We are doomed. We want a more complicated game, but the casual gamer doesn't

[OneInTen]

Originally posted by Libertarian
Argumentum ad misericordiam

Argumentum = Latin for argument
misericorde = a small projection on the bottom of a hinged church seat that gives support to a standing worshiper when the seat is turned up

Are you suggesting (in Latin) someone is making an argument about hinged church seats?

[OneInTen]

Originally posted by Libertarian
Argumentum ad misericordiam

And now in all seriousness (I can't stand when people think they're smarty pants because they know a Latin phrase or two - I had to demonstrate how that phrase reads to the average person, even one armed with a dictionary) no, I'm not trying to appeal to pity, I'm merely saying I think it's unreasonable to expect game developers to work 16 hours a day "for the love of the industry" or whatever other reason you might think for it.

I think it is instead time for us gamers to realise that the gaming industry has reached a point where it is such an expense to produce a "state of the art" title that one of two things happens - either a) Games start costing more, or b) (more likely) Onoly games with widespread mainstream appeal are released.

Game companies already work (in general) on pretty thin budgets and with (comparitive to business application programmers) underpaid staff. You're not going to get them to work even longer hours, especially since if you read the stories of many games companies, they already spend most of their waking hours in the office when it gets close to crunch time.

It's a rather simple equation. Games are more complicated to code, and have more art work than they used to (in general). Therefore they're going to take more people to produce, and a longer amount of time to produce. Therefore they have to sell more copies. Therefore it's becoming less viable to go after a niche market. Asking people to work more hours is only going to increase the cost (having to pay staff more, increased burnout and staff turnover rate, etc), therefore make the situation worse, not better.

If someone saw my work and said it sucked and I needed to put more "E" for "Effort" into it, I'd be pretty insulted at being patronised like that. I expect most posters here would be too. I don't see why the employees of Firaxis deserve any less respect.

[Libertarian]

A person armed with a dictionary would know the etymology of "misery".

[MrWhereItsAt]

Lib, how many languages do you know? So far in the past two hours I have seen English, French and a Latin phrase. And why do you bother? Few if any would know all of these languages. Are you carrying the conversation on the whole time or just phrase-dropping as it seems?

What's the point?

But ON topic, it seems to me that complex games CAN suceed, at least enough to be (hopefully) profitable and praised by gamers and reviewers. Although not heavily detailed, the RTS's have got more complex since Dune 2 or C&C. Look at RA2 or Empire Earth, and I would say these were successful. I would say SMAC was the best example of the TBS that was successful and complex, Civ2 having previously held that honour.

Which brings up a question I have. Would people be less unhappy, do you think, if the basis for SMAC was used for Civ3, making Civ3 kinda like a mod with new graphics and a host of small but satisfying enhancements like City views, and with one or two overhauls like the diplomacy system?

[Libertarian]

So far in the past two hours I have seen English...

A good language for general rhetoric.

...French...

Do you remember the opening post in that thread?

...and a Latin phrase.

Well, logical fallacies happen to have Latin names. QED.

And why do you bother?

So you don't have to.

[Atahualpa]

I believe the genre has peaked with civ2.

And now you will tell me that civ2 has more complexity than civ3 has?

Tell me what strategic descision you made in civ2 that you cant make in civ3?
I mean come on. In civ2 I built hundreds of thousands of howitzers and crushed whole civilizations in one turn. Now with culture and borders and not being able to use their railroads the whole process is slowed a lot.

In Civ2 I planted a stealthbomber on top of my tanks and nobody could attack them.
In Civ2 my whole stack that was not planted a bomber above was lost because ONE unit of this stack lost.

I mean come on. I really cant stand people anymore who scream along as if civ2 would have been the best game at all.
Just because we settled with the downsides of civ2 and forgot about them or just lived with them.

Civ3 is so much better than civ2. It just has some glitches that need to be corrected. So what civ2 is out for years. Civ3 is just out for 3 months.

ata

[MrWhereItsAt]

Well, I guess I got my answer. Back to the Quid Pro Quo, I suppose. C'est la vie y que no estara tan tonto otra vez!

(Apologies to all languages involved.)

[Willem]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Lib, how many languages do you know? So far in the past two hours I have seen English, French and a Latin phrase. And why do you bother? Few if any would know all of these languages.

Why do you presume that everyone on this list uses English as their mother tongue? Isn't that a rather ethnocentric view? This is an international medium open to the whole world, not just to those who happen to speak English. Maybe 90% of the people here are actually French, but they're forced to use another language because of the narrow view of many people on the Internet that English is the ONLY appropriate language to use.

[MrWhereItsAt]

I have yet to see very much French at this site, and the only Latin is that which Lib occasionally uses! Yes, I HAVE seen multilingual discussions here, I know that some prominent posters are Europeans who likely know multiple languages, and I am all in favour of knowing and using these languages (I myself am learning two others at University level). BUT, when I suggested a while ago that there was a sizeable non-American presence here, I was somewhat shot down, by these majority Americans. By that logic, it would seem that English is, of course, the natural choice for a langue de preference This is perhaps somewhat beside my point - which is that the sort of multiple language use I was talking about seems to not serve much purpose - there are often posters with a single phrase or two in another tongue - if ppl don't know English, they would find these random usages very uninformative.

If there were threads or posts in non-English languages, I could see the point in them. In fact I think there should be MORE non-English sections to the site; AFAIK there is only the Spanish site which seems to be a mix of Spanish, Italian and English.

And I guess all I was doing was trying to point out that Lib was doing this because, well, he can and that it makes his posts look good. Hell, _I_ like doing it!

[Zachriel]

While we're off topic, all I can think of is in Latin is something that the Roman emperor said to me once when he was rather upset with me (I took his capital):

Utinam barbari spatium proprium tuum invadant!
May the barbarians invade your personal space!

[Willem]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
In fact I think there should be MORE non-English sections to the site;

This is what I'm driving at. The rest of the world should not have to be segregated into their own sections just because the majority uses English as their mother tongue. This is an international medium and everyone, regardless of whether they're tying to show off or not, can use any language they choose to express themselves. If no one can understand the message, well then so be it.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Go for it Willem!

If I see any French or Spanish threads poppin' up here, then, within my language limits and Civ knowledge limits, I'll support 'em!

A la bataille, mes amis! Vaya con dios!

[Willem]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Go for it Willem!

If I see any French or Spanish threads poppin' up here, then, within my language limits and Civ knowledge limits, I'll support 'em!

A la bataille, mes amis! Vaya con dios!

Man you sound just like some Southern plantation owner.

[OneInTen]

Seems silly to me to use all different languages, the point of coming to a forum like this is to communicate, surely it makes sense to talk a common language that we can all understand.

Then again, I'm a "one world, one language" kind of guy.

[Willem]

Originally posted by OneInTen
Seems silly to me to use all different languages, the point of coming to a forum like this is to communicate, surely it makes sense to talk a common language that we can all understand.

Then again, I'm a "one world, one language" kind of guy.

Well we haven't reached that point yet, and won't for a long time, though I'm sure it will happen some day. In the meantime I feel everyone has the right to use any language they please. If no one understands it, so what. The point is being able to express yourself, not in the tools you use to do so.