Improvements in Gaming

[Evalis]

So I'm going to go ahead and list my own views on the topic here: I believe that gaming has remained mostly stagnant. Or at least the improvements are so few and far between that is classifies as stagnation... explaining here.. when dragon warrior first came out, it was a game in it's own league, when dragon warrior II came out it mimiced the style, but provided a use of multiple characters - again a new concept.. when dragon warrior III appeared.. it was the same game, but with different story and item names.

Many many other games copied this style. Diablo I&II fit this same bill. While #2 was much cleaner, it was still, essentially, the same game - though a good one! Unfortunately every other game that has been since released as an 'action-rpg' is still the same design. This stagnation is especially obvious with games in the sports genres, where nothing changes except the graphics and the player names/stats.

The number of sub-par quality games available has increased substantially. Enough to perhaps warrant selecting that option. The only other reason that I'm arguing it is 'stagnant' rather than a 'decline' is that there were always sub-par games before.. and the rate at which high quality games are released is still about the same (just harder to weed through).

Really.. I would prefer that a vast majority of the companies left the market. Let's leave blizzard, square-enix, turbine, sony, valve, bethesda, obsidian, microprose, nintendo, and 'maybe' koei.. the rest need the boot.

[radioactivez0r]

Add BioWare to that list, and if they still exist, Lionhead Studios. Lionhead brought us stuff like Black & White, which to me is a huge leap in AI and general world manipulation; The Movies, the guts of which I have yet to really delve into; and other really original titles. Bioware of course made Neverwinter Nights. Oh, I'll add Black Isle for the Fallout series. Are either of those RPGs revolutionary? Probably not. They did have interesting ideas, though - Fallout was a real-time RPG up until combat started, then it became turn-based. NWN is always real-time, but the ability to pause to plan out and queue your actions...genius. Rockstar might also deserve a nod for the GTA series - is there another series of games that are as open-ended as that one?

I could probably keep going - id perhaps, if Quakewars is any good.

[Tarrick]

Lionhead is still around. Working on Fable 2 at the moment.

[Evalis]

Yeah I missed bioware. Fall-out was a copy of X-Com: Enemy Unknown designed by microprose. Lucas Arts and LionHead should also be added. I was just babbling with that though.. since most of the companys that make the game are really companies within companies.. and that larger corporations still have divisions that suck.

[tundra]

Aww, I love Koei. The Three Kingdoms series rocks. :-X

I still voted for 'leaps' and 'bounds' because the graphics have improved so much over the years.

Though I'd guess you could say that everything has remained pretty stagnant, since the "innovators" have created some high standards, but still there are some relatively good "new" games.

I miss bioware too...Neverwinter Nights > Diablo II, IMHO. And that's not just graphics...

[radioactivez0r]

There's alway NWN2, for those of you who have computers built recently enough to run it :[

[Jon]

It really depends on the genre. Music games have come a long way.

And while we're on the subject of Bioware, Mass Effect looks like it's going to be great. KotOR to the nth degree.

[Evalis]

I still voted for 'leaps' and 'bounds' because the graphics have improved so much over the years. **

Uhm... everyone did in fact read the first part of the poll: "Aside from graphics" Right?

[Jezebel]

I haven't seen huge improvements in game play for the types of games I like. Most strategy games seem to be a clone of the older ones with different units and maybe a few new features. I still like the newer games if for nothing else but a change of scenery, but I don't get the impression that they're anything revolutionary. Aside from outdated graphics, I still find a lot of the older games just as/more fun.

[drc]

Some of my personal favorites are Anarchy Online, Deus Ex and System Shock 2. Along with the original half-life and counter-strike. Anarchy Online was a revolutionary game. If that game had a playable launch it would have revolutionized the online gaming world. You could stand apart in that game from what you were capable of doing mentally, not so much limited by the game itself. Most people seemed turned off by the fact that they would have to be able to think about what they were doing in order to not suck. Quote from random gamer "Ya i played AO for about 15 minutes". Why did you quit? "I couldn't figure it out". I don't know how many times I have heard that.

Most of the games I see today seem to lack innovation and creativity. Strategy games seem to be the same things with new graphics or units. First person shooters with lame-o story lines or no imagination. Of the more recent releases I'd have to rank FEAR as one of the best of the past few years. Among software companies to keep how can you not have ID on the list :P.

[kidchameleon]

as i'm not an interactive designer, and i've been out of the relevant gameplaying loop for a number of years, my experiences is somewhat behind the times, but I think it's still worthwhile to mention the new abilities we have all the time to integrate video style games into broader spectrums: player to player relationships, virtual worlds, and the implications of machinima and what it will become in the near future. online interactivity is a looming monster on the chrome horizon. beware.

[tundra]

Definitely.

If I recall C.S. Lewis correctly, "the only people against escapism are prison guards".

Not that I game a lot. My favourite addiction was Ragnarok Online.

Korean game designers aren't too bad really.

[OneBadMother]

Over which years? :P Gaming improved steadily for a while, and has now reached a sort of plateau. Every once in a while something innovative and new comes out, but as with most things after a pioneering phase, there is less and less that could be considered innovative and new anymore.

[tundra]

Virtual reality goggles anyone?

(Or even better yet, holodecks... ::))

[qwerty]

Game quality is definitely in the decline. I can remember sitting for hours playing the original doom shareware, wolf3d, jazz jackrabbit warcraft 1 & 2 (warcraft 2 is to me still far greater than warcraft 3). Hell even the old platform games like the original prince of Persia and going back as far as load runner beat the games of today hands down for ingenuity and re-playability.

When I was growing up on games if they were to release a game saga like Pokemon (where Pokemon Red is the same as Blue and Yellow except your starting creature is different and the game play and graphics are so poor you get bored after a minute) nobody would buy them period.

The biggest thing I noticed recently when I started playing the kid next doors xbox, was just how similar each game is on the consoles ,admittedly the sega master system I grew up with was limited to double dragon and sonic rip offs but still at least they spawned huge culture shock compared to the console games of today.

Not only that but the games I love "Adventure Games" are disappearing with DreamFall being the last of the greats (and even then it was more about the story than the puzzle solving). Where is this generations Grim Fandango? The Longest Journey? Sam & Max? Myst? Now all we get are interactive cinema games Like Fahrenheit where the graphics are good enough but all you do is fill in the dialog and get carried along without getting time to really take in the surroundings, you don't even revisit a single scene as far as I remember.

I guess it's because of all the marketing and cross medium entertainment venues today. Games have become a spin off money maker for movies and tv shows rather than something that we just used to do for fun - now you have to play the game to get the full story behind the movie (Thinking Matrix ).

[Zeinland]

Well people some people get sick of Pokemon and some people don't ( I got tired it's way repetive). Runescape for me *was the best game out there, but I soon found out that when I played my mind LITERALLY stopped, I couldn't think. For your safety and the safety of other's it is NOT recommended to play the game unless you don't want to have a mind. Strategy games are the far best games out there (Im still a fan of AOEII). The best strategy games out there are or maybe are LOTR middle-earth, Command and Conquer Tiberium Wars and my all time favorite Cybernations. LOTR and Command and Conquer are basically the same except they are DIFERENT time's. In AOEII is the best game out there, I still dream of using explosive powder against arrows.

[Tarrick]

StarCraft 2 anyone? Yes I really like RTS and also RPGs. Playing through a good story is very fun. That is where a lot of improvement has come in, though I get annoyed if it's too short. I want Epic stories!

[Evalis]

To Qwerty: To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
Just in case you feel like a bit of nostalgia ^^

[Kathryn]

My first experience with video games was in 1975 (yes, 1975), with the game Pong: To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. Now you know why I gave gaming the leaps and bounds category for improvement.

[MichaelH]

The thought that some old games hold up against new ones is basically valid.

Some of my favorites have been:
Killing Time on the 3DO - had GREAT graphics for its time, and was very creepy
Undying
Resident Evil 4

Undying is still the scariest thing I have ever played. It beats out (IMO) Doom 3 and Resident Evil 4. Sure, the graphics are better on the newer games, but Undying had a plot behind it. The difficulty level was also precisely balanced. That pistol never felt quite powerful enough, even when upgraded. (Not to mention, the game could be completed without following a walkthrough.) There was only one invisible enemy IIRC, but I ran like heck when I found it. And the way the undead monks kept getting _up_ again, not to mention screaming like wounded horses...it's raising the hair on the back of my neck just talking about it.

Resident Evil 4 was amazingly playable, even if the "plot" was silly.

However, my best justification for games improving over time: Katamari Damacy FTW! Best game ever.

[Rohsiph]

Eh . . . not in a decline, but the curve is leveling off.

Innovative games this year: Odin Sphere (live-theatre type story, high-resolution 2d graphics), Persona 3 (fun "school" rpg with dungeon crawling sprinkled in), Bioshock (particularly art design, & making the type of game appeal to a wider audience).

[AresX9]

Every three years or so, a shooter comes along and just re-writes the genre's rules.

1998 with Half Life.

2001 with Serious Sam: The First Encounter.

2004 with Half Life 2.

And now, 2007 with Crysis.

Each of those 4 titles set the bar higher. HL was the first shooter with a real story. Serious Sam was an amazing accomplishment because it was a budget title. HL2 set the bar even higher with it's story and physics. Crysis, well if you're a gamer that slightly keeps up, I shouldn't have to describe why, but I will anyway.

Crysis has the best graphics in any game, ever. It has the best environment interaction (Bring down trees, foilage moves when you walk through it, destroy houses/guard towers, pick up almost anything to use as a weapon, etc.) in any game, bar none. The nanosuit is a revolutionary gameplay experience as you can enable super-human speed, strength, armor, and a cloak ability.

Oh, and there's a nuke too.

[TruorTupnm]

I went with the moderate yes option. I would guess that if you averaged all games up, there would be more horrible than good, but there are still steady improvements. Innovations to remain competitive. It's just that twenty-seven thousand other games will copy it with a weaker story or something. oh well. Anyone for some Nethack? ;D

[Henry]

Really.. I would prefer that a vast majority of the companies left the market. Let's leave blizzard, square-enix, turbine, sony, valve, bethesda, obsidian, microprose, nintendo, and 'maybe' koei.. the rest need the boot.

On the contrary, I find that major developers are generally producing cookie-cutter games that appeal to SP types; NTs are ignored because we're cheap, tech (piracy) friendly, and we constitute about 3-6% of the population.

Smaller developers, like, say, Paradox Interactive with their grand strategy historical games are producing games with stellar gameplay and early 90's graphics. Their games are very challending and very rewarding for an NT. To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

And gameplay is generally improving, particularly in online games. Look at WoW; its primary appeal is to its Leeroy Jenkins SP audience, but its a very fun game for almost any type to play.

[AresX9]

....

And gameplay is generally improving, particularly in online games. Look at WoW; its primary appeal is to its Leeroy Jenkins SP audience, but its a very fun game for almost any type to play.

Until you realize that the game is designed around a constant cycle of "Just one more".

*shudders at WoW memories*

[Henry]

Until you realize that the game is designed around a constant cycle of "Just one more".

*shudders at WoW memories*

...as are a lot of great games.

[Figmentum]

I miss the old Duke Nukem....

[AresX9]

...as are a lot of great games.

How so?

I wrote the following a year ago, so....

I figured out that the entire game is built around this revolving repetition cycle: You kill things to gain experience and money,to level up to kill bigger things, and to repair your items after you die while killing those things to get that money to repair, as well as buying new items (Pre level 40) to kill tougher things. You kill bigger things to get loot which only drops at a certain percent rate for only two different classes (Usually). Each being has a certain difficulty rating, requiring a new strategy to be formed (For some) in order to kill the being to get that loot, which you will have to run about one hundred times (Not exact) in order to gear up 40 people in one particular piece of equipment.
This is set in place to make sure that the player is still playing, to give him/her a false sense of: "Oh, I'm going to get my Warlock shoulders tonight!" (Used as an example), to be dissappointed that the damn Druid shoulders dropped again from Baron, and some random caster item that the individual already has.

[Gaius Baltar]

I've been a gamer since the Atari 2600, so I've been at it for a while. I must say that I'm not nearly into games like I used to be. Part of it is that I'm getting older and have less time, but I think there's also quality issues as well.

From a business standpoint, the industry has really matured. It's quite stable now and isn't going anywhere anytime soon. There's also more gamers today than ever before.

From a quality and creativity standpoint, I have to say that games have gone downhill since the late 90s. Sure, things have been refined and improved quite a bit, but the innovation has been blasted out of existence.

How many FPS games can we possibly play? I'm sick of them, frankly. I loved the original Doom, but that was mostly because it was true innovation at the time. The rest is rehash after rehash...

Every once in a while, a really good game comes out. Bioshock is a great example. It's an odd hybrid FPS that follows in the spirit of System Shock 2. Unfortunately though, these are few and far between.

Sadly, mature industries don't like to take bets. This is true for most industries, not just video games. We're at the point where companies simply don't want to risk losing money on an innovation that doesn't work. It's also no surprise that nothing's catered towards NTs anymore, since we basically comprise 5% of the total population.

I believe that it's possible to market to small niches such as NTs and gain a solid and loyal fanbase. However, the name of the game in today's world is to make as much money as possible, so you have to appeal to the broadest audience possible. Even if that means you have to dumb it down for Joe Sixpack and Sally Soccermom.

All human endeavors start as an art, reach their apex as a science, and then decline when they become a business. Sadly, the video game industry is no different.

[Lensman]

Gaius the thing is that in human endeavors its a cycle. When an INTJ gets so fed up to innovate for himself the endeavor becomes an art again.