Once I read the article that named it worst all time, like they just expected we'd forgotten about them giving it an Editor's Choice, I never read another article again. I thought that nothing else could possibly show that they were just a hype source for their advertisers...and then I heard about their "Heroes of the Gaming World" article, and they surpassed my previous expectations.
The XBox Live commercials in Japan were some of the worst I'd ever seen. Some drug-addled woman slinking along a wall while pies were thrown at her, and she'd stop to taste the pies.
The ones in the US for the Getaway were bad. Some guy jacking a car in real life, and it ending with the text, "You've just witnessed a recreation of a scene from the Getaway." Retarded.
The Blockbuster and N-Gage print ads are also blights upon society.
I liked the 3dfx ones where they make the chips that can solve world hunger, and open up new possibilities...you see kids flying then they say, "Nah, we want to play some games." then the kid plummets from the sky, and a bunch of whitecoats start fragging each other. That was excellent. Damn kids stealing my fun.
You mean, Outpost, the game that PC Gamer gave an "Editor's Choice" award to, and then a mere 3 years later, presented it with the "Worst PC Game of All Time" award? Yeah. That was a lot of hype. Fortunately enough, they had a demo running at Fry's so I could tell it sucked before buying it...I had a lot less money back then, and that would have been a vicious hit to my income.
The most popular game in the series is never the most apreciated by the hardcore...In any case, I like FF7. I don't see the problems that the other people have with it, save for the whole lack of difficulty, thing...but to be honest, the other FFs didn't offer me much resistance either.
In any case, the graphics in FF7 alone forced everyone else to step up to be considered in the same league. If your RPG didn't look stunning now, nobody else wanted to play it. It was a move that would ultimately bring about Square's demise (hence, they are now SquareEnix) because they went to the well a little too ofen.
It's not a law. If there's a game that an inordinate number of kids will skip school to beat when it first comes out, (and it happened with a previous iteration of the game.) the gov't asks the company that the game be released on a weekend. They do the same thing for the Final Fantasy series, too.
I don't personally use Deus Ex as an example of open gaming...it just ends up getting thrown in the discussion so often, I wanted to get it out of the way first, and let people know that it is neither open-ended, nor is it non-linear. In any case, the previous time I'd gotten into the "emergent" debate it was getting tossed around...because the term "emergent" was "defined" differently in that particular instance of the argument.
Back to your post, though...your example is of the Sims, and how people didn't expect to log into a Mafia. Well...I did actually. I was going to start it. I decided against it because it would require too much of my time, so I never got around to purchasing the game. Doesn't really relate to "emergence" in this context...but I figured I might as well say something about it.
"Emergence" within a closed system happens in nearly all games, though, so if that's what this debate is truly about, I don't think there's any discussion at all. There are always "hacks" or, probably more accurately, "exploits" that will unbalance any FPS or RTS out there.
If you played the original Final Fantasy Tactics, you konw about the "Accumulate JP" trick. Your starting Class came with a skill called "Accumulate". It's intended purpose was to power up a character for an attack. What it actually got used for was to gain Exp. and Job Points 100% of the time, because as a skill you performed on yourself, you couldn't ever miss. So you'd just trap a monster in the corner (ideally a Chocobo, because it would heal you, in addition to itself.) and within a couple hours, be at level 99.
The first Madden football game on the PS2 neglected that rule that a onside kick had to go 10 yards before being recovered by the kicking team. As such, you could easily run up scores like 700-0. Are these examples of what "emergence" is supposed to be? These obviously aren't intended methods of gameplay...but they certainly emerged and totally skewed strategy from that point forth.
Open-ended and non-ending are two different things. I view open-ended to be a games that allows you to determine an ending, and in good situations, a full path to get to that ending.
Non-ending games like Privateer 2, Port Royale, and as the first replier noted, Elite, are different. But to keep the world rich, you definitely would need more development. In the cases of MOOs, MUDs and such, those are either in the form of other player interactions, or adding in new content. Otherwise...you'll grow tired of the game. It's what happened to me in the Sims, SimGolf, nearly everything of the non-ending nature you specify.
That still doesn't really fit any definition of "emergent". I know there's want to slap a word onto something that only a phrase can describe, but that ends up being stupid because you get 90 different definitions of what the word is NOW supposed to represent in this context. This discussion started up like a week and a half ago on the GameSpy message boards, and since then I've seen it in the RottenTomatoes forums, and now Gamespot, then here.
"Emergent" has already been described 4 different ways to me. This is why its utterly retarded to do something like this, especially in the context of a debate, because now you don't know what you're debating anymore.
By the way if you're looking for another game similar to Elite, pick up Port Royale. It's pretty much like you describe, but with actual pirates, not space pirates.
What emerges? Gameplay? Is it just bubbling underneath the surface, where it rises like a big submarine?
So ditch the term. Stop trying to make yourselves sound all cutting-edge by coining terms that don't make sense.
Second of all, this open-ended stuff isn't necessarily true. Just like Deus Ex...you're basically still on rails. Even these open-ended games. There's one main story arc...you just go about it different ways, and you reach the same ending or ending nexus no matter what you did during the game. Eventually, you get to the core question...which do you like more, "The Sims" or "Final Fantasy"?
The problem with open-ended gaming is NOT that we don't have powerful enough machines...is that there isn't enough time in the dev cycle. To create a game with choices that give you say 4 different endings that aren't just, "Ok, you're at the end of the game, which ending do you want?" or "Choice A sends you to path A, and Choice B sends you to game path B." and then scripting and testing those takes a freaking long time.
Fallout, and Arcanum are probably the closest finished products. You had all those side arcs in between. After you finished the game, depending on what did in the towns along the way, different things happened to them. You still went to one basic ending, but if you built into that a script to determine which path(s) your character would have left to them at the final decision based off of their string of previous actions, and that'd be great.
Before you go off on the "mindless drone linking PA again" tangets, I noticed this before the PA folks did, and they just happened to make a comment about it. Check out IGN.com's front page. They've whored themslves out worse than the Gamespy folks did to N-Gage and Infinium.
You get double-taxed when you work outside the country. You pay the taxes of the nation your work in, AND if you opt to retain your US citizenship, you STILL pay US federal taxes, too.
The US government would love to have citizens working outside the country...because then they aren't providing you with roads, with infrastructure, and army protection, and yet you're still funneling them a hefty cut of your paycheck...which is entirely in funds from another country. You have just brought in income without costing the US a dime. They would love to ship out US workers to Bangalore more than anything.
Let's see...the N-Gage and Phantom want to advertise on our site...so let's write an article telling gamers to possibly endorse the WORST 2 ideas ever.
On one hand, the N-Gage, a system I wanted to like because it would be an international phone, AND a gaming console, so I could keep in touch while I was in Japan.
Guess what? Phone coverage doesn't include Japan. Also, the screen is way too freaking small, and the controls are phone controls. So...I can't use it for the reasons I wanted to use the phone, and I can't use it as a viable gaming system. Back to 1000 yen phone cards, and putting my GBA in my carry-on.
Then we have the Phantom...which "unveiled"itself to show...nothing. No actual console, no nothing. What should we be giving a shot, exactly? The wholesale shunning of product in exchange for an all-hype, no-substance world? Gimme a break GameSpy. You guys are right up there with InsertCredit now.
Game deigners in yet another huge display originality intolerance kepp making the same freaking puzzles, even though they are not fun, and completely annoying.
Take Tron 2.0, for example. I loved the game, but I nearly threw it out the window once I got to the blasted moving platform, timed jumping puzzle, and the extra annoying moving platform, flip switches that make platforms disappear and reappear jumping puzzle.
What the hell?! These puzzles make the game hard, but they don't make it fun. Sure you can brag about how you beat it later, like it's some feat of bravado, but actually, it's just bad game design. Games should be difficult...games should be challenging, but they shouldn't just be hard because the developers were feeling spiteful, and/or they are retarded.
You have to make some new puzzles. The only reason jumping puzzles still exist is so people can throw them in once they've run out of switch and fetch quests. Jumping puzzles in 2D sucked, in 3D they suck even more...especially when you have no camera control, and yet....every FPS game has them. Utter idiocy.
It wasn't the gameplay, it was the music integrating with the gameplay that made it original in concept. It's not that is isn't original...it isn't THAT original.
I remember hearing one once about a mathematician, a burning house, and reducing a problems to a previous problem...but I can't remember how it all goes...a little help from the audience?
You're not looking in the right place then. There are only two places I trust pretty much, "by default" to get an opinion of a game, Netjak.com (we don't get games for free most of the time.), where I write, and Games Domain, which I found because whenever I trashed a game on netjak, they were listed right next to my review on Gamerankings.com, because they had slammed it equally hard or harder.
Easiest way to find out what a game's like...that the two extremes on Gamerakings. Find the most well-written high marks review, and the most well-written low marks review. Compare them and get an average idea of how you feel about the game.
Are the things the low marks reviewer panned important to you? Are the high points the raving guy mentioned important to you? Does it sound like this game either just was or wasn't the reviewer's cup of tea? This should be good enough to comprise a general opinion of the game for you. Try and give it a rental if you can, or use it to bolster the opinion you've already formed about it.
Netjak.com is pretty good...but since I write for them, I'm what you'd call "biased". Games Domain is the only other source I look for reviews. They seem to be the only ones like-minded in actually expressing criticism, while also making sure they follow basic grammar rules.
Seriously...I thought this was dead and then some retard posted it somewhere else recently...now I find it on Slashdot.
It's fake...obviously. The "guys in black suits not taking the quarters"...which would have belonged to the arcade owner is an obvious giveaway. I realize that there isn't a lot of game news right now...but maybe if Slashdot would post some links to reviews...maybe we could have something that's possibly on-topic.
Slashdot Mirror
Once I read the article that named it worst all time, like they just expected we'd forgotten about them giving it an Editor's Choice, I never read another article again. I thought that nothing else could possibly show that they were just a hype source for their advertisers...and then I heard about their "Heroes of the Gaming World" article, and they surpassed my previous expectations.
The XBox Live commercials in Japan were some of the worst I'd ever seen. Some drug-addled woman slinking along a wall while pies were thrown at her, and she'd stop to taste the pies.
The ones in the US for the Getaway were bad. Some guy jacking a car in real life, and it ending with the text, "You've just witnessed a recreation of a scene from the Getaway." Retarded.
The Blockbuster and N-Gage print ads are also blights upon society.
I liked the 3dfx ones where they make the chips that can solve world hunger, and open up new possibilities...you see kids flying then they say, "Nah, we want to play some games." then the kid plummets from the sky, and a bunch of whitecoats start fragging each other. That was excellent. Damn kids stealing my fun.
You mean, Outpost, the game that PC Gamer gave an "Editor's Choice" award to, and then a mere 3 years later, presented it with the "Worst PC Game of All Time" award? Yeah. That was a lot of hype. Fortunately enough, they had a demo running at Fry's so I could tell it sucked before buying it...I had a lot less money back then, and that would have been a vicious hit to my income.
The most popular game in the series is never the most apreciated by the hardcore...In any case, I like FF7. I don't see the problems that the other people have with it, save for the whole lack of difficulty, thing...but to be honest, the other FFs didn't offer me much resistance either.
In any case, the graphics in FF7 alone forced everyone else to step up to be considered in the same league. If your RPG didn't look stunning now, nobody else wanted to play it. It was a move that would ultimately bring about Square's demise (hence, they are now SquareEnix) because they went to the well a little too ofen.
It's not a law. If there's a game that an inordinate number of kids will skip school to beat when it first comes out, (and it happened with a previous iteration of the game.) the gov't asks the company that the game be released on a weekend. They do the same thing for the Final Fantasy series, too.
I don't personally use Deus Ex as an example of open gaming...it just ends up getting thrown in the discussion so often, I wanted to get it out of the way first, and let people know that it is neither open-ended, nor is it non-linear. In any case, the previous time I'd gotten into the "emergent" debate it was getting tossed around...because the term "emergent" was "defined" differently in that particular instance of the argument.
Back to your post, though...your example is of the Sims, and how people didn't expect to log into a Mafia. Well...I did actually. I was going to start it. I decided against it because it would require too much of my time, so I never got around to purchasing the game. Doesn't really relate to "emergence" in this context...but I figured I might as well say something about it.
"Emergence" within a closed system happens in nearly all games, though, so if that's what this debate is truly about, I don't think there's any discussion at all. There are always "hacks" or, probably more accurately, "exploits" that will unbalance any FPS or RTS out there.
If you played the original Final Fantasy Tactics, you konw about the "Accumulate JP" trick. Your starting Class came with a skill called "Accumulate". It's intended purpose was to power up a character for an attack. What it actually got used for was to gain Exp. and Job Points 100% of the time, because as a skill you performed on yourself, you couldn't ever miss. So you'd just trap a monster in the corner (ideally a Chocobo, because it would heal you, in addition to itself.) and within a couple hours, be at level 99.
The first Madden football game on the PS2 neglected that rule that a onside kick had to go 10 yards before being recovered by the kicking team. As such, you could easily run up scores like 700-0. Are these examples of what "emergence" is supposed to be? These obviously aren't intended methods of gameplay...but they certainly emerged and totally skewed strategy from that point forth.
Open-ended and non-ending are two different things. I view open-ended to be a games that allows you to determine an ending, and in good situations, a full path to get to that ending.
Non-ending games like Privateer 2, Port Royale, and as the first replier noted, Elite, are different. But to keep the world rich, you definitely would need more development. In the cases of MOOs, MUDs and such, those are either in the form of other player interactions, or adding in new content. Otherwise...you'll grow tired of the game. It's what happened to me in the Sims, SimGolf, nearly everything of the non-ending nature you specify.
That still doesn't really fit any definition of "emergent". I know there's want to slap a word onto something that only a phrase can describe, but that ends up being stupid because you get 90 different definitions of what the word is NOW supposed to represent in this context. This discussion started up like a week and a half ago on the GameSpy message boards, and since then I've seen it in the RottenTomatoes forums, and now Gamespot, then here.
"Emergent" has already been described 4 different ways to me. This is why its utterly retarded to do something like this, especially in the context of a debate, because now you don't know what you're debating anymore.
By the way if you're looking for another game similar to Elite, pick up Port Royale. It's pretty much like you describe, but with actual pirates, not space pirates.
GoGamer.com has it.
What emerges? Gameplay? Is it just bubbling underneath the surface, where it rises like a big submarine?
So ditch the term. Stop trying to make yourselves sound all cutting-edge by coining terms that don't make sense.
Second of all, this open-ended stuff isn't necessarily true. Just like Deus Ex...you're basically still on rails. Even these open-ended games. There's one main story arc...you just go about it different ways, and you reach the same ending or ending nexus no matter what you did during the game. Eventually, you get to the core question...which do you like more, "The Sims" or "Final Fantasy"?
The problem with open-ended gaming is NOT that we don't have powerful enough machines...is that there isn't enough time in the dev cycle. To create a game with choices that give you say 4 different endings that aren't just, "Ok, you're at the end of the game, which ending do you want?" or "Choice A sends you to path A, and Choice B sends you to game path B." and then scripting and testing those takes a freaking long time.
Fallout, and Arcanum are probably the closest finished products. You had all those side arcs in between. After you finished the game, depending on what did in the towns along the way, different things happened to them. You still went to one basic ending, but if you built into that a script to determine which path(s) your character would have left to them at the final decision based off of their string of previous actions, and that'd be great.
A TI-99/4A shout-out?! Hell yeah!
Tunnels of Doom in the hizouse!
You mean like a McGriddle?
Read the Newspost, too.
Before you go off on the "mindless drone linking PA again" tangets, I noticed this before the PA folks did, and they just happened to make a comment about it. Check out IGN.com's front page. They've whored themslves out worse than the Gamespy folks did to N-Gage and Infinium.
You get double-taxed when you work outside the country. You pay the taxes of the nation your work in, AND if you opt to retain your US citizenship, you STILL pay US federal taxes, too.
The US government would love to have citizens working outside the country...because then they aren't providing you with roads, with infrastructure, and army protection, and yet you're still funneling them a hefty cut of your paycheck...which is entirely in funds from another country. You have just brought in income without costing the US a dime. They would love to ship out US workers to Bangalore more than anything.
Of course, they'll have to be sure to leave their names and adresses, too.
Daze
aka Jerry Dorsey
111 Anyplace Ln.
New York, NY 00026
The key is under the mat.
Let's see...the N-Gage and Phantom want to advertise on our site...so let's write an article telling gamers to possibly endorse the WORST 2 ideas ever.
On one hand, the N-Gage, a system I wanted to like because it would be an international phone, AND a gaming console, so I could keep in touch while I was in Japan.
Guess what? Phone coverage doesn't include Japan. Also, the screen is way too freaking small, and the controls are phone controls. So...I can't use it for the reasons I wanted to use the phone, and I can't use it as a viable gaming system. Back to 1000 yen phone cards, and putting my GBA in my carry-on.
Then we have the Phantom...which "unveiled"itself to show...nothing. No actual console, no nothing. What should we be giving a shot, exactly? The wholesale shunning of product in exchange for an all-hype, no-substance world? Gimme a break GameSpy. You guys are right up there with InsertCredit now.
Game deigners in yet another huge display originality intolerance kepp making the same freaking puzzles, even though they are not fun, and completely annoying.
Take Tron 2.0, for example. I loved the game, but I nearly threw it out the window once I got to the blasted moving platform, timed jumping puzzle, and the extra annoying moving platform, flip switches that make platforms disappear and reappear jumping puzzle.
What the hell?! These puzzles make the game hard, but they don't make it fun. Sure you can brag about how you beat it later, like it's some feat of bravado, but actually, it's just bad game design. Games should be difficult...games should be challenging, but they shouldn't just be hard because the developers were feeling spiteful, and/or they are retarded.
You have to make some new puzzles. The only reason jumping puzzles still exist is so people can throw them in once they've run out of switch and fetch quests. Jumping puzzles in 2D sucked, in 3D they suck even more...especially when you have no camera control, and yet....every FPS game has them. Utter idiocy.
Yeah...I don't even remember seeing tractor trailers in GTA, GTA 2, and GTA: London...
No...he was the guy on the Simpsons who tried to stuff The Thing into the kid's Batmobile...making it BETTER.
So why not fire everyone who didn't understand this in the first place, so they aren't allowed to devolve games to this point ever again?
Pikmin isn't original! It's SimAnt without Ants!
It wasn't the gameplay, it was the music integrating with the gameplay that made it original in concept. It's not that is isn't original...it isn't THAT original.
I remember hearing one once about a mathematician, a burning house, and reducing a problems to a previous problem...but I can't remember how it all goes...a little help from the audience?
So he meant, "11 "journalists" whose writing styles would fit in a 9th grade English lab and who apparently don't grasp the concept of paragraphs?"
So he made a mistake. Don't get pissed at him...he wasn't the one claiming to be a journalist.
You're not looking in the right place then. There are only two places I trust pretty much, "by default" to get an opinion of a game, Netjak.com (we don't get games for free most of the time.), where I write, and Games Domain, which I found because whenever I trashed a game on netjak, they were listed right next to my review on Gamerankings.com, because they had slammed it equally hard or harder.
Easiest way to find out what a game's like...that the two extremes on Gamerakings. Find the most well-written high marks review, and the most well-written low marks review. Compare them and get an average idea of how you feel about the game.
Are the things the low marks reviewer panned important to you? Are the high points the raving guy mentioned important to you? Does it sound like this game either just was or wasn't the reviewer's cup of tea? This should be good enough to comprise a general opinion of the game for you. Try and give it a rental if you can, or use it to bolster the opinion you've already formed about it.
Netjak.com is pretty good...but since I write for them, I'm what you'd call "biased". Games Domain is the only other source I look for reviews. They seem to be the only ones like-minded in actually expressing criticism, while also making sure they follow basic grammar rules.
Seriously...I thought this was dead and then some retard posted it somewhere else recently...now I find it on Slashdot.
It's fake...obviously. The "guys in black suits not taking the quarters"...which would have belonged to the arcade owner is an obvious giveaway. I realize that there isn't a lot of game news right now...but maybe if Slashdot would post some links to reviews...maybe we could have something that's possibly on-topic.
Why aren't we allowed to mod stories?
The how about not turning to a designer who's cranked out 5 carbon copies of someone else's already released game in the last 7 years.
Originality isn't going to happen as long as you keep recycling the same people to be the "creative driving force".
Eventually, someone has to get fired for making the same game...otherwise, they're just going to keep doing it.