*shrug* I'm not offended. The idea of creating a 100% original work of any kind is absurd. On the rare occasion that someone manages it, nobody likes it. I'd also like to point out that in what I sketched before, I ripped the dialogue system from both Zork and Baldur's Gate: it's a hybrid that allows either, with the implicit understanding that the former is likely to be frustrating.

And, and I don't consider Doom 3 original, because although it improves vastly upon its prequels, it is essentially an extension of the same idea, refined to the Nth degree. It's a remake, for Chrissake. An excellent remake that it would be far beyond my power to envision, but a remake, nonetheless.

I will list several "original" points of what I briefly sketched, however (assuming that by "original" we here mean "relatively original," by which I mean "not quite done to death yet."), which you seem to have missed entirely. In order to help you in your enlightened quest to prove that nothing can be truly original (particularly if it's non-commercial, if I'm reading your prejudices right), I will provide my own counterexamples, showing where I probably ripped the ideas from:

1. The player is an agent of the totalitarian government in question, rather than a victim. (Deus Ex did this.)

2. The player is not human, and the game reverses the player/computer dynamic by making all computerized NPCs "humans" and making the player a "computer." (This is a method of immersion that I don't think I've ever seen, though it may have been done already. However, the basic idea came from the line in Metal Gear Solid 2 in which some character or another is informing Raiden that many of his web-associates are likely ultra-complex bots which exist to manipulate his opinions, views, and tastes. Thus, I am simply changing perspective and focus to look at an existing concept closer, and there is absolutely nothing original about my basic story premise.)

3. The game doesn't look like a game in any way, and merely integrates itself as a normal-looking pair of applications, under the guise of an extra chat program and a cygwin-like command window. (Isn't there some game from a few years back that involved players being given real calls over the phone and such in order to immerse them in the game-world being created? Oh, right, and the Doom 3 website gimmick I wanted to lift and expand upon.)

4. Machines aren't taking over mankind in the story I envisioned yesterday: they're tools of humans. In fact, the "humans are tools of machines are tools of humans" idea was the main theme of what I posted, the idea being that you do your best to please your evil masters while (perhaps; unless you're content with that role) all the while seeking a way out of your server box. (see every Gibsonian cyberpunk novel ever made)

5. The theoretical game eliminates interface immersion-killing by providing the illusion, via a mock-up of a commonly used application (AIM/MSN/IRC/etc.), that you are actually communicating FROM the real world INTO the scifi world in which the game takes place. Additionally, even the pre-scripted options would evoke a degree of immersion, since they fit the fact that as an AI, you're not supposed to be given too much opportunity to deviate from your program. Even the fact that you would be misunderstood by NPCs when you failed to adhere to prescripted options would add to the immersion in a sense... both due to the fact that A.you didn't obey the system, you're paying the consequences; B. the mindless masses are so clueless that they rarely understand it when you say anything "out of the ordinary."

6. The game as I described it would evoke a level surrealism greater than any other game I've ever heard of on the market. For my artistic sensibilities, this is a worthwhile goal. My favorite games out there are the most surrealist ones.

and 7. The "puzzles" in question still exist, but they're solveable in multiple ways, and involve doing things like manipulating friends into hating each other by having multiple IM windows up and counseling them both on their relationship problems with one another. I think that's pretty damn different. It would be a game that rewards you for being an SOB, too.

---

All of the above said, my OWN project is a more traditional fantasy RPG, because those are the games I enjoy, and I think I can improve in very tiny ways upon other games of that genre and make an even more fun game. The thing above is not something I would consider doing any time soon... however, I think it has slightly more "originality" (a nebulous concept if ever there was one) than you give it credit for, and certainly at least slightly more than Doom 3. :)

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Original post by MSW But you watched Troma films for the T&A? No offense but WOW! That takes desperation to a new low!

Well, at that age, what else was I going to do on a Saturday night? ;) And it wasn't always Troma... there seemed to be a healthy mix-in of Summer Car Wash, et al, on the ole late night cable...

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You can very much be poor, ugly, dumb, and a general falure at life and still both get tons of dates with and married to "hot" women. Why? Its because such poor, ugly, dumb, falures of men can still be confident, outgoing, funny, fun to be around, have ambition, and in general have all those intangable attributes women typicaly seek in a mate...

I was primarily using physical attraction and wealth attainment as examples of criteria for natural selection. I could have just as easily substituted "confident, funny, outgoing, ambitious, etc." My point was that folks most certainly are selecting for natural attributes, most of which are *indicators* (at least in the selector's mind) of success criteria. Ambition is prized because it is more likely to lead to success, as is confidence, charisma, humor, etc. Those are all masking attributes that often accompany the attributes I outlined, and as a result, are often promoted by those who don't possess them.

Not to get that much further off on a tangent, but don't fool yourself: if you don't have any qualities that demonstrate to the opposite sex that you can either (a) procreate and/or (b) contribute resources (wealth, safety, shelter, etc.), you will have a dramatically more difficult attaining a mate. Everything you mentioned is just cultural and social window-dressing that indicates (or hopes to indicate) those fundamental aspects. Thus, natural selection (whether you realize it or not).

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Honestly, following your outline of natural selection, if women generaly only seek to mate for life with beautiful, successful, smart guys...our whole species would have died out long, LONG ago.

I should have been more pedantic, I apologize: women generally only seek to mate (not necessarily for life) with men whom they *perceive* to be "beautiful" (healthy, strong), successful and/or smart (able to provide food/shelter/safety).

I think the entertainment industry is hitting a fork in the road. Its Simple..provide fun, original or not to your niche market and not every script kiddie in the world that cares nothing more than how good the graphics are. These games will not stand the test of time. Ill close with this idea at the end of the post.

i would like someone to explain to me why i still like playing on my Atari 2600 and NES playing Pac-man, Ms Pac Man and Junior Pac-man(which unfortunately wasnt very popular) but it was the pac-man where the whole screen didnt fit on one page and therefore it was sort of a side scroller. Super Pac-man was also very fun. Wiki talks about each in depth.

I am in that 25 - 30 age group that grew up playing video games but somehow, as i just mentioned it seems that no matter what age group, male or female Pac-Man has stood the test of time, much longer than a LOT of todays games. So why is that? Regardless of what is said in this thread and i didnt read every post, games that stem from the Pac-Man era such as Frogger and Centipede are still alive and well and not just for people that are thinking back to old time but teenagers as well. What do these games have in common that make them replayable even some 25 years later while games 3 - 4 years ago sit on many a shelf collecting dust to never be played again?

There are a few other games that i still love to play .. Mega Man being one of them. Sure you are shooting things and its a progressive game, level by level but the idea of robots and their names along with a level that 'matches' the robot such as Bomb-Man make it an interesting game and i think this aspect does define some sort of innovation.

I would also say Tombraider is probably one of the most influential games to date. Although this idea of a tombraider might not have been completely 100% innovative, the mindset and premise of the game made it very successful and yes, i think its safe to say that a lot of this game was innovative. Thankfully crystal dynamics had taken over the title and hopefully the franchise will survive after a few years of 2 horrific films and a bad showing in the past couple of tombraider titles. I think the level editor that came out with Tombraider 4 probably single handedly saved the franchise from going out into existance where you could build your own tombraider game essentially and share it with others.

Now i will rant a minute and come down on the game industry to date. Not only is there little innovation but the good titles that once were.. that were flooding with money by the hard core audiences they appealed to, these titles are being thrown to the wolves all in the name of creating super uber graphics and ignoring every other aspect of the game. A common example is Need For Speed.

The earlier Need for Speeds..I, II and III Hot Pursuit were good along with awesome techno racing style music. Eeven High Stakes/Porsche Unleashed was bearable but now Need for Speed has turned into an unrealistic, japanese-anime, heavy rap-infested game that is almost unrecognizable from the first games of the series. Its all about modding cars and gangstas instead of racing real world tracks againt cops and trying not to get pulled over and having real time trials instead of crashing through water towers to get some sort of reward and crazy horrible CG ports to the consoles.

It's a shame that a franchise has to be slaughtered to appeal to the little kiddies that want to have a souped up gangsta car and speed away from cops with 20 million shortcuts which require no skill...instead of the cool techno music that the other NFS's had and only a few shortcuts to help evade the cops but you at least had to try to be good and obtain some skill.

sorry for the rant but this was a prime example that this attitude of appealing to the mass instead of creating for different niche markets has branched from movies to video games to everything else. I think this is what we are facing..or rather the industry is facing. Provide entertainment for your niche market(s) and abandon everything else. If your goal is to appeal to everyone you will satisfy a set number of fans..give them what they want, however original or non-original it might be. These fans will always be there for you when a game comes out.. think Tombraider, Thief, etc. If you try to appeal the mass you will get a set number of fans and piss everyone else off and never establish much growth with your games.

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Original post by DuranStrife Quote: But you're probably basing this from a heterosexual perspective. Not to but in, but logically speaking, unless you're assuming that gays tend to be smarter, this has no bearing on the subject, since such traits should average out between breeders and non-breeders anyway.

MSW commented on guys not being beautiful, successful, and smart. I did include that right above that quoted text, right? That has everything to do with heterosexuality. Assuming that MSW is a heterosexual male, which I'm 98% certain of, judging by his run-through the opposition attitude. What subject are you referring to?

Tend to be smarter? They're just more openly expressive. We're expressive as well, we're just not as easy to understand. Or maybe it's that we're too easy to understand, and that complicates it for others who are trying too hard to read us. Testosterone has it's advantages. If major crap ever hits the fan, we'll be the ones not running in circles.

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Original post by OpenGL_Guru I am in that 25 - 30 age group that grew up playing video games

Same age group here - 26. Serial killer age group, right? Woo hoo.

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Pac-Man has stood the test of time, much longer than a LOT of todays games. So why is that? Regardless of what is said in this thread and i didnt read every post, games that stem from the Pac-Man era such as Frogger and Centipede are still alive and well and not just for people that are thinking back to old time but teenagers as well. What do these games have in common that make them replayable even some 25 years later while games 3 - 4 years ago sit on many a shelf collecting dust to never be played again?

Simplicity. You can add Tetris and perhaps Rampart. Developers can still create these types of games. They just can't sell them for much, if any at all. As fun as these games were back in the day, their tech just won't make money anymore. You can download thousands of these types of games, written in flash, for free. So unless you're already money-problem free, you just can't waste time on such things. Well, nothing is stopping anyone from sliding a few cool custom mini games into their project.

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There are a few other games that i still love to play .. Mega Man being one of them. Sure you are shooting things and its a progressive game, level by level but the idea of robots and their names along with a level that 'matches' the robot such as Bomb-Man make it an interesting game and i think this aspect does define some sort of innovation.

We're still trying to reach the same level of karma in our games as the Japanese put into theirs. It's difficult to compete with their immeasurable discipline. They will put much more work into a project than they actually admit it's worth. A lot of karma. It's like comparing your mother's home cooking to a fast food stop. One is created to make profit, the other is created to fill a void in the world.

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I would also say Tombraider is probably one of the most influential games to date.

I agree to this about the first one. But looking at where the game has gone since, I'm starting to believe it was an accident. They still seem to be failing to understand what made the game so great. Not unlike the movie Scream. Pure luck. Wes Craven is still too dumb to see why his first release of the movie was perfect. Fight Club, anyone?

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Original post by Simagery My point was that folks most certainly are selecting for natural attributes, most of which are *indicators* (at least in the selector's mind) of success criteria.

Tell that to the majority of American women, who seem to be reconstructing their figure like a lego shop on a daily basis.

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Original post by Kest Simplicity. You can add Tetris and perhaps Rampart. Developers can still create these types of games. They just can't sell them for much, if any at all. As fun as these games were back in the day, their tech just won't make money anymore. You can download thousands of these types of games, written in flash, for free. So unless you're already money-problem free, you just can't waste time on such things. Well, nothing is stopping anyone from sliding a few cool custom mini games into their project.

I wasnt talking about a flash version of pac-man.. those are rip-offs and will never be as good as the original.. i am talking about the arcade versions of these..with the original sounds, colors and AI. the same with things like Rampage, Frogger, Centipede etc.

I wonder how much of those Atari 2600 games that were released on the catridge-less console were sold and are sitting at home actually be in use? i know a lot of them sold.

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I would also say Tombraider is probably one of the most influential games to date.

I agree to this about the first one. But looking at where the game has gone since, I'm starting to believe it was an accident. They still seem to be failing to understand what made the game so great. Not unlike the movie Scream. Pure luck. Wes Craven is still too dumb to see why his first release of the movie was perfect. Fight Club, anyone?


I dont think Tombraider was an accident. The first 3 tombraiders sold very well and solidified the franchise. Have you played TombRAider 7: The Legend? Its a bit short but besides the cool graphics they have gotten back to tomb raiding instead of it being a freaking play where you have multiple characters. The game was never meant to have but one human character and that is lara. Legend isnt the greatest, certainly not on par with the first 2 or 3 but its much better than 4 or 5. The only thing that came out of TR 4 and 5 was the level editor, as i mentioned before.

The other game that i can think of that is a hit is Thief.. i think i mentioned that also before. Something about that game that people keep wanting more. I dunno if they will make a Thief 4 but if they do they better stick to Medieval times..thats what the fans want..they dont want Garrett to be all of a sudden stuck in the 1900's. We'll see where that goes.

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Original post by OpenGL_Guru Quote: Original post by Kest Simplicity. You can add Tetris and perhaps Rampart. Developers can still create these types of games. They just can't sell them for much, if any at all. As fun as these games were back in the day, their tech just won't make money anymore. You can download thousands of these types of games, written in flash, for free. So unless you're already money-problem free, you just can't waste time on such things. Well, nothing is stopping anyone from sliding a few cool custom mini games into their project. I wasnt talking about a flash version of pac-man.. those are rip-offs and will never be as good as the original.. i am talking about the arcade versions of these..with the original sounds, colors and AI. the same with things like Rampage, Frogger, Centipede etc.

I wasn't talking about flash versions of pac-man either. I said these types of games, meaning simple games. I'm saying that generic, simplified games appeal to almost everyone. There are thousands of original flash games. And these flash games visually look much better than pac-man arcades looked in the day. Most of the flash games feel professionally made, are addictive, and can be extremely fun. They're also completely free. In other words, good luck trying to make a living by creating these types of games. With flash, you can make a super kinky cool jet fighter side scroller in less than a few days.

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I dont think Tombraider was an accident. The first 3 tombraiders sold very well and solidified the franchise. Have you played TombRAider 7: The Legend?

The first three tomb raiders sold well because everyone loved the first. But just keep following it, and it keeps changing toward degradation. They completely missed out on the fact that people loved exploring unknown locations, discovering ancient tombs, unlocking crazy puzzles, and avoiding masterful traps.

What we have in The Legend is a child's toy. I don't think the game could feel any more linear than it does. You get one or two tombs to see at best. You're usually trying to drive generically implemented motorbikes, pressing button sequences on cut scenes, or mowing everyone down with machine guns. Even the cool areas of the game basically just have you running on a set track, not even bothering to give you the illusion that you are making important decisions.

The only type of discoveries to find are spinning video game icons, and it feels like collecting coins in Mario. These 'coin' treasures are not in an ancient vault, blocked by evil traps or wicked puzzles. They're jammed into cracks in the wall. Or placed somewhere over your head so you have to spin the camera around to see it. What a horribly designed feature. And all you get for finding these are sets of clothing or non-in-game special features.

Oh yeah, and the puzzles. How long did it take anyone to solve these? Do you really classify that childs toy, where you fit the correct shapes into holes, a puzzle? The most complicated puzzle in the game doesn't challenge that toy.

Regardless of the insane number of things that I disliked about it, I had some fun playing it. But they have completely abandoned everything that I thought the original game was all about. Now it just feels like a climb-around third person shooter. A generic one.

[Edited by - Kest on July 13, 2006 4:36:26 AM]

I think the reason you like the Atari generation is, as others said earlier, primarily nostalgia. It was your first video game experience. There are younger people who feel the same way about the NES games, but who don't know or care about anything earlier. And younger who feel that way about SuperNintendo, but don't care about original NES. And younger still who talk about "The good old days of Playstation 1."

You're also saying things like "PacMan has lasting appeal but new games don't" as if it were a fact, when you can't actually tell whether the new games don't since it hasn't been long enough yet. Original NES games still have a large following. So do Super Nintendo and Genesis games. Plenty of people still play PSX games. And plenty of people play games on their current gen console that are a few years old. Sure, I have a bunch of games sitting on the shelf that I'll never play again, but there are also a bunch of Atari games that I have no interest in playing again, except for possibly a little while to relive the nostalgia. There were bad games back then just like there are bad games now. There were less total games back then though, so we would spend more time playing those even though they weren't perfect. Right now, you might think Halo, for example, is not so good. But imagine if Halo was the only game made in the last five years, and your other choices were Pac Man or Centipede. I'm sure in that case, you would be far more impressed with Halo and like it a lot more.

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Original post by Kest I wasn't talking about flash versions of pac-man either. I said these types of games, meaning simple games. I'm saying that generic, simplified games appeal to almost everyone. There are thousands of original flash games. And these flash games visually look much better than pac-man arcades looked in the day. Most of the flash games feel professionally made, are addictive, and can be extremely fun. They're also completely free. In other words, good luck trying to make a living by creating these types of games. With flash, you can make a super kinky cool jet fighter side scroller in less than a few days.

I think the reason is that i dont like the flash games because most of them dont sound like pac-man..even if they are professionally made and i have played quite a few of them too. Pac-man is more about having a cheese wedge gobble up ghosts and get power pellets. When i think of Pac-man i also think about the original sounds in the game, the original graphics..none of the rip-offs have these that ive found..and i am talking about mr and mrs pac man. The only thing that matches the arcade versions of these games is from MAME. Also the flash versions are tons easier too.. the AI is completely different.

re:makeshift - - i am sure i am nostalgic but there is something to the gameplay that i like with the old games. Sure ET sucked for the Atari among many others that led to the video game crash of 1984 but there were good ones too.. which i guess is the answer to the OP. There will always be good games and sucky games. You are right about the NES following..i am collecting NES Sealed games right now..recently acquired a factory sealed Super Mario Bros. When it comes to atari i think ms. pac-man, centipede, asteroids, crystal castles, tempest, joust. With the NES i think of Super Mario Bros, Mega Man Series, Contra, Blaster Master, Ghost N Goblins(hardest game ever), Mike Tysons Punchout, Castlevania, Zelda..these are probably the types of games that most people are playing for these systems.

I guess personally for me i am tired of games having 20 shortcuts, 30 secret codes and unrealistic gameplay just to appeal to every kiddie in the world. Whatever happened to games where you had to tough it out to get good at a game? Forget saved games and secret codes. Games like Zelda might need saved games but not all games do. There should be some games where you just have to tough it out, get down to brass knuckles to beat it. Maybe thats why i think some of these older games are still around..they are challenging. I guess to me that makes sense..if you can beat a game in 2 or 3 days then there isnt going to be much reuse. oh well..

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I should have been more pedantic, I apologize: women generally only seek to mate (not necessarily for life) with men whom they *perceive* to be "beautiful" (healthy, strong), successful and/or smart (able to provide food/shelter/safety).

Thats the "as seen on TV" media marketed version...real life is different.

But nevermind...

The fact that we can have such a discussion on this synthetic internet is proof that we are no longer slaves to natural selection.