OT: The Future of Computer Strategy Games

[BudgetMessiah]

Tnarg said:
I think that you are missing the point of the topic of this discussion.

Actually, I'm quite certain that you were responding to my direct question regarding games that one becomes bored with after 5 seconds and the discovery of a "pattern" in said games. I believe that was evidenced by your having quoted that question immediately prior to your response.

However, as you seem willing to drop the subject in response to my rebuttal, we can certainly move on. I'm not much interested in hijacking this thread.

I think it would be great to see a grand strategy game in the future incorporating many of these other engines into them to make a truly emersive experience. For those that enjoy FPS they could hop on in and do that take control of a grunt or pilot a fighter or patrol ship and actually contribute to the success of a mission which contributes to the success of the empire. For those that enjoy RTS like "Hearts of Iron II", "C and C" Those players can hop in and take control of whole squad, platoon, company, brigade, division, corp, army, planetary group, planetary defense force, system defense force, a whole fleet. For those that just like to come up with great designs or ideas, they enter the game, work for a particular empire and possibly even mod a change to the tech tree, or display their ships proudly as the new flagship for a particular empire.

I agree, such a game would be a wonder to behold, and I think we're definitely moving towards systems that can provide the muscle necessary to make such a game work. The trick would then be developing a game so that it's of even enough quality to appeal across the board, and designed in such a way as to be accessible and avoid feature creep.

The most (in)famous attempt to develop such a game, and fail spectacularly, that I can think of would have to be the Battlecruiser series of games (and, yeah, I actually bought and played a few of them). They are a stunning example of what can go wrong if your game doesn't have a streamlined interface, and is not a quality production in nearly every sense. It tries to do just about everything, and fails to be a good strategy game, squad tactical game, space simulator, flight simulator, or FPS. I could go into great detail about their failings, but why bother? Suffice it to say that it's better to do one thing well than do everything poorly.

I would actually be very content if Space Empires incorporated a Deadlock-style ground engagement style game in place of what exists now. Tactics that can be assigned to squads, a handful of meaningful unit types and upgrades that are appropriate for them, and have the computer run the numbers. I'd probably lose my mind if Space Empires incorporated a full-fledged RTS that was well done, but as I said, sometimes trying to spread oneself too thin detracts from the total package.

Adding a Battlefield style FPS, with vehicles and squad roles and weapon upgrades to this, would probably be so far into the realm of fantasy, we'd essentially be talking about a different game.

[Tnarg]

A few examples of a FPS that one can easily recognize a pattern within five minutes. Ghost Recon, Medal of Honor 2. Play five minutes die, restart play another five minutes and the same people that killed you the first time are right where they should be. Heck I love flight simulators, but even highly accurate ones like IL-2 46, the missions and campaigns are pretty scripted except for the dynamic campaing generator which does an ok job with leaving the player with actually not knowing where an enemy will show up.

I didn't want to turn this post into an argument, but an example was wanted.

[Randallw]

BudgetMessiah said:
Sudoku is kind of third grade math homework mixed with elements of a crossword puzzle. It's not exciting, but like most pasttimes, it passes time. Not really my thing, but I see people doing it on the subway, probably because it's easy to get into or put down, and requires very little overhead.

Well I'm glad to hear someone is less than impressed by its intellectual investment. I worried I was being elitist. I can understand people might see it as a way to pass the time, but I lose interest in anything once I understand the method, after that it's just mundane work applying the method. Personally I pass time when I have nothing else to do by considering philosophy, oh and the other week I considered in my mind a rubiks cube with the colours replaced by numerals, sort of like Sudoku I guess but in 3D with 6 faces, and if you'll believe it determining the base for the force of gravity to be exactly 10 (Boy did I laugh when I suddenly realised the intrinsic simplicity , well I would of if it hadn't be in church). When I used to deliver papers I'd pass the time by calculating binary progression.

[capnq]

Randallw said: the other week I considered in my mind a rubiks cube with the colours replaced by numerals, sort of like Sudoku I guess but in 3D with 6 faces

I've seen these in the toys section of my local pharmacy.

I'm not sure how feasible this theoretical monster hybrid game would be. What happens when you can't find enough players interested in a particular subsystem to run that aspect effectively? You're back to letting AI ministers handle those things, with all the problems that brings.

[Atrocities]

I discovered today one thing that is going to seriously hamper the PC gaming industry. Bio-shock. Have you seen the system requirements for this game? Trust me if your not sporting the latest 500.00 video card with a top of the line system your not going to be able to play this game.

As games become more heavily focused on higher end technology most folks are going to be priced right out of contention. I would have to invest 1500 into a new system just to play some of the new games coming out. In a year or two I would have to dump another 400 to 800 dollars into upgrades just to keep semi current. I think that is what is going to really hurt the market as the attrition rate to more affordable console systems increases.

[Suicide Junkie]

As games become more heavily focussed on higher end technology...
they tend to lose focus on what actually makes games fun.

I think outfits like Shrapnel, where the game seems to take precedence over excessive fluff should do well.

[BudgetMessiah]

Suicide Junkie said:
As games become more heavily focussed on higher end technology...
they tend to lose focus on what actually makes games fun.

I think outfits like Shrapnel, where the game seems to take precedence over excessive fluff should do well.

I assure you, that isn't the case with BioShock. It's actually quite a bit of fun, and also worth noting a friend of mine has reported that it's quite playable on a 3 ghz P3 with a Radeon 1950 (which would be about as expensive as an Xbox 360, and can outperform it graphically).

[Fyron]

Bioshock appears to just be the latest mass-market fluff game, kind of like Oblivion...

[Fyron]

Atrocities said:
I would have to invest 1500 into a new system just to play some of the new games coming out. In a year or two I would have to dump another 400 to 800 dollars into upgrades just to keep semi current.

That has always been the case, though. There have always been a few titles pushing the bleeding edge... Of course, in modern times games tend to be a lot better with running on lower-spec PCs than they used to be in the past. Much work has gone into making very scalable rendering engines. Sure you can't play Bioschock on a PC from 1995, but it doesn't require $2000 of PC to play it. The only reason to spend so much money on hardware is if you just have to run games with every setting turned up to the max. Very few, if any, games ever actually require such expensive PCs to play. Its just bad business on the part of the developers to restrict their target market so much...

Consoles have almost always been a pseudo "low cost alternative." They always start out near the cutting edge of PC technology (though generally a bit behind the curve), then fall quickly behind. The modern industry is hardly any different than it was 10, 15 years ago. Hopefully the Wii will shake things up and bring the game industry out of the graphics-fetish slump it has been stuck in for a while...

[Suicide Junkie]

Compare with say, Star Control on a 4-8Mhz PC4i, or SE3/4 on 40-75 Mhz 486es. Starcraft on 400Mhz Pentiums.
3Ghz...nothing yet...

Three orders of CPU magnitude, with no obvious trend in Fun Factor (IMO)...
My conclusion is that Fun is in the hearts of the programmers, and hardware just adds fluff.