Even Counterstrike Players Get it.....

[Colovion]

So last night I was fiddling around with some new maps that were released for Counterstrike: Source and I heard an interesting comment. Some people were commenting on CS:S as a game and the changes since 1.6 and someone says:

"Game companies care more about graphics than gameplay"

And everyone on the server agreed with him and bemoaned the fact.

This is not a good way for game companies to go, and it seems as if even the FPS people understand how things are going in the game industry and want a change.

[jerby]

its true and it sucks.
but graphics get new buyers. if you go for gameplay the game will not get much more new buyers. personally I never heard of MTW, but when I saw the great stuff CA did, me beiing used to age of empires. I saw grand armies and beautiffull stuf. so I bought it. but now, I just want gameplay.

[FURRY_BOOTS]

amen to that!!!
you know, i was thinking, if it wasnt for RTR(various versions), i just wouldnt be interested in rome, yeah, played vanilla once, got bored, played some mods. wait a minute, WTF!!!, i always thought mods were there for when youve totaly exhausted a game, when theres no other avenue left in a game, then you mod it, right? i played umpteen campaigns in mtw before i used a mod, yet with rome, i played 1 campaign as juili, then had to play with rtr
if that doesnt say something about the gameplay of rome, then i dont know what does. since 1.2, ive played half a campaign & then gave up, yet i know that rtr 6 will get me right back into it, strange, you fork out 30 quid for a game, & its some guys in a bedroom at their pc somewhere that make the game playable(for me)

[drone]

Wasn't this pretty much the same response to Doom3? Granted, that game was just a showcase for the engine, I'm sure there will be better games based on it later.

You can only "oh and ah" over the pretty pictures for so long. The amount of money being spent to push the graphics envelope probably dwarfs the amount spent on the gameplay feel. There has to be a tipping point where it's just not worth it to blow the budget for a unplayable game.

They have been saying that game industry is challenging the movie industry. Apparently in more ways than one! Lots of eye-candy, no real content.

It takes a lot to overcome the "entertainment/advertising" complex, and separate the crap from the good before purchase. What is really necessary is truly independent reviewers. You never know who is working for whom and who can be trusted to give an honest review of a game/show/movie/album. It's one big conglomeration/cartel whose sole mission is to rake in as much of your money as possible, and it can only be stopped when the masses decide to start thinking for themselves. It all started with the JFK assa(*$#@^#!*+"?~

Whoa. Sorry about that, I think I started channeling Bill Hicks. Must remember to keep the tinfoil hat on at all times...

[NicSO]

Years ago I knew every single game for PC, N64, PSX, Saturn that is coming out and Its rating. Back then I played games alot. I still have over 20 games for my N64. I payed 180 000 Italian liras for DooM64 (90Euros). But now, these days I dont buy games like before because most of them suck.
I have original Rome:TW and before I bought Morrowind, year earlier.
I have Doom 3 but not original because Im not stupid to throw money on those retarded LOW QUALITY games. I have many originals but only superb games like UFO 1, 2, 3 and 4, Masters of orion 2 (3 sucks), Fallout 1 and 2, Morrowind, TW series etc.

Im really sick and tired of graphic, engines...I wanna gameplay, good gameplay. Gameplay is on the first place for me!!!

[Come Together]

I personally like doom 3 (growing up on doom 2 helps though ;]) , but i obviously agree. RTW is painful to play without SOME kind of mods or alterations. I mean, it's quite rediculous that they can't fix bugs, or if they do, they replace it with more bugs. Mabey it's some sort of plot to get mod makers to start going to improve on their low quality work. Currently I'm waiting for the 5.2 RTR patch.

[mxlm]

I've been hearing the argument that companies care more about graphics than gameplay, and that most new games suck for, let's see....

hmm. Ever since 3D accelerators were introduced. Maybe even earlier. And you know what? It's no more true now than it was then. I can name offhand a dozen quality games released within the last year or so.

If you can't find good games, you're simply not looking. Either that or you have stratospheric expectactions and demands.

The good ole days are a myth. If I had the patience, I could flip through my very old gaming mags and list quite a few trashy games from back in da day. Leather Goddesses of Phobos, anyone?

[Kraxis]

Aw come on... Can you honestly tell games that has the sophisticated humour of Space Quest, the deep mystery of Police Quest or even the thorough yet diverse balance of StarCraft (it might be RTS but it is the pinnacle of it).

In FPS it has also gone downwards. Since I haven't got all that much experience in Half Life I won't comment on it, but my all time fav. AvP got butchered in AvP 2. The feel was all but gone. It had plenty of new cool features and it shows that the developers at least had intended it to be as novel as AvP, but it simply wasn't. And that was shame, for it really had potential.

But unlike many people I'm not as negative about the future. There will always be new players on the market, and thus we can be certain that there will also be games where feel or inovation is above looks.

[NicSO]

I play games since 80`s. I started with Atary 2600, ZX Spectrum, Amiga 500, XT PCs, Nintendo, Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive, SNES...etc...

I have huge expirience with games and I can say one thing...games quality is decreasing just like movies quality.

[Vanya]

GAH!

Vanya remembers the good ole days of playin' Archon, Asteroids and Pong... and thinking they were da bomb!

But them PCs not run no more... too many cobwebs... and rodents living on the motherboard calling the oozing capacitors "daddy". Stacker 1.0 lost its marbles and now just makes stuff up when youz need to access anything on the hard drive as quaint as "data". Except for the pics of the drunk naked rodents in Panama City with their tails in the air streaking old geezers, that is. Those can still be retrieved and displayed in all their gradiose glory! Odd, don't youz think?



GAH!

[BeeSting]

GAH!

Vanya remembers the good ole days of playin' Archon, Asteroids and Pong... and thinking they were da bomb!

But them PCs not run no more... too many cobwebs... and rodents living on the motherboard calling the oozing capacitors "daddy". Stacker 1.0 lost its marbles and now just makes stuff up when youz need to access anything on the hard drive as quaint as "data". Except for the pics of the drunk naked rodents in Panama City with their tails in the air streaking old geezers, that is. Those can still be retrieved and displayed in all their gradiose glory! Odd, don't youz think?



GAH!

[BeeSting]

I play games since 80`s. I started with Atary 2600, ZX Spectrum, Amiga 500, XT PCs, Nintendo, Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive, SNES...etc...

I have huge expirience with games and I can say one thing...games quality is decreasing just like movies quality.

Amiga500?

That was my first pc.

[mxlm]

Aw come on... Can you honestly tell games that has the sophisticated humour of Space Quest, the deep mystery of Police Quest or even the thorough yet diverse balance of StarCraft (it might be RTS but it is the pinnacle of it).

Granted, the adventure genre is all but dead, though I hear the Longest Journey series is pretty good. Never been an adventure fan, though.

As for RTS's, well...Warcraft 3, Rise of Nations, Warlords Battlecry 2, Homeworld 2, Warhammer. Just to name a few. As good as Starcraft? Can't say. But they're certainly close to it in quality.

In FPS it has also gone downwards. Since I haven't got all that much experience in Half Life I won't comment on it, but my all time fav. AvP got butchered in AvP 2. The feel was all but gone. It had plenty of new cool features and it shows that the developers at least had intended it to be as novel as AvP, but it simply wasn't. And that was shame, for it really had potential.

I actually thought AvP2 was a vast improvement over the first game. Different strokes, I suppose. As for others...how about Far Cry, Half Life 2, Joint Operations, America's Army, Battlefield 1942? The genre's getting better, as far as I can tell.

The strategy genre is still going strong (independent developers are making a come back, too), as are sims, FPS's, RPGs, action/arcade shooters, and so on.

The adventure and sports genres are the only ones I'm aware of that are dying.

[The Stranger]

for sure, but it's true cause the graphics of Alexander sucks but the gameplay is good, so i hesitated to buy it. but i tought let's try it and when it suck i swap for another game.

[screwtype]

"Game companies care more about graphics than gameplay"

I was just saying the same thing myself on another thread the other day. Goodness only knows how many man-years of development go into these 3D worlds, but gameplay is too often the poor cousin.

Unfortunately the reality is that glitz sells. Most of the money that a game makes is probably made in the first few weeks of its release, pretty soon it will be a budget priced game, so longevity doesn't matter so much to the industry. A few cheap thrills up front are all that's required, by the time gamers get deeper in and find the gameplay is shallow, the game has already made most of its profits. And now the dissatisfied gamer is looking for his next quick fix.

[screwtype]

since 1.2, ive played half a campaign & then gave up, yet i know that rtr 6 will get me right back into it, strange, you fork out 30 quid for a game, & its some guys in a bedroom at their pc somewhere that make the game playable(for me)

You know, I often think just the same thing myself. I find it incredible that guys working in their bedroom with very limited tools at their disposal for altering a game can create a product in a matter of weeks that the game company seems totally incapable of producing in months or even years.

I look at RTW and I'm truly staggered, not only by the many blatant bugs and glitches which have been so well documented, but by the astonishing lack of depth in areas that should not be too hard at all to make shine, like the diplomacy for example. I mean, sheesh, how hard can it be to put together a model for sensible diplomacy? Or to fix the problem of small AI armies roaming around on the campaign map? Or the lack of AI aggression? Or for the AI building the wrong types of units? And so on.

Is that the programmers and developers just get so fed up with the product after a while that they lose all interest? If so, then at least they could give the amateurs a decent set of tools for modding as much of the game as possible.

Personally though, I sometimes think the best thing a company like CA could do would be to turn over design entirely to the community of enthusiastics on boards like this, and then just implement what WE decide is right for the game

[screwtype]

They have been saying that the game industry is challenging the movie industry. Apparently in more ways than one! Lots of eye-candy, no real content.

I don't even go to watch Hollywood movies anymore. They are so formulaic they are an insult to intelligence. That's when they have a formula at all. Some of them just seem to have lots of big explosions instead of a plot.

What is really necessary is truly independent reviewers. You never know who is working for whom and who can be trusted to give an honest review of a game/show/movie/album.

Very few of the game reviewers are independent IMO. They are part of the industry and they serve the industry. If they really gave frank reviews of the games they saw, pretty soon they wouldn't be sent games to review anymore.

For years my rule of thumb has been to take a game review score out of 100 and knock off 20 points or so to get an idea of what the game is really like.

[HarunTaiwan]

VIC 20.

Now that was a machine!

[Mikeus Caesar]

Obviously if one of the lowest breeds of gamers realise that games are getting worse in exchange for graphics, then something is up that is quite serious. Heck, the only reason i play most of my old games isn't because of the graphics, it's because of the gameplay. Take Tribes 2 for example. The graphics aren't too brilliant, after all, it was released in 2000/2001, but the gameplay rocks!!! Now look at it's sequel, Tribes: Vengeance. Sure, everyone agrees, it sure looks pretty, but the gameplay just isn't what it should be. Most of the veteran players are now using their T:V discs as coasters, or just letting them gather dust on the back of a shelf.

[BDC]

I don't think it's too bad. Seeing the past through rose-tinted glasses and stuff. Better graphics also mean you expect a better game, but if everything looks ugly you will give it more doubt.

Anyway, in the past it was bad at times. I remember trying to play some flight sim on a new computer about 3 years after it came out, and it still didn't work because it was too demanding. Ah, those were the days. Pre-shaders. *sniffle*

[Khorak]

Over a hilariously short period of time computers have suddenly become so ridiculously powerful it's not even funny, and it's still going on. As a result games companies and it has to be said, the very creators of all that computer technology, are still developing new ways of utilising this inhuman amount of technology to chase a 'holy grail' of virtual environment creation, with photorealistic graphics and fully realistic physics out the wazoo. There's no point whining about the almost singleminded rush to fill out this sudden void of untapped capability.

Meanwhile AI technology, for example, is still professors making little robots that astonishingly manage to negotiate the peculiarities of moving about a room without bumping into things.

So of course graphics are a main concern. Why? Because it's the most advanced part of the whole shebang. Great graphics can help immerse a player in the game, and you can try to tell me otherwise but people do prefer to be looking at something pretty. There's billions in various aesthetically driven industries that call you a filthy liar on that count.

And frankly....I'd like to know when this supposed golden age of fantastic gameplay was. Because I've been here since my Amstrad CPC 464 and I can't pin down the exact date for the life of me. For the past fifteen God damn years I've been able to pick up a completely random game and been able to guarantee that it's one of the vast herd of total dross that gets spewed out for every single gaming platform in history. There wasn't ever some gameplay golden age, it was exactly the same as today, a massive outpouring of utter crap and bad cash-in sequals interspersed with a few real shiners and middling hit-and-missers.

But in the very least I get to look at pretty crap now, as opposed to crap dressed up like crap.

[Atreides]

Well gameplay is actually increasing. Butt still most people go for appearing. Not for the gameplay. People on forums are more fanatical......

But personally I always go for gameplay. From my Atari, Super Nintendo, PSX, PS2 and various pc’s.

[Mikeus Caesar]

I know the root of all this evil!! Little n00blet idiots with ADHD screaming for more graphics!!! All they want is better graphics, but they won't be happy until it's as real as real life!! But by then, game developers will have put so much time into graphics, the gameplay will be all gone, and then people won't like the games anymore, and it will lead to all the game companies collapsing, which will lead to the economy spiralling out of control and the end of civilisation as we know it!!!

That's just my theory....

[Kaiser of Arabia]

CSS isn't bad.
But it aint no Goldeneye 64.
Graphics vs Gameplay
I'll go with Gameplay.
Goldeneyes still fun.

[The Stranger]

I know the root of all this evil!! Little n00blet idiots with ADHD screaming for more graphics!!! All they want is better graphics, but they won't be happy until it's as real as real life!! But by then, game developers will have put so much time into graphics, the gameplay will be all gone, and then people won't like the games anymore, and it will lead to all the game companies collapsing, which will lead to the economy spiralling out of control and the end of civilisation as we know it!!!

That's just my theory....

i'll go with you, but stop with all those negative waves in the early morning.

[Blodrast]

I am afraid I'm also on the side of those claiming that the quality of the games has been continually decreasing. That doesn't mean you can't find good games anymore (whatever that means by each one's personal standards), it simply means that they are few and far between.
I've always been an avid gamer myself, dedicating most of my free time to playing games, for the last...hmm, 15-16 years or so. I've always had many games (at least compared to all the people I knew at the time), so I've always had a lot of stuff to choose from. And, consequently, I tried a lot of them.
So now coming to the "was there ever a `good ole days` period ?", I'm not sure that's very easy to answer, but I'll tell you this: 90% of the games I keep replaying and re-replaying are more than 5-6 years old. I'll prove it: I keep replaying Heroes of Might and Magic (III, mostly, with its 3 expansions), UFO 1, UFO 2, Master of Orion, Panzer General I, even Castles 2, and the list could go on. I recently found a Windows version of the grandaddy of FPS games, Wolfenstein 3D ... and I started replaying it, of course.
I think you can see a trend here.

Of course, personal tastes make a big difference, and we all like different things in a game. But I personally think that while the graphics get better and better (which I don't really mind, but I am not impressed by eye candy either; never played a game simply because it looked good, if it didn't have anything else to offer me), the other parts are getting worse and worse. The two main things that come to mind are story (or gameline, or plot), and AI.

AI: I am no AI expert, but I do have a vague idea about what it refers to. There haven't been any revolutionizing discoveries in the AI field, but you'd expect people to refine their techniques over the years. If you've ever played Castles II: Siege and Conquest (released in, uhm, 1991 or so), on one of the harder difficulties, one of the first things you'll notice is that the AI kicks your ass without having been given 2000 troops for free, or 5000 gold every turn, or getting any advantages by some black magic tricks. No, it simply kicks your ass because it IS better....
How many games today can you say the same thing about ? Most of them make the game harder by not giving you resources/money, or just throwing a bunch of money/resources/troops at the AI (or making his a lot better than yours).
When they do tweak the actual AI, it's usually by making it "normal" for the more difficult levels, instead of the dumbed down version. I mean, it's not an AI "improvement" for the computer to stand still in the town centere while it's being peppered to death with missiles for 10 minutes; or sitting nicely waiting for you to flank him or encircle it and charge at it from all sides. That's just a _dumb_ AI. It is _normal_ for you to expect it to act decently and react to your actions...

While I agree that building a decent AI takes a lot of time, I personally would be a lot happier if people took a chunk of the time they spent rendering all the nice buildings and coding the shaders or lighting or the engine to do all that, and put it into the AI and balance instead.


As for storylines, oh well. Yes, there are a few games there that do have a decent attempt at a storyline, or a plot, but not too many, and I'm afraid that they owe a big part of their immersion degree to the other aspects of the game: music, graphics, sounds...but not the actual _story_. I am a big fan of Tolkien's work. Except for EA's latest LOTR game, I've am not aware of one hobbit/Lord of the Rings game on PC or Z80 that I haven't played. There could be a few there, I admit it. I felt absolutely nothing but boredom and frustration playing them. Perhaps this is not a good example and my expectations were too high, I don't know.
Very, very few companies bother to actually create a universe that surrounds their game, and create an entire mythology/history (or whatever's adequate for the game), a bit more than just some heroes fighting some mindless evil force for some unknown reason, with cliche stages, choices, and characters. Like I said, a few do it; Morrowind is a nice example, with all its stories and myths and legends. There are others. But unfortunately, not enough.

I'll try to finish, 'cause it's already been a long rant. Sadly, some of you probably hit the spot when you said that the entire purpose of a company making a game is to advertise the hell out of it, and reap the profits in the first few weeks, after which nobody cares anymore that the game tanked and it sells for under 10 bucks, and nobody who bought it will ever play it a second time. It doesn't matter, we'll advertise our next game even _more_, so silly buggers will buy that one too.

I'm probably being bitter now, but anyway it is important to make a distinction here. It is most likely not the programmers who are to blame here. Most game companies are, firstly, companies. Which means a big fat hierarchy, with a whole lot of bureaucracy. The programmers are just a little part of that thing. And some of them do give their best and try to make a really cool game, and do care about what people think (CA programmers included, but they are not the only ones). Kudos to them.

[screwtype]

I So now coming to the "was there ever a `good ole days` period ?", I'm not sure that's very easy to answer, but I'll tell you this: 90% of the games I keep replaying and re-replaying are more than 5-6 years old. I'll prove it: I keep replaying Heroes of Might and Magic (III, mostly, with its 3 expansions), UFO 1, UFO 2, Master of Orion, Panzer General I, even Castles 2, and the list could go on. I recently found a Windows version of the grandaddy of FPS games, Wolfenstein 3D ... and I started replaying it, of course.

When I finally switched from my beloved old Amiga to a PC in 2000, I was *so* looking forward to getting my hands on some of those wild, state of the art PC games I'd read so much about.

And man, have I been disappointed. I must have bought fifty PC games in the last five years and NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM provides a real, nailbiting challenge. Yet I've played dozens of terrific, simple little games on my Amiga that were really hard to beat. Like Cannon Fodder for example. I got hold of a little public domain game called Wizzy's Quest, and man, that game kept me going compulsively for weeks! Or brilliant puzzle games like Elvira Jaws of Cerberus. And it may have only been 2D, but I still count the graphics in that game as among the best I have seen on a computer game. You got your money's worth from adventure games like King's Quest and Temple of Doom too. And I had fantastic fun playing the PD games Hack and Larn, for months on end.

And the other thing you might notice about those games I mentioned, is the variety of format. Platformers, sprite based shoot-em-ups, puzzle and adventure games, etc etc. If I walk into a PC store practically all I can see are firstperson 3D'ers and massive multiplayers like Counterstrike. Battlefield '42 etc. PC game designers seem obsessed with creating these 3D worlds, and I don't find them all that compelling.

In fact I've pretty much given up hope of getting a really challenging game for the PC. I've become persuaded that the designers of PC games deliberately don't make them too hard so any schmuck can beat them. But I'm really tired of walking through games with minimal effort, it's such a bore.

So anyhow, I still have my Amiga 1200, and right now I'm shoehorning it into a tower case so I can go back and play some games with real challenge in them!

While I agree that building a decent AI takes a lot of time, I personally would be a lot happier if people took a chunk of the time they spent rendering all the nice buildings and coding the shaders or lighting or the engine to do all that, and put it into the AI and balance instead.

Yes, please.

I'm probably being bitter now, but anyway it is important to make a distinction here. It is most likely not the programmers who are to blame here. Most game companies are, firstly, companies. Which means a big fat hierarchy, with a whole lot of bureaucracy. The programmers are just a little part of that thing. And some of them do give their best and try to make a really cool game, and do care about what people think (CA programmers included, but they are not the only ones). Kudos to them.

I sometimes feel guilty about slagging off games like RTW. It's been four years in development and I spend most of the time picking holes in it.

I know programming is really tough because I've done a bit of it, I know what hard work it is so I hate to criticize the finished product. But I'm just so disappointed at the lack of game depth, particularly when the earlier games had more of it. You'd think that after four years they could have spent a bit more time on game balance and gameplay, but it appears almost as though those aspects have been attended to at the last minute as a sort of afterthought.

So on the one hand I want to praise them for all the hard work they've obviously put into the game, on the other hand I just feel so frustrated that the end result is yet another PC game that is lacking in challenge.

[NicSO]

Srewtype....try UFO1,2 and 3, Fallout 1 and 2, pirates Gold, laser squad, Masters of Orion 2, Morrowind, Arcanum...all superb games and decent challenges;-)

[Mikeus Caesar]

Personally, i think that the publishers should allow the developers as much time as they want to create a game. After all, if people then bought the game and then thought 'wow, this is amazing, i have to buy the sequel/any other games these people make' then people would come back and buy more games off the company, and would spread the word saying it's good. But no, they have to make a beautiful but hollow game, which sells thousands in the first few weeks and then is forgotten. The people who buy their crappy game don't want to buy another game off them, so the company just advertises heavily again so that some other poor schmucks buy it.

[Blodrast]

Personally, i think that the publishers should allow the developers as much time as they want to create a game. After all, if people then bought the game and then thought 'wow, this is amazing, i have to buy the sequel/any other games these people make' then people would come back and buy more games off the company, and would spread the word saying it's good. But no, they have to make a beautiful but hollow game, which sells thousands in the first few weeks and then is forgotten. The people who buy their crappy game don't want to buy another game off them, so the company just advertises heavily again so that some other poor schmucks buy it.

while that would be very nice, it is of course economically unfeasible (unfortunately).
Instead, they achieve a similar effect just like you said: put half of the budget in marketing, over-advertise it, and people would buy it pretty much regardless of its quality. Since everybody 's been doing it for a while now, it must be working (although, come to think of it, maybe it's not working _that_ well, because there's a bunch of companies going bankrupt and/or being swallowed by giants like EA, Microsoft).

And screwtype, I agree with you: it's very difficult to find a game you can literally feel immersed into; and I agree with most of NicSo's suggestions (not all, because I haven't played all of them yet).

Of course, all our whining doesn't really do any good; we can't change anything about the way things are. The only thing that could make a difference was if more people stopped spending their money mindlessly, just because they were seduced by the advertising of the game. On the other hand, if one has not experienced older games, where the emphasis was not on graphics alone, one is unable to make a comparison: if all you've seen since you picked up video games is 3D FPS's, well, then that's all you know, and you can't complain because you don't know it could be different. I'm not trying to be patronising or condescending just because I'm a tad bit older, I understand this situation perfectly.


As a sidenote, I have to confess I'm also a bit disappointed in RTW. It is great work, and it's more than obvious the developers have put a lot of heart, effort and time into it, and they deserve the credit for it - but it just didn't catch me. I like MTW a lot more for that matter - and I'll probably start campaigning against the infidels and the horde again pretty soon...