[MUD-Dev2] [OFF-TOPIC] A rant against Vanguard reviews and rants

[John Buehler]

Sean Howard writes:

> "John Buehler" <johnbue at msn.com> wrote:
> > 1. Professionalism
> >
> > This is kindergarden stuff.  Everyone should be learning of the need to
> > work hard, work smart, produce quality and take pride in what was
> > produced.  It carries from any field of endeavor, from coaching to
> > basketweaving.  To continue would be to debate points of sociology.
>
> Man, I'm going to hate myself for this, but I disagree. I don't think
> those are particularly desirable traits for all employees, much less
> everyone. Certainly, some people should have that, but in my opinion,
> working hard and working smart are not always the best way to work, and
> sometimes, aiming for quality means taking effort away from other things
> which may be more important.
>
> Professionalism is overrated. Sometimes you need an Edison, but something
> the world needs a Tesla.

To me, professionalism is about the rank and file worker being diligent in
his work, completing it to the best of his ability.  It is a mindset.  For
the 1% of the population that comprises the geniuses of our society, they
can work however they like.

> > I assume that the reason behind the lack of depth is that it's more
> > difficult to do, and that products can be sold and be financially very
> > successful without it.
>
> Depth is also overrated. Seriously. Depth is more important when you have
> less things to do. In something like GTA: San Andreas, having a thousand
> things to do would make depth counter-intuitive and unwieldly. Also, depth
> is good when you want to think. But sometimes you just want to be carried,
> or to have a good time. I've got many games which are dumb friends that
> are just fun to hang out with.
>
> The reason that games sell without depth is because depth isn't actually
> important. The pursuit of depth is the game designer's favorite charging
> at windmills philosophy, and the sooner we move past it and realize depth
> as an optional part of gaming, the sooner we can start recognizing and
> understanding all that other cool stuff that people ignore.

Thank you ever so much for supporting my comments to Richard Bartle.
Richard, this is exactly the type of player mindset that I'm thinking of
when I say that depth isn't in the games because the players really don't
care about it.  It doesn't have inherent appeal to those who are drawn to
the current crop of games.

That said, I couldn't disagree with Sean more.  He and I are in entirely
different demographic groups.  I care nothing for advancement and
competition, and would love to just fool around in a game world with a lot
of depth.  A buddy and I built a flight simulator, and we'd play that danged
thing every day after work, just flying around, doing stunts, seeing what
kinds of crazy things we could get the aircraft to do.  Very few dogfights,
very little "can you match this".  We just liked seeing what we could see.
Explorer socializers.

> > They're people who are not only patient (and literate) enough to read
> > the text, but are sated by that experience.
>
> I don't know. I was hanging out over at the Dragon Ball Z MUSH, and the
> players there weren't exactly patient or literate. I think you are
> confusing the circles you ran in as the whole demographic.

You rely on your anecdotal evidence and I'll rely on mine  :)

> > Graphical games lack the precedent of quality and depth because
> the first
> > ones stood on the novelty of their graphics.
>
> What? That's just crazy talk.

I invite alternate theories as to the reason for the success of EverQuest
and its follow-ons.

> > To break out of this pattern, it's going to take things like inexpensive
> > graphics engines that will let every Tom, Dick and Harry
> Developer take a
> > shot at the graphical genre the same way that printf permitted the
> > parents of those developers to take a shot at the textual genre.
>
> I disagree. It's the lack of decent graphics engine which is going to
> force them to rely on other factors to be noticed - like depth, for one.
> When you don't look like Gears of War, you can't get away playing like it.

Actually, we agree on this point.  I couldn't care less about a garage
effort to compete with World of Warcraft (or Gears of War) as it is.  The
interesting departure from the norm here is having a game with decent
graphics that also has depth.  A shop with big bucks can notice that the
recipe works, and move it up to state-of-the-art.

Without that cheap graphics engine, a garage effort can't bring depth to a
game of any size because depth and graphics are just too time consuming to
do from scratch.

JB