Quote:adventuredesign
Mass communications technique allows a wide diversity of personalities and differing intelligence levels to feel empathically and entertainingly the same.
Yes, but how exactly? By tapping into their common denominator, isn't it? My concern is what that common denominator is. And most of the time, I believe it is the lowest common denominator. A bit like in advertisement "if you run out of ideas, you can always use sex. Sex sells."
So what other common denominator do we have beyond the deep seated desire to whack things :-)
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To me, that is critical to artistic success in design, and it is also just additionally fortunate that it makes a difference on the bottom line.
Artistic success ... in design ? Isn't that a contradiction in terms ? [wink]
But seriously, I think I understand what you mean, it's just I don't see that many examples of it (obviously, because otherwise we would all know about it, wouldn't we)
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when you can get a unified ooh and ahh value from the diversity of views and buyer resistance involved *because* you used mass communication technique, style and approach, and simultaneously evaporate resistance to funding and/or developing/publishing your design.
Bells and whistles is what I call it. Or in French, "giving jam to pigs" [pig] is another nice analogy... a necessary evil, though, isn't it :-/
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I agree that players can be taught, in fact, you can't separate education and enlightenment from entertainment design unless you are a, underdesigning, or b, underestimating or misidentifying your audience.
Ah ? So, to try to stay on topic, there is room to teach morality in games, maybe ? I mean, isn't that a form of enlightment, after all ?
I can agree that teaching moral values is a rather difficult matter, prone to spectacular failures and being the subject of ridicule. But maybe it's because instead of teaching the values, we should be teaching the importance of having values in the first place.
To take the example of a cRPG like Neverwinter Nights, I fail to see what choosing between an Evil guy and a Good guy teaches anything at all.
I had much more compelling ethical dilemmas in True Love (or was it Season of Sakura, both great hentai games) when I was trying to choose which girl I should try to go out with, which I should "just be friend with", or whether I should just shag them all and forget about Love...
God I wish I could see characters as deep as those Miyasaki regularly has in his movies in the game industry. So much depth, such difficult choices with such drastic consequences.
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Why would that even become an issue if in the design pre production phase, they answered the question, "what is this game for?"
Well, that's the problem isn't it ? The Accounting dept guys tell you it's to make profit :-) The PR guys tell you it's to keep up with the rest of the industry and not be left behind.
But what questions should you, the designer, be asking? Is the target audience your concern ? Or is that a marketing issue ? Coz if it's your concern then how on Earth did Will Wright get SimCity anywhere past the "do we have an audience for this" stage ? And then did it again with the Sims (but then, I guess at this point, he had a track record)
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Somehow, I just can't associate the negative aspects of the word compromise in the same circle I draw the words "solid, well thought out design" in.
Your terrorist is my freedom fighter, I guess :)
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This is what always separates the wheat from the chaff, but, I have seen it, even desigers who think they know how to design are not creating complete design, because they don't think they have to, or, they don't think deeply enough about design. That is the way of the last twenty years.
Yeah, I think we agree. I just have a different point of view, here from my comfortable sofa [lol]
I feel I see a lot of compromise for the sake of marketability. A bit like I consider Graphic Design to be the little sister of Art that has to go and do the street coz she needs to pay the bills, I think Game Design is turning into a crackwhore, instead of being, well, whatever it is she was in the beginnings...
hopefully she is just hiding in a dark garage, somewhere.
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I learned in architecture a long time ago somebody with a eight year architecture degree path could be a crappy designer. The guy I learned from learned from the only man with thirty three Academy Awards. It's a vast, vast difference in approach and development that simply makes the weaker designers quit and hate you.
And I learned that I can be a better lecturer than some old man with a PhD. Not because I am more learned or clever, but simply because I take a different approach to explaining things to my students. This alternate view of things I have is what I am still looking for in games. Surely there must be another way to do things than turn into Holly-freaking-wood ?
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Nah, fundamentally, I don't think people know what they want until they see or do something and go, ohh, want, want want that more more more. Monkey see, monkey do, monkey do more, monkey pay for what they've done.
Ah well we are agreed then. Don't wait for the mass to give you an opinion, just give them one and see how they react. And never level things from the bottom (which, again, is what I feel is happening more and more).
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Nope, I think we go the other direction, and write more challenging challenges, make them think more and work harder because they are not as gullible, easily satisfied or impedimented as in earlier generations of society.
YEp, so how do we give them a way to think about morals, and the importance of having some ? :)
I can't help but remember a joke thread we had on the White Wolf forums a few years back. Someone came up with a new roleplaying game title, I think it was : "Philosopher: The Thinking". Your character is a philosopher. In a world of ignorance, you must choose which school of thought you will follow, and defend its value against your rival schools. Will you be a stoician, or a hedonist. Will the arrow ever reach the target, and is Epimenedes a liar or not ?
I know, it's not as funny when you don't know what it's parodying, but the funny thing, I thought, was that we could come up with so much fun ideas for a game about philosophy.
In fact, I think it really could be made into a game, if one thought about it for long enough, and studied the subject matter.
What about a game where you have to solve ethical dilemmas? Surely that's something worthy of exploring ?
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I think you are right. I think the interest is there because the boredom for what is extant now is a big indicator something other than what is out there now is desireable because what we have is less. Even some of the comments I got from people who played Halo2 were the same comments we heard from games two or three years ago that were highly anticipated titles, such as, "not long enough, not challenging enough, nicer eye candy, cooler features, but still sorta the same old thing"
yeah, it's habituation at its worse. No matter how much candy you get, at some point you get sick of it.
So what to do next ?
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Yes. And quit ferreting out my competitive advantages, huh?
[rolleyes] I wise I could use this knowledge for something, but I am afraid I rather enjoying the safety of being in Academia. And the room there is for thought experiments. I just wish I had some peers to play with...
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Always a pleasure, ahw
Likewise, although I am afraid I can only rate you once.
Still we havent really answered Wavinator, with all that, have we ?
