E- can you give me an example or a theoretical system that reconciles the two different philosophies? I find them incompatible.

quote: Original post by JSwing

E- can you give me an example or a theoretical system that reconciles the two different philosophies? I find them incompatible.

Crikey.

The problem is, games tend to have every definite objectives and methods. Unlike life which is very broad, games are narrow in their scope. Life has too many possibilities to be simulated in games, and this renders the "way of the fist" a little irrelevant.

So in trying to define a situation where the two philosophies can meet happily, we reduce the chances of it actually working. Er.. not sure if I explained that as well as I could have.

Anyway, I'll have a bash at this for a laugh.

Imagine a tennis game... you've suffered your twentieth defeat in a row. Life is pretty miserable, and the player is a little frustrated/upset - had the game bothered to include emotional states for the characters, then the game character would be feeling much the same way. Each successive match is worse than the last, because when it comes down to it you don't want to play: you don't want to lose again.

You sigh. Next door to the stadium is a library. Fleeing the press you go inside and pick up a random book - it's on radiology. Over a cup of tea you read that book and it hits you - the cure for cancer. You've done it, people the world over love you. Scientists revere you and the money comes pooring in. You're about as confident as a human can possibly be, and every other mortal on the planet is afraid to upset the great genius.

For some reason you decide to go back to tennis. With this new confidence and intimidation you feel like your playing better than you ever have. Plus, your opponent doesn't really want to beat you, he loves you too - you cured his mother. Hence, you win the match. It's an indirect solution to a problem, boosting the character's confidence, boosting the world's opinion of that character, and undermining the morale of the opponent.

Or maybe, instead of all of that, you could have gone to the shop and bought some better trainers. The trainers might help you win the match, but you're still not a medical genius, you're still not revered by scientists... and that nobel peace prize - it went to Wavinator for the third time.

How many tennis games let you find a cure for cancer? None. Because it's crap... the title would have to become a life sim not a tennis game.

But the point is that, in your game, for reasons best known to yourself, you may wish to include scaled down versions of what I tried to illustrate. Maybe mini-games which boost morale and confidence or improve the way you think about life. These factors have an influence on every task we undertake as living beings, whether it's a writing a book or bashing Sub Zero's head in.




Edited by - Eight on April 3, 2001 7:03:34 AM

Where would the game "Theif" come into this? Gun, Fist, or both?
In that game, although the objectives were linear, almost anyone would agree that the gameplay was not; you could either sneak by and not kill anyone, or, if you had the reaction time, attempt to go "Rambo" style and attempt to kill everyone...that''s why I loved that game; it mixed both "Fist" and "Gun," just depending on the player

Sorry about the lack of reply - RL interference.

E - I''ve thought about your example, or a more generalized version, and I have yet to encounter any serious flaws in it. I may have to rethink my position. Let me take a little more time on that one.


cliff - Unfortunately, I haven''t played Thief, so it''s hard for me to comment on it. But as a general response, I''m not seeking to categorize play style (what the players actually do) than game mechanics (the design).

One certainly influences the other, but I can''t control how the players try to play the game.

So in Thief, how does the character progress/advance/improve?

With tears in my eyes, I must concede that Thief has no character improvement whatsoever and thus falls in the Way of the Gun.


Totally agree with the post by 8. More of it, you dont need to win the Nobel prize to get really usefull help against all-out Gun warriors. Developing your character in non-aim-only ways, like improving charisma can gain you valuable friends, that, depending on the game design can help you a lot more than being the quickest Gun slinger. Then, of course, the quickest Gun slinger can too make a living in every game.



*quitting learning C++ and buying a radiology book*

quote: Original post by Diodor
Totally agree with the post by 8.

Thanks.

quote: More of it, you dont need to win the Nobel prize to get really usefull help against all-out Gun warriors. Developing your character in non-aim-only ways,

This is where it falls down a little. If you were to add charisma as an attribute which players can improve, and that has a predetermined effect on your abilities in combat, then you see how this has almost become way of the gun?

quote:
like improving charisma can gain you valuable friends,

You genious. Maybe this sort of thing is more what we should be looking at as way of the fist. Imagine a MMORPG (or something such as Phantasy Star Online). If you add a facility for larger teams and more conversation then you'd really see the effect of being popular. The skilled, friendly warriors would have many players following them. While the rude, selfish players would have few (if any) followers.

So, the time that the friendly warrior spent being nice maybe could be considered as way of the fist development - he hasn't really changed any of his physical attributes, but the likelyhood of him surviving a battle is higher because he has a dozen followers to help him fight. And think of all that leadership experience etc.

Surely the one easy way to bring way of the fist into video games, is to allow more of the player's personality to show. Life is way of the fist, *our* characters have been developed this way - so the more of our own character we can put in a game, the more fisty the title becomes.

Maybe.

Edited by - Eight on April 9, 2001 4:39:43 AM

Anyone here play Sid Meyer''s Alpha Centauri? For those that havn''t, it is an futureistic RTS, ala Starcraft. There are like 5 different ways to win the game. Diplomatically (elected Supreme Leader), Militarily (wipe em all out), Trancedental (become a psuedo god), Financialy (fund worldwide coup) and some others.

Also, the tech tree is pretty spread out. For example, developing laser tech gives you weapons and communications and a mining bonus (laser drills). Pretty cool.

It seems to me to be a Fist RTS.

Landsknecht

quote:
Original post by Eight
This is where it falls down a little. If you were to add charisma as an attribute which players can improve, and that has a predetermined effect on your abilities in combat, then you see how this has almost become way of the gun?

I posted something along these lines before. If charisma had a direct calculated effect on combat, player would just inc it for extra damage (pretty stupid). But charisma could be really usefull in more strange and not always reliable direct ways. Like just before a PC/NPC cuts a ninja''s head off after a vicious battle, the ninja takes off hood, and a charismatic female appears saying "Pleas dont kill me, the wizard made me do it". Whether the two gang up and go for the wizard or the ninja just takes the extra second of hesitation for finishing the poor bastard off, charisma had a fisty effect on battle.

quote:
You genious.

Thanks. But in your tennis game you did the same thing (what others think of you can help your game) :

quote:
Plus, your opponent doesn''t really want to beat you, he loves you too - you cured his mother.

I think that, after all this time, I finally understood what Gun / Fist are.

In Gun, you know exactly what is better. More units is better. More ammo. Bigger guns. More HP. More XP. Bigger Level.

In Fist, it is unclear wether your choices are better or not. More, whatever choices you make might prove usefull in _some_ situations, and/or disastreous in others. The paper-scissor-stone game is Fist. A crowd of strategy games go with the paper-scissor-stone approach to boost some fist into the game. In Panzer General, infantry is very tough in city&forest&mountain, but tanks smash infantry in the open. Artillery can destroy infantry, tanks can destroy arty, etc. Many units in TotalA were very easy to destroy in some situations (unprotected battleship attacked by sub, unprotected tanks attacked by air, etc.), but would be devastating in others (single battleship wipes base out if the opponent has only short ranged ground troops). Counterstrike was Fist too (heavy sniper kills everything at far range, but dies by everything at close range, big machinegun dies by mostly everything (inacurate), unless the other''s ammo magazine gets empty, etc.)


Funny, PG and TA and CT were mostly Gun games (XP, ammo, no. of units, life, money/resources/prestige were paramount for success). Alpha Centauri, which was pretty Fist was a lot Gun too.

Hey, this makes Thief a lot Fist (or should I say Blackjack ).


It seems unlikely to completely separate the Gun and Fist elements from either games or reality.

quote:
If you add a facility for larger teams and more conversation then you''d really see the effect of being popular. The skilled, friendly warriors would have many players following them. While the rude, selfish players would have few (if any) followers.

This would make a game very very Fist, cause getting friends is a very complex, nonrepetitive, brain intensive action (ask any NPCs). But, LOL, its easy easy to make Gun even out of friendship. If the design makes parties very usefull (horror in the eyes of the poor goblins outside the town who packed hoping to threaten off the insane adventurer as a horde of PCs comes for them), players will quickly go repetitive again : buy healing potion, buy arrows, go to town center and join party. Being part of a _bigger_ gang is Gun in both reality and game.

Instead, a complete Fist design would make the others attitudes usefull sometimes. Fear can be a very usefull tool (ask Darth Vader). And friendship can too be a misshap sometimes. Yeah, you know lots of people, but if they all know you too, when the dead body of the king was found, they''ll remember who was strolling around the castle that night. Being an honest person will make others be honest to you, but the bennefits of lieing are very high too. Such an approach would make friendship more valuable as it is more rare.

quote:
In Gun, you know exactly what is better. More units is better. More ammo. Bigger guns. More HP. More XP. Bigger Level.

In Fist, it is unclear wether your choices are better or not.

Can I rephrase that for you?
In Fist, it is unclear whether your choices will help you out in a given situation.

Unless you start going mad, most personal development is always a positive thing and will definetly be useful to you in some way. But in the confines of say, a typical shooter, it wouldn't be clear whether your choice would help your current situation.

Which again reminds us that the closer we get to the way of the fist, the less appropriate it is for a game title.

quote:
Hey, this makes Thief a lot Fist (or should I say Blackjack ).

I must get around to playing Thief. It's frequently referred to by people on GD.

quote:
But, LOL, its easy easy to make Gun even out of friendship. If the design makes parties very usefull (horror in the eyes of the poor goblins outside the town who packed hoping to threaten off the insane adventurer as a horde of PCs comes for them), players will quickly go repetitive again : buy healing potion, buy arrows, go to town center and join party.

True. You'd need to find something to balance it out. Maybe giving bonuses for people who form a lasting team made of the same people. It'd be tricky to create such a band of men without personality traits and character development being a real issue.

quote:
Being part of a _bigger_ gang is Gun in both reality and game.

Not really sure I'd agree with that. A circle of friends impacts many areas of our lives, but not always positively, and alot of it comes down to your personality. With characters who are a bit of a loner, Solid Snake???, then being part of gang would actually make life awkward for them. Also, it depends on your mood - sometimes you just want to be alone.

Even without that, it's not always a good thing to have a huge gang. Consider elite military services, there's a reason they don't send 200 men on a mission.

I think the non-linear and unpredictable relationship between groups of people and their individual moods, makes friendship and grouping more of a fist thing.

Or atleast it should be.

Edited by - Eight on April 12, 2001 7:52:09 AM

quote:
Original post by Eight :
Unless you start going mad, most personal development is always a positive thing and will definetly be useful to you in some way.

You seem to imply that going mad is always a bad thing. Might get one a Mad Savant Guild membership

In many games choosing between character improvement paths leads to good or bad decisions, even when every improvement actually does make your character better.

It''s easy to think of "improvements" that are (potentially) harmfull :
- study of necromancy for a paladins career
- corruptions in Adom : some of your stats increases (like strength, damage, etc), while others drop (like charisma, dexterity). Some more physical classes might benefit these. Still getting too corrupted ment loosing the game.


However, even with very complicated fisty character improve systems, the Fist slowly goes Gun as the player learns the effects of the verious choices and discoveres the best strategies.

quote:
Not really sure I''d agree with that. A circle of friends impacts many areas of our lives, but not always positively, and alot of it comes down to your personality. With characters who are a bit of a loner, Solid Snake???, then being part of gang would actually make life awkward for them. Also, it depends on your mood - sometimes you just want to be alone.

Even without that, it''s not always a good thing to have a huge gang. Consider elite military services, there''s a reason they don''t send 200 men on a mission.

Right ! But, you must agree that in todays kill based character development systems teaming up will generally help everyone joining. Especially if the reward in XP and gold is hard-coded, the interaction between the player is highly discouraged. Making a game where in a lot of situations 200 men will have less chance of success than 1 or 3 is a challenge.

quote:
I think the non-linear and unpredictable relationship between groups of people and their individual moods, makes friendship and grouping more of a fist thing.

Yes, this is the way of the Fist (and the way to the future too). But only if these relationships have an consistent effect on the game will they become really good. In order to make a relationship an important part of the gameplay I''d add lots and lots of opportunities for stealing, cheating, backstabbing your best friend. In this way being able to completely trust someone will be a great great asset. And if not, teams of not trusting each other players will be lot more interesting, since they must constantly pay attention to each others every action / words

Like that movie "The good the ugly the evil" (with Clint Eastwood i think). Guys that would have shot each other in the head for a nickle with no remorse whatsoever forced to work together.