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40oz

Favorite John Romero formspring Q/A

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Woolie Wool said:

One of the issues with exploration in modern games is that the worlds are so richly and meticulously detailed that it takes an incredible amount of effort to make an area in the game. Adding exploration means making additional areas, which vastly extend the time and cost of development (remember, professional developers don't work for free like modders do; every single thing a studio does, no matter how small, costs money). In addition, to make the worlds feel "real", modern games have scripting everywhere to make this happen when that happens. Every additional path, every new option you give the player adds more variables which exponentially increase the difficulty of scripting a level. Creating a level with the sort of exploration potential that, say, Polygon Base from the idgames archive has with the detail and craftmanship demanded by modern action gamers is virtually impossible, and it probably is completely impossible to make a level like that in a modern game unbreakable. With so many possible situations, someone's going to completely break the map and be unable to progress.

Doom maps are very simple and extremely static compared to, say, Half-Life 2 maps. The things that work for Doom do not work for modern games. I once played a mod for Half-Life 2 that had around 30 fairly nonlinear levels as a sort of tribute to Doom clones. The combination of Half-Life's assets with Doom-style level design felt bizarre and surreal--you saw the same weapons and enemies from Half-Life 2 and mapping that looks like it came from a Doom wad, only fancier-looking, but the abstract level design and lack of scripting and other "living" elements made the game feel sterile and made it painfully obvious that they were video game levels and not places. In a game like Half-Life 2, atmosphere does not work like it does in Doom.


I must ask why are they sticking to this model than? Photorealism at all costs everytime. Its paying more money for less fun. I would really like to see something like Team Fortress II in singleplayer. And by the way its not impossible to make complex non linear maps, only noone even tried that in last 5 years (or even more). With clever map design it woudnt even be so script needy.

By the way I would be interested in that HL2 mod (once I will be able to start HL2 without instaling Steam) mind posting a name?

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@NeoWorm

And to expand on that, the tools haven't evolved all that much and certainly haven't kept up with the technological advancements. More and more level geometry is being pushed out to external modeling packages which will no doubt do a good job, but it's not very dynamic once you get it into the editor.

Anyone who has worked with Doom3 and its editor will see how it feels like crafting a granite sculpture with a wooden spoon. There are no sort of macroing or motif settings. Creating a railing or a pipe for the 4 millionth time requires you to either do it from scratch or copy around existing elements and refitting them.

Another problem is the format of the maps. It's one single file for all geometry. If you just want to get in there and rearrange something in a single room or on a single column, you have to load the entire map into the editor and everything is always shown. This creates a very very slow mapping process and it isn't very encouraging. Another problem is that if you have a detailed pillar you're working on and you want to see how it fares in an array of 5 pillars, you'll have to select it piece by piece (or a clumsy bounding box selection) and then copy it over. Let's say you want to change the structure or texture of the pillars. You now have to do that on every single one of them or delete the old and copy in a new one. If the map format and the editor allowed for objects, inheritance and instancing, you could easily copy out those pillars and just work on the base copy of them, mirroring it onto the instances.

Oh well. My point is that while the graphics have evolved greatly, the actual process of creating a level hasn't moved much since then. They're doing some good things with the new crytek editor, but they still rely way too much on static models and an old mindset on how level editors should work.

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Modern game developing sounds horrifying. It's so much less of something to do and much more of a chore now.

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Shaviro said:

I don't mind jumping puzzles either....or time restricted puzzles. Developers these days are so afraid of pissing off the gamers that their games aren't even close to being challenging.

First it was a no-no to do time restricted puzzles, then it was a no-no to do jumping puzzles. Then the lethal traps were cut and now snipers are annoying. It probably goes on for a page or two.

No wonder we have these piss-easy games with zero verticality and environmental hazards.


Every single modern FPS I've ever played was harder than the Doom and Doom II IWADS so I'm not sure where you're getting this from.

NeoWorm said:

I must ask why are they sticking to this model than? Photorealism at all costs everytime. Its paying more money for less fun. I would really like to see something like Team Fortress II in singleplayer. And by the way its not impossible to make complex non linear maps, only noone even tried that in last 5 years (or even more). With clever map design it woudnt even be so script needy.

By the way I would be interested in that HL2 mod (once I will be able to start HL2 without instaling Steam) mind posting a name?


Because the customers want it. Photorealistic games sell, and as long as it's not horribly flawed in some way, Gritty Urban Modern Ops Tacticool Counterterrorism Simulator will at least recoup its multimillion-dollar budget, which is better than a lot of games do these days.

Also, Team Fortress 2 might look more stylized, but it's every bit as detailed and complicated as Half-Life 2. It's also a multiplayer game, so making believable, living single player worlds is irrelevant because the maps are all arenas with no progression or narrative.

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Really?
I remember not dying in HL2 and only a handful in Doom3, on hard difficulties, just to mention a couple of popular examples. You could add something like Prey to the list where you couldn't die at all. Generally I find most new shooters completely UNchallenging.

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Woolie Wool said:

Every single modern FPS I've ever played was harder than the Doom and Doom II IWADS so I'm not sure where you're getting this from.


The same games that have regenerating health, cover systems, and dedicated melee and grenade buttons?

No offense dude, but you must REALLY suck at shooters for that to be true. Outside of CoD: WAW, I can't think of any recent FPS that gave me shit (and WAW was only tough because of the godamn Reichstag level. Fucking grenades). And trust me, I've played a LOT.

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I'm also getting sick of games that turn the first level into some kinda action packed adventure but plays like a tutorial.

Use the left mouse button to fire your weapon!
*Displays picture of a mouse with the left mouse button highlighted in red*


Why do game developers make games with the presumption that people that will play it have never played a video game before in their life? With the involvement of infinite lives, autosaving and autoloading within every 5 minutes of gameplay a fuckton of health, there's no consequences for losing. They're constantly babying players into playing them.

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Mr. Freeze: Yes. A Doom 3 Imp poses more danger than a Doom II Hell Knight, because it's so much more difficult to dodge the Doom 3 Imp's projectiles even though the old Hell Knight is much tougher and does more damage. Doom gives you extraordinary mobility--you can dance and weave around enemies and outrun fireballs. Being able to soak up damage in Doom is not very important because you can easily avoid hits unless the enemies come in overwhelming numbers or are particularly nasty ones like Revenants or Archviles. Most modern shooters do not give you this sort of mobility.

Then again, Doom tactics are so stuck in my head that I tend to play modern shooters in much the same way I play Doom, and most of the more modern shooters I played were not that modern (2003-2006 mostly).

Aren't most of the shooters with cover systems console shooters? I refuse to play FPS games on a console because I find such games completely unplayable on a gamepad. Platform games, driving games, Ace Combat clones, and the like are great with a gamepad, but playing an FPS with one makes me feel like my character has the reflexes and agility of a fat guy coming home from a keg party. Analog sticks and FPS gaming are a match made in hell. I play FPS games with a mouse or not at all.

40oz: They want to have people who have never played video games before enjoy the game and not post idiotic Engrish-filled 0/10 reviews on IGN's user reviews because they couldn't figure it out ("Y AM I DIEING WEN PPL SHOT ME THIS GAEM SUX!!!!1111"). Keep in mind that only 20% of people read manuals.

And as for this one:

40oz said:

Modern game developing sounds horrifying. It's so much less of something to do and much more of a chore now.

From what I understand, it is. The burnout and turnover rates are very high, the hours are nightmarish, the work tedious, and your bosses treat you like shit. This goes double if you work for Electronic Arts.

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I never really had that much trouble dodging imp fireballs in doom 3, If i remember correctly the fireballs traveled about the same speed (maybe even slower) than the ones in doom and doom 2. Granted the player's movement was much slower, but even if you had increased mobility it wouldn't really matter though because the maps played like a 1024 map in doom 2 anyway. You'd be colliding into everything like a wild stallion.

And I watched my brother play a demo of Mafia 2, which has a feature in which you can find a crate or low wall or any other obstacle and press a key on the keyboard to crouch behind it which pretty much makes you invincible unless you pop out and wildly shoot at anything but the people that are trying to kill you.

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That sounds like one of those stupid light gun games they used to have at arcades, or the awful shooting sequences from Rebel Assault II that everyone hated. Eeugh.

You have to move out of cover to shoot people, right? Right?

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Of course but the game welcomes you to aim at them before you do that.

Also fuck crosshairs.

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If I were an FPS mook and some guy was hiding behind a wall waiting to take potshots at me, I would throw grenades over the wall and kill his dumb ass. Somehow I don't think these mooks are that smart.

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Shaviro said:

No I didn't mind it either. It's great with a change of scenery :P


Scenery is such a strong word to describe Xen, which was essentially blurry, vacant rock formations floating in a sky of vomit.

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To be fair, it was pretty difficult to make anything but concrete walls look like ugly badly-textured blobs in 1998. 3D technology was very primitive at the time.

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Shaviro said:

Another problem is the format of the maps. It's one single file for all geometry. If you just want to get in there and rearrange something in a single room or on a single column, you have to load the entire map into the editor and everything is always shown. This creates a very very slow mapping process and it isn't very encouraging. Another problem is that if you have a detailed pillar you're working on and you want to see how it fares in an array of 5 pillars, you'll have to select it piece by piece (or a clumsy bounding box selection) and then copy it over. Let's say you want to change the structure or texture of the pillars. You now have to do that on every single one of them or delete the old and copy in a new one. If the map format and the editor allowed for objects, inheritance and instancing, you could easily copy out those pillars and just work on the base copy of them, mirroring it onto the instances.

Hmm, seems like planning everything ahead is far more important now than with classic Doom or Quake. You need to have all the layout sketched, all the challenges planned; which is interesting, because it enforces an order when designing. You can't just start wild and hope it turns good instead of junk.

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Woolie Wool said:

To be fair, it was pretty difficult to make anything but concrete walls look like ugly badly-textured blobs in 1998. 3D technology was very primitive at the time.


Or, Half Life's textures kinda looked like crap, since Unreal also hit stores around that time and had much more convincing artwork. But yeah, thanks for the tip, I've only been gaming for 14 minutes.

Abyssalstudios1 said:

youtooobe


Wow that was hilarious!

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Shaviro said:

Oh well. My point is that while the graphics have evolved greatly, the actual process of creating a level hasn't moved much since then. They're doing some good things with the new crytek editor, but they still rely way too much on static models and an old mindset on how level editors should work.

That has to be the real reason that modern games suck! It's real bad that no one is working to modernize the tools. It has to be changed for the better, seriously. Otherwise, bad, sub-developed games will keep appearing, just because level designers were stalled by the crappy editing tools available.

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Shaviro said:

@NeoWorm

And to expand on that, the tools haven't evolved all that much and certainly haven't kept up with the technological advancements. More and more level geometry is being pushed out to external modeling packages which will no doubt do a good job, but it's not very dynamic once you get it into the editor.

Anyone who has worked with Doom3 and its editor will see how it feels like crafting a granite sculpture with a wooden spoon. There are no sort of macroing or motif settings. Creating a railing or a pipe for the 4 millionth time requires you to either do it from scratch or copy around existing elements and refitting them.

Another problem is the format of the maps. It's one single file for all geometry. If you just want to get in there and rearrange something in a single room or on a single column, you have to load the entire map into the editor and everything is always shown. This creates a very very slow mapping process and it isn't very encouraging. Another problem is that if you have a detailed pillar you're working on and you want to see how it fares in an array of 5 pillars, you'll have to select it piece by piece (or a clumsy bounding box selection) and then copy it over. Let's say you want to change the structure or texture of the pillars. You now have to do that on every single one of them or delete the old and copy in a new one. If the map format and the editor allowed for objects, inheritance and instancing, you could easily copy out those pillars and just work on the base copy of them, mirroring it onto the instances.

Oh well. My point is that while the graphics have evolved greatly, the actual process of creating a level hasn't moved much since then. They're doing some good things with the new crytek editor, but they still rely way too much on static models and an old mindset on how level editors should work.

The Valve Hammer editor allows for prefabs, for complex/repetitive objects and visgroups, so you can separate parts of your map and make them invisible in the editor so editing your map is neater and quicker. You can also cordon off a part of your map so you can compile and test it a bit at a time. I don't know about Doom 3, though. Do you still have to use GTKRadiant?

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Crouching and hiding behind obstacles is only aspect of modern 3D shooters that is really good. Gears of War is mediocre in all aspects except the combat system - with normal FPS system it would be only another Quake clone (specially in character design).
I am looking formward to Mafia II - first Mafia was considered a GTA like game, but it had one of the most chalenging shooting sequences in newer games and also had very chalenging driving sequences. The GoW-like crouching/hiding system could even further enchance tha gameplay.

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arrrgh said:

The Valve Hammer editor allows for prefabs, for complex/repetitive objects and visgroups, so you can separate parts of your map and make them invisible in the editor so editing your map is neater and quicker. You can also cordon off a part of your map so you can compile and test it a bit at a time. I don't know about Doom 3, though. Do you still have to use GTKRadiant?


What are these complex/repetitive objects you speak of?
And prefabs? Are we still talking about saving a 'map structure' in a file and then loading that geometry into the editor? If so, it's not all that helpful.

As for Doom3 you have the choice between GTKRadiant and the built-in editor. The latter supplies you with a WYSIWYG render view that the former lacks, making it more or less useless for serious editing.

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