Gameplay Over Graphics...Honestly?

[ExMonk]

Morrowind is the one example that many here lift up as the shining example of great graphics and terrible gameplay that has some merit. But I still found myself playing it for nearly a year, off an on.

Just because you enjoyed the game doesn't mean the gameplay didn't suffer from the focus on graphics.

It is much more likely that the designers concept of what makes good gameplay was lacking from the beginning.

Is that some kinda secret that only a handful of chosen ones knows of? No. It doesn't take a scientist to figure out that good story = good, choices = good, different gameplay styles = good, tactics = good, etc. Creators of MW and OB had DF to look at - a shiny fucking example of good FP RPG design. All they needed was to play the fucking game and take some notes.

Are you serious? Not everyone spends virtually every waking moment thinking about what makes good gameplay, like you do. No, not even game companies such as Bethesda. What is crystal clear to you may not, and probably is not, clear to them. What are you saying, that Beth knows exactly what makes good gameplay, but refuses to implement it because they don't care about gameplay? How dramatic! "The sell-outs Bethesda could have implemented VD approved gameplay but all they cared about was graphics!" It is far more likely that Bethesda (as it exists now) isn't clear on what makes good gameplay. Did not MSFD at one point say that he comes to this site to learn what makes a good rpg? Or it is far more likely that their definition of what makes good gameplay differs from yours.

 

[aboyd]

Just buy the other company's engine and slap a new story into it!

Hmm, I guess you said that sarcastically, to bolster your point. But to me, that sounds pretty decent, if the engine is good. BG, BG2, IWD, IWD2, and even PS:T were to some extent all the "same engine" with different stories plugged in. NWN has thousands of modules which all use the same engine to tell different stories. The only problem I had with that was that I didn't particularly like the NWN engine. But the concept was fine.

So, to respond to your comment, yes, please, developers take note: if you find a good engine, one that has great gameplay, please do reuse it to tell different stories. I'm tired of developers reinventing the wheel, and badly.

-Tony

 

[Sarvis]

Hmm, I guess you said that sarcastically, to bolster your point. But to me, that sounds pretty decent, if the engine is good. BG, BG2, IWD, IWD2, and even PS:T were to some extent all the "same engine" with different stories plugged in.

And Planescape suffered for it.

NWN has thousands of modules which all use the same engine to tell different stories. The only problem I had with that was that I didn't particularly like the NWN engine. But the concept was fine.

True, but at a certain point you begin wanting something else. It's one thing to re-use an engine for sequels and such, but quite another for every company to try releasing the same engine with just a new story. Eventually you end up so bored of the gameplay that the story isn't enough motivation to keep playing.

So, to respond to your comment, yes, please, developers take note: if you find a good engine, one that has great gameplay, please do reuse it to tell different stories. I'm tired of developers reinventing the wheel, and badly.

-Tony

I'd much rather they keep re-inventing the wheel. Sure, a lot of the games may suck... but sometimes you get something infinitely better.

After all, the Gold Box games were great... so should all of todays games still use those engines?

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Hmm, I guess you said that sarcastically, to bolster your point. But to me, that sounds pretty decent, if the engine is good. BG, BG2, IWD, IWD2, and even PS:T were to some extent all the "same engine" with different stories plugged in.

And Planescape suffered for it.

I think what mainly hurt Planescape was how Black Isle used the Infinity Engine, not the engine itself. Of course, maybe they would have done things in a much different way if they had some other engine in their hands, but that's somewhat hard to believe considering they used the engine for a long time.

 

[Jora]

From what I have heard, one of the big problems Black Isle had was that they got the Infinity Engine from Bioware without any documentation at all and had no idea how it worked.

 

[kingcomrade]

Halo wasn't a corridor shooter, that's true, but it wasn't any less linear for it. And they made their huge environments by cutting and pasting previous level chunks and duct taping them together. A friend has an Xbox, I was playing coop with him recently, actually first time I've played either Halo on a SeXbox (we played through both), and a number of times I was going, "Haven't we been this way? I think we're going the wrong way, I've seen this before."

I was playing HL2 today. I actually like Quake 4 better, but up until the highway 17 area, the game is really fun. And the last few levels are pretty cool too. I have to take back what I said about the guns. The revolver and the shotgun are fun to use, but the rest of them kinda suck.

 

[Drakron]

Well I was adressing on how some shooters you simply cannot "sould I go left or right" because if the left is the intended path then right leads to a dead end.

Sure Halo is linear and re-uses a lot of maps and that is why I used Far Cry as a better example, once I had to take down a base and I found I had 4 ways to reach the base ... not that Far Cry does not end up on rails at points.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Morrowind is the one example that many here lift up as the shining example of great graphics and terrible gameplay that has some merit. But I still found myself playing it for nearly a year, off an on.

Just because you enjoyed the game doesn't mean the gameplay didn't suffer from the focus on graphics.

It is much more likely that the designers concept of what makes good gameplay was lacking from the beginning.

Is that some kinda secret that only a handful of chosen ones knows of? No. It doesn't take a scientist to figure out that good story = good, choices = good, different gameplay styles = good, tactics = good, etc. Creators of MW and OB had DF to look at - a shiny fucking example of good FP RPG design. All they needed was to play the fucking game and take some notes.

Are you serious? Not everyone spends virtually every waking moment thinking about what makes good gameplay, like you do. No, not even game companies such as Bethesda.

Wow! My turn to say "Are you serious?". Are you saying that game developers don't have time to think about good gameplay and what makes it? Now that's what I call professionalism! It all makes sense now.

What is crystal clear to you may not, and probably is not, clear to them. What are you saying, that Beth knows exactly what makes good gameplay, but refuses to implement it because they don't care about gameplay? How dramatic!

Not really. It's all about business. Here is a fact. MW sold a lot more than DF did. Beth almost went out of business after DF, Beth made millions with MW. Hmm, decisions, decisions...

"The sell-outs Bethesda could have implemented VD approved gameplay but all they cared about was graphics!"

Better than "Bethesda developers wanted to make a really good game, but were too stupid to figure out how"

It is far more likely that Bethesda (as it exists now) isn't clear on what makes good gameplay.

You missed my point with DF. They don't need to figure anything out, they need to look at DF; it's all there. Instead they keep removing features in a brave attempt to make a better game. Please.

Did not MSFD at one point say that he comes to this site to learn what makes a good rpg? Or it is far more likely that their definition of what makes good gameplay differs from yours.

Didn't he also say that he's a programmer, and as such he doesn't define or affect game design?

 

[ExMonk]

Wow! My turn to say "Are you serious?". Are you saying that game developers don't have time to think about good gameplay and what makes it? Now that's what I call professionalism! It all makes sense now.

Do you read carefully before you post? Try it sometime. Did I say that game developers don't have time to think about good gameplay and what makes it? No, I didn't. I did say that they may not understand what makes a good rpg gameplay, no matter how much time they spend. Many a company that is full of trained professionals do not know how to do this. Where did you get the idea that understanding and implementing good gameplay is as easy as riding a bike? If it was as easy as you think it is, we would see many more good games.

But you're right. Let's put the worst construction on Bethesda and other companies and paint them as greedy, shallow, sell outs. And you know this how? You visited Beth's headquarters when? You have had in depth conversations with Beth devs when? You are extrapolating from the end result. You are ASSUMING that because features were cut from Daggerfall for Morrowind that it was because of greed. But you do not know this. But, the all-knowing VD, with his amazing extrapolotory skills thinks he knows all this from (a) the way Morrowind turned out and (b) from all the previews and interviews on Oblivion that he has read. That enables him to judge people's motives. Come on, VD! Let me also remind you that when Beth made Morrowind, they had no idea it was going to sell well. They made the game they wanted to make. They had no assurance that by "cutting" features that were in Daggerfall that it would cause Morrowind to do well.

Right. right. MSFD is a programmer and as such is completely isolated from the game design. Right. The designers at Beth all intimately know what good gameplay is. But the programmers are robotic drones who never, ever are involved in gameplay design. Again, you know this how?

But none of this will make a dent because what drives you is that in your mind YOU unlike OTHER people, don't suck up to game companies. You CRITICIZE them, which is FAR, FAR more noble than defending said companies. That makes you objective and independent. You're not like the millions of game buying sycophants. Not VD. No way. Not him.

 

[aboyd]

It's one thing to re-use an engine for sequels and such, but quite another for every company to try releasing the same engine with just a new story. Eventually you end up so bored of the gameplay that the story isn't enough motivation to keep playing.

Agreed. That's why I cited the BG/IWD/PS:T series of games. I wasn't arguing that every game in the world use one engine. But there are examples of a decent engine spawning of a handful of new games. That's an excellent example to follow. I believe that the NWN/KotOR/Witcher games (maybe Dragon Age too) all use the same engine, although it has been greatly extended over the course of its lifetime (much like Infinity). While I didn't like NWN and only kinda liked KotOR, the incremental improvements are a more successful model than scrapping it and trying again. If they started from scratch and said, "it's better than Aurora, but we're back at square 1" I'd probably not be interested in the upcoming games. Engines can be extended, they have a lifespan. And enhancing a known-successful engine can be very wise.

I know a lot of the crew here would have loved to see Against The Giants implemented by Troika, using the ToEE engine. The developers wanted to do it. Even though I just ranted against turn-based games elsewhere on the Codex, I have to admit that if Troika had been given time to build out the engine more and create a new story with it, I may very well have bought it. I certainly followed it closely. I certainly was excited about the prospect. I even wrote to the company and told them the 2 tweaks I'd need to make it worth buying.

After all, the Gold Box games were great... so should all of todays games still use those engines?

I think, earlier in this topic, someone mentioned that you tend to take comments so literally that people have to post paragraphs of extended details and examples for you to "get it" -- when it would be a whole lot easier if you just used some critical thinking in the first place. In this case, it should be obvious -- if nothing else, from the examples I cited -- that I was not advocating stasis, nor was I advocating one engine for every game on Earth. I do not propose that every game use the pong engine. I believe the Spiderweb games may have taken the model I advocate too far.

However, at the current time, I also feel that NWN->Witcher is a positive development, and Morrowind->Oblivion, not so much. In part, I feel that is due to one group building on known technology, while the other group built from scratch, or close to it. Who knows? Maybe The Witcher will suck and Oblivion will draw me in. All I know is that in an RPG, I'm more concerned about the story & gameplay, and less concerned about the uber-graphics. If enhancing a known-good engine will deliver known-good gameplay (or better), then I'm all for it, even if the graphics look 2003. Especially if it will let the team concentrate on creating excellent content.

-Tony

 

[Human Shield]

Interface.

Graphics can be lacking if the game has a good interface. Main reason I don't like playing rogue-likes, some older games like Wasteland, and most indie games is because of the crappy interface.

Graphic design.

Graphics can be lacking if the graphics the game has, has a cohesive and stylisted design. Like X-COM or Star Control.

Graphics that look stupid like outside-of-combat/dialog on Wasteland I can't get into.

 

[Lost Spline]

Interface.

Graphics can be lacking if the game has a good interface. Main reason I don't like playing rogue-likes, some older games like Wasteland, and most indie games is because of the crappy interface.

I agree completely. Without a good user interface design, the gameplay can't be good (imho).

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Graphics are very important to me, i mean i just spent a fortune upgrading my system for it. now...before you all pounce on me i'm not talking about the latest pixel shaders or fancy shadowing etc, i'm talking about art style that ..I..happen to like and that i think fits in.

For example alot of people i know took the piss out of the gothic series of games visuals for it's blocky models and lew res textures, but i think they're great personally, i like the armour and weapon style, i love the world design...plenty of hidey holes to check out in both games and i also like the colour palette of the world, especially in Gothic 1. The valley of mines is a shithole, and the visuals really helped to push that across.

Fallout is a game i think that has aged well, the low res does let it down though. The city builder series from impressions i think still look awesome, Pharaoh looks better than CotN in my opinion even though it's a newer game in 3d and with all sorts of fancy effects.

 

[Sarvis]

Agreed. That's why I cited the BG/IWD/PS:T series of games. I wasn't arguing that every game in the world use one engine. But there are examples of a decent engine spawning of a handful of new games. That's an excellent example to follow. I believe that the NWN/KotOR/Witcher games (maybe Dragon Age too) all use the same engine, although it has been greatly extended over the course of its lifetime (much like Infinity).

Nope.

KoTOR's engine was developed "alongside" NWN's engine. They look similar, but are not the same engine.

The Witcher did start with NWN's engine, but they basically stripped everything out of it. Not sure what parts they actually kept, probably just the rendering engine or something.

Dragon Age is going to be a completely new engine, and a new game system... no longer D&D! The thing is that since DA will allow full party control but kept realtime combat it's going to basically play like the IE games.

While I didn't like NWN and only kinda liked KotOR, the incremental improvements are a more successful model than scrapping it and trying again. If they started from scratch and said, "it's better than Aurora, but we're back at square 1" I'd probably not be interested in the upcoming games. Engines can be extended, they have a lifespan. And enhancing a known-successful engine can be very wise.

Well that's too bad, because that's exactly what they are doing with Dragon Age, and the Witcher has very little of the Aurora engine left.

I know a lot of the crew here would have loved to see Against The Giants implemented by Troika, using the ToEE engine.

That would be nice, but what would be even better is an NWN style toolset for the ToEE engine... *sigh*

I even wrote to the company and told them the 2 tweaks I'd need to make it worth buying.

Out of curiosity what were those?

I think, earlier in this topic, someone mentioned that you tend to take comments so literally that people have to post paragraphs of extended details and examples for you to "get it" -- when it would be a whole lot easier if you just used some critical thinking in the first place.

Yes, it's always nice when you can abdicate responsibility for poor writing isn't it? Forgive me for reading what you wrote, rather than what you thought you wrote.

In this case, it should be obvious -- if nothing else, from the examples I cited -- that I was not advocating stasis, nor was I advocating one engine for every game on Earth.

Umm... the examples you cited all used the same engine, with little change in gameplay. In fact you cited NWN, which has NO change in gameplay across it's thousands of modules!

However, at the current time, I also feel that NWN->Witcher is a positive development, and Morrowind->Oblivion, not so much.

The problem being that Morrowind->Oblivion will probably feature more similar gameplay than NWN->Witcher!

All I know is that in an RPG, I'm more concerned about the story & gameplay, and less concerned about the uber-graphics. If enhancing a known-good engine will deliver know-good gameplay (or better), then I'm all for it, even if the graphics look 2003. Especially if it will let the team concentrate on creating excellent content.

An interesting comment, considering you didn't like NWN's gameplay... so building on known-bad gameplay of NWN will make the Witcher good?


Another point though: It's not a problem for me when the same creative team revisits engines or gameplay. GTA, Gold Box games, Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy games all stick to the same basic gameplay. But how is it a good thing for some other company to re-use that instead of coming up with something new to add to gaming?

I'd like some innovation between my beloved sequels... that's how we get beloved sequels in the first place!

-Tony

Uh-oh... now you're gonna confuse Shagnak...

 

[Shagnak]

-Tony

Uh-oh... now you're gonna confuse Shagnak...

Hey!!

It was only because it was unusual for you.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Okay, elaborate. If not graphics, what then? Be specific. Take me through an Otaku game-purchasing experience. :D

First, I hardly ever buy a game without researching it first. This does not necessarily mean I wait until the games been out awhile and see reviews. I don't really listen to reviews. Mostly I'll base my purchase off the demo if one is available. Granted there have been games where the demo rocked and the actual game sucked, but it's a chance you take. If a demo is not available then I will read dev diaries and look for dev comments on forum boards. Then I will look into previews and see if it's going to be something I might enjoy.

And through all this, I do not take graphics into consideration. I look into the meat of the gameplay. Sometimes I will wait to purchase a game until I've had a chance to check it out through a friend, but that's not always an option since some genres they don't like I happen to. In those cases I usually buy the game and hope I didn't waste my money. Most of the time I've not been disappointed. Or at least not enough to really bother about it. There have been some real upsets in my life however.

Lionheart comes to mind.

 

[kingcomrade]

Granted there have been games where the demo rocked and the actual game sucked

coughcallofdutycough

 

[TheGreatGodPan]

To me, shiny graphics mean my computer won't be able to run it and I won't be buying it. Art direction is more important than tech to me (even disregarding the capabilities of a machine), but it is still very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very minor to me.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

There is no absolute standards for either graphics nor gameplay. There are those who love Fallouts "style" which I thought was just passable. Graphics are somewhat important to me in that they transport me to a different world, but also for the simple joy of seeing something asthetically beautiful, like a well rendered fantastic landscape.

Gameplay - I think the average Codexers idea of what makes good gameplay (or rather what is essential for it) differs quite a bit from mine, although there is a lot of overlap.

Essentially, excellence in one department can make me forgive some failures in the other, but I can only take so much in either department. For graphics that is more about style than technology, though - I think Ultima Underworld, or DF, still look great even today. While Avernum e.g. looks sucky although its made today... Atmosphere, style >> FPS, shader effects, and resolution

 

[aboyd]

The Witcher did start with NWN's engine, but they basically stripped everything out of it. Not sure what parts they actually kept, probably just the rendering engine or something.

Whether an engine sees minor changes (BG/IWD/PS:T) or heavy changes (NWN/Witcher) is fine with me. When a group of games leverage a pre-existing engine, they get advantages from that (assuming the engine is good enough). They may use the time they would have spent on the engine to add extra content, or to make the engine itself even better. They might take a working dialogue interface and enhance it (Witcher). They might enhance the existing dialogue-building toolset so that it's far easier and more sensible to build complex dialogue trees (NWN2).

I even wrote to the company and told them the 2 tweaks I'd need to make it worth buying.

Out of curiosity what were those?

I wanted the repeated actions, which I've ranted about elsewhere, and some triggers to auto-disable the repetition. So if I have a party of 2 fighters (for ease of the example) and they're set to swing at 1 giant, I want the option to have them keep swinging next round. But of course, since that can be dangerous (they keep swinging even though they're getting killed), some pause triggers to go with it.

I believe I even described an interface for it. When you set your action, an icon for that action would appear (similar to NWN), but with an unchecked box in the icon. If you checked it, it would signal to the game that, next round, that same action should be auto-set for my character. And then, if a trigger was fired, it would auto-uncheck that box and end the repeated task. It was supposed to be just an optional layer on top of the existing system to move things along if everything was going well.

In this case, it should be obvious -- if nothing else, from the examples I cited -- that I was not advocating stasis, nor was I advocating one engine for every game on Earth.

Umm... the examples you cited all used the same engine, with little change in gameplay. In fact you cited NWN, which has NO change in gameplay across it's thousands of modules!

NWN is not every game on Earth, has not become the default engine for the entire industry, and is not set to remain the default, unchanging engine for everything forever. Damn, man. Are you sure my writing is the problem here? Because it sure seems like your reading comprehension could use a swift kick in the ass.

An interesting comment, considering you didn't like NWN's gameplay... so building on known-bad gameplay of NWN will make the Witcher good?

ToEE and Fallout both had engines that, with just a couple tweaks, would have been manna from Heaven for me. As they stood, my best description of combat in either engine is "tedious." Does that mean they should scrap the whole thing and build a new engine? I don't think so. I would have preferred they enhance the engine, adding customer requests, and delivering a more robust level of play for the next release. In other words, known-good should perhaps be better stated as known-successful. In fact, I think I used that phrase elsewhere in the same post.

But how is it a good thing for some other company to re-use that instead of coming up with something new to add to gaming?

Are you telling me that in all the known cases of an engine being reused, you have not seen and cannot imagine any possible benefit?

Someone mentioned earlier in this topic that Planescape: Torment was worse off for using the Infinity Engine. However, that's just speculation -- we can't know for sure without having some divergent timelines that show the results of the team taking a different direction. So I'll posit a different hypothesis. Because the engine was built, the team was able to spend more time on the depth of the story. If the team had built something completely from scratch, who knows what sacrifices would have been made to the story? Who knows what kind of a distraction the engine might have been as the deadlines loomed? I personally am very happy with PS:T. I note that it made the Codex top 10 games of all time. Might it have been better without Infinity? Sure. But it also might have been much worse. And that's the opinion I'm trying to express, that's the belief I have. Reuse of a game engine -- in limited and sane amounts (which seemed obvious to me, but I guess not) -- strikes me as a good and useful way to get better games out the door.

-Tony

 

[theverybigslayer]

Graphics are more important!!!
A dogshit rendered by 1000000000000000000 billion polygon is a better game!

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Graphics are more important!!!
A dogshit rendered by 1000000000000000000 billion polygon is a better game!

Exactly - that's how Dungeon Lords had any units sold at all.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Do you read carefully before you post? Try it sometime

Yes, I did. Plz don't flame me!

Did I say that game developers don't have time to think about good gameplay and what makes it? No, I didn't. I did say that they may not understand what makes a good rpg gameplay, no matter how much time they spend.

Let's take a look at the original post:
"Not everyone spends virtually every waking moment thinking about what makes good gameplay, like you do"
So, you were saying?

Many a company that is full of trained professionals do not know how to do this. Where did you get the idea that understanding and implementing good gameplay is as easy as riding a bike? If it was as easy as you think it is, we would see many more good games.

First, it's easy, it's just not profitable sometimes. Second, hopefully, for the last time, they have Daggerfall to look at. So, even if they don't understand how to make a decent game from scratch, they don't have to - they have the bible, the manual, the "how to" guide for that type of RPGs they are trying to make. Do you get it now?

But you're right. Let's put the worst construction on Bethesda and other companies and paint them as greedy, shallow, sell outs.

They are a business. They make money. They make games to make money. Why does that come as a shock to you?

You are extrapolating from the end result. You are ASSUMING that because features were cut from Daggerfall for Morrowind that it was because of greed.

I didn't say that. MW was a different model from DF. The company tried to make a game that would feature incredible visuals, and they succeeded. Why? To sell more copies. Understandable. The price to pay was less content comparing to DF. Now that this winning formula of trading depth for visuals had worked splendidly, they are doing that again. Even more visuals, even less depth. What's not to understand?

But you do not know this. But, the all-knowing VD, with his amazing extrapolotory skills thinks he knows all this from (a) the way Morrowind turned out and (b) from all the previews and interviews on Oblivion that he has read. That enables him to judge people's motives.

A 5-year old would be able to judge these motives. I'm surprised you can't. Here is another question for you to practice them extrapolotory skills on: why do you think Bioware is focusing more on console games then on PC ones? Mystary!

Come on, VD! Let me also remind you that when Beth made Morrowind, they had no idea it was going to sell well.

Of course not, nobody knows that, but they bet on the visuals, and it paid off. It's not a secret to anyone that graphics is the area that's being praised the most in previews/reviews, and that focusing on that area would create that "holy fuck! will you look at that?!" effect.

They made the game they wanted to make.

True. They wanted to make a game that will sell a lot.

Right. right. MSFD is a programmer and as such is completely isolated from the game design. Right. The designers at Beth all intimately know what good gameplay is. But the programmers are robotic drones who never, ever are involved in gameplay design. Again, you know this how?

Common sense plus some quotes from MSFD. He's not a drone, but it's not his job. He may be the best game designer in the entire company but that's neither his job nor responsibility. I assume when he was hired, indepth understanding of RPG design wasn't a must have skill. Good programming skills were.

But none of this will make a dent because what drives you is that in your mind YOU unlike OTHER people, don't suck up to game companies.

Whoa! Looks like you have mad extrapolotory skills yourself. Quite a journey into my mind that was.

Now, the correct answer: I just don't think like that. I don't give a flying fuck whether I'm completely unlike other people or exactly fucking the same. That doesn't matter to me at all. I have some opinions and I discuss them with people. That's all. I don't suck up to nobody, but I do respect some game companies and game developers. I respected Troika for trying and actually making Arcanum - the game they wanted to make. I respect Dave Gaider and Steve Meister, for different reasons, etc. Never said a bad word about either of them. I respected old Blizzard for taking their time to release polished games (balance is another issue), not sure about both new Bliz and ex-Bliz. Remains to be seen. Etc

You CRITICIZE them, which is FAR, FAR more noble than defending said companies. That makes you objective and independent. You're not like the millions of game buying sycophants. Not VD. No way. Not him.

You know, you have issues. Really.

 

[ExMonk]

First, it's easy, it's just not profitable sometimes. Second, hopefully, for the last time, they have Daggerfall to look at. So, even if they don't understand how to make a decent game from scratch, they don't have to - they have the bible, the manual, the "how to" guide for that type of RPGs they are trying to make. Do you get it now?

The company tried to make a game that would feature incredible visuals, and they succeeded. Why? To sell more copies. Understandable. The price to pay was less content comparing to DF. Now that this winning formula of trading depth for visuals had worked splendidly, they are doing that again. Even more visuals, even less depth. What's not to understand?

It may be easy for you, but it is not easy for most, which should be self-evident from the games released. As for Beth, Daggerfall was not the game they wanted to make, so why would they view it as a holy benchmark? And why was Daggerfall not the game they wanted to make? Because of the superficial and cookie-cutter npc's and because of the randomly-generated nature of the game (npcs, dungeons, quests, environs). They wanted to create unique NPC's (ok, not a smashing success, but that was their goal), and they wanted to create a unique and handcrafted world, with unique quests and dungeons.( Perhaps you weren't visiting Beth's forums on a regular basis like I was in the two years leading up to Morrowind. If you were, you would recall that the devs repeatedly stated this). Now whether they succeeded in making the game they wanted it open to debate. But that is not my point here. My point is that iIt is simply not accurate to suggest that all they cared about in creating Morrowind was a game that was visually stunning. Of course, they were interested in improving upon the graphics in Daggerall. Who wouldn't? Their attitude at the time was, "Why do rpgs always have to be substandard graphically?" Did they improve the visuals so that the game would sell more copies? I'm sure they did. And there is nothing wrong with that. What you have yet to prove, is that they chose graphics over your notion of gameplay. As if Howard and company were sitting around in the early stages and saying, "We only have so much time and money. Should we focus mostly on good gameplay? Nah! Let's go for the spiffy and superficial graphics! Only the hardcore rpg losers will notice. And we'll sell lots of games and get really, really, rich." I see no reason to attribute less integrity to Bethesda than I do you.

 

[Chefe]

I agree, ExMonk. Paragraphs are for LOSERS!

 

[ExMonk]

I agree, ExMonk. Paragraphs are for LOSERS!

I've just been scolded by Chefe on formatting niceties. Do I win something?