I don't think it's coming from consoles. I mean, console gaming has been around just as long, if not longer, than PC gaming (the Atari 2600 came out in 1977!). I think it comes from a desire to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. More people than ever are getting into games these days, so the non-hardcore market is becoming enormous, while the hardcore market is basically staying pretty much the same size.

Quote:Original post by Codeka
I do agree the zoom in SC2 looks a little more boring, but in general I'd say if you don't like the sequal then don't buy it. There's no clearer message that you can send the developers than that!

Indeed. I wouldn't have even commented if it wasn't specifically brought up in the thread.

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Beat the game this time, but it took all of Sunday playing at 10fps.

Seriously? My machine is 4 years old, and wasn't top of the line then. I could run near the unit cap for 8 players and still saw ~30 fps. I have to wonder if your machine isn't as good as you think, or you demand high visuals for everything, or if you're playing the game in some neurotic fashion (30+ factories pumping out grunts)...

I had to up the unit cap to several thousand as that's how I like to play against AI's - fend off massive hordes whilst building an impregnable base. There's no fun tit-for-tatting against "someone" with no personality on the other end.

However, older RTS games allowed me to do this just fine. RA2 vs 7x brutals is great fun. Against one going head to head like you would a human just isn't - but that game and ones before it at least allowed you the option. On much older HW than I have now.

My GPU is top of the line, the rest of my system is maybe two years old. That was the stuff of SciFi when Red Alert was made. I could play in the style I like on TA no problem.

Quote:Original post by Wavinator
I think this "we must simplify everything in order to reach everyone" meme is very short-sighted. Not exactly sure where it's coming from (consoles?) but I'm glad to see that not all game series are falling for it.

I agree. I'm finding myself more and more drawn to indie games like dwarf fortress. They may look awful, but these games have a great deal of complexity which gives rise to some amazing emergent gameplay which is becoming increasingly hard to find.

Of course, many of these games are hard to get into. DF for instance, is notorious for its learning curve. The original SupCom also had a steep learning curve, and I think that this put off a lot of players. My feeling is that developers are trying to make their games more accessible.

The holy grail is a game which is accessible, yet deep and complex. I think that a lot of modern games are focusing too heavily on the former, while sacrificing the latter.

Quote:Original post by Sandman
The holy grail is a game which is accessible, yet deep and complex. I think that a lot of modern games are focusing too heavily on the former, while sacrificing the latter.

They're a bit mutually exclusive up to a point though. No matter how much you tune your interface, gameplay and help resources to make it accessible, complex depth will by definition be not accessible enough for some part of your typical audience. Complexity and depth takes time to develop as well, so it's a choice wether or not you accept that your extra investment may only serve to reduce the size of your audience. For most publisher-funded game development companies, their choice should be pretty obvious.

Quote:Original post by remigius

Quote:Original post by Sandman
The holy grail is a game which is accessible, yet deep and complex. I think that a lot of modern games are focusing too heavily on the former, while sacrificing the latter.

They're a bit mutually exclusive up to a point though. No matter how much you tune your interface, gameplay and help resources to make it accessible, complex depth will by definition be not accessible enough for some part of your typical audience. Complexity and depth takes time to develop as well, so it's a choice wether or not you accept that your extra investment may only serve to reduce the size of your audience. For most publisher-funded game development companies, their choice should be pretty obvious.

Again, this is short sighted. A company doesn't live for one game alone. Making an accessible so-so game isn't going to get you word of mouth and it certainly won't get you any sort of customer loyalty.

Quote:Original post by Telastyn
Again, this is short sighted. A company doesn't live for one game alone. Making an accessible so-so game isn't going to get you word of mouth and it certainly won't get you any sort of customer loyalty.

Don't get me wrong, I agree it's short-sighted. But it seems to be what a good deal of game companies out there are doing and have been doing for years. I'm just saying it's understandable once you get funded by a publisher, because despite all their image-building, they're in the game to make money.

Quote:Quality takes time and money. Would you say the obvious or default choice for a company is to skip it and just con people into buying the product?

I wouldn't say that, although for some companies it might even hold true (movie tie-ins anyone?). My point is that when your ass is on the line and your publisher is coming down on you with deadlines and budget cuts, you're not gonna be much inclined to invest in depth and complexity that might actually even drive away part of your target audience.

Quote:The way I see it, developing mediocre games for an average person is a good way for many companies to lose money, because companies like EA and Activision are highly efficient at it already. How do you compete with them in efficiently pumping out crap?

I used to think that too, but even shallower indie titles seem to outperform more intricate works. Not all folks are looking for depth and complexity and they sure as hell don't want to buy a game that makes them feel stupid. If you want to go for broke on making a really deep game, oozing quality and focussing on a select audience, you're gonna do exactly that, go broke. That's fine if your highest goal is just to make that super game and you're comfortable with betting your company on the good reception of it, but it doesn't make for stable long-term business.

Yup. One instance of "dumbing down" I like is when devs actually find something that is troublesome for all but the twitchest of players.
For instance, Warcraft 3 introduced units with "auto-cast" so you didn't have to micro every single special buff like you did in Warcraft 2.
But what I really dislike is when devs eliminate the sometimes annoying features that were annoying because they actually gave depth to the game. The biggest one of these I see all over the place (Homeworld 1 -> 2, SupCom 1->2, Warcraft 2->3) is the elimination of a specific resource. Why cut fuel from fighters? it adds a great strategic element, since you can no longer just throw fighters into the fray or leave them on constant patrol. Or why remove naval/air units and reduce the resource down to the new standard "2". Why reduce my choices from chess back down to playing checkers?

A second the views on SupCom 2. It is just "less epic". All the big maps seem small. All the units seem weak. The graphics are less detailed (and LOD pop). The "physics projectiles" are gone, replaced with direct fire weapons with hidden dice rolls. The zoom and UI went down hill (SupCom 1 really moved everything forward with the revolution in UI work they did). I wish I hadn't jumped the gun and pre-ordered the game, waste of money.

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I agree. I'm finding myself more and more drawn to indie games like dwarf fortress. They may look awful, but these games have a great deal of complexity which gives rise to some amazing emergent gameplay which is becoming increasingly hard to find.

Of course, many of these games are hard to get into. DF for instance, is notorious for its learning curve. The original SupCom also had a steep learning curve, and I think that this put off a lot of players. My feeling is that developers are trying to make their games more accessible.

Same thing I'd say for EVE online. Epic and fun game, but the learning curve (read depth of play) keeps a lot of people form seeing what is really there. There is a lot more than just "personal achievment" involved in a good online game. Something that I think is lost on many people thanks to WoW. EVE bolsters more achievements for the masses and rewards for people who work together to build something great.

A lot of this rings back to another thread I saw talking about Modern Warfare 2's online play. People are quick to call out "camping", "noob tubing", "sniping" as unfair just because they suck at it and can't learn from their mistakes. Sure the game isn't the best balanced in the world, but kill cams make it easy to find and hunt snipers and campers. Noob Tube grenade launchers have a slow reload and only 2 shots (and an arcing path). And if you don't like that those are perfectly valid strategies in a game, maybe they should make a FPS where you don't have any of those weapons... too bad few people would buy it (varied FPS tactics mean something. look at how many copies of MW2 sold anyone?)

I find it sad how games have drifted towards making it so you can't lose, and the game plays itself. What ever happened to games like Myst? or any of the Lucas Arts adventure games? Games used to have puzzles that stumped you for weeks because there was no online hint guides. Now everyone runs to a FAQ the first time they die just to see where they went wrong.