71 replies to this topic

[3Dude]

I really didn't want to say anything because I didn't want people to know I sold gamestop a bad Wii U, but.... that Wii U I sold had a tv fall on it and the fan became loud. Gamestop gave me full tradein value for it though. I tried to just casually mention it to them and they said, "We decide what works and what doesn't. It looks fine" It still sounded like a chainsaw playing Sonic Boom.

Of course it might have held up. And I did want a vita at the time.

Maybe thats just because it was being forced to play sonic boom?

[NintendoReport]

It's cool. TheWiiU.com still likes ya AllMyFriendsAreGhosts..

 

now let's continue dat HYPE!

Maybe thats just because it was being forced to play sonic boom?

 

The game was stuttering even with the Wii U off.

[BrosBeforeGardenTools]

If I buy another Wii U, it will be for Splatoon. Having a Nintendo battle online game seems like the closest thing I'll get to playing an online The Last Story again. But I have nothing else bad to say about Zelda U or Xenoblade X either.

[3Dude]

If I buy another Wii U, it will be for Splatoon. Having a Nintendo battle online game seems like the closest thing I'll get to playing an online The Last Story again. But I have nothing else bad to say about Zelda U or Xenoblade X either.

It... is possible to play the last story online again...

http://wiki.tockdom....ct#Game_Patcher

http://forum.wii-hom...p/Thread/52923/

[Bill Cipher]

Good to see that it's already been beaten into the ground about File size and such.

What's impressive about Xenoblade Chronicles X to me at least is that it's running on the Wii U. Like, it's massive in scale at over 12 times Skyrim's size, actually has interesting design, If it's anything like XBC it will have amazing gameplay, music, and story, and it's running on something that is bottom tier in terms of power this generation but still looks better then most of the current PS4 games(minus resolution).

Only complaints I have is resolution wise, but it's running on the Wii U with this stuff. Nintendo struck gold with Monolith

[3Dude]

Good to see that it's already been beaten into the ground about File size and such.

What's impressive about Xenoblade Chronicles X to me at least is that it's running on the Wii U. Like, it's massive in scale at over 12 times Skyrim's size, actually has interesting design, If it's anything like XBC it will have amazing gameplay, music, and story, and it's running on something that is bottom tier in terms of power this generation but still looks better then most of the current PS4 games(minus resolution).

Only complaints I have is resolution wise, but it's running on the Wii U with this stuff. Nintendo struck gold with Monolith

Its almost like system power is not whats been holding HD games back, but design skill.

[NintendoReport]

 

 

solid point. shame to say it. but many devs should go back to basics.

Its almost like system power is not whats been holding HD games back, but design skill.

[Socalmuscle]

I kind of made a booboo I see. I'll just let this garbage go. I don't want to be the next WydrA.

It's called looking for something that's not there to prove a point that doesn't exist.

But we've all been guilty of that at some point.

Then we learn to be less dogmatic when speaking of things that are based on ideas and opinions.

[Marcus]

I'd love to know what they actually include in their calculations of world size. If there's a lake that's 1mile x 1mile in area with an interesting island at the centre of it, I'm betting they include that whole square mile in their arithmetic. Which is kinda cheating. 

[3Dude]

I'd love to know what they actually include in their calculations of world size. If there's a lake that's 1mile x 1mile in area with an interesting island at the centre of it, I'm betting they include that whole square mile in their arithmetic. Which is kinda cheating.

No, cheating would be having 12 out of your 30 square miles being ocean with absolutely nothing at all in them whatsoever, and then advertising that it was a 50 square mile map, instead of a scaled version of a 50 square mile map that was actually 30 square miles.

Besides, water travel was always a risk/reward with xenoblade, as thats where typically high level fish mobs like to hang out and call all their lv 70 buddies to wreck you if you arent fast/sneaky enough.

In all honesty, the explorable real estate of this game is likely much larger than the 2d map measurements they provided.

Monolithsoft develops vertically stacked games. They have layers on layers.




In skyrim mountains were background objects blocked off by invisible walls.

In Xenoblade a mountain is a hollowed out dungeon labyrinth. You know, once you fly all the way to the top and into the hollow peak.

The actual square footage of explorable real estate is going to be considerably larger than the flat 2d quote of 400 square kilometers. Much different than most western open world games who claim to have large maps, and then have large portions of them completely off limits and unreachable.

Welcome back to the long forgotten videogame world, of not being lied to by marketing machines.

[BanjoKazooie]

In skyrim mountains were background objects blocked off by invisible walls.

in Xenoblade a mountain is a hollowed out dungeon labyrinth. You know, once you fly all the way to the top and into the hollow peak.

 

Well some of them were, but there was actually a massive amount of mountains that could be climbed and a huge amount of dungeons (cookie cutter yes, but still worth exploring) within the mountains. While skyrim's world space is considerably less than XBX, the game world was ingeniously designed with the layout of mountains to appear much larger than it actually was.  I am in no way degrading the genius of the people at monolith, who I agree can layer a world with amazing skill to add tons of 3 dimensional  space, but I am arguing that Skyrim is also designed quite fantastically when you come to terms that the world is no bigger than its predecessor (even a little smaller) but feels enormous do the the elevation differences added.  Almost any open world game uses mountains or ocean to conceal invisible boundaries, even Xenoblade.  It will be interesting to see how XBX is received in the west, and to see if it lives up to its hype.

Edited by BanjoKazooie, 10 February 2015 - 05:03 PM.

[Socalmuscle]

Well some of them were, but there was actually a massive amount of mountains that could be climbed and a huge amount of dungeons (cookie cutter yes, but still worth exploring) within the mountains. While skyrim's world space is considerably less than XBX, the game world was ingeniously designed with the layout of mountains to appear much larger than it actually was.  I am in no way degrading the genius of the people at monolith, who I agree can layer a world with amazing skill to add tons of 3 dimensional  space, but I am arguing that Skyrim is also designed quite fantastically when you come to terms that the world is no bigger than its predecessor (even a little smaller) but feels enormous do the the elevation differences added.  Almost any open world game uses mountains or ocean to conceal invisible boundaries, even Xenoblade.  It will be interesting to see how XBX is received in the west, and to see if it lives up to its hype.

I have to agree on some points.

Skyrim was an amazing game in its own right.

For the type of game it is, the graphics were good, the scope of the game was big, the various quests were fun, and the upgrade/leveling systems were decent.

What wasn't cool was walking up a mountain, then looking down to where you were going and seeing a bunch of squares with the same pattern on them. Then realizing that was actually the ground.

What also wasn't cool was the game just flat out freezing and having to restart the whole console.

Or the glitches/missed animation frames that somehow ended up getting you killed.

Or taking the time to explore as far to the map edge as you can, almost getting there and seeing something interesting....and not being able to get there.

But I have to admit, I still enjoyed it. Bugs and all. Put a ton of time into it and did everything there was to do. And beat the ebony armor dude easy.

In the early stages, the game held so much promise. But the limitations and incredible repetition began to show quickly.

It's was fun for a while. However, I doubt I'd be able to play a game as poorly cobbled together as that one was again.

Then there is X. It ticks all the same boxes that Skyrim held for me and MORE.

and from a company with a reputation for quality.

A nintendo quality game with very high production values? Yes please.

[Raiden]

Well some of them were, but there was actually a massive amount of mountains that could be climbed and a huge amount of dungeons (cookie cutter yes, but still worth exploring) within the mountains. While skyrim's world space is considerably less than XBX, the game world was ingeniously designed with the layout of mountains to appear much larger than it actually was.  I am in no way degrading the genius of the people at monolith, who I agree can layer a world with amazing skill to add tons of 3 dimensional  space, but I am arguing that Skyrim is also designed quite fantastically when you come to terms that the world is no bigger than its predecessor (even a little smaller) but feels enormous do the the elevation differences added.  Almost any open world game uses mountains or ocean to conceal invisible boundaries, even Xenoblade.  It will be interesting to see how XBX is received in the west, and to see if it lives up to its hype.

Skyrim was garbage. Designed horribly in every sense,as a game as a world. Bethseda is incapable of making a game half decent. They use 20 year old mechanics that were not even that good then. PS2 era world design if that. Broken mess as every single ES game past Daggerfall has been trash. The combat has yes to change since ES Arena. It was stiff awkward and broken then and still is.

 

 Bethseda is another AAA developer who gets free passes for being lazy and rewarded for putting out trash. There is more money and effort put into the marketing than the actual game.

Edited by Ryudo, 10 February 2015 - 06:53 PM.

[3Dude]

Well some of them were, but there was actually a massive amount of mountains that could be climbed and a huge amount of dungeons (cookie cutter yes, but still worth exploring) within the mountains. While skyrim's world space is considerably less than XBX, the game world was ingeniously designed with the layout of mountains to appear much larger than it actually was.  I am in no way degrading the genius of the people at monolith, who I agree can layer a world with amazing skill to add tons of 3 dimensional  space, but I am arguing that Skyrim is also designed quite fantastically when you come to terms that the world is no bigger than its predecessor (even a little smaller) but feels enormous do the the elevation differences added.  Almost any open world game uses mountains or ocean to conceal invisible boundaries, even Xenoblade.  It will be interesting to see how XBX is received in the west, and to see if it lives up to its hype.

The vast majority of them were. The number of mountains you could actually scale, and werent props blocked off by invisible walls can be counted on your hands.

The games world is HORRIBLY designed, using a much loathed shortcut that should have died with the n64 era called spatial compression. Often called potato land/ potato scape, potato worlds, etc.

"You are Krutor, a wild barbarian from the land of Morkroch. You have travelled a very long journey, across high mountains to the famous imperial city of Lhota, the capitol of the world and largest agglomeration in the known universe, whose fame touches the stars.

The city consists of precisely fifteen buildings (one of which is the imperial palace); the town is inhabited by 30 NPCs, including Emperor Lojza, Archmage Lotrando and all of the members of the guilds of thieves, mages and warriors.

You visit the emperor, who sits alone in the throne hall, and he assigns you with an quest. The land is terrorised by an evil dragon from hell and Lojza is powerless. He has sent an entire imperial army against it, but the monster has killed all five soldiers. Now, he needs a hero like you! You have to find and climb the mystical mountain, Lohen, on which no human has ever set foot, and behead the dragon.

You accept the quest and set out from the town gate. The mystic mountain Lohen is precisely 150 metres from the gate and is about 50 metres high. All of the inhabitants of the city are either not good, blind or crippled if they have not managed to notice it for centuries. After an approximately 30-metre walk to the mountain, you come to ‘no man’s land’ and are attacked by bandits. During another 120m walk to the peak, you also notice an ancient fortress Rumloch, a secret dungeon of doom and a bandit hideout. At the peak of the mountain, you kill a one-hundred-metre dragon by beating its foot with a rusty sword and drinking potions. Then, you rob the corpses of the imperial army (all five) and on the way back to the castle are killed by a wild boar.

Welcome to an average RPG.

This environment compression however negatively affects the graphics. In order to place a castle, cave or bandit camp every ten metres, you have to create a lunar landscape and hide the locations in nonsensical craters or beyond a hills that you must make as high as possible so that it would not be possible to see very far behind them. The result is an environment which is miles away from a real landscape, it is absolutely impossible to orientate within it without a map and in most cases looks bad. I call it a potato landscape, because the terrain surface is reminiscent of a potato’s surface.'

Its a bad, old, used up design trope that needs to die in fire.

This was originally done because games simply couldnt handle the actual scale, it was a shortcut and a compromise pioneered by games like the first 3d zeldas, and the sandbox equivilant by modern elderscrolls (Notably after elderscrolls 2, which was a computer generated landscape, that really WAS that big....) instead of artist designed landscapes). Unfortunately, instead of realizing this was a shortcut and a compromise, it was just aped into oblivion, even long after the power to do more was plentily available.

This is done so that players (Purposefully conditioned) ever dwindling attention spans are given a trinket every 10 feet so the game doesnt feel boring, because todays game designers are simply not capable of designing a world that is just plain interesting to explore, or fixing problems with traversal, they choose to focus on either designing a game that is small with stuff every 10 feet, or one that is big, where you move really fast over vast quantities of nothing, because none of them want to take the time, or are even capable, of doing both. Todays world designers are not capable of transitioning the snes era rpg/adventure game worlds into proper 3d. We are still using all the same shortcuts to fake them. Modern publishers feel that kind of time and money is far better spent on marketing. Which is why all those 'if you can see it you can go there' blurbs are pretty much all lies.

Xenoblades guilds arent mage guilds theives guilds assassins guilds- the standard and run into the ground tropes, who all have the same objectives, kill mofos. They are Cartographers, treasure hunters, philanthropists, resource gatherers, technology creators... And then, only two of the 8 are directly focused on killing things.

Since your only method of interaction with the world is no longer fricking killing everything in it, or talking to the guy who tells you to go around the corner and kill everything in it, it doesnt have to be designed around the ludonarrative dissonance, of your only interaction with the world is killing the crap out of it, so that you are killing a bunch of bandits around a fire place, or a ramshackle village, (Full of people you are obviously going to kill and reload and kill, in a variety of ways) where you are told to go kill.

THis spot is good for a data probe, this spot has a peice of wreckage to salvage, this spot has good resources to send back to the town, this spot has a lifepod full of people to recover, and yes, this spot has herds of dangerous creatures to subjegate, and that spot over there has an extra powerful unique monster.

Since there is so much to do, you dont have to design the game around not showing that everything is literally the same exact thing (mofos to kill, or mofos telling you who to kill), and its all right next to each other... You can move beyond the potato landscape design.

Which means, now 90% of the mountains are no longer off limit barriers with invisible walls there to make sure you dont find out the big bad guy who you are supposed to journey across vast distances to kill, is really just 50 feet behind the hut you accepted the quest from, on the otherside of the mountain. you are just forced to go the long way, all the way around.

No short cuts, no cop outs, no potato design.

[Marcus]

That's some pretty heavy Bethesda criticism. I do agree on what you're calling spatial compression as a form of bad game design. The difference between Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 3 is a great example of this. Mass Effect 3 is so clearly designed to appeal to a mainstream audience that you have to have a consistent list of attractions at every single location in the game. Mass Effect 1 feels more like a more believable universe. Planets you explore are mostly barren and empty. There are whole areas in the various "hub" locations that are completely meaningless, but are simply there to be explored. I remember 1 part on the Citadel, you run down a long corridor to someone's office. There's no-one in there. And nothing of interest throughout the entire game. That's actually a good thing. It makes it a more believable world.

[3Dude]

That's some pretty heavy Bethesda criticism. I do agree on what you're calling spatial compression as a form of bad game design. The difference between Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 3 is a great example of this. Mass Effect 3 is so clearly designed to appeal to a mainstream audience that you have to have a consistent list of attractions at every single location in the game. Mass Effect 1 feels more like a more believable universe. Planets you explore are mostly barren and empty. There are whole areas in the various "hub" locations that are completely meaningless, but are simply there to be explored. I remember 1 part on the Citadel, you run down a long corridor to someone's office. There's no-one in there. And nothing of interest throughout the entire game. That's actually a good thing. It makes it a more believable world.

Oh man, mass effect. So much potential. I wqas SOOOOO excited when it was first revealed. Back when it was on track to being what it was supposed to be.

Mass effect 1 was an attempt at making a modern starflight. A failed attempt, likely at the hands of EA meddling (Sigh... Believe it or not, once, long long ago, EA was a trailblazing publisher house with a stable of fantastic, wondrous, original games... Like starflight), but you could very clearly see the bones of the beast they were attempting to make, and it would have been AMAZING.

EA likely nixed the star flight idea, because they knew a game that lived and died by the players own wit and cleverness, and intrinsic drive to explore and progress, would only appeal to a small, fraction of people. But a game full of follow the on screen beacon to the cutscenes and dramatic depictions of faux challenge? Well that would grab all the low hanging fruit.

So mass effect stopped being starflight, and became AAAAAAAAAA game in space.

You can still see it though. What could have been. The planets are barren and empty now, but thats not a bad thing. In starflight so was pretty much every planet, inhabited planets co-ordinates were feircley gaurded by their species, to say nothing of the home planets themselves, finding one, was quite the boon... If you could take it) you werent looking for npc's to talk to on those planets, you were looking for MONEY in a variety of ways, biggest paychecks were finding planets humans can live on, you can still see it in the descriptions in mass effect, some of them were clearly uninhabitable, some of them were perfect for human life. In starflight finding a planet that was habitable got you a fat paycheck (Of course, you actually had to be SMART ENOUGH to decide, on your OWN, if a planet was hosptitable to human life, sending in a planets co-ords that wasnt ended up leaving you with the fee for the governemnts wasted money.

The land rover zipped around, with its little jump jets, and you could find minerals, and salvage wrecks. Pointless in the mass effect we got, but the life blood of star flight and the mass effect that almost was. Exploring planets would yield cash, either through minerals found that could be mined, native creatures captured and sold for research, and occasionally information on the impending disaster and what happened in the past.

All this could be sold, for money, money that could be used to upgrade your ship, your rover, your crew (Certain species were the best at certain jobs, and beig better at a job affected how the ship performed, but hiring multiple crew members for positions even thought they all arent actively on board was a good idea, because the aliens in star flight could be extremely racist, and would not give you the time of day if you had a crew member of a race they hated on board)

Upgrading your engines made more effecient use of endurium, the fuel used by starships throughout the universe (Heh...), so you could explore farther in the universe before turning back, upgrading your weapons made your ship not only more survivable, but more formidable, races of belligerent cowards became far more polite and talkative when you could blow them into space toast. Upgrading your planet rover meant it could go over water, jump jet across rocky terrain, use fuel more effeciently, and gather more resources for money.

Eventually the ship would be upgraded enough that the player could break free of the nearby galaxies and star systems and explore deep unknown space, ancient abandoned space ships repeating the same message for thousands of years, rediscover earth, find out what happened to it, find clues to what was going to happen to the rest of the universe, and using their own functional brains, players put those clues together, and discover the shocking truth about what was destroying the universe and why and where and how to put a stop to it.

We didnt get any of that, just the left over skeletons of what it almost was.

That was all completely removed after me1. Completely. Any notions to modern starflight were almost completely erased, with only an extremely simplified version of alien diplomacy via the conversation trees remaining... And even that became pointless by the end. Mass effect became AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA game in space. Sigh... What could have been...

[BanjoKazooie]

The vast majority of them were. The number of mountains you could actually scale, and werent props blocked off by invisible walls can be counted on your hands.

The games world is HORRIBLY designed, using a much loathed shortcut that should have died with the n64 era called spatial compression. Often called potato land/ potato scape, potato worlds, etc.

"You are Krutor, a wild barbarian from the land of Morkroch. You have travelled a very long journey, across high mountains to the famous imperial city of Lhota, the capitol of the world and largest agglomeration in the known universe, whose fame touches the stars.

The city consists of precisely fifteen buildings (one of which is the imperial palace); the town is inhabited by 30 NPCs, including Emperor Lojza, Archmage Lotrando and all of the members of the guilds of thieves, mages and warriors.

You visit the emperor, who sits alone in the throne hall, and he assigns you with an quest. The land is terrorised by an evil dragon from hell and Lojza is powerless. He has sent an entire imperial army against it, but the monster has killed all five soldiers. Now, he needs a hero like you! You have to find and climb the mystical mountain, Lohen, on which no human has ever set foot, and behead the dragon.

You accept the quest and set out from the town gate. The mystic mountain Lohen is precisely 150 metres from the gate and is about 50 metres high. All of the inhabitants of the city are either not good, blind or crippled if they have not managed to notice it for centuries. After an approximately 30-metre walk to the mountain, you come to ‘no man’s land’ and are attacked by bandits. During another 120m walk to the peak, you also notice an ancient fortress Rumloch, a secret dungeon of doom and a bandit hideout. At the peak of the mountain, you kill a one-hundred-metre dragon by beating its foot with a rusty sword and drinking potions. Then, you rob the corpses of the imperial army (all five) and on the way back to the castle are killed by a wild boar.

Welcome to an average RPG.

This environment compression however negatively affects the graphics. In order to place a castle, cave or bandit camp every ten metres, you have to create a lunar landscape and hide the locations in nonsensical craters or beyond a hills that you must make as high as possible so that it would not be possible to see very far behind them. The result is an environment which is miles away from a real landscape, it is absolutely impossible to orientate within it without a map and in most cases looks bad. I call it a potato landscape, because the terrain surface is reminiscent of a potato’s surface.'

Its a bad, old, used up design trope that needs to die in fire.

This was originally done because games simply couldnt handle the actual scale, it was a shortcut and a compromise pioneered by games like the first 3d zeldas, and the sandbox equivilant by modern elderscrolls (Notably after elderscrolls 2, which was a computer generated landscape, that really WAS that big....) instead of artist designed landscapes). Unfortunately, instead of realizing this was a shortcut and a compromise, it was just aped into oblivion, even long after the power to do more was plentily available.

This is done so that players (Purposefully conditioned) ever dwindling attention spans are given a trinket every 10 feet so the game doesnt feel boring, because todays game designers are simply not capable of designing a world that is just plain interesting to explore, or fixing problems with traversal, they choose to focus on either designing a game that is small with stuff every 10 feet, or one that is big, where you move really fast over vast quantities of nothing, because none of them want to take the time, or are even capable, of doing both. Todays world designers are not capable of transitioning the snes era rpg/adventure game worlds into proper 3d. We are still using all the same shortcuts to fake them. Modern publishers feel that kind of time and money is far better spent on marketing. Which is why all those 'if you can see it you can go there' blurbs are pretty much all lies.

Xenoblades guilds arent mage guilds theives guilds assassins guilds- the standard and run into the ground tropes, who all have the same objectives, kill mofos. They are Cartographers, treasure hunters, philanthropists, resource gatherers, technology creators... And then, only two of the 8 are directly focused on killing things.

Since your only method of interaction with the world is no longer fricking killing everything in it, or talking to the guy who tells you to go around the corner and kill everything in it, it doesnt have to be designed around the ludonarrative dissonance, of your only interaction with the world is killing the crap out of it, so that you are killing a bunch of bandits around a fire place, or a ramshackle village, (Full of people you are obviously going to kill and reload and kill, in a variety of ways) where you are told to go kill.

THis spot is good for a data probe, this spot has a peice of wreckage to salvage, this spot has good resources to send back to the town, this spot has a lifepod full of people to recover, and yes, this spot has herds of dangerous creatures to subjegate, and that spot over there has an extra powerful unique monster.

Since there is so much to do, you dont have to design the game around not showing that everything is literally the same exact thing (mofos to kill, or mofos telling you who to kill), and its all right next to each other... You can move beyond the potato landscape design.

Which means, now 90% of the mountains are no longer off limit barriers with invisible walls there to make sure you dont find out the big bad guy who you are supposed to journey across vast distances to kill, is really just 50 feet behind the hut you accepted the quest from, on the otherside of the mountain. you are just forced to go the long way, all the way around.

No short cuts, no cop outs, no potato design.

Look, I'm not saying Skyrim is the best game ever, and I am certainly not saying Xenoblade looks worse, but I have to disagree with your brutal comments about Skyrim.  I definitely believe that they did use some cheap methods to make the world, and it should have had an extra year of development because the original release was almost unplayable.  But it was a game with about 3 years of solid development, and I believe that part of the reason the game is designed the way it is is because of the modding community, which consists almost entirely of amateurs, and Bethesda literally supplies all of us with beautiful kits to mod the game. After 5-10 mod downloads, the game world can be completely overhauled into literally whatever you want it to be! Also, if you ever listen to Todd Howard (the producer of ES 3-5) he agrees with many of the points you make, such as lazy developers and what not.  While Skyrim is in now way a perfect game, it is also by no means a terrible game, and I think most of the Gaming community would back me up with that.  Compared to today'sAAA carp such as CoD, Assassin's Creed, and all the other movies trying to be games that get released, Skyrim is far superior. It may be a tired rehash of a formula that has been used for 20 years, but it doesn't pretend to be anything else, and it is a formula that works and that I enjoy.

 

I am extremely excited for Xenoblade X, as I have just finished the first, and I do agree that the world design is fantastic and beautiful.  I will admit I have only a fraction of the technical knowledge that you do, but I like it that way because the less thinking I do then the more pure enjoyment I can get out of these games.

[Raiden]

He's 100% correct tho. Bethseda uses skating walking animation because mods. Yeah sure...riiiiiight. They on purpose designed something terrible so modders can take advantage.We make crap give us money so you can fix it. That's a great company you got there. That's honestly pretty pathetic.

Bethseda when they were a small team in maryland worked extra hard esp as they were in competition with a bunch of brands that now they own. Once they got big they did what many do when the competition is gone. They get complacent as a company. 2006 Sony promised us the era of skating walking animation is a thing of the PS2 era. Dead. Gone. Yet here we are with Bethseda and the Souls games and other developers that can't even do basic walking animation. Nope 6 inches above ground walking on ice..before the glitches kick in of standing 8 feet in the air.

 

Shadowrun Returns was made with a specific engine and runs pretty dang bulletproof and a lot of mods. Skyrim using creation engine that was hastily put together and a pile of bug ridden garbage. Not been used on anything since. Ever since they got ahold of ID tech they have seemed to have disposed of CE. Xenoblade on Wii engine is unbreakable.

 

They are sloppy games. Generic as can be characters and environments. Dated mechanics. Dated design. Sloppy games full of problems that people attack ACU for but give Bethseda a free pass. People can like fast food but don't try and act like Burger King is is a 5 star restaurant.

Edited by Ryudo, 11 February 2015 - 08:34 PM.

[3Dude]

Look, I'm not saying Skyrim is the best game ever, and I am certainly not saying Xenoblade looks worse, but I have to disagree with your brutal comments about Skyrim.  I definitely believe that they did use some cheap methods to make the world, and it should have had an extra year of development because the original release was almost unplayable.  But it was a game with about 3 years of solid development, and I believe that part of the reason the game is designed the way it is is because of the modding community, which consists almost entirely of amateurs, and Bethesda literally supplies all of us with beautiful kits to mod the game. After 5-10 mod downloads, the game world can be completely overhauled into literally whatever you want it to be! Also, if you ever listen to Todd Howard (the producer of ES 3-5) he agrees with many of the points you make, such as lazy developers and what not.  While Skyrim is in now way a perfect game, it is also by no means a terrible game, and I think most of the Gaming community would back me up with that.  Compared to today'sAAA carp such as CoD, Assassin's Creed, and all the other movies trying to be games that get released, Skyrim is far superior. It may be a tired rehash of a formula that has been used for 20 years, but it doesn't pretend to be anything else, and it is a formula that works and that I enjoy.
 
I am extremely excited for Xenoblade X, as I have just finished the first, and I do agree that the world design is fantastic and beautiful.  I will admit I have only a fraction of the technical knowledge that you do, but I like it that way because the less thinking I do then the more pure enjoyment I can get out of these games.

Im not just singling skyrim out, its AAA gaming, I just gave mass effect the same medicine, this is what happens when big business steps into videogames.

How big of business?



This big. Yes, the Trump family has a stake in Bethseda software, Robert trump, Donalds brother, is a cheif on the board of directors of Bethseda software.

The trumps get more say on where elder scrolls go than the programmers and artists who created the series.

Elder scrolls has always been glitchy, Daggerfall is NOTORIOUS for being impossible to beat due to the main quest line inevitably glitching out. But the game was so vast, and so groundbreaking at its time, and there was so much to do, that we didnt care.

I STILL play my active daggerfall save file to this day, and I STILL find new content, some of which is completely undocumented. In fact, I moved that save file onto my smart phone and I play it with dox box.

The problem is,the series hasnt gone anywhere. We are still doing the same quests, in the same way, with the same controls, and its still a broken buggy mess. The only thing thats changed is the graphics.

Back when it was a super ambitious 30,000 square kilometer epic in the 90's, that was okay. Today, when its a 37 square kilometer buggy mess, using the same design tropes since the 90's, its not OK, no matter HOW much better it looks. Randomly generated samey worthless dungeons, are not ok. A heightmap generated world, with assets dropped in on top, is not OK. The god awful combat and collision detection, is not OK.

Its a misnomer to say 'lazy developers', because developers are anything but. They are overworked, underpaid, and abused to no end. And EVEN STILL practicallyno developer will ever just say 'aww screw it' and put their name on something they know is a terd. Thats what publishers force them to do.

Publishers force them to work 120+ hours a week during 'crunch time' with no overtime pay, not caring about the fact that kind of work scheduele and sleep deprivation makes quality go to hell. Publishers are the ones who set deadlines their devs tell them are impossible, and then make them ship an incomplete product anyways.

"This is an age-old software development issue: reasonable scope on a reasonable schedule," says Keith Fuller, an experienced developer and production consultant who spent over a decade working on Activision projects like Jedi Academy, Quake 4 and Call of Duty: Black Ops before going independent. "Our ongoing inability to properly address it is rooted in leadership issues."


"Developers rarely get to tell Marketing 'We can ship it now, we fixed all the bugs,'" notes Fuller. "Rather, the marketing department will tell you when you're launching regardless of fixing bugs. If you want that arrangement to change, figure out how to sell millions of units without telling anyone your game exists."

"The last game I worked on as a studio dev was Call of Duty: Black Ops, and Activision's legal team would go into cardiac arrest if I shared with you how few months before launch that game was almost entirely unplayable," says Fuller. "That's due to the pressure of annual franchise installments and the competitive landscape."

"Addressing this cycle is beyond the realm of development and it's sad that we think this is a development issue," says Keith. "Developers get the short end of both sticks: death marches and the blame for low quality. The solution is to address this culture."



I am adressing this culture. I do not support it, I do not support the way the Devs are treated, and I do not support what it does to the end product. Our industries talent are being worked to illness and exahustion, our games are becoming monotonous homogenous crap, and publishers are just raking in the money without giving a single rainbow.

Xenoblade isnt getting so much support from me because its going to be a fantastic game. Its going to be a fantastic game becuase mnonolith soft flies in the face of AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA publisher developer abuse culture, AND makes better games.

http://www.siliconer...-place-to-work/

“One of the big opportunities that put the appointed weekly hours into action came from the 2006 occupational safety and health act revision, which demanded a more thorough employee time management,” says director Yasuyuki Honne. He further shares his beliefs that development styles which anticipate overtime work have already reached their limit. With that in mind, Monolift Soft’s company motto, “Zero overtime and creative work allowed” is what they now go by.

“Playing and having fun is the most important part. It’s the key to bringing out the fun in graphics,” says Genbe, as he explains that those are the deep feelings they share at Nintendo, which he has learned since joining. According to the designer, he has also learned to put his time to better use, thanks to the results of the appointed weekly hours.

“When the work starts to overflow, the leader immediately reviews the schedule accordingly. I spend my weekends on hobbies and polishing my skills using ZBrush at home,” Genbe explains, addressing how the lenient schedule has been a great benefit, by providing him with free time to relax and brush up on his abilities as a designer.

“Not only have my skills grown as an artist, but I feel as if I’ve matured more as a person, as well. The appointed weekly hours allow me to work with a mental sense of stability,”

No crunch time, no ridiculous deadlines, no MARKETING telling DEVELOPERS when they have to be done.

One of these publishing pipelines could only make a 37 square kilometer game. said 'See this huge world, if you can see it you can go there!' Except for all the places you couldnt. And it was full of bugs, invisible barriers, potato land design, and used up tropes from the 90's. They treat their devs like crap.

The other publishing pipeline made a 400 Square kilometer world, and said 'If you can see it, you can go there'. to which someone somewhere must have said 'but sir, what about all these places you just cant reach on foot?' to which they said 'Then we will give the player giant fricking robots and they can horsing fly there while fighting giant alien dinosaurs'. Too which some programmers and layout designers must have replied 'but sir, if we do that it will destroy the illusion of how open world games are designed like the surface of a potato.' To which they replied 'Then we will create a new design, one with no need for potatoes. And it will work the day you buy it, the moment you stick the disc in the system' They treat their devs like highly valuable human beings, and their greatest assets.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Gaming is not getting better. In fact, its been getting consistantly worse, as system power increases, workload increases, and devs are abused more, and more, and more, and more. Last gen it was stagnating and degenerating game design. This gen, you can add that games dont even WORK when you buy them. Sometimes not for months. I dont like bad game design, and when it results from abuse of employees, I give neither excuse nor pass.

[Son Edo]

Wait what? Zelda Bigger than X?