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[RedKing]

Old games seem to age well for me, but that could be just because my eyesight is degrading such that I can't tell the difference. 

[Bohandas]

The cheap flashiness of real-time strategy and tactics has killed (or significantly diminished he market share of) turn-based gaming

[jaked122]

I like Sins of a Solar Empire, but I don't like Turn based games because I have to wait for the other players to finish their more convoluted turns. I don't like board games very much for the same reason admittedly.


As far as where games can improve, I think that NPCs are going to achieve something like a general awareness and management of their own goals, awareness of how the players can fulfill them, and the desire and ability to achieve them. Basically NPCs becoming more like people, if the player is an asshole who ruins their lives, then they work against the player holding a grudge, or they forgive them if they perceive some kind of advantage to them for doing so.


The worlds are going to have to be filled with things that are more like people, become more dynamic, etc to improve games further.

[wierd]

Dont let Ray Kurzweil hear you...

That's a good road toward AI shenanigans right there. (Frustrated AI shopkeeper in MMORPG decides that enough is enough, initiates war on "the gods")

[Wolfhunter107]

Dont let Ray Kurzweil hear you...

That's a good road toward AI shenanigans right there. (Frustrated AI shopkeeper in MMORPG decides that enough is enough, initiates war on "the gods")

That actually sounds like it could be the basis for an absolutely hilarious movie/novel.

[Bumber]

Totally get that. I remember some of the games I played in late 90's/early 00's were completely beautiful to me. Then I went back and played them 10 years later to think "WTF is this polygon low-res bullshit?"

The only game that didn't really lose its atmosphere in this way was the original Unreal. Still manages to look good 16yrs later.

Maybe you just need to reacclimate. Morrowind looked terrible to me when I tried it for a bit after playing Oblivion. I played it again recently after it went on Steam sale, and after a while it started looking pretty nice. Now I realize how terrible Oblivion's UI is.

[jaked122]

Dont let Ray Kurzweil hear you...

That's a good road toward AI shenanigans right there. (Frustrated AI shopkeeper in MMORPG decides that enough is enough, initiates war on "the gods")

If it's a recursively improving frustrated AI shopkeeper, he can do whatever he wants because the only way to solve the box problem is to make it so they don't want out.


The problem with it is we can't make a paradise for it, because we don't know what it wants, and we can't stop it from becoming frustrated in the first place.




Besides, this is a great writing prompt.

[wierd]

That box is gonna have more holes in it than swiss cheese.

It's going to have to accept and deliver data to and from millions of simultaneously connected end user systems. Just the idle banter of the PCs hanging out near the shop would incite the AI to realize there is more outside the box.

also, much of that premise-- Game AI wants out of the box-- is used, ironically, in the .hack series of  playstation 2 games. 

In that series, a programmer creates a recursive AI to oversee a game world called The World, named Morganna. He creates this AI with the intention of creating a virtual daughter, Aura. The Morganna AI is tasked with collecting very personal data from the users connected to the world, processing that data, and using it to guide the development of the Aura AI. Morganna realizes that if Aura ever wakes up, her purpose will be completed, and her runtime will terminate. To prevent this, and to escape from The World, she causes all manner of problems. (like putting nosy players who discover her existence into comas, and causing serious problems in SCADA systems connected to the internet.) Morganna even traps the consciousness of her creator in The World, and deletes most of him.

[k33n]

In the late 80s/90s, everything felt new and there was a great sense of progress and shock at the resolution/polygon jumps per year as well as the variety of gameplay. In the 2000s, everything felt really bland, pointless, and cash-grabby. Now in 2015, indie games are everywhere, lots of surprise hits and new game ideas, and the possibilities seems endless again.

[RedKing]

I can't agree...The 2000's produced some major innovations and groundbreaking games.

MMORPGs, for instance. From Asheron's Call (which debuted Nov 1999) to the monolith that is World of Warcraft (Nov 2004).

The first Portal game was 2007, as was noted hat-simulator Team Fortress 2. (Really, Valve pretty much owned 2007).

Bioshock, HALO, Rock Band, GTA 3, just to name a few....

The 2000s gave us Steam, among other things.

[Bohandas]

Nobody's made a decent City Builder game in years. Cities: Skylines is a piece of shit and Sim City 5 is apparently (I haven't played it) so bad that it makes Skylines look good by comparison. And Tropico 5 is really half-assed.

EDIT:
Plus thay all run slow as hell.

[Bohandas]

MMORPGs, for instance. From Asheron's Call (which debuted Nov 1999) to the monolith that is World of Warcraft (Nov 2004).

Subscription based games are even worse than pay-to-win

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Totally get that. I remember some of the games I played in late 90's/early 00's were completely beautiful to me. Then I went back and played them 10 years later to think "WTF is this polygon low-res bullshit?"

The only game that didn't really lose its atmosphere in this way was the original Unreal. Still manages to look good 16yrs later.

Maybe you just need to reacclimate. Morrowind looked terrible to me when I tried it for a bit after playing Oblivion. I played it again recently after it went on Steam sale, and after a while it started looking pretty nice. Now I realize how terrible Oblivion's UI is.

You should just do what everyone else does and jack up the resolution by absurd numbers, then replace the textures with better ones and jack up their resolutions too. God help the Morrowind fanbase, that game is going to stay modern-esq looking forever.

[Antioch]

Something I really noticed in Skyrim and Fallout is how those games are extremely formulaic.

You never get to see any too hard monsters or get to find any especially good items unless you are the right level. Every quest and dungeon is a direct copy of the others. The dialogue options are prefab.

I fucking hate it.

[Shadowlord]

Try the Witcher series instead.