Posts by Steppenwolf

With focus on mp maps you are limiting yourself to a very small niche. Most level design jobs nowadays are about grey boxing and scripting single player levels. Not sure going to school for this has much benefits as you get all the experience for that by doing it and ther's great ressources available to learn it the autodidactic way from making hl2 maps to mods for skyrim etc. At least not worth to get 40k in debts over it imo.

Be aware that the creative aspect of it is very limited nowadays aswell since most studios will use environment and lighting artists to make the maps beautiful.

So i think to study would make more sense if you aim to work on the art/design side of things. And in that case i would go as far to say that a conventional art/design education would be more benefitial then one specificaly aimed at games. I notice this time and time again that what's holding me back is a lack of art fundamentals not the use of specific software and tools.

So looking back i could bite myself in the ass that i didn't get a proper art education. I don't think "oh damn i wish i gone to a game school when i was younger". Someone made an interesting point about that on polycount recently when he complianed that his fellow character artist at the studio where he works don't know the basics of human anatomy.

I have selected generic units and system unit scale is set to 1,0 inches. My models are in perfect sync with hammer.

Of course also check in your qc files that $scale is set to 1.0

Portfolio is king. This time of year portfolios of graduates pop up on places like polycount. It's often abysmal what's on there after 4 years of study.

I would only consider spending so much time and going into debt over it if the school is known to produce kickass artists/designers. So if you want to go the study route check portfolios and projects of students who went there. Otherwise your degree is worth squat when you have a portfolio by the end of it that is subpar. You would be way better off to continue with your regular job and work on some indie games/self educate in your free time.

As for your other questions. Be a bit more specific. What exactly do you want to do? Environment art, levels, concept art, characters, coding? I can give you some pointers but more information is needed.

Super awesome! You guys are legends!

If ther's one minor crit that i have it's that the lighting is too evenly distributed. Could use some shadow areas at the back and ceiling for more visual depth and better readability.

edit: crappy ps of what i'm talking about.

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Dat free aim.

Your edges look super hard. Loosen up the support loops where possible. Will give you a nicer normal map.

FrieChamp i haven't worked on this game. Left Interwave 2.5 years ago. I believe only Xanthi is affected from mapcore members.

Quote from FrieChamp

http://gamasutra.com/view/news/2029…ve_responds.php

Management didn't know about the ending? I don't believe that for one second.

Maybe Iceberg released an older build for whatever reason? It's strange that there wasn't even a concept painting or something for an end screen. Who thought this would be a good idea to end a game?

I wouldn't consider Crytek indie. One attribute of being indie is independence from big global players in the industry. Seeing as Crytek has partnerships with Ea, Ubi, Microsoft etc. i don't think that's the case.

But RSI at this point definitely are indie as they even self publish their product on their website.

On a side note: Maybe a moderator can split this topic. While the discussion is interesting i feel a bit sorry for the mapcore peeps working on T4 for shitting all over their thread. Especialy since much of my criticisms isn't directly aimed at their game but the industry at large and things got a little off-topic.

Quote from Sentura

I wonder how it would look if people with decades of industry experience would come together and make an indie game with a large budget. No holds barred.

Would it be... the PERFECT game?

I'm curious to see how Star Citizen will turn out. Certainly goes a bit in that direction.

Quote from Sentura

My point was that I was absolving a large part of the blame from designers - or rather pointing their faults out as necessary. It is the venerable price of progress.

And yes, maturing the industry will fix this. Hollywood is known for its blockbusters, but there are also more sublime films coming from there. Film theory is widely used and respected. However, it seems like your ideal position would involve the removal of a capitalist economy - which is likely to never happen unless there's a total world collapse. In the golden ratio mentioned, I assume that the capitalist society will continue. It doesn't mean we'll get rid of the Call of Duties, in the same way that we won't get rid of blockbusters. But we'll get more nuance and more depth, perhaps so much so that even Call of Duty 46 will pick up a thing or two. Evolution is slow, but that doesn't mean it's not there.

This isn't so much a critique of capitalism on my part. That would be silly since i work for a living aswell in this industry.

But i mentioned a broken window fallacy earlier in this thread. And that's what it boils down to imo. People don't buy fewer sophisticated games because they prefer dumbed down games but because there are fewer sophisticated games and more and more dumbed down games. At least in the AAA sector. Case in point are the Mass Effect and Dragon Age franchises. The first games were great then the second games got dumbed down and the devs got a lot of shit for that. You can't explain that with a "new generation of players" since it happend within the same generation.

As far as hollywood goes you're right they not only produce superhero blockbusters but i also remember seeing a stat how the number of new ip's and movies with artistic merrits has gone down and down since the 1970's and how it got really bad over the last couple years. So i'm not really sharing your optimism that games industry will move in the opposite direction.

The only things that keeps me positive in that regard is that with new technology like the Rift on the horizon and indie games getting more market share the trend will be slowed down or come to a halt.

I wouldn't even go as far as blaming designers for the bigger picture. I'm sure most people who work in this industry appreciate games that have a little more depth or unique features. When i read interviews with the Thief designers i can't believe how detached they sound but knowing this industry i assume they just try to sell something that was more or less forced on them. I think this "broadening the audience" is mostly pushed by publishers who assume a positive effect on their wallets.

And maturing of the industry won't fix that. Look at Hollywood. It's been around for way longer and all they seem to produce for blockbusters nowadays is one superhero movie after another. Who cares if ther's plenty people who want to see different movies when this one boring concept is a sure shot to make money over and over again. It's the same story with dumbed down, casualized, over the top AAA games unfortunately.

Quote from Sentura

If you feel like you want to gun down all enemies, then why don't you? I mean if you're not enjoying the stealth aspects of the game then there's no shame in that.

I think you misunderstood. My critique is that the option to just gun down all enemies takes the fun out of the stealth gameplay.

Not because gunning down is more fun. To the contrary. It's just that playing stealthy is much more fun when getting caught actualy has consequences. In the old Thief games my adrenaline was pumping and i was on the edge. I remember freaking out when i heard a noise only then to realize it was some guy sleeping in his bed. Such feelings can't be created in a game where getting caught simply means "ok no biggie i will just gun down these NPC's then and move on".

What worries me a bit about all these new devices is that they all have their own solutions and standards. I hope this doesn't end so that each one is so niche that they get less and less interesting commercialy and then two years down the line the VR hype is over again. I want it to really take off and that would work best imo if they can figure out some industry standards earlier or later so that more manufacturers get involved and games, 3d videos etc. work on different models.

Hell yeah! Oculous like porn right in my bedroom!

Coming together nicely! Not a fan of the yellow walls tho. Scene looks better in the post above your last.

I haven't played much of DX:HR to be honest because i have the same problem with this game that i had with Dishonored. It's just too easy and tempting to just gun down all the enemies. And that to me takes the fun out of what makes a good stealth game. You should be really afraid of getting caught by the NPC's. The old Deus Ex solved this much better. It still gave you the option to play it as fps but if you chose that path you started with really crappy weapons and skills. Remember how much the scope of the sniper rifle was shaking in the beginning of the game. So the game presented itself as a proper stealth game that invited players to actualy give the stealth gameplay a chance and learn to like it as a way that's equaly as effective and actualy more fun.

In these new games playing stealthy feels like chopping ones leg off to be able to compete in the special olympics.

Quote from Taylor

I recall the recent Splinter Cell said it would support both stealth and a shooter approach because blah blah modern audiences. How did that turn out?

Yea i don't think it really works well to try and make a game for different playstyles. The core gameplay will always suffer from the compromises.

I had this same experience when i played Dishonored. As a player when you have strong offensive capabilities at your disposal just like that you are always tempted to use them. It's like using a cheat or performance enhancing drugs to get results quicker. You have success quickly but ultimately leaves you feel empty with no sense of having achieved anything.

In Dishonored i played through half the game with the weapons that were at my disposal before i realised that i don't actualy like to play it like that. Then i started fresh with the goal to play completely stealthy. But it didn't work for me because: i'm a casual gamer. I rarely replay games these days because i have better things to do with my time. Playing through the same sections again felt like a waste of time just for the sake of the goal that i set myself. And it also felt silly because ther's no sense of achievment when i do it just for myself anyway. So i would have had a better experience with the game if it was a proper stealth game from the start. to finish.

Well what i wonder is if the "casual player" actualy existed before todays generation or wheter it's a monster that the game industry has created themselfes.

On reflection as i said i think this whole casual craze really took off with COD 2. The first one was already pretty succesful on PC. Then COD 2 came out with the 360. The game was suddenly on console and sold a lot. With it also the Hollywoodification and dumbing down of the franchise began. I think publishers just looked at this success and from then on everybody had this idea in their heads that out there live millions of "casual players" who love "streamlined" and over the top games and nothing else.

But this to me seems sorta like a broken window fallacy. Games were popular before that and ppl played fucking hard games on consoles. It's plausible that games would sell just as well today if developers had stuck with more challenging and sophisticated games. And to me it seems also plausible that the dumbed down games created the players who can't cope with challenging and sophisticated games anymore in the first place.

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I saw this on neogaf. I haven't really payed too much attention to the new Thief game yet but was looking forward to it being a huge fan of the old games, especially 1+2. But reading this really kills all interest that i have for the game.

Also saw this interview posted which makes the guys sound completely detached from what made the franchise great:

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/10/10/thief-interview/

Quote

We’ve seen players who don’t even bother to read anything they find. We have to make sure the game is fun for them, too. So, it’s a big challenge to add enough layers of exposition to not penalize anyone who wants to skip over that kind of stuff.

This quote pretty much sums up what's wrong with not just with Thief but big games as a whole these days. What i wonder is, is it really what players want? Or did the gaming industry actualy condition players to play this way? It all started around COD 2 didn't it? I can't imagine that players these days are just born so differently then the generation before.