StarCraft: The past, present and future • Hacker News Board

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#71

Post by lost_name » Mon, Nov 09, 2015, 5:49 PM UTC

theandrewbailey wrote: post #49

rincebrain wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why not - they've always been pretty aggressive about Mac support, as you observed. Maybe the overhead required for developing a new FPS engine (which, AFAIK, Blizzard's never done in-house before, even SC:Ghost was another developer) was too much for them to have OS X support in the initial timetable.

I remember watching a video of some SC2 panel at Blizcon from 5-ish years ago, where they were talking about how flexible the engine and editor was. They showed some third person shooter level built in the stock SC2 editor, and it looked interesting enough. I bet that Overwatch's code is closely related to their other games, rather than something from scratch.

You might be correct, but the SC2 engine (which also powers Heroes of the Storm) seems to run significantly worse than Overwatch engine on my computer.

The content of each game is so radically different that the comparison might not be appropriate.

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#72

Post by MrJagil » Mon, Nov 09, 2015, 6:23 PM UTC

padobson wrote: post #62

mattlutze wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And blurred lines like you illustrate above are a good argument why we can't say video games should be primarily considered performance art pieces in the realm of interaction design, as well as why we can't say video games should be primarily considered story delivery mechanisms. The video game is both interactive and passively consumed. Machinima exists because of how enjoyable experiencing a story through a video g…

If we follow this rabbit hole too far, we'll end up trying to answer questions like "What is a game?" and "What is art?" But what you're describing is what I want. I want more immersion, I want the focus to be on the what the gamer experiences and giving them something meaningful to do. But when you plug your brain into the NeuralCube4000 two decades from now, what are you going to get? What I want: You're in a tille…

There is a great book on film by David Mamet[0] in which he describes the authentic way to piece together a story. Roughly, stories should be told through editing and camera movement, somewhat following the montage theory.[1] You see a picture of a man staring. You see a coffin. He's sad. Replace the coffin with a bowl of soup, and now he's hungry instead. According to Mamet (and many others) even feature films should be done in this manner, no dialogue whatsoever (and definitely no voice overs or signs/texts to read).

In the same vein, a game should be told with the protagonist as the camera. You go to the farm house, no one is home. You go the forest, you see broken twigs and no animals: Somethings not right.

The upcoming game The Witness seems to embrace this sort of thinking. So did many rpgs (even vanilla WoW, to a certain degree. Much of the feedback from the game came through interaction with your surroundings[2] and you could always choose a different quest line).

[0] http://www.amazon.com/On-Directing-Film-David-Mamet/dp/01401... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_montage_theory [2] The first time you see a glowing plant you realise there's something called herbalism etc.

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#73

Post by MrJagil » Mon, Nov 09, 2015, 6:29 PM UTC

tareqak wrote: post #14

terda12 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, the game works great on Windows. I can't imagine playing games like SC2 or CSGO on OSX. It's just not economical for Blizzard to do an OSX port. The game has been kinda dead for a while now, because it's so unaccessible to the general population. Games like Dota and League of Legends have taken the place of Starcraft 2 because it's pretty accessible to newbies yet offers a very high skill ceiling for those who w…

Blizzard pretty good recent track record with supporting OS X. World of Warcraft, StarCraft 2, Hearthstone, and Heroes of the Storm all run under OS X. Unfortunately, Blizzard's latest game, Overwatch, will not be coming to OS X. That question happened to be the first one asked by a member of the audience in the first Overwatch panel on Friday, November 6 at the BlizzCon 2015.

Hearthstone runs but is not optimised for retina, nor does full screen mode work as it should (i've heard it's a trivial fix from other unity devs).

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#74

Post by ionforce » Mon, Nov 09, 2015, 6:33 PM UTC

nemo44x wrote: post #50

terda12 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, the game works great on Windows. I can't imagine playing games like SC2 or CSGO on OSX. It's just not economical for Blizzard to do an OSX port. The game has been kinda dead for a while now, because it's so unaccessible to the general population. Games like Dota and League of Legends have taken the place of Starcraft 2 because it's pretty accessible to newbies yet offers a very high skill ceiling for those who w…

I played SC2 heavily when it came out and for some time after and I loved it. But you're right - the game does not allow someone to be casual or even semi-casual. It is an unbelievably stressful game and you have to not only master all 3 races abilities but understand numerous and ever changing strategies around them, have excellent macro skills and understand timings, etc. If you don't keep up aggressively with prac…

> It is an unbelievably stressful game

This is why I don't play. So much stress.

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#75

Post by knd775 » Mon, Nov 09, 2015, 6:37 PM UTC

Fiahil wrote: post #65

knd775 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "alienware-like performance"? Even the higher end alienware systems offer subpar performance.

I should update my knowledge of Gaming PCs to 2015, then. What are the latest trendy high-end systems nowadays?

Honestly, most people who care just build their own now. Custom gaming PCs are more common these days.

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#76

Post by LurkingPresence » Mon, Nov 09, 2015, 7:21 PM UTC

padobson wrote: post #15

Interaction design is a craft, and gaming is the subcategory of interaction design that most often ventures into the world of art. But the thing that most constrains the artform is this "little brother" mindset. Instead of waiting for society to understand and comprehend the medium, those who craft video games work to make their medium more like film or novels or music or other "high" artforms. So I get a little twit…

I'm glad someone is finally saying this. Gaming seems to suffer from a serious inferiority complex, where they hope by mimicking the dominant art forms they can gain legitimacy. So a game like Bioshock is seen as superior to a game like Ms. Pacman because it has all these "movie-like" qualities. It has nice production values, and a narrative, a soundtrack. In reality I think 20 years from now you will still have people trying to break high score records on games like Ms. Pacman and Donkey Kong whereas Bioshock will be seen the same way we look at games like Night Trap today.

I think the most damaging idea to ever enter gaming is the myth that it's primarily a 'narrative' medium. That is horribly reductionist and limiting. Games are about narrative generation, not narrative delivery. That's the beauty of it. Each starcraft match is a narrative in the same way a professional chess match is a narrative. I think this is why let's plays are so popular. You aren't watching to get the game's story, you are watching to get the specific narrative that is created by a certain person playing the game.

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#77

Post by darkmighty » Mon, Nov 09, 2015, 7:36 PM UTC

padobson wrote: post #62

mattlutze wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And blurred lines like you illustrate above are a good argument why we can't say video games should be primarily considered performance art pieces in the realm of interaction design, as well as why we can't say video games should be primarily considered story delivery mechanisms. The video game is both interactive and passively consumed. Machinima exists because of how enjoyable experiencing a story through a video g…

If we follow this rabbit hole too far, we'll end up trying to answer questions like "What is a game?" and "What is art?" But what you're describing is what I want. I want more immersion, I want the focus to be on the what the gamer experiences and giving them something meaningful to do. But when you plug your brain into the NeuralCube4000 two decades from now, what are you going to get? What I want: You're in a tille…

The realism is a bit orthogonal to the interactivity/discover-ability you describe. For example, some really old text adventure games fit perfectly what your ideal (while others fit perfectly the story telling example). A game that mostly fulfills that promise for me is Morrowind.

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#78

Post by robotresearcher » Mon, Nov 09, 2015, 7:39 PM UTC

electricblue wrote: post #29

padobson wrote: post #15

Interaction design is a craft, and gaming is the subcategory of interaction design that most often ventures into the world of art. But the thing that most constrains the artform is this "little brother" mindset. Instead of waiting for society to understand and comprehend the medium, those who craft video games work to make their medium more like film or novels or music or other "high" artforms. So I get a little twit…

There is a balancing act that every successful game has to perform between gameplay and motivation. Without gameplay, games are dull passive experiences (see David Cage) with no pull to keep the player engaged. Without motivation gameplay feels empty and pointless like playing chess with yourself. Starcraft's campaign wouldn't have been half as engaging if it was a map pack with basic instructions before each mission…

I think StarCraft's campaign is almost irrelevant. It serves mainly as a tutorial for the multiplayer game. Which is why escort missions are boring.

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#79

Post by ArekDymalski » Mon, Nov 09, 2015, 7:44 PM UTC

roymurdock wrote: post #56

padobson wrote: post #15

Interaction design is a craft, and gaming is the subcategory of interaction design that most often ventures into the world of art. But the thing that most constrains the artform is this "little brother" mindset. Instead of waiting for society to understand and comprehend the medium, those who craft video games work to make their medium more like film or novels or music or other "high" artforms. So I get a little twit…

You're talking about two different types of games: Games of Sport vs. Games of Immersion The difference: Context Starcraft multiplayer is a Game of Sport, where character and story are nonexistent and mechanics/"interaction" are all that matters in a game of chess completely removed from any context other than the tournament you are playing in. Switch over to campaign mode and the context becomes the story line and p…

>and people will choose to engage with one or the other based on personal preferences.

Thank you for this comment and the distinction between Sport and Immersion. I love the story mode and do not enjoy multiplayer matches.

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#80

Post by machinesofn » Mon, Nov 09, 2015, 7:50 PM UTC

padobson wrote: post #15

Interaction design is a craft, and gaming is the subcategory of interaction design that most often ventures into the world of art. But the thing that most constrains the artform is this "little brother" mindset. Instead of waiting for society to understand and comprehend the medium, those who craft video games work to make their medium more like film or novels or music or other "high" artforms. So I get a little twit…

I think this actually demonstrates a common mistake people make in thinking about video games. There's room for a lot more diversity in experience, and talking about them as a single type of art is sort of like lumping together films and novels. They run the full spectrum between tight text-based interactive fiction with two boolean decisions in the whole work, and Minecraft. Generalizing games as a special case of interaction design works for a subset, but certainly not the entire medium.

As a more personal counter example: There have been many games where I have hated the mechanics and continued playing for the story or art, and I know many people who are the same way.