The general decline of gaming

[Black Bart Charley]

Op is born in 1990. Op is a moron.

I was born before 1990, but...

Joined: 13 Jun 2010

...the real newfag is you. GTFO

Also, what the hell man. Balance isn't the holy grail of game design, and basically you claim that it's impossible to properly balance a deep and complex game. Also, you do know that AI capabilities have increased, right? If only any developer would actually spend some time on developing a proper AI, it'd be capable of posing a challenge even in the most complex kind of game.

Obviously, you never played a wargame.

AHAHAHHA

AAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH OLAWL

Go kill yourself. I'd rather argue with skyway about the validity of Russia's claim on Ukraine's soil than talk to you.

 

[Black Bart Charley]

But just because I cant control myself:

Balance is fucking GOD. Fucking everything. You are a disgusting storyfag and dumbass without a grain of structural thinking. Games are not for playing, they are for gaming. Elite individuals game. Mirrormatches are true gaming. From sports to computer games. BALANCE IS GOD. YOU are the reason gaming declined so much (according to you).

 

[JarlFrank]

Yep, you never did play a good wargame.

I know that what an AI can do is limited. There will inevitably be some features it won't fully grasp in a sufficiently complex game. For me, this isn't reason enough to completely remove the feature, though. I'd rather have a really complex game with a mediocre AI than a really simple one with perfect AI. The more complex the game is, the more fun it provides to me.

And if we're talking RPGs or shooters, I don't see how you could make them so complex that the AI wouldn't be able to use all the features relevant to successful combat. Please, do provide me with some examples.

 

[JarlFrank]

Yeah, because balance is absolutely needed in every genre ever.

Playing a weak faction in a good Total War mod is awesome. You have to struggle against overpowered enemies, and that is fun. In an RPG, total balance would be kinda boring, too, and, considering the principles of RPGs, completely unattainable unless you used an even more horrible level scaling system than Oblivion.

Chess is a fun game, but that doesn't mean every game has to be as finely balanced as chess. Lack of balance can be the exact reason for some games to be fun.

 

[Black Bart Charley]

I played more wargames that would fit in your small head.
You dont know shit about AI, its execution or capabilities because you are a lowly armchair general without an ounce of technical information and zero honor to look it up or do some research before posting your opinion pieces void of meaning. Just like that thread.

 

[Black Bart Charley]

Oh God. I knew that talking to social studies people is meaningless but I had too...

blabla ...balance... blabla

There is your lack of structural thinking. You dont understand what balance is, you... idontknow what to call you anymore.

 

[Jaesun]

Hey everyone, it's Black Bart Charley.

 

[Luzur]

someone is getting abit butthurt.

 

[ghostdog]

Moar like Butt Hurt Barkley, amirite ?

 

[Metro]

Hey everyone, it's Black Bart Charley.

 

[Destroid]

lol what? You're on rpgcodex, this rant isn't in the right place. I understand if you encounter people who have casual views on gaming in your bustling early-20s "I have nothing else to think about" social life, but this isn't ringing a bell here. Everyone is aware of this shit. Rpgs took the Hollywood route, same as music and movies. So what's your point? This kind of shit has been said for decades now ; sub-cultures that detatch themselves from the more accessible mainstream culture ; you'd be more profound if you'd attempt some kind of social commentary, but I assume this is too pretentious here, which is fine. But the lulzy part about video games is that nobody cares, because games aren't art. They are entertainment. They have no real value, at least they aren't perceived as such. Maybe games changed your life or something, but I don't give a shit, and no one else does either. No one will work hard and make sacrifice to create "deep games" like they would with proper art, because not only games are products that require intensive ressources, but also no one cares about making a product that comes down to crass escapism. There is no life message in video games, there is no perspective on reality, there is no philosophical statement. It's just entertainment. Entertainment does not require culture to grasp, it does not require efforts, it does not require investment ; entertainment is not born out of an aristocratic ideal, it's meant to entertain you - i.e. waste your time, give you a "reward" after work, etc. You are a little faggot in a rich country who doesn't have to work, that's nice, but stop crying, just find another hobby, like getting involved in politics or something. Your expectations are misplaced and confused

The rant is absolutely at home here. It's just as legitimate to rant about video games as it is to rant about film, tv, books, comics or any other entertainment medium. There's nothing innate about any of these mediums that makes their brow higher than the others. People have created works in all of them for the purposes of art, popamole and everything in between.



Your post lead me to this interesting bit of information:

Just like the games and mods developed by Valve at the time, Gunman Chronicles used WON Server technology for online multiplayer. However, after the official closing down of these servers on July 26, 2004, the game was never given an alternative method to play online, leaving its community in state of abandonment. Rewolf, the company behind the game, was dissolved and never released a patch to correct designing mistakes; Sierra closed its official forum and the game was never released on Steam. There is however a 3rd party port to steam, called Gunman to Steam Patch, which is still available for download and use.
As previously mentioned, unlike the popular Half-Life 1 mods, Gunman Chronicles has never been officially released on Steam. However, redeeming a Gunman Chronicles CD-key on Steam gives access to a "Half-Life Platinum Pack" that includes Half-Life 1 and several add-ons: Blue Shift, Half-Life Deathmatch, Opposing Force, Team Fortress Classic, Ricochet and Day of Defeat, but not Gunman Chronicles.

So much for trusting valve to patch all your games to work if steam shuts down.

 

[Topher]

I've never believed that valve would bother to do that if Steam ever shut down.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

So much for trusting valve to patch all your games to work if steam shuts down.

Yes, they all say that don't they?

 

[made]

Hate to side with the newfag alt but BBC is not only amusing but also correct in some points. OP suffers from selective memory or is idd a 90s kid. People tend to forget all the shit released back then. There is a word for that phenomenon.

 

[JarlFrank]

You guys all seem to miss the line where I say that I don't deny there was shit and cloning going on back then.

You also miss the point that the shit of today is worse than the shit of back then. I'm not saying "ALL WAS GOOD IN THE 90s!!", I'm saying that the shit of today is more shit, and especially more of the same shit, than the shit of back then. Heck, even in the 80s there were shitty clones of Ultima - but I'd rather play a shitty Ultima clone than yet another shitty Gears of War clone with lots of cutscenes that feels like it plays itself. It's all about a shift of game design principles - back then, even shit tried to be a game. Today, many "games" try being interactive movies, which is infinitely worse than merely being shit games.

 

[MetalCraze]

Hate to side with the newfag alt but BBC is not only amusing but also correct in some points. OP suffers from selective memory or is idd a 90s kid. People tend to forget all the shit released back then. There is a word for that phenomenon.

Or maybe people should learn to read?

The post says several times that there was shit and then compares mediocrity of 90s with the best of today and even mediocrity wins by far

Retarded replies "oh you forgot that shit was always there" only prove the point of his post about retards crying "it's nostalgia, there was shit!" without bothering to listen why

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Hate to side with the newfag alt but BBC is not only amusing but also correct in some points. OP suffers from selective memory or is idd a 90s kid. People tend to forget all the shit released back then. There is a word for that phenomenon.

Or maybe people should learn to read?

The post says several times that there was shit and then compares mediocrity of 90s with the best of today and even mediocrity wins by far

Retarded replies "oh you forgot that shit was always there" only prove the point of his post about retards crying "it's nostalgia, there was shit!" without bothering to listen why

 

[made]

Or maybe people should learn to read?

Or maybe kids who grew up on Kotor & BG and considered them best RPGs ever until they started reading the Codex and suddenly became self-proclaimed experts on the field should stay the fuck out of threads about the history of gaming?

I admit, I might have missed OP's finer points when I started losing attention thanks to idiotic hyperbole like "DA2 would have been trashed in the 90s lol!" No it wouldn't, not more than it is now. I'll let you figure out why. OP mentions writing. Think about it.

Anyway, what in its essence amounts to "shit was shit but kinda less shit and different shit but, like, still shit, get it?" doesn't strike me as a particularly insightful argument. You can make a point for specific gameplay elements and design ideas that were commonplace or promising in the past and were never expanded upon and are now all but absent, but that works both ways. Plenty of features we take for granted in modern games I would have jizzed all over in my classics, but hey, maybe I'm just not oldschool enough for this place.

My take is that, since I have to sift through lots of trash to find something worth playing today just as much as I had to then, little has changed about the overall quality of the medium.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Back then there were tons of shit, today there is only SHIT, with a capital S.

My take is that, since I have to sift through lots of trash to find something worth playing today just as much as I had to then, little has changed about the overall quality of the medium.

0/10

 

[MetalCraze]

Or maybe kids who grew up on Kotor & BG and considered them best RPGs ever until they started reading the Codex and suddenly became self-proclaimed experts on the field should stay the fuck out of threads about the history of gaming?

They should and they also should learn to read - isn't that my point?

I admit, I might have missed OP's finer points when I started losing attention thanks to idiotic hyperbole like "DA2 would have been trashed in the 90s lol!"

DA2 would've been ok on consoles and trashed on PC. Consoles past Genesis were for people who don't like games since "cinematic" bullshit came with CDs, while PCs were for people who liked something more complex. Today PCs are being bought by consoletards who just want to play their console games with better graphics.

Anyway, what in its essence amounts to "shit was shit but kinda less shit and different shit but, like, still shit, get it?" doesn't strike me as a particularly insightful argument

The point was that there was much less shit and when it was shit it was also because devs tried something new. That's why we were getting games like System Shock 2 or Fallout. While today the same shit is being copied again and again and nobody is trying anything new.

That was the point.

Plenty of features we take for granted in modern games I would have jizzed all over in my classics, but hey, maybe I'm just not oldschool enough for this place.

And these features are?

Modern gaming is about running down the linear corridor and/or chasing quest compass, while watching lengthy cutscenes and games handhold you so much you don't even play them. Because it's simply impossible to play them as they already do that for you - and every 2nd game today is like that.

What would you jizz your pants about in some CoDMW or its clones MoH/BF3? ME2? DA2?

My take is that, since I have to sift through lots of trash to find something worth playing today just as much as I had to then, little has changed about the overall quality of the medium.

And yet this something worth playing has nothing on what was there 10 years ago.

Where are all "worth playing" 4X games? Where are all "worth playing" racing games? Where are all "worth playing" stealth sneakers? Where are all "worth playing" space sims? Where are all "worth playing" turn-based squad tactics?

Some stealth game today is about crouching and becoming invisible while retarded enemies stay in one place and watch walls in completely linear corridor while some 10 years ago it was about hiding in shadows, trying to make less noise and avoiding constant patrols in maze-like maps.
No difference at all.

 

[Black Bart Charley]

I bothered to read his drivel now and I dont see anything resembling a valid opinion.

From broad, unsupported generalization about good games(tm) to gems like "different shit tasted differnent" :facepalm: . Am I supposed to take him srs?

"many flavours of shit while today shit all tastes the same"

This is the typical syndrome of a sick fuck who is responsible! for what happened. Slap some fluff on top of an engine and DummFrank will love it. Its different shit! Hail to the olden days!

When I rage about JA2 or XCOM being completely and utterly broken, they say I am a hater. If I tell em that running around is not gaming, they say I am a hater. If some kid posts a badly written, redundant, opinion thread about The Good Old Days, PRAISE THE MESSIAH!

edit

skyway, how did you manage to play kotor 7 times? is it true?

 

[JarlFrank]

Oh please, explain yourself with "JA2 and Xcom are completely broken". It's a hopeless exaggeration. They're fun games with good gameplay.

Since you are such a balancefag, please try to explain what, in your eyes, is perfect balance. Don't just resort to posting a pic of chess and a fighting game where both players have exactly the same "resources". Yes, they're great games, but that doesn't prove that absolute balance is everything. You complain about my rant, and yourself write no real explanation of your opinion, except for "BALANCE IS GOD"

Chess is fun, and the balancing is one of the reasons why, yes. Chess would suck if the white player had two Queens while the black player had only peasants. Similarly, football would suck if one team had 12 players and the other 11. It would be unfairly balanced - and it would matter because they're competitive games between human players. Strategy games like Total War or Paradox games or wargames, or RPGs, are a wholly different matter, though.

And before you call me a stroyfag again, which has nothing at all to do with the matter of balance, let me explain. Would a dungeon crawler be fun if every encounter was absolutely balanced? Let's take a goldbox game and replace all of the ridiculously hard fights against overpowered enemies with fights against parties that have the exact same abilities as your party. Would such a fight be fun? Yes, of course it would. Would it be fun if the whole game consisted of fights like that, without anything that is either easier or harder? No, it wouldn't, because balance isn't the point of RPGs, either dungeon crawler or storyfag or explorefag or whatever type of RPG. Sometimes, not being perfectly balanced is the whole fucking point of a game. Fighting against difficult odds is the whole appeal. Experimentation with different chracter classes is, too. If balance is all that matters, 90% of dungeon crawlers would be shit.

 

[SCO]

Actually JF, being "balanced" would imply turning games harder. After all, what is combat but a mini-game. And you engage in it oh so many times, but almost never lose (even less nowadays because of the dumbfuck effect).

Think about it. Rogue likes are probably the most balanced games on earth by being relatively random. The human has unfair advantage anyway ~ yes, i know that the effect is annihilated by the repeated fights, i did have a statistics course ~.

I guess i disagree with both of you about balance.

I don't give a shit about it anyway.

 

[Metro]

Hey everyone, it's Black Bart Charley.

 

[Dr.Faust]

I don't really understand the obsession with balance in games either. Competetive multiplayer needs to be balanced obviously, but I don't see why every single player should be balanced.

It doesn't bother me at all that a game has overpowered shit in it. RPGs try very hard to balance magic and melee, but the result is usually just a diluted experience. Everything aside from bludgeoning people seems pointless since the results are largely the same. It feels like a useless remnant of p&p games which were multiplayer. Take Arcanum for example. I know I'm not going to be the most effective fighter if I start a tech character, but part of the fun comes from surviving with that limitation. Losing my fortress to an unlucky event that I had no real control over in df? No biggie, part of the appeal in that game comes from how it's easy to lose. Makes great achievements feel a lot greater.

However I do understand that some ridiculously overpowered move, like counter attack in Assassin's Creed, in a game that offers nothing but action will destroy the challenge and therefore the fun.