1. Re: graphical engines
- Posted by MindVentur at AOL.COM
Apr 22, 1999
I work in the table-top (role-playing) game industry and have ties to other
segments of the publishing industry as well. It's not just computer games.
It's our society. We live in a visual world. 99% of people are more impressed
with visuals than content. It's that old surface perception versus content
issue and it is even more pervasive than gaming or entertainment.
I will agree that gameplay hasn't improved lately in most computer games.
We're still dealing with the same basic ideas we were 20 years ago. I will
also note that Half-Life and Baldur's Gate do have better game play than most
games in their genre and I personally enjoy playing both more than just about
anything that's come out in the past decade. I feel like both have treaded on
some new ground in terms of taking a lot of the tedium out of playing games.
As a published game designer, albeit not in the computer game industry, I
would like to make a "reality check" statement here. It's a lot easier to sit
on the player side of the fence and say "i can make a better game than X or
Y" than it is to sit on the designer's side and ACTUALLY do it. Designing a
game of any kind (outside of maybe Tetris) requires a lot more work than just
having one or two creative ideas. There's a certain depth required to
complete it and most people who start, never finish because it really is a
lot of work.
Several people on this list are working on game projects. I personally think
that is GREAT!!!! I've started several crpg ideas but ultimately my game time
gets shifted back to other game mediums and I don't have the time to go very
far. Part of the problem too is that I have little motivation because of the
lack of fast SVGA graphics routines. Why should I devote a great deal of time
to a game that at best is going to graphically have the appearance of
something 5 or 10 years old? Most people make their opinions about a game in
just a few seconds. Beyond graphics and sound, there's not much you can take
in during that time. As a game designer, I want to make games that a lot of
people will play. Why do it in a format that will appeal to just a few people?
If you want Euphoria to be a good platform for games that people actually
will want to play (regardless of whether they're that "good" or not), we need
good, high-speed, SVGA graphics at a minimum. High-res 3d routines would be
nice too. I don't like Direct-X because it is slow(ish), but it's still a lot
faster at SVGA than anything I've seen made with Euphoria. Please, somebody
prove me wrong. I'd love to see some hope that MODERN, commercial-quality
games can be made with this language. I love the syntax and the way it works,
but I have serious questions about its viability as a modern game platform.
I'm sure I'll incite some flames here. That is not my intention. I'd just
love to see Euphoria turn into the kind of tool I would like to make games
that will compete with the ones you see on the software shelf at your local
store or the ones in PC Games.
Just my $.02
Chuck
