[QUOTE="firefox59"][QUOTE="UpInFlames"]

Better AI has little or nothing to do with advanced technology and it has everything to do with programming. There are several developers who have demonstrated that smart AI is entirely possible (and was possible years ago), it's just that the vast majority of developers will rather spend their time on better looking textures and whatnot (which is easy) than programming smart AI (which is hard).

Next gen in and of itself won't change that, it's the developers who need to change.

Jacanuk

I really want to agree with you, I truly do because I like to think core gamers are better than monkeys easily distracted by shiny objects and big explosions.  But Minecraft is the only indie, low graphic, high concept game that's come even close to hitting the sort of numbers Call of Duty and Assassins Creed hits almost every year.  The disparity between a successful indie or niche title and a successful AAA title is still monstrous.

[QUOTE="platinumking320"][QUOTE="keech"]

I would say that's kind of the whole point.  A good AI makes you forget you're playing against one.  The only time you SHOULD be thinking of the AI is when it bugs out or does something stupid.  It's sort of the whole idea that a great video game makes you forget you're holding a controller.

As for what I want to see next gen.  I want to see less of this homogenized, gritty, grey/brown, militaristic themed, insincere tripe go away.  The past has already proved there's room for games of all kinds.  But the industry is so obsessed with chasing that "5 million+ units sold" fantasy for every single game that they are more than willing to butcher franchises that have been around for over a decade into bland slurry to "appeal to a wider audience".

Though I digress, this really has nothing to do with programming and hardware as it does publishers having their heads firmly wedged up their backsides.

MrGeezer

I think the surprising success of games like Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, and Super Meat Boy do suggest there's a bit of demand for more challenging games.  As well as a bit of an upswing in Roguelike games such as The Binding of Issac, F.T.L, Spelunky, and Rogue Legacy suggest gamers are more than willing to die and lose in a game over and over as long as they are having fun doing it.  Not to mention seeing something of a revival of the fighting game genre this generation.

I think the problem is A. Publishers seeing gamers are having the mental capacity of a ADD monkey.  Constantly beating us over the head with tutorials and help text (Zelda: Skyward Sword), B. Developers not understanding the difference between challenging and unfair.

Dark Souls and Super Meat Boy are very very challenging, but they (usually) always feel fair, every death was your own fault, and thus you learn from failure.  Both games also had a good sense of conveyance.  They didn't need to beat you over the head with endless tutorials, because the game taught you how to play as you were playing it.  Where as in worst case scenarios, games like Final Fantasy XIII were 3/4ths the game was little more than a glorified 20 hour tutorial.

It will not matter since most will only remember when the AI did something stupid or wrong.

wiouds

I would say that's kind of the whole point.  A good AI makes you forget you're playing against one.  The only time you SHOULD be thinking of the AI is when it bugs out or does something stupid.  It's sort of the whole idea that a great video game makes you forget you're holding a controller.

As for what I want to see next gen.  I want to see less of this homogenized, gritty, grey/brown, militaristic themed, insincere tripe go away.  The past has already proved there's room for games of all kinds.  But the industry is so obsessed with chasing that "5 million+ units sold" fantasy for every single game that they are more than willing to butcher franchises that have been around for over a decade into bland slurry to "appeal to a wider audience".

Though I digress, this really has nothing to do with programming and hardware as it does publishers having their heads firmly wedged up their backsides.

Bioshock wins it for me, though It's for entirely personal reasons.  Though neither of them "win" me over as a video game.  Don't get me wrong I praised Bioshock and TLOU, but the one glaring flaw both games have is that neither offers much innovation in terms of being an actual video game.  Yes the gameplay in both games are polished, balanced, refined, and any other journalistic buzz word you can think of to use as a positive spin, but It's nothing that hasn't been done before.

Both of these games primary praises came from their story and production.  Which is fine, I can enjoy many different kinds of games for many different reasons.  However, making a game feel like an interactive movie doesn't make it a better game, it just makes it more like a movie.

While I'm not going to outright defend the shady practices of Gearbox, I will attest as a former musician and current writer, that you cannot "steal" an art style in any literal sense.  An art style is something far too subjective for that, because neither Gearbox nor the people who made that short were the first to use that art style.  That being said, It's pretty obvious Gearbox was pretty shameless about it.  A good artist takes the work of others that inspires them and puts their own spin on it.  While I again claim you cannot steal an artistic style, you can certainly call Gearbox a hack artist for doing what they did.  Though if you look back far enough, you will find the art design for Borderlands was originally NOTHING like it is now.  It was far more realistic, more akin to Fallout.  They actually said they changed the art design because they felt people would get the two games confused.

Also, I would like to hear the full story behind that honestly.  Not just a one sided accusation, not that we ever will.  Maybe Gearbox felt the studio was asking for too much money, or maybe they were difficult to work with.  Though given some of the more recent events around Gearbox, I doubt that's the case.

As far as Duke Nukem Forever, It's ignorant to point fingers at Gearbox.  They were basically handed a patchwork frankenstein of a game and were told to finish it, then when it flopped they were used as a scapegoat because they actual studio that screwed the game up over the course of a decade wasn't around anymore.

Aliens was a total piece of trash and Gearbox has zero excuse, especially since the supposed demo of actual gameplay they used to promote the game right up until It's release was a blatant lie.  However, the claims that they misappropriated funds from Aliens to make Borderlands is nothing but rumor and speculation.  It's certainly possible, but It's far from fact.

I don't like some of the practices Gearbox partakes in.  But I will not deprive myself of a game I enjoy for that reason alone.  I bought Borderlands 1 and 2 because I very much enjoy the games.  I DID NOT buy Aliens or Duke Nukem because they were not games that I felt were worth my money.

On playing a game only for the story:

I've done this quite a few times.  It was the major selling point for me playing the Legacy of Kain games, Alan Wake, Mass Effect, hell it was the ONLY reason I played Spec Ops: The Line.  Which is the one that has the best points for a strong story in a video game.

Spec Ops as a game is nothing but uninspired, run-of-the-mill cover based shooting, with very little to break up the tedium.  The story however, is fantastic.  It was clearly inspired by Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, the short novel the movie Apocalypse Now was based on.

The game really explores the grey uncertainty in war, that the "us versus them" mentality we as Americans tend to have is nice and idyllic, but hardly realistic.  It drives home that war is neither fun nor entertaining.  It also very clearly exposes just how disingenuous and downright disrespectful games like Battlefield and Call of Duty can be to these real world issues of war and terrorism.  Guaranteeing I'll never be able to enjoy another modern military shooter again that treats war like popcorn entertainment.

Now I know most would say "Then why not just read the book or watch the movie if the game isn't very good?", because I would have never made the connection to video games on this issue if the message wasn't through a video game.  Reading a book or watching a movie would have never made me consider the insincerity that's so pervasive in the military shooter genre.  Most people play video games seeing themselves as the main character, when they screw up in Mass Effect they don't say or think "Commander Shepard died", they say "I died".  They are the ones doing these actions, they aren't some passive observer, in their mind they are the ones causing these events to unfold.  So when terrible things happen in a video game that are a direct cause to the actions of the player, it carries far more impact than it would in a movie or book.

Ugh, remember when Capcom was one of the only Japanese developers still holding themselves together?  I guess it was only a matter of time before they fell into the same pit of collective dementia as Square-Enix, Nintendo, and Konami.

I have no idea what you are talking about. I have never had so many great games to play at once. You do know that no one is forcing you to pay for micro-transactions right? In fact part of the point of having micro-transactions is so that everyone has access to the game but doesn't have to pay anything unless you really want to.

Diablo-B

Noooo, nononono....no.  This is exactly the kind of mentality micro-transactions are psychologically designed to foster.  By convincing yourself you aren't affected by it, you are MORE prone to the tactics used to get you to fork over money via these transactions.

Yes you're right, you don't have to pay anything if you don't want to.  You however don't have a choice in the psychological assault most games wage on you in order to get you to use the micro-transactions.  By and large these games are designed to test your patience, they throw up deliberate and arbitrary road blocks, then it whispers "Hey, you know this would be a lot less frustrating if you just gave us a few more dollars."  Worse yet, it typically only eases the frustrations for a few days at most.

The fact that these sorts of tactics are already spreading to games that aren't free is also a disturbing trend.  The notion of dropping $60 for a game, then to be constantly brow beaten by the game letting me know I could buy my way to victory for a price is not appealing.

[QUOTE="keech"]

[QUOTE="experience_fade"]I'm content with what I've said in this thread. In time, I'll either be proven right or wrong. Good discussion, my fair folk.experience_fade

You seem to have this mind set that you're right until people prove your claims wrong.  You're the one making claims and accusations, therefor It's on your to provide proof of said claims.  No one here has to "prove you wrong", It's your job to convince us that what you're saying it true, not the other way around.

No you will never be proven right or wrong, because your issues and claims only exist for you.  This gives you a very convenient "out", It lets you continue to convince yourself that you're right because you were never proven wrong.  We all know however that you can't disprove something that never happened.  If there's no shred of evidence to suggest that what you claims is even slightly possible, no reputable source will ever bother to look into it or ask questions. 

No one likes being wrong, these are the kinds of things the subconscious does to protect itself from such things.

You seem to be joining the bandwagon of "convince me or what you're saying is false."

Being unable to convince you doesn't inherently make what I say incorrect. Duh.

And being wrong is a matter of perspective in the first place. In a way, I know I'm wrong. I thought an actual discussion could take place about sexism, the possibility of it being behind protagonist decisions in GTA V, and whether or not the industry needs to support female representation better.

Instead, I got a group of people who, rather than examine the sexism trend in the gaming industry, and/or examining other evidence, decided it would be better to ignore the question altogether. As in, it can't possibly be true, so why even think about it? This is popular in religious circles.

Rather than debate the finer points of something like evolution, a religious person might altogether argue it's untrue. Evolution is, after all, not something that's 100%. Is it highly plausible, given all of the evidence? Absolutely, it's quite likely. Thankfully, there are people like me, rather than you, Geezer and Jacanuk behind scientific progress, because rather than actively seeking out the huge problem of sexism in the industry, you three are content with playing dumb until some Rockstar employee is caught on camera, literally saying, "WE'RE ALL SEXIST. THAT'S WHY ALL THE PROTAGONISTS IN GTA V ARE MALE!"

Which is fine. Remaining willfully blind is a sign of fear, and fear is a sign of ignorance. In reference to your own assertions about my subconscious protecting my self esteem, this is exactly what the three of you are doing. Your beloved passion, gaming, can't possibly be rife with sexist people. No amount of gaming conventions, testimony by women who actually work in the industry, or documentaries will change your mind. Women getting paid less for doing the same exact job doesn't factor into your logic either. 

Rockstar can do no wrong. All male lineup, three protagonists. That can't possibly be sexist.

I mean, literally some of the responses have been, "Who cares, the game will still sell incredibly well."

Enough said.

And that's the funniest part of it all. Based on most of the responses I've seen, most of you argue it's not even possible that the decision for an all male lineup was sexist. Some of you can't even admit it's a possibility. And even if it were sexist, what would you care?

So yes, there's nothing further to discuss. I'm content with what I've said in this thread. 

Perhaps I should have asked a better question from the onset, one that would be posed as a hypothetical. 

"If it were 100% confirmed that Rockstar's decision behind making all three of their protagonists male was sexist in nature, what would you do?"

Does it even matter to you? Would you still buy GTA V? Would you even care? Could you even be convinced that it was sexist?

I'm actually on the bandwagon of "innocent until proven guilty beyond the shadow of a doubt", the basic principle most justice systems are based on.  I'm sorry but what your basically saying is "just because I can't prove what I'm saying doesn't mean It's not true".  Which I'm sorry, that's not how the real world works.  Burden of proof is on the prosecution, all the defendant had to do is explain why any proof you can bring to the table is invalid.

If all you were doing was trying to open up thoughtful discussion about this topic then yes it backfired.  But that's typically what happens when your opening statement comes across with an apparant bias.

The scientific process?  Is that what you think your following?  From my perspective it looks like you came to a conclusion with no evidence (regarding this specific topic of GTA V).  In the scientific method, the evidence leads you to a conclusion.  You don't come to a conclusion, then cherry pick the research that supports it.

I'm not saying the sexism angle is impossible.  But that's not saying much, It's possible I'll walk outside tomorrow and get bitten by a rattlesnake, It's just very unlikely.  I belive many of the claims women who actually work in the industry make regarding imporper behavior in the work place.

You can claim fear and ignorance on my part all you want if that makes you feel better.  In return I ask you to consider that from my point of view, you are coming across as an obsessive on a witch hunt, and I don't hold to witch hunts.  I see a Joseph McCarthy screaming "communist!" at anyone who isn't acting the way you feel they should be acting.  I hope that irony isn't lost on you, and I genuinely ask is that the way you want people to perceive you?

I come from the standpoint of Occam's Razor.  That among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be selected, and the whole sexism argument in the case of GTA V is an assumption no matter how you cut it.  Where as I will not assume there's any sexist reasoning behind it without some sort of proof.

I'm content with what I've said in this thread. In time, I'll either be proven right or wrong. Good discussion, my fair folk.experience_fade

You seem to have this mind set that you're right until people prove your claims wrong.  You're the one making claims and accusations, therefor It's on your to provide proof of said claims.  No one here has to "prove you wrong", It's your job to convince us that what you're saying it true, not the other way around.

No you will never be proven right or wrong, because your issues and claims only exist for you.  This gives you a very convenient "out", It lets you continue to convince yourself that you're right because you were never proven wrong.  We all know however that you can't disprove something that never happened.  If there's no shred of evidence to suggest that what you claims is even slightly possible, no reputable source will ever bother to look into it or ask questions. 

No one likes being wrong, these are the kinds of things the subconscious does to protect itself from such things.