Game Designers, ESPECIALLY RPG DESIGNERS, like to pretend they know everything. They like to pretend they know the advantages and disadvantages of strapping metal plates to your body for protection. Or what kinds of sword do what damage. They like to pretend they know how to fight at all, much less with a sword. I''m issuing a call to all of you, including myself. Wake up, you don''t know dick. You''ve never been in a fight where your life was on the line, or if you have you certainly didn''t react with courage and dignity (like me you were probably in a fetal position, drunk, begging for your life). You think you know some cool moves in a fight. You don''t. You like to think the game systems you are designing have some base in reality. They don''t. It''s time to accept that this is OKAY, and please, god stop pretending. Stop pretending you know the logistics of a sword fight when you''ve never swung a sword sharp enough to hurt yourself if you messed it up. Please realise that you are a video gamer, or worse yet a developer, and that this is not what you do! If you want to have ANY degree of realism in your combat games, please, go out and LEARN A MARTIAL ART, GET IN A BAR FIGHT, DO SOME FREAKING RESEARCH. You''d be amazed how silly your old perceptions of combat were. Come to think of it, you should do this for everything. Magic? Go learn something about real world documentation on magic. It''s out there. Rip things off copiously. Don''t make the science-fiction/fantasy-writer''s mistake and just make things up. That is what makes things "crappy." Why? People are playing your game because they are convinced you can bring them places they''ve never been. Where do you get off thinking you can make all those places up by yourself? It''s time to come to terms with the fact that you don''t know everything. In fact, you''d best realize that you know NOTHING, and listen carefully to whatever you hear. This goes for me too. ====== "The unexamined life is not worth living." -Socrates "Question everything. Especially Landfish." -Matt

LF!!! Dude, you''re giving away the secret, man! Ssssssshhhh!!

If people start researching, and using things like literature and history and science and stuff-- THEIR DESIGNS WILL BE HARDER TO COMPETE WITH!!!


Jeeeeeeeez, whaddarya trying to do?!?!? Isn''t the business tough enough?!!!!



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Just waiting for the mothership...

Oh, very well done LF, now everybody will know where I find my (somewhat limited) knowledge from ... thanks a lot pal !

youpla :-P

The only thing I know is that I know nothing.

You can''t realize how annoying it has been to play some RPG games since I started Tae Kwon Do about four years ago. Arrrgggh!!

Well, at least Jagged Alliance 2''s fly kick is cool, and quite effective.

-Jussi

(quote space for sale (for free))

I agree, and my advice to people: experience everything. Sure, you won''t ever be able to do that, but try introductory courses for things, like if you have never done it before, then go skiing, if you don''t have a drivers licence, get it and drive, see how far you can get using public transport, then find out what is in where ever you get. Even the most boring suburb is the home of something interesting.
Knock on a complete strangers door and ask for their life story, then run away as they pull out the shot gun =)
Fly a plane (its a lot of fun =)

What am I getting to? Well, after you have done these things, you will be inspired, you might see a new idea for your game or if you don''t have one, you might be inspired to start. Give it a shot, and if you like something, keep on doing it and learn the finer points, especially if you are having anything to do with a game involving it.


Experience Everything. Pay Attention.


Trying is the first step towards failure.

My tagline elseforum is "Always Notice What You Notice."

This is a quote from a lecture I saw poet Allen Ginsburg give between readings when asked how he came up with subjects and themes for his work. I guess I noticed that because it's always stuck with me.

At any rate, I find myself once again in total agreement with Landfish. I came here via the boards at Elderscrolls and was pretty vehement on the idea of looking for Original Source Material to get new ideas as opposed to rehashing the same old themes and ideas - the Tolkien/Gygax complex. When you look at the settings of the best face-to-face roleplaying games you'll find, in contemporary times, a great deal of research is done into relevant materials and historical periods. Writers for White Wolf, for example, often pepper the bibliography with books about philosophy as often as science fiction or fantasy. By driving a shaft into the dirt of reality you'll find that lode of conceptual gold more quickly and more surely than just panning through the detrius in your memory or imagination.


But this does beg the related question "Why is realism important, if it is important?" That's probably another subject all together and one ya'll have probably talked out at length before.

Edited by - Oddjob on October 19, 2000 8:37:14 AM

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Original post by Oddjob

At any rate, I find myself once again in total agreement with Landfish. But this does beg the question "Why is realism important, if it is important?" I have my own answers but I wonder what ya''ll think.

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Realism is important because it''s what people expect: if the game looks realistic, it must also behave realistically. You don''t expect a punch to equal nuclear explosion, or an unarmed peasant to beat a skilled knight wielding a longsword. It''s immersion, the buzzword we all love.

Realism isn''t the only way to immersion, though, but it''s the easiest for the player. Unless he''s used to unrealistic behavior after playing too much computer games. But the kind of unrealistic behavior Landfish explains won''t be even noticed by "ordinary" people, just like I wasn''t annoyed by martial arts in computer games before I started Tae Kwon Do.

-Jussi

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Landfish, what exactly have you created? Your web page is filled with nothing but line drawings and talk about ideas? Where are your completed works?

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Original post by Anonymous Poster

Landfish, what exactly have you created? Your web page is filled with nothing but line drawings and talk about ideas? Where are your completed works?

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What exactly have YOU created? Where are your pages filled with line art and talk of your ideas? Why do I need completed works?

AP, you are a disgrace to the Anonymous Poster name. If you''re somebody w/ a login (which you probably are, since you know of Landfish.com), you really need to sprout some balls. Maybe you''re just bitter. Who knows. Who cares? Whatever.

I know that most professional game designers are avid readers. I know alot of amateurs that aren''t. I don''t want to draw any hasty conclusions, but still. . .

We need messiness in games. We need small details that don''t quite fit, but work anyway. We need don''t need realism in games, but we do need a condensation of reality- Not the dunder that usually fills the space between your ears. How exciting is your life? Exciting enough to be a game? SimGameDeveloper. . .now there''s a catchy title . At the risk of redundancy. . . how are you going to model something you know jacksh*t about?. Go guerilla! Computer Games will always be the province of middle-class white males, as long as that is the experience that they model. If you want to model interpersonal relations, go insult a total stranger! Tell them their mother smells like pig sweat! Go ahead, it''s research. How did they react? Good, there''s your model. Don''t read a physics book on ballistics if you want to model a sniper''s business. Go get your hands on a gun and do some freakin'' target practice (well, ok, you should read a physics book too.)

How are you going to model an experience you''ve never had? Obviously we can''t experience everything first-hand, but we should at least be reading first-hand accounts. Ask yourself- Are you looking to model reality, or an experience? If you''re looking for the former, well, good luck. The latter is attainable, but not the way we''ve been going about it.

Oh, and BTW, I don''t have completed games, line drawings, or even a website, so *NYEEAH* I have notebooks. Lots of ''em. (everyone has to start somewhere, right?)



If you see the Buddha on the road, Kill Him. -apocryphal