Still, EA has released two of the most original and addictive titles (Sims, Spore), and as for the Battlefield franchise.... 
Future of video and computer gaming...
- Thread starter Danielos
- Start date
Murky
Deity
I am hoping to see better versions of classic games like Master of Orion II and Populous.
Slaughter
Paladin
Dumbing down, hand-holding and consolization seems to be the current trend today. Sadly. It will probrably be like this at least until the current generation turns into adults and wish for better, more mature gamers. Or else, it's not going to stop.
Compare Fallout 1/2 to Fallout 3. Fallout 3 seems to be dumbed down for consoles and made more action-y to console sheeple will buy it. Look at Deus Ex and compare it to IW and to the new-coming Deus Ex 3. CONSOLIZATION AND DUMBING DOWN, people.
I don't have many hopes for Fallout 3, seems to be too much hype, too much dumbing down and too much stupidity.
Indie development is the way of the future. We need new creative ideas. I can only hope for a new Video Game Crash so indies will get the power and games as good as the original Fallouts will be developed.
Compare Fallout 1/2 to Fallout 3. Fallout 3 seems to be dumbed down for consoles and made more action-y to console sheeple will buy it. Look at Deus Ex and compare it to IW and to the new-coming Deus Ex 3. CONSOLIZATION AND DUMBING DOWN, people.
I don't have many hopes for Fallout 3, seems to be too much hype, too much dumbing down and too much stupidity.
Indie development is the way of the future. We need new creative ideas. I can only hope for a new Video Game Crash so indies will get the power and games as good as the original Fallouts will be developed.
philippe
FYI, I chase trains.
Still, EA has released two of the most original and addictive titles (Sims, Spore), and as for the Battlefield franchise....
spore is a grand dissapointment in my book. I got hooked back on populous for a while becuase of it.
And the sims is fun (put old lady in haunted house where you massacred entire families, see her startled and going mad becuase of multiple ghosts= FUN), but does it really needs 7 expansion packs? I don't like being milked you know.
Battlefield is fun but it has it's flaws too.
Mandeville
Prince
Welcome to 2008 Civfanatics. We already have supercomputers and graphics far beyond anything you could imagine. Why are you being so ignorant to the amount of computing power already in existence? This thread might as well of been made in 1970.
linfeixb27
Warlord
Looking at how fiction stories have been developed within two centuries, and how moives in the 20th century, I conclude that there will be less or no classic masterpieces anymore and more commercial games which are lack of depths.
Mandeville
Prince
I thought about it and I figured most of you are so used to play Civilization that you are hardly exposed to games with actual graphics. Civ III and IV might as well of kept Civ II graphics.
spore is a grand dissapointment in my book. I got hooked back on populous for a while becuase of it.
And the sims is fun (put old lady in haunted house where you massacred entire families, see her startled and going mad becuase of multiple ghosts= FUN), but does it really needs 7 expansion packs? I don't like being milked you know.
Battlefield is fun but it has it's flaws too.
But you are only being milked if you are allowing them too, right? If you don´t like the expansion packs, just don´t buy them! I think that most of the Sims Expansion packs has been really good and have significantly enhanced and deepened the gameplay! I bought The Sims Complete Collection for the price of one Sims game, and I think that´s is a steal! I might as well be milking them...
Murky
Deity
I've played games like Far Cry, Halo and Bioshock. Eye candy is nice but it's only part of the appeal of most games.
Most strategy gamers pick good game play over graphics.
BrendanM
Prince
Gamer elitism. Magnificent!
Bestbank Tiger
Deity
I'm thinking--and hoping--for that. Madden 2020 should have a VR helmet where you actually get to run and throw and "feel" the hit.
bob bobato
L'imparfait
In 10 years or so graphics won't matter so much any more, since they'll all be amazing anyway, casual games won't be sold anymore, they'll all be online, and MMORGs will start becomin their own wee little alternate realities (and 80 years later, they actually will be...).
nihilistic
Intergalatic Delivery Boy
Let me guess ... yet another teenager who got his parents to shell out $3k+ on an obscure benchmark score and now trying to justify it?
Also, if anyone here is "ignorant" of the "amount of computing power in existence", it might be you. For example, you mentioned "supercomputers and graphics". I know of no supercomputer currently built to output graphics, though I know of certain plans to build supercomputers around GPUs instead of CPUs for specialized tasks. And don't BS us with such hyperbole as "far beyond anything you could imagine". I can imagine Supreme Commander at 60 hertz 1920x1200 with all the options on. I'm just more impressed by Starcraft and Warcraft.
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
I expect games graphics will continue getting better and better while the story continues to get worse.
Mods will be necessary for all intelligent players.
Mods will be necessary for all intelligent players.
IMO, graphics quality will probably start to plateau within the next 5 years. I don't think you can get much better looking than something like Crysis without jumping to cinema-quality rendering, and it'll take massive increases in GPU power before that can be done in realtime.
Hopefully, once that happens more energy will be put into more fully integrating physics into game worlds, and towards AI. I long for a game with an open-ended world like Oblivion, but with good AI, dynamic tasks/quests and so on. Some games like STALKER have sorta tiptoed in that direction, but most of the ones I've seen attempting it are fairly restricted or have large flaws.
Honestly, RAI was a sham. Oblivion's AI isn't radiant or dynamic at all. In the editor you give NPCs "packages" for a certain action (eat, sleep, patrol, etc) and conditions that determine when each packages becomes active. You can use the system to create AI behavior that appears to be realistic and dynamic, but it takes extreme amounts of work on the part of the creator.
Who are you kidding? The core (CPU, mobo, memory) of my system is over 3 years old. The only upgrade I've made was a moderately priced ($200) GPU this spring. I've yet to encounter a game that I'm not able to run on essentially the highest settings at 1600x1200.
Hopefully, once that happens more energy will be put into more fully integrating physics into game worlds, and towards AI. I long for a game with an open-ended world like Oblivion, but with good AI, dynamic tasks/quests and so on. Some games like STALKER have sorta tiptoed in that direction, but most of the ones I've seen attempting it are fairly restricted or have large flaws.
Honestly, RAI was a sham. Oblivion's AI isn't radiant or dynamic at all. In the editor you give NPCs "packages" for a certain action (eat, sleep, patrol, etc) and conditions that determine when each packages becomes active. You can use the system to create AI behavior that appears to be realistic and dynamic, but it takes extreme amounts of work on the part of the creator.
Who are you kidding? The core (CPU, mobo, memory) of my system is over 3 years old. The only upgrade I've made was a moderately priced ($200) GPU this spring. I've yet to encounter a game that I'm not able to run on essentially the highest settings at 1600x1200.
I don't know why graphics will plateau all of a sudden. The cores certainly can keep getting better and today's "cinematic" quality graphics are tomorrow's "crappy" graphics...
You can always add in more options, new lighting effects, more detailed textures, higher polygon counts, larger view distances, and higher resolutions (well, depending on LCD/etc tech). I mean, just changing shaders in a single game can alter frame rates by 50-100% easily. We still have a ways to go before we're at photo-realistic graphics quality.
Shadow of Chernobyl got modded into a fairly open-ended game, although it was heavily lacking in dynamic quests and wasn't designed for post-script gaming. The modded AIs are also rather impressive. It's odd that STALKER was set up for an entire ALife system attempting to model nature that ended up be so scripted as to require further modding to become actually realistic. I doubt that changed much in Clear Sky.
The problem with highly dynamic games like STALKER (and mods) is that it makes other games less enjoyable as their blatant stasis in certain respects can be painful to play through. That's why I think dynamism and systems modeling are the future of game progression. The problem is getting over the development hurdle and bug issues, but once the basics are laid down, it should become easier to build upon them like any other form of progression.
What's interesting in STALKER is how active the modding community is. Not only have they pumped out many amazing mods since first release, but they're continuing to do so (including a completely rescripted game). I think this is the key to the future of gaming: meshing the power of open-source and community feedback with the capitalist development process. And I think this will naturally lend itself to the more open-ended and dynamic games. The devs can make a simplistic version at first but put the basic plumbing in, and then let the mod community build it into something polished for no extra cost. Casual players get the crap they want and the more interested fans get what they want.
You can always add in more options, new lighting effects, more detailed textures, higher polygon counts, larger view distances, and higher resolutions (well, depending on LCD/etc tech). I mean, just changing shaders in a single game can alter frame rates by 50-100% easily. We still have a ways to go before we're at photo-realistic graphics quality.
Shadow of Chernobyl got modded into a fairly open-ended game, although it was heavily lacking in dynamic quests and wasn't designed for post-script gaming. The modded AIs are also rather impressive. It's odd that STALKER was set up for an entire ALife system attempting to model nature that ended up be so scripted as to require further modding to become actually realistic. I doubt that changed much in Clear Sky.
The problem with highly dynamic games like STALKER (and mods) is that it makes other games less enjoyable as their blatant stasis in certain respects can be painful to play through. That's why I think dynamism and systems modeling are the future of game progression. The problem is getting over the development hurdle and bug issues, but once the basics are laid down, it should become easier to build upon them like any other form of progression.
What's interesting in STALKER is how active the modding community is. Not only have they pumped out many amazing mods since first release, but they're continuing to do so (including a completely rescripted game). I think this is the key to the future of gaming: meshing the power of open-source and community feedback with the capitalist development process. And I think this will naturally lend itself to the more open-ended and dynamic games. The devs can make a simplistic version at first but put the basic plumbing in, and then let the mod community build it into something polished for no extra cost. Casual players get the crap they want and the more interested fans get what they want.
rhawn
Emperor
Cinema-quality CG is already capable of creating essentially photo-realistic graphics - take a look at even some "old" CG like Gollum or the various armies/battles in LOTR. It's all but photo-realistic.
What I mean is that graphics will so reach the point that to make meaningful advances in quality, you need exponential increases in GPU power (most of that cinema-quality CG, for example, currently takes hours to render a single frame). To be sure, increases still be made, but the nonstop orgy of eyecandy that the game industry has been in on since the GeForce 256 launched is going slow significantly
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