Birding Like It’s 1899: Inside a Blockbuster American West Video Game • Hacker News Board

Re: Birding Like It’s 1899: Inside a Blockbuster American West Video Game

#51

Post by chrisweekly » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 3:49 AM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #46

setr wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See dwarf fortress for a counter-example. I’m of the opinion that story-writing is a red-herring in video games; an attempt to apply “tricks” from other mediums, by disregarding the “interactivity” of video games. A story can be sufficiently created by means of the player’s operations , if the simulation is sufficiently complex and built to support it. Another example is competitive fps games like CoD/Halo/Quake — th…

Dwarf Fortress is a different kind of game from No Man's Sky or The Witcher 3. It has a huge learning curve and takes a lot of effort to play. For every amazing story that people crafted there are hundreds, maybe thousands of failed game attempts. That's fine and purely procedurally generated games can be amazing (I'm working on one myself), but they are a different type of game play, and often attract a different ki…

"Not everyone wants to be a musician, some people just want to play rock band."

+1 for the apt analogy, and another +1 for maybe the best quote I've come across on HN in some time.

Re: Birding Like It’s 1899: Inside a Blockbuster American West Video Game

#52

Post by donavanm » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 3:51 AM UTC

setr wrote: post #43

donavanm wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out some of the critiques for games like No Mans Sky. The short of it is that procedural “story” doesnt really work. You still need writers for engaging content, and that doesnt scale. If you remove written story you get something closer to a tower defense/tactics/arena shooter/grinding genre, which is “fine” but substantially different than most open worlds people envision.

See dwarf fortress for a counter-example. I’m of the opinion that story-writing is a red-herring in video games; an attempt to apply “tricks” from other mediums, by disregarding the “interactivity” of video games. A story can be sufficiently created by means of the player’s operations , if the simulation is sufficiently complex and built to support it. Another example is competitive fps games like CoD/Halo/Quake — th…

As the sibling said Most people dont see dwarf fortress as the same “open world explore & build” genre. And the arena style FPS was called out explicitely as an interesting, but different, type of game. “No story” doesnt mean no fun. But when people say “I want to go and build and explore” they usually, unintentionally, miss the draw of a well done story component. There are plenty of interviewers with producers of games like warcraft, witcher, or skyrim who explicitly call out the limitations/benefits of a written story system in an “open world.”

Re: Birding Like It’s 1899: Inside a Blockbuster American West Video Game

#53

Post by chrisweekly » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 3:53 AM UTC

jcl wrote: post #40

Buttons840 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rockstar should consider breaking their games down into sub games. They could build a G rated game about caring for wild horses and sell it for kids; they'd only have to remove content. In the full RDR2 game my daughter might have fun caring for horses, but she might also witness a random murder, pick up new words I'd rather her not repeat, witness a rape, who knows. I haven't actually played RDR2 but all of those th…

Exactly! The taxi, ambulance, and firetruck missions were some of my favorite parts of the GTA games, and featured relatively nonviolent, legal activities. They could easily be standalone games... One could argue the taxi missions already are, if you count Crazy Taxi.

I always thought Rockstar should've made an EMT / first-responder version of GTA where the goal was to help rather than harm.

Re: Birding Like It’s 1899: Inside a Blockbuster American West Video Game

#54

Post by learc83 » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 4:36 AM UTC

mjfl wrote: post #49

learc83 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dwarf Fortress is a different kind of game from No Man's Sky or The Witcher 3. It has a huge learning curve and takes a lot of effort to play. For every amazing story that people crafted there are hundreds, maybe thousands of failed game attempts. That's fine and purely procedurally generated games can be amazing (I'm working on one myself), but they are a different type of game play, and often attract a different ki…

I don't think the difference for Dwarf Fortress is the learning curve, I think the difference is that Dwarf Fortress is better designed and it is designed in such a way that it's goal is to produce "stories" that Tarn and Zach have explicitly written. I think for No Man's Sky, they had a much more vague idea of what they wanted the user to experience, and thus the experience is more vague, and less interesting.

That's a good point. That is a big difference with Dwarf Fortress. It's definitely a masterpiece of game design.

To donavanm's point that you need writers to create engaging content, as you've pointed out Dwarf Fortress has writers--they're just operating on a different level.

But I still think the learning curve is a big part of it. Just look at how many "Get started with Dwarf Fortress" tutorials are out there.

Re: Birding Like It’s 1899: Inside a Blockbuster American West Video Game

#55

Post by learc83 » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 4:40 AM UTC

chrisweekly wrote: post #51

learc83 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dwarf Fortress is a different kind of game from No Man's Sky or The Witcher 3. It has a huge learning curve and takes a lot of effort to play. For every amazing story that people crafted there are hundreds, maybe thousands of failed game attempts. That's fine and purely procedurally generated games can be amazing (I'm working on one myself), but they are a different type of game play, and often attract a different ki…

"Not everyone wants to be a musician, some people just want to play rock band." +1 for the apt analogy, and another +1 for maybe the best quote I've come across on HN in some time.

Thanks for that!

Re: Birding Like It’s 1899: Inside a Blockbuster American West Video Game

#56

Post by tomc1985 » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 4:44 AM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #46

setr wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See dwarf fortress for a counter-example. I’m of the opinion that story-writing is a red-herring in video games; an attempt to apply “tricks” from other mediums, by disregarding the “interactivity” of video games. A story can be sufficiently created by means of the player’s operations , if the simulation is sufficiently complex and built to support it. Another example is competitive fps games like CoD/Halo/Quake — th…

Dwarf Fortress is a different kind of game from No Man's Sky or The Witcher 3. It has a huge learning curve and takes a lot of effort to play. For every amazing story that people crafted there are hundreds, maybe thousands of failed game attempts. That's fine and purely procedurally generated games can be amazing (I'm working on one myself), but they are a different type of game play, and often attract a different ki…

The learning curve and effort to play are more due to UI and the authors' own stubborness-slash-artistic vision. Rimworld is a somewhat-simpler DF without as difficult a UI and is still quite capable of generating stories for its users, organically as a result of interacting systems and random events.

Re: Birding Like It’s 1899: Inside a Blockbuster American West Video Game

#57

Post by tomc1985 » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 4:46 AM UTC

ilamont wrote: post #2

I think this is pretty neat, not just that so many species are featured but some of the other natural behaviors (e.g. fox and turkey vultures feeding on just-shot mallard carcass) are replicated. Showed the article to my teen son, a big RDR2 fan, who was less impressed, calling it "sad" that someone would play a birder in that world. YMMV.

Eh, they are still in that "everything adults do is lame" stage. Just watch, he/she'll pick up knitting or something in 10 years

Re: Birding Like It’s 1899: Inside a Blockbuster American West Video Game

#58

Post by tomc1985 » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 4:47 AM UTC

alexlrobertson wrote: post #22

thisismyusernam wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I first got a PlayStation (1) when I was about 9 years old, and we got Road Rash 3D with it. Looking back the graphics were pretty shocking (though cutting edge at the time). But my main memory is how liberating it felt to leave the race route and just ride around aimlessly for hours and hours, exploring the countryside and the towns and cities you'd discover. I got a lot more out of that than trying to keep up with…

This is similar to what I remember from playing Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis. I wasn't very good at the actual game, but there was a post-credit sequence I would skip to where you could just walk, drive, and fly around quiet, rural, and sparsely islands. The simulation is pretty unremarkable by todays standards but being able to explore a huge open world at my own pace was incredible at the time. One encount…

Far Cry 4 is (spoiler alert) like this, once the game story is out of the way

Re: Birding Like It’s 1899: Inside a Blockbuster American West Video Game

#59

Post by setr » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 7:20 AM UTC

nerflad wrote: post #44

setr wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im not imagining it as unpleasant to do, but rather totally unsatisfying, and if made an important part of maintainence, a really big nuisance. Either it’d very quickly boil down to scrubbing really fast, or just a monotous drudgery. Ofc, if the game was primarily about taking care of your horse rather than maintanence for riding your horse, it might be fine. But my tastes definitely tend towards the latter.

This is one of those difficult problems where I have a lot of respect for game designers. What's least unsatisfying? 1. Leaving it out altogether 2. A "brush horse" button that you click and that's the end of it 3. Making the player do it with the mouse In American Truck Simulator you don't have to clean your truck, but you do have to get gas. Since a horse's cleanliness is more vital, maybe a cleaning mechanic (or a…

I would say its not actually that difficult, its just constrained by whatever you're trying to accomplish. eg truck simulators dont have you cleaning, because its not part of the mental model of driving. But gas is a very necessary part of it.

Horse cleaning is important for maintenance, but a non-thought in travel. Thus a horse maintenance game would have brushing mechanics and it would be sensible, while it'd be a nuisance in a game emphasizing travel (even slow travel; feeding/housing your horse would be much more appropriate). But the key I think is to realize what the effect you're having on gameplay is pacing, and the mechanic of brushing or feeding or whatever is just an aesthetic/reason around it. So you'd only simulate so far as to render the pace of the game correct, and no more. So you might have feeding or cleaning, but probably not both in a travel game (it'd slow things down too much, and probably be part of the same operation anyways). A maintenance sim would prefer much slower pacing than even a slow travel game would

Re: Birding Like It’s 1899: Inside a Blockbuster American West Video Game

#60

Post by Pristina » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 8:04 AM UTC

pnathan wrote: post #10

This kind of tiny piece by piece interaction with the world is something I desired in the late 90s, dreaming as a teen, but my rudimentary O(n) skills showed me was beyond the computers of the time. It's gorgeous & I love the potential that brims here. What if something was this complex and well built, but the storyline was removed - the player simply builds their own story, ala DF Adventurer mode.

if you did that, it would be boring.

The difference between a livestream of somebody's house and a soap opera is the storyline.

Without the story, only the world, the intensity is much lower and you would need the world to be much much more detailed to hold any interest. A real fractal of details like in a real world is much more effortful to implement compared to a good story.