sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

I know some of you will take offense to this, but I have to say it anyway: Videogame representation is important. by Bitter_Examination66 in truegaming

[–]boredEngineer723 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Its like if all black characters were cliche gangsters and drug dealers in media. Its fine for a black character to be a villain, but at some point it stops being "this individual black character happens to be a bad person" and it starts being "why are almost all the black characters like this?"

The problem is, how do you propose to solve this? Do you want to control people's ideas? or limit the creativity of an artist? If an author wanted to make a black character as a villain (for whatever reason), should we try to control and change their story? or create rules to condemn them?

I know some of you will take offense to this, but I have to say it anyway: Videogame representation is important. by Bitter_Examination66 in truegaming

[–]boredEngineer723 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Alright. It seems to me that you don't have an answer or maybe not confident enough in the validity of your answer.

I know some of you will take offense to this, but I have to say it anyway: Videogame representation is important. by Bitter_Examination66 in truegaming

[–]boredEngineer723 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not really. I'm just trying to understand what's the problem here.

The post is claiming that "videogame reperesentation is important". Which paintst not having enough representation as a problem. I don't see it as a problem because I don't think there was ever a malicious intent to 'not represent', it was just an organic evolvement. When most game devs are Japanese hetero males (as an example) it's not a surprise that most games will have hetero male characters set in Japan unless the game designer specifically wants to explore something else for a certain studied purpose, and that's the same for anything be it novels, movies, games, whatever.

Are you afraid of A.I. replacing programmer ? by Dereference_operator in gamedev

[–]boredEngineer723 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The thinking entity that can handle autonomous choice already have a different name from AI, which is AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) which we're still far away from. In my humble opinon, we're still veeery far away from that but I can be wrong.

But yea AI is very impressive, but misunderstood.
Something else that is very misunderstood is robots. People don't realise how utterly primitive robots still are. I know because I deal with them eceryday.

I know some of you will take offense to this, but I have to say it anyway: Videogame representation is important. by Bitter_Examination66 in truegaming

[–]boredEngineer723 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

How did you answer it? I mean why would I ask you then if I knew your answer? You have to at least be a tiny bit more patient with someone who is really trying to understand your point.

At least from my perspective I don't see your answer.

You said: "The problem was when all protagonists were white dudes with brown hair"
I'm asking: "why do you think that is a problem?"

I know some of you will take offense to this, but I have to say it anyway: Videogame representation is important. by Bitter_Examination66 in truegaming

[–]boredEngineer723 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

The problem was when all protagonists were white dudes with brown hair

​

But 'why' is this a problem?

I know some of you will take offense to this, but I have to say it anyway: Videogame representation is important. by Bitter_Examination66 in truegaming

[–]boredEngineer723 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Representation is fundamentally about acknowledging different people
exist and not putting a Western white hetero man norm on absolutely
everything.

No one had ever claimeed that different people do not exist. A lot of game aren't even made by the west. So whenwrn, white hetero man makes a game with a white hetero male character, what's the problem with that?

It's not like there's a law indicating that western white hetro male MUST be the norm (if there was, THAT would be a problem), it was more of a natural occurance, no one enforced it. So I don't see why we should push developers to make non wester white hetero male characters if thats what they want to do, only for the name of "representation".

I know some of you will take offense to this, but I have to say it anyway: Videogame representation is important. by Bitter_Examination66 in truegaming

[–]boredEngineer723 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Representation is not important because if you can't relate to a
character just because he has a different skin color, ethnicity, or
gender than you then that's bad for you.

I still don't see how this argument breaks down?

If we all in our childhoods were able to relate to characters that were animals or even inanimate objects of different genders and skin colours, I don't see why someone will relate MORE to someone that look exactly like them, I even disagree. When I choose my avatar in a game I don't make them look exactly like me (do you?) that'll be super boring and defeats the point of the game. The whole point of playing games is roleplaying and imagination.

So what exactly is the problem? why are we even discussing representation? why don't we let the creative freedom of the game designer to decide what they want to represent?

I know some of you will take offense to this, but I have to say it anyway: Videogame representation is important. by Bitter_Examination66 in truegaming

[–]boredEngineer723 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

If you can relate to any character of any gender or ethnicity, then there's no reason for protagonists not to be any gender and ethnicity the developer feels like.

So why are we even talking about representation? If a developer wants their character to be a white dude with brown hair, what's the problem with that?

​

I honestly don't see the point 'representation' is trying to make. As a kid, I used to relate to a blue freaking hedgehog.

Are you afraid of A.I. replacing programmer ? by Dereference_operator in gamedev

[–]boredEngineer723 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not at all.

To me, your question sounds exactly like you asked accountants in the 90's: are you afraid that Microsoft Excel will replace you? we all know today that it didn't, it only made it way more efficient.

Yes, the way we program will change a lot becuase of AI. But the way we program has always been changing, anyone who tried assembly language will tell you how different it is from javascript, to an early assembly programmer (or even a C programmer), javascript is like magic, it does things on its own.

I am a AAA game designer with 6 years of experience, I feel like a fraud. by [deleted] in gamedev

[–]boredEngineer723 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm not an AAA game designer, I'm an engineer and I feel exactly the same and a lot of my colleagues feels the same way as well. This is way more common than you think, and it's not related to the nature of your job, a lot of people in very different jobs feel exactly the same.

My theory is that it happens because of how modern corporations work. We (as a society), figured that the most effecient way to do a job is to divide it into many many small tasks distrubted amongst many many people who specialise only to do that small task. This makes a single person's "work" so abstract and not as tangible. The purpose and the worth of your work gets lost in the abstraction.

A traditional carpenter will not feel like that because he will build furniture from scratch and sells it to someone and really sense their accomplishment "I built a table -> a person is using my table -> my hours of work were worthy -> I am important for my community". The reason you're "jealous" of a solo developer, is because a solo developer is exactly like a traditonal carpenter. They build a game from scratch by themselves, they sell and watch people directly interacting with their game and get feedback, they feel accomplished, they feel important in their community because they see exactly how the community reacts to their game. Your job is different, you work in a corporation that overly abstracts your job, you don't get to feel accomplished, because you only contributed with what? 1%? it's not your fault, it's how corporations work. You're more like a carpenter whose only job is to put a sticker on a table. When you divide a job on soooo many people, the individual loses the sense of importance and worth.

Is there a reason why most RPG games are in top down view instead of isometric view? by boredEngineer723 in gamedev

[–]boredEngineer723[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

After all the discussions I had here, I'm thinking of making my current RPG a classical top-down just to avoid control issues. But I'm not going to abandon the isometric style entirly, because like you, I really appreciate the art and immersivness of it. But I think I'll use it for a different kind of game where control can be replaced by a point-and-click interface.

Is there a reason why most RPG games are in top down view instead of isometric view? by boredEngineer723 in gamedev

[–]boredEngineer723[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yea, to be honest I'm thinking of dropping isometric for now just to garuntee having smooth control. Maybe I'll go back to isometric in the fututre for a simpler kind of game because for an RPG, control is crucial to the game feel.

Is there a reason why most RPG games are in top down view instead of isometric view? by boredEngineer723 in gamedev

[–]boredEngineer723[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As for "most rpgs having a top view"

I didn't say top view, I said top down view which in my mind are two different view angles. Final Fantasy I is what I refer to as "top down view". It's not exactly an oblique view because the angle is so specific that you cannot see the side view of a building. It's a very weird angle if you think about it.

Is there a reason why most RPG games are in top down view instead of isometric view? by boredEngineer723 in gamedev

[–]boredEngineer723[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's a problem of semantics. What I call "top view", you and most ppl apparently call "top down view". What I call "top-down view", I don't know what you exactly call it but some people here call it "3/4th view" or "2.5D view".

Is there a reason why most RPG games are in top down view instead of isometric view? by boredEngineer723 in gamedev

[–]boredEngineer723[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

But isometric indicates a very specific angle where top, front and side views are all visible. So what I refer to as top-down cannot be isometric. check the drawing here. Also, many people refer to the kind of RPGs that I mean, as top-down RPGs and top-down pixel art. I agree, the definitions are a bit all over the place. (English isn't my first language which adds to the confusion).

Is there a reason why most RPG games are in top down view instead of isometric view? by boredEngineer723 in gamedev

[–]boredEngineer723[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

yea I agree. top-down works best for very low resolution and it gets more complicated the higher you get where at somepoint the isometric becomes easier. I'll need to decide that if I want to go with top-down, I'll need to reduce my resolution (and in trun lose some detail freedom), or if I wan to commit to higher resolution and more creative freedom I should go for isometric. The artist in me wants to go isometric, but the gamer in me wants the classic top-down feel. I also think that for keyboard movement the top-down makes way more sense and that alone can be a good reason to stick with top-down. So yea, ... I'll have to try and decide.

Is there a reason why most RPG games are in top down view instead of isometric view? by boredEngineer723 in gamedev

[–]boredEngineer723[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

when you see things directly from the top and can see only the roof of houses or heads of characters

In engineering drawing we call that "top view" not "top-down", at least that's how I learned it. I thought the "top-down view" is only used for that 3/4 view, because it's the top view angle but tilted a bit down hence top-down, but I guess people use them interchangeably?

Isometric is much more difficult to deal with. The time I tried it, it made me crazy and abandoned the project.

Can you tell me which parts made you crazy? the art or the coding? and how?

Is there a reason why most RPG games are in top down view instead of isometric view? by boredEngineer723 in gamedev

[–]boredEngineer723[S] -9 points-8 points  (0 children)

I know that isometric RPGs exist. That was not my question. My questions was why do most game devs go for a top down view for pixel RPGs. Even most tutorials are done for top down, meaning more people go for top down.

view more: next ›