6 ms·

> There is so much unexplored space in the medium. We might have stripped the surface, but there is gold down there somewhere. And so the cycle continues :P

gavanwoolery 12y ago
:) Yes, pretty much. DotA was created as a small mod, and now look at the commercial explosion it has spawned, with tournaments containing $2+ million in prizes and everyone wanting to make MOBAs. I think in the past 20 years, we actually have not made as many breakthroughs in game mechanics (of course, this was easier in the early days). Games are still fairly similar to those of the 90s, only technically more complex. I think we are beginning to maybe get a better handle on game design, which I am seeing creep in with more appreciation of more obscure (now less obscure) game types like roguelikes and CCGs. Little known fact is that Plants vs Zombies was largely inspired by deck building mechanics found in Magic the Gathering, so you are beginning to see some more obscure mechanics like that get mainstreamed.
- MrMember 12y ago
  I feel like we are in a golden age of PC gaming right now. Genres completely abandoned by AAA developers ages ago are seeing a resurgence thanks to crowdsourcing. Space sims have been all but dead since Freelancer in 2003 but now there are several to play and look forward to. Formerly obscure genres like roguelikes are seeing mainstream success thanks to high quality "roguelike-like" games like FTL. Hell, even the impenetrable Dwarf Fortress brings in enough money from donations to support future development.
  - duaneb 12y ago
    > Formerly obscure genres like roguelikes are seeing mainstream success thanks to high quality "roguelike-like" games like FTL. I actually trace this to Diablo II and Torchlight. Yes, they aren't strictly rogue-likes—among other things they're realtime—but they raised excitement for the genre just the same.
    - barbs 12y ago
      I think Diablo and Torchlight were inspired by early roguelikes, but I wouldn't say the current wave of roguelikes were inspired by these games except maybe in terms of style (e.g. Binding of Isaac). FTL and Diablo 2 for example are quite different games.
    - PhasmaFelis 12y ago
      I don't think Diablo and Torchlight had any influence at all on the current surge of roguelike-likes ushered in by Spelunky and FTL, though. They basically draw on completely different aspects of the roguelike tradition: the former takes the superficial D&D-esque dungeon crawling, plus lots of high-grade polish and minus the permadeath and much of the variety. The latter instead focuses on a wildly different experience for each runthrough, with permadeath as a matter of course, and can draw the superficial surface from anything (Indiana Jones-esque platformer, top-down crew management sim...)
    - PhasmaFelis 12y ago
      I don't think Diablo and Torchlight had any influence at all on the current surge of roguelike-likes ushered in by Spelunky and FTL, though. They basically draw on completely different aspects of the roguelike tradition: the former takes the superficial D&D-esque dungeon crawling, plus lots of high-grade polish and minus the permadeath and much of the variety. The latter instead focuses on a wildly different experience for each runthrough, with permadeath as a matter of course, and can draw the superficial surface from anything (Indiana Jones-esque platformer, top-down crew management sim...)
    - Kurtz79 12y ago
      Roguelikes are defined by permadeath, quick runs and procedural generation. Diablo 2 and Torchlight have the latter, but they are quite old, and the resurgence of roguelikes is relatively recent. I believe it's just has to do with it being a very solid (and addictive) gameplay model, and one that fits much better indie games than AAA titles.
  - ekianjo 12y ago
    > I feel like we are in a golden age of PC gaming right now. Not really. Its golden Age was in the late 80s, early 90s, where games were still made by educated people FOR educated people, before the whole thing went mainstream and any sign of complexity went progressively down the drain so that Everyone could start playing games. I miss Falcon's 300 pages manual, or even Colonization's fantastic booklet that went far above describing how to just play the game. The early 90s were dominated by AAA titles from Origin, pushing both the boundaries of what was technically possible on PC as well as driving genres forward by developing non-linear game structures and exploring 3D environments. Nowadays AAA blockbusters jsut rehash the same formula over and over again (care to take another Assassin's Creed?).
    - walterbell 12y ago
      Colonization 1994 manual (135 pages): http://replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.8194 http://replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.8194 Colonization 2008 manual (38 pages): http://replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.377 http://replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.377 Edit: fixed duplicate link, thanks ekianjo.
      - ekianjo 12y ago
        You just posted the same links I think.
      - ekianjo 12y ago
        Np! Otherwise good find, which proves my above point. The first 1994 booklet had a whole essay on the History of the colonization of America, I used to read it several times after playing the game. But this was not just this game, so many others went ahead to provide tons of value besides the game itself (Ultima 7's map printed on a cloth! A classic!). This was just so much more than mere tutorials. They also help create the atmosphere of the game OUTSIDE of the game.
        Kurtz79 12y ago
        I still have the Ultima 7 map, apart from being beautiful it was fairly useful since it really helped you navigate the world. The booklets also helped the immersion, things really have changed.
  - politician 12y ago
    I wouldn't describe DF as "impenetrable", exactly, but rather as a wormhole that teleports you from Friday evening to Monday morning.
  - Morgawr 12y ago
    I have noticed an amazing resurrection of the point and click adventure genre. It is my favorite genre and I could never get enough of it when I was younger (Monkey Island, Indiana Jones, pretty much all the Lucasarts games, Phantasmagoria, etc etc). I was very sad when I noticed a total lack of point and click games between the years 2005-2012ish (more or less, obviously). Now, I see a lot more games like this coming out on Steam, Kickstarter, Indiegogo, etc etc and I am super happy.
- codexon 12y ago
  I think we are headed for the dark ages of PC gaming. Before, the top AAA studios made games with mods in mind. This allowed massive genres like Dota and Counter-Strike to come into existence. Nowadays AAA studios see modders as leeches and try to cut them out of the game so they can sell DLC and skins to whales. You can see this happening everywhere. - No modding in Blizzard's new games. - No modding in Dota2. - CS:GO and TF2: Making 3rd party servers hard to find compared to official ones. - Minecraft declaring freemium servers to be illegal The indie games on Steam Greenlight don't make up for this. It is much harder to prove a concept by making a game from scratch. Most of them are quite shoddy and get abandoned after they receive a bunch of money from early access.
  - gavanwoolery 12y ago
    Some say it is the Golden Age (see MrMember's comment), some say the Dark Age. I say there is a bit of both, but it is getting so crowded with people trying to make a buck, vs. people trying to make good games, that it is easy to be pessimistic (I definitely am in many regards). There is not enough accountability on Early Access and Kickstarter, and this is magnified by the fact that most people are not good at judging a team's ability early on (see: YogVentures, etc).
    - codexon 12y ago
      Things are still rosy because most players are not tired of the genres (MOBA / CS) that grew from the last generation of being friendly to modders. It may take a while but I forsee people getting tired of getting milked for DLCs and skins, and the major studios won't have another genre like Dota or CS to copy because they screwed over modders.
  - bkurtz13 12y ago
    Actually, just as Warcraft allowed for modding which led to Dota, Starcraft 2 supports modding. So that spirit is still alive in some form at Blizzard.
    - codexon 12y ago

gavanwoolery 12y ago

:) Yes, pretty much. DotA was created as a small mod, and now look at the commercial explosion it has spawned, with tournaments containing $2+ million in prizes and everyone wanting to make MOBAs. I think in the past 20 years, we actually have not made as many breakthroughs in game mechanics (of course, this was easier in the early days). Games are still fairly similar to those of the 90s, only technically more complex. I think we are beginning to maybe get a better handle on game design, which I am seeing creep in with more appreciation of more obscure (now less obscure) game types like roguelikes and CCGs. Little known fact is that Plants vs Zombies was largely inspired by deck building mechanics found in Magic the Gathering, so you are beginning to see some more obscure mechanics like that get mainstreamed.

MrMember 12y ago
I feel like we are in a golden age of PC gaming right now. Genres completely abandoned by AAA developers ages ago are seeing a resurgence thanks to crowdsourcing. Space sims have been all but dead since Freelancer in 2003 but now there are several to play and look forward to. Formerly obscure genres like roguelikes are seeing mainstream success thanks to high quality "roguelike-like" games like FTL. Hell, even the impenetrable Dwarf Fortress brings in enough money from donations to support future development.
- duaneb 12y ago
  > Formerly obscure genres like roguelikes are seeing mainstream success thanks to high quality "roguelike-like" games like FTL. I actually trace this to Diablo II and Torchlight. Yes, they aren't strictly rogue-likes—among other things they're realtime—but they raised excitement for the genre just the same.
  - barbs 12y ago
    I think Diablo and Torchlight were inspired by early roguelikes, but I wouldn't say the current wave of roguelikes were inspired by these games except maybe in terms of style (e.g. Binding of Isaac). FTL and Diablo 2 for example are quite different games.
  - PhasmaFelis 12y ago
    I don't think Diablo and Torchlight had any influence at all on the current surge of roguelike-likes ushered in by Spelunky and FTL, though. They basically draw on completely different aspects of the roguelike tradition: the former takes the superficial D&D-esque dungeon crawling, plus lots of high-grade polish and minus the permadeath and much of the variety. The latter instead focuses on a wildly different experience for each runthrough, with permadeath as a matter of course, and can draw the superficial surface from anything (Indiana Jones-esque platformer, top-down crew management sim...)
  - PhasmaFelis 12y ago
    I don't think Diablo and Torchlight had any influence at all on the current surge of roguelike-likes ushered in by Spelunky and FTL, though. They basically draw on completely different aspects of the roguelike tradition: the former takes the superficial D&D-esque dungeon crawling, plus lots of high-grade polish and minus the permadeath and much of the variety. The latter instead focuses on a wildly different experience for each runthrough, with permadeath as a matter of course, and can draw the superficial surface from anything (Indiana Jones-esque platformer, top-down crew management sim...)
  - Kurtz79 12y ago
    Roguelikes are defined by permadeath, quick runs and procedural generation. Diablo 2 and Torchlight have the latter, but they are quite old, and the resurgence of roguelikes is relatively recent. I believe it's just has to do with it being a very solid (and addictive) gameplay model, and one that fits much better indie games than AAA titles.
- ekianjo 12y ago
  > I feel like we are in a golden age of PC gaming right now. Not really. Its golden Age was in the late 80s, early 90s, where games were still made by educated people FOR educated people, before the whole thing went mainstream and any sign of complexity went progressively down the drain so that Everyone could start playing games. I miss Falcon's 300 pages manual, or even Colonization's fantastic booklet that went far above describing how to just play the game. The early 90s were dominated by AAA titles from Origin, pushing both the boundaries of what was technically possible on PC as well as driving genres forward by developing non-linear game structures and exploring 3D environments. Nowadays AAA blockbusters jsut rehash the same formula over and over again (care to take another Assassin's Creed?).
  - walterbell 12y ago
    Colonization 1994 manual (135 pages): http://replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.8194 http://replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.8194 Colonization 2008 manual (38 pages): http://replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.377 http://replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.377 Edit: fixed duplicate link, thanks ekianjo.
    - ekianjo 12y ago
      You just posted the same links I think.
    - ekianjo 12y ago
      Np! Otherwise good find, which proves my above point. The first 1994 booklet had a whole essay on the History of the colonization of America, I used to read it several times after playing the game. But this was not just this game, so many others went ahead to provide tons of value besides the game itself (Ultima 7's map printed on a cloth! A classic!). This was just so much more than mere tutorials. They also help create the atmosphere of the game OUTSIDE of the game.
      - Kurtz79 12y ago
        I still have the Ultima 7 map, apart from being beautiful it was fairly useful since it really helped you navigate the world. The booklets also helped the immersion, things really have changed.
- politician 12y ago
  I wouldn't describe DF as "impenetrable", exactly, but rather as a wormhole that teleports you from Friday evening to Monday morning.
- Morgawr 12y ago
  I have noticed an amazing resurrection of the point and click adventure genre. It is my favorite genre and I could never get enough of it when I was younger (Monkey Island, Indiana Jones, pretty much all the Lucasarts games, Phantasmagoria, etc etc). I was very sad when I noticed a total lack of point and click games between the years 2005-2012ish (more or less, obviously). Now, I see a lot more games like this coming out on Steam, Kickstarter, Indiegogo, etc etc and I am super happy.
codexon 12y ago
I think we are headed for the dark ages of PC gaming. Before, the top AAA studios made games with mods in mind. This allowed massive genres like Dota and Counter-Strike to come into existence. Nowadays AAA studios see modders as leeches and try to cut them out of the game so they can sell DLC and skins to whales. You can see this happening everywhere. - No modding in Blizzard's new games. - No modding in Dota2. - CS:GO and TF2: Making 3rd party servers hard to find compared to official ones. - Minecraft declaring freemium servers to be illegal The indie games on Steam Greenlight don't make up for this. It is much harder to prove a concept by making a game from scratch. Most of them are quite shoddy and get abandoned after they receive a bunch of money from early access.
- gavanwoolery 12y ago
  Some say it is the Golden Age (see MrMember's comment), some say the Dark Age. I say there is a bit of both, but it is getting so crowded with people trying to make a buck, vs. people trying to make good games, that it is easy to be pessimistic (I definitely am in many regards). There is not enough accountability on Early Access and Kickstarter, and this is magnified by the fact that most people are not good at judging a team's ability early on (see: YogVentures, etc).
  - codexon 12y ago
    Things are still rosy because most players are not tired of the genres (MOBA / CS) that grew from the last generation of being friendly to modders. It may take a while but I forsee people getting tired of getting milked for DLCs and skins, and the major studios won't have another genre like Dota or CS to copy because they screwed over modders.
- bkurtz13 12y ago
  Actually, just as Warcraft allowed for modding which led to Dota, Starcraft 2 supports modding. So that spirit is still alive in some form at Blizzard.
  - codexon 12y ago