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Les_the_Sarge_9_1 -> Wargame designs that don't have much to do with wargaming (12/3/2002 8:45:22 PM)
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I was going to post this as a follow up post in Battlefields, but I think this is more a General forum comment in the end.
Sarge's rule number one on wargames
Fool me once shame on you fool me twice, no there won't be a twice, this ain't some cute saying here.
I have only one thing to say to ****head companies that try to sell me hollywood style wargames, I intend to drag your companies name through the mud and then step on your head while down there.
Nothing annoys me more now that we are 10 years down the road from any serious attempt at computerised wargaming, than a lousy excuse program. Beyond 10 years of course, computers were hardly what they are today.
With a 2 gig or better processor, with on average 256 or more Ram in gamer machines, with hard drives that can hold more data than I can actually imagine in one spot, with hi tech video and sound cards the norm, with super fast on line connection options getting pretty typical in urban locations, there is absolutely zero nadda zippo justifcation for lousy games period.
That some people can release games with bugs in them is not all that unreasonable. It is hard to predict every permutation of possibility I will grant you. But lousy design choices is something I will NOT grant wargame designers (or any game style designers for that matter).
The more that I think of it, the more it pisses me off in fact.
If some of the markets computer games had been released with the same level of quality, and as board games, the company would have promptly folded and died during the 70's and 80's. Wargamers would never have tolerated the garbage we are sold routinely today.
I can remember a few designs that were in fact made, the rules were convoluted and poorly written, or the boards were created in a rotten matter. And yes the wargame community tore the item to pieces collectively.
As I see it wargames come in only so many possible permutations. There is only so many ways to make a wheel after all. So why is it we have so many idiotic wargames out there now.
I am tired of the wargame design process being yet another hollywood experience as I said.
Every time I see yet another game with a flashy name and flashy box art, I have the same reaction I have to war movies where grenades pump out great gouts of flame "oh this will reeeeeally please the low forehead moron crowd that wouldn't recognise a real wargame if a ton of then dropped on their heads".
Include every single shooter game in that comment. Shooter games are games for low forehead morons. Yes Sarge meant you, you there with the first person shooter, you don't impress me with your "I'm a real cool wargamer". In the military you are worth as much as a garritrooper to us old timers.
And for you hybrids, you should know better.
Real time strategy, the term makes me want to puke, It isn't real unless you can simultaneously click on every single unit every single second of the entire game. It certainly isn't strategy. It might be tactics, but tactics as a term can be applied to anything. Although a wargamer generally uses the term to mean military tactics. Not hardware advantages.
I have seen how the units move in RTS games. Frantically is the first term that comes to mind.
If it can't move this because of unit B blocking it's path it moves that way. If it can't move that way thanks to unit c it then immediately moves yet another way. But if unit b suddenly moves, then it tries to move that way yet again. But if unit c intercepts it by getting that way first, then it yet again changes its mind.
At what point does this mindless wandering simulate anything. I have seen better organised ant colonies.
Turn based games might seem boring to some, but then again, traditional board game wargaming was always a hobby in the past, that separated the uneducated from the higher educated military history interested enthusiast.
I know that sounds insulting, dummy it was an insult, of course it sounded insulting. Why else would I say it.
They didn't make wargames with fast play tutorials eh, you had to read the rules or get lost. They demanded you actually know how to read and read well.
I can't speak for foreign language enthusiasts, but I know that the english language games required you to speak specifically proper english to understand exactly what was meant in the rules.
ASLers will of course know what I mean when I say you were either "IN" a hex or "in" a hex.
Kuniworth has a nice enough thread going (for those that don't know, he has that post located over at Battlefront as well). I think unfortunately, his enthusiasm is up against a wall that enthusiasm won't breech.
He is fighting against the forces of the lowest common denominator.
Gamers don't want a cool (to us I suppose) game depicting the entire war at a credible scale with a turn based fuction.
No they want to run around a glitzy map shooting weapons that never require reloading (thanks to a cheat code they found online) with perhaps even several other cheat codes, so that they can play indefinitely and simulate virtually nothing.
They sure don't want realism. Man this game is way to dull, and you have to do to much in a turn. and there is no cheat codes for it.
The average gamer today can't even distinguish the problem with the term RTS.
All they want is graphics, more graphics. Is it any wonder more and more games are just cool looking graphics and no respectable wargame under those graphics.
The main complaint I hear about Strategic Command is the game is dull looking. Then you start hearing about all the technical areas where it is lacking.
Not surprising though. It was made by someone that obviously made it expecting to sell it to morons.
Or else the game would play like a wargame as well as look like one.
It's not rocket science eh, why can't a game designer take a real wargame like Advanced Third Reich and just computerise it?
I will tell you my opinion. In my opinion it's because there are no wargamers out there designing them.
I saw yesterday a comment over at Battlefront, by a person lamenting the mechanics of A3R. The guy was oooooobviously a low forehead moron cheerleader.
AIs who needs them.
I have this to say about people commenting on how this or that AI is actually smart, no you are actually dumber than most is the truth.
I would much rather buy a game with no AI that was intentionally designed to be played online against another person.
I have seen the hardware, it exists to handle this well. So why isn't it being used?
A game that is designed with an AI is just a waste of hard drive space. I might as well be playing my board games against grade school children (who knows, they might be smarter after a few games at least).
I am sure I have reeeeeeeeeally angered some people. Dont worry, I won't be upset if you are upset.
I am hoping to buy Combat Leader. A good turn based concept. It has as its inspiration Steel Panthers, a proven quality game.
And as inspired as it is, it is only worth playing against a human though.
I doubt there is enough AI hating wargamers out there though, to ask for the AI to be ripped out of the program. I will let it go. As long as I can ignore it (and I will) I won't really care.
I think though, I will be tidying up the ole game room and getting the board game collection aired out.
After walking through an EB now for several years, and seeing in most cases NO wargames at all on the shelves, it is clear there never has been, and likely never will be, a significant market for computer wargames for serious wargamers.
Thankfully I have seen several programs that offer real wargamers the ability to employ the power of a computer, to play a real wargame like Advanced Third Reich or Advanced Squad Leader online.
Check these links out, if you have had your fill of dumb idiot friendly computer wargames
http://www.warplanner.com/
http://www.vasl.org/vassal/Download.html
There are more links out there, but that will give you a good start.
And stay tuned, Matrix will eventually release Combat Leader (thank god at least some designers have a semblance of an idea what a wargame looks like).
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