That's an odd definition of "obvious". Actually, it's a stretch of the meaning of "obvious".

I don't think there's a particular answer that'd be "obvious". Your answer, in fact, I'd consider - to be frank - a very poor way of doing this.
Average gameplay length, maybe (as in: take N people of varying degrees of "gaming experience", and let them finish the game, then add the time it took them and divide by N). The "fastest possible gameplay length" seems to be a particulary unusual choice. After all, this includes taking advantage of bugs, and as Jibb said, possibly of knowledge from further playthroughs. But I think Jibb's example illustrates the problem with your definition very well.

With this:



I assume you mean something like "length of an average playthrough that does not go through sidequests and such, and who plays a bit quicker than average" (which of course is far from a definition, but okay). But...

What makes exploring areas in Resident evil different from exploring areas in Heavy Rain?
I think you just want games you like to have a better rating
"The fastest way possible", only not... in Super Mario? What?



Plus, I'm not even sure I agree with the original definition. Here's another question about "interactivity". Take a game that's mostly about dialogs. If I'm reading (or listening, whatever), is that interactive or not? After all, I'm actively acquiring information that I need and that will affect my next decision. The same can be said of some cutscenes. So those scenes clearly ADD to the experience in a "mechanical way", if you will.
So, in the dialog-scene - do we add the time I'm "just" listening to the "interactivity"-total? If not, all that's left is the split second of hitting the button, and maybe a bit of time for thinking what decision to make.



Frank:



Yes! That's very true. I agree!



No.
I mean, yeah, they both have a gameplay mechanic. They're similar in the sense that both have a gameplay mechanic.
I don't think their mechanics are similar, though. But I've written about that before, so I won't bother to do it again. Maybe we just disagree on that, then. No hard feelings, I hope?




Wow, thanks. That's really an accurate description that tells me all I need to know.
Tekken? Action! Tomb Raider? Action! Friggin' Mass Effect? Action!
Everything is action under that criteria.

I realize you made those intentionally vague, but that doesn't help much. I think we need to be a bit clearer than THAT in our classification.

error explains me better than i am able to. thanx man^^

no, i havent played metal gear because i hate, hate, HATE stealth and everything that comes with it (even in zelda games. damn you wind waker and phantom hourglass) but everytime i see somebody play MGS4 all i see are cutscenes

my point is, we can nitpick about gameplay lenght and one minute less gameplay than movies and such but i am pretty sure most of you actually know what i mean and just love to nitpick...

Year, but MGS4 is unlike the other MGS parts...haven´t played it btw.-only Twin Snakes(GC) and Sons of Liberty(PS2). Most cutscenes there had a moderate length, much like RE4 would I say.

Call it nit-picking if you want. You contradicted yourself, and I pointed that out, but I'm glad you didn't take it harshly (and I'd be surprised if you did, given how well-known your attitudes are on this forum ).

If you don't care to discuss it, then fine (edit: you have done so far as you defend your position and acknowledge Error014's clarification, and that makes sense to me, but other points appear to be ignored). I just thought lostclimate brought up an interesting discussion topic when he said "what makes those games and not movies with a choice here or there".

There's other stuff in this thread we can talk about, like:Why'd you have to go and bring voxels into this? Technology and design go hand-in-hand. Voxels are a powerful technology that are more than just the "future", they're the present, and they change the way game designers are limited. Sure, limitations are great for games -- necessary, for games to be fun beyond their own novelty -- but limitations aren't good for designers. The designers should be designing the limits.

i bring voxels into this because this threa was about voxels, no?

thing is, ma argument still stands. with CGI, filmmakers can do EVERYTHING nowadays. does that make a better movie? who here thinks that the star wars prequels are better than the original movies? and even if you do, do you argue that this is soley because the CGI is better?

i know i sound contradictionary, that is because i tend to always forget that you dont know whats in my head and i am godawefull in explaining my thought process.

i just say that just because we have the technology to do everything we want in gamedesign doesnt make our games better. it just helps us realize the ideas we have. so if you have a good idea and you need this technology for this idea, fine with me, go ahead. but just using ito for the sake of using it will not help anyone. it will just make people think less of the technology. because in the end, the consumer does not care HOW this game was made. he wants a good game. the consumer couldnt care less about the latest technology if the game sucks. why do you think there are STILL sprite based games out there? (and let that be known, i am thankfull for that)

I can accept that And when I disagree I'll try harder to stick to the points I disagree on rather than apparent contradictions. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference, especially when one of the contradictions regards something I have a strong opinion about, and I'm sure you can understand that.

I think perhaps it's important to distinguish between "better" and "good". It might well be that Primer, for example (a movie with no CGI), is the best movie ever and no movie can ever be better. That's great. But there's only so much we can do without CGI, and CGI lets us do more. Because there are still good movies to be made without CGI, some films are still strictly live-action. And because people get excited about CGI, some films are techdemos for CGI. But there are also excellent films out there that wouldn't be possible without CGI, and I'm grateful for this, even if for some hypothetical reason they're never better than live-action movies can be.

I think you'll agree that that's a good analogy, with sprite-based games being our live action movies -- there are still good sprite based games to be made, even though there are less restrictive technologies available. Games are often tech-demos of new technologies more than they are well-designed games. But there are excellent games that wouldn't be possible without 3D, and there will (I'm sure) be excellent games that wouldn't be possible without voxels (or a similar volumetric representation of things).

So yes, voxels are at risk of being abused (and are already being abused, as far as we can see in this video) for their novelty. But they also let designers who can look past the novelty of new techniques re-think what limitations they have as game designers, and what limitations a player should have.

Just look at the game "From Dust" and you will see that games using voxels/volumes are present day. In this game you can sculpt your terrain to let water flow, to build a water barrier or to deal with lava.

But I remember very old games like Magic Carpet that already allowed to transform terrains.

The CryEngine editor as well as the C4 engine editor both use voxels during the editing of terrain although they convert these data into mapped polygons for the final game.

Volumes are also the base for static lighting of dynamic objects in Unity or Vision 3d.

And yes, I agree with Spike about the nitpicking of Jibb. I did not talk about the original point of this thread but about the original point I was discussing with Spike. I entered the discussing at that time and ignored the voxel part completely.

Your post was dismissive of most of the other conversation that had gone on since your earlier posts and dismissive of perfectly valid responses to your posts on the grounds that they weren't "the original point". If you want to be involved in the discussion and try to bring it in another direction, great. But be prepared for people to say "no, we were talking about something here and while your reasoning appears objective at a glance (going back to the original topic when a thread is derailed is common and respectful to the original poster), it's not your intention."

Was I really nit-picking? I'd say not in your case. I could've ignored you and continued my discussion with others here. I could've humoured you like a child and pretended you had good reason to going back to that point. I chose the third option: call you up on it so we can all understand each other in this discussion.

edit: Removed this text because of misunderstandings. Dont feel upset!

please lets keep astrology and biology out of this thread XD

änyway, i think we finally find a comon edge here. i say it again, i am not against new technology, i just dont think that it makes everything better. i highly doubt that super mario 64 would be any better with voxel technology. that doesnt mean that voxels dont have a right to exist. they do. its good we have them. we just dont need to use them for all games, as we already agreed upon

i would like to see a game that has really great gameplay and NEEDS the voxels. i have yet to see something like that.

oh and by the way, because frank brought up minecraft, you know whats similar to minecraft but with REAL gameplay? Terraria. its minecraft 2D with more gameplay aspects beyond "here, have some virtual legos". pretty cool stuff actually. it is a nice blend of 3d objects and 2D objects and i could see how something like that could actually grow with voxel based technology. that and worms maybe...