Unfortunately, the sad truth of the matter is that most aspiring and employed computer game desgners are inspired by the essence of other computer games, or so it seems. Now, to set the record straight regarding what I'm trying to say, this isn't just an observation about the industry, but an observation about the community here. If a group has progressed beyond drawing their inspiration from other computer games, the sad truth of the matter is, then the offending group of inspired designers seemingly are drawing their inspiration from movies, which although not entirely bad, unfortunately perpetuates bad cliches. Books are a reasonable area to gain inspiration, but one shouldn't be inspired by just fiction. Non-fiction (especially historical non-fiction of literary quality) is an excellent place to seek inspiration. However, the best place to seek inspiration is to attempt to live some aspect of what you wish to create within a game. By doing this, you see things which you'd otherwise miss. It's in the details of experience that you realize where fine nuances can provide foundations for whole avenues of gameplay. On a closing note, I'd like to say that I've witnessed a great deal of flatness in the products and ideas churned out both in the industry and here. This isn't to say that many of you don't have fine ideas or aren't capable of greatness. If I am in a position in the future to finance and head a project to create a computer game, it will revolve around an institute like paradigm where the participants in the project will be encouraged, (more likely required as part of their work) to read a number of recommended titles pertaining to the subject matter in which the game seeks to exploit, as well as daily physical activities and endeavors and observations related to the subject matter as well. Furthermore, a set of trips would be part of the itinerary; trips which challenge, provoke, inform, and inspire. [edited by - bishop_pass on October 4, 2003 11:12:44 PM]

that is why i plan to run around killing goblins with an axe before i type one line of code for my upcoming MMORPG!

quote: Original post by krez
that is why i plan to run around killing goblins with an axe before i type one line of code for my upcoming MMORPG!

This is a classic example of seeking inspiration from other games, or at best, cliched movies or fiction.

What I belive krez is trying to point out though, is the infeasibility of living and experiencing the act of killing goblins. The first thing one has to ask one''s self though, in my opinion, is how shallow and lacking of finer nuances such a goblin killing simulation would likely be.

I really favor your idea of enforced trips, bishop_pass. Nothing refreshes creativity like seeing some place you have never seen before, and immersion in cultures you have never before experienced. I personally draw a great deal of inspiration (mostly for my writing; little of it has yet to make it into my game development) from long talks with elders of the Crow nation who live near where I live. There is a wealth of legends, mythologies, stories and tales there, virtually untapped by the game community. As well, I learned a great deal about the Navajo, the Sinagua, the Hohokam, the Hopi, the Anasazi, the Apache, etc... during my (far too brief) year and a half in Arizona--enough, at any rate, to fuel my desire to learn more.

Personally, a game based upon the legends and tales of the Anasazi seems a fantastic goal for myself, though I hesitate to attempt it now for fear that I would spoil it with skills still very much in development.

I believe whole-heartedly that the game community in general, and this forum in specific, could stand with a healthy infusion of new ideas. I think Tolkein has been quite thoroughly beaten to death, and anything that includes orcs, elves and dwarves is going to suffer from comparison to literally thousands of other games out there.

It has been my experience with fellow game programmers, that too much of a good thing (ie, game programming itself) can be a bad idea. I personally know several aspiring developers who rarely leave their computers, whose lives exist for work, watching TV (the biggest time-waster I can personally think of), surfing the web, programming games, and playing games. All of these have quite literally never left home, but continue to live in the same place they were born, the same place they grew up, the same place they graduated from high school; they consider me "strange" for having lived in ten different States, and for having moved more than fourteen times since high school graduation. Many have rarely spent more than a week at most in some other place. I ask you, how can true creativity come from such a narrow field of experience?

As in writing, in game programming the best stories will be those for which the author can draw from personal experience; thus, the best advice I can think of for any game programmer aspiring to rise above the pack would be the same advice I might give a fledgling author: experience life.

Walk the Great Wall of China. Hitchhike through the Rocky Mountains. See the white cliffs of Dover, or the time-worn stone arches of Zion National Park. Talk to the backwoods Yankees of central Maine, and learn to love their laconic drawl. Climb to the top of Mt. Washington in the teeth of a screaming gale. Follow in the footsteps of the pioneers of the American West, as they fought through the snows of South Pass, and died in the snows of Martin''s Cove. Speak with the alienated, who suffered ostracism and abuse upon returning from the Vietnam War. Speak with your grandmother and grandfather, listen to their tales of what life was like before Nintendo, before television, before flush toilets and automobiles. Walk through the crumbling, faded majesty of Aztec, Incan, Mayan, and Olmec ruins in South America. Travel to the Holy Land, and touch the stones of the Wailing Wall. See the famous opera house in Sydney, Australia.

Don''t just sit there with the latest Diablo from Blizzard, and re-hash all the old things that have come before. Don''t just sit there mindlessly churning out a dozen new variations of the poor, beaten-to-death orc, or abysmally cliched bow-carrying elf. There is a great, wide world out there literally filled with inspiration.

bishop_pass, I look forward to the day you are in charge of a project.



Josh
vertexnormal AT linuxmail DOT org

Check out Golem: Lands of Shadow, an isometrically rendered hack-and-slash inspired equally by Nethack and Diablo.

amen!

this is a holy thread and deserves to be stickied so that all posters here in this forum know how to appropriatly find inspiration. not that it is hard, but searching in the right areas is what it''s really about.

quote: Original post by VertexNormal
Climb to the top of Mt. Washington in the teeth of a screaming gale.

Mt. Washington you say? I''m sure it''s not the same hill at all but I have done just that. Freak blizzard came through while snowshoeing to the top one winter. Almost had to get helicoptered out but we managed. Sorry to go off topic heh.

> As in writing, in game programming the best stories will be those
> for which the author can draw from personal experience;

There is a theory stating there are only 16 core storylines in existence and all stories derive from or combine them, personal or otherwise. There are still a vast amount of combinaisons & permutations still waiting to be re-discovered in the gaming industry. Check this out:

http://www.dramatica.com/archives/theory/d_Game/structure.html

and

http://www.dramatica.com/downloads/sa_article.pdf

-cb

[edited by - cbenoi1 on October 4, 2003 10:25:36 AM]

quote: Original post by bishop_pass
This is a classic example of seeking inspiration from other games, or at best, cliched movies or fiction.

no, i was being quite serious.

quote: Original post by bishop_pass
The first thing one has to ask one''s self though, in my opinion, is how shallow and lacking of finer nuances such a goblin killing simulation would likely be.

But that is down to the software and not the subject matter. Someone can write great literature with female characters without being female. They can research and write about what they familiy endured in previous ages without having to ensure it. It is called empathy. After all Lord of the Rings is, on the surface just an Orc killing book. However in reality it is about the fight against facism.

Dan Marchant
Obscure Productions
Game Development & Design consultant

quote: Original post by Obscure

quote: Original post by bishop_pass
The first thing one has to ask one's self though, in my opinion, is how shallow and lacking of finer nuances such a goblin killing simulation would likely be.

But that is down to the software and not the subject matter.

I fully disagree. With regard to software simulating the subject matter of killing goblins with an axe, the simulation likely shouldn't be what you think it is. Rather, it should be finely tuned with things you haven't likely thought of yet.

As testimony to what I'm saying, you merely need look at every game out there dealing with the subject matter in question, in this case, killing goblins with axes. I sincerely argue that there is yet a game developer out there who has figured it out yet.

To give you an idea, killing goblins with axes might be something such as sharpening your axe with a stone right before hearing the snap of a twig in the forest, or perhaps the pained expression of death on the face of a goblin upon receiving a blunt blow to his head, (an expression altogether not what you might expect, even though you would be expecting one of pain and death), or perhaps it's about your trusted steed (a horse) receiving from the attacking goblins a mace blow to the mouth, then his orbital ridge, then two successive blows to his forearm from a pike wielding goblin, where then your steed gallops off like the wind for miles to then commence eating ravenously (inspired by Cunnighame Graham's classic Horses of the Conquest , which describes the horse in warfare in New Spain). Whatever attacking goblins with axes is, it almost assuredly should not be the repeated cliche perpetuated over and over and over.

[edited by - bishop_pass on October 4, 2003 11:51:14 PM]

I think the real culprit here is the state of the market, not the game designers. The average consumer (note that none of us are "average" consumers) buys games that have impressive graphics and a high fun factor. They don''t buy games because they are inspired or historically accurate or whatever. When have you ever seen a game box with the praise "Historically Accurate!" printed on it?