compared to 'there is only one way to do this and this way is so bizarre you have to try every method possible before finding it'..
anyways, i really doubt these guys put 50h+ to playing each others games to get enough playing to say anything about them at all.. now if they could just combine max payne, deus ex & fallout.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
The line;
"This isn't final fantasy with 3000 healing potions. "
States EXACTLY what my problem with current RPGs is.
I remember in the older RPGs HAVING to Hoard my healing potions.
Ability to raise from dead? LOL!!! Yah right! If you were LUCKY it was included in the game SOMEPLACE. I remember in DragonWars (Interplay RPG, most none linear RPG that I have ever played, man I love that game!) there was this ONE healing well down a gazzilion levels underground that more often then not you ended up losing two or three more guys just escaping from it after reaching it to raise one party member from the dead.
Not an easy experance.
Now days RPGs have healing spells and raise dead items and such around every corner. Hell they HEAL you before the boss fight! Isn't the TRUE beauty of fighting that Red Dragon (not like any games actualy use Dragons as bosses anymore, they are typicaly commons now. . . . and that is just plain wrong) that you finaly limp through level 10 of the dungion (anybody else remember Ultima4's dungion system? Oh man those were EVIL) on your last few HPs with all of your healing potions expended and your magic spells all but gone, only to find this HUGE ass dragon ready to kick your ass halfway to hell.
Now THAT was an epic fight. You felt damn PROUD when your sorry ass CRAWLED out of that brawl alive. It wasn't a matter of equiping your 4x spell ring and casting meteo for 4000000 gazzilion damage. Hell no. It was spending four or five minutes MINIMUM thinking over EVERY last damn little move that you made. You EARNED your victory, you literaly had sweat pouring from your veins.
RPGs were HARD damnit. If a character died he was DEAD. Or at least a LOOOONG ways off from revival. Yah it SUCKED when a character died, but hey, guess what, death sucks, deal.
And above all else, it felt damn good to have your white mage crawl up from out of a dungion with everybody else in the party dead. Wooden Hammer to the rescue!
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Nothing wrong with nightmares, it's a personal preference thing. But that's not really what you're looking for.
:)
The three games are successful for different reasons, and were also targeted at different people. Sims was a broad range audience with practical life learning lessons. Sims also was cross-genre, aimed at pleasing more audiences. More importantly, the Sims continues the "Sim" brand name (quite successfuly). These are larger reasons as two why Sims sold more.
Deus Ex was given missions with story lines IN the mission - the cut scenes weren't between but at the beginning. Theif was a more tradional FPS, except that instead of killing (frag count) like Quake and Doom, the importance was being given to being quiet. Both were firmly scripted that the character you play was a guy. Deus Ex and Theif were marketed directly to the guy (16 to 34) crowd, which is the staple of computer games.
The problems you have fold out into the following:
Strategy and Goals. In Sims, once I decide I want my two girl roommates to kiss, then I've decided my goal. If I want a baby, then I decide to have a baby. On the other two games, the Goals are chosen, but you can still choose your strategy. Some would argue that your strategy is chosen for you by Theif.
Game time is also a difficulty. FPS games are Real time. Sims is not. Sims falling in love over time took weeks if not months to get them to bear fruit in game time. Part of the game was giving the right back rub at the right time (of many many backrubs).
Scripted games allow control of characters and characterizations - all of the Sims peed their pants if you forgot to build a bathroom. They all jumped up at down at the same time, same body motions. You'd think some of them would be smart enough just to walk out side and not pee in their pants, right? (especially the guys).
So, what you're asking for, in my opinion is a method (algorithm) for the creation of a plot by the choices made by a user. I've got one or two, but I still need to get my games out the door or assist someone else.