SE5 screenshots ugly?

[Captain Kwok]

I would estimate at least 50% of the development money for SE:V was spent on graphics related items. The remainder of the money probably was used to keep Aaron fed and sheltered.

[Raapys]

Why don't you explain to us all how gameplay suffers if you can't pay the salaries of multiple designers? You only need one for anything but the largest projects. Programmers don't tend to make gameplay design decisions, and neither do artists.

Of course you benefit from more than one, just as you benefit more from ideas from 10 different people as opposed to the ideas of 1 man. I might think of an ingenius gameplay feature that you would never have thought of. On your last note, isn't it pretty common that a fair amount of designers also do programming?

Of course you need written documentation, or else you're just making the argument because it's popular to complain about graphics on internet gaming forums.

Yeah, that must be the reason. I get off on complaining about companies having way too much focus on graphics and too little focus on gameplay on gaming forums.

You won't get better gameplay by throwing money at a developer, as gameplay is essentially the result of one or two people's work. Once you've paid their salaries, giving them extra money wouldn't make any difference other than to make the design more muddled by adding other opinions.

Yet, everytime I play a game I can think of *uncountable features* to add to it. And again and again we hear developers cut features from the design document because 'there was no time/resources to implement it'. They must all be lying, obviously. The truth is that it was impossible to add anything more because they reached the magical "diminishing returns" limit! For many games it seems to come into play when they've added weapons, walking, jumping, basic AI and a couple of maps.

There's no point in spending greater and greater amounts of money on gameplay because of diminishing returns on your investment.

If developers today were anywhere near reaching the 'diminishing returns' limit, why aren't the games then just full of gameplay features? Or at least hours upon hours long? Don't forget that level/world design and building also goes into the 'gameplay' part. Game length isn't exactly outstanding these days either. Think it took me 6 hours to go through Half-Life 2 the first time.

You're not a Malfador fanboy, you're a gameplay over graphics fanboy.

Well, I suppose it's better than being a graphics fanboy like most people seem to be. Is that what you are? Personally, I'm really just tired of seeing the graphics get better and better over the last years, yet having the gameplay quality stall and diminish. Not to mention the Legend of Innovation and Creativity in games.

Developers of games like Space Empires and Mount&Blade, low-budget, 1-2 man projects, manage to create far more entertaining and featureful games than uncountable high-budget games. That tells me someone is better at placing their resources than others, and those others usually seem to be the mass-appeal companies that coincidently also happen to have top of the line graphics in their games.

Put it this way, presented with the choice of having access to the games of the 90's or those of today's market, I'd not even need to consider it. And it has nothing with fanboyism to do at all, but everything to do with actually appreaciating good games.

[Fyron]

Forget about the money; time is the relevant factor. Fancy graphics engines require programming time to make. Gameplay features require programming time to make. There is a limited amount of man-hours available. More time put into fancy graphics engines means less time for gameplay features. The textures and sounds and even models can be made by non-programmers, but it takes a hell of a lot of time to design and program a smooth 3d engine; orders of magnitude more than a 2d engine. Where the company is willing to invest time is the issue. Some can devote enough to both parts, some (eg: most console developers) devote too much to graphics and not enough to gameplay, and some probably devote too much to gameplay and not enough to graphics.

And as you said Graeme, you can't just keep throwing more programmers at the task and get increased productivity. While you can certainly benefit from more if you only have 1 or 2 (1 person doesn't have to make the entire game engine and graphics engine), productivity comes with an inverted parabolic curve.

[Raapys]

Of course, but there's the fact that tons of developers buy someone else's engine and do minimal work on it themselves so it fits their game. Anyway, it still comes down to a question about money/resources, because the more money you have, "the more time you have", as you don't need to rush out the game to cover your expenses.

[Dizzy]

Well, if they need more money, I'm sure they could have arranged 'pre-orders'... but havent seen that call. I guess they are content with the progress they are making... Are they making progress?

[Graeme Dice]

Imperator Fyron said:
The textures and sounds and even models can be made by non-programmers, but it takes a hell of a lot of time to design and program a smooth 3d engine; orders of magnitude more than a 2d engine.

And yet, if you actually talk to developers they will tell you that it's easier to make a 3D game than a 2D one. The art is that much simpler to generate, and nobody needs to develop a 3D engine from scratch.

And as you said Graeme, you can't just keep throwing more programmers at the task and get increased productivity. While you can certainly benefit from more if you only have 1 or 2 (1 person doesn't have to make the entire game engine and graphics engine), productivity comes with an inverted parabolic curve.

While it's true that you can't put an unlimited number of people on a project, the actual design of the game requires creativity, while things like the graphic engine generally only require competency. That means that you reach the point of diminishing returns far faster.

I see people complaining that developers sacrifice gameplay for graphics, which completely misses the point. If a game doesn't have good gameplay, then blame the lead designer, not the graphics, because spending less time on the graphics won't change anything if your designer can't make a fun game in the first place.

[Graeme Dice]

Raapys said:
Of course you benefit from more than one, just as you benefit more from ideas from 10 different people as opposed to the ideas of 1 man. I might think of an ingenius gameplay feature that you would never have thought of. On your last note, isn't it pretty common that a fair amount of designers also do programming?

What you're promoting here is game design by committee. Would you make the same argument for a screenplay or book? That adding a fifth, or sixth, or tenth author would make the end product better? Of course you wouldn't.

While many designers do program, that doesn't make all programmers designers.

Yeah, that must be the reason. I get off on complaining about companies having way too much focus on graphics and too little focus on gameplay on gaming forums.

On any given day, thousands of people make posts to gaming forums that copy the opinions of other people so that they will feel accepted by the other denizens.

Yet, everytime I play a game I can think of *uncountable features* to add to it. And again and again we hear developers cut features from the design document because 'there was no time/resources to implement it'.

An unlimited list of features will take an unlimited amount of time to complete. Trying to implement every single feature you might initially want means that you will never release your finished product.

The truth is that it was impossible to add anything more because they reached the magical "diminishing returns" limit! For many games it seems to come into play when they've added weapons, walking, jumping, basic AI and a couple of maps.

What is wrong with that list of features you just presented? It seems like that would be a perfectly fine set of features if somebody is trying to make a competent game that will be enjoyed by a moderately large group of people. There's no requirement that every single game give you hundreds of hours of orgasmic gameplay. As there are dozens of games released in any single year, ten hours of entertainment is almost always more than enough for customer satisfaction.

If developers today were anywhere near reaching the 'diminishing returns' limit, why aren't the games then just full of gameplay features?

Who says that they aren't? There's no benefit in adding features to a game just for the sake of adding features. All that does is increase the micromanagement load in strategic games for instance.

Or at least hours upon hours long? Don't forget that level/world design and building also goes into the 'gameplay' part. Game length isn't exactly outstanding these days either. Think it took me 6 hours to go through Half-Life 2 the first time.

So what's wrong with the length of HL2? Would you prefer that they doubled the length of the path you have to travel just so that it takes you twice as much time to finish? A short, well-crafted experience is worth much more than a long one full of even more crate jumping.

Well, I suppose it's better than being a graphics fanboy like most people seem to be. Is that what you are?

There is nothing

Personally, I'm really just tired of seeing the graphics get better and better over the last years, yet having the gameplay quality stall and diminish.

Why don't you present some actual examples of games where the stall and diminish then. Note that there is absolutely no requirement for innovation for a game to be considered a good game.

Developers of games like Space Empires and Mount&Blade, low-budget, 1-2 man projects, manage to create far more entertaining and featureful games than uncountable high-budget games.

The strategic layer of Mount and Blade is little more than a simplified version of Pirates!, a game first released in 1993. The combat itself is mostly unique (Die by the Sword's is probably still better), but suffers from poor AI. The best way to attack multiple attackers is to run full speed backwards so that they run after you in a line and only attack one at a time.

SE4 has gameplay and usability issues that will always keep it from being a great game unless they are addressed. The balance is absolutely horrendous, with entire swathes of technology completely ignored by any competent player. It's modding alone that makes SE4 worth playing.

The user interface is atrocious. There's absolutely no way, for example, to send a specific colony ship to a specific planet from the planet colonization screen. The UI doesn't even remember if somebody has already colonized a planet when you can't see the system. If you want to scrap a facility and build a new one, you have to select the planet from the map, scrap the facility, then reselect the planet from the map, go to the build queue, then add the facility. The list of every construction queue tells you absolutely nothing about where the shipyards are located. So, if you have a hundred or so shipyards, and want to build something at a specific one, you have to go around to each individually and check them every turn to see if they have finished their last project. You can add multiple items at once, but there's no way to turn off the repeat build function without clicking individually on every shipyard. Nor is there any way to build only a single turn's worth of units in multiple shipyards at once.

That tells me someone is better at placing their resources than others, and those others usually seem to be the mass-appeal companies that coincidently also happen to have top of the line graphics in their games.

What it should tell you is that those developers have better game designers than the people working for the large companies. Since you claim to prefer graphics over gameplay to such a large extent, you might want to go play some Autoduel. You must think it's one of the best games ever.

Put it this way, presented with the choice of having access to the games of the 90's or those of today's market, I'd not even need to consider it.

You do have access to the games of the nineties.

And it has nothing with fanboyism to do at all, but everything to do with actually appreaciating good games.

How many games do you play in a year? I'd hope it's at least 5, preferably more like 10 or twenty if you want to play good games. You might also want to take the rose-coloured glasses that you are viewing older games through. Or are you going to tell me next that Dune 2 is a better game that Rise of Legends because the graphics are worse in Dune 2.

[Fyron]

ten hours of entertainment is almost always more than enough for customer satisfaction.

10 hours, $10 sounds right. To me, $50 for a game that only gives 10 hours of entertainment is ludicrous.

Note that there is absolutely no requirement for innovation for a game to be considered a good game.

I strongly disagree.

[StarShadow]

I can name a game, Civ4. The only thing moving to 3d did for it was to balloon the system requirements. I've spent countless hours playing Civ1/Civ2/Civ3/Smac and it was time well spent. I played Civ4 up until the first patch and shelved it. It was buggy, lagged too much (especially on large maps) and just didn't feel as fun as previous Civ games. In fact, the more I played Civ4, the more I really felt like playing SMAC/X, which I still play.

[Raapys]

What you're promoting here is game design by committee.

One of the greatest games of all time(subjectively, as with everything else), Fallout, used a total of 14 designers, numbers from Mobygames. Baldur's Gate 2 used 8 total.

On any given day, thousands of people make posts to gaming forums that copy the opinions of other people so that they will feel accepted by the other denizens.

If I wanted to feel accepted, wouldn't I be agreeing with you? Someone had to come up with those opinions too. Couldn't I be one of them? Or would that be too inconvenient for your arguements?

An unlimited list of features will take an unlimited amount of time to complete. Trying to implement every single feature you might initially want means that you will never release your finished product.

And putting alot of your resources and time into graphics means you will have a very short list of features indeed.

What is wrong with that list of features you just presented?

Nothing, if you want to make just another clone to milk some cash out of the market. In other words, it's good for the guys selling it, but bad for the customers. "Bad how", you ask, "They're getting a game they can enjoy for 10 hours!".
Well, it's not really bad by itself. But do some comparing.

Baldur's Gate 2 offers, what, 100-200 hours of play to finish it, depending on play style? Add to that the ability to create different character, have a different party, do the quests another way, etc. Then take your regular Joe First Person Shooter with shiny graphics. You play through it in 5-10 hours, someday you might even go through it again , so you get 10-20 hours out of the box. Now, one would think the price difference between these games would be huge, since they offer such widely different amounts of content. So, is it? No. You pay the same, but what you get can't even be compared.

Who says that they aren't? There's no benefit in adding features to a game just for the sake of adding features.

Of course not. It's about adding features for the sake of gameplay and depth, a missing concept in today's games.

So what's wrong with the length of HL2?

It's too short. Heck, even Deus Ex, a game that has *far* more gameplay elements and features than Half-Life 2, was over twice as long as it, and even more enjoyable to play.

Why don't you present some actual examples of games where the stall and diminish then.

TES Oblivion, Age of Empires 3, Civ4, Deus Ex 2, Might & Magic 9, Heroes of M&M 5,
the unlimited amount of Doom clones, not to mention the C&C clones, etc.

Now, of course, you wont agree with that at all, because if you did we wouldn't even be having this discussion. So let me just say that I think all these games have been 'victim' of one or more of the following, you don't, and let's leave it at that: dumbing down for mass appeal, lack of innovation, too much focus on graphics, console conversion, lack of vision( i.e. just want to make a game that sell, no passion behind it).

The strategic layer of Mount and Blade is little more than a simplified version of Pirates!, a game first released in 1993

"Note that there is absolutely no requirement for innovation for a game to be considered a good game."

As for SEIV, to me it's already a great game: far greater than uncountable high-budget ones. The modding part of the game is a feature that definitely helps keep it fresh, but the best part of the game is the crazy number of gameplay features it offers, compared to any other game in the genre.

you might want to go play some Autoduel. You must think it's one of the best games ever.

Never tried it. I regularly play oldies, though. For instance the adventure games from Lucas Arts, Pizza Tycoon, X-com, Daggerfall, Imperialism, Capitalism, Reunion, System Shock, and many more.

You do have access to the games of the nineties.

Nevermind my point that games from the 90's blow the water out of today's.

Or are you going to tell me next that Dune 2 is a better game that Rise of Legends because the graphics are worse in Dune 2.

If I was gonna tell you Dune 2 was a better game, graphics wouldn't even enter in to the post. That's how much I care about them. There's two things that enter in. Gameplay and atmosphere/feeling. Now, graphics does enter in on that last point, but not the technical quality of it, but rather what mood it creates, how it fits the game, how it works with the music, etc. Daggerfall, for instance, is one of the most immersive games I know of( much thanks to the music), even though the graphics were considered average 10 years ago.