EPTStarCraft: Orcs in space go down in flames - Page 2
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aqui
Germany1023 Posts
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Falling
Canada11583 Posts
On September 28 2012 08:58 shindigs wrote: Well the focus on sales and making games more casual friendly is a product of these earlier game developers being so successful I'd imagine. When the industry is growing I feel like the focus on the business aspect is important, but not the driving force of game development. Seems like larger companies have important long term goals to deliver on so other things become the focus. I think the Allen Adham thing is a good reminder that there was never a golden age amongst company owners where they were all about the game and not the money. Allen seems like he was exactly one of those money guys. But it kinda reminds me of Frank Zappa's thoughts on the decline of the music industry. Again there was still the money focused owners, but they didn't really know what would sell, so all sorts of accidental, crazy experimental things got released. But once they found success they become much more focused on what target groups will or will not want so they can repeat the success. Definitely my favourite blog to read these days. | ||
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Shady Sands
United States4021 Posts
On September 28 2012 13:48 aqui wrote: if you look at the Blizzard games that were developed with Patrick Wyatt and co on the team and on the later games without them makes you think how much the greatness of games like Starcraft and Diablo 1 can acutally be attributed to them and not the remaining Blizzard. I think it's a little extreme to think that way. Reading through what Patrick wrote, it seems like a significant factor in the quality variance from game to game isn't really driven by the developer themselves, but rather by how rushed the dev cycle was and what sort of audience the game was targeted towards. Games in general, nowadays, are marketed towards far less of a "core" audience than games were in the late 90s. For example, no gaming executive will let his developers combine a groundbreaking concept with market-limiting violence into the same package nowadays, whereas in the 90s, that was commonplace since the entire market as built around the concept of "moar gibs for your money." | ||
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thezanursic
5500 Posts
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caradoc
Canada3022 Posts
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mucker
United States1120 Posts
I have always wanted to play that old wc2 engine based alpha. Space instead of water and minerals instead of trees... fine. But how developed are the races and units? So curious, what are those like fucking flying strawberries? And the stop button is a stop sign with "stop" written in a zergy font? Too good! Someday they gotta let us have it. | ||
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trifecta
United States6795 Posts
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BigFan
TLADT24920 Posts
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elt
Thailand1092 Posts
"I believe that Warcraft was the first game to use this user-interface metaphor. When I first implemented the feature it was possible to select and control large numbers of units at a time; there was no upper limit on the number of units that could be selected. ... Later in the development process, and after many design arguments between team-members, we decided to allow players to select only four units at a time based on the idea that users would be required to pay attention to their tactical deployments rather than simply gathering a mob and sending them into the fray all at once. We later increased this number to nine in Warcraft II. Command and Conquer, the spiritual successor to Dune 2, didn’t have any upper bound on the number of units that could be selected. It’s worth another article to talk about the design ramifications, for sure." http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/the-making-of-warcraft-part-1 | ||
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Andre
Slovenia3523 Posts
This new blog entry seemed less technical but it was still great. Allen seems like an ass, but once you start a business it's always going to be about money first and everything else second. Seems the developers were a bit more resistant back then. | ||
GTR
51650 Posts
On September 28 2012 17:24 Andr3 wrote: Seems the developers were a bit more resistant back then. I guess because the pool of developers back then is little compared to what it is today, with how big the industry is now. | ||
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SpeaKEaSY
United States1070 Posts
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lost_artz
United States366 Posts
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hellsan631
United States695 Posts
http://www.dallasobserver.com/1999-01-14/news/stormy-weather/ The link is further down in the article, but it itself is also a great read | ||
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bgx
Poland6595 Posts
On September 28 2012 18:22 lost_artz wrote: Westwood definitely liked their RTS games. Dune 2000 has always been my 2nd favorite to BW/SC2. Sadly it lacks any real depth as the vast majority of units/buildings are shared between races, but it's still a very hard game. Some of the campaign missions are real pain in the asses. It was just a remake for people who never played dune2, dune 2 X c&c/red alert set of rules. But it was good remake a specially Frank Klepacki's Soundtrack  like all of his soundtracks. | ||
Waxangel
United States33660 Posts
On September 28 2012 08:08 HawaiianPig wrote: The more I read these blogs the more it's clear that game development in this era was dominated by extremely skilled individuals facing the growing pains of a burgeoning industry. It seems it's resulted in a lot of accidental hit games. I mean... I especially love that Starcraft was rebooted on account of fear induced from a fake demo. Fantastic. But more specifically, every time I read a story like this, about the development of older games, I always notice one key theme: that developers were in the business of making games and not in the business of making games. Although guys like Allen Adham would push development cycles into strict timeframes or push for the development of more casual games, it seems that the sterile "maximize sales at all costs" approach would not bleed into the actual content of a game. There was no "What if soccer moms played this game?" focus group in order to make the game more accessible. There was simply: "Make an RTS game set in space" And that's what we got. I think you're trying to interpret a limited detail anecdote in a specific way that fits your beliefs | ||
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Wout
Netherlands76 Posts
On September 28 2012 08:08 HawaiianPig wrote: The more I read these blogs the more it's clear that game development in this era was dominated by extremely skilled individuals facing the growing pains of a burgeoning industry. It seems it's resulted in a lot of accidental hit games. Maybe that holds true for Blizzard, but having read the article about ION Storm that Wyatt links I don't think you can say it applies to game development as a whole. | ||
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Mazer
Canada1086 Posts
On September 28 2012 08:01 heyoka wrote: The entire idea that StarCraft was re-birthed because of a fake demo Ion Storm gave is incredible, it's such an odd piece of history that really changed the course of how games are viewed. Pretty insane eh.. I probably would have gotten into Quake or CS had that never happened. EDIT: It's kind of a shame though when you think about Blizzard's approach nowadays. They could improve b.net immensely if they took some cues from other developers but it doesn't seem to be that big of a deal to them. | ||
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imPermanenCe
Netherlands595 Posts
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Antisocialmunky
United States5912 Posts
On September 28 2012 22:28 Wout wrote: Maybe that holds true for Blizzard, but having read the article about ION Storm that Wyatt links I don't think you can say it applies to game development as a whole. That Ion Storm article is ridiculous. T-T I'm glad I don't work at a company like that but I'm always leery of getting suckered into a situation like that... | ||
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