Indeed, Half-Life is just DOOM *done better*.

Quote:I wrote a story about a boy opening a soda bottle. That was it, that was all. It was about three paragraphs long and told entirely in metaphor, but it was an original piece not based on something that had been done before, and one would be extremely hard pressed to find something at all similar (besides diction or syntax, which was mine anyway).

Nope. Looks like the boy getting soda market has already been flooded with screenplays. http://www.channel101.com/articles/article.php?article_id=29

Quote:Once upon a time, there was a thirsty man on a couch. He got up off the couch, went to his kitchen, searched through his refrigerator, found a soda, drank it, and returned to his couch, thirst quenched.

Quote:I do have to agree with BCullis, though; a game does not have to be original so long as it's good. From a developers perspective, WoW is a fantastic success, and how many gamers do you know that will cry "WoW iz r teh gre4t3st RGP EV4R"? Nothing original in that game... So yeah, focusing on what's new and what's not is actually pointless. Having new elements might attract a crowd of the curious, but plenty of people will tell you (I'm paraphrasing an article on gamasutra here) that sticking with what the industry already knows is actually better.

This whole line of arguement could be said about having a quality story - Wow doesn't have a good story, is making lots of money, and thus a quality story isn't nessecary for making loads of money. Besides, what makes a good story is debatable.

But I like good stories. And therefore there's a point to it.

And that's the thing, isn't it?

Games are notorious for not needing a story to be good. In film, we demand a good story, but in games it's more about gameplay (especially in today's market).

Even then, the gameplay hasn't changed much in a while.

I keep asking myself: Why is this so hard to do? Why is no one doing anything new? Are we just going to depend on Will Wright every 4 years for our source of mild originality?

But to get back to the original topic:
-Food you find on the ground is always OK for you to eat
-Alien Invasions of earth
-Portals, Space Gateways, and Instant Transport Devices are always circular and upright.
-Fireball: THE most unoriginal spell of all time (but still appealing for some reason).

Quote:Original post by seanmusgrave
Nope. Looks like the boy getting soda market has already been flooded with screenplays. http://www.channel101.com/articles/article.php?article_id=29

Nothing listed here was anything like the story. I don't feel like finding the forum where I posted it again, but essentially all the action took place in less than a second.

Quote:Once upon a time, there was a thirsty man on a couch. He got up off the couch, went to his kitchen, searched through his refrigerator, found a soda, drank it, and returned to his couch, thirst quenched.

This is an entirely different story. I don't see any battles going on here (the metaphor for struggling to open the can), nor is the basic premise the same - this wasn't a resolution of a problem (thirst), it was just a simple sequence. Man vs Man (Kid vs Can) as apposed to Man vs Nature (Man vs Need to drink).

Quote:Original post by seanmusgrave
This whole line of arguement could be said about having a quality story - Wow doesn't have a good story, is making lots of money, and thus a quality story isn't nessecary for making loads of money. Besides, what makes a good story is debatable.

But I like good stories. And therefore there's a point to it.

Warcraft (RTS) has a good story, though it borrows heavily from Warhammer Fantasy. WoW on the other hand, is a bastardization of that story. And yes, using that word "good" makes anything debatable. Good has no solid definition, nor does bad - it's all relative. Beauty in the eye of the beholder and all that. Still, you're going way off on a tangent.

Another tried and tired concept: Fly a realistic airplane... again!

Well, most people here are indie developers, and it is a necessity for an indie developer to portray at least some degree of creativity, as we don't have the $50 million+ that blizzard used to create WoW, so we physically can't make a game as big, flashy, or with gameplay as advanced and smooth, so we need to bring something new to the table, and again this doesn't have to be new features, or flashier graphics, it could be anything from a simple RPG with a phenomenal and advanced storyline, to a small game with simple yet beautifully balanced and addictive gameplay.

Besides, your target audience for an indie game is much smaller than for a commercial game like WoW, and the thing that WoW does really well is to create a broad appeal, taking the usual formula for an MMORPG, but fine tuning it. Humanity as a whole is also very dissatisfied with change, and if they can play a commercial game that is similar to the last game they played, but with better graphics and new features, they'll choose this game rather than a much simpler indie game, no matter how creative or original the indie game is.

anyway, getting back on topic
-elven forests being chopped down by evil orcs/demons
-human boy discovers an ancient evil and must defeat it with his small group of friends, who are all the descendants of the people who originally fought and imprisoned this great evil.
-counter terrorist games where you save the good old free american way of life by killing countless arab scum, because all arabs are evil right?
-'evil' enemies that want to 'destroy the world!', because destroying the world makes sense right?

Quote:Original post by TheKrust
Evil emipres that can keep an entire civilitazion repressed... but can't seem to stop one guy from killing everyone.

Jack Bauer anyone?

Anyway... to get on point:
-Games that have no character customization
(I like being to pick and choose tons of options on my character)
-Thin storylines that are "heralded" as great epics
-Female armor protecting... next to nothing