DOOM CLONE RANT
Being a writer is a dangerous business. Apart from the numerous paper cuts, fear of carpal-tunnel syndrome, the threat of monitor radiation tearing at your optic nerve and the conspiracies of publishers and their editors, there is the greatest danger of all. Fear of damaging your ego.
I think, at least on a gut level, all writers must be egotists. Why otherwise would we have to say something to everybody? Who the hell am I, anyway? Many people are quite content grumbling to themselves, or their spouses and friends, but not me. When something annoys me, I have to shout it from the rooftops.
So here I am again, ready to practice that most dangerous of professions. I'm going to say what I think and wait for the backlash that I just assume will follow. If I'm lucky, maybe some software companies will read this.
ENOUGH WITH THE DOOM CLONES! If I see one more first person shoot 'em up, no matter how well done, I'm gonna toss my cookies.
There, I've said it. I've been wanting to say it for two years. Now before anyone gets all huffy, I know that Quake is not Doom and Quake II is not Quake, but whenever I look at games lined up on a computer store shelf, it seems to me that a large percentage of the newest are always 3D shooters.
Now if I were to design a game, it would be adventure/role-playing. Definitely a combination of the two. It wouldn't be the type of game where if you forget one small detail in the first location you couldn't finish it, nor would it be a game that has repetitive combat situations, where you just blast larger creatures with more powerful spells.
My game would have an awesome plot, where the main character must solve puzzles, pick up magical and other useful items, and still advance his skills as he goes. There will be some form of interaction and not everything you meet will necessarily try to kill you. And you won't be good and they won't be evil, because I hate that single platitude more than almost any other.
Evil people don't think they're evil. They think they're good. It's time game makers started thinking logically. Give me a basically good character, who is propelled into a life of crime by circumstance. That would make an interesting game.
Make me a vampire and overpower me with a craving for blood, beyond my ability to resist. I'll feel bad after dinner, I promise. Give me a really good guy that finds out his wife is nailing his boss and kills her in a fit of rage and then must avoid the authorities until he can frame someone else. Anything but killing the evil wizard or vanquishing the dark knight, yet one more time.
SF and Fantasy literature has started to head in this direction. After spending a few days going through Stephen Donaldson's Gap into Madness series, I found myself trying to guess with whom I was supposed to sympathize. In my own Adventures of Alaric Swifthand, we've yet to meet anyone that is actually "evil." In Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber, the villains are almost a reflection of the protagonist.
Also, as long as I'm bellyaching, I have to bring up another point. I was there when the first graphic adventure came out for the Commodore 64. It was called Temple of Apshai, by a company Epyx (Jumpman, anyone?). Your character was a little stick figure, running away from the other little stick figures and it was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen.
Now I've played some of the finest RPGs on computer and have a question. What brain surgeon decided to call this role-playing? I would think that the so-called adventure games, far better fit that description.
I spent much of high school, all too many years ago, playing Dungeons and Dragons, and later Doublestar, a fantasy RPG of my own invention. With books and dice and paper and pencils. And when we played, we role-played. I really was my character and that was it.
Then they started making these games for computers and those of us that were involved in D&D stood by and shook our collective heads. "It'll never catch on," we said. People want interaction and the computer can't offer that on the same level that we have, when we get together.
That was, of course, all too long ago. Then we grew up, got jobs, had families and getting together even once a week for a couple of hours became a project. I work two hundred THOUSAND hours a week, less than most of my friends, mind you, but enough to be distracting. Then there's the family, my wife Joyce, the kid (Lisa, my lovely ten year old daughter, who might not make it to eleven) and of course the obligatory pets.
I sat down and started to play RPGs on the computer. My whole generation did. All my friends that used to get together, the very same guys that used to laugh at computer RPGs, are now playing them, instead of getting together.
Have the Quakers had the last laugh? Perhaps, but there is a little fact, almost a historical footnote really, that I now must add.
I have a friend a few years older than me that used to play war games. Not on the computer, but with the board and the counters and the two hour setup time. The whole nine yards.
This friend blames me for the death of that particular genre. Not me personally, mind you, but my generation. By playing RPGs instead of strategy, we were responsible for the extinction of war games. These days, he is reduced to playing his old games on the same computers he used to laugh at.
Like life itself, the reality of entertainment has evolved. The war strategy games were replaced by RPGs which has now given way to the 3D shooter. I can only imagine who my friend Andy, a bona fide Quake addict, will blame when he is my age.
Makes you think, no?
Webpage & Graphics by Samandi Adams
Copyright (c) 2003-2004 ~ All Rights Reserved
DOOM CLONE RANT
Being a writer is a dangerous business. Apart from the numerous paper cuts, fear of carpal-tunnel syndrome, the threat of monitor radiation tearing at your optic nerve and the conspiracies of publishers and their editors, there is the greatest danger of all. Fear of damaging your ego.
I think, at least on a gut level, all writers must be egotists. Why otherwise would we have to say something to everybody? Who the hell am I, anyway? Many people are quite content grumbling to themselves, or their spouses and friends, but not me. When something annoys me, I have to shout it from the rooftops.
So here I am again, ready to practice that most dangerous of professions. I'm going to say what I think and wait for the backlash that I just assume will follow. If I'm lucky, maybe some software companies will read this.
ENOUGH WITH THE DOOM CLONES! If I see one more first person shoot 'em up, no matter how well done, I'm gonna toss my cookies.
There, I've said it. I've been wanting to say it for two years. Now before anyone gets all huffy, I know that Quake is not Doom and Quake II is not Quake, but whenever I look at games lined up on a computer store shelf, it seems to me that a large percentage of the newest are always 3D shooters.
Now if I were to design a game, it would be adventure/role-playing. Definitely a combination of the two. It wouldn't be the type of game where if you forget one small detail in the first location you couldn't finish it, nor would it be a game that has repetitive combat situations, where you just blast larger creatures with more powerful spells.
My game would have an awesome plot, where the main character must solve puzzles, pick up magical and other useful items, and still advance his skills as he goes. There will be some form of interaction and not everything you meet will necessarily try to kill you. And you won't be good and they won't be evil, because I hate that single platitude more than almost any other.
Evil people don't think they're evil. They think they're good. It's time game makers started thinking logically. Give me a basically good character, who is propelled into a life of crime by circumstance. That would make an interesting game.
Make me a vampire and overpower me with a craving for blood, beyond my ability to resist. I'll feel bad after dinner, I promise. Give me a really good guy that finds out his wife is nailing his boss and kills her in a fit of rage and then must avoid the authorities until he can frame someone else. Anything but killing the evil wizard or vanquishing the dark knight, yet one more time.
SF and Fantasy literature has started to head in this direction. After spending a few days going through Stephen Donaldson's Gap into Madness series, I found myself trying to guess with whom I was supposed to sympathize. In my own Adventures of Alaric Swifthand, we've yet to meet anyone that is actually "evil." In Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber, the villains are almost a reflection of the protagonist.
Also, as long as I'm bellyaching, I have to bring up another point. I was there when the first graphic adventure came out for the Commodore 64. It was called Temple of Apshai, by a company Epyx (Jumpman, anyone?). Your character was a little stick figure, running away from the other little stick figures and it was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen.
Now I've played some of the finest RPGs on computer and have a question. What brain surgeon decided to call this role-playing? I would think that the so-called adventure games, far better fit that description.
I spent much of high school, all too many years ago, playing Dungeons and Dragons, and later Doublestar, a fantasy RPG of my own invention. With books and dice and paper and pencils. And when we played, we role-played. I really was my character and that was it.
Then they started making these games for computers and those of us that were involved in D&D stood by and shook our collective heads. "It'll never catch on," we said. People want interaction and the computer can't offer that on the same level that we have, when we get together.
That was, of course, all too long ago. Then we grew up, got jobs, had families and getting together even once a week for a couple of hours became a project. I work two hundred THOUSAND hours a week, less than most of my friends, mind you, but enough to be distracting. Then there's the family, my wife Joyce, the kid (Lisa, my lovely ten year old daughter, who might not make it to eleven) and of course the obligatory pets.
I sat down and started to play RPGs on the computer. My whole generation did. All my friends that used to get together, the very same guys that used to laugh at computer RPGs, are now playing them, instead of getting together.
Have the Quakers had the last laugh? Perhaps, but there is a little fact, almost a historical footnote really, that I now must add.
I have a friend a few years older than me that used to play war games. Not on the computer, but with the board and the counters and the two hour setup time. The whole nine yards.
This friend blames me for the death of that particular genre. Not me personally, mind you, but my generation. By playing RPGs instead of strategy, we were responsible for the extinction of war games. These days, he is reduced to playing his old games on the same computers he used to laugh at.
Like life itself, the reality of entertainment has evolved. The war strategy games were replaced by RPGs which has now given way to the 3D shooter. I can only imagine who my friend Andy, a bona fide Quake addict, will blame when he is my age.
Makes you think, no?
Webpage & Graphics by Samandi Adams
Copyright (c) 2003-2004 ~ All Rights Reserved