(Rant) More focus on gameplay, less on graphics - Page 6

John Pancoast · 09-15-06, 05:27 PM

[quote=finchOU]

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Pancoast

Quote:

Originally Posted by Immacolata

"too many people want the game to be something other than a game.."

like maybe a .....simulation??

....I mean...thats what it said on the outside of the box right??

Call it whatever you want; it's still just a game in the end.

Immacolata · 09-16-06, 02:30 AM

[QUOTE=finchOU]

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Pancoast

Quote:

Originally Posted by Immacolata

"too many people want the game to be something other than a game.."

like maybe a .....simulation??

....I mean...thats what it said on the outside of the box right??

It says so outside on the box of The Sims 2. So naturally The Sims 2 must be ultra realistic by your notions. More semantics you want to split hair on?

Safe-Keeper · 09-16-06, 06:44 AM

Quote:

like maybe a .....simulation??

....I mean...thats what it said on the outside of the box right??

Quote:

Call it whatever you want; it's still just a game in the end.

Oh, wow, someone saying realism shouldn't be in because it's "just a game"! I've never heard that before

!

Quote:

It says so outside on the box of The Sims 2. So naturally The Sims 2 must be ultra realistic by your notions.

Judging by the box? Yes. Game-play? No.

"Simulations" are pretty much by definition realistic.

HunterICX · 09-16-06, 06:50 AM

Ehm...Bad Graphics dont sell?

just look at BF2, the game is beautifull. but the realism is Sh!t.
but just look at the amount of players playing BF2.
the downside is that the players are those Counterstrike Hippies that are too addicted and spend an huge amount of time playing that game , that I find an waste of someone life . but also I played the game for a while and I started to hate the game because of all the cursing and 12yr old acting on those servers...you cant enjoy the game with all that yelling ''n00b, FU!, Its my vehicule, and the 12yr old power hungry admins on the server bans you for no reason at all...I dumped the game away and focused myself on the Sims I have.

what I find of SH3 already that they found an good balance between looking-good and realism. and with the mods they brought out they added some more realism (reffering to NYGM)

if an game is all about realism and let down the graphics of the game , what you will get is that only an small group would buy the game. bad for the publisher.

if you find an good balance between Graphics and Realism you will attract more people, it will be noticed.

if you go fully for the graphics and an Arcade style of game...you will atract those kiddo's that sh!t on realism and the game will be very boring soon for the ones that want an challenge

I say if SHIV has an good balance between Graphics and Realism and give the Moderators the posibillity to Mod the game like SH3 the game will be succesfull.

Immacolata · 09-16-06, 07:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Safe-Keeper

Quote:

like maybe a .....simulation??

....I mean...thats what it said on the outside of the box right??

Quote:

Call it whatever you want; it's still just a game in the end.

Oh, wow, someone saying realism shouldn't be in because it's "just a game"! I've never heard that before

!

Quote:

It says so outside on the box of The Sims 2. So naturally The Sims 2 must be ultra realistic by your notions.

Judging by the box? Yes. Game-play? No.

"Simulations" are pretty much by definition realistic.

It seems that definitions aren't as iron cast as you believe. SimCity is also a simulation. Is it realistic? One idea of realism is socalled Laplacian realism.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pierre Laplace

"Given for one instant an intelligence which could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective positions of the beings which compose it, if moreover this intelligence were vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in the same formula both the movements of the largest bodies in the universe and those of the lightest atom; to it nothing would be uncertain, and the future as the past would be present to its eyes.."

This is the foundation for the Virtual Reality paradigm. Realistic simulation of physical phenomenon. However, there are such things as social realism. By todays computer science only poorly simulated, which is why narration and scripting is used instead.

And what about the perceptual realism? No uboot skipper was awake round the clock. He would sleep in between. As would the crew. The continous timeflow in SH3 is in other words not realistic.

And the men never speak about anything. Where are the jokes, the tales from back home? That would be realistic, but this is cut out as well. So the game is less realistic, and more game.

By the way, some of the games that I have found most challenging have not necessarily been the most realistic. I have played many a console game where I have been ready to yell out in frustration due to the difficulty of the challenges put in front of me. Realism and challenge are not connected by default. Inventive design that is abstracted can be indeed be very challenging. Ever played chess? As abstract as it comes, I gather.

09-16-06, 09:20 AM

I don't really care how ugly or pretty or realistic or unrealistic UBI releases their games, as long as they give us the tools to mod the hell out of it to fix it right... and NOT tie our hands by keeping the SDK locked up.

TDK1044 · 09-16-06, 09:22 AM

Guys, some very bright people in the forum are taking this way too seriously. Call it a sim or call it a game; in the end, we just want to have fun being sub captains in a realistic WW11 environment. SH111 patched and modded certainly achieved that for me, and I'm hoping SH1V will be an improvement on SH111.

John Pancoast · 09-16-06, 12:56 PM

[quote=Safe-Keeper][quote]

Quote:

Call it whatever you want; it's still just a game in the end.

[quote]
Oh, wow, someone saying realism shouldn't be in because it's "just a game"! I've never heard that before

!

[quote]

Show me...*exactly*.....where I said that.

CB.. · 09-16-06, 01:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Immacolata

And the men never speak about anything. Where are the jokes, the tales from back home? That would be realistic, but this is cut out as well. So the game is less realistic, and more game.

getting warmer...

finchOU · 09-16-06, 02:18 PM

[quote=finchOU]

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Pancoast

Quote:

Originally Posted by Immacolata

"too many people want the game to be something other than a game.."

like maybe a .....simulation??

....I mean...thats what it said on the outside of the box right??

Sarcasm must not be my forte......

Dantenoc · 09-17-06, 11:20 PM

Here are my two cents:

Silent Hunter III payed WAY TOO MUCH attention to graphics, specially when you considered that they where graphics that you weren't supposed to see! When you play at 100% realism, disabling the outside cam-view, you don't care what your sub looks like on the outside, for example, because you NEVER get to see it from the outside.

Of course, now that we have allready attained this level of graphic detail, we shouldn't take a step back, but for SHIV let's concentrate more on immersion, playability and game stability and not so much on the "Ooooh" factor of pretty graphics.

Immacolata · 09-18-06, 02:34 AM

Dantenoc, I don't think they had a choice really. When someone made their SH3 pitch in the misty early parts of this millennium, I bet that DirectX 9.0c era graphics was a major seller. Submarine simulations has been made many times, and only better graphics is a seller for a new version. Otherwise we would all still be playing AOTD wouldn't we?

So lets say they didn't do the graphics properly? Okay, they could have cut out the 3d interior with no penalty to gameplay what so ever. But not chase cam... LOL? That is such a piece of cake to make ,you already HAVE the 3d-engine, the chase cam is just a repositioning of the player's viewport.

So what parts of the graphics should they have removed then?

Crew on deck?
Shadereffects on sea?
Particle effects on explosions?
Use generic ship models for all ship types?
Or use low poly models?
Not use textures?

DeepSix · 09-18-06, 11:27 PM

This thread just tickles the f*ck out of me....

But I'm feeling a little piss and vinegar myself tonight, so I'll chip in my thoughts

:

If it were all about graphics, we'd have no game at all - just some really b!tchin' screenshots every now and then and we could all go down to the art house to drink lattes and admire the Silent Hunter series' "blue period." On the other hand, if it were only about gameplay, we'd have a top-down view with shorelines represented by # and the boat represented by a U and surface targets are < or > or whatever. We'd drive with AWSZ and it'd run like the wind on a PC Jr.

John said earlier that the game is marketed to the masses and that's the truth. Not trying to put words in his mouth, but because I believe what he says is true, I think "better" graphics is sort of a necessary evil. Maybe it's just the D&D geek in me, but I will always prefer that devs concentrate on gameplay over graphics - but gameplay is not as "quantifiable" for devs as graphic improvements - and therefore (IMO) it's much harder as well as less palatable. I don't want to say it's easier, but eye candy is more predictable and it's eye candy that sells, unfortunately. It's a shorter route to money than are creativity and imagination. Graphics alone does not a Tolkien classlic make. I'm not to be belligerent in expressing that sentiment, it's just something I believe to be a fact of life.

This is why there are beautiful games that suck. Just royally suck. Two of which are (or "were" - and please note - this is just my opinion and I'm sure people will disagree with it) Sea Dogs and B-17 Mighty Eighth. And I may eat these words, but right now I doubt if I will ever buy a single World War II shooter (or any shooter, for that matter) again. Sick of it. Same worn out storyline (and a dumbass one at that - 1 man vs. the entire freakin' German army or else a whole lot of multiplayers having a fragfest) over and over and over only this time with the latest chipsets and - this is my favorite - "cutting edge, blazing fast, smack yo' mama AA and AF!" Yeah, well. Big f*ckin' deal. The problem with graphics that are so finger licking good is that improvements in that area are so incredibly fleeting. They only get a "w00t!" for a few weeks or months, and then the entire industry has moved on to even bigger and badder and better. "Cutting edge" status has the lifespan of a fruit fly.

And yet I wouldn't ever want to return to the days of text adventures, but I think the memory of them and the fun they were is why some "older" gamers do tend to prefer gameplay and criticize eye-candy - because for cryin' out loud they can remember when graphics were minimal or non-existent. The game HAD to be a gameplay success and you had to see it in your head. "You enter a clearing. The path continues north with a fork to the left (SW). You hear around you the sound of the wind in the pine trees." Playing those games was an entirely imaginative process. LOL, now skip ahead to the early 90s and Myst....

Anyhow, rambling around to my point: the only truly good games (or sims - jeez, whatever you want to call 'em) are the ones that have replayability. What we as a fan community should be doing - IMHO - instead of wasting breath on an argument that will go on forever, is keeping after devs to produce games with REplayability, through both quality visual appearance AND gameplay. Without graphics, nothing sells. Without story, we're just a market buying recycled shlock all the time.

Alright - that's 'nuff from me.

Dantenoc · 09-19-06, 02:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Immacolata

So what parts of the graphics should they have removed then?

A lower polygon count on the ships, compensated by smarter textures could have easily made the game run faster and smoother on more computers.

As for the sub interior, I really wish that they would develope it MORE for SHIV. I'm not against graphics, I'm against useless graphics... for example, utmost detail should be dedicated to the subs interior, since you'll see it a lot. On the other hand, paying attention to the sea bottom texture is a complete waste, since nobody is ever supposed to see that from the sub.

Now, one very important thing is that we're not really arguing about graphics vs. playability in a general manner... no, we're arguing graphics vs. playability in the context of Silent Hunter III, a game were a lot of effort was obviously put into the graphical aspect of it, but the rest was so completely abandoned that:

* It doesn't have a manual (just a worthless booklet that even talks about features that never made it into the game)
* It originaly shiped without any way of measuring angles on the nav-map
* ALL harbours were gost towns
* The whole dynamic campaign consists of "go to grid blahblah and stay there 24hrs"
* In the game, your's is the ONLY sub in the whole universe
* etc. etc.

To sum it all up: Ubi did a fine job with the graphics on SHIII, but now it's time they worked on the rest of the game to bring it up to par, so that they can release a SHIV that is more balanced and robust (not to mention stable and bug free).

Immacolata · 09-19-06, 02:49 AM

And what then makes you think Ubi soft won't release a more well polished SHIV? You bet that the ship poly count and sea floor texture has nothing to do with the ghost harbours, the dull dynamic campaign. No the reason for that was probably that they thought of this late, and had to spend ressources getting it to work. The dynamic campaign of anything cost the simulation its depth and realism. Not the graphics. I wish people would stop bashing on the graphics as the culprit of all things gone wrong in SH3 already! If you think it it doesn't matter why the heck don't you just play SH2 or AOTD?

ahem..We can hope that ubi with the experience from SH3 can better plan their work for SH4, and that means they have time to implement the advanced simulation features we are expecting. I think they know that very well. And as Ive said several times before, the graphics guys are not the same as those who makes the AI and the simulation engine. So leave'm out of it.

In any case, SH4 needs a more powerful pc than SH3. Why? Because unless they go with the 8000m visual range bubble again, they WILL need a stronger pc to be able to render further than 8000m.

09-16-06, 06:50 AM	#79
HunterICX Rear Admiral Join Date: May 2006 Location: Malaga, España Posts: 10,750 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 0	Ehm...Bad Graphics dont sell? just look at BF2, the game is beautifull. but the realism is Sh!t. but just look at the amount of players playing BF2. the downside is that the players are those Counterstrike Hippies that are too addicted and spend an huge amount of time playing that game , that I find an waste of someone life . but also I played the game for a while and I started to hate the game because of all the cursing and 12yr old acting on those servers...you cant enjoy the game with all that yelling ''n00b, FU!, Its my vehicule, and the 12yr old power hungry admins on the server bans you for no reason at all...I dumped the game away and focused myself on the Sims I have. what I find of SH3 already that they found an good balance between looking-good and realism. and with the mods they brought out they added some more realism (reffering to NYGM) if an game is all about realism and let down the graphics of the game , what you will get is that only an small group would buy the game. bad for the publisher. if you find an good balance between Graphics and Realism you will attract more people, it will be noticed. if you go fully for the graphics and an Arcade style of game...you will atract those kiddo's that sh!t on realism and the game will be very boring soon for the ones that want an challenge I say if SHIV has an good balance between Graphics and Realism and give the Moderators the posibillity to Mod the game like SH3 the game will be succesfull. __________________ Last edited by HunterICX; 09-16-06 at 06:53 AM.

09-18-06, 11:27 PM	#88
DeepSix Seasoned Skipper Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Music City Posts: 683 Downloads: 5 Uploads: 0	This thread just tickles the fck out of me.... But I'm feeling a little piss and vinegar myself tonight, so I'll chip in my thoughts: If it were all about graphics, we'd have no game at all - just some really b!tchin' screenshots every now and then and we could all go down to the art house to drink lattes and admire the Silent Hunter series' "blue period." On the other hand, if it were only about gameplay, we'd have a top-down view with shorelines represented by # and the boat represented by a U and surface targets are < or > or whatever. We'd drive with AWSZ and it'd run like the wind on a PC Jr. John said earlier that the game is marketed to the masses and that's the truth. Not trying to put words in his mouth, but because I believe what he says is true, I think "better" graphics is sort of a necessary evil. Maybe it's just the D&D geek in me, but I will always prefer that devs concentrate on gameplay over graphics - but gameplay is not as "quantifiable" for devs as graphic improvements - and therefore (IMO) it's much harder as well as less palatable. I don't want to say it's easier, but eye candy is more predictable and it's eye candy that sells, unfortunately. It's a shorter route to money than are creativity and imagination. Graphics alone does not a Tolkien classlic make. I'm not to be belligerent in expressing that sentiment, it's just something I believe to be a fact of life. This is why there are beautiful games that suck. Just royally suck. Two of which are (or "were" - and please note - this is just my opinion and I'm sure people will disagree with it) Sea Dogs and B-17 Mighty Eighth. And I may eat these words, but right now I doubt if I will ever buy a single World War II shooter (or any shooter, for that matter) again. Sick of it. Same worn out storyline (and a dumbass one at that - 1 man vs. the entire freakin' German army or else a whole lot of multiplayers having a fragfest) over and over and over only this time with the latest chipsets and - this is my favorite - "cutting edge, blazing fast, smack yo' mama AA and AF!" Yeah, well. Big fckin' deal. The problem with graphics that are so finger licking good is that improvements in that area are so incredibly fleeting. They only get a "w00t!" for a few weeks or months, and then the entire industry has moved on to even bigger and badder and better. "Cutting edge" status has the lifespan of a fruit fly. And yet I wouldn't ever want to return to the days of text adventures, but I think the memory of them and the fun they were is why some "older" gamers do tend to prefer gameplay and criticize eye-candy - because for cryin' out loud they can remember when graphics were minimal or non-existent. The game HAD to be a gameplay success and you had to see it in your head. "You enter a clearing. The path continues north with a fork to the left (SW). You hear around you the sound of the wind in the pine trees." Playing those games was an entirely imaginative process. LOL, now skip ahead to the early 90s and Myst.... Anyhow, rambling around to my point: the only truly good games (or sims - jeez, whatever you want to call 'em) are the ones that have replayability. What we as a fan community should be doing - IMHO - instead of wasting breath on an argument that will go on forever, is keeping after devs to produce games with REplayability, through both quality visual appearance AND gameplay. Without graphics, nothing sells. Without story, we're just a market buying recycled shlock all the time. Alright - that's 'nuff from me. __________________ Jack's happy days will soon be gone, To return again, oh never! For they've raised his pay five cents a day, But they've stopped his grog forever. For tonight we'll merry, merry be, For tonight we'll merry, merry be, For tonight we'll merry, merry be, But tomorrow we'll be sober. - "Farewell to Grog" Last edited by DeepSix; 09-18-06 at 11:30 PM.

09-16-06, 09:20 AM	#81
nvdrifter Stowaway Posts: n/a Downloads: Uploads:	I don't really care how ugly or pretty or realistic or unrealistic UBI releases their games, as long as they give us the tools to mod the hell out of it to fix it right... and NOT tie our hands by keeping the SDK locked up.

09-16-06, 09:22 AM	#82
TDK1044 Ocean Warrior Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Georgia, USA Posts: 2,674 Downloads: 25 Uploads: 0	Guys, some very bright people in the forum are taking this way too seriously. Call it a sim or call it a game; in the end, we just want to have fun being sub captains in a realistic WW11 environment. SH111 patched and modded certainly achieved that for me, and I'm hoping SH1V will be an improvement on SH111.

09-17-06, 11:20 PM	#86
Dantenoc Captain Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Ensenada, B.C., Mexico Posts: 504 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	Here are my two cents: Silent Hunter III payed WAY TOO MUCH attention to graphics, specially when you considered that they where graphics that you weren't supposed to see! When you play at 100% realism, disabling the outside cam-view, you don't care what your sub looks like on the outside, for example, because you NEVER get to see it from the outside. Of course, now that we have allready attained this level of graphic detail, we shouldn't take a step back, but for SHIV let's concentrate more on immersion, playability and game stability and not so much on the "Ooooh" factor of pretty graphics.

09-18-06, 02:34 AM	#87
Immacolata Grey Wolf Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 798 Downloads: 3 Uploads: 0	Dantenoc, I don't think they had a choice really. When someone made their SH3 pitch in the misty early parts of this millennium, I bet that DirectX 9.0c era graphics was a major seller. Submarine simulations has been made many times, and only better graphics is a seller for a new version. Otherwise we would all still be playing AOTD wouldn't we? So lets say they didn't do the graphics properly? Okay, they could have cut out the 3d interior with no penalty to gameplay what so ever. But not chase cam... LOL? That is such a piece of cake to make ,you already HAVE the 3d-engine, the chase cam is just a repositioning of the player's viewport. So what parts of the graphics should they have removed then? Crew on deck? Shadereffects on sea? Particle effects on explosions? Use generic ship models for all ship types? Or use low poly models? Not use textures?

09-19-06, 02:49 AM	#90
Immacolata Grey Wolf Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 798 Downloads: 3 Uploads: 0	And what then makes you think Ubi soft won't release a more well polished SHIV? You bet that the ship poly count and sea floor texture has nothing to do with the ghost harbours, the dull dynamic campaign. No the reason for that was probably that they thought of this late, and had to spend ressources getting it to work. The dynamic campaign of anything cost the simulation its depth and realism. Not the graphics. I wish people would stop bashing on the graphics as the culprit of all things gone wrong in SH3 already! If you think it it doesn't matter why the heck don't you just play SH2 or AOTD? ahem..We can hope that ubi with the experience from SH3 can better plan their work for SH4, and that means they have time to implement the advanced simulation features we are expecting. I think they know that very well. And as Ive said several times before, the graphics guys are not the same as those who makes the AI and the simulation engine. So leave'm out of it. In any case, SH4 needs a more powerful pc than SH3. Why? Because unless they go with the 8000m visual range bubble again, they WILL need a stronger pc to be able to render further than 8000m.