Outdated game design

CaitSeith

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hanselthecaretaker said:
True art is meant to be simply observed, reflected upon and either appreciated or criticized, or both.
Wrong. Interactive art has existed for decades in fine art galleries. Art isn't a label or category for stuff. In the right context, anything can be art (that's the principle of modern art).
 

hanselthecaretaker

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CaitSeith said:
hanselthecaretaker said:
True art is meant to be simply observed, reflected upon and either appreciated or criticized, or both.
Wrong. Interactive art has existed for decades in fine art galleries. Art isn't a label or category for stuff. In the right context, anything can be art (that's the principle of modern art).
Basically there?s no point in trying to establish parameters for it. I might as well call my posting style literary art.
 

dscross

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hanselthecaretaker said:
CaitSeith said:
hanselthecaretaker said:
True art is meant to be simply observed, reflected upon and either appreciated or criticized, or both.
Wrong. Interactive art has existed for decades in fine art galleries. Art isn't a label or category for stuff. In the right context, anything can be art (that's the principle of modern art).
Basically there?s no point in trying to establish parameters for it. I might as well call my posting style literary art.
Art can mean many things dude. I believe art is just something you invest yourself in as a means to communicate to people. It can be the most beautiful thing in the entire world as well as the most horrific. It all depends on the artist. But that's just one definition. I bet if you ask someone else they would say something different. In a way, the whole point of art is the lack of parameters. Lol.
 

CaitSeith

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hanselthecaretaker said:
CaitSeith said:
hanselthecaretaker said:
True art is meant to be simply observed, reflected upon and either appreciated or criticized, or both.
Wrong. Interactive art has existed for decades in fine art galleries. Art isn't a label or category for stuff. In the right context, anything can be art (that's the principle of modern art).
Basically there?s no point in trying to establish parameters for it. I might as well call my posting style literary art.
(My last post, because we are derailing from the topic for too long)

You might as well. There is no lack of works of art that were made to rebel against the preconceptions of art (or to mock the absurdities of art itself).

I derailed the "outdated design" discussion because I disagree with the notion that the gamers' mentality has anything to do with people not perceiving games as art. Although it would probably help if you state what is your definition of "Outdated Game Design" (because I have several reasons of why HP bars aren't outdated).
 

hanselthecaretaker

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CaitSeith said:
hanselthecaretaker said:
CaitSeith said:
hanselthecaretaker said:
True art is meant to be simply observed, reflected upon and either appreciated or criticized, or both.
Wrong. Interactive art has existed for decades in fine art galleries. Art isn't a label or category for stuff. In the right context, anything can be art (that's the principle of modern art).
Basically there?s no point in trying to establish parameters for it. I might as well call my posting style literary art.
(My last post, because we are derailing from the topic for too long)

You might as well. There is no lack of works of art that were made to rebel against the preconceptions of art (or to mock the absurdities of art itself).

I derailed the "outdated design" discussion because I disagree with the notion that the gamers' mentality has anything to do with people not perceiving games as art. Although it would probably help if you state what is your definition of "Outdated Game Design" (because I have several reasons of why HP bars aren't outdated).

If I were to state it as plainly as possible, it would be any facet of game design that might have once sufficed, but could also conceivably be done better. When I made the thread, life bars stood out as a prime example, but something happened during a Bloodborne session last night that?s made me reconsider it myself. I never really thought about it until after I made this thread, but I realized that life bars themselves can serve as more than a health indicator. I?ve been fighting Ebrietas in the Isz Gravestone chalice dungeon for a few nights and she?s been wiping the floor with me time and again. Well, last night the stars must have aligned (or maybe it was the bright moon outside) but I finally beat her. Although I?m sure a bit of luck had something to do with it, because she could?ve easily one shot me with a flagrant tentacle swipe or laser beam.

Anyways, by the time her life bar had fully succumbed to my bolt-powered saw cleaver, my heart was damn near pounding out of my chest. This wasn?t by any means the first time it?s happened but it was pronounced enough to make me draw a connection to this topic, and force me to rescind or at least revise my statement. I never really thought of how life bars can be used as a powerful feedback loop in games until this thread and my exhilarating encounter last night.

While I may still wish that more dynamics would be added to a melee system to enhance feedback, it also helped me realize that perhaps life bars themselves aren?t quite the problem I originally thought, and instead are merely standing beside it.
 

Mothro

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It's a shame that this thread has become 'what does the word outdated mean in regards to gaming'.
 

Smithnikov_v1legacy

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Yoshi178 said:
having to play the game.

our games should just be movies so players can just watch and don't actually have to do anything.

Anyway, as pointed out, a lives system. It made sense when the goal was to eat your pocket change and make a raging addict out of you, but hard to justify now, even in an extremely arcade'y game.
 

sXeth

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The most clearly defined "outdated" game designs would be the products of technical limitations, or design philosophy that does not apply to the current state of the medium (the obvious one there is lives systems that stemmed from arcade machines designed to continously generate money)

To take my earlier comment, save slot limits existed because of the space constraints on cartridges and memory cards. Since we've exponentially expanded on storage (and also less drastically, but still signficantly improved on compression and packing algorithms for storing data)

Hitboxes, for another example. Early hitboxes were, well, boxes. Your character occupied this rectangle in the game, and if that rectangle intersected with a rectangle of bad, you took damage. It was limit of processing power, where you couldn't run calculations for all the independent pixels of a sprite and animation frame (nevermind 3d collisions). But plopping a character down today with a weird aura around them that constituted their actual collision wouldn't be a quaint retro nod, it'd be seen as the lazy work it is.
 

dscross

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Seth Carter said:
To take my earlier comment, save slot limits existed because of the space constraints on cartridges and memory cards. Since we've exponentially expanded on storage (and also less drastically, but still signficantly improved on compression and packing algorithms for storing data)
I don't think I would class a method of game saving as 'game design'. When old games get re-released this feature is always omitted because of modern technology, as it is with emulated versions. It's therefore not really part of the conversation. I don't think it was something anyone 'designed' as much as it was necessary to all games. But it doesn't affect you playing them today unless you are insistent on playing them on the original console. In fact, I'd say it is more console design than game design.

Hitboxes, for another example. Early hitboxes were, well, boxes. Your character occupied this rectangle in the game, and if that rectangle intersected with a rectangle of bad, you took damage. It was limit of processing power, where you couldn't run calculations for all the independent pixels of a sprite and animation frame (nevermind 3d collisions). But plopping a character down today with a weird aura around them that constituted their actual collision wouldn't be a quaint retro nod, it'd be seen as the lazy work it is.
What are we talking about here? Just 3D games? I think I need some game examples.

I don't remember a huge problem with how most old games I used to play worked in this respect (just from playing them without knowing the technicalities). That is, unless they were just not very good games in the first place, in which case outdated doesn't enter into it. None of the games I used to like had any noticeable problems hitting enemies or taking damage.

However, I imagine the hit box thing you mention might work in favour of some games (such as making it easier to shoot enemies with auto aim, for example).
 

Recusant

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Time to throw in an element that unambiguously is out of date: widescreen resolutions. The aspect ratio that the human eye sees in is 4x3.3. This is why Edison used 4x3 film. Of course, some of you are going to object, and to preemptively answer your your objections, do a quick experiment: stare straight ahead and raise your fingers vertically, holding one in front of each eye. Still looking ahead, slowly move your fingers away from each other. See how far apart they can get before you can't see them anymore. It'll probably be about 180 degrees. Now move your fingers horizontally in front of your eyes and move them vertically, again seeing how long you can see them; this'll probably be about 100 degrees. From this, you would likely deduce that the human eye sees at a 1.8x1 aspect ratio. It doesn't. That's the light that enters the eye, but since peripheral vision is nowhere near as good (that's why it has its own label, after all), it's hardly appropriate to count it the same way; you wouldn't drive with peripheral vision, after all.

So why the switch? Back in the 50's, movie theaters were losing business to televisions, so they needed something to pull people back in. Pressure was applied, and directors began shooting in widescreen, adding an advantage that TV didn't have. The people of the 50's being just a stupid as they are today, they went whole hog for it, and television followed suit a few decades later, monitors a little after that. Of course, this means that sizing monitors by their diagonal doesn't mean a damn thing anymore, but it doesn't change the fact that you're all chasing around an increasingly ludicrous half-century old publicity stunt.
 

Silvanus

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Squilookle said:
Absolutely. Goddamn. Freaking. Nothing.​

You want to know why games will never be regarded as art? Why the whole medium is stuck in an infantile holding pattern?
Regarded as art by whom? Anybody taking the argument seriously-- or whose opinion is worth a damn-- has long already considered them art.

The holdouts are, almost exclusively, people who have next-to-no interaction with the medium. The automatically-dismissive, whose opinions aren't worth listening to.

Squilookle said:
Did the movie industry decide that black and white was outdated once colour arrived? Of course it bloody didn't. Movies like A Night To Remember, The Longest Day, Schindler's List and The Artist all arrived long afterward, but used black and white as a creative choice. Do people read Shakespeare's plays and simply think 'oh how out of date?' No- they see past the mere period it was created in and can appreciate it for its timeless human qualities. Does everyone throw out cars that can't drive as fast as the latest supercars? Of course not. Some may have a style or charm that isn't seen in the current generation, and so they choose to preserve them.
Would you, with a straight face, argue that no characteristics of cars can be outdated?




Pictured: An automobile exactly as relevant to a modern man's needs as anything made in the last five years, because cars cannot be outdated.

In a similar vein, films are not made with the same shitty, grainy film stock any more, because it is outdated. Literature is no longer written in medieval English, because it is outdated. The term is very frequently used within almost any medium, including literature and film. It would be positively bizarre to exclude video games from the same treatment.
 

dscross

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Recusant said:
Time to throw in an element that unambiguously is out of date: widescreen resolutions. The aspect ratio that the human eye sees in is 4x3.3. This is why Edison used 4x3 film. Of course, some of you are going to object, and to preemptively answer your your objections, do a quick experiment: stare straight ahead and raise your fingers vertically, holding one in front of each eye. Still looking ahead, slowly move your fingers away from each other. See how far apart they can get before you can't see them anymore. It'll probably be about 180 degrees. Now move your fingers horizontally in front of your eyes and move them vertically, again seeing how long you can see them; this'll probably be about 100 degrees. From this, you would likely deduce that the human eye sees at a 1.8x1 aspect ratio. It doesn't. That's the light that enters the eye, but since peripheral vision is nowhere near as good (that's why it has its own label, after all), it's hardly appropriate to count it the same way; you wouldn't drive with peripheral vision, after all.

So why the switch? Back in the 50's, movie theaters were losing business to televisions, so they needed something to pull people back in. Pressure was applied, and directors began shooting in widescreen, adding an advantage that TV didn't have. The people of the 50's being just a stupid as they are today, they went whole hog for it, and television followed suit a few decades later, monitors a little after that. Of course, this means that sizing monitors by their diagonal doesn't mean a damn thing anymore, but it doesn't change the fact that you're all chasing around an increasingly ludicrous half-century old publicity stunt.
How is that game design? That's just changing the resolutions /aspect ratio to fit modern TVs or monitors! This happened across the board with everything shown on TV, not just games.
 

sXeth

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dscross said:
Seth Carter said:
To take my earlier comment, save slot limits existed because of the space constraints on cartridges and memory cards. Since we've exponentially expanded on storage (and also less drastically, but still signficantly improved on compression and packing algorithms for storing data)
I don't think I would class a method of game saving as 'game design'. When old games get re-released this feature is always omitted because of modern technology, as it is with emulated versions. It's therefore not really part of the conversation. I don't think it was something anyone 'designed' as much as it was necessary to all games. But it doesn't affect you playing them today unless you are insistent on playing them on the original console. In fact, I'd say it is more console design than game design.
Its weirdly prevalent. Ubisoft is a big fan of the single save, loading you directly into the game. Similarly, GTA V eschews multiple saves and loads you directly into the game. Dragons Dogma only allows one save. Monster Hunter World only has 3.

I'd actually have to stretch my brain to think of games that have had uncapped save slots. Bethesda's Elder Scrolls/Fallout.

Though as game design goes, its less the number of slots then the frequent case of locking down the save arbitrarily. It gets even thinner when you take those multiple save games and start sifting the ones that allow multiple saves, but only of separate playthroughs. That is, you can only start a second save by starting a new game.
 

CaitSeith

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dscross said:
Seth Carter said:
To take my earlier comment, save slot limits existed because of the space constraints on cartridges and memory cards. Since we've exponentially expanded on storage (and also less drastically, but still signficantly improved on compression and packing algorithms for storing data)
I don't think I would class a method of game saving as 'game design'. When old games get re-released this feature is always omitted because of modern technology, as it is with emulated versions. It's therefore not really part of the conversation. I don't think it was something anyone 'designed' as much as it was necessary to all games. But it doesn't affect you playing them today unless you are insistent on playing them on the original console. In fact, I'd say it is more console design than game design.
Because game technology allows to save as many times and as frequently as anyone would want, the developer choosing to limit that in their game is game design. Games like the Souls series don't allow you to have multiple save slots for a single character. You can't save, die to a boss, and reload to the point before you lost your souls. Other example are Rogue-likes like FTL having quick-saves that are deleted if you load or start a new game, not because of technical limitations, but because such limited saves are part of the game design for permadeath mechanics in that genre.

The point is: save slot limits aren't limited to old games, and the choice of having them them on new games (or keeping them on remakes like FFIII or FFIV) is game design.