| What genres need a revive? Posted: 17 Dec 2017 05:56 AM PST Hobby developer looking for some inspiration. What video game genres have died, or are close to dieing, that you want back? Alternatively, what genres are too niche, but should appeal to a wider audience in your oppinion? submitted by /u/CaloctoraOrganism [link] [comments] |
| A videogames writer: dead end? Posted: 17 Dec 2017 10:28 AM PST Writing has always been my main passion. Well, one of a two - but since i can't travel and enjoy the nature because my disability won't allow me to survive in the wild without supplies, only writing remains. I always dreamed about writing strories for the video games, because they allow much more freedom and possible ways to tell the story than any other form of art. In my entire life i wrote around 10 complete, finished stories with all the little details like setting, characters, locations, dialogues, cutscenes, even most important game design features, and there is also some amount of less finished ones, as well as few concepts for online games but those are very niche and not much original. Completing or at least trying huge part of the existing video games allowed me to improve my ideas, make them close to perfection, but i still had no way to make them a reality. I had some fun with different level editors, tried to learn programming and 3d modelling, but understood that it's just not my thing - i will never do that well enough, and neither will i enjoy doing it. So i tried several things: Joining modding groups as a writer. They worked for some time, but they always felt apart without finishing the project. Sending countless messages for different game dev studios, offering them my stories for free. In 10+ years not a single one was interesed enough to ask me sent one for them to read. Trying to make game by myself. That was the last resort, because for a writer who does not know programming, modelling and can't even draw it's an almost impossible task. But it's also the only thing that i managed to complete because i found an awesome artist who helped me with all technical stuff and created all the custom graphical assets needed for the game. Still we worked with one of the game creation kits (rpg maker), that set a lot of limitations to the team without programmers, so we had to give up on a lot of planned features and some parts of the story, and also since it was only 2 of us - instead of creating full story we managed to make only prologue to the main story, that will take around 3-5 hours to complete. But despite all that we worked on the game for 5 years and did a good job, mainly thanks to the artist because without his drawings game would look really generic, and without his custom scripts a lot of gameplay mechanics would not be possible. We released game for free in Steam, but, as expected - without any promotion not many people found out about it's existence. But the thing that made me really happy is the fact that almost all negative rewiews were mostly about engine limitations, such as being unable to switch volume levels, change resolution, etc, while most of the people enjoyed my story (and said that they want to see the rest of it), setting and universe, as well as they liked the custom graphical assets and all the funny mechanics that was created by my partner. Few people even found all the secrets and most of the refferences >_< If someone likes old school rpg's and interested to see how it looks like - you can check "Project Fire" on Steam. I had a hope that after releasing my first game and showing what i am capable at there will be someone who would be interested if not in giving me opportunity to present all of my stories, then at least offering a chance to complete Project Fire, since it was obvious that people liked the beginning of the story and wanted to see the rest of it. But nothing like that even happened - deep inside me i knew that it will be the only game i will ever make, but i just didn't wanted to give up on the last thing that meant something in my life. So i kept writing to the different studios, without any result, as always. I am a realist and i completly understand that working with someone like me could look like a huge pain, but there is also a bright moments: - Yes, my english is terrible, and even if i can somehow communicate with it - i certainly can't write anything good in it, and years of trying showed me that i simply cannot master it at the level needed for professional writing (i even needed to find a translator for my own game, or i won't be able to release it to the english-speaking audience).
But if i write on russian i automaticly create a free russian translation with quality above any "official localisation", and i believe that finding a good enligh translator should not be a serious problem. - Yes, many people for some reasons dislike remote workers.
But instead they could pay me just a little or i could work for free, i don't mind. I am not a social person, that's why gathering my own team is not an option for me. However, if i work with already existing collective - i see no problems in explaining every possible detail of what needs to be done to each individual member (if i design the game) or in adapting story to the game designer's vision if they already have one. I also realize that many commercial developers are not interested in complicated or disturbing stories - they want to sell their game to the widest possible audience, and that means keeping story simple, so anyone would understand that, and with lowest possible age rating. Probably only Sony still care really much about quality of the stories because even if game sales won't be great those games with impressive stories can be a reason to buy their console, so they give their studios some creative freedom, but as far as i know japanese people are even less interested in working with foreginers than any other game developers, so trying to contact them was pointless too. And indie developers alredy have the ideas - their studios usually appear because someone who has a good story starts gathering the team, but i already said above why i cannot do the same thing. And, of course, the last, but not least - i understand that i may not fit to work on one of the existing universes with long history (with one exception probably - i would certainly like to create a Resident Evil game). I know that fans of such universes may not be happy about different approach or vision, and instead of dissapointing them i would rather chose to work on the ogirinal universe to be more certain in the result. But many of my stories are flexible, and if we take, for example, the war game story - it could fit into almost any shooter game, including giants like Call of Duty. As you can see, there is as much cons as there is pros in working with me, but still i see no more possibilities for someone like me to ever find my place in game development. Maybe things would be different if i was born in another country, or had better mental capabilities to learn high levels of english - then language would be no longer a problem and i would have a better chances in communicating with foregin teams (yes, there is not many dev teams in post-soviet countries where people speak russian, and most of them are making mobile games, so they are not an option too), but we have what we have. There is no more meaning in my life - unlike many people i have no other goals like making family, friends or career, stories is the only really interesting thing for me in this life. At night i rewiew them over and over again, replaying the scenes in my mind, trying to make them perfect and knowing that nobody will ever see them. And during the day i play games made by other people. Some time ago they used to be a pure joy - but now i often feel sad when i see how other people's dreams becoming a reality (especially if they are somewhat alike my own), and knowing that my own will never have that chance. I must live the rest of my life somehow, but i don't know what to do with that need to create, it's a huge pain to "play" the life in observer mode, telling stories is my way of trully communicating with the outside world. I would pledge my body to some pawnshop so i would be able to hire a team to help me develop the game, but, sadly, human life worth nothing at all. I am out of options. Is this a dead end? Maybe there is a people around here who wrote the stories for games before? How do you get to do that? submitted by /u/ElvenNeko [link] [comments] |
| Microtransactions and Loot Boxes Survey Posted: 16 Dec 2017 08:04 PM PST Hi r/truegaming once again, you may remember me from my last survey I posted on Thursday I think, I would have posted this yesterday but the mods haven't messaged me back yet so I figured they were okay with me posting this. This is a revised version of my last survey I made, using your feedback, hopefully it is a lot better as I tried to make it as objective as possible. https://goo.gl/forms/WNCF9LKhNeg25zA82 Leave any feedback you have in the comments, though my school project I am making this for is due relatively soon so this will be my final survey anyways. Thanks! submitted by /u/galafle [link] [comments] |
| Help me recall the name of a game with a most unique premise - PC FPS title that creates new gameplay content straight from contemporary headlines. Posted: 17 Dec 2017 01:39 PM PST New content would be released on a kind of schedule following modern day headlines in the region. All I can recall aside from that is a maybe Middle Eastern setting. The title seemed overly ambitious to me at the time of my review. Within the last 5 years the game was available via Steam. Any ideas? submitted by /u/GasFlagPolice [link] [comments] |
| Will Madden be fun for someone who hasn't played it in 15 years? Posted: 17 Dec 2017 09:24 AM PST I played Madden 98 to 2003 as a kid and loved them all. I'm still a football fan, and somewhat of a gamer (mostly just replay Soulsborne games). Will I enjoy Madden 17 or 18 if I picked it up? I don't hear them discussed seriously, but I assume that's because they have a specific fan base and they're overdone / repetitive to buy EVERY year. Objectively, how are they as video games? submitted by /u/garbageeater [link] [comments] |
| Possible ideas for the next installment of "The Division". How to make the next "Division" game better Posted: 17 Dec 2017 12:38 PM PST I know that this may be pointless considering Ubisoft has a reputation of barely changing any features in sequels or other releases of their franchises but I am going to post this anyway in case it may give them new ideas for the next instalment of the "The Division" franchise (if that ever happens but this is Ubisoft, they will probably make a sequel anyway). I am posting this because even I was hyped for The Division but it ultimately turned into a dumb shooter. A fun one but more of a meh shooter so I am posting this in hopes that Ubisoft and its developers will listen to their fans' feedback and hopefully make an even better Division game Here is a list to name a few: - Provide more back-story for the main antagonists - Gordon Amherst, the big bad man himself, has little back-story and not even an understandable motive to create the Green Poison virus.
- The mean reason Ubisoft did to explain why Amherst did what he did was for "natural selection" (which occurring to Amherst' understanding of evolution is not exactly correct) which did not make much sense. Make Amherst more human. Add some back-story, perhaps an early trauma that happened before the outbreak. Make him a person who we REALLY should hate or we really should empathise with instead of being just another "villian" that we have to chase.
- Same goes to Aaron Keener as well. Adding some more back-story before the outbreak and perhaps during the outbreak as well which led him to be an important antagonist will help us understand more his motives and personality
- More interactive atmosphere - I know that New York is in a state of despair and it is meant to give you this apocalyptic feel. But despite the amount of detail that is added in the streets of NYC (like seriously, there is a ton of detail if you take your time and pay attention), the city is incredibly dead and you pay no attention to your environment and all you do is run to next mission. And the next one, and the next one and so on.
- An idea on how to make a semi-dead NYC more interactive is making the next installment of the game set during the time when NYC is recovering from the outbreak. Have people outside communicating and doing "normal things" like partying, going to the bar, or even shipments from the outside world help will bring life to NYC while keeping the feel that it has not fully recovered from the outbreak (like dead bodies everywhere, streets full of garbage and so on, areas that are still full of crime and chaos and so on. Make the environments distinct like a more lively neighbourhood vs an area which is full of Rikers)
- More meaningful loot, gear and RPG elements - the game has RPG elements but could have been done a bit better. For starters, the outfit system is practically meaningless. I paid very little attention on the clothes that I obtained after missions or dropped after a shootout.
- Something that I liked that saved the clothing system has adding a warmth feature like they did in the Survival Mode. That was very clever considering you are playing during winter time so it may be useful in case of missions that are done during a snowstorm. Or maybe add the chance of being infected by the virus itself only this time, the humanity already managed to develop a vaccine to suppress the effects of the virus for a short time. Or maybe add a feature that a virus has already mutated into different versions so you have to take a different medicine for it. Or maybe just keep the sick feature in general like to risk of getting a cold or a flu which will further affect your character's actions if you cannot find medicine such as unable to focus or run slower.
- Perhaps another element can be done like make the game go throughout different times of the day or even of the year. For example, if it is raining, a warmth feature can be used as well or a new feature that minimises your likelihood of becoming sick, or perhaps another feature that reduces sound when moving if a player wants to take a more stealthy approach (maybe useful if they added a rain feature because poodles make noise will alert the enemy or using thunder to cover your noise, or adding slippery roads to be more careful when it rains so you should not run all the time. Other RPG elements can be used as well like hunger, thirst and risk of getting sick or the need for sleep can be used as well like they did on the Survival mode. Maybe perhaps add some more like risk of getting frostbite in a cold day or dehydration in case of a hot day *(maybe even adding a dehydration risk feature too in the case of hot areas like in hot buildings that are burned by the Cleaners so you have to use more light clothing to avoid further dehydration). Maybe this will be good to add in the Dark Zone too as another reason why an agent can kill another agent for the sake of his/her own survival – which brings to my next point
- Make the Dark Zone more balanced, fair and most importantly, more meaningful - The concept of the Dark Zone sounds great on paper. However, based on my experience on the Dark Zone, I hated it a lot and there was very little emphasis on even go there (as in, there were very little missions that took place in the Dark Zone). I avoided it as much as possible because I hated going there. Almost every time I went there, I ended up being completely annihilated by a group of incredibly strong groups of Rikers or Cleaners, making my chances of surviving minimal, or getting killed by an incredibly overpowered rogue agent (I remember the first time I was killed, I was DZ lvl 4 and I was killed by someone who was DZ lvl. 15) and took the gear that I found. Plus, the emphasis on going to the DZ to get better gear is pointless after reaching lvl. 30 because you are more likely to get better gear after purchasing the more advanced gear using your Phoenix credits or replaying the main missions in higher difficulties. Make going to the Dark Zone with a purpose and make going Rogue more of a risk rather than an option that players can take like for example, if someone goes Rogue then that Rogue agent is known by everyone (like a Dead or Alive Western-style hunt). Catching the Rogue agent also has its own risks too. Either you kill them or take them alive or risk being rogue too if you do not follow orders
- Add the option of interacting with the characters and enemies - I am not asking Ubisoft to make the game more like Deus Ex or The Witcher but adding those extra features add extra layers of depth and complications in the gameplay. Making the game more interaction between players and NPCs sort of like recent massively multiplayer games of late like PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds would make the game way more in depth and increases longevity
- All of the enemies you fight that a motivation that you can understand and sympathise with and since you are an agent whose goal is to mention order in NY, I found it contradictory that in order to maintain order, I have to shoot my way every single time, regardless of whether the enemies I am facing are actual bad guys like the fanatic Cleaners or people who are fighting for survival like the Rioters or the LMB. Adding this feature of interaction will give players to decide who really deserves punishment and does not. Use the NPCs interactions to give you clues of where the enemies may be hiding like for example from their dialogue (do not give it like an option but more like a secret objective that you have to be aware to notice). Use the environment and the NPCs interaction of the environment to know what to do or not to do like a graffiti saying "Rikers ahead" or "Do not go here. LMB armed"
- More depth and emphasis on strategy - As someone who played a lot of Tom Clancy games and someone who identifies himself as a Tom Clancy fan, I saw the "Tom Clancy" game added as a marketing stunt. Despite the Tom Clancy name on the name, this is not a Tom Clancy game in its entirety. Yes, there are features that are found among Tom Clancy titles like emphasis on strategy and clever thinking (like using cover tactics) and having the story inspired by real life events that actually happened. However, The Division is more like a Gears of War game with your enemies being bullet sponges despite whether or not they are wearing tactical armour or simple plain clothing.
- What made Tom Clancy games stand out was the extra emphasis on strategy and clever thinking and a lot of patience and environmental awareness, plus an extra layer of difficulty if you really wanted a challenge (which there is thankfully in The Division). That extra layer of depth in gameplay would give it a greater level of replayability, especially if played in co-op and new opportunities for different strategies. In comparison to other Tom Clancy games, I saw The Division easier sometimes, as if it wanted to hold my hand. For example, I did not like after scanning map in the safe houses, I immediately know where to go (oh, that reminds me. The side-missions are WAAYYY too repetitive and they become boring very fast. The only reason I had to do them was because of the extra point I got to level up my three skill trees after completing them).
- A more tactical approach would be better. Interacting with the NPCs to gain more information about the whereabouts of your enemies. Add a non-lethal option so that you can interrogate that enemy for more intel. Heck, might as well interact with the environment while you are at it like look for a map that gains more intel of where your hostages are or what type of armour your target has so that you know how to take him out. That layer is Intel can be very helpful in case you are playing on higher difficulties or you do not know who you are gonna face.
- Make the enemies more distinct than just their health or different classes. I know the sniper is always going to be far away so you need to use a rifle or sniper rifle to take him out which will be easy because of the low health, like I know that a Riker runner is going to attack me head on which makes me have to get out of the way and target him first. But making the factions more distinct will the player having to change tactics often like the Rikers are not professionally trained and are reckless like not using cover, poor aim and maybe poor choice of guns. But make them come in large groups and make their brash approach more intimidating like for example their unprofessional tactics makes them unpredicatable so you may not now what they might do next. Some goes to the other factions like for example the Cleaners are often equipped with flamethrowers and will come at you with tons of flame. Make this an advantage so that you have to take them out first or else their flames will increase risk of burning you or making you have to change cover because the cover is heating up and the player cannot focus. Or make the LMB the toughest. Professionally trained, tough to kill because they know how to communicate and shoot the player and so on. This will be more tactical and even memorable if you are fighting multiple factions together. This will help giving each faction a distinct personality and not just a different image.
- Also, make the gear you use more interesting too. There are some skills that are barely used like the mobile cover and there are gear that you almost never use the explosive ammunition or the sodas and the energy bars (actually, I completely forgot about them). Make the gear that you use as actual armor instead of for example a bag with extra ammo or +2 agility. Make the gear look like real military-grade stuff that only Directive 51 has.
- I would like to add grenades as well. Make every grenade more meaningful and purposeful (something that makes Tom Clancy games also stand out because they have equipment has a purpose). I mostly added up relying on explosive grenades and incendiary grenades because I found them more helpful and the other grenades were deemed pointless (I only ever used them when I ran out of the other grenades that I just mentioned). Perhaps a flash bang grenade can be used like when a machine gunner is suppressing you and you cannot move or shoot so that you can move to another location and take him out. Or perhaps use the EMP grenade to take out a bunch of incredibly powerful turrets or drones that you cannot take out with your ammunition alone because of their tough armor and high rate of fire.
- Remove the bullet sponges - I saved the last one for last because we all know that this was coming. That bullet sponge mechanic is very annoying and tedious. I know that The Division is meant to be like an RPG but I found it hard to remove that sense of disbelief that I am fighting against people who almost never used cover yet they can absorb a ton of ammunition and then take me up in just a couple of hits. Perhaps more it more authentic like when you manage to find actual gear with actual armour, make your enemies able to find just as much armour too like for example from fallen Division agents. Maybe make the feature that after you die, the factions will get to know what kind of armour or gear the player uses so they will use it as their own (sort of like a Nemisis system). Or perhaps, make the enemies learn more about the player as the game goes on. Like the player likes to take the stealthy approach then the enemies will add more light at night or use more radar to spot the player. If the player likes to use snipers and take headshots, then the enemy will find armour to protects their heads. As the player learns more about the game's mechanics and his enemies as the game goes on, make the enemies learn about the player too
- Maybe adding different types of enemies will be much better and more interesting (also because the fights end up being too repetitive as well despite that you face different types of enemies as well like a Bruiser who uses melee weapons or the Sniper).
- Because of these spongy enemies, they make some weapons practically useless like the DMRs, shotguns, handguns, burst rifles. Because of that, I ended up neglecting most of those types of weapons and relied more on assault rifles, SMGs, and LMGs.
I think that is all for now submitted by /u/sammyjamez [link] [comments] |
| Videogames vs Obesity: A consideration of scholars attempts to use serious video games Posted: 17 Dec 2017 12:57 AM PST Hey all, so I recently did this research paper and video of the field of serious video games (looking specifically at its potential in fighting obesity), and I thought there was some pretty cool stuff to go over. For those that don't want to watch the (6 1/2 min) video... I'll do a TL:DW, but the video does a pretty good job of it. TL:DW Serious games (defined as games made for a serious purpose) have been researched for at least the last 10 years. A good portion of this research has been directed at dealing with the obesity epidemic. However, there isn't any solid proof from this research that serious video games can actually prove useful in fighting obesity, so is there a better option? I suggest that because games have never been shown to actually be able to directly affect behavior, serious games don't have a chance in this regard either. I also suggest that for this kind of "therapy" a method of gamification is a better idea. So, let me know what you guys think... like I said, you'll get a better idea if you watch the video, but I'm curious as to your thoughts on serious games, both in regards to health games but in other areas as well. Do you think they do have a chance of being effective somehow? or do you think gamification is a better idea? Perhaps you have your own theory? submitted by /u/Tinarkii [link] [comments] |
| Is it better for a game to release as it is or to include future DLC to add to the plot? Posted: 17 Dec 2017 01:14 AM PST Final Fantasy XV got me thinking about this. The main game is both enjoyable and underwhelming at the same time because sections of the game feel rushed and cut out. The devs have been patching in more story for more than a year now which is great and all but it still feels like they released an incomplete game that's being retouched and held together by bandages. submitted by /u/ExodiusRex [link] [comments] |
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