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Is Your Game Crap? This Fan Will Fix It for You

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Re: Is Your Game Crap? This Fan Will Fix It for You

#31

Post by gagege »

TylerE wrote: post #30
gagege wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Fixing broken game ideas is easy. Tell that to anyone who has actually tried to implement a fix for a broken game design. I'm not even talking about programmers. Game design is not trivial. That's why so many games these days are either Mario clones or Doom clones. We know those are a safe bet.

Where are the Mario clones? I'd love some good Mario clones. Instead they all seem to be Double Dragon/Castlevania/Metroid clones

Well, okay. I'll give you that. I never played Castlevania or Metroid much, so I didn't think of those. But, you're right what we see now are more about shooting/ short range attacking than jumping on stuff.

Re: Is Your Game Crap? This Fan Will Fix It for You

#32

Post by crimzonrayne »

gagege wrote: post #29
seivan wrote: post #4

I am glad it's about a computer scientist (hacker) that performed an action that wasn't subjective and not some 'game designer ux product idea ui designer visual artist ux' snake oil who wants their game idea implemented. Fixing broken game ideas is easy.

>Fixing broken game ideas is easy. Tell that to anyone who has actually tried to implement a fix for a broken game design. I'm not even talking about programmers. Game design is not trivial. That's why so many games these days are either Mario clones or Doom clones. We know those are a safe bet.

"I like Mario, and I like Doom. LETS MAKE MARIO DOOM!" - The mindset I hear from so many game designers nowadays.

Re: Is Your Game Crap? This Fan Will Fix It for You

#33

Post by endemic »

Groxx wrote: post #10
gagege wrote: post #2

There is a long tradition of mods, fixes and enhancements in PC gaming. The PC version often ends up being much better than the console version. The privacy and DRM issues with current consoles are bad, but this article demonstrates my favorite reason to just buy a decent video card for your existing PC, rather than buy a console.

My favorite reason is that games from 10 years ago still run, and as a last resort I can fire up a VM, on a modern computer. My N64 cartridges, meanwhile, stopped working in new machines as soon as the Gamecube came out. And if the console ever dies, they get harder and harder to find.

Wat? One of the things I like about consoles is that they are plug 'n play. No fiddling with trying to get emulation settings just right.

Re: Is Your Game Crap? This Fan Will Fix It for You

#34

Post by Coincoin »

fragsworth wrote: post #7

> some people made up long reasons for why such a lock could be in place, I was irked. Someone was wrong on the internet, and it fell to me to set them straight. The lock was in place because one reason: Their developers did not know how to do this in a short amount of time. Their estimate may have been 2-3 months (because they would need to learn how to do it properly), and management decided against the effort. Thi…

Those fixes just change a few constant here and there. Any game programmer (or any programmer really) can do that with her eyes closed.

The real problem is QA, user interface elements and internationalization. QA will have to do a complete walkthrough for every resolution * language * FSAA * videocard combination possible. This is very long and expensive. There will be bugs and they will need to get fixed.

At the end they decided it was not worth it. Another company with different priorities might decide otherwise. But what I can certainly tell you is this was not due to limited knowledge from the staff.

Re: Is Your Game Crap? This Fan Will Fix It for You

#35

Post by lmm »

TylerE wrote: post #30
gagege wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Fixing broken game ideas is easy. Tell that to anyone who has actually tried to implement a fix for a broken game design. I'm not even talking about programmers. Game design is not trivial. That's why so many games these days are either Mario clones or Doom clones. We know those are a safe bet.

Where are the Mario clones? I'd love some good Mario clones. Instead they all seem to be Double Dragon/Castlevania/Metroid clones

The recent new Giana Sisters was reasonably fun, and very pretty. Though I'm judging as someone who has been away from the gaming scene for a while.

Re: Is Your Game Crap? This Fan Will Fix It for You

#36

Post by Luc »

fragsworth wrote: post #23
Luc wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that it's worth going on about ad infinitum, but no, I don't agree with "Their developers did not know how to do this [...]" and "they would need to learn how to do it properly". In fact I assume the opposite - their developers knew EXACTLY how to do this in a short amount of time (i.e. massive overtime), and they would NOT need to learn how to do it properly, AT ALL, because they know what they're doing.

If they knew exactly what they were doing then it seems very unlikely that they would decide against doing it, because Peter Thoman's method only took about 2 weeks of his own time. The method the developers were considering may have been an internal one that required some kind of refactoring, and they were either unaware of any other way to do it, or they were aware but didn't know how long it would take because the…

Aw, come on, I'm sorry, but you simply don't know what you're talking about. Durante has some awesome skills and he sure as hell Gets Things Done, but this was much simpler for the original devs to do, and mostly a dreary slog of creating art assets, getting it to work reliably on all configs and running it through QA umpteen times. All that is very boring and just takes time and money.

Re: Is Your Game Crap? This Fan Will Fix It for You

#37

Post by beloch »

I am routinely amazed at the improvements the modding community makes even for games that are designed to be unfriendly to mods.

Take Mass Effect 3 for example. The game ships with Origin, which is EA's wannabe Steam online-store/community/DRM. The me3 executable is validated when origin starts up in an attempt to ensure that there's no way to play a modified version of the executable. Modders found a way around this that basically involves playing musical chairs with executable files, and proceeded to mod the heck out of the game from there. The game is not terribly friendly to mods so there's nothing like what you'll see for a game where a toolset has been released, but basic things like texture upgrades (and changes), unlocking and repurposing game assets, modifying weapons, unlocking the in-game console, etc.. (I'm a particular fan of enabling the flycam so you can fly around levels and see how they're built, dynamically loaded, and how they achieve optical effects).

Other games are more mod-friendly. Bethesda's games are one of the standard bearers, and stepping back into one of their games after a year or two can be a completely different experience with the right mods! There are mods that completely rework combat mechanics, add entirely new spell systems, total interface overhauls, you name it! If there's something you don't like about a Bethesda game, odds are you can completely replace it! This raises the replay value of their games tremendously, and all they have to do is release a devkit and be a little bit friendly!

Every once in a while, a botched and buggy game with tremendous potential will be buffed and polished by an obsessed modding community, revealing a classic that the developers were never given time to realize. Games like Troika's Vampire: Bloodlines or Obsidian Entertainment's KOTOR2 are still evolving online. I've been holding off replaying KOTOR2 for years because I know it just keeps getting closer to the game it was meant to be every year.

I'm rambling, but I really respect and love the PC modding community. It truly is something special, and I wish more game companies (EA, I'm looking at you!) would give it the respect (and cooperation) it deserves!

Re: Is Your Game Crap? This Fan Will Fix It for You

#38

Post by cclogg »

I like what this guy is doing :)

I've personally stopped buying any game that is a port just because of past experiences lol. Also it's probably us PC gamers who have certain standards that are more demanding than consoles. An example is the feel of an FPS (half life and the like set that bar)... or just as in the article, the graphics settings.

I've actually been a bit sad lately, because I think the industry has changed so much in the last 10 years. The '95 to '05 run of PC games was awesome [1]... small to mid-sized companies churning out great stuff (especially in some of my favorite genres, like strategy). Then around 2004, I got engulfed in HL2 (+ mods) and WoW, and emerged a few years later to find quite a different PC games market. To me, it was basically now only Blizzard/Valve, with everyone else gone... or making the 'cool' games for console (I guess console gfx finally caught up). Good to see indie/kickstarter stuff lately though!

I miss the days when I would go into a random games store and find gems in the PC games aisle (and I'm not even that old). Last time I tried that it was basically all ports of console games and then the 25 WoW expansions lol.

[1] Some of my favorites from that time: Age of Empires/Mythology, NOLF, Blizz games, Unreal Tournament, Command & Conquer, Red Alert, Valve games, Battlefield, Dungeon Siege, Far Cry, Call of Duty 1, The Sims, Baldur's Gate, Quake... can't remember any more haha.

Re: Is Your Game Crap? This Fan Will Fix It for You

#39

Post by teamonkey »

TylerE wrote: post #30
gagege wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Fixing broken game ideas is easy. Tell that to anyone who has actually tried to implement a fix for a broken game design. I'm not even talking about programmers. Game design is not trivial. That's why so many games these days are either Mario clones or Doom clones. We know those are a safe bet.

Where are the Mario clones? I'd love some good Mario clones. Instead they all seem to be Double Dragon/Castlevania/Metroid clones

If by Mario clone you mean side-scolling linear platformer, Rayman might fit the bill.

Re: Is Your Game Crap? This Fan Will Fix It for You

#40

Post by CrazedGeek »

kazagistar wrote: post #27
Filligree wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel your pain, re. decent rhythm games. Have you tried Sequence, though? I enjoyed that, and the story is nothing to sneeze at either.

But clearly OSU! is the best rhythm game, and it is PC exclusive.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/osu!stream/id436952197 :P
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