quote:Original post by syn_apse
i recieved alot of semi-hostile contempt for a thread that expressed my desire to see games have more realistic patterns of cause and effect, so that players felt like they were truly participating in their character''s lives, not just running errands on a to do list.

Why would I want to "participate in the life" of a virtual character? Most parts of life are boring. I play video games (on the rare occasions that I actually do) to entertain, alleviate tedium, attempt the impossible or improbable. Not to cook, virtually, the same meal that I cooked, actually, last night.

Be careful what you wish for. You just might get The Sims: Real Life V.

quote:almost everyone took this to mean the end-all-be-all of game programming, as if i wanted this game to plug into the back of your head.

Maybe. Some of us just thought you were being stupid. God knows you''re not the first.

quote:what is the concept of heaven and hell, if not a virtual reality?

That''s just a dumb statement. You can''t assert with finality that heaven and hell are either virtual or real. They are matters of faith, and as such exist outside of that continuum. You speak like someone with a smattering of exposure to religious and philosophical matter (the kind that comes from reading too much into The Matrix, which is actually a fairly trite movie), but not enough broad-based knowledge to grok it.

quote:however, what i saw in these replies was a confirmation of my opinion that the game development community is filled with insular, like-minded people.

What I see in your statements is an odd conviction that the musings of a few dozen people on GameDev.net comprise a valid sample and cross-section of "the game development community", which is one of those weird, mostly meaningless terms - like online community.

quote:...there needs to be more innovation in gaming.

Ya think?

What you fail to countenance is that game development is primarily a business. Oh, sure, there are loads of hobbyists and amateurs and indie developers, but most of them are either trying to make a buck or trying to get jobs with commercial game development shops. There are virtually no people who are simply experimenting with new models and means of creating games. Since it''s a business, there''s only so much effort and money that can be put into R&D, especially since many of the studios that do the actual development live project-to-project.

I''d like to recommend that you read the GamaSutra Game Design Features section. Yes, there are extremely pedestrian notions expressed there, but also some very sophisticated and interesting ideas put forward. Revolution doesn''t often, if ever, happen in technology; it''s not sustainable as a business. Evolution is the key - successive refinement of the way things are done today until you get where you want to be, and beyond.

quote:...let the stoning begin!

Please, grow up. This martyr thing gets old immediately.

How about you go and innovate instead of ranting on the forums ?

Also you are directing your posts at the wrong people, game developers, especially indie developers are innovative or try to be innovative at least. But the big publishers wont publish a very innovative game, unless you can _prove_ them that it will be a commercial success.

quote:Original post by syn_apse
cooking food? what are you talking about? i don''t think that this is really relevant to what i''m discussing.

I was merely referring to one of the more banal aspects of existence for most people as evidence of why the broad "experiencing life" idea typically doesn''t translate well into games. Where''s the game in it? A game has an objective, a goal; where''s the goal in "experiencing a character''s life"?

You should, at the least, be able to understand your own arguments.

quote:heaven and hell ultimately are products of the imagination. thus, they are virtual.

I continue to dispute this, because it is based on the presumption that the only aspect to this world that exists is the physical. This is clearly not a provable assertion.

quote:countenance? in what way do you use this term? because the definition of countenance is the face or facial features. i suppose you mean that i fail to face the business of game development. that''s completely wrong. i''ve reviewed it, and have decided that i don''t like the way that it works.

quote:countenance
tr. v. coun·te·nanced, coun·te·nanc·ing, coun·te·nanc·es

To give or express approval to; condone: The college administration will not countenance cheating.

It has a sense equivalent to consider, which you should have gleaned from the fact that it was used as a verb (transitive in this instance) and from context. At least that would have given me cause to believe you were anywhere near as smart as you think you are.

Don''t say it doesn''t matter or is orthogonal. Smart is smart. A precise individual reflects that in both though and speech, in action and response (not reaction, which has a connotation of reflex). And if you try to flip the language thing on me, watch out. I''m the resident Grammar Nazi, among other things.

quote:yeah. i shouldn''t be offended when people insinuate that i''m obviously wayyyy too stupid to know what i''m talking about. i should just leave things up to the "professionals", who have been doing such a great job recently, despite my idiotic opinions to the contrary.

I don''t care if you''re offended; it''s your right. It was the "let the stoning begin" comment I was specifically rebutting. Don''t you grasp scope?

There are certain individuals who are so deluded as to their own grandeur that they take genuine disagreement as unjustified attack. Case in point: you insulted virtually everyone who agreed with you, leading to an escalation in tension. Then, rather than burying the issue and moving on (you know, like normal folk do), you start a second thread to reiterate the notion that you are somehow privy to some "divine revelation" that escapes our puny imaginations, and that we resent you for it. If we were to resent you for anything, it would be for wasting our time: we thought that we could open genuine discussion, but instead all we got was that shitty thread.

So, once again, grow up. Learn to debate and disagree without becoming disagreeable. Countenance (oops, there''s that word again) the possibility that you might be wrong, that you might lack the knowledge and/or experience of others. Arrogance doesn''t work if it isn''t backed up by knowledge.

It would be much more productive if threads like "wheres the cause and effect" didn't degenerate into such pointless off-topic arguments. syn_apse's overreacting (and flaming) isn't the only cause, but also the original thread's "you can't do that" comments aren't really useful (I don't mean this as an offence). One of them might do, but not everyone should feel the need to post yet another "NO!". I'm not saying that this post of mine is productive either, but this thread seems to be about ranting and argument anyway, I wouldn't know what else to contribute.

Of course having a infinite game world where you can do everything and then some would be nice yet impossible to do, but this is rather beside the point, really. The point is rather how to get closer to that. I agree with syn_apse with the fact that your actions should have more effect on the game world, but this alone by no means implies that you could do everything or that the game will be infinite.

I think the reason for syn_apse's overreacting was mostly because he got mostly negative feedback in the original thread. Most the other posters didn't discuss how to implement such a system but how "it can't be done". Rather counter-productive, I'd say. This doesn't however mean I approve of syn_apse's flaming and useless sarcasm. I can't resist putting this analogy here:

quote:Original post by syn_apse
...
and if you use a flamethrower indoors the building is gonna catch on fire and there's a moderate chance that you'll kill yourself

Have you considered the fact that if you "throw" flames in these threads the forum is gonna catch on fire and there's a moderate chance that you'll get yourself banned?

So please stop ranting and arguing about semantics... Instead of trying to think of ways how to do everything in a game (or especially how impossible it is), try to think how to do MORE things than now.

EDIT - I had accidentally broken the quote... so I fixed it.

[edited by - Grim on February 6, 2004 4:48:46 AM]

// syn_apse
If this idea is feasible why don''t you start building yourself a design document for the code that you will need to produce this whole thing. I am sure that if the forum users can''t convince you, you will realise how much needs to go into it all once you build up the document.

Not to be offensive, but your posts convey the impression that you are someone who doesn''t play a lot of games, certainly doesn''t like the few he has played, but nevertheless thinks that if only games were made like the one he sees in his head all would be good in the universe, and comes up with some cockamamie ideas about "innovation" along with the mistaken belief that his ideas should be received by the game development community as manna from heaven.

What makes me say this? Simple. People who actually like games don''t say (or imply) "all other games suck because they don''t do X," they say "such-and-such games were good, but they''d be better if they did X." People who actually play games can point to games that are heading in the right direction, so to speak. (And don''t give me any BS about there not being any such games; if you can''t find them, it''s because you''re not looking hard enough.) Any great artist realises, at some subconscious level, that art is not about revolution, it''s about evolution.

quote:
what is the concept of heaven and hell, if not a virtual reality?

I would strongly reccomend you do some research. For most of Christianity''s history, the thinking was that heaven and hell were the "REAL" reality, and the Earth was the "virtual" one. This belief is, in fact, common to many religions; the idea that this world is an illusion (or testing ground, or whatever) and the afterlife is reality.

Furthermore, it''s a tad disingenuous to equate such ideas with the concept of "virtual reality" as one of the key defining areas of virtual reality is that you can enter or leave at any time, and are at all times aware that it is a virtual "reality."

quote:
however, what i saw in these replies was a confirmation of my opinion that the game development community is filled with insular, like-minded people. i heard from at least two people who told me that i know nothing about games, and at least one who told me that i know nothing about real life. these opinions are obviously coming from people who are accustomed to the way things are.

May I point out that there''s a difference between accepting the way things are and being realistic? Remember, sometimes when people tell you the same thing over and over, THEY''RE RIGHT.

And frankly, we don''t need any more idealistic game-theorist "revolutionary" types; they''re annoying enough when they actually MAKE games. (Chris Crawford, anyone?)

quote:
and there''s nothing wrong with that per se. but when those who are content come into power in any system -- or when those in power become content -- progress will slow down.

And if you think the people on this board wield any significant power in the industry, aside from a handful that I could probably count on my assorted appendages, you are sorely mistaken.

quote:
and this is what i see in the gaming industry. it''s not that i think that nobody has had these ideas before, or even that they haven''t been attempted. i just happen to think that many companies look at game development in a very narrow way, just like many of the people who replied to me previously.

So, basically, "blame THE MAN." My experience has been that people who blame things on THE MAN have never actually had to deal with THE MAN.

quote:
it seemed that everyone got this idea in their head of a very specific game, and not one of them was close to what i was talking about.

If I say something, and no one understands me, does it mean that everyone else is stupid, or that my communication skills are lacking?

"Realistic patterns of cause and effect"? "Players [feel like they are] truly participating in their character''s lives"? What are these supposed to mean? Are you really even saying anything here? The exclamation "Ouch!" has more content!

quote:
to sum up, there needs to be more innovation in gaming. not just in the areas that i mentioned previously, but also in the way that games are concieved, developed, and marketed.

Do you even really KNOW how games are conceived, developed, and marketed?

And just how DO you come up with a new way to conceive games? Is "person comes up with an idea" not good enough?

quote:
this doesn''t mean throwing out the old development model, it just means giving it some healthy competition. sometimes there are innovative games. but for the most part those innovations are superficial.

< sarcasm > Yeah, that''s a great way to make people see your way; insult their work! < /sarcasm >

quote:
the underlying structure of most games has remained the same. it is my opinion that a game, in the abstract, should be whatever you want it to be.

Game (pronounced gem (in IPA))
n. 1. Any form of play; amusement; specif., an amusement or sport involving competition under rules.

Webster''s New World Dictionary of the American Language

Nothing in there about "whatever you want it to be." And there''s no way for a game to be "whatever you want it to be," because at that point, it''s just like life. If you want to do X, play a game about X. Don''t expect anyone to (be able to) make a game where you can just go in and do X one day, then Y the next, then Ñ, then ß the next.
Unless what you mean is you want a game where you have to accomplish X, but you can do it by doing N then O then P, or doing YZ, or maybe even doing áüIçµ. But if that''s the case, then I REALLY don''t see what you''re ranting about, because that''s becoming more and more common in games every day.