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StarCraft: The past, present and future

polygon.com

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Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#81

Post by tokipin »

debacle wrote: post #55
chongli wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Yeah, seriously. For hardcore StarCraft fans, the narratives they REALLY care about involve characters such as Greg Fields, Lim Yo Hwan, Lee Young Ho, and Lee Jae Dong; not Jim Raynor and Kerrigan.

Does it really matter, when Blizzard ruined both sides of that equation? The story of the Koprulu Sector is a complete joke, and competitive Starcraft II is one of the biggest gaming letdowns in recent memory.

There's so many failures to it. The company apparently thinking the professional scene drives the player base, the company apparently thinking it's responsible for 100% of the balance of the game, not realizing "the meta" plays a huge role towards that end. Because of these Blizzard was way too conservative and the game ended up just not being fun. Once the game is not fun, the player base leaves. Once the player base leaves, the professional scene dies.

The most egregious error might be the company not having a genuine designer in charge of the game, which to me seems like a very corporate-y lack of respect for game design. SC2 as a whole was way too conservative. And this is just on the design side, there was greed and short-sightedness all over the place.

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#82

Post by theandrewbailey »

lost_name wrote: post #71
theandrewbailey wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's generally par for the course. There's a lot of CPU simulation that happens in RTS engines, like visibility/range testing and simulating hundreds of moving/(semi)autonomous entities, not to mention pathfinding for them. Some RTSes simulate individual projectiles with startling quality. Most of an FPS is GPU work, environments are mostly static (less CPU), and there's some hitbox detection and maybe insane physics thrown in.

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#83

Post by vlunkr »

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…

You don't necessarily have to engage with one or the other. There's plenty of space in the middle. Most video games have pretty simplistic plots, and I don't get to attached to them, but I recognize that they play a role in tying the whole experience together.

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#84

Post by vectorjohn »

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…

Your viewpoint totally discounts wide swaths of games and gamers for which the story and lore ARE very important. Games aren't one or the other, they're the combination of all these things.

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#85

Post by d0m »

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…

As John Carmack said: "Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important."

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#86

Post by lispit »

roymurdock wrote: post #69
Konsyst wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that Dark Souls is still fundamentally driven by mechanics, as most of the gameplay stems from you adapting to various enemies/AI patterns and physically learning to overcome them, while the depth of the story is mostly up to you to piece together.

Sure, you're right that good mechanics are a prerequisite to a good game. But they're not everything. Driving to work every morning requires mechanical mastery and adapting to various environmental factors, but I'm not masochistic enough to call it a game :) In real life: do you derive pleasure from understanding and mastering the physical laws of the world, or from spending your time creating a mental narrative for…

The Souls franchise became popular solely because it dared to provide complicated mechanics and harsh trial-by-fire instruction in a time where the vast majority of AAA games are dumbed-down handholdy themepark rides with all of their edges filed off. The kind of people that play games only for their stories would never have suffered through any Souls games if it weren't for the massive hype that the "mechanical gamers" generated around it.

Likewise, Starcraft had a story, as did Command & Conquer. But one of those games is played to this day, both in its original incarnation and its sequel, on a massive scale that makes people question their definitions of the word "sport." I don't think this author would have cared to write filler about the story of Command & Conquer today.

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#87

Post by talles »

lispit wrote: post #86
roymurdock wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you're right that good mechanics are a prerequisite to a good game. But they're not everything. Driving to work every morning requires mechanical mastery and adapting to various environmental factors, but I'm not masochistic enough to call it a game :) In real life: do you derive pleasure from understanding and mastering the physical laws of the world, or from spending your time creating a mental narrative for…

The Souls franchise became popular solely because it dared to provide complicated mechanics and harsh trial-by-fire instruction in a time where the vast majority of AAA games are dumbed-down handholdy themepark rides with all of their edges filed off. The kind of people that play games only for their stories would never have suffered through any Souls games if it weren't for the massive hype that the "mechanical game…

> complicated mechanics and harsh trial-by-fire instruction

Super Metroid anyone?

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#88

Post by cm2012 »

debacle wrote: post #55
chongli wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Yeah, seriously. For hardcore StarCraft fans, the narratives they REALLY care about involve characters such as Greg Fields, Lim Yo Hwan, Lee Young Ho, and Lee Jae Dong; not Jim Raynor and Kerrigan.

Does it really matter, when Blizzard ruined both sides of that equation? The story of the Koprulu Sector is a complete joke, and competitive Starcraft II is one of the biggest gaming letdowns in recent memory.

Competitive Starcraft is bigger than its ever been outside of Korea right now, as measured by total views.

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#89

Post by [deleted] »

talles wrote: post #87
lispit wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Souls franchise became popular solely because it dared to provide complicated mechanics and harsh trial-by-fire instruction in a time where the vast majority of AAA games are dumbed-down handholdy themepark rides with all of their edges filed off. The kind of people that play games only for their stories would never have suffered through any Souls games if it weren't for the massive hype that the "mechanical game…

> complicated mechanics and harsh trial-by-fire instruction Super Metroid anyone?

[deleted]

Re: StarCraft: The past, present and future

#90

Post by lispit »

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…

You can certainly have both types, but it's annoying and sad that the people whose jobs are to write about video games can't tell the difference between the two, and routinely write articles judging mechanically innovate games by their fluff.
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