Some users can actually be put off if maintaining and remembering stats seems like too much of a chore, which is where most Japanese-style RPGs pull in those users."
Don't get me wrong, I don't want lots of stats. Personally, I appreciate a fun system that is as simple as possible. I'm just saying whatever stats you have, you better make them very apparent to the player.
If the goal of a RPG developer is to make the simulation as "real" as possible..."
That's not the case. The role of any game designer is to make the game enjoyable and accessible to the audience. That almost always means sacrificing realism. Or do you really want your avatar to have to take pee breaks every few hours?
"It could actually make the game more challenging IMHO; Users would take more precaution and give some decisions more thought."
Yes, it would definitely make it more challenging, but not in a good way. If you don't show health, or damage done, then whether the character lives or dies when hit is completely random to the player. The game is essentially reduced to a slot machine. You might try to show it other ways, like making the character appear bloody when damaged, but that's just another way of showing hitpoints. Like I said, I'm fine with trying to show stats in other ways, as long as you show them *clearly*.
Note that I am only speaking about stats for the player's avatar. Other players or NPC stats can be hidden for good effect.
"Computers take away the need for user-accessible stats and calculations. And seriously, in real life noone says they have "coding skill level 31" or something, they know they are a good coder or they think they are. Some might protest but it fits much better with the role-playing spirit if you have as little information about the simulation mechanics as possible."
I wholeheartedly disagree. For one thing, without presenting the player with stats and rules, they have no idea what determines success or failure. The game becomes completely arbitrary.
Player: "I swing my sword at the Ogre." Computer: "You miss." Player: "Why?" Computer: "I can't tell you. It would ruin the role-playing spirit. Oh, and the Ogre hits you." Player: "How many hits can I take before I die?" Computer: "I can't tell you." Player: "Well, I swing my sword again, I guess." Computer: "It breaks, for some reason." Player: !!!
Not fun.
However, I would say that games could do a better job with *how* they present rules and stats. E.g., if your character has a high Strength stat, they should look big and burly. (Fable does this.)
All I'm saying is that there are much better outlets for casual gamers, at much better price points. If all I'm looking for is a couple hours of gaming fun, "God of War" beats any MMO hands-down. An MMO takes a lot more time investment to get anything out of it. That's a barrier to entry for casual gamers, who by definition don't want to make a large time investment.
There's a big difference between wanting to attract casual gamers and wanting to *convert* casual gamers. Maybe MMO's will continue to be successful with the latter, maybe not. But I don't think they have been or will be successful with the former.
Current MMO's are not tedious because they're massively-multiplayer; it's because of the business model. You have to keep players paying. This means an (ideally) endless stretch of advancement.
I think the subscription model is going to continue to be a barrier to entry for casual gamers. "Casual" implies a small time investment. Why would I pay $15/mo for something I play for a couple hours on the weekend? Especially if those two hours are stuck in a repetitive grind?
Right now the "MM" part of MMORPG isn't really being taken advantage of in current games. A game like Battlefield 2 rewards a comparable level of group coordination to an EQ raid. Truly massive group coordination (100+) is rare. The "MM" part has not truly been delivered yet, imo.
The real thing being exploited, what MMO designers spend all their time on, is how to keep players paying for as many months as possible.
A better acronym would be "S-RPG", for subscription-based RPG. I think an MMO for casual gamers would require a dramatically different approach. "Dumbing-down" the existing genre might bring in (and hook) newcomers, but only the hardcore will stay.
GTA is about completing missions that usually involve committing crimes. Anything more antisocial or psychopathic than that is up to the player.
Uh, if you don't think commiting violent crimes is antisocial and psychopathic, you might want to look up the definition of antisocial and psychopathic.
It's no more likely than a kid watching Pirates of the Caribbean and deciding to become a pirate.
Like a kid watching "Like Mike" and deciding to become a basketball player? I find it interesting that you cite themes like Super Mario Brothers and Pirates to prove your point, while avoiding realistic settings. That is, settings that *blur fantasy and reality*.
Even adults probably have the wrong idea of what being an NYPD Officer is like from watching too much "Law and Order", for example. I'm sure more than a few car accidents have been caused from adults getting too cocky behind the wheel after doing well in Gran Turismo. People can be mislead by media. It's an unavoidable consequence.
That's why it's important to teach children the proper framework of reality and morality early. Shielding children from mixed messages is important during this time.
When a child is ready to take in adult media should be a parent's responsibility. All I'm saying is that stores shouldn't sell mature rated media to minors without parental approval.
Even in warrior cultures or among terrorists, there's a distinction drawn between killing "us" and killing "them". That distinction occurs in our own culture too; we just have a different definition of "them".
Yeah, hence my point. If you are led to believe it is rewarding behavior to hurt or kill anyone who gets in your way, then that's what you'll do. There is a lot of media that protrays this in our society currently.
Do you really think there is no danger of an immature mind drawing the wrong conclusions from an onslaught of such media?
Any child who knows cartoons and slapstick movies aren't real also knows video games aren't real.
I'm not arguing that. I'm saying that violent media makes a bad moral argument, one more at risk of being applied in the real world. GTA is about playing as an antisocial psycopath. That's what makes it fun. Children's cartoons generally make simplistic (positive) moral arguments. GTA's morals, defined in terms of what is rewarding behavior within the game, are hardly something you'd want a kid to adopt. Tell me how a 12yo playing GTA couldn't possibly get the idea that being a gangster is cool.
You haven't played GTA, have you? There is no reward for killing strangers; in fact, it attracts police attention. The pool of blood is simply depicting a natural consequence, and anyone who considers it a reward in itself is twisted to begin with.
Actually, killing random people can be rewarding in game terms, because they tend to drop money and occasionally weapons on the ground. (I think it's less common in GTA:SA, but still there.) This is what I was referring to. Yes, if you do it for long enough, you may attract easily avoidable police attention. I've played the series since GTA 1, when it was a 2D top-down shooter. I actually enjoy the games quite a bit. That doesn't mean I'd let a child play.
I disagree - certain elements of morality are inborn. That's why certain things have been outlawed by every government ever to come into power, because there's a universal sense that they're wrong.
What elements of morality are these? I think you'd find ancient Aztecs had a very different idea of morality than we do today... and it isn't because their brains were wired differently.
Heck, think of the suicide bombers in the Middle East. No, there isn't necessarily a larger portion of mentally ill people; children there are actually taught that they will be rewarded in the afterlife. It's a very different set of morals over there.
Which lesson would you rather have your kids learning? (1) Attacking someone can hurt them, make them bleed, send them to the hospital or morgue, and send you to jail, or (2) dropping heavy objects on someone else's head is funny but won't cause any serious injury?
GTA hardly shows the true consequence of a life of crime. If it were, it would not be much fun. In real life, jail or death does not mean "lose $2000 and all your weapons". When you shoot someone in the head, you wouldn't expect an ambulance to show up 30 seconds later to revive them to full health. Your analogy is misleading.
Where do you draw the line? Do you think it's ok for kids to play Solider of Fortune, where you can shoot off individual body parts, and kill people begging for their lives? Or "The Punisher", which allows you to torture people? Cartoons can help clearly distinguish reality from fantasy. Realistic depictions are more at risk of being interpreted literally. In particular, a child learns pretty early that hitting someone causes them harm, which can be serious. The "bump on the head" in cartoons is a way of sidestepping the moral dilemma of hurting someone else, by showing an outcome not plausible to even young children, reinforcing the fantasy. Whereas the pool of blood when you dash a stranger's brains out on the curb in GTA attempts to emulate reality more closely, and rewards players for this behavior.
One's sense of morality is not naturally ocurring - it's a product of society. It isn't like babies are born knowing that killing people is wrong. That is something taught by society. By exposing individuals to violent/racist/etc media, you're mixing the signals. A mature person can weigh this information in their mind appropriately, but what about the child who does not have enough information to weigh it against?
Does anyone here really believe that GTA can have no negative impact on a 13yo? Sorry, I just can't buy that. He may not go out on a killing spree, but the game certainly equates violence with humor, rewards mysoginistic behavior, and enforces racial stereotyping. Is it that hard to imagine an impressionable mind getting the wrong ideas from this game?
I don't think Jack Thompson is approaching the issue in the right way, and I don't think he'll be successful. But I do think enforcing ratings at stores is important, and that it is not done properly right now. Additionally, some inappropriate games are marketed to kids. This should stop. If it doesn't, people like Jack Thompson will succeed.
FWIW, I find it embarrassing as a game developer that one of the most innovative game designs in the past few years was wrapped in content matter that is frankly offensive to most people.
You're freakin blind if you don't see how M-rated videogames are marketed towards young audiences. I have nothing wrong with M rated games per se, but I think video game marketing is pretty irresponsible (though arguably no less responsible than the film or music industries).
I do think the escalation in violence in video games is a bad trend. If all that games are good for is simulated killing, then it becomes hard to defend it as artistic statement (and thus protected speech). Yes, there are a few exceptions to the rule, but I think most games released now are about killing stuff, with simulated violence. (If you don't believe this, just check out gamespot's front page at any given moment. Right now I see, Dead or Alive Ultimate, WH40K: Dawn of War, Disciple II: Elves, Ghosthunter, etc, etc. The only games I see there that *aren't* about killing stuff are sports games.)
I like games, and I indeed like many games involving killing stuff. But the current state of the industry should be at least a little embarrasing for any gamer, or game developer.
Freeware GBA games do exist. GBA is in fact becoming a rather popular hobbyist platform - there is a free compiler and lots of documentation out there. All you have to do is get a flash ROM, which are cheap and pretty easy to find - you simply upload your games using a USB adaptor into the GBA itself.
gbadev.org has links to tutorials, places to get flash roms, and links to freeware games that people have created.
So we can assume the NightSurf folks pay MSN for certain keywords that they can wipe out the search results for. We can also find that they only buy single words or specific strings of words. "porn" returns the nightowl link, "porn girls" does not. So somehow "xfree86" ended up on the list.
The question is how this might end up on the list. Perhaps, and this is just a guess, the list of adult-content related phrases was compiled by MS. This makes sense, because NightOwl would want to buy the top X phrases searched for, so they get the most bang for their buck. The person at MS scanning top searched URLs to find the top 1000 (or more, who knows) adult-related ones mistakingly marks "xfree86" as adult, not knowing what it is. That's certainly not too far-fetched, with the "x" and the "free".
Of course that's just me guessing, but it seems pretty damn plausible and likely. Mostly because why would MSN block xfree86? It doesn't make a damn bit of sense at any level. They don't block linux. XFree86 isn't exactly a household term, someone searching for that likely already knows that there other OS's out there besides Windows. To think there was some plot is just silly.
Although I don't completely agree with him, I have to say I understand where he's coming from. Think of this - you spend months or years making a painting. When you finally release it, people buy prints of it and start drawing on top of it, and post their results on the web. Or you write/direct a movie, and when you release it, people make knock-off versions with extra scenes and alternate endings.
Ignoring legal/copyright issues completely (which he said wasn't the issue to him), I can understand him becoming frustrated because this is something sacred to him - it's his art and vision. He's saying "Why don't people go make their own art instead of screwing around with mine?". I think it's a pretty natural reaction for an artist. He's not saying it should be illegal or that he's going to try to prevent it in the future, he's just saying he doesn't like it. (Just because you don't like something doesn't mean you want to make it illegal, you know!).
I'm not sure a pure open source model would be that helpful, really. With few exceptions, open source programs are buggy, because the projects do not have a ton of people looking over the code. Call my a cynic, but looking at code just to find bugs is not exciting work, and the majority of open source coders are looking for something fun and interesting. I don't think you would be able to get enough really solid engineers together to look over every single line of code multiple times.
I'm also concerned that releasing a voting system already in use *is* a security risk. Obfuscation is certianly not to be relied upon for security, but you'd be crazy to think that it doesn't help, by hiding potential holes. An engineer might look over the code and decide he should expliot a bug instead of fixing it. With a rapidly changing handful of disorganized part time engineers as the review force, there is not a good chance that someone else would notice.
I think government review boards should be created that would review the code, and after their review, release it to the public. That ensures that the government and private company would remain accountable if major flaws were discovered by the public, but you still have a guarantee that there are people who have the sole job of looking over every single line of code. Only after the government review has completed and a wait period for public review has passed, would the software be permitted for deployment.
Slashdot Mirror
Some users can actually be put off if maintaining and remembering stats seems like too much of a chore, which is where most Japanese-style RPGs pull in those users."
Don't get me wrong, I don't want lots of stats. Personally, I appreciate a fun system that is as simple as possible. I'm just saying whatever stats you have, you better make them very apparent to the player.
If the goal of a RPG developer is to make the simulation as "real" as possible..."
That's not the case. The role of any game designer is to make the game enjoyable and accessible to the audience. That almost always means sacrificing realism. Or do you really want your avatar to have to take pee breaks every few hours?
"It could actually make the game more challenging IMHO; Users would take more precaution and give some decisions more thought."
Yes, it would definitely make it more challenging, but not in a good way. If you don't show health, or damage done, then whether the character lives or dies when hit is completely random to the player. The game is essentially reduced to a slot machine. You might try to show it other ways, like making the character appear bloody when damaged, but that's just another way of showing hitpoints. Like I said, I'm fine with trying to show stats in other ways, as long as you show them *clearly*.
Note that I am only speaking about stats for the player's avatar. Other players or NPC stats can be hidden for good effect.
/game designer
I wholeheartedly disagree. For one thing, without presenting the player with stats and rules, they have no idea what determines success or failure. The game becomes completely arbitrary.
Player: "I swing my sword at the Ogre."
Computer: "You miss."
Player: "Why?"
Computer: "I can't tell you. It would ruin the role-playing spirit. Oh, and the Ogre hits you."
Player: "How many hits can I take before I die?"
Computer: "I can't tell you."
Player: "Well, I swing my sword again, I guess."
Computer: "It breaks, for some reason."
Player: !!!
Not fun.
However, I would say that games could do a better job with *how* they present rules and stats. E.g., if your character has a high Strength stat, they should look big and burly. (Fable does this.)
All I'm saying is that there are much better outlets for casual gamers, at much better price points. If all I'm looking for is a couple hours of gaming fun, "God of War" beats any MMO hands-down. An MMO takes a lot more time investment to get anything out of it. That's a barrier to entry for casual gamers, who by definition don't want to make a large time investment.
There's a big difference between wanting to attract casual gamers and wanting to *convert* casual gamers. Maybe MMO's will continue to be successful with the latter, maybe not. But I don't think they have been or will be successful with the former.
Current MMO's are not tedious because they're massively-multiplayer; it's because of the business model. You have to keep players paying. This means an (ideally) endless stretch of advancement.
I think the subscription model is going to continue to be a barrier to entry for casual gamers. "Casual" implies a small time investment. Why would I pay $15/mo for something I play for a couple hours on the weekend? Especially if those two hours are stuck in a repetitive grind?
Right now the "MM" part of MMORPG isn't really being taken advantage of in current games. A game like Battlefield 2 rewards a comparable level of group coordination to an EQ raid. Truly massive group coordination (100+) is rare. The "MM" part has not truly been delivered yet, imo.
The real thing being exploited, what MMO designers spend all their time on, is how to keep players paying for as many months as possible.
A better acronym would be "S-RPG", for subscription-based RPG. I think an MMO for casual gamers would require a dramatically different approach. "Dumbing-down" the existing genre might bring in (and hook) newcomers, but only the hardcore will stay.
Like a kid watching "Like Mike" and deciding to become a basketball player? I find it interesting that you cite themes like Super Mario Brothers and Pirates to prove your point, while avoiding realistic settings. That is, settings that *blur fantasy and reality*.
Even adults probably have the wrong idea of what being an NYPD Officer is like from watching too much "Law and Order", for example. I'm sure more than a few car accidents have been caused from adults getting too cocky behind the wheel after doing well in Gran Turismo. People can be mislead by media. It's an unavoidable consequence.
That's why it's important to teach children the proper framework of reality and morality early. Shielding children from mixed messages is important during this time.
When a child is ready to take in adult media should be a parent's responsibility. All I'm saying is that stores shouldn't sell mature rated media to minors without parental approval. Yeah, hence my point. If you are led to believe it is rewarding behavior to hurt or kill anyone who gets in your way, then that's what you'll do. There is a lot of media that protrays this in our society currently.
Do you really think there is no danger of an immature mind drawing the wrong conclusions from an onslaught of such media?
Actually, killing random people can be rewarding in game terms, because they tend to drop money and occasionally weapons on the ground. (I think it's less common in GTA:SA, but still there.) This is what I was referring to. Yes, if you do it for long enough, you may attract easily avoidable police attention. I've played the series since GTA 1, when it was a 2D top-down shooter. I actually enjoy the games quite a bit. That doesn't mean I'd let a child play. What elements of morality are these? I think you'd find ancient Aztecs had a very different idea of morality than we do today... and it isn't because their brains were wired differently.
Heck, think of the suicide bombers in the Middle East. No, there isn't necessarily a larger portion of mentally ill people; children there are actually taught that they will be rewarded in the afterlife. It's a very different set of morals over there.
Where do you draw the line? Do you think it's ok for kids to play Solider of Fortune, where you can shoot off individual body parts, and kill people begging for their lives? Or "The Punisher", which allows you to torture people? Cartoons can help clearly distinguish reality from fantasy. Realistic depictions are more at risk of being interpreted literally. In particular, a child learns pretty early that hitting someone causes them harm, which can be serious. The "bump on the head" in cartoons is a way of sidestepping the moral dilemma of hurting someone else, by showing an outcome not plausible to even young children, reinforcing the fantasy. Whereas the pool of blood when you dash a stranger's brains out on the curb in GTA attempts to emulate reality more closely, and rewards players for this behavior.
One's sense of morality is not naturally ocurring - it's a product of society. It isn't like babies are born knowing that killing people is wrong. That is something taught by society. By exposing individuals to violent/racist/etc media, you're mixing the signals. A mature person can weigh this information in their mind appropriately, but what about the child who does not have enough information to weigh it against?
Does anyone here really believe that GTA can have no negative impact on a 13yo? Sorry, I just can't buy that. He may not go out on a killing spree, but the game certainly equates violence with humor, rewards mysoginistic behavior, and enforces racial stereotyping. Is it that hard to imagine an impressionable mind getting the wrong ideas from this game?
I don't think Jack Thompson is approaching the issue in the right way, and I don't think he'll be successful. But I do think enforcing ratings at stores is important, and that it is not done properly right now. Additionally, some inappropriate games are marketed to kids. This should stop. If it doesn't, people like Jack Thompson will succeed.
FWIW, I find it embarrassing as a game developer that one of the most innovative game designs in the past few years was wrapped in content matter that is frankly offensive to most people.
I do think the escalation in violence in video games is a bad trend. If all that games are good for is simulated killing, then it becomes hard to defend it as artistic statement (and thus protected speech). Yes, there are a few exceptions to the rule, but I think most games released now are about killing stuff, with simulated violence. (If you don't believe this, just check out gamespot's front page at any given moment. Right now I see, Dead or Alive Ultimate, WH40K: Dawn of War, Disciple II: Elves, Ghosthunter, etc, etc. The only games I see there that *aren't* about killing stuff are sports games.)
I like games, and I indeed like many games involving killing stuff. But the current state of the industry should be at least a little embarrasing for any gamer, or game developer.
Freeware GBA games do exist. GBA is in fact becoming a rather popular hobbyist platform - there is a free compiler and lots of documentation out there. All you have to do is get a flash ROM, which are cheap and pretty easy to find - you simply upload your games using a USB adaptor into the GBA itself. gbadev.org has links to tutorials, places to get flash roms, and links to freeware games that people have created.
So we can assume the NightSurf folks pay MSN for certain keywords that they can wipe out the search results for. We can also find that they only buy single words or specific strings of words. "porn" returns the nightowl link, "porn girls" does not. So somehow "xfree86" ended up on the list.
The question is how this might end up on the list. Perhaps, and this is just a guess, the list of adult-content related phrases was compiled by MS. This makes sense, because NightOwl would want to buy the top X phrases searched for, so they get the most bang for their buck. The person at MS scanning top searched URLs to find the top 1000 (or more, who knows) adult-related ones mistakingly marks "xfree86" as adult, not knowing what it is. That's certainly not too far-fetched, with the "x" and the "free".
Of course that's just me guessing, but it seems pretty damn plausible and likely. Mostly because why would MSN block xfree86? It doesn't make a damn bit of sense at any level. They don't block linux. XFree86 isn't exactly a household term, someone searching for that likely already knows that there other OS's out there besides Windows. To think there was some plot is just silly.
Although I don't completely agree with him, I have to say I understand where he's coming from. Think of this - you spend months or years making a painting. When you finally release it, people buy prints of it and start drawing on top of it, and post their results on the web. Or you write/direct a movie, and when you release it, people make knock-off versions with extra scenes and alternate endings.
Ignoring legal/copyright issues completely (which he said wasn't the issue to him), I can understand him becoming frustrated because this is something sacred to him - it's his art and vision. He's saying "Why don't people go make their own art instead of screwing around with mine?". I think it's a pretty natural reaction for an artist. He's not saying it should be illegal or that he's going to try to prevent it in the future, he's just saying he doesn't like it. (Just because you don't like something doesn't mean you want to make it illegal, you know!).
I'm not sure a pure open source model would be that helpful, really. With few exceptions, open source programs are buggy, because the projects do not have a ton of people looking over the code. Call my a cynic, but looking at code just to find bugs is not exciting work, and the majority of open source coders are looking for something fun and interesting. I don't think you would be able to get enough really solid engineers together to look over every single line of code multiple times.
I'm also concerned that releasing a voting system already in use *is* a security risk. Obfuscation is certianly not to be relied upon for security, but you'd be crazy to think that it doesn't help, by hiding potential holes. An engineer might look over the code and decide he should expliot a bug instead of fixing it. With a rapidly changing handful of disorganized part time engineers as the review force, there is not a good chance that someone else would notice.
I think government review boards should be created that would review the code, and after their review, release it to the public. That ensures that the government and private company would remain accountable if major flaws were discovered by the public, but you still have a guarantee that there are people who have the sole job of looking over every single line of code. Only after the government review has completed and a wait period for public review has passed, would the software be permitted for deployment.