Comment on Years later, Arkane’s Dishonored is still a modern stealth classic
ZoteTheMighty@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Dishonored nailed a neat trick: If every game dev stops innovating immediately after you release an innovative game, your game will always be considered highly innovative.
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 hours ago
Yeah, people are always like, y no half life 3?
Look at what Valve has said in response to similar questions.
Its basically a polite way of saying ‘yeah there really isn’t a better possible first person shooter, single player experience.’
So they made a reality breaking first person puzzle game, became the de facto overlords of PC gaming platforms, invented VR tech, oh and made linux be able to run every game, oh and we make console-esque PCs now too, I guess.
Hell, I don’t even know of other games that solve the ‘multiplayer fps maps are predictable and boring’ the way L4D did, where the map itself csn basically mutate, have a bunch of semi-procedural preset variants.
Nope, instead, we still have the most popular multiplayer FPS games have basically static, memorizable maps.
Turns out gamers don’t actually seem to want innovation, they seem to want gacha games, as gacha games are now basically more than half of the gaming market.
nfreak@lemmy.ml 8 hours ago
A bit of a tangent, but tbh I feel like Half-Life Alyx was a perfect example of where they can take the franchise, but being a PC VR title (and one that really leans heavily into the tech and loses a ton if played with non-VR mods), it didn’t have nearly the same impact as the rest of the franchise. It was definitely innovative but not in a way to appeal to the mass market.
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 hours ago
100% agree!
Its an outstanding achievement… but it just ain’t affordable, ain’t accessible, not unless they can somehow get a Steam Frame to be more like half the cost of an Index, as opposed to about the same price.
On the other hand…
It would maybe be neat if more just games in general were made with the idea of a/many VR player(s) vs a/many kb+m or controller players.
Make asymetrical gameplay that plays to the strenghts of each set up.
Remember Splinter Cell’s old vs mode?
Two FPS heavies vs two TPS sneakybois?
Something like that, but specialized to different control set ups.
Actually balance around different control schemes, but where each control scheme basically is a base player class, something like that.
There are a few games and modes for games that do something like this, but nothing I am aware of thats like… a whole ass game, not just basically a minigame.
ZoteTheMighty@lemmy.zip 18 hours ago
Half Life 2 was about 5 years too early to be considered “basically beyond imptovement”. The graphics are a little dated now, and maybe the gameplay is a little simpler than a modern FPS, but ultimately it’s pretty close to the mark. I haven’t been surprised by FPS mechanics or graphics in 10 years, so there’s basically no way for Half Life 3 to surprise us. Dishonored 1 and 2 were basically identical. If you told me the second one came out immediately after, I’d believe you.
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 hours ago
Yeah, thats fair, I’m not trying to personally say HL2 is literally perfect, and I don’t think Valve are either…
But they’re saying that, by the time people really really wanted Half Life 3… they knew they would have to do something so revolutionary, so much better, to top it… that it actually wasn’t possible.
So, think outside the box, innovate elsewhere, all the other shit they’ve done?
Conceptually and practically easier than making a sequel that would live up to HL3 expectations.
Although, there are apparently reports that they are now actually trying to do HL3.
… these things, they take time.
MrFinnbean@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
I was with you until your last sentence.
Fallout 76 is better now. The monetizing is little ew, but there are lots of content and they fixed a lot of the big caveats i had with the game.
Id put that game just under a Noman sky and Cyperpunk 2077 as a game that turned around.
Also valve did not origaninally make portal. Its roots came from Kim Swifts senior project. Valve gave resurces to add the shine, but the concept did not originate from Valves offices.
They did not invent vr stuff either. First vr stuff crude as it was comes allthe way from the 60’s in the 90’s Sega had their Sega vr in some arcade racings games and oculus rift from Carmack + team was first modern style vr set on the markets.
Lots of games use similar mechanics than left for dead to make the maps and spawns feel different.
Here few from the top of my head: Vermintide 2 (maybe 1, havent played that) Pay day 2 Back 4 blood Ane could argue Alien isolation is similar because it has same kind of game director controlling the game. Remnant 1 & 2 Gunfire reborn.
One could argue even most extraction shootters do that because the exctraction zones change place.
Yeah all wants just catcha games. Thats why games like Clair Obscur, Death Stranding and now Dispatch have done so poorly.
verdi@feddit.org 13 hours ago
The friend 👆
Throbbing_banjo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 hours ago
You think one of the most popular and best-rated games of 2015 “did poorly?”
MrFinnbean@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Sorry. I forgot the /s
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 hours ago
Ok uh, what can you do, in terms of actual gameplay mechanics, in Fallout76, that you can’t do in… basically every multiplayer, survival/craft/open world/fps game?
There are so many of those… and… FO76 basically came out around the tail end of the kind of craze for those kinds of games, they were trend chasing.
Uh lets see, Valve did make Portal, what happened was they saw a demo of a game (Narbacular Drop) being concepted at a nearby gaming college expo, and they basically hired all of them, taught them Source, gave them more team breadth and depth to work with.
Valve has… or had… a track record of doing this, in the 90s / 00s. Oh, thats a neat mod for our game: Hire them.
So yes, Valve did originally make Portal. By seeing a neat concept demo, hiring the people behind it, and then making Portal.
I mean, you can say that after 5 more years of development, F076 became a basically functional open world survival craft fps, sure, but like…
No Mans Sky basically revolutionized the concept of what you can do with procedural generation, oh and, they just kept adding more and more stuff, just to the base game, not as DLC, not as MTX.
CP77? Yeah very rough start, but uh, entirely different scope of production value, being an actually competent RPG that’s practically an ImSim in many ways, all with an absurd level of graphical fidelity.
Like, everyone just expected that game to be Grand Theft Auto 5, Cyberpunk Edition, started their standards there, and then got mad that it wasn’t at parity.
CD Projekt Red was a AA studio when they were making this.
They were not Rockstar. They were not Bethesda.
Ok, I’ll give you that PayDay2 does actually have similar map mutating dynamics, I also have not played Vermintide, we do not speak of Back 4 Blood, what an embarassment, I am also unfamiliar with Remnant.
What I was trying to get at is … map mutations is how you solve the age old FPS team v team problem of… if you just have better map knowledge, you tend to win, so this causes a problem where you either have to keep pumping out new maps to keep things fresh, or you have to have a bunch of other balancing gameplay mechanics to have variety from there.
But the fundamental problem is that vets will clown noobs all the time, often by just simply having the maps memorized, angles and positions figured out, etc.
Also Alien Isolation has pretty good monster AI that works with the rest of the game design, but no, thats not mutating maps.
Open world maps that move objective markers around are not mutating maps.
HellDivers 2 is a good example of doing proc gen maps… but again, thats an extraction shooter, co-op shooter type thing.
Nobody, that I am aware of, has pulled this off for mass PvP battles, like, 16-32+ vs 16-32+ players.
As for Valve not literally, technically, totally inventing VR… sure yeah ok, what I meant was they poured tons of their own resources into doing VR in their own way, they’re one of the only teams that’s made an actual AAA VR game that fully embraces the concept of ‘you are a person in another world, a world that has high graphical realism.’
The point there was they turned toward innovating in other areas, that they did more or less start from scratch and invent their own concept of VR.
Your final quip about gacha games is funny.
Just look at the numbers dude, the vast majority of money to be made in gaming is by selling MTX addiction simulators.
That’s not to say there are not still people who really do actually want well crafted, truly innovative or very well put together, fully fledged games… but the way the math of capitalism works on that is uh, those kinds of endeavors are way riskier, and have way worse ROI, than selling waifus to dorks.
I hope that actual games defeat waifu simulators, we are seeing a lot of AAAs crash and burn recently, but uh, I don’t think gacha games are going anywhere… and most of the outfits with the money to be able to undertake a truly groundbreaking project?
Theyre all incompotent morons at the management level, who, after failing hard at their attempts in the last 5 ish years, are now just gonna try and hand that all over to AI, to attempt to further increase ROI.
But, normies love ‘recognizable brand franchise’, normies consistently auto-hypetrain and nostalgia-bate themselves, normies prove that having more than half a game’s budget be marketing does brainwash them very well.
Here, I’ll end with another hot take:
If, after everything that happened with Bethesda, up to the point of Starfield releasing…
You still bought Starfield on day one, or pre-ordered it?
You’re the problem, you’re the normie, you’re the person marketing and nostalgia work on, you didn’t realize your in an abusive, parasocial relationship with Bethesda.
Remember, no pre-orders.
MrFinnbean@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Uh. Mutation card system? Crafting system while not unique but extracting legendary mods is differend to many games where you just farm drops untill you get the perfect roll. Power armor is also something i havent really seen done that well outside of bethesda. Also they enviromental story telling in map big as FO76 is top notch. I understand if you have trendy hate for Bethesda. I dont especially like they releasing skyrim every few years or how they made the planets in Starfield, but i get the feeling you are not sharing your own opinions. Just yelling stuff you have hears in the internet.
About portal. Valve saw an idea, bought it out and gave it a new shine. They did a good job recocnizing talent but it was as much innovation from Valve as Adobe shows when they buy new shiny software.
I had fun with back 4 blood. It was shame they stopped the support for the game so early. Also most people i see bitching about it played it at the release time when it was very unbalanced or tried to jump on the higher dificulties too early without ever learning how to really play the game.
Also about the map mutations in general. Its not a problem to be solved. Reason why some maps are so popular for example in CS or CoD is because people have learned the maps and enjoy playing the game in a way where they can antipiciate the opponents movements and know how to play the game on “high level”. Some people enjoy more random maps more for the opposite reason. Its not a problem, its a preference. You are right that it makes it harder for the noobs to jump in to the games, but that is something many companies are trying to fix with match making.
I used alien as a example because it has similiar director behind the scenes as left for dead has. You know. The another big reason why the levels feel fresh. Id argue even that the director does more for the game feeling different than the small mutations in the level layout.
About valve vr… you were talking about innovation. They did not create the vr. They arguable made a great game and pushed it to the limit what can be done right now, but in its self there is nothing inherently innovative in the mechanics, except they are very well executed.
I found it pretty obnoxius that you raise yourself above the “normies”. Especialy when im feeling like most of your opinions come from other people and from gaming echochambers instead of you thinking things yourself. Personaly i have started gaming before windows was a thing and it has been one thing i can always get passionate about.
Another thing i find obnoxius is how people always think “big game companies bosses are incompetent” i bet most of the people in those position know much more about the markets than you and i. Their sole job is to try and generate money. Maybe its easier to think they are some cartoon level evil morons, but they are hitting their marks more times than not and we really only hear about the royal fuck ups.
And your quip about the star field. Bought it pretty late after the release on pc and on purpose tried to avoid any reviews before i finished the game. And im glad i didint. The game was not awsome, but it was not as bad as internets opinion was. Reading review can screw your perspective and make you focus on the minor inconviniences that you would ignore or not think about if somebody would not have brought those on the top if your mind.
Try sometime to test completely unknown game to you from either a demo or use the steam return policy and after you have your own opinion see if you agree with the reviews.
GreyCat@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
We are lucky coz Half-Life 3 is currently in development 😏