It’s a Small, Virtual World

In response to “What if Everyone Could Make Videogames” from The Escapist Forum: I immediately thought of music when I saw the title of the article – there’d be great bands, awful bands, unfinished bands, wannabes … pop oriented, art for art’s sake, new ideas bubbling through the esoteric into the mainstream … political songs, loud and visceral, easy listening and fluffy …

I think if there were fewer barriers to experiment with game development, that overall we’d so more innovation in gaming. Just like music, there’d be people trying experiments for the joy of it and not to sell the most units. Elements of some of them would become popular, and we’d see many of those ideas and notions used in the mainstream games.

We already see this happening in games, through game mods and UI mods being integrated into widely published works (WoW UI mods being adopted into the Blizzard UI, and then into other games, for example). What I think we’d see open up more is story, style, and content ideas.

It’d be fun. It’d be horrifying. Sometimes, both.

– Doggabone

I think the advent of those online games you find by typing in game’s into google is an indicator of the sort of quality you’d get.

– Indigo_Dingo

I don’t think it’s a lack of easy to use tools that prevent people from designing games. We have software like RPG Maker, AdventureStudio, etc that are almost entirely point and click and incredibly easy to understand. The issue that I face most often when I’m feeling creative is trying to create assets. If you aren’t much of an artist than forget it. Either your game will look like garbage and no one will want to play it (or worse – you won’t want to finish it) or you’ll use asset packs that make your game look like everything else. What we really need is software that brings the other elements of game design to the same level of simplicity that coding is at. I’m longing to find software that will give me the flexibility of a really good character creation system so I can actually make my game look the way I want it to.

– Wolfrider

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In response to “The Virtua Corps” from The Escapist Forum: Wow…this is deep, at least to me. I never realized that there actually good battle sims. These people seems to almost loose a grip on reality, taking gaming this serious.

– [HD]Rob Inglis

I can’t speak for the group that Jim was primarily talking to. However, the one he references – Shack Tactical – is a group that I founded in January of 2006. I would not say that any of us have “lost our grips on reality”. Our attitude is one of “serious fun”, and you can find as many serious videos from us as you can find hilariously silly stuff.

– Dslyecxi

In response to “Raph Koster: The Escapist Interview” from The Escapist Forum: I love the concept, but I’m really skeptical. The closest thing that I’ve experienced to what Raph is suggesting is Bioware’s Neverwinter Nights. That’s a perfect example of a game that allows you design and host your own worlds and even link them together. I’ve never seen much linking though (actually, none)… and that’s where my concern lies. I’m struggling to see the game aspect of linked MMOGs taking off. I really can’t envision anything beyond Second Life, but with optional independent hosting… or a simple hub, linking completely separate, different games.

I mean, are a bunch of world builders going to adhere to a single set of rules, mechanics and items, allowing a single game character to exist between worlds? Wouldn’t that essentially be like one big game then? I’m really confused. Is there a solid example of what Raph is trying to achieve from a player’s perspective? I’m just not getting it. The developer’s perspective is covered quite nicely, but how does this translate to the end-user… the player?

– Echolocating

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In response to “A Bug is Just an Undocumented Feature” from The Escapist Forum: The guy who got killed by a traffic cone became a celebrity? What – a celebrity among the few dorks who think that was wildly funny? Things like that happen in every game – trust me, it’s not all that unusual or funny. If anyone thinks that’s funny they need to be exposed to more comedy.

Personally, as a simulation fan I would have liked to have seen this article mention some of the features of simulation games that some players swear are ‘bugs’, but I guess we’re in an arcade game world these days. Basically, if it ain’t Halo there’s no point in writing about it.

– Beery

While I enjoyed the article immensely I cannot understand the use of the traffic cone as an example, at least with the justification you use. Indeed a soft rubber traffic cone (which in RL are not the soft, especially the base) can break through a whole bunch of stuff, given enough momentum. We have to realize that given the physics engine and the amount of stuff in the environment, things other than bullets can and will kill us. If a Warthog can splatter a spartan (at 30mph) why can’t a 2 lb traffic cone travelling at 200mph? I don’t consider that a glitch or bug, because it was intended. The use of BXR, super-bouncing, and forcing a flag through a wall (all rampant in Halo 2) are examples of glitch exploitation, a traffic cone kill is not. Aside from that discrepency, I think the article was well written.

– SG Noodles