Jobs said "you've got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology".
It's the same deal with video games.
In BG2 artists said what should this look like to the player and made that. They did it with 3d rendering, but how they did it doesn't matter.
In BG3 artists made realistic 3d scenes, but in 3d most camera angles are bad. Cinematography is an art, but they're making the player frame scenes and position cameras. This is a terrible player experience. It's part Cinematography Simulator, which isn't a fun game it's work.
That's why 3d only works for first person games where the player experience is the 3d world (like the Dooms), or games with planned out/smart camera positions (like Dota or Mario).
This is basically true in every industry. If you are improving the technology with no customer benefit, then there is no reason to do it.
Even if all you are doing is making an internal system more efficiency, the purpose is to help someone else give the customer a better experience down the line.
I don't know if this guy is being forgetful, self-deprecating, or unappreciative of the ideas of his colleagues when he says he put toilets on the map because of 'someone on the internet' complaining if he didn't. It's already an absurd idea that pre-2000 devs were designing out of fear for what would be said on the internet, but it also undersells the cleverness of the visual storytelling in that map's design. As the editing of the video shows, there are actually 4 toilets, but what it doesn't show is that the shit-runnels from the toilets drain towards a central point in the map where you can encounter a disgusting, sewer-dwelling enemy. So the toilets not only create a believable liveable space - Irenicus and his goons have to shit - but contribute to the nasty atmosphere and the dangers that the player has to confront.
He says himself that he hadn't seen the map in a while, so maybe he forgot, but pointing out a part and dismissing it as 'we did it becuz internet iz annoying' doesn't do the design justice.
There's a video called The Shandification of Fallout that I will never not shill that goes into something like this.
It basically offers up the contrast between Fallout 3 and Fallout NV - Fallout 3 setups the DC Wasteland as what could basically be termed as an amusement park to experience, where Fallout NV goes into the simple question of 'What do they eat'? And then proceeds to show you.
Several quests even go into that, with serious choices to make that offer up real consequences.
In other words, realistically built worlds can offer organic ways to expand on the story and deepen the player's experience.
Prerendered 2D graphics are my favourite style of game aesthetic and western isometric RPGs were the king of it. Part of the reason I enjoyed Pillars of Eternity 1 (I never played 2, it looked gay).
From a tech standpoint, the fact that you could rotate the camera in 90 degree increments in Commandos 2 (and freely indoors I think?) blew my mind at the time, back in the day. But I'm honestly not sure if it improved the game overall. A fixed perspective forces the dev to make a singular vision for the environment and removes camera from the question of balancing difficulty. I echo everything fauxgnaws says.
EDIT: if you want an example of another beautiful 2D game game which supposedly used 3D models transposed to 2D, King of Fighters 13 is in the mix. You can't talk about 2D game art without mentioning SNK. Although at the same time I think it's become a bit of a meme to say 'AKSHULLY KOF13's graphics are 3D' - I have my doubts as to whether people have misconstrued the story there, and whether the 3D models were simply used as reference material by the 2D artists.
Pre-release, everything I'd heard about the game was pushing me away - class tweaks, party shrinking, location, etc - but the whole 'IT HAS ROMANCE NOW!' talking point was a big worry, then when it released and I realised it was just jammed with bioware-sexual, crit role voiced chars, I said no thanks. Josh Sawyer is a woke cucktivist and doesn't want my money anyhow.
I hadn't even heard about that but it fits. On the other hand, with Avellone already gone by then, would you even want a non-Avellone-written Durance? They'd probably write him as a pathetic gay turbocuck in retaliation for all his Magran misogyny. And then patch him out completely as a disavow of Avellone, after that laughable metoo.
What if we had a fantasy game that pulled some Cuphead or Okami kind of shit. The whole thing was basically 2-D painting the animation was manipulation of those works (even if it was an actual painting that the computer replicated).
I feel like maybe we should go for something like that, rather than poly-count.
Yeah, I guess it would still have to be a kind of 3D game using 2D aesthetic, but I still think it might work if you give enough artists enough reason to try it.
My memory of this game was somehow altered, and I spend the longest time remembering that Shadows of Amn was a Neverwinter Nights game. It wasn't until I watched Warlockracy's Baldur's Gate 3 video that I was corrected. Great game, though, and RPG developers in that era generally did a good job of making games look good. Someone made a comment some time ago about a lot of that stuff being a result of creativity bred by limitation.
I hate how much I like BG2, the drow city and the planar stronghold are my favorite areas in term of design.
The main reason I hate BG3 is because I love BG2.
My seething hatred for BG3's existence is rooted in my love of BG2 as well.
It is the desecration of the sacred.
Agreed. It is incredible how insulting bg3 is to its predecessors
Jobs said "you've got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology".
It's the same deal with video games.
In BG2 artists said what should this look like to the player and made that. They did it with 3d rendering, but how they did it doesn't matter.
In BG3 artists made realistic 3d scenes, but in 3d most camera angles are bad. Cinematography is an art, but they're making the player frame scenes and position cameras. This is a terrible player experience. It's part Cinematography Simulator, which isn't a fun game it's work.
That's why 3d only works for first person games where the player experience is the 3d world (like the Dooms), or games with planned out/smart camera positions (like Dota or Mario).
This is basically true in every industry. If you are improving the technology with no customer benefit, then there is no reason to do it.
Even if all you are doing is making an internal system more efficiency, the purpose is to help someone else give the customer a better experience down the line.
Something about this artwork of that era with games like BG and Arcanum, Planescape, Fallout, and others that’s just completely lost today.
It’s like going back and looking at some of the earlier D & D artwork, even discounting all the woke shit the newer stuff just lacks soul.
I don't know if this guy is being forgetful, self-deprecating, or unappreciative of the ideas of his colleagues when he says he put toilets on the map because of 'someone on the internet' complaining if he didn't. It's already an absurd idea that pre-2000 devs were designing out of fear for what would be said on the internet, but it also undersells the cleverness of the visual storytelling in that map's design. As the editing of the video shows, there are actually 4 toilets, but what it doesn't show is that the shit-runnels from the toilets drain towards a central point in the map where you can encounter a disgusting, sewer-dwelling enemy. So the toilets not only create a believable liveable space - Irenicus and his goons have to shit - but contribute to the nasty atmosphere and the dangers that the player has to confront.
He says himself that he hadn't seen the map in a while, so maybe he forgot, but pointing out a part and dismissing it as 'we did it becuz internet iz annoying' doesn't do the design justice.
There's a video called The Shandification of Fallout that I will never not shill that goes into something like this.
It basically offers up the contrast between Fallout 3 and Fallout NV - Fallout 3 setups the DC Wasteland as what could basically be termed as an amusement park to experience, where Fallout NV goes into the simple question of 'What do they eat'? And then proceeds to show you.
Several quests even go into that, with serious choices to make that offer up real consequences.
In other words, realistically built worlds can offer organic ways to expand on the story and deepen the player's experience.
Prerendered 2D graphics are my favourite style of game aesthetic and western isometric RPGs were the king of it. Part of the reason I enjoyed Pillars of Eternity 1 (I never played 2, it looked gay).
From a tech standpoint, the fact that you could rotate the camera in 90 degree increments in Commandos 2 (and freely indoors I think?) blew my mind at the time, back in the day. But I'm honestly not sure if it improved the game overall. A fixed perspective forces the dev to make a singular vision for the environment and removes camera from the question of balancing difficulty. I echo everything fauxgnaws says.
EDIT: if you want an example of another beautiful 2D game game which supposedly used 3D models transposed to 2D, King of Fighters 13 is in the mix. You can't talk about 2D game art without mentioning SNK. Although at the same time I think it's become a bit of a meme to say 'AKSHULLY KOF13's graphics are 3D' - I have my doubts as to whether people have misconstrued the story there, and whether the 3D models were simply used as reference material by the 2D artists.
Same, I read something like you can't go on a boat trip without someone trying to but fuck you.
Pre-release, everything I'd heard about the game was pushing me away - class tweaks, party shrinking, location, etc - but the whole 'IT HAS ROMANCE NOW!' talking point was a big worry, then when it released and I realised it was just jammed with bioware-sexual, crit role voiced chars, I said no thanks. Josh Sawyer is a woke cucktivist and doesn't want my money anyhow.
I'm sure POE2 did just fine without us /s
For me it was that they cut Durance for political reasons.
I hadn't even heard about that but it fits. On the other hand, with Avellone already gone by then, would you even want a non-Avellone-written Durance? They'd probably write him as a pathetic gay turbocuck in retaliation for all his Magran misogyny. And then patch him out completely as a disavow of Avellone, after that laughable metoo.
Here's a good question.
What if we had a fantasy game that pulled some Cuphead or Okami kind of shit. The whole thing was basically 2-D painting the animation was manipulation of those works (even if it was an actual painting that the computer replicated).
I feel like maybe we should go for something like that, rather than poly-count.
Yeah, I guess it would still have to be a kind of 3D game using 2D aesthetic, but I still think it might work if you give enough artists enough reason to try it.
My memory of this game was somehow altered, and I spend the longest time remembering that Shadows of Amn was a Neverwinter Nights game. It wasn't until I watched Warlockracy's Baldur's Gate 3 video that I was corrected. Great game, though, and RPG developers in that era generally did a good job of making games look good. Someone made a comment some time ago about a lot of that stuff being a result of creativity bred by limitation.