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General Category => Entertainment and Media => Topic started by: headphonics on November 07, 2008, 04:30:59 am

Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: headphonics on November 07, 2008, 04:30:59 am
So last night old darkwhite linked me this, and I don't pay attention to video game things, so for all I know this is MEGABIG or maybe no one at all knows or cares about it yet, but it is very, very cool, and probably the only interesting game thing I have read about in a long time.  Read this brief article real quick, as it kind of touches on a lot of what makes this game sounds like it is probably the most worthwhile serious effort in the genre probably ever.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/02/20/for-the-love/


Here is a video: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/10/15/love-video/

And here is a link to the game's site: http://www.quelsolaar.com/love/

This is the part I like the best:

Quote
...he intends to build the world into a kind of communal adventure, where gamers work together to furnish a central village, defend it from enemy attack, and explore the surround world and its many dungeons. Players will be able to do things like deform elements of terrain, allowing them to build tunnel networks or walls to defend their property.

I have had this exact conversation about basically this exact premise many many times, and basically every time I did, it ended with my saying YEAH WELL TOO BAD NO ONE WILL EVER MAKE THIS.  Like it is absolutely not about the same stupid shit other MMOs are about, because as near as I can tell he is making it completely by himself and hates GRIND FOR XP//EPIC ARMOR just as much as I do.  The idea of a small MMO being COMMUNAL though and more about sustaining your area or whatever is cool to me, and just the description makes it sound like it is more based around exploration/interaction than any real stupid false sense of progress like almost all other MMOs.

The visuals are also very nice, as you can see by this shot right here that captures the overall style pretty well.


According to the website, the environments are procedurally generated and so as a result a) I guess shit changes around quite a bit, or it potentially can, anyway, and b) player interaction with the world would be immense.  Like ability to TAKE AREA, TURN IT INTO HOUSES//CAVES//TUNNELS//WHATEVER.  That is great.

So yeah go to the website and read about the gameplay and CONCEPT/design principles I guess, and check out the screenshots.  It is really interesting and like I said before, probably the only game I have been actually legitimately interested in in a long time in more than a YEAH THAT MIGHT BE FUN MAYBE I'LL PICK IT UP way.  I don't know if he'll ever finish it, but even knowing someone out there is trying to make something like this is reassuring.
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: Eltee on November 07, 2008, 04:34:31 am
idk

the idea of a communal MMO is always great on paper


but never good in action (so far at least)
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: headphonics on November 07, 2008, 04:36:13 am
typical capitalist propaganda.  also what other communal mmos have there even been???  that shit went right by me
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: ShaunOfShadou on November 07, 2008, 04:58:37 am
it would seem appealing were the screenshots not just a bunch of elaborate paintings
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: headphonics on November 07, 2008, 05:02:56 am
http://www.quelsolaar.com/love/screens/love_city1.jpg

this is what a painting looks like to you Shaun_Of_Shadow???  that looks like a video game to me



also i'm going to bed but when i wake up there had better be some nongay replies to this......
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: Eltee on November 07, 2008, 05:28:59 am
dragon_x would know what i am talking about


face of mankind: communal world, economy, missions


oh wait it was a disaster


this does look interesting though

it is... pretty special looking!
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: goldenratio on November 07, 2008, 05:30:54 am
are there any videos of this? the screenshots are fucking beautiful. hella impressionistic. i love em. i want to play this game just because of that article man. but really i think screenshots dont even do this justice. i want to see this world move, i bet its fantastic.

also what is this game called? love?
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: HL on November 07, 2008, 05:36:00 am
I've been dying for this game but the reality always sets in:
If a company of 2,700 employees can't make a stable good MMORPG game until well into its first year after 5+ years of development, how is this SINGLE GUY going to be able to do anything close?

It's really kind of the same situation with this one PvP MMO I was kinda interested in, it's made by like 10 people and it's never ever going to get done, many things call this other PvP MMO vaporware simply because they don't have the workforce to do it!
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: Sludgelord on November 07, 2008, 05:46:08 am
man, crazy. the other day i was sort of formulating an idea kind of similar to this (i guess in concept) and it was cool but i thought YEAH TOO BAD NOBODY WILL EVER MAKE THAT. but yeah like panda said, this looks super cool and it's cool as hell that someone is doing this. it's also totally crazy that all of this was done by one dude. it seriously amazes me some of the stuff that comes out of the INDIE GAME DEVELOPMENT WORLD or whatever.
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: DoctorEars on November 07, 2008, 06:32:58 am
This looks really good, and sounds really good too. The art style is absolutely fantastic, loving that painted look.
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: Dead Phoenix on November 07, 2008, 06:43:45 am
heard about his a little while ago, sounds pretty interesting.

here's another RPS article with a trailer
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/10/15/love-video/
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: Barack Obama on November 07, 2008, 07:41:06 am
seems like it's something that'll get old really fast
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: ShaunOfShadou on November 07, 2008, 09:18:20 am
Quote from: headphonics on November 07, 2008, 05:02:56 am
also i'm going to bed but when i wake up there had better be some nongay replies to this......
i am sure your painting game will inspire a myriad of insightful discussions sir

btw it is shaunofshadou for a reason jerkwad

EDIT: you are an admin i see, touche and well played
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: headphonics on November 07, 2008, 12:05:21 pm
Quote from: Mr. L on November 07, 2008, 05:28:59 am
dragon_x would know what i am talking about


face of mankind: communal world, economy, missions


oh wait it was a disaster
Man I knew you were going to refer to something like this!  Face of Mankind never sounded especially good to me, and even after reading about all the features it sounded a lot like any other generic MMO with MISSIONS and FETCH QUESTS and SLAYING RATS.  I don't think this is like that at all!  Wait, I'm thinking of another game, not FoM.  FoM was just broken and terrible, sorry!  It didn't even sound like a very good idea.

Also GR it's called FOR THE LOVE OF GAME DESIGN or something but it gets shortened to For The Love or Love I guess, idk.  There aren't videos as far as I know, but that article said it looked similar to Okami, which I can definitely see.  And I mean, I'm not really counting on ever playing this.  Making EVERY ASPECT OF A GAME seems like it would take a while and in general this isn't something I'd expect one guy to finish.  But then I thought about how he mentioned the procedural generation and this paragraph on his site:

Quote
Love is being developed by Eskil alone, without funding or support. He is responsible for all code, design, networking, engine, art, pipeline and tools. More than just being an experiment in game design, Love is also an experiment in how games can be developed drastically more efficient using technologies like Verse, procedural generation, new tools and a host of other clever solutions.

And it occurs to me, I don't know a goddamn thing about programming!  So idk maybe things like not having to manually design the environments or NPCs and just building software to do it, and uh other "clever solutions" (they said his toolkits looked like games in and of themselves).  So I don't know, maybe this guy's process is actually INCREDIBLY EFFICIENT, and his idea also seems like it requires much less maintenance and development than a typical commercial MMO.  Like, the servers only contain 200 people each.  Even if he doesn't make it, it's good to know that at least some people who seriously develop games SHARE MY IDEAS and are willing and able to carry them out (at least partially!).

Also Shaved, I think on a fundamental level most things like this sound like they would wear themselves out.  That is what I think about basically all games that are played online.  It tends to be SOCIAL CONTACT//INTERACTION that keeps it from being repetitive to the point that you turn it off.  every adventure is a new one....................
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: headphonics on November 07, 2008, 12:10:29 pm
jesus christ i just saw that video.  goddamn that looked amazing.  i really didn't expect it to be so far along in development but that looks like it's progressing pretty well!  what do i know though.  still, it looks incredible, especially the terrain morphing or whatever.  just entire villages generating.  what i like a lot is how it looks fantastic and unique but at the same time does not look demanding at all.  the website says it is playable with a shitty cpu and 512mb of ram.
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: Rowain on November 07, 2008, 12:13:20 pm
Was Face of Mankind ever even finished? When I played, it was shitty because it was basically A LOBBY and then you could do missions (but they didn't work ie they simply DID NOT LOAD). This is a whole god damn world, not several small instances.

Examples of communal MMOs that actually ARE fun? (Or could be if more people played?)

http://www.rpgwo.com

I've played this game for a few years off and on in the past (haven't touched it in ages) but it's bloody fun because it features all this: terrain deformation, land claiming, full unrestricted construction, actual underground tunneling and construction etc. The downside is it's made by one dude in Visual Basic, looks like a turd, and has a bunch of kiddy, corrupt admins. The spark is there, however.

If Love is anything like RPGWO with beautiful graphics, it'll already be far beyond what we've seen come from the MMO industry thus far.
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: Vellfire on November 07, 2008, 12:56:48 pm
Man weren't they going to make something like this for the Xbox way back when and it got cancelled?  It had the word True in the title I think.  Fuck I'mma look it up.

True Fantasy Live Online.  When it was first announced it was supposed to be something like this, and it sounded amazing.  I think it got watered down after that though and then never released.  If this is going to be like that, I will definitely play it.


also
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: headphonics on November 07, 2008, 01:02:11 pm
The only thing I ever heard or saw about TFLO made it look like a generic FFXI-style grindy MMO with gay cel-shaded anime graphics!  I didn't know it was good upon conception (actually I am hesitant to even believe this, because iirc it was being developed by Level 5 right?  Everything they make is terrible).
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: Vellfire on November 07, 2008, 01:05:03 pm
Quote from: headphonics on November 07, 2008, 01:02:11 pm
The only thing I ever heard or saw about TFLO made it look like a generic FFXI-style grindy MMO with gay cel-shaded anime graphics!  I didn't know it was good upon conception (actually I am hesitant to even believe this, because iirc it was being developed by Level 5 right?  Everything they make is terrible).

Maybe the magazine that was describing it was WRONG or, like I said, it probably changed really quickly, but this was when it was very first announced, it sounded very similar to this.  They probably just announced it that way and then went "jk it's this same shit again" but that concept has always been awesome to me since reading that article.

edit: I read another article on some site about it from when it was announced and it sounded like a terrible generic MMO so I think that the magazine I read about it in was making it sound like something it wasn't.
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: Dale Gobbler on November 07, 2008, 03:21:53 pm
Watching the video reminded me of Myst. Like similar graphical style or something.

I think it looks good now because of the low definition of the video and the 3rd person birdseye view. Once you get into a first person view without the blurriness of the video quality, I don't think it'll look that good graphics wise, maybe Morrowind quality or below. And even though the graphical style looks good in the video, I just don't think the style of it will look as good in the actual game.
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: Ragnar on November 07, 2008, 07:00:27 pm
Looks like playing a Demoscene

I hope the guy who made this has some sort of life because it's the kind of thing that would be cool to accomplish but not if you're like a 42-year old virgin

also I hate when people talk about "Morrowind" quality or something I CONSISTENTLY ENJOY LOOKING AT THE GAME THAT'S HIGH QUALITY TO ME

Edit: It's like Dragon Quest 8 the graphics would probably get a 6 or 7 by now but for that game SEEING ADDITIONAL STUFF was actually a motivation to keep playing for me and the way everything came together made me sort of happy but no Crysis has better shaders

seriously in DQ8 I could seriously be thinking "I want to see how a metal slime looks" I don't think too many PC games have that

but yeah I like shit like this for the longest time I wanted to port Homeland to some other engine so we could auto-generate Earthbound-style backgrounds and crap like that. I love when stuff feels kind of full of motion and life even if it's just in a stylized way and not like WE MOVE EVERY BLADE OF GRASS AND OUR CHARACTERS ACTUALLY LOSE SKIN CELLS IN REAL TIME

Edit: In any case this already looks better than Spore

Edit: In general I think PC games pay too much attention to the way things look (textures and models) and not enough to the way things move/animate

Edit: I haven't really checked out PC games in a while though but that was a gripe of mine when moving to like, the SNES to the Playstation. Oh great it's 3D but everything just sort of SLIDES

Edit: I just checked out Far Cry 2 and my opinion still stands that it'd feel a lot more immersive if they'd just change some very basic stuff like make the game still playable while making the walking movement actually look like if you were walking and not rollerskating - I mean it sounds gripey but how many lines of code could it be to fix that

Edit: I remembered some game preview for the PS3 which turned out to be a fake game/gameplay video but I thought the way they handled the hand/gun animations was fucking perfect even though people don't like the graphics now. I knew there was something I liked about the preview and I guess it's that even with all this complicated physics stuff the guy's arms still look so fake

Edit: I think it's just that this guy is a PC developer who isn't retarded as far as animating things
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: Artis Leon Ivey Jr on November 07, 2008, 07:23:17 pm
i'll be honest i still dont understand what this game is. i read the article but its also an MMO? who are you in the game anyway?

its very idk SPORE??? i dont know i dont get it.
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: Rowain on November 08, 2008, 12:17:48 am
Well, the article doesn't exactly divulge GAMEPLAY SYSTEM DETAILS but yeah, sounds like you inhabit a persistant world with other players and can dynamically affect the landscape and build things. Sounds like it plays from the first person perspective. idk it doesn't talk about QUESTS or GUILDS or COMBAT or anything really, mostly just that you can alter the world far beyond the traditional MMO level, and that the game focuses on community and players working together to accomplish or affect things.
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: headphonics on November 08, 2008, 01:01:55 am
It doesn't go into many specifics, no, but I thought the game's website gave a pretty good idea of what it was, despite being sort of obtuse.
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: Mama Luigi on November 08, 2008, 01:05:23 am
No joke: this is the exact game I've always wanted to make. At least it seems very similar to my idea. I've always been inhibited by my lack of programming knowledge though.

Fucking brilliant that someone is striving to create this. I only hope it will one day be completed and will be successful.
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: Boulvae on November 08, 2008, 02:55:33 am
It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling, the same when I watch Samurai Jack. Which for me is good since I loved Samurai Jack.

But those little guys's running animation was... weird in the Video. If this comes out i'm totally checking it out.
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: WarV on November 08, 2008, 03:40:11 am
I don't know, it seems like you could get people who either didn't know what they where doing or just being shit heads building over everyone else all the time. So you and your friends might have  built a great fort, but then some shit faces comes and builds cliff because he wanted to jump off it -_-
Title: *splogges pants*: a treatise on for the love
Post by: Boulvae on November 08, 2008, 03:42:57 am
It's called Noob Traps. If you've played Garry's Mod you'd learn a few tricks with dealing with those types of people. (Garry's Mod is very heavy on the building stuff thing.)