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[Mr. F]

My dream scenario is that the Kinect would let you act out conversations with NPCs and it could read your voice/body language to see if you were lying or being suspicious or aggressive or whatever. But they can't even get it to work for turning the system on, so that's probably a feature that's 10 years out at least.

This reminded me of the early Double Fine Kinect prototype that they were experimenting with. Not nearly as sophisticated as what you're suggesting, but it was interesting to see something inspired along those lines within the really shitty limitations of Kinect.

Comedy during games is a strange beast, because we're so used to games being mostly objective things that can be rated. This game has good control, 10 for control. This game is technically superior to the other game that came out this year, 10 for graphics. Even the low standards for writing have people mostly nodding along to whatever "good" writing rises above the swamp.

Comedy is something we're all used to, have our own opinions on, and are not used to games really trying to handle until semi-recently. So a game could be incredibly funny to one person and just fall completely flat to another.

I think some of the funniest games are not the funniest written games. I think watching Goat Simulator is fucking hilarious, but not in the same way a scripted comedy movie is.

I do agree with you on the relative standard for writing, when the established norm is such a low bar a lot of games don't strive for much beyond it. And 100% it is totally subjective. I find things like Duke Nukem and Borderlands unbearably shitty, but I recognize that kind of humour does it for some people. But I think the larger problem is there isn't a lot of variety in the spectrum for comedy (as there is in other mediums) to satisfy different tastes, or at least games willing to take the risks to cater to those different tastes in their writing.

 

[TheShampion]

Comedy during games is a strange beast, because we're so used to games being mostly objective things that can be rated. This game has good control, 10 for control. This game is technically superior to the other game that came out this year, 10 for graphics. Even the low standards for writing have people mostly nodding along to whatever "good" writing rises above the swamp.

Comedy is something we're all used to, have our own opinions on, and are not used to games really trying to handle until semi-recently. So a game could be incredibly funny to one person and just fall completely flat to another.

The funny thing is what you say about comedy is exactly how I feel about video games. The way people act like games can have an objective score is absurd to me. Having fun in a game is just as subjective as finding a comedic act funny.

If you think about a shooter system it's largely very binary because there's only one two possible results; element destroyed or player is destroyed. Perhaps there is a large possibility space in between those results to get there (slow-motion shooting, reload mechanics, 3d-space navigation etc etc etc) but the results are so binary it ends up being relatively enclosed.

Social interaction on the other hand basically has a theoretically infinite possibility space for results and therefore is much harder to account for. Also one party won't be dead when the interaction finishes.

that said I would love for people to take social mechanics and make it more interesting than dialogue options or circle of conversation or what have you

If players got rid of the assumption that they have power over the person they are trying to effect, then the binary of success and failure comes down to whether the player can perform an action that can lead to social interaction. There is no reason why shooting a gun can't be as simple as trying to interact with someone, it just has to be simplified in a way that feels intuitive to the player (like how shooting a gun is simplified in most video games to make it fun for gameplay).

 

[firehawk12]

If players got rid of the assumption that they have power over the person they are trying to effect, then the binary of success and failure comes down to whether the player can perform an action that can lead to social interaction. There is no reason why shooting a gun can't be as simple as trying to interact with someone, it just has to be simplified in a way that feels intuitive to the player (like how shooting a gun is simplified in most video games to make it fun for gameplay).

The "sad" thing is that we've literally designed controllers to replicate the action of shooting a gun. Now all designers have to make their games fit that specific control scheme, even if they are making a game that doesn't necessarily have guns in it.

The strange thing is that we're going to have a generation of gamers where pulling a trigger becomes a completely natural motion... and that will inevitably influence the next generation of game designers.

 

[Jintor]

infinite cycle!

 

[firehawk12]

This reminded me of the early Double Fine Kinect prototype that they were experimenting with. Not nearly as sophisticated as what you're suggesting, but it was interesting to see something inspired along those lines within the really shitty limitations of Kinect.

That sounds like a neat idea. Hopefully devs have greater ambitions for the Kinect, but if they really are going to start selling it without the camera in order to drop the price... well, we all know how that goes.

 

[Jintor]

If players got rid of the assumption that they have power over the person they are trying to effect, then the binary of success and failure comes down to whether the player can perform an action that can lead to social interaction. There is no reason why shooting a gun can't be as simple as trying to interact with someone, it just has to be simplified in a way that feels intuitive to the player (like how shooting a gun is simplified in most video games to make it fun for gameplay).

Well, I was more making the point that social interaction has implications and meaning beyond 'success' or 'failure' and that therefore attempting to transpose socially interactive behaviour onto systemic frameworks is a difficult proposition

I disagree with Firehawk on this one, actually; the fact that nothing 'concrete' changes in TWD is overriden, in my mind, by the fact that meaning and interpretation of dialogue and character can shift greatly from one playthrough to another. But I thought of TWD as more of a roleplaying exercise than a choose-your-own-adventure, anyway.

 

[Data West]

Does anyone have the video where Jeff streamed games(think it was mostly Last Ninja) then he watched crappy Sega PR videos? Because I want to see those Sega PR videos, and it's not on his twitch anymore. The Last Ninja stuff is, but I don't think the Sega videos are

 

[firehawk12]

Well, I was more making the point that social interaction has implications and meaning beyond 'success' or 'failure' and that therefore attempting to transpose socially interactive behaviour onto systemic frameworks is a difficult proposition

I think the real problem is that because video gamess are still video games, there will be people who still think about them in terms of "winning". Even visual novels have "good ends" and "bad ends" in order to encourage replayability.

The Walking Dead and Heavy Rain/Beyond: Two Souls do a decent job of trying to let the player continue the experience regardless of certain outcomes (although you can "die" in The Walking Dead, which is pretty terrible), but it's still not quite perfect.

 

[Flipyap]

Comedy during games is a strange beast, because we're so used to games being mostly objective things that can be rated. This game has good control, 10 for control. This game is technically superior to the other game that came out this year, 10 for graphics. Even the low standards for writing have people mostly nodding along to whatever "good" writing rises above the swamp.

Comedy is something we're all used to, have our own opinions on, and are not used to games really trying to handle until semi-recently. So a game could be incredibly funny to one person and just fall completely flat to another.

I think some of the funniest games are not the funniest written games. I think watching Goat Simulator is fucking hilarious, but not in the same way a scripted comedy movie is.

What what what? Two-thirds of the point and click adventure genre were made up of comedy games. Funny stories were LucasArts games' main selling point!
Openly dumb games are becoming more accepted, but comedy writing exists in games in the same form it did for over a decade since that genre died - usually buried under the games' more publicized portions, so we still get stuff like "serious crime drama" set in a world consisting entirely of dick jokes.

 

[Fattony12000]

2 and 3 are the best ones.

Yeah, this tanker bit seems pretty good.

with a whiff of something larger and a satisfying ending.

Excuse me?

 

[demidar]

Well, I was more making the point that social interaction has implications and meaning beyond 'success' or 'failure' and that therefore attempting to transpose socially interactive behaviour onto systemic frameworks is a difficult proposition

I disagree with Firehawk on this one, actually; the fact that nothing 'concrete' changes in TWD is overriden, in my mind, by the fact that meaning and interpretation of dialogue and character can shift greatly from one playthrough to another. But I thought of TWD as more of a roleplaying exercise than a choose-your-own-adventure, anyway.

I'll have to side with Firehawk on this one. The problem is I'm too informed about those types of games such that it shatters the experience "I know this decision isn't gonna be worth anything in the end because that would cost too much" "I know the decisions are gonna be a diamond, where even the biggest difference has to converge on to a single point". The difference between TWD and 999 is that, not only will different paths lead to different ends rather than converging on a single point, but also those different paths lead to ends that aren't wasted due to the game's story (which I won't spoil).

On a separate point, spurred on by talking about 999, one of the things I most want games to explore is to explore is the relationship between players and the player character/avatar.

 

[Jintor]

I find that line of thinking a little too close to the kind of stuff where you watch a movie and all you see are camera shots. I try not to think like that if I'm already actively enjoying something, unless it's a rewatch/replay.

 

[demidar]

I'm afraid I don't follow that line of thinking. Camera shots are fairly straightforward in purpose, unlike narrative interactivity. If, for all your decisions you end up in 90% the same place and state, are those decisions meaningful? That's up to the individual, but personally I would say no. I guess this is probably because TWD was touted as having meaningful decisions that affect the story, but in the end that's not really true, and I understand that it's because the monetary and manpower costs are too high. It's unreasonable to expect proper branching stories, but the alternative (linear stories and linear stories dressed up as branching) is something I find quite shallow (not to say you can't enjoy shallow things, I enjoy plenty of shallow things) and is done much better in other mediums using their native conventions. That's why I'm not really interested in games whose stories/narrative are told using conventions borrowed from other mediums i.e. over reliance on cutscenes and audiobooks to deliver story. If I'm going to play a game where story/narrative is the focus, then narrative told through gameplay systems is what I'm after since that's the thing video games are best at, its native conventions.

I think they talked about this on a recent Idle Thumbs episode, but Jake (I think it's Jake, or maybe it was Sean) thought about (TWD ending spoilers, just to be safe)

Spoiler

how the ending sequence shouldn't be up to the player, Clem should've done things Lee has taught her through the choices you made throughout the story (to protect her from the harsh reality or be practical and prepare her for it). If you coddled her too much, she would freeze up and get eaten; if you made her face the harsh world and trained her she would be fine and might even mercy kill you if you instilled as much practicality in her as possible. I feel like the ending would've been much, much stronger if Clem's actions were the culmination of how you treated her, and all you did was act as an observer. This would make all the decisions you made throughout the game meaningful.

 

[Jintor]

Well, certainly I would definitely enjoy a reactive system more than a non-reactive system, especially concerning games. But given I only really like to experience stories once, since the 'non-reactiveness' of TWD is only truly exposed by multiple playthroughs or through exterior communication about it, I find it sufficient to preserve the illusion of reactiveness (given that budget/manpower constraints, as you allude to, mean there is no 'true' reactiveness) by simply not thinking about it in the moment.

When I say camera shots, what I mean is - camera shots, visual techniques, narrative techniques, all the 'mechanics' of crafting an experience. Thinking about whether decisions are 'meaningful' based on what alternative paths they create falls under this category because you don't know about it until you start to break down the game as a piece of machinery.

For me, the decisions I made regarding Clementine were meaningful because I invested them with meaning. What I chose to say to Clem mattered, to me. And that was enough.

 

[dragonbane]

I think the real problem is that because video gamess are still video games, there will be people who still think about them in terms of "winning". Even visual novels have "good ends" and "bad ends" in order to encourage replayability.

The Walking Dead and Heavy Rain/Beyond: Two Souls do a decent job of trying to let the player continue the experience regardless of certain outcomes (although you can "die" in The Walking Dead, which is pretty terrible), but it's still not quite perfect.

Yeah. I'm really interested in what solution QD will go for in their rumoured sci-fi game on PS4. The setting allows for much more creativity to avoid death and in fact their first game Omikron had an "reincarnation" system that was pretty ahead of its time (if you die you reincarnate as the person that killed you and all your stats + inventory changes). Having 2 professional writers on board this time will also help to get all the branching paths more consistent in quality I hope.

 

[SlowRevolution]

Comedy during games is a strange beast, because we're so used to games being mostly objective things that can be rated. This game has good control, 10 for control. This game is technically superior to the other game that came out this year, 10 for graphics. Even the low standards for writing have people mostly nodding along to whatever "good" writing rises above the swamp.

Comedy is something we're all used to, have our own opinions on, and are not used to games really trying to handle until semi-recently. So a game could be incredibly funny to one person and just fall completely flat to another.

I think some of the funniest games are not the funniest written games. I think watching Goat Simulator is fucking hilarious, but not in the same way a scripted comedy movie is.

The South Park talk is going to be pretty interesting during the GOTY podcasts (assuming it'll get discussed). It seems a little more divisive than most of the funny games they're into.

 

[demidar]

Well, certainly I would definitely enjoy a reactive system more than a non-reactive system, especially concerning games. But given I only really like to experience stories once, since the 'non-reactiveness' of TWD is only truly exposed by multiple playthroughs or through exterior communication about it, I find it sufficient to preserve the illusion of reactiveness (given that budget/manpower constraints, as you allude to, mean there is no 'true' reactiveness) by simply not thinking about it in the moment.

When I say camera shots, what I mean is - camera shots, visual techniques, narrative techniques, all the 'mechanics' of crafting an experience. Thinking about whether decisions are 'meaningful' based on what alternative paths they create falls under this category because you don't know about it until you start to break down the game as a piece of machinery.

For me, the decisions I made regarding Clementine were meaningful because I invested them with meaning. What I chose to say to Clem mattered, to me. And that was enough.

Yeah, and my Clem would've done the same things no matter what. But fair enough, as I said, it's up to the individual.

Yeah. I'm really interested in what solution QD will go for in their rumoured sci-fi game on PS4. The setting allows for much more creativity to avoid death and in fact their first game Omikron had an "reincarnation" system that was pretty ahead of its time (if you die you reincarnate as the person that killed you and all your stats + inventory changes). Having 2 professional writers on board this time will also help to get all the branching paths more consistent in quality I hope.

Heavy Rain's non-fail state deaths is something deserving of more exploration. Regardless of the game's quality, the concept is very interesting.

 

[Jintor]

Merely because a game is good at some things (reactive systems) is no reason to look down on what it manages to produce from other things (narrative results culled from other mediums). People can have a tonne of different interpretations of books or movies and the actions of the characters don't change from person to person; but the meanings still differ.

 

[demidar]

I don't look down upon it (at least I don't think I said that. If I did or I implied it I apologize), I just don't find it very interesting, partially because I can get a much better narrative from books and movies and partially because ludonarrative dissonance (I feel like a wanker saying that ) weakens narrative (not necessarily talking about TWD here, just games in general) and the writer or whatever other business-y things that happen in the background can't reconcile it.

 

[Chunky]

i am. practice what you preach. for example he doesn't like quiet's lewd character design but he is okay with participating in this? i don't get it

Now I sincerely hope you're not being serious.

 

[Jintor]

I don't look down upon it (at least I don't think I said that. If I did or I implied it I apologize), I just don't find it very interesting, partially because I can get a much better narrative from books and movies and partially because ludonarrative dissonance (I feel like a wanker saying that ) weakens narrative (not necessarily talking about TWD here, just games in general) and the writer or whatever other business-y things that happen in the background can't reconcile it.

fair nuff

 

[Incandenza]

My signed poster showed up today! It's kinda dinged up on the top edge though, unfortunately. But I don't really wanna go through the process of getting a new one so I think I'll just deal with it. Other than that it's quite nice!

 

[Jimmyfenix]

We might be getting some Elder Scrolls Online coverage today!

 

[Mr. F]

We might be getting some Elder Scrolls Online coverage today!

Speaking of elder scrolls, I just realized the other day that I never saw much of that massive elder scrolls marathon stream with Greg Kasavin back when Skyrim came out.

Anyone remember if it was it a good one? Pulling an all nighter tonight and was thinking of having it on in the background.

 

[RE_Player]

We might be getting some Elder Scrolls Online coverage today!

I hope we get a quick look with almost everyone on it, including Rorie.

 

[FStop7]

Hopefully they'll do an all hands QL now and another one to say farewell when that shit gets shut down.

 

[plasmawave]

This has been nobodies arguments and if you're gonna contribute to the discussion, you should probably invest the time to actually understand peoples issues with it.

The argument is rape is bad. And that's where pretty much the argument ends.

 

[Curufinwe]

The argument is rape is bad. And that's where pretty much the argument ends.

You don't understand the arguments that have been made.

 

[plasmawave]

You don't understand the arguments that have been made.

because no one has made such arguments beyond that.

 

[Jokab]

because no one has made such arguments beyond that.

You should go back and read the last few pages. There are plenty of arguments that are not that.

 

[Htown]

because no one has made such arguments beyond that.

Yes. They have.

 

[plasmawave]

You should go back and read the last few pages. There are plenty of arguments that are not that.

Yes. They have.

I read a bunch of "MGS is too goofy to handle such mature subject (because giant robots)" but nothing more.

 

[shwimpy]

VinnyVania: Castlevania - Part 01
LIVE SHOW ON MAR 31, 2014 01:00 PM

HUZZAH!

 

[Zornack]

Yes. They have.

You should go back and read the last few pages. There are plenty of arguments that are not that.

No, they really haven't. And on top of that is the absurd notion that an artist somehow has to "earn" the right to address rape and sexual violence, or that they can somehow lose that "right." Or that sexual violence and rape have to be treated with respect while nothing else does.

I read a bunch of "MGS is too goofy to handle such mature subject (because giant robots)" but nothing more.

Same here.

 

[dalVlatko]

Jeff Gerstmann ‏@jeffgerstmann 2m
The angry UK people fighting over their turf are way more interesting/vicious than any of the Australian podcast emailers were.

#BombcastBeef continues

 

[Jokab]

I read a bunch of "MGS is too goofy to handle such mature subject (because giant robots)" but nothing more.

Now you've changed your stance. And you're still wrong, that is not what has been said.

 

[Freedom = $1.05]

I read a bunch of "MGS is too goofy to handle such mature subject (because giant robots)" but nothing more.

It was handled with as much maturity and grace as a 5 year old opening presents on a christmas morning.

 

[plasmawave]

Now you've changed your stance. And you're still wrong, that is not what has been said.

Then please show me.

 

[Zornack]

It was handled with as much maturity as a 5 year old opening presents on a christmas morning.

It wasn't.

And even if it was, so what? Why is shooting, killing. murdering, torturing, child soldiers, etc., etc., etc. fine to be made fun of in a goofy environment, but rape isn't? You can't have both, either none of that is acceptable or all of it is.

 

[Htown]

and suddenly, graveyard

 

[ShockingAlberto]

Turns out that being purposely obstinate to save face in a public discussion isn't always a good idea.

 

[Fantastapotamus]

Yay, VinnyVania Part 1 continues!

 

[Backfoggen]

HUZZAH!

This is good Giant Bomb News.

 

[Mr. F]

and suddenly, graveyard

Spoiler

relevant.

Can't wait for Vinnyvania, perfect timing.

 

[Adam Scott Aukerman]

Whatever happened with that Royal Rumble panel at GDC that some of the team were taking part in? Is it archived anywhere?

 

[SteveWinwood]

oh my god vinny is the best at castlevania

 

[Archaix]

Whatever happened with that Royal Rumble panel at GDC that some of the team were taking part in? Is it archived anywhere?

I think that was a PAX East thing

 

[MrTroubleMaker]

Yay, VinnyVania Part 1 continues!

I missed a bunch!

 

[SteveWinwood]

and againnnnnnnn

 

[popo]

someone has been busy with the ban hammer.