why are we here?
 

Is it because those damn developers don't manage to produce a game,
which can top our ancestors? Maybe
Or is it because graphics have taken over? Maybe

Fact is, that every million $ spent in a graphic engine is one million less in gameplay, story, balance, you call it the "REST"

Big thumbs down, you want something exciting, something that tackles your brains. But I guess we humans have no brains???
You want a serious game but there isn't.

We are getting old, I wish my body functions would already cease functioning in order to not see too much of this crap which is produced these days.

Because we wanted it so. Well, not you and me I bet, but you know what I mean.
That said, the thread title doesn't fit well for the actual theme of the text.

Seriously though, it's a quite simple reason for today's games being where they are - making games is serious big business, it has developed over the years but also degraded. From making games with happiness, fun and imagination to making games for money and really mostly money, under the narrow corridor of dictation of whoever runs the development company and often with serious limits to freedom of imagination and fun. Making games has become a job, and jobs are rarely fun.
Hence why imagination remained mostly only in the indie scene, where people make freeware games for everyone.

All of the above. :p

Let me blow your mind guys: It's entirely possible to enjoy old games and new games at the same time. Appreciating one does not preclude the other.

*bong noises*

That. Really, mostly, that.

Please speak for yourself. I have never been someone who is "normal". New games nowaday are aimed only at one thing: get a hold of as many players as possible to make as much money as possible.

I'm not part of the masses the very vast majority of games aim at these days, so I am not interested in them at all. They are boring, unoriginal and unimaginative and don't catch my interest at all. I find no point in playing a bad version of C&C for the 25th time, a pale version of Duke Nukem 3D for the 55th time, a 108th copy of Golden Eyes, etc.

I always do speak for myself.

David Wong wrote a rather thoughtful article about this, and it made my blood boil, frankly. Just looking at what the industry is trying to do to the consumer.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-6-mo...n-video-games/

I think it's important to note that this is the first thing that entered my head when I read the thread title.

The golden days of the video gaming industry is over. Get over it, we are definitely not the people who can make those billion dollar choices which define the 'industry'. Note I said industry, not culture. We're not about feelings anymore, we're about sold copies, virtually or not. As a cracked reader I'm pretty much aware of the future of the so-called gaming industry: you'll be literally forced to pay monthly subscription fees to some repititive and uninteresting team-oriented games where you need to pay for every small feature. Battlefield Heroes, to name a name?
I know some of us welcome this very future, where adventure and logics demanding games will be anything like Final Destination 3 (as I have said this before somewhere): You will only choose a pathway, and you will just see a nice HQ rendered movie. 21st century fun!
Or you will play games directly streamed from the developers' servers... etc. We all know this right now.

As for playing new and old games simoultaneously: that's a quite time and wealth consuming option. If you buy a console, it's either a simple, outdated Wii, which only really works if you've got some folks to play with, or an Xbox which as a M$ product can red ring anytime, anywhere, or a PS3, which is, nice, and all, but the games are the same as anywhere else, and besides, they are expensive as hell. Even if you pirate them. As a morally degraded person, I tried to come up with a saving solution, but buying a Blu-Ray writer and discs is as expensive as buying the games themselves, so... (I don't even recall seeing a blank BR disk anywhere too).
Or maybe I could buy a PC, which is not only expensive, but can span a billion of problems, not mentioning that you can still only play the same boring games you could have on the consoles mentioned above.

All in all, we have no real option if we want to be picky about videogames and want something artsy-feelsy thing we hunger for since the last time we got it...

You're old!

LOL If I play Lulu's video from her post, it looks like her gorilla avatar is lip-synching. Hahahahaha you can't do that on purpose.

Why? There are old games. There are so many of them. And they are lots of fun. There are Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate II, Total Annihilation - Kingdoms, Gothic 1 etc. There are even more, great older Ms-Dos games.
Who needs those new games? I don't.

God. Arete's link is the best fucking gaming article I've read in about 15 years.

What can you say after reading that? It really sums everything up very nicely.

Much to my despair.

Edit:Except that almost all those games you just mentioned end up being "new games" for me?

I'm disappointed by many new games, however there are still interesting titles around which I enjoy to play, there are also some Indie developers that have my full respect, I really admire them.

Well, my reason is because I wanted to play some old games I loved (and still love) again, but this doesn't necessarily means that I have to cut off all the new ones.

Of course, I think the "Massive Industrial" side and the run for the sales are ruining the gaming world, at least the creative part of it.

That article is fantastic. The first image about sums it up for me. Actually, 4 years ago I've already seen the same image somewhere else.

At the time I was working as a game reviewer and I was browsing through the latest issue of our magazine (Joker, Slovenian gaming mag). It was in 2007 after the Games Convention and we had a big report of upcoming games shown in Leipzig that year.

I was disappointed. Gun, gun, army, battle, gun. It was the same as the image from the article - I was staring down a gun sight in every fucking screenshot. I was getting tired of the industry year after year. So I went ahead and showed what's happening to games. I grouped all the upcoming games from that report by theme - focusing on whether gameplay is on the destructive (FPS, RTS) or the creative side (think SimCity).

http://i.imgur.com/DiLUZ.png
And now I'll show you exactly why we're here. Because 4 years ago, I went to Abandonia to use it as an example, of what old-school gamers like us desire today. I took the top 100 games (by popularity) and again counted how many fall in which category.

http://i.imgur.com/xlHXt.png

I think the results speak for themselves. We're here, because what the industry is offering is way off of what we (perhaps a tiny, dieing segment of gamers) actually want.

I loved me a good shooter back in the days, but what I hate about today is that we're forcefed a shooter after shooter after shooter (with a new year of EA Sports games and Need for Speeds as a side dish). Fuck that.

I like how you didn't take the generalized genres into account but went with other descriptions like "creative" or "sport" instead.

Because, let's face it, the big gun companies did destroy the meaning of a lot of those genres and generalized it into what they wanted them to.

Branding Diablo II as a RPG or Red Alert as a strategy game rings to mind...

Let's see...
Neverwinter Nights - around 2002
Baldur's Gate II - 1999
Total Annihilation - Kingdoms - 1999
Gothic 1 - 2001
Unreal (the very first) - 1998

By today that would be old games :p
Also in my personal opinion Baldur's Gate II is better than Neverwinter Nights in terms of game fun, while Neverwinter Nights already goes on the trend of better graphics.
I still remember those and many others appearing in gaming magazines back then. It should be said that there are also still good games made today even, like The Witcher, Assassin's Creed and Fallout 3. But those are few among the many unimaginative ones in the style of EA games or the (recently going bankrupt) Jowood.

When I saw the topic title I thought it was one of those deep discussions about existance and meaning of life. Well, I was close enough ;)

Lot's of fine arguments already mentioned and good old 'to each his own' can be applied again. So, I'll answer the question:

I'm here because I loved playing video games since my first C=64 back in early eighties and I found so many great games on this site that I loved at some stage but lost due to different circumstances, plus many more that I never got a chance to play (even while groving up in the country where pirate games were advertised in newspapers ;) ). I post in this forum because there are so many members that share the same passion for the old games and I had many great discussions regarding different games.

Saying that, I still like so many new games, too. For example, once I finish checking this site and a few others I regurally do once I come home from work and have a dinner, I'm going to play Disciples III till bed time.

Wow, what country is that? Does it still exist? :lol:

I hate old games, I'm here strictly for reviews and PoEs so I can satisfy my animal need of dominance which I can't do in real life because I suck big time :wacko:
Aaaand old games are in general more creative and fun than the most of new ones. But there are still visionaries out there that need our interest to survive... That's hope. And I was thrilled to see game like Portal. They actually created new kind of logical game thanks to new technologies. Like it couldn't be done before. Like they didn't use new technology for another improved copy of something. Yeah, it's one among million, but that just means we should tell others about those rare new games that are actually good.


Well, you might wanna check the newest Call of Duty... in 10 years, I mean, it will be old then :P
I agree that games after 1995 can be considered "new", but still you named a good titles.
And Unreal 1998 is NOT the very first. It is the first in FPS series. Hail to the VERY FIRST.

Good question.
Let me put it this way:
If I had a harem filled with warm tender willingly gorgeous woman, I certainly wouldn't be here posting this.

And I'm pretty sure a lot of so called 'regulars' think the same.

What can I say? :max:

Also, I started singing "Always look on the bright side of life", Lulu, and the whistling will not lightly leave my head. Grawr! :rolleyes:

Remember those graphs I posted earlier? I made a whole illustration and video blog around them:



Here's the final illustration:
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6012/...07595cdf_z.jpg

Actually, 'creating' games aren't that rare. Think of stuff like minecraft. And by the way, developers had always wanted to create stuff like we have today, they just lacked the necessary technologies, that's why there were no sports games (which isn't true, just take a look at our sports section). But I see your point though, we barely have any games which demand thinking - like old RPGs. Today's RPGs need no thinking either. Good luck with your project.

Yeah, since 2007 when I was initially thinking about this, things have moved for the better. I do mention Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress in the video itself. But in 2007 it looked quite grim to me (no AppStore, no GOG, hardly the diversity you can find today on Steam). The last Tycoon game I played at the time was The Movies (an amazing game thankfully) and there was not even a (good) SimCity game to look forward to. Spore was the only AAA creative title I played since then, all the rest (Mincraft, DF) came from indie developers. It's a start, but apart from iOS Tycoon games, which are probably on the same cloning/theme-changing selfdestruction path of late PC Tycoons, still there's not as diverse offering as in the 90s:

• building a Rube Goldberg machine (The Incredible Machine series)
• racing on tracks created by yourself (Stunts)
• building a vast transport system (Transport Tycoon)
• building a city (SimCity series)
• running a car factory (Detroit)
• building roman cities (Caesar series)
• building real estate with competing firms (Constructors)
• becoming an ant! (SimAnt)
• building a skyscraper (SimTower)
• building railroads (Railroad Tycoon)
• building a pizza restaurant and designing pizzas (Pizza Tycoon)
• running a business (Free Enterprise)
• settling on new land (Settlers series)

And your argument about technology just makes me wonder - if all these games could be made back then - imagine what developers with a bit of ingenuity and love for innovation & creativity could come up with today.

Something like Phun?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H5g9VS0ENM

Maybe, but "Phun" is not really a game but a simulator. That's not really the same thing because if I were to play with "Phun" it would feel more like work or a chore to me than having fun. Which is the normal reason to play games.

I agree that some games like Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress are really going in the right direction... But those games are indies and are not going to get anywhere before years because normal publishers simply either don't want to go in that direction or don't want to take the risk to try to go in that direction. And even then, I know nuts about Minecraft... But Dwarf Fortress is turning out to be yet another huge game in which you absolutely have to run the latest fresh out of the factory monster computer to be able to run it well...

I really love your video and your little graphic. This stuff has to be published to the general public more I think. I'll start by ninja-ing them for myself and place them on display on my Facebook account. ^_^

One thing I've noticed, that graphic specialists and complex game engines exclude each other, for example: In human history there is no Goethe who is a great poet who could run a marathon in less than 3 hours. So, neither there is an Usain Bolt who is world record holder for 100m sprint who could write a deep philosophical essay on antropology?

They somehow need to combine graphic companies like CryTech together with game experts like Wizards of the Coast. The later ones program their own game with nothing more but a Text-Interface, which is then sent to CryTech for pepping it up big-style.

And one company shall not know what the other does, to prevent feedback loops. Those could happen for example, if WotC saw what Crytech is doing with their "text-based Rpg", then they see: "oh that fireball looks cool" and then they could easily derail. They would start programming nonsense into their game concept just to see even more fireballs happen! So they must both program each their thing. Crytech must not know what WotC will come up with next, and vice versa.
And voila: the sheer thought of a game like Baldur's Gate 1 with CryEngine3 makes me *drool*

me? i tend to have some fun with newer games but treasure the memories of all the old games i did and still do enjoy. though gaming as a whole has got worse.

Well, I had this idea because of Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory. You know, ID-Software developed this game. It would have become yet another bland shooter, a bit capture the flag, nothing special maybe worth a few weeks of fun.

But then what happened was amazing, they gave this shooter to SplashDamage, a newly formed developer team with lots of creativity, and said: "Here you are. Make something interesting out of the multiplayer!"

I'm saying, that the brain of a game developer works differently than those of a creative person. And because in our good old days a programmer could start writing programs with just a few weeks of learning. But ever since then, the creativity of developers was destroyed by 10.000 DirectX and Windows Kernel function calls. And as long a programming languages get more complex, the new games coming out will be getting worse and worse! It's time to split up the developers into "graphic" and "game mechanics" specialists.

It's tautological to say that the industry serves the customers what they (most) demand. With time the industry's gotten very good at telling what will sell, nowadays it's dominated by hugely profitable companies, whereas the companies from the Golden Era went bankrupt (arguably the best game maker, Microprose, was nearly bankrupt all the time until it disappeared).

Technology played a role in this. During the last decade graphics have improved, but stayed more or less the same. The polygons have more vertices and the lighting is better or something, but The Elder Scrolls III and V (9 years apart) have the same graphics, basically.

Back in the time computers were really capable of qualitatively new things every year, and everyone was wondering "what the future of digital entertainment will be like". If you were not too little during the late 80s and early 90s, you will remember everyone on the TV saying that in a few years all man-machine interfaces would be in "virtual reality". Even the possibility to make big 3D games was great when it appeared, TES Arena and Daggerfall, Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, and Tomb Raider were really innovative. Back in the Golden Era of video games, makers were in disarray, and they simply tried everything, with little idea if the consumers would like it, or if they were going to lose money. Nowadays they know in advance how much money will they make.

It's not that the technology is very advanced, that's always relative. It's that it's relatively stationary. The situation is more or less the same with portable devices or with the Wii.

"Indie" developers can try new things, most times they want to make games they like themselves, not to sell. Although many indie games are completely unoriginal too. But indie developers won't replace the industry, at most the ones who are successfully can become part of it. But that doesn't change everything said above. For now the outlook is stationary.

http://memebase.com/2011/05/26/memes...getting-worse/

It's because old games are better and hold a special place in our heart and yeah, graphics have taken over and the games now-a-days suck. And people are too drunk on graphics to realize it. That and multiplayer that gets old fast.

True, because the companies who emphasize in graphics do not gain money from PC-owners alone, but also from each new customer, who is attracted to PC-gaming from out of the huge masses.
This opens a new question, how long can you "bait" new customers before the gaming industry is fished empty?

I think we're already past the point. Nowadays customers are leaving the PC-gaming sector again, because there's nothing to get a hold on. Behind us are the charred memories of companies once great, now bankrupt, and consoleros without brains are our future.

That's why I demand, that they goddamn give an entire game like Crysis 2 to the developers of Dwarf Fortress and say: "Here you are, make an interesting game out of it"
This should be godlike: an incredibly fantastic looking game, that you can replay again and again.
And if this works out well, this "Dwarven Crytek Fortress" might as well be worth replaying in 30 years from now, just like we replay the good old DOS-times, with an glorious piece of game mechanics.

Let me just say now that internet topics bashing new games really tire me. You just have nostalgia goggles on, so to speak.

I see many games made with feel and love to them, mostly that of Nintendo, Sega, Capcom and others. [Though apparently Capcom's lacking in it's freedon since Keji Inafune, a major capcom dev, left to form his own company because he was limited too much.]

Look deeper in the company. The EXECUTIVES are the ones that only want money. The executives usually want them to base it around whats "in" right now, because it allegedly sells more [protip: it doesn't].

The actual programmers and artists and the rest of the crew put as much creativity as they can.

I am on this site because I love games. I love new games, I love old games. I love seeing technology advance and games being accepted as a medium. I love seeing how people did so much with so little.

This, many many times over, this. High five Donugee! :)

Next up: Why PC gaming is superior to console gaming!
and tune in next week for: Apple vs. PC

EDIT: By the way, this is pretty cool, http://www.gamespot.com/news/6323526...-to-indie-devs

1000 years for AB. No, 1 million!
 

:3:
Yes, I am on this site because I love games.

Since 2005 I play nice games in this nice site between kind, polite and intelligent mates.

Thank YOU AB for this pleasure!

yoga the brave gamer
:hello:

I totally agree with you on that. Why? I'm an IT student (officially, I usually deny it), and I must learn tons of new stuff in order to be able to have an up-to-date knowledge. But by the time I'm able to write a decent indie game, the enthusiasm is dead in me, and the inspiration had faded away. I tried to make games in nearly all genres:

I tried to...

- write an adventure game of choices in javascript (failed)
- write a text adventure game in Pascal (failed)
- write a text adventure game in Inform (failed)
- write a 2D game in Pascal (failed)
- create a total conversion of HL1 (failed)
- write an rpg in RPG Maker
- create a game with Game Creator

etc, etc. Maybe I just simply suck at working hard. Who knows, me not. I only know that I'm better drawing traditional art and writing novels than writing code (not that I'd be awful at programming in pascal - it's boring to me). So if I had to choose between creative work or peon work, I'd go with gameplay design, or story writing, or something. Yeah, I know everyone thinks "Oh, if I could make a game, I'd make one about mutant ninja pizzas! With hammers! GIANT MU.........NG HAMMERS! GRRR!", but one has to think about technological limitations, and such. Few people get to control a dozen of 3D modelers and level designers to make a game, and even then their hands are tied by publishers who are seeking 100% chances of selling millions of games. Well, either that or I'll just tie my sorry ass to my chair and learn that shit about functions, calls and heritages...

This is where you are completely, utterly wrong.

We have reality googles, so to speak.

I enjoyed reading the article arete posted. It was fracking hilarious :D

Perhaps and hopefully this shooter-shit á la COD, and whatever their names are, is just a temporary fashion.

For one thing it's like fast-food for the masses. No more, no less. Ppl will become fed up with it and come back to original ideas, thinking and creativity in games. At least I hope so ;)

But thinking is stressful. Think about it ;) you come back home again from work and the last thing you want is to keep up any tension.

(Stupid) shooters fill that niche to relieve from the dreadful ammount of stress you have to endure day by day as a modern wage-slave.

So this might be just the beginning of a more ugly develoption. I don't want to go into too much detail here but when I look at the impact this shit could've - already has - on society.

Starting with a simple question: is violence the only way to solve problems?

for kids who are 12 years or younger now this is the msg. they don't know anything else. yea perhaps they played "phun" for half an hour but became tired of it and went back to COD.

This whole topic leaves me contemplative...

We're here because we have a thing or two in common. :OK:

That's there is to it. ;)

PS: I was acutally thinking about writing something dramatical about old graphics and new graphics and that there is more dedication and love in the old games, more effort, sweat and handcraft - heart if you like and that you sort of feel this when you play, but then I cahnged my mind. :whistling:

Also maybe nobody can compare the present with any other time objectively. Most games nowadays may be crap, but most old games were crap too. We remember only the memorable ones. There are lots of substandard FPS but there were lots of substandard graphic adventures and sidescrollers and so on. There are great games nowadays, they're a minority but so were they back then.

But it's true that there's less business risk in the industry nowadays. Look at Sid Meier, after trying and innovating in every genre barely making any money, now he knows he only has to release a new Civ and people will buy it.

Also there may be hard games nowadays and there may have been easy games in the past, but there's a trend. There is no game nowadays as insanely hard as Shadow of the Beast and many others, and there are lots of stupidly easy games (call it consolitis or whatever), little more than interactive movies.

Interactive movies you say? Sounds eerily familiar to the horrible phase of FMV "games" the industry went through in the mid 90's.

Which proves your point I think :D

I remember the X-Files game... 8, eight, EIGHT,
=> 8 <=
CDs. :titan:

:dislike:
*Klick* Oh, I solved the riddle. *Klick* Oh, I won.

:hysterical: the look on your sweet furry face ^^

Well, a programmer today has to be very intelligent to understand how Windows API works. This is really complex stuff, where only people with an IQ of 140 or higher pass, and only those who manage to memorize thousands of properties, forms, functions or libraries on their own, can proceed to develop a game.

Don't you guys see the problem? It's like setting up a 100 meter high wall and only people who can climb it may write a poem with a pencil, that is on the top of this wall. Fact is, that only musculous sportsmen will manage to climb up, because they physically are able to, but their poems will be crap!

Thanks for reading.

Programming tools available today that weren't available before make programming easier, not harder. Try making Wolfenstein 3D in assembler. Of course nowadays more complicated projects are made, and that's why this tools have been invented.

Lol, Japo is still waiting with his tongue hanging out.

That's what teamwork is for. Too bad that people (unfortunately that means those who educate!) fail to understand that game designer =/= programmer. He should know the basics to understand how the stuff is built, but he doesn't need to code himself in these days. Today's designers should be like directors / screenwriters / art directors in movies: creating an intersting idea. For coding - you can hire specialists.

(does the above text show that I suck at coding?)

Hmm, no. I have an entirely different opinion about "teamwork"
It should be possible to write a simple game without the need of a team to work with. :)

How about Volker Wertich who wrote "The Settlers 1" all by himself?
How about "Bards Tale"?

Most of the "shareware" kind of games in the mid '80 early '90 were done by solo coders.

What's your point though? The question goes to both of you. I don't really care about how games are made, what I care about is the result. A solo artist can create something just as mind numbing as a big group.

I thought you have enough examples for this ...in Flash format?

Not only that, take Mount & Blade for example. Created by a Turkish couple, two people only who designed and programmed it all by themselves, it's as great as any other big corporate, more famous game, even if not with the top-notch graphics. But I think you can't have both super graphics and great fun in a game, one of the two is always a bit lower than the other, depending on what was the focus when making the game.

You might consider having 2 Goethes working on a single book together... or how about 50 Shakespeares working on a single poem? But how many geniuses does it take to paint a Mona Lisa, huh?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci

Todays gaming is like 1 creative mind and 99 graphic programmers, and the creative mind has about 1/100 percent to say in the developement.

Thanks Scatty.

One bad artist and about 100 super marketing geniuses? :perv:

Well I'll tell you why I'm here, I'm here because I get bored playing these new games that look incredible, but only get you five of six hours of gameplay, and even then that gameplay has been done so many different ways that I get tired of it. Don't get me wrong there are plenty of good games out there today, but they just don't last as long as they used to. :(

Wasn't it always like that, Wicky? One genius architect and 100 of bricklayers?

There are counter-examples, too. A genius filmmaker/director + composer + screenwriter...
Or a mural painted collectively by few artists.

If you promise to never, ever compare the laying of bricks with programming again (!!!!) then yeah: it was always like that.

To play Baldur's gate of course.

Here on the forum? :p

Wow, did I just click on this thread or is it my imagination?! These are the most depressing posts I've read in a while on AB. You know what? I'm here because I'm your archnemesis - I enjoy both new and old games, and I really want to make you sufferrrr!

One thing I don't understand. You guys are serious when you compare a game like Civilization to Civilization IV for example? I personally played both of them. The first Civ is a sad piece of work by today's standards (boring, unrewarding etc), while Civ IV is everything that I wanted at the time I played it. Of course I now speak objectively - I can still easily get in the right mood and enjoy the first Civilization as well.

I also heard a myth here which says that devs nowadays give less attention to detail. Compare the walls of Doom to the walls of Doom 3, compare Half-Life's world to the one in Half-Life 2, Legend of Kyrandia to The Whispered World and Syberia, the random dungeons of Diablo to the finely crafted mythical world of Titan Quest etc etc. There is a tremendous amount of detail going on in today's games, not to mention they have an entire army of artists. Yes, even such games as Call of Duty: Black Ops have plenty of art in them. Who else would make the artwork, art concepts, models, level design, cutscenes, script writing etc?

In fact there's so much detail, it spawned an entire genre that makes you dig through crap minutiae - its name is Hidden Object games. :mischief:

You guys also failed to notice that genres such as FPSs have long since attained perfection in terms of gameplay. You really want another raw Doom in 2011? How would a developer make its product stand out from the mass of generic FPSs, without shifting the focus on graphics (Crysis), atmosphere (Bioshock), presentation (Call of Duty franchise), gadgets (Crysis again, Singularity, Half-Life 2) or cross-genre-ing (Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Portal, Zeno Clash, Sanctum).

At the same time, the gaming industry has evolved considerably. Until mid-90s it was pretty niche. Now there are all kinds of gamers, from moms and grandpas to "hardcore" players that only played a single game in their entire life, and it has "craft" in its title. The industry went gargantuan, but you as the Old Guard kept your interests relatively the same, thus you have become niche. To find what you're looking for, you need to look harder, because no matter how many casual players there will be, there's always something to please you too. But are you? Many of you are fans of Panzer General, but how many of you do know of Panzer Corps? Many of you are fans of Jagged Alliance but how many of you heard of Team Assault: Baptism of Fire? It gets funnier, because they're both published by the same company, and relatively easy to find if you want to...

It's incredible that in this amazing ocean of both indie and mainstream titles you still can't find something that you'd like. I need to back up TC on this: you really do sound like deprecating geezers. I won't start listing all the worth-noting hardcore titles of 2011 as I usually would do, because it's your gaming life - you manage it.

As a conclusion I want to say something I've learned after playing quite a few games. When you start a new game, you need to have the right mindset. If you begin with "This game is new, therefore it is crap. I shall play it just to attest historically that all the latest games are crap." you already lost. You will never enjoy it the way you should be. And by the looks of this thread, this is exactly what happened here. Even worse - some of the major complainers have failed to even play the games they criticize so desperately...

Nothing wrong with your post, except that "Stalker" should have served as example for most atmospheric games, not .. Bioshock?

Signed. Would you like to have my seat as archnemesis? I'm old and (re)tired, I'm outta here!

Wow... So many things you just said are wrong to many levels.

I don't know who compared Civilization to Civilization IV, but anyways I'll bite... I played Civ, Civ II, Civ III and Colonization IV which is a sad excuse for its name as it is only a Civilization IV mod... And the best feature of Civilization IV is the graphics.

Yes, you heard me... The most prized upgrade in a strategy game is its graphics upgrade???

There is different genres in the industry. Those different genres have different needs... But the craze right now is only focused on better and better and better and better and better and better graphics. All the time... But let me tell you: some genre actually suffer from "upgraded" graphics. This is the case in strategy games in which the best use of graphics is to give you the broadest idea of what is happening on your whole map instead of focusing on how you can zoom in and literally see the little dudes in your cities.

In a real strategy game, you don't want graphics to intrude in the gameplay. Because a strategy game is all about thinking your next move to perfection. Not how your artillery piece make such a beautiful explosion when you use them. And it is sadly not really surprising that the industry can't be arsed to make a good score of strategy games nowaday... They simply are not equipped well enough to understand how it works in the first place since it is not directly related to graphics.

I have to admit that I didn't even bother trying to play Civ IV and Civ V though. There has come a point in the gaming industry history that I simply stopped caring about what they could get out because everything they did get out was really trashy. Graphics does not make a game, and they forgot that. So I just strolled along, hoping someday to find a real game which could raise my spirit back enough to I'd actually care to waste money on trying new games I might actually like... Sadly, this didn't happen yet.

Comparing the walls of Doom versus Doom 3 is stupid. Not only the walls of Doom were OK, if not beautiful by themselves, you are comparing games so far apart in term of age that you don't take into consideration that the makers of Doom could not have make those walls much better without drastically reducing the speed of the game. Doom was meant to be ran on 486 PCs for God sake! Comparing that to the computers which are about a thousand fold faster nowaday is mind numbing.

Also, you probably don't know how brilliant the roguelike random system of Diablo and Diablo II is. Even though, again, those games are way older than the comparison, they really shine in both their simplicity and their complexity. Which come out from every good game, dare I say.

I also dare say that those so called details you are talking about are probably only in the graphics themselves. The templates. Etc. Which is exactly why we are sick of them because, again, graphics does not make a game!

No idea what that is... Moving on...Well, that is the whole point. We don't want another frigging FPS! Period! Just look at the image on the last page... I though it said it all.If by "evolved" you mean "took what was right and turned it wrong"... Then yes, the gaming industry really "evolved".

The only thing which really "evolved" in the gaming industry is the cash flow. Games in the '90s were not invested millions of dollars with the guaranteed return of ten time the investment. They were small companies with small budgets which somehow managed to get out great games gameplay wise. Not graphic wise.

Also, I know you already know that... But a gamer who play only one game is not an "hardcore gamer". An "hardcore gamer" is a gamer who play it all, all the time. If you play only one game then you are an "hardcore player of [insert title here]", and nothing more. Or, more to the point, called "a player who is utterly addicted to a game and might need to seek professional help". That's like a world of difference here.

Also... Grandma and grandpa gamers? Are you kidding me? You probably mean that the future of PC gaming rely into mindless flashgames you can get rid of in about 10 minutes in term of gameplay... Or games in which all you do is search for clues and go to the next screen. Because, short of boring Wii games which are pretty much built on the same idea, that's what "grandma" and "grandpa" PC users are playing. Oh, that and... Solitaire. That's a classic. You just can't go wrong with Solitaire. I'm sure Microsoft would lose so much users if they didn't include that game in every single OS they make! And that's not even sarcastical...

Sorry to bring you to reality again... But "Indies games" were hot like several years ago. And after several years, most of them are either still in development without a sheer hint of when (or even if!) they'll ever be completed, or a very few of them simply turned mainstream. With all the problems that involve.

Like Mount & Blade. I jumped that bandwagon very late, and loved the version I tried. Then later on they released another version and suddently the whole game shifted to better graphics - and a huge FPS drop. I mean, I thought I had finally found a great game there, thought they had it right where I wanted. All what was left in my mind for them to do was to polish the gameplay aspect of the game - quests, NPCs interaction, army management, etc - but they wanted to go mainstream. So what did they do? Work on improving the graphics which were already really good... Really great... So this is what you tell me is the future? Get hooked on games which will not end up playing like you liked them in the first place?

Right...

I never start playing with such a ridiculous mindset. What I do keep as a mindset though, when I start a new game, is "did'nt I already played this like a hundred times before?". FPS: all the same. Run, aim shoot. Run aim shoot. Run aim shoot. (Supposedly) RPGs? Create char, which is often fixed anyways. Run aim slash. Run aim slash. Run aim slash. And again, simply changing or upgrading the graphics don't help a dime here.

Whatever the setting, it is always the same. I dare you to bring me a real game which is really different or original, and I'll call it a great game. I did it plenty of times in the past, for games genre I even hated (example: I hate adventure games. Quest for Glory is a great game. I hate MMORPG. WoW is a gem game, can't say otherwise) and I'll just do it again. But I so lost hope in "modern" gaming that for that the game would need to bump into me now rather than the opposite... Because I'm certainly not open to lose money to try new games which are rightly so crappy in comparison to the standards and quality I want to find and play.

If you run it through Microsoft Sam, this post becomes amazing.

As usually, everyone sees the matter with games "back then" and "nowadays" differently :p
Don't forget there existed Electronic Arts already in the first years of the 90s, and it ruined Ultima VIII, leaving it still full of bugs and no (planned though) expansion pack. It also ruined Ultima IX, which looked as a promising game first, but ended up being only mediocre.

Everyone has a bit of a point here. True that older games can often hook you in for longer time than new ones, but also true that not all new games are about graphics and less about content. Yes, the tendency is about better graphics, though it was always there, even with old Dos games. There just was much more left to discover than now. There's always something to find, if only one cares to look for long enough.
And speaking of new inspiration, there are some ideas around about possible future of computer games. Not "video" games anymore...

I'm not sure that bringing examples from the past really help the point here. Yes, there has been bad attempts at going for the graphics first instead of the gameplay... But those examples were the exception in the past. Now, nowaday, it is the norm. And that is what we are discussing here.

ROTFLMAO @ Microsoft Sam

Eagle of Fire, it's absolutely seldom I say this, but you definitely nailed it!

And from my pov there's nothing to add, which is seldom again :lol:

Whoah TA, Civ1 may be dated technically, but I must strongly disagree. If you said for example that Civ gameplay was boring and unrewarding compared to RTS, or Total War gameplay, that would be a matter of taste. But CivX against Civ1? You've got to be kidding. Even if the later sequels were better (they'd better be!), they build upon the original idea with minor adjustments. And most of the few concepts (beside graphics and sound improvements) that the later sequels have introduced into the Civ saga have been taken from other strategy games. And Civ installments are more like previous ones than in other sagas, precisely because the first game already had so much success in it.

This has become an "Everything that I don't like is dumb" thread. A couple of points must be made:

1. Everyone is not you. Regardless of how you feel about FPS games (to pick just one example out of many), the genre is undeniably alive and well, judging from the number of FPS titles cranked out on a regular basis. So there must be quite a few people out there who like those games (and no, I don't consider myself one of them; I haven't played an FPS game regularly since the original Unreal Tournament). If you would like to talk about how stupid those people must be, go right ahead. I'm sure you'll find plenty of others with the same prejudices.

2. Commenting on how a particular game sucks without ever having played it opens you up to all kinds of well-deserved ridicule.

3. If you absolutely can't stand the idea of nice graphics in a game, most modern games allow you to adjust their settings to the point where they're as visually appealing as something that comes out of a dog after it drinks from a stagnant puddle. As a bonus, games often play much more smoothly at those settings.

4. Ever notice how a lot of those companies that made the great games you remember from your childhood either got bought by other companies or simply don't exist anymore? Refer back to point 1 for a possible reason.

5. Finally, if you're miserable because absolutely nothing out there meets your standards for a great game, write one. Don't know a programming language? Learn one. Learn four; you've got the time, since you're not wasting it playing all those terrible new games. And you can't complain that graphics programming is too difficult, since you've already established that good graphics make for a crappy game. If there are enough people out there who feel the same way you do, your game may become a huge hit and could even change the direction of the entire industry. Of course, at that point you'll be considered a sellout by the same people who initially thought your game was the greatest thing since the Commodore 64. Enjoy the ride.

Well, those are the classic counter arguments to real PC gaming. I mean, c'mon... Can't you think of a better argument yet? Those same arguments have been brought out since 10-15 years now. They didn't hold the road then, they don't hold it right now either.

1.) The whole point of having a whole community of gamers is that not everyone is like everybody else. The fact that I am not part of the majority right now does not mean I don't have my right to express my opinion on the matter. Telling me "shut up and go away" won't work. I even wonder why people think it would.

2.) I played more games in my life than any producer could dream to make and sell in ten lifetimes. I know how games work, even their inner working even. I never talk bad about a game I never played, period. You probably say that because I mentioned I didn't play Civ IV, but I did play Colonization IV which is exactly the same thing. I don't like talking thru my hat and I do all I can not to do exactly that.

3.) The whole point is not to play with nice graphics or not. The point is that developers spend so much time improving or working on graphics that they don't work on the gameplay. You guys really have not been listening to what we say since several years, isn't? I'll repeat: graphics does not make a game. If all you do in a game is have nice graphics, you are making a bad game from the start. So no, reducing the level of graphics is only going to frustrate people like me even more. Nice try...

4.) I fail to see how this point is even relevant. Microsoft also bought out of business many companies. Are they really the God sent company from the heavens because of this? If anything, those big companies which managed to make big bucks bought the smaller ones because a) their employees were highly qualified personnel and 2) it was business sound to take a good competitor out of business. All those big companies which are only out for the big bucks do follow the classic marketing approach... Having them try to get their competitors out of business is the most classical of the classic ways to do that. This would however be a business discussion, completely unrelated to the one right now.

5.) No. I'm not going to make a new game. I'm not even going to try. I'm a gamer. By definition, it means that I play games. If I had any kind of inspiration to become a game designer, I would have done so 20 years ago. Thank you.

Beside, if you look well enough you'll see that the example you wish to take by trying to take me down is already present at large in the gaming industry. Some games, especially indie games, have already took the road to lesser graphics but high gameplay and made huge hits. You simply won't see those games in the mainline industry because they would not sell well to the FPS gamers who would not even touch the game with a 10 foot pole as soon as they noticed the game would not require a 2020 PC rig to run the graphics...

1. I agree. Why, did someone tell you to shut up and go away? I don't recall reading anything of the sort in this thread. And incidentally, you are indeed part of the majority - the vast majority - in this particular community, given that the site is dedicated to old games. Not too many people come here to sing the praises of the latest Call of Duty title.

2. Let's try to stick to facts and leave hyperbole out of this (it is technically possible to do that in a discussion, or so I've heard), unless you really think you've played more games than someone could possibly dream up in 750 years. Disparaging Civilization IV when you've only played Colonization IV is like disparaging a band when you've only heard remixes of their songs.

3. I am in total agreement that focusing on graphics über alles makes for a crappy game, but you seem to be of the opinion that there is no possible way for a game to have good graphics and engaging gameplay, to the point where you will dismiss out-of-hand any game that looks halfway decent.

4. The topic of business would be irrelevant to a discussion about the state of the gaming industry? I disagree, as do a number of other people who've brought it up in this thread. Like it or not, game companies exist to make money, and they do so by producing games that sell. If you don't like FPS games, or sports games, or adventure games, or MMORPGs, don't buy them (or rent them, in the case of MMORPGs). If someone produces a game that you do like (assuming such a thing is possible), buy it. Companies care where you spend your money, not what you think of other people who buy their products.

5. It was probably unintentional, but that's the most optimistic thing you've said in this thread. After all, if you're not willing to change anything, the situation must not be nearly as desperate as you've made it out to be.

I only responded to your classical rebutals. And in this specific one, telling someone that they are not part of the majority and should either pick it up or leave it be pretty much mean shut up and get out if you don't like it.
The thing is, Colonization IV is really only a cheap mod to Civilization IV. I can't believe that they actually did it, it was obviously done to shut up Colonization fanatics while making a clear money grab. Think about it... They had already made one game (Civ IV) which was what they call a success... Then they take exactly the same engine, with little to no modifications to the game itself, and ship Colonization IV with it. The worse part is that most people don't even seem to realize it...

Heck, I could have do exactly the same with Civ III scenario editor!Halfway decent is not decent enough. This has nothing to do with the graphics per se. I guess you don't get what "graphics does not make a game", so I'll spell it out again: it means that you cannot make a great game by focusing solely on graphics. If you take many "new" games and study them, you will realize that the only thing which is marginally better than the other same genre title on the same shelf in your local store is graphics. That is what "graphics does not make a game" mean, because those kind of games focus primarily on having good graphics nice on the eyes and focus on the real game later.

A real game do the opposite: you take a great idea, build on it, then expand the graphics around it so it doesn't impede on the original idea. But even then it is very easy by upgrading the graphics to completely change the original gameplay idea...

So, to answer your question... No, I don't immediately flag games as bad only because they have awesome graphics. There is many other criteria that I follow for my own personal critique, and the graphics per se are really not a big factor here.*sigh* Ok, if you absolutely want to go into the business discussion...

It is unfortunately another flawed argument: that argument everybody knows, "if you don't like what a company does don't purchase its products and it will either be forced to change or go under" work well for local business but simply don't hold the road when you have a big enough pool of consumers ready to purchase the product anyways. Because as the pool of consumer grows, so does your awareness campaign and the number of people you need to reach out so it actually work. As you might have guessed it, the Internet really change a lot of things here. Both ways. Suddenly you can purchase things which come from the other side of the world as a end consumer (Ebay), or at the other side of the State (Amazon and similar sites). What might be bad somewhere is good elsewhere, and as long as the goods don't spoil only the shipping time change.

So, as long as a company sell the minimum amount they need to keep head above water, they're good. Even if you actually manage to bring enough people in a while state to boycott a specific product. And as the rest of the items sell with time, they eventually get even more money.

There really is a whole world of new and different marketing and business models nowaday. But there is one very specific model which always won over the decades if you care to do a little research on gaming in general: cheap and numerous items always win on higher quality products. There is plenty of examples: Atari winning over ColecoVision, Nintendo winning over Sega, Personnal Computers winning over both Commodore and Amiga... All those products which won over their competitors over the ages were the cheapest and lowest quality product, which won in the end over numbers rather than over quality.

This is exactly what is happening right now in the PC industry too. Games which get out are only shadows of themselves right now, but will continue to rule the industry as long as they are cheap enough to sell enough in good number. At the cost of quality. Which, for a game, mean gameplay and fun. Unless you really love very basic and almost mindnumbing gameplay and fun which last for about 8 hours top.

That is something I simply cannot accept, especially since the gaming industry already had it right on that aspect of gaming years ago. And as a true gamer, I think this whole shenanigan is worth being opposed to when ever it is possible. Hummm... What's optimistic in what I said? That games have gone the gameplay first graphics last road and became huge success?

Well, nevermind that the vast majority of them are indie games which will never actually be finished?

Anyways, the fact that I do not wish to actually do something directly to change the sad state of PC gaming right now do not mean that it already desperate or not. As I had already mentioned in my other post, there simply came a time at which I could not care anymore about directly seeking out more good games in the pile of bad ones. And as I already mentioned also, I simply can't see how we could actually do something about it. Saying "build a game!" is not an argument. Saying "don't buy it if you don't like it!" is not an argument either, especially since everybody seem to agree with the anti-hacked game community. How are you supposed to know if you like a game enough or not to actually pay full price for it without trying it first? The only option would be not to buy new games at all...

Anyways... I could probably go on and on... But that would not serve much purpose than to look like someone madly ranting away...

OK, I have no idea what you're talking about here. Are you saying I told you to shut up and go away? If so, I'd like you to provide evidence of this accusation. If you're saying someone else did, well, that's between you and that person.

Really? You don't think "most people" could figure out that a game whose title - as shown right on the front of the box - is Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization just might have something to do with Sid Meier's Civilization IV? Either you're not giving anyone else credit for being able to make a simple logical deduction, or you've surrounded yourself with idiots. It's not as if Firaxis deceptively marketed the game as a completely new experience unlike anything you've ever seen before. They were pretty up-front about it being a remake of Colonization using the Civ IV engine. Personally, I didn't buy the game, as I thought the original Colonization wasn't nearly as engaging as the original Civ. As for it being made to "shut up Colonization fanatics"...oh, the horror! Heaven forbid a game company cater to a significant portion of its customer base! What is this world coming to, when corporations actually listen their customers and give them something they want? How dare they!

I also take issue with your assertion that "little to no modifications" were made to the original game, given that you've never actually played the original game.

Exactly the same? No. And I wouldn't expect you to try. As you said, you're a gamer, not a developer.

Given that I said almost exactly that same thing in my previous post and you quoted it, I have to wonder what is it that you think I don't get. Seriously, this is one of the areas in which we agree, as I already said. Why continue arguing as if we don't?

I don't buy those kinds of games. Actually, I don't buy a whole lot of games at all, and maybe that's part of why our perspectives are very different. I have no desire to be the first person I know to own or play a particular game, so when I run across something that looks interesting, I research it first, to make sure that (1) it really is the sort of game that I think it is, and (2) it's not bug-infested to the point of being unplayable. This research consists of simple things like reading a couple of reviews, looking through forums relating to the game, and maybe watching a few videos on YouTube. It doesn't take much time or effort and ensures I don't end up with a pile of POS games.

I have to disagree there too. A pure graphics upgrade shouldn't affect gameplay at all, unless gameplay itself is heavily graphics-dependent.

Of course I'm not trying to imply that a single consumer has enough power to influence a large company; that would be silly, although a single well-connected consumer has significantly more power now than ever before due to the unprecedented speed with which information can be transmitted to a vast audience. If word gets out that you're producing crappy products, you're going to have a problem on your hands sooner or later.

Not necessarily. A company barely keeping its head above water is in a bad position relative to competitors who are turning a proportionally better profit. Those competitors will be able to lure their best employees away, resulting in a drop in productivity. If there's nothing to compensate for that, it puts the competitors in an even better position, and you've got a positive-feedback loop that will doom that company if nothing interrupts it.

But that's meaningless if the company has gone under in the meantime.

This is extremely oversimplified. Atari vs. ColecoVision, for example: The Atari 2600 was released in 1977, and the ColecoVision? 1982. Atari simply got there first, and when Coleco hit its stride, it ran headlong into the Big Crash of '83. I haven't researched the other examples very much, but there are certainly more variables involved than simply cheaper-beats-better. Marketing, for example, is a wild card, which is why the people in the Marketing department get paid a lot of money and have no souls.

That kind of thing is only sustainable for so long; witness the aforementioned Crash of '83. A whole lot of crappy games (plus some other factors, of course) nearly destroyed the console-gaming industry. "Fun," though, is completely subjective. For every single thing that you consider fun, there's someone else that considers it the exact opposite. There's obviously no way for a company to produce a game that every gamer in the world will enjoy, so they produce what the majority wants. If, as you say, you're not part of this majority, things may look bleak. That doesn't mean the game companies are doing anything wrong, though. Like all corporations, they don't exist to make you happy; they exist to make money, and they only do so according to the whims of consumers. So if you want to blame someone for the state of the industry, blame your fellow gamers. But don't expect them to care; they're getting what they want.

See, that's nostalgia talking. You're basically saying that there were only good games years ago and completely forgetting that there were bad ones too. The "gaming industry" has never churned out just one type of game. And again, the industry only changed because the consumer did.

How do you define "true gamer"?

See above: Talk to people. Read reviews. Read forums. Watch videos of the gameplay. Wait for the inevitable bugs to be worked out. Wait for the first major patch and then for a couple of minor patches afterward which fix the issues introduced by the first patch. In short, don't be in a rush to buy a new game just because it's a new game. If you're lucky, by the time you've convinced yourself to buy it, you won't be paying full price anyway.

Arbitrarily.

Actually, it is very easy to define the term gamer. A gamer is simply someone who like to play games often.

But to answer FPJ, since I didn't find time to write back about his post which (again) contain so many things wrong on many levels, I was referring to hardcore gamer while speaking of myself. Which I already defined like two posts before or something...

:D Too long without one of these epic threads!

:swordfight:

:flame:

:lynch:

Yeah, I figured "true gamer" was one of those elitist terms like "true music fan" or "true Twilight fan" that someone might use to set himself apart from his peers in his own mind. Glad to see that wasn't one of the many things I was wrong about.

When you find time in your true-gamer schedule to let me know just how many things I was wrong about on so many levels, I'll be around.

Well actually, it has more to do with not wanting to be associated with the "real" definition of gamers nowaday. Which is, of course, an incredibly dumb but very fast teen who play FPS games like a champion but would not be able to do anything else with his life than to become a serial killer... Because everybody knows that video games lead people to violence. Isn't?

"Real" gamers don't need weird looking funny hats to have fun.

... but a Santa thingy (Serious Sam anyone?) can do.

Arf arf.

And to say that after all this time I'm still hooked on Unreal COOP .....
Seriously, was it that much to ask to get something better by now?
Gameplay, where is it gone?

Also: F*ck all Crysis games. Mindless and extremely booooooooooooooooooooooooooooring.

http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/7003/laa5a.jpg

Let's just try to respect each other and to avoid provocations please, thank you.

Funny you should mention Unreal.



To quote Dr. Evil "Were not so different, you and I".

Very humble
 

I am real gamer.

:D

No.

Can we quit it with the elitist drivel please. Play nice or I'm closing this thing.

*sigh* :sucks:

totally agree with dosraider

You and moi and some others need to get a weekend together, set up a LAN, drink plenty of beer and snaps.
Could be fun.

There Will Be Blood 2: DOS Boogaloo

I like the Breakin 2 reference, Lulu_Jane.

That's why we're actually here, to JUST SAY YES!

OH NOES !! Grav gen failure !!! Beam them out Scotty !!

Ugh. Today is the first day I've been able to sleep for 8 hours in a week. But looking at how the thread got spammed anyways (just like every serious topics anyways), I see little reason to continue this thread.

FPJ, if you really wish to continue our discussion please contact me by PM.

Don't forget, Copy protections were also different in the good ole times :)
I still remember when I bought Reunion in 1990 it just came with a protection asking for "word 7 on page 12" of the manual.

Could it be that the copy protection is the reason why games lost in quality?

What do Copy protections and today's games have in common?
1) They only last a few hours
2) They look fully functional at first glance

feel free to add more to this list!


PS: EoF and FPJ stay out of this thread!

3) they cost a lot of money to produce. :)

I'm really not nostalgic for old copy protection, in fact I'm really glad that I don't have to spend time underneath my desk or behind the cupboard trying to find the manual just to type in the correct word so I can continue playing.

However, one thing I really do miss is the great game artwork and paraphernalia that came with games back then, and I guess copy protection was part of that. Things like the monkey Island pirate wheel. The book of tree and gem language etc. from Conquest of the Longbow. The tourist "magazine" that came with some of the Space Quest games. All good stuff :)

That kind of thing was great. With electronic delivery we don't get that really anymore.

Let us blame Adobe for that.

I remember when I bought Comanche, Falcon 3.0 and others from that era, they came in a nice box, maps and several books ( yes indeed, thick BOOKS ) filled with all kinds of info, about the game itself and a lot of extra info about military planes and vehicles, tactics, flight instructions, advanced combat flight instructions, extended area maps, whatever and whatnots , too much to list.

And then one day, I bought Longbow2, F*CK, you got the game on a double CD, and on the CD a PDF, if you wanted the manual in hand whilst playing you had to print it out yourself, or you needed a second PC besides you to glance at the manual whilst playing, because yeah, W95/98 were not really able to handle such games whilst having the manual/maps opened in the background.

For crying out loud, so yes, let us blame Adobe for that.

Something for EOF to ponder about:
You do realize that you and FPJ were in fact hijacking this topic, do you?
Just saying.

And to think that I thought I already swore enough while I wait for ye olde adobe photoshop to startup :D

Hijacking how? By having a real, on topic discussion?

Right...

What's up Eagle of Fire?
I can see that you dont like this thread. You see a needless topic about modern games which uses forum space and only consumes server-bandwith, but the existence of this thread wouldn't agitate you.
But then you post 500 lines of text, answer questions with a new question and generally give a fuck about the thread-creator, which happens to be me.
And then you post again, even though I told you, that you should stay out of my thread here:
http://www.abandonia.com/vbullet/sho...0&postcount=91
This thread was even accidentally locked because of you and only my pleas to Admin Lulu made it reopen again after your escapades!

I'm asking you, what's the matter?

Yes. The fact that the only thread I consider very interesting in the last 4 years on this forum, which also happen to include the material of a guy who says exactly the same thing than I been saying in the... About last 10 years (with proof), was closed then reopened and the fact that you all seem to think it is some kind of joke really aggravate me.

I'm here because I'm a gamer. That's the sole reason why I ever joined this site. I said it countless times in the past. How could that be off topic in a topic named "why are we here?"

Also, since when can't we participate in any threads? Especially in Bla Bla Bla? Also especially since the amount of stupidity I read in this thread is astonishing... I can't really stand idle while reading this.

Go on, close the thread again. That would only annoy me more to see Lulu showing off again. She hardly do anything without yapping at me on this site anyways... Why not continue too?

Well I have to agree with Eagle of Fire here, it's a 3xBlah sub-forum and there's been much more spam already than what could be considered as such in this thread, but since he was doing nothing more than only arguing about the topic of this thread with FPJ, I find it a little bit unfair to say they're hijacking it. If you simply don't like what they're posting, why not just saiyng it so.
Though saying so right out would be a serious violation of what is there of freedom of speech on this site, wouldn't it? Besides, you should know better than to open a thread about games and expect it all go according only to your own expectations. You asked others about their opinion, so they discuss it, and everyone has own opinion.

I closed the thread by accident, I explained this and apologised to Wicky.

Move on and go back to your discussion.

Nah, we're good. I agreed with some of what you were saying, BTW, although I didn't necessarily agree with the way you were saying it. I say we shake hands and get on with our lives.

The accusations of thread hijacking are frankly laughable - it may have gotten a little heated, but as EoF pointed out, he and I were discussing the actual topic of the thread, and everyone else was still free to participate in any manner they saw fit. How that could be considered hijacking is beyond me.

I am here to watch the events unfold with a big container of popcorn.

I think this forum is too serious and unfriendly towards newbies, someone always disapproves of any innocent idle chat, and this may be a reason why we have so little activity in Blah and so few newbies that stick as regulars.