Regarding mods; yeah, looking forward to see what people do with it. I actually feel compelled to get the tools myself and have a go at some smaller project.

It completely consumed Thundera and me while we were playing it–and not playing it (thinking about playing it while out of the game, deep asleep and dreaming about being in the game world). THAT is the sign of a really compelling game. I haven’t been drawn in to a game like this in a long time, and I really needed to feel that again. It was a very welcome and very enjoyable, satisfying experience.

And I trust that we are going to see some utterly stunning and amazing things coming from the mod community for this game over time–I suspect it may very well exceed our expectations and outright blow our minds. I am so looking forward to this! :-)

You are talking about people growing up and changing their interests and about focusing on these changed interests …but maybe they havent changed that much … For me I always liked storytelling over huge big ass guns …thats why as a 14 year old my favourite game was Baldurs Gate 2 and not Counterstrike …maybe the most part of the gamers have the same story to tell

What I am trying to say is simply : dont be too judgmental even in a entertaining rant ^^

so long
Seb

I will first stick to the Space Marine thing ( as i did in the E-Mail I sent to you …so sorry for repetition ) What I think about the mechanic to reuse known settings is the following : it largely depends on the personal attitude towards a given topic . Ill try to illustrate that with said Space Marine

I myself am fascinated by the Space Marines ( as it is in the setting of Games Workshop ) but not because he is a 2,5m hulk wrapped into hundreds of kilos of servo-enhanced metal but because of what he stands for … its more or less an iconic archetype but its an archetype in a given setting its not a character that floats in an empty space but which is a part of a vital very well presented and elaborated universe of its own .

So he is NOT just what he is on its own but a symbol for an idea, and THAT is what actually adds the fascination to it , not the armour ( even though from a designer point of view the armour-design is hilariously iconic ) but what made him into that what he represents its the fascination that stands behind this. He is what he is for a certain purpose and realizing this gives you the opportunity to actually plunge into the greater idea that stands behind the universe he is part of .

I mean the fascinating part is that he represents extreme conditions, he is just the outcome of a given setting… a setting ( the universe of Warhammer 40k which is extremely grim and epic ) that is represented through him. you have to think of him as a door that allows you to enter into a room that is much bigger and multi-layered.

What he actually represents is not an armour or male-power fantasies but a whole universe at War, a war which can not be won but has to be fought nevertheless for a perverted and twisted idea of pseudo-religious greater good , he stands for a a rigid codex of laws he and myriads of other living beings have to live by every day, he also stands for commitment and conscientiousness till death ..in other words : willingness to make sacrifices also so he stands for a state of mind almost unthinkable for the majority of us because its highly hypothetical, as none of us lives in a universe where war is absolute part of every day of every year for the rest of our lives, this may create a state of devotion absolutely unknown to anyone of us …these are the things he only represents in the boundaries of the game-universe …going even further and ignoring the cult-like dictatorship he is dedicated to he also represents real aspects of virtues like : self-abandonment, modesty, the will to help those who cannot make a stand on their own ( sometimes, you know, these times when they decide not scream “burn heretic ” and call in an Exterminatus )

So what is the essence of that ? First of all : there is more than one point of view. Second : you have to be very careful which point of view you decide to go with (as a designer ) because it might ruin a perfectly good idea …and maybe this is a part of what you tried to express … how you approach a certain topic decides if its a one-dimensional world/character you are producing or if there is more to it .

I totally have to agree with you that todays games are glib most of the time. They stick to the most superficial and rugged frame of an idea … like you did with that Space Marine ( no offense, I think you implemented some sort of irony to that ^^ ) as this is very easy to convey to an audience/possible gamer and easy to produce

e.g. some years ago Microsoft and FASA turned Shadowrun into shit by simply ignoring every aspect of the fan-fucking-tastic original RPG, or the ( sure to be evenly bad ) Warhammer 40K Dark Millennium which will stick to an idea of small battles with limited amount of participants and the whole idea of classes like tanks, DDs and Healers all over again ( even though they said they want to “mix up this trinity” ) …I mean simply the idea of having a Black Templar Tank is ridiculous …because this means a focus on small groups where a tank actually has a role to play …but this does not fit in any way to Warhammer 40k …and the idea of a Space Marine doing Quests is beyond ridiculous.

So what I am trying to say is that I am on your side in the general critique that todays game-developers dont put the needed effort into their design but I have to disagree that its that easy to say ” …this idea sucks, we have seen it a thousand times do something else” as I think it largely depends on the point of view you have towards a certain idea and what you try make with this idea ( as i hopefully managed to illustrate by the Space Marine example )

so long
Seb

P.S. sorry if something came out wrong you can assign this to my insufficient English skills

Props to Moondrop for winning, I thought both they and D-Pad Studios was the ones with the best prototypes. I totally fell in love with Stig-Owe’s jellyfish game, but then again, I’m a sucker for games that are different in that kind of way (a kinda capture-the-feeling type of gameplay). <3

Regarding using clichés as vehicles for mechanics, you could easily mirror that approach with the world of cinema. The game designer needs to put a challenge to overcome in the path of the player. A writer needs to put a challenge to overcome in the path of the protagonist. One usually choses an overused cliché, the other (hopefully) does not.

The point is that the plot points are functions in both cases, and that they serve a function does not mean they have to be a cliché.

A character’s motivation doesn’t need to be simple just because the mechanic it gives texture to is. There are many good examples of simple game mechanics that build a rich game- and storyworld.

The main gameplay (combat) in Read Dead Redemption is dead simple and not even very good, but it’s one of the tools used to tell a gripping story.

In the case of Red Dead and the zombies, it’s not like the game needed the zombie fiction nor the zombie mechanic. There are so many great things they could have done with the awesome wild west setting they’ve built, but instead they just added zombies. And I think that shows a lack of respect for the otherwise great (artistic) work they did with the original product, and a lack of respect for those who truly enjoyed it and felt that it meant something.

The point behind what I said about writing is that we could still make pretty good use of these tired settings, if only we did something interesting with them. But we often don’t, we trust that the settings themselves are enough. They’re not! They demand good writing if they’re going to work at all.

And yes, as you say, the roots of games are in male nerd fantasies. I think that (and not the lack of decent writers) is the main reason we keep regurgitating the same stuff over and over. Most of us come from that background, and we keep making what we know and like for an audience we still believe are just like us.

The thing is that the audience have changed; games have gone mainstream and it’s time to start catering to the rest of the public as well. The average gamer is in his 30′s now. We limit ourselves. Just think about allt he people that ignore us because of the often inane and childish themes and stories we cling to.

And, well, many of us actually did grow up and did see our taste change. I’m not trying to sound smug or anything, but what I thought was cool when I was 14 is quite different from what I like now. I’m sure you feel the same way.

Perhaps we play different kind of games, and perhaps we play them differently. But for me, the narrative of a game is often what motivates me to continue playing once I’ve grasped the mechanics and discovered the rules. And when I talk about narrative or story, I don’t mean just scripted events or traditional exposition – I include the exploration, the emergent experience that happens between the player and the carefully constructed possibility space of the game world.

So in the end, we have story as a vehicle for our mechanics, but that does not automatically take us down the route of Tolkien of space marines – our imagination, our influences and our preferences does.

The “please stop” post was me wanting to write a somewhat entertaining rant, but it’s good to get to explain WHY I feel the way I do here in the comments.

I’d love to hear a response. =)