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Carmack on New id Game, Game Theory
An anonymous reader writes "CNN/Money interviewed id Software wizard John Carmack at the recently completed QuakeCon. Among the topics discussed is Nintendo's recent announcement that today's games are too complicated and hard for players. Carmack, surprisingly, agrees, saying 'I agree strongly with that point of view, but I'm in the minority in the PC space. I want a game you can sit down with, pick up and play. [Role playing games], for example, got to where they had to have a book ship with the game.'"
This is why I still play tetris.
Speaking at Defcon 12 - Credit Card Networks Revisted: Pen
For me, the main question isn't whether the game is "simple", or "deep", it's how the learning curve is implemented in the game.
Going back to the original Doom, it was almost perfect in this regard. It hooked me with the first impression ("How are they *doing* this 3D perspective...?"--having messed with graphics routines in assembly *way* back, it was striking how impressive this was for the time) and kept me going with it's playability and pretty seamless introduction of the more complex aspects of the game (hidden areas, etc.). The game was fun regardless of how far you were into discovering all there was to it.
I can't really get into most games in this way. It's not that I can't learn what other games require up-front, it's that there's no real motivation for doing so when there are games like Unreal Tournament I can enjoy immediately. And games like Ultima, well... yes, you can advance your character by numerous non-adventuring methods, but it ends up being rather mundane IMHO. I may as well go to work at that point.
Personally, I think Heretic had a good feel for the right approach... there was a fair amount of depth there, but it was introduced as a natural extension of playing the game, rather than a required up-front learning curve. As an example from another game genre, Total Annihilation worked really, really well in this way too.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
I don't see how this is surprising. Simplicity has always been key in the id games. When everyone else was doing "action" buttons, id still had you bumping into buttons to open doors.
This simplicity and accessibility has earned them fans who don't like complicated games - they just want to play.
Lots of FRPGs operate on a concept of "levels" of challenge, so it seems like it should be possible to start with low complexity at "level 1", and add in the complexity incrementally as the player enters new levels and gets opportunites to do new things.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Hmm I dunno if complicated is the word I'd use. I do feel, though, that not enough attention is paid to the UI in many cases. I remember when Zelda 64 came out, I was shocked that Link would jump automatically just by walking to the edge. No more jump button. *Whew* I was happy about that. No more worrying about hitting the button at the right time.
I think Nintendo is one of the few companies who watches somebody play and says "What are the common mistakes they are making? What can we do to alleviate them?"
"Derp de derp."
To continue the RPG complexity discussion: Final Fantasy I, on NES, was a blast: you chose characters, picked from a small selection of spells, and in general wandered wherever you wanted.
The SNES FF's were less fun: they had static plots that had to be followed, and some battles that always went the same way. Yawn.
I stopped playing them at FF7: you had a bazillion choices on how to equip your character with crystals and things, but no choice on what to do next.
Fallout was fun, Fallout 2 had some corollary problems: So many choices that the character development was tedious.
Design for Use, not Construction!
I agree. I play a MMORPG called "Legend of Mir". MIR2 was coded in delphi and operates at 800x600@8bit. Ironically, even after Mir3, which uses 3d acceleration and 16bit graphics, mir2 still holds as the top game in china. The reason really is because of the complexity. They added a large number of additions to mir3 take made the game much more difficult to play, much more to do simple tasks.. Its why only about 300,000 players in china play mir3 over the 700,000 on mir2.
:) Personally I rather MIR2, but mostly because i'm lazy ;) (MIR2: http://www.mir2.co.kr (korean) - http://www.legendofmir.net (english) MIR3: http://www.mir3.co.kr (korean) http://www.legendofmir3.co.kr (no (official) english sites (though the server software has been leaked for months now)))
Then again, mir2 totally flopped in English countries, but mir3 seems to hold promise. Maybe us americans and (the) brits rather complicated games?
I've left to find myself. If you happen to see me, please, keep me there until I return.
Reminds me of my recent experience learning (with everyone else) how to play Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
This is *definitely* not a game you can just pick up and start playing. Sure, you can run around killing others, but in order to help your team complete their objectives, if you run around clueless you might actually be hindering them.
It took me quite a while to figure out where everything was, and also how to use the various player classes and their weapons/tools. Also took a long time to figure out the maps, what to construct and what to blow up. But the game was interesting, and worth learning. It took an investment of time and patience, but it paid off.
I suspect a lot of people aren't willing to make that kind of investment, or aren't able. Heck, I only get a couple of hours per week to play. So I just want to sit and play!
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
You know, when I look back at the thousands of games I've played, two distinct groups stand out.
There are the wildly ambitious ones (Star Control II, Zelda, Ultima Underworld, Alternate Reality, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night... even Dungeons of Daggorath - yeah, I'm 0ld-sk00l!), which are fun to play and revisit... but you wouldn't, y'know, sit down and play them for 20 minutes.
And then there are those simple but ridiculously fun games. Tetris, Bust-a-Move, Dance Dance Revolution, Scorched Earth, Discs of Tron, Minesweeper, Archon... really simple concepts, but you can lose frightening swaths of your life mastering your skills. It's not that they're oversimplified. They've just got a really rewarding learning curve.
One of the modern champions of the latter is PopCap, of course. I've spent ridiculous amounts of time playing Insaniquarium, to name but one.
- David Stein
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
The people who play FPS games are usually not the same group of people who play RPGs (the pen and paper type) and people often forget that.
And those who do play both play them for different reasons. The FPS is designed to make you work on instinct, giving your higher-order brain functions a rest, while RPGs do the complete opposite. You want RPGs to be complex and require much thought, but if you make somebody think really hard about a FPS, you've defeated the purpose of that genre.
-twb
Point and Kill is great if you are teaching zombies to assemble widgets at minimum wage?
Why the need for all the pseudo-intellectual debates on "whither gaming?" If Carmack and whoever else think that there's a demand for simple games, then they should build them. If there really is a strong demand for such games, he/they will make a lot of money (or even more money, in the case of Mr. Carmack). Meanwhile, other developers will make more complex games that appeal to other segments of the market, and make money that way. It's really quite simple.
Role playing games didn't "get to where you needed a book to play them." The ones he probably had in mind (I'm guessing the Baldur's Gate games) are based on a famous old pen and paper game that required MANY books to play, as far back as back in the day. There are a lot of people who like these sort of games (D&D has been around since the 70s) and sales certainly support their further development. The market for games is hardly monolithic and there is plenty of room for both simple and complex games.
I know this because Tyler knows this.
Guys, don't get me wrong, I love FPS and can sit there for hours, but its time for something new. What ever happened to creativity in games? Marble Madness. Tempest. Hell even Pacman was original. It's time for a new genre. I'd even be happier if the word genre was never used in terms of video games today. Make something new and interesting, I'll buy it. I'm sure there are plenty of others that feel the same way.
Dreams are better as dreams than reality.
It has to be said. After years of learning to use only four neurons, today's game players can't even pickup the basics of the current crop of games...
Now here we have a classic examples of a "the common people are so stupid" post. Its a variation of the often seen bandwagon post. In this instance, a reader sees a condescending remark about the intelligence of the average person and thinks, "You know, he's right, the common people are so stupid. Sigh". The sense of belonging and increased self-esteem are defense mechanisms. The poster posting the message and the reader agreeing with it are exhibiting subconscious methods of bravery in an uncertain world. By creating an artificial bond of perceived intellectual superiority, all involved gain a temporary confidence.
Well AFAIK , Carmack just makes first person shooters .
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So he has been thinking mostly in one box
RPG's are following a layout similar to paper
ADnD that was laid out close to 30 years ago
RPG's are suppose to be somewhat thought prevoking
instead of a simple trigger happy gore fests
Trigger happy gore fests have their place, but the
other genre by no means should be displaced, or
disrespected because it takes grey matter to play it
The eccentricity of alternate worlds, and solving
the social and spatial puzzle is part of the endearing
quality of RPGers
since when were books or PDF's/readme's a bad thing ???
Have we gotten too lazy to read to have fun ???
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Your comment is so painfully wrong that I cannot post my initial thoughts if I dont want to be labeled flamebait.
Todays current crop of gamers is largly composed of yester days crop of gamers. People like you, and myself, dont need to be sold on gaming as a viable hobby. The problem is that the games you and I like are not attracting any new gamers. Let me put this more plainly.
Everyone who wants to play complicated games is already doing so.
Further more, your understanding of the idea of simple games is way off. Carmack and Nintendo are not saying that we need to make games for the mentally deficient. They are saying that there is a shortage of games that you can just pick up and play for 5 or 15 minutes at a time.
As an example, take a serious look at Chu-Chu-Rocket (Dreamcast), or Super Monkey Ball (1 or 2, both on Game Cube). You dont need to play a 15 tutorial to figure out everything that you can do in the game. If your not brain damaged, you figure it out in about 3 minutes. Super Monkey Ball is especially good for this. You can literally hand it to any random person on the street and they will know basically what they are doing in 30 seconds. Can you say the same for Quake? Starcraft? Warcraft?
The Old School games that fit this are Donkey Kong, Pac Man, Asteroids, Space Invaders, and the like.
No one is going to pick up a game for the joy of feeling like an idiot.
END COMMUNICATION
Why must a computer RPG require a large manual? While memorizing the importance of "tiltowait" from a book might be nice and satisfying, why can't I simply ask the game for this information? And if a game has a complicated battle system, why not include a basic tutorial so the player can experience how things work and why. Even relatively complicated console titles like "Advance Wars" have these sorts of features, so I don't see why a modern computer game shouldn't.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Or maybe we do not like to waste time on those games. I was in to RPGs for a long time and there was a very steep learning curve compared to most games. Even if you read the manual, there is still more things that just keep gobbling up your time and without learning them, you will not have a good character. I for one enjoy a mindless game like doom or racing where almost everyone has an equal playing field without spending hours each day playing it.
Now here we have a classic examples of a "the common people are so stupid" post. Its a variation of the often seen bandwagon post. In this instance, a reader sees a condescending remark about the intelligence of the average person and thinks, "You know, he's right, the common people are so stupid. Sigh". The sense of belonging and increased self-esteem are defense mechanisms. The poster posting the message and the reader agreeing with it are exhibiting subconscious methods of bravery in an uncertain world. By creating an artificial bond of perceived intellectual superiority, all involved gain a temporary confidence.
All true, but that does not negate the truthfulness of the parent poster's statement. The population is dumbed down. How it happened is more complex than just video games - the educational system played its part as well, but people are less well educated today than 25 years ago and it shows in their amusements.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Oh, the irony of your post
When you're talking about computer games, you must understand that the new generation of games is being directed towards the new generation of gamers. Being one of them, and going to school with many other hard-core gamers, I can tell you that today's generation is looking for something they can get into, something they can talk about with there friends for hours. Personally, I have heard more about the new Star Wars Galaxies, in the last several months, than I have any other game, (and I don't even own the game). This is because SWG is offering, literally, a whole universe of options. In this game, role playing is a very key concept in creating the best player you can, and this is what is keeping people interest. Role playing even takes place outside of the game itself, trust me, I've seen it. There always talking about where the best place to buy what is and things like that, but that's all beside the point. If you're looking for a PC game you can sit down and play with out having to think too much, just play Half-Live Counterstrike. I have several games that are newer, have better graphics, and whatever else, but CS is the game I frequently find myself coming back to. Its interactive action game and the only thing you have to "think" about, is what gun to buy at the start of every round.
Very hard to say. 25 years ago the personal computer didn't exist. The game console was in its infancy. It's practically impossible to compare entertainment of 25 years ago to today, and come out with a rational conclusion on the intelligence of the people.
There's simplicity and there's simplicity. A Gradius type game can have only one button for shoot and the navigation keys and still be more complicated than a game that has one button for picking up stuff, another button for opening treasure chests and another button for opening doors. There's interface complexity and then there's gameplay complexity. Both can make a game too difficult for the player.
3D engines aside, Carmack's real genius might be for interface design. His comments about about the game interface perfectly mirror those of people like usability guru Jakob Nielsen, the developers of the classic Mac OS, and even industrial designer Jonathan Ives: good design is made by simplifying and removing elements; less is more!
Carmack has replaced the "use" key in Doom 3 by making the targetting reticle "context-sensitive"; when the character is within arm's reach of a switch or door and the reticle is over it, the gun drops and an open hand hovers over the object. The "fire button" does exactly what you would expect.
This is the reason for Linux's failure to reach mainstream desktops, despite a GUI and window manager that is easily as good as Windows (and even in some ways superior to any version of the Mac OS). Rather than striving for intuitive design that doesn't need excess buttons and options, the designers of desktop software throw as much crap into the forms and menus as they can fit. LESS IS MORE
(note that I understand that advanced users should have the options they want access to; bury stuff that doesn't need to be used constantly and by most users in an advanced options dialog somewhere!)
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
"basic game-playing skills"
Concentration, logic, coordination, spatial relations, memory and fast reaction times are some of things I would classify as basic game-playing skills.
Learning control maps and countless details about which weapon/scroll does what don't qualify as amusement for me. Games like that have always left me cold.
Very hard to say. 25 years ago the personal computer didn't exist. The game console was in its infancy. It's practically impossible to compare entertainment of 25 years ago to today, and come out with a rational conclusion on the intelligence of the people.
I suppose my own personal experience would be far too unscientific for your purposes, but perhaps a full study will someday be conducted to validate this.
I have a few data points.
-Recalibration of SAT
-Nature of textbooks, then and now
-Trivial facts retained by those schooled in the 1960-75 period versus now - the word inertia comes to mind. Try that on a smattering of people schooled today and see how many correct responses you get.
-Geographical knowledge demonstrated by age group
-Nature of amusements - compare board games and pencil/paper RPGs to the lowest common denominator video games of today in terms of brainpower required for comprehension.
We could go on, but maybe my view is skewed because I was alive then, as now, and see the differences clearly.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Something that is easy to pick up is not inherently shallow. Play a game like Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, Super Smash Bros Melee, hell even Tetris. Controls are simple to pick up, fun to play, easy to learn, but it is tough to master such games, and there is an extreme amount of depth hidden to be found by the not-so-remedial game players.
Easy to pick up, tough to master - a simple game that's fun to play. That's why today's "current crop" games seem to suck more ass than before.
The difference between a good player and a "remedial" one is not the ability to read a fucking manual to learn all 400 ways to buy an item - it is being able to pick up on all the rules one can "bend" or take advantage of very quickly while playing the game. Parent is stupid, next post please.
>All true, but that does not negate the truthfulness of the parent poster's statement. The population is dumbed down. How it happened is more complex than just video games - the educational system played its part as well, but people are less well educated today than 25 years ago and it shows in their amusements.
I don't think so. I think that's an apparent effect. We are all just becoming more in contact with the uneducated and ignorance of others, the uneducated have more voice in the media, the ignorant have more ways to discuss their ignorance [/me looks around quick].
-MY- dad an uncle used to have fun by throwing knives at each other.
Now, Video Games... THOSE have been dumbed down.
-pyrrho
Carmack mentions things like "use" buttons and "crouch" needless complicated. However, something about nearly all id games since Wolfenstein 3D, and most games within the FPS genre, is how complicated the levels themselves are. Now in some cases an open-ended level may make sense, but in most of these games what happens is you just get lost trying to find something, wanderring aimlessly till you finally find that pathway you missed. This is not helped by the fact that the same texture is often used throughout a level, leaving very little in the way of a visual reference to tell you where you are.
While Quake 1 may have been "easier" to some without the "use" button, at least with DOOM you had a map you could refer to which lets you know where you have been. You could still get lost in DOOM if you accidently missed a switch somewhere, but it wasn't as bad.
Some of the newer multiplayer games further complicate matters, with new maps coming out often. I used to play RTCW and SOF2 regularly, but now if I want to go back just to play I find not only do I have to relearn the old levels, but I have to learn a large number of new, overly complex levels I've never played. That combined with so many servers staying on a level for under half an hour, it's hard to get a chance to even learn these them. I can hold my own very well in the original set of levels and those added in the first couple of patches, but it just gets boring playing level after level of maps I don't know, just running around not knowing WTF to do, and then having the level switch just when I start figuring out a few paths.
Maybe I just suck at FPSes, but I don't find the idea running around aimlessly fun.
I'm not saying that your conclusion is incorrect, merely questioning how you got there.
-Nature of amusements - compare board games and pencil/paper RPGs to the lowest common denominator video games of today in terms of brainpower required for comprehension.
This seems to imply that board games and RPGs were as highly popular "then" as video games now. I don't know if that's true, as I was too young. In terms of the "geek" crowd, I wouldn't doubt it, but the conclusion is about the general public. One cannot discount that there are many activities you can do outside, like sports, that are still widely done today.
You forget, when you get truely high-tech you enter the 'right tool for the job' mindset. I get solid fps in all the games I want to play (and believe me, theres plenty), so I have no reason to upgrade. Theres no point in going into excess, and the high end tech sector knows that. Thats why I see 486s and pentium1s as mailservers all the time.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
but the interface that we interact with the game that is too complicated. Think about it, when we actually crouch down in real life, we dont have to worry about an awkward key to push to do the action, but instead we have done it many times before and thus dont even have to think about anymore. Granted, after awhile of practicing, pressing a crouch key on a keyboard may very well take the same amount (or even less) of thought as crouching the human body while in the game. For a user to have no trouble picking up on all these features, primitive devices like keyboard and mice must be replaced by devices that more closely utilize actions the human body is already used to. In other words, a device that responds to actual human movements that represent the actions of a character within the game would probably be the only way for your average joe to pick up a game for the first time and be an expert. The idea of crouching itself is not complicated. I guess what I'm trying to say is that virtual reality is where games must eventually go. Hey, this way I could actually get exercise playing doom3...
defc0n
People 25 years ago didn't have interactive entertainment, they had lemon pies at the sunday fete and the one-way broadcast that is radio and TV. We are smarter, and we are on two-way streets and the potential for moving education into the home in the form of interactive media - rather than monolithic ISAs (Ideological State Apparatus, not those redundant "real big, real ugly" PCI ancestors) - is so vast I just can't describe it. We may well stand on the shoulders of giants, but we have had some of the most innovative philosophy, technology and medicine off all time in the latter half of the 20th century - we are by no means stupid. Sure the "masses" still get cowed by dumb politicians talking up security risks, but how is that different to any other age?
Back to education, In 2050 they may well not be any schools, only community groups based on co-curricular activities (to take over the "babysitting" side of school) and home-based interactive learning on computers. As a former victim of an out-dated school system and someone who aspires to be an educator I can tell you that I will personally be making sure this comes to pass.
in other news.... the Command Line Association Against GUIs (CLAAG) has released a fatwah against Cormack for his recent comments on simplifying games. To mark the date they have released a Cormack skin for their ASCII Quake package for training purposes.
I bought an XBox a year ago. Some of the games are good. But I'm still waiting for FUN games I can sit down with and play with friends who aren't regular gamers. Friends who I normally have beers with who want to do something different. Well no, most of the XBox games focus on maximising technology. Solo games, perhaps made multiplayer by using XBox Live. Where are the games like Dynablaster (Super Bomberman???), or even Micro Machines that was released in Europe before last Christmas? Everybody raved about Splinter Cell, but it turned out to be a fancy graphics engine and no longevity. It wasn't *FUN*... unless you're a sad spotty teenager who gets a hard-on having more technology than the next guy. Maybe my real mistake was moving to N. America where the culture seems to focus more on less fun things, but who knows.
END RANT
today's games are too complicated and hard for players. Carmack, surprisingly, agrees, saying 'I agree strongly with that point of view, but I'm in the minority in the PC space. I want a game you can sit down with, pick up and play. [Role playing games], for example, got to where they had to have a book ship with the game.'"
He's right in a sense, I don't think that PC games are too hard for players to play I think they are too had for players to *WANT* to play.
It's not that people are stupid, it's that they don't want to be frustrated by something that should be fun. Games for the most part should follow the golden rule of "Easy to learn, difficult to master". The mastery should come from learning the game too, not just the UI. Nobody says "Hey, I finally didn't have to look at my cheat sheet/instruction book to remember the 25 key mappings for UT2020." No, they will usually say, "Hey I had my first perfect deathmatch, I won and didn't get killed once." (UT's user interface is fine BTW, I just used them as an example)
I don't think playing kick-the-can and stickball are indications of greater intellect. I have to say, I keep hearing this "the bar keeps being lowered" argument... but I know my parents never had to learn how to translate genetic code in high school. It's possible that my spelling and grammer aren't as clean (yay spellcheck), but I can recite more about genetics or modern computer technology than they ever will. It's my humble opinion that the focuses have changed, that's all.
The pure definition of any GREAT game: Easy to learn, difficult to master. Pong, Tetris, Mario Bros, Quake, etc. Think about it. If only every game designer stuck to this maxim.
Modern games have more documents included? Riiight...
Although not the first (video game) RPG, Final Fantasy for NES is definately among the early home video game RPG games. For those that didn't have that game or don't remember, it came with a rather thick manual, a couple of large poster charts with all of the weapons/armor/etc. listed on them, and IIRC a map.
Move on to the SNES era and you have game manuals which may have a short reference in the back, occasionally a short walk through of the first little adventure, and if you are lucky a map is included.
Now we are in the era of PS2 and XBOX.. All the RPGs I've played come with a small manual which explains the basic controls in a few pages (ten at most). The only exceptions are when they decide to pack the stradegy guide with the game (usually a while after the release as a marketing ploy..)
If you ask me it looks like RPG's are getting simpler and coming with less documents.
The problem is how RPGs used to be played by "RPG nerds" but are now being played by the "mainstream idiot" who can't figure out how to play a game without a stradegy guide which gives him step by step instructions for beating the game.
Shoot Pixels, Not People!
You've got it backwards, pal.
Back then, it was essential to know the machine because otherwise you couldn't get a playable game out of it.
Now, due to the work of Carmack and the other nuts 'n' bolts guys, we can make games like GTA3, KOTOR, etc. and the designers won't really have to worry about whether the computer can keep up. They concentrate on plots, scripts, characters, and progression.
Anyone who thinks video games are going downhill simply isn't paying attention. And they're playing the wrong games.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Jokes aside, I like complex games because they make you think. Coming from science/engineering field I find challenging games more fun. Personally I think games are dumbed down and repetitive. I'm looking forward to Half-Life 2 because it is definitely going to be complex and entertaining. If Doom 3 is dumbed down, then it ain't for me...my little brother will probably enjoy it though.
-----
One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
Uhh, the first personal computer (i.e. the first computer that came out that didn't come in a cabinet or as a kit (like the Altair)) came out more than 25 years ago. Sorry.
Hell, I got my first computer when I was friggin 7, and that was Christmas 1982, over 20 years ago.
Is being able to "crouch" really important in a single player FPS? Don't get me wrong, I want to be able to crouch, to lean, to climb... when I play Thief or Deus Ex. But in a single player FPS? Sure it's nice in multiplayer to separate kids from men, but in a single player FPS?
A few months ago I decided to backup my Doom 2 disks to a cdrom. So I decided to play a game for nostalgia... And I was suprised by how fun it still was. It was far more easier than what I remembered but in a lot of ways it was more fun than modern FPS. No "crouch" but simply more fun.
What's so difficult about crouch? Nothing really but the question is does it add anything to the FPS gaming experience? After playing Doom 2 again, I'm quite positive it doesn't.
I don't think playing kick-the-can and stickball are indications of greater intellect. I have to say, I keep hearing this "the bar keeps being lowered" argument... but I know my parents never had to learn how to translate genetic code in high school. It's possible that my spelling and grammer aren't as clean (yay spellcheck), but I can recite more about genetics or modern computer technology than they ever will. It's my humble opinion that the focuses have changed, that's all.
I disagree strongly. I think I got a better, more well-rounded education than you did. I had to memorize spelling lists. I learned some geography. I learned how to do long division the hard way - by repetitive exercise. My parents got a better education than I did, for that matter. My dad learned Greek and Latin in high school*.
You may consider this kind of knowledge irrelevant ("I can get it on the web" or your statement above about spellcheckers) but I have to tell you - these things have saved my bacon in the business world more times than I can count. The fact that students today lack these skills can only be to their detriment. To put it quite simply - people who do not have these skills work for me. People who do have these skills, I work for.
There is also the argument that hard study of rote topics tends to discipline the mind. I agree with this.
* This is not totally favoring the schools of the 50s and 60s, however. My father didn't have the benefit of phonics education which did in fact improve my reading comprehension at an early age.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
If the game *rules* are complex, there's nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all. That makes the game better. I'll take a good strategy game like Civilization any day over some console button-masher. And I don't just mean strategy either. I'll take a good game of Thief 1 or 2 or Deus Ex any day over a speedy button mashing fest like most other 3d shooters are, because for them (Theif/Deus Ex) the complexity was inside the gameworld, not out on your keyboard. What makes games suck are on consoles when you have to know that A+B+down will let you win, but A+B+diagonally down/left will kill you. That's not fun. I don't want a dexterity challenge. I want a tactical challenge.
Am I the only one who thinks the console-game controllers feel like they're designed for left-handed people? It takes much more manual dexterity to correctly move the stick or arrow keys the direction you want than it does to press one of four distinct buttons, so why does it put the task requiring better dexterity on the left-hand side? Why do *ALL* games do this? It makes me suck at them. On a stand-up arcade game, I do much better when I cross my arms and use the buttons with the wrong hands, since I don't need good dexterity to whap buttons but I do to move the stick. But that's not an option on console games.
The left-handedness of console controllers make me hate any console game which contains a dexterity-related challenge.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
It's not that I think we SHOULD rely on spellcheck, or have to look everything up on the internet. I just think that focuses are different. I didn't have to learn Greek or Latin fluently, but it's most practical application is understand modern word roots. That we DID do. I think we should still emphasize spelling and grammer, but I think schools are trying to get more and more information in in the same timeframes. It just can't work. You can teach spelling AND c++ in the same time it takes to teach spelling. I think you know what I'm trying to say here, right?
I miss the days when all software actually came with a book. For those who haven't been using computers for 15+ years, let me give you a little back story.
In my day, we didn't have the web, or quick installation guides, or any of that. Each and every software package came with a 'manual', which was a book that explained in detail how to use the functions of that software. This is where you get phrases such as 'man pages'--those are online (in the sense that they're on the computer) versions of print documentation, taken from these now defunct 'manuals'.
Fast forward to today: almost no software packages come with what we'd call a 'manual' 15 years ago. Instead, they're more like pamphlets. The alternative if you want printed documentation is to also go out and buy a $50 book from a publishing house like "The Microsoft Press", or possibly print out a 200 page PDF file (if you even get that).
Ok, so software generally doesn't come with 200 page printed manuals anymore... Does that mean that it's gotten cheaper? Well, it hasn't gotten any cheaper for me, but maybe it's cheaper for them to produce. I guess I'm just giving them extra money, or if they publish a separate book on their software, paying them twice if I buy that as well.
So I for one would like to thank the RPGs that still produce actual manuals along with their software for continuing to provide a valuable service to me, the consumer. A service that I still seem to pay for whether or not I get a printed manual. No, I like this much better--I got a pretty, comprehensive manual for every single Ultima game I ever bought, and I got an even bigger manual for NeverWinter Nights! And you know what, the prices haven't changed that much either.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
:-]
sure, as penny arcade so beautifully illustrates, the parachute button may be a bit excessive, but complexity is what makes reality so groovy: countless factors to weigh against each other. present too little complexity and the game becomes routine, provide a sea of options and encourage exploration, the game becomes much more interesting. armored core is my favorite game on this front - presenting both the adaption of mech design and the gameplay itself (although it does have one of the worst learning curves ever). the trick is to keep the challenger trying new things too.
the problem is making these choices seamless enough not to scare the living bejesus out of the player. exploration of options should be encouraged, adaption fostered.
(frankly, this is what sucks about most modern RTS's: there is no adaptation, simply reaction - the mechanics of what to do are fixed for experienced players.)
Myren
Doom's simplicity is a major part of the reasons why it maintained high popularity for so long after it was released. Almost anybody familiar with video games could sit down and start playing it within 2 minutes; they didn't have to spend 20 hours training to learn the various controls and complexities. I loved that all I had to do is run and shoot in Doom. Having to learn crazy controls and manuevers in Unreal like jump-and-crouch-in-midair-and-shoot-while-doing-a- triple-somersault-with-a-half-twist turned me off of that game immediately.
Carmack is right. The growing complexity of modern games is what has kept me from buying recently produced games. I don't care if you call me a dumb user, because I have enough accomplishments and qualifications to know I'm not dumb. I work my brain hard enough every day at my job, so when I pick up a game I want to freaking PLAY and have fun and give the higher functions of my brain a rest, not work my brain some more. If I can't play well enough to enjoy the game in the first evening, forget it. A little puzzle here and there like in Tomb Raider is fine, but don't make me have to study some damn book and go through a bunch of skills training. I have better things to do with my time, and my brain doesn't want anything more taxing after it's already been stressed for 50 hours a week.
If they don't want to make games for people who just want to sit down to play for an hour or two a week without much of a learning curve, it's mostly their loss. Give me something fun and simple (with a reasonable challenge) if I'm going to spend $30-$50 for a new game, otherwise I'll continue to pick up old games from eBay and bargain bins for $5-$10.
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There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
Personally I think games are dumbed down and repetitive. I'm looking forward to Half-Life 2
[no comment needed on my part]
First of all Quake 3 was pretty good on the Dreamcast AND you could add a keyboard and mouse if you really wanted to. It also had both a modem and an ethernet adapter for multiplayer mayhem...
What do you mean by "internet games"? If you simply mean multiplayer using the internet, the the PS2 has a couple of games and Xbox has Xbox Live, where you can actually voice chat with the people you're playing with using a headset.
Oh, and I just downloaded a couple of new game modes and levels for Unreal Championship the other day on the Xbox. In MechAssault I've downloaded new levels, new units and new game modes.
What was your point again?
If I absolutely had to play using a desktop machine, I'd play using a Mac. Much less hassle getting things up and going and the "booohooo no games are coming out for the mac" is just plain wrong.
Whatever happened to variety?
RPGs come with a book today? Good morning, McFly - so came simulators 10 years ago, before the dumbing down began.
There is more than one type of player on this planet. Some people happen to like complex games, others are happy with simple ones. What exactly is the problem? Not enough $$$ in the niche you're firing into anymore?
I think the biggest factor in games that makes them fun for everyone is possibility. In Tetris, for example, there are hundreds of different combinations to fit the shapes together. Games like Grand Theft Auto and the upcoming Fable for X-Box take this to the extreme by giving you more possibilities than you know what to do with. Whether this is good or bad isn't the issue -- it depends on what learning curve you prefer.
Some gamers may be dying to play something based on a D&D rule book that might take them a week to finally figure out what they're doing. Others may just want to pick it up and know how to play it within the first 5 minutes. Me, I like it when a game is easy to pick up, but gradually gets more complicated and has more possibility.
I don't think complex is necessarily bad. I just think some people want complex possibility made available through simple means.
This guy. This $#!%^ guy.
Your statement is part of the naivety of the US attitude to soccer, but I shouldn't act surprised, mixing up stategy and tactics is common all over the US. That will change, indeed it's already changed somewhat in your national team.
People often focus on the tactical improvisation because they are the glamorous bits, but that's not so different to the focus on the home run and the "Brett Favre scramble left, jiggle around a bit and throw for a touchdown" in US sports.
There's a huge difference in making a complex game and making a game that makes you think; i really enjoy games that make me thing and promotes some sort puzzles and brain activity -- but I really don't want to spend 8 hours reading the manual before playing (even NWN seemed a bit excessive for me
IE; there is no need for a complex game to make you think.
mats
One man's ceiling is another man's floor.
> I didn't have to learn Greek or Latin fluently,
t /effect,a table
:-/
> but it's most practical application is understand
> modern word roots. That we DID do.
mmh... quick then, tell me what's an "oligodendrocyte"?
Anyone with a basic knowledge of ancient greek would answer "a cell with few ramifications", which describes accurately this cell of the human brain. You just can't guess that with 3-4 shallow lessons about "word roots" (a.k.a "etymology", from 'etumos', the origin, and 'logos', the science).
Fact is 90% of native english speakers are now unable to fluently spell any word of latin and greek origin, even the most common.
pseudo/psuedo,
information/informatation,
affec
complement/compliment,
compatible/comp
etc.
This is a great loss, especially when you consider the scientific lexicon, which is mere greek and latin
When you can't properly decompose a word, retaining its meaning requires a huge effort.
So you avoid it.
And eventually comes the fear of every word longer than two syllables...
But who cares, they say, small is beautiful!
Well, no, small is ambiguous.
bingo, just look at quake 1. the controls whre easy when nicely configures (hell they made the wasd+mouse setup the default for FPS) and your brain goes into animal mode, its nothing like sidestepping a rocket while spraying that oponent with nails and if you want to use a elevator you just run on it, push a button = bumping it and so on (envison the game char hitting hte button with his elbow or something, and when entering the elevator hammering the controls to make it move). its simple but damn fun:) sadly in the later day (post CS) realism mods where you have one button for ironsights, one for prone and 3-4 for gun addons have become the norm. i still find it more fun to fire up q1 then to fire up some of the hl mods out there, graphics be damned...
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Simplified does not [necessarily] mean dumbed down. Chess is a very simple game with a very simple interface. It is not a dumb game, and I think you would be inclined to agree. :)
You can still have an interesting game that doesn't require something like a driver's ed manual to play.
*shrug*
-B
Yes, but simple games can make you think too. Take Tetris as an example, it's a game that's simple to learn, but difficult to master, and quick thinking, reflexes, and strategy are all rewarded. Because it's simple, it has a lot of fans.
While I own an Xbox, not a Gamecube, I think Nintendo is right here. Some of my favorite games of all time came out of Nintendo, and many of them are "simple". For instance, Mario Kart 64 is a masterpiece of gaming, and it is pretty easy to pick up, but hard to master, which is the hallmark of a good game.
That said, I'm playing Star Wars Galaxies right now, which is supremely complex, and I don't even understand a lot of it, though I've been playing for nearly two months. It's still fun, but I can't hand it over to my wife or my dad for 10 minutes, and expect them to appreciate it at all.
By comparison, my wife was hooked on Bust-A-Move in about 5 minutes, because the controls and rules are simple. My dad loves to play video games, if I play a game that has only a few buttons, he doesn't want to have to remember 40 combinations of buttons to play the game, so this is why he mostly likes racing games. Gas, Brake, Steer, Shift, okay, pretty simple, but the games certainly aren't easy.
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
I've been a video game player for, well, longer
than I care to admit. I collect for over 40
different systems. I have so many games, that
if I played 10 per day, I could go several years
and still not be half way through my stuff.
That said, I agree with Carmack on the manual
situation. If I HAVE TO read the manual before
I can play a game, I'm not interested. I have
always felt that if you can start playing the
game and at least be able to have some fun and
some success right out of the box, that that is
a good thing. Later, after you've had some fun
you can go back and read through the manual to
improve your skills by picking up things you
could not figure out on your own.
I don't want to start the old graphics vs. game
play debate back up, but the thicker the manuals
got (and the more you had to read them first)
the more the graphics improved and the game play
suffered. I really enjoy video games, and I
hope that developers can find a "happy medium".
That is where the fun is!