Dear Luke Plunkett, please stop being so hyperbolic with your posts. I don't think this is going to be a sea change in the way that major studios do business because as of now we don't know how many total people will donate, nor if it would even be on par with multi-million dollar blockbusters as your article implies. So far, there are about 30,000 people donating to this project (including myself); that is a far cry from the millions that play AAA games. I would imagine most large studios wouldn't even bother starting a game if they knew their fanbase would be that small on the outset. If the number of people who donate to this ends up comparing to a fanbase of a huge blockbuster, I'll concede. But until then, this is a small project which very much is something that should be started on kickstarter. It's completely awesome and something I'm really happy to see. But a lot is now hinging on this being a great and successful game. Not like I don't think DF can do it; I donated of course. But you get my point. tl;dr tone down the hype before it turns into duke nukem forever.
Tomorrow, I believe.
I disagree with the idea that the creative team doesn't want to come up with anything more for HL3. Although the universe is pretty well fleshed out, it's the type of one that could really go in any direction depending on who is at the helm. I would think it would be a creative designer's wet dream.
You stole my words. Why else would something be secret for so long? If they were using the source engine, they definitely would have had more than enough time to come up with all the assets they would need for a sequel.
As much as I want to believe it, I find it incredibly hard to believe. This show is like the second DVD of Trapped in the Closet. Good, but questionably awesome.
I really wish they would have just made if Legend of Grimlock and have the heroes be the dinobots. HASBRO, ARE YOU LISTENING?!
@King_of_Games: This!
If you have kids and you drink and play zelda, you're an awesome parent
I loled. I still love that hippie bullshit though!
I love me some minecraft, but this mod was WEAK. Write a story when someone makes something that's not a hole in the ground.
I still think Red Alert 2 is one of the finest games ever made and I don't think it gets a fair enough shake these days. I was truly sad when I heard that Westwood was getting shut down.
Having worked for a company that sent out deferring PR letters like this, I can tell you that it's likely no news is good news. Every company will readily tell you if something is cancelled or if a deal has been broken and will offer remorse. They don't tell you stuff that's in the works.
Something tells me that seth killian was just trolling you. "Yeah, you discovered a lost secret about fighting games and the psychology of their appeal! You did a great job! Please cover my game more!" hehehe
So does this mean that jesus christ existed? HA HA HA HA
If you liked Xenogears then I definitely recommend Lost Odyssey. A lot of people decried it for its "archaic" battle system, but I saw it as more strategy than needing so much action. But the story is top notch.
I completely agree with you and regard Xenogears as one of the greatest games ever made because of the vastness of it. I remember every time I stumbled into a new town, I would see sooooo many people and get intimidated, because I knew that it was manageable. But with games these days, there's a sort of "I have no idea if I'll ever get to talk to everyone" that makes me sort of not care about how much I interact.
I think it's not so much a matter of not having enough time to play a game, I think it has to do with the mindset of "I'm getting older and my time is more precious so I have to keep it in mind more". And because of that, you don't allow yourself to get carried away like you used to. I'm sure people who are younger are thoroughly enthralled in some games that come out these days as much as we did with FF7 or any other game. I'm 29, have played a shit-ton of video games, and I just started playing multiplayer Minecraft with friends and am having a blast, and I thought "I bet there's kids who are doing this now, and years from now they'll be saying 'remember when we played Minecraft all summer? That was great and we'll never have that again.'" It's the cycle of aging.
A lot to do with who is telling the story as well. Hironobu Sakaguchi is a master, plain and simple. Lost Odyssey has had one of the most refreshing RPG stories that I can remember in recent time because it bucked the trend of trying to fill cliches and actually told stories of peril and sadness and humanity. FF13 does this too to an extent, but I really think they lost the direction in that game about 1/3 of the way through. Not many other directors/writers can really tell a video game story that well, not without stepping into cliche valley, and not with just the right amount of girth to their story elements.
I think a lot of it simply has to do with voice acting as well, and that goes back to the whole book vs. movie debate. You can either envision the characters in your own voice, or have Nolan North emote for you.
I also think that World of Warcraft has totally killed the end-game as well, by putting the idea of quests as a mechanical device instead of an incidental one (like in Chrono Trigger) in the game. Usually the end-game is where you really get to move at your own pace, wrap things up, take a mental note of the world and then go for the goal. I think deconstructing it to its bare elements ("fetch quest" for example) adds a lot to the idea of a task not being necessary, but it being a chore. But now that the cat's out of the bag, any kind of quest in a game is going to have this problem.
And you know what I would like to see? TEAM ICO AND VALVE COME OUT WITH THEIR GODDAMN GAMES ALREADY. Development time is a _killer_ these days and I think because we are able to read about a game so far ahead, and so thoroughly, that by the time we start playing it we already know everything in it. So the immersion definitely takes a hit on it. That's why I think the emergence of the procedurally generated games, or the ones forever updated (Minecraft fan maybe?) are going to help a lot in the future. We won't be able to read about it until we experience it ourselves.
tl;dr Minecraft is the best new game and should be exactly what you're looking for, sans narrative.
A lot to do with who is telling the story as well. Hironobu Sakaguchi is a master, plain and simple. Lost Odyssey has had one of the most refreshing RPG stories that I can remember in recent time because it bucked the trend of trying to fill cliches and actually told stories of peril and sadness and humanity. FF13 does this too to an extent, but I really think they lost the direction in that game about 1/3 of the way through. Not many other directors/writers can really tell a video game story that well, not without stepping into cliche valley, and not with just the right amount of girth to their story elements.
I think a lot of it simply has to do with voice acting as well, and that goes back to the whole book vs. movie debate. You can either envision the characters in your own voice, or have Nolan North emote for you.
I also think that World of Warcraft has totally killed the end-game as well, by putting the idea of quests as a mechanical device instead of an incidental one (like in Chrono Trigger) in the game. Usually the end-game is where you really get to move at your own pace, wrap things up, take a mental note of the world and then go for the goal. I think deconstructing it to its bare elements ("fetch quest" for example) adds a lot to the idea of a task not being necessary, but it being a chore. But now that the cat's out of the bag, any kind of quest in a game is going to have this problem.
And you know what I would like to see? TEAM ICO AND VALVE COME OUT WITH THEIR GODDAMN GAMES ALREADY. Development time is a _killer_ these days and I think because we are able to read about a game so far ahead, and so thoroughly, that by the time we start playing it we already know everything in it. So the immersion definitely takes a hit on it. That's why I think the emergence of the procedurally generated games, or the ones forever updated (Minecraft fan maybe?) are going to help a lot in the future. We won't be able to read about it until we experience it ourselves.
tl;dr Minecraft is the best new game and should be exactly what you're looking for, sans narrative.
I totally agree about Minecraft bringing me into immersion more than any other game has in recent memory aside from Portal. No other game has made me get afraid of the dark, jump out of my seat, and make me feel proud of an accomplishment (building my house!) like Minecraft has. And because of the randomness of it, it STILL gets to me even after months of playing it on and off.
The prank is that they didn't put any torches in the office; that guy is FUCKED.
I completely agree. I think the numbers and statistics are what make an RPG what it is. There has to be strategy in the battles and there has to be a way to measure it. I don't see how it's different with health percentage and numbers. Oh, it takes me two hits to kill it now instead of three! I am guessing by the picture in the article that Luke was just butthurt over FF13 and how ridiculously powerful those characters get and how much HP the enemy has, thereby decreasing the importance of the number value. Two separate things than removing numbers altogether.
