Gizen said:
kael013 said:
No, they're definitely going through a checklist too. That's why I had a parenthesis calling out publishers for executive meddling. Sure, on some level the devs think it's cool, but there were limits put in from the beginning. I hate that.
There will always be limits. Budgetary limits, time limits, content limits. These will always be there, they can never be removed, and when you try to remove them, it often makes the result worse. Duke Nukem Forever was a game born of no limits, because the developers had all the time and money in the world, and as a result it was never properly finished because there was always more that they wanted to do with it, until one day it finally just collapsed under its own weight.
Thing is, while limits certainly can stifle creativity, they can also encourage it, as properly set limits will breed creative solutions to get around them. Silent Hill 2's dense fog made the game a better horror game, but that fog wasn't initially put there to make the game scarier, it was a means to get around the PS2's meager power and rendering capabilities.
Maybe I should clarify: [i/]constricting[/i] limits are the ones I hate. The kind that start with "X says we need to..." (where X isn't working on the game). That should [i/]never[/i] be how a design decision starts. "Can we do this without going over budget/time" or "Does this fit with the existing content/premise?" are perfectly reasonable.
Now the stuff for more diversity, to me, doesn't come closer to that second set, but "X says we need to..." It's people outside the industry not asking for, but demanding, devs do what they (the consumers) want or else they'll be judged badly (sexist, racist, and all the other words people are flinging around nowadays). That comes too close to constricting limits for my taste.
[quote/]Because doing things this way gives the samey/safe/formulaic result. It's called 'safe' for a reason, because it's what little the majority can agree on. Thing is, not every developer/designer/artist is going to work on every part of the project, and by assigning different people to different tasks which suit their skillsets and interests, it's possible to find the room to get more people's ideas into the game. More things end up in there that appeal to a smaller subset of the population, but the larger variety means that an overall larger portion of the population can find something in there worth liking. In the end, it all comes down to there being multiple different valid approaches to creative works, but people often like to act or assume that there's only one right way to do things.[/quote]
I fail to see how that's any different from what I said. Even if you have certain people work on certain parts of the game it still has to go through committee, just a smaller one. Actually, I think we're on the same page, just looking at it from different angles. When I wrote that I was thinking about specific character design, so the "committee" would be the artist, the writer, the modelers, the artist's boss (art lead), and the writer's boss (writing lead). A small group of people working on a small part of the project. Depending on the people, this can lead to safe or diverse, but either way ii would lead to exactly what you said: a large variety to appeal to a large group, but with smaller niche things as well. Some of these people may not like the final result, preferring some of the earlier work. Nothing we've said really conflicts.
Did you notice that there was no name attached to the quote in the initial article? It was just attributed to Blizzard in general. Which means it was marketing speak. So of course it's going to come across as doing something just to please a crowd. That's the marketing department's entire job. To spin any and everything the company does as being in the consumer's best interest and solely for the consumer. You can't read one comment and immediately write everything off as being a crime against artistic integrity.
First off, I never said anything was a crime against artistic integrity. I was simply lamenting that politics seems to have become a huge part of the design process, when I feel they should have as little contact as possible.
Secondly, you have a point. I keep reading marketing statements and, if it touches a charged subject, forget about the spin. Something to work on.
[quote/]I'm not misunderstanding anything, no part of this conflicts with what I've said.[/quote]
My mistake, I misunderstood what you were saying.
[quote/][quote/]What I'm saying is that devs should listen to the consumers, but keep it secondary in their design decisions. If they come up with a lithe character that they like, they should add it. If they come up with a heavy-set design that works better and they like it as well, they should scrap the lithe one - remembering the consumers' demands - and add the heavy-set one instead. The consumers' opinions are heard, but don't influence the design decisions any more than just trimming down the potential designs - something that the devs have to do anyways.[/quote]
And here comes the most wrong thing you've said thus far. Because when they come up with two varying designs like that, unless it would cause them to otherwise go over-budget or miss their release, they should use both. That's the entire point of diversity. In the very example you've given, they like both the lithe and the heavy designs, so instead of being a zero-sum game where only one gets used, there's room to use both and satisfy more people. This is especially true in a game like Overwatch where the game will feature a wide variety of different characters to play as anyways so it becomes even easier to find extra space in the cast to utilize both designs.[/quote]
I think we're having a problem in communication. I'm talking overall design. In a game like Overwatch they should absolutely use both designs, they'd get more characters out of that and appeal to the mass market more. But in a game like Bioshock Infinite where they need one look for Elizabeth? No, they can't; it's one or the other. Sure they can use the castoff design for background models, but the final Elizabeth one is gonna get more attention (considered a step towards diversity or a step back) since that character plays a far greater role in the game.
