🚀 go-pugleaf

"Trimble Bracegirdle" <no-spam@never.spam> looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs
say:

><<<"There's a dreadful shortage of new game ideas actually being developed
>......bean counters in charge all follow
>the sequels = guaranteed profit mantra......
>Same thing Hollywood  ...... crappy sequels and "remakes".>>>>
>
>True ..."Call Of Duty: Die Hard With Online Elder Scrolls Hobbit" 

Or on the movie side of things:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1498870/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2

>"The imaginations are out there....."
>
>I don't know so much....Comp. gaming is 30+ years old.
>It can't be 'New' & exciting for ever.
>A 20 something programmer must see the industry as dull & uninviting
>
>The hardware advances drive a lot of new-ness in game design.
>IMO there has not been any meaningful hardware advances in (say) 10 years.
>Just bigger, faster, more glossy...not new.
>If the computers/consoles were (say) ten times faster than now 
>their ability in terms of A.I. & game structure complexity would be 
>not much more. Online Multiplayer advances also IMO has hit a ceiling.

Well all the hardware in the world won't help if the developers won't
make use of it.
They can do good pseudo AI now, but all too often they just don't bother
with anything more but the most simplistic stuff and just concentrate on
graphics and cutscenes instead.

Just look at pathing, it's usually just best path = only path, instead
of choosing best 3 or 4 paths and randomly assigning the critters to
those paths so they seem more alive and actually attack from multiple
directions.
We generally just get either them all following the best path, or them
following pre-assigned multiple paths activated by trigger spots which
of course are _always_ going to be exactly the same.

The big problem is, they do this because pathing breaks unless you
really do it right - critters get caught on invisible bits of scenery
and look ridiculous - have critters following 4 paths and those paths
changing in real time as you move means they can't cheat and "smooth"
the path to make sure things don't catch.

Ditto for complex level layouts - the more complexity, the more chance
the AI pathing will hang up some where (not to mention most consoles
simply could not fit a really complex level in their hardware,) and
nothing breaks immersion more than an NPC baddie stuck on a chair or in
a doorway.

While it was a horrible game in almost every aspect (graphics, level
design, cutscenes and especially dialog,) Daikatana had incredibly
impressive pathing.  You could, and I did, abandon the NPC "buddies" at
the start of a level (so they didn't kill themselves in a door or shoot
me in the back,) reach the end of the level (and get the inane "I can't
leave without my buddy Superfly" message,) at which point those buddies
would navigate the entire level to me on their own, opening doors,
climbing ladders, jumping over gaps, etc.
Most games once you'd cleared out the level you'd have to go back to the
start them painstakingly lead them through everything.


Xocyll
-- 
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of 
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably, 
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So 
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr