Editorial Jeff Vogel on innovation in indie games at RPGVault

[Jason]

Do the BOE and BOA mods work with the demo versions or only the full games?

 

[LCJr.]

Sounds to me like he's trying justify cranking out the same old shit over and over.

 

[Psilon]

Do the BOE and BOA mods work with the demo versions or only the full games?

Full version only.

Sounds to me like he's trying justify cranking out the same old shit over and over.

To an extent, yes. Honestly, the man's not that great of a programmer. Look at the BoA editor source for an example. Sure, it's the evolution of homebrew internal editing software, but it's still bloody awful.

 

[Slylandro]

I think what Vogel says is just the plain unabashed truth. Still, this doesn't (and shouldn't) really have anything to do with his series, which doesn't need innovation as much as it needs actual improvement, and not in graphics either-- his whole formulation of what an RPG is like is getting repetitive I think. I played through all of the Avernum series and now get nauseous whenever I touch Geneforge, different story, same structure... I think adding in actual new features like interactive party members, more dialogue, a more sophisticated combat system, maybe some more magic/abilities, etc would do wonders...

 

[bryce777]

I think what Vogel says is just the plain unabashed truth. Still, this doesn't (and shouldn't) really have anything to do with his series, which doesn't need innovation as much as it needs actual improvement, and not in graphics either-- his whole formulation of what an RPG is like is getting repetitive I think. I played through all of the Avernum series and now get nauseous whenever I touch Geneforge, different story, same structure... I think adding in actual new features like interactive party members, more dialogue, a more sophisticated combat system, maybe some more magic/abilities, etc would do wonders...

What annoys me is he does no work on the game system itself in geneforge, which is unbalanced to a glaring degree and would be very simple to rework.

He has just let that fucker rot.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Mount & Blade.

 

[JanC]

Is Jeff Vogel some kind of a sacred cow around here? You guys don't normally have a problem with mocking a foolish statement. He just insulted his entire industry just to get a little publicity. If Bioware put out a statement saying the same thing, I think there would have been a little more reaction around here!

So what if most indie games are crummy Bejeweled clones. Most PC games are brain-dead Doom clones. Most console games are tedious driving clones. Newsflash: 90% of everything is crap, as the great Sturgeon said. 90% of everything is also a clone of what went before.

There are some great, original indie games. Because they are indie, the marketing budgets are small to non-existent. So you have to do some digging. Yeah, Gish is famous, but there is more to the indie/casual scene.

Spend a while poking around the casual game review site http://jayisgames.com/ to see for yourself. Not all of them are innovative, and not all of them are fun, but well, about 10% are really cool. And free.

Also go to http://games.slashdot.org/games/06/03/03/167234.shtml

This has more of Vogel's comments near the end. He says people who like Indie games are 'emotionally invested' - the classic cynic's response to anyone disagreeing with them. Yawn. No-one here is emotionally invested in his games, right?

I am certainly emotionally invested in the games I like. I've spent tons of money on RPGs over the years. But when it comes down to it, what do I always keep coming back to? Nethack and ADOM. I love 'em to bits. Roguelikes to be sure, but Nethack has had innovative gameplay elements for over 10 years that the major companies still cannot match, and ADOM is more addictive than crack.

Long live indie games!

 

[bryce777]

Somehow I have never played a roguelike. I guess I should bite the bullet and equip the ring.

I don't think he is a sacred cow here; people are just apathetic. If he had 80 idiotic interviews a day like pete hines eventually people would get pretty irritated, but he still isn't as lame as just one idiotic oblivion asskiss fest.

 

[Naked_Lunch]

Somehow I have never played a roguelike. I guess I should bite the bullet and equip the ring.

Oh man, you are totally missing out.

Play Gearhead (graphical version) first, it's probably one of the easiest roguelikes to get into, plus it kicks serious ass.

 

[Elwro]

Somehow I have never played a roguelike.

I recommend ADOM, one of the best games I've ever played... and it's free, of course.

 

[Trash]

Avernum 4 manages to breathe some new air into the old setting and is a great game to booth. For me Vogel has done it again, though I still would love to see him make a new original world.

 

[spacemoose]

Avernum 4 manages to breathe some new air into the old setting and is a great game to booth.

Disagree. Avernum 4 is a fart in a phone booth

 

[LlamaGod]

Vogel is innovative, he is just being lazy.

He tries to tell us there is no innovation and he's the one who made Nethergate, ALRIGHT SURE.


Someone brought up the point that Vogel has gone bad since he took up making games as his only job, maybe thats where the innovation went.

He's too scared to innovate since it could mean less sales. But that's kinda opposite of what usually indie games are for.

 

[FrancoTAU]

I'm not even asking him to reinvent the wheel. Just give me more Ultima clones in a different engine every once in awhile and i'll keep throwing him 25 bucks a year.

 

[Atrokkus]

Only the people under control of a big corporation (with the corporate resources and paychecks that come with it) have the freedom to make something new. Not being afraid of starvation does wonders for the mind.

A crude generalization, and it's kind of hard for me to agree with it. Though money is perhaps the most stable moving force of the development, but still it is possible to eliminate, at least partially, the financial aspect. How? Well, don't make money on games, that's how. Make money working somewhere, being a CEO, designer at a large company, and do games in your spare time. That's exactly what VD does, for instnace, and, well, it's up to him to say if it's working or not, and it's up to us to see if the results are worth it or not.

Of course, time is a real problem here. Takes a lot of motivation and management, and hell, I really admire those who could combine such different activities and excell in everything at once.

Enthusiasm tends to fade out, even if the project is really exciting. That's the second problem, or perhaps even the first problem here. I have experienced that myself, when I led the KOTOR rusification project (i'm still doing it, lil by lil). First, there was a huge wave of translators brimming with enthusiasm. However, 85% of them proved to be totally unreliable, not finishing even a single chunk of text, and disappearing from the horizon forever. Definately, it's also my mistake, because I could assemble a more stalbe and fixed team of trusted people, but even then there would be similar problems.
Definately, if I would pay them for their work, it would give them a very big incentive to chop-chop and actually get the job done, at least once.


Enthusiasm-based projects are doomed for the most part, but still there is a portion of those lucky projects that actually make it to the release date. I really hope there would be more of those.

But Spiderweb? I don't really consider it really indie, and Vogel actually proved that with his words.

 

[bryce777]

Thanks for the recommendations. They are definitely on my list, though I am otherwise occupied with games already....

 

[FrancoTAU]

Why would big corporations bring in teh inn0vati0n for games when they've failed to do it for any other medium in the entertainment world? I love big public corporations, they're very efficient in most ways but they're the worst fucking thing to ever happen to movies, music, TV, Games, etc.