and I don't mean that in some retarded texas ''if you don't like it then you can git out'' way
you just seem to enjoy it 'cause that's the only reason I can think of you keep posting here
There are a few sides to it, Whippy.
One, I do enjoy it. I find the theory behind gameplay mechanisms to be an interesting topic. I mean, I majored in computer science so that I could do game programming, so clearly I have a strong interest.
Two, the Wii isn't my favorite thing right now, but I'm not arguing out of bias and I'm not, like, an anti-fanboy? I don't know if there's a term for it, but someone who irrationally bashes something in the same way that a fanboy irrationally praises it. I'm not that. Look at my most recent statements, for example; I didn't say that the Wii is bad, I simply said that some genres, like FPSes, would work better on the Wii than other genres, like fighting games, based on the gameplay mechanics of those genres at the present time, and I explained why the interface is more conducive to one type of gameplay than another. That's not praising or bashing the Wii, that's merely examining its potential, analyzing its strengths and weaknesses.
EDIT: But thank you for referring to it as "facts and well-thought-out arguments" as opposed to the more commonly-used "your stupid Defender shit."
EDIT 2: "The Wii isn't my favorite thing right now" because of the selection of titles that it has. The sort of gigantic paradigm shift in gameplay based on the new input scheme has not happened yet. I don't expect it to happen this quickly, either. But that doesn't change that so far, most of the games look like either party games, which aren't for me, or ports of games that were basically designed for other systems. There seems to be a little step up in FPS gameplay (CoD 3) according to a decent number of sources, which is a good start, but I want to see the 1:1 stuff get used more than that. I don't just want to see flicks replacing button-pushes; flicks aren't even as good as button-pushing.
yeah, the wrist flip thing is less efficient than a button press, and it would make it a lot easier to get off quick hits with rapid A bashing, but i find it to be kind of fun to have to waggle my arm around to be able to slice things up. sword inefficiencies aside, when it comes to aiming the bow, slingshot, and hookshot the wiimote is freakin' awesome (which, i guess builds on your FPS gameplay improvement point), and when my roommate is sitting there watching me play, it's cool as hell to be able to point at things on the screen with the fairy or point at spots on the map whenever i'm asking him a question or he's asking for clarification on what the hell i'm doing.
and I don't mean that in some retarded texas ''if you don't like it then you can git out'' way
you just seem to enjoy it 'cause that's the only reason I can think of you keep posting here
There are a few sides to it, Whippy.
One, I do enjoy it. I find the theory behind gameplay mechanisms to be an interesting topic. I mean, I majored in computer science so that I could do game programming, so clearly I have a strong interest.
Two, the Wii isn't my favorite thing right now, but I'm not arguing out of bias and I'm not, like, an anti-fanboy? I don't know if there's a term for it, but someone who irrationally bashes something in the same way that a fanboy irrationally praises it. I'm not that. Look at my most recent statements, for example; I didn't say that the Wii is bad, I simply said that some genres, like FPSes, would work better on the Wii than other genres, like fighting games, based on the gameplay mechanics of those genres at the present time, and I explained why the interface is more conducive to one type of gameplay than another. That's not praising or bashing the Wii, that's merely examining its potential, analyzing its strengths and weaknesses.
EDIT: But thank you for referring to it as "facts and well-thought-out arguments" as opposed to the more commonly-used "your stupid Defender shit."
EDIT 2: "The Wii isn't my favorite thing right now" because of the selection of titles that it has. The sort of gigantic paradigm shift in gameplay based on the new input scheme has not happened yet. I don't expect it to happen this quickly, either. But that doesn't change that so far, most of the games look like either party games, which aren't for me, or ports of games that were basically designed for other systems. There seems to be a little step up in FPS gameplay (CoD 3) according to a decent number of sources, which is a good start, but I want to see the 1:1 stuff get used more than that. I don't just want to see flicks replacing button-pushes; flicks aren't even as good as button-pushing.
yeah, the wrist flip thing is less efficient than a button press, and it would make it a lot easier to get off quick hits with rapid A bashing, but i find it to be kind of fun to have to waggle my arm around to be able to slice things up. sword inefficiencies aside, when it comes to aiming the bow, slingshot, and hookshot the wiimote is freakin' awesome (which, i guess builds on your FPS gameplay improvement point), and when my roommate is sitting there watching me play, it's cool as hell to be able to point at things on the screen with the fairy or point at spots on the map whenever i'm asking him a question or he's asking for clarification on what the hell i'm doing.
Yeah, that's moving toward the larger point that I'm making. The Wiimote is in many respects analogous to a 3D mouse. Not completely, but it's similar. It has the capability to do the standard 2D pointing thing that a mouse can do. Not quite as well as a mouse or stylus, but very close. It can do sweeping motions, but supports 3D instead of just 2D. It also supports twisting motion, which mice do not. And it has the "lightgun" feature that makes it potentially a little better than a mouse for shooting stuff, but that's also what makes it slightly weaker for selecting stuff or being used to turn (in an FPS).
THEORY PART:
Waggling your arm around is more fun at first just because of the visceral connection between your movement and your character's movement, but I kind of pooh-pooh that because it's simply not as efficient an input mechanism. I know that it looks like I'm being all German-engineering here and arguing that UI efficiency is more important than fun, but that's a short-sighted view.
UI efficiency is actually very important to fun when you get to the later stages of gaming, like when you've played for a while and are at a high level of skill. At that point, UI inefficiency will get in the way of gameplay. For example, if you played Warcraft III online but had to use the Starcraft interface, you'd find that the inefficiencies of the UI get in your way and mess up your ability to play the game. If you played Tekken against another human and had to waggle your arm instead of pressing "right punch," you'd find that the delay basically means that the game reacts considerably slower than you do, and that is frustrating, which is distinctly the opposite of fun.
The control mechanism should be designed efficiently so that the player has minimal difficulty in indicating what he or she wishes to do, and so that the player can indicate these desired actions very quickly and reliably. But this reasoning only applies when you CARE about the game; for party games, it doesn't matter, because you don't care who wins. For single-player games, it doesn't matter, because Nintendo generally makes their games incredibly easy, so the lag won't actually make you lose. Where it matters is for games with deep, real-time gameplay. (Obviously, UI efficiency doesn't matter for turn-based games.)
unless you're directly competing against players on another console, who cares if button presses are more efficient?
i have more fun waggling, and everyone else waggling with me will be on the same level
I find that half the fun of playing games against other players is crushing them completely and gloating over the win. If button presses are more efficient, then it means I can play better, making victory even sweeter. I can waggle all I want with a regular controller in my hand. In fact, I do the thrusting motion quite often when playing against others, for intimidation you see.
unless you're directly competing against players on another console, who cares if button presses are more efficient?
i have more fun waggling, and everyone else waggling with me will be on the same level
I find that half the fun of playing games against other players is crushing them completely and gloating over the win. If button presses are more efficient, then it means I can play better, making victory even sweeter. I can waggle all I want with a regular controller in my hand. In fact, I do the thrusting motion quite often when playing against others, for intimidation you see.
But I do love the Wiigames I've tried. Hmm.
yeah, but if the other players are pressing buttons as well then they can be just as efficient as you are
if you all need to waggle to play, the best person is the one who can become most efficient at waggling
so for something like madden, sure i could press a button quicker on a 360 when i'm getting blitzed, but i much prefer frantically throwing the ball with a full arm motion
unless you're directly competing against players on another console, who cares if button presses are more efficient?
i have more fun waggling, and everyone else waggling with me will be on the same level
Haha, yeah, that's exactly what I was explaining.
It doesn't matter for party games, because it's more viscerally fun and you don't give a shit if you win or lose. And it doesn't matter for single-player games, because they can just dumb down the difficulty level.
I personally don't like party games that much. It's just not my personal taste. I can have fun playing Mario Party with my girlfriend and her friends or whatever, but I wouldn't play it with my male friends because most of them are straight. (I don't know why, but my gay friends like party games way more than my straight friends; not making this up.)
I also like challenging single-player games. The sense of reward for having done something difficult appeals to me, and also I find that interesting gameplay mechanics REQUIRE challenge. If you could, for example, beat every single Starcraft level (single-player) just by massing marines, hydralisks, or dragoons, the game would not be nearly as fun. The fact that you need to use different units and combinations of units adds to the complexity of your decision-making, and thus the depth of gameplay. So I don't like dumbed-down games.
Also, if you're playing a game with deep gameplay (e.g. Soul Calibur) against someone else, the fact that you're both crippled by an inefficient control scheme does NOT make it OK. Imagine playing Unreal Tournament against another person, and you both have 2 seconds of lag. Yeah, it's even. It's fair. You both have the same disadvantage. But the level of skill that you can develop and use will be severely affected by the lag. For example, sniper-rifle-type weapons will be nearly useless, but heat-seeking-rocket-type weapons will be grossly overpowered. The user interface needs to be as efficient and fast as possible, because inefficiencies there will cap the level of gameplay depth and can even fuck with the game's balance mechanisms. As another quick example, if you have two seconds of lag in Warcraft III, do you know what that does? Aside from "fuck up your micro," it actually adds two seconds to the cooldowns of all your hero's spells. Think about what a severe nerf that would be; You have +2 seconds to all cooldowns, your enemy doesn't.
you're assuming the wii controls are not suited to certain games by shoe-horning them into genres designed for traditional controls
the thing is that wii games need to be designed specifically with the wii remote in mind so that it doesn't get in the way of the gameplay. so while soul calibur 3 wouldn't be fun on the wii, a soul calibur designed with the wii in mind could be great
if you all need to waggle to play, the best person is the one who can become most efficient at waggling
Exactly the point of my last post. And this is exactly the problem. The actual gameplay starts to take a back seat to the interface. It stops being about who understands the game mechanics or who picks the right strategy, because the control scheme is actually playing a bigger part in the outcome of the game than the players' decisions.
A good user interface is transparent to the user. Like the keyboard I'm using right now. I'm not looking at it, I'm not thinking about where the keys are, I'm basically speaking aloud in my head and the words are appearing. I'm not focusing on the input device, it's just happening. If I were using a mouse to click on-screen buttons (like a virtual keyboard layout on my screen), this process would be much more annoying.
How much "user focus" or "user attention" a device takes is a recognized UI variable, and it's generally considered a bad sign when the user has to focus a lot of attention on a specific device. Less user focus is better. The ideal interface is thought; the user thinks, "I want to do X," with certainty, and the machine just does it. Winning a game because I'm better on the controller is stupid, because that means that the gameplay itself wasn't important.
UI efficiency is actually very important to fun when you get to the later stages of gaming, like when you've played for a while and are at a high level of skill. At that point, UI inefficiency will get in the way of gameplay. For example, if you played Warcraft III online but had to use the Starcraft interface, you'd find that the inefficiencies of the UI get in your way and mess up your ability to play the game. If you played Tekken against another human and had to waggle your arm instead of pressing "right punch," you'd find that the delay basically means that the game reacts considerably slower than you do, and that is frustrating, which is distinctly the opposite of fun.
The control mechanism should be designed efficiently so that the player has minimal difficulty in indicating what he or she wishes to do, and so that the player can indicate these desired actions very quickly and reliably. But this reasoning only applies when you CARE about the game; for party games, it doesn't matter, because you don't care who wins. For single-player games, it doesn't matter, because Nintendo generally makes their games incredibly easy, so the lag won't actually make you lose. Where it matters is for games with deep, real-time gameplay. (Obviously, UI efficiency doesn't matter for turn-based games.)
hopefully these issues will be handled once Nintendo and the game developers have really had a chance to figure out the mecahnics of the wiimote and its nunchuck friend. it could be a long wait, but once some powerful games come out we will be given a chance to really examine the wii at a basic level. i'm talking about unique games that are solely available on the wii and not based on an overused (albiet successful) set of games (zelda 64 and mario 64 type games, which they have no problems pumping out). having some truely on-their-own games will allow for them to stand out and not be compared to how the game has been handled in the past, or even presently on other platforms, and will (hopefully) give wii the support it needs, content-wise, to carry on.
hopefully this isn't all just some fantasy world i've created in my head and Nintendo will get their asses in gear and make some progress in the creativity department soon.
i hope the next control setup is just one of those full motion capture body suits, and you just triangulate some motion detectors onto your celing or walls
and the suit is comfortable but tiny so fatties have to starve themselves for weeks to be able to play the next gen stuff
you're assuming the wii controls are not suited to certain games by shoe-horning them into genres designed for traditional controls
the thing is that wii games need to be designed specifically with the wii remote in mind so that it doesn't get in the way of the gameplay. so while soul calibur 3 wouldn't be fun on the wii, a soul calibur designed with the wii in mind could be great
YES! That is exactly what I am saying.
For the Wii to be something better than a system full of watered-down ports with gimmicky, tacked-on control schemes, people need to make games specifically for the Wii, with the strengths and weaknesses of the Wii's input scheme in mind.
The next Soul Calibur would be shit on the Wii. It would just use the GC controller and have crappier graphics. But a fencing game with analog sword controls could be really great, and the Wiimote could be better than the analog sticks for that kind of game.
The key difference is input efficiency; if we're simulating full, 3D movement of the sword with twist and everything, then the Wiimote is the most elegant and efficient way to do this. That's where the Wii is really good. That's why firing guns from first person works better with the Wii's pointing system than with analogs.
A good user interface is transparent to the user. Like the keyboard I'm using right now. I'm not looking at it, I'm not thinking about where the keys are, I'm basically speaking aloud in my head and the words are appearing. I'm not focusing on the input device, it's just happening. If I were using a mouse to click on-screen buttons (like a virtual keyboard layout on my screen), this process would be much more annoying.
How much "user focus" or "user attention" a device takes is a recognized UI variable, and it's generally considered a bad sign when the user has to focus a lot of attention on a specific device. Less user focus is better. The ideal interface is thought; the user thinks, "I want to do X," with certainty, and the machine just does it. Winning a game because I'm better on the controller is stupid, because that means that the gameplay itself wasn't important.
at about 22 hours into zelda, i'm finally starting to reach that point. i'm really starting to forget that i'm holding 2 controllers instead of one, and that i'm waving my arm and pointing at the screen instead of simply clicking and moving a joystick. my roomate pointed out to me that i was even handling the DVD player remote as if it was the wii's remote and pointing at the menu options, and i hadn't even realized it.
slowly, the wiimote is becoming an extension of my arm.
i hope the next control setup is just one of those full motion capture body suits, and you just triangulate some motion detectors onto your celing or walls
and the suit is comfortable but tiny so fatties have to starve themselves for weeks to be able to play the next gen stuff
I want the next interface to be a plug you have to surgically get in your head, like in Shadowrun, plugging into the Nintendo ReRevolution or whatever, and everything would be controlled and presented in your head. The next gen would be wireless, and you'd just be humming along, walking to work, playing the new Zelda and junk.
I probably will though, this fall when the big-name games come out.
I guess it is kind of good I bought one at launch because I most likely won't have $300 spare dollars come next fall, like I did this past fall.
Also, I've noticed my Wii occasionally freezes when shifting between channels, like the screen just stays black. It's only done this once on the day I got it, and then like twice after I hadn't played it in like 3 weeks.
if you all need to waggle to play, the best person is the one who can become most efficient at waggling
Exactly the point of my last post. And this is exactly the problem. The actual gameplay starts to take a back seat to the interface. It stops being about who understands the game mechanics or who picks the right strategy, because the control scheme is actually playing a bigger part in the outcome of the game than the players' decisions.
A good user interface is transparent to the user. Like the keyboard I'm using right now. I'm not looking at it, I'm not thinking about where the keys are, I'm basically speaking aloud in my head and the words are appearing. I'm not focusing on the input device, it's just happening. If I were using a mouse to click on-screen buttons (like a virtual keyboard layout on my screen), this process would be much more annoying.
How much "user focus" or "user attention" a device takes is a recognized UI variable, and it's generally considered a bad sign when the user has to focus a lot of attention on a specific device. Less user focus is better. The ideal interface is thought; the user thinks, "I want to do X," with certainty, and the machine just does it. Winning a game because I'm better on the controller is stupid, because that means that the gameplay itself wasn't important.
you make is sound like traditional controllers and keyboards are impossible to make mistakes with
the main thing is that developers need to think of a way to utilize the controls for their specific game so that it is still challenging to play yet not frustrating
using a fighting game as an example, waving the remote about is probably not the best way. maybe though, a developer could make it so that you need to hold the remote at a certain angle and then press B to perform a certain move (such as aimed slightly downward for a low attack, up for a high, etc)
this would be a different take on the genre without having a ton of game-crippling lag
you just need to be creative when developing for the Wii
also, controlling a game with your brain would be awesome for strategy games and adventure games, but pretty much every other genre would suck
my brain is too sporadic and i would end up fucking up and walking off edges or stabbing myself because i had a rogue thought that got out of my control
On the converse, though, certain sword skills you learn are both easier and faster to pull off with the Wii remote.
I have heard that this is not at all the case from a person whose opinion I trust who has played both. Also, the theory isn't sound; key-pressing, as a matter of UI, is always shorter than gesture-based (e.g. mouse) selection. This isn't just my personal theory, either, there's a branch of computer science that deals with this.
Maybe it's because my fingers are not exceptionally dexterous, so I prefer hand movements to button combinations.
UI efficiency is actually very important to fun when you get to the later stages of gaming, like when you've played for a while and are at a high level of skill. At that point, UI inefficiency will get in the way of gameplay. For example, if you played Warcraft III online but had to use the Starcraft interface, you'd find that the inefficiencies of the UI get in your way and mess up your ability to play the game. If you played Tekken against another human and had to waggle your arm instead of pressing "right punch," you'd find that the delay basically means that the game reacts considerably slower than you do, and that is frustrating, which is distinctly the opposite of fun.
The control mechanism should be designed efficiently so that the player has minimal difficulty in indicating what he or she wishes to do, and so that the player can indicate these desired actions very quickly and reliably. But this reasoning only applies when you CARE about the game; for party games, it doesn't matter, because you don't care who wins. For single-player games, it doesn't matter, because Nintendo generally makes their games incredibly easy, so the lag won't actually make you lose. Where it matters is for games with deep, real-time gameplay. (Obviously, UI efficiency doesn't matter for turn-based games.)
hopefully these issues will be handled once Nintendo and the game developers have really had a chance to figure out the mecahnics of the wiimote and its nunchuck friend. it could be a long wait, but once some powerful games come out we will be given a chance to really examine the wii at a basic level. i'm talking about unique games that are solely available on the wii and not based on an overused (albiet successful) set of games (zelda 64 and mario 64 type games, which they have no problems pumping out). having some truely on-their-own games will allow for them to stand out and not be compared to how the game has been handled in the past, or even presently on other platforms, and will (hopefully) give wii the support it needs, content-wise, to carry on.
hopefully this isn't all just some fantasy world i've created in my head and Nintendo will get their asses in gear and make some progress in the creativity department soon.
Yup, that's my stance on it, more or less. I'd love to see some indie people do some truly cool shit on here. Some stuff that actually can't be done properly on other consoles for fundamental gameplay reasons. But it's not gonna be this week.
you make is sound like traditional controllers and keyboards are impossible to make mistakes with
Digital devices like keyboards have lower error rates when you are inputting a high volume of data in a very short time. Think about how fast you type. You make some errors, that's fine. Now think about using the Wiimote to pick letters off of an on-screen menu as fast as you type with the keyboard and think about what would happen. You'd type slower, because you simply cannot match that speed, and you'd make a ton more errors because you're rushing.
Now think about an intense match of Tekken or Street Fighter. You'd definitely be slower, and if you try to take a slower action and speed it up, you make more mistakes. So your input would be slower and clumsier.
the main thing is that developers need to think of a way to utilize the controls for their specific game so that it is still challenging to play yet not frustrating
using a fighting game as an example, waving the remote about is probably not the best way. maybe though, a developer could make it so that you need to hold the remote at a certain angle and then press B to perform a certain move (such as aimed slightly downward for a low attack, up for a high, etc)
this would be a different take on the genre without having a ton of game-crippling lag
However, it would be easier to get the move wrong than it is with the d-pad. The digital nature of the d-pad means that pressing "down-forward + B" on there is easy to get exactly right every time you do it (or almost every time). The Wiimote will have a lower accuracy rate, and it will take longer to point the Wiimote (wrist action) than to hit the d-pad (thumb action). The problem is this: The d-pad is a simpler device, and it is sufficient for the amount of information the player is trying to communicate to the game. Think about it, there are only 9 states for the d-pad...the four straight directions, the four diagonals, and "not pressing any direction." The Wiimote, on the other hand, has a ton of possible 3D vector values for where it faces and its translational velocity and its angular velocity...it should be used for more complex pieces of data, like where and how you are swinging a 1:1 sword.
you just need to be creative when developing for the Wii
Yes, and the amount of creativity you'd need for this would be something like Die By The Sword, but with 3D sword control instead of 2D, where a button-based scheme really doesn't quite cut it.
also, controlling a game with your brain would be awesome for strategy games and adventure games, but pretty much every other genre would suck
my brain is too sporadic and i would end up fucking up and walking off edges or stabbing myself because i had a rogue thought that got out of my control
That's why I say "with certainty." When you consider doing something in real life, like pulling a tray out of the oven, but then go "wait, no, that's really hot" and go get the oven mitt, that's the level of certainty. You considered just pulling the tray straight out of the oven for a split second, then decided that it was not a good idea.
I disagree that every other genre would suck. It's not like the game would play itself for you, you know. Jumping in Super Mario Brothers, for example, would still take the same timing, only instead of thinking "jump" and pushing "A," now you would just have to think "jump" and it would happen. Or catching and countering a punch in Tekken. Instead of thinking "counter" and pressing "back + A + B," now you just think "counter" at the right moment. It lowers the interface learning curve because you don't need to get used to weird button-press patterns, you just have to learn the move list and when to use the different moves. Also, all those bullshit super moves in Street Fighter? You'd just have to know what moves you can do with what characters, you would not have to spend time mastering the obscure, annoying controller sequences to make them happen. Basically, any game where actually controlling the game isn't supposed to be hard would benefit from this.
EDIT: Needless to say, a mind-reading (let's call it "intention-sensing") input device would allow FULL-BODY 1:1 games. People who are currently trashing their living rooms with Wiimotes and punching their friends in Wii Boxing should be tied down, though.
Now I want you to imagine Jedi Knight in this kind of system. Imagine THINKING "push that storm trooper" and the dude falls down. You didn't push any buttons to do that. You actually did it with your mind. How goddamn cool would that be.
On the converse, though, certain sword skills you learn are both easier and faster to pull off with the Wii remote.
I have heard that this is not at all the case from a person whose opinion I trust who has played both. Also, the theory isn't sound; key-pressing, as a matter of UI, is always shorter than gesture-based (e.g. mouse) selection. This isn't just my personal theory, either, there's a branch of computer science that deals with this.
Maybe it's because my fingers are not exceptionally dexterous, so I prefer hand movements to button combinations.
That's kind of something that you just need to learn. First-time Wiimote users are going to have lots of trouble with it. First-time lightgun users fire all over the place. It's really not the fault of the interface any more than the keyboard is to be blamed for people who have been typing for years and still use hunt-and-peck typing.
All I'm saying is after just a few months of using the Wii Remote, I can honestly say I prefer it to console controllers, and wish there was some way to retroactively Wii out a bunch of old games. It's just something that comes more naturally to me, and adds more to the gameplay.
All I'm saying is after just a few months of using the Wii Remote, I can honestly say I prefer it to console controllers, and wish there was some way to retroactively Wii out a bunch of old games. It's just something that comes more naturally to me, and adds more to the gameplay.
All I'm saying is after just a few months of using the Wii Remote, I can honestly say I prefer it to console controllers, and wish there was some way to retroactively Wii out a bunch of old games. It's just something that comes more naturally to me, and adds more to the gameplay.
I'm sorry but I have to say, that's still on you. Just like someone who complains that an RTS is too hard because you use the mouse instead of the gamepad; it's well-designed, and it is therefore not the fault of the system that you're struggling. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but it's unfair to blame the system here.
All I'm saying is after just a few months of using the Wii Remote, I can honestly say I prefer it to console controllers, and wish there was some way to retroactively Wii out a bunch of old games. It's just something that comes more naturally to me, and adds more to the gameplay.
I'm sorry but I have to say, that's still on you. Just like someone who complains that an RTS is too hard because you use the mouse instead of the gamepad; it's well-designed, and it is therefore not the fault of the system that you're struggling. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but it's unfair to blame the system here.
i don't necessarily prefer the remote on an efficiency level for everything, but on a comfort and fun level
i don't care if i can swing the sword a split second faster in Zelda GC, i had an amazing time with the Wii version
I'm not blaming the console controllers on my own shortcomings, but I'm just saying I see the Wii Remote as an improvement over controllers, and a step in the right direction, as opposed to just an equal alternative.
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you're assuming the wii controls are not suited to certain games by shoe-horning them into genres designed for traditional controls
the thing is that wii games need to be designed specifically with the wii remote in mind so that it doesn't get in the way of the gameplay. so while soul calibur 3 wouldn't be fun on the wii, a soul calibur designed with the wii in mind could be great
You make a valid point but Madden was not designed specifically for the wii and it's controls are pretty fun if you ask me. It's possible to redesign some games around the wii it's just difficult to do well.
Posts
because it's easy pickin's
like
I don't mean you're trolling us
but I don't think you like the wii very much
but you've been all over this thread with facts and science and well-thought out arguments
and I'm just like
man
you just seem to enjoy it 'cause that's the only reason I can think of you keep posting here
There are a few sides to it, Whippy.
One, I do enjoy it. I find the theory behind gameplay mechanisms to be an interesting topic. I mean, I majored in computer science so that I could do game programming, so clearly I have a strong interest.
Two, the Wii isn't my favorite thing right now, but I'm not arguing out of bias and I'm not, like, an anti-fanboy? I don't know if there's a term for it, but someone who irrationally bashes something in the same way that a fanboy irrationally praises it. I'm not that. Look at my most recent statements, for example; I didn't say that the Wii is bad, I simply said that some genres, like FPSes, would work better on the Wii than other genres, like fighting games, based on the gameplay mechanics of those genres at the present time, and I explained why the interface is more conducive to one type of gameplay than another. That's not praising or bashing the Wii, that's merely examining its potential, analyzing its strengths and weaknesses.
EDIT: But thank you for referring to it as "facts and well-thought-out arguments" as opposed to the more commonly-used "your stupid Defender shit."
EDIT 2: "The Wii isn't my favorite thing right now" because of the selection of titles that it has. The sort of gigantic paradigm shift in gameplay based on the new input scheme has not happened yet. I don't expect it to happen this quickly, either. But that doesn't change that so far, most of the games look like either party games, which aren't for me, or ports of games that were basically designed for other systems. There seems to be a little step up in FPS gameplay (CoD 3) according to a decent number of sources, which is a good start, but I want to see the 1:1 stuff get used more than that. I don't just want to see flicks replacing button-pushes; flicks aren't even as good as button-pushing.
Save you some trouble: BUY A GAMECUBE WAVEBIRD.
Dude.
He was referring to your "arguing about the Wii" being your favorite thing right now.
Was replying to that.
i mean...i think i've read more news in the last 20 minutes than in the last 2 months because it's right there
although i really don't see me ever using it for more than just "goddamn, i'm bored, let's browse the news"
yeah, the wrist flip thing is less efficient than a button press, and it would make it a lot easier to get off quick hits with rapid A bashing, but i find it to be kind of fun to have to waggle my arm around to be able to slice things up. sword inefficiencies aside, when it comes to aiming the bow, slingshot, and hookshot the wiimote is freakin' awesome (which, i guess builds on your FPS gameplay improvement point), and when my roommate is sitting there watching me play, it's cool as hell to be able to point at things on the screen with the fairy or point at spots on the map whenever i'm asking him a question or he's asking for clarification on what the hell i'm doing.
god you're still going at it huh
i have more fun waggling, and everyone else waggling with me will be on the same level
Yeah, that's moving toward the larger point that I'm making. The Wiimote is in many respects analogous to a 3D mouse. Not completely, but it's similar. It has the capability to do the standard 2D pointing thing that a mouse can do. Not quite as well as a mouse or stylus, but very close. It can do sweeping motions, but supports 3D instead of just 2D. It also supports twisting motion, which mice do not. And it has the "lightgun" feature that makes it potentially a little better than a mouse for shooting stuff, but that's also what makes it slightly weaker for selecting stuff or being used to turn (in an FPS).
THEORY PART:
Waggling your arm around is more fun at first just because of the visceral connection between your movement and your character's movement, but I kind of pooh-pooh that because it's simply not as efficient an input mechanism. I know that it looks like I'm being all German-engineering here and arguing that UI efficiency is more important than fun, but that's a short-sighted view.
UI efficiency is actually very important to fun when you get to the later stages of gaming, like when you've played for a while and are at a high level of skill. At that point, UI inefficiency will get in the way of gameplay. For example, if you played Warcraft III online but had to use the Starcraft interface, you'd find that the inefficiencies of the UI get in your way and mess up your ability to play the game. If you played Tekken against another human and had to waggle your arm instead of pressing "right punch," you'd find that the delay basically means that the game reacts considerably slower than you do, and that is frustrating, which is distinctly the opposite of fun.
The control mechanism should be designed efficiently so that the player has minimal difficulty in indicating what he or she wishes to do, and so that the player can indicate these desired actions very quickly and reliably. But this reasoning only applies when you CARE about the game; for party games, it doesn't matter, because you don't care who wins. For single-player games, it doesn't matter, because Nintendo generally makes their games incredibly easy, so the lag won't actually make you lose. Where it matters is for games with deep, real-time gameplay. (Obviously, UI efficiency doesn't matter for turn-based games.)
I find that half the fun of playing games against other players is crushing them completely and gloating over the win. If button presses are more efficient, then it means I can play better, making victory even sweeter. I can waggle all I want with a regular controller in my hand. In fact, I do the thrusting motion quite often when playing against others, for intimidation you see.
But I do love the Wiigames I've tried. Hmm.
yeah, but if the other players are pressing buttons as well then they can be just as efficient as you are
if you all need to waggle to play, the best person is the one who can become most efficient at waggling
so for something like madden, sure i could press a button quicker on a 360 when i'm getting blitzed, but i much prefer frantically throwing the ball with a full arm motion
Haha, yeah, that's exactly what I was explaining.
It doesn't matter for party games, because it's more viscerally fun and you don't give a shit if you win or lose. And it doesn't matter for single-player games, because they can just dumb down the difficulty level.
I personally don't like party games that much. It's just not my personal taste. I can have fun playing Mario Party with my girlfriend and her friends or whatever, but I wouldn't play it with my male friends because most of them are straight. (I don't know why, but my gay friends like party games way more than my straight friends; not making this up.)
I also like challenging single-player games. The sense of reward for having done something difficult appeals to me, and also I find that interesting gameplay mechanics REQUIRE challenge. If you could, for example, beat every single Starcraft level (single-player) just by massing marines, hydralisks, or dragoons, the game would not be nearly as fun. The fact that you need to use different units and combinations of units adds to the complexity of your decision-making, and thus the depth of gameplay. So I don't like dumbed-down games.
Also, if you're playing a game with deep gameplay (e.g. Soul Calibur) against someone else, the fact that you're both crippled by an inefficient control scheme does NOT make it OK. Imagine playing Unreal Tournament against another person, and you both have 2 seconds of lag. Yeah, it's even. It's fair. You both have the same disadvantage. But the level of skill that you can develop and use will be severely affected by the lag. For example, sniper-rifle-type weapons will be nearly useless, but heat-seeking-rocket-type weapons will be grossly overpowered. The user interface needs to be as efficient and fast as possible, because inefficiencies there will cap the level of gameplay depth and can even fuck with the game's balance mechanisms. As another quick example, if you have two seconds of lag in Warcraft III, do you know what that does? Aside from "fuck up your micro," it actually adds two seconds to the cooldowns of all your hero's spells. Think about what a severe nerf that would be; You have +2 seconds to all cooldowns, your enemy doesn't.
the thing is that wii games need to be designed specifically with the wii remote in mind so that it doesn't get in the way of the gameplay. so while soul calibur 3 wouldn't be fun on the wii, a soul calibur designed with the wii in mind could be great
Exactly the point of my last post. And this is exactly the problem. The actual gameplay starts to take a back seat to the interface. It stops being about who understands the game mechanics or who picks the right strategy, because the control scheme is actually playing a bigger part in the outcome of the game than the players' decisions.
A good user interface is transparent to the user. Like the keyboard I'm using right now. I'm not looking at it, I'm not thinking about where the keys are, I'm basically speaking aloud in my head and the words are appearing. I'm not focusing on the input device, it's just happening. If I were using a mouse to click on-screen buttons (like a virtual keyboard layout on my screen), this process would be much more annoying.
How much "user focus" or "user attention" a device takes is a recognized UI variable, and it's generally considered a bad sign when the user has to focus a lot of attention on a specific device. Less user focus is better. The ideal interface is thought; the user thinks, "I want to do X," with certainty, and the machine just does it. Winning a game because I'm better on the controller is stupid, because that means that the gameplay itself wasn't important.
hopefully this isn't all just some fantasy world i've created in my head and Nintendo will get their asses in gear and make some progress in the creativity department soon.
and the suit is comfortable but tiny so fatties have to starve themselves for weeks to be able to play the next gen stuff
YES! That is exactly what I am saying.
For the Wii to be something better than a system full of watered-down ports with gimmicky, tacked-on control schemes, people need to make games specifically for the Wii, with the strengths and weaknesses of the Wii's input scheme in mind.
The next Soul Calibur would be shit on the Wii. It would just use the GC controller and have crappier graphics. But a fencing game with analog sword controls could be really great, and the Wiimote could be better than the analog sticks for that kind of game.
The key difference is input efficiency; if we're simulating full, 3D movement of the sword with twist and everything, then the Wiimote is the most elegant and efficient way to do this. That's where the Wii is really good. That's why firing guns from first person works better with the Wii's pointing system than with analogs.
slowly, the wiimote is becoming an extension of my arm.
I want the next interface to be a plug you have to surgically get in your head, like in Shadowrun, plugging into the Nintendo ReRevolution or whatever, and everything would be controlled and presented in your head. The next gen would be wireless, and you'd just be humming along, walking to work, playing the new Zelda and junk.
I probably will though, this fall when the big-name games come out.
I guess it is kind of good I bought one at launch because I most likely won't have $300 spare dollars come next fall, like I did this past fall.
Also, I've noticed my Wii occasionally freezes when shifting between channels, like the screen just stays black. It's only done this once on the day I got it, and then like twice after I hadn't played it in like 3 weeks.
Anyone experience that?
you make is sound like traditional controllers and keyboards are impossible to make mistakes with
the main thing is that developers need to think of a way to utilize the controls for their specific game so that it is still challenging to play yet not frustrating
using a fighting game as an example, waving the remote about is probably not the best way. maybe though, a developer could make it so that you need to hold the remote at a certain angle and then press B to perform a certain move (such as aimed slightly downward for a low attack, up for a high, etc)
this would be a different take on the genre without having a ton of game-crippling lag
you just need to be creative when developing for the Wii
Maybe it's because my fingers are not exceptionally dexterous, so I prefer hand movements to button combinations.
Yup, that's my stance on it, more or less. I'd love to see some indie people do some truly cool shit on here. Some stuff that actually can't be done properly on other consoles for fundamental gameplay reasons. But it's not gonna be this week.
Digital devices like keyboards have lower error rates when you are inputting a high volume of data in a very short time. Think about how fast you type. You make some errors, that's fine. Now think about using the Wiimote to pick letters off of an on-screen menu as fast as you type with the keyboard and think about what would happen. You'd type slower, because you simply cannot match that speed, and you'd make a ton more errors because you're rushing.
Now think about an intense match of Tekken or Street Fighter. You'd definitely be slower, and if you try to take a slower action and speed it up, you make more mistakes. So your input would be slower and clumsier.
However, it would be easier to get the move wrong than it is with the d-pad. The digital nature of the d-pad means that pressing "down-forward + B" on there is easy to get exactly right every time you do it (or almost every time). The Wiimote will have a lower accuracy rate, and it will take longer to point the Wiimote (wrist action) than to hit the d-pad (thumb action). The problem is this: The d-pad is a simpler device, and it is sufficient for the amount of information the player is trying to communicate to the game. Think about it, there are only 9 states for the d-pad...the four straight directions, the four diagonals, and "not pressing any direction." The Wiimote, on the other hand, has a ton of possible 3D vector values for where it faces and its translational velocity and its angular velocity...it should be used for more complex pieces of data, like where and how you are swinging a 1:1 sword.
Yes, and the amount of creativity you'd need for this would be something like Die By The Sword, but with 3D sword control instead of 2D, where a button-based scheme really doesn't quite cut it.
That's why I say "with certainty." When you consider doing something in real life, like pulling a tray out of the oven, but then go "wait, no, that's really hot" and go get the oven mitt, that's the level of certainty. You considered just pulling the tray straight out of the oven for a split second, then decided that it was not a good idea.
I disagree that every other genre would suck. It's not like the game would play itself for you, you know. Jumping in Super Mario Brothers, for example, would still take the same timing, only instead of thinking "jump" and pushing "A," now you would just have to think "jump" and it would happen. Or catching and countering a punch in Tekken. Instead of thinking "counter" and pressing "back + A + B," now you just think "counter" at the right moment. It lowers the interface learning curve because you don't need to get used to weird button-press patterns, you just have to learn the move list and when to use the different moves. Also, all those bullshit super moves in Street Fighter? You'd just have to know what moves you can do with what characters, you would not have to spend time mastering the obscure, annoying controller sequences to make them happen. Basically, any game where actually controlling the game isn't supposed to be hard would benefit from this.
EDIT: Needless to say, a mind-reading (let's call it "intention-sensing") input device would allow FULL-BODY 1:1 games. People who are currently trashing their living rooms with Wiimotes and punching their friends in Wii Boxing should be tied down, though.
Now I want you to imagine Jedi Knight in this kind of system. Imagine THINKING "push that storm trooper" and the dude falls down. You didn't push any buttons to do that. You actually did it with your mind. How goddamn cool would that be.
That's kind of something that you just need to learn. First-time Wiimote users are going to have lots of trouble with it. First-time lightgun users fire all over the place. It's really not the fault of the interface any more than the keyboard is to be blamed for people who have been typing for years and still use hunt-and-peck typing.
DUDE!
yes, i agree
I'm sorry but I have to say, that's still on you. Just like someone who complains that an RTS is too hard because you use the mouse instead of the gamepad; it's well-designed, and it is therefore not the fault of the system that you're struggling. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but it's unfair to blame the system here.
i don't necessarily prefer the remote on an efficiency level for everything, but on a comfort and fun level
i don't care if i can swing the sword a split second faster in Zelda GC, i had an amazing time with the Wii version
You make a valid point but Madden was not designed specifically for the wii and it's controls are pretty fun if you ask me. It's possible to redesign some games around the wii it's just difficult to do well.