Umm, do we have the same problems with rock music being characterized as devil music? No, I am sure there will be something stupid my generation doesn't like or "get", but we hopefully won't care so much about nudity. I am starting to show my age, though, as I can't believe Twitter is so popular.
I totally agree with you. It is refreshing to see people actually maturely talking about this subject. The graphics != fun crowd on here drives me nuts. Yeah, some games have good graphics but poor gameplay. But I sure don't want to play Mass Effect with Wii Sports graphics. The graphics need to match the style of the game. You don't need photo-realism, but good, stylistic graphics that match what your game is trying to accomplish.
Did you not read his post or are you just unable to comprehend English? Starcraft had great graphics when it was released. I can remember as a kid how cool the cut scenes were and how I couldn't wait for the next one. But the core of Starcraft is fantastic gameplay and balance. That is what makes people keep coming back for more. Do you think if Starcraft was released today it would be as popular? Of course not, people wouldn't be able to get over the awful resolution. But since we played it when it was new and the graphics are good, we know the gameplay to be great and keep playing it.
Furthermore, right in the guy's post he states that the graphics need to match a games settings. A simple puzzle game doesn't need to look like Crysis. But Crysis would sucks pretty hard if it had Tetris level graphics. Understand? Graphics don't have to be cutting edge, but they have to be good enough that they don't detract from the gameplay.
It's nothing like playing a stand WC3 game. It is just a game using the WC3 engine. You have a hero (as do your teammates) you control. You kill stuff to gain xp and gold for your hero so you can level up. The money goes to buying upgrades for your character from different areas on the map. The goal is to push in to your enemies camp and kill their ancient. It sounds simple but has a high learning curve and people are pretty intolerant to people who don't know how to play.
DotA has a high learning curve. And while you are trying to learn, people are yelling insults at you for not doing the stuff it took them months to learn. The community is horrible. But to win requires a lot of teamwork. It's like you want to learn football so you go play a Sunday game with the New England Patriots. You don't even know the rules of football and everyone is booing you out of the stadium. Not a great way to learn how to play.
*sigh* Yeah, well the fine tuning would be the rub. All of these idea would be hideous to implement. How strong can the guards be? How can you prevent players from instantly destroying any content as soon as it is created? How do you make it fun? It sounds like you are just trying to recreate real life which is what we are trying to escape. If thieves are slightly over-powered, then everyone is going to steal. If it is really hard, or consequences are high, no one will play it. Once again, all you have created is a sandbox. All you have created is another niche game like Eve. Worse, it is more complex to implement so I really don't see the profit in the idea.
This is and always will be a horrible idea. The only way to do anything like what you are talking about is Eve where the player controls almost everything. In something like WoW, people would just destroy everything making it so that the majority of players will not get to see the content since someone would have already killed the king and probably immediately any new leader was put in place it would be killed again. These ideas work better for single player/small number cooperative games since people can then do whatever they want without every forest being destroyed or every princess being saved.
That being said, WoW already comes as close as you can get by having different phases in some zones. So at first, the camp is under attack, then you stop a large wave, then you push it back, and the town is safe from then on. The thing is, the actions only change your world and everyone else still has the world they had before. So if you are on a different phase, you are unable to see or interact meaningfully with that character in that zone.
But if they did it your way, by the time you got to a high enough level to see the zone, someone would have already made it safe or destroyed it so you couldn't participate. It would just be too complex to design an MMO that way. It would be a game for the griefers (like Eve) and would not be all that enjoyable (like Eve).
That's fine, but it would not eliminate grinding. People would just find out the fastest way to get xp, post it online, and everyone would do that. It wouldn't change a thing.
This isn't a hard concept to understand, why do we need an analogy. What you said isn't true. I am good at FPSs. I can join any FPS and within a few hours, I'll be topping people who have been playing for months. Is it because I am a skilled innovator? No, I just know how to move and shoot better than most. In your example, I could read how to defeat a boss in a game, and then execute it. While another person could read the same strategy but fail to defeat it because they can't aim or move as well.
Skill based games are those where you all start out equal. The better players are the ones who know the maps and have better twitch reflexes. Level based games are ones where level make a large difference in power. A lot of people like to say these are non-skill, but eventually you get to the same level. Then people complain about gear. But once you have the gear, and play those with the same, the excuse goes away. But even so, lesser geared people can beat better geared people because they have more skill, so the argument is more for people who whine.
A lot of games these days are a bit of a hybrid. You start out pretty much the same, but if you do X, Y or Z so many times, you can unlock slight upgrades or sidegrades (TF2 for example).
Ultimately, everything is a skill. But to be skilled at something requires a combination of knowledge and the physical ability to execute that knowledge. This is true of WoW or Counterstrike.
I really like my 360 and am glad I selected it over the Wii and the PS3. I guess I don't care about "first party developers". I care about exclusives and the 360 had more of the ones I was interested in. Final Fantasy is even coming to the 360. Really, if you like RPGs, the 360 really is great.
As far as Natal and Epic goes...all I can say is great! I hope MS sticks with the standard controller. The Wiimote is ok, but I really don't feel it offers anything other than something to pull out for parties. I much prefer the standard controllers and hope that they are bundled with the console and not Natal. Of course, that would mean Natal would have a small market so it wouldn't do well...but that's fine by me. I at least want one console that doesn't force you to use motion controls.
What you are talking about has nothing to do with this story. All those rules for CS that you mention came from competitive play. As long as online multi-player FPS's has existed people have found ways to tweak their setting to give them advantages. But a lot of people want to play the game the way it was intended, they don't want people able to see through smoke and they don't think everyone should play with some funky scheme so that everyone can see through smoke (which is dumb, and would make them useless). So that is where those rules come from.
I don't mind AWPs, but some people do, so there are some servers that ban them. That's fine for them if it allows them to have more fun. Also, some people find it more fun to play against people who don't lag. Maybe 250 is acceptable to you, but to others it is irritating as that can be the difference between a bit and a miss.
Ultimately you have choice. You can find a server that lets you play the way you want to. But you are being a bit selfish joining other people's servers and thinking it should cater to the rules (or lack thereof) that you want.
No, it would not be safe to infer that. It is more likely going to be $50/60 for the first, and $25/30 for the other campaigns. But honestly, we don't really know. Your "safe" bet seems ridiculous to me .
What kind of crack are you all smoking? Blizzard has to rehash things year after year? How long have we been waiting for another Starcraft? How long since we knew about SCII and saw it in a decent state have we still been waiting for it to be finished? SCII will not bomb. If you think that, you should probably go work for Fox News because they don't bother to think or state facts either. Yeah, no LAN support sucks. But you guys are seriously over-reacting. I find it hilarious and a bit sad that people are more worked up about SCII LAN support than they care about their state representatives voting against health care.
I loved playing Starcraft. The story was fun, the battles were fun, and it was fun playing with friends. I don't want them to add more stuff just for the sake of "innovation". I just want a damn fun game. So if it is just a graphical upgrade with some new, well-balanced tweaks then bring it on.
In the well defined genres, there is pretty much nothing new...FPS, RPG, RTS are all pretty well defined. When these genres are new, of course things change more quickly. As they become more refined, they evolve more slowly. This is true in just about anything in life. Look at the Internet, it changed so much in the beginning. Now? Changes are more subtle and slow.
What company can ever offer anything better than piracy? Essentially you get the same product, and you don't have to pay for it. This makes it so that pirates can play single player, but will have to shell out some cash if they want to do multiplayer. If you made your living writing software, maybe you could understand.
Not really. Whenever a company does almost anything, people will jump on it and use it as a justification to pirate. They were going to pirate it anyways, but they now have moral outrage to justify their pathetic actions.
And I don't think many companies will want to sell insurance to pirates. Though the Somali pirates are doing quite well, so it might pay off.
You are a moron if you believed that. Blizzard is a company. Its goal is to make money. Was true then, is true now. Given as much time and work that they put in to their games, I have no doubt this game will be great as well. All the modded up comments are just people over-reacting (as usual). If Blizzard can run servers that can keep WoW up and running, I have no doubt that they can do a good job managing the SC2 servers as well.
Actually, you are more dangerous to the Linux community than the parent poster you call a moron. Let me make this clear: any computer attached to the Internet is a vulnerable computer. If Linux was THE OS, some things would have to happen. One flavor of Linux would come out on top. It would be considered the best for business and hope use and everyone would use it. With a standard Linux, more commercial software would be made for it. Thus causing an increase in the # of standard applications that are on most boxes (that and you will have a dominant Linux). More people are then going to write viruses for it. Does Linux have inherent advantages over Windows? Absolutely, and that will mean squat when everyone is writing viruses for it and all the script kiddies want to tip over as many boxes as possible.
Your attitude of "Linux is SO MUCH MORE SECURE..OMG, shut up stupid people" is counter-productive. Keeping your information safe is always an ongoing battle and protecting your system is always on the side of catching up. I mean really, do you deny that if Linux was the #1 OS, people would give up and go find day jobs? Please.
But Linux isn't going to take over. Why? It just doesn't work out of the box. There is always some driver issue, always something that fails to work correctly that is annoying. It is too complex for a normal user. They don't care about sudo apt-get update. They want to download something, double click on it, then have the icon on their desktop so they can double click it. But the biggest reason is that corporations want someone to blame when something goes wrong. That is what MS gives them. Linux is going to stay niche. And I am saying this as someone who likes and uses Linux.
In any case, don't sit back and think Linux is safe. It isn't. It's the same as telling a Mac user that they don't have to worry about viruses. Yeah, the odds are less likely...but as soon as more things are written for it, you have a bunch of smug users that think they are safe and click on everything.
The use of an analogy is to make a problem that is complex and hard to understand more simple. Your analogies fail to draw a proper comparison. They aren't even accurate because people still do make 2D games. The other examples you use are just stupid. Color TV is inherently better than black and white. "Talkies" are inherently better than silent movies. Is motion control inherently better than other ways of gaming? No, it is different and both can exist in parallel (and have been for awhile).
We have had game gloves, eye toys, etc for years. The Wii is the first that has made it the main controller. But to think that the future is just Wii-mote and spasm games in front of the TV isn't realistic. If anything, controllers might integrate some motion control in to the current controller (like six axis tried and failed to do well), but button-ful controllers are still going to have a place in gaming.
So you are saying the Wii-mote is inherently better than all the other controllers? I think you are wrong. It isn't about people being afraid to learn new skills. Everything new isn't better. I think the Wii-mote is great for party games. But for regular gaming, I would take a normal controller over the Wii-mote. I play soccer to exercise. I play games to kick back and relax on my recliner.
I think the Gamecube controller is probably my least favorite. It was just strange...like Picasso designed it...things were just all over the place. It was just too small and felt awkward to play with. (Queue the "that's what she said" jokes)
I wonder if I am the only one in here that thinks the 360 controller is great. It fits comfortably to where I never have had a cramp or pain after extended play, it has analog sticks in the right place, and plenty of buttons that are all intuitive and easy to reach. Plus, I like that it is wireless and has the ability to shut down itself and the console. Really, they did a fantastic job with it. If there was a standard controller for all consoles, I'd much rather it be the 360's than any previous gen consoles or a Wii-mote.
I disagree, you can very easily argue the superiority of mouse + kb vs. controller. Controllers only allow you to spin around so fast where with a mouse and keyboard you don't have that limitation. Even if you took away that limitation, it is much easier to point and click on something than it is to use an analog stick.
I'd love if they would have a match with the best console players of an FPS vs the best PC players of the same FPS. It would put this debate to rest.
Slashdot Mirror
Umm, do we have the same problems with rock music being characterized as devil music? No, I am sure there will be something stupid my generation doesn't like or "get", but we hopefully won't care so much about nudity. I am starting to show my age, though, as I can't believe Twitter is so popular.
I totally agree with you. It is refreshing to see people actually maturely talking about this subject. The graphics != fun crowd on here drives me nuts. Yeah, some games have good graphics but poor gameplay. But I sure don't want to play Mass Effect with Wii Sports graphics. The graphics need to match the style of the game. You don't need photo-realism, but good, stylistic graphics that match what your game is trying to accomplish.
Did you not read his post or are you just unable to comprehend English? Starcraft had great graphics when it was released. I can remember as a kid how cool the cut scenes were and how I couldn't wait for the next one. But the core of Starcraft is fantastic gameplay and balance. That is what makes people keep coming back for more. Do you think if Starcraft was released today it would be as popular? Of course not, people wouldn't be able to get over the awful resolution. But since we played it when it was new and the graphics are good, we know the gameplay to be great and keep playing it.
Furthermore, right in the guy's post he states that the graphics need to match a games settings. A simple puzzle game doesn't need to look like Crysis. But Crysis would sucks pretty hard if it had Tetris level graphics. Understand? Graphics don't have to be cutting edge, but they have to be good enough that they don't detract from the gameplay.
It's nothing like playing a stand WC3 game. It is just a game using the WC3 engine. You have a hero (as do your teammates) you control. You kill stuff to gain xp and gold for your hero so you can level up. The money goes to buying upgrades for your character from different areas on the map. The goal is to push in to your enemies camp and kill their ancient. It sounds simple but has a high learning curve and people are pretty intolerant to people who don't know how to play.
DotA has a high learning curve. And while you are trying to learn, people are yelling insults at you for not doing the stuff it took them months to learn. The community is horrible. But to win requires a lot of teamwork. It's like you want to learn football so you go play a Sunday game with the New England Patriots. You don't even know the rules of football and everyone is booing you out of the stadium. Not a great way to learn how to play.
Actually, Demigod is exactly like DotA.
The software doesn't even sound innovative. Do we have a section for that? Idle maybe?
*sigh* Yeah, well the fine tuning would be the rub. All of these idea would be hideous to implement. How strong can the guards be? How can you prevent players from instantly destroying any content as soon as it is created? How do you make it fun? It sounds like you are just trying to recreate real life which is what we are trying to escape. If thieves are slightly over-powered, then everyone is going to steal. If it is really hard, or consequences are high, no one will play it. Once again, all you have created is a sandbox. All you have created is another niche game like Eve. Worse, it is more complex to implement so I really don't see the profit in the idea.
This is and always will be a horrible idea. The only way to do anything like what you are talking about is Eve where the player controls almost everything. In something like WoW, people would just destroy everything making it so that the majority of players will not get to see the content since someone would have already killed the king and probably immediately any new leader was put in place it would be killed again. These ideas work better for single player/small number cooperative games since people can then do whatever they want without every forest being destroyed or every princess being saved.
That being said, WoW already comes as close as you can get by having different phases in some zones. So at first, the camp is under attack, then you stop a large wave, then you push it back, and the town is safe from then on. The thing is, the actions only change your world and everyone else still has the world they had before. So if you are on a different phase, you are unable to see or interact meaningfully with that character in that zone.
But if they did it your way, by the time you got to a high enough level to see the zone, someone would have already made it safe or destroyed it so you couldn't participate. It would just be too complex to design an MMO that way. It would be a game for the griefers (like Eve) and would not be all that enjoyable (like Eve).
That's fine, but it would not eliminate grinding. People would just find out the fastest way to get xp, post it online, and everyone would do that. It wouldn't change a thing.
This isn't a hard concept to understand, why do we need an analogy. What you said isn't true. I am good at FPSs. I can join any FPS and within a few hours, I'll be topping people who have been playing for months. Is it because I am a skilled innovator? No, I just know how to move and shoot better than most. In your example, I could read how to defeat a boss in a game, and then execute it. While another person could read the same strategy but fail to defeat it because they can't aim or move as well.
Skill based games are those where you all start out equal. The better players are the ones who know the maps and have better twitch reflexes. Level based games are ones where level make a large difference in power. A lot of people like to say these are non-skill, but eventually you get to the same level. Then people complain about gear. But once you have the gear, and play those with the same, the excuse goes away. But even so, lesser geared people can beat better geared people because they have more skill, so the argument is more for people who whine.
A lot of games these days are a bit of a hybrid. You start out pretty much the same, but if you do X, Y or Z so many times, you can unlock slight upgrades or sidegrades (TF2 for example).
Ultimately, everything is a skill. But to be skilled at something requires a combination of knowledge and the physical ability to execute that knowledge. This is true of WoW or Counterstrike.
I really like my 360 and am glad I selected it over the Wii and the PS3. I guess I don't care about "first party developers". I care about exclusives and the 360 had more of the ones I was interested in. Final Fantasy is even coming to the 360. Really, if you like RPGs, the 360 really is great.
As far as Natal and Epic goes...all I can say is great! I hope MS sticks with the standard controller. The Wiimote is ok, but I really don't feel it offers anything other than something to pull out for parties. I much prefer the standard controllers and hope that they are bundled with the console and not Natal. Of course, that would mean Natal would have a small market so it wouldn't do well...but that's fine by me. I at least want one console that doesn't force you to use motion controls.
What you are talking about has nothing to do with this story. All those rules for CS that you mention came from competitive play. As long as online multi-player FPS's has existed people have found ways to tweak their setting to give them advantages. But a lot of people want to play the game the way it was intended, they don't want people able to see through smoke and they don't think everyone should play with some funky scheme so that everyone can see through smoke (which is dumb, and would make them useless). So that is where those rules come from.
I don't mind AWPs, but some people do, so there are some servers that ban them. That's fine for them if it allows them to have more fun. Also, some people find it more fun to play against people who don't lag. Maybe 250 is acceptable to you, but to others it is irritating as that can be the difference between a bit and a miss.
Ultimately you have choice. You can find a server that lets you play the way you want to. But you are being a bit selfish joining other people's servers and thinking it should cater to the rules (or lack thereof) that you want.
No, it would not be safe to infer that. It is more likely going to be $50/60 for the first, and $25/30 for the other campaigns. But honestly, we don't really know. Your "safe" bet seems ridiculous to me .
What kind of crack are you all smoking? Blizzard has to rehash things year after year? How long have we been waiting for another Starcraft? How long since we knew about SCII and saw it in a decent state have we still been waiting for it to be finished? SCII will not bomb. If you think that, you should probably go work for Fox News because they don't bother to think or state facts either. Yeah, no LAN support sucks. But you guys are seriously over-reacting. I find it hilarious and a bit sad that people are more worked up about SCII LAN support than they care about their state representatives voting against health care.
I loved playing Starcraft. The story was fun, the battles were fun, and it was fun playing with friends. I don't want them to add more stuff just for the sake of "innovation". I just want a damn fun game. So if it is just a graphical upgrade with some new, well-balanced tweaks then bring it on.
In the well defined genres, there is pretty much nothing new...FPS, RPG, RTS are all pretty well defined. When these genres are new, of course things change more quickly. As they become more refined, they evolve more slowly. This is true in just about anything in life. Look at the Internet, it changed so much in the beginning. Now? Changes are more subtle and slow.
What company can ever offer anything better than piracy? Essentially you get the same product, and you don't have to pay for it. This makes it so that pirates can play single player, but will have to shell out some cash if they want to do multiplayer. If you made your living writing software, maybe you could understand.
Not really. Whenever a company does almost anything, people will jump on it and use it as a justification to pirate. They were going to pirate it anyways, but they now have moral outrage to justify their pathetic actions.
And I don't think many companies will want to sell insurance to pirates. Though the Somali pirates are doing quite well, so it might pay off.
You are a moron if you believed that. Blizzard is a company. Its goal is to make money. Was true then, is true now. Given as much time and work that they put in to their games, I have no doubt this game will be great as well. All the modded up comments are just people over-reacting (as usual). If Blizzard can run servers that can keep WoW up and running, I have no doubt that they can do a good job managing the SC2 servers as well.
Actually, you are more dangerous to the Linux community than the parent poster you call a moron. Let me make this clear: any computer attached to the Internet is a vulnerable computer. If Linux was THE OS, some things would have to happen. One flavor of Linux would come out on top. It would be considered the best for business and hope use and everyone would use it. With a standard Linux, more commercial software would be made for it. Thus causing an increase in the # of standard applications that are on most boxes (that and you will have a dominant Linux). More people are then going to write viruses for it. Does Linux have inherent advantages over Windows? Absolutely, and that will mean squat when everyone is writing viruses for it and all the script kiddies want to tip over as many boxes as possible.
Your attitude of "Linux is SO MUCH MORE SECURE..OMG, shut up stupid people" is counter-productive. Keeping your information safe is always an ongoing battle and protecting your system is always on the side of catching up. I mean really, do you deny that if Linux was the #1 OS, people would give up and go find day jobs? Please.
But Linux isn't going to take over. Why? It just doesn't work out of the box. There is always some driver issue, always something that fails to work correctly that is annoying. It is too complex for a normal user. They don't care about sudo apt-get update. They want to download something, double click on it, then have the icon on their desktop so they can double click it. But the biggest reason is that corporations want someone to blame when something goes wrong. That is what MS gives them. Linux is going to stay niche. And I am saying this as someone who likes and uses Linux.
In any case, don't sit back and think Linux is safe. It isn't. It's the same as telling a Mac user that they don't have to worry about viruses. Yeah, the odds are less likely...but as soon as more things are written for it, you have a bunch of smug users that think they are safe and click on everything.
The use of an analogy is to make a problem that is complex and hard to understand more simple. Your analogies fail to draw a proper comparison. They aren't even accurate because people still do make 2D games. The other examples you use are just stupid. Color TV is inherently better than black and white. "Talkies" are inherently better than silent movies. Is motion control inherently better than other ways of gaming? No, it is different and both can exist in parallel (and have been for awhile).
We have had game gloves, eye toys, etc for years. The Wii is the first that has made it the main controller. But to think that the future is just Wii-mote and spasm games in front of the TV isn't realistic. If anything, controllers might integrate some motion control in to the current controller (like six axis tried and failed to do well), but button-ful controllers are still going to have a place in gaming.
So you are saying the Wii-mote is inherently better than all the other controllers? I think you are wrong. It isn't about people being afraid to learn new skills. Everything new isn't better. I think the Wii-mote is great for party games. But for regular gaming, I would take a normal controller over the Wii-mote. I play soccer to exercise. I play games to kick back and relax on my recliner.
I think the Gamecube controller is probably my least favorite. It was just strange...like Picasso designed it...things were just all over the place. It was just too small and felt awkward to play with. (Queue the "that's what she said" jokes)
I wonder if I am the only one in here that thinks the 360 controller is great. It fits comfortably to where I never have had a cramp or pain after extended play, it has analog sticks in the right place, and plenty of buttons that are all intuitive and easy to reach. Plus, I like that it is wireless and has the ability to shut down itself and the console. Really, they did a fantastic job with it. If there was a standard controller for all consoles, I'd much rather it be the 360's than any previous gen consoles or a Wii-mote.
I disagree, you can very easily argue the superiority of mouse + kb vs. controller. Controllers only allow you to spin around so fast where with a mouse and keyboard you don't have that limitation. Even if you took away that limitation, it is much easier to point and click on something than it is to use an analog stick.
I'd love if they would have a match with the best console players of an FPS vs the best PC players of the same FPS. It would put this debate to rest.