I have been mulling over how to go about starting a thread on discussing something I have been thinking of lately. Mostly when I see people whining about games lately. I'll agree, game design has gone down the tubes since I was younger in plot. However, I feel I should make a point on a few games in particular that have been taking abuse from people on the boards here.
Yes, the NWN series, Oblivion and Morrowind all have flaws. All games do, the latter having less than the previous three mentioned. However, I remember playing Daggerfall. Which I thought was the most incredible game
ever when it first came out. It had ground breaking options that were never seen before. Morrowind stepped this up with better graphics, surreal surroundings, a more expansive world, etc, etc. It was a hit. Oblivion came and it flopped.
Why? Not just because it ended up a dumbed down version to appease the masses who wanted to kill, kill and kill without thought. No, it lacked the innovative edge that those who stumbled onto Daggerfal, or the original Myst, or Baldurs Gate fell in love with. The problem being, people are looking for specific things that don't fall in with what the game designers are trying. I have to point out, even if the game designers were catering to the wishes of most of those here, and made the games just like say, Morrowind, you would have what? Another Morrowind. With a different story, and different quests, and....it would just be like all of the mods people are putting out.
If they popped out another Baldur's Gate. People would complain that it was either just not the same, too much was change, or it was too much of the same. When you find a favorite game, it becomes immortalized in your mind. You gloss over the bad and make the good better. So, when something else comes along that happens to have a few things you don't like, it pales in comparison to that old favorite that was "perfect".
Not only that, people are missing out on the fact that first set of games I mentioned are having a different purpose. I have been reading the "I wanted a good game, not a sandbox" people throw at NWN 2. There is a new crowd that has been growing over the past 4-5 years. That of the crowd that not only wants to play a game, but
make a game.
Their game. The people that simply wanted a game with great gameplay and replay value got screwed on that. Why? The replay value isn't made into the game you play. It is made in the toolset engine.
As people become more tech savvy, and even though I am not, my generation has become astoundingly tech savvy around me, this will continue to happen. Put simply, the crowd who either wants a quick way to do some quests and kill some stuff has outnumbered those who want an intelligent game. Tossing in the group who see the game as a toolset to make their own with the actual gameplay being a neat-o showcase in what can be done in the toolset that blows away everyone else.
I wanted to start my own little independant company and make my own RPG's. However, the problem is the incredible amount of time, effort, and money that goes into creating games. Even if you went back to 8 or 16 bit graphics, there is still a lot of conceptual planning, thought, and depth going into these things. No one is willing to pay for that anymore. At least not in the amount of money necessary to fund making a game. Not enough to make people like me quit our jobs and be able to support ourselves while creating the game over the next year or three. So, unless you gather together a million people to fork over a few million dollars to loan to a game development team, it is doubtful you will get what you want out of a game.
