Graphics and gameplay.
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I have to say that I was really bummed when Kerrigen was turned into the queen of blades. I liked human Kerrigen, dang it.
Think there's anychance of her becomeing less evil in Starcraft 2?
At Neddi: I had that thing too, but the addiction had this bizzare side effect. Because I was constantly doing a HUGE amount of things in StarCraft, zipping around the mini-map, moving units, building larger and better defences and so on, I am no unable to just do one thing. If I just do one thing, I get really bored and do something else...at the same time. That something else is usually "Watch a movie/TV show on the laptop next to my computer"
Like right now, I've written 24,000 words while watching The X-files. I've written 20,123 words while watching Babylon 5, and that's just on my latests work of wordsmithing (E.L.F, viewable for free in the Off Topic Forum). I've played entire games while watching the Simpsons, and whenever I take I test, I'm using the mind enhancing powers of Queen on my I-pod to help me ace it.
Weird, huh?
Think there's anychance of her becomeing less evil in Starcraft 2?
At Neddi: I had that thing too, but the addiction had this bizzare side effect. Because I was constantly doing a HUGE amount of things in StarCraft, zipping around the mini-map, moving units, building larger and better defences and so on, I am no unable to just do one thing. If I just do one thing, I get really bored and do something else...at the same time. That something else is usually "Watch a movie/TV show on the laptop next to my computer"
Like right now, I've written 24,000 words while watching The X-files. I've written 20,123 words while watching Babylon 5, and that's just on my latests work of wordsmithing (E.L.F, viewable for free in the Off Topic Forum). I've played entire games while watching the Simpsons, and whenever I take I test, I'm using the mind enhancing powers of Queen on my I-pod to help me ace it.
Weird, huh?
I remember the starship troopers map. That was a cool map. And my brother was trying to make a Space Hulk map. He even had motion blips and everything. It was pretty cool. Translating the stats was hard because units in SC never miss, so the Genestealers would EXPLODE whenever they got in the terminator's range. But, if the Genestealkers managed to get close enough, the terminators would die as quickly.
Hmm...maybe I should return to that.
Anyone else think that'd be cool?
Hmm...maybe I should return to that.
Anyone else think that'd be cool?
Zpock wrote:Starcrafts cloaking (dosn't uncloak when shooting) is far superior to TA/CnC cloaking (uncloaks). If the cloaker has to uncloak to fire, it's pretty pointless and dosn't really matter when actually fighting other units. In starcraft you can actually use those units to win a fight by taking away his ability to detect. Thus using and countering cloaking units isn't just a gimmick but an actual interesting dimension of gameplay.
It's funny how people (springs best modders at that) have taken a hate-shot on first, the "grand theorist" and then the shadowy "uber-clicker". Theory and practice are not mutually exclusive, both should be taken into account seriously for best effect. Neither should be ignored when balancing a mod, or playing a game or whatever, both are important and it's silly to put one above the other. Any decent theoryst should know that theory dos not perfectly say what will happen. Instead, well done theory will approximate well the important details with simpler math, no matter how complicated the underlying reality is, and such is useful.
Starcraft has a rigid and simple rule system that leads to structured gameplay, so you can discuss situations like the marine vs lurker. The more "simulation" (or so claimed) approach of TA/supcom with more physics etc leads to "messier" gameplay where you cannot really say much about what will happen. This also makes it harder to balance the game in such a way that interesting situations can arise (IE the different levels of tactics in the lurker vs marine fight). However, a more realistic engine of course has it's merits and you will want to try to push this while maintaining interesting gameplay (or we would be stuck with chekers).
this is a cool post fyi
Smoth, you're the one trolling your own thread. Somebody comes in with a legitimate point of view and when somebody says they agree you call them silly fanboys and trolls who don't understand your point of view, which you're implying is the right one. When somebody does the same they're trolling and you want their post deleted.
It's OK for several people to have several different opinions. Sure, Steven and Isaac are sometimes a little stupid, but it seems to get you really riled over something that really barely matters. Try to calm down a bit before replying and you'd probably come over better.
It's OK for several people to have several different opinions. Sure, Steven and Isaac are sometimes a little stupid, but it seems to get you really riled over something that really barely matters. Try to calm down a bit before replying and you'd probably come over better.
Tombom, I know you don't like me and neither does your mate ishach, that is fine but how about this point out where I trolled. Please go ahead. I know that at least one of steven's posts have been removed from this thread on the account of trolling. All of my posts are here.
go for it, quote away, I want to see you substantiate your claim.
they are not stupid they fucking hate me for some unknown reason.
go for it, quote away, I want to see you substantiate your claim.
they are not stupid they fucking hate me for some unknown reason.
Oh boy this is like starting to bring back memories of that Fang Rant i just heardsmoth wrote:Tombom, I know you don't like me and neither does your mate ishach, that is fine but how about this point out where I trolled. Please go ahead. I know that at least one of steven's posts have been removed from this thread on the account of trolling. All of my posts are here.
go for it, quote away, I want to see you substantiate your claim.
they are not stupid they fucking hate me for some unknown reason.
at what point did this post seem at all civil. Insulting my intelligence is just weak. now in language that an adult would use explain to me what is your problem? because it isn't just this thread.Ishach wrote:Smoth you're like the retarded kid in primary school who would run around in circles with his hands over his ears screaming when anyone made loud noises around him. Its the wrong thing to do but damn if it isn't funny to watch.
The retarded kid however, had an excuse.
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Lolsquad_Steven
- Posts: 488
- Joined: 27 Jun 2006, 17:55
Basically you say you're tired of people saying all you care about is graphics with your mods, then you go on and sell starcraft's gameplay short, and the evidence you put forward to suggest you infact played the game only suggested you were bad at it (i'm very attached to starcraft, so is pretty much any good starcraft player(you have to be good at it to understand why)).smoth wrote:I have, steve decided to start some shit, I want him to back it up. I am tired of his pissy proding of me.
I is also sorry for my pissy proding you.
Hrm, I suppose I should elaborate on why I called erasmus a baby killing robot.. but you could google the name and find out yourselves.. I had hoped he would reply back and thus we would learn about the jest..
The name was used by a robot in a prequal to Dune written by frank herberts son, said robot, murdered a baby by dropping it out a window and this of course sparked the jihad that rid the dune universe of the "thinking machines" my comment was made in jest..
Aside from that apparently missed joke..attempt at humor..
This thread really wasnt about balance alone, but that balance and graphics could both be in a game and both be at decent levels, and that one does not need to be sacrificed to allow the other. Smoth is right in his original posts intent, people often equate pretty games to crappy gamplay, and hardcore old skool games to good gamplay. I dont agree with this I think its possible to have both, maybe not in a corporate run professional game enviroment but certainly in spring where everyone is doing this as a hobby and to create something that is fun and visually appeasing. It is easy therefore for both TA mods, and non TA mods to achieve both gameplay and graphics.
Often we hear they are still working on gameplay.. well my question is... Is your gamplay so far off that it needs that much work that not even an ounce of time can be relegated to graphics.. or is the actual issue that you really cant model, texture, or do good explosions.. if its the former than by all means continue to refine gamplay, I agree gamplay should come before graphics at least the overall gamplay as a game is nothing without any semblence of balance, but I find it hard to believe that all AA derived mods have such poor balance that they must focus on that exclusively. I think in fact that you guys lack the skill set to do graphics work and are instead of admitting that and moving on, attempting to play off graphic improvments and mods with any sense of them as unbalanced and so forth to make yourselves feel better.
Just admit it no one is going to laugh, about 75% of this community cant mod so its not a big deal if you cant either, ask for help, or just straight up admit you cant do the graphical end and that is why its not done. Dont cop out and imply that mods with any graphical work done on them are neglecting balance. I invite you people to try Gundam, EE, 1944, or SWS, and or the other numerous non ta mods that are put out and honestly tell me they are unbalanced. I dont want to hear if you think the balance is not good because its not your style, but Honestly I want you to try them and tell me that there is some undefeatable strategy, and that within those games there is no balance. I dont believe it, I think people need to realize there is a difference between bad balance and different balance. Some mods dont play like others, you may not like em, this is fine, but this does not mean the balance is bad, its just not your style. A game can be balanced, but not play in a manner you enjoy. Games can also be pretty and play well..
so yeah end that..
The name was used by a robot in a prequal to Dune written by frank herberts son, said robot, murdered a baby by dropping it out a window and this of course sparked the jihad that rid the dune universe of the "thinking machines" my comment was made in jest..
Aside from that apparently missed joke..attempt at humor..
This thread really wasnt about balance alone, but that balance and graphics could both be in a game and both be at decent levels, and that one does not need to be sacrificed to allow the other. Smoth is right in his original posts intent, people often equate pretty games to crappy gamplay, and hardcore old skool games to good gamplay. I dont agree with this I think its possible to have both, maybe not in a corporate run professional game enviroment but certainly in spring where everyone is doing this as a hobby and to create something that is fun and visually appeasing. It is easy therefore for both TA mods, and non TA mods to achieve both gameplay and graphics.
Often we hear they are still working on gameplay.. well my question is... Is your gamplay so far off that it needs that much work that not even an ounce of time can be relegated to graphics.. or is the actual issue that you really cant model, texture, or do good explosions.. if its the former than by all means continue to refine gamplay, I agree gamplay should come before graphics at least the overall gamplay as a game is nothing without any semblence of balance, but I find it hard to believe that all AA derived mods have such poor balance that they must focus on that exclusively. I think in fact that you guys lack the skill set to do graphics work and are instead of admitting that and moving on, attempting to play off graphic improvments and mods with any sense of them as unbalanced and so forth to make yourselves feel better.
Just admit it no one is going to laugh, about 75% of this community cant mod so its not a big deal if you cant either, ask for help, or just straight up admit you cant do the graphical end and that is why its not done. Dont cop out and imply that mods with any graphical work done on them are neglecting balance. I invite you people to try Gundam, EE, 1944, or SWS, and or the other numerous non ta mods that are put out and honestly tell me they are unbalanced. I dont want to hear if you think the balance is not good because its not your style, but Honestly I want you to try them and tell me that there is some undefeatable strategy, and that within those games there is no balance. I dont believe it, I think people need to realize there is a difference between bad balance and different balance. Some mods dont play like others, you may not like em, this is fine, but this does not mean the balance is bad, its just not your style. A game can be balanced, but not play in a manner you enjoy. Games can also be pretty and play well..
so yeah end that..
The rant is the one which I recorded, apparently. I haven't been on Team Talk for a while and I don't have a lot of other clips - none as honest or as interesting. There are some moments, in retrospect, I wish I had captured.
Are the Dune prequels any good, Fang?
Anyway, most of what Fang asserted in that last post in relation to graphics and gameplay I agree with. I do equate older, less flashy games with better play - and sadly, they generally have it after fair evaluation. Goodbye PS2, hello NES.
The fact is that in most of the TA based projects, we are now looking for help with graphics and atmosphere. Just recently I raised a few points over the reborn *Annihilation in lobby. There is a distinct lack of skilled artists, and most of the groups recognize that - a number of people are picking up the tools and trying to crash course themselves. On the other hand, we do have tremendous balance issues - there is no centralized design document as of yet, so each revision is being done in exclusion. In my time here, only BOTA has approached balance in terms of TA-derivative mods - nobody plays it, and the project was handed from one man to another.
Some people do imply that Graphics and Gameplay in Spring mods exist independent of each other. I vehemently do not. Perhaps this is why I seem compelled to dabble in virtually all of the mods.
Are the Dune prequels any good, Fang?
Anyway, most of what Fang asserted in that last post in relation to graphics and gameplay I agree with. I do equate older, less flashy games with better play - and sadly, they generally have it after fair evaluation. Goodbye PS2, hello NES.
The fact is that in most of the TA based projects, we are now looking for help with graphics and atmosphere. Just recently I raised a few points over the reborn *Annihilation in lobby. There is a distinct lack of skilled artists, and most of the groups recognize that - a number of people are picking up the tools and trying to crash course themselves. On the other hand, we do have tremendous balance issues - there is no centralized design document as of yet, so each revision is being done in exclusion. In my time here, only BOTA has approached balance in terms of TA-derivative mods - nobody plays it, and the project was handed from one man to another.
Some people do imply that Graphics and Gameplay in Spring mods exist independent of each other. I vehemently do not. Perhaps this is why I seem compelled to dabble in virtually all of the mods.
You know, I really should have hated Eranmus (robot baby killer version, not TA Spring forum goer), but he's still one of my favoret charicters.
As to the good/badness of the prequals...I liked them.
And I'm still a little confused by people who think that graphics = crappy game. What about Sacrfice? No one remembers Sacrfice, but it was one of the most gorgious, creative and amazingly fun RTS's I've played. It's actually kinda simlar to TA, but your commander is a mage, your camera is locked onto your mage, and insted of metal, you suck souls out of enemy creates and use them to create your own critters. It had that amazing, blistering game play and some graphics that are still gorgious now, 6 years later!
So yes, graphics and gameplay belong together, not apart.
As to the good/badness of the prequals...I liked them.
And I'm still a little confused by people who think that graphics = crappy game. What about Sacrfice? No one remembers Sacrfice, but it was one of the most gorgious, creative and amazingly fun RTS's I've played. It's actually kinda simlar to TA, but your commander is a mage, your camera is locked onto your mage, and insted of metal, you suck souls out of enemy creates and use them to create your own critters. It had that amazing, blistering game play and some graphics that are still gorgious now, 6 years later!
So yes, graphics and gameplay belong together, not apart.
I think the mentality came about in the early days of 3d gaming when people were all rushing to do 3d. Mainly on consoles the 3dgames that were often pretty played poorly because people knew that would sell and the trend continued for some time.
Another thing is that to this day there are games with great graphics and the gameplay takes a hit: oblivion I am lookng at you.. not that I don't like you.. or that I do not want your new expansion... Still simple graphics often mean that the designer spent all his/her time on the game. However, now companies know they need both and spend large sums to get this. However, some games need to be more optimized... esp when you compare stuff like oblivion to might and magic(I love that game also)!
Well, in spring there are many times where you are waiting on feedback from testers. I always use this time to improve graphics. I think that more moders should do this. In a week so much work can be done and a balance change is only a minor few things. You fire the modification to your testers and BOOM back to idle time. Use THAT time well, you can have new models or effects. Heck sometimes I add stuff and watch to see if the testers catch it just to see how much of an impact the change had :)
Another thing is that to this day there are games with great graphics and the gameplay takes a hit: oblivion I am lookng at you.. not that I don't like you.. or that I do not want your new expansion... Still simple graphics often mean that the designer spent all his/her time on the game. However, now companies know they need both and spend large sums to get this. However, some games need to be more optimized... esp when you compare stuff like oblivion to might and magic(I love that game also)!
Well, in spring there are many times where you are waiting on feedback from testers. I always use this time to improve graphics. I think that more moders should do this. In a week so much work can be done and a balance change is only a minor few things. You fire the modification to your testers and BOOM back to idle time. Use THAT time well, you can have new models or effects. Heck sometimes I add stuff and watch to see if the testers catch it just to see how much of an impact the change had :)
The way I think it works is:
1. Mr big corporate FLOUR decides to make a game to cash in.
2. He knows that 1st of all he needs flashy graphix to sell alot, becouse everyone likes shiney stuff.
3. To sell to all the idiots that make up 99% of the population, he decides to make his game as simple as possible.
4. In line with #3 he decides to crap on good gameplay becouse everyone knows only 1% appreciate this anyway and it would likely get in the way of #3 somehow. Also more money for #2.
1. Mr big corporate FLOUR decides to make a game to cash in.
2. He knows that 1st of all he needs flashy graphix to sell alot, becouse everyone likes shiney stuff.
3. To sell to all the idiots that make up 99% of the population, he decides to make his game as simple as possible.
4. In line with #3 he decides to crap on good gameplay becouse everyone knows only 1% appreciate this anyway and it would likely get in the way of #3 somehow. Also more money for #2.
After seeing Sacrifice comes so often all over the net whenever people discuss great little known games, I bought it and played through the campaign this summer. Very nice game indeed, but nothing like total annihilation. Well, beside the RTS bit and sucking ressources out of slain enenmies. If I had to name a game similar to Sacrifice, it'd be more Magic Carpet.
Anyway, about gameplay, graphic and realism: What I'm looking for in videogame, is to have a little tiny universe with its own constitent rules, with which my character/army/... can interact in as many way as possible.
There were countless insufferable games on the SNES, just they went forgotten. We equate old school with better gameplay only because of a handful of games. For instance, in Super Mario Bross 3, a brick block can be:
- Bumped by a jump, when you are little, to get hidden coin or kill the enemy above
- Crushed by a jump, when you are big, to destroy it, and kill the enemy above.
- Turned into a coin then grabbed, with a P.
- Crushed with a tail.
Similarly, turtle can be disposed in dozen of ways:
- Slide on slope and hit them
- Hit them after eating a star
- Fireball
- Jump on them
- Bump the block under
- Throw a shell or block at them
- Send a shell sliding on their path
- Hit with a racoon tail
I'm sure there are more...
And depending on which way you use, the turle may be discarded, flip over, or simply forced inside, with different result: a flipped over shell can be safely grabbed for later use, a not flipped over shell can be grabbed but you got to be quick and act before the turtle comes back out. Grabbed shells themselves have myriad of use.
Well, sorry for the long listing, but what I wanted to show, is that with very few element, a single kind of brick block, a single specie of turtle, you have lots and lots of way to interact. Some straighforwards, some taking long to master, each with its merit, and each feeling very natural and intuitive.
In comparaison, in modern FPS too often you have a single way of interacting with enemies: shoot it with a gun. The variation are only "shoot with gun" or "shoot with bigger gun". And once you get bigger gun, of course there's no point in reversing to small gun. Unlike mario's exemple where even if you have fireball, sometimes you'd better of revert to double-jump on it (so as to break a block for instance).
Where modern game fails is not in adding graphic, but in adding graphic that are disconnected to gameplay: Like, there's this wonderful alien tree, using thousands of poly, alpha transparency, bump mapped vein on shiny self shadowed leaves, but for all intent and purpose the gameplay act as if there is nothing: I can walk right through it. After a while, the alien tree begins to feel like an hologram: I grow accustomed to simply ignoring it. Since it has zero influence on my interaction with the world, it's like it doesn't really belong to this world, and despite its marvelous sight, for a better play/feel/comprehension of the virtual world, I have to force my mind to erase it from my perception of the world.
There's been a tremendous improvement in graphic, but hitmasks are still as boxy as before, and the number of means of interaction with the world has ... decreased! Recently I played Far Cry, the beach graphism were OmgFlabbergasticSoGoodICanHardlyBelieve (yes I'm three years late), but, just like every FPS, at some point it had some boxes, and the only mean of interaction I had with the boxes was to push them with bullets, or push them by walking into them! (or is there some action key I missed?). To be compared with Super Mario shells that can be hit with fireball, hit with tail, jumped over to send sliding, grabbed, thrown, bumped through a block from under...
Granted, now some games are also touting their physic engine, with Havoc and stuff, but how many times have seen an OmgUberAdvanced raggdoll system used solely to make corpses conform to each step of a stair, but with zero influence on the gameplay, your character still walking on the stair like if there was nothing at all, again the corpse feeling like an hologram, that anyway dissolve into thin air after a couple seconds (I hate that! In Doom, when you came back to the place of a fiery battle hours afterward, the room was still littered with the corpse of slain enemies. It gave a feeling of coherence to the world, and made you feel like you had an impact on the world, instead of waltzing on a stage with invisible minions cleaning and removing every stain, corpse and other leftover like in later games, err, ok, that rant is irrelevant, even in doom cadavers had no impact on gamplay, oh wait no, they did impacted gameplay since you'd better off not leave any corpse near an archvile. Yeah, Doom gameplay still holds many lessons that later dev forgot).
The reason I like(d) Total Annihilation so much was not just because the 3D made it prettier, but because the revolutionnary engine (for a RTS) wasn't used just for eyecandy but impacted the gameplay: In other RTS, such as RTS or Starcrafts, unit would sometimes feel like icon, pretty still picture surimposed as symbols over simplistic mechanics.
For instance, in Red Altert/Star Craft/Dark Reign and other RTS of the ToalA era, even if the grid wasn't drawn, you'd feel it: each and every unit had to be over precisely a square, like pieces on a chessboard, and could only move horizontally, diagonnaly or vertically to an adjacent square (K C&C & RA had that clever "five infantry in a square", but still). In comparaison, my first TA experience blew me away with the ability to have units that moved free of chessboard square constraints. And on third mission of demo, units with varied footprint size: No more a mammouth tank taking exactly the same room as a light recon jeep! This chance completly non-graphical, it is invisible graphic-wise, yet it impacts the gameplay and feel of the game. It reconciliated look and feel: If a tank looked bigger, then it was considered bigger for the game calculations, and so felt bigger gameplaywise.
Then there were the 3D mapped units: I heard many people says that they like Starcraft crisp hand drawn graphic, with character, over TA souleless mass of grey polygons. However, for me, the 3D units of TA felt like a major improvement because they made me feel I had a real world beyond the glass of my monitor much more than sprites. In StarCraft, an Hydralisk may look pretty in astill shot, but while playing, its shape becomes irrelevant. It is only a set of 32 cute drawings that is displayed to represent square occupied by hydralisks. By comparaison, a thud in TA feels much more like an entity having its own existence in the virtual world beyond the glass of my monitor. I can feel it like a set of colored volume, smoothly deforming itself when doing stuff such as walking or aiming, and conforming to terrain. Well, a two legged thud would stay upright while moving up and down a slope, while a tracked stumpy would tilt. That's that kind of stuff that makes me feel they do exist in that virtual world, instead of being simply filler symbols. And ok, the impact on gameplay may be very subtle, but it's here: the shell comes precisely out of the mouthes of the barrel of the thud, so whether or not the cannon are raised, whether or not the unit tilted on the slope, change the origin of the shot, and so which path the shot flies and where it hits.
So, 3D trajectories too. Ok that one has been more widely discussed, but still. Zpock points out that simulation based trajectory leads to a messier gameplay, where you can't quite predict at 100% what will happen, whereas instahit weapons leads to a a much more predictive environnement. I suppose it implicitly follow that in one game, player can win out of sheer luck, while in the other there's nothing but pure skill. That's sure raising an interesting, but, BeingADefenderOfTheTrueTAFaithAgaisntTheHordeOfBlizzardHeathen that I am, I of course feels compelled to rebute it:
- TA & Spring are large scale RTS. You don't fight with two units, but with hundreds of units. By the law of statistics, when large numbers of random event are added, the results has all its randomness evened. So even if individual shots are random, the battle outcome is accuratly predictable.
- Zpock says: instahit weapons -> player can know exactly what will happen.
But I say: simulated trajectory -> player can intuitively feel what will happen.
And imo, the second is better, because it means you can grok a situation involving hundreds different kind of weapons, each with countless possibility, even with little experience, wherease in the first system, you have to learn tables by heart.
Yes, sometimes you'll see situation where a huge stroke of luck plays an overimportant role, such as the famous shell deviated by shield lands on commander, killing it, or the more casual loss of a unit due to a plane falling right on it, but I feel that these cases won't ruin the gaming experience since:
- They aren't that random actually, I'm sure if you leave them enough time hard core player will master the art of the skillfully redirecting plasma shots with deflector, the same way they learn to suck every ounce of every TA exploit. Or you should know and take into account in your plan that units walking below fighting bombers are at risk of receiving falling planes on their hand.
- The player with a bertha would have win anyway, it could have hit a fusion farm and trigger a chain explosion, or cripple the economy thus bringing a sure victory, or whatever.
- Such game deciding random event are actually so rare they bring more hilarity and whoahing of witnessing such special event than resent from loosing because of a roll of dice.
- BTW, don't tabletop games relies alot on dice throw, yet requires incredible strategical thinking?
Uh, where was I? Ah yeah. Graphics shouldn't be an added layer over games mechanic. They should be the mean by which game mechanics are exposed to the player. There must be adequation between looks and feel: if it looks like X, it must do X. Graphics are so the player can ingest and process enormous amount of information without even thinking about it. This is videogame, so I don't want to have to learn phone books sized statistic table, instead I use the expensive CPU and GPU show all the complexity of thousands factors interacting in real time is represented in a way I can intuitively comprehend.
More to the point, prettyier and more diverse explosion graphical effects means you can have more variety in the explosion gameplay impacting effect. Large/Medium/Small area of effect, Large/Medium/Small damage power, Blow Unit/Dig Ground/Unit damage ratio, and even flame/ice/poison damage/armor system are each clearly identifiable by how the explosion look, so after half a game you learn without effort to recognise which effect a weapon will have simply by how it looks. It of couse implies that you don't add random better FX "to spice it up" as an afterthough, but that the design of the new explosion is done with the design of the weapons balancing.
Yes, you can have the same gameplay with all explosion looking the same, or worth, explosions with similar properties looks different while explosions with widely differnt consequence look the same. Your mod balance and "gameplay" will be exactly the same, however:
- For newcomers it will be completly random, and a bad experience.
- For the few hard core player that'll stay, it'll be a matter of who can learn the most numbers by hearth.
But by harnessing the better graphic to ease the understanding of complex multi variable environnement, you get what I feel video games should be.
This is also where realism comes into play: I couldn't care less if your mod balance is made after data-sheets or real life weapons. The whole RTS basis, such as factory created in seconds, tanks firing only no further than ten times their length, etc... makes the whole idea (of applying values from real life weapons and call it "realism") not only ridiculous, but plainly inadapated.
However, the kind of realism I care for, is consistency within the realm of the virtual world: We might fight by throwing slow moving orange blobs, but at least a big orange blob does more damage than a small orange blob. And if one orange blob has arced trajectory, and splash damage, then all other orange blob must do the same. Green line on the other hand are always straight, instahit and affecting very small spot. Red lines are the same, but smaller ranged and smaller damage. So I see one of such green line in the first minutes of my first game, and from then can intuitivly extrapolate that a thicker green line will have the same properties, scaled appropriatly. Or if I see a sleek pointy plane, I know it's a fast interceptor. While a chubby plane will more likely be a bomber.
To sum up:
Realism only matters when it's about abiding to the rules of a wildly imaginary virtual universe, not realism toward the real world.
Graphics should be here to explain the gameplay, not live their own indepentant life.
Anyway, about gameplay, graphic and realism: What I'm looking for in videogame, is to have a little tiny universe with its own constitent rules, with which my character/army/... can interact in as many way as possible.
There were countless insufferable games on the SNES, just they went forgotten. We equate old school with better gameplay only because of a handful of games. For instance, in Super Mario Bross 3, a brick block can be:
- Bumped by a jump, when you are little, to get hidden coin or kill the enemy above
- Crushed by a jump, when you are big, to destroy it, and kill the enemy above.
- Turned into a coin then grabbed, with a P.
- Crushed with a tail.
Similarly, turtle can be disposed in dozen of ways:
- Slide on slope and hit them
- Hit them after eating a star
- Fireball
- Jump on them
- Bump the block under
- Throw a shell or block at them
- Send a shell sliding on their path
- Hit with a racoon tail
I'm sure there are more...
And depending on which way you use, the turle may be discarded, flip over, or simply forced inside, with different result: a flipped over shell can be safely grabbed for later use, a not flipped over shell can be grabbed but you got to be quick and act before the turtle comes back out. Grabbed shells themselves have myriad of use.
Well, sorry for the long listing, but what I wanted to show, is that with very few element, a single kind of brick block, a single specie of turtle, you have lots and lots of way to interact. Some straighforwards, some taking long to master, each with its merit, and each feeling very natural and intuitive.
In comparaison, in modern FPS too often you have a single way of interacting with enemies: shoot it with a gun. The variation are only "shoot with gun" or "shoot with bigger gun". And once you get bigger gun, of course there's no point in reversing to small gun. Unlike mario's exemple where even if you have fireball, sometimes you'd better of revert to double-jump on it (so as to break a block for instance).
Where modern game fails is not in adding graphic, but in adding graphic that are disconnected to gameplay: Like, there's this wonderful alien tree, using thousands of poly, alpha transparency, bump mapped vein on shiny self shadowed leaves, but for all intent and purpose the gameplay act as if there is nothing: I can walk right through it. After a while, the alien tree begins to feel like an hologram: I grow accustomed to simply ignoring it. Since it has zero influence on my interaction with the world, it's like it doesn't really belong to this world, and despite its marvelous sight, for a better play/feel/comprehension of the virtual world, I have to force my mind to erase it from my perception of the world.
There's been a tremendous improvement in graphic, but hitmasks are still as boxy as before, and the number of means of interaction with the world has ... decreased! Recently I played Far Cry, the beach graphism were OmgFlabbergasticSoGoodICanHardlyBelieve (yes I'm three years late), but, just like every FPS, at some point it had some boxes, and the only mean of interaction I had with the boxes was to push them with bullets, or push them by walking into them! (or is there some action key I missed?). To be compared with Super Mario shells that can be hit with fireball, hit with tail, jumped over to send sliding, grabbed, thrown, bumped through a block from under...
Granted, now some games are also touting their physic engine, with Havoc and stuff, but how many times have seen an OmgUberAdvanced raggdoll system used solely to make corpses conform to each step of a stair, but with zero influence on the gameplay, your character still walking on the stair like if there was nothing at all, again the corpse feeling like an hologram, that anyway dissolve into thin air after a couple seconds (I hate that! In Doom, when you came back to the place of a fiery battle hours afterward, the room was still littered with the corpse of slain enemies. It gave a feeling of coherence to the world, and made you feel like you had an impact on the world, instead of waltzing on a stage with invisible minions cleaning and removing every stain, corpse and other leftover like in later games, err, ok, that rant is irrelevant, even in doom cadavers had no impact on gamplay, oh wait no, they did impacted gameplay since you'd better off not leave any corpse near an archvile. Yeah, Doom gameplay still holds many lessons that later dev forgot).
The reason I like(d) Total Annihilation so much was not just because the 3D made it prettier, but because the revolutionnary engine (for a RTS) wasn't used just for eyecandy but impacted the gameplay: In other RTS, such as RTS or Starcrafts, unit would sometimes feel like icon, pretty still picture surimposed as symbols over simplistic mechanics.
For instance, in Red Altert/Star Craft/Dark Reign and other RTS of the ToalA era, even if the grid wasn't drawn, you'd feel it: each and every unit had to be over precisely a square, like pieces on a chessboard, and could only move horizontally, diagonnaly or vertically to an adjacent square (K C&C & RA had that clever "five infantry in a square", but still). In comparaison, my first TA experience blew me away with the ability to have units that moved free of chessboard square constraints. And on third mission of demo, units with varied footprint size: No more a mammouth tank taking exactly the same room as a light recon jeep! This chance completly non-graphical, it is invisible graphic-wise, yet it impacts the gameplay and feel of the game. It reconciliated look and feel: If a tank looked bigger, then it was considered bigger for the game calculations, and so felt bigger gameplaywise.
Then there were the 3D mapped units: I heard many people says that they like Starcraft crisp hand drawn graphic, with character, over TA souleless mass of grey polygons. However, for me, the 3D units of TA felt like a major improvement because they made me feel I had a real world beyond the glass of my monitor much more than sprites. In StarCraft, an Hydralisk may look pretty in astill shot, but while playing, its shape becomes irrelevant. It is only a set of 32 cute drawings that is displayed to represent square occupied by hydralisks. By comparaison, a thud in TA feels much more like an entity having its own existence in the virtual world beyond the glass of my monitor. I can feel it like a set of colored volume, smoothly deforming itself when doing stuff such as walking or aiming, and conforming to terrain. Well, a two legged thud would stay upright while moving up and down a slope, while a tracked stumpy would tilt. That's that kind of stuff that makes me feel they do exist in that virtual world, instead of being simply filler symbols. And ok, the impact on gameplay may be very subtle, but it's here: the shell comes precisely out of the mouthes of the barrel of the thud, so whether or not the cannon are raised, whether or not the unit tilted on the slope, change the origin of the shot, and so which path the shot flies and where it hits.
So, 3D trajectories too. Ok that one has been more widely discussed, but still. Zpock points out that simulation based trajectory leads to a messier gameplay, where you can't quite predict at 100% what will happen, whereas instahit weapons leads to a a much more predictive environnement. I suppose it implicitly follow that in one game, player can win out of sheer luck, while in the other there's nothing but pure skill. That's sure raising an interesting, but, BeingADefenderOfTheTrueTAFaithAgaisntTheHordeOfBlizzardHeathen that I am, I of course feels compelled to rebute it:
- TA & Spring are large scale RTS. You don't fight with two units, but with hundreds of units. By the law of statistics, when large numbers of random event are added, the results has all its randomness evened. So even if individual shots are random, the battle outcome is accuratly predictable.
- Zpock says: instahit weapons -> player can know exactly what will happen.
But I say: simulated trajectory -> player can intuitively feel what will happen.
And imo, the second is better, because it means you can grok a situation involving hundreds different kind of weapons, each with countless possibility, even with little experience, wherease in the first system, you have to learn tables by heart.
Yes, sometimes you'll see situation where a huge stroke of luck plays an overimportant role, such as the famous shell deviated by shield lands on commander, killing it, or the more casual loss of a unit due to a plane falling right on it, but I feel that these cases won't ruin the gaming experience since:
- They aren't that random actually, I'm sure if you leave them enough time hard core player will master the art of the skillfully redirecting plasma shots with deflector, the same way they learn to suck every ounce of every TA exploit. Or you should know and take into account in your plan that units walking below fighting bombers are at risk of receiving falling planes on their hand.
- The player with a bertha would have win anyway, it could have hit a fusion farm and trigger a chain explosion, or cripple the economy thus bringing a sure victory, or whatever.
- Such game deciding random event are actually so rare they bring more hilarity and whoahing of witnessing such special event than resent from loosing because of a roll of dice.
- BTW, don't tabletop games relies alot on dice throw, yet requires incredible strategical thinking?
Uh, where was I? Ah yeah. Graphics shouldn't be an added layer over games mechanic. They should be the mean by which game mechanics are exposed to the player. There must be adequation between looks and feel: if it looks like X, it must do X. Graphics are so the player can ingest and process enormous amount of information without even thinking about it. This is videogame, so I don't want to have to learn phone books sized statistic table, instead I use the expensive CPU and GPU show all the complexity of thousands factors interacting in real time is represented in a way I can intuitively comprehend.
More to the point, prettyier and more diverse explosion graphical effects means you can have more variety in the explosion gameplay impacting effect. Large/Medium/Small area of effect, Large/Medium/Small damage power, Blow Unit/Dig Ground/Unit damage ratio, and even flame/ice/poison damage/armor system are each clearly identifiable by how the explosion look, so after half a game you learn without effort to recognise which effect a weapon will have simply by how it looks. It of couse implies that you don't add random better FX "to spice it up" as an afterthough, but that the design of the new explosion is done with the design of the weapons balancing.
Yes, you can have the same gameplay with all explosion looking the same, or worth, explosions with similar properties looks different while explosions with widely differnt consequence look the same. Your mod balance and "gameplay" will be exactly the same, however:
- For newcomers it will be completly random, and a bad experience.
- For the few hard core player that'll stay, it'll be a matter of who can learn the most numbers by hearth.
But by harnessing the better graphic to ease the understanding of complex multi variable environnement, you get what I feel video games should be.
This is also where realism comes into play: I couldn't care less if your mod balance is made after data-sheets or real life weapons. The whole RTS basis, such as factory created in seconds, tanks firing only no further than ten times their length, etc... makes the whole idea (of applying values from real life weapons and call it "realism") not only ridiculous, but plainly inadapated.
However, the kind of realism I care for, is consistency within the realm of the virtual world: We might fight by throwing slow moving orange blobs, but at least a big orange blob does more damage than a small orange blob. And if one orange blob has arced trajectory, and splash damage, then all other orange blob must do the same. Green line on the other hand are always straight, instahit and affecting very small spot. Red lines are the same, but smaller ranged and smaller damage. So I see one of such green line in the first minutes of my first game, and from then can intuitivly extrapolate that a thicker green line will have the same properties, scaled appropriatly. Or if I see a sleek pointy plane, I know it's a fast interceptor. While a chubby plane will more likely be a bomber.
To sum up:
Realism only matters when it's about abiding to the rules of a wildly imaginary virtual universe, not realism toward the real world.
Graphics should be here to explain the gameplay, not live their own indepentant life.
