/arcade/ - vidya gaems and other gaems too

Older games were made generally made by a group of friends, all nerds who knew about computer engineering and just wanted to have some fun and share it with others who too wanted some fun. Now since gaming has turned into a multi-billion dollar industry, it's become more business rather then fun. Look at any developer vids from long ago and compare them to the ones now. Notice how the language and the focus change over the years. This vid says it all by comparing the old and the new.

>>197
Crowbcat is such a legend.

Older games feel snappy and responsive, while modern games might feel a bit vague when it comes to controls. Maybe that's because of the graphics getting better and better. Devs want to show as much pretty looking stuff as they can, leaving behind the balance and clarity of visuals. If you put random colored pixels on a small, high-res image, they will all blur to a dull gray. Try that with a low-res image of the same size on screen, and you can see every colour clearly. The response and feedback is also different. In older games you would press a button and get response instantly. In newer games there is all kinds of smoothing that makes the game less jerky and maybe nicer looking, but at the cost of responsiveness, you don't really feel directly connected to your character's actions.

>>201
In general, developers have been more focus with graphics, story and snap on a mulitplayer all the while slowing everything down. It grabs people in so it can sell and they slow things down because most can't or don't want to adapt to fast movements and twitch reaction, making games easier for people who never grew up with Quake, UT, Tribes and such games where speed is key.

>>196
>These games are better because bunny hopping! And concs! Concs made TFC good because they were old!
Yeah, almost all of these were better than their counterparts but do you even FPS games? I know there's one guy who pretends to be a OG Quake 3 god here who insists otherwise, but they're not better because of overhyped gameplay elements. In fact, they're probably the least important element in what goes into making those games comfy.

>>197 immediately nailed it; everything in the video comparison wise is true. I'd go so far as to say that soul is the most important part of a game. HLDM, DoD, NS - the people involved (not just Valve because many of these spawned from mods) cared about the game they were making because it was fun and they wanted it to be fun. A great example of a modern game with soul is EYE. At first I thought it was ass. After going back to older games I played and then returning to it, EYE really shined; Streum On tried really hard to make fighting varied and fun and make returning to old locations not an exercise in futility because there were lots of neat areas to try new stuff in. Effort put into making a game fun goes a long way when budget is tight; the Bioshock Remastered interview videos are great to listen to because they really were incredibly overbudget and it was incredible to hear the lengths they went to in order to make sure that they could deliver.

Another part of "soul" is the devil in the details and cut content. Half-Life is actually incredible for this, see related webms. Houndeyes alone were fascinating to me purely because of the houndeye webm. A lot of modern games just don't have these subtle details because soul and the idea of actual fun doesn't exist in the modern development world; it's all about being able to nail a big return. Example: I purchased Halo 4 for $2.50 on Amazon because I figured I should at least see for myself how horrible it was. I didn't finish it yet but it was interesting because it's not terrible, it's average. Simply average. There's nothing interesting or unique about the game; I don't think I'm even going to finish playing it it's that boring.

If it's multiplayer, a game's community also matters a lot in terms of comfy, too. A game can be great but it can die quickly/be terribly uncomfy just because of the type it person it initially attracts or begins to attract. There were plenty of problems with TF2, for example, but the people who made up the original TF2 community for the first few years were mostly great and fun people to be around. Some people braved 24/7 2fort just to hang out with people they met there. There aren't as many comfy people in the old GoldSrc games these days but every once in a while there's a burst of them who want to play for a night just for the hell of it and that's where they really shine.

I can only hope that within the next decade, a lot of the old hands I've met over the years get involved in designing a game that's going to be incredibly comfy with fun gameplay and a great community. I've yet to see the latter happen but I have faith that it could be soon.

>>203
When you find a server or a squad or a match etc with really cool people and you all get along is the greatest times in gaming for me.

Ironically the games with the vast userbases are usually the worst for that.

Old games weren't better overall. All you have to do is watch one episode of demo disc ( a YouTube show where the hosts play old PC game demos) to see that there were a lot of really shitty old games especially for PC. But if a game isnt good chances are we won't really remember it 10 years later if we even play it at all, so the ones we remember are the exception not the rule. Games like half life, cs 1.6, UT etc were good enough to stand the test of time and I personally prefer that the 'old' style of faster paced shooters with skill based movement. But games now days are more focused on realism because the technology can handle it. It made sense to have fast movement to dodge fireballs in Doom because you're fighting alien hell monster things. But in a game about modern combat you don't see a slow moving projectile, its just a bullet which you have no time to dodge, so skill based movement plays less of a part. This change is partly due to technological advancements but also demand, people want more realistic games.
I also think that we were younger when we originally played these games, so the rose tinted spectacles of nostalgia might come into play too.

>>231
>But if a game isnt good chances are we won't really remember it 10 years later if we even play it at all,
To remember a game it either has to be really good or really shit. It's the bland mediocre games that no one remembers. You remember a game called Remember Me? You didn't until now.

>But in a game about modern combat you don't see a slow moving projectile, its just a bullet which you have no time to dodge, so skill based movement plays less of a part. This change is partly due to technological advancements but also demand, people want more realistic games.
The demand is beginning to shift due to how strangled the FPS genre has become either Call of Duty, Battlefield or some clone of the two. Character based shooters is now a growing demand just by being neither of the two and realism isn't the focus of those games. Realism is finally being realized as boring and fruitless outside of games like Arma or Insurgency.

>I also think that we were younger when we originally played these games, so the rose tinted spectacles of nostalgia might come into play too.
It isn't necessarily because a person grew up with those games to like them. The developers that designed older games were able to find the right formula on how those games would be played. The first Doom wasn't just run-and-gun and heavy metal, it was level design, enemy placement, number of enemies types, the difference between the enemy types, artstyle and sounds that made that game great. Sure this isn't always the case with older games, some have aged like milk while others like wine. There is merit however to say that older games were done better since experimentation was widely sought after due to gaming still being young and also due to the market crash of 1983 which clean the slate for fresh new developers. That experimentation and lack of corporate control gave way to great games, unlike now where it's about supplying quickly and efficiently for that yearly release all the while reusing previous assets with some tweaks and upping the graphics turning a once interesting series into a soulless rehash.

>>230
Personally I've found that it's all about finding the right balance. If a community is too small or niche (Quake 3 revisions like CPMA, Xonotic, etc, UT99/2k4, all of those games starting at about 2011) it's very subtly clique-ish and attracts people who bought into the "hardcore arena shooter" line and cared more about topping charts in a dying/dead community. It's honestly made me balk at anyone (person or developer) who starts spouting phrases like "skill-based movement", "fast-paced movement", "dedicated servers", "frag like it's [late 90s]" - it's just as vapid and soulless as modern AAA development since it just tries to package game attributes as selling points/reasons why the game is better than [x]. That's why Toxikk, since it went F2P, has like maybe 50 players across an entire good day for the entire game.

And yeah, games with vast userbases are bad as well. Overwatch kind of solidified that for me: playing with randoms was akin to pulling teeth and it was very easy to get matched up against the scrim kids from down the lane who treated quick play like some kind of LAN finals. Same with CS:GO. I'd say it wasn't always that way, because blockbuster games from back in the day like SWBF2, BF2/142, TF2, Planetside 1, etc. always had their own pleasant communities within the trash. They're just not around in these new games.

Honestly, I'd love to find a game like Republic Commando's waning multiplayer again. It had a pleasantly-sized community back in 2009 despite its release 4 years before and had a few "clans" that engaged in "clan wars" for the younger members. There was plenty of pleasant competition with bare-tooth shittalking. Insurgency standalone was like that two or three years ago and I didn't play it as much as I should have. I'd try RO2 again but I just can't get into the overly-tactical play.

>>196
Bah. Quake was better for MP than any of those games. Get off my lawn.

>>234
…And this is why, despite preferring Quake/Quake3 DM any day, I'll still log on to HLDM once in a while. The game is pretty good, and community is really active.

But I actually *do* like Xonotic. The community is very welcoming, and I find that they're not like what you described at all. OTOH, the Q3/QL community is cancer.

There must be some lainchan guys on Xonotic. Used to be a thread for the game at one point, but I logged on with a lain reference for my username and everyone knew where I came from lol.

Anyways I like simulator and building games mostly, so I would argue the current landscape is better for my needs. Bioware or Obsidian just needs to make a new KOTOR and I think I'll be happy.

I've been playing a lot of CSS, I don't own 1.6 but source is comfy enough. I agree that newer games have less and less depth, and i think its cause people want money; I compare it to youtubers that are different once they're famous, its no longer fueled by only passion, it becomes a job. I wish some people would make a community made verson of CS like the fortress forever ppl did to tfc. It might not be the best but at least we'd be back at a small team that we could talk to.

I've also recently played neotokyo alot, which still has about 70 active players total. Do any of you sushis play this? Tournament soon I think, might be fun.

>>240
forgot abt quake lol.
hmmm, xonotic has sooo many weapons though, i find it hard to get into. ql has a few less, so i like it more. have you played warsow? I've played it for like 3 hours so far, dash is weird(but fun) and stun is retarded.

>>255
Warosow is fun as hell, but has even less players than Xonotic. Warsow has surprisingly good bots though.

>>254
I gave Neotokyo a try some time ago, but it didn't really keep me playing. The community is really nice and the soundtrack is great, but it's just a pretty standard team shooter. The only difference is that you have cloaking and various modes of vision. Also the rounds feel too short. It's not that the game is too fast paced, maybe the maps are just too small. One time I didn't even make it to any action, and the opposite team already brought the ghost back to their base. I really like the setting and atmosphere, but as a game, Neotokyo doesn't stand out much.

old source games have skill based movement that actually requires skill and rewards players who take the time to learn the nuances of the movement engine (bunny-hopping, long jumping etc). This raises the skill ceiling and adds another layer of depth. Modern games have simplistic movement mechanics that remove all that skill.

>>258
>brought the ghost back to their base
their cap point is supposed to be in YOUR spawn, or at least most of the time(what map were u on?). I do tend to enjoy bigger maps, but 3v3 pugs are pretty fun on the smaller ones like redlight. I do agree that the rounds are really fast, but I'm not bothered by it I guess.

>>261
>their cap point is supposed to be in YOUR spawn
oh, that explains why my teammates always got mad at me when I carried the ghost back to our spawn

>>196
Forget the games, the *mods* are what was up.
Brainbread, The Specialists, Action HL/Quake, Firearms, Zombie Panic, Jaykin' Bacon, I could go on for hours. Where would we be right now without Carmack?

Does anyone play Day of Defeat?

>>196
Older games are creative & fun first; accountants (aka Bachelor of Business types) being in upper management don't get that but are the ones making the decisions.

It's not just the video-gaming industry either. Boeing is a most obvious example of what happens when only accountants are in charge.