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Original post by ElectricVoodoo Quote: Original post by Trapper Zoid but Quake IMO really was just a glorified tech demo. Please, GloriOUS tech demo, at least... the tech on display there we take for granted now but at the time it was entirely unheard of, and it was also a pretty good game!

*eyetwitch* Nooooo. No it was not. Quake was a very fine 3D engine, brilliant for its time. But it was a terrible, terrible game. It's the prime example of what happens when engine developments are regarded as more important than actual gameplay. And worst of all is that it still gets kudos for shaping the direction of FPS gameplay, when instead all it did was cement two game cycles of FPSes into dull run-and-gun through empty corridors of brown.

I should stop now, before I rant on for pages and pages. Maybe I really should let that rant out that I've been bottling up since 1996 [wink]. It's another topic however, and I'd be happy to argue it in another thread if you wish.

har =) no it's okay, I agree that quake has shaped many negative aspects of 3D gaming as well but it's not ID's fault that people copied the fail aspects of their product as well as the wins. System Shock was a much better game, and released two years before quake, but some certain elements of quakes tech, and it's gameplay (e.g. circle strafing) remain industry landmarks. Overrated? probably... But still worthy.

And I had my rant all planned out in my head too, starting with an explanation of how Doom was a much better game than Quake, moving on to a critique of the bland soulless monsters, bland uninspired level design and bland unbalanced weaponry, the choice of ugly 3D effects over (at the time) superior billboarded sprites and the loss of cooperative multiplayer. Oh, and their over-worship of Nine Inch Nails [wink].

While as a Doom fan I was hugely disappointed with Quake, I admit my biggest ire is towards how the rest of the industry felt every FPS should emulate id. This would spark another megarant of mine towards gaming media circa late nineties/early naughts, but I don't find it as bad now. But back then, it felt no publisher game reviewer knew how to be objective, and they didn't know the difference between a good game and a game they found fun. And since everyone working at a magazine seemed to be a big FPS deathmatch player, that meant they felt everything should be like Quake. So I'd read reviews where Thief: The Dark Age would get dinged because its 3D engine "wasn't as smooth as Quake", and my eye would twitch some more. Never mind that Thief wasn't trying to be Quake, and that Quake's engine couldn't do what Thief needed their engine to do. Grr.

My ire culminated in the Quake III versus Unreal Tournament showdown, which I felt showed how most game review outlets couldn't do their job. Here were two multiplayer centered FPS titles aiming for the same niche in direct comparison, and it was clear that by any objective measure that Unreal Tournament was the better game. UT was more varied in level design, had a much better spread and balance of weapons, had actually decent bot AI, varied gameplay modes, and lots of customisability. Quake III had... curvy surfaces, more varied player models... but crucially, was the most Quake like of the games. End result: most outlets chickened out and gave them nearly the same review score. From memory, their argument was that while UT was a more full featured game, Quake III had that "undefinable something" that made it more fun (for them!) to play. I'm sure that undefinable something was just that it followed the Quake paradigms that they were used to after years of playing, 'cause I never saw it. Grr.

I was probably right in that I should leave this alone. [smile] I'm a jaded ex-FPS player who's now moved on to other genres. To tie this into the original topic, I'd put that you should never list some technological boondoggle on your game design shortlist. If you must, phrase it in terms of what the player can do (i.e. "control the game just by looking at key items!") rather than whatever fancy tech you want to develop (i.e., not "technology to recognise eye position and direction!").

Sneftal:
And most *cough* people who call themselves "true eccentrics" are *cough* fuckwits. See what I did there? I asserted.

Me:
You are so rude. Maybe a bit of a bit of a bit of a smartass too. I like that. Doesn't warrant even a 1st Degree burn though. Try harder doggie, then maybe you'll be insulting like the French kings (No offense to those who are French themselves, but some of your insults are really nasty!) did to the English and Spanish and Venician kings and monarchs.

Back to subject:

Hmmm... Did anyone not read that I pulled that idea out of my ass! Not literally, though I've heard that people in London around the South-end rummage around in and pull things out of asses profesionally (Though that could be a load a'v coss).

The idea I got for the elves is actually pretty new. The whole "idiot savant" thing makes sense because if you notice (and no, I didn't think of Tolkin's elves. They are the primary reason the majority of the western world know about them. I can't comment on Folk Mythology because I don't know enough about the subject, but I can suitably say that it's not worth an asphir of grain if it's Norse. No offense, but I didn't like the whole idea of Thor anyway. The guy with a hammer that big relative to his size would have had back problems by age 23), elves are always behind humans technology-wise and never normally ahead in magic, magicks, magicka, will, spells, blessings & curses, as well as incantations (Wow, that was pretty concise *Has very lost look on face*).

Hmm... Once again, people are getting to infuriated with replies by others; seem to be taking them too seriously, which is bamboolzeling and certainly bad for your heart (Anyone heard of Flora Butter. It's not that good for you, but "supposedly" it's better for you than other brands. I mean 90% of Americans can't be wrong. Or can they? Aha!).

Heh heh *Sounding like Malcolm Corely*. Without a doubt, everyone either wants to follow or side with a particular lore and history of version of a race or faction, or they want to make up their own (Most, however, fail pretty badly. It's a truth we humans can't get away from). That's when it gets more aggressive and geeky than nerdy and friendly (Two distinctive, but not different styles). Oh, I do love it when people argue over posts and threads start online. It makes me think that (and I'm probably true here without being arrogant) most poster are teens who, in intellectual or intelligent or maturity capacity, are scrapping the bottom of their actual age or are 1-3 years behind. That's why "true eccentrics" (as stated by Sneftal) are "fu&%wits". If you were an eccentric and had the blessing of being two years ahead of most others in maturity and intellect, you'd know what I was talkin' bout.

Man, another long post. I should really make it longer, but there's no real point as some other 14 yr old is going to come along and say "(explative deleted)". As John Travolta said in the half-decent music industry movie, Be Cool: "Be Cool".

Either you're a quaker or you're not. =)

Even though Quake's Cthulhu "story" might have been an afterthought, the game was still pretty good at delivering an "undefinable horror" experience. The sounds were awesome. IMHO it is a great piece of computer game art.

[Edited by - Konfusius on March 27, 2009 10:47:15 AM]

Can we tone down the "I'm so zany and crazeee!" nonsense please, it's rather annoying, and makes your posts unnecessarily difficult to follow.

Also, please reduce the size of your sig, and/or stop posting it in every post.

I'm just going to ignore the whole eccentric thing because in all honestly who cares? By bringing it up after some people have already displayed a negative attitude does not show this advanced maturity you seem to believe you have. That said, I am honestly unsure of how mature you are in real life because the internet tends to make everyone act like immature idiots.

As for the whole idea tags to avoid, no idea should be avoided. Humans are bound by our lack of understanding, by making games similar to previous ones, players are able to understand it much better and therefore respond by believing the game is better. As Dex said, the majority (read: not all) completely unique idea's will crash and burn. People view elves as the better than human, magical, fantasy creatures, and will favor the elves that fit this mold over the elves that live high in the mountains and have a society akin to barbarians.

Going back to my elves as racist bastards example from my post on the second page (which was ignored [bawling]) the elves in that game were the fantasy magic users without guns or advanced science. The explanation was sort of given when you made it to the elf capitol, their entire society was based on their advanced magic. They didn't need to develop the science the mundane humans needed to survive.

My whole point is that if you change a common idea too much, it is more likely to be rejected then if you take an existing idea and modify to suit your needs.

Oh, and to be honest I haven't read too much fantasy novels, so it may be possible what I thought was a unique idea was possibly done a million times already.

Hey.

Thanks jColton. If I intepreted what you said correctly, you have backed up the one of the main points that I tried to get across. You see, this is the thing, most people (read: most forum posters) will not read a post or Thread-start throughly. That's fine, I do it too sometimes, we all do. Only a few people such as you, TrapperZoid and Cygon, bothered, to put some thought into the post and actually tried to make a point (I'm not dimssing everyone else, just ones that were a bit "tempered". Some others posted up good arguments as well).

You can have all these ideas and concepts for games. I agree, many of them sold well (e.g. Fable 1, Fallout 3 and World of Warcraft). The problem is, as Cygon got correctly on his opinion, many game developers (Realistically, more the publishers) will not spend some time designing and developing story, universe and characters for their games. Quite a lot of them just research into what is popular and will also sell well, as well what ones are future proof (i.e WWII, Robots, Star Wars, Modern-day conflicts and the like). I am, as well as other posters on this forum seem to be (Didn't look at the Nicknames- apologies) tired of the same generic cos-waddle that these companies come out with.

It is impossible to come up with completely new subjects and themes, but hopefully someone out there will (in fact almost every couple of months if not less seems to be the current pace) come up with a few new ideas that in time will become part of this subject (Just as things should be). I'm not saying for the ones that like to use Fail, Epic Fail or Ancient Fail as expressions, that they are indeed Fails, they are just the same or similar experiences as other games have come out with originally (But when Opposing Force came out, it was not at the time a complete load of bulljack because it was a pretty new idea to have Special Forces running about killing aliens).

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Original post by Dex Jackson Quite a lot of them just research into what is popular and will also sell well ... I'm not saying for the ones that like to use Fail, Epic Fail or Ancient Fail as expressions, that they are indeed Fails, they are just the same or similar experiences as other games have come out with originally.

What definition of "fail" are you using that includes things that "sell well"? Selling well is the opposite of failure.

No. If you read more closely (no offense), you'll see (although forum post are never always clear enough) that I agree with the opinion that many games with generic staples as their themes sell very well. I did not acutally say that the games that used these themes were fails, but that they were generic themes tht are seen in several of the games we have already seen, albeit with very little twist or changes made.