Some Questions

[ShinoZ59]

Hey there everyone, I have a few questions for you all. I sent this to Yahtzee a while ago and he hasn't gotten back to me yet, but I was wondering what you guys think. I'm in High school and need to write a report about this so... Anyway here are the questions. Answer them if you like or any other comments would be appreciated.


1.What is the ideal difficulty of a game? Developers can never seem to get this right, usually leaving vast difficulty jumps between games in a series. The audience that the game seems to be aimed at also affects this choice.
2.It seems that different types of games, action, adventure and other such groups, should have different lengths, so what would be an Ideal length of a game?
3.You always seem to describe the level design to be bad, with a few exceptions, so what would be good level design?
4.The cost of games has been rising recently, why do you think this is? Does it have anything to do with how good it is? Or how much work went into it?
5.What about sequels and prequels? Should they be different of similar and to what extent?
6.Newer games seem to be shinier, but often are actually quite dull or just bad. What seems to be making these games so bland/unintuitive?
7.What do you think about cheats/guidebooks? Are they really needed or are they just in there for fun?
8.Do you play games that you don't review? Is it because they are bad or just bland. Why?
9.What makes a good character? Good NPCs?
10.Quality or quantity? I am writing a paper on this, so I do need to ask this, sorry bout that...
11.If fun is the point, why are some games just annoyingly hard or bland?

You could also suggest any other questions too, if you feel like it.

 

[000Ronald]

All of these questions are subjective. If you're looking for a straight answer you won't get one because everyone has different tastes.

Sorry, guy.

 

[L4Y Duke]

A vague answer to #6 is that sometimes developers spend too much time getting all they can visually out of the game engine, and thus the gameplay gets hindered.

I call this the "Crap-wrap" effect. If you have a piece of crap, you can spend all the time in the world wrapping it in shiny paper and making it look pretty. In the end, though, it's still going to be a piece of crap.

 

[Chilango2]

What kind of report for high school involves questions around which are centered the religious wars of gaming boards everywhere?

 

[Same River New Water]

Answered with examples for brevity.


1.What is the ideal difficulty of a game?
You Have To Burn The Rope. [http://www.mazapan.se/games/BurnTheRope.php]

2.It seems that different types of games, action, adventure and other such groups, should have different lengths, so what would be an Ideal length of a game?
You Have To Burn The Rope. [http://www.mazapan.se/games/BurnTheRope.php]

3.You always seem to describe the level design to be bad, with a few exceptions, so what would be good level design?
Trilby: The Art of Theft. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/content/games/yahtzee/artoftheft]

4.The cost of games has been rising recently, why do you think this is? Does it have anything to do with how good it is? Or how much work went into it?
No - see Rock Band in Europe. [http://kotaku.com/377168/europe-totally-fucked-over-on-rock-band-pricing]

6.Newer games seem to be shinier, but often are actually quite dull or just bad. What seems to be making these games so bland/unintuitive?
Gamers. [http://vgchartz.com/weekly.php]

8.Do you play games that you don't review? Is it because they are bad or just bland. Why?
N/A - Yahtzee only reviews games he doesn't like.

9.What makes a good character? Good NPCs?
Black Isle Studios. [http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/?p=305]

10.Quality or quantity?
What?

11.If fun is the point, why are some games just annoyingly hard or bland?
They've already got your money. [http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/wii/goldencompass]

 

[NickyT]

All of these questions are subjective. If you're looking for a straight answer you won't get one because everyone has different tastes.

Sorry, guy.

I agree. But not just people there's also a lot of the specifics of a game that can change the answer to everyone of those questions.

 

[ShinoZ59]

Well lets see...
A. My English teacher is awesome.
B. This is to find out the OPINION of people, I know there isn't an exact answer to most of these.
C. I'm looking for answers, examples are fine if you can explain them.
d. Some questions are specific to Yahtzee, or other game reviewers I guess.

 

[Lazzi]

#4

Is question -like every thing else in the real world- lacks a silver bullet responce.

I belive that the inital rise in price is do to the games for the next gen systems. Becuse of the complexity of they system and what they have to offer the intier process of creating these new games is much for time consuming and a need alto more resources. I completly agree with the price rises do to these reasons, they put in 'x' more work and in return deserve 'xy' increase in profit. This how ever only logicaly applies to revolutiary games or games that make the most of what ever the system has to offer (be it the motionn sensitivity of the Wii, the grpahis of the PS3 or what evers so amazing about the 360*). The only pluasibel execption would be an amazing story line story line (yes i am a games are art hippy to an extent).

The issue is now that the "ultimate" games have a higher price, the developer of other gaems have an excuse to raise there prices. After all now that its not bad buisness to have a game over $50 they're going to job onto the band wagon. But the worst part is that its good buisness for every one, not jsut the tag alongs. The developer of the revolutionary games now have a smaller price difference betwee there games and the base line, so now gamers are forced to pay a higher price or any game and they might s well get the best gaem out there. Its similar to the fact that car dealers with all group them selves in one area, its satisticly prove to increse every one profits.

 

[ShinoZ59]

Well, thanks for replying. My report is kinda screwed though since most of the game companies in my area are too busy to respond to a students request... Oh well...

 

[Anarchemitis]

I like medium length games, fairly difficult, but not hard or easy.
See my Youtube series of Battlefront mod map reveiws to get a good gist of nice levels.
Cost=Marketing Morons
Shiny Games=The thinking behind Crysis. (Seriously the game is too good for computers of today to run it at max settings: information between the processor and graphics card can not be shared fast enough at points.)
Yahtzee I think reveiws on the basis of in this order: Entertainment, His actual enjoyment, how many jokes he can get out of the game, entertainment and how drunk he was playing it.
Good Characters are well written, like people in books.
Quality>Quantity
"If fun is the point, why are some games just annoyingly hard or bland?"
They've already got your money. And they're stupid.

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

www.gamasutra.com

An excellent place for all your game researching needs and the ultimate site for getting it straight out of the developer's mouth. Just search their archives and be prepared for looooong essays that are wordy and potentially painful to those of the liberal arts persuasion.

 

[stompy]

To the difficulty thing: I think that HL2s different difficulties hit the spot.

I'll have to disagree. When I first fired up HL2 on X360, it was actually pretty challenging for me, and, while I'm great, I'm fairly competent. This may be because I cam from Halo 3 though (heroic).

To the OP: Most of these questions depend on the individual's taste. I myself suck at RTS games, but am fairly competent at FPSs. So, for me, I can handle COD4's Veteran (hey, I finished the epilogue mission, so yeh), but the CPU can still kick my ass on Easy on an RTS.
That, or as mentioned above, the publishers and developers want your money.

- A procrastinator

Edit: Read your 'different difficulties' bit, and realised my mistake. I made myself play it on Normal, so that might be the problem.

 

[Fire Daemon]

All of these questions are subjective. If you're looking for a straight answer you won't get one because everyone has different tastes.

Sorry, guy.

I'm not your guy, friend!


To the difficulty thing: I think that HL2s different difficulties hit the spot.

I'm not your friend, buddy!

As far as difficulty goes I think the 3 choices (Easy, Meduim, Hard) is the way to go as this lets the player play the game the way that suits them the best.

 

[Credge]

I'll have to disagree. When I first fired up HL2 on X360...

That right there is the problem. Console controls make a rather easy game insanely challenging, or at least more difficult than they really are. See Halo for this.

 

[qbert4ever]

All of these questions are subjective. If you're looking for a straight answer you won't get one because everyone has different tastes.

Sorry, guy.

I'm not your guy, friend!


To the difficulty thing: I think that HL2s different difficulties hit the spot.

I'm not your friend, buddy!

As far as difficulty goes I think the 3 choices (Easy, Meduim, Hard) is the way to go as this lets the player play the game the way that suits them the best.

He's not your buddy, friend!

This brings up an interesting question. Some games, such as Oblivion, have a slider that goes between 1-100 (I think, may be more or less), is this too much choice, or just the right amount?

 

[ShinoZ59]

Interesting responses to difficulty, I know that the easy-medium-hard is a good breakdown, but really What in your opinion IS easy medium or hard. Is easy mode equivalent to infinite lives with no penalty and bosses that have large glowing weak spots that actually have a sign saying "Hit Me Here" tied around it. Is hard, in your opinion, meant to be annoyingly difficult or "break controller in half" hard. Thats kind of what I meant with the question. Hmmm... I do see the need for some adjustments to my questions, I'll probably have one up later.

BTW I have been officially denied interviews from Nintendo, Valve, and Bungie.