Otogi deux!

[PanzerPants]

modern gaming is definitely bringing new things to the table, and there are some neat concepts that certain games employ in effective ways. i think that my main problem is that gameplay is not viewed enough as an art in itself. i do not think the answer is to make utterly ridiculous games for the sake of being different (that’s been tried), but to think up new ways of doing something that would allow for the most freedom. and it is in that sense that i think developers are failing miserably. they can add as many gimmicks into the forumla as they want, but they aren’t truly developing anything.

ah I think I see where youre coming from, but help me out with by what you mean art. Errm, lets Quake 3 for example. Regarded by many one of the premium FPS. Simple concept but highly tuned to the point (of what some would regard) near-perfection. Is art, your meaning, in gameplay just perfectly balanced gameplay? Or does it need to be more complex, like the relationships in Morrowind? Could you give some examples to help me better understand your slant? Can a game as gratuitous as Quake 3 is be art?

but to think up new ways of doing something that would allow for the most freedom. and it is in that sense that i think developers are failing miserably. they can add as many gimmicks into the forumla as they want, but they aren’t truly developing anything.

hmm. Ive had some trouble replying to this part. Quick question: would you regard Fable in this matter (Im yet to play the game so Im not protecting it or anything), in that the big ambitious ideas it promised were distilled down to, I dunno, lesser manifestations of what they could have been? Hmm Im pondering how games can offer more freedom. The current trend seems to be in offering more choice in the matter of objectives and the manner in which they can be enacted out and more varied NPC reaction. Are you saying these kind of things are implemented poorly or don’t go far enough?

i don’t think any developers should look to fable for “a way to do things right”.

'cept how to generate anticipation and generate huge sales

fighting games have stagnated, the ability to sidestep was implemented a few generations ago and nothing new has really been added. i consider 2D and 3D fighters to be 95% identical because, beyond the back/foreground movement the input is the same.

I think stagnation might be a bit too far, I mean complexity in combos and reversals and other nuances of the genre still manage to differentiate the games well enough. Although I dont think we’ll ever see the leap that was experienced from 2D to 3D for quite some time.

virtual on was the path with the most potential but that series looks just about dead (thanks to marz).

what happened with Marz? (I havent played it as youve already guessed)

the market, unfortunately, is controlled by people who are not concerned with artistic quality

there are always exceptions to the case, but I will share your pessimism in that the exception is for a select few. Some titles have the ability of being able to pursue great gameplay and be fully supported their finacial overlords. Halo 2 has been in development for 3 years, Half Life 2 I dont know how long but it seems like ages. I mean for CERTAIN titles it is in the best interest of the financiers to pursue artisitc quality in the interest of preserving a franchises reputation. Not all gamers will buy anything, and if a game doesnt have a license slapped to it there’s extra incentive to make it standout. I dont think the art of making games and the practice of making money are totally disconnected.

congratulations on surviving one of my demented analogies.

I suddenly feel deathly cold.

the change i seek is not a change in the controller, but a change in the games.

ah sorry. I mistook you on that. I thought you were making comment on the limitations of the control pad interface, that it can hamper new developments in game design.

but now the problem comes down to the fact that in real life, if i sensed something from a direction other than in front of me… and so on

hmm. I someone could give a answer to that conundrum theyd be visionary indeed. I think it’s a limitation that cannot be overcome with the tv as the means of display. what you’re describing, looking over your shoulder and the like, is dependent upon having a sense of space in which to interact and a tv/monitor cant provide that. sure surround sound and the like can give a nice feel of it, but i dont think games as they currently are could provide that which you are looking for. Although the AR concept which I previously described (granted poorly, I hope you understand my meaning. Ill find the article later) could give you that, in that it involved interaction with the real world giving that much needed sense of space to make such gaming desires a possibility.

we walk a fine line between critique and self-righteousness

haha yeah. Dont worry, I thought myself to be a prat when I was rereading it. I couldnt express myself any other way

i personally see many untapped concepts, and a reluctance (development-side) to try mature ideas (i don’t mean sex and violence, i mean well thought out and well reasoned ideas). i volunteer this idea of dubious worth: the majority of the current videogame market appears to be comprised of the teen movie and action movie fans of the film audience. the difference is that the film audience has a portion that appreciates david lynch and charlie kaufman but the game industry has not such portion to appreciate their would-be equivalents

(strokes chin). Right, I can see your point there. IN that what would call “mature” in gaming pretty equals violence, gore and the like. If we were to say, list some mature games people would most likely go Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Doom, blah blah etc etc. Yeah I can see that clearly. But you say Lynch and Kaufman, can a game capture the abstract elements that make such films mature and yet stay focused on gameplay? Can the same mature, artistic nature be conveyed in gameplay? I mean it’d be a copout if you had Lynch write the story and gave art direction but if it played like your bog standard platform game the feeling would be lost. What’s the X factor in creating mature gameplay? As a side note, what games would you people call mature in design as opposed to solely aesthetics? Id have to rate the Myst games personally.

IMO, of course

of course, of course.

[Ehndow]

For instance if you look at Otogi 2 it has the upmost beautiful graphics I have ever seen. This game shows you just what todays technology can do. But look how short the game was. Do you think next gen games are going to be any diff. With new technology will come shorter games. I mean look at Fable it took 5 years to make that world lush and alive and look how short that game was, it’s rediculous!

It took me 20 hours to beat Fable.That’s just it.Fable puts innovation in front of you and you skip it so you can finish the agme right away.

Better graphics don’t make shorter games because tools that simplify the process of making top notch graphics are constantly beeing made.

The graphic problem came with 3d too you know?

[Abadd]

I personally think games are too long.

20 hours? What do you need to do for 20 hours? I’d rather have a game that costs $20 that I can play for 8-10 hours, but get a very finely tuned story. Do you know how hard it is to fill out a 40-50 hour narrative? That’s one of the reasons why videogame stories suck. Too much exposition. Too much character development (in the wrong way… characters don’t need to go on a 10 minute monologue to explain why they are angry at their fathers).

And a vast majority of the populace simply doesn’t have the time to devote 40+ hours to a single game.

[Ehndow]

Well that just proves that different people like different thinsg in games.

Because it’s a given that games like the one you described have sucky stories (the one with the revenge clich?..)

[Megatherium]

ah I think I see where youre coming from, but help me out with by what you mean art. Errm, lets Quake 3 for example. Regarded by many one of the premium FPS. Simple concept but highly tuned to the point (of what some would regard) near-perfection. Is art, your meaning, in gameplay just perfectly balanced gameplay? Or does it need to be more complex, like the relationships in Morrowind? Could you give some examples to help me better understand your slant? Can a game as gratuitous as Quake 3 is be art?

this is something that i have a hard time describing for other people because i’m unsure if they have had experiences similar to mine. at first the description will seem to apply to all games because i can’t find a better way to define it, hopefully it will make sense with the counter-example. and let me say that i do not think ALL games should be what i am about to describe, i respect and see the value in gameplay variety, but this is what i consider the “art” of gameplay.

in some games (lets think mario 64 or some other platformer) you have a little guy, you run him around, and you use his different actions which are mapped to the different buttons. success in this game is dependent upon using those actions in the right situations. so the whole time you are watching the screen waiting for that right moment and then you mash the B button (for example). your mental processes are going like this “wait… wait… wait… press B!!”. this encompasses the majority of games out there.

but then there are games (lets think gunvalkyrie) where with high level play, the controller seems to evaporate and a direct link is made between the player’s mind, and the character’s actions. this is only possible when the art of gameplay has been mastered. i suppose the controller set up is included as part of that but again, it’s gunvalkyrie’s perfection of gameplay that allows 2 thumbsticks and 2 triggers to offer more depth than just about any game that uses the whole controller.

this is the best i can do in defining the criteria for how i rate the art of gameplay:

1. action must be intense (to really engage the player)
2. control of character must be precise (so the player can be proud of doing well, and not be frustrated by losing when it wasn’t really their fault)
3. freedom or fulfilling all potential in the basis of your game concept is important (but it really depends on the game)
4. controls don’t necessarily have to be “pick up and play” but the common motions should be fluid and natural once learned (controller must evaporate!)
5. all actions should be universal (NOT context-sensitive)

i can further elaborate on any statement if needed.

as for your question about quake 3, no doubt it was finely tuned and while i wasn’t a fan (more of a UT guy :anjou_embarassed:) i could understand why there were fans of it. but i think that the problems i stated earlier about the FPS formula still apply to quake 3. so in my eyes, quake 3 did not have a good grasp of the art of gameplay. which again, doesn’t mean it can’t be fun… i mean otogi 2 violates a few of the rules i stated above, but i can still like it for other reasons.

Hmm Im pondering how games can offer more freedom. The current trend seems to be in offering more choice in the matter of objectives and the manner in which they can be enacted out and more varied NPC reaction. Are you saying these kind of things are implemented poorly or don’t go far enough?

i think those kinds of things are completely misguided if they were pursuing more freedom when they thought it up. i’m not someone who was really disappointed in fable (partly because i didn’t pay attention to previews/interviews) but the game did not offer ANY new ideas. it’s a glorified action/adventure/hack ‘n’ slash. that’s the other reason i wasn’t disappointed - all the “amazing features” were nothing more than a compilation of gimmicks added into a formula that has been done since the 8-bit era; and i don’t take a whole lot of interest in gimmicks

I think stagnation might be a bit too far, I mean complexity in combos and reversals and other nuances of the genre still manage to differentiate the games well enough. Although I dont think we’ll ever see the leap that was experienced from 2D to 3D for quite some time.

right, i didn’t mean the series themselves don’t differ, i mean that the genre itself hasn’t changed much since the 2D era. think about it, input is done in the same way - it involves a series of button/direction presses the only difference between the series (input-wise) is the order of the button/direction combinations.

what happened with Marz? (I havent played it as youve already guessed)

they tried to make it more accessible to the mainstream by REMOVING FREEDOM they made the computer do some things automatically for you…

ah sorry. I mistook you on that. I thought you were making comment on the limitations of the control pad interface, that it can hamper new developments in game design.

well, if a dev has a new (and good) concept for gameplay that can’t be supported by current controllers, i say that nothing should stand in their way in making a new controller!

hmm. I someone could give a answer to that conundrum theyd be visionary indeed.

well, i happen to have such a vision it really wouldn’t be that hard, you just have to break from the standard control methods of the FPS. and, i admit FPS fans might not necessarily like the change. they have come to be fans of this very “turret-y” feel to their games so a better representation of what they are doing is not necessarily what they want. my idea would be less about moving cross hairs over a targets and clicking and more about character movement and freedom

haha yeah. Dont worry, I thought myself to be a prat when I was rereading it. I couldnt express myself any other way

i must confess that i tend to think that me and my constituents are more gamers than the mainstream folk, and therefore are more important

But you say Lynch and Kaufman, can a game capture the abstract elements that make such films mature and yet stay focused on gameplay? Can the same mature, artistic nature be conveyed in gameplay?

i think it is surely possible- many games have touched it in different ways. i didn’t mean to so directly say that a game’s gameplay would have a “kaufman-esque” feel to it. i more meant that for as oustanding as kaufman and lynch’s films are to the rest of the movies out there, there could be gameplay that is equally unique in comparison to the rest of the games out there. if i had to choose, i’d say treasure, sonic team (circa mid 90s), and the former smilebit are the closest we have in that respect.

[Solo_Wing]

I agree Abadd - I don’t see what’s wrong with a 20 hour game. 20 hours, isn’t actually that short if you think about, at least compared to films, and a lot of novels can be finished in that amount of time too. It’s almost a full day of gameplay, but it’ll last longer than that if it’s not played all at once (much like a novel).

If you take away the random battles, and the unneccesary dialogue, most RPGs wouldn’t be that long anyway…

What I’d like to see is more games that are worth playing through the game again, but are not so long that they prevent you from doing so. How about a game that takes 15 - 20 hours to finish, but the next time you play through the story takes a different path based on the choices that you make?

[Abadd]

Exactly. There are very few games nowadays that I go back and play through again, but there are tons of movies that I’ve watched numerous times, and books I’ve read over and over. I can finish a 350 page book in about 5-6 hours, so it’s completely doable without much of a time commitment within a week. A movie? All you need is a relaxing evening or weekend afternoon.

But an RPG? You need to dedicate a month, if you’re not a student. And is the content of RPGs really compelling enough to want to play for 40 hours? MMO’s I consider a completely different beast, completely due to the fluid nature of the genre. But offline RPGs? Why do you need 40 hours of gameplay? How is a 20 hour game “short” by any means? What else do you do in your life that requires a 20 hour commitment? If a movie can tell an infinitely better story in 2 hours, why can’t a game do it in, say, 10 or 20? I understand that there’s an inherent time lag difference between the media due to user control, but that’s besides the point.

Is it due to the $50 price tag? Would you rather play a single game for 40 hours, or would you rather play 2 games, totaling the same amount of play time, for roughly the same price?

[Megatherium]

i agree.

my top 5 most played games are probably:

1. PSO - 2000+ hours i’m ashamed to say
2. virtual on oratorio tangram - no idea how much, but certainly a close second
3. JSR - i could beat the game in 3-4 hours, and i did that nearly every day after school for a whole semester
4. GV - i played a lot of challenges against a friend, but the replayability is still there
5. morrowind - but that’s not your average RPG…

i also played a heck of a lot of burning rangers…

voot had maybe 20 levels to it, 12 or so characters, and a typical battle lasted under a minute.

as i said, a play through of JSR was only 3-4 hours (and that is while getting jet rankings on every level).

GV was only 10 levels long and only a few were good to challenge on.

those 3 games kept me engaged longer than any RPG. i admit that i usually only play through an RPG twice (and there’s probably a year in between) but i think turnbased battles are on the furthest fringe of legitimate gameplay

another point i’d like to add is that i think the best videogame stories are NOT in RPGs. ecco the dolphin series, legacy of kain: defiance, and of course the panzer series all had much more interesting, better crafted, and more original stories than any RPG i’ve played.

[Solo_Wing]

1. PSO - 2000+ hours i’m ashamed to say

You mean 200 hours, right?

There are very few games nowadays that I go back and play through again, but there are tons of movies that I’ve watched numerous times, and books I’ve read over and over.

Same here. The games that I do play through again are either (a) Really good/fun/interesting, (b) short and interesting enough to play through again, or © they’re sandbox/multiplayer games, which aren’t usually played for the story anyway. This is one reason why I’ve played through Panzer Dragoon Saga numerous times. It’s main playthrough is compact - after playing straight through the game it feels closer to reading a book or watching a movie that tells a good story than, say, playing through Grandia 2 (just an example).

I would personally like to see games drop to half their current prices, and be half as long, but I can’t see that happening in the near future. If games are selling at a certain price, then it’s likely that they’ll continue to be sold at that price. Going back to the Grandia 2 example I mentioned above, I paid less for Panzer Dragoon Saga than Grandia 2, but I’ve played it a lot more in the long run because of its shorter length.

i admit that i usually only play through an RPG twice (and there’s probably a year in between) but i think turnbased battles are on the furthest fringe of legitimate gameplay

Have you played turn based strategy games like Shining Force or Fire Emblem? To me, those battle systems have a lot more gameplay than, say, the hand to hand combat in Skies of Arcadia. The problem is that without turn based, or semi real time combat, it’s hard to design a party system (without the need for additional players).

another point i’d like to add is that i think the best videogame stories are NOT in RPGs. ecco the dolphin series, legacy of kain: defiance, and of course the panzer series all had much more interesting, better crafted, and more original stories than any RPG i’ve played.

Of course, Panzer Dragoon Saga is an RPG too, it was just made exceptionally well.

[Megatherium]

You mean 200 hours, right?

no

The problem is that without turn based, or semi real time combat, it’s hard to design a party system (without the need for additional players).

sorry for the confusion, i meant gameplay in relation to how i had defined “the art of gameplay” before.

if i am to like a turn-based system, i need it to be complex. not so much FFX or skies, more chess, risk, and… connect four

Of course, Panzer Dragoon Saga is an RPG too, it was just made exceptionally well.

PDS, like morrowind, is not your average RPG

[Solo_Wing]

[quote=“Megatherium”]

You mean 200 hours, right?

no [/quote]

Wow

[quote=“Megatherium”]sorry for the confusion, i meant gameplay in relation to how i had defined “the art of gameplay” before.

if i am to like a turn-based system, i need it to be complex. not so much FFX or skies, more chess, risk, and… connect four :([/quote]

Then you’d probably enjoy Shining Force style RPGs (if you haven’t tried them already), they’re like chess in many ways. Final Fantasy/Skies of Arcadia don’t have my favourite battle systems either (although the ship battles in SoA were pretty cool).

[Megatherium]

The problem is that without turn based, or semi real time combat, it’s hard to design a party system (without the need for additional players).

i re-read this topic after our conversation and i was reminded of a unique RPG gameplay idea that would be completely real-time while still supporting a party system.

this would work best on the dreamcast controller since you can press all simultaneous combinations of A,B,X, or Y pretty easily (the only hard one being X and B).

so lets take a game like skies of arcadia just so i don’t need to explain a bunch of stuff to get my idea across.

you have 4 characters on the deck of the ship, they are each mapped to A, B, X, or Y.

there will be a little menu that will have the 4 characters names stacked on top of each other. pressing up or down on the d-pad will cycle that menu up or down to select a different character.

pressing left or right on the D-pad will expand the currently selected character’s abilities menus. you’ll be able to choose stuff like attack, item, guard, focus, special attack, or retreat. if you select something here like items or special attack and THEN press up or down, it will open up a list of the items they can use.

moving the analog stick will make the currently selected character run around where ever you want and you can use this to point them in different directions and select different targets.

pulling the L trigger could be a shortcut to jump back to the basic character stack if you quickly need to select a different character. pulling the R trigger will make whatever action you had currently selected by that character’s current action.

now, with your characters in position and their current action selected, you may start holding down their corresponding buttons to make them perform that action.

and example of a little boss battle would be:

you run vyse up to the boss and start holding down A (his button) and his current action is set on attack. so he’ll keep attacking the enemy as long as you hold A down.

you set guilder to attack from distance for now and hold X (his button) down as well.

then run aika and fina back and set them on focus then hold down their buttons (Y and B).

so now you’re holding down all 4 face buttons (don’t press start!) and you have vyse continually attacking, guilder continually shooting, and the spirit bar is raising. pretty basic so far, right?

now say the boss doesn’t like vyse slashing at him and he starts going after him, you can then select vyse and run him around to evade the various attacks while still getting a few hits in here or there.

but then the boss uncorks a large area effect attack and vyse is critically injured!

you run him away and set fina to use a sacri crystal on him and return her to focussing.

now the spirit bar is charged enough so you set guilder to start up gun slinger- special attack would have a charge up time but they don’t start up a cutscene, they activate and play out in real time with everything else going on simultaneously.

after getting in a few more hits with vyse, you set him to start up cutlass fury.

you are so skilled that you synchronized the activation of the 2 special attacks! guilder’s semi-transparent red tunnel forms and he begins to riddle the boss with shots. vyse’s blue tunnel also forms and he rushes the boss from another angle. a birds eye view would show an X made of a red and blue line and a boss getting beaten to death.

boss vaporizes, victory poses ensue.

lots of potential in that system, though perhaps too complicated for babies…

it made sense in my brain!

[PanzerPants]

sounds overly complicated to me. to work it effeciently youd need a lot of practice to remeber all the shortcuts to be quick enough to keep up with the action. if too much practice is required it could turn a lot of players off.

i appreciate the system in KOTOR. the ability to pause and issue commands to your party directly if you so choose was nice. elegant too IMO.

[Solo_Wing]

I actually like some of those ideas, but like PanzerPants mentioned, it sounds more complicated than it needs to be. How about a system like the one you mentioned, but where you hold down an individual button to take control of a character, and the other characters keep fighting in the background like in KOTOR.

For example: Say you’re playing a Vyse, you could run around freely by holding down the A button and moving the analog. Different moves could be executed the same way, by using the D-Pad to choose various moves (perhaps like the Fable menu system?). If the player wanted to switch to Aika, he could release A and hold down B button. Vyse would still continue acting on his own and Aika would now be under your control entirely while the B button was held down.

Anyway, that’s just another way that it could work, perhaps less confusing…

[Megatherium]

Anyway, that’s just another way that it could work, perhaps less confusing…

quite right, i was just trying to accomodate for the controlling-an-entire-party-in-real-time issue.

it seems to me that while the system seems complex, the simplicity would allow players to memorize certain techniques- or configurations- that they find to be almost universally useful (the same things happens even when it is turnbased).

in (the real) skies of arcadia for instance, i found the combination of vyse’s skull shield (i think that’s what it was called- it prevents all physical damage and counter-attacked for the whole party) and aika’s delta shield (prevent all magic damage) to work against everything but a handful of enemies. of course i wouldn’t always use it, it just seemed to be something i could always fall back on if i didn’t have a comprehesive plan to deal with whatever i was fighting.

it seems like you would quickly indentify configurations that worked well; perhaps some thing as basic as:

set everyone to attack but have fina ready to switch to heal whoever gets injured substantially. you’d just find yourself becoming familiar with different button combinations as signifying different attack plans.

perhaps the game speed could be adjusted for those who don’t immediately pick it up, or a slow-time effect like that found in sudeki shudder could be implemented while making choices.

[Drenholm]

That’d be a pretty cool system, actually, although i’m not sure about holding down buttons all the time. That could get seriously painfull in a big boss fight. It’d also be frustrating if you were trying to swap character quickly before the boss wiped you out with a move that hits everyone in a row, though, so maybe a KOTOR sytle pause feature would help with that.

I think the idea that the character just keeps preforming the last action you told them to do until you tell them to stop (sorta like in Phantasy Star 2) would be a good way to make it work in real time (they could default to preforming an action like focus or guard if they can a. no longer preform the action or b. it’s the sort of action that you’d only want them to do once, such as heal).

[Ehndow]

I dunno about you guys but the more I play them the more I think non-action-like combat (in rpgs) is uncool.

I mean (and picking up the KOTOR example) - it’s so unreal and fake.

I don’t like using controls to give my input for the game at hand.

I like to “merge” with the controller and get immediate responses and get that kinetic sense of really hitting my oppenent.

I like strategy myself but with KOTOR (as an example) I could just make “my plan” and then put the controller down.So in the end I had to subtract like 5 hours of non-played combat to the “40 hours” of the game.

RPGs should rely more on combos to produce special attacks and a party for the strategy part.As in you give orders to your party (strategic rpg standardness) but you can still fight the good/bad fight agehnst your enemy relying on your skill.

Chess can be a lot more kinetic than KOTOR as far as combat is concerned…

PS :I’m still getting KOTOR2 the very moment it arrives