The Importance of New Ideas

Next Generation has up the first in a two-part article talking in-depth with members of the gaming industry about the importance of fresh ideas. Also discussed are the challenges of next-gen development costs and the impact of Hollywood/Intellectual Property on future titles. From the article: "Q: What role will original game concepts play in next generation development? A: (Todd Hollenshead) Technology is a gating factor to the experience of playing games. Whether it's visual quality or character interactions, you have to have the processing power to make more sophisticated and interesting entertainment. Certainly the next generation of consoles in the Xbox 360 and PS3 are far more powerful than their predecessors and that gives game developers broad options to do things we haven't been able to do before and provide experiences for players they haven't had before. For example, for our next generation Wolfenstein game, which uses the Xbox 360 as it's primary development platform, we are developing technology that will change the way people play First Person games by doing away with the whole concept of 'levels', which has been the primary progression mechanic every first person game has used."

Comments

Hollywood & Gaming

[devilsadvoc8]

Game Developers' willingness to suck at the teat of Hollywood for easy money, marketing and ideas will weigh the industry down until they can successfully wean themselves from it. Hollywood has already fully embraced mediocrity as a method of risk reduction. Who needs to take a chance with a novel script when we can remake King Kong, War of the Worlds, or make Rocky XX. Game Development NEEDS to take risks. Otherwise all the consoles will die on the vine.

Re:Hollywood & Gaming

[Jupiter9]

I agree with you, but I don't think consoles will "die on the vine" by embracing mediocrity. There are too many stupid people out there who will embrace lousy games, just like they do lousy movies. They get brain washed by a flash commercial, and then they half to have.

Huh?

[hal2814]

"For example, for our next generation Wolfenstein game, which uses the Xbox 360 as it's primary development platform, we are developing technology that will change the way people play First Person games by doing away with the whole concept of 'levels', which has been the primary progression mechanic every first person game has used."

Ok, who's underwhelmed by this revolutionary idea. Looks to me like they're just taking a page from the GTA series. In fact, it looks to me like they're just latching onto the latest fad of openended gaming.

Re:Huh?

[Mr. Sketch]

we are developing technology that will change the way people play First Person games by doing away with the whole concept of 'levels'

Guess they have never played Metroid Prime or Metroid Prime: Echos. This is not a new idea and has been around for many years.

which has been the primary progression mechanic every first person game has used.

Maybe this is true for every first person that they have played, but certainly not every first person game in existance (see example above).

Not exactly a huge change

[AuMatar]

So you want to get rid of levels. Well, we can make one big world, and only load the part immediately around you. When you get close to the edge, we load the next part in the background. To stop you from going where we don't want you to go, we can put giant walls/buildings to keep you in one area until you finish it. We can call these areas "levels".

No reason they couldn't do this on current hardware- just noone has chosen to. Not a big change.

New Ideas

[SquisherX]

I was planning on saying something interesting, but Im fresh out of new Ideas :p Seriously though, to me, the elimination of levels isnt revolutionary. Getting rid of load times, changes of scenes, and getting rid of mission objectives. Thats all there is to levels. Several games get rid of a few of these three elements. All wolfenstein is planning to do is get rid of all three? It doesnt seem all that revolutionary to me.

So... New ideas are important?

[mangu]

Is there an IgNobel prize or anything like that for obviousness?

Seen this before?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure Valve did this with Half Life about 8 years ago... but that's just me.

Processing power

[AlltheCoolNamesGone]

I though the new consoles (I know the 360 was described as such in an Ars article) favored graphical power. That they really didn't offer any advances useable in more sophisticated AI or such? Bigger and better graphics are nice, don't get me wrong, but are we really going to actually see anything fresh and new until the hardware is capable of doing more than eye candy?

Re:Processing power

[NanoGator]

"That they really didn't offer any advances useable in more sophisticated AI or such? Bigger and better graphics are nice, don't get me wrong, but are we really going to actually see anything fresh and new until the hardware is capable of doing more than eye candy?"

Though I agree that the 360 is pretty mediochre, I think your statement is a little misleading. Yes, it has more doodads for throwing polygons and texels on the screen, but it also has a lot more number crunching power needed to have more sophisticated AI. One of the buzzwords being thrown around a lot with the next generation of games is use of the Havoc physics system so stuff falls realistically. I've also read developer statements saying they have more complex AI governing NPCs and such. In simpler terms, I would expect the next-gen GTA game to be considerably more diverse in terms of what the character can do. There's even some hints of that in the games coming up down the road.

All that said, those idiots at Sony and Microsoft seriously dropped the ball by making their controllers virtually identical to their previous generation systems. Thanks a lump, guys. San Andreas was fun so long as I didn't actually have to aim my gun. Now you want me to play WWII games with the same hinderance. But at least it's prettier! Maybe the added AI will make my team-mates fight the battles for me.

Woo new ideas!

[Anonymous Coward]

In summary:

"New ideas are awesome! Just check our next sequel for proof!"

Technology vs. Gameplay

[uNople]

FTA:
...I once asked Mr. Miyamoto about Nintendo's strategy when it comes to making games. I was surprised when he said that Nintendo only makes games to sell hardware units

I think this is a really good point. Nintendo's primary goal is to sell Nintendo consoles. They do this by not only having good games, but having a good console as well. They focus on what matters (selling consoles) and adjust everything else so they can acheive this goal.

Companies like ID are already innovating, but in a different way. ID is not a game company. They are a technology company. They make engines for games which they sell to make money. They make games to sell the engine, picking up quite a profit on the way mind you. A good example of this is Doom 3/Quake 4. They used Doom 3 as a technology demo, and Raven software and Activision liked it so much that they wanted to make a game using that engine.

Innovative things that I am exited about:
A Metaverse type of game, using Virtual reality.
This guy's vision of Virtual reality to come true. I think it would be fantastic.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - I am really looking foward to this game. It is exactly what I want: a RPFPS Game (Role Playing First Person Shooter Game). It has the kind of fully interactive gameworld that I want out of a metaverse (only smaller). AI that reacts depending on the situation (another innovative technology?). Really good physics (watch the demo movies). And the gameplay looks good; you interact with the world in pretty much the same way that you do in real life (with obvious limitations, of course).

I believe that the next innovation of games will be to make them as realistic as possible. We are already getting that now, with the game engines. Soon, I hope, we will change the way we interact with the games themselves (Virtual Reality). Hollywood (may) actually write good original stories (doubtful, I know), rather than re-hashing old ideas. We may get to decide how the story goes (like a choose-your-path book), and the game can go in different directions according to our choices.

As the technology gets better, hopefully the ideas will follow.

What really matters

[Yoyoson]

To provide more context for the Todd Hollenshead quote in the /. post:

For example, for our next generation Wolfenstein game, which uses the Xbox 360 as it's primary development platform, we are developing technology that will change the way people play First Person games by doing away with the whole concept of "levels", which has been the primary progression mechanic every first person game has used. The Wolfenstein game world will be one large environment that you can move freely about and explore without ever having to "load" the next area or map. In that way, you're never pulled out of the game environment because of a level change, and the game is presented to you as one seamless experience.

Sure, technically, this has never been done before. The transitions between Half-Life's "levels" froze the action for a few moments at the conclusion of a level and presented the player with the overlay text "L O A D I N G . . ." which was quickly followed by a similarly non-intrusive introduction of the name of the level they just walked into.

Sure, this will increase immersion at the cost of robbing the player of the sense of accomplishment and reward he/she feels at the completion of a level.

But there is something Hollenshead doesn't mention in the admittedly small space he is given to talk about the admittedly sensitive topic of forthcoming features in his company's future product.

Is it going to be one long linear roller-coaster ride to the end of the game, or is the Wolfenstein world going to feature multiple paths to victory, increase replay value, show signs of innovative thought, and possibly broaden this well-worn genre?

Return to Castle Wolfenstein was great, but Quake 3, Doom 3, Quake 4? Hollenshead may be right: he's going to change the way I play First Person games. At the current rate.. I'm not going to play them anymore.

Re:What really matters

[XMunkki]

Sure, technically, this has never been done before.

Well actually, that sounds very much like in-game content streaming. Many console games already do this. Granted, may be there no FPS games as such, but still games with massive seamless areas into which the gameplay is fitted nicely.

Some of them DO have fake loading screens, but they are hidden well enough (or are so far apart) thet the player rarely even notices it. One example is the Jak&Daxter game for the PS2. The game streams the next "levels" while you play, and the whole game is integrated into one smoooth running/riding excersice. Pretty sweet. And GTA does this as well, though for example the GTA:VC is divided into two parts. As for PC games, there are some. World of Warcraft springs to mind first :). So as far as I can see, this is nothing new (technically) and people have been doing this for well over 5 years. Heck even my personal engines have had this feature for quite some time. Haven't seen it in a lot of FPS games, but no reason why it wouldn't work directly in an FPS style game as well (cannot confirm this but I think the GameCube Metroid Prime has a streaming level structure?).

Just copy FEAR. That is all the innovation I want

[SmallFurryCreature]

Just for once I would like to see game companies not so much innovate as just take the best bits out of games that game before and not constantly de-evolve.

So from now on every single player FPS game will have the following:

• Quicksave, at any point unrestricted. If you feel they ruin the challenge, don't use them.
• Grenades are not a selecteable weapon instead can be thrown with main weapon equipped like Halo/Fear.
• NO close combat fast moving enemy takes more then 1 clip of ammo to kill. Especially melee. (Am I the only one who hates having to reload/switch with some ankle biter gnawing you?
• No ankle biters. I want my enemies human sized. Head crabs are out.
• No random spawns behind me when I walk into the pool of light to get an ammo resupply EVERY GODDAMN FUCKING TIME (Doom3 I am talking to you.)
• No Ammo grab. You know it you hate it, the moment you cleared a difficult room of baddies you have to visit their twisting corpses to grab half a clip of ammo from each so you can kill the next batch. Is every video game secret army short on funds or something? Brothers in Arms and Vietcong showed how it can be done differently.
• Give me some backup. Yeah yeah, I am the lone soldier hero who saves the day but just at 1 or 2 points in the game make it less bloody obvious that today's game all focus on graphics and not on AI. Brothers in Arms, Vietcong and Call of Duty showed the way.
• No more trash talking bosses, co-workers without the option to beat them up. I am for one sick and tired of being the rooky who has to prove himself. Can a real writer please come up with a more original setting then your are the newbie but somehow have to do all the critical missions without any help?

FEAR was short and the story not exactly original BUT it was beautifully executed. It simply incoorperated a lot of good design decission. The only baddie I found was that you still were alone and badly equipped. I would at least to have liked to see a couple of mission starts and ends with some real backup and not just story plot cannon-fodder. I could also have done with a better supply of ammo so I would not have to loot every damn corpse. Oh and the "hidden" health/slow-mo boosts were lame as well. Can you make it any more obvious I am playing a game then having power-ups lying around in sewers?

I find it amazing to see wolfenstein and the word innovation linked however. Sure they were the first but the last wolfenstein to me was an extreme case of mediocore FPS design. Oh well, the punters loved it so who am I to critize.

Original gameconcepts, and leaving out the Rev ?

[88NoSoup4U88]

Q: What role will original game concepts play in next generation development? A: (Todd Hollenshead) Technology is a gating factor to the experience of playing games. Whether it's visual quality or character interactions, you have to have the processing power to make more sophisticated and interesting entertainment. Certainly the next generation of consoles in the Xbox 360 and PS3 are far more powerful than their predecessors and that gives game developers broad options to do things we haven't been able to do before and provide experiences for players they haven't had before.

Ahyes: the expert... what about the Revolution though? Funny if you talk about the change in next gen consoles, and then leaving out the -only- company that's really trying to come forth with new ideas/experiences to play games.

For example, for our next generation Wolfenstein game, which uses the Xbox 360 as it's primary development platform, we are developing technology that will change the way people play First Person games by doing away with the whole concept of 'levels', which has been the primary progression mechanic every first person game has used.

You're not unique,Mr. Hollenshead. In fact, the Unreal engine announced thise feature -ages- ago (streaming level content on the fly, thus creating endless levels without loading). Nice feature nonetheless.

Wow, Way to NOT answer the question...

[geminidomino]

They ask about "original concepts" and in response, they get a page and a half of marketing blurb for a "Wolfenstien Meets GTA" game?!

Geez. They're not even trying to be subtle about it anymore.