The key to making a properly mature game

[ffordesoon]

Aaaand Planescape didnt flop. it returned the investment and ended up making a bit of profit too.
And it was another rushed, cut, undeveloped game thanks to Interplay other problems and whatnot.

"A return on investment plus a bit of profit" may not be a colossal flop, but it's not exactly, y'know, Wii Fit either. That's a lukewarm response at best.

And, to be clear, I'm not denigrating the game. I think Planescape is extraordinary. I'm just saying that it didn't exactly set the world on fire upon release. Nor did Deus Ex, if I recall correctly. They're both massively important to the medium, and everyone loves them now, but they were slow burns in terms of appeal, because they A) weren't things you could pitch in a sentence, and B) had the misfortune of being released prior to digital distribution and crowdfunding and all the rest of it. They had to fight for shelf space with seventeen fucking Army Men games and Gunman Chronicles - and that was just within the PC section.

That's what people don't realize when they curse the state of the industry today: things are, in general, better than they've ever been for developers and consumers. I'm not suggesting they're perfect by any means; ballooning budgets, online passes, DRM, and all the other crap the AAA area of the industry is infected with puts the lie to the idea that things are hunky-dory for everyone. But I remember the "good old days", and they were so much worse for everyone. No, Brian Fargo couldn't get a publisher to bite on Wasteland 2, but if things were still like they were in the days we all remember so fondly, that would have been it. No Wasteland 2, period. And if you bought a game like, say, Trespasser, and it was busted? You were pretty much SOL. Oh, sure, you could maybe download an eventual patch for stuff like Deus Ex, but dial-up made that excruciating. And that's if you got a PC game; there was no patch to make my goddamn awful SNES copy of Rise Of The Robots less goddamn awful.

A lot of great games came out in the Eighties and Nineties, and those games did a lot of interesting stuff and tended to be more mature than the AAA offerings today, but as a gamer, I would never, ever, ever want to go back to those days. There's so many more opportunities than ever before for creative people to make their mark, and there's not just one inflexible standard of success.

All of which is more of a general observation than anything pertaining to this thread, so I'll shut up now.

[MDF_MadDogFargo]

This means avoiding teenager stuff.
This means:

- No romances
- No marriages
- No swearing in each sentence
- No gore for the sake of "awesome! it's gore!"
- No characters having crisis, breakdowns, gender issues etc.
- No handholding through quests
- No simple gameplay - it must be mastered as the game goes
- All characters can die because everything is fair in combat - for both you and AI, you and the enemy
- No "heroes saving the world from the horrible evil" plots. Only fairy-tales have perfect people with perfect agendas.
- No toilet humour. No pop-culture references. They did hurt Fallout 2.

Just a good game for the brain.

I rest my case.

You are my new hero. Much respect.

Not me. He sounds like my mother!

Me personally, I want to kill little people on my computer who have real lives.

[The_A_Drain]

SNES copy of Rise Of The Robots

I agree pretty much with everything you've said. Lot of people just don't realize that without the state of things today a lot of the smaller indie projects especially simply wouldn't be around to even comment on.

This quote made my eye twitch though. I dropped money on that game. So awful.

[ffordesoon]

I sympathize; I still have the cartridge. First purchase I ever regretted. I played that piece of garbage and almost started crying, it was so horrendous. To this day, it's the example I use when discussing bad games with people. I'm still bitter.

God, that thing.

[Hiver]

Aaaand Planescape didnt flop. it returned the investment and ended up making a bit of profit too.
And it was another rushed, cut, undeveloped game thanks to Interplay other problems and whatnot.

"A return on investment plus a bit of profit" may not be a colossal flop, but it's not exactly, y'know, Wii Fit either. That's a lukewarm response at best.

And, to be clear, I'm not denigrating the game. I think Planescape is extraordinary. I'm just saying that it didn't exactly set the world on fire upon release.

Lukewarm...? I didnt know im supposed to make anyone red hot with my answers.
Its a realistic answer.

Games do not need to be incredible billion copies sold megahits, mkay?
That kind of thinking was brought by retarded mass marketing and done heavy damage in last ten or so years for games overall.

You said it flopped. It didnt.
Fact.

Deal with it.

A game does not need to set the world on fire. Just like any other sort of art or entertainment.

[ffordesoon]

@Hiver:

Ha! Sorry, I didn't phrase that correctly. I meant the response to the game was lukewarm, which means it would've been considered a flop today. Sorry for the confusion!

Regarding your point about "megahits": I agree. But the fact of the matter is, that wasn't something anyone could count on before now. If your movie or your game or your TV show or whatever else flopped (which, in publisher-speak, means "anything that doesn't meet our probably unreasonable expectations"), it flopped. That was it. Nowadays, with widely available broadband and phones that grab movies out of the air, it's all about crowdfunding and the "long tail". There are tons of options. Your game does not have to "open big" to be a success.

The reason games like Planescape got made, and the reason they don't get made so much anymore by big publishers, is because games used to cost much less to make and market. Thus, it was possible to back something that maybe wasn't gonna sell eleventy-five quadrillion copies. Nowadays, games, like movies, are really goddamn expensive to make and market in the same way they did back then, which is why games considered sure things are the only ones that get backed by a big publisher ninety-nine percent of the time. The key phrase there, and the answer to why publishers are dumb, is "in the same way they did back then". As I said, there's more than one way to get your shit out there nowadays, and it doesn't have to look great, either. It just has to be good.

Publishers learned exactly the wrong lesson from the success of the Wii. What they took from it was, "Hey, grandmas have money too! Let's put out minigame collections they can use at the rest home or whatever!" While that insight made them some cash, it wasn't the lesson. The lesson of the Wii was that people care more about whether a game is fun and/or innovative than they care about bump-mapping and anti-aliasing and all that graphical bullshit. That desire has only ever been the publishers projecting their terminal insecurity onto the rest of us. The current Kickstarter fever is proving something similar. And the publishers and console manufacturers that don't learn the lesson this time are going to begin regretting it pretty heavily in the next couple of years, because everyone I know is getting really fed up with pretty, soulless games, and they're fleeing to indie and PC and all the other "secondary" markets, because that's where most of the interesting shit is being done.

BTW, I keep meaning to mention how much I dig your avatar. Drive was a wicked awesome movie.

[infestor]

since planescape torment was mentioned, anyone know its production cost?

[Alejandro]

since planescape torment was mentioned, anyone know its production cost?

No, but now that you mention it, I would certainly like to know.

[ffordesoon]

I believe it was something like, oh, eight or nine mil?

Which does bring up an interesting point that I forgot to mention: there are few games more expensive or time-consuming than RPGs. That's the other reason we haven't seen publishers or many indies putting out Codex-friendly RPGs recently: from a publisher's perspective, those games appeal to a niche market, and to do them "right" (read: with the shiny graphics and the full celebrity voice acting and all the other shit the publishers think people require from all games for some dumb reason) would cost way too damn much money for a game without "crossover appeal". As for the indies, thry probably want to do it, but can't, because the budget of even the most modest RPG is too high for the average indie. You see plenty of roguelikes, sure, but those don't require good writing or a dedicated team of artists or whatever else.

[feldrak]

I'd have to say that i disagree with.... other things you said where to vague for me to know if i disagreed or not.
- No romances
- No marriages
- No swearing in each sentence
- No gore for the sake of "awesome! it's gore!"
- No characters having crisis, breakdowns, gender issues etc.


-romances-marriages, While I don't think these are needed i don't see any reason why the player should be limited this game has always been about the freedom to go and do as you please, mind you there are many other game mechanics i think should be worked on before this is even given thought.

- No swearing in each sentence, While i don't think they should swear in ever, sentence swearing is something that people tend to do quite a lot in real life and i would like this game to have that bit of realism.

- No gore for the sake of "awesome! it's gore!" For this I have two things to say. 1)Did you ever read what came up as a description in wasteland or see what happened in the fallout games when you shot someone with a rocket or mini gun?
2) In the fallout games there was always the option to turn off the gore. ( I think this option is worth keeping).

- No characters having crisis, breakdowns, gender issues etc. I think this is just a way to open more doors for the story but should not be used in a way that would fit the character you are playing.

[Azriel]

I just want to point out that I think if most of us were thrown into the wasteland for real, wouldn't we seek companionship(assuming we don't die horribly)? Its human nature and think romance OPTIONS are valid. As long as its not shoved in anybodies face I see nothing wrong with it.

[Woolfe]

This means avoiding teenager stuff.
This means:

- No romances
- No marriages
- No swearing in each sentence
- No gore for the sake of "awesome! it's gore!"
- No characters having crisis, breakdowns, gender issues etc.
- No handholding through quests
- No simple gameplay - it must be mastered as the game goes
- All characters can die because everything is fair in combat - for both you and AI, you and the enemy
- No "heroes saving the world from the horrible evil" plots. Only fairy-tales have perfect people with perfect agendas.
- No toilet humour. No pop-culture references. They did hurt Fallout 2.

Just a good game for the brain.

I rest my case.

Yeah I disagree as well.

- No Romances
First I have to ask is this just a euphemism for sex, or do you actually mean no romance, buying flowers going on dates etc.
I have no problems with either. So long as its not key to the game. Could make a good moral question, would one of your player characters be willing to shag some other character for benefit?
If it fits, go for it.

- No Marriage
But then you have sex with no consequence!!!! does anyone else recall the shotgun wedding in Fallout 2. That was always amusing if you had a female character and had seduced the daughter.
Again, if it fits and doesn't detract, then I have no issue with it. Maybe thats another moral question, one of your party members has a "lover" in each port so to speak. Kids could be interesting as well. Come back to a town 9+ months later, Uhm, no that child looks nothing like me. Actually that'd be funny even if you didn't have sex with someone..

- No swearing in each sentence
If its appropriate. I swear entirely too much. I imagine if I survived in the wasteland, I would probably be swearing a lot more. What would be better is to have characters that don't swear. A "polite" trait, that means when they speak they never ever say naughty words.

- No gore for the sake of "awesome! it's gore!"
Um... Hello.. Blood Sausage... Dude... over the top gore is kind of required.

- No characters having crisis, breakdowns, gender issues etc.
Meh whatever floats your boat. It would be good if they could build that sort of thing into the game. Would certainly appease some of the "PC Party's have no character" folk.

- No handholding through quests
Huh. I guess it depends on the quest.

- No simple gameplay - it must be mastered as the game goes
???? What does this mean. This isn't an action game. There are no skills learnt. The only area I can see this having an effect is in the combat, and you will be good or you won't.

- All characters can die because everything is fair in combat - for both you and AI, you and the enemy
Yep, just keep the old KO SI CI Dead from the original.

- No "heroes saving the world from the horrible evil" plots. Only fairy-tales have perfect people with perfect agendas.
Pffff, We weren't perfect heroes the first time, what makes you think we are the second.

- No toilet humour. No pop-culture references. They did hurt Fallout 2.
A little. But it wasn't that bad, and a lot of it was quite good. It also generally didn't affect game play.

[infestor]

i don't have "The key to making a properly mature game" but imma refresh my memory from fallout 2:
killing kiddies, drugs, porn biz, prostitution (+marcus having a go), eating your own extra mutated toe, blasting the septic and shit rains on a village and usa being usa (the enclave)...

if wasteland 2 is gonna have equivalent (equivalent, not the same) elements then i would say that it's a proper mature game.

[BlackGauntlet]

This is a game. Games should be about gameplay first and foremost.
Writing should be the least important thing. Fallout 1 didn't have any story btw.

Aaaannnddd... with THAT sentence, you have singlehandedly spat on, flipped your bird at, and kicked the nuts of the team who wrote the WL1 manual filled with descriptive paragraphs, all in one combat round.

Way to prove your point about maturity, kraze.

Perhaps Rogue or Hethack is more your thing.

[D Bishop]

Without posting a massive reply...

I disagree with most of what was said in the original post. Once again using fallout 2 as an example, the romances (or just sex) in fallout 2 gave the game a lot more depth. So did the swearing, as it made certain characters much more real. Also the option of swearing yourself made dialogue more fun.

Having said that, I think I see where this is all coming from. Games like mass effect and dragon age: origins pretty much force romance on the player, in these cases having several romance options that almost become a second storyline for the game. This should be avoided, in my opinion. However I would love to have some smaller and optional romance and/or sex options in wasteland 2 that could even lead to marriage.

As for the swearing, I think wasteland should absolutely have swearing in it. And by this I mean real swearing, not the kind of swearing your hear in dragon age. Every time that red-haired dwarf in dragon age said "soddin" I wanted to punch him in the face until he dies. The fallout 2 approach to swearing was the best one I've ever seen, so I'd say go with that.

I agree partially with the crisis/breakdown/gender issue thing. Again, mass effect and dragon age both had followers each of whom had their own little sidequests. Kill my old boss, find my missing family, be my boyfriend, blah blah... That was less than ideal. On the other hand, NPC's that dont talk about themselves, that dont have opinions of their own, are just plain boring. I dont want that either. So followers going nuts over something is always better than them just following you around and doing whatever you tell them without any kind of personal agenda.

[EbolaCola]

Gotta agree with the OP. The romances, gore, etc. made Dragon Age Origins feel like a teenage fantasy instead of a dark troubled world. If done with moderation and taste, sure these can work, but honestly I would like it better if they just played it safe and avoided this altogether.

[Woolfe]

The simple mechanics of this being a "Party" based game is going to remove any ability to have a romance as a major underlying secondary story arc.

I am sure there will be some sort of sex and or romance perhaps, but I can't see how they could make it a core element of the game easily.

Plus the startup movie pretty much suggests what Bry's opinion is on this sort of thing (Red booted Vampires anyone)

[gool]

"A return on investment plus a bit of profit" may not be a colossal flop, but it's not exactly, y'know, Wii Fit either. That's a lukewarm response at best.

No CRPG has, or ever will, sell like the Wii Fit (or any of that casual shit). The market for casual gaming is enormous, and the market for CRPGs (even realtime ones) is tiny. Planescape was niche and did ok, it was never going to sell like BG though.

[Semaphor]

Why are romances immature or for teenagers?

Because if you care about what 2D sprites feel in a game (especially when a game sacrifices the gameplay for this) - it's juvenile.
Simple as that.

I think your list is a bit meh. Some of it I agree with. But why can't your characters have a breakdown? What's wrong with that? They're in a world where bad things happen.

Because this is a game. I don't want to waste my time as well as see dev waste their time on stupid stuff like doing "oh noes I can't fight anymore this is too hard" where a player is forced to waste a lot of time to be able to play the game normally again. Instead of catering to teenagers who think that soldiers (which rangers are) are all emo pussies with "deep" characters - devs can spend that time on adding and polishing character skills.

But, a good writer and game developer CAN do things with it beyond a Twilightesque, sparkly vampire romance/breakdown/whatever.

This is a game. Games should be about gameplay first and foremost.
Writing should be the least important thing. Fallout 1 didn't have any story btw.

Okay, so you don't want wasteland to be an RPG but some kind of Tactical 2d Hack'n'Slay instead. Why didn't you say so?

I might be misunderstanding you, but it seems you want everything gone that might give characters any depth. Anything besides fighting and missions. To me that sounds like a turn-based Diablo in a different setting.

[Garfunkel]

I might be misunderstanding you, but it seems you want everything gone that might give characters any depth. Anything besides fighting and missions. To me that sounds like a turn-based Diablo in a different setting.

You are misunderstanding him. His point is that gameplay is #1, as it should be, as this is a game, not a book or a movie. Those are for story-telling, games are for playing.

Now, having said that, it is entirely possible to tell a story during the game, even a great story but it should not be the primary focus. As Brian Fargo himself said, the best stories are the ones that the players create themselves during playing. If you have to live through pixel characters in a video game, you have issues, plain and simple. People who cry over an NPC dying in a game are the same sort of juvenile teenagers who cry their eyes out when their favourite boy band disbands. Teenagers.

I don't want to play kitchen sink psychotherapist for my party or any NPC and this game definitely should not force me to do so. If I want to do that, I can play any Bioware game ever released after MDK and BG1. Or a Japanese dating sim. Or, shock and horror, read a book!