are space combat sim games a dead genre?

DrMckay · Post by **DrMckay** » 2006-09-03 03:21am

An nBSG flit sim/(part ground action game) may sell well. It is a populsr tv show with good concepts, and a ready-made plot. I for one would wanna flip a Viper mkVII end-for-end and frag some "Toasters"

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-03 05:10am

Beyond the Red Line will be out soon, so any commercial nBSG game is going to have to be pretty damn flash.

Ypoknons · Post by **Ypoknons** » 2006-09-03 09:49am

The thing is, even with the combined talents of Omni, the mod team and the SCP team, it's not going to be all that different from FS2.

Sam Or I · Post by **Sam Or I** » 2006-09-05 08:17pm

I think the genre is slowly dying.

The consoles are to blame for a simple control set up, and concoles seem to be where the market is at.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-05 08:22pm

Ypoknons wrote:The thing is, even with the combined talents of Omni, the mod team and the SCP team, it's not going to be all that different from FS2.

You mean no newtonian physics? Frankly, I don't care - newtonian games are niche at best, and they've got 'kinda' physics. It's more important that no commercial game can have a BSG with fifty guns or something lame like that.

Yes, I'm referring to Xwing.

Also, I play FS2 with a PS2 controller. You don't need heaps of buttons to make a game good.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-09-05 08:42pm

Sam Or I wrote:I think the genre is slowly dying. The consoles are to blame for a simple control set up, and concoles seem to be where the market is at.

That's an oversimplistic assessment, and I think it misses the biggest factor in the growing "simplification" of games.

People trumpet advancing graphics as evidence of the progress of games, but higher visual detail is a double-edged sword; it makes your game look prettier, but it demands that you invest more money into developing artwork (textures and models) which can take advantage of it.

That, and other factors, have contributed to rising production costs for computer games; and no publisher is going to want to drop double the money on a new game which only attracts the same audience the last one did. Therefore they will push the developers to make the game more widely accessible.

Consoles are by nature more widely accessible, and so a lot of development is aimed towards them. What's left for the PC market simply has to grab as much of the comparatively meager audience as it can; there's no room left any more for large-budget, niche games like Independence War.

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2006-09-05 08:53pm

Not to mention the whole 'supergood graphics' and 'wide accessibility' notions are tricky things to balance. You don't want your new game to be so pretty that a PC gamer is forced to upgrade his 'puter to even play it.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2006-09-05 09:20pm

That cuts both ways, especially towards the tail end of a console lifecycle. You don't want your game to look so dated to fit console specs that a PC gamer feels that he's getting shafted because of outdated console specs.

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2006-09-05 09:46pm

Sam Or I wrote:I think the genre is slowly dying. The consoles are to blame for a simple control set up, and concoles seem to be where the market is at.

There's also a point to realise that elegance in control is an important objective in itself. Most space shooters don't strictly need as many shortcuts and commands as they have, they aren't simulations under the hood, so why pretend to be on the surface?

You can map all the important functions to a joypad with ease, using a layout like Ace Combat. In fact, the only important function that Ace Combat doesn't have is a button to fast target enemies attacking you or your escort target, which were useful in the X-Wing games, but it does have a minimap accessable, so you have the situational knowledge to find that out for yourself from one button press.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-09-05 09:47pm

Whatever happened to 'Good Enough' graphics? People were harping on VtM: Bloodlines, which used the Half Life 2 engine for not being as good as Half Life 2.

It was good enough, I say. Quite average for the period of it's release.

Anyway, regarding Freespace 3 on consoles... I don't really mind that much there. Freespace was never a particularly complex game in terms of control.

There was what? accell/decel, afterburn, change weapon, 2 shooting buttons, change enemy target, change friendly target, subsystem target and comms?

That'll fit pretty much on a gamepad. Wing Commander 3/4 worked well on the PS1 in terms of controls. It also helps that Freespace combat isn't that fast, and has liberal use of missiles, making target tracking and acquisition fairly easy even without any form of aim assist.

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2006-09-05 10:11pm

Nephtys wrote:Whatever happened to 'Good Enough' graphics?

And how are ATi and Nvidia supposed to stay in business without consistently adding new ways to make shiny things that little fraction glintier than the competition?

Do you want their children to starve?

Competition to sell graphics cards on features pushes software developers to actually apply them.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-09-05 10:37pm

I don't think the vid card companies can really do that much to push developers to spend money on better graphics. I think it's much more the publishers trying to make sure their games are the shiniest, because with some people more graphics = better than.

One of my friends is somewhat like this. I suggested a friendly game of Soldat recently and he replied with "Can't we play something more immersive?" and later talked about how part of the reason he loved Half-Life 2 was because it had awesome graphics.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-09-05 10:42pm

Uraniun235 wrote:I don't think the vid card companies can really do that much to push developers to spend money on better graphics. I think it's much more the publishers trying to make sure their games are the shiniest, because with some people more graphics = better than.

One of my friends is somewhat like this. I suggested a friendly game of Soldat recently and he replied with "Can't we play something more immersive?" and later talked about how part of the reason he loved Half-Life 2 was because it had awesome graphics.

Now I'm so confused. Why is it that people play shiny new crap, even if the gameplay aint so good (Half Life 2 was decent IMO though. Somewhat above average play over a lot of uninspired tripe), but yet at the same time, so many people play older games with crappy graphics, and even crappier gameplay? I'm looking at you Starcraft, War3, and Counterstrike.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-05 10:47pm

It's just fashion. People played Starcraft because all their mates played Starcraft - same with Counterstrike. Thousands of bogans weren't going to change games - there's a reason they watch the same shows every night for years.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-09-06 01:01am

Still, the harping on advancement in graphics gets tiresome. It seems like every sequel to a successful franchise spawns a legion of idiots demanding to know why they updated the graphics instead of focusing solely on "gameplay". Yes, many games have great graphics and shit gameplay, but so what? Older games with inferior graphics that these people regularly cite as the pinnacle of gaming were almost uniformly considered graphically impressive once, and had contemporaries with shiny graphics and shit gameplay. There's only so much talent to go around, folks, and the simple fact is that most art produced have always been and will always be crap.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-09-06 01:11am

Starcraft, War3 I didn't play in high school because I had a lot of online friends. I played because I was good. I watched hundreds of hours of replays. I had my off days, but against any uninitiated... you were toys to me. And it was more an action game than anything, with hundreds of clicks a minute. When I won, there was a rush, I am better, I can kick your ass any day, and a newbie had 0 chance of defeating me no matter how ingenious or intelligent they were because I just memorized everything and knew everything better than everybody else and I had biology on my side with double jointed fingers.

I was a dumbass lol. And it wasn't even always true either... I lost, a lot. But never to people brand new to the game. It is the same with counterstrike... play with veterans online, and you lose 30 - 0 unless you hone your skill for months and then maybe you can get an even ratio of deaths to kills in CS.

So it is very... how do I say it... elitist.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-06 02:40am

Yeah, I phear your 1337 double-jointed fingers, brian. Almost everyone I've ever met who plays CS and Starcraft says the same thing - just like Diablo and all the other lowbrow games kept alive past their useby date by people just like you. We just won't mention the bitching in CS about every tiny little change, the SC players who only play against crap people to buff their stats, mapsploting your way up ladders in CS, etc. This might come as a shock to you, but there are MILLIONS of CS and SC griefers. Not only are you not special, you're not even unusual.

At least I can now draw a little line between 'brian' and 'Starcraft tard' in my mind, though. I think it suits you!

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-09-06 08:24am

Stark wrote:At least I can now draw a little line between 'brian' and 'Starcraft tard' in my mind, though. I think it suits you!

Wow you're a stupid, cunt sucking piece of shit whore. Did you miss the point when I said I thought like this in high school (I am now in fourth year university) and where I said I was a dumbass for thinking that way? Only a scum sucking moron or a troll would miss that.

Your point about fashion was retarded. If it was just fashion, when the generation of Starcraft people went on, it would go with them or die, like music taste or clothes. It is still around and stronger than ever. It gives something more and I was trying to show what. Only someone who couldn't read or who wanted to plant flamebait would post what you did.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-06 08:28am

Yeah, and the point that CS is super-popular because it's super-popular, with gabillions of players and active servers is irrelevant, right? Better games don't struggle to get players and servers at all, and no good games have ever ended up with hundreds of empty servers since everyone is on the full CS servers, right? You honestly don't see how being successful makes it successful?

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-09-06 08:32am

Stark wrote:Yeah, and the point that CS is super-popular because it's super-popular, with gabillions of players and active servers is irrelevant, right? Better games don't struggle to get players and servers at all, and no good games have ever ended up with hundreds of empty servers since everyone is on the full CS servers, right? You honestly don't see how being successful makes it successful?

That may be a valid point, and goes along with my point that there's an elitist culture, but I am not a starwhore or a warwhore anymore, and only someone blind would think that of me from reading my post.

Since when did you last play CS? Three years ago I did it and I saw plenty of closed servers. Most people play on private because there's too many cheaters.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-06 08:37am

I see CS and SC and Diablo 2 as part of this: the same people were playing those games for the same reason - it's where the players were. Sure, you could try and find a server for Red Orchestra or play Everquest, but those three games really got themselves into a more casual, 'regular person' market.

I'm not sure what the status of CS is now (although I bet it still isn't finished), but the very fact that Valve went so far to make sure it was on HL2 as soon as possible is another sign of how it's success made it more successful. There were years when if you wanted to play an FPS online, you played CS, the end. It was shit, it was full of retards, it was full of bugs, exploits and cheaters, but every gaming place had it, every ISP maintained servers, etc etc. It's sad really, and for many 'regular person' semi-gamers, they STILL think of all RTSes as Starcraft, all FPSes as Counterstrike... and due to the PC games market, they were mostly right until very recently.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-09-06 08:49am

The people who play now are die hard, Starcraft/CS for life. And in cyber cafes there's plenty of more interesting games, so it's not for lack of availability. Newer games have plenty of thousands of people in them. Although there's a difference between hundreds of thousands and several thousand, I don't think that matters to a gamer as long as he can long on and find opponents at any time of the day. CS and Starcraft are definitely played now only by their respective elites in most cases. A newbie would not have fun with CS or Starcraft.

MMO's long overtook SC and CS for casual chatty gamers, and I would say most gamers are casual. Looking at the numbers for WoW, 200k players, and if you don't count the Koreans whose culture idolizes SC players like superstar athletes, MMO's are more popular than SC.