Just had to chime in and say thank you for such an amazing two games. Loving Uncharted 4 so far. I know you worked on mostly NPC AI, but this is the most beautiful game I've played and my PS4 sounds like it's about to die.
A Brain Dump of What I Worked on for Uncharted 4
41–50 of 52 posts
Re: A Brain Dump of What I Worked on for Uncharted 4
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
> like it was a TV show It was plotted like a TV show and so rather than feeling fresh, I felt like I already knew what would happen. It was too predictable. For example, at one point Ellie gets caught and wakes up in a cage. I couldn't help but roll my eyes and thing "gee, I wonder if she'll escape". Like I said in another comment, I think the hype surrounding the game had set my expectations way too high and I ende…
Sounds like you'd be difficult to please in general.
No, not at all. Last of Us was very good and a lot of fun, but it wasn't a masterpiece (IMHO). If I were to compare it to Uncharted (for example), I wouldn't say it was wildly better.
When I say the game disappointed me, I only mean in relation to the hype at the time. Some people have gone as far as calling Last of Us the Citizen Cane of gaming.
Re: A Brain Dump of What I Worked on for Uncharted 4
#438 mentions of Last of Us shows how influential some of the mechanics in that game were for future games - this is obviously especially the case for Naughty Dog themselves, but there were so many innovative takes on that genre in Last of Us that I'm sure many other dev studios have been impacted by the ideas and near flawless execution. Haven't played Uncharted 4, but Last of Us is a masterpiece.
The gameplay and tech behind the two game franchises is closely intertwined. The gameplay of Last of Us requires the high quality animation and cover systems built for Uncharted 1 and the melee combat system added with Uncharted 2. Now we see Uncharted 4 take some of the improvements to friend AI and dialog from Last of Us and push that forward.
Re: A Brain Dump of What I Worked on for Uncharted 4
#44Is it still commonplace for them to get a percentage of sales as a bonus? I know someone who worked on Tomb Raider 2, 3 and 4. he's not poor.
It was commonplace when I was in the games industry (1996-2006). I never saw a penny, that is also commonplace.
I once got a $25 Starbucks giftcard for pulling an almost 48-hour epic coding session to fix some major issues right before a large trade show(we were blowing the 64 open file handle limit, so I completely rewrote our audio system to stream from the texture cache instead of individual files).
That's all the bonus/royalty/atta-boy I ever saw in my times in games. The 90/10 rule is in full effect in that industry where the top 10% make 90% of the profits.
Re: A Brain Dump of What I Worked on for Uncharted 4
#45Those identifiers in the screenshot look lispy... wonder if their tooling is still in lisp even though they switched to C++ for the engines?
Re: A Brain Dump of What I Worked on for Uncharted 4
#468 mentions of Last of Us shows how influential some of the mechanics in that game were for future games - this is obviously especially the case for Naughty Dog themselves, but there were so many innovative takes on that genre in Last of Us that I'm sure many other dev studios have been impacted by the ideas and near flawless execution. Haven't played Uncharted 4, but Last of Us is a masterpiece.
I'm not sure that you can take that as an example of how influential TLoU is (disclaimer, I played Uncharted 1-3 and TLoU but not yet Uncharted 4). Technically, TLoU wasn't that impressive (just look how Ellie used to hide in plain view of enemy humans and zombies). The impressive bits were IMHO the setting and the story.
>just look how Ellie used to hide in plain view of enemy humans and zombies
I loved TLoU, so I might be biased, but I tend to be pretty forgiving of companion weirdness in games -- I can appreciate how hard it is to make that work.
Fallout 4 has similar problems, but they've at least made it harder for your dumb old companion to ruin your life -- before, Dogmeat (a companion German Shepherd) would just wander through tripwires and lasers and stuff. Now, they still act a little wonky, but they don't call attention to YOU while they're doing it. That was pretty annoying.
Re: A Brain Dump of What I Worked on for Uncharted 4
#478 mentions of Last of Us shows how influential some of the mechanics in that game were for future games - this is obviously especially the case for Naughty Dog themselves, but there were so many innovative takes on that genre in Last of Us that I'm sure many other dev studios have been impacted by the ideas and near flawless execution. Haven't played Uncharted 4, but Last of Us is a masterpiece.
I'm not sure that you can take that as an example of how influential TLoU is (disclaimer, I played Uncharted 1-3 and TLoU but not yet Uncharted 4). Technically, TLoU wasn't that impressive (just look how Ellie used to hide in plain view of enemy humans and zombies). The impressive bits were IMHO the setting and the story.
They decided to sacrifice verisimilitude for upholding what I call Tails's Law: A game that features AI companions should never allow AI stupidity to severely compromise the player's ability to progress. I call it that because back in the time of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, before the franchise shat the bed, the developers at Sega were canny enough to make "Tails" effectively invincible, as well as make him always follow the player and "catch up" with his helicopter tails -- so that the player need not feel responsible for escorting a character with wonky AI, nor guilty for leaving him behind or accidentally imperiling him. If the actions of an AI character can significantly impede your progress, then you've lost control and that's a frustrating situation to put a player in.
We all know what happens when this rule is not followed. See: Daikatana. Another example: the companion Lydia from Skyrim is basically programmed without any idea of stealth, subtlety, or nuance in combat situations and routinely charges headfirst into battle, putting herself at great risk of getting killed as well as compromising your position.
Generally in The Last of Us, a companion character being killed is a game over condition. If enemies were sensitive to their presence during the stealth bits, they would either have to use the environment and available cover absolutely perfectly, or they would put the player in jeopardy of a game-over without them doing anything to warrant it. The player already has enough to think about. Having to worry about what Ellie is doing and whether she fucks off someplace, attracts a Clicker, and gets bitten while not being able to do anything useful about it is a burden the player can't handle.
At least you can order Lydia around, or send her home. No such option exists with the TLOU companions, and you're stuck with them. I forgive Naughty Dog for putting gameplay above absolute realism.
Re: A Brain Dump of What I Worked on for Uncharted 4
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but Last of Us is a masterpiece Really? I bought and played that game on the PS3 and thought it was pretty good and that's about it. I didn't think any part of it was especially novel.
I wouldn't begrudge anyone holding this opinion - I would struggle to point to any gameplay element as a true breakthrough - but the polish, quality of storytelling (that prologue!), and first rate acting/animation really set it apart for me. Like everything Naughty Dog, I would rate it as a lot closer to a "Steven Speilberg" level of cinematic/dramatic presentation, whereas most AAA games I can think of (Fallout 4,…
> that prologue!
As someone who had just become a father less than a year before TLoU came out the prologue was literally the most emotional moment I had as a result of playing a video game in my life. I've had others, the end of HL2: Episode 2 struck a pretty big chord for me as well in particular, but I think it will take a long time for another game to come out that can make me feel something like that again.
Overall I'd agree with your assessment (and really, it applies to ever modern Naughty Dog title) - the gameplay is above-average but serves more as a vehicle to drive the story, but unlike many other "cinematic" games it doesn't detract from it and make the whole of the work feel half-baked.
Re: A Brain Dump of What I Worked on for Uncharted 4
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't begrudge anyone holding this opinion - I would struggle to point to any gameplay element as a true breakthrough - but the polish, quality of storytelling (that prologue!), and first rate acting/animation really set it apart for me. Like everything Naughty Dog, I would rate it as a lot closer to a "Steven Speilberg" level of cinematic/dramatic presentation, whereas most AAA games I can think of (Fallout 4,…
The prologue was very good. I'm normally hammering away at the buttons on the controller trying to skip the cut scenes (I'm looking at you Metal Gear Solid), but that one I watched.
> Metal Gear Solid
I can understand wanting to skip past the lengthy dialogue, but you're missing out on a lot of the kooky fun of the MGS franchise if you just skip past the cutscenes. If it's not your thing that's totally fine, but the MGS story is best enjoyed when not taken too seriously and just as a fun ride, and I'm guessing that might be your issue with it (please, correct me if I am off base here!)
Re: A Brain Dump of What I Worked on for Uncharted 4
#50Is it still commonplace for them to get a percentage of sales as a bonus? I know someone who worked on Tomb Raider 2, 3 and 4. he's not poor.
I did not know that had all changed, we reckon he must have got £250,000+