Freddy Shopan
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<Member>
Necro's are da best. But Shadow of Colossus will be technologically outdated when we have friggin 3D motion detecting **** that literally blows up your mind and puts it together again. Think about how much games have changed in 10 years. Not to mention, it would be targeting an audience that was around 10 years ago. A lot of things can also change socially in 10 years.
I'm not saying that old games are not fantastic or cannot compare. I'm simply saying that there's really no point to compare them to new games in the first place because the environments in which they were released could have changed dramatically...
I'm not saying that old games are not fantastic or cannot compare. I'm simply saying that there's really no point to compare them to new games in the first place because the environments in which they were released could have changed dramatically...
JMastiff
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<Member>
Not really Duff :P The thread isn't that old and it pretty much made me scratch my teeth by the blackboard. But someone already said that it isn't worth to discuss the matter with people who are able to define a medium only through technical means. That's shallow and leads to a point where tendency of thinking forces recipient to limit his expectations of the medium and rejects its true form. It's easier and safer, a matter of taste you might say but that's definitely less satisfying and poor experience.
Canoas
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<Member>
@JMastiff
No, it's not shallow at all, it's reality. I am not defining a medium through technical means, I'm defining by the current modern day standards. The year it came out is irrelevant, that's like saying that the best PC from 1992 is as good as the best PC from 2012. It's not, things evolve including the game industry. Someone who rates a game according to the current market is not in the wrong, they're being realistic. It doesn't make much sense to rate an old game, but if you are rating it then you need to rate it according to today's standards. A rating is how good the game is, so what good is a 20 year old rating? The market changed, old ratings are not truthful any more. Just because a game was good back then it doesn't mean the game is good now, just like the 1992 computer.
No, it's not shallow at all, it's reality. I am not defining a medium through technical means, I'm defining by the current modern day standards. The year it came out is irrelevant, that's like saying that the best PC from 1992 is as good as the best PC from 2012. It's not, things evolve including the game industry. Someone who rates a game according to the current market is not in the wrong, they're being realistic. It doesn't make much sense to rate an old game, but if you are rating it then you need to rate it according to today's standards. A rating is how good the game is, so what good is a 20 year old rating? The market changed, old ratings are not truthful any more. Just because a game was good back then it doesn't mean the game is good now, just like the 1992 computer.
JMastiff
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<Member>
I do understand your standpoint. Thing is there are too many examples from other media that contradict it. Take for example scultpure, if we had your approach we would frown upon things that were made in previous centuries. If Venus of Willendorf was valued with current modern day standards you could say it is "bad". If you take movies as you did earlier you could say ie. Matrix is a better movie than The Great Dictator which is simply not true because the substance of the work isn't something defined by the means. Modern day standards are of course something valid but that doesn't affect inherent value of the work, it's mere fashion.
Canoas
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<Member>
What changed in sculpture? Are there new machines that let us make better sculptures? While I believe they could make sculpting easier, I don't think the end result would be better.
Movies are also heavily dependent on the story and the acting. A movie will no doubt be improved by better visual effects, and good visual effects alone can even make a good movie (Avatar for example). However, like games, graphics aren't the only thing that matters. This is specially true for films because most films don't even need visual effects at all.
Art, painting for example, will not improve with technology because it involves no technology at all.
Modern day standards doesn't mean "only things that came out in 2012", it englobes everything done up to this point. Only very few games that came out in the last 5 years can rival with Ocarina of Time, for example. Mario Land 2, however, cannot even compete with most indie games. It's a simple platform jumper with no story and low quality graphics. If it came out now you would never even try it.
Movies are also heavily dependent on the story and the acting. A movie will no doubt be improved by better visual effects, and good visual effects alone can even make a good movie (Avatar for example). However, like games, graphics aren't the only thing that matters. This is specially true for films because most films don't even need visual effects at all.
Art, painting for example, will not improve with technology because it involves no technology at all.
Modern day standards doesn't mean "only things that came out in 2012", it englobes everything done up to this point. Only very few games that came out in the last 5 years can rival with Ocarina of Time, for example. Mario Land 2, however, cannot even compete with most indie games. It's a simple platform jumper with no story and low quality graphics. If it came out now you would never even try it.
JMastiff
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<Member>
A lot changed. Do you think perspective was always known to people? That was a matter of technology, a twist in thinking. Same applies to sculpture (or any other fine art im broader term), there were certain rules that didn't let people do whatever they wanted because of technological (getting certain colour, making painting last) and/or social regulations (form of the work was dictated by very strict rules). Thing is they're much older so it doesn't seem so obvious.
So yes, it's pretty simple to say there is no technology at all from our perspective but that is also not true. These are older media that already evolved and getting to know how they did it can really help in cases like this where completely new and not developed medium crashes into evaluation problem. It happened a lot of times. If you were to read about history of architecture you'd have definitely found information about how gothic architecture was treated by rennaisance architects because they felt it was vulgar and common, developed by goths (that's why gothic; it was meant pejorative). Media doesn't evlolve linearly, they expand - there is no reason to think that with limited ability authors couldn't come up with something valuable.
I think most of non-competitive games are really bad compared to how rich and much more valuable experience other, more developed media can provide. There are only few examples where games can be compared. I wouldn't list any of the metioned games here (ML2, OoT) maybe besides SotC but that would be also a thing to discuss. It doesn't mean that I don't consider them valuable in terms of how much they brought to develop the medium as a whole.
I also don't see why they should get lower ratings. I don't think they are so much worse. It definitely cost authors a lot of work under hard conditions to develop them and I can't think of a reason not to try them "just because", I'd even say I'd be willing to play ML2 more than Skyrim because most of modern AAA games I recently played are just timesinks with some cool features.
PS And no, Avatar is not a good movie (I really don't give **** about IMDB notes, it's like metacritic, because a lot of people say something about really popular thing it doesn't mean it is good - if you put hundreds of milions on the industry you make sure it sells the product). Noone will remember it in 20 years because there is nothing more in it that effects and they doesn't seem to last long (old Planet of The Apes used to be the-top-notch special FX movie). That leads me again to the substance of the medium but we covered that already.
PPS I've certainly missed something that I was about to say, feel free to ask
So yes, it's pretty simple to say there is no technology at all from our perspective but that is also not true. These are older media that already evolved and getting to know how they did it can really help in cases like this where completely new and not developed medium crashes into evaluation problem. It happened a lot of times. If you were to read about history of architecture you'd have definitely found information about how gothic architecture was treated by rennaisance architects because they felt it was vulgar and common, developed by goths (that's why gothic; it was meant pejorative). Media doesn't evlolve linearly, they expand - there is no reason to think that with limited ability authors couldn't come up with something valuable.
I think most of non-competitive games are really bad compared to how rich and much more valuable experience other, more developed media can provide. There are only few examples where games can be compared. I wouldn't list any of the metioned games here (ML2, OoT) maybe besides SotC but that would be also a thing to discuss. It doesn't mean that I don't consider them valuable in terms of how much they brought to develop the medium as a whole.
I also don't see why they should get lower ratings. I don't think they are so much worse. It definitely cost authors a lot of work under hard conditions to develop them and I can't think of a reason not to try them "just because", I'd even say I'd be willing to play ML2 more than Skyrim because most of modern AAA games I recently played are just timesinks with some cool features.
PS And no, Avatar is not a good movie (I really don't give **** about IMDB notes, it's like metacritic, because a lot of people say something about really popular thing it doesn't mean it is good - if you put hundreds of milions on the industry you make sure it sells the product). Noone will remember it in 20 years because there is nothing more in it that effects and they doesn't seem to last long (old Planet of The Apes used to be the-top-notch special FX movie). That leads me again to the substance of the medium but we covered that already.
PPS I've certainly missed something that I was about to say, feel free to ask
Canoas
<Member>
<Member>
@Searz
Precisely. It was probably the best platform game when it came out, but that hasn't been true for quite a long time. We can't blame someone because they're playing the game now instead of 20 years ago.
@JMastiff
It doesn't matter the technology at the time, if you are to rate 2 sculptures now you're not going to say "hmm, the first one is worse but since they didn't have [insert random tool here] I'll rate it higher". You are not rating the skill of the sculptor, you are rating the sculpture itself which is timeless.
Games can be compared by the experience it provided and how good it was, just like art can be compared by how good it looks. Ratings have nothing to do with how money was spent. It doesn't have to do with how much you're willing to try a game either, it's about how much fun you have the moment you start playing it.
I'd say IMDB's rating are pretty truthful. It reflects the majority of the population's feeling towards that movie, how much they liked it. Avatar's story was extremely ****py, but it certainly deserves that 8/10 for how good it looked. I was certainly amazed throughout the film and that rating reflects the experience I had that night at the movies pretty well.
In a few years the movie's rating will drop because it will lose what it had best, those amazing graphics. The graphics themselves don't become any worse, the standard is just raised higher so a new watcher will not be "amazed" at all.
Precisely. It was probably the best platform game when it came out, but that hasn't been true for quite a long time. We can't blame someone because they're playing the game now instead of 20 years ago.
@JMastiff
It doesn't matter the technology at the time, if you are to rate 2 sculptures now you're not going to say "hmm, the first one is worse but since they didn't have [insert random tool here] I'll rate it higher". You are not rating the skill of the sculptor, you are rating the sculpture itself which is timeless.
Games can be compared by the experience it provided and how good it was, just like art can be compared by how good it looks. Ratings have nothing to do with how money was spent. It doesn't have to do with how much you're willing to try a game either, it's about how much fun you have the moment you start playing it.
I'd say IMDB's rating are pretty truthful. It reflects the majority of the population's feeling towards that movie, how much they liked it. Avatar's story was extremely ****py, but it certainly deserves that 8/10 for how good it looked. I was certainly amazed throughout the film and that rating reflects the experience I had that night at the movies pretty well.
In a few years the movie's rating will drop because it will lose what it had best, those amazing graphics. The graphics themselves don't become any worse, the standard is just raised higher so a new watcher will not be "amazed" at all.
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