What other games are we all playing?

Ralph Vargr

Ralph Vargr
I can't believe I actually bought some PLEX. Double speed training. One of those neat little Surani ships.

Cashed in the free battle wagons. Kept the Gnosis. Sold the skins. Waiting on skill queues, now.

Looks like the Frontier store has another competitor. :(
 

Iskariot

Iskariot
askavir said:
If i could choose any "the only thing" that should be added to the game, "naming things" would place somewhere around 1967º on my list, right next to steam achievements or in-game selfies.
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I agree.
And I am against the naming of Celestial objects by players if I can't switch it off.
I don't want others to mess up my game with stupid names of childhood heroes, girlfriends and their children.
If I am allowed to switch that nonsense off, then people can do what they want.
 

Remus

Remus
Right now I'm having fun with the new expansion of Civ 6, Rise and Fall.

Playing as the Scotts is just to much fun !

And the music is amazing !

[video=youtube_share;WdhBd0xlFGY]https://youtu.be/WdhBd0xlFGY[/video]

BEHOLD, ME HAGGIS-POWERED BAGPIPE ROCKET! WE'RE GOIN' TA MARS, LADDIES!
 

Mengy

Mengy
Ralph Vargr said:
Just bought Sid Mier's Pirates (updated) for $2.50 from GOG.

Oh, how I loved that game, in the day.
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I still play Pirates! now and then. When I was young I played it on the C64 a ton, but today I have the updated and improved version on Steam.

Great games are timeless. :cool:


sid-meiers-pirates-810x608.jpg
 

Remus

Remus
Insomnia said:
So true!
But I sometimes wonder, what makes a game great? :)
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I'd say simple and efficient game mechanics.

I mean a game mechanic that never gets old and could go on forever.

Look at Tetris for example...

Then there are extras, like graphics, story, music that are good too, but by themselves do not make a great game. Though well implemented will make a masterpiece ! ( mass effect, Witcher )
 

Insomnia

Insomnia
Remus said:
I'd say simple and efficient game mechanics.

I mean a game mechanic that never gets old and could go on forever.

Look at Tetris for example...

Then there are extras, like graphics, story, music that are good too, but by themselves do not make a great game. Though well implemented will make a masterpiece ! ( mass effect, Witcher )
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But is Tetris famous because it's such a fantastic game, or because it has become a cultural icon? I don't know tbh.

Some games with simple mechanics doesn't become classics, while other does. Look at Castlevania Symphony of the Night, a game that was critically acclaimed but didn't appeal to the masses. Today it's one of the best games from that era and could easily sell for 150 euros, especially here in the EU.

But yeah, when every aspect of the game comes together it might form a masterpiece. :)
 

Remus

Remus
Insomnia said:
But is Tetris famous because it's such a fantastic game, or because it has become a cultural icon? I don't know tbh.

Some games with simple mechanics doesn't become classics, while other does. Look at Castlevania Symphony of the Night, a game that was critically acclaimed but didn't appeal to the masses. Today it's one of the best games from that era and could easily sell for 150 euros, especially here in the EU.

But yeah, when every aspect of the game comes together it might form a masterpiece. :)
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Maybe Tetris became such a cultural icon BEACAUSE it was such a good game ?

I mean that in 20 years from now people will still play tetris, just as today we still play chess, go, checkers.
Simple game mechanics that stand for the test of time !
 

Jezzah

Jezzah
Insomnia said:
So true!
But I sometimes wonder, what makes a game great? :)
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For me it's almost always about story. If a game tells a great story that I feel engaged in and participate in actively then I'll love it. Beyond good and evil for instance. Quite a simple sort of game but I loved the story and how it unfolded. Another example being the witcher series. Great stories throughout that fit very well with the setting.

There's a lot more to it than just story but for me if the story isn't gripping me the game likely won't either.
 

Mengy

Mengy
Insomnia said:
So true!
But I sometimes wonder, what makes a game great? :)
Click to expand...

Mechanics are what makes a game great.

You can have a simple game like Tetris, or a complicated game like Civilization VI, or even a storyless sandbox like Minecraft, but what makes a great game is engaging, meaningful, well designed mechanics.

If Tetris was frustrating to play then it would never have been so popular. If Minecraft was clunky and hard to figure out then it never would have made the billions of dollars that it has. If Cities Skylines had the broken messy mechanics of SimCity 5 then it would never have replaced it as the premier city building game of all time. SimCity 5 failed because at it's core the mechanics of the game were a broken, disjointed, cumbersome mess.

You can't make a great game with poor mechanics at it's core. It's why all Blizzard games make so much money, they focus and spend tons of dev time on making the mechanics fluid, engaging, and easy to play. It's why with Diablo 3 they went back to the drawing board and revamped almost the entire core of the game after launch: because they realized their core mechanics had serious issues, so they took the time and put in the work to completely transform the core gameplay into the huge success it is today.

This is why Elite Dangerous hasn't sold more than it has. In this market Frontier does not have a serious competitor right now, yet because the game is "and inch wide and a mile deep" it pushes a lot of potential players away. ED could be a much larger success if Frontier would just make the effort to turn the core mechanics into something better, something more engaging and interconnected instead of disjointed grindy unengaging things like they are today. If they took the time to revitalize the core instead of continuing to bolt new features on top of the lacking core they have then Elite would be so much more successful than it is right now.

Great game design 101: build a good solid foundation of core mechanics, then build the rooms of the house on that, THEN set the furniture in place. When you try to place the furniture into barely started rooms on top of an unfinished foundation then you get games like SimCity 5, or Master of Orion III, or ET for the Atari 2600.

Mechanics are what makes a game great, even timeless, because fun engaging game mechanics never get old.



Which brings us back around to why Sid Meiers Pirates! is still such a fantastic game even today, 30 years later. It has a solid core of great game mechanics!
 
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Insomnia

Insomnia
Remus said:
Maybe Tetris became such a cultural icon BEACAUSE it was such a good game ?

I mean that in 20 years from now people will still play tetris, just as today we still play chess, go, checkers.
Simple game mechanics that stand for the test of time !
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Perhaps you're right. :)
Yeah some games stands the test of time, definitely.
 

Insomnia

Insomnia
Jezzah said:
For me it's almost always about story. If a game tells a great story that I feel engaged in and participate in actively then I'll love it. Beyond good and evil for instance. Quite a simple sort of game but I loved the story and how it unfolded. Another example being the witcher series. Great stories throughout that fit very well with the setting.

There's a lot more to it than just story but for me if the story isn't gripping me the game likely won't either.
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Yeah I love great, moving stories in games as well, like in What Remains of Edith Finch. But in that game there was good and varied gameplay. While in Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, the gameplay was absolutely rubbish and the player had to struggle to advance through the great story.

Yeah, I guess mechanics are one of the most important features of any game.
 
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Ralph Vargr

Ralph Vargr
Am now playing a minigame called the EVE Skills Queue. Grinding, while I sleep. :)

Insomnia said:
Yeah I love great, moving stories in games as well, like in What Remains of Edith Finch. But in that game there was good and varied gameplay. While in Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, the gameplay was absolutely rubbish and the player had to struggle to advance through the great story.

Yeah, I guess mechanics are one of the most important features of any game.
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You need both, but the mechanics have to come first.
 
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