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Forums - Gaming Discussion - One of Spores developers says "Wii is a piece of..."

Death2009 on 08 March 2007

r2007 said: Death2009 said: r2007 said: You just contradicted yourself. You're saying some people may find Wii fun (i guess it's obvious, as it sold more than 5 mil right now) and yet you wrote that "Nintendo needs to take this advice". Face it. The Wii is not for you, as Killzone or Halo are not for me. We're different. I didn't contradict myself, he said Nintendo needs to make a better system and I agree. As for your second part, read my post again and see I JUST SAID THAT! Yes, you did. Nintendo doesn't NEED to make a better system. that is based on yourself, not on the millions that already bought the Wii. They made choices and came up with something cheap and appealing for some consumers. You too can choose to buy something "better".
No I did not. I stated fun is different for each person, so is how good a system is. I think the wii sucks, you think it is holy...I have a right to think it's crap as you do in thinking it's not. Am I not entitled to think it's bad and a rehashed gamecube?



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vanguardian1 on 08 March 2007

You have a right not to like it all you want, but calling it a "rehashed gamecube" is still technically incorrect, that's all.



Nobody is crazy enough to accuse me of being sane.

Death2009 on 08 March 2007

vanguardian1 said: You have a right not to like it all you want, but calling it a "rehashed gamecube" is still technically incorrect, that's all.
Technically it's not correct, more of a way to describe nintendo not making it too much more powerful than the GC. Which I didn't like, but the power isn't the reason I don't like it.



r2007 on 08 March 2007

Death2009 said: No I did not. I stated fun is different for each person, so is how good a system is. I think the wii sucks, you think it is holy...I have a right to think it's crap as you do in thinking it's not. Am I not entitled to think it's bad and a rehashed gamecube?
I'm not following you. You say it's crap, I say it's not. No problems on that. You say Nintendo "NEEDS" to take this advice. What do you mean by that, other than you're right and i'm wrong?



Raskie on 08 March 2007

fooflexible said: First off Sony and Microsoft don't call their system art either, sure they like pretty graphics, but calling a game art really doesn't sell it. nonetheless I think saying nintendo only cares about fun is a silly thing to assume too, I really think he's annoyed that Nintendo didn't push graphics harder. Because art direction in Twilight Princess was praised by every review I read. If you check out Super Paper Mario videos that have popped up from GDC the game is beautiful, it is a testment to just how much an artform the old platform titles were. So you can't really knock Nintendo on this notion. In fact Nintendo is the only company that actually attempt to turn their console into an art medium, ala Mario Paint. But of course he's not really talking about art, he's talking about graphics. But of course saying "art" just makes you sound more sophisticated.
The article I here read goes on to the dicuss, Ai (fleetingly), and other shit, so there is no doubt that Chris Hecker is talking about "art". It's no big deal. Changing the colour of the manure, won't mask the smell. Why don't he release Spore on the Cray 2, or something?



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Louie on 08 March 2007

Kwaad said: stewacide said: AI is a *tiny* fraction of the processing requirements of any game (that isn't a chess sim). AI, unlike graphics, doesn't naturally improve with time as the hardware gets faster, and improvements generally aren't/can't be built on top of one another... That is to say, AI in every game is a one-off hand-coded job - essentially the wheel is being re-invented in every game you play - and no game has AI remotely ambitious enough to strain any contemporary system: the bottleneck is with the code not the machine. Moreover, AI processing by its nature calls for *HIGHLY* branching code logic, which is exactly what the PS3 and 360 are deficient at by design. I strongly suspect this guy in his position has nothing to do with programming AI. Wow. AI hasnt changed over the last 10 years. Back on Q1 The monsters just came straight at you shooting. In new games like Killzone for the PSP, they find the nearest cover, figure out where you are, and find a place they can shoot you... without getting shot. That's been around for a few years on the way it's done. But this is a handheld. Not a home console. An example of the AI on the home console is like. Heavenly Sword. Where there are 500 people on the screen EACH doing something diffrent. THAT is AI hell if you ask me. Also games like SPORE wich use an AI to animate the creatures is a doozey. That takes an amazing ammount of power. Games like Supreme Commander in beta, when you had more than 3000 units in the game, most controlled by a computer AI, telling them each, what is the best idea for each of them to be doing, with a seprate AI pathing them where to go. AI has changed ALOT over the years.
Kwaad you know yourself the Wii is stronger in ANY way than the Cube. Ever heard something like "bad AI" about the Cube? I doubt... A guy who represents a game like Spore shouldn´t complain about graphics and AI. Spore is about everything but AI. And as far as I´m concerned Spore comes to Wii, DS, PSP, etc... Am I wrong there?



stewacide on 08 March 2007

superchunk said: Another important part is the AI. However, I know for a fact that you do not need a super computer to have intelligent AI. If you look at my profile I mention that I am a software engineer. In my last year of school I took an AI class as an elective. Possibly one of the most interesting coding classes I took. During this class the final project was to create some sort of program that would have varying levels of AI, showing the basic differences on techniques. I created a tank battle scenario based on robo wars. I created 4 different AI's implementing 4 different techniques. The most advanced was a tank that basically designed itself through a technique that is best described as evolution. The program "learned" how to make a smarter tank through hundreds of battles until it eventually came to a tank that could not be defeated by anything else including all my classmates and teachers. It is highly responsive and completely unpredictable, unlike really any villian/boss in any game I have played. My point is that the actual resources used to do this were on a p3 box with 256mb of memory. AI is not the resource hog, the visuals and total qty of items/foes needing to be depicted are the problem.
I really do not think this Maxis guy has anything to do with or any particular knowledge of AI programming.



Stromprophet on 08 March 2007

I have been saying this for a while. It's more than just that fact that the graphics are really underpowered and there is no Hi-def support. It takes complicated and powerful cpus to make realistic physics. Which the Wii lacks. Think about all the FPS games that use bullet tracking now for realistic hits, and increasingly complex interactive environments, and complicated AI capable of intelligent decision making. Those things have very little to do with graphics but require massive amounts of computing power. The Wii is never ever going to see GTAIV because the levels are simply going to be too massive and the AI is going to be running all the time. Those are the type of games Wii will be missing out on. Anything with massive environments (i.e. Elder Scrolls), anything that needs realistic physics. GRAW2, anything with destructable environments, and racing games that use realistic physics. That's the whole point. Sure, arcade style games are fun, but they lack replay factor. Replay ability is key, and games with huge environments, lots of NPC AI characters provide that "what if" factor everytime you play them. I'm telling everyone, eventually Wii is going to be making the same games over and over and over.



fooflexible on 08 March 2007

My biggest problem with AI and physics is that we have yet to really see these elements WOW us. sure they are there but lately I have yet to say, "wow, it's like he's thinking!" Honestly the most interesting things I've seen AI do in a game are all old like, Turok(the first one), MDK, and Seaman. For example in Turok I wanted to kill my charachter off and start the board over so this velociraptor(sp?) comes over and starts to chomp at me, then this human bad guy came over to hit me, as soon as he struck me once, the velociraptor turned to him all pissed off, like he was trying to steal his kill. Then attacked and killed him before coming back to me. I was blown away by that. It's like the world had other goals than killing me. In seaman he asks you alot of questions, and eventually he asked for my father's birthday(he asked for mine in the begining of the game) and commented, "wow, your just a day apart form you father's." I was amazed that he was programmed to take in such factors, and by many other things he's said. Don't get me wrong I know the AI is more advanced now but it don't impress me or make the game more fun, it's stuff like, "Hey look, he heard my gun go off so now he's hiding behind crates." Thanks to AI I now have to hide in a corner of every room in every shooter and pick guys off aiming at their one exposed body part. I want AI to factor in some of the crazy things I've done through the game and draw attention to it. Like during a gun battle the bad guy might say, "I saw what you did to those other guys, you pumped more then 10 bullets in each of them you sick animal!"(perhaps factoring in my kills earlier in the board.) Or perhaps killing a particular guy may set another charachter in a revenge like anger mode, "You low life that was my friend!" That kind of behaviour could throw you for a loop, because clearly not everyone will act smart decisive and cool as people are getting killed around them. Plus it adds interesting consequences. And for physics they have the ability to simply blow our minds but so far this new generation is yet to push it. I'm hoping that will change soon as Star Wars: Unleashed is doing marvelous things. I just hope again that these gameplay aspects draw attention to themselves, so that we can get that wow factor going again.



windbane on 08 March 2007

Stromprophet said: I have been saying this for a while. It's more than just that fact that the graphics are really underpowered and there is no Hi-def support. It takes complicated and powerful cpus to make realistic physics. Which the Wii lacks. Think about all the FPS games that use bullet tracking now for realistic hits, and increasingly complex interactive environments, and complicated AI capable of intelligent decision making. Those things have very little to do with graphics but require massive amounts of computing power. The Wii is never ever going to see GTAIV because the levels are simply going to be too massive and the AI is going to be running all the time. Those are the type of games Wii will be missing out on. Anything with massive environments (i.e. Elder Scrolls), anything that needs realistic physics. GRAW2, anything with destructable environments, and racing games that use realistic physics. That's the whole point. Sure, arcade style games are fun, but they lack replay factor. Replay ability is key, and games with huge environments, lots of NPC AI characters provide that "what if" factor everytime you play them. I'm telling everyone, eventually Wii is going to be making the same games over and over and over.
Yes, we all understand the graphics and certain capabilities will not be as great. However, to say the same game will be made over and over is not true. Look at the current games out right now, there is a lot of variety already. As for FPSs...geez, is that all there is now? FPS and GTA? Sure, if that's all you want then the other 2 consoles will be better but the Wii will have gameplay that neither of the other 2 consoles have, and in different ways will have the same potential for artistic expression. The main argument here is art, and whether the Wii can do something artistic. Of course it can. And death2009...I am not arrogant in saying that someone is an idiot if they don't understand that Art does not require high-powered computer parts. I may be harsh, but I'm right. I'm pretty sure we've (as in the human race) have managed to produce art without computers for a few thousand years, at least.