The Extra Credits Summer

[Sly Reflex]

The Kinect is a great bit of kit. I'd say it was almost useless as a utility for playing games though. Both Kinect and other motion controllers feel like I am using a controller. I am aware that the controller is there and get frustrated whenever what I am doing doesn't play out on screen. I've never felt like that with a pad, or even music game peripherals. With those it's just me doing what I'm doing, as the video explains.

[DANGERMAN]

I see what they're saying but I feel like they've given the kinect too much credit to make their point. My frustration with motion controls doesn't come from them not being quite right it comes from them not working. The kinect losing you when you haven't even moved is more frustrating than having to lean forward to move

and fwiw I can think of plenty of occasions music controls (and traditional pads actually) have let me down. Activating star power was a 'more often than not exercise', Samba de Amigo is a better game in my head, and analogue sticks for fighting games (or the 360 dpad) have all ruined games. That said none of that was their point

[Sly Reflex]

I actually knew quite a few of those. I don't know if I'd want to play any of them though.

[Sly Reflex]

I was going to post these last night, had them all ready then forgot.

I couldn't embed them all because of forum restrictions.

I've got to agree with EC with the whole stagnation thing of the way JRPG's handle the combat. It's fucking boring. It always has been boring and it'll always continue to be boring in my eyes. Shake it up and give us something that. I was playing FFVII a few years back and just couldn't stomach the turn based time based bollocks or whatever it was. It was boring and shit. Saying that, I think WRPG's need to up their game as well. Skyrim had shockingly bad combat, if it wasn't for the rest of the game I'm sure many would have fucked it off. There's no reason they couldn't have put a decent fighting system in like the one in the Souls series.

I'm in agreement that the genres need some new titles to better signpost what the game is going to deliver. I could say that about many of the current genres, they are borrowing and stealing from other genres at such a rate that some of them no longer sit in the genre they originally occupied.

[DANGERMAN]

I'll tell you what I blame for the state of jrpg's, Final Fantasy 7. I know prior to that 'everything' had that snes, lots of yellow, Dragon Quest type look to the game and game world, I mean ignoring all the stuff that didn't like the Shin Megami series, or Wachenroder, or even Chrono Trigger (which looks like a snes game for obvious reasons, but had a grubbier look to most of the game). So slating FF7 for the route it took is a bit harsh, but the success it had affected the rest of the Final Fantasy series, which got increasingly fay (I think that's the word I'm going for?), and while 13 might be the culmination of that for most, 12 always strikes me as the most syrupy.

I do think jrpgs have too doggedly stuck to turn based combat, but when you see the fit people had about Dragon Quest 9 reportedly not being turn based, you can kind of see why they go back to it. There's innovation there though, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Grandia, Chrono Trigger, even Final Fantasy 13, they all played with the availability of attacks rather than a linear turn. There's the action points concept used in some (Valkyria Chronicles) and I think strategy rpgs need a turn based structure, or at least I can't think of a good example without one

I also quite like turn based fighting. Even when it's at it's most archaic, like Dragon Quest, having to buff your characters and reduce the attack of your opponent while he's charging up an attack, and even the blind panic as one of your characters is desperate to be healed, it's way more exhilarating than it should be. Turn based combat is only a bad idea when the enemies offer no threat imo, but that's the same for most combat types.

as for western rpgs, it feels like there's not a lot to say about them, and I generally agree with their points about them incorporating ideas well and making you the focus. But I'm not sure they're in such a healthy state either. Dragon Age seemed to spark off an interest again, but that, imo, is a poor game that suffers from a lot of the things that made the genre fall out of favour. Mass Effect (2 at least) is barely an rpg, Skyrim has awful combat, and Fallout's isn't much better outside of vats. We get maybe 2 good western rpgs a year, the rest are the equivalent of the b-tier jrpgs in appeal and how derivative they are.

That's not to say they're bad games, just that neither type of rpg is looking immune from falling away. I would say though that wrpgs look a lot closer to a new refresh of the genre

[Sly Reflex]

I think this topic is very interesting myself, although I'm not that bothered about the tv stuff or whatever. For me it's all about the games. This could get a bit Peter Molyneux. In fact, Lionhead is where I am going to start.

Before Fable II dropped, we ended up with Fable Pub Games. These games as I am told were not directly aimed at the people wanting to play Fable II. The guy on the inside (of whom some of you may know) said that they were designed mainly for casual players giving them a taste of the Fable world. The unique thing about Pub Games is that you bank balance was shared between that of the XBLA game and the retail game of Fable II. You could therefore go into Fable II and if you had done well in Pub Games you'd have a load of money at your disposal. If you'd ballsed it up and got in debt, you'd have mercenaries come after you in game. I think there was a 'bug' which allowed you to 'exploit' the Pub Games to get easy money that was intentionally put in there by Lionhead to test moral character, but I'm not 100% on that.

Fable III had it's own game, this time on WP7, again gold transferred this time from your mobile phone into the retail game. Again, this game is not massively hardcore, it's basically shoving a counter into a hole via touch screen with a Fable skin. However the connectivity is there. As I understand it the Fable: Heroes side scrolling beat 'em up shares links to Fable: The Journey. What are these? I don't know yet. I'm guessing it'll be weapons and gold. You see, these facets are allowing you to buy into a universe at different levels.

The only problem with those games from the point Extra Credits is looking from is that it is you the player that has to play them all, they are all linked to the same ID. That and the beneficiaries and benefactor status is just that. I know illdog played a lot of Coin Golf and presumably Fable III, but lets for the sake of it say his missus was playing Coin Golf and His Royal Majesty of Sexpestonia was battling through Fable III, wouldn't it be great if say for every XP illdog got, that transferred back into the Coin Golf game and allowed Mrs illdog to do stuff like earn multipliers on gold, rewind bad shots and do other power ups that would benefit her aid in winning gold to send over to ill. I think it has to be a two way street with the goodies.

Take a specific games forum. Doesn't matter which one. Imagine that for every thumbs up you receive on any posts that you do, you get benefits in game. So if you go to the Blizzard boards and you're looking at the World of Warcraft stuff, most of it is trolling and complaining. If you do something good and it gets noticed, you get XP on the forum which turns into a meta game of levelling up to get rewards. Stuff like reporting spam could be rewarded. Passing achievements on the forum could net you special armour sets, epic equipment, rare mounts, guild bonuses. It makes the forum a better place and makes people proud of what they can achieve if they are invested.

Speaking of investment, you probably know I'm a bit keen on Gears of War. Something which Gears has always done is something called 'Legacy Unlocks' which is a fancy way of saying if you had specific achievements in previous games, you get rewarded in the latter. This could be anything from character skins to weapon skins or even badges in the latest game. It's a really nice way of linking everything up, but I'd like to see them go further and knit the community nice and deep. Tie everything up from the games to the books to the forums. Everything.

I think Halo Waypoint was a cool idea that rewarded play in the universe, although it was meta in a way as I don't think the Waypoint fed back into the game unless I am mistaken?

Dust 514 excites me in the way that none of these tie in ideas. For one the games that are linked are very very different. I really considered getting into EVE at some point but the learning curve put me off, but I'm sure I could cope with Dust 514 no problem. The though of been in a ground battle fighting another faction while out of the atmosphere above us a fleet that could be fighting its own war on a completely different platform and could aid or hinder us by how we are performing is a really exciting proposition to me. These persistent battle have been touched upon before in games like Steel Battalion, Planetside and MAG, but have never had any influence outside of their games confines.

So what games are ripe for this sort of cross over sort of stuff? I'd have loved to see a Colony Wars-esque game based on the spacecraft part of Halo: Reach. Maybe make is possible that when you dominate another team you get to do a bombing run on a ground warfare match taking place alongside. If the ground warfare starts dominating maybe have batteries on the ground that can be operated making life hard for those piloting in the skies.

Obviously all the stuff mentioned in the video are great ideas, but I'm sure you guys would have ideas on the matter. How would you have this effect the games you play? Are you agasint the idea of tying up games like this? What ideas would you like to see implemented and across what genres would they straddle. I'm interested to know.

[Sly Reflex]

Nobody?

[HandsomeDead]

It's a great idea with crazy possibilities, and one we will see more of; especially if Dust 514 takes off. Bioware even experimented with it a little with it's iOS app for Mass Effect 3.

But there is a flip side to this. sometimes, games are just a little corner to escape to for a few hours, and I don't know if I want to take it with me everywhere. When I was playing Xenoblade a gem crafting app for my phone could have been useful as I could do it as an when but you lose the 'atmosphere' of the game, for lack of a better term.

[Sly Reflex]

The games don't really have to be linked though. It's just the universes that do. Hell, even that couldn't be a wall, we've already seen Mass Effect cross with Dragon Age. The sky is the limit.

[DANGERMAN]

if the Dreamcast had been the success it deserved to be then the VMU would have meant this sort of thing was common place

[Grizzly]

It's an interesting thought and it's one that has been around for some time of you think back to the dreamcast with the VMU's. In Sonic Adventure you could raise your pet chao like a tamagotchi which in turn would level up when to brought the Chao back to the dreamcast game. This is the most rudimentary example of extended universe play that I can think of. Yet it has been a factor in a few notable series recently such as Pokemon Heart Gold which let you level and catch the creatures using the Poke walker device (pedometer) or in the other regard for Pokemon Stadium.

I am reminded of an old browser game from the 90's called Planetarion. It was a menu based game which allowed people to create a planet and mine resources to create warships and the like to defend and to attack other planets with the overall aim being for ultimate wealth. The game was played in real time in ticks, each tick would be an hour. This kind of game has become very popular on facebook since its inception (Planetarion was one of tr first of its kind.)

Now extended universe play could really enhance the gameplay seen in these types of games. Waiting or hours to tick is a real chore and there is nothing to really do during the time if you have everything in check. What about of you could play a small game on your Smart phone or handheld console of choice which would increase the productivity of your units? What if When you send off ships to attack a rival planetoid you could view the action as it happens? Maybe even take part?

I think the trade off in any of these suggestions would be balance. Any third party accessibly would come down to an unfair advantage if the opposing play (in a competitive environment) has no access to the same devices or paid for programmes as another.

Sly's WoW forum iis a Nice one but would throw up the inevitable argument of entitlement within an mmo community. If players get offered items/titles/achievements that others can not gain through forums due to temperament, poor language skills or the like then they may get upset that a person who is paying an equal amount to what they are, are getting more for their money. This kind of thing can lead to exploitation as well with players who do not deserve awards get them via fake accounts or bribery. Besides forums for specific titles are only manned by a small number of people compared to the games userbase.

I absolutely love the idea of extended universe gameplay, but the all important balance needs to be upheld for it to work. For now I can only see it working in isolated single player environments. Only time and experience will tell whether it will make a positive impact.

[Sly Reflex]

The forum thing for me would have a bit of work put into it to get anything good. Maybe have them nice and spaced out and have almost everything leaned to vanity stuff. A bit like the capes in Minecraft. That way thumbs up can't be rigged, even if you had all your guild mates thumbing up everything you ever did you still wouldn't be able to play the system. EPIC have something where you have to contribute a lot to a forum to get these banners, the amount of work you have to put in to get them is pretty insane, you have to be a pretty dedicated forumer and not be a knob about it. Some slip through the net but I think in general the p[raise is a valid one. Something like that could work well for in game benefits.

[Sly Reflex]

I think if everyone knew how hard it was to actually put a game (or software of any kind for that matter) then we'd all appreciate the end products that we get. Apart from Army of Two 2 and Dungeon Siege III. Obviously.

[Sly Reflex]

[Sly Reflex]

Nothing really to say about that one. I wish someone had jumped in early to playtest Dungeon Siege III and told them not to fucking bother. Just spend the money on booze and prostitutes, someone might as well have fun.