277 replies to this topic

[Excrubulent]

Do not say, "Why were the old days better than these?" For it is not wise to ask such questions. - Ecc 7:10

[Xathanael]

Dragonlord, on 13 August 2012 - 06:44 AM, said:

This is not about MWO, but computer games in general.

I am an avid gamer, and I buy allot of games in the course of a year.
However over the last several years and the last years specifically I have noticed a decline in the quality of games.

A game I pre-ordered, Legends of Pegasus (4x Space RTS), was released 3 days ago, when the game was released in was riddled with bugs, I'm talking gamebreaking bugs, such as the game crashing randomly, players unable to save/load games, and unable to move ships ingame.
These are just a few examples, and the game feels more like an early beta than a release ready product.

It was the same with Might & Magic Heroes VI (in the Heroes of might & magic), the game was riddled with bugs, many of them gamebreaking and the game felt like an early beta as well.

Then there is Diablo 3 which had allot of hype, but turned out to me a major disappointment.
I know some people swear its a greats game, but I dont agree and it seems many others dont either.
It feels more like a hack'n slash game that are relying on the success of its predecessors, just like many other games seems to do today.

It seems that all games today are just meant to be another money grab for whatever publisher decides to release it, with no regard for repeatability, fun or even quality
Some games even feels like just a copy of another game, as if the developers have no imagination at all.

I still remember back in the days when I bought a game it was actually working as intended, and the gameplay was fun and entertaining.
So what happened to that quality and quality control?
Where are the games that you can install and know they are working as they should and which can hold your attention for hours and days, sometimes even weeks?

These are things that genuinely puzzles me, and I'm hoping someone here can actually provide some useful answers.

Dawg this is Nostalgia

[Mister Haha]

Aullido, on 13 August 2012 - 07:03 AM, said:

The internet made easy to release patches, quality insurance took a lesser priority.

This is 100% myth.

1) Multi-tasking did not exist. You either ran a program or you didn't run any. There were no cases of multiple programs that could be run at the same time whatsoever. This isolated the computer to a single instance where it didn't have to compete with other softwares.

2) Games were far less complex in general. They did not have the incredibly complex layers of networking / database communication to a now much larger group.

3) The hardware was virtually the SAME for everyone out there. This is absolutely huge when it comes to creating software. Now developers have to cater to limitless combinations.

4) These old games did have crash bugs. And they did have major bugs. And progression bugs. There was no way to fix these bugs. Ever.

5) If you lost your manual to your favorite Amiga or Atari ST game (oldschool DRM style!) you'd never be able to play that game again... unless you cracked it.

6) Games were a fraction of the lines of code.

7) Graphical/Audio RAM use was a fraction of what it is now.

8) People didn't install graphics cards that were released after the game was made or even have different operating systems..

9) Shaders, Mip-mapping, things like that were not even words.

There is NO software as complex as a game out there without a bug. The internet has nothing to do with this equation. But of course everyone's entitled to everything and software should be perfect the second it leaves the gate.

Edited by Mister Haha, 13 August 2012 - 05:56 PM.

[kambei]

I wonder with the recent announcement of a new release of Heavy Gear, what can we expect as to improvements on the old classic. Some new releases just sadden us old warriors to see it desicrated to the point of unrecognizable features.

[Msyrin]

I definately agree with the general sentiment of this thread and with the general hate for companies like EA who care about profits first and fans never. Fortunately i think that the trend is heading towards a new cycle. The biggest problem (as far as content/gameplay/QC) is concerned was that with the expansion of the console market, gaming was taken from a small select retail enviornment to a large scale (almost global) marketplace. Companies stopped caring about appealing to fans because all they had to do was promise "bigger, badder, faster, better" and people would just eat it up. However I think this is coming full circle as the previously un/under-educated crop of newbie gamers are beggining to realize that if they are going to cough up $60 for a game every couple of months then it damn well better be worth playing. The "well it looks pretty" excuse is just not going to cut for much longer.

[Vach]

LordKnightFandragon, on 13 August 2012 - 08:04 AM, said:

What happened? The player base got dumbererer(See World of Tanks, BFBC2, BF3, CoD:MW#)....the overall skill of players went through the floor, companies are only out to make a quick buck and the players are to dumb to know the difference. So a company will release a **** game that has great graphics, lots of boom, and requires absolutely NO skill to play, but it will be chalk full of bugs and really no content to it..but since it has great graphics and its insanely easy, the 15yr old kiddies who play the games dont care. I def noticed the games have gotten pretty LAME..Battlefield Bad company 2 was an example of this. I played 2142 for prolly 20K battles, and that game required aiming, tactics, teamwork and what not. Come BFBC2, you can just RUSH out in front of a TANK, take a direct round to the face, strafe it wit han RPG and just keep on running. If you use a MG, just spam rounds and stuff dies...its like the epitome of BS and little kid easy.

I hope MWO really takes time to make a GOOD game, not just one to make them a quick buck....make it sorta hard, great game play, work on the bugs, add quality content and listen to the dang playerbase.....of coruse, what I said above about the player bases in general being dumbereererrererr....yeah...oops...

Let me play the devil's advocate
You know you are just contradicting yourself right?
MWO hasn't yet prove it's worth. In fact right now, I think WoT is miles ahead in terms of its implementation with respect to MWO.

Have you played WOT? That game doesn't need skill? Try running in front of the main pack of tanks in the heaviest tank you can find and see if that would get you killed fast enough. You need skills to play it well, as with most games.

Don't kid yourself, MWO itself, as of now is pretty bad. It needs lots of polishing up.

[Rasgueados]

Well in a nutshell, business happened to gaming, just like any form of art, specially ones that get more and more popular (attract more people) business comes into it and like a leech, sucks life out of it.

This happened to the film industry and now for you to watch decent films (aside from old films) you only have independent cinema, art-house, European films etc and all of these are not seen by this "general public"(idiots who only see what is presented to them/fed to them). People like this Bay character are passed around for Directors and what they do gets passed around for movies. I was and still am very disgusted when I heard that ***** (always has been) Bruccheimer and a couple of "actors" say something along these lines " oh yes, the sequel is much better, we have much more bigger explosions and action scenes"

Then you have music. You know what, I am going to skip this. You see I am a musician and also am studying Film making as well as Graphic Design and have always had a HUGE passion towards gaming.

I have wrote about this very issue A BILLION times before on various forums and what not. (I really wrote about this a lot, I mean pages and pages and pages) I am not going to do that here, since a lot of people here seem to know what happened to gaming and I am too tired, so I will try to be short.

After M$ saw that there was a lot of money in this console gaming business (that is ALL it is to them, business) they entered it and introduced to many console gamers, concepts that they were not familiar with, but any PC gamer was (dlc, online capabilities, though not the first console to have it etc) and they started demanding money for them. Things went south. They opened the way for corporations like EA, Activision etc to come in and do even worse.

What happened was the same thing many game pub/devs do now. They (a game dev/pub) did not split their community, they did something worse. They got another community added to their original one. A community of people who were clueless about what this franchise was, what the devs were famous for, appreciation towards their previous work or gaming and games in general. Examples of this are Bioware with ME2 and after (whom straight out lied, straight out said "we want the COD fans. Do they realize "COD fan/fanbase" is actually an insult?) that and changed their statement 3 times), Ubisoft with Splinter Cell: Conviction and the list goes on and on and on, but again I really do not want to go in details. Others started abusing certain aspects of gaming such as the idea of DLC (on disc, paid etc), pre-orders, online capabilities, this list also goes on and on.

What these publishers and dev should realize by now is that THEY HAVE FAILED. They have pissed off their fans and their marketing departments know absolutely NOTHING about what gamers want. Just because this thing that I would not even call trash as it would be an insult to trash itself, sells, does not mean that every freaking game has to be a mindless, casual, streamlined. . . shooter/kids thing. Proof of this: The Witcher 2. Demon/Dark Souls, Skyrim etc that is not to mention indie games.

I do not mean to sound very optimistic, as I am not very optimistic regarding gaming's future, but I think very soon all the things M$, EA, Activision, Capcom have pulled are going to come back and bite them REAL hard, as I see more and more fans waking up, more and more are fed up.

If not buying/supporting a product is hard to some, why don't crowds in gaming conventions just boo, chant out insults when someone from EA/Activ gets on stage? of coarse it would be easier to just not show up/leave when they get on stage/not buy their product.

Anyway this probably looks like a rant and a maze, the thing is, a billion things come to mind when discussing this topic or similar ones and again, I am really tired, thinking about a billion other things and did not want to write a book.

Edit: and we as gamers did not take a stand when all this was happening (just very small ones) and failed to educate the newer fans as to why these games were so great etc, but rather treated them very disrespectfully (I took this last part from another poster, who posted something similar on BFO)

Edit: oh and the Wii introduced the rest of the world to casual gaming, then everything followed.

Edited by Rasgueados, 13 August 2012 - 07:07 PM.

[LaKaT]

Replying to What happened to the quality of computer games of old?

It started with the game console personal had more money and stole the good dame desiners for playstation and xbox, and contracted them away from game design I remeber the day if Microprose was putting out a game you new it was good, Tom clancy good. Thats why steam such a hit for ot allowsyou to play old game like Terror from the deep. Then EA got into it and stoped making Madden Football for the PC and so I refuse to go buy a game console and EA can't make me.

[John411]

The quality of games can also be skewed by the prism of memory. In general, humans tend to remember the better things about their life, i.e. "The Good Old Days". Currently, an entertaining movie can become boring as fast as a relationship (for the fickle types among us).
I dismiss 'graphics' as part of the answer. I stand firmly behind that because of the extensive ammout of time I put into games that had no graphics (Trinity, Ballyhoo and several others I can not recall at the moment). The important parts were created in my imagination and the fact that 30 years later, some of the most vivid scenes I have of a game were created by me. I do believe that the "minds' eye" is the best graphics engine that will ever be available. The electronic versions only serve to destroy or numb the imagination.

Edited by John411, 13 August 2012 - 07:27 PM.

[Allan Petabyte]

Well it's a very complex issue, but comes with an incredibly simple answer. Money makes the world go round.
Just look at Mass Effect 3; awsome gameplay, deep and driving story line, shiny graphics........one of the worst endings, of all time.

[SakuranoSenshi]

Well, the truth that hasn't been stated, in addition to the genuinely good points that have already been raised is 'nostalgia'. There were a lot of bad, buggy, overhyped half-finished games in the 'golden age' you're thinking back to, too. Human memory is a bit frail like that.

However, in general all the points raised also apply - it's easy to fix bugs post-production because people have been trained to look for patches when they install a game, it's expensive to do proper QA so companies skimp on it or use 'open beta' programmes to do it, the people buying the games are the same people paying lots of money for ever more powerful graphics cards, so the games companies feel they have to compete on that basis.

Edit: Then while I was writing this, another couple of pages popped up and people did indeed point out the nostalgia, hehe!

Edited by SakuranoSenshi, 13 August 2012 - 08:20 PM.

[cinco]

it's easier to develop heavily scripted linear shooters, that's why it's the most popular variety of games. people confuse artistic complexity for technical complexity. the only people in the industry i respect unconditionally are the artists. gameplay is usually entirely the decision of the designers and programmers. especially with financed or incorporated studios where the producers, people who aren't even part of the creation process, can influence decisions.

[Dervim]

Odanan, on 13 August 2012 - 04:35 PM, said:

But we forget one major factor: we, the gamers.

We used to spend weeks in a silly game, trying to pass some hard part. Today, we try one, two times and move on to another game.

Actually, today, most of the games are so dumbed down that it only takes one or two tries to finish the whole thing. There's barely any challenge and the length of single player campaigns is so short that it takes a day or two to finish the whole thing. So the devs are throwing all that "collectibles" crap to make us replay same crap over and over again, which ironically is the most difficult part of the games these days. But the real sad part is your remark about about us being gamers. Like I always say-masses are stupid, the majority of gamer community will keep throwing money at all the big companies and they will keep milking us in return. On a sidenote, I hear Dark Souls is a darn nice old-school RPG When I've read about it somehow reminded me the old 8bit Castlevania series games

[Company Man]

Artgathan, on 13 August 2012 - 03:06 PM, said:

If we're simply using the bug count as a measure of quality then of course games have gotten worse for one simple reason: they got more complex.

Please don't take this as a criticism of your point. Pre-CD ROM games used to count 16,000 - 24,000 defects open at release time. Some significant. Our tolerance for bugs has become infintessemally smaller. People now freak out and flame you for a single issue that may affect simply the individual.

My main point to counter yours is this: back in the day we had to program everything we did from scratch. There wasn't a Cry or Unreal engine. Sound, text, common libraries didn't exist. Testing was extremely complex and lengthy, development often 30-40% longer. Tools were not robust nor very helpful so process was cumbersome and as scientific as possible. Permutations of tests ranged in the hundreds, if not thousands with compatability issues.

Quality is so significantly better it isn't even funny. Ease of programming and building a game is practically automatic compared to the labor and time invested twenty years ago. By the time one of our titles was on it's third major release we had accumulated nearly 50,000 open defects in the code base that didn't even need a CD ROM to install. A few years later we released a title that broke ground on technology, was written from scratch, included all our own proprietary data and didn't include a single crash, freeze or other problem on two platforms.

In that last case, we had no time. We got lucky and had some of the best programming talent on the planet. Some of the best testing in the business and some of the best leadership ever in the history of humanity. Too bad that team was entirely contract and the company broke them up and sold the property off after one title...

Edited by Company Man, 14 August 2012 - 06:49 AM.

[Adridos]

And what company did you work for?

[SakuranoSenshi]

It's unlikely he's in a position to tell you that, even if he wanted to. Just saying.

[Adridos]

SakuranoSenshi, on 14 August 2012 - 07:31 AM, said:

It's unlikely he's in a position to tell you that, even if he wanted to. Just saying.

It never hurts to ask. If he can tell, good for me, if he can't, whatever.

[SakuranoSenshi]

Fair point.

[Bansheedragon75]

Well its not just he quality in regards to releasing a working game, instead of a very buggy one
Its also about the gameplay, entertainment and replayability.

I can mention games like

Carmageddon
Baldurs Gate 1&2
Master of Orion 1&2
Homeworld

These are games that offers good gameplay, nice graphsics and to me an incredible amount of fun and replayability.
Some of these games takes more than just a few hours to complete like most games today.
I have yet to find a game today that offers at least 30+ hours of gamplay just to complete it and a rich storyline that really draws me in.

Edited by Dragonlord, 14 August 2012 - 07:25 PM.

[SakuranoSenshi]

Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age Origins & Awakenings, doubtless there are others but that was with a few seconds of thought.