arhurt

Speculating on it, I'd say that having a 24/7 reliable digital distribution server capable of peak download speeds along with a plethora of other services does not come in cheaply! Since Amazon sells a whole lot of other services and products, their costs are further diluted along that, as well as the actual CD production/distribution costs that are diluted in other, more established businesses (bulk product distribution chains, CDs are printed for all kinds of media). As much as we like to think that anything on the internet should cost less/close to nothing, there are costs associated to delivering digital content, hosting it and keeping it reliable. You mus also account for the fact that it's a relatively new venture and there are always new systems to be implemented, usually with very high costs due to their exclusive nature. But all that is speculation non my part trying to make sense of that fact =P As for the interview, was a nice read, and as much as Gabe must be tired of hearing this, your brother deserves points for bringing HL3 up =P

Just learn how hurricanes work guys, It's basically the same thing! it's not exactly rocket science in spotting the similarities, i don't know why you are so vehement in saying that it ISN'T a hurricane process, or why you bring shit like management and other details into it, when that is not even a necessary part of hurricanes. this tells me that you do not understand hurricane processes more than anything else. My exagerated point being: "As usual with you, this is a discussion of semantics, and pointless lol."

I think the main problem that you are having is trying to translate an aesthetic derived from technical constraints into another form that eliminates these constraints. I mean, take a look at Peris procedural FPS, he could simulate something similar to that aesthetic. My humble advice would be to try to use bigger texture sizes with less noise and bigger clean faces. Forget about the chamfered box and try to map those in bigger shapes - take a look at Peris's rooms, they are vey basic geometry with large shapes and very little fine detail in the modelling. Of course I most likely have no clue what I'm talking about. I just like to talk (write).

Yeah. I agree that the game just asks for co-op, but I think Bethesda decided that they better focusing on making what they make best then risk being bashed for implementing a poor co-op experience. If they where to make it though, it wouldn't need any fancy co-op content, just the exact same game... similarly to what Fable 3 did (the co-op features, the rest of the game fails).

Noone liked to BE on Ravenholm. Everybody loved it.

Of course all the gay sex I've been having is an unexpected bonus.

For me the game has an appeal that is hard to find in other games. The entire game is basically a blank slate where you can carve out your character. Maybe it comes from being a major RPG geek back in my youth, but I find that the more I play in Skyrim (and Oblivion, and Morrowind) the more my character takes shape. It's different from other RPG games that don't allow you the same degree of freedom: Neverwinter nights, most MMOs, Diablo etc... in all of them you ARE the saviour of the world and predestined child and the only way to advance your character is to follow that ultimate destiny. Whereas in Skyrim you are not penalized in any way for not following the main questline and becoming the Dragonborn hero. You are free to make your own adventure. Since my D&D roots make it so, I create narrative out of every action I that Skyrim lets me do to its fullest. In this regard it has some resemblance to minecraft, but instead of crafting castles and mazes I'm crafting a character. And that character lives solely in my mind, and is expressed by my singleplayer save file =P Don't expect the game to deliver the entertainment to you — that's what CoD SP has been trying to do — but try to make your own enjoyment of the game. And that's why I've sunken more than 90 hours in it already. Damn I'm a complete geek.

This is the kind of read I like: http://www.flarkminator.com/2011/11/19/ ... r-systems/

From what I get this is a 3D block similar to what a brick block from super Mario would be right? Modelling-wise it does its job, since you'll most likely have hundreds of these around. However I'm still not reading the material. Is that metal or stone?

What kind of witchcraft is this?

http://www.gamesbrief.com/2011/11/bigpo ... four-days/ Are you fucking serious? I'm not surprized that a TF2 hat sold for 1.5K dollars, or that some WoW accounts could go for a couple hundred on ebay, or that people pay some insane memberships for crazy new games. But 2000 people purchased a 1000 euro item on a relatively unknown MMO. Wonder how much the best assault rifle in the next CoD will go for?

Last time we had that episode with the bathing suit...

Thumbs up. The destructoid review is interesting, can't wait to see more!

You are onto somethig. However, never forget that the sum off the parts is bigger then it's components. Properly acknowledging what this sum of parts is is as important as being able to focus on its elements. Movies - narrative, plot, photography, acting Painting - color theory, composition, subject Games - game design, narrative, technical realization Still, I agree with you.

Was my gripe with some of the documents that where handled to me on Ubisoft, like they wanted to create a structured system to create innovative and balanced gameplay with a broad appeal by dissecting Nintendo hit games like Super Mario. It would be like ripping Rick limb by limb and spreading his insides and brain matter on a plate to try and understand his entertainingly irky attitudes. Innovation comes from doing what you know how to do over and over again until you reach that moment where you created something unmistakably brilliant. I see many wanna-be and aspiring game designers wanting to start out by doing the most awesome and innovative games possible, when they should first learn how to make a decent average game. Who knows, in the process of creating the average, you may find brilliance. But most times if you set your goal to be innovation and brilliance, you'll most likely fall behind and end up with and unfinished and unpolished piece of crappy unrealized non-potential. Edit: Whenever I go do a presentation anywhere in Brazil about game design and production I cite the example of Dice, due to the extremely widespread awesomeness that Battlefield 3 is. In 1992 they released Pinball Dreams. Ten years later, they released the first Battlefield game and almost 20 years from then, finally Battlefield 3: the biggest bad-assest game for the biggest largest enormous publisher. Go make your Pinball Dreams, Diva Starz: Mall Mania and Shrek games before you try and make something as innovative as Battlefield 1942. Who knows 20 years from now you'll be making the biggest bad-assest game for the biggest largest enormous publisher around

I agree with a lot of your reasoning, but then your conclusions are totally unrelated. I agree that I may have derailed my conclusions when you look at it like this. But remember that it came down from a line of discussion where you said that "The message of Bioshock is that you should murder people with weapons and magic powers". I just wanted to make very clear that there is room for a game's message to go beyond the gameplay, as such Gameplay =/= message. I disagree. September 12th is a toy. A very focused toy with very defined rules, but it is not measuring my success other then the ones I impose myself by interacting with it. Some can say Sim City is a toy, but the game does end if you run out of money. There is a game over, there is a way to lose, it is a game. But then... September 12th is a toy where we'll invariably and involuntarily set ourselves the goal of eliminating the Terrorists and preserving the innocents, so it is a toy that pushes the boundaries so far that it blurs with a game, and is a game so lose in it's presentation that it is a toy. There is no challenge (you always lose) and there is no game over or rules. It is not a toy, nor is it a game. I never said music is a game. I said that music can be a game, and perhaps it'll push the boundaries so hard that it stops being music! Again, I only said Gameplay =/= message to illustrate that a game can have a much more detailed message than "The message of HL2 is that you should kill soldiers and monsters, and use the gravity gun to hit people with toilets." And even if that was the case, that would still be the message. All I'm saying is that, barring Tetris, Tic-Tac-Toe or blockout, a games message can't be entirely taken from it's gameplay alone.

Anyone made it to the very large and incredibly fun to explore underground? I mean, the really expansive underground?

Awesome mask!

The sieges are so funny. I applaud their effort to try and create the feeling that you are in this epic battle, but it's mostly 20 guys running around killing each other. It's so funny when the leaders are giving their speeches, you look around you and there are only 10 guys standing around for the assault. It would have been better for them to make you part of an infiltration group or whatever, you infiltrate the city and open the gates. The funniest part was when . The "whole" army is gathered in front of the city's closed, enormously solid iron doors, while their leader gives out a speech abut the importance of this attack. Then, he yells "CHAAAARGE" and they all go towards the door and casually unlock it one after the other. Totally moodbreaker. I was expecting us to at least blow up the gates with magic or something but no, they just walk in the city and start murdering everyone. You have to see it to realize how pathetic it was. Here, this is what I meant: http://youtu.be/namvwOC9-PA?t=1m29s I know they are limited in what they can pull off... and I applaud their effort, but they failed =/

Jetsetlemming, open the console with ' and type tm (toggle menu) to get UI-free screens. Just use the up arrow and enter to bring back the menus after I love the little hidden details that are simply rewards for exploration. Like this dude here, all he had by his side was a skillbook if I remember. Still, awesome. And I also found a toppled cart on the side of a cliff road with books scattered everywhere. Makes me wonder what happened here:

I never said Blockbuster explosions and awesome cut scenes are where the fun is on videogames. I love Sim City because of the extremely polished gameplay. Sim City's gameplay is a mix of the relation between its various systems (land value, public services, taxation, pollution etc...) and the incredibly polished UI. There's no story other then the graphs and charts that show how my economy has grown from 50 years ago, and how my citizens are happier then ever! The Myst series have awesome gameplay as well (for their time and category), clever puzzles and an engaging setting and story. Do I play JRPGs because of the amazingly detailed CGI or because of the leveling and combat systems? The CGI acts as rewards for my mastery of the combat and leveling system, and if the combat and leveling systems are crap, arcane and unbalanced, no amount of CGI and explosions will make it a good game. Same goes for CoD: it breaks the records for exploding setpieces, and yet we have already grown tired of the repetitiveness and shallow gameplay (SP). I have never played (and likely won't play) Pathologic, but I'm sure that the gameplay in there is at least some fun. It may not be the main appeal of the game for you, and that's ok. But the core question is: is Pathologic a videogame? Does it have gameplay? In order to unravel the mysteries of the plot, do you need to level up, defeat any kind of monster with a set of weapons/abilities? Do you need to solve puzzles? Do these challenges feel rewarding to master? And mind you the reward doesn't need to be bigger weapons: it may as well be simply access to more of the backstory and setting. Maybe Pathologic doesn't have greatly balanced gameplay and the physics are glitchy and quests are buggy, that makes it a bad game. Can you still have enjoyment from a bad game? Surely. Does that make it a good game? No. Do you need to feel bad for liking a bad game? No! But you might as well admit that it is a bad game =P even if it has the most intriguing setting and engaging story. Now try to imagine if Pathologic had great gameplay. So great that it feels so natural to play it after learning the basics that you can enjoy everything else the game has to offer and still come out the other end with that happy feeling of accomplishment that mastering a game lets you have.

You have to go on the speechcraft skilltree to be able to invest gold in merchants. Merchants reset at every 48 in-game hours. If you are desperately stuffed and need gold, just wait/sleep and he'll have his gold replenished.

From my earlier statement: Gameplay must engage the player in an interactive fashion that challenges and rewards mastery of the mechanics according to his own expectations. The mechanics are defined by what the player can do in the game: whatever the game can read as an input. On a basic level it is only what the game can interpret in its logics and respond via an output (sound/video/motion feedback). That comprises gameplay input and output. Es.: I press space and Batman does a glide kick. Then comes the basics of rewarding the player according to his own expectations: If he presses X and Batman punches, he expects that if he presses X again he will punch again. He expects that if he punches a Bad guy the bad guy will be hurt and eventually be defeated. From here we can go one step deeper and start analyzing the gameplay not only based on the direct input/output mechanics of the game. Game and Level design, combat design, sound and graphical FX start to support the basics of gameplay I/O to deepen the experience and further reward the player: Exploring the levels via the basic movement I/O (space to jump > character jumps) with interesting platforming (rewarding mastery of the basic input). This is still gameplay because it is related to how well you coordinate the major player behaviors still defined by how far you allow the player to interact with the game. Player expectation has to do with the difficulty curve and scope of gameplay: some people like racing games, others like fighting games, others like shooters. Some people like intricate and difficult games to master, others like easy and engaging. This is a widely subjective parameter to grade gameplay, but unless something out of the basic gameplay is badly designed and hinders it (small fonts and a messy UI) it should be considered a characteristic, and not a defect of the game (combat is too difficult is a designer's decision, it's one of the differences between Devil May Cry and God of War, and is purely gameplay related). The above is what I consider to be gameplay. Again, it's not a black and white contrast of what is and what is not gameplay. Each game can have it's own gradient. To summarize, gameplay is how well the game rewards player interaction with its systems in order to engage the player. Be it basic loops of input/output (I press space and I jump, with good timing and precisely) or how these I/O loops are tied in the game's system (good platforming sequences that reward player exploration of the level boundaries). Anything else beyond that is not gameplay, but is also not irrelevant to the enjoyment of a game. Characters, narrative, sound and music, graphics, cinematics, they all serve little purpose for the gameplay itself, but they do help a great deal of immersing the player in the game's universe and help in conveying the game's message. If you take Batman: Arkham Asylum. Remove all of it's cenimatics and replace Batman, Joker and all the cast with a theme of Dogs versus Cats its still gonna be a good game with good gameplay. It may not have the same appeal, and it may not be a good product, and it will definatelly convey a different message and feelings. But the gameplay will be the same. Consider the example from "A Theory of Fun" where Koster describes a game – if I remember correctly, don't have the book with me here – about throwing prisoners in a pit for execution. You have to manage the way you throw them in the pit as to not overflow it and let them escape. When you can fill the pit entirely with their bodies, they will suffocate, die and deteriorate, making space for more prisioners. From that description you may think of a horrible game about genocide, but once you look at the other page and realize that he has reskinned tetris so that you are not anymore turning block pieces, but piling up contorted bodies, you realize that the gameplay would be as fun as tetris is. Gameplay =/= message. Gameplay is what constitutes a game, if the work is centered around gameplay, and everything else found in it is a support for that gameplay, its a game. I'm sorry for the long post. I hope it helps you understand what I see is gameplay and what is not. To further analyze your reply, everything that has gameplay is a game, but remember that we are talking about videogames here. Can a book be a game? Yes. Can a music be a game? Yes it can. But remember that the further you push the boundaries of something, more and more you run the risk of losing identity and becoming something else, or something entirely new. Just as Tower defense games pushed the boundaries of RTS games so far as to become its own category. Edit: I believe my above statements explain why QTE are so loathed by us: they are not good gameplay and are an interactive mechanic created not for the gameplay, but for the narrative and plot. In God of War they are part of the gameplay (executions, boss battles) with proper logics and gameplay I/O rewards, but on other games they are simply an interactive exception and usually end up doing more harm than good.

This post is art.

It's not a contest