| Author |
Message |
|
| Hoborg |
 Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 7:07 am |
 |
|
Joined: 05 May 2005
Posts: 73
|
|
| Back to top |
  
|
| Michael |
| Posted: Wed Mar 08, 2006 10:19 am |
|
|
Site Administrator
Joined: 07 Jun 2002
Posts: 8065
Location: Gent, Belgium
|
Yes. A while ago. That video was distributed after Will Wright's talk at the Game Developers conference last year.
Mr. Wright is a very interesting designer. He's not much of an "author", in the sense that his work doesn't have much personality, but I like his attitude to game design. It's very inspiring.
I do wish Spore would look a little prettier. I don't like the extreme cartooniness of it. But I'm sure it will be a fun game (the kind of game that I seldom play myself but do respect). |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| rinku |
| Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 11:18 am |
|
|
Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Posts: 128
Location: Paterson, NJ
|
| The earlier videos of Spore were uglier than the more recent ones; the recent GDC 2007 trailers for Spore were very pretty. I suspect the demoscene coders he hired demanded the procedurally generated stuff be more aesthetic. |
|
|
| Back to top |
 
|
| rinku |
| Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 11:19 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Posts: 128
Location: Paterson, NJ
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Michael |
| Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 12:50 pm |
|
|
|
Site Administrator
Joined: 07 Jun 2002
Posts: 8065
Location: Gent, Belgium
|
Looks like the ultimate wargame to me...
And polished is not the same as beautiful.
I'm curious as to how it will do on the market. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| rinku |
| Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 1:01 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Posts: 128
Location: Paterson, NJ
|
| I don't think it's about war exactly, but rather expansion of a species in competition with other species -- so it's about war inasmuch as evolution is war. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Michael |
| Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 1:07 pm |
|
|
|
Site Administrator
Joined: 07 Jun 2002
Posts: 8065
Location: Gent, Belgium
|
| I hope you'll be as forthcoming when evolution gives you a headbutt next time you want to step on the metro. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| rinku |
| Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 1:31 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Posts: 128
Location: Paterson, NJ
|
Hm? I don't get your meaning, could you rephrase?
If you meant that humans don't have to be at war with each other (that's my best guess as to your meaning), I believe the fighting in that game is between different species only, and strictly speaking humanity is at war with other species: we have vast concentration camps for all kinds of animals which we eat, we kidnap billions of fish out of the ocean and eat them, and the same is true of plants, what seems like peaceful farming to us is probably pretty bad from the perspective of the wheat or rice. The interaction between the different species of the world is necessarily violent. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Auriea |
| Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 3:04 pm |
|
|
Site Administrator
Joined: 07 Jun 2002
Posts: 454
Location: at your fingertips
|
Quote: The interaction between the different species of the world is necessarily violent.
and the reason humans take it all for granted is because it is painful, mostly inevitable and really not very interesting.
so why keep making games about this small aspect of our humanity? if it's art, is it really making the world a better place to make "kill or be killed" something we should hold up as THE FUN activity of choice in games? (okay, rhetorical question, as i know you agree that games need to broaden out to other themes.)
but to answer it myself... no artistic goal is the motivation for war games, it isn't about "interaction with different speciaes" it is always 'us vs. them', 'good vs. evil', comportment of the base in all of us because its easiest to touch a virtual world with a gun. programmers/game designers are lazy and suffering from a lack of imagination. Will Wright is no different. |
Last edited by Auriea on Mon Mar 26, 2007 3:32 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
| rinku |
| Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 3:32 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Posts: 128
Location: Paterson, NJ
|
I think interspecies violence sounds like a welcome break from intraspecies violence. At least I can eat what I'm killing after I do it. 
I actually don't think games have adequately explored violence yet. There's more to violence than shooting something and have it disappear or explode. There are other aspects of it that games could potentially but don't yet explore. For instance, why are people never wounded permanently in games, they either survive and fully recover or die. It'd be better if it dealt more with the long-term consequences of violence like living without arms and such. I'd have no problem with violence in games if it were approached less like violence in comic books and more like violence in the Iliad. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Auriea |
| Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 3:35 pm |
|
|
|
Site Administrator
Joined: 07 Jun 2002
Posts: 454
Location: at your fingertips
|
| i have a problem with violence in games because it points to said lack of imagination. i read keats, i read baudillaire, i read anne carson, marguerite duras, haruki murakami. and those people tell me about violence, and love, and passion and sometimes about nothing at all in ways which any game designer will never touch so long as they are worried about turning life and death into a spreadsheet. your illiad comment only makes sense if you get rid of the spreadsheet. wounded or dying is not a number. |
Last edited by Auriea on Mon Mar 26, 2007 3:37 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
| rinku |
| Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 3:36 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Posts: 128
Location: Paterson, NJ
|
Aw, don't edit it after I reply!
Anyway, I'll reserve judgment until after I play it, but this doesn't seem like only a war game with good and evil to me. The video did, but who knows why? Perhaps EA was putting pressure on the team to make the game appeal to the mainstream gamer and they put together a trailer that emphasized fighting. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Auriea |
| Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 3:38 pm |
|
|
|
Site Administrator
Joined: 07 Jun 2002
Posts: 454
Location: at your fingertips
|
| haha sorry. i am quick to hit Submit and then i think. i'll try not to do that if this is going to be semi-real-time conversation |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| rinku |
| Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 3:41 pm |
|
|
|
Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Posts: 128
Location: Paterson, NJ
|
| That's something I've been thinking about, the spreadsheet; I was thinking that even the very idea of giving characters in a game "stats" in some set of characteristics might not be the best way to handle things, because it implies that the only differences between characters are differences of quantity and degree rather than quality. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| Redkora |
| Posted: Tue Apr 10, 2007 7:20 am |
|
|
|
Joined: 16 Mar 2007
Posts: 1491
Location: Here.
|
As violent as Spore may be, I'm still going to get it. I like the idea of guiding the evolution of a species from scratch.
You don't have to make a meat-eating creature, though. Also, you can choose to be a peaceful race later on, only using force when it is absolutely necessary (or use cheats and forgo the whole deal). I hope Mr. Wright implements more choice in the game before it comes out.
The whole "choice" thing was what I liked about Black & White and Black & White 2. You could opt out of violence most of the time; unfortunately, there was still some times (toward the end) when the game forced you to be aggressive (not assertive). I would have like the games better if there as some way one could avoid battles completely. I suppose if you're clever enough (or use cheats) you could.
Still. If a game is going to have violence in it, I would like to choose to opt out of it when I wanted to. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
