So I've been watching reviews of games that I've played, just out of boredom and cause I liked the personality of the players involved. And it kept going back to "these games might be good, but they're not X". Every time. And I have to rant about it now.

Shooter-RPGs are simultaneously criticized for not being System Shock 2 and also for being too much like System Shock 2. Traditional RPGs are criticized for not being enough like Baldur's Gate, or Ultima, or whatever one from the DOS era that the author likes the most. RTS games are simultaneously criticized for not being Starcraft, and being too much like Starcraft. MMOs are simultaneously criticized for not being enough like World of Warcraft, and being too much like it.

And so on and so forth.

Surprise surprise, the dev teams listen. Sometimes they feel the same way, themselves. And so they try to give people what they want-- that nostalgic feeling. But because of this, eventually everything starts to look the same to the gamer. Well, kiddo, be careful what you ask for. You just might get it. And even worse, these things become industry standards that you MUST put in to get your game idea approved. Because gamers are constantly pining for the "good 'ol days", it's gotten to the point that producers have heard you, and have written a checklist (either literally, or in their head) based off of the players' most common complaints and desires. Gotta check the boxes off, or the dev team won't even get approved to start developing in the first place. So even when developers aren't just blindly grasping at straws to try to capture that elusive feeling of nostalgia, you get shoehorned in elements from old games just so that they can check off the right boxes in some producer's checklist.

And it's your fault. Your nostalgia is the reason why video games suck.

But video games dont suck. Recent games (and Im going back as far as 10 years for recent) have seen some really excellent releases, genres, titles and series.
So no, developers trying to capture nostalgia hasnt ruined recent releases, nor has it stunted the industry, nor has forced a lack of creativity - I'd list a bucket load of examples but you'd probably pick apart each one.

In short: theres nothing wrong with trying to capture a bit of nostalgia and with developers realising a lot of modern gamers have not eevn heard of system shock, deus ex 1 or other such classics, its debatable them trying to capture a retro feel even happens at all.....

That doesn't even mirror what I've seen on this very forum. People here complain about how games are trying to rip off old games and therefor suck, while in the next breath complaining about how games aren't enough like old games (and therefor suck).

How about being overly vocal of an opinion and an overwhelming need for labeling?
Same can be said for music, books, movies...

I personally appreciate different, something plucked out of the air and not following an established public formula.
I find you can appreciate something for being brilliantly executed (technically proficient) OR an original idea dragged out of a creative person's mind (harder to do in my view).
It is a very rare thing to do both.

Sure, blame consumers seeking those comfy old shoes, I am sure they are being lazy with their leisure time.

I am in my late 40's, pretty much been a gamer the whole time and seen much out there.
It is an easy thing to take a brilliant "original" idea from the past and modernize it: those pesky developers are rather risk adverse.
You can still see the innovation you seek with Steam green light (<edit> I had voted regularly, not so, in a year or so) and kickstarters had been interesting.

I think the difference you seek is those that "pine for the good ol' days" really are looking for that awesome feeling of being faced with something new, not predictable, which may be confused with wanting the same game. I am not content to play many of my old games again or read many books I have already: it is done now, I enjoyed it and am ready to move on.

I think I would "blame" the people who mistake those comparisons as a winning proven strategy, I say throw it out the window.

Well, I cant say I agree and I've been browsing the VG forum for 7 years or so.
Yes of course there are certain examples, especially if a developer deliberately releases a followup to a recognised classic (DX3 is a good example) but overall, I've seen less moaning about ripping of old games/arent like old games than moaning about poorly released titles which are either buggy, underdeveloped, need serious patching or are just plain gak.

Its likely got less to do with people complaining about replicated old classics and more to do with lazy and rushed developmental cycles.

And I'll reiterate the point that develppers liklely couldnt give a damn about what "older" gamers think of classics, they are there to either make a game they genuniely believe in or appease a big money publisher.
I'd wager on this forum and most definitely on "younger" forums a lot of gamers have not even played SS1/2, DX1, AvP1, Baldurs gate, Morrowind etc etc.
Hence why would developers cater to such a small audience such as ourselves (I conider myself an old gamer btw).

Uh okay? Cant say I see what you are rambeling about. Video games today are great! Or so I think but you are of course entiteled to your opinion Melissia

 Trondheim wrote:
Uh okay? Cant say I see what you are rambeling about. Video games today are great! Or so I think but you are of course entiteled to your opinion Melissia

I keep hearing from friends and acquaintances, as well as a lot of the more famous reviewers, things like "I've played this game before when I played system shock 2, except that was better, and kids these days don't know how good it was back then."

That's the kind of thing that made me need to rant.

Uh...what? People on these forums complain about games ripping off older games? That certainly doesn't meet my experience.

People rooting for older games has a lot of actual reasons bar nostalgia. SS2 for example was an intelligent hybrid of RPG and shooter and no other game managed to capture said mixture again. Bioshock was a shooter right from the start and claimed to have "RPG elements" that were limited to "spells" you picked up. RTS..well, is pretty much dead nowadays. RPGs...well, most RPGs nowadays are other genres with RPG elements and thanks to Kickstarter, there still are actual RPGS getting produced.

Video games are still awesome and it's one of the most profitable markets out there. It managed to get out of its niche and head straight for the casual / broad market and has become a medium that is more progressive, experimental and adventerous than any other mass media nowadays. Video Games have transcended the mere hobby and truly became a medium of expression; art, if you want it.

So...yeah, lay off your broad brush and settle down.

Nostalgia is a strong factor, naturally, and a lot of people would be surprised how badly some games...a lot of games aged, but all of those people hating video games? Hell naw.

SS2 for example was an intelligent hybrid of RPG and shooter and no other game managed to capture said mixture again.

I don't even have to do research to prove this wrong. Not only did Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines do mix RPG and Shooter elements, IMO it did it vastly better than SS2 ever could. And other games could be listed as a counter to this that were released even later than VTMB.

Melissa is more a gaming discerning connoisseur.
Us McDonald's consumers are harshing her mellow.

A blanket statement of games sucking is not terribly accurate.
It is easier than ever to market/flog your latest code so the volume of garbage vs. brilliant is becoming that much smaller.
I do not want to be blamed for stinkers like Godus, I will not be blamed for money grabbing, ill conceived, sycophant approved drivel.

People have a right to opinions but not a right to go unchallenged on their merit.

 Talizvar wrote:
Melissa is more a gaming discerning connoisseur.
Us McDonald's consumers are harshing her mellow.

No, shut up.

 Talizvar wrote:
A blanket statement of games sucking is not terribly accurate.

Good thing I'm not making one. In fact, if you look at my own posting history, you'd note I mostly play newer games and I quite enjoy them. In the OP of this thread, I'm criticizing people who constantly pine over old games and act like new games are always trying to rip off old games, or if they don't, they should be.

Ah, so the statement was against lazy reviews of games!
I can get behind that.
I thought gamergate got them to be less full of themselves?
There are few reviewers I put much stock in for that very reason.
I feel comparisons can and should be made if they point to specific features of the game that match, not a general statement. It does run the risk of alienating a younger audience so I think it is foolish to do so.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Melissia wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:
Melissa is more a gaming discerning connoisseur.
Us McDonald's consumers are harshing her mellow.

No, shut up.

Touchy!
I could swear forums are intended for us not to "shut-up".

 Talizvar wrote:
A blanket statement of games sucking is not terribly accurate.

Good thing I'm not making one. In fact, if you look at my own posting history, you'd note I mostly play newer games and I quite enjoy them. In the OP of this thread, I'm criticizing people who constantly pine over old games and act like new games are always trying to rip off old games, or if they don't, they should be.

 Talizvar wrote:
I thought gamergate got them to be less full of themselves?

Gamergate would have to get less full of itself before it could effectively get others to be less full of themselves. Since that's never going to happen, GG will continue to effectively do nothing but cause arguments.

 Talizvar wrote:
I feel comparisons can and should be made if they point to specific features of the game that match, not a general statement. It does run the risk of alienating a younger audience so I think it is foolish to do so.

I get the idea of using older games as short-hand comparisons...

... unfortunately, a lot of times when I hear these comparisons, it's always "... except it's not as good", and the people in question from honestly don't seem to be able to seem to enjoy newer games because they keep making that comparison, and they feel newer games fall short every time. For example, the last of the series of reviews I watched that made me want to rant said "[bioshock infinite] is a good game, but I just can't enjoy it because it reminds me of system shock 2" and then devolved in to a half hour rant on how good system shock 2 was and how kids these days don't know how good it was back then.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talizvar wrote:
Why am I apologizing again over rudeness?

Eh, the only part of your post that was rude, to me, was the part where you basically said I'm a snob.

 Melissia wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:
Why am I apologizing again over rudeness?

Eh, the only part of your post that was rude, to me, was the part where you basically said I'm a snob.

Hmmm....
Fair, blunt statement.
I think it stemmed more from the "our fault" bit you had to say, I was using it more as a pointy stick to get you to elaborate which got you to shut down instead.
I think we established the need for labeling was unhelpful...

I am still curious where this is going, is it a rant to get it out of your system or are you going somewhere with this?
I will give it an honest response, inquiring minds want to know.

I'm not really going anywhere with this, aside from bitterly complaining about other peoples' nostalgia getting in the way of them enjoying a good game.

Why be bitter?
Why do these people matter?
Demonstrate a review of a game how you feel it should be done: you write well.

Just some thoughts of mine.

 Melissia wrote:

SS2 for example was an intelligent hybrid of RPG and shooter and no other game managed to capture said mixture again.

I don't even have to do research to prove this wrong. Not only did Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines do mix RPG and Shooter elements, IMO it did it vastly better than SS2 ever could. And other games could be listed as a counter to this that were released even later than VTMB.

True, forgot about VTMB as a prime example for plot twists (the sisters!) and character diversity (loved the Nosferatu). It still saddens me to remember the game's terrible history of a trash developer who had no idea what he was doing and required tons of community work to make the game playable and enjoyable. Still, to this date, it's unparalleled when it comes to playing the same game differently, even Deus Ex did not manage to pull off said amount of diversity. This being said, I can easily say that a 12 years old game rather counts as Nostalgia to me and certainly not for "modern" games and since you were talking modern games - I wonder if a 12 years old game really qualifies for that.

So...if you wanna discuss modern games, then come up with actually elaborated examples. Naming another old game and then saying "there's more" without naming them is lazy and contributes nothing to the discussion at hand.

Well, we got 'here' quickly - RULE #1 GENERAL IN THREAD WARNING.

PAST THIS POINT, WARNINGS AND SUSPENSIONS AWAIT...

Video Games don't suck. Long standing franchises sticking to old formulas are still consumed and enjoyed by their audiences. There's more experimental, strange and games-as-art stuff coming out of the indie scene than ever. Games feel more healthy and diverse than they ever have before. Sure we have a few big visible failures every year but that's kind to be expected given the size of the industry and volume of releases now.

Yes, the video game market has never been better. Video games are a very affordable hobby that satisfies everyone, literally everyone. The market is so diverse, it's unbelievable, there's something for you, whatever you may be looking for; it's amazing! Even if you want your games like they used to be made 20 years ago, there's new stuff coming out for you via Kickstarter. It's the Golden Age of video gaming right now, right before us.

No, the devs listening to my nostalgia is the reason video games are finally good again.

 Chongara wrote:
Long standing franchises sticking to old formulas are still consumed and enjoyed by their audiences.

Some more than others. The various CoD cash cows are the most obvious example as to why releasing essentially the same game each year isn't a great idea. Most reboots are quite pedestrian (Master of Orion or the new Fallouts for instance) while some are very good (XCOM). There is a lot more to gaming than nostalgia driven reboots however; the games that I am most looking forward to this year (Stellaris, That Which Sleeps, The Mandate) are brand new

There is nothing inherently wrong with reboots provided that they are at least passably interesting and that there is a wide and deep range of choice. Both of these are true.

Arguably gaming is healthier than it has ever been.

Make video games great again!

- Kickstarter, 2016

Seriously though, Kickstarter has a great influence on the industry. Both sides win; players can vote with their wallet (literally) and game developers can use Kickstarter to see if there's merit in trying to make a game without having to put lots of work and cash into market research beforehand. Everyone wins!

I kind of think we can blame the devs nostalgia too. You always see independent devs wanting to reiterate on the past too. Like every mmo dev out there seems to be trying to recreate their first mmo. You can't get a 4x game dev admit that there have been others games besides MOO.

Oh the other hand, games have always been rather copy caty. having a big nostalgia boom just means there is more people are allowed to copy. Like if your making a shooter, you don't just have to copy COD, you can copy doom now.

nomotog wrote:
You can't get a 4x game dev admit that there have been others games besides MOO.

Are you aware of Stellaris?

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

nomotog wrote:
You can't get a 4x game dev admit that there have been others games besides MOO.

Are you aware of Stellaris?

Actually.

I was vaguely aware of it and then after I posted my comment i though I should look into that game and see how it is. It was at about the 8 dev diary I thought OK I like this idea. I haven't looked at enough to tell if it is radically different then moo though.

nomotog wrote:
I haven't looked at enough to tell if it is radically different then moo though.

For a start it isn't turn based.

I don't know if the whole thing will gel together but the vision and the individual building blocks are interesting

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

nomotog wrote:
I haven't looked at enough to tell if it is radically different then moo though.

For a start it isn't turn based.

I don't know if the whole thing will gel together but the vision and the individual building blocks are interesting

That isn't a huge change all bu itself. Star drive wasn't turn based when it came out.

The neat thing with Stellaris seems to be the populations and empires. I am not sure I understand it, but looks like the different fractions will be made of more then one population and different regions can split off or join up. Then you have the ability to uplift primitive populations that sound really cool. The tech system sounds the most different I love the idea of science ships. (Really surprised that this isn't a thing in other x4 games.)

nomotog wrote:

The neat thing with Stellaris seems to be the populations and empires. I am not sure I understand it, but looks like the different fractions will be made of more then one population and different regions can split off or join up.

Yeah, as I understand it you start as a single species but as you expand to more extreme planets its advantageous to start genetically and/or cybernetically altering your colonists to the extent that they essentially become a subspecies and no longer completely fit in your society (in practice they may well act like Eu IV colonies in that you can only control so many before they start getting cranky and demanding at least some autonomy). You can also develop advanced AIs and use them to colonise really nasty worlds but in doing so they can go rogue and create a galactic robotic uprising.

I think the political aspect of the game will be more interesting. Normally in 4X game by the time you get to the mid/late game you tend to have a giant military steamroller than kills everything. In Stellaris you can't do that and it basically turns in to CK2 in space (complete with the need for a cassius belli before you can declare war).

There are some elements of standard 4x games, nothing is ever made completely from scratch, but there are so many new elements or elements taken from completely different games that there really is nothing like it (except perhaps Distant Worlds).

 Talizvar wrote:
Demonstrate a review of a game how you feel it should be done: you write well.

I'd be interested in reading Melissia Game Reviews

 Sigvatr wrote:
It still saddens me to remember the game's terrible history of a trash developer who had no idea what he was doing

To be fair to Troika, that was one of the first Source engine games ever. That type of facial animation was revolutionary at the time.

I like nostalgia!

Not quite an Oldhammerer myself, but I can really see the temptation!

On the subject of video game nostalgia, I enjoy http://www.project1999.com/ , which is a recreation of the ground breaking Everquest MMO covering the 1999-2001 era.

 Melissia wrote:
I'm not really going anywhere with this, aside from bitterly complaining about other peoples' nostalgia getting in the way of them enjoying a good game.

So you're complaining that some people don't like the same games you do? Oh the inhumanity, Oh the indignity!

From what I understand, most computer/video games need to have a degree of nostalgic gameplay in them, to connect with either past series games or similar gameplay styles.

However, it's far from ruined. I'd actually point out that underneath games like Battlegrounds and fallout 4, you've got games like No Man's Sky, and Angels Fall first, Games that are almost entirely based on the old styles, but are groundbreaking.

I'd also point out that nostalgia is the reason a lot of non-video games items, like clothing, movies and so on bite the dust. It's a generalisation. No need to be bitter about it.

Games are often ok but in the case of starcraft 2 I'd say that game needs some change for the better. The hardcore fans of starcraft are ruining it I think. How many RTS games have so much base-building and dealing with resources? It should be the tactics involved and sure resources are a thing but should be put on the backburner as far as the tactics are concerned. All I need to know is my dudes are getting resources rather than purchases builders and gatherers to do this crap. Seriously starcraft 2 has designs created in the 90's of strategy gaming.

There are newer RTS games like company of heroes 2 and wargame: red dragon.

Oh and as a totally odd sorta contradictory behavior to my statement I think i'll play starcraft 2 with a friend . We might play something else though.

--------

As far as warhammer fantasy goes (if we're talking nostalgia ruining games) I'd prefer it over 'Age of Sigmar' any day. Perhaps that's just because I liked it so when it died and I saw what was new I saw it cater to painters, 40k players and that's about it.

I think it can be said either end can ruin the game and usually it's either hardcore gamers ruining things for casual fans and casuals ruining things for hardcore players. It's been happening for a while now.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Seriously starcraft 2 has designs created in the 90's of strategy gaming.

Which some people, including me, enjoy. Its very easy to do badly (which is why base building RTS games are a rarity today). Starcraft 2 is the only RTS game that I play these days and that is largely due to its base building.

All games have core mechanics that were created in the 80s and 90s (sometimes even the 70s) Where would CoD XXII be without Castle Wolfenstein?

Well thing is the base building or bases weren't so bad. However gatherers are not needed. Most games use gathering points of interest or simplify the resource mechanic as it should be. Dawn of war 2 had one stupidly hard to kill building as your HQ and that wasn't that good.

Most other RTS's also have things such as squads. Then there's the whole ridiculous click a million times to win. That isn't a strategy so much as a test to see who suffers carpal tunnel first. I mean if you played any game with formations like Total War they probably have a 'loose formation' that could set your guys spaced apart in a hurry. Why do I need to click a million times to do this? It's not needed. It doesn't make you a better tactician. It should be easy like somebody saying 'Hey guys spread out and die less!' Seriously AoE would be infinitely easier to handle if that was a thing.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
It doesn't make you a better tactician.

No RTS will make you a better tactician

Starcraft is largely about micro; that's why there are individual units and why there are workers. Its also why it is a massive E sport. Lots of people evidently like that kind of game.

I worked at Sony Computer Entertainment for 17 years, at first in development, later in marketing, and went through six generations of consoles; PS1, PS2, PSP, PS3, PS Vita and start of PS4.

From my experience, the thing about video games is that it's really hard to develop significant new ideas, and most new generations of games are the recreation of the previous version with better graphics and a new story. If it's a racing game, you might get supposedly better AI and more tracks.

That's why story based games like Tomb Raider, Uncharted or Phoenix Wright just keep going and going. There are a couple of refinements or changes in each new version, but the main change is the story and the graphics.

It also explains the popularity with developers of online multi-player modes. The other human players supply the variability and intelligence that a game can't.

It's actually really rare to be able to invent a completely new kind of game. Arguably, Journey (That Game Company, PS3, 2012) was the last really new idea and it's an idea that can't even be successfully repeated, as you see from the reviews of the PS4 version.

I've been playing video games since before a lot of you were born. I've been through periods of greater and lesser enthusiasm. At the moment I'm at a low point, and hardly touch my consoles (my daughter broke my DS Lite, which doesn't help.) It's not nostalgia preventing me from enjoying new games so much as the cyclical realisation that there hardly ever are any new games. I've played enough games for a while, and need to do something else.

In some way this is like reading novels. There's an old theory that there are only 12 distinct plots, and all novels are a variation on them. IDK if it's true, but there are times I've overdosed on zombie novels, or military SF< and had to move well away from a genre and tackle something completely different.

I blame Final Fantasy VII.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
It should be easy like somebody saying 'Hey guys spread out and die less!' Seriously AoE would be infinitely easier to handle if that was a thing.

I'm pretty sure AoE2 and AoE3 both have that. Loose formation that is.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I worked at Sony Computer Entertainment for 17 years, at first in development, later in marketing, and went through six generations of consoles; PS1, PS2, PSP, PS3, PS Vita and start of PS4.

From my experience, the thing about video games is that it's really hard to develop significant new ideas, and most new generations of games are the recreation of the previous version with better graphics and a new story. If it's a racing game, you might get supposedly better AI and more tracks.

That's why story based games like Tomb Raider, Uncharted or Phoenix Wright just keep going and going. There are a couple of refinements or changes in each new version, but the main change is the story and the graphics.

It also explains the popularity with developers of online multi-player modes. The other human players supply the variability and intelligence that a game can't.

It's actually really rare to be able to invent a completely new kind of game. Arguably, Journey (That Game Company, PS3, 2012) was the last really new idea and it's an idea that can't even be successfully repeated, as you see from the reviews of the PS4 version.

I've been playing video games since before a lot of you were born. I've been through periods of greater and lesser enthusiasm. At the moment I'm at a low point, and hardly touch my consoles (my daughter broke my DS Lite, which doesn't help.) It's not nostalgia preventing me from enjoying new games so much as the cyclical realisation that there hardly ever are any new games. I've played enough games for a while, and need to do something else.

In some way this is like reading novels. There's an old theory that there are only 12 distinct plots, and all novels are a variation on them. IDK if it's true, but there are times I've overdosed on zombie novels, or military SF< and had to move well away from a genre and tackle something completely different.

This. You can't constantly come up with new ideas, trying to do something truly different that doesn't have any reference or connection to anything else is damn near impossible.

That being said, no, videogames nowadays don't suck. There are some truly great games out there, and some truly piss poor games. Developers/publishers getting lazy and rehashing or releasing bugged games is why SOME video games suck nowadays (looking at you, Ubisoft).

Is every game a grand slam the way Super Mario Bros. or Halo were? No, but expecting them to be is dishonest and unfair. I don't expect games to blow me away every time. If I have fun, great, if not, I toss it and move on. If it does truly blow me away, then I spend lots of time with it and rave about it to all my friends.

I think your jaded view is making you miss out on a lot of fun being had by other players.

Ha, that original subject title is very distracting from what the OP said.

The issue is more that a reviewer would say "It is like System Shock 2 but not as good..." with some accompanying statements like "they don't build them like they used to" or "get off my lawn!". That the prior knowledge of games should not detract from the one at hand.

I figure it is easier than ever for an independent to publish into what is a mainstream form of entertainment.
There is not much out there to filter out the "garbage" titles never mind heavy DRM, "crippleware", insane DLC's and the silly "shovelware".
A larger proportion of video games "suck" but I would think the new "gems" should still outnumber the past accomplishments.

It is hard to un-remember prior games I have played, just like movies, music or books.
Any title that is too similar to a prior automatically begins to "suck" because it has not sufficiently brought enough new things to the table to entertain me.
The good thing is: new players do not care, it is new to them and seems awesome and innovative.

It is a mixed feeling explaining to my kid that this "awesome new song" that is like a new generation theme is a cover song to something that has had been covered 2 other times since some 20 years ago. It is HARD to amuse the old folks who have "been there, done that, but different".

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Chongara wrote:
Long standing franchises sticking to old formulas are still consumed and enjoyed by their audiences.

Some more than others. The various CoD cash cows are the most obvious example as to why releasing essentially the same game each year isn't a great idea.

Why? Those games have/had large audiences that enjoy them. I mean they're kind of in decline now but they had a very good run. This statement seems to be saying that we shouldn't release brainless summer blockbuster flicks any more. It's harmless popcorn entrainment that peopled enjoyed and made the studios money.

Other cash cows are still going strong. Folks seem content on repurchasing basically the same Pokemon game at pretty regular intervals. Heck it's even still popular with the kids, and other than some innovations every 3-4 cycles it's still the same basic game.

 VorpalBunny74 wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:
Demonstrate a review of a game how you feel it should be done: you write well.

I'd be interested in reading Melissia Game Reviews.

The only distinctly review-like writing I can remember making was where I mildly defended Duke Nukem Forever a while back. Granted, I claim no ability to write good reviews, myself, but that doesn't mean I can't spot a bad one

 Talizvar wrote:
The issue is more that a reviewer would say "It is like System Shock 2 but not as good..." with some accompanying statements like "they don't build them like they used to" or "get off my lawn!". That the prior knowledge of games should not detract from the one at hand.

Basically.

A lot of games are perfectly good or at least decent games, but they're "tainted by association"-- unfairly so. Many games do draw from older games, but the problem is when they do so many people claim they're ripping off the older game, or they're not as good because they're not drawing enough from the older game, because OH MY GOD THAT OLDER GAME WAS SO GOOD, GUYS!!!

It's a really bad habit people seem to get in to... I prefer it when the reviewer at least attempts to judge a game on its own merits, without pining over "the good old days". Because I actually agree, we're in a fething awesome time for gaming. Especially for small game developer companies.

 Melissia wrote:
[

 Talizvar wrote:
The issue is more that a reviewer would say "It is like System Shock 2 but not as good..." with some accompanying statements like "they don't build them like they used to" or "get off my lawn!". That the prior knowledge of games should not detract from the one at hand.

Basically.

A lot of games are perfectly good or at least decent games, but they're "tainted by association"-- unfairly so. Many games do draw from older games, but the problem is when they do so many people claim they're ripping off the older game, or they're not as good because they're not drawing enough from the older game, because OH MY GOD THAT OLDER GAME WAS SO GOOD, GUYS!!!

It's a really bad habit people seem to get in to... I prefer it when the reviewer at least attempts to judge a game on its own merits, without pining over "the good old days". Because I actually agree, we're in a fething awesome time for gaming. Especially for small game developer companies.

Then really, you're SOL. Trying to get people to remove their "nostalgia bias" is nigh impossible. An easier fix would be to not listen to reviewers or just consider all sources. As long as Legend of Zelda games keep getting made, they'll keep getting compared to Ocarina of Time, Link to the Past, and Wind Waker.

Have you any examples of recent reviews by reviewers (or even not so recent) to cite?
I personal dont even bother with reviews anymore be it from "popular" reviewers or main websites. I find friends/colleagues/sites such as gaming forums to be much more helpful and review worthy.
Why? Because said opinions arent out to make a buck/garner publisher support/stroke their own sad egos or bs anyone.

 Chongara wrote:

Why? Those games have/had large audiences that enjoy them.

A large audience is never a particularly good metric to measure quality. MacDonalds is a perfect example of this, or the Fast and Furious films or countless other examples in all kinds of fields.

CoD games are now nearly the definition of a mindlessly generic but extremely expensive game.

 Ratius wrote:
Have you any examples of recent reviews by reviewers (or even not so recent) to cite?
I personal dont even bother with reviews anymore be it from "popular" reviewers or main websites. I find friends/colleagues/sites such as gaming forums to be much more helpful and review worthy.
Why? Because said opinions arent out to make a buck/garner publisher support/stroke their own sad egos or bs anyone.

I agree, skip the reviews, as we've learned it's just more paid advertisement.

I just wait a few days after any release I'm interested in, then I watch the youtube videos so I can decide if it's my kind of game. My friends have horrible tastes, they think firefly is a good show, so I wouldn't take their word on a game

sirlynchmob wrote:

I agree, skip the reviews, as we've learned it's just more paid advertisement.

Not necessarily, reviews from certain sources are usually worth at least considering. RPS seems pretty decent and I haven't violently disagreed with any of their reviews.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Chongara wrote:

Why? Those games have/had large audiences that enjoy them.

A large audience is never a particularly good metric to measure quality. MacDonalds is a perfect example of this, or the Fast and Furious films or countless other examples in all kinds of fields.

CoD games are now nearly the definition of a mindlessly generic but extremely expensive game.

]

What's wrong with having McDs, Fast & Furious or Call of Duty available for people who like those sorts of things? It's one thing to say that these things aren't particularly deep, subversive or thought-provoking. It's another to say having them regularly available is a "Bad Idea".

I'm not a Call of Duty fan by any stretch but it's not like if they didn't exist the money would going to some kind of artful revolution in games. It'd probably be going into games about Chainsawing zombies, or being an assassins with superpowers, or whatever else the next-in-line trend is.

 Chongara wrote:

What's wrong with having McDs, Fast & Furious or Call of Duty available for people who like those sorts of things?

Nothing in itself but they are hardly examples of high quality, generally quite the reverse. This is why I used them as my bad example.

What do you base "high quality" on? CoD has "high quality" movie cinematic gameplay, McDonals has high quality fast food ingredients-wise and FF has high quality car chases and TnA. Batman vs. Superman has high quality visuals and audio, but absolute trash quality script and pacing.

Quality cannot be objectively measured for entertainment media as, as stated before, it's subject to personal opinion and where you see quality in.

 Sigvatr wrote:
What do you base "high quality" on? CoD has "high quality" movie cinematic gameplay.

Yet terrible repetitive mechanics.

It is possible to gauge quality in entertainments, not quantitatively of course but its very difficult to gauge the quality of anything quantitatively. There will always be a degree of subjectivity but meh.

Which is the better film, Aliens or Alien 3. The better burger, MacDonalds or Five guys? The better game, Daikatana or Doom?

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
What do you base "high quality" on? CoD has "high quality" movie cinematic gameplay.

Yet terrible repetitive mechanics.

It is possible to gauge quality in entertainments, not quantitatively of course but its very difficult to gauge the quality of anything quantitatively. There will always be a degree of subjectivity but meh.

Which is the better film, Aliens or Alien 3. The better burger, MacDonalds or Five guys? The better game, Daikatana or Doom?

You can quantify it though.
source: http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Alien#tab=summary

world wide box office:
alien: $203,630,630
aliens: $183,316,455
aliens 3: $155,933,485
AvP: $172,543,519
promethius: $399,005,706

AvP was a horrible movie, and the box office reflected it. I would say aliens was better than alien, it's just that more people world wide saw it differently.

the better the quality, the more it makes. we can look at the last quarters profits for mcD's and 5 guys, and sales for doom & daikatana. Or just track the history of games that can be played online, # of players, time played, etc.

 Lotet wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
It should be easy like somebody saying 'Hey guys spread out and die less!' Seriously AoE would be infinitely easier to handle if that was a thing.

I'm pretty sure AoE2 and AoE3 both have that. Loose formation that is.

Oh I didn't mean 'Age of Empires' I meant 'Area of Effect' type attacks. Also I was referring to starcraft 1 and 2's lack of a loose formation.

sirlynchmob wrote:


the better the quality, the more it makes.

Yeah...no. That has been proven wrong a long time ago.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 Lotet wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
It should be easy like somebody saying 'Hey guys spread out and die less!' Seriously AoE would be infinitely easier to handle if that was a thing.

I'm pretty sure AoE2 and AoE3 both have that. Loose formation that is.

Oh I didn't mean 'Age of Empires' I meant 'Area of Effect' type attacks. Also I was referring to starcraft 1 and 2's lack of a loose formation.

I am quite sure he understood what you meant, and he replied accordigly.

sirlynchmob wrote:

You can quantify it though.

You can't track anything through simple popularity as popularity is so reliant on social and economic factors that are completely divorced from the actual product. Availability, cost, advertising, fashion.......

Given that Prometheus apparently made twice as much money as Aliens that must mean that its twice as good, right?

Video games don't suck at all. The past year I have spent more time playing than I did in the decade previously.

I absolutely smashed the gak out of games like Ocarina of Time and Diablo back in the 90s, but I bet I have spent even longer on Fallout 4, Pillars of Eternity, Witcher 3, Civilization AE, Starcraft 2, and recently, about 100 hours on Xcom 2.

Honestly the games indursty seems to be better than ever, back in the day I would maybe get 2 or 3 wesome games a year, now I get about 10, Im literally spoiled for choice.

Ive even got games on my hard drive I haven't had the chance to start yet, Divinity Original Sin hasnt been clicked months after installation cos I havent finished with everything else.

So I don't buy the original premise. Nostalgia is fine, but it doesn't inhibit my enjoyment of all the new games, or negatively impact the current glut of games. "The Community" is just full of people that whinge too much, but meanwhile, I'm having a ball.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:

You can quantify it though.

You can't track anything through simple popularity as popularity is so reliant on social and economic factors that are completely divorced from the actual product. Availability, cost, advertising, fashion.......

Given that Prometheus apparently made twice as much money as Aliens that must mean that its twice as good, right?

As a quick reference, yes it's twice as good.

But that is just one reference point, we can refine the parameters, and nuke the heck out of it.

and you can track anything through popularity, let's add in rotten tomatoes, aliens-98%, Prometheus, 73%. So aliens is 25% better than Prometheus. Then we could average out the ratings the critics gave them, see which is more streamed on netflixs, most downloaded on torrents, adjust the box office sales for inflation, etc and we can average out the results and quantify which movie is better.

We could then refine the data and make lists, best movies by country, best by state, best by city, etc
When it comes to rating entertainment, It's all about the popularity and we can rank anything with it.

Well see it with superman vs batman, which is arguably a bad movie and as such we'll expect to see lower box office, lower tomatoes rating, less streamed, etc closest comparable movie is 'avengers, age of ultron' opening weekend, $191,271,109 (USA) (1 May 2015) (75% RT)
BVS: $166,007,347 (USA) (25 March 2016) (29% RT)

Clearly avengers is the better movie. But when you get down to individual opinion, there's always someone to say 'that movie sucks' and it doesn't mean he's nostalgic for some by gone movie, it doesn't mean he doesn't appreciate a good movie, it just means he didn't like it. and when he makes his top 10 list of movies, then that is the only list that really matters to him.

 Melissia wrote:
The only distinctly review-like writing I can remember making was where I mildly defended Duke Nukem Forever a while back. Granted, I claim no ability to write good reviews, myself, but that doesn't mean I can't spot a bad one

I think you'd do a better job than the current crop of video game reviewers.

 Trondheim wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 Lotet wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
It should be easy like somebody saying 'Hey guys spread out and die less!' Seriously AoE would be infinitely easier to handle if that was a thing.

I'm pretty sure AoE2 and AoE3 both have that. Loose formation that is.

Oh I didn't mean 'Age of Empires' I meant 'Area of Effect' type attacks. Also I was referring to starcraft 1 and 2's lack of a loose formation.

I am quite sure he understood what you meant, and he replied accordigly.

Nah, I misinterpreted it, I thought he meant Age of Empires.

 Sigvatr wrote:
movie cinematic gameplay

You say this like it's a good thing.

It is, for a huge amount of people.

 Melissia wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
movie cinematic gameplay

You say this like it's a good thing.

I think you cut off the "high quality" that was in quotes before that quote.

I am curious about that statement.

It would be easy to respond "You say that like it is a bad thing.", is it?

I have been amused by the cinematic experience as well as many consumers so I am unsure where that critique is going.

I feel like video games in general are doing pretty well, short of a few glaring exceptions (looking at you Battlefront), and for me at least there's plenty to look forward to even if its not completely revolutionary or generation defining. With mods and the various indie companies going about with things like Undertale there's a decent amount of diversity to keep things relatively fresh.

 Talizvar wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
movie cinematic gameplay

You say this like it's a good thing.

I think you cut off the "high quality" that was in quotes before that quote.

I am curious about that statement.

It would be easy to respond "You say that like it is a bad thing.", is it?

I have been amused by the cinematic experience as well as many consumers so I am unsure where that critique is going.

they can be really bad. take the first lego star wars and trying to do the pod race. you had to win each leg of the race to keep going and in the middle of one was a cut scene. so after being forced to watch it a few to many times, and being unable to skip it, it got old fast.

when used properly they can be really good and help move the story along, but when used improperly they suck the big one. Good or bad, they all should have a button to skip them.

sirlynchmob wrote:
they can be really bad. take the first lego star wars and trying to do the pod race. you had to win each leg of the race to keep going and in the middle of one was a cut scene. so after being forced to watch it a few to many times, and being unable to skip it, it got old fast.
when used properly they can be really good and help move the story along, but when used improperly they suck the big one. Good or bad, they all should have a button to skip them.

Ah! You might be confusing actual "cinematics" vs. "cinematic quality" where if the pod race is dramatically portrayed on the screen with great looking graphics, there should be little need for breaking immersion with a "cut-scene".
Where it could get bad is if dramatic looking points of view are created that could disorient the player during play.
I have seen my fair share of "pants on head" moments where I wanted my viewpoint control back.

 Talizvar wrote:
I have been amused by the cinematic experience as well as many consumers so I am unsure where that critique is going.

I feel that the "cinematic" experience is unimaginative and doesn't make the most out of the interactivity of gaming.

As for "high quality", a lot of games might have "realistic" graphics, but still manage to be boring to look at, while games with "lower" quality graphics just as frequently end up having a unique style that makes them interesting to look at. And that's just the graphics. Developers that end up thinking that graphics are the end-all be-all of gaming, or even near the top of the list of importance, are frequently trounced by games like Minecraft which focus on gameplay-- because games that focus on gameplay make the most out of the medium.

If I was pressed for examples? I'd say Psychonauts has better graphics than, say, Grand Theft Auto 5. Yes, GTAV has better quality renderings... but it's boring and samey and has nothing that really stands out. Psychonauts is visually interesting and has its own style that stands well and above. GTAV will age and age poorly as time goes on and quality gets better, but Psychonauts will always be interesting.

 Melissia wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:
I have been amused by the cinematic experience as well as many consumers so I am unsure where that critique is going.

I feel that the "cinematic" experience is unimaginative and doesn't make the most out of the interactivity of gaming.

As for "high quality", a lot of games might have "realistic" graphics, but still manage to be boring to look at, while games with "lower" quality graphics just as frequently end up having a unique style that makes them interesting to look at. And that's just the graphics. Developers that end up thinking that graphics are the end-all be-all of gaming, or even near the top of the list of importance, are frequently trounced by games like Minecraft which focus on gameplay-- because games that focus on gameplay make the most out of the medium.

If I was pressed for examples? I'd say Psychonauts has better graphics than, say, Grand Theft Auto 5. Yes, GTAV has better quality renderings... but it's boring and samey and has nothing that really stands out. Psychonauts is visually interesting and has its own style that stands well and above. GTAV will age and age poorly as time goes on and quality gets better, but Psychonauts will always be interesting.

Well.. You're wrong. Psychonauts has a far more interesting aesthetic, that doesn't make the graphics better.

 Soladrin wrote:
Well.. You're wrong. Psychonauts has a far more interesting aesthetic, that doesn't make the graphics better.

Yes it does.

Something that's boring to look at has bad graphics. It doesn't matter how high quality the graphics are if they're dull and uninteresting.

 Melissia wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:
Well.. You're wrong. Psychonauts has a far more interesting aesthetic, that doesn't make the graphics better.

Yes it does.

Something that's boring to look at has bad graphics. It doesn't matter how high quality the graphics are if they're dull and uninteresting.

Graphics and aesthetics are not interchangeable.

 Melissia wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:
Well.. You're wrong. Psychonauts has a far more interesting aesthetic, that doesn't make the graphics better.

Yes it does.

Something that's boring to look at has bad graphics. It doesn't matter how high quality the graphics are if they're dull and uninteresting.

No it doesn't.

Graphics =/= visual style.

The latter is the term you're looking for. Graphics can be objectively assessed in terms of technology, polygon count etc. Visual styles are subjective, and in fact I'd be more inclined to agree with you if you said Pscyhonauts has the more interesting visual style.

Edit: Aesthetics is a more accurate term.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Melissia wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:
Well.. You're wrong. Psychonauts has a far more interesting aesthetic, that doesn't make the graphics better.

Yes it does.

Something that's boring to look at has bad graphics. It doesn't matter how high quality the graphics are if they're dull and uninteresting.

No. A game can have fantastic photo realistic graphics, but still look boring. And a game can look very interesting and striking, but with terrible graphics.

I'd say Battlefield 4 and Minecraft are examples of each.

I look to games as I do with books: for immersion.
The graphics, style, challenge and theme/story must all add up to a certain level to be "good".
Darkest Dungeon I swear is sprite graphics but it is a whole lot of alright on all the other elements, it helps that I like dark themes.
I am sure Starview Valley is a great game but the graphics are just low end enough to give me pause.

I think a deliberate style chosen can dictate the look and play of a game, it lends it some coherency.

Plus would I be a bad person for being happy to see "The Day of the Tentacle" remastered?

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
No. A game can have fantastic photo realistic graphics, but still look boring.

Which means its graphics are bad.

Boring is by far the worst, most insulting thing you can say about a video game.

@melissia: Most insulting thing? How about your game sucks, isn't fun and the mechanics work together worse than the 'tin man' in the wizard of oz before he got oiled joints.

Thanks to steam greenlight there are a lot of crappy games out there, But overall there are a lot of good games available, Although in my opinion there is too much focus on FPS games.

 Melissia wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
No. A game can have fantastic photo realistic graphics, but still look boring.

Which means its graphics are bad.

Boring is by far the worst, most insulting thing you can say about a video game.

Well no. When people say "Graphics" they're typically talking about graphical fidelity Graphics are the technical merits and polish of the effects, models, textures, lighting and animations. However there is more than graphics to how a game looks, and general aesthetics stand distinct from graphics. Art Design & Direction, the use of color, architecture and atmosphere to create something visually interesting and engaging. You can't just lump everything regarding appearances into "Graphics" because the distinction captures the difference between real and important elements of a game. A high budget modern grey/brown military shooter is going to have very good graphics: Highly detailed textures and models, smooth animations, crisp accurate lighting & water effects, and realistic dust, smoke and fire. However one might be fair in finding the appearance to be bit boring, uninspired and tiring to look at. By the same token a game could suffer from dodgy animation, low res textures and draw distance issues and still have interesting character designs, inspired environments and distinctive palette that still come together into something stimulating and enjoyable to look at it.

 Melissia wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
No. A game can have fantastic photo realistic graphics, but still look boring.

Which means its graphics are bad.

Boring is by far the worst, most insulting thing you can say about a video game.

No it doesn't. FFS Melissia, we've literally spelt it out for you. Have you actually bothered to read our responses?

You are conflating two separate terms, Graphics and Aesthetics. You are by far the most dogmatic member on Dakka Dakka that I know of.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
What do you base "high quality" on? CoD has "high quality" movie cinematic gameplay.

Yet terrible repetitive mechanics.

It is possible to gauge quality in entertainments, not quantitatively of course but its very difficult to gauge the quality of anything quantitatively. There will always be a degree of subjectivity but meh.

Which is the better film, Aliens or Alien 3. The better burger, MacDonalds or Five guys? The better game, Daikatana or Doom?

Aliens 3 is a good film, in its way just as good as Alien, but it doesn't make any sense without already having seen Alien and Aliens. The three films are part of an overall story arc.

Five Guys is better than McD and twice as expensive.

Doom was better than Daikatana, which suffered terribly from an overlong development period and badly inflated expectations.

Call of Duty is repetitive because there are very few variations possible in the basic scenario of modern soldiers running around and shooting each other. Tomb Raider tried to innovate its mechanics as the series went on, and one or two versions were bloody terrible as a result.

 Chongara wrote:
Well no. When people say "Graphics" they're typically talking about graphical fidelity

The term "graphical fidelity" exists specifically to differentiate from "graphics" as a whole. "Graphics" is more than just "graphical fidelity".

 Melissia wrote:

 Chongara wrote:
Well no. When people say "Graphics" they're typically talking about graphical fidelity

The term "graphical fidelity" exists specifically to differentiate from "graphics" as a whole. "Graphics" is more than just "graphical fidelity".

I have to agree that "graphics" applies to both functional and artistic.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/graphic

I really liked the Infinity Engine games of that era but feel no need to dust off that old interface: it is painful to use now... dated.
Sure, dust off some old games and make them good again, but let us adhere to the creative good elements and not re-create the limitations of the hardware or bad interface design from that time.

Man, if I had known my love for older rpgs had such bearing on current generation game design I would have been more upset about how bad The Old Republic was.

Thank you for opening my eyes, off to post various inciteful messages on other boards so my favorite designers know that they're doing it wrong.

 Melissia wrote:

 Chongara wrote:
Well no. When people say "Graphics" they're typically talking about graphical fidelity

The term "graphical fidelity" exists specifically to differentiate from "graphics" as a whole. "Graphics" is more than just "graphical fidelity".

"Graphical Fidelity" isn't even a term used in casual conversation on games, and only rarely in reviews and other more formal discussions. I only used it here to avoid the redundancy of when saying something like "When people say graphics, they mean the graphics". In the specific realm of video games (well, computers more generally) "Graphics" really is more often to described what might be thought of technicals, rather than art direction. Just contrast the definitions of "Computer Graphics" and "Graphics" and you'll see the difference in framing. The (or at least a) commonly understood usage of "Graphics" in the context of video games much closer to "Computer Graphics" than the more general dictionary definition of "Graphics"

Even if I just concede the point and say he was using the term incorrectly, the point he was making was still totally clear: "Game looked good on technical merits, design was flat and uninspired:"

Video games don't suck. You've just outgrown them.

It is unfortunate that in many ways as we get older we can spout-off about the "good old days".

It is easy to dismiss a "new" game as just some other "me too" version of a game that came before.

It really can be an opportunity to expose a new generation to prior game concepts we valued.

I still have mixed feelings of the label "Rogue-Like" but it's connotation for me is ASCII graphics, it was hard and all and I played it on a mainframe but really now.

I still love Fantasy games, just dusted off the updated "Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition" and liking it, "Pillars of Eternity" may get another go.
Heck, I will say this quietly but I now actually like Diablo 3 with the gazillion changes they made (took long enough).
"Grim Dawn" may be next on the list (my second cousin Eric Sexton got to work on it, yay!) which I hear is a different style than "Path of Exile".

Where was I going with this?
There is a whole lot of awesome out there and current comparisons with programs that came out within the last 5 years would be a good start.

I am so happy programmers do not need a big developer name to get their programs out.
Darkest Dungeon I am very happy with, heck "Space Pirates vs. Zombies" is a fine guilty pleasure for me (SPAZ2 soon!).

 Talizvar wrote:


It really can be an opportunity to expose a new generation to prior game concepts we valued.

Exactly!!!

I still enjoy video games, but not the same ones I enjoyed 20 years ago. My kids on the other hand think Pac-Man is the shizz!

Mdlbuildr wrote:
......is the shizz!

That sounds nasty.

I have Final Fantasy on my ipad for long air plane rides. I also have Bubble Witch Saga 2.

I have all the video games I'll ever need.

This might be bad but... I do not recognize any of those games you mentioned except for 1

I have 2 kids and a wife so time for video games is better spent sleeping. I do not think I followed a new franchise except for blood born since 1999....... I just dont have fun with most games.

The biggest problem with modern games is this time needed to be good. Back in the day you could play for a hour and be the best. Now they make you need to play and pay 600 or more hours to get the gun that can kill 6 people in the same time the one you start with takes 12 minutes to do. It makes sense tho kids now a days dont want to get better just spend more time/money and then think they are better. I dont get it from a player perspective but from a buisness one ya pay 6$ and get the better gun lol

That's... a rather uninformed opinion. But then you do admit that you haven't been up to date in 15 years. Play for an hour and be the best? I think you're wearing sligtly delusional rose-coloured glasses. Games these days are overall easier than they have ever been with a few specific exceptions like the "Souls" series and their imitators and relations, and they use the difficulty as their USP.

Grind is a separate factor, but not worth explaining here.

As for the OP - I think Melissa needs to read/watch different (or fewer) games media if she keeps seeing SS2 references everywhere. Also, they don't suck.

I've found there's many reasons why reviews lean towards being overly harsh. Particularly when the game was hyped / the developers promised X, Y and Z and didn't deliver, the game gets slammed. Also if the game is a sequel that wasn't a big leap up from its predecessor it's ratings tend to suffer. You could say all of this is fair enough, but the reviewers disappointment often gets in the way of evaluating the game fairly.

 thegreatchimp wrote:
I've found there's many reasons why reviews lean towards being overly harsh. Particularly when the game was hyped / the developers promised X, Y and Z and didn't deliver, the game gets slammed. Also if the game is a sequel that wasn't a big leap up from its predecessor it's ratings tend to suffer. You could say all of this is fair enough, but the reviewers disappointment often gets in the way of evaluating the game fairly.

This could be also from "over adjustment".
If they rate it too nicely people think they were bought off, an extension of the marketing machine.
If they had too much hype, it is a bit of a grind debunking them all, good game or not.
I find I am a "promiscuous gamer" where usually it is all good in the end: there are few games I selected that were so awful I uninstalled shortly after.
I may have been lucky.

 thegreatchimp wrote:
I've found there's many reasons why reviews lean towards being overly harsh. Particularly when the game was hyped / the developers promised X, Y and Z and didn't deliver, the game gets slammed. Also if the game is a sequel that wasn't a big leap up from its predecessor it's ratings tend to suffer. You could say all of this is fair enough, but the reviewers disappointment often gets in the way of evaluating the game fairly.

Reviews should be more harsh. The overly-fellative and 7-10 system is severely broken. At least these days some are becoming a bit more critical. I've seen discussion of how something like The Order would have gotten a great review just a few years ago based pretty much on its graphics, but reviewers are starting to look beyond that (sometimes). Similarly, Star Wars Battlefront's reviews weren't the glowing ones that EA expected since behind the (amazing) graphics, the gameplay and features are pretty bloody shallow for a Battlefront game.

In some cases, like WoW, the original (well... kind of) is indeed best.

In some cases, like DOW versus its sequel, it is not at all the case.

It varies as do other things.

 Ashiraya wrote:
In some cases, like WoW, the original (well... kind of) is indeed best.

So by "the original" meaning you think Ultima Online is best?

Ultima Online actually has little to do with WoW. While both being MMO, their similarities soon end. The core mechanisms of WoW and UO are vastly different as the latter is more of a sandbox MMO compared to the former that is brilliantly designed for the broad market using simple yet effective mechanisms to entertain its still vast customer base.

 Talizvar wrote:
This could be also from "over adjustment".
If they rate it too nicely people think they were bought off, an extension of the marketing machine.
If they had too much hype, it is a bit of a grind debunking them all, good game or not.
I find I am a "promiscuous gamer" where usually it is all good in the end: there are few games I selected that were so awful I uninstalled shortly after.
I may have been lucky.

Same here, I always research a game before I buy, and like that I've rarely not finished a title.

My main issue of misleading reviews was certain sequels that were given ratings of 60-65% for various reasons that they disappointed the reiviewers. Some of these titles (Dead to Rights: Retribution is one that comes to mind) I later picked up anyway, and found they were thoroughly enjoyable, more deserving of an 80-85%. So I would say the rating is fair as an evaluation of the develoment of the series, but can be misleading for the individual game, particularly to anyone who is new to the series and hasn't played the earlier games.

Games don't suck, people do. Stop paying attention to other people's opinions of games you enjoy. The gaming community is far too large to agree on anything, so who the hell cares what anyone else thinks?

 Sigvatr wrote:
the former that is brilliantly designed

Moment while I laugh my ass off.

Moving right along.

 thegreatchimp wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:
This could be also from "over adjustment".
If they rate it too nicely people think they were bought off, an extension of the marketing machine.
If they had too much hype, it is a bit of a grind debunking them all, good game or not.
I find I am a "promiscuous gamer" where usually it is all good in the end: there are few games I selected that were so awful I uninstalled shortly after.
I may have been lucky.

Same here, I always research a game before I buy, and like that I've rarely not finished a title.

My main issue of misleading reviews was certain sequels that were given ratings of 60-65% for various reasons that they disappointed the reiviewers. Some of these titles (Dead to Rights: Retribution is one that comes to mind) I later picked up anyway, and found they were thoroughly enjoyable, more deserving of an 80-85%. So I would say the rating is fair as an evaluation of the develoment of the series, but can be misleading for the individual game, particularly to anyone who is new to the series and hasn't played the earlier games.

That's a problem I've had as well...

 Melissia wrote:
Moment while I laugh my ass off.

Moving right along.

If it had not been brilliantly designed, I doubt it would have remained the biggest MMO after spending over a decade fighting off competitors in the incredibly fast-developing video games branch.

 Melissia wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
the former that is brilliantly designed

Moment while I laugh my ass off.

Moving right along.

Oh come on. Blizzard could hand you a game that gives you the cure for cancer, $1,000,000,000 and the secret to immortality and eternal youth and you'd still be all "total garbage, 0/10, would not play". The average Red Sox fan has more realistic and unbiased view of the Yankees than you do Blizzard.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Moment while I laugh my ass off.

Moving right along.

If it had not been brilliantly designed, I doubt it would have remained the biggest MMO after spending over a decade fighting off competitors in the incredibly fast-developing video games branch.

You're right and then some.

There's no doubt that WoW was an immense step forward in terms of accessibility, polish and pacing for MMOs. While it's hard to claim they did anything 100% original at least in vanilla what they did was tuned much much tighter than any predecessor. In terms of their design goals I don't think there is much room to argue that they didn't execute to amazing success.

They were able to use existing ingredients to cook up a new recipe that had far broader than any other MMO, and far broader appeal than anything they'd previously made. WoW took a hyper-niche genre of games for the neckbeardiest of neckbeards and somehow got it mainstream appeal. You can't even lay the success at the feet of their established fan base since WoW reached so far beyond what their other games had up to that point.

 Melissia wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
the former that is brilliantly designed

Moment while I laugh my ass off.

I do hate to say, literally millions would disagree.
No easy task maintaining addiction and keeping the hordes in check.
This little article came to mind http://www.denofgeek.us/games/world-of-warcraft/240971/world-of-warcraft-25-best-moments-in-the-games-history
Not my kind of game but having been in charge of a MUD way back, it is amazing what players do to try to "break" the game so I can appreciate the "brilliance".

 Chongara wrote:
Oh come on. Blizzard could hand you a game that gives you the cure for cancer, $1,000,000,000 and the secret to immortality and eternal youth and you'd still be all "total garbage, 0/10, would not play".

On the contrary, I liked Diablo 3, though sadly it did not cure cancer or give me the billion dollars.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talizvar wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
the former that is brilliantly designed

Moment while I laugh my ass off.

I do hate to say, literally millions would disagree.

Millions of people also think Beiber is the best musician out there.

 Melissia wrote:
Millions of people also think Beiber is the best musician out there.

So the question would still stand would he not be "one of the best" despite your inferred opinion to the contrary?
I am unsure if we are heading into "straw-man" territory dragging in Beiber of all topics.
Would not millions of "happy" customers playing a game that did not appear to "break" badly not be impressive or "brilliant"?
I will drag out a more apt parallel: McDonalds is not the height of fine dining but billions are served: it is "good" despite having the dubious title of the "most popular" fast food.

Do you really want to go on record saying your definition of quality is "a lot of people like it"?

I find that idea obnoxious.

Most video games suck but not for these reasons. When I want to play a video game I want to play it for myself with myself. The overly stressed multiplayer aspect of the video game market make most of them suck in my opinion. It is at the point where a game that would be traditionally for a single player (Mass Effect 3) gets a large portion of it for the multiplayer part of the game. I get enough multiplayer in my life with facebook and work. When I play a video game I don't want to be bothered by other people.

Sadly developers learned that buyers will get a game and play the same part over and over again (shoot the badguys on the other team) for hundreds of hours. So why bother making a game that has unique content over the course of the same amount of time? Games like The Witcher 3 are slowly dying out as players prefer the same thing over and over (Call of Duty)

But that is just my unpopular opinion.

One of my few personal hatreds is for the spread of Quick Time Events in FPSs, and particularely 3rd person action games. There is nothing more mood-killing and frustrating then having an untarnished run through a level only to be killed 5 times in succession by the "escape the giant rolling bolder scene" becasue you couldn't mash buttons fast enough

One place I don't mind QTE's is when they're presented opportunites to deal additional damage to enemies, particularely bosses in action games because it actually adds a level of excitement to the action. But beyond that, they are a plague upon the culture of gaming, and I wish developers would get over their obsession with them, because it's not an affinity that's generally shared by their target audiences.

 thegreatchimp wrote:
One of my few personal hatreds is for the spread of Quick Time Events in FPSs, and particularely 3rd person action games. There is nothing more mood-killing and frustrating then having an untarnished run through a level only to be killed 5 times in succession by the "escape the giant rolling bolder scene" becasue you couldn't mash buttons fast enough

One place I don't mind QTE's is when they're presented opportunites to deal additional damage to enemies, particularely bosses in action games because it actually adds a level of excitement to the action. But beyond that, they are a plague upon the culture of gaming, and I wish developers would get over their obsession with them, because it's not an affinity that's generally shared by their target audiences.

It's like a reversal of the arcades...

Before:

1) You have died! Quickly, insert coin! Too late, Game over.

Now

2) Quickly, insert coin! Too late, you have died! Game over.

 Melissia wrote:
Do you really want to go on record saying your definition of quality is "a lot of people like it"?I find that idea obnoxious.

You changed what was said: "brilliant" not "quality".
From a technical and social psychology addiction view it is brilliant proven by "a lot of people like it".
For aesthetics, plot line, interface and imagery: there are issues.
If it is "garbage" why does it make so much money and have a huge player base without sounding elitist?
What makes one opinion worth more than the unwashed masses?

Wait, I'm confused. Is the OP asserting that no good games have come out since the late 1990s and our love for games of that era is why? Or is the OP saying that nostalgia is what's leading to the overall decline of video game quality? Neither of those assertions make any sense. There have always been poor quality games and lots of them . Plus... If there is a decline in the mainstream game market it has a lot more to do with overbloated budgets, hype culture, corporate mandates and greed than people poo-pooing games for not being system shock 2.

 Melissia wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
the former that is brilliantly designed

Moment while I laugh my ass off.

Moving right along.

...speaking of obnoxious.

World of Warcraft, which I have not played in several years and have no intention of returning to is very obviously and objectively a brilliantly designed game. While they have made any number of serious missteps over the years, there's no arguing that it's not a brilliantly designed* game, taking the basic Diku framework of EverQuest and taking it to the next level of polish, accessibility and playability.

Please don't confuse objective opinion with facts.

*"lolno" and "Justin Bieber" are not actually arguments of any kind.


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 Lord Scythican wrote:
Most video games suck but not for these reasons. When I want to play a video game I want to play it for myself with myself. The overly stressed multiplayer aspect of the video game market make most of them suck in my opinion. It is at the point where a game that would be traditionally for a single player (Mass Effect 3) gets a large portion of it for the multiplayer part of the game. I get enough multiplayer in my life with facebook and work. When I play a video game I don't want to be bothered by other people.

Sadly developers learned that buyers will get a game and play the same part over and over again (shoot the badguys on the other team) for hundreds of hours. So why bother making a game that has unique content over the course of the same amount of time? Games like The Witcher 3 are slowly dying out as players prefer the same thing over and over (Call of Duty)

But that is just my unpopular opinion.

On the contrary, The Witcher 3 and Fallout 3 have just proved to publishers that there is a huge and willing market for high quality, single-player experiences. Meanwhile, CoD's overall numbers had been flattening and even declining until Blops3. Assassins Creed (a big, AAA SP title) has taken a major hit in the past 2 years, not due to the MP aspects of Unity, but the unfinished-ness of it, and I think it's fair to say the samey-ness of AC games, particularly after Black Flag embraced something different.

I agree that bolted-on multiplayer is awful, especially TDM and FFA modes, but I'm a huge fan of optional co-op modes, and quite frankly it's a huge selling point for me. I find single player games can often become quite boring while playing the same game with a partner makes the whole thing much, much more fun. That's why I bought Black Ops 3 - full co-op campaign? Yes please. Then again, I skip facebook.

You're welcome to think that they suck though - because "suck" is clearly opinion, and you're certainly entitled to opinion. At least you didn't say that they were all "objectively bad games"

 Azazelx wrote:

World of Warcraft, which I have not played in several years and have no intention of returning to is very obviously and objectively a brilliantly designed game.

Its a very polished game but there is little to the game itself that is particularly well designed, when compared to other MMOs of its era the only thing that stands out as a 'good' design that wasn't already in other similar games is the Auction House.

Its obviously been a huge success for Blizzard but I strongly suspect that is mainly due to its accessibility, branding, and latterly, nostalgia/habit.

Blizzard make very polished games but not necessarily great ones.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:
Blizzard make very polished games but not necessarily great ones.

I was pleasantly surprised with Diablo3... much later on.
I got the big collector box.
Was there at launch and waited.
Saw the auction house go up and item drops wither and die.
Had my main character stripped of stuff within days of hitting 60th level by "pirates" and got blamed by Blizzard that my 18 character password was too weak...
So it got shelved for about 3 years.
They fixed things quite nicely (especially after getting rid of the auction house).
For many, it may have been too little too late.
Well, "Path of Exile" is dark and ugly but it seemed to meet the need.

Oh, I really enjoyed Path of Exile! I made a character who spammed attacks as fast as possible and would lifetap on each hit. It was really great until I got hit by a lagspike, so didn't count as attacking for a few seconds and consequently died.

I never played Diablo II when it was 'new'... well I rolled a couple of trash characters on my friends computers when I was at their house. I picked up the disc for £1.50 from a charity shop last summer and really enjoyed it.

 Lord Scythican wrote:
Most video games suck but not for these reasons. When I want to play a video game I want to play it for myself with myself. The overly stressed multiplayer aspect of the video game market make most of them suck in my opinion. It is at the point where a game that would be traditionally for a single player (Mass Effect 3) gets a large portion of it for the multiplayer part of the game. I get enough multiplayer in my life with facebook and work. When I play a video game I don't want to be bothered by other people.

Sadly developers learned that buyers will get a game and play the same part over and over again (shoot the badguys on the other team) for hundreds of hours. So why bother making a game that has unique content over the course of the same amount of time? Games like The Witcher 3 are slowly dying out as players prefer the same thing over and over (Call of Duty)

But that is just my unpopular opinion.

Multiplayer has been put into modern video games for several reasons, not all of the in the best interests of players:

1. It has become possible with modern network spread and soeed. How many households aren't on at least 10Mbps these days?
2. It's cheaper to put in multi-player than write good scenarios and levels for single-player mode. It lets you make the players supply the AI that makes the game interesting.
3. All the console manufacturers also want their machines to be multimedia entertainment hubs, so they can sell you VOD and new maps and stuff. This requires consoles to be networked, hence games that only work on network. Ultimately, console manufacturers want you to buy most of your games as digital downloads direct from them. It makes more profit.
4. A surprising number of men aged 15 to 25 really enjoy pretending to shoot people in the head with a sniper rifle.

There are positives to network, of course, like free levels made by fans for Little Big Planet, and so on.

I have for a long time felt that one of the points of computer games was to be able to play fun games by yourself, not needing a network connection for opponents.

I disagree, most modern 'bad' games are a result of us, the game buying public, accepting rush jobs, shoddy ports, full priced games built like gakky freeium phone games', season pass and whatever other crap the likes of EA and Konami inflict upon us.

I struggle to under why this keeps happening as the average age of gamers is on the increase and you'd really think we'd know better by now but it seems not.

As a grumpy old bugger the wrong side of 40 I've pretty much given up buying anything 'new', especially given how far £50 can go on GOG, Steam or Humble, I've still ended up with some gakky games but if they only cost a pint or a takeaway ho-hum

Well pre-order is a bit of a plague lately which does little to push a developer to do a good job.Then there is "downloadable content" which looks suspiciously like "crippleware" of old.
Something about selling an add-on piece to a game later (or the evil day of launch) seems wrong.

My nostalgia would seem to give permission to use "retro" graphics or copy the style/interface/mechanics of a game of old.
Pre-order and DLC is something that is a carry over (if not refined) to the modern day.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Moment while I laugh my ass off.

Moving right along.

If it had not been brilliantly designed, I doubt it would have remained the biggest MMO after spending over a decade fighting off competitors in the incredibly fast-developing video games branch.

Chaka. The original was great, but I even loved it right through Lich King. Cataclysm is where I bowed out, but even then, it was still fun and Blizzard had some good ideas.

That being said, Blizzard is not being TFG by refusing to provide legacy servers and shutting down anyone who runs such thing.

Going back to what the OP is saying, I have mixed feeling about modern games emulating / aspiring to old ones, it can be good or bad depending on how it's executed...but one thing I don't get is how manic some gamers are about still playing the classics. To give an example: I was in a game design course with about 20 other lads. We got talking about beat-em ups one day and 4 of them agreed that Streetfighter 2 is still their favourite. I had my fun with that game when I was 10, but tbh I'd have more fun playing a few rounds of the latest Tekken or DOA than the 2d Grandaddy that spawned them. Same with some of my friends going and buying old Sega Mega Drives and N-64s. Wouldn't I enjoy playing F-Zero? Sure, For about an hour. Then I'd turn it off and go back to playing Wipeout HD. Not sure I get the whole craze.

Every generation has its turds. I own plenty of them from the 80s and 90s. There's a few classics that I still replay to this day from time to time, but the majority of video games don't reinvent the wheel. That's just the nature of the beast. There's at least a few games released each year that I really enjoy, so saying modern games suck comes off as a bit ridiculous to me. Developers no longer have the constraints they once did. Text in some of the earlier Final Fantasy games had to be cut due to space limitations. Now it's almost like the sky is the limit. Some of our beloved classics could use updating, or receive updates from fans (System Shock 2). As much as I don't care for Assassin's Creed, if that's what floats your boat play it. I went from Dark Souls the other day to playing a Telltale game, which is little more than an interactive movie. It all depends on the mood I'm in.

 thegreatchimp wrote:
Going back to what the OP is saying, I have mixed feeling about modern games emulating / aspiring to old ones, it can be good or bad depending on how it's executed...but one thing I don't get is how manic some gamers are about still playing the classics. To give an example: I was in a game design course with about 20 other lads. We got talking about beat-em ups one day and 4 of them agreed that Streetfighter 2 is still their favourite. I had my fun with that game when I was 10, but tbh I'd have more fun playing a few rounds of the latest Tekken or DOA than the 2d Grandaddy that spawned them. Same with some of my friends going and buying old Sega Mega Drives and N-64s. Wouldn't I enjoy playing F-Zero? Sure, For about an hour. Then I'd turn it off and go back to playing Wipeout HD. Not sure I get the whole craze.

Excuse you SF2, while a classic, is not a beat em up. It's a 2D fighter. Beat em ups are Streets of Rage, Final Fight, etc.

WipEout HD is seven years old, hardly a new generation game any more.

Perhaps we should agree that it's not nostalgia that makes new games suck, it's naivety that makes them good.

IDK if any of you have ever played the text adventure Snowball (Level 9 Computing, for BBC Micro computer, 1983)? Text adventures died once graphics got good enough to start illustrating them, but the point wasn't the graphics, it was interaction through the text medium, and making your own map and so on. Snowball wasn't the first or most famous text adventure but it was my first one, and I thought it was great.

Just discovered it's available as a Android emulator game! Now I know what I'm going to be doing this weekend.

I guess the modern equivalent of Snowball is something like Phoenix Wright or Hotel Dusk: Room 215.

 jreilly89 wrote:
Excuse you SF2, while a classic, is not a beat em up. It's a 2D fighter. Beat em ups are Streets of Rage, Final Fight, etc.

Quite so. I will now don the cone of shame!

 Talizvar wrote:
If it is "garbage" why does it make so much money and have a huge player base

Marketing. People bought in to its crap, even though it really had nothing of value to offer, because it had a famous name and a good marketing campaign. Once it got to the top, less and less effort was needed to stay there, due to sheer momentum.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:

World of Warcraft, which I have not played in several years and have no intention of returning to is very obviously and objectively a brilliantly designed game.

Its a very polished game but there is little to the game itself that is particularly well designed, when compared to other MMOs of its era the only thing that stands out as a 'good' design that wasn't already in other similar games is the Auction House.

Its obviously been a huge success for Blizzard but I strongly suspect that is mainly due to its accessibility, branding, and latterly, nostalgia/habit.

Blizzard make very polished games but not necessarily great ones.

Having played many of the MMO games of that era and since, I'll deign to disagree. While it's certainly an iterative game, so is pretty much everything these days. I see no reason at all why something that's a polished and improved version of something that's been in similar games doesn't qualify as well designed. After al, how many iterative games which just take on what has been seen before utterly fail at what they're trying to do? Blizzard's polish and design for accessibility was brilliant, and they continued to iterate on that very successfully for some time before the general consensus was that they began to have more issues.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 thegreatchimp wrote:
Going back to what the OP is saying, I have mixed feeling about modern games emulating / aspiring to old ones, it can be good or bad depending on how it's executed...but one thing I don't get is how manic some gamers are about still playing the classics. To give an example: I was in a game design course with about 20 other lads. We got talking about beat-em ups one day and 4 of them agreed that Streetfighter 2 is still their favourite. I had my fun with that game when I was 10, but tbh I'd have more fun playing a few rounds of the latest Tekken or DOA than the 2d Grandaddy that spawned them. Same with some of my friends going and buying old Sega Mega Drives and N-64s. Wouldn't I enjoy playing F-Zero? Sure, For about an hour. Then I'd turn it off and go back to playing Wipeout HD. Not sure I get the whole craze.

People like what they like. Often there's a heavy dose of nostalgia involved, but that's completely okay. After all, classic rock, oldhammer, retrogaming. Not everything needs to be for "you" (generic "you"), after all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Melissia wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:
If it is "garbage" why does it make so much money and have a huge player base

Marketing. People bought in to its crap, even though it really had nothing of value to offer, because it had a famous name and a good marketing campaign. Once it got to the top, less and less effort was needed to stay there, due to sheer momentum.

 Azazelx wrote:

You laugh, but you apparently never played it when it was released. It was a buggy, inaccessible mess, a disaster by modern MMO release standards. Gamebreaking bugs, hideously bad netcode, hours required just to log on, crap customer support, et cetera. To say nothing of the really bad design issues, the loads and loads of walking around with no fast travel, the generic fetch quests that were bad and boring even by the standards of MMOs at the time and occasionally bugged, never mind how bad compared to modern MMOs, static and unremarkable combat that was, again, lacking by the standards of MMOs at the time-- It had nothing to go off of except its name and its marketing campaign. Any other MMO that has a release even remotely as bad as WoW's would have gotten shat on, and rightfully so, but WoW mustered on because of its name and its hype machine.

If that's "brilliant" game design, then goddamn you have really low standards.

Interestingly, the only games I preorder now are games with a very strong story where the chances of internet spoilers are high. This has meant that the only games I've preordered in the last couple of years are... Arkham Knight and Dragon Age: Inquisition.

 Melissia wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:

You laugh, but you apparently never played it when it was released. It was a buggy, inaccessible mess, a disaster by modern MMO release standards. Gamebreaking bugs, hideously bad netcode, hours required just to log on, crap customer support, et cetera. To say nothing of the really bad design issues, the loads and loads of walking around with no fast travel, the generic fetch quests that were bad and boring even by the standards of MMOs at the time and occasionally bugged, never mind how bad compared to modern MMOs, static and unremarkable combat that was, again, lacking by the standards of MMOs at the time-- It had nothing to go off of except its name and its marketing campaign. Any other MMO that has a release even remotely as bad as WoW's would have gotten shat on, and rightfully so, but WoW mustered on because of its name and its hype machine.

If that's "brilliant" game design, then goddamn you have really low standards.

speaking of MMO's at the time. You'd think if having a good name was all that was involved in WOW's success, then surely star wars galaxies would be a strong second right? Oh ya, people left star wars to play warcraft. How did star trek work out? City of hero's? Lego Universe? WOW has beaten out major names, it obviously has something good going for it as it's thrived where so many others have failed.

It's not a game for you, and that's fine. But you can't deny it has something of value to offer people, as many people find value in it, and thus pay for it.

sirlynchmob wrote:
speaking of MMO's at the time. You'd think if having a good name was all that was involved in WOW's success, then surely star wars galaxies would be a strong second right? Oh ya, people left star wars to play warcraft. How did star trek work out? City of hero's? Lego Universe? WOW has beaten out major names, it obviously has something good going for it as it's thrived where so many others have failed.
It's not a game for you, and that's fine. But you can't deny it has something of value to offer people, as many people find value in it, and thus pay for it.

Yeah, I got on the beta testing for Star Wars Galaxies.
I was so looking forward to that.
I seemed to have a knack for getting trapped in rock formations and reporting them... you can thank me later.
SWG bored me to tears and there were hardly any SW games I would not like then.
So much work, looked slick at first.
I have to respectfully disagree with Melissa that there was far more at work than marketing hype.
WOW was far superior for fun game play, player interaction seemed the better element of the game.
I saw the game as rather time sucking so had to back away.
Her complaints sound suspiciously like my Diablo3 issues that later got resolved (I really hated that game at first!)

sirlynchmob wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:

You laugh, but you apparently never played it when it was released. It was a buggy, inaccessible mess, a disaster by modern MMO release standards. Gamebreaking bugs, hideously bad netcode, hours required just to log on, crap customer support, et cetera. To say nothing of the really bad design issues, the loads and loads of walking around with no fast travel, the generic fetch quests that were bad and boring even by the standards of MMOs at the time and occasionally bugged, never mind how bad compared to modern MMOs, static and unremarkable combat that was, again, lacking by the standards of MMOs at the time-- It had nothing to go off of except its name and its marketing campaign. Any other MMO that has a release even remotely as bad as WoW's would have gotten shat on, and rightfully so, but WoW mustered on because of its name and its hype machine.

If that's "brilliant" game design, then goddamn you have really low standards.

speaking of MMO's at the time. You'd think if having a good name was all that was involved in WOW's success, then surely star wars galaxies would be a strong second right? Oh ya, people left star wars to play warcraft. How did star trek work out? City of hero's? Lego Universe? WOW has beaten out major names, it obviously has something good going for it as it's thrived where so many others have failed.

It's not a game for you, and that's fine. But you can't deny it has something of value to offer people, as many people find value in it, and thus pay for it.

I mean tbf, Lego Universe wasn't a terribly great MMO. It was decent fun, though.
Plus Lego snubbed a decent number of their Beta Testers and other potential customers by only releasing it initially to only the US and Europe. Man when I was younger that stung... beta testing a game and having fun with it only to never get access to a full release of it.

Of course, I am a bit biased for that very reason .

sirlynchmob wrote:
Oh ya, people left star wars to play warcraft.

I was in SWG from the Jump to Lightspeed expansion. Star Wars had a stupid long "grind Time" if you wanted to be a Jedi (I avoided this), but otherwise was fun for a 1-2 night per week player with a group of friends.

Then, after 2 years or whatever, the NGE completely reboot how all of the stats and powers work to appease the PVP players. Dumbed-down crafting. And other things. That's when the mass Exodus really happened.

It sucked to lose a game you enjoyed so much.

Fun article: http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/26/a-star-wars-galaxies-history-lesson-from-launch-to-the-nge/

There was a surprising amount of legitimate, proper, academic work around looking at what went wrong with Star Wars Galaxies. It makes some pretty interesting reading.

Well I have never played System Shock 2. The best FPS I ever played was R6: Rogue Spear. Next that of course is Goldeneye.

The Best RTS ever was RA2: Yuri's Revenge.

Best RPG? Well I would have to say Oblivion. I got into real RPGs pretty late. But I loved Mystic Quest on my SNES.

Am I showing my age here?

*Oh lord, don't even get me started on SOE and what they did to my beloved SWG. That was the best MMO system ever until they gakked it up.*

I'll never understand Melissia's pathological hatred for WoW. It is objectively the superior game in a market where they are ALL THE BLOODY SAME. Yes, it didn't revolutionize anything gameplay wise, but it is infinitely more accessible to casual players than many of it's competitors, especially the extremely grindy Asian MMOs and their Western counterparts. The LFG, LFR, and PVP queue features have become industry standard, for better or for worse.

The only MMO I've played that managed to replace/outdo WoW was SWTOR, particularly during Rise of the Hutt Cartel (that game's equivalent to WotLK era WoW). It's gone downhill since then as Shadow of Revan led to certain classes (ie my main) being nerfed and the latest expansion not introducing any significant endgame content outside of monthly chapters for solo play.
Still, the class quests remain excellent and nearly everyone who bothers with the game ends up completing the vast majority of them. It's become something of a cult hit, not only because it is a Star Wars game, but because it now features relatively balanced PvP (compared to WoW at least), player Strongholds, a significant amount of solo play with a heavy focus on storytelling, among other positive assets.

More on topic. I believe two things are accurate:

1) Modern games, particularly RPGs, are more focused on graphics and action based gameplay than providing options and rich storytelling
2) This is a product of an era where there is a general emphasis on superficiality in all avenues of entertainment
3) The graphics demand of modern games has increased faster than computing power and is significantly more time consuming to create than it was in the past. As such, spending time developing richer stories and a bevy of options simply isn't financially wise.

Of course the critical success of Pillars of Eternity and a decent amount of sales shows that fans (at least of RPGs) want a return to the Baldur's Gate/Planescape: Torment era where you have an absurd amount of in game customization available in comparison to modern RPGS (particularly Mass Effect 2/3...).

Still, the best RPGs I've ever played have all come in the last 10-12 years.

I'd go roughly in this order:

1) Mass Effect Trilogy, with 2 being the best, followed by the first 99% of 3+the awesome DLC content, followed by 1
2) Probably KotOR 2 with the fan restored content
3) Eh...probably the Dragon Age series, with Inquisition > Origins > 2
4) Morrowind...the outdated graphics and animations in addition to very weak and simple melee combat really hold this game back. The world setting is second to none, especially the Telvanni cities. The main quest is very good as well and open to a lot of RP options. .
5) Eh...Skyrim...just slightly over New Vegas
6) New Vegas

After that would come in the "old school" RPGs. First Arcanum for it's customization and dialogue options followed by Planescape for a very deep story and than the BG series.

There are also other genres (though rare), where the definitive game is practically ancient. Aces of the Deep is still considered by many to be the best Submarine simulator ever and it came out in the mid 90's. Also, Daggerfall deserves a special mention, if only because it is possibly the largest game world (albeit repetitive) ever constructed, with at points an insane level of difficulty, a very complex political thriller of a story, and a myriads of possible ways to customize your character.

 trexmeyer wrote:
It is objectively the superior game in a market where they are ALL THE BLOODY SAME.

Its not objectively superior, there are no good criteria for saying that something is objectively better than something else.

Lord of the Rings Online was in many ways superior to WoW, IMO of course.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:
It is objectively the superior game in a market where they are ALL THE BLOODY SAME.

Its not objectively superior, there are no good criteria for saying that something is objectively better than something else.

Lord of the Rings Online was in many ways superior to WoW, IMO of course.

I never played LoTRO so I can't comment on that specific game.

But every other MMO I played following WoW's release was significantly worse and lacking in polish. This includes Age of Conan (which still has some fun elements to it and I would play it over WoW at this point), the abysmal failure that was the latest Final Fantasy MMO (until it's second release), Warhammer Online, SWTOR (at least at release, it did improve markedly), and The Elder Scrolls Online.

Maybe the claim that Blizzard is really, really good at making mediocre games is accurate. You can't deny that they deliver a level of polish, professionalism, and accessability that is really second to none. I'd say other MMOs would have been much more successful had they been on par with WoW as a game. Until SWTOR they simply weren't. Now, I'm not saying any of them would dethrone WoW. Many, if not the majority, of WoW players are loathe to pursue a new MMO because they are unwilling to replace characters and friendships they spend years developing for a new game. Still, some would abandon it.

 Melissia wrote:

 Azazelx wrote:

You laugh, but you apparently never played it when it was released. It was a buggy, inaccessible mess, a disaster by modern MMO release standards. Gamebreaking bugs, hideously bad netcode, hours required just to log on, crap customer support, et cetera. To say nothing of the really bad design issues, the loads and loads of walking around with no fast travel, the generic fetch quests that were bad and boring even by the standards of MMOs at the time and occasionally bugged, never mind how bad compared to modern MMOs, static and unremarkable combat that was, again, lacking by the standards of MMOs at the time-- It had nothing to go off of except its name and its marketing campaign. Any other MMO that has a release even remotely as bad as WoW's would have gotten shat on, and rightfully so, but WoW mustered on because of its name and its hype machine.

If that's "brilliant" game design, then goddamn you have really low standards.

Nice try. I played it from open beta through several iterations, taking breaks all the way through to Panda Town. I also played a number of the games that predated it as well as quite a few of it's competitors and contemporaries, and so I make my statement from a rather informed perspective, particularly when it comes to the comparative issues. When you talk about the quests being bad by the standard of the time makes me believe that perhaps you're the one that never played it when it was released. The way you keep going on and on and on about their "marketing campaign" might be rather telling. Regardless, you seem to have a "bitter ex" attitude towards the game, given the amount of passion you have for slagging it off. I know when I play a game that I feel is gak, I either forget that it 's a thing and go on my way happily ignoring it without feeling a need to rant and piss on other people's fun (ie: EQ2), or if I'm writing a review of it, I use my skills at sarcasm and snide to gleefully tear it a new one in as entertaining a manner as possible, then I forget it exists and don't bother wasting any energy feeling anger or a need to rant and piss on other people's fun if they happen to enjoy the game.

The way that you carry on about WoW really fails the "bitter ex" test, and badly.

But anyway, let's either agree to disagree, or put one another on ignore, because I don't have enough facepalms for your overly antagonistic, aggressive and ill-informed opinions presented laughingly as "fact".



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sirlynchmob wrote:

speaking of MMO's at the time. You'd think if having a good name was all that was involved in WOW's success, then surely star wars galaxies would be a strong second right? Oh ya, people left star wars to play warcraft. How did star trek work out? City of hero's? Lego Universe? WOW has beaten out major names, it obviously has something good going for it as it's thrived where so many others have failed.

It's not a game for you, and that's fine. But you can't deny it has something of value to offer people, as many people find value in it, and thus pay for it.

Very well put, sir.


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 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:
It is objectively the superior game in a market where they are ALL THE BLOODY SAME.

Its not objectively superior, there are no good criteria for saying that something is objectively better than something else.
Lord of the Rings Online was in many ways superior to WoW, IMO of course.

Polish and smoothness/reponsiveness of control. WoW always felt more responsive in it's UI and systems than LotRO when I was playing both (LotRO Lifetime Subcriber, Yo!)

Other factors like ability/hotkey bloat are really tied to the exact time that people may have played one or the other. Both games have objectively brilliant art direction, especially for the time(s) when they were released - albeit using very different art styles.


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 trexmeyer wrote:

Maybe the claim that Blizzard is really, really good at making mediocre games is accurate. You can't deny that they deliver a level of polish, professionalism, and accessability that is really second to none. I'd say other MMOs would have been much more successful had they been on par with WoW as a game. Until SWTOR they simply weren't. Now, I'm not saying any of them would dethrone WoW. Many, if not the majority, of WoW players are loathe to pursue a new MMO because they are unwilling to replace characters and friendships they spend years developing for a new game. Still, some would abandon it.

Blizz isn't especially good at innovation. They are (were?) extraordinarily good at taking other people's ideas and innovations (including mods), polishing them and incorporating them into their game(s). Anyone for some DOTA/MOBA?

 Azazelx wrote:
Both games have objectively brilliant art direction, especially for the time(s) when they were released - albeit using very different art styles.

Art direction for anything can never be objectively better than any other, its simply not possible to empirically quantify art.

Speaking of MMO UIs, I remember in Everquest there were lots of ways to use the same ability. Through hot keys, through the action window, through manually typing in a command.

There was incredible inconsistency on when you could use a command. If you were casting a spell you couldn't engage sneak with the hot keys or by pressing a button on the keyboard, but if you mouse clicked the ability in the actions window it would work.