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Molyneux On Future Of Game Design
Thanks to GameSpy for its interview with Lionhead boss and Populous creator Peter Molyneux, part of a talk held at the DICE Conference in Las Vegas. While admitting that "this industry tends to bumble through innovation", Molyneux noted freeform games could be less interesting than they looked, lamenting that "he always dreamed about making games that give people total freedom, but what he discovered is that complete freedom in a game world is boring after about ten minutes." He concluded by suggesting alternatives to the 'sandbox' approach, arguing: "People like to have challenges, goals, and something to struggle toward."
But yeah really really open games are impossible at the moment. Even if you limit the world it seems an impossible task.
Lets examine his own game Black & White (widely reviewed in reviews as an excellent games wich is prove enough game reviews are not worth the paper they are printed on) an "open" game. Except it isn't is it. You were constantly tehtered to this rather crap "city" and its braindead inhabitants. So instead of exploring and teaching your creature you were constanstly trying to manage the population. To much food and overcrowding, too little and they starve and impossible to get it right. My solution, grow plenty and have my creature eat the population. Actually I tried to be nice at first but one of my houses was build wrong with the door apparently under the ground so lots of people were trapped inside. Didn't notice this until I destroyed it since and they all came out burning and I went from good to evil in the time it took my ape to get out the marshmellows.
To many of the current games still require idiotic micro management and restrictions because the developers seem unable to make a functioning AI or world model.
Exactly how many times have you started a mission to save the entire world from thousands of heavily armed bad guys with 1 pistol and 2 clips of ammo? Worst offender recently was Silent Storm. Crack team of commandos at the height of WW2 and you are even told by the guy in the armoury "we got the finest of the british army at your disposal". What you get? 1 submachine gun, 1 rifle a few clips of ammo oh and a bandage. Wheee!
As call of duty and medal of honor have shown some of the best moments in a fps aren't you with 1 pistol against 100 enemies but you and 100 allies against 100 enemies. Now that is the kinda stuff I want to see. Not me the single superman but playing a character in world wich behaves real without all the inconvenient bits of actually being in a war.
Of course this is a lot harder. Give you a single pistol and you will be to busy ducking and running to notice that the dozen or so enemies are not actually a match they just got insane firepower and health points.
So for the next Black & White (still in production?). Get rid of the insane micro management. Make it easier to control the creature (how often did you punish or reward for the wrong thing because the interface lagged?). Make crap like mouse gestures optional or at least talk to people who know how they work (opera does them great for me). Here is a tip. If you draw a cirle too fast it looks like a square to a computer. (to few point of reference)
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Morrowind, if played right, does not contain a lot of walking and running. I can reach any spot in Morrowind from any other spot in two minutes or less (on the surface, that is). It takes a while before you are powerful enough to do this, however. But that's just another challenge!
does this make a good game, or does this make a commercially successful game? And is there a difference? This is definitely a good question--especially considering his analogy. I've read plenty of awesome books which are difficult to sum up into one line--one is going to have trouble doing this with any modern non-genre book.
Perhaps that's the parent's main point. Who would want to strugle toward's making the game playable? I will work to make my commute from home to the office less taxing, but why would I want to do that in a game?
he always dreamed about making games that give people total freedom, but what he discovered is that complete freedom in a game world is boring after about ten minutes.
Not true, I've played both GTA and GTA3 for hours upon hours without ever finishing a mission (or even trying to). Finding creative things to do in the GTA sandbox was enough fun to keep me entertained. Some people don't want missions, or rules. After a days work they just want to come home, and do something fun not virtual chores like fetching Vinnys hookers or something.
Whenever I look for quality in game design I always look to Zelda games. You can go anywhere and do stuff, so its freeform. But you have a predetermined quest, to get all the triforce pieces and beat ganon. Don't make a linear game in which the places you go and the things you do are in a predetermined order
That is funny, because I would consider Zelda linear. Sure in the last Zelda game, you could go to any island (well after you got the ship and sail) and explore different Island, but you had to do things in a specific order to beat the game (you couldn't beat the 2nd dungon with out beating the first one) The only games that I have played that are nonlinear are FPS and MMORPG. The game is going to have to be somewhat linear if you want the game developer to provided a good coherent story.
Anything you might ever need to say about anything has already been said better by Penny Arcade.