Areanynamesnottaken

I didn't prove it because it was painfully obvious. How many new games lack key features on release now vs 5, 10, 20 years ago? Yes, new games are more complex, that doesn't help things. I'm not debating the reason the average is lowering so much as I am pointing out the decline exists. Old games were actually full of bugs. The difference being, they were not the sort of bugs that would generally manifest in normal play. They were the sorts of bugs that acted as speedrunner/LLG bonuses and were irrelevant if you weren't doing some form of challenge run. Since most of the lasting appeal of older games IS challenge runs, that's actually a positive and many of them deliberately kept these beneficial bugs in remakes/later installments of the series because they, like I am not saying all bugs are bad, just the ones that have a negative impact on the game. Hell, most fighting game metagames are based on bugs/glitches. Now if I were to call out a reason for the decline it'd probably be graphics. High end graphics require by far the most time/money of any aspect of design, and man hours spent on that are not spent elsewhere. So even if you don't intentionally use them as a smokescreen you're still sacrificing in other areas. When you need 5 million sales (or some similar large number) or you don't even break even, what do you produce? Answer: Games for the lowest common denominator. Smart from a business perspective, bad for the end user. Unless you are the LCD in which case you have a target rich environment. Where do Roguelikes come into this: Answer: They aren't afraid to have a smaller core audience. Same for most indie games of any genre. I'm not "pretending everything is terrible and gaming is dead". I'm saying that it's declining very sharply on average (exceptions still exist) and I'm not at all happy about this. Triple A gaming though? Yeah, that shit's cold and dead. RIP. Edit: Oh, we're doing quote wars now? Alright then. Followed by baseless remarks about my age, followed by a remark that I'm seeing everything in black and white even though I used very gradual language and non absolute terms followed by... Except for the part where he never actually pointed out a flaw, he just said I was wrong then declared victory. Now compare that with someone like Twig who isn't agreeing at all either, but unless he starts with the non sequitor insults is actually having a discussion.

My complaint is that the ratio is higher. And yes, a small difference would not be proven easily. However a large difference is noticible without any great strength in scrunity. This is also a very practical problem. With older games. developers must get it right the first time. With newer games, there's a release now patch later mentality where later can very well be never. There were also weaker graphics in older games, meaning any mechanical or substance based flaws were more transparent, meaning that the other aspects of the game must be solid or everyone would know the game was bad. Now compare that with almost any modern release in any genre. The game is released at least 6 months early in a shocking number of cases - you can tell because of the massive, often gamebreaking bugs that went live, the huge release day patch, and the numerous patches after that that all either fix major bugs and/or add core features that were not in the initial release. Now you can argue that is the publisher's fault for not letting the developers finish and I'd agree with you easily enough. That is still a quality decline though, regardless of its cause. I say the past was better because it was. I never said it was perfect. I'm a realist, I call out flaws as I see them. Justify piracy? No. I specifically said I wasn't doing that. You can dismiss me for that if you like, but what I was actually saying with that confession is that it's fucking shameful I must go through such great lengths to find a decent game instead of just having a normal set of standards and a normal amount of disappointment. Hell, you could have a meaningful discussion and make fun of me at the same time by talking about how this decline has made seemingly passionate gamers become almost comically cynical, as if purchasing a game were a fucking job interview. But you're not doing that, and I suspect the reason I'm not seeing that sort of discussion is the shoot the messenger mentality. My words make gamers uncomfortable, so you'd rather dismiss me out of hand. Or you could take this guy for example: I double checked, and he thinks that proving my theory wrong consists of just declaring that I'm wrong, that's it. No proof. That's a dismissal right there.

And by something serious you mean what? Empty dismissive Star Wars references and getting my age wrong by at least half? When I was a teenager I was very cheerfully optimistic about games. There were also a lot more good ones. So far I've mostly just seen people responding to one small part of what I said, not even a full sentence worth. If that's all you have then I'm done here.

They learned somehow. But you can recognize a non gamer dev instantly because they'll try for one thing, actually achieve something else very different and then will be completely bewildered by it. They have no idea why everyone is doing this other thing and will still believe their game is about the first thing. This process is most transparent with games of the MMO and ARPG genres, as what invariably happens next is they try (often without success) to force their way on everyone instead of letting it happen naturally. It's also very obvious when they just talk about the game, as they will be describing something very different from what its players actually play. Edit: Oh, I thought you were interested in a serious discussion. Nevermind then.

The average quality was significantly higher in the past. Yes bad games still existed. My screening process consisted of seeing if the game was in a genre that interested me and reading the back of the box and that's about it. Even though said games cost 120 USD in modern money I had no regrets. Now if a modern game asked for 120 I'd laugh in their fucking faces (some actually do, when you count all the DLC as cut content). The only game that might even be close is Bloodborne, but its actual asking price is north of 500 because it's the only reason you'd ever want a PS4 so that's still a no go. Instead I put games through an intense screening process or immediately regret not doing so. If the game wants more than 20 dollars I will most likely never buy it because it can't pass the tests required of it, and most of it is generic mass market drivel anyways. Even among the games that have proven themselves I still regret not waiting as the game industry as a whole punishes those who get excited about games and that's really fucking sad. Case in point, a game came out. I won't name it, but it's the third in the series. I enjoyed the first 2 so I bought it instantly. Turns out there was actually a discount that wasn't working for people that had at least one of the other games and bought the third one quickly. They fixed that within 3 hours, but not retroactively. Only new purchases get the discount. Is the 3 dollar difference a big deal? No. Would I have bought it anyways? Yes. Was I punished for being an excited fan instead of my usual cynical self? Absolutely. And I'll remember that the next time something sounds interesting. Given we're talking about games, anything that actively discourages excitement and other positive emotions is a very serious problem. You can tell the difference between gamer devs and non gamer devs in one basic way. Emergent gameplay. Does the game function as intended, does it encourage the desired styles of play? If the devs tell you their game works one way, but it actually encourages a very different set of behaviors and does something very different or perhaps even the exact opposite of what it should, that's devs not thinking things through from the player perspective and that's generally because they don't have one. You can practically name ANY non Roguelike game and I'll tell you either I'm not familiar with that game, or begin pointing out specific examples of emergent gameplay based disconnects. As for why a lot of Roguelike devs are gamers, that's more a practical thing. Roguelikes don't require much from a technical standpoint. If you're just some guy, and you want a game made, you should go for the thing with the lowest cost of entry. You don't need artists or a huge budget, you can make one by yourself without learning multiple talent sets.

I'm not really a fan of board games as they're entirely dependent on local multiplayer and any game with forced multiplayer is an instant no for me. As for trying games first, I'll be honest with you. I'm a follower of the piracy is the new demo philosophy. Not because piracy is good or right or anything like that, but because so few games are actually good anymore, and because games either don't have you a demo that gives you an accurate sampling of the game or don't have a demo at all, my choices are 1: Buy a game sight unseen (terrible idea, won't do, can't trust most game developers anymore). 2: Try it first for a few hours, buy it if it's actually worth the money. Whenever I do buy a game without proper research I almost always regret that decision and invariably become more jaded about future games, whereas any game that's made it as far as getting my attention enough that I'll try it has at least a 75% chance of being purchased. Both of which are things I've done a number of times. Ultimately, while there are some people that will just steal everything if piracy went away tomorrow I'd quit buying games entirely, as I'd no longer have a reliable means of quality checking them in advance. Yes other methods technically exist. You can't always get teams of 15 streamers playing your game a week early 24/7 and giving away copies for promotional purposes.

What I look for in a game is: A strong mechanics focus. If the gameplay isn't good the game isn't good, no matter what else it's doing. A high level of difficulty. If you can't make me work for it or at least turn off auto pilot I'm already bored. A very intellectual experience. Make me think. Choices and consequences that have weight and directly reflect on me. Permadeath is the obvious one. If I die and it's my fault I'm completely fine with that. It need not be a matter or life or death though, just that it must matter what I pick. Non overcentralized gameplay. Most difficult games rule out the vast majority of options along the way so you always do the same things in the same way. Making it hard, while still providing difficult and meaningful choices as well as multiple potentially successful paths is an extremely difficult balancing act. None of these traits are Roguelike exclusive but the genre does almost always have all of them and other games almost never have any of them, so my interest in the genre is kind of circumstantial. Even so, like the show mentions a lot of modern games hide behind their shiny graphics and copious pictures of women's busts because it's all they have. I'm completely unimpressed by this, right along with games that don't punish me for my mistakes and make me feel like I'm actually doing something. Along the same lines, I won't let major mechanical flaws slide and as Tyler Sigmund will attest if he sees this I've given the Darkest Dungeon team no end of hell about the game being unchallenging even though difficulty is the entire premise of the game from both a mechanical and atmospheric standpoint. I'm not being a dick about it, I love the ideas behind the game, it just constantly grates on me that the current executions do not fulfill those ideas, and that mods are required for what should be the original game experience. One thing that stands out for me about the Roguelike genre though is that games really don't have many means (aside from permadeath of your character) of making your choices have weight. Even ignoring the games where you're presented with outright fake choices, players are generally very detached even in so called immersive games and often take actions that would be fairly classified as sociopathic were they taken against real people. If [insert NPC] dies, the general reaction is usually indifference. This is more a factor of "storytelling" games not understanding they should be SHOWING and not TELLING as that is the most basic element of storytelling, and as a result very few games have memorable characters worth caring about. Well modern ones anyways. Older games were better about this somewhat. Now when a game does understand what storytelling actually is (hi Souls series) it is absolutely fantastic, and definitely supliments the experience. Gameplay is still first as far as I'm concerned, but if a game can get the mechanics right and add in extra stuff? Hell yeah. Because most can't though, I primarily focus on the games that let me transparently assess their quality. One more thing: I think more Roguelike games are made by gamers than any other genre. That means you see far fewer disconnects in emergent gameplay, a greater understanding of what the fans actually want, and a much greater level of community involvement/cohesion (if for no other reason than that a common reaction when getting rekt by difficult games is finding a forum about it and asking for help).