SMART in Hindsight - Exedore @ GDC Europe

(wolfnemesis75) #61

[QUOTE=tokamak;372386]Textbook flame baiting.[/QUOTE]Truth is a harsh mistress. :slight_smile:

(wolfnemesis75) #62

[QUOTE=Nexolate;372388]Yeah, that’s the impression I got too.
That or naivety.

Regards,
Nexo[/QUOTE]Knowledge. Not naivety. :slight_smile:

(.Chris.) #63

Ha, I never noticed this but you’re right. (shirosae)

I remember ducks saying they were trying to eliminate the some times forced nature of ladders and such but they have indeed removed them outright and thinking about it yeah I guess you are right, it has had unforeseen consequences such as not been able to easily distinguish viable routes and so.

Wolf, there is multiquote on these forums now, use it!

(tokamak) #64

Would be nice if ladders and pipes and such could be used alongside smart though, like climbing a ladder halfway and then jumping from a ledge. It worked for Mirror’s Edge (besides just being visual indicators). It would give slower bodytypes some vertical freedom as well.

(Nexolate) #65

Tbh, I like the SMART system’s way of allowing you to climb over pretty much everything.
The problem I find is how enclosed areas are, preventing you from doing anything wild like climbing on the roofs.

There was multi-quote before, you just had to copy a quote into another reply box.
It’s how I get around forums anyway.

That would have been badass, you’re totally right.

Regards,
Nexo

(.Chris.) #66

[QUOTE=Nexolate;372400]Tbh, I like the SMART system’s way of allowing you to climb over pretty much everything.
The problem I find is how enclosed areas are, preventing you from doing anything wild like climbing on the roofs.

There was multi-quote before, you just had to copy a quote into another reply box.
It’s how I get around forums anyway.

Regards,
Nexo[/QUOTE]

Yeah the idea behind SMART is great but like with most of Brink’s ideas they aren’t been used to their potential.

Yeah that’s how I did it also but now there is now excuse for double posting when quoting.

(shirosae) #67

I should probably say: I do like some of the ideas behind SMART.

The wall bounces, wall runs, mantles, could all be useful if they worked more like trick jumping in ETQW and less like gimmicky setpieces.

I suppose even the slides could be useful, if they were on a different button so they didn’t exist just to screw up your positioning when you try to crouch from a sprint.

If Brink’s movement were like ETQW, I could see people QCJing up a stairway, using the extra speed/height to hit a wall at the apex, wallrunning along, and then wallhopping off, so it all acted like an extension of ETQW’s trickjumping. The secret to ETQW’s movement was that it was a set of freeform modifications to movement, that applied pretty much anywhere. You didn’t need to wait for a SMART hook to QCJ, so you ended up using it to escape from pursuers around cover, to literally jump over other players by ramping up a stairwell to attack from areas they had just checked were clear, etc. It was a set of tools that were always available at any moment.

SMART could have been an extension to that. A set of tricks you can dump on top of trickjumping to expand the options you’re given. Without that freedom of movement ETQW had, SMART really doesn’t seem to offer much other than a(n unclear) route selector.

(GreasedScotsman) #68

WolfNem: That’s why they created Heavy Body Type for those who want a more traditional shooter style and movement with limited SMART…

No. COD is not the “more traditional shooter style.” The reason why people keep pounding away at your posts is because you’re clearly young to the gaming scene and don’t seem to have a grasp that before your time, FPSes were fast-paced, provided MORE freedom of movement than Brink’s SMART system, they were based highly on aiming skill and required practice and mastery of all of these components for most players to be considered good. Ignoring this lengthy and far more substantive history than the recent COD-MW series is a nerd-crime. Keep in mind, COD-MW is only 4 years old. Some of us have been playing FPS games for 2 decades.

Don’t use the word “traditional” unless you’re going to use it properly or old people like me will grumble about you young kids needing to get the hell off my lawn.

(wolfnemesis75) #69

[QUOTE=GreasedScotsman;372453]No. COD is not the “more traditional shooter style.” The reason why people keep pounding away at your posts is because you’re clearly young to the gaming scene and don’t seem to have a grasp that before your time, FPSes were fast-paced, provided MORE freedom of movement than Brink’s SMART system, they were based highly on aiming skill and required practice and mastery of all of these components for most players to be considered good. Ignoring this lengthy and far more substantive history than the recent COD-MW series is a nerd-crime. Keep in mind, COD-MW is only 4 years old. Some of us have been playing FPS games for 2 decades.

Don’t use the word “traditional” unless you’re going to use it properly or old people like me will grumble about you young kids needing to get the hell off my lawn.[/QUOTE]Everyone’s coming out of the Nursing Home now! What, was there a sale on puzzles or something? Lol. COD is the Definitive Style of FPS shooters and all other FPS games will be judged in comparison to it in today’s current gaming cultural. Not sure how, or why you’d leave the nursing home of gaming to argue that. SMART system is not fully designed for all the body types in Brink partly for this reason. :slight_smile:

(.Chris.) #70

You do know who GreasedScotsman is?

There’s a big clue in his signature.

(GreasedScotsman) #71

Wolf, let me put it to you this way: Doom 1 & 2, Quake 1, 2 & 3, Counter Strike, Battle Field 1942, BF2 and the Unreal Tournament series did not need a “Hardcore Club” 3 months after their releases. Hell, some might argue Quake 3/Quake Live, Counter Strike and BF2 still don’t need a “hardcore club” years after their individual releases–though QL is finally fading, I’m sad to say.

If you look at what I’ve done with my time with Brink, you’ll notice I’m pretty much a fanboy. You can’t imagine the time and effort that went into creating and running Brink TV and doing our best to harness a competitive scene. I love the game. I’ve played it for hundreds of hours. However, I’m not blind or immune to the reality that the game has some sizable flaws and there are concrete reasons why sales were good (kudos Bethesda) but player retention is foundering. When I can’t find a server full of human beings, the fun drops off for me.

Again, why does Brink even need a “Hardcore Club” at 3 months of age? Why do games like Doom, Quake, UT, CS and BF2 still have sizable communities years, if not decades after their releases? These are simple, straight-forward questions that identify a clear and unfortunate reality that you can try to ignore, but that doesn’t make it any less real.

More starkly, almost every game I join in Brink has bots in it. Even just a few years ago, say, with ETQW, bots were the first thing you banished from servers as an admin and many of the best servers suffered from a wonderful problem: They were so popular and people were chomping at the bit to play the game that you’d run into a huge line of gamers trying to get in. The ! server, home of my former clan, was perpetually full, even at “non-peak” hours. Sometimes I’d load up ETQW, connect to the server and literally go make dinner because I knew it’d be a good 30 mins before I’d be able to get a spot. There was a community there and it was something, in addition to the glorious fun of the game, that you couldn’t get elsewhere.

Brink has none of these things and it breaks my heart to say so. If my work on Brink TV is any evidence, I wanted Brink to have these things… I wanted to be playing Brink for years. I wanted to be broadcasting exciting, nail-biting mind-bending games of Brink. That won’t happen–but not because the competitive community didn’t try. The hours they logged and the effort they put into the game is far beyond anything you might imagine. When I see 20 page power-point presentations or similar documents laying out strategies on a single map that originate from the console community I’ll take this one statement back. Until then, I’ll just say, “You don’t know what hardcore means.”

Back to my original point: Brink doesn’t have a competitive scene because it doesn’t hold the interest/entice the skill/present a challenge to enough gamers beyond the initial sale. The reasons for this have been beaten a few dead horses to a 2nd grave and aren’t worth repeating here. But worse than that, Brink doesn’t have a casual community either. 300 people out of the hundreds of thousands that bought the game on the PC is not really a community. And again, I suspect based on feedback that console numbers are similar relative to its larger player-base.

Given post-release interviews, it seems SD isn’t clear on why players haven’t stayed with Brink. That scares the hell out of me when I consider SD’s future titles.

(wolfnemesis75) #72

[QUOTE=GreasedScotsman;372515]Wolf, let me put it to you this way: Doom 1 & 2, Quake 1, 2 & 3, Counter Strike, Battle Field 1942, BF2 and the Unreal Tournament series did not need a “Hardcore Club” 3 months after their releases. Hell, some might argue Quake 3/Quake Live, Counter Strike and BF2 still don’t need a “hardcore club” years after their individual releases–though QL is finally fading, I’m sad to say.

If you look at what I’ve done with my time with Brink, you’ll notice I’m pretty much a fanboy. You can’t imagine the time and effort that went into creating and running Brink TV and doing our best to harness a competitive scene. I love the game. I’ve played it for hundreds of hours. However, I’m not blind or immune to the reality that the game has some sizable flaws and there are concrete reasons why sales were good (kudos Bethesda) but player retention is foundering. When I can’t find a server full of human beings, the fun drops off for me.

Again, why does Brink even need a “Hardcore Club” at 3 months of age? Why do games like Doom, Quake, UT, CS and BF2 still have sizable communities years, if not decades after their releases? These are simple, straight-forward questions that identify a clear and unfortunate reality that you can try to ignore, but that doesn’t make it any less real.

More starkly, almost every game I join in Brink has bots in it. Even just a few years ago, say, with ETQW, bots were the first thing you banished from servers as an admin and many of the best servers suffered from a wonderful problem: They were so popular and people were chomping at the bit to play the game that you’d run into a huge line of gamers trying to get in. The ! server, home of my former clan, was perpetually full, even at “non-peak” hours. Sometimes I’d load up ETQW, connect to the server and literally go make dinner because I knew it’d be a good 30 mins before I’d be able to get a spot. There was a community there and it was something, in addition to the glorious fun of the game, that you couldn’t get elsewhere.

Brink has none of these things and it breaks my heart to say so. If my work on Brink TV is any evidence, I wanted Brink to have these things… I wanted to be playing Brink for years. I wanted to be broadcasting exciting, nail-biting mind-bending games of Brink. That won’t happen–but not because the competitive community didn’t try. The hours they logged and the effort they put into the game is far beyond anything you might imagine. When I see 20 page power-point presentations or similar documents laying out strategies on a single map that originate from the console community I’ll take this one statement back. Until then, I’ll just say, “You don’t know what hardcore means.”

Back to my original point: Brink doesn’t have a competitive scene because it doesn’t hold the interest/entice the skill/present a challenge to enough gamers beyond the initial sale. The reasons for this have been beaten a few dead horses to a 2nd grave and aren’t worth repeating here. But worse than that, Brink doesn’t have a casual community either. 300 people out of the hundreds of thousands that bought the game on the PC is not really a community. And again, I suspect based on feedback that console numbers are similar relative to its larger player-base.

Given post-release interviews, it seems SD isn’t clear on why players haven’t stayed with Brink. That scares the hell out of me when I consider SD’s future titles.[/QUOTE]You do realize ( I hope) the irony of you bringing up the Hardcore Club as many times as you have? Some of your post is relevant, some is raw emotion and frustration some is PC Elitism. Which dwindles the intent. You do also realize that the games you outline are very old and that the gaming landscape has changed dramatically since then? Gaming is Mainstream now and this defines the creation of them, while in only a short few years, this was not necessarily the case. I’d wager 2008 was the year in which games became anything but what a PC-Only gamer like yourself is looking for. Unreal Tournament 3 tanked even on console! For example.

All new games are gonna face the same challenge going forward. Brink tries to straddle the fence in this way, trying to keep a foot in the old way (PC) and a foot in the new way of the gaming industry (Everything else). Because lets be frank, Brink could’ve been made more popular and its not hard to type up a punch list of ways to do that and ET:QW would not show up on that list! How to survive against juggernauts like COD? And it has become sink or swim. There is a reason that Battlefield 3 is marketing their game as going right at COD as a toe to toe fight. If you don’t take a direct shot at the champ (cultural perception), and prove that you can, then you are gonna be sent packing to the discount bin in terms of mainstream acceptance. Unless you have the full weight of Sony or Microsoft backing your product because its an exclusive. Like Halo. Or Gears of War. Or just create a game with mass appeal built up like in the case of anything Rock Star Games puts out. Oh, its by Rockstar. It must be good!

It is very likely, with the largest purchase base of Brink was on Console, that part of the challenge you are trying to overcome, is that which you fear the most? Changing gaming industry. The world has moved on. Gaming pool many times comes down to size of demographic. That is some of the uphill challenge most PC games will face in this age of the gaming industry. Games are played on Console in all ways that matter financially and viability. Then there’s the niche groups. This is not unique to Brink. Look at any new IP; Homefront, Bulletstorm, LA Noire, the list goes on. or even those with a previous title like Crysis that had a measure of success. And still disappointed. Or read as a list of gaming carnage. Not an isolated incident in 2011. The gap has widened and right now the gaming industry is bloated with sequels and play-it-safe titles. So, you take what you can get from Brink. All in all, its done well in retrospect of the current market trends.

The console crowd on Brink has grown considerably (noticeable difference) once the DLC dropped. Overall sales are very good. I see lots of hope. It is sad that’s not the case for PC. But you may be up against a larger struggle is what I’ve been saying all along. And you know it! :slight_smile:

(RabidAnubis) #73

What they need to do is make BRINK 2 or the new maps more like BRINK, a 3D world instead of a 2D world

Have you ever played homeworld? Most strategy games are fought in ‘2D’. Not Homeworld. It forces to make you think like a bird. It’s a bit overwhelming and they are scared of making players leave

It is very hard to get used to it. Even games like Call of Duty and Battlefield are just ‘layers’ It’s really still a 2D game, or how you think about it at least. The objectives are almost ALWAYS on story one or two, and when you say ‘Defend this house’ you are talking about a 2D object, simply laying there.

Explanation was bad, but you get what I’m saying?

(tokamak) #74

Brink could’ve been made more popular and its not hard to type up a punch list of ways to do that and ET:QW would not show up on that list!

That doesn’t even make sense.

(MoonOnAStick) #75

Ahhhhh, the death of PC gaming as prophesied by WN75 :wink:

@shirosae - never really thought about how the inconsistencies in where SMART is applied might obscure possible routes from the player. Probably some truth to that.

Still, I’d like to see a SMART 2 if only they could make it consistent across all geometry. Wall hops and mantles combined with trick jumping could be beautiful.

(Humate) #76

SMART really doesn’t seem to offer much other than a(n unclear) route selector.

You can also shave 0.3824 seconds off your time. Its pretty significant :wink:

(Fetter) #77

The thing is, people don’t want to play games where you have to exploit engine glitches and do complicated techniques to move correctly. This adds an unnecessary learning curve, and while it certainly takes more skill to move in UrT or W:ET than it does in BRINK, most people find that to be a bad thing. It shouldn’t “take skill” to move correctly and traverse obstacles. The SMART system is a great achievement in that regard and I think we’ll soon see it or systems like it become more prevalent in gaming as a whole.

(DarkangelUK) #78

1st of all, who ever said tricking was ‘moving correctly’? And do you have any evidence that most people think this way? Tricking was an additional component but was never ever considered a requirement. Tricking is used to do things that normally aren’t achievable, but it was never considered a requirement to move correctly… ever.

(.Chris.) #79

Yeah trickjumping is just something you can do to gain the upper hand but it takes a fair bit of skill to perform, it’s not necessary to win but can certainly help.

(Fetter) #80

I wasn’t referring only to trickjumping; even “simple” strafejumping or bunnyhopping falls under this category for me. The default movement controls should move you as quickly and efficiently as possible. I was never really good at W:ET, but at least in UrT it always seemed like knowing how to strafejump, walljump, and slide effectively was a prerequisite for high-level play.