then please explain. Is the design idea of making many experiences, one with one group of people, specific group, or single player, a bad design quality? Or that it's something to hide behind?
He is saying that he had an awesome time playing Planetside with a clan. The truth is he probably would have had that same awesome time almost no matter what game they played. It is possible to have fun while playing a shitty game, watching a shitty movie, reading a shitty book, etc. Don't falsely attribute the good feelings to the wrong source.
This is more than likely not true. I can't speak for Adam, but my experiences have been that the whole reason I'm having fun is that I'm able to experience a game/simulation that AI or just myself cannot simulate. I enjoy having to work on communication between various players and units to properly coordinate intricate and delicate manoeuvres. I enjoy the emergent situations that occur when two teams work against each other in competition (upwards of 50 vs 50 players). I enjoy having a venue to test leadership skills. Below is an example. Here we have multiple insurgents working together and communicating on a localized voice system to suppress the enemy team. Such a scenario would be impossible to simulate or create without a good "group" or community. The ability to organize allows for the use of advanced techniques like this.
These are not situations which are possible without working well with people. However, don't get me wrong. It is certainly not a requirement to join a clan or dedicated group. Well designed games (like the Project Reality Mod for BF2) will contain mechanisms to encourage random pubbies (public players) to work together. These can be well structured organization systems (squads, platoon structure), in-game voice communication systems, and graphical interfaces to help communicate in game situations. The problem is, like I stated before, getting 50 random people to work together is a non-trivial task and either requires predetermined planning (clans) or highly motivated individuals (the game's community at large).
If you're going to be silly about this, I can be equally silly. All single player activities are games whose goal is "complete this objective before you die."
If you're going to be silly about this, I can be equally silly. All single player activities are games whose goal is "complete this objective before you die."
Yes, that's what I meant. If you want to take a stupid definition of a game, that would be one way to go.
The fun came pretty much entirely from the people.
But different games create different experiences. The experiences that D&D; create are not the same experiences that Burning Wheel create, nor the same experiences which Inspectres create.
If the people were the only factor, or even the primary factor, then there would be no reason to play other RPG's.
Similarly, Planetside is a different specific game than other games, and it creates a different specific experience than other MMO's. Is it significantly different? Maybe not to you, but unless you come up with some valid empirical way to measure the magnitude of experiences generated by games, the differences in gaming experiences will remain subjective.
Ok, a lot of you are getting caught up on all the stuff you can't peel away, so let me simplify it for you.
Let's say we have a simple toy. A bucket of green army men. We want to critique this. Is it a good toy or a bad toy? To what degree is it good or bad, and in what ways?
Well, we can evaluate it on its fundamental and obvious characteristics. What is the price? How many army men do you get? How many different varieties are there? Is the plastic high quality? Does it have a funny smell? Are they well sculpted, or misshapen?
The thing is, just evaluating those characteristics has no meaning unless we have a point of comparison. If the price is $5, that has no meaning. We have to look at the prices of other things to determine if that price is too low, too high, or average. The plastic may be cheap, but if every other toy has even cheaper plastic, then it's actually a positive. Everything is relative.
But that isn't enough to judge on. It's all subjective, as well. Maybe someone likes the plastic to be cheaper? Maybe they don't want too many figures, and they want fewer higher quality ones instead?
And then you come to actually judge the experience of playing with them. One kid might have a blast, while another is bored to tears. Two friends might setup a great and epic war. Another two friends might tie firecrackers to them. A baby might chew on them.
The thing is, when you examine these kinds of experiences, what part of them comes from the toy and what part comes from the player? The army men did nothing for the bored kid, or did the bored kid do nothing with the army men? For the kids who had the epic war, did the toy give them the inspiration, or were they so imaginative they would have had an epic time with any toy that was available? The baby would have chewed on anything it could get its hands on.
There's no answer to these questions. They are, yet again, completely subjective. There's no accounting for taste. When it comes to emotions you can't judge.
So how come when it comes to games we can throw around terms like good and bad when the experience of the game is completely subjective? Because games are math. We tear that stuff away and just look at the rules of the game. We then ask a bunch of questions to objectively judge the quality of the game.
What skill or skills does the game test? How fairly does the game test those skills and to what degree? Is the game solved or solvable and in what way? Does the game have any major design flaws, such as allowing and encouraging alternate disruptive utilities? Are the rules clear, or are there ambiguities? How large is the element of chance in determining victory? I could go on.
Some really good games are really not fun, like Go. Yeah, I went there. Others that are very fun are quite horrible. It is possible to have fun with any game, no matter how bad, if you bring that to the table. Again, Desert Bus. It's also possible to do the exact opposite and have a really terrible experience with a great game. You can't take your own personal feelings or experiences into account when judging something. You can say you enjoyed it. You can say you did not enjoy it. You can not say it's good or it's bad.
Counter-Strike is a great game. It is a very strong and fair test of fps skill and also tactical decision making on the team, squad, and individual levels. It fairly tests those skills, when cheating is not present. The game is asymmetrical in maps, arsenal, and victory conditions. There are multiple victory conditions per side, a wide array of equipment choices, and many many maps. This results in so many possibilities that not even a single map can be solved, effectively or mathematically. The asymmetric aspects are definitely balanced because when highly skilled players compete, no one side is clearly dominant in standard scenarios. And even after the game has been played by so many after so many years, few, if any, dominant strategies have emerged. Even with friendly fire off, there are few opportunities to grief and the effect a griefer can have on the game is very slight due to lack of respawn. The lack of respawn also means that each kill is very significant resulting in scores heavily in favor of the superior players and team. It is incredibly rare that the team or players with less skill will be victorious due to random chance.
You may not like Counter-Strike. Maybe you suck and just die immediately every time, so you have no fun. Maybe you love Counter-Strike and play it every day. That doesn't matter. Counter-Strike is a good game for the above reasons as well as others whether you have fun with it or not.
We tear that stuff away and just look at the rules of the game. We then ask a bunch of questions to objectively judge the quality of the game.
What skill or skills does the game test? How fairly does the game test those skills and to what degree? Is the game solved or solvable and in what way? Does the game have any major design flaws, such as allowing and encouraging alternate disruptive utilities? Are the rules clear, or are there ambiguities? How large is the element of chance in determining victory? I could go on.
Mathematics are the underpinnings of a game, but past a certain point they mean jack shit about game quality. Warhammer 40K has some crunch that is broken as hell, but I still love it.
Games are a source of entertainment. Their success or lack thereof hinges solely on their ability to be enjoyed by the player. Luckily, most human beings share a sense of fun that's primarily centered around flow-intensive experiences, which is what enables one to enjoy a game. People enjoy different things. Micromanaging triggers flow in some (Starcraft), extreme strategy (Go, Chess) in others, reaction time (Bayonetta) in others still. You can't project your "Game Theory as Objective Fun" onto gaming as a whole. It will not work.
Wow. The thread blew up without me. Let me explain my point better so you can see why I enjoyed Planetside and Scott did not: Scott played alone or with disorganized groups. Planetside was designed to be enjoyed in large groups. While it was possible to run around by yourself, this was generally highly ineffective and a pain in the ass. The game was POSSIBLE to play all on your own with no help, but it's enjoyment came from being with a big group. If you tried to play Tribes 2 as a single player versus a whole mess of bots, or against one or two other people, the experience would have been equally not enjoyable as playing Planetside the same way. The single-player aspect of Planetside was there mostly as a pre-existing state while you found out where you were needed, hooked up with a squad or platoon, and didn't fight alone. Granted, there were some really amazing players who could do some great espionage on their own, but they were few and far between. I found enjoyment in the game because I played it as it was envisioned. Scott did not, and hated it. I think it was actually impossible for Scott to enjoy Planetside because of his taste in games, honestly, and what he feels a game should be.
Wow. The thread blew up without me. Let me explain my point better so you can see why I enjoyed Planetside and Scott did not: Scott played alone or with disorganized groups. Planetside was designed to be enjoyed in large groups. While it was possible to run around by yourself, this was generally highly ineffective and a pain in the ass. The game was POSSIBLE to play all on your own with no help, but it's enjoyment came from being with a big group. If you tried to play Tribes 2 as a single player versus a whole mess of bots, or against one or two other people, the experience would have been equally not enjoyable as playing Planetside the same way. The single-player aspect of Planetside was there mostly as a pre-existing state while you found out where you were needed, hooked up with a squad or platoon, and didn't fight alone. Granted, there were some really amazing players who could do some great espionage on their own, but they were few and far between. I found enjoyment in the game because I played it as it was envisioned. Scott did not, and hated it. I think it was actually impossible for Scott to enjoy Planetside because of his taste in games, honestly, and what he feels a game should be.
Way to come late to the thread and bring up points we already discussed :-p
Yeah, no kidding. Andrew made the best example with the BF2:PRMM video though. PRMM is an abysmal experience if you're all alone or your team/squad is not communicating. This is terrible for the 'Rambo' type of gamer, but as a result, no one like that plays the game.
I'm getting really tired of explaining the same things over and over again in thread after thread, and you people still don't understand this basic stuff. From now on, you're all just getting blog posts that I will link to over and over again.
I'm getting really tired of explaining the same things over and over again in thread after thread, and you people still don't understand this basic stuff. From now on, you're all just getting blog posts that I will link to over and over again.
We understand perfectly well how to judge a game on its own merits. However, you're also conflating a value judgement along with your objective assessment, and that's the issue. There are no universal objective criteria for "good" when it comes to games; yes, you can break a game down into its fundamental game theory components, but that does not necessitate judging a game as being "good" or not.
You could say that Planetside presents game theory component X better than this other game, and that Counterstrike presents game theory component Y better than Planetside. Saying "Planetside is a bad game because of game theory" is an overly broad statement.
The word "good" is a coarse and very subjective term. We don't use it much in real science; the only time when comparative words are useful is when you have an objective measure of some kind, and the conclusions you can draw from said objective measure are quite a bit narrower than "this whole thing is good" or "this whole thing is bad."
There is no such thing as a universal objective judgement of quality. You can assess an item based on very particular criteria, but ratings are inherently flawed because you're attempting to apply an objective system in an overly broad fashion.
In other words, you saying that Planetside is a "bad" game is really no more or less subjective than Adam saying it's a "good" game. Define your criteria and then discuss the ways in which the game approaches your criteria.
1. Define what constitutes fitness for the purposes of this discussion 2. Analyze the game to determine if it demonstrates fitness for said stated definition.
Scott does make a real and important point: that a game should not be analyzed based on the strengths players bring to it, but instead by what the game itself provides. Most people cannot separate the two. He does then proceed to go overboard by not following the two above steps.
Game Mechanism: Pushing buttons for rewards. Diablio II
Pro: Pushing a button for a virtual reward has never had so many demons and loot. Con: Not as fun as pushing a button and receiving an organism or a piece of pie. Pro: Prevents me from commiting crimes Con: Prevents me from solving world hunger.
Scott does make a real and important point: that a game should not be analyzed based on the strengths players bring to it, but instead by what the game itself provides. Most people cannot separate the two. He does then proceed to go overboard by not following the two above steps.
The thing is, games can vary in their ability to make use of what players bring to the table.
Counter-Strike only meets your logic for it being a good game when you play with a group of people. Single player Counter-Strike does not meet your criteria for being a good game for several reasons. At the highest level, it's never truly a fair test of skill as the AI may or may not have perfect information of the world, perfect aim, ect. Cheats as you explained in your post. Furthermore, it only tests you tactical decision making on the individual level; unable to simulate or test on a multi-agent level. The core component of the game is that you have humans competing against humans. The only difference between Planetside and Counter-Strike is that the later is more structured to distill the core of the tactical decision making. However, by doing so it loses the nuances of higher level strategies and tactical decisions that derive from open environment combat. This is really only a personal preference matter and I find games which maintain those nuances to be more much enjoyable.
You have explained why Counter-Strike is good, but you have yet to explain why Planetside was bad.
Single player Counter-Strike does not meet your criteria for being a good game for several reasons. At the highest level, it's never truly a fair test of skill as the AI may or may not have perfect information of the world, perfect aim, ect.
Counter-Strike does not include AI. Any and all bots are not officially a part of the game. Also, the round will not start if there is only one player. Single player Counter-Strike does not exist.
Counter-Strike does not include AI. Any and all bots are not officially a part of the game. Also, the round will not start if there is only one player. Single player Counter-Strike does not exist.
But it can be any group, and the game is still fit on many fundamental levels. Join any random standard server, and the game is fundamentally sound.
This is dependent upon the community. Heroes of Newerth is a fundamentally sound game in exactly the same way, yet the community causes it to be a shitty game. Granted, it might be different if it had Counter-Strike's number of players, but at that point it's just statistics.
Sheer numbers and extra-game planning matteredwaymore than individual or even group skill. Also, leveling for abilities.
I don't believe it was a bad game, unlike Scott. It was OK, but had too many flaws for my taste.
Very true and I agree with this statement (and why I didn't play Planetside). Games like Project Reality and ArmA provide a nice balance, although the flavor of the game might not interest everyone.
Heroes of Newerth is a fundamentally sound game in exactly the same way, yet the community causes it to be a shitty game.
I would argue that it's actually a shitty game. The community is just an extension of that shittiness. Even if they had all been awesome, helpful people, the game is a crap mismash of outdated gameplay, pointless micro-optimization, knowledge, and limited strategic depth.
I would argue that it's actually a shitty game. The community is just an extension of that shittiness. Even if they had all been awesome, helpful people, the game is a crap mismash of outdated gameplay, pointless micro-optimization, knowledge, and limited strategic depth.
Yeah, you're definitely right there. Let me put it this way, the only reason why you "never" join a server where everyone is dropping grenades on themselves at spawn is sheer statistics. You're ability to drop in and play a sound game with a group is dependent upon having enough normal people to balance out the shitcocks. From this point it's trivial to notice that it's just a self-reinforcing cycle. The only reason why Counter-Strike is the example is it's early market penetration from being a free mod, it's piggy backing on the Half Life engine, and luck. From there it's just a natural extension of probability.
Yeah, you're definitely right there. Let me put it this way, the only reason why you "never" join a server where everyone is dropping grenades on themselves at spawn is sheer statistics. You're ability to drop in and play a sound game with a group is dependent upon having enough normal people to balance out the shitcocks. From this point it's trivial to notice that it's just a self-reinforcing cycle
But no amount of good players make HoN a good game. Take the same group of good players and have them play Bomberman instead, and they'll likely have more fun. HoN is desperately flawed.
Meanwhile, other small games (NS) have tiny communities and yet still afford good games and good players regularly. Also, cheating is almost impossible in CS, and as such, you can have a good game even if everyone else on the server is a shitcock.
The only reason why Counter-Strike is the example is it's early market penetration from being a free mod, it's piggy backing on the Half Life engine, and luck. From there it's just a natural extension of probability.
I would argue that CS is so enduringly popular because it's fundamentally one of the best multiplayer FPSs ever made.
Comments
Here we have multiple insurgents working together and communicating on a localized voice system to suppress the enemy team. Such a scenario would be impossible to simulate or create without a good "group" or community. The ability to organize allows for the use of advanced techniques like this.
These are not situations which are possible without working well with people. However, don't get me wrong. It is certainly not a requirement to join a clan or dedicated group. Well designed games (like the Project Reality Mod for BF2) will contain mechanisms to encourage random pubbies (public players) to work together. These can be well structured organization systems (squads, platoon structure), in-game voice communication systems, and graphical interfaces to help communicate in game situations. The problem is, like I stated before, getting 50 random people to work together is a non-trivial task and either requires predetermined planning (clans) or highly motivated individuals (the game's community at large).
If the people were the only factor, or even the primary factor, then there would be no reason to play other RPG's.
Similarly, Planetside is a different specific game than other games, and it creates a different specific experience than other MMO's. Is it significantly different? Maybe not to you, but unless you come up with some valid empirical way to measure the magnitude of experiences generated by games, the differences in gaming experiences will remain subjective.
Let's say we have a simple toy. A bucket of green army men. We want to critique this. Is it a good toy or a bad toy? To what degree is it good or bad, and in what ways?
Well, we can evaluate it on its fundamental and obvious characteristics. What is the price? How many army men do you get? How many different varieties are there? Is the plastic high quality? Does it have a funny smell? Are they well sculpted, or misshapen?
The thing is, just evaluating those characteristics has no meaning unless we have a point of comparison. If the price is $5, that has no meaning. We have to look at the prices of other things to determine if that price is too low, too high, or average. The plastic may be cheap, but if every other toy has even cheaper plastic, then it's actually a positive. Everything is relative.
But that isn't enough to judge on. It's all subjective, as well. Maybe someone likes the plastic to be cheaper? Maybe they don't want too many figures, and they want fewer higher quality ones instead?
And then you come to actually judge the experience of playing with them. One kid might have a blast, while another is bored to tears. Two friends might setup a great and epic war. Another two friends might tie firecrackers to them. A baby might chew on them.
The thing is, when you examine these kinds of experiences, what part of them comes from the toy and what part comes from the player? The army men did nothing for the bored kid, or did the bored kid do nothing with the army men? For the kids who had the epic war, did the toy give them the inspiration, or were they so imaginative they would have had an epic time with any toy that was available? The baby would have chewed on anything it could get its hands on.
There's no answer to these questions. They are, yet again, completely subjective. There's no accounting for taste. When it comes to emotions you can't judge.
So how come when it comes to games we can throw around terms like good and bad when the experience of the game is completely subjective? Because games are math. We tear that stuff away and just look at the rules of the game. We then ask a bunch of questions to objectively judge the quality of the game.
What skill or skills does the game test? How fairly does the game test those skills and to what degree? Is the game solved or solvable and in what way? Does the game have any major design flaws, such as allowing and encouraging alternate disruptive utilities? Are the rules clear, or are there ambiguities? How large is the element of chance in determining victory? I could go on.
Some really good games are really not fun, like Go. Yeah, I went there. Others that are very fun are quite horrible. It is possible to have fun with any game, no matter how bad, if you bring that to the table. Again, Desert Bus. It's also possible to do the exact opposite and have a really terrible experience with a great game. You can't take your own personal feelings or experiences into account when judging something. You can say you enjoyed it. You can say you did not enjoy it. You can not say it's good or it's bad.
Counter-Strike is a great game. It is a very strong and fair test of fps skill and also tactical decision making on the team, squad, and individual levels. It fairly tests those skills, when cheating is not present. The game is asymmetrical in maps, arsenal, and victory conditions. There are multiple victory conditions per side, a wide array of equipment choices, and many many maps. This results in so many possibilities that not even a single map can be solved, effectively or mathematically. The asymmetric aspects are definitely balanced because when highly skilled players compete, no one side is clearly dominant in standard scenarios. And even after the game has been played by so many after so many years, few, if any, dominant strategies have emerged. Even with friendly fire off, there are few opportunities to grief and the effect a griefer can have on the game is very slight due to lack of respawn. The lack of respawn also means that each kill is very significant resulting in scores heavily in favor of the superior players and team. It is incredibly rare that the team or players with less skill will be victorious due to random chance.
You may not like Counter-Strike. Maybe you suck and just die immediately every time, so you have no fun. Maybe you love Counter-Strike and play it every day. That doesn't matter. Counter-Strike is a good game for the above reasons as well as others whether you have fun with it or not.
Games are a source of entertainment. Their success or lack thereof hinges solely on their ability to be enjoyed by the player. Luckily, most human beings share a sense of fun that's primarily centered around flow-intensive experiences, which is what enables one to enjoy a game. People enjoy different things. Micromanaging triggers flow in some (Starcraft), extreme strategy (Go, Chess) in others, reaction time (Bayonetta) in others still. You can't project your "Game Theory as Objective Fun" onto gaming as a whole. It will not work.
Let me explain my point better so you can see why I enjoyed Planetside and Scott did not:
Scott played alone or with disorganized groups. Planetside was designed to be enjoyed in large groups. While it was possible to run around by yourself, this was generally highly ineffective and a pain in the ass. The game was POSSIBLE to play all on your own with no help, but it's enjoyment came from being with a big group. If you tried to play Tribes 2 as a single player versus a whole mess of bots, or against one or two other people, the experience would have been equally not enjoyable as playing Planetside the same way. The single-player aspect of Planetside was there mostly as a pre-existing state while you found out where you were needed, hooked up with a squad or platoon, and didn't fight alone. Granted, there were some really amazing players who could do some great espionage on their own, but they were few and far between.
I found enjoyment in the game because I played it as it was envisioned. Scott did not, and hated it. I think it was actually impossible for Scott to enjoy Planetside because of his taste in games, honestly, and what he feels a game should be.
You could say that Planetside presents game theory component X better than this other game, and that Counterstrike presents game theory component Y better than Planetside. Saying "Planetside is a bad game because of game theory" is an overly broad statement.
The word "good" is a coarse and very subjective term. We don't use it much in real science; the only time when comparative words are useful is when you have an objective measure of some kind, and the conclusions you can draw from said objective measure are quite a bit narrower than "this whole thing is good" or "this whole thing is bad."
There is no such thing as a universal objective judgement of quality. You can assess an item based on very particular criteria, but ratings are inherently flawed because you're attempting to apply an objective system in an overly broad fashion.
In other words, you saying that Planetside is a "bad" game is really no more or less subjective than Adam saying it's a "good" game. Define your criteria and then discuss the ways in which the game approaches your criteria.
Needless to say, I agree with you wholly Pete.
1. Define what constitutes fitness for the purposes of this discussion
2. Analyze the game to determine if it demonstrates fitness for said stated definition.
Scott does make a real and important point: that a game should not be analyzed based on the strengths players bring to it, but instead by what the game itself provides. Most people cannot separate the two. He does then proceed to go overboard by not following the two above steps.
Diablio II
Pro: Pushing a button for a virtual reward has never had so many demons and loot.
Con: Not as fun as pushing a button and receiving an organism or a piece of pie.
Pro: Prevents me from commiting crimes
Con: Prevents me from solving world hunger.
You have explained why Counter-Strike is good, but you have yet to explain why Planetside was bad.
HURR DURR DUR DURRR
I don't believe it was a bad game, unlike Scott. It was OK, but had too many flaws for my taste.
Meanwhile, other small games (NS) have tiny communities and yet still afford good games and good players regularly. Also, cheating is almost impossible in CS, and as such, you can have a good game even if everyone else on the server is a shitcock.
I would argue that CS is so enduringly popular because it's fundamentally one of the best multiplayer FPSs ever made.