[Swifty]

This makes me feel pretty good at the stuff we produce here at HLP with the numbers we have.

Yeah but Ubisoft and other studios have to be able to ship a game by a certain date. I'm sure Assassin's Creed could have been done with a lot less people but when the ship date approached, they likely hired a lot of temps to make up for the backlog of tasks and assets they needed completed.

[An4ximandros]

 Debugging

[BloodEagle]

The funny thing is, if they were willing to produce these over a longer period of time, the costs would be substantially lower and the end product would be infinitely better.

[General Battuta]

The funny thing is, if they were willing to produce these over a longer period of time, the costs would be substantially lower and the end product would be infinitely better.

I don't think that's true - Bioshock Infinite wasn't a very good game.

[An4ximandros]

The funny thing is, if they were willing to produce these over a longer period of time, the costs would be substantially lower and the end product would be infinitely better.

You were saying?

Time does not mean anything if the game does not have a "soul." If a game does not try to add new things to the chessboard, it's just another clone. You can make games that don't have a multi-million dollar budget that are better than 90% of the crap you'll find in the industry: Example Here's a more up to date gameplay vid of that game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOvgLQspt6k

[Klaustrophobia]

back to the FEAR AI thing, it never really struck me as being any different than other AI.  except maybe that they ran away more. 

[Phantom Hoover]

The paper someone linked on the last page explains the distinguishing features in some detail.

[Spoon]

This makes me feel pretty good at the stuff we produce here at HLP with the numbers we have.

Yeah but Ubisoft and other studios have to be able to ship a game by a certain date. I'm sure Assassin's Creed could have been done with a lot less people but when the ship date approached, they likely hired a lot of temps to make up for the backlog of tasks and assets they needed completed.

I'm just sayin' ya know
If I could clone myself 9 times (and my pc), WoD would have been done in two months

[Phantom Hoover]

the mythical spoon-month

[BloodEagle]

The funny thing is, if they were willing to produce these over a longer period of time, the costs would be substantially lower and the end product would be infinitely better.

I don't think that's true - Bioshock Infinite wasn't a very good game.

I find it difficult to believe that it could have been better if they cranked it out in a year's time.  It's more likely that the good parts of it would have been knee-capped leaving nothing good whatsoever, in that scenario.

The funny thing is, if they were willing to produce these over a longer period of time, the costs would be substantially lower and the end product would be infinitely better.

You were saying?

I think the main problem there was the multiple studios passing it around, rather than the development time itself (which was much longer in this case than what I'm talking about).  Also, that's not one game -- it's a Frankenstein's Monster of a bunch of games.

[General Battuta]

The funny thing is, if they were willing to produce these over a longer period of time, the costs would be substantially lower and the end product would be infinitely better.

I don't think that's true - Bioshock Infinite wasn't a very good game.

I find it difficult to believe that it could have been better if they cranked it out in a year's time.  It's more likely that the good parts of it would have been knee-capped leaving nothing good whatsoever, in that scenario.

It would've been better if they'd made good design decisions, put them together into a good design document, and stuck to it. The reason it took so long is because they kept building huge chunks of stuff and then throwing them out.

In general my experience as both a consumer and a 'developer' (lol) has been this: if it's taking more than three years something has gone very wrong.

[TrashMan]

The funny thing is, if they were willing to produce these over a longer period of time, the costs would be substantially lower and the end product would be infinitely better.

You were saying?

Time does not mean anything if the game does not have a "soul." If a game does not try to add new things to the chessboard, it's just another clone.

And if it adds/changes to much, it is BETRAYL.

No matter how much you muck with the formula, you'll never make everyone happy, because everyone will have their own idea of how the game "should" be.


And speaking of which, I now some haters will get their panties in a twist for me saying this, but when it comes to AI, SOTS 1/2 is an example of a good non-cheating AI.

[General Battuta]

SOTS 1

Yes, definit-

/2 is an example of a good non-cheating AI.

Code: [Select]

+ Fixed an issue where AI ships could fly into planets when performing fly-by maneuvers.
+ AI no longer retires ships constantly.
+ It is no longer possible to scrap enemy ships.


nevar 4get

[karajorma]

Well unless you're claiming that the game crashes if the player is doing too well, you haven't actually refuted Trashman's point.

[Spoon]

the mythical spoon-month

Meaning?

SOTS 1

Yes, definit-

/2 is an example of a good non-cheating AI.

Code: [Select]

+ Fixed an issue where AI ships could fly into planets when performing fly-by maneuvers.
+ AI no longer retires ships constantly.
+ It is no longer possible to scrap enemy ships.


nevar 4get

 

[General Battuta]

Well unless you're claiming that the game crashes if the player is doing too well, you haven't actually refuted Trashman's point.

The game absolutely crashed when the player was doing too well, as well as when the player was not doing too well, or anything in between

(but note the patchnotes as well)

e: am i dyslexic

[Phantom Hoover]

the mythical spoon-month

Meaning?

It's a reference to this book.

[MP-Ryan]

This is going to be a "HURR DURR Old games were so much harder new games are for noobs" thing, isn't it.

EDIT:

The thing is, I don't really think we need "better" AI. It is trivially easy to set up AI code so that it will give players an unbeatable challenge (Also known as "Cheating in the AIs favour"). What we need is more "natural" AI. The problem is that as graphics and sound and storytelling have advanced to make games much more real, the deficiencies of the AI become that much clearer. In an environment where we can expect things to feel real, moments where an AI opponent will do something clearly nonsensical (Like, say, storming in front of the player's gun barrel) will stick out like a sore thumb.

Of course, once you try to solve this problem, you'll get to another problem, namely "How do I make this a fun game again, now that the AI can kick a given human's ass pretty much all the time". Sometimes (See XCOM), that sort of thing is expected and taken into account by the fanbase. But elsewhere? I am not so sure if "Make games hard again" is really a good thing to do.

I think what most of us would like is AI capable of problem-solving without cheating.  Strategy games are great examples of this - SC2 (to choose a popular example) actively allows the AI to cheat to produce harder levels of difficulty.  Without those cheating methods, AI is incapable out out-foxing a human opponent.  Actually, this is one of my major gripes with RTS games in general - they often come down to efficiency and build order, versus any tactical or strategic-level thinking.

I agree that natural AI is the goal, but that requires the AI to actually be able to perform limited problem-solving; or for scripted sequences that trick the player into thinking the AI is problem-solving.  All the games that get praise for the depth of their AI did exactly that.

Harder is not "better."  Challenge is.  It's easy to make a game harder - think of the lethal accuracy and damage ME3 MP's enemies put out compared to players - but it's not easy to provide a fair challenge.  Anyone else tired of AI with ESP and auto-aim?  I sure am.  That said, it's also trivial to defeat because there has to be enough error built in to allow a human to win.  Some balance is necessary.

I'm playing a lot of older games at the moment, precisely because their gameplay is often superior to modern games they inspired with better visual but less depth.

[General Battuta]

Actually, this is one of my major gripes with RTS games in general - they often come down to efficiency and build order, versus any tactical or strategic-level thinking.

WALB :toot:

[Klaustrophobia]

I think what most of us would like is AI capable of problem-solving without cheating.  Strategy games are great examples of this - SC2 (to choose a popular example) actively allows the AI to cheat to produce harder levels of difficulty.  Without those cheating methods, AI is incapable out out-foxing a human opponent.  Actually, this is one of my major gripes with RTS games in general - they often come down to efficiency and build order, versus any tactical or strategic-level thinking.

this is why i play RTS's (ok, the only ones i have are C&C) on easier difficulties, and i make it fun by setting personal "challenges" of defeating the AI in novel ways, or executing "perfect" tactics.