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DragonWolf_keny · Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2009 11:13 pm Post subject:

in my opinion the science fiction genera is a dead franchise. fantasy games are a dime a dozen, ever quest, world of war craft, Elder scrolls, the list can go on. science fiction game are far and few in number, and most are either based on some movie or TV show or in some way coping something else.

I'm not saying anything is wrong with TV or movie games. I'm just saying, I'm getting tired of being a Jedi, I just want more.

Asalis · Posted: Mon Jul 13, 2009 1:06 am Post subject:

What about the Sic-Fi horror game Dead Space?

DragonWolf_keny · Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 11:27 pm Post subject:

well that one is more horror than scifi. witch make me notice the lack of just Sci Fi titles out there. The last well known title was Aliens Versus Predator which is also a horror Sci Fi.

Styx · Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 1:53 am Post subject:

What about Mass Effect I just finished that one and am eagerly awaiting Mass Effect 2.

Hawke · Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 1:05 pm Post subject:

Benleopard · Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 3:16 pm Post subject:

witch one, the old one or the revamp new one? (played them both, they are alright in strategy games)

Hawke · Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 3:19 pm Post subject:

Either Supreme Commander or Forged Alliance, the'yre both pretty much the same save for a couple new units and structures per faction.

Teric · Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 3:11 pm Post subject:

I played through the human campaign in Supreme Commander, and couldn't work up any excitement to play through the other two campaigns. Yeah, it was kinda fun, it but got really repetitive after a while.

DragonWolf_keny · Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2009 5:48 pm Post subject:

Science Fiction or fantasy really doesn't matter too much to me as long as its half as good as Elder scrolls should have been I'm happy.

I would have liked something just as amazingly detailed as Oblivion but rather a Sci Fi game. I would like something with an open sandbox like universe filled with just as much content if not more.

I'm just saying the single player market is dying and the Online massive multi player killed it. my pet ferret needs a bath so I'm gonna stop ranting now.

Hawke · Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 7:18 pm Post subject:

francesis · Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2009 8:10 am Post subject:

What about Fallout 3? It was made by the same people who made Oblivion. I also liked Prototype that was another, imo, great sci-fi game.

DragonWolf_keny · Posted: Mon Sep 14, 2009 3:17 am Post subject:

fall out 3 suffers from a similar pitfall of elder scrolls. both games are fun, with engaging story and play arks, but this is the problem. once one plays through the entire main story , then what? play on, and on, through the endless in some cases recyclable side content.

DragonWolf_keny · Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2009 2:20 am Post subject:

One thing that I would like to think is gravely improved is the process called A.I. or artificial intelligence in the gaming industry. This I think has evolved into the point of near perfection in one particular area. enemies in are getting smarter and smarter.

but dammit I wish the designers would stop it already, I mean they're good enough working against me. I ask since the monsters are so damn annoyingly smart, why the hell do I get to play alongside characters that seemed to be programed with the brain of tapioca pudding. I want artificial friends that can think just as good as as the bastards I'm trying to slay.

Teric · Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2009 3:56 pm Post subject:

Dragonwolf, as a game developer myself, I have a bit of the inside scoop on game industry A.I.

It is possible to design A.I. that is, in fact, extremely smart. One that can intelligently guess at what the human player's decisions will be, and act accordingly (regardless of whether that A.I. be the player's ally or enemy).

However, to create an A.I. that smart requires a LARGE amount of processing power, taking up a big chunk of time on the processor (or processors). Even with today's consoles (3 CPUs on the XBox 360, 1 main and 6 ancillary processors on the PS3), the ability to crunch enough data to support such a complex behavior model is limited to games where such behavior is a prominent feature of the game.

Today's consoles run games at around 60 frames per second or more. That means that the CPUs and the graphics processors have to crunch the following:

-Accept and process player input
-Compute physics (i.e. collision detection, reverse-kinetics-based movement, velocity of moving objects/projectiles, etc.)
-Run A.I. decision trees on every A.I. entity that is currently active in the game (which could be tens or even hundreds)
-Play sounds
-Stream music (this *is* different from playing sound fx)
-Game-specific logic (such as computing whether a hit occurred or if a specific quest was completed)
-Animate Models
-Render Models
-Render Geometry
-Render visual effects (i.e. particles, strip effects, post processing effects like glow or cel shading, etc.)
-Network navigation for multiplayer games (this one is NO picnic)

Oh, and all that has to happen 60 times a second.

Sometimes, at the end of a project, a development team is SCRAMBLING to figure out how to make one or more of those processes run faster so that the game's framerate can improve. Many games you see out on the market have been optimized many times over just so that it can fit in the console's memory and run at a decent framerate. Some times, unfortunately, the game design simply doesn't support a super-duper smart A.I.

Another reason why A.I. may not seem very smart is simply because a perfect A.I. would be completely unbeatable, and would create nothing but frustration for the player. Thus, some A.I.'s are 'dumbed down' a bit in order to balance game play and make the experience more fun for the player.

For friendly A.I., the trick is to balance them to the point where they are 'almost' as good as the player, but not quite. The idea is for the player to earn the big achievements and receive the satisfaction of accomplishing the goal. If the friendly A.I. were always better than the player, then most of the game's satisfying achievements would be earned by the A.I., and not the player, leading to an experience where the player feels that he is 'simply tagging along'.

It's a big balancing act, to be honest.

DragonWolf_keny · Posted: Thu Dec 03, 2009 3:08 am Post subject:

I was cruising the internet and found something that caught my interest.
http://www.fur.com/~ollie/rym3.html
this was a website surprisingly old but still around. I know very very, little about the Rym setting outlined in it. As far as I can find out, it appears to be now defunct. not sure why the site is still around if it isn't in use, but well its a mystery to me.

I thought what about a first person RPG based on something similar to this. it would be interesting but I doubt it would ever make money, so not worth it. firstly too many multiple genera crossed over and over rarely strikes lightning. something featuring anything and I mean anything other than dwarfs, elves, and humans would be so damn cool. I'm just saying, not that they should be excluded but hey I like options.