Too few quality computer games?

[Baronius]

During the dawn of the computer games, the technical background (therefore the graphical and data-storing possibilities) were relatively poor, there were no giant game publisher companies and official teams working until deadlines etc.
But there were young clever and CREATIVE people, who made the best games.
A lot of new game types appeared during the long time, until nowadays.
Technical possibilites have become better and better, beautiful games were released etc.
But we must admit that the quality, but at least the FEELING of the games is not the old anymore.
Business rules all. And money. And deadlines.
They kill the creativity
They kill the games.
Certainly some good works appear today as well, but this is very rare....

[Big B]

I agree, I came in on the PC gaming scene, with King's Quest VI, and fell in love with it. At that time, I felt like there was tons of creative titles out and about and Sierra was my favorite gaming company, but now look at Sierra.

I think the one thing that can give the gaming industry the swift kick in the butt that it needs is modding. When people start making more creative mods than the actual games themselves, the game designers are going to have to up the ante so to speak. If creativity won't come top-down in the gaming industry, we'll force it bottom-up!

Note, there are some great games out, but they feel too far and in between. There's plenty of room for improvement.

[ejsmith]

Kings Quest VI rocked (almost laped into leetspeak there).

Right now, the developers (programmers) have to focus an intense amount of time on the graphics. In ages long since past, the graphics were so limited, it was the story they had to focus on. Same thing with books before radio.

It amazes me to think about, but yes; radio's inflection and "voice acting" took much more time and effort to perfect than the words in books.

Give the technology some time. It's getting there.

[Apeman]

Civilization did it for me, can a game get more simple of graphics but be more strategical. I've noticed the same trend, there are only a few companies that actually take their time. Problem also is the enormous competition of the consoles, game companies tend to make more of those games than PC games.

[Baronius]

Usually those games which were the first of their genre (which created a new genre actually) were the best.Some good clones were created too, but scarcely. And of course large development has been going inside the specific genres too (e.g. FPS: wolfenstein3d, doom 1,2, duke nukem 3d, quake 1,2,3, doom 3)
The Prince of Persia series were also excellent.
Fallout 1. Monkey Island 1,2. . The first real-time-strategies.(not cronological order, just a few examples) And so on...

[Aikanaro]

I find myself agreeing with you. One hears of all these classic games (which are impossible to buy) such as Fallout, PS:T, System Shock, Marathon and so on and so forth, yet no one raves on about IWD2, G:TOEE, or NWN as though they are the greatest games ever seen, as people did with those above which retain fans long after the game has faded into obscurity. Games of that quality and originality aren't made anymore.
What is needed is a development team which doesn't care so much about the technical aspects as the everything else. Graphics are nice, but not what I particulary care about.

[Wordplay]

Usually those games which were the first of their genre (which created a new genre actually) were the best

...And it's a shame that those companies plundered their chances as first-movers.

I don't think it it was any better in the past; if you want good games similar to them, buy shareware. They need to be innovative to sell, and graphics aren't that important. You just have become spoiled of all the good games already on the market.

For example, check www.scandinaviangames.com and their list of games currently in the market (it's a game-store, though). Compare PC to any console.

[metal leper]

The problem is, if a game doesn't look good, it won't sell (a game that was really let down by its graphics wouldn't even be published). Games have to look better, be bigger, more complex and have more features than ever before, but developers are given ridiculous deadlines... all this leads to games that look great, but are buggy and perhaps lacking in the gameplay department

[drowling]

Yeah, I've noticed too that there are only few really great games and even those suffer from occasional 'hiccups'. I would guess that one of the reasons is indeed the fact that the whole thing is a commercial enterprise, but commercial enterprises, unlike open-source projects, feature a very strong motivating factor: financial rewards. Programmers have to earn money to live, just like everyone else.

What I find really strange is that open-source communities do not produce games of BG2 caliber, considering the number of people that can get involved (plus, you don't have to buy any licences from WotC). I figure that someone with good organizational skill could pull something like this off, provided they somehow managed to get the right people. Of course, another problem in open-source is that people don't really program fulltime (they have other, money-generating things to do).

Here's an example for you: this site. I'm sure that out of the >6000 members, at least 60 (1%) are programmers. So, what prevents them, for instance, getting together to program the game while getting the advice of other 5940 members regarding how the game should be made? I'm sure that if something like this was pulled off, the greatest game of all time would be produced. So, are any of the programmers in this forum interested?

[Taluntain]

At best, 25% of that number of members are even remotely active here, so the number would be considerably smaller.

[Rastor]

There's an Open Source version of the Infinity Engine, a greatly improved one even.

Maybe one of these days a team will get together and do some stuff with it.

[Ahrontil]

You can quickly find out who on these boards are game modders. They are to be found contributing to other game developmemt boards where the actual hard work takes place. Follow them home (not literally) and join in if you have the time, skills and commitment.

Back to the topic.
The Infinity Engine still had alot of potential for the creation of new games, but was abandoned in favour of 3D as 3D was new.

Unfortunately, as most 3D games depend on OpenGL, we are seeing the same surfaces, effects, landscapes, fogs, lighting and charater control mechanisms being used over and over again in supposedly completely different games by different developers.

This perceived single 3D game engine produces bland lanscapes and relies even more heavily on the storyline than even the 2D BG did, as BG's screens where all intricately detailed and unique (ie. worth exploring).

But instead of a better storyline, a more interesting task system and attempting to create a more involving atmosphere, the 3D games concentrate on running at ten miles an hour past scenery and objects that aren't worth looking at, simply because OpenGL was designed to allow you to run at at ten miles an hour past bland scenery.

I pretty much lost my awe of 3D after Doom, and only Alien Vs Predator's wall climbing alien was much of a surprise (Thief had its moments).

It would be a brave software company that forsakes 3D in an effort to find a new dimension in gaming. Maybe some programmer will figure out why old-old-old text only adventures can sometimes be more fun to play than modern 3D games, and will translate his discovery into a game to refresh even the most jaded palette.

[drowling]

My favourite graphics engine is what can be seen in TA:Kingdoms - 2d volume-mapped terrain, 3d characters. Now I know the characters themselves are tiny, but I'm more interested in the dialogue, the inventory and spell screens. Take Neverwinter Nights' or TOEE's dialogue screens for example - are they awful or what? I don't like the floating windows, either - I think the decision to make all those things fullscreen in IE games was the correct one.

And of course, you need genuine roleplaying material at least as involved as BG2. I mean, Dungeone Siege may be good graphics-wise (and might even be a fitting platform for DnD-based games), but its RPGlite approach just ruins the whole game.

[Ahrontil]

TA: Kingdoms is a 'good' quality 2D game but is let down by a disjointed plot (created to suit the maps, not the other war around) and there being only a single strategy that can be used to win each map, making the replayability nil.

Age of Empires II: Age of Kings is an 'excellent' quality game of the exact same genre, lacking only the 'unit create/work/farm for infinity' interface option (and dragons).

Baronius, what can I say, Grecian 2000 for everybody!

Your avatar is obviously capable of going retro, and this may be an oppurtune game-slump moment for us all to follow suit, and investigate all those quality games published over the last decade that we have missed.

If anyone's personal favorites list contains any shareware medieval adventures of yore, could they post a link to them in the Playground?

[Baronius]

Shareware mediaval adventures? I might know but could you tell an example? I am not sure what games you mean.

@Rastor: How about GemRB?

[Mystra's Chosen]

A game came out a little while ago called War General or something that was basically Risk on crack. There was no 3d stuff and everything was really pixilated. Long story short it got great reviews from all the gamer mags, but it just disappeared.

I don't care what anyone says... graphics matter. BgTuTu is popular for that reason (although there are others, I think the main reason is better graphics).

I remember my favorite games from 10 years ago. Games like Alien Legacy and Betrayal at Krondor. They were wonderful... too bad I can't play them with XP. I guess I'll hafta stick with rainbow Six 3 and UT:2003.

[Foradasthar]

Yes well I just noticed that although I've never been a fan of western music, the hits of the 90's sound like heaven to me. Compared to the crud they make today.

That's to say, how do you tell the difference between the genuine advantage older games have over modern ones, from the appeal the "old and safe" has on any normal human?

Still, I do agree that most games today just seem cheap copies with nice graphics stamped on them.

But I also think the graphic itself is the negative thing as well. Many games suffer from the fact that their graphics are so awesome it's almost realistic, but the physics and interactive nature of the world are on the same level as 5 years ago. This makes the dilemma of a player expecting far more than the game has to offer. That's why ugly older games seem better to me, I think. Because you know their limits, and therefore it's easy to accept them and let your imagination handle the rest.

[Ahrontil]

Cometh the hour, cometh the Game.

In this, the Game Industry's darkest hour, a new Medieval Quest game has appeared that encapsulates all that the Industry has become over so many decades.

It is free (horray), it is online (horray), and it works from a normal (Flash enabled) browser and with the arrow keys.

The sounds only works after the first quest is completed. Please allow the Flash Animation to complete its run.

The multiplayer version is not expected for some time, but here's hoping.

Quest for the Crown

Credit should be given where Credit is due. I expect even Interplay will have trouble producing a program of this calibur, now that its office managers out number its programmers

[Foradasthar]

Haha! I got through!

Man, it took like 20 hours but I did it! Damn the end was hard. I slipped every time I had to make that last step. Finally succeeded though!

Sheesh, been a while I felt this euphoria!

[The Kilted Crusader]

What a struggle!

[Mystra's Chosen]

I don't understand how you guys beat that! Those little white dots had me floudering in confusion!