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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.'"
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.
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.
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 problem with the Final Fantasy series, is that the conplication went up, and they stopped being RPGs.
RPGs can sustain complication, Interactive Movies can't.....
I always cringe when someone releases a FF style game and calls it an 'RPG'.
It's an RPG if the player gets to play a role, not push someone else's character through a script, no matter how many experience points you can get.
Advanced users are users too!
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
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.
>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
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.