Jake

Idle Thumbs 195: Business Guys On Planes

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Oh man, that Dishonored comment reminded me that Nick's characterization of Majora's Mask as "Dishonored Zelda" is perfect.

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I think comparison of games and movies is tough because we've all internalized this notion that films can be capital I important, but I feel that in a very broad social context the jury is still out on that being true for games.

 

I also really appreciated the notion the difficulty in parsing the idea that games require a kind of skilled input to begin to appreciate that quality. I know there are many great films that are difficult to appreciate if you aren't verse in film, but that's a problem that can be solved with some explanation, but if DOTA or LoL were the highest form, then what? The personal appreciation of that would be out of the hands of pretty much most people. 

 

Also to be pedantic, "feature" film is like 100 years old! (Even if talkies are only about 80!) We need another 30/40 years of gaming to reach film's decadence. What will the superhero glut of games in 30 years look like, if GTA 5 is the Godfather 2 of now?

 

re your last paragraph:

 

Jake brought up human represantation. In narrative films this representation is heightened. In some early silent cinemas more, e.g. german expressionism and russian montage, than in others, e.g. japanese shomin-geki and Josef von Sternbergs films. But in documentary films, even in the earliest ones, humans are humans. Like in this trip down San Francisco's Market Street in 1906:

 

 

The Miles Brothers put a camera in front of a cable car and let it run. But can you compare this undoubtedly fascinating time capsule to a narrative film or game? I don't know.

 

re your second paragraph:

 

Sometime in the 1950s historically informed performances of 'early' music really took off. When I watch a movie at home i always wonder if the experience would have been better had i watched in a theater. When I play a game on an emulator i always wonder if the experience would have been better had i played it on the original hardware. Last fall I finally saw a silent movie in a movie theater with live piano accompaniment. Although the crowd was sparse and the movie not that good, it felt right. What could historically informed performance mean in context of games?

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Sometime in the 1950s historically informed performances of 'early' music really took off. When I watch a movie at home i always wonder if the experience would have been better had i watched in a theater. When I play a game on an emulator i always wonder if the experience would have been better had i played it on the original hardware. Last fall I finally saw a silent movie in a movie theater with live piano accompaniment. Although the crowd was sparse and the movie not that good, it felt right. What could historically informed performance mean in context of games?

Hm, makes me think of the CRT filter that's on You Have to Win The Game. Still, that's a fairly minor reconstruction in the grander scheme of things. Still still, you can never completely recreate that which has been lost, so every little bit counts.

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On games aging better or worse than movies. I feel like it really depends on if a more modern game has improved on older ones. It was really hard to go back and play Morrowind after playing Skyrim because the UI has improved so much. On the other hand I will play Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun over Command and Conquer 3, because I feel that Tiberian Sun was the better game. (Might be related to less innovation in UI happening in the RTS space). My favorite fighting games are still Bushido Blade and One Must Fall, despite those games being old. Modern fighters just don't scratch the same itch.

Improvements in playability is probably the major reason some games do not age well. Modern games have really improved on menus and controls. We were just used to bad UI in the old days, but going back now can be hard. Although old films can have bad acting, bad cinematography and hokey stories so maybe i'm wrong on that.  

Just like today tons of bad movies that will be mostly forgotten were produced in the early age of cinema. I remember my local PBS station used to show random old movies and TV shows, usually ones that were easy to license and as a result a lot of them were horrible. I specifically remember a film that revolved around a father who was complaining about the costs of his daughters wedding. He was upset because catering was ten dollars a person, which seems pretty reasonable now. These are the movies that will be forgotten.

 

Games are becoming the same way, there are a lot of throw away games from even the early days that are not worth going back for except on a nostalgia kick. Games that had bad controls or horrible stories don't need to be played by younger gamers and probably wont be. However games like Half Life 1 was well designed enough and had an excellent story that I feel it will stand the test of time.

 

Sorry this post is so messy, but I am supposed to be working :) will probably edit and post more thoughts later.

 

Also the Crusader Kings 2 thing. I have often married my heir to someone in the line of succession to another throne, then assassinated multiple other heirs so my grandchild will get both my kingdom and theirs. 

Comparing Skyrim's UI to Morrowind seems like a really weird example to me.  The UI in Skyrim is more "evolved" in that it follows all the current "hot" trends in UI design in order to look appealing to current audiences, but those trendy features end up being applied with seemingly no regard for their effect on the usability of the system, with the end result being a nightmare to navigate.  Aside from being a bit uglier, Morrowind's UI almost seems like a straight upgrade over Skyrim's, because it literally just presents the exact same information in a more organized and less confusing way, perhaps because whatever was trendy in UI design at the time simply happened to be more appropriate for an RPG.

 

So much of game design seems to be just blindly following whatever the current trends are, so the longevity of most games end up being tied directly to that of the trends themselves, resulting in a convoluted series of peaks and valleys as the trends of the time fall in and out of favor in hindsight.  Think about games from the SNES era, which are still considered eminently playable followed immediately by the early 3d era, considered by many to be a dark age full of unplayable games, as trends like the use of fixed camera perspectives and tank controls have been judged very harshly by future generations.

 

You simply don't have to deal with that kind of non linear topology when looking back on movies as far as I can tell, which gives them a huge leg up on games.

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Jake brought up human represantation. In narrative films this representation is heightened. In some early silent cinemas more, e.g. german expressionism and russian montage, than in others, e.g. japanese shomin-geki and Josef von Sternbergs films. But in documentary films, even in the earliest ones, humans are humans. Like in this trip down San Francisco's Market Street in 1906 ... The Miles Brothers put a camera in front of a cable car and let it run. But can you compare this undoubtedly fascinating time capsule to a narrative film or game? I don't know.

 

Not sure what your point is here. Are you saying that there were no narrative feature films 100 years ago?

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Comparing Skyrim's UI to Morrowind seems like a really weird example to me.  The UI in Skyrim is more "evolved" in that it follows all the current "hot" trends in UI design in order to look appealing to current audiences, but those trendy features end up being applied with seemingly no regard for their effect on the usability of the system, with the end result being a nightmare to navigate.  Aside from being a bit uglier, Morrowind's UI almost seems like a straight upgrade over Skyrim's, because it literally just presents the exact same information in a more organized and less confusing way, perhaps because whatever was trendy in UI design at the time simply happened to be more appropriate for an RPG.

 

So much of game design seems to be just blindly following whatever the current trends are, so the longevity of most games end up being tied directly to that of the trends themselves, resulting in a convoluted series of peaks and valleys as the trends of the time fall in and out of favor in hindsight.  Think about games from the SNES era, which are still considered eminently playable followed immediately by the early 3d era, considered by many to be a dark age full of unplayable games, as trends like the use of fixed camera perspectives and tank controls have been judged very harshly by future generations.

 

You simply don't have to deal with that kind of non linear topology when looking back on movies as far as I can tell, which gives them a huge leg up on games.

 

I really have to disagree with your assessment of Skyrim's UI. In Morrowind each menu was independent so to go from quests to map you had to close quests and open maps. There was no real sorting or filtering in the

Morrowind menus. The in game map was significantly less useful than the physical map that came with the game. I agree Skyrim made trendy choices in terms of UI, but they also made ease of use choices which i really appreciate. The Morrowind Quest UI was super annoying to use, to the point where I used the wiki on my phone over dealing with it during my most recent play through. The map gives you almost no information without hovering over areas. The inventory using images instead of words made items with the same icon indistinguishable.

 

Morrowind Quest UI:

2015-01-31_00003_zps7288fc02.jpg

 

Morrowind, map, invetory, spells, Character Stats UI

2015-01-31_00006_zps3867b4da.jpg

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About those games with crazy ads and titles, like Game of War: Fire Age

 

Never forget Wartune, which ads are even more crazy (and shameless) that Evony. Because whatever who is behind, have no qualm about using anything in the ads, from fan art (even from stuff that have nothing do with the game, like K-on, Bleach and even Pokemon), bad draw art and in Facebook they often use image of other games - like The Witcher 3, Assassins Creed and even a Forza game! and by least, Wartune often tries to self proclaim itself as adult game, except that is not one, nor was rated as adult. By the way, don´t Wartune sound like a title for a new Call of Duty/Battlefield game? and in case if someone is wondering, Wartune is you generic fantasy strategy(?) browser mmo....

 

Then also you have League of Angels, which by much surprise, from what I read in MMOHut, does actually have the said angels, but unlikely anything the ads might suggest, they are just different bonus you could choose for you character and the game appear to be a generic fantasy rpg browser mmo...

 

Another thing about this kind of game and a couple of other small mmos I could notice, again while reading MMOHut, which have huge lists of mmos, its the tendency they have no explantion at all - I mean, instead of have its ads pointing you towards the offical site, they instead point you to a site which is just a image (and in case of the games mentioned here, you can guess what the art often look like) with just a field to subscribe, nothing else. No screenshots, no description, nothing. Not even a link to the official site! I kind wonder they expect this to work, I mean who many people the hope to full to subscribe and them will continue playing after?

 

One more think that make me puzzled, some of this games manage to have some competent artists, as parts of its game art assests are often at such different level that everything in point of breaking the game as the different is just too high. Please I don´t mean that the average art used in this games is good, I just mean it is on another level compared to other game assets or that some aspects of it, might be good, while other like anatomy falls apart. I know the idea is just catch attention, but I am dubious of how much people remain after they find out, which don´t take long. Would not be better using those artists to produce art which reflect the game? how much is rip-off and tracing ? because I once find (and still have in my computer) a old wallpaper for a now death mmo, which one character there was a trace over a Luis Ryou art (if I am not mistaken the author, but I too have the original image which was traced).

 

On authoral games:

 

Maybe the first game I start to noticed the company or there was a author behind, from me was the Might & Magic franchise, since Jon von Canegham name (which was hte leader of New World Computing) was often in the game and this was my first franchise game I started to play beginning with Might & Magic II and King´s Bounty for Sega Genesis and Might & Magic VI & VII and Heroes of Might and Magic for pc. After, with gog I catch the remaining ones.

Edited by Valorian Endymion

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Wartune had the string of ads that explicitly stated that they were for men only. So, while hilarious, also more upfront and honest than many AAA titles.

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Wartune is classic:

 

wb6yxs.png

 

"You Deserve An Orgy Today!" ought to be a presidential campaign slogan. It would win it for a third party and end the bipartisan rut.

 

 

I have a genuine question/suggestion for the future Queen of England. If she was the last that could be tracked down, then once she killed every other person above her wouldn't she be the only possible Queen. And so when she inevitably commits suicide from remorse with no heirs then the Monarchy in England no longer has a bloodline and dies out?

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I have a genuine question/suggestion for the future Queen of England. If she was the last that could be tracked down, then once she killed every other person above her wouldn't she be the only possible Queen. And so when she inevitably commits suicide from remorse with no heirs then the Monarchy in England no longer has a bloodline and dies out?

 

The historical precedent is to invite a cadet branch of the monarchy of a nation with which the kingdom has historically shared cordial relations to take the throne.

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The historical precedent is to invite a cadet branch of the monarchy of a nation with which the kingdom has historically shared cordial relations to take the throne.

So that's the sequel.

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Wartune is classic:

 

wb6yxs.png

Some AAA games (e.g. Soul Calibur V (google it, I'm not going to post them here because NSFW)) used ads like this too. I'd say the SCV ones are way more egregious.

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I see that Mini Metro has a New York map. I can't wait to play it so I can live out my fantasy of having a G train with reliable service between Brooklyn and Queens. Hallelujah! 

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I think they even put Voldo in the SCV ads...

 

Anyway about Wartune if anyone is curious how it truth look like - just look at the screenshots and a review here - http://mmohuts.com/review/wartune don´t worry all safe , because this game have no adult content at all at one point ESRB asked Wartune to stop claiming it was one, which make the thing even more ridicule... Not related, but I won´t be surprise if there is fakes ads which are just keylogger or virus baits.

 

But back on the sucession history, know what? the whole thing could work as Code Geass/Death Note/Slice-of-Life anime, just the daily life of a woman in Germany until she got hands in some power which allow her to take over England, it could a a really good twist, first episode is just your slice of life and them suddenly the whole thing take a turn at Code Geass/Death Note, no wait, forget that. Lets go to fighting tournament anime with her challenging all those guys, it could be long as One Piece...

Edited by Valorian Endymion

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Comparing Skyrim's UI to Morrowind seems like a really weird example to me.  The UI in Skyrim is more "evolved" in that it follows all the current "hot" trends in UI design in order to look appealing to current audiences, but those trendy features end up being applied with seemingly no regard for their effect on the usability of the system, with the end result being a nightmare to navigate.  Aside from being a bit uglier, Morrowind's UI almost seems like a straight upgrade over Skyrim's, because it literally just presents the exact same information in a more organized and less confusing way, perhaps because whatever was trendy in UI design at the time simply happened to be more appropriate for an RPG.

I think there's a simpler explanation: Morrowind was developed for PC and a mouse and keyboard interface, then ported to Xbox. Oblivion and Skyrim were developed for Xbox (360) and a gamepad interface, then ported to PC. I don't mean this as a "consoles are ruining our gaming" thing, you understand (and Skyrim, at least, has some concessions to the differing needs of a PC interface). But it pretty directly explains a lot of the differences. Having a list-format inventory, for example, because Morrowind's icon-based inventory is awkward to navigate with joysticks. The giant font because console games are generally played from much further away. Etc.

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I think there's a simpler explanation: Morrowind was developed for PC and a mouse and keyboard interface, then ported to Xbox. Oblivion and Skyrim were developed for Xbox (360) and a gamepad interface, then ported to PC. I don't mean this as a "consoles are ruining our gaming" thing, you understand (and Skyrim, at least, has some concessions to the differing needs of a PC interface). But it pretty directly explains a lot of the differences. Having a list-format inventory, for example, because Morrowind's icon-based inventory is awkward to navigate with joysticks. The giant font because console games are generally played from much further away. Etc.

Yeah, the primary platform focus really has an impact on this sorta thing. It makes me wonder how Blizzard handled Diablo 3. I don't know anyone personally that has tried it on the consoles, nor is it something I've gone fishing for random opinions on (since that could just be a disaster of "PC MASTER RACE"). But since I never heard a big huge hubub about how awful it is to play, maybe Blizzard actually handled it with the right amount of care, made it work out.

 

Also reminds me of Mass Effect. I think it may have been mentioned on an old Idle Thumbs episode, but wasn't the PC version at first awful to play because everything was designed around the console version, but later it was patched to be optimized in both UI and controls for the PC?

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I think there's a simpler explanation: Morrowind was developed for PC and a mouse and keyboard interface, then ported to Xbox. Oblivion and Skyrim were developed for Xbox (360) and a gamepad interface, then ported to PC. I don't mean this as a "consoles are ruining our gaming" thing, you understand (and Skyrim, at least, has some concessions to the differing needs of a PC interface). But it pretty directly explains a lot of the differences. Having a list-format inventory, for example, because Morrowind's icon-based inventory is awkward to navigate with joysticks. The giant font because console games are generally played from much further away. Etc.

 

My only issue with this is that Oblivions UI was also pretty bad. I agree that designing for both console and PC influenced the interface, but that doesn't mean its bad. Consoles require efficiency in menu navigation, something many RPGs were just awful at. 

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Yeah, the primary platform focus really has an impact on this sorta thing. It makes me wonder how Blizzard handled Diablo 3. I don't know anyone personally that has tried it on the consoles, nor is it something I've gone fishing for random opinions on (since that could just be a disaster of "PC MASTER RACE"). But since I never heard a big huge hubub about how awful it is to play, maybe Blizzard actually handled it with the right amount of care, made it work out.

 

Also reminds me of Mass Effect. I think it may have been mentioned on an old Idle Thumbs episode, but wasn't the PC version at first awful to play because everything was designed around the console version, but later it was patched to be optimized in both UI and controls for the PC?

 

Blizzard did a pretty good job with console Diablo 3. The inventory/equipment menu is a bit unwieldy because they went with a radial layout and some of the organization isn't as clear as it could be, but overall, its' pretty good. At this point the console version would probably be my go-to if I want to play through again because I can just relax, slouch back with a controller, and play casually.

 

I think the main complaint about ME from the Thumbs was how wobbly the scope view was for sniping, and it was speculated that it was really only there because it was supposed to represent low weapon skill, but with a mouse it was easy to overcome and just ended up being an unnecessary annoyance. I'd say that out of all 3 games, ME1 was the closest to being designed for the PC. Because it was more RPG-focused, you could end up with 8 or 9 powers to use, only 1 or 2 of which could be mapped to a controller button, leaving you to popping up a power menu if you wanted to do anything else. On PC, all your powers were just on a numbered hotbar, accessible at any time. As ME2 and ME3 shifted more towards the shooter side, you'd almost always have only 3 powers (with an extra or two depending on completion of optional stuff), and 3 buttons dedicated to them on the controller.

 

The example that always comes to my mind of a game being designed for a console and then ported to PC was Deus Ex: Invisible War. It was fixed with a patch, but the initial version of the game on PC just didn't have support for menu navigation with the mouse. It was all WASD + Enter to do anything.

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I've been thinking more about the question of aging. The more I think about it, the more I think the question of which ages worse is maybe actually nonsensical, because I think when we talk about something "aging poorly" what we mean is that audience expectations of a thing are different now then when the thing was created. I've been very conscious of this while rewatching Twin Peaks which is an interesting case study because in some ways it was way ahead of its time, and in other ways it was very much of its time which affects what it was like to watch it while it was on the air vs. rewatching it now. The show meets and defies expectations at different moments in time.

 

Is the rate of changes in expectations for games greater or lesser than expectations for movies? Perhaps, but are those expectations tied to something intrinsic to games as a medium, or are they just a byproduct of a naturally changing social environment? That's more difficult to parse out.

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My only issue with this is that Oblivions UI was also pretty bad. I agree that designing for both console and PC influenced the interface, but that doesn't mean its bad. Consoles require efficiency in menu navigation, something many RPGs were just awful at. 

 

Oblivion's UI was awful, yeah. Not sure how you're disagreeing with me, if you are.

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Oblivion's UI was awful, yeah. Not sure how you're disagreeing with me, if you are.

 

My point is that the UI issues were not because of a conversion to console focus. Bethesda designed some bad UI in Morrowind and Oblivion, and the issues with the Oblivion UI were not related to it being a game designed for both PC and console. Therefor I don't think its fair to say the problems with Skyrim are all console related.

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