I'm still waiting to see what way(s) this ultimately proves to be a let down of the hypiest of over-hyped hype.
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Next Generation Gameplay
- Thread starter Razzorn34
- Start date
I'm still waiting to see what way(s) this ultimately proves to be a let down of the hypiest of over-hyped hype.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Game design that isn't possible on last gen most certainly exists.
Dictator93
Member
That article is nearly 2 years old and does not explain much of anything. The game looks graphically different now then its first showing .Aren't there designated spots (windows, floor panels) that break away to reveal something behind them? That is usually a tell tale sign that it is not procedural.
Do you have any good video that show how shooting holes or blowing holes in walls with grenades (not breaching charges) looks different every time? Or is it the same pieces which fall out? Or the hole is different every time?
Every real media I have seen, not PR pieces, seems to show the same facets of the old replace geometry type of destruction in games. Nothing like fracture.
Parts of game design you mean, or parts of rendering, pasted over the same genres that have been around over multiple generations. Is that your idea of 'gameplay' that is literally impossible on last gen?
When people say "gameplay", that usually implies the entire game design itself, not just certain elements of an already existing template.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Obviously it is an evolution on existing concepts but it's next gen in the sense that it can't be done without incredibly heavy revisions. Shadow of Mordor's last gen port is a perfect example of what happens when something that only works with these consoles is chopped up to try and run on last gen. Sure the core concepts are similar but it can't keep up in anyway shape or form in terms of the game's mechanics and design and is a shell of the "true" version that the devs intended.
Read the above.
Parmadillo Marshmallow
Member
Battlefield 4 has 64 players on console with huge maps. Pretty sure that wasn't possible last gen, at least not that I remember. It's the one game that has stood out to me more than any other as next gen.
Chairman Yang
if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
Which ones are you thinking of, specifically? The reason I'm not sure this is true is because giant open worlds have been around forever (look at, say, Daggerfall). Downgrade graphics enough, simplify animations, make textures low-res or non-existent in places, reduce things like weather and ambient effects, and I'd be very surprised if something like, say, GTA: San Andreas couldn't do the same gameplay things as Witcher 3.
This is basically a theoretical thing, because below a certain level of graphical quality, no developer is going to downgrade further for gameplay advancements (and virtually no one would buy games by developers that do). In that sense, yes, better hardware is still enabling gameplay advancements.
It's different. You can literally create eye sized holes on any surface of a destructible wall with bullets or a melee attack.
https://youtu.be/K28Ih90PRG0?t=1m57s
Notice the bullet holes.
Anton Sugar
Member
There are, but it's a mix.
There are specific panels and doors that can be breached and blown away completely. However, you can also just shoot parts of the cover away instead. A boarded up door can be breached with a charge, or you can knock bits of it away with melee or bullets.
There are also floors and walls that you can blow little bits and pieces away from. Creating "murder holes" in walls is a legitimate and important tactic. Lots of people prefer to shoot away just a small corner of a wall and go prone to peek out and shoot people.
Most walls actually have one drywall panel, a wooden frame, and then another drywall panel. Shotguns can quickly blast large holes through them, whereas a pistol takes multiple shots and really only create small holes (unless, of course, you continue shooting around it to widen it).
Here's a clip of me shooting someone through a wall. Note how the bullets eventually blow open a larger part of the wall, but it looks NOTHING like what a breaching charge does. You can also see that I blew a part of the wall closest to me, but not the second layer, which is just bullet holes. Breaching charges tend to create more uniform openings, I agree, which is maybe why you're thinking it's not procedural at all. It's possible it's some weird hybrid mix?
It's nothing like, say, BF4, which is all prefab (except maybe for the microdestruction that's in *some* maps). There don't seem to be any advanced physics, like fracture, but they're not really necessary in this game.
EDIT: Ah, the video below is perfect and shows numerous examples. BOOM.
Razzorn34
Member
For me, it is things that that could not be done in the previous generation in any sense. But, I'm also interested in what other people define that as, and what they think that entails. Hense, the conversation.
Sure, next generation is nothing but a marketing term, but we have no other term to emphasize something has taken the next big step. I cannot agree with people saying there is no such thing as next generation gameplay. There are examples, but they are definitely few and far between. All this means is that we have hit a point of stagnation in the gameplay department.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
I'd say it's more of a stagnation in terms of what genres are gonna be done with a huge budget with a million copies in mind for sales. So devs are focusing on expanding existing concepts past what was possible before as well as merging genres.
Ol No Bones
Banned
I mean we have seen this demonstrated quite a bit now and it's not like Dave Jones is out with a crap ton of hyperbole. It seems like what they are showing is what we will get. Not sure what your big let down is gonna be.
FoxhoundNL
Member
DriveClub is the answer for this and the thread you mentioned, OP.
It's graphics were definitely not possible on previous gens.
The reason I mention DriveClub in this thread is that the lighting in that game, as well as the weather effects are so awesome that they actually impact the gameplay that's underneath.
Try driving a track at midnight, with heavy snow or rain enabled. These graphical effects severely impact the round time and outcome in a race. At times you litterally can't see anything and you're driving blind on instinct.
Never played anything like it on earlief consoles.
It's graphics were definitely not possible on previous gens.
The reason I mention DriveClub in this thread is that the lighting in that game, as well as the weather effects are so awesome that they actually impact the gameplay that's underneath.
Try driving a track at midnight, with heavy snow or rain enabled. These graphical effects severely impact the round time and outcome in a race. At times you litterally can't see anything and you're driving blind on instinct.
Never played anything like it on earlief consoles.
Irrelevant post
Without procedural generation? I don't know if you could get the world to that size on any earlier console without a ton of loading screens.
The closest thing I can imagine is Ultima Underworld, which had a lot of the same gameplay as Elder Scrolls but was in a more Bioshock-scale setting back in 1992 (ported to PS1 in 1994 I believe), but with graphics that look like DOOM.
I played ground zeroes the other day after binging ~70 hours into MGSV and I can't believe how terrible they were compared to V and I loved GZ
On-the-fly Style-switching and Devil Bringer were supposedly planned for DMC3 but dropped because of RAM issues. So you could argue they could be considered a form of "next-gen gameplay". I doubt stuff like Guard Flying would have been possible on the PS2 either.
Chairman Yang
if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding what you mean by procedural generation, but even if the content was not procedurally generated (and maybe just quick-to-create copy/pasted stuff), wouldn't a gigantic open world still be possible?
My understanding is that streaming technology (and I guess storage capacity) is the real determinant of how big an open world can be. Only a little bit of the game is in memory (and needs processor power) at any one time. GTA: San Andreas could've had a vastly larger open world and still worked, although for various reasons that wouldn't have made economic or gameplay sense for Rockstar.
Zack Zavage
Member
/thread
The Witcher 3
- no loading screens across areas significantly larger than AK's Gotham City - with more interiors
- combat with four gameplay mechanics in work at once, and later in the game with multiple AI characters and factions in combat at once
- seamless horse/boat travel
Both great showcases of current-gen-only possibilities.
Diablohead
Member
V-rally 1 on ps1 had some really harsh night tracks, if you crashed and broke your lights you could see NOTHING lol
Rainbow Six Siege's destruction is seriously impressive. Being able to make small peepholes to fire through as well as being able to take down full walls for flanking routes makes the maps and rounds very dynamic in a way that few other shooters can be and it does it at 60fps.
Lux R7
Member
i think that's the best answer so far.
TheAdmiester
Member
Seems like a lot of people are confusing gameplay with graphics in this thread. To be honest there are very few (if any) examples of actual gameplay that couldn't be possible on last gen, but I have to admit that the ones that do all seem to be Microsoft's cloud stuff. The AI in the Forza games are realistic and flawed just like people, and the destruction tech in Crackdown looks absolutely crazy.
Other than that I really don't think there's anything else.
Other than that I really don't think there's anything else.
True that. It's practically voxel-based, but far more controlled than voxels. Different materials are penetrable at different rates. If you're on an embassy map, fewer of the walls will be penetrable than if you're on an outback shack map.
Last night on co-op I killed about 6 terrorists with my shotgun by blasting holes through the walls whenever they tried to duck into cover.
Then we played a map in a government building and suddenly - hoho - I can't shoot through any walls. All reinforced/multilayered. I'd only ever damage the surface.
It gets even more amazing when floors get damaged and even the enemy AI starts shooting you through the floor so you have these amazing, dynamic vertical gunfights.
Last gen still got destructibility - eg in Battlefields - but it was never this detailed or realistic at an intimate, micro scale. Also all the particles stay in the map, so there's legit debris strewn everywhere.
I don't think that's true. It shows a lack of imagination saying as much. In 30 years you think gameplay will be exactly as it is today? That is won't have expanded/developed at all? That's essentially what you're saying with the statement 'next-gen gameplay is an impossibility'.
Two generations ago it would have been literally impossible to have as many mechanics and actions as there are in Metal Gear Solid V: TPP. Literally impossible. If you counted it up, MGS2 and 3 had half as many actions as MGSV, and a fraction of the contexts/opportunities. It would be impossible to have AI that good, and it would have been impossible to have gameworlds that large, or physics that dynamic. All of those are gameplay elements. All of which are directly constrained to the console generation in question. "Gameplay" as a whole is a symbiosis of all of these elements, and the scope + depth only increases per generation, so yes, gameplay can be 'next-gen'.
Our games right now are still constrained by last-gen and archaic design approaches, but by the end of this generation we'll probably be seeing interactions we could only dream of last gen. Even some of the stuff I was doing in Dying Light and The Witcher wouldn't be doable last-gen. Perhaps this gen is a bit too much of a stepping stone to the next level of interactions, but within another console generation or two I think we'll be seeing amazing stuff.
Chairman Yang
if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
I don't think that's what they're saying at all. Instead, they're saying that technological factors haven't been the limiting factor for the gameplay advancements we've seen so far this generation. Gameplay has obviously advanced, and will continue to do so, but that's really a function of continued progression in game design, and not a matter of the new consoles unlocking new capabilities.
Of course our opinions are unverifiable, but I find your prediction here extremely hard to believe. Take the last-gen version of MGS5. Are you really saying that, with the graphics severely cut down, it wouldn't be possible one generation before? Why? What would constrain it? MGS2/3 had cutting-edge graphics in their day. Why couldn't they do more if they aimed much lower in terms of polycount, animation quality, textures, and so on?
Despite being more common nowadays, huge gameworlds have existed for a long time. AI doesn't seem to be significantly better, in many cases, than the days of Half-Life 1, FEAR, or old multiplayer bots. I don't know what you mean by "dynamic physics" in this context, but they too have been around for a long time; even the PS2 generation had games like Psi-Ops and the original Red Faction.
I really think you're severely underestimating the scope and ambition of old games. I'm not saying more power isn't important. It is. I think most people won't accept horrendously ugly games despite their huge ambition (although I think there are exceptions even here). But in raw gameplay complexity, the only real, recent example of better tech enabling new gameplay possibilities is Crusader Kings 2/EU4/Victoria 2, maybe.
I'd be very curious to know what Dying Light/Witcher stuff wasn't possible last-gen. Just because certain things weren't done on older tech, doesn't mean they couldn't have been done.
this and Shadows of Mordor are the best examples. These were things that just couldn't be done on consoles. Look at the last-gen port of Shadows of Mordor.
If you can name an example and define it, it isn't totally useless. I think it's a weird criticism to level at a lot of games, but through each gen there has been gameplay implemented that couldn't be done in the previous.
smh.
I would argue the NPC density in DR3 is an example. If only we could get that many NPCs on screen at once in any other game. The opening scene blew my mind.