Environmental Donts

[MinscAndBoo]

ENVIRONMENTAL DONTs

With the flux of post-apocalyptic fan-Dom, things have changed quite a bit since wasteland.
Environment's akin to wasteland might be construed as cliche by today's seasoned rangers.

So please avoid using any of these Environmental Cliche's for major events:
Subways, Car parks, Run down apartment block, service stations, malls, police stations,
prisons, alien egg 'lair', predator forest, theater's, and so on and on.

Be inspired or shocked by more game cliche's here.

[Brother None]

I don't get it. Why should we care about these things being cliche? If they work, they work. And locations like police stations or subways are pretty cool in post-apocalyptic games.

No idea what you mean by "major events".

[MinscAndBoo]

Cool or not, they have been done TO DEATH. And us old folks have tired eyes.

These environmental cliche's are the equivalent of that boring commercial that
wont stop repeating it self, or tiring of its self centered claims of happiness.

By all means have them, (it'd be weird to not have the occasional one
show up). But not for major events like taking down the headquarters for some
unknown/faction. Or some revelation critical to the core of the plot.

Wastelands Coup de grâce was it was absolutely light years ahead both
in looks, story and game play.

History repeats itself yes?

[Woolfe]

Yawn,

I had a look at your list. And the vast majority of your complaints are about gameplay/tehcnology limitation issues.

Its a game. And it has limitations. If it was that close to the real world it would be called the matrix, at which point our robotic masters would be harvesting our energy anyway, so who cares.

I would expect to find in a city - Subway style metro system, Car parks, Run down apartment blocks, service stations, malls, police stations, etc etc etc etc

Why, well because they exist. They are not cliche's. A cliche is bond always escaping from the villain at the last minute.

A cliche, is "kids who have sex in a Friday the 13th movie, are going to die".

Using a Prison as a defensible position in a post apocalyptic game, makes sence. Its designed to keep people IN, which can easily be extended to keeping people OUT.

[MinscAndBoo]

Yawn,

I had a look at your list. And the vast majority of your complaints are about gameplay/tehcnology limitation issues.

Its a game. And it has limitations. If it was that close to the real world it would be called the matrix, at which point our robotic masters would be harvesting our energy anyway, so who cares.

I would expect to find in a city - Subway style metro system, Car parks, Run down apartment blocks, service stations, malls, police stations, etc etc etc etc

Why, well because they exist. They are not cliche's. A cliche is bond always escaping from the villain at the last minute.

A cliche, is "kids who have sex in a Friday the 13th movie, are going to die".

Using a Prison as a defensible position in a post apocalyptic game, makes sence. Its designed to keep people IN, which can easily be extended to keeping people OUT.

By all means have them, (it'd be weird to not have the occasional one
show up). But not for major events like taking down the headquarters for some
unknown/faction. Or some revelation critical to the core of the plot.

So do you have any suggestions for a boring post-apocalyptic environment that should hopefully be avoided or transformed so much it is unrecognizable?

[Emmy Lou]

No dudes standing around proudly in vintage diving suits in ponds! Do we really have to see this guy in every game ever?

(o god plz dont ban me)

[krellen]

No dudes standing around proudly in vintage diving suits in ponds! Do we really have to see this guy in every game ever?

(o god plz dont ban me)

You do like to play dangerously, don't you?

[Emmy Lou]

Only when in subways, police stations and malls.




To actually contribute to the thread, I honestly have no beef with any "cliche environments". The closest I can think of is the fact that every game that has even an inkling of radiation in the subject matter seems to require an abandoned nuclear power plant. And even then it seems more homage that fits the theme than anything else.

Although, I guess it is a bit of a forced cliche that there is always something you have to do there. v v

[Polite_orc]

I doubt there will be any trouble with too ordinary locations. In FPS maybe (and I think Stalker overcome the problem of cliche with locations based each on some design theme pretty well), not in RPG. In W2 I hope that designers will fill any locations with factions, groups and NPCs with each have its own goal, view on the world and distinguished design, all that will have influence on locations' design, so we never mix one location or another. Nipton in New Vegas, Shrouded Hills in Arcanum as an example of a basically typical locations.

[Signal]

ENVIRONMENTAL DONTs

With the flux of post-apocalyptic fan-Dom, things have changed quite a bit since wasteland.
Environment's akin to wasteland might be construed as cliche by today's seasoned rangers.

So please avoid using any of these Environmental Cliche's for major events:
Subways, Car parks, Run down apartment block, service stations, malls, police stations,
prisons, alien egg 'lair', predator forest, theater's, and so on and on.

Be inspired or shocked by more game cliche's here.

There's a difference between a "cliche" and a "trope". Almost everything you listed is a trope. If we're going to be running around in the remains of a major city then what's wrong with walking around in a subway, car park, apartment block, service station, mall, police station, prison, theater, and things you'd expect to find in a city? I don't think any of those environments would immediately destroy whatever scene the developers intend to set up in them. Because, really, if we were to expand on your list we could say the entire "Post nuclear holcaust setting" has already been done to death. Oh and by the way, don't have anything set in a desert, nor a forest - as those environments are way too cliche. Nor a military base, or a labratory of any kind - already used too many times in science fiction.

So what's left? Have all the major events take place on Mars. No wait - Doom got there first. Okay, so how about underground? No wait - Gears of War already did it. So okay umm... time travel to different time periods? No wait - Star Trek played that one out. On a space ship? No... Star Trek again. Oh I know the game can take place underwater! No - Bioshock did it.

Holy hell it's like the entire videogame industry is just one big massive cliche!

[Vladplaya]

Right, so OP asks to avoid things that actually make sense and are everywhere around us.

If Subways, Car parks, Run down apartment block, service stations, malls, police stations,
prisons, alien egg 'lair', predator forest, theater's, are all cliche, then what not? What in your opinionm post apocalyptic game environment should look like?

Going with your idea, we should throw away people, guns, monsters, quests, dialog, stats, loot, and pretty much everything else, because those are also "cliche".

Btw, just to clearify things a little:

A cliché or cliche (pronounced UK: /ˈkliːʃeɪ/, US: /klɪˈʃeɪ/) is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel.

Does Army Outpost looses its meaning when game developers keep putting armor and weapons in that location in their games? No it doesn't, because its not some piece of art, Army Outposts are actual locations that have weapons and armors in real life, and everyone knows it, so its not only NOT a cliche, but its a great location as Everyone knows what to expect from it, so it can be a goal for the player to try to get to that location.

Same applies for all the other generic locations that OP mentioned, they never loose their meaning, but simply work as people would expect them to work in real life.

[Brother None]

Hah, the above two posters explained much better than I did how little these "cliches" or rather tropes matter, and how much pointless effort it'd be to try to avoid them just because they've been done before.

No dudes standing around proudly in vintage diving suits in ponds! Do we really have to see this guy in every game ever?

Hmmmm.

[Emmy Lou]

Don't blame me, blame the industry!

[Kahunaburger]

A subway section in a game set in the American Southwest? Sure, we've got giant scorpion robot tanks and all, but let's not stretch plausibility too much

[SniperHF]

Hah, the above two posters explained much better than I did how little these "cliches" or rather tropes matter, and how much pointless effort it'd be to try to avoid them just because they've been done before.

I think Cliches especially, and tropes to a lesser extent matter a ton on the story side. But on the environment side? I agree, hardly at all.

But I do find an interesting reaction to tropes is doing the exact opposite just because, I actually find this worse than the trope itself.

[BlackGauntlet]

So do you have any suggestions for a boring post-apocalyptic environment that should hopefully be avoided or transformed so much it is unrecognizable?

Yeah, right. You're the one nitpicking. You come up with the answer.

[MinscAndBoo]

Wow, All I'm asking is please consider buildings of unusual function, for major events.

As an example, Fallout 3's repetitious environments, of not what to do.

If your going to use subways etc, Introduce [extreme] environmental entropy, more than just 'dirty' textures, have planes sticking into buildings - that fall if you explode something near them, cars in swimming pools, traces of violent acts imprinted on the landscape, tell story's with the environment (the level designer for Thief - The dark Project knows about this). Sure fallout 3 had some of that, but mostly it was the same thing repeated a thousand times, with iterations, and most of the more interesting places weren't explorable, they just 'looked' good on the outside, but when you went inside it was just a copy/paste level from a template.

[MinscAndBoo]

Right, so OP asks to avoid things that actually make sense and are everywhere around us.

If Subways, Car parks, Run down apartment block, service stations, malls, police stations,
prisons, alien egg 'lair', predator forest, theater's, are all cliche, then what not? What in your opinionm post apocalyptic game environment should look like?

I didn't say not to use them, Use tropes or cliches, whatever you call them, for the non-interactive non-explorable backdrop environment but for the places you can actually go inside and interactive with, USE something like these places:

http://www.instantshift.com/2009/02/26/ ... hitecture/

Going with your idea, we should throw away people, guns, monsters, quests, dialog, stats, loot, and pretty much everything else, because those are also "cliche".

Nope, those are game elements. They are essential for game play, they are what you interactive with. The environments are a tool for setting the mood and equally gameplay. You can also tell story's with environments. Thief - The dark Project, Thief 2 and 3 are good examples of what I mean by instilling history or personality into an environment.

Btw, just to clearify things a little:

A cliché or cliche (pronounced UK: /ˈkliːʃeɪ/, US: /klɪˈʃeɪ/) is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel.

Perhaps i was erroneous in using the term cliche, I always associate something I have seen before time and time again with the word cliche. This extends to artwork and subsequently environmental artwork and level design. I have experienced a lot of post apocalyptic games and certain elements stand out as being essential. These elements while essential, to my mind are boring and have not been looked at from another angle or manipulated to be made more interesting while keeping with the post apocalyptic theme.

Does Army Outpost looses its meaning when game developers keep putting armor and weapons in that location in their games? No it doesn't, because its not some piece of art, Army Outposts are actual locations that have weapons and armors in real life, and everyone knows it, so its not only NOT a cliche, but its a great location as Everyone knows what to expect from it, so it can be a goal for the player to try to get to that location.

Same applies for all the other generic locations that OP mentioned, they never loose their meaning, but simply work as people would expect them to work in real life.

You are right. However I feel as though I have not made my point clear enough. Many times these locations are used but they don't stand out as being unique or interesting. In addition one wonders why would such places (especially military) would be easily accessible when the bombs dropped, wouldn't they be behind thick steel doors, underground, or worse irradiated beyond hope? An example of a really interesting place for a stronghold was fallout 2's Oil tanker, that was a creative use of a very real object that would not only be accessible but be safe, as at the time of bombs dropping it was in the ocean, not near land where it can be destroyed.

To extend this, an interesting Army Outpost would be one where an earthquake caused by a bomb, ruptured the ground and spewed lava out, mixed with a underwater lake and dried which opened the labyrinth of tunnels underneath, connecting to the Lab underground. All the inside of the tunnels and Lab would be coated with dried lava and red oxide pools of bloody irradiated water. Only a few sections are habitable, and they are sealed deep below. For sake of convenience to the player, a service elevator still works, taking you down.

Minsc&Boo

[Drool]

You are right. However I feel as though I have not made my point clear enough. Many times these locations are used but they don't stand out as being unique or interesting.

Partially because these locations aren't especially unique or interesting in the real world. 200 years after the bombs fall (using FO3 here), my local supermarket's going to be picked clean. It could be useful for shelter, but not much else. I wouldn't expect it to be very interesting because it pretty much never is. Now, a week after the bombs fell, it's a different story. Then it would probably be very interesting because people would still be looting it or killing each other for the opportunity to loot it.

Sure, a military armory or a high-tech top-secret installation should be much more interesting, challenging, secured, and so on, even a couple hundred years later, but most of the stuff you'll run into is going to be boring because it already is boring.

[MinscAndBoo]

You are right. However I feel as though I have not made my point clear enough. Many times these locations are used but they don't stand out as being unique or interesting.

Partially because these locations aren't especially unique or interesting in the real world. 200 years after the bombs fall (using FO3 here), my local supermarket's going to be picked clean. It could be useful for shelter, but not much else. I wouldn't expect it to be very interesting because it pretty much never is. Now, a week after the bombs fell, it's a different story. Then it would probably be very interesting because people would still be looting it or killing each other for the opportunity to loot it.

Sure, a military armory or a high-tech top-secret installation should be much more interesting, challenging, secured, and so on, even a couple hundred years later, but most of the stuff you'll run into is going to be boring because it already is boring.

Yes I agree they aren't interesting to begin with. That's where the developers come in and make them interesting, that's what I'm saying. But as a gamer, most of the time they are simply left 'as is' in the game world and repeated again and again with only minor iteration.

Perhaps a better word would be, make them more Dramatic.