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He's right except for the part where he paints himself and molyneux as being in the "not suck" camp. Being a head in the clouds idealist who produces impressiv

He's right except for the part where he paints himself and molyneux as being in the "not suck" camp. Being a head in the clouds idealist who produces impressive hype for poor games is still sucking.

roc 14y ago
He's trading heavily on nostalgia and free press for his new game. Talking about Wright, Roberts and Molyneux is a way to stoke the nostalgia, and blanket blasting the industry with contentious quotes is just a way to get that free press. He doesn't have a "point" beyond that. He's not 'right' about anything of substance. If you actually drilled into Garriott's argument here -- instead of just recording 'bombshells' and briefly trying to establish some room for him to backpedal later -- his argument would dissipate into a lot of hand-waving. Because the particulars are just going to identify exceptions and display a lack of concrete evidence for his view, beyond slinging arrows at designs that 1. he personally doesn't like 2. are beyond any designers' ability to influence (e.g. things handed down, or shortcuts taken due budget/scheduling issues, etc)
- saraid216 14y ago
  Eh, he's not wrong about some things, but he's not saying anything new. It's been said before, and it's been said repeatedly for the last decade. So yeah. PR stunt.
- papsosouid 14y ago
  >He's not 'right' about anything of substance He is right that most "game designers" suck, and that the core reason is because they were people who didn't cultivate a real skill, so went through the QA -> level designer -> designer path. A path which doesn't make any sense, and for which there is very little useful training or education available. There is so little analysis of what makes games fun and how to design fun games, and 99% of game designers never see or hear about the little that is available.
  - roc 14y ago
    He gets people nodding along by saying "most stuff sucks". But the absence of examples is intentional. Because while most people will nod along to "most stuff sucks", they do not all agree on what sucks. And that goes for music, games, films, books -- essentially all arts and culture. Until he actually defines what is and is not good design, he hasn't actually made a point that can even be evaluated. The bit about the career path is somewhere between ad hominem and red herring. The path is irrelevant to the results. If bad designers are getting through, it'd be due a failure of the filter between level/encounter designer and lead designer. Not a product of whether the level/encounter designer came from QA or development or ops or whatever else. There's also no way for us to evaluate how much a given 'bad design' was a function of 'no effective training' as opposed to 'time crunch', 'no resources', 'dictate from management', 'tech limitation', or even 'novel theory that just didn't pan out'. And absent that, how could we lay the blame at the feet of career path?
    - papsosouid 14y ago
      Yes, everyone who works in the industry is wrong and doesn't know anything. Good point.
      - roc 14y ago
        Did you miss the part where we don't all agree on what it is that actually sucks? When I say "most people think most things suck, but they don't agree on what sucks" - that applies to industry people too. And nothing about their being industry people means they magically all agree on what, in particular, sucks nor in what the non-sucky alternative would be.
        papsosouid 14y ago
        No, I didn't miss it. It just is a meaningless statement and does nothing to further the conversation.
        14y ago

He's right except for the part where he paints himself and molyneux as being in the "not suck" camp. Being a head in the clouds idealist who produces impressive hype for poor games is still sucking.

roc 14y ago

He's trading heavily on nostalgia and free press for his new game. Talking about Wright, Roberts and Molyneux is a way to stoke the nostalgia, and blanket blasting the industry with contentious quotes is just a way to get that free press. He doesn't have a "point" beyond that. He's not 'right' about anything of substance. If you actually drilled into Garriott's argument here -- instead of just recording 'bombshells' and briefly trying to establish some room for him to backpedal later -- his argument would dissipate into a lot of hand-waving. Because the particulars are just going to identify exceptions and display a lack of concrete evidence for his view, beyond slinging arrows at designs that 1. he personally doesn't like 2. are beyond any designers' ability to influence (e.g. things handed down, or shortcuts taken due budget/scheduling issues, etc)

saraid216 14y ago
Eh, he's not wrong about some things, but he's not saying anything new. It's been said before, and it's been said repeatedly for the last decade. So yeah. PR stunt.
papsosouid 14y ago
>He's not 'right' about anything of substance He is right that most "game designers" suck, and that the core reason is because they were people who didn't cultivate a real skill, so went through the QA -> level designer -> designer path. A path which doesn't make any sense, and for which there is very little useful training or education available. There is so little analysis of what makes games fun and how to design fun games, and 99% of game designers never see or hear about the little that is available.
- roc 14y ago
  He gets people nodding along by saying "most stuff sucks". But the absence of examples is intentional. Because while most people will nod along to "most stuff sucks", they do not all agree on what sucks. And that goes for music, games, films, books -- essentially all arts and culture. Until he actually defines what is and is not good design, he hasn't actually made a point that can even be evaluated. The bit about the career path is somewhere between ad hominem and red herring. The path is irrelevant to the results. If bad designers are getting through, it'd be due a failure of the filter between level/encounter designer and lead designer. Not a product of whether the level/encounter designer came from QA or development or ops or whatever else. There's also no way for us to evaluate how much a given 'bad design' was a function of 'no effective training' as opposed to 'time crunch', 'no resources', 'dictate from management', 'tech limitation', or even 'novel theory that just didn't pan out'. And absent that, how could we lay the blame at the feet of career path?
  - papsosouid 14y ago
    Yes, everyone who works in the industry is wrong and doesn't know anything. Good point.
    - roc 14y ago
      Did you miss the part where we don't all agree on what it is that actually sucks? When I say "most people think most things suck, but they don't agree on what sucks" - that applies to industry people too. And nothing about their being industry people means they magically all agree on what, in particular, sucks nor in what the non-sucky alternative would be.
      - papsosouid 14y ago
        No, I didn't miss it. It just is a meaningless statement and does nothing to further the conversation.
        14y ago