So many game designers should take note of how you remake games!
1) Take a classic game with excellent gameplay 2) Give it a few new features but make certain not to change what made it great in the first place 3) Upgrade the graphics, music and sound to current standards
Sid:
Most artists do their best and most creative work when they are younger. It's a wonderful talent to be able to put your ego aside and recognize where you are as a designer, instead of where you were. You breath new life into your ideas by simply tweaking and upgrading them without trying to 'fix' what isn't broken! On the other side of that spectrum are people like George Lucas. He has almost single-handedly destroyed the Star Wars legacy with his ego and lack of self-perception. Quite an amazing feat! Thanks so much for not making the same mistake with the Pirates and Civilizatoin series! =)
That being said, are you considering investigating winning formulas from other 'classic' game designers (Brian Fargo, Richard Garriott, Peter Molyneux, etc.) and possibly revamping those? If so, have licensing issues forced you to give up on the idea?
Anyhow, I'm bored out of my skull now and thee last three times I've logged in I've been unable to get together a party to tackle the items I have left to tackle. If this continues for another week, I'll probably have to reluctantly cancel my account.
I completely agree. The post-lvl 60 game is sterile and boring beyond description. It's why I quit. I can't believe they created an MMORPG that dumps 100% of XP earned when you reach 60...where are the Alternate Advancement points?!?
My pancreas is going to explode from all that sugar! PR people that treat the customers as morons should be unemployed.
Yeah that was pretty bad, clearly not the guy we were hoping to hear from. My faith in Blizzard has been plummeting steadily over the last 6 months. The mass exodus/dissolution of Blizzard North was a very sure sign that things are not well. =(
Is it still the case that you can't get AA experience at 60?
This means that they retain control over their product/art for a set period of time (yes the set period is insane).
I like your description. The part about the set period being insane is where we're in complete agreement. Until that part is addressed, there's no reason anyone should honor the other points you mentioned.
The only right movie producers have is to exclusively show first viewings in movie theaters. That's the only right they've ever had for the last 100 years since films were first made.
The fact that digitization is making it easier and easier to distribute this media after the initial showing in theatres is completely beyond the moral scope of these companies.
They quite simply found a lot of free cash in the 80s with cable TV distribution and VHS rentals. That free cash was never theirs by right in the first place, and they offered a viable distribution service back then...those times are over, and the right to reap all those free profits is being taken back by the real bosses in a free market, the customer.
The only right movie producers have is to exclusively show first viewings in movie theaters. That's the only right they've ever had for the last 100 years since films were first made.
The fact that digitization is making it easier and easier to distribute this media after the showing in theatres is completely beyond the moral scope of these companies.
They quite simply found a lot of free cash in the 80s with cable TV distribution and VHS rentals. That free cash was never theirs by right in the first place, and they offered a viable distribution service back then...those times are over, and the right to reap all those free profits is being taken back by the real bosses in a free market, the customer.
IBM just launched a new program that will encourage some employees to earn teaching certificates and degrees. IBM will help defray the costs of these new degrees. With those newly earned degrees, the IBM employee would then become a 'former' IBM employee who moves onto a career as a public school math or science teacher. While it seems odd that IBM would encourage employees to switch careers, the point is that IBM is trying to help offset an expected shortage in the number of math and science teachers in the United States.
It's amazing how bad things have gone for the IT industry in just 6 years. I know most of us still think of the free-market 'American Way' as the best way to go, but it grieves me deeply to see this industry in such dire straights.
It's one thing to take a 6-month vocational track to be a textile worker, and have your job ship oversees forcing you to retrain. But many IT people worked for 8-12 years in high-school and college to get good grades with a bs or ms in CS, CE, CIT. Dumping these people into teaching jobs is a travesty. I can't blame IBM however, at least they're acknowledging the problem and doing something.
Everything I've read has said that even if they had gotten all the funding they'd requested, it wouldn't have made a bit of difference, as the proposed levees were never even designed to handle a hurricane of this magnitude. They would have failed anyway.
That's not what I've read. First of all Katrina was a category 4 storm when it reached shore, with significanly less storm surge than the initially predicted 25'. The levy system that was in place was rated for up to a category 3 storm. It's very reasonable to assume that the levy upgrade they were proposing was to help safegaurd the city against category 4 storms and below. Again, if this course of action had been taken none of the terrible things that happened in NO since the day after the storm hit would be in the news. And hundreds of thousands of lives would be vastly better off than they are now.
The reason I'm especially pissed at the moment is because the usual Rove/CNN/Faux News circus is busily shopping around for a convenient scapegoat and the public(as usual) is buying it hook, line and sinker...they're trying to pin it on Michael Brown the director of FEMA. The problem is, THE DIRECTOR OF FEMA WAS APPOINTED BY BUSH. If I hire a carpenter to work as a heart surgeon is it the carpenter's incompetance or mine?
If the media can serve popular opinion to the highest bidder then the people at the top can get away with murder...and they are.
I think you mean reduced the funding and used it for other things that most people don't agree with.
Not refused to provide. It's subtle, but not the same.
I agree, and if there are those who were confused by my original wording then I'm glad you clarified that point.
Instead of spending our tax dollars to help the people of america, Bush's policy of War/Oil over the last 5 years has smeared our countries reputation around the world, suffocated our economy, tripled gas prices, and left millions of americans helpless. Bush, Cheney, Rove etc. have justified all of this in order to make more money for the defense industry and the oil industry(businesses that 90% of Bush's people hail from). It's grotesque. This is not the country I grew up believing in.
Editors...please, that's got to be the cheesiest title yet. We have the science, we have had the science, but a republican dominated government refused to provide the funding that would have allowed the Army Corp. of Engineers to Build levies that both the Governor and Mayor have been requesting for years before this happened.
Instead of fanning the typical Slashdot "We're so cool because we know science" circle-jerk, maybe you could greenlight an article that focuses on the issues.
If you want computer sound to get better, vote with your wallet and buy something better. Turtle Beach will happily sell you an Envy-based card, or you can get a PCI X-Mystique, which does exactly what Soundstorm used to do.
Thanks for posting, I'd never heard of the X-Mystique before and it sounds like exactly what I need. I have a great DD5.1 tuner(Pioneer TRE-D800) and 5.1 speaker setup, and have been missing soundstorm in the newer nForce boards =(.
My concern is that the X-Mystique only supports EAX 2.0, will this be a problem for compatability future games? Can EAX 3.0 or 4.0 compatability be delivered in future drivers, or is it a hardware issue? I use my PC for music, home theater, and gaming...so I want to find a solution that will do it all for years to come. I don't need extreme quality, just good quality that can do everything well over digital Dolby 5.1 output.
what personal problems do these people have that make them want to spend so much time in gaming?
Want them to stop playing? Get them a psychologist. Addiction is only a symptom.
OK, I'll be completely honest about my situation... though it will probably make for some unpleasant reading.
I've been diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and social anxiety. Most of the time when I'm in public I'm so uncomfortable that I can only be in crowds for an hour or so. Throughout my life I've just naturally migrated towards computers because it allows me to socialize in very limited and safe ways...through forums like these, IRC, online games, etc. I can always bail out of the situation, noone can see my facial expression or body language.
Unfortunately this is a physical problem that cannot be solved through counceling. I've tried a number of medications but they all produce horrible side-effects, feels like being perpetually sick with a cold. Many people suffer from this and other conditions which make face-to-face human interaction beyond challenging, and more like constant failure. I have the few friends and family who know me and still love me despite all of my problems, and prefer to go online when I need more social interaction than they can provide. I'm sure thousands of obese, disfigured, blind, and deaf people are online for similar reasons.
All this guy did was build a highly respectable gaming system, one that will be more then adequate for those people with more brains then money.
I agree with your point, but upgrade frequency can be an issue also. I used to enjoy upgrading my PC but after doing it about 5 times now I'm starting to get tired of it. It's stressful removing all the sensitive components, worrying about scratching the motherboard with a screwdriver, or blowing a transistor with a static shock. Just applying the AS5 to the cpu/heatsink can be very tedious.
So I guess my point is, yes you can probably save the most money by upgrading every 14 months and buying at the 70% level, but if you buy at the 100% level maybe you can go 2 years before needing to upgrade again.
Then of course there's the loss from reselling(I use E-bay), and the shipping costs etc. The more frequenty you upgrade, the more you lose money to this kind of overhead. So in some cases it may actually make sense to spend money up front in order to save more money down the road. It's hard to say, I wish I had all my shipping fees and bought/sold reciepts from the last 5 years so I could do the calculation, I'd be interested to know which is actually cheaper.
I played WoW from December to April and was very impressed with the gameplay and interface. The level grind wasn't overly cumbersome(Everquest), and the Auction House, Quest Sytem, etc were very elegant designs. WoW was a common sense approach to problems that so many other MMORPGs never bothered to examine. I truly felt like I was in good hands with Blizzard...until I reached level 60.
I have to ask, why did you choose to neglect the first rule of MMORPGs? After reaching level 60, players can no longer improve their characters. The inability to continue growing my talent tree after 60 was such a turn-off that I quit playing a few weeks after reaching 60. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy exploring new instances, and there's a glint in my eye for epic equipment, but none of those things substitute for experience based character growth. Everquest players were very satisfied with the alternate-advancement system. Why didn't you guys adopt such a system for WoW?
Hitting 60 was a huge letdown for me, and based on the WoW forums I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. After a 4 month absence, what I've read tells me that nothing has changed. I can only assume that experience post 60 is a low priority for your design team, and that you don't think players care that much. If you could please share your thoughts with us about this issue.
Anyways, Autoduel wasn't that great. A good Car Wars game would be awesome, though. Imagine the potential for destruction and mayhem on a modern PC, rather than the Apple IIe. I'd kill for a good, modern vehicle combat game.
Yes indeed, it's a gaming concept that's long-overdue.
I'd like to see a study on the percentage of people that drop out of college due to WOW and how many actually recover.
I gave up 4 years of gaming so I could study hard and earn a CS degree. I couldn't find a job, so now I'm unemployed making up for lots of wasted time.
This is a good defense for the GTA series. Vice City is mostly Italian and Latino Culture, and San Andreas is mostly African American and Latino. 95% of games marketed for the US are white anglo-saxon, whereas GTA is one of the most culturally inclusive games ever made. Someone should e-mail Hillary that little statistic.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks so much for remaking Pirates!
So many game designers should take note of how you remake games!
1) Take a classic game with excellent gameplay
2) Give it a few new features but make certain not to change what made it great in the first place
3) Upgrade the graphics, music and sound to current standards
Sid:
Most artists do their best and most creative work when they are younger. It's a wonderful talent to be able to put your ego aside and recognize where you are as a designer, instead of where you were. You breath new life into your ideas by simply tweaking and upgrading them without trying to 'fix' what isn't broken! On the other side of that spectrum are people like George Lucas. He has almost single-handedly destroyed the Star Wars legacy with his ego and lack of self-perception. Quite an amazing feat! Thanks so much for not making the same mistake with the Pirates and Civilizatoin series! =)
That being said, are you considering investigating winning formulas from other 'classic' game designers (Brian Fargo, Richard Garriott, Peter Molyneux, etc.) and possibly revamping those? If so, have licensing issues forced you to give up on the idea?
Business At The Price Of Freedom
That is best description of the Republican Party I've ever read.
Anyhow, I'm bored out of my skull now and thee last three times I've logged in I've been unable to get together a party to tackle the items I have left to tackle. If this continues for another week, I'll probably have to reluctantly cancel my account.
I completely agree. The post-lvl 60 game is sterile and boring beyond description. It's why I quit. I can't believe they created an MMORPG that dumps 100% of XP earned when you reach 60...where are the Alternate Advancement points?!?
My pancreas is going to explode from all that sugar! PR people that treat the customers as morons should be unemployed.
Yeah that was pretty bad, clearly not the guy we were hoping to hear from. My faith in Blizzard has been plummeting steadily over the last 6 months. The mass exodus/dissolution of Blizzard North was a very sure sign that things are not well. =(
Is it still the case that you can't get AA experience at 60?
*sigh*
This means that they retain control over their product/art for a set period of time (yes the set period is insane).
I like your description. The part about the set period being insane is where we're in complete agreement. Until that part is addressed, there's no reason anyone should honor the other points you mentioned.
The only right movie producers have is to exclusively show first viewings in movie theaters. That's the only right they've ever had for the last 100 years since films were first made.
The fact that digitization is making it easier and easier to distribute this media after the initial showing in theatres is completely beyond the moral scope of these companies.
They quite simply found a lot of free cash in the 80s with cable TV distribution and VHS rentals. That free cash was never theirs by right in the first place, and they offered a viable distribution service back then...those times are over, and the right to reap all those free profits is being taken back by the real bosses in a free market, the customer.
Eat shit and die MPAA/RIAA
The only right movie producers have is to exclusively show first viewings in movie theaters. That's the only right they've ever had for the last 100 years since films were first made.
The fact that digitization is making it easier and easier to distribute this media after the showing in theatres is completely beyond the moral scope of these companies.
They quite simply found a lot of free cash in the 80s with cable TV distribution and VHS rentals. That free cash was never theirs by right in the first place, and they offered a viable distribution service back then...those times are over, and the right to reap all those free profits is being taken back by the real bosses in a free market, the customer.
Eat shit and die MPAA/RIAA
IBM just launched a new program that will encourage some employees to earn teaching certificates and degrees. IBM will help defray the costs of these new degrees. With those newly earned degrees, the IBM employee would then become a 'former' IBM employee who moves onto a career as a public school math or science teacher. While it seems odd that IBM would encourage employees to switch careers, the point is that IBM is trying to help offset an expected shortage in the number of math and science teachers in the United States.
It's amazing how bad things have gone for the IT industry in just 6 years. I know most of us still think of the free-market 'American Way' as the best way to go, but it grieves me deeply to see this industry in such dire straights.
It's one thing to take a 6-month vocational track to be a textile worker, and have your job ship oversees forcing you to retrain. But many IT people worked for 8-12 years in high-school and college to get good grades with a bs or ms in CS, CE, CIT. Dumping these people into teaching jobs is a travesty. I can't blame IBM however, at least they're acknowledging the problem and doing something.
Funny thing is, Exxon Mobil just published their biggest profit EVER.
I'm much more amazed that people are surprized by this considering who's running this country.
Amen.
Hey EA!
Fix EAX sound support in BF2 and TEST YOUR GAMES before you release them!
Everything I've read has said that even if they had gotten all the funding they'd requested, it wouldn't have made a bit of difference, as the proposed levees were never even designed to handle a hurricane of this magnitude. They would have failed anyway.
That's not what I've read. First of all Katrina was a category 4 storm when it reached shore, with significanly less storm surge than the initially predicted 25'. The levy system that was in place was rated for up to a category 3 storm. It's very reasonable to assume that the levy upgrade they were proposing was to help safegaurd the city against category 4 storms and below. Again, if this course of action had been taken none of the terrible things that happened in NO since the day after the storm hit would be in the news. And hundreds of thousands of lives would be vastly better off than they are now.
The reason I'm especially pissed at the moment is because the usual Rove/CNN/Faux News circus is busily shopping around for a convenient scapegoat and the public(as usual) is buying it hook, line and sinker...they're trying to pin it on Michael Brown the director of FEMA. The problem is, THE DIRECTOR OF FEMA WAS APPOINTED BY BUSH. If I hire a carpenter to work as a heart surgeon is it the carpenter's incompetance or mine?
If the media can serve popular opinion to the highest bidder then the people at the top can get away with murder...and they are.
I think you mean reduced the funding and used it for other things that most people don't agree with.
Not refused to provide. It's subtle, but not the same.
I agree, and if there are those who were confused by my original wording then I'm glad you clarified that point.
Instead of spending our tax dollars to help the people of america, Bush's policy of War/Oil over the last 5 years has smeared our countries reputation around the world, suffocated our economy, tripled gas prices, and left millions of americans helpless. Bush, Cheney, Rove etc. have justified all of this in order to make more money for the defense industry and the oil industry(businesses that 90% of Bush's people hail from). It's grotesque. This is not the country I grew up believing in.
Science: Rebuilding New Orleans With Science
Editors...please, that's got to be the cheesiest title yet. We have the science, we have had the science, but a republican dominated government refused to provide the funding that would have allowed the Army Corp. of Engineers to Build levies that both the Governor and Mayor have been requesting for years before this happened.
Instead of fanning the typical Slashdot "We're so cool because we know science" circle-jerk, maybe you could greenlight an article that focuses on the issues.
If you want computer sound to get better, vote with your wallet and buy something better. Turtle Beach will happily sell you an Envy-based card, or you can get a PCI X-Mystique, which does exactly what Soundstorm used to do.
Thanks for posting, I'd never heard of the X-Mystique before and it sounds like exactly what I need. I have a great DD5.1 tuner(Pioneer TRE-D800) and 5.1 speaker setup, and have been missing soundstorm in the newer nForce boards =(.
My concern is that the X-Mystique only supports EAX 2.0, will this be a problem for compatability future games? Can EAX 3.0 or 4.0 compatability be delivered in future drivers, or is it a hardware issue? I use my PC for music, home theater, and gaming...so I want to find a solution that will do it all for years to come. I don't need extreme quality, just good quality that can do everything well over digital Dolby 5.1 output.
what personal problems do these people have that make them want to spend so much time in gaming?
Want them to stop playing? Get them a psychologist. Addiction is only a symptom.
OK, I'll be completely honest about my situation... though it will probably make for some unpleasant reading.
I've been diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and social anxiety. Most of the time when I'm in public I'm so uncomfortable that I can only be in crowds for an hour or so. Throughout my life I've just naturally migrated towards computers because it allows me to socialize in very limited and safe ways...through forums like these, IRC, online games, etc. I can always bail out of the situation, noone can see my facial expression or body language.
Unfortunately this is a physical problem that cannot be solved through counceling. I've tried a number of medications but they all produce horrible side-effects, feels like being perpetually sick with a cold. Many people suffer from this and other conditions which make face-to-face human interaction beyond challenging, and more like constant failure. I have the few friends and family who know me and still love me despite all of my problems, and prefer to go online when I need more social interaction than they can provide. I'm sure thousands of obese, disfigured, blind, and deaf people are online for similar reasons.
All this guy did was build a highly respectable gaming system, one that will be more then adequate for those people with more brains then money.
I agree with your point, but upgrade frequency can be an issue also. I used to enjoy upgrading my PC but after doing it about 5 times now I'm starting to get tired of it. It's stressful removing all the sensitive components, worrying about scratching the motherboard with a screwdriver, or blowing a transistor with a static shock. Just applying the AS5 to the cpu/heatsink can be very tedious.
So I guess my point is, yes you can probably save the most money by upgrading every 14 months and buying at the 70% level, but if you buy at the 100% level maybe you can go 2 years before needing to upgrade again.
Then of course there's the loss from reselling(I use E-bay), and the shipping costs etc. The more frequenty you upgrade, the more you lose money to this kind of overhead. So in some cases it may actually make sense to spend money up front in order to save more money down the road. It's hard to say, I wish I had all my shipping fees and bought/sold reciepts from the last 5 years so I could do the calculation, I'd be interested to know which is actually cheaper.
I played WoW from December to April and was very impressed with the gameplay and interface. The level grind wasn't overly cumbersome(Everquest), and the Auction House, Quest Sytem, etc were very elegant designs. WoW was a common sense approach to problems that so many other MMORPGs never bothered to examine. I truly felt like I was in good hands with Blizzard...until I reached level 60.
I have to ask, why did you choose to neglect the first rule of MMORPGs? After reaching level 60, players can no longer improve their characters. The inability to continue growing my talent tree after 60 was such a turn-off that I quit playing a few weeks after reaching 60. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy exploring new instances, and there's a glint in my eye for epic equipment, but none of those things substitute for experience based character growth. Everquest players were very satisfied with the alternate-advancement system. Why didn't you guys adopt such a system for WoW?
Hitting 60 was a huge letdown for me, and based on the WoW forums I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. After a 4 month absence, what I've read tells me that nothing has changed. I can only assume that experience post 60 is a low priority for your design team, and that you don't think players care that much. If you could please share your thoughts with us about this issue.
Thanks,
-An Orc who misses Orgrimmar
That wasn't Lord British. That was Chuckles, in what I recall was his first solo venture (Wing Commander didn't come until a few years later).
All right, we'll call it a draw.
Anyways, Autoduel wasn't that great. A good Car Wars game would be awesome, though. Imagine the potential for destruction and mayhem on a modern PC, rather than the Apple IIe. I'd kill for a good, modern vehicle combat game.
Yes indeed, it's a gaming concept that's long-overdue.
'/snubs his nose at the topic nazis
I'd like to see a study on the percentage of people that drop out of college due to WOW and how many actually recover.
I gave up 4 years of gaming so I could study hard and earn a CS degree. I couldn't find a job, so now I'm unemployed making up for lots of wasted time.
Meh, get off the space ship and make us Autoduel II Rich!
Neo-con? Is that the Matrix prequel? Never heard of it. Happy now?
Google + neo con wiki = Definition.
I didn't know California had seceded from the Union
No, but they'd like to.
Wow, that's one of the best top-10 lists for games I've ever read. Every point was pretty much spot on, but leave the boobies please.
This is a good defense for the GTA series. Vice City is mostly Italian and Latino Culture, and San Andreas is mostly African American and Latino. 95% of games marketed for the US are white anglo-saxon, whereas GTA is one of the most culturally inclusive games ever made. Someone should e-mail Hillary that little statistic.