Is there any innovation in gaming?

[El_Cid]

Originally posted by cronos_qc
@El_Cid:
You're wrong on some part:
Took these games, and compare the A.I.

Doom1 - Half Life 1 and Halo2
or
Dune - Command & Conquer and Warcraft3

You'll see a good progression of the A.I., not as great as the graphics(if were able to draw a graph about A.I. evolution), but still a good overall progression.

I do not know for F1 games of the nineties because; younger I was easily impressionable.

and Fixed:

ummm i dont agree with your 'Fixing'

You chose those games you mentioned to prove i was wrong about what?? I could equaly pick some random games that prove the exact opposite - so you see the problem in that approach?

Did i say i would choose those games? No - so all you've done is prove that those games you mention dont exactly fit the pattern i was talking about.

So i'll refix the point i was trying to get Asher+Imran to concede might be a valid one

El_Cid 2
Asher+Imran 1
(they were the ones starting this points thing - i was just trying to have a debate??)

Originally posted by Asher/Imran
.......It's important not to let your biases blind you.

back at you sirs!

[Asher]

Originally posted by El_Cid
Sadly of those games you mentioned Asher that i have played(Gran Turismo/Forza Motorsport) is far less complex than many of the F1 type games that came out over 10 years ago - bar the graphics of course. Check out the F1 series of games by geof crammond if you dont believe me.

That's absolute nonsense -- you clearly don't understand the complexity of the physics behind modern simulators. I don't understand how you can think Crammond's F1 games were complex...could you elaborate? From what I recall the physics were incredibly basic and the AI simply retarded.

And the arguements for AI - please. In theory sure, we have way more harddrive space/proccesor power etc, but as many just plain stupid games get made today as they did 20 years ago!! For every smart current game you could give me i can give you an older example. Likewise for every dumb one.

That's a red herring -- why are you talking about quality of many games? The topic is how technology can enable new, innovative games. And it's a simple fact. You can argue that incredibly basic games are "complex" but I think that says more about your standards than anything else.

If you want complex, look at games with realistic physics and artificial intelligence. That's where much innovation is being made.

Side scrolling shooter/platform game. The only difference with those say over modern 3D versions is what..............hmmm graphics(as in graphical viewpoint) maybe? - they still do exactly the same thing

Err...no, gameplay is fundamentally different in a 3D world over a 2D world.

back to SpaceCowboys points - Graphics are the only thing that has really seen huge growth in the last 10years - the other aspects of game design have more or less stayed fairly static.

The bottom line is this: if you graph the rise of comparative computer power over the last 10 years, then graph the rise of really great games(ones that generaly eveyone agrees are something special) over the same time period......guess what?

I think this is your third different argument in as many posts. Are we talking about innovation and how technology can enable it, or are we talking about you being an old fart reminiscing over the "good old days"? Give me Gears of War over DOOM any day, for example. It's fine to reminisce about the classics, but make an argument that technology growth doesn't help innovation in games is simply ridiculous.

El_Cid 2(just in case spaced doesnt want to play)
Asher/Imran 1

El_Cid 0
Asher 2

[El_Cid]

El_Cid 20000000000000000

Asher/Imran 0

I win

we agree to disagree then? your viewpoints are as equaly 'blind' as mine i think its fair to say. young fart.

edit: oh and for the record age has nothing to do with this - i'm just expressing a viewpoint reached over years of gaming/developing on a a variety of platforms. My(so thats means my opinion) view is that Next-gen hasn't and wont improve gaming in the way people think it will.

What it will do is provide a very clever marketing platform for companies to make you games that give you less than they used to, while requireing you to spend more.

its also a simple observation.

And i also do like and play modern games(just not that many of them....thus my opinion)

[Asher]

I'm not blind, though. I enjoy old games and new games, and I appreciate that more capable hardware unlocks more capabilities for games.

It's a simple observation.

[CrONoS]

El_Cid:

I think I made my point. You know that these games I named, were the biggest name from each era of FPS and RTS. You clearly see that there were a real evolution of the A.I. (Man, Doom the A.I. was not able to jump, to dodge... or anything like this)

If we took 3D Shooters games; I can't think about any games (pre halflife1) who can be comparable to Half Life 2 or Halo 2. The same for RTS.

From each step of the evolution of gaming; the A.I. became more and more complex maybe the evolution of A.I.(as we see it in games) was not so noticeable since the A.I. needed to play in a more complex environment.

In SimCity Original the game was less complex(you didn't have water pire or subway) than Simcity 2000(and later). The same for Dune2 than Command & Conquer Generals and the same for a plain fake 3D Shooters(like Doom) than HalfLife. And the same for Halflife over Doom.


Edit:
Simcity; And I know they are not any real computer controller player at SimCity. But I wanted to point how the games become more complex and so the same for A.I..

Originally posted by El_Cid


ummm i dont agree with your 'Fixing'

You chose those games you mentioned to prove i was wrong about what?? I could equaly pick some random games that prove the exact opposite - so you see the problem in that approach?

Did i say i would choose those games? No - so all you've done is prove that those games you mention dont exactly fit the pattern i was talking about.

So i'll refix the point i was trying to get Asher+Imran to concede might be a valid one

El_Cid 2
Asher+Imran 1
(they were the ones starting this points thing - i was just trying to have a debate??)



back at you sirs!

[Kuciwalker]

The traffic model alone of Sim City 4 is far more complex than Sim City.

[lord of the mark]

I think we're all talking diff things.


Im not geek, but let me take a stab at clarifying the discussion.

Graphics has improved alot. Its very sensitive to hardware, its obvious to the most casual player, it markets well, and so its no surprise theres been a lot of improvement there.

Growing amounts of RAM and larger HDs, and faster processing, make possible more "complex" games. Im thinking Paradox, but i think thats whats going on in the Civs, the citybuilders, etc. Theres more room for more data, more calculations can happen without slowing machines down, etc. Of course this, even more than graphics, is an area where things can actually get WORSE, cause developers overlook that "less is more" OTOH the best designers, and those whove learned from mistakes, can correct for this. I dont play FPS, but I suspect the improvements of physics engines are in a related category.


And then theres AI. Again, processing power SHOULD improve this. But theres much more programmming involved than in say, adding another level of micromanagement to Victora. And lots of SP users arent that demanding (heck, they dont want the AI to be TOO good) And of course MP players only care about limited aspects of AI. So maybe AI improves more slowly. Also, since AI HAS to improve to deal with the greater complexity, its always a moving target (as cronos points out)

[Sandman]

Regarding graphics, despite the quest for realism, there's still a certain unreality in even advanced games. When was the last time you saw a genuinely realistic waterfall in a game, as opposed to a sort of blue or white sheet? Not to mention the odd little cliffs everywhere, or the omnipresent crates with exactly one thing in them.

[DrSpike]

Just to throw another one in:

It is undeniable that technological advances bring with them the possibility for progress in gameplay as well as graphics. As someone that has been a pretty avid gamers for over 2 decades the progression in all genres (and the creation of new genres) is in evidence.

It is also undeniable that the true scope isn't always exploited in modern games, which leaves graphics the main difference - we can all think of examples I'm sure. Even where there is progress on several fronts it's the progress on graphics that stands out, as several have argued. The rise of the casual gamer and the consequent impact on the gaming market is the predominant cause of this in my view.

I'll use Civ4 as a clear example. One avid Civ4 player has spent his own time making changes to the AI following Firaxis's decision to release tools that made this possible. These are really good changes and I'm sure could have been done by Firaxis (they actually took several of them for their most recent patch, so it's not a quality issue). But they don't care enough to spend the resource - improved AI matters to too few people at the end of the day, and spanky new 'cool' features and nice graphics matter to more given the current market composition.

10 years ago (sorry Asher, old fart mode) the market composition was different and (partly but not entirely because of this) I would argue that a higher proprortion of games made the most of the technological capabilties of the time. This is the key point to me - to the extent I agree with some of the positive points about old games it's in a relative sense. It's important not to look back through rose tinted specs - some of the AI decisions in classics like Civ and X-Com would now no doubt cause me to put my head through the monitor.

As a gamer with limited time these days I just wait for those few games that do really raise the bar, and do take advantage of the improved capabilities we have. Alas they may be fewer than in the past, but they do exist.

[Sandman]

The reason for slow AI advancement is obviously increased multiplayer offerings.

[muxec]

There are much more bugs in modern games and the bugs in the latest games are very... innovative.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Sandman
The reason for slow AI advancement is obviously increased multiplayer offerings.

Unlikely.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by muxec
There are much more bugs in modern games and the bugs in the latest games are very... innovative.

Again rose tinted specs. Old games were often riddled with bugs that you never even noticed, because there was no online community to point them out to you. And they were much harder to fix too.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Unlikely.

Why?

[DrSpike]

Because the phenomenon is shared amongst genres which do have some significant proportion of the playerbase engaged in MP and those that do not.

Take Civ4 for instance. MP is small beans compared to SP yet still a gifted amateur was able to make significant improvements to the AI.