Emil Pagliarulo makes Top Deck

[Black]

But Emil worked with the Thief II + III series which I think speaks for it self that this man definetly packs some potential even though he did not worked with the first game.

Ye, exactly. Many people are confusing what has one done in the past and what is one doing now.
Molyneux worked on DK2, Theme Hospital etc- that doesn't mean he's not an old, lying crock now.

 

[Westbend]

. I see people jump on Evil (and other designers/developers)

 

[Crni Vuk]

But Emil worked with the Thief II + III series which I think speaks for it self that this man definetly packs some potential even though he did not worked with the first game.

Ye, exactly. Many people are confusing what has one done in the past and what is one doing now.
Molyneux worked on DK2, Theme Hospital etc- that doesn't mean he's not an old, lying crock now.

Designers and programmers are just humans. They have to make a living somewhow.

And I do even think that some are realy convinced from their projects or what they do is the "right" way. In such situations its really hard to admit later that what you have done was eventualy not the great piece of art you expected it would be. Thats just human.

Not ment to defend anything (particularly lieng), but one should not have some artifical belief about people like beeing either too bad or too good.

. I see people jump on Evil (and other designers/developers)

Damn typos! Emil ... Evil ... well make of that what you want

 

[Ausdoerrt]

It neither implemented "brand new ideas" nor made "what already works, work a whole lot better."

They fixed some bugs from Oblivion and made the GFX look a tad better, Is that not enough?

Yes. They removed the 'Radiant' of the AI in F3 ... which I think "almost" can be called a innovation in the case of Bethesda ...

Umm, I thought they improved RAI? I mean "improved" +)

 

[Brother None]

They improved it by handing it significantly less responsibilities, yeah.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

But I think the issue is less with Emil then more the system. I see people jump on Evil (and other designers/developers) as like they would be some kind of curse and the evil of the gaming buisness (which I dont confer on you here, I mean just in General). Its the media, the system in general about how games get today perceived and rated that is wrong, not the people leaving alone single indivdiuals. What would I or anyone do as developer when they sudenly come up to you with such a interview? Well does Emil sound overweening ? Yes, I think so. But doesnt mean hes a "unskilled" artist/designer and never managed to make good work. He's still getting payed for something, is'nt he?

He's the lead developer and thus failures in the project can be blamed on both him and Todd.

But doesnt mean hes a "unskilled" artist/designer and never managed to make good work.

Agreed but he may not be cut out for management and I've seen no evidence that he's a progressive developer (he wasn't involved in the original Thief game [which was progressive] from what I can gather).

As said I just think people to easily jump on individuals isntead of trying to complain about the roots of the problem (or even trying to find it) and bitch about the system which is responsible for and letz such things happen in the first place.

Agreed, the underlying and ultimate problem is how the industry is generally run. I see the industry falling back into the kind of behavior that caused the industry to crash in the 80s, granted there seems to be more beacons of light but there really is a lot of fomula game making going on with the formula being simplified a little bit more with each new game.

 

[Crni Vuk]

He's the lead developer and thus failures in the project can be blamed on both him and Todd.

Hey. Sure I agree with that entirely. I was more talking about things like awards and the praise of them for beeing extremly inventive developers. Its not really something you can blame them or certain invdividuals for if certain groups come to them with interviews give them the title of : ... the 10 of Diamonds or - in other words - the #5 most progressive developer, progressive being defined as people who implement "brand new ideas in game development
and they accept it. As said ... its the system I would blame for (media) which lets such things happen in the first place, and award a prize to mediocre projects.

I cant say I like Todd and his team, but I also doubt that they on purpose came up to say that they WANT to destroy a franchise. I do think they are very confident and positive about "doing the right thing" and that makes it really dangerous [you know FUN and COOL over canon or versimilitude ...]. They think what they do is "right" and the sales sadly only strengthen them in their view. I mean ... seriusly comments like "we are afraid Fallout 3 might contain to much to read for the console players" ... where is coming that from. I dont know any console player who is to dump to read or cant stand some text (was Morrowind not succesfull on the consoles reagrdles of Wikipedia NPCs ?)

...
Agreed, the underlying and ultimate problem is how the industry is generally run. I see the industry falling back into the kind of behavior that caused the industry to crash in the 80s, granted there seems to be more beacons of light but there really is a lot of fomula game making going on with the formula being simplified a little bit more with each new game.

Yes. I think no one wants to meet trouble half-way. But I somewhat sense that if popular gaming is going to contiune this way particularly of praising mediocre experiences and shallow projects that we might face one time the "worst case scenario" (nuclear holocaust of gaming buisness huh ... fits). I mean its already now in a way that block buster RPGs compared to projects of the past like Fallout and others only updated the visuals and when it comes to actualy role playaing and writting degraded heavily. Not a good evolution. I can only agree with BN and fail to see the real evolution in Mass Effect like dialogues when it comes to roleplaying. They are more some kind of interactive movies.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Hurray for mediocrity!

It's a sad day when people like Pagliarulo and companies like Bethesda are praised as innovators. But well, it's nothing new, is it?

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Hurray for mediocrity!

It's a sad day when people like Pagliarulo and companies like Bethesda are praised as innovators. But well, it's nothing new, is it?

Meh, one day reality will catch up FeelTheRads, and these 'rockstars of gaming culture' will loose their status.

Even average gamers get tired of the same shit over and over when it is repeated long enough.

 

[Brother None]

Really? It hasn't happened in the past 10 years of decline, why would it happen in the coming 10 years?

All that will change is that game development on the base level will become cheaper while becoming more expensive on the AAA level, meaning mainstream games - if anything - have to be dumbed down further to sell more, but also meaning the indie industry can mature and truly fill the niche left open

 

[Trithne]

As of late I've started to feel that the gaming industry will split, as it were. It's already done it. You've got million dollar AAA titles with huge marketing campaigns on the one hand, bought by the truckload and just rehasing old ideas with new skins every year, and the indie scene, steadily maturing and bringing new and actually innovative ideas to the market. Of course, the new breed gamers don't care for the indie stuff, if they even know it exists. But those of us who are sick of being told a game is awesome simply because you can blow heads off in real-time with realistic gore and blood splatters on the walls will keep the indie devs fed and able to keep working on games that genuinely push the envelope and aim to do more than just move copies.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

That is actually quite a scary thought; that general commercial game design in the future will become even more basic.
Sort of like games reaching a high point of design and complexity during the nineties and now returning back to the 'roots' because modern gamers don't like 'too detailed' games.

Should I think about "Pac Man', 'Space Invaders' and 'Wolvestein 3D' basic when thinking of future game design?

It would be nice if the Indie game industry could produce 'Deus Ex' and 'Fallout' style games, they would definitely have my interest then.

 

[Trithne]

They can. Readily availible tools and some basic programming knowledge can take indie devs a long way these days. And seeing as the target demographic aren't too fussed about games needing to run on Shader Model 3 and use all 512MB of RAM on my video card, their dev costs are kept neatly down.

Indie isn't just 5 guys in a back room, either. Take, for instance, Kerberos Productions. They make games that many people would classify as 'niche', having made a game specifically for the 'plays-4x-and-likes-rts' demographic. Yet if you look at their members and their history, they've worked on some big-name titles. It's about ideology, not just budget.

 

[Crni Vuk]

That is actually quite a scary thought; that general commercial game design in the future will become even more basic.
Sort of like games reaching a high point of design and complexity during the nineties and now returning back to the 'roots' because modern gamers don't like 'too detailed' games.

Should I think about "Pac Man', 'Space Invaders' and 'Wolvestein 3D' basic when thinking of future game design?

It would be nice if the Indie game industry could produce 'Deus Ex' and 'Fallout' style games, they would definitely have my interest then.

Yes. But redone with photorealistic inowashion "First Person" graphic for imershunz and next-gen sellouts.

This will go hand in hand with the movie industry. I heard Uwe Boll is already in the cast as dierctor to make sure the movies suck hard:
TETRIS: The Movie
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE_1KlWFJyA[/youtube]
Pac-Man: The Movie
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWL6j0SvqV0[/youtube]