Shadowbane, what a computer game shouldn't be
by Pat Wilson · in General Discussion · 03/26/2003 (4:21 pm) · 31 replies
Today I picked up a $40 case study in what not to do when making a game. After 4 hours of playing Shadowbane I have this to say...
The only reason I can see that this game got released was Ubi said, "Allright you bastards, we've been shelling out for years now, release so we can recoop some of the losses, btw we own you now."
This game is the biggest piece of shit game I have ever played. Anarchy Online, at release, was pretty piss poor, but this takes the cake. The UI is miserable, the framerates abominable for the rendering quality. The controls are damn near impossible, pathing is deplorable (You think you're getting across that bridge? Yeah right...). It is so user-un-friendly any poor fool who picks it up without having played EQ, AC, DAoC and then been in Shadowbane beta for 5 months will be hopelessly lost. The "help" system's tips are almost entirely useless. The HUD mostly gets in the way, it has an amazing quanitity of useless and repeated information displayed in a form that is not only displeasing to the eye but almost always in the wrong place when you need to see it. Equipping your character is confusing as hell, "Hey why can't I wear sleeves!? Oh, that's because you have a tunic on, but it doesn't tell you that." Grouping has reverted to EQ v1.0 days where you sit and yell 'Rogue lfg, rogue lfg'. The abilities are difficult to use, and the game provides no help as to what you should go about doing.
As far as gameplay goes, it is in stiff competition with watching paint dry for entertainment. It has all the excitement of camping the FBSS, mixed with graphics that almost challenge Quake II. The music drones on, the sound effects are pathetic and that god damn spellcasting chant is the same for every spell for every race and it is so annoying. The spell effects themselves would make any avid mage want to burn his books and pick up a sword except that, well, that's not more interesting either. There's none of the neat animations or reactive-styles ala DAoC. It's back to the days of hit autoattack, backstab, backstab, backstab, sit, etc. The text displays are very difficult to use, you cannot filter information such as the 10 other people around you hitting things out. The font is too big, if you decrease the size it is too small. The fonts they provide are far too complex save for two, to use at all. Then there is the fantastic subject of getting around. Running, and running, and running. Is there auto-run? No. You click on a little map. In fact, to even find a hunting area as a clueless newbie can take 10 minutes. The terrain is confusing, dark and repedative. The textures are bland, the animations are bairly passable for a AAA title, the particle effects: pathetic. Character customization is reduced below what EQ had. There is one face, sure you can add a beard that looks totally out of place, customize the hair, but there is one face. The runestone system is overcomplicated. Abilities are convoluted. The stamina/run system is tedious, irritating, and complicates travel in an already near impossible to travel in world.
The claim, I would guess, is that after level 20 the game gets fun because the same bullshit UI, spellcasting, combat, navigation gets pitted against people who are using the same lame-as-hell client. Hurray! Another PvP based game. That will be fun for probably much less time than DAoC. From the looks of it, the PvP will have all the splendor of EQ based PvP with all the longevity of a robed caster AFK, sitting down in Emain Macha (DAoC).
This is a completly miserable, poorly implimented joke of a game that went way over time budget, way over monitary budget, way overboard on features, and way overboard on hype. If I know anything about the gaming industry this was a game that originally was a good idea. It got poorly managed, feature-creaped, and executivly-refactored into the steaming pile of walrus dung it is today. The studio that made it will be kept alive as long as they have to put out patches. Ubi will make their money and the players will sit for a year in a completly miserable game waiting for it to be fixed. It's only compatability is Mac, in a world where game engines can easily go Win/Mac/Linux. Just in case I haven't made myself absolutly-clear...THERE IS NOTHING GOOD ABOUT THIS GAME.
Lesson 1: Go Indy.
Lesson 2: Don't make a MMO-anything
The only reason I can see that this game got released was Ubi said, "Allright you bastards, we've been shelling out for years now, release so we can recoop some of the losses, btw we own you now."
This game is the biggest piece of shit game I have ever played. Anarchy Online, at release, was pretty piss poor, but this takes the cake. The UI is miserable, the framerates abominable for the rendering quality. The controls are damn near impossible, pathing is deplorable (You think you're getting across that bridge? Yeah right...). It is so user-un-friendly any poor fool who picks it up without having played EQ, AC, DAoC and then been in Shadowbane beta for 5 months will be hopelessly lost. The "help" system's tips are almost entirely useless. The HUD mostly gets in the way, it has an amazing quanitity of useless and repeated information displayed in a form that is not only displeasing to the eye but almost always in the wrong place when you need to see it. Equipping your character is confusing as hell, "Hey why can't I wear sleeves!? Oh, that's because you have a tunic on, but it doesn't tell you that." Grouping has reverted to EQ v1.0 days where you sit and yell 'Rogue lfg, rogue lfg'. The abilities are difficult to use, and the game provides no help as to what you should go about doing.
As far as gameplay goes, it is in stiff competition with watching paint dry for entertainment. It has all the excitement of camping the FBSS, mixed with graphics that almost challenge Quake II. The music drones on, the sound effects are pathetic and that god damn spellcasting chant is the same for every spell for every race and it is so annoying. The spell effects themselves would make any avid mage want to burn his books and pick up a sword except that, well, that's not more interesting either. There's none of the neat animations or reactive-styles ala DAoC. It's back to the days of hit autoattack, backstab, backstab, backstab, sit, etc. The text displays are very difficult to use, you cannot filter information such as the 10 other people around you hitting things out. The font is too big, if you decrease the size it is too small. The fonts they provide are far too complex save for two, to use at all. Then there is the fantastic subject of getting around. Running, and running, and running. Is there auto-run? No. You click on a little map. In fact, to even find a hunting area as a clueless newbie can take 10 minutes. The terrain is confusing, dark and repedative. The textures are bland, the animations are bairly passable for a AAA title, the particle effects: pathetic. Character customization is reduced below what EQ had. There is one face, sure you can add a beard that looks totally out of place, customize the hair, but there is one face. The runestone system is overcomplicated. Abilities are convoluted. The stamina/run system is tedious, irritating, and complicates travel in an already near impossible to travel in world.
The claim, I would guess, is that after level 20 the game gets fun because the same bullshit UI, spellcasting, combat, navigation gets pitted against people who are using the same lame-as-hell client. Hurray! Another PvP based game. That will be fun for probably much less time than DAoC. From the looks of it, the PvP will have all the splendor of EQ based PvP with all the longevity of a robed caster AFK, sitting down in Emain Macha (DAoC).
This is a completly miserable, poorly implimented joke of a game that went way over time budget, way over monitary budget, way overboard on features, and way overboard on hype. If I know anything about the gaming industry this was a game that originally was a good idea. It got poorly managed, feature-creaped, and executivly-refactored into the steaming pile of walrus dung it is today. The studio that made it will be kept alive as long as they have to put out patches. Ubi will make their money and the players will sit for a year in a completly miserable game waiting for it to be fixed. It's only compatability is Mac, in a world where game engines can easily go Win/Mac/Linux. Just in case I haven't made myself absolutly-clear...THERE IS NOTHING GOOD ABOUT THIS GAME.
Lesson 1: Go Indy.
Lesson 2: Don't make a MMO-anything
About the author
#2
I've bought one retail box game in the last two years, and that only because I'd planned at the time to use it to build a mod. Suddenly I realize why -- I just have to look at the box art these days, and I've figured out the whole game.
Overdressed character holding gun: FPS
Overdressed character holding sword: RPG
Character with pointy ears dressed like a studio extra for a Robin Hood movie: D&D clone
Underdressed woman with Desert Eagle: TR clone
Guy in black fatigues holding MD5: Tom Clancy FPS
Guy in black fatigues holding HK91: Another Tom Clancy FPS
An elf, and orc, a wizard, a knight standing in a group: MMORPG.
Aircraft, front left quarter shot: FS
Aircraft, screaming dive: CFS
Evil looking oversized character hovering behind landscape dotted with tiny tanks: RTS
Character in period costume standing in period set: HRTS
It's the gaming equivalent of the bodice ripper. The lurid artwork. The hackneyed plots (is Unreal 2 actually Lode Runner 2003? "Collect the seven keys . . . I mean seven artifacts). The scantily clad females (Knight: Mithrail plate mail, great helm, shield; Elf Sorceress: Iron thong and chainmail tank top). Squared-jawed and steely-eyed muscle-bound Aryans propping up impossibly immense chain guns. There's no subtlety. No intrigue. No mystery. The whole package whaps you upside the head with all the finesse of a Louisville Slugger, and except for testosterone-laden and sexually-frustrated teenagers with dim power and revenge fantasies, the result is only low comedy.
The games industry isn't stagnating.
It's high production values going downtown with low art.
It's a vast ghetto littered with Neotolkien elves, eight-barrel rocket launchers and six-barrel chain guns, a billion realistic weapon model renders, endless hordes of faceless muscle-bound goons, armor-cum-lingerie, the ring, the seven artifacts of the evil overlord, a billion overacted cut scenes, +20 nine-foot-long swords of smiting, bearded dwarves with battleaxes, terrorists-du-jour, Neogeiger aliens, hovertanks, rail guns, Neogandalfian wizards with orb-capped staves and pointy hats, troglodytes, vampires, +7 potions of healing, fireballs; all set in a neo-post-industrial steam-cyberpunk castle with teleportals and elevators and platform puzzles in every room.
It's not pro-sports in Detroit, it's pro-wrestling in Buffalo.
It's . . . pulp gaming.
Maybe ten years ago there was an embryonic hint of professional gaming, of an art and craft developing, but it sold out and bought a European sports car and a house in the suburbs with a two car garage and swimming pool, switched from Jolt to tall double-shot skim no-whip cappuccino, stopped eating take out Chinese from a place with plastic chopsticks and folding tables and started eating Thai in a place with bamboo chopsticks and authentic decor.
There not even an elf with an eight-barrel rocket launcher riding a Harley into the Roman coliseum to battle a cyborg lion controlled by a ghost emperor, which is actually a time traveling nanobot AI, as they battle for domination over a fictional kingdom that exists only in the minds of mutant Siamese twins that live in an alternate Earth where Kennedy pushed the button. The genre lines are so rigid the industry can't even offer up a crossover title. Ask crackdotcom, or the Battlezone team. Pulp publishers cling rigidly to genre and formula? Beware of titles that end in (especially Roman) numbers (Deathkiller 4) or contain a colon (Deathkiller: The Barren Lands).
Hey, crap, this game has wizards and elves and a minotaur with a sword and eighteen character classes and spells with particle effects. Let's buy it ;) . Or let's go write a Pulp Game Generator so that we can crank these things out with the push of a button.
03/26/2003 (6:38 pm)
I read this post (I'm sort of a aficionado of rants and negative reviews, a type of critical rubbernecking, or schadenfreude), and it got me thinking that the industry needs a new term: pulp gaming.I've bought one retail box game in the last two years, and that only because I'd planned at the time to use it to build a mod. Suddenly I realize why -- I just have to look at the box art these days, and I've figured out the whole game.
Overdressed character holding gun: FPS
Overdressed character holding sword: RPG
Character with pointy ears dressed like a studio extra for a Robin Hood movie: D&D clone
Underdressed woman with Desert Eagle: TR clone
Guy in black fatigues holding MD5: Tom Clancy FPS
Guy in black fatigues holding HK91: Another Tom Clancy FPS
An elf, and orc, a wizard, a knight standing in a group: MMORPG.
Aircraft, front left quarter shot: FS
Aircraft, screaming dive: CFS
Evil looking oversized character hovering behind landscape dotted with tiny tanks: RTS
Character in period costume standing in period set: HRTS
It's the gaming equivalent of the bodice ripper. The lurid artwork. The hackneyed plots (is Unreal 2 actually Lode Runner 2003? "Collect the seven keys . . . I mean seven artifacts). The scantily clad females (Knight: Mithrail plate mail, great helm, shield; Elf Sorceress: Iron thong and chainmail tank top). Squared-jawed and steely-eyed muscle-bound Aryans propping up impossibly immense chain guns. There's no subtlety. No intrigue. No mystery. The whole package whaps you upside the head with all the finesse of a Louisville Slugger, and except for testosterone-laden and sexually-frustrated teenagers with dim power and revenge fantasies, the result is only low comedy.
The games industry isn't stagnating.
It's high production values going downtown with low art.
It's a vast ghetto littered with Neotolkien elves, eight-barrel rocket launchers and six-barrel chain guns, a billion realistic weapon model renders, endless hordes of faceless muscle-bound goons, armor-cum-lingerie, the ring, the seven artifacts of the evil overlord, a billion overacted cut scenes, +20 nine-foot-long swords of smiting, bearded dwarves with battleaxes, terrorists-du-jour, Neogeiger aliens, hovertanks, rail guns, Neogandalfian wizards with orb-capped staves and pointy hats, troglodytes, vampires, +7 potions of healing, fireballs; all set in a neo-post-industrial steam-cyberpunk castle with teleportals and elevators and platform puzzles in every room.
It's not pro-sports in Detroit, it's pro-wrestling in Buffalo.
It's . . . pulp gaming.
Maybe ten years ago there was an embryonic hint of professional gaming, of an art and craft developing, but it sold out and bought a European sports car and a house in the suburbs with a two car garage and swimming pool, switched from Jolt to tall double-shot skim no-whip cappuccino, stopped eating take out Chinese from a place with plastic chopsticks and folding tables and started eating Thai in a place with bamboo chopsticks and authentic decor.
There not even an elf with an eight-barrel rocket launcher riding a Harley into the Roman coliseum to battle a cyborg lion controlled by a ghost emperor, which is actually a time traveling nanobot AI, as they battle for domination over a fictional kingdom that exists only in the minds of mutant Siamese twins that live in an alternate Earth where Kennedy pushed the button. The genre lines are so rigid the industry can't even offer up a crossover title. Ask crackdotcom, or the Battlezone team. Pulp publishers cling rigidly to genre and formula? Beware of titles that end in (especially Roman) numbers (Deathkiller 4) or contain a colon (Deathkiller: The Barren Lands).
Hey, crap, this game has wizards and elves and a minotaur with a sword and eighteen character classes and spells with particle effects. Let's buy it ;) . Or let's go write a Pulp Game Generator so that we can crank these things out with the push of a button.
#3
I had heard some bad beta reports, but was hoping that they'd get things straightened out for release. Sounds like that didn't happen :(
03/26/2003 (7:18 pm)
Wow, thanks. You just saved me $40 :)I had heard some bad beta reports, but was hoping that they'd get things straightened out for release. Sounds like that didn't happen :(
#4
03/26/2003 (7:54 pm)
Great review man! I love honesty. I laugh at the lameness! Theyll be asking in 15 years why theyre 10 million in debt and being absorbed by another corporation! They think were morons.... Yet they need us to give them money.... Did i miss something? Was i supposed to be too stoned to not be offended by the fact theyre games suck and theyre trying to sell it to me regardless? These companies are the worst. Boycott Mega-corporations!
#5
Just as a follow-up: I got my money back. (Slightly dishonestly I'll admit, but I maintain they did it first)
03/27/2003 (4:46 am)
Brad, that was awesome.Just as a follow-up: I got my money back. (Slightly dishonestly I'll admit, but I maintain they did it first)
#6
Why within 5 minutes of playing 90% of games is my head filled with really really basic things they should have fixed. Anyone that's played MOO3 will know what I mean. Why do these people do for the many years it takes to develop these games?
03/27/2003 (9:53 am)
Good thread guys, real shame about ShadowBane... I had high hopes. And thanks Brad... that was very funny :)Why within 5 minutes of playing 90% of games is my head filled with really really basic things they should have fixed. Anyone that's played MOO3 will know what I mean. Why do these people do for the many years it takes to develop these games?
#7
03/27/2003 (10:06 am)
@Pat and Brad--Awesome reviews--I think you should start a column :)
#8
Brad, you forgot some categories:
Nice italian car: Urban racing game
Nice space-fiction car launching missile: Urban anti-grav racing game
Evil-looking creature in dark outfit: RPG
Hands over crystal ball: RPG
Cover with just a texture and a name: Crappy 3rd person action game
Diogo de Andrade
03/27/2003 (10:08 am)
Lol!Brad, you forgot some categories:
Nice italian car: Urban racing game
Nice space-fiction car launching missile: Urban anti-grav racing game
Evil-looking creature in dark outfit: RPG
Hands over crystal ball: RPG
Cover with just a texture and a name: Crappy 3rd person action game
Diogo de Andrade
#9
I'm too busy with Marble Blast and don't care enough about SB to write a full out counter-review, but I have to say I don't think Shadowbane is all *that* bad. As far as MMORPGs go, anyways.
03/27/2003 (11:13 am)
I beta tested Shadowbane for a while and I have to say I actually liked it better than any other MMORPG that I have played (not exactly high praise since I think that the entire MMORPG genre is crap when it comes to gameplay). However, SB does encourage socializing and grouping far more than other games (very generous experience sharing - enough to overcome most players apparent hatred of interacting with other human beings), and creating cities and having guild wars makes things somewhat interesting once you have maxed out your character (which takes far less time than most MMORPGs, another plus in my mind).I'm too busy with Marble Blast and don't care enough about SB to write a full out counter-review, but I have to say I don't think Shadowbane is all *that* bad. As far as MMORPGs go, anyways.
#10
Master of Orion 3 is another example of a game that was delayed to be "polished," but still shipped with all sorts of horrendous problems. (Oop, I see someone else mentioned Moo3 as well, must be a good example!)
There are exceptions to the rule, but generally I am wary of things that are delayed for too long.
03/27/2003 (12:00 pm)
Games that get delayed a LONG time generally turn out poorly. The devs will always say they are taking time to add extra polish, etc, but the truth is games get delayed for a long time because they run into significant problems that the devs have to scramble to fix.Master of Orion 3 is another example of a game that was delayed to be "polished," but still shipped with all sorts of horrendous problems. (Oop, I see someone else mentioned Moo3 as well, must be a good example!)
There are exceptions to the rule, but generally I am wary of things that are delayed for too long.
#11
03/27/2003 (3:02 pm)
I agree, Shadowbane sounded excellent on paper. Social dynamics is the most important aspect of massively multiplayer persistent games, I think. It's sad, but not entirely unexpected, that a small group of developers often fails at doing a good MMO considering the workload involved.
#12
I made countless posts about the newbie system, and it's non-existance. I gave so many good suggestions for the developers to ponder, but what did I get? Ahh, nothing more than an invitation to leave beta by Warden, the head guy at Wolfpack. He didnt like my rants, but as he can now hopefully understand, they held truth.
Shadowbane has sub-par graphics, terrible terrain rendering, awful sounds which lag upon load. The spell effects are boring, static, and often times they'll bug up and just fill your screen with a mess. The game is counter-intuitive. I love reading the patch notes when they said attack was now rebound to "Ctrl-A". I mean, come on, this isnt even close to a good setup.
I could rant and rant, but Pat nailed it.
03/27/2003 (3:15 pm)
Alex, I have to back Pat on this one. I was in the Shadowbane beta since June 02, and it's crap. Call it any other word you want, but it's still crap.I made countless posts about the newbie system, and it's non-existance. I gave so many good suggestions for the developers to ponder, but what did I get? Ahh, nothing more than an invitation to leave beta by Warden, the head guy at Wolfpack. He didnt like my rants, but as he can now hopefully understand, they held truth.
Shadowbane has sub-par graphics, terrible terrain rendering, awful sounds which lag upon load. The spell effects are boring, static, and often times they'll bug up and just fill your screen with a mess. The game is counter-intuitive. I love reading the patch notes when they said attack was now rebound to "Ctrl-A". I mean, come on, this isnt even close to a good setup.
I could rant and rant, but Pat nailed it.
#13
03/27/2003 (4:26 pm)
Pulp Games are just a sign that people would rather be safe than do really cool stuff. Consumers don't want to buy something they aren't sure about, and publishers don't want to publish something that's not market-worthy. It is a two-fold problem. GG may, or may not be, the antidote. We will all see, I guess.
#14
Here's a link lifted from Jeff Tunnell's .plan: www.costik.com/weblog/. Scroll down to the 3/10/03 blog, then go back to the top 21/03/03 blog and follow the link to the salon.com piece on Dani Bunten Berry.
Then read this:
www.cornutopia.charitydays.co.uk/bytten/art003a.html
Indie and AAA games are parallel threads, not two points along the same spectrum. Or maybe what I'm thinking of should be called alternative gaming, not (necessarily) indie.
If ea.coms money would have gone into experimetal game titles, we might [have] our Citizen Kane already. -- Erik Simon
Some people blame big budgets for creating this risk aversion, but I don't buy that -- when did having and exercising imagination become so dangerous? People who lack imagination, just plain lack imagination -- the money's just there as a convenient excuse.
03/27/2003 (6:00 pm)
What I'm trying to point out really is that there is no AAA game industry, just a genre ghetto churning out a steady stream of formula games. And I think it's a critical point in our mental landscape, that indie development isn't just about filling the market space between freeware and the retail shelf with underfunded and understaffed titles marketed through the Internet, but could also be about exploring a gap above so-called 'AAA' titles with more intelligent and thoughtful and fun games.Here's a link lifted from Jeff Tunnell's .plan: www.costik.com/weblog/. Scroll down to the 3/10/03 blog, then go back to the top 21/03/03 blog and follow the link to the salon.com piece on Dani Bunten Berry.
Then read this:
www.cornutopia.charitydays.co.uk/bytten/art003a.html
Indie and AAA games are parallel threads, not two points along the same spectrum. Or maybe what I'm thinking of should be called alternative gaming, not (necessarily) indie.
If ea.coms money would have gone into experimetal game titles, we might [have] our Citizen Kane already. -- Erik Simon
Some people blame big budgets for creating this risk aversion, but I don't buy that -- when did having and exercising imagination become so dangerous? People who lack imagination, just plain lack imagination -- the money's just there as a convenient excuse.
#15
First off, I've been playing Anarchy Online for almost 2 years. I still remembered the horrible pathing which made the pet dependent characters almost unusable (now fixed). The one shot kills by Agent characters and the nerfing (crippling) after the "witch hunt". The then useless fixer character class which is now a very formidable PvP opponent with its Heal Over Time capabilities (I have a Fixer character and suffice to say that it can take on any same level Soldier character head to head on a PvP combat). What I really mean is that the game has evolved over the years and I believe that it has became better. :D
Still, lately, I have been feeling restless with AO and had it not been for the Guild that I'm in ... I believe I may have left a few months back.
I believe that the restlessness is not specific to AO. This last few months, I have been evaluating games (I think Ive downloaded gigabytes of demo games lately) which led me to aggree with the term "Pulp Games". You wouldn't believe how many horribly mutilated games are out there being sold as "AAA" titles. :(
My wife, who's into RPG games ... bought a PS2 last December and after 15 titles we found out that its happening to in the console market. Btw, for her, the only game worth mentioning is Baldur's Gate - Dark Alliance for the PS2.
Pulp Games actually makes me sad. I still remembered the first game I actually finished, The Dark Heart of Uukrul by Brotherbound. Compared to the visual effect to what we have right now ... even to a Pocket PC game ... its no comparison. But the gameplay. Wow. The gameplay. It actually took me 2 years to finish it. I remember starting it on my 2nd year in college and finishing it the summer before my 4th year. Besides the game The Longest Journey, Planescape: Torment and the Baldur's Gate series ... I believe I haven't encountered a graphical game comparable to its complexity and storyline. (NOTE: I also liked the Liesure Suit Larry but thats another topic alltogether).
I'm thankfull that I've read Pat's review of ShadowBane. It save me some money and some awkward explaning to my AO guild mates. :D
Alex
03/30/2003 (2:51 am)
(NOTE: This is just a rant ... read only if you have the patience)First off, I've been playing Anarchy Online for almost 2 years. I still remembered the horrible pathing which made the pet dependent characters almost unusable (now fixed). The one shot kills by Agent characters and the nerfing (crippling) after the "witch hunt". The then useless fixer character class which is now a very formidable PvP opponent with its Heal Over Time capabilities (I have a Fixer character and suffice to say that it can take on any same level Soldier character head to head on a PvP combat). What I really mean is that the game has evolved over the years and I believe that it has became better. :D
Still, lately, I have been feeling restless with AO and had it not been for the Guild that I'm in ... I believe I may have left a few months back.
I believe that the restlessness is not specific to AO. This last few months, I have been evaluating games (I think Ive downloaded gigabytes of demo games lately) which led me to aggree with the term "Pulp Games". You wouldn't believe how many horribly mutilated games are out there being sold as "AAA" titles. :(
My wife, who's into RPG games ... bought a PS2 last December and after 15 titles we found out that its happening to in the console market. Btw, for her, the only game worth mentioning is Baldur's Gate - Dark Alliance for the PS2.
Pulp Games actually makes me sad. I still remembered the first game I actually finished, The Dark Heart of Uukrul by Brotherbound. Compared to the visual effect to what we have right now ... even to a Pocket PC game ... its no comparison. But the gameplay. Wow. The gameplay. It actually took me 2 years to finish it. I remember starting it on my 2nd year in college and finishing it the summer before my 4th year. Besides the game The Longest Journey, Planescape: Torment and the Baldur's Gate series ... I believe I haven't encountered a graphical game comparable to its complexity and storyline. (NOTE: I also liked the Liesure Suit Larry but thats another topic alltogether
I'm thankfull that I've read Pat's review of ShadowBane. It save me some money and some awkward explaning to my AO guild mates. :D
Alex
#16
Publishers work solely on sales figures. They have absolutely NO interest in producing "good" games. The bottom line is the bottom line for them.
So whats happened is that because development costs have skyrocketed, its meant that dev studio's can no longer fund the development themselves (to then take to a publisher), which means that essentially the developer is taken out of the decision making loop. So whats left? essentially sales/marketing and accountants.
Why would anyone expect those guys to think outside whatever "sold X units" last month?
In the end, the industry itself is imploding, sooner or later it will reach critical mass and explode again (probably using a different model of delivery or funding) and grow. Or so i hope.
Youre right in that indie games CAN think outside the box, but it does take some knowledge of what the box is. Most people simply want to make "product X but with feature Y".
All i can say, is that its just the way it is right now, and those of us who CAN do something different WILL (admittedly, right now I'm not, but Ive got enough designs backed up to last me at least 5 years, and a few of those ARE truly ground-breaking from an idea perspective at least).
Phil.
03/30/2003 (4:55 am)
Brad: sad to say that budgets ARE a big factor in the stagnation of games. Essentially development right now is publisher-led. Which means publishers get to choose which games DO and DO NOT get made.Publishers work solely on sales figures. They have absolutely NO interest in producing "good" games. The bottom line is the bottom line for them.
So whats happened is that because development costs have skyrocketed, its meant that dev studio's can no longer fund the development themselves (to then take to a publisher), which means that essentially the developer is taken out of the decision making loop. So whats left? essentially sales/marketing and accountants.
Why would anyone expect those guys to think outside whatever "sold X units" last month?
In the end, the industry itself is imploding, sooner or later it will reach critical mass and explode again (probably using a different model of delivery or funding) and grow. Or so i hope.
Youre right in that indie games CAN think outside the box, but it does take some knowledge of what the box is. Most people simply want to make "product X but with feature Y".
All i can say, is that its just the way it is right now, and those of us who CAN do something different WILL (admittedly, right now I'm not, but Ive got enough designs backed up to last me at least 5 years, and a few of those ARE truly ground-breaking from an idea perspective at least).
Phil.
#17
Given that all publishers have elected to compete in the same confined space, the pulp gaming industry has to compete on factors other than originality, and apparently they've elected to compete on technical flash. But that presents a problem of diminishing returns, as it requires more effort to implement even incremental improvements in each successive title, and in fact results in silly episodes where a boatload of technical tricks gets crammed into a game for no apparent purpose and actually manages to hurt the gameplay (thinking UT2003 here). It's not that technical sophistication is incompatible with ideas and vision, it's that it appears from the stale potboiler games with laughable B-movie plotting and characterization, that the technology is expected to carry the title. Publishers put themselves in the position where the only way to compete was cranking up the budget.
I also don't want to sound like I'm berating indies to become avant-garde hipsters sporting berets and sitting around Internet cafes drinking lattes and pounding out games on a Linux-powered notebook. Hence 'alternative', where alternative does not necessarily mean indie, but seems to right now because of the state of the pulp publishing industry. There's a pretty big universe outside the boundaries of box retail, waiting to be explored (which is an encouraging thought). Springboards like GG & Torque can serve a multitude of uses.
But I stick by my original premise -- budgets and imagination are not mutually exclusive. As you say, the industry is imploding, or as I'd put it, the industry is in (maybe the tail end of) a contraction phase, where companies are consolidating, smaller outfits either disappear or are ingested into larger concerns, and variety suffers. And hopefully it will, in your words, "reach critical mass and explode", or as Costikyan says "Something is going to blow," or as I would say (using less graphic terms) the game industry is ripe for an expansion phase.
(BTW I've been blogging some of this at fragball.com/b2, mostly because this thread's theme got split across two Web sites for me.)
ObEdit: Because there's no preview function on this forum software.
03/30/2003 (8:34 am)
Economics doesn't explain why each game tries to compete for the same narrow sliver of pie. This is a medium where variety should be a strong selling point, where creating a new category, a new 'brand' or franchise should be lucrative. Putting yet another FPS/RTS/RPG on the shelves to compete with every other nearly identical FPS/RTS/RPG seems counterproductive. That the whole retail industry can be summed up by a string of three letter acronyms is in itself an indictment (except for sports titles, where it's redundant because the subject matter is already a TLA: NBA, NFL, NHL, etc.).Given that all publishers have elected to compete in the same confined space, the pulp gaming industry has to compete on factors other than originality, and apparently they've elected to compete on technical flash. But that presents a problem of diminishing returns, as it requires more effort to implement even incremental improvements in each successive title, and in fact results in silly episodes where a boatload of technical tricks gets crammed into a game for no apparent purpose and actually manages to hurt the gameplay (thinking UT2003 here). It's not that technical sophistication is incompatible with ideas and vision, it's that it appears from the stale potboiler games with laughable B-movie plotting and characterization, that the technology is expected to carry the title. Publishers put themselves in the position where the only way to compete was cranking up the budget.
I also don't want to sound like I'm berating indies to become avant-garde hipsters sporting berets and sitting around Internet cafes drinking lattes and pounding out games on a Linux-powered notebook. Hence 'alternative', where alternative does not necessarily mean indie, but seems to right now because of the state of the pulp publishing industry. There's a pretty big universe outside the boundaries of box retail, waiting to be explored (which is an encouraging thought). Springboards like GG & Torque can serve a multitude of uses.
But I stick by my original premise -- budgets and imagination are not mutually exclusive. As you say, the industry is imploding, or as I'd put it, the industry is in (maybe the tail end of) a contraction phase, where companies are consolidating, smaller outfits either disappear or are ingested into larger concerns, and variety suffers. And hopefully it will, in your words, "reach critical mass and explode", or as Costikyan says "Something is going to blow," or as I would say (using less graphic terms) the game industry is ripe for an expansion phase.
(BTW I've been blogging some of this at fragball.com/b2, mostly because this thread's theme got split across two Web sites for me.)
ObEdit: Because there's no preview function on this forum software.
#18
BWAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!
- Chris
03/30/2003 (8:56 am)
Just more proof to feed the fire that will burn my game designs into utter domination upon their release unto the world!BWAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!
- Chris
#19
A lot of games out there are just plain crap and I don't look at more than two or three boxes on the shelf seriously enough to consider buying them. Not that my taste in games is so great, but I just feel that a lot of these games are just like the other. Over the years, it seems that there's a lot of "me-too"ism that's permiated the gaming industry, which has lead to this situation.
The thing is, that's also why they don't make as much money on their games, having to compete with 100 other like-minded titles. And that is also why the publishers make budgets an issue, with so many games falling far short of what they were supposedly sold to be in the marketing conference room.
It's basically turning into a viscious cycle where one good game comes out, 1000000000-shitty ones follow and flop, and then the publishers swear off "radical" new games, choosing to stick with the tried and true game methods that have ironically been putting them into the very corner they're trying to get out of.
The problem isn't even that the games are crappy, it's that they're sold by marketing at the greatest thing in the universe, and the *stupid* magazine reviews(and some web reviews) push this further with dishonest reviewing. They'll pump up any game while it's being developed because they don't want the development to stop, or be responsible for it, but then they'll rip it to shreds when it's out on the market.
Really, why bother doing that? Do dev teams say "Geez, this magazine didn't like the premise of our game, we should stop!" If they think like that, then they're wrong, and if the magazines think like that, then they're wrong. What I think is that the magazines think like that because the publishers may actually think like that. But I could be the one that's wrong here ;)
03/30/2003 (9:19 am)
I have to back Brad up on the imagination stagnation of this entire generation of simulation computations =DA lot of games out there are just plain crap and I don't look at more than two or three boxes on the shelf seriously enough to consider buying them. Not that my taste in games is so great, but I just feel that a lot of these games are just like the other. Over the years, it seems that there's a lot of "me-too"ism that's permiated the gaming industry, which has lead to this situation.
The thing is, that's also why they don't make as much money on their games, having to compete with 100 other like-minded titles. And that is also why the publishers make budgets an issue, with so many games falling far short of what they were supposedly sold to be in the marketing conference room.
It's basically turning into a viscious cycle where one good game comes out, 1000000000-shitty ones follow and flop, and then the publishers swear off "radical" new games, choosing to stick with the tried and true game methods that have ironically been putting them into the very corner they're trying to get out of.
The problem isn't even that the games are crappy, it's that they're sold by marketing at the greatest thing in the universe, and the *stupid* magazine reviews(and some web reviews) push this further with dishonest reviewing. They'll pump up any game while it's being developed because they don't want the development to stop, or be responsible for it, but then they'll rip it to shreds when it's out on the market.
Really, why bother doing that? Do dev teams say "Geez, this magazine didn't like the premise of our game, we should stop!" If they think like that, then they're wrong, and if the magazines think like that, then they're wrong. What I think is that the magazines think like that because the publishers may actually think like that. But I could be the one that's wrong here ;)
#20
Doom/Doom2 - Lots of firsts for this one: first first-person shooter, first game where you could compete against others over a network, first game that was user-editable (a big factor in expanding the life of any game). Plus, it was a fun single player game.
Quake - The first truly 3D game engine, as opposed to the psuedo-3d accomplished in Doom. Quake itself wasn't that great a single-player game, but where Quake took off was the free-for-all internet play which it pioneered. No more were people restricted to setting up a home network to play against each other, or figure out cryptic modem strings to be able to play. Connect to a TCP/IP server and frag away (and there were 100s of servers to choose from). Add the editability of Doom to this and you had a killer combination.
Ultima Online - the first MMORPG, had lots of problems with cheaters, etc., but it broke the way for Everquest who refined the art and made it vastly more popular and highly profitable. People still play UO nowadays on private shards and Everquest is still going strong. Numerous competitors have popped up here and there, but nobody has dethroned EQ as overall champ, even after 4 years.
Each of these games was followed by numerous clones and ripoffs, who quickly gathered dust on players' shelves. What they lacked was originality and gameplay. Why should someone play Asheron's Call when all their friends are in EQ?
What this industry needs now is another bold new idea that will shake things up again. So many games nowadays are simply eye candy improvements that the vast majority of players can't run without doing major upgrades. Some recent flops include Unreal2, MOO3, Shadowbane, etc. These games looked good for the most part, but higher system demands and overall lack of good game play made them not take off.
A good recent example of an innovative game was "I Was an Atomic Mutant" which Joshua Ritter (from this board :) had a hand in. It's got an original concept, great gameplay and best of all, it's fun! True it was a small game, but I hope it does well, just because it was something original.
Let's hope there are other original concepts out there on the horizon :)
03/30/2003 (10:14 am)
The thing is, a truly imaginative game will sell. Look at some of the best selling games in the past 10-15 years:Doom/Doom2 - Lots of firsts for this one: first first-person shooter, first game where you could compete against others over a network, first game that was user-editable (a big factor in expanding the life of any game). Plus, it was a fun single player game.
Quake - The first truly 3D game engine, as opposed to the psuedo-3d accomplished in Doom. Quake itself wasn't that great a single-player game, but where Quake took off was the free-for-all internet play which it pioneered. No more were people restricted to setting up a home network to play against each other, or figure out cryptic modem strings to be able to play. Connect to a TCP/IP server and frag away (and there were 100s of servers to choose from). Add the editability of Doom to this and you had a killer combination.
Ultima Online - the first MMORPG, had lots of problems with cheaters, etc., but it broke the way for Everquest who refined the art and made it vastly more popular and highly profitable. People still play UO nowadays on private shards and Everquest is still going strong. Numerous competitors have popped up here and there, but nobody has dethroned EQ as overall champ, even after 4 years.
Each of these games was followed by numerous clones and ripoffs, who quickly gathered dust on players' shelves. What they lacked was originality and gameplay. Why should someone play Asheron's Call when all their friends are in EQ?
What this industry needs now is another bold new idea that will shake things up again. So many games nowadays are simply eye candy improvements that the vast majority of players can't run without doing major upgrades. Some recent flops include Unreal2, MOO3, Shadowbane, etc. These games looked good for the most part, but higher system demands and overall lack of good game play made them not take off.
A good recent example of an innovative game was "I Was an Atomic Mutant" which Joshua Ritter (from this board :) had a hand in. It's got an original concept, great gameplay and best of all, it's fun! True it was a small game, but I hope it does well, just because it was something original.
Let's hope there are other original concepts out there on the horizon :)
Torque Owner James \"Corvidae\" Williams