Interview Spector is Pro-Choice

[Hazelnut]

Complete rubbish. (IMHO)

Or not. As you go on to say...

I will agree that the overarching story and plot were linear - with limited scope for choices.

Huh. Now, on to the bullshit!

I was answering LlamaGod's specific assertion that "There wasn't a slightlest hint of RPG in there, even in the loosest sense."

You seem to think I'm arguing that DX was an RPG. Where did I say that? Did you actually read and try and understand my points, or just simply knee-jerk a reaction out?

Ooo.. OO.. OmiGOD! Billie! The way you jumped up on that one barrel, instead of like, just shooting the guy was just SOOOO amazing. It gets me sooo fucking hot.

Shut the fuck up. This isn't role-playing. This is basic tactics with a very limited set of choices.

Are you being facetious, or just a dick for sake of it? I really can't tell.

Have you actually played the game seriously, for some decent length of time? I'm curious about how you've formed this extreme opinion where you simply can't admit that there are elements of RPG in DX and that there actually is some scope for role-playing.

Obviously, what you describe isn't role-playing, but then there's a lot more to the game that you either don't see or don't want to admit. There are multiple ways to complete objectives, which will be easier or harder depending on your skill choices and more or less appropriate depending on the role you're playing. Yes it's limited, yes there are no dialogue skills, yes Bloodlines is a much better RPG, but no one is arguing the opposite to those.

You can't simply dismiss all this as the same as standard, if very good, shooters like the Half-Lives. (and they're more story driven than most FPS fare)

To dismiss Deus Ex as not having a slightlest hint of RPG is ridiculous hyperbole.

Oh, but I can. And no, it isn't. There are things I look for in an RPG, and DX had none of them. Zip. Zero. A weak-ass skill system and an approach to level building that allows for limited tactics doesn't qualify.

You can't simply fire up DX and play like you would any basic shooter FPS game, except maybe on easy. I thought it was a straight FPS when I bought it on a whim during a particularly tiresome trip to Toys'rUs. (yes I like some FPS games, as I'm sure many other members do as well) I hated my first play session because I had no idea that is wasn't. This one example is enough to prove that is can't be dismissed in this way, ragardless of whether there are some with super leet skills who could play the game as a simple FPS right from start to finish, if there are people who can't then there must be a reason.

I'm sure that there are things you look for in an RPG that DX didn't provide, since it was not a pure RPG. No one is arguing that it is. It does, however, have some role-playing elements that means that it's not a pure shooter. Maybe they were not enough for you to like the game, but that doesn't mean they're not there.

DX is no more or less an RPG than the system shocks or the underworlds. Personally I don't care whether they're labelled as RPG's or not - they still all have mechanics that allow role-playing and they're all as much or more RPG's than a lot of supposed RPG's are. I think that "First Person Adventure" is fairly descriptive in some ways, but misses out several important aspects of these games.

I'm somewhat surprised at the lack of positive reaction to what Warren is saying. I'd have thought that many codexers would appreciate the things he's saying as the right direction for games, or at the very least far better than the current trends. He may not be about to develop the pinnacle of RPG goodness, but I have a lot of time for what he says. He champions the kind of things that I like to see in games and talks a hell of a lot more sense than most in the industry.

Yeah, that would be nice and all, except he has never delievered. And the fact that its a complete 180 from the shit he was spouting a few years back makes it extra suspicious. Plus he has some guy looking over his shoulder saying, no, choices are a mistake. Yeah, good sign.

What? You think his track record is a problem? Compared to what & who that're trying to do the same thing? I think you're unfairly judging his work, but irrespective of that, how does it make it less commendable to keep trying to go in that direction?

Also, how would having changed his mind invalidate his position in any way? (I'm not convinced that's what happened, but I'm not sure about it, so lets not go off at a tangent since it's not particularly relevant)

Who's looking over his shoulder? I must have missed that bit. Valve's Gabe Newell disagrees with him, but so what? You agree with Gabe more than Warren?

Do you think maybe your post is another a poor example of the kind of 'foaming at the mouth' irrational vitriol that the Codex is unfortunately best known for. Which is a real shame because there are really important and rational messages about what is good & bad & not in RPG's around here which needs to make it out to a wider audience if anything is going to change in gaming trends! Attitudes like yours don't help, and is more akin to the ESF members with their entrenched opinions that seem to be detatched from reality.

 

[franc kaos]

Wing Commander (1990), ORIGIN Systems
* Wing Commander: The Secret Missions (1990), ORIGIN Systems
* Ultima VI: The False Prophet (1990), ORIGIN Systems
* Bad Blood (1990), ORIGIN Systems
* Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi (1991), ORIGIN Systems
* Wing Commander: The Secret Missions 2 - Crusade (1991), ORIGIN Systems
* Ultima: Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams (1991), ORIGIN Systems
* Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss (1992), ORIGIN Systems
* Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds (1993), ORIGIN Systems
* Wing Commander: Privateer - Righteous Fire (1993), ORIGIN Systems
* Ultima VII, Part Two: Serpent Isle (1993), ORIGIN Systems
* Ultima VII, Part Two: The Silver Seed (1993), Electronic Arts
* Wings of Glory (1993), Electronic Arts
* System Shock (1994), Electronic Arts
* CyberMage: Darklight Awakening (1995), ORIGIN Systems
* Crusader: No Remorse (1995), ORIGIN Systems
* Deus Ex (2000), Eidos Interactive
* Deus Ex: Invisible War (2003), Eidos Interactive
* Thief: Deadly Shadows (2004), Eidos Inc.

His first game was Space Rogue (he wrote the spaceflight code and Origin created a crap game round it). I played all those game upto and inc. System Shock, Deus Ex ran like crap on my system, so I never experienced it.

Increased detail won't impact gameplay unless developers change the way they THINK about gameplay. We're already reaching the limits of what can be achieved through hardwired object or character interactions -- it takes too many bodies to fill a screen with polygons and give all those polys gameplay significance. The future seems, inevitably, to lie in some kind of auto-generated content, and more important, allowing simulations to drive more of our gameplay. And that will require two things -- as much processing power as we can get and someone creative enough to figure out how to provide auto-generation tools that don't make us yearn for the days of designer-generated puzzles.

He used to be a god, and he's still one of the better developers out there still working to give games choice, consequence and immersion.

IMHO.

I hope games like GTA3, Thief, The Sims, Deus Ex and a passel of "freeform" sports games point toward a future in which interaction between player and game world becomes much less constrained than it has been in the past. Solving puzzles can be fun, but making your own plan, finding your own solution, having your own unique experience is more satisfying, I think. More detailed worlds HAVE to allow more varied interaction -- if developers just use processing power to create prettier backdrops, we're in trouble.

Don't diss The Man.

Seriously, though, I'd sure love to see someone address the NPC-interaction problem. I'm tired of role-playing games that don't actually allow any role-playing and characters that amaze us when they (all too rarely) rise above the level of cardboard cutouts.

Trust me, I don't think he wants a job at Bethesda...

Quotes from http://archive.gamespy.com/futureofgaming/spector/ 2002

 

[Zomg]

DX is certainly more of an RPG than SS2.

The character design and progression in DX were incidental to the light RP, but there are plenty of games with heavy "character design" that aren't RPGs in the least - racing games, sport games, etc. Character-design-for-gameplay (rather than character-design-for-roleplaying) is not intrinsically an RPG feature (although it's indigenous to the genre).

Roleplaying is about asserting a character's nature in an interactive narrative or setting. That was possible to a modest degree in DX.

On his technology arguments: Does anyone know of an article anywhere that would give me a really good post-mortem of the space shooter genre, from birth to the current deep coma? The space shooter genre tanked for a few reasons, but tt's my suspicion that a big contributer was that there was simply no headroom for simplistic technological improvements to the basic Wing Commander I space ace structure once you got to the sophistication of a game like Freespace 2 (given the low-impact nature of ships zooming around against simple backgrounds, mostly at long, indistinguishable distances). I'd bet that the industry was just not capable of the imagination it would take to exploit the large cultural footprint of fictional space battles in new and interesting games.

 

[doctor_kaz]

I won't listen to anything that Warren Spector says until we get a heartfelt apology for Deus Ex: Invisible War.

He talks about it in part 2 of the interview.

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?ar ... 769&page=1

Warren Spector: I know some folks thought Invisible War and Deadly Shadows were "dumbed down for console". And, yes, we did make a conscious attempt to reach out to a larger audience. (Increasing development costs'll do that to you!) However, both teams still set some mighty lofty goals - goals that had nothing to do with making the games accessible to a larger audience. I'm willing to acknowledge that both games fell short of their goals if some of the critics will acknowledge how many risks the teams took and how hard the challenges were that they tried to tackle.

But to answer your question, I don't think it's in any way - any way - necessary to dumb a game down for console or to reach a huge audience.

You just need to execute exceptionally well on a clear, compelling concept.

Gamers aren't stupid and they're not kids (not most of 'em, anyway). You can make serious, adult entertainment, release it on a console and succeed.

He talks about reaching a larger audience, but you don't reach a larger audience by unzipping your pants and taking a gigantic piss all over everybody who made you successful. Invisible War was an incredible slap in the face to PC gamers, and they knew it. They just didn't care. Without PC gamers, Ion Storm would have never existed, and Warren Spector would be a nobody.

Also, I won't acknowledge that Invisible War was some kind of super ambitious project. Compared to Deus Ex, it was very scaled back. It had smaller levels, less gameplay elements, less content -- less of basically everything that mattered except for crappy impmlementation of physics.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

He talks about reaching a larger audience, but you don't reach a larger audience by unzipping your pants and taking a gigantic piss all over everybody who made you successful.

I'm pretty sure this method of marketting would work on the Japanese.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Bam!

 

[TheGreatGodPan]

My general rule is that adventures don't have much combat (it might be a short minigame like the battlebots or space pirates in Space Quest 3) or stats. Calling everything an adventure is an insult to adventure games. The final fantasies may not be real RPGs but they aren't adventures either.

I didn't think dialogue skills were that common in CRPGs.

 

[galsiah]

Also, I won't acknowledge that Invisible War was some kind of super ambitious project. Compared to Deus Ex, it was very scaled back.

You're talking about what was delivered to users at the end of the project. That has little to do with the ambition of the team at the beginning of the project. Perhaps it was super ambitious (unrealistically), and therefore ran into trouble leading to the scrapping of many half implemented ideas in an effort to get it out the door.
Most "super ambitious" projects probably remain as vapourware, or suffer seriously due to unrealistic goals. The ones that come off well are the exceptions.

Given the eventual state of DX: IW, I can easily believe that the team was too ambitious at the start.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

What I dont get is why Specter is all of a sudden touting this pro choice attitude in terms of Games, when before this all we heard was the literal tyranny of choice from this guy's friggin mouth? Why the sudden change? Personally, i think it's faked and insincere. Only women can change their minds that quickly.

 

[galsiah]

The only references I can find to the "tyranny of choice" are in an anti-sandbox sense, not an anti choice + consequence sense. As I understand it, "tyranny of choice" is just supposed to mean "it's not a good thing (story wise) to stick the player in the middle of a vast world with many choices and little reason to prefer one over another" - i.e. he's not keen on a Morrowind sandbox style.
That has little or nothing to do with influencial, long term story decisions - it's just anti sandbox in terms of its effect on narrative.

I can't find anything to suggest that he was ever against significant choice and branching e.g. through dialogue. I just think he's in favour of informed, conscious player choice, rather than essentially random "choice" as a result of player wandering / experiment.

I'm not suggesting that his games exibit these things, but I don't see any philosophical flip-flop here. I'd say he's always been in favour of story branching (through informed player decision - not sandbox trial and error). He just hasn't done much of it in his games - but who has? [I know there's a list, but it's not a long one]

 

[Sol Invictus]

Spector was taken out of context in the original "tyranny of choice" saga. It's really not uncommon for things like that to happen over here.

With that said, when you consider the actual context he said those words, it's hard to disagree with Spector. Sandbox gameplay does in fact detract from roleplaying.