What aspect of gaming has progressed the least? What should be Focused on in the next generation?

[Reven]

Basically which aspect of gaming to you feel has made the least progress/evolution in this generation compared to past generation? Personally I feel that AI has not improved significantly since last generation and is probably something that should really be focused in the next Generation.

 

[tippy2k2]

I think this has actually taken a step backwards, let alone had progression and is, in my ever so humble opinion, THE most important thing that the next generation has to focus it's efforts on.

Graphics
More grey and brown
More shooters
More darkness and angst
More hookers
...actually, un-strike that last one but that's not my "official" answer here.

Artificial Intelligence

I can not remember the last modern game that outsmarted me. They've out-played me. They've beat me because they were stronger, faster, and better than me. But it's been a long long long time since I've gotten to do my Jurassic Park "Clever Girl..." impression at a video game.

The current generation is a bunch of dumb blondes with big ol' boobies: Looks great but a few fries short of a Happy Meal. The next generation NEEDS to improve this and I am cautiously optimistic about this.

 

[TehCookie]

The creative part. Old games have wonderful fantasy words that were interesting to explore. Part of that may be because the graphics weren't good enough to mimic reality so they had to change it but I loved that. Current gen games are way to focused on realism. Chrono Cross still look gorgeous to me and has a beautiful world that draws you in, or even the older Final Fantasies do that well. Not to mention the soundtracks were great in both as well and were used to enhance the experience. I don't play that many modern games that make me go "wow this looks beautiful" even though graphics are so much better.

Then again I feel like one of the few people who plays games to escape reality. I also like protagonist I don't relate to since I like the opportunity to be someone I'm not, it the devs aren't completely to blame but also the market.

 

[gamernerdtg2]

If we look at genres, I can answer this.
Brawlers (anything that plays like Double Dragon or Final Fight) have died. Fighters (Street Fighter, Soul Calibur, Tekken, Virtua Fighter, etc) have stagnated. The side scrolling shooter is a rare thing these days.

I feel that the mechanics from these genres could easily be incorporated into the next generation, and they should be done well. There's really no excuse. Urban Reign for the PS2 was like a "spiritual" successor to Double Dragon, but it was ignored because of the ratings online, and the difficulty. The closest thing to it would be Dragon's Dogma. That game is fun because of the way you can interact with creatures and things in your environment. Plus the characters animate well.

Vindictus (FREE PC game) should be the starting point for the next generation of RPGs period - MMO's, and real-time RPG's especially.

Games like Just Cause 2, where you can get into any vehicle and go anywhere you want with a parachute, need to be improved upon in the gameplay department. I'm playing JC2 now, but there are things that could be tightened up. I overlook it b/c the game is well done for its time.

I'd like to see a new kind of fighter that leaves the Street Fighter formula. I'm telling everyone...Urban Reign has been overlooked to the detriment of all games that have fighting in them. The UFC games could have even benefited from Urban Reign.

I'd like to see a shooter without your character being stuck to the center of the screen, like every other PC game. The tank thing is seriously old.

 

[hazabaza1]

Story?
It's very few and far between that I get invested in a story and its characters like The Walking Dead and (somewhat) Mass Effect which is a damn shame.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Level design.

A lot of games today make you feel like you're on rails, only allowing you to look at all the cool stuff going on in the background. The new Tomb Raider was the first action adventure game in a long time that really gave me some breathing room to explore all the nooks and crannies of the levels. And it was tremendously inviting to do so.

As for what I think has progressed the most... Controls. Current generation games have such silky smooth controls, it boggles my mind how I was able to play through many of the previous gen games.

 

[The Madman]

Dialogue and AI.

AI is self explanatory, but I should point out there's a big difference between 'dialogue' and 'story', a lot of people just assume they're the same. Dialogue is what people to say to one another and how they say it. Good dialogue strives to say as much as possible in the least amount of words, but in the most realistic manner. People speaking one to the other, as people do, yet still in a way that conveys the necessary information to the reader/viewer/player.

Problem is 90% of games are stuck in exposition mode when it comes to dialogue. In the entire gaming genre I can think of only a sparse handful of games where the dialogue actually felt human. That's depressing, really really depressing.

 

[Gunner 51]

Hmm, I'd say gamers as a community.
On the whole, we've made improvements in terms of homophobia, acceptance of strange hobbies and cartoons and awareness in the seedy underbelly.

However, we still lack a strength of our own convictions. (Lots of talk of boycotting games - very little trousers.) We still have work to do upon our hospitality toward strangers, especially toward console owers, females, casual gamers and politicians who simply do not understand gaming. (We get positively hostile on that last one.)

If gamers were more welcoming toward strangers, mature and learned how to use anger wisely, gaming will be a lot better for it.

Gamers used to be seen as a bunch of fat, impotent and immature whiners. I say it's time to shed this image and earn society's respect rather than just demanding it.

 

[Kirov Reporting]

Population and depth thereof - bleeding into AI.

I for one would like to see games with many, many more onscreen people, vehicles, animals etc who are capable of feasible reactions to a situation. Think Hitman, but when you crouch by accident, the people laugh instead of trying to shoot you. They talk among themselves, and have real, reactive conversations. Disagreements, arguments, sometimes maybe even a fistfight will break out.. That has nothing do with you or the game, it's just an organic moment in the crowd, because sometimes these things happen.

The recent Hitman was great for crowds - but I'd like to see it go further, and instead of just a mass of solid ghosts, I'd like to see a mass of what could just be people.

 

[Easton Dark]

AI for sure. The last time I felt the AI was good were the simulants in Perfect Dark.

 

[MrCollins]

AI, both in terms of your allies and your foes, there is nothing that rips you off out of the experience more than crappy AI.

 

[IBlackKiteI]

Shit, I came in here thinking AI is the only real big one, only to be reminded of...

The creative part.

Level design.

Dammit, I can't remember playing any game with a setting as weirdly creative and compelling as Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Sacrifice or even Halo CE (and only CE), all which came out about ten years ago or a shooter as well designed as Doom II, which came out almost 20 years ago. Shit I wasn't even born then.
That's not to say that all other games are crap or anything, far from it, these gems just haven't really been surpassed to me despite many, many games since.

I know this isn't all game devs are focused on, but, this endless drive for photo-realism, super max player counts and injecting as much stuff as possible into a game is ridiculous. Give us more games genuinely memorable and well crafted, don't get too preoccupied in this dick measuring contest of who can make the best graphics or do the most stuff.

 

[Charli]

Quality control has taken some what of a step backwards to meet demands of both the consumer and publishers and the leeches who profit off the industry without being quite as necessary as they lead developers and passionate game makers to believe.

It's troubling but thems the stakes right now.

 

[Roxor]

Two letters: AI

Leave the graphics on the level of the last generation, and use the increased CPU and RAM to make the AI smarter.

Also, increased use of procedural content to reduce the size of the game would be nice to see. Ten years ago, a little game called .kkreiger was written. One level, Doom 3-quality graphics, 96KB file size.

EDIT: Come to think of it, couldn't the massively parallel architecture of a GPU be good for processing the neural net of the AI?

 

[Squilookle]

The big ones already mentioned are A.I., Level Design, Creativity, and Quality Control. I think in some ways quality control has improved- someone mentioned actual game controls are more refined and standardised which I agree with, but for the most part, QA has hit absolute rock bottom, mostly because publishers no longer need to release finished products anymore.

By that token, I'd say Customer Satisfaction has progressed the least as well- some of it unwarranted, to be sure, but there is no denying that games are now much more expensive to make and focussed far more on the bottom dollar than true innovation, diversity or artistic integrity. Mostly. I recognise there are always exceptions, however when something like SimCity comes out a complete mess, with broken forced online issues, with the publisher outright lying about it needing to be online enabled, and nobody being surprised... that really says something about the state of the industry.

 

[legendp]

Put me down for physics, sure there has been the occasional game but other than half life 2, crysis 1, bfbc2 and red faction, I have barely seen any physics engines whith total destruction. I like being able to destroy buildings. I was surprised farcry 3 didn't have more physics.

so yeah physics

 

[Rickin10]

Wow, it's heartening to see so many people say, A.I. I was starting to think I was the only one that wanted to come up against something more than braindead meat-sacks with thousand yard sight to the point where I was going to start a thread on how utterly lamentable the efforts of developers have been in this area, this gen. As someone who loves stealth games and actually feeling like I'm pitting my wits against someone real, the total lack of any progression for the last 6...7? years has been shocking.

Also It'd be nice if publishers didn't fraudulently release clearly unfinished, broken products. That'd be just peachy.

 

[King Aragorn]

The creative part. Old games have wonderful fantasy words that were interesting to explore. Part of that may be because the graphics weren't good enough to mimic reality so they had to change it but I loved that. Current gen games are way to focused on realism. Chrono Cross still look gorgeous to me and has a beautiful world that draws you in, or even the older Final Fantasies do that well. Not to mention the soundtracks were great in both as well and were used to enhance the experience. I don't play that many modern games that make me go "wow this looks beautiful" even though graphics are so much better.

Then again I feel like one of the few people who plays games to escape reality. I also like protagonist I don't relate to since I like the opportunity to be someone I'm not, it the devs aren't completely to blame but also the market.

Games still have such worlds. Take a look at Dishonored, for example. Creativity has not got anywhere, people, in my opinion, are just too focused on your brown and grey shooter, and for that, many titles fly over their heads.