Preview GPG's Chris Taylor about to drag action RPGs into the future

[Monolith]

Tags: Gas Powered Games; Space Siege

...or "How could I justify my fucked up design philosophy?". If you want to read up on what Chris Taylor's design philosophy is and what <a href=http://www.spacesiege.com>Space Siege</a> will be like, head to Eurogamer's extensive <a href=http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=87124>preview</a> of said game.
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<blockquote>Other aspects of the action RPG genre fall by the wayside like confetti as Taylor explains Space Siege to us. The game eschews the concept of experience points in favour of the aforementioned cybernetic upgrades; Taylor dismisses the experience system as "old school".</blockquote>Welcome to the future, baby! Confusing numbers are out, we have cybernetic upgrades!!
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<blockquote>Game Over screens, too, are "old school". Instead, the game will sport regular health stations scattered throughout the levels, and when you die, you respawn at the last station you visited. Sound familiar? Taylor makes no bones about the similarity with Bioshock's Vita Chambers - a lot of Gas Powered's decisions, he says, were confirmed by Bioshock's popularity.</blockquote>Thanks Bioshock. No, honestly. I fear of what Chris would have come up with if Bioshock wasn't so popular...
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<blockquote>Indeed, there's a feeling that Taylor has had something of a Road to Damascus experience - and Space Siege is the result. He's open and honest about his belief that the hardcore market for games is diminishing, and believes that what consumers want now is a fun "interactive entertainment" experience, rather than a traditional "videogame".</blockquote>I prefer fun "videogames" to untraditional "interactive entertainment" experiences.
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Chris really seems determined to make games for bots. Greedy bastard probably wants to get rid of paying for all those testers.
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Thanks, chaedwards

 

[Chefe]

hello world

 

[JarlFrank]

God, DS was the most boring piece of shit EVER.

Why are they allowing him to still make RPGs?

On a sidenote, the movie looks fucking hilarious.

I wonder why Uwe Boll needs the DS license for that thing, as the movie basically has nothing to do with the game at all and could be set in *any* fantasy setting.

Also, fans of the game won't watch the movie when they see the name Uwe Boll written under it. He's that bad.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Re: GPG's Chris Taylor about to drag action RPGs into the fu

<blockquote>Other aspects of the action RPG genre fall by the wayside like confetti as Taylor explains Space Siege to us. The game eschews the concept of experience points in favour of the aforementioned cybernetic upgrades; Taylor dismisses the experience system as "old school".</blockquote>Welcome to the future, baby! Confusing numbers are out, we have cybernetic upgrades!!

experience paired with generic levels or classes is an overdone concept, and not a very good one.
awarding a form of currency which is either applied to abilities directly, or used to buy those is a better idea imo, especially when it is paired with a system that allows for more than just a linear increment of skills (one of the holy grails of pnp).
calling it cybernetic upgrades is just a matter of semantics.

 

[Morbus]

God, DS was the most boring piece of shit EVER.

No shit?

DS2 was bearable, I think. At least it had interesting monsters and gory fights and interesting (and relatively well designed) levels and landscapes. Dungeons were not very large either, whihc I think is a good think, even though the game is called Dungeon Siege.

Anyway, let the moron sink in his own shit...

 

[dragonfk]

God, DS was the most boring piece of shit EVER.

No shit?

DS2 was bearable, I think. At least it had interesting monsters and gory fights and interesting (and relatively well designed) levels and landscapes. Dungeons were not very large either, whihc I think is a good think, even though the game is called Dungeon Siege.

Anyway, let the moron sink in his own shit...

And what with Dungeon Siege 1 + addon, is it worthwhile? I am considering acquiring DS1 because of the Lazarus project.

 

[Chefe]

hello world

 

[JarlFrank]

God, DS was the most boring piece of shit EVER.

No shit?

DS2 was bearable, I think. At least it had interesting monsters and gory fights and interesting (and relatively well designed) levels and landscapes. Dungeons were not very large either, whihc I think is a good think, even though the game is called Dungeon Siege.

Anyway, let the moron sink in his own shit...

And what with Dungeon Siege 1 + addon, is it worthwhile? I am considering acquiring DS1 because of the Lazarus project.

I don't know if DS is worth it for you, I had some fun with it, but it's basically just a completely linear dungeon romp without any substance.

Lazarus, on the other hand... well, that's completely different. It's worth getting the game for that mod alone.

 

[Saxon1974]

God, DS was the most boring piece of shit EVER.

No shit?

DS2 was bearable, I think. At least it had interesting monsters and gory fights and interesting (and relatively well designed) levels and landscapes. Dungeons were not very large either, whihc I think is a good think, even though the game is called Dungeon Siege.

Anyway, let the moron sink in his own shit...

And what with Dungeon Siege 1 + addon, is it worthwhile? I am considering acquiring DS1 because of the Lazarus project.

Dungeon siege bored me to tears, but Lazarus was great and well worth the purchase of DS 1, which you can probably get for less then 10$ on ebay.

 

[Monolith]

Re: GPG's Chris Taylor about to drag action RPGs into the fu

experience paired with generic levels or classes is an overdone concept, and not a very good one.
awarding a form of currency which is either applied to abilities directly, or used to buy those is a better idea imo, especially when it is paired with a system that allows for more than just a linear increment of skills (one of the holy grails of pnp).
calling it cybernetic upgrades is just a matter of semantics.

I don't see why the experience point system is supposed to be overdone - it works pretty well if the implementation is good. While I might be in for something new, I don't see anything new about his concept - except the cool name, and that's where the semantics come in. It surely doesn't justify calling a concept he decided against "old skool". He's doing it to be the cool kid on the block, hoping all the kiddies will follow him because "cybernetic upgrades" sounds so much cooler than "experience points".

 

[Elwro]

Space Siege: Everyone's Favourite Screensaver goes SF

 

[SuicideBunny]

Re: GPG's Chris Taylor about to drag action RPGs into the fu

I don't see why the experience point system is supposed to be overdone - it works pretty well if the implementation is good.

the question being what makes a good implementation?
i'm no fan of classes or levels, while most implementations of anything named experience involve those very elements, and increasing experience is mostly done by killing stuff, which is pretty dumb.
it's not much of an issue, but personally i consider concepts like this, guild wars attributes and skills at lvl 20, or plasmids from bioshock potentially superior, though all those need some refining and maturing.

While I might be in for something new, I don't see anything new about his concept - except the cool name, and that's where the semantics come in. It surely doesn't justify calling a concept he decided against "old skool". He's doing it to be the cool kid on the block, hoping all the kiddies will follow him because "cybernetic upgrades" sounds so much cooler than "experience points".

sorry, misunderstood your sarcasm as an attack on the concept as such, not only tayler being a media whore, sub-par game designer, and space siege most likely ending up a boring, uninspired piece of shit.

 

[Nael]

Oi...

Watching the combat in that game it looks like an even worse version of KOTOR. At least this game is unlikely to be hyped.

 

[Cassidy]

Bioshock in Space... (With possibility of another Jack Bauer canned PR)

Really, I loved Total Annihilation multiplayer, but this...

Why won't he go back to the genre he specializes in? Why won't Chris Taylor make another good RTS rather than a crap Action "RPG"?... at least there is DropShip

 

[Riso]

Why won't he go back to the genre he specializes in? Why won't Chris Taylor make another good RTS rather than a crap Action "RPG"?

He just did you idiot. It's called Supreme Commander.

 

[Trash]

Both of the DS games felt empty, soulles and boring. Nothing but generic hackfests. I'm glad Chris Taylor has realised this and removed the last pesky bits of gameplay from this obviously vastly superior follow up.

at least there is DropShip

Is there? The site looks rather dead and the only info I found about it were some old interviews on the codex. I tried e-mailing them, but got no reply.

 

[MountainWest]

I emailed mccarthy yesterday and got an answer within a couple of hours. Damn fast. I posted the answer in "ongoing thread of...something". Anyway, he said Dropship was very much alive and that he would bring big news in the near future.

I'm just glad it's alive.

 

[vrok]

Why won't he go back to the genre he specializes in? Why won't Chris Taylor make another good RTS rather than a crap Action "RPG"?

He just did you idiot. It's called Supreme Commander.

Fail.

 

[Trash]

emailed mccarthy yesterday and got an answer within a couple of hours. Damn fast. I posted the answer in "ongoing thread of...something". Anyway, he said Dropship was very much alive and that he would bring big news in the near future.

I'm just glad it's alive.

Great news! Thanks for replying, I really had little to no hope left. I'll try and find the thread.

 

[MountainWest]

Heh, what I wrote was about it. Here's the message in its entierty:

It is definitely still alive… and big things are coming.



Hoping to have an update for everyone soon.



mccarthy

 

[Trash]

Cheers. Hope the codex can do an interview with the guy or something. The absolute silence made me fear the project died the silent death like a 1000 indy game dreams. Can't wait to learn more.

 

[stargelman]

God, DS was the most boring piece of shit EVER.

Why are they allowing him to still make RPGs?

Are they? I thought he made crappy hack&slash games :D

Oh wait. Sorry. I forgot. Roleplaying is when you play a role. Like in Doom.

 

[Ryuken]

Why won't he go back to the genre he specializes in? Why won't Chris Taylor make another good RTS rather than a crap Action "RPG"?

He just did you idiot. It's called Supreme Commander.

Fail.

You're right, it's a very good RTS, not 'just' a good one.

Space Siege doesn't sound that good, if you really need to compare your new action RPG to an overhyped shooter, what's the world coming to? Such a shame, a lot of people would love to see a proper Diablo-in-space.

 

[Elwro]

Doesn't sound as if it was way better than Space Hack, which could be mildly entertaining once you got it free with a magazine.