I disagree with the parent. There are video games that are ridiculously simple in nature (Halo) and some games that are poorly made (Devil May Cry). There are also movies that are ridiculously simple in nature (Dude, Where's my Car?) and some movies that are poorly made (House of the Dead). However, there are games, just like movies, that are done incredibly well even without the best resources available. Why is this game fun? Level design, character design, charater development, scalability of the game engine, story, gameplay, scrpiting, voice acting, controls, puzzles, etc. All of these are ratable qualities of video games.
Now there will never any murders or insane people out there creating video games like they are books, paintings, sculptures, and movies, so indepentdant games and what not will be scarce, and most people who create games will have to be smart, so that kind of limits the field of who can create. But Spore is a a work of art. Half-life is a work of art. Grim Fandango is a work of art. Psyconauts is a work of art. These are all incredibly technical games of different genres and they are all done incredibly well. This is very difficult to do and to consider these dev's games not works of art is a little insulting.
There is a such thing as beautiful code, and it's not just in video games. Who doesn't think Bram Cohen's creation of Bittorrent doesn't deserve to be called a work of art?
Joel created the show, but Mike Nelson was his head writer all the way through. He was still the head writer when it ended. I thought the jokes feel mor natural coming from Mike anyways, probably because he wrote them.
This is a great idea. The money will be when they do it for movies in theaters and people will go in with an mp3 player and headphones. I can't wait.
His arguements may sway me more if he would answer when asked for examples. MMO's were never done before at one point, the Half-life series seems to be revolutionizing cinematic games, The Total War series created a battle simulator unmatched by anything before or after, Nintendo's standard controller for the Wii wireless and motion sensored, the DS is using a touch screen to enhance game experience, Will Wright is blowing us all away with Spore; Will someone please tell me this guy's definition of innovation? It doesn't happen overnight, it requires work and time, especially when dealing with a time and money consuming, volatile industry such as video game development. As far as I see, the game industry is moving forward all the time. This guy hasn't told me anyhting except that it's not. I can train a parrot to say 'it's not.' Why is it not? Name a game. Name an idea that is absolute shit, name an idea that should have work done on it but people are too scared. Give me examples, thoughts, reasons, but don't sit there and tell me I should listen to you because you spent 4 more years of your time on school than I did. Wait there's more: Donkey Konga, Guitar Hero, Mario 64 changed platformers forever, Zelda games havent been the same since Zelda 64, the Natrual Selection Mod for Half-life-I didn't see any RTS/FPS games before that, nor any that feature 2 different races since. I could go on and on and on about innovation in games. I want to know why these aren't innovations?
What about Tim Schafer? Gabe Newell? Peter Molineaux? They belong up there with Will Wright for sure. The Game Gods haven't abandoned us, we have a lack of new ones due to the difficulty creating new profitable game companies (thank you EA), but they are still around if people were to take the time to look.
"Excuse me, but that seems pretty lame for fiber to the curb. At 15MBS, I doubt the cable companies are shaking in their boots yet."
I believe you are neglecting the true speeds of cable and FIOS. Yes, Comcast offers 5-6 MBPS down, and somewhere around 786 KBPS up. However, if you do a speed test while on cable, you are lucky to get 3 and a half down, and less than 300 up. FIOS advertises 15MBPS down and 2 MBPS up, and the speed tests consistently reveal around 14.7 down and 1.8 up. Both of these packages are sold at $44.95. You go ahead and call it lame, I am gonna go enjoy the speeds I pay for.
Yeah, but what about all those people who use PCs and want to give mac's a chance, but play games so they can't? As far as I see, Gamers are not turned off by the mac nor hate it for it's lack of games, in fact many of them are impressed with what apple has done in a PC dominated market. The Problem is that if you are a PC user, and you play a game, just one game that is not released on the mac (say the Half-Life series), you don't buy a mac. They are not going to convert anyone by their enormous gaming power, but they are losing customers by refusing to support games. They don't have to sacrifice all that mac is, they just have to get a hold of the demographic that always says, "well yeah I would own a mac, but I play games."
People don't steal movies because they are angry at the MPAA, and they don't steal them for the rush. They steal them for convenience. Digital Storage is what the future needs to be. I want anything and everything stored digitally forever. I don't see any reason why not. Bit torrent has made mass downloading possible and therefore made digital storage the way of the future. If they want my money, ask for less of it and make a bit torrent tracker that people pay for that is more convenient than anything else out there with the best interface and have 30 seeders on any given tracker at any given time. Not only that, but have everything, and when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING. Every piece of media ever created; every song, every movies, every television show, every album, every VH1's behind the music. This is what the movie industry needs. I don't want any more CDs or DVDs. Once hard drives are big enough, they are only a medium for me to transfer them to my hard drive.
I will still buy DVDs to support the movies that deserve it; I will still buy CDs for the artists that deserve it. But I would spend way more money on a serious idea to revolutionize the movie industry, rather than half hearted cash grabs.
I am sorry, but have you played half-life 2? do you play video games? have you seen a computer? do you know the best engine out there when you see it? do you know what AI stands for? have you ever seen squad tactics actually carried out with efficency? do you know what it means to flank someone? holy sweet moly man get yourself together.
The kind of AI improvement needed depends on the game. In FPS's, the best AI is for Half-Life 2 and I dare some one to counter that with some crappy Call of Duty or Medal of Honor AI comment (here is a hint, you are wrong). The AI uses complex squad tactics, takes cover behind obstcles based on the environment, provides cover, uses grenades in the fasion they were meant to be used in urban combat (to flush the player out of the players cover into the AI lines of fire), and attempts to flank the player and responds efficiently to players flank attempts. However, if one simply runs directly at an enemy with shotguns a'blazin, the AI does not adjust. It continues to take cover and fire in reactive burst. Now all FPS games have great AI and now they know that all they have to do to make it better is to make the AI hold the trigger down while being stupidly charged by the player. Problem solved.
As for MMORPG stuff, you must have different kinds for different types of things. If there are wolves in the environment that are a dime a dozen and the player hacks throught them like a firey sword through wolf flesh...um...yeah, these wolves should not be able to constantly react and learn from every single wolf demise. However, if the wolves slowly evolve convergently to the players and adapt to their tactics (such as traveling more in numbers, or creating ambushes for players) then the players must still be on their toes to make sure they are not outwitted by a seemingly dumber beast. This forces the player to change the way the player fights in a realistic manner (I don't care if there are wizards and dragons, realism helps). If after a player slaughters 200 wolves in 70 encounters, and then dies because the player went for a seemingly easy kill and then got pwned on all sides by 20 wolves, that AI has succeeded. As for facing NPC characters rather than creatures, these characters should adapt mid battle to the players tactics. If the player does something extremely damaging to the AI, the first reaction by the NPC should be, "okay, this cannot happen again." Make the AI personality based too. If the NPC is a minion dedicated to die for it's evil leader, make it a berserker that will die with one strike. But if te NPC are supposed to be cunning, make them cunning. Make them counter spells and kill heroes. I want to lose to AI, and not for campy reasons. I want to lose because I need to level up and/or find another way to defeat him if I don't need to level up. If the player is expected to outsmart an NPC, the NPC must have a brain to outsmart.
The AI I would like to see get better is for the Natural Selection mod of Half-Life 1 (if you haven't played it, check it out. You will thank me). If said game had AI that would win 50% of the time without boosts on the AI or nerfs on the players, then all other AI everywhere have no reason to not be perfect other than laziness and/or lack of imagination (i.e. Halo, most games for the PS2)
Slashdot Mirror
This is not news. This is someone stating their preferences in a very ignorant manner. Slashdot needs to remove this crap.
I disagree with the parent. There are video games that are ridiculously simple in nature (Halo) and some games that are poorly made (Devil May Cry). There are also movies that are ridiculously simple in nature (Dude, Where's my Car?) and some movies that are poorly made (House of the Dead). However, there are games, just like movies, that are done incredibly well even without the best resources available. Why is this game fun? Level design, character design, charater development, scalability of the game engine, story, gameplay, scrpiting, voice acting, controls, puzzles, etc. All of these are ratable qualities of video games. Now there will never any murders or insane people out there creating video games like they are books, paintings, sculptures, and movies, so indepentdant games and what not will be scarce, and most people who create games will have to be smart, so that kind of limits the field of who can create. But Spore is a a work of art. Half-life is a work of art. Grim Fandango is a work of art. Psyconauts is a work of art. These are all incredibly technical games of different genres and they are all done incredibly well. This is very difficult to do and to consider these dev's games not works of art is a little insulting. There is a such thing as beautiful code, and it's not just in video games. Who doesn't think Bram Cohen's creation of Bittorrent doesn't deserve to be called a work of art?
Joel created the show, but Mike Nelson was his head writer all the way through. He was still the head writer when it ended. I thought the jokes feel mor natural coming from Mike anyways, probably because he wrote them. This is a great idea. The money will be when they do it for movies in theaters and people will go in with an mp3 player and headphones. I can't wait.
His arguements may sway me more if he would answer when asked for examples. MMO's were never done before at one point, the Half-life series seems to be revolutionizing cinematic games, The Total War series created a battle simulator unmatched by anything before or after, Nintendo's standard controller for the Wii wireless and motion sensored, the DS is using a touch screen to enhance game experience, Will Wright is blowing us all away with Spore; Will someone please tell me this guy's definition of innovation? It doesn't happen overnight, it requires work and time, especially when dealing with a time and money consuming, volatile industry such as video game development. As far as I see, the game industry is moving forward all the time. This guy hasn't told me anyhting except that it's not. I can train a parrot to say 'it's not.' Why is it not? Name a game. Name an idea that is absolute shit, name an idea that should have work done on it but people are too scared. Give me examples, thoughts, reasons, but don't sit there and tell me I should listen to you because you spent 4 more years of your time on school than I did. Wait there's more: Donkey Konga, Guitar Hero, Mario 64 changed platformers forever, Zelda games havent been the same since Zelda 64, the Natrual Selection Mod for Half-life-I didn't see any RTS/FPS games before that, nor any that feature 2 different races since. I could go on and on and on about innovation in games. I want to know why these aren't innovations?
What about Tim Schafer? Gabe Newell? Peter Molineaux? They belong up there with Will Wright for sure. The Game Gods haven't abandoned us, we have a lack of new ones due to the difficulty creating new profitable game companies (thank you EA), but they are still around if people were to take the time to look.
"Excuse me, but that seems pretty lame for fiber to the curb. At 15MBS, I doubt the cable companies are shaking in their boots yet."
I believe you are neglecting the true speeds of cable and FIOS. Yes, Comcast offers 5-6 MBPS down, and somewhere around 786 KBPS up. However, if you do a speed test while on cable, you are lucky to get 3 and a half down, and less than 300 up. FIOS advertises 15MBPS down and 2 MBPS up, and the speed tests consistently reveal around 14.7 down and 1.8 up. Both of these packages are sold at $44.95. You go ahead and call it lame, I am gonna go enjoy the speeds I pay for.
Yeah, but what about all those people who use PCs and want to give mac's a chance, but play games so they can't? As far as I see, Gamers are not turned off by the mac nor hate it for it's lack of games, in fact many of them are impressed with what apple has done in a PC dominated market. The Problem is that if you are a PC user, and you play a game, just one game that is not released on the mac (say the Half-Life series), you don't buy a mac. They are not going to convert anyone by their enormous gaming power, but they are losing customers by refusing to support games. They don't have to sacrifice all that mac is, they just have to get a hold of the demographic that always says, "well yeah I would own a mac, but I play games."
People don't steal movies because they are angry at the MPAA, and they don't steal them for the rush. They steal them for convenience. Digital Storage is what the future needs to be. I want anything and everything stored digitally forever. I don't see any reason why not. Bit torrent has made mass downloading possible and therefore made digital storage the way of the future. If they want my money, ask for less of it and make a bit torrent tracker that people pay for that is more convenient than anything else out there with the best interface and have 30 seeders on any given tracker at any given time. Not only that, but have everything, and when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING. Every piece of media ever created; every song, every movies, every television show, every album, every VH1's behind the music. This is what the movie industry needs. I don't want any more CDs or DVDs. Once hard drives are big enough, they are only a medium for me to transfer them to my hard drive. I will still buy DVDs to support the movies that deserve it; I will still buy CDs for the artists that deserve it. But I would spend way more money on a serious idea to revolutionize the movie industry, rather than half hearted cash grabs.
I am sorry, but have you played half-life 2? do you play video games? have you seen a computer? do you know the best engine out there when you see it? do you know what AI stands for? have you ever seen squad tactics actually carried out with efficency? do you know what it means to flank someone? holy sweet moly man get yourself together.
The kind of AI improvement needed depends on the game. In FPS's, the best AI is for Half-Life 2 and I dare some one to counter that with some crappy Call of Duty or Medal of Honor AI comment (here is a hint, you are wrong). The AI uses complex squad tactics, takes cover behind obstcles based on the environment, provides cover, uses grenades in the fasion they were meant to be used in urban combat (to flush the player out of the players cover into the AI lines of fire), and attempts to flank the player and responds efficiently to players flank attempts. However, if one simply runs directly at an enemy with shotguns a'blazin, the AI does not adjust. It continues to take cover and fire in reactive burst. Now all FPS games have great AI and now they know that all they have to do to make it better is to make the AI hold the trigger down while being stupidly charged by the player. Problem solved. As for MMORPG stuff, you must have different kinds for different types of things. If there are wolves in the environment that are a dime a dozen and the player hacks throught them like a firey sword through wolf flesh...um...yeah, these wolves should not be able to constantly react and learn from every single wolf demise. However, if the wolves slowly evolve convergently to the players and adapt to their tactics (such as traveling more in numbers, or creating ambushes for players) then the players must still be on their toes to make sure they are not outwitted by a seemingly dumber beast. This forces the player to change the way the player fights in a realistic manner (I don't care if there are wizards and dragons, realism helps). If after a player slaughters 200 wolves in 70 encounters, and then dies because the player went for a seemingly easy kill and then got pwned on all sides by 20 wolves, that AI has succeeded. As for facing NPC characters rather than creatures, these characters should adapt mid battle to the players tactics. If the player does something extremely damaging to the AI, the first reaction by the NPC should be, "okay, this cannot happen again." Make the AI personality based too. If the NPC is a minion dedicated to die for it's evil leader, make it a berserker that will die with one strike. But if te NPC are supposed to be cunning, make them cunning. Make them counter spells and kill heroes. I want to lose to AI, and not for campy reasons. I want to lose because I need to level up and/or find another way to defeat him if I don't need to level up. If the player is expected to outsmart an NPC, the NPC must have a brain to outsmart. The AI I would like to see get better is for the Natural Selection mod of Half-Life 1 (if you haven't played it, check it out. You will thank me). If said game had AI that would win 50% of the time without boosts on the AI or nerfs on the players, then all other AI everywhere have no reason to not be perfect other than laziness and/or lack of imagination (i.e. Halo, most games for the PS2)